The Library

Samuel Purchas
1613 / 1614

NOTE

Samuel Purchas (c. 1577-1626) was an English Protestant cleric who published three books with unfortunately similar titles: Purchas His Pilgrimage (1613), Purchas His Pilgrim (1619), and Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625). All three contained varying combinations of Biblical exposition and travelogue. The first of these volumes, Purchas His Pilgrimage, covered world history from the creation, and in the seventh chapter Purchas discussed what was then believed about the Giants. His account is notable for being the first in English to make use of newly rediscovered excerpts from the Book of Enoch recovered from the Chronicle of George Syncellus and recently published in Greek and a Latin translation by Joseph Justus Scaliger. Purchas translated these fragments into English for the first time, and his publication helped to spark interest in the Book of Enoch and a quest for the complete test, one that only ended a century later when an Ethiopian translation was taken back to Europe. The text below follows the 1613 edition, but with a few deviations: (a) I have expanded some of the contracted words where the publisher omitted letters with a macron to save space, (b) I have placed in brackets text that appears in the enlarged 1614 second edition, and (c) I have renumbered the notes by paragraph for clarity and included the additional notes Purchas provided in the 1614 revision.

T H E    F I R S T    B O O K E

CHAP. VII.
Of the cause, and comming of the Floud.

Thus we haue seene in part the fulfilling of the Prophecie of the seed of the Woman, & of that other of the Serpent, in the posterity of Cain & Seth. The family of Cain is first reckoned, and their forwardnes in hu­mane Arts, (a) as the children of this world are wiser in their generation, in the things of this life which they almost only attend, then the children of light. As for the (b) Iewish dreames, that Lamech was blind, & by the direction of Tu­balcain his son guiding his hand slew Cain, supposing it had beene a wilde beast, which, when he knew, so enraged him, that he killed his son also, they that list may follow.

(a) Luke 16. 8.
(b) Martyr. in Gen ex Rab. Salom. ​

​Moses reckoneth the Generations according to the first-borne in the posteritie of Seth, as enioying the Principality & Priesthood, that so the promised seed of the Wo­man (after such a world of yeares comming into the world) might iustify the stablènes of Gods promises, his lineall descent from Adam with a due Chronologie being de­clared. After Seth Enosh, Kenan, Mehalaleel, Iared, was Henoch the seuenth from Adam who walked with God whom God tooke away that he should not see death. This before the Law, & Helias in the Law, are witnesses of the resurrection; being miraculously taken from the earth into heauen, not by death, but by supernaturall changing of their bo­dies. That he should be still in (a) an earthly Paradise, & that he and Elias should come and preach against Antichrist, and of him be slaine, is a Popish dreame: the Scripture (b) saying, that Henoch was taken away that he should not see death; of Elias that he is (c) al­ready come in the person of IOHN Baptist: the spirit & power, or spirituall power of wal­king with God, reforming religion and conuerting soules, being communicated to many of those Ministers which haue lien slaine in the streets of that Great citie.

(a) Bellar. tom 1. cont 3. lib 3. c. 6. ​
(b)  Heb. 11. 5. &c. 
(c) Luke 7. 27. Matth. 17. 12.

This his assumption is (a) supposed to be visibly done, He was a Prophet, and Iude doth in his Epistle cite a testimony of his (b) which either by (c) tradition went from hand to hand, as it seemeth the whole word of God was deliuered before the daies of Moses; God by visions & dreames appearing vnto the Patriarks: or els it was written & since is lost. Some hold it was penned by some Iew vnder the name of Enoch. (d) Augustine thinketh that the book, entitled Enoch, was forged in his name, as other Writings vn­der the names of Prophets & Apostles: & therfore calleth it Apocripha (as (e) Hierome doth also) (f) Chrysostome and Theophilact account Moses the first Pen-man of holy Scripture. Although it seeme that letters were in vse before the floud, if (g) Iosephus his testimony be true, who affirmeth that Adam hauing prophecied two vniuersal de­structions, one by fire, another by water, his posterity erected two pillars; one of brick, another of stone, in both which they writ their inuentions of Astronomy: that of stone was reported to remain in his time. [The science of Astronomy, they say, was much furthered by Enoch, who (saith Eupolemon) was by the Greekes called Atlas, to whom they attributed the inuention thereof. (h) Pliny was of opinion that letters were eternall.

