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[67]
Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, (for
our discourse must now be about him,) after Abel was slain, and Cain fled
away, on account of his murder, was solicitous for posterity, and had a
vehement desire of children, he being two hundred and thirty years old;
after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then died. He had indeed
many other children, 1
but Seth in particular. As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them;
I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded
from Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years
in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as
he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind
him who imitated his virtues. 2
All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same
country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes
falling upon them, till they died. They also were the inventors of that
peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and
their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were
sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed
at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and
quantity of water, they made two pillars, 3
the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries
on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the
flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries
to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick
erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.
4
1 The number of Adam's children, as says the old tradition was thirty-three sons, and twenty-three daughters.
2 The number of Adam's children, as says the old tradition was thirty-three sons, and twenty-three daughters.
3 Of Josephus's mistake here, when he took Seth the son of Adam, for Seth or Sesostris, king of Egypt, the erector of this pillar in the land of Siriad, see Essay on the Old Testament, Appendix, p. 159, 160. Although the main of this relation might be true, and Adam might foretell a conflagration and a deluge, which all antiquity witnesses to be an ancient tradition; nay, Seth's posterity might engrave their inventions in astronomy on two such pillars; yet it is no way credible that they could survive the deluge, which has buried all such pillars and edifices far under ground in the sediment of its waters, especially since the like pillars of the Egyptian Seth or Sesostris were extant after the flood, in the land of Siriad, and perhaps in the days of Josephus also, as is shown in the place here referred to.
4 CONCERNING THE FLOOD; AND AFTER WHAT MANNER NOAH WAS SAVED IN AN ARK, WITH HIS KINDRED, AND AFTERWARDS DWELT IN THE PLAIN OF SHINAR,
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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