BEROSUS, the Babylonish Historian, was by nation a Chaldean, and Priest of Belus, the God of Babylon. Tatian1 says, he lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and that he dedicated his work to King Antiochus, the third after Alexander, that is to say, to Antiochus Theus; for Seleucus Nicanor was the first King of Syria, Antiochus Soter the second, and Antiochus Theus the third. If any would include Alexander the Great in the number of the three, it would be necessary to say, that Berosus lived under Antiochus Soter; and indeed the many years elapsed between Alexander and Antiochus Theus (for some reckon 64 from the death of Alexander to the first year of Antiochus Theus) might induce one to believe, that in reality we should understand it in this sense. But let this be as it will, Berosus having learned the Greek tongue, went first to the Isle of Cos2, where he set up a School, and taught Astronomy and Astrology; from thence he came to Athens, where he acquired so much reputation by his astrological predictions, that in the Gymnasium, where the youth performed their exercises, a Statue with a golden tongue was erected for him. Josephus3 and Eusebius have preserved some excellent fragments of Berosus’s History, which give great light to many places in the Old Testament, and without which it would be difficult to produce an exact Series of the Kings of Babylon.
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