SEIRATH. After that Ehud had kill’d Eglon King of Moab, who oppress’d the IsraelitesJudg. iii. 26., he went to Seirath, which probably was towards Bethel or Gilgal, near to a Place where there were Images or Idols: Pertransivit פסיליםPesilim, Sculptura.locum Idolorum, unde reversus fuerat, venitque in Seirath1. There is some likelihood, that these Engravings or Inscriptions that were at Seirath, are those that Josephus would insinuate, when he says, that in Syria Jos. Antiq. l. 1. c. 2.there were Pillars full of Inscriptions, which had been there from before the Time of the Deluge, and which had been made by the Children of Seth. This Conjecture is proposed and admitted by several learned Men, as Vossius, Huet, Valois. See our Commentary upon Genesis vi. 13.
This is what Josephus relates, concerning Jos. Antiq. l. 1. c. 3.the Pillars set up in this Place; “ The Posterity of Seth, having heard that Adam “ had foretold, that the World should one “ time be destroyed by a Deluge of Water, “ and at another time by Fire; they resolved to preserve the Discoveries they “ had made in Astronomy, and in the “ Knowledge of heavenly Things: Therefore they erected two Columns, one of “ Stone, and the other of Brick, that if “ the Deluge should destroy that of Brick, “ at least that of Stone might remain, to “ inform Mankind of what they should “ transmit to Posterity. And it is said, says “ Josephus, that the Column of Stone “ which they erected is still in Being in “ Seirath, or Syrias. ”
This Relation of Josephus is confirm’d by Manetho,2 who says, that the second Mercury King of Egypt, surnamed Trismegistus, translated, or rather transcribed into the ordinary Letters, what the first Mercury, or Thoth, had formerly caused to be engraven in Hieroglyphick Characters, upon Columns that he had caused to be set up in Syriad. If Josephus took what he related from Manetho, he has plainly corrupted it, since both the Thoths, or Mercuries, are much later than the Deluge; but he might have had this Tradition by some other Canal. Monf. de Ammian. l. 23.Valois, in his Notes upon Ammianus Marcellinus, conjectures, that instead of Syriadike ge, as it is read in Manetho, it ought to be read Syringice, the same as in Ammianus Marcellinus, who says, that the Antients, foreseeing the Deluge that was about to come, and fearing that the Knowledge of their Ceremonies would then be lost, dug subterraneous Places which they call’d Syringas, with a vast deal of Labour, and in different Places, and upon the Rocks of these Cavities they engraved several Figures of Animals, which they call’d hieroglyphical Letters. Pausanias says, that there were SyringesPausan. l. 1. p. 78., or subterraneous Caverns, at Thebes in Egypt, on the other Side of the Nile, not far from that Statue at Memnon, which render’d an harmonious Sound at Sun-rising.
From all these Passages thus set together, and compared one with another, it is a very hard Matter to get a distinct Knowledge, either of these ancient hieroglyphick Inscriptions, mention’d by Ammianus Marcellinus and Manetho, and which one of ‘em places in Syrias, and the other in the Syringes in Thebais. The Invention of Letters, and particularly of the Hieroglyphicks in Egypt, is doubtless more modern than the Deluge; the two Thoths also lived after this famous Event; but what Josephus tells us, must have happen’d before the Deluge. And if it is true, that the Stone Pillars he mentions were in Palestine and at Seyrath, they must be different from those of Manetho: So that nothing certain can be collected from all this.
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