(a) Gib. ex Rab. Akiba, Racanat­i, Targum. ​
(b) Perer lib. 7. in Gen. thin­keth that Iude knew of this prophecie by Reuelation, and reuealed the same to the Church. 
​(c) Perk. Refor. Cathol. 
​(d) De Ciuit. Dei lib. 15. cap. 23.
(e) Eò quòd carū Scripturarum occulta origo non clarait patribus. In his autem A­pocryphis etsi inuenitur aliqua veritas, tamen propter multa falsa nulla est canonica authoritas. Hier. in Tit. c. 3.
​(f) Chrysost. Hons. in Matth. 1.
​ ​(g) Antiq. lib. 1. cap. 2.
​(h) Plin. lib.7. cap.56.

Howsoeuer, it is more then apparant, that the booke bearing Enochs name, is very fabulous, which, because the tables therein professe antiquitie (although they were later dreames) I thought it not vnfit to borrow out of (a) Scaliger somewhat of that which he hath inserted, in his notes vpon Eusebius, the Greeke copie being as the phrase testifieth, translated out of Hebrew, which had been the worke of some Iew: the antiquitie appeareth in that (b) Tertullian citeth it. 

(a) Not. in Eu­seb. Chron. pag. 244. Frag. Graec. ex lib. 1. Enoch.
​(b) Tertull. de ldololat.

And it (a) came to passe when the sonnes of men were multiplied, there were borne to them faire daughters, and the Watch-men (so he calleth the Angels, out of Dan.4.) lusted and went astray after them: and they said One to another, (b) Let vs chuse vs wiues of the daughters of men of the earth. And Semixas their Prince said vnto them, I feare vie you will not do this thing, and I alone shall be debter of a great sinne. And they all answered him and said: We will all sweare with an oath, and will Anathematise or Curse our selues not to al­ter this our mind till we haue fulfilled it. and they all sware together. These came downe in the dayes of lared to the top of the hill, Hermon. And they called the hill, Hermon, because they sware and Anathematised on it. These were the names of their Rulers, Semixas, Atarcuph, Arachiel, Chabahiel, Orammame, Ramiel, Sapsich, Zakiel, Balkiel, Azalzel, Pharmaros, Samiel. &c.

(a) A fragment of the Book of Enoch.
(b) ​This fable a­rose of the false interpre­tation of Moses words. Gen. 6. 12. The sonnes of God, &c.

These tooke them wiues, and three generations were borne vnto them. The first were great Giants: The Giants begate the Naphehin, to whom were borne Eliud: And they taught them and their wiues sorceries and inchantments. Ezael taught first to make swords, and weapons for warre, and how to worke in mettals. He taught to make womens ornaments, and how to looke faire, and Iewelling. And they beguiled the Saints: and much sinne was committed on the earth. Other of them taught the vertues of Roots, Astrologie, Diuinations, &c. After these things the Giants began to eate the flesh of men, and men were diminished: and the remnant cried to heauen, because of their wickednesse, that they might come in remembrance before him. And the foure great Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Vriel hearing it; looked downe on the earth from the holy places of heauen: and beholding much bloud shed on the earth, and all vngodlinesse and transgression committed there­in, said one to another, That the Spirites and Soules of men complaine, saying, That yee should present our prayer to the Highest, and our destruction. And the foure Archangels entring, said to the Lord, Thou art God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, &c. Thou seest what Exael hath done, he hath taught mysteries, and reuealed to the world the things in heauen, &c. Then the Highest said, The Holy one, the Great one spake and sent Vriel to the sonne of Lamech, saying, Go to, Noe, tell him of the end approching, and a floud shall destroy the earth, &c. To Raphael, he said, Go Raphael and bind Exael hand and foot, and cast him into darknesse, and open the wildernesse in the desert of Dodoel, and there cast him, and lay vpon him sharpe stones to the day of Iudgement, &c. And to Gabriel he said, Go Gabriel to the Giants, and destroy the sons of the Watch-men from the sons of Men, set them one against another in warre and destruction. To Michael he said, Go Michael, bind Semixa and the others with him that haue mixed themselues with the daughters of Men, (vntill seuentie genera­tions) to the hils of the earth; vntill the day of their iudgement, till the iudgement of the world be finished, and then they shall be brought into the confusion of fire, and vnto triall, and vnto the prison of the ending of the world, and whosoeuer shall bee condemned and destroyed, from hence-forth shall bee cast together with them till the finishing of their generation. &c. And the Giants which were begotten of the spirits and flesh, they shall call them euill spirits on the earth, because their dwel­ling is on the earth. The spirits that depart out of their bodies shall be euil spirits, be­cause they were engendred of the Watchmen and Men.

