1 Pet. 1. 1. Scaliger in Notes ad N. T.
Joh. 7. 35.
L. de Idolo. vanitate.
This makes evident their scatterings about the Face of the Earth, but will not bring them to reach America. The Sacred Text sets forth a two-fold description of the Jews; The one before the Birth of our Saviour, when they liv’d as strangers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bythinia. Jerusalem was their Metropolis, although others had their chief residence in Babylon, and Alexandria; for there was an Asiatick and a European dispersion; those of Asia had Babylon for their chief City, and us’d in their Synagogues the Chaldean Translation of the Bible. The Europeans kept their Seat at Alexandria, where they had a Temple like that of Jerusalem; and whilst they employ’d themselves in the Greek Version of the Holy Scripture, by the seventy two Interpreters, under Ptolomeus Philadelphus, they were call’d Wandering Greeks: Therefore, certainly the Americans are not deriv’d from these Jews, and with as little reason from those, which by Titus Vespasian, after the destruction of Jerusalem were driven into several Countreys, for they were never permitted (that I may borrow the words of St. Cyprian) to set forward one step, though but as Pilgrims, towards their Native Countrey, but strictly forbidden not to assemble or meet together in any considerable number, which would have been necessary, if they intended to Plant a new World.
2 Reg. 17. 5.
4 Esd. 13. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46.
A small seeming Testimony is added, being taken out of the fourth Book of Esdras, that the ten Tribes of Israel that were carry’d away by Salmanassar with their King Hosea to Nahalah, Habor, the River Gozan, and the Cities of the Medes, might be acknowledged for the first Planters of America: Concerning which, Esdras saith thus, The ten Tribes brought over into another Countrey, consulted that they should forsake the multitude of the Heathens, and travel to a remoter Countrey, where no Generation of Mankind had ever liv’d before, there they would maintain their Laws, which they had not observ’d in their Countrey: Whereupon they went thither thorow the narrow entrances of the River Euphrates, for the Almighty stopt the Vains of the River, till they were past over; for thorow the Countrey was a way of a year and halfs Journey: wherefore that Tract of Land is call’d Assareth, then they liv’d there till the last time.
But since these Books of Esdras were not Written by a Prophet, either in the Hebrew Tongue, or allow’d by the Jews to be the Word of God, or any where taken notice of in the New Testament; wherefore then is Assareth more America than any other remoter Countrey?
L. 5. in Ezek. & l. 6. in Jerom.
4 Esd. 6. 49, 50. & 14. 21. & 4. 41.