remarkable attestation to the fact, that heathen traditions were current in that Emperor's reign, of the history of the fall of man; for Hercules is represented on the reverse, as plucking apples from a tree, around the trunk of which, a serpent is enfolded. Amongst other precepts, whereby the Jews were to be kept from the imitation of pagan ceremonies, this was one; "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the "altar of the Lord thy God;" and yet it is certain, that the early patriarchs worshipped the true God in places of this nature, and which had a manifest allusion to the circumstances attendant on the garden of Eden. Thus Abraham "planted a grove in Beershebah,* and * Gen. xxi. 33. He also dwelt under the Oak of Mamre, and built an altar there. Gen, xiii. 18. παp тηv dovν τηv Maußpn. Ixx. The heathen imitated this traditionary custom; and there was scarcely a deity in mythology but had a tree peculiarly sacred to him. Various passages may be cited to prove this. Even the Peruvians paid very remarkable honours to a tree. See Acosta, book v. cap. 2. Xerxes, on finding a very beautiful plane-tree at Callatebus, near the river Mæander, "adorned it with golden chains, and "assigned the charge of it to one of the immortal band." Herod. Polym. cap. 31. Ælian. lib. ii. cap. 14. Virg. Eclog. vii. Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 44. Justin Martyr, in enumerating the several species of idolatry, mentions αλλων ΔΕΝΔΡΑ "called there on the name of the Lord, the ever"lasting God." The well or spring of water, which was probably included within the precincts of the sacred plantation, was called the "well of the oath;" and connected with it, we find the sabbatic number, for the patriarch, in there making his covenant with Abimelech, "set seven ewe lambs of the flock by them"selves, and said, these seven ewe lambs shalt "thou take of my hand, that they may be a wit"ness unto me that I have digged this well:— "wherefore he called that place Beershebah, "because there they sware both of them:-thus "they made a covenant at Beershebah,"* reason why the peculiar number seven is frequently discovered in connection with these paradisaical memorials has been already hinted at it may here, however, just be observed, that it was the ancient practice to enter into solemn covenants under some sacred tree, which was sometimes situated upon a rock, or other high-place, at the foot of which flowed some sacred spring; for this is generally attendant upon all paradisi, intended possibly to represent that river of Eden which parted into The reßoμevov, in his second apology for the Christians, p. 68. Paris Ed. 1636. * Gen. xxi. 28-32. four heads, and watered the blissful garden. It may further be remarked, that the covenant of marriage, more especially, was entered into under the hallowed tree, which stood "in the "midst" of the grove, overshadowing the highplaces of heathen superstition; thus in Homer, Hector, when debating with himself, whether he should meet Achilles, is made to say, Ου μεν πως νυν εστιν απο ΔΡΥΟΣ, ουδ' απο ΠΕΤΡΗΣ Παρθενος ηιθεος τ' οαρίζετον αλληλοισιν. * Which may be paraphrased thus: "This meeting with Achilles is a very different one from "that of a young man and woman, when they 66 converse together under the sacred oak, or on "the high-place;"--and this custom of entering into their marriage vows under these circumstances, and in this manner, was undoubtedly derived from the original institution of that sacred state in paradise, of which so many traditions had reached them. Beershebah, we find, afterwards, was the scene of another covenant between Isaact and the King of Gerah, perhaps the son of the former Abimelech. And long after this, the patriarch Jacob, *Iliad xxii. 127. + Gen. xxvi, 33. 66 before he ventured to take his journey down into Egypt, came to this very Beershebah, "and offered sacrifices to the God of his father 66 Isaac," seeking an oracular answer for the direction of his future conduct, which he was graciously permitted to receive "in visions of the night." All these circumstances are important, for we shall perceive in the course of the present investigation, that they were invariably attendant upon the consultation of many heathen oracles, whose origin may be traced up to traditions of paradise. It may be worth while to inquire why the oak was so often fixed upon as the sacred tree either in groves, or gardens, or high-places, both by believers and others. In the Hebrew the name of this tree is generally, with some slight variations, ns, which appears to have been given it from "its remarkably interposing "and protecting both men and animals from "storms and tempests." The Septuagint translators have once rendered it descriptively by Aerope ovakiažovтos, "the overshadowing tree;" and it is συσκιαζόντος, remarkable, that from a root very nearly the same in the sacred language, is derived the word for "the denouncing of a curse," as also, Gen. xlvi. 2. the name of the ever-blessed Trinity, "the Co"venantors." Some traditions of all this were evidently extant in Canaan before the arrival of the Father of the Faithful in that country. For Abram* passed through the land, unto the place of Sichen, ποιο php by επι την ΔΡΥΝ την υψηλην "unto the lofty oak," or the "high-place of the "oak," as it might be rendered. This extraordinary oak was doubtless consecrated, and stood in the midst of one of the sacred gardens or paradisi of Canaan, for "the Canaanite was "then in the land." We hear of it again in one of the following chapters of Genesis, where we are told that, after the treacherous overthrow of Hamor's city and family by Levi and Simeon, Jacob their father took the strange gods, which had begun to infect his own family, "and hid them under the oak by Shechem."† In the prophetic blessing pronounced upon his children just before his death, he seems to have noticed that horrid transaction of his two sons, and to have alluded particularly to one circumstance attending it, declaring that "in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will 66 66 they wp digged down a wall," as our * Gen. xii. 6. + Gen. xxxv. 4. Sur or Sar, which signifies not only "a wall," but generally a rock or promontory. This radical, like Tar, Tur, and Tarit, is |