But it were tedious to recite further. The antiquitie of it, and because it is not so common, and especially because (a) some of the Ancients, and of the Papists haue bin misse-led by these dreames, (refused iustly by Ierome and Augustine) interpreting the sonnes of God in Moses to be spoken of Angels (as their Translation did reade it) haue moued me to insert those tables. Notable is the diligence of the Purgatory Sca­uengers, who in Vines notes vpon Aug. de Ciuit. Dei. lib. 15. cap. 23. haue in their Index expurgatorius, set the seale of their Office vpon a testimonie alleaged out of Eu­sebius de Praep. Euang. lib. 5. cap. 4. as if they had been Vines owne words, to be left out in the impression. The words, because they sauour of the former error, haue I heere placed. Non ergo deos, neque bonos daemonaes Gentiles, sed perniciosos solummodo vene­rantur. Quam rem magis Plutarchus confirmat, dicens fabulosas de dijs rationes res quasdam significare, à daemonibus antiquissimis gestas temporibus, & ca quae de giganti­bus ac de Titanibus decantantur, daemonum fuisse operationes. Vnde mihi suspicio (saith Eusebius, but Viues is fined for it) nonnunquam incidit, ne ista illa sint, quae ante diluui­um à gigantibus fact a diuin a Scriptura tetigit, de quibus dicitur: Cùm autem vidissent Angels Dei filias hominum, quia essent speciosae, elegerunt sibi ex illis vxores, ex quibus procreats sunt famosissimi gigantes à saeculo. Suspicabitur enim fortasse quispiam, illos & illorum spiritus esse qui ab hominibus postea dij putati sunt, pugnasque illorum, tumultus & bella esse quae fabulose de dijs conscribebantur. Lactantius (b) saith, that when the world was multiplied, God sent Angels to keepe men from the frauds of the Di­uell, to whom he forbad all earthly contagion. These were by the Diuell insnared with women, therefore depriued of heauen: and their progenie of a middle nature betwixt men and Angels, became vncleane spirits: so that hence grew two kinds of Daemones or diuellish spirits; the one heauenly, the other earthly, which would now seeme to be keepers, and are destroyers of men.

(a) Ioseph. Antiq. lib. 1. Iustin. Ter­tull. Athenag. Cyprian. La­ctantius, Euseb. Hugo de S. Vic. Strabus, Bur­gensis, Sulpitius Seuer. sac. hist. lib. 1. This fable of Angels, &c. the Saracens also retaine. see lib. 3. cap.5. ​
(b) Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 15. 

The Angels are sometimes called the sonnes of God: but that name is commu­nicated to men, who (b) by Nature children of wrath, by faith in the naturall and one­ly begotten Sonne of God, haue this prerogatiue to be the sonnes of God, and fel­low-heires with Christ. But some of the children of the kingdome shall be cast out, because they haue rebelled against their Father that begot them, professing them­selues to be the sonnes of God, but (c) doe the workes of their father the Diuell: and of these Hypocrites and Apostataes, it is said, that louing pleasure more then God, they matched themselues in Cains familie, a prouocation so mightie to euill, that strong Sampson and wise Salomon are witnesses, that (d) the strong men are slaine by this wea­ker sexe. This was the Serpents policie at first, Balaams policie after, Babels policie now; (e) and Balaams wages doe moue many still to make such linsey-woolsey mar­riages, that the (f) children speake halfe Ashdod, and whilest the father professeth one religion, the mother another, the children become Giants, to fight against all that is called God, and to make little or no profession (at least in their liues) of any religion at all.

