Sanchoniathon was to Phoenicia what Berosus was to Assyria; that is to say, the earliest post-diluvian compilers of history when tradition was becoming obscure. Let us scrutinise his testimony. We are here told "that the first men _consecrated the plants_ shooting out of the earth, and _judged them gods_."... "Next they relate, in an account of the successive generations of men, that in the first generation _the way was found out of taking food from trees_." Here, I submit, that we have plainly and unmistakably a tradition of that first commencement of evil, the first man and woman plucking the apple from the tree, thinking they would become as gods (Gen. iii. 4, 5), ... "and the serpent said ... for God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof ... and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Then follows the succession of ages (_vide infra_, ch. xiii.), of which there is a curious parallel tradition in Hesiod and Apollodorus, and partial correspondences in the traditions of India, China, and Mexico (_infra_, ch. xiii.).[104] [104] _Vide_ Grote, i. It will be noted, however, that whilst running into the tradition of Hesiod on the one side (in Hesiod and in the Chinese tradition there is trace of a double tradition, ante and post-diluvian), Sanchoniathon still more closely runs in with the narrative of Genesis on the other, thus connecting the links of the chain of tradition.[105] [105] This chapter was written before I became acquainted with Mr Palmer's "Chronicles of Egypt" (_vide_ ch. vi.) If the reader will refer to chap. i., he will there find a learned and exhaustive exposition of the ages of Sanchoniathon, identifying them with Scripture on the one side, and Egyptian tradition on the other.