CHAP. VII.
Of their Writing, Masorites, and their Work.
Writing in no Nation came to its perfection on a sudden, but by degrees: The Opinions of the Ancients concerning the Authors and Inventers of letters are different. Some say[727] Cadmus brought the use of letters into Greece: others say,[728] Palamedes: some say,[729] Radamanthus brought them into Assyria: Memnon into Egypt: Hercules into Phrygia: and Carmenta into Latium. Likewise some say the Phœnicians had first the knowledge and use of letters.
Phœnices primi (famæ si credimus) ausi
Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuris.
Lucan.
[727] Plin. l. 7. c. 56. Diodor. Sicul. l. 6. c. 5.
[728] Servius. lib. 2. Æneid.
[729] Alex. Genial. l. 1. c. 30.
Others say the Ethiopians:[730] others the Assyrians.[731] But upon better grounds it is thought,[732] that Moses first taught the use of letters to the Jews, and that the Phœnicians learned them from the Jews, and the Grecians from the Phœnicians.