(a) Iob 1.6. and 38.7. ​
(b) ​Ephes. 2.3.
​(c) Iob. 8.44.
(d) Prou. 7.26. 
(e) Sheldon in his Motiues ob­serueth these marriages to be a great meane for propagating Poperie. 
​(f) Nehem. 13.24.

I deny not that then there were Giants also in regard of bodily stature, (a) whom the Scripture calleth, because they were great and fearefull, Rephaim and Emim, of their pride Hanakim, of their strength Gibborim, of their tyrannie Nephilim, of their naughtinesse Zamzummim. Such were Og and Goltah after the floud. Yea such haue been in all ages: which (to omit other Ethnike Authors) (b) Augustine affirmeth, that at Vtica he saw a mans tooth as great as an hundred of the ordinarie sise. Viues on that place, saith hee saw one as bigge as a mans fist. Nicephorus telleth of two men in the time of Theodosius, the one not so admirable for his height which was fiue cu­bites and an hand, as the other for his smalnesse, like to a Partrich in bignesse, yet wittie and learned. Our Histories of (c) Arthur, Little Iohn, Curcy Earle of Vlster, and one in our times, 1581. seene in London, do shew some such here and there, now and then in the world, which Goropius in his Giganto machia, affirmeth of his owne sight: and euen whole families of these monstrous men are found at this day in America, both neere to Virginia, as (d) Captaine Smith reporteth, and especially about the Straits of Magellan, (e) neere which he found Giants, and in the same Straits were such seene of the (f) Hollanders ten foot in height, where as yet other families were but of the ordinary greatnes. One Thomas Turner told me that neere the Riuer of Plate he saw one twelue foot high, and others whose hinder part of their head was flat, not round. (g) Authors tell of Maximinus the Romane Emperour, that he was eight foote and a finger high, whose wiues bracelets might serue him for rings, that he often in one day drunke an Amphora, which is almost six gallons of wine, and eate fortie pounds of flesh: Cordus saith sixtie; he could breake a horse legge, or strike out his teeth with a blow of his fist, &c. Which occurrents in Nature no doubt haue giuen occasion to some of further sabling: Qui de magnis maiora loquuntur. (h) We reade in Pliny of one of forty six cubits, in Crete, found by the force of an earth-quake, breaking the hill wherein he stood, supposed to be Orion or Otus: more credible is that he tel­leth of one Gabbora in Claudius time, nine foot and nine inches; and in Augustus time of another halfe a foot higher.

(a) Gibbins in Genes. ​
(b) ​De Ciuit. Dei. lib.15. cap. 9.
​(c) Giral. Camb. Hector. Boet. Camden Brit.
​(d) Mappe of Virginia. 
​(e) Pigasetta. 
(f) Oliuer Noort. and Sebastian de Weert. ​
(g)  Iul. Capitol. Herodianus.
​(h) Plin. lib.7. cap.16.

Howsoeuer the bodies of these men before the Floud were composed, certaine their minds were disposed to all monstrous inhumanity which hastened their destru­ction. This made God to repent that he made man vpon the earth, not that there was any change or repentance in him; but because a change for want of repentance hap­pened to them. In long sufferance hee gaue them an hundred and twentie yeares space, in which Noah might bee a Preacher of righteousnesse; yea the Arke it selfe, which Noah that while was prouiding, might preach to them repentance, that their teares might haue quenched his wrath, and preuented temporall drowning, and eter­nall burning. Adam liued till Henochs time, a witnesse and Preacher of the promise he himselfe had receiued. Henoch himselfe is made, not a verball, but a reall Preacher, whiles his sonne Methushelah, and his Nephew Lamech the father of Noah liued: that God might haue witnesses to conuert some and conuince others. But whiles the world becommeth worse and worse, ((a) Aetas parentum peior auis tulit Hos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem) a deluge of sinne first, and a deluge of iudgement after, drowned the world.

(a) ​Horat. Carm.

