Jean de Serres
1578
trans. Jason Colavito
2025
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Jean de Serres (1540–1598) was a French historian famed for his translation of the complete works of Plato into Latin. His pagination became the basis for the "Stephanus numbers" by which Plato's works are still referenced today. In his introduction to Plato's Critias, he put forward the idea that Plato's story of Atlantis was a true history taken from Egyptian records but a garbled account of the antediluvian world recorded in Genesis, with the destruction of Atlantis occurring during the Great Flood. Jean de Serres is often credited as the first writer to make this argument, though Cosmas Indicopleustes had done so a thousand years earlier, and he is also often credited as the first to identify Atlantis with the Holy Land, though he does not say this explicitly. Below are excerpts from his influential introduction to the Critias. (Note: artificial intelligence assisted with this translation.)
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This dialogue (as I have also noted) is, in fact, an appendix to the greater Timaeus, concerning the history of the ancient world. For, since it treats the creation of the Universe, Plato could not have laid a more fitting foundation than by making some mention at the outset of that age which most closely approaches the cradle and origin of the world. Thus, the entire discourse of this dialogue is plainly historical in nature, its aim and subject being the commemoration of that primeval age. Moreover, it deals specifically with the Athenians, who claimed to be the most ancient of all the Greeks, attributing to themselves the noble title of ‘autochthones’ (those sprung from the soil itself), in order to bear witness that they had continually occupied their ancestral seats — which above all contributed to the glory of the Athenians’ home and heritage. Therefore, Plato, who loved his country, recorded all this very carefully, yet it is probable that this entire narrative was taken from the monuments of the Egyptians, who, as they claimed the right and dignity of antiquity above all other nations and extol φιλιείας (friendship), so also a certain special connection existed between them and the Athenians. Wherefore I think that this narrative is proposed, not as a mythical composition, but as a bare and simple history. […] Now, indeed, from this remembrance it is clear how rightly the Egyptians said that the Greeks were children, and that there was not one old man among them: that is, that they were ignorant of antiquity since the Egyptians themselves, from whose accounts so many and great μυθολογίας (mythologies) are described here, are smothered with follies, which indeed become apparent if they are compared with the simple truth of Mosaic history, under the rule of which this whole narrative is to be evaluated. The truth of that ancient history testifies that before that universal flood by which the human race was swallowed, with the exception of Noah and his family, human society was cultivated and propagated with arts and cities, so there is no doubt that both πολιτείαν (governments) and wars existed among those ancient men. But let all credibility for that account rest with the Egyptians: it is nevertheless established, from the account of sacred history (which alone is a witness greater than any exception), that pure and simple truth was overwhelmed by superstitious beliefs, just as in the case of what is said here about a certain great flood; however, it is not reported to have been universal. Deucalion certainly existed in Attica, whatever fables Ovid mentions in his Metamorphoses; yet he does not follow the shadowy traces of the primeval truth. What he also says about the division of the earth among the gods is a cloudy trace of the history that Moses mentions in chapters 10 and 11 of Genesis, where are found the true origins of nations. For there is little doubt that illustrious men were called gods, and that the more famous of the sons of Shem, Ham, and Japeth used these names and inhabited various lands.
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Ioannis Serranus, Platonis opera quae extant omnia, vol. III (Geneva, 1578), 105-106.
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