For the circumstances of the Floud Moses hath more plainely related them, then that I should heere expresse them. Noah with his three sonnes, and their wiues, en­tered the Arke at Gods appointment, to which by Diuine instinct resorted both birds and beasts; of the cleane seuen, and of the vncleane two in euery kind. If any maruell at this distinction of cleane and vncleane in these times, supposing that God first in the wildernesse made this partition-wall: it is answered, that God before this had appointed sacrifices of beasts, which might make the difference, for which cause also there was a seuenth of euery such creature, reserued for sacrifice after No­ahs going out. Besides, God had now purposed to adde the flesh of beasts vnto mans diet, for which those, called by the Isaelites cleane, were most fit, and most in vse: and in that respect more of such kindes were reserued, as more necessarie for mans vse in food, cloathing, and some of them also for labour. Otherwise No creature is vncleane in it selfe, the Hoofe and Cudde being by Nature (Gods hand-maid) and not by their owne vice, such, as made this distinction. And after the Floud God made no Law of Difference vntill the time of Moses, although each countrey hath obserued their owne peculiar custome in this food, some loathing that which o­thers esteemed daintie, not for religion, but for naturall and ciuill causes. As at this; day to the Tartars, Horse-flesh is royall sare; to the Arabians, Camels; to some Ame­ricans, Serpents; and other flesh to others: which our appetite, more then our faith, our stomacke, more then our soule; abhorreth.

​Concerning the Arke, diuers doubts haue beene moued, through curiositie and vnbelesse, of some, who by diuine iustice were in a manner depriued of sense and reason, hauing before, through diuellish wickednesse, lost their conscience and Re­ligion. Thus (a) Apelles one of Marcions disciples, could not finde the Arke (af­ter Moses dimension) to bee capable of foure Elephants in so small a quantitie; Celsus, contrarie to him (yet agreeing in a foolish impietie and impious folly) thought so great a vessell was too great for mans handy-worke. Thus, like Sampsons foxes their heads are diuers waies, but they are tied together by the tailes, agreeing in disagreeing both from Moses and themselues.

(a) Orig. hom. in Genes.2.

But might not reason teach Celsus, that the direction of God might teach a man in an hundred and twentie yeares space to frame so mightie a Fabrike? doth not sense and experience shew buildings not much lesse both on the sea and on the land? And what Arithmeticke or Geometrie, nay what witte or common sense, had A­pelles in his assertion? The Arke was too little (forsooth) for so many creatures and their prouision for a yeare. We neede not seeke for shifts from helpe of the Geometricall cubite knowne to Moses in his Aegyptian learning, of three, sixe or nine foote to the cubite; as Origen and (a) Hugo doe: nor of the sacred cubite, imagined twice as much as the common: nor of the larger stature and cubites of of men in those youthfull times and age of the world. The length whereof three hundred cubites, and the breadth fiftie, do make of square measure by common rules of Art, fifteene thousand cubites. Three floores or roomes were therein of that quantitie, each containing ten foote in height. As for the beastes; a floore of fif­teene thousand cubites might yeeld fiftie cubites seuare to three hundred seuerall kindes, many more then are knowne by relation of the most Writers, Aristotle, Pliny, Gesner, &c. which scarce reckon halfe that number, and but fortie kindes or thereabouts, that would take vp any great (b) roome. The height might yeeld commodious roomes for the fowles on perches: and all this might one roome or floore afford. Iudge then whether two other roomes, of equall bignesse, might not bee sufficient for all other necessarie employments? Besides, the roofe is not to bee thought vnproportionable, fitted for so long and tempestuous stormes, and there­fore not vnfitted with roome for diuers necessaries. And if any accuse mee for ad­ding this of the roofe to Moses description, I say that so it is translated by (c) some, Et in cubits longitudinens consummato eius tectum supernè, vnderstanding those words not of the window (as many doe) but of the roofe it selfe, which else is no where described, which should ouer-hang the Arke a cubite breadth, to defend it the sa­fer from raines; as in our houses the eues and slope roofes are commodious both for roome within, and against the weather without. But if any would entertaine longer dispute about this, hee may (among others that haue handled this question) resort vnto (d) Goropius Becanus his Gigantomachia, whom in this point I would rather follow, then in many other his Becceselanicall paradoxes.

(a) Hugo de Arca Noae, lib. 1.
(b) Such creatures as breed of putrifaction, and which liue in both elements, perhaps were not in the Arke.
(c) Tremel. & Iunins. ​
(d) ​Beccesel. An­tiq. Antuerp.

Noah and his family with this their retinue being entered, the fountaines of the great deepes were opened, and the windowes of Heauen: the two store-houses of waters which God had separated in the Creation, being in a manner confoun­ded againe, the Seas breaking their sandie barres, and breaking vp by secret vnder­minings the priuie pores and passages in the earth: the cloudes conspiring with the waters, and renuing their first league and naturall amitie, to the confusion of Nature and the World. The heauenly lights hid their faces from beholding it, and cloathed themselues with blacke, as bewailing the worlds funerall; the aire is tur­ned into a sea, the sea possesseth the airie region, the earth is now no earth but a mi­rielumpe, and all that huger world is contracted into a brife Epitome, and small a­bridgement in the Arke, euen there but a few inches distant from death. Thus doe all (a) Creatures detest Sin which hath made them subiect to Vanitie; thus would the Elements wash themselues cleane from it, and the committers thereof: but the Arke preuaileth ouer the preuailing waters, a figure of the Church, the remnant of the el­der, and Seminarie of the new World.

(a) Rom. 8. 20. ​

This drowning of the world hath not beene quite drowned in the world, but besides Moses, (a) many other writers haue mentioned it: the time thereof being referred to that which in each Nation was accounted most ancient; as among the Thebans to Ogiges; in Thessalia, to Deucalion; among the Americans (although (b) Mercator thinke that the Floud drowned not those parts, because they were not yet peopled, and because the beastes there are most what differing kinds from these in our world) the people haue retained the tradition hereof: Mnaseus among the Phoenicians, Berosus a Chaldaean, Hieronimus Aegyptius, Nicolaus of Damascus, the Poets Greeke and Latine, adding fables to the truth (which without some ground of truth they could not haue added) all mention the Floud; howsoeuer con­founding the lesse and later with this first and vniuersall.

(a) Heurnius applieth the fable of Prometheus to Noah lib. 1. 
​(b) De Fab. Mundi.

I might adde the testimonies of Eupolemus, Molon, Abidenus, Alexander Po­lyhistor, out of Eusebius, Iosephus, and others. Lucian in his Dea Syria, telleth the opinion of the Hierapolitans but a little corrupted from Moses Narration: that Countrey wherein Noah liued, most likely retaining firmer memorie of this mira­cle: so plainely doth he attribute to his Deucalion the Arke, the resort and safegard of the Lions, Bores, Serpents, and Beastes: the repairing of the World after the drowning thereof, which he ascribeth to periurie, crueltie, and other abominations of the former people. That Berosus, which we now have, is not so much as the ghost, or carkasse, and scarce a few bones of the carkasse of that famous Chaldean Author, mentioned by the Ancients, but the dreames of Annius, (no new thing in this last age) coined for the most part in his name. Some fragments of Berosus wee haue ci­ted in other Authors that conuince this Bastard.

Among others, somewhat of the Floud hath escaped drowning: his testimonie whereof, set downe in Polyhistor and Abidenus, is in (a) Eusebius. Hee affirmeth that Saturne gaue warning to Sisuthrus of this deluge, and willed him to prepare a great vessell or shippe, wherein to put conuenient food, and to saue himselfe and his kin­dred, and acquaintance, which hee builded of length fiue furlongs, of bredth two. After the retiring of the waters, he sent out a bird which returned: after a few dayes he sent her forth againe, which returned with her feet bemired: and being sent the third time, came no more: with other things to like purpose, which Polyhistor there, and Abidenus, citeth out of Berosus. (b) Plutarch hath also written of this Doue, sent out by Deucalion. 

(a) Euseb. Chron. Grac. Scasig. lib 1 & de Prae­par. lib. 9.
​(b) ​Plut. de animantium comparatione.