from which authorities those men borrow strength which so believe. But Martyr changed his opinion; and so did St. Augustine, who at first seemed to be indifferent; for in his questions upon the Old and New Testament, he accounteth it detestable to think that it was Samuel which appeared; and these be his words elsewhere to the same effect: In requie sunt animæ piorum a corpore separate, impiorum autem pœnas luunt, donec istarum ad vitam æternam, illarum vero ad æternam mortem que secunda dicitur corpora reviviscant; "The souls of the godly separated from their bo“dies are at rest, but those of the wicked suffer punishment, "till the bodies of the just rise to eternal life, and of the "wicked to an eternal and second death."

And (besides "St. Augustine) Justin Martyr, Hilarius, Tertullian, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and others, believed firmly, and taught it, that the souls of men being once separate from their bodies, did not wander on the earth at all: Credere debemus, saith Cyril, quum a corporibus sanctorum animæ abierint, tanquam in manus charissimi patris bonitati divinæ commendari; "We must believe when the souls "of holy men are departed from their bodies, that they be "commended to the divine goodness, as into the hands of a "most dear Father." If then they be in heaven, the power of the Devil cannot stretch so high; if in hell, ab inferno nulla est redemptio, "from hell there is no redemption." For there are but two habitations after death: Unum, saith Augustine, in igne æterno, alterum in regno æterno; "The one in eternal fire, the other in God's eternal king"dom." And though it be written in Jure Pontificio, that many there are who believe that the dead have again appeared to the living, yet the gloss upon the same text finds it ridiculous: x Credunt et male, quia sunt phantasmata, saith the gloss; "They believe, and they believe amiss, because they be but phantasms, or apparitions." For whereas any such voice hath been heard, saying, I am the soul of

66

"Aug. de Verb. Apost. 18. Just. Mar. ad Orthodox. q. 75. Hilar. Psal. ii. in fine. Tert. de Anim. in fin.

Athan. q. 13. Chrysost. Hom. 19. in
Evang. Matth.

26. q. 5. Episcopi.

such a one, hæc oratio a fraude atque deceptione diabolica est; "that speech is framed by the fraud and deception of "the Devil," saith Chrysostom. Likewise of the same saith Tertullian: Absit ut animam cujuslibet sancti, nedum prophetæ, a dæmonio credamus extractam; "God forbid that we should think that the soul of any holy man, much less "of a prophet, should be drawn up again by a devil.”

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It is true, that the scriptures call that apparition Samuel, so do they the wooden images cherubins; and false brazen gods are called gods, and the like. And whereas these of the contrary opinion build upon that place of the 26th of Ecclesiasticus, (a book not numbered among the canonical scriptures, as St. Augustine himself in his treatise, if it be his, de Cura pro Mortuis agenda, confesseth;) yet Siracides, following the literal sense and phrase of the scriptures, proveth nothing at all: for though the Devil would willingly persuade, that the souls (yea even of just men) were in his power, yet so far is it from the promises of the scriptures, and from God's just and merciful nature, and so contrary to all divine reason, as St. Augustine (or whosoever wrote that book before cited) might rightly term it a detestable opinion so to think. For if God had so absolutely forsaken Saul, that he refused to answer him either by dreams, by Urim, or by his prophets; it were sottish to conceive, that he would permit the Devil, or a wicked witch, to raise a prophet from the dead in Saul's respect; it being also y contrary to his own divine law to ask counsel of the dead, as in Deuteronomy xviii. and elsewhere. Therefore it was the Devil, and not the soul of a dead body, that gave answer and advice.

But because Helias and Helizeus had raised some from the dead by the power of God, those devils, which St. Augustine calleth ludificatores animantium sibi subjectorum, "mockers of their own vassals," casting before their eyes a semblance of human bodies, and framing sounds to their ears like the voices of men, do also persuade their graceless

y 1 Kings xvii. 22. 2 Kings iv. 34. Nullus enim magus aut dæmon mor

tuum vere unquam excitavit. Wier. de Fascin.

and accursed attendants, that themselves both possess and have power over the souls of men: Eludit Diabolus aciem tum spectantium, tum etiam cogitantium, saith L. Vives; "The Devil beguileth the sense both of the beholders, and "of those that so imagine." These then are the bounds of the Devil's power, whom if we will not fear, we must fear to sin. For when he is not the instrument of God's vengeance, he can touch no man that makes not himself his voluntary vassal: potest ad malum invitare, non potest trahere, saith St. Augustine; "he can allure, but he cannot en"force to evil." Such as think otherwise, may go into the number remembered by Lucretius:

Nam veluti pueri trepidant, atque omnia cœcis
In tenebris metuunt: sic nos in luce timemus.
We fear by light, as children in the dark.

CHAP. XII.

Of the memorable buildings of Ninus, and of his wife Semiramis; and of other of her acts.

SECT. I.

Of the magnificent building of Nineveh by Ninus; and of Babylon by Semiramis.

BUT to come back to Ninus, the amplifier and finisher of

Nineveh; whether he performed it before or after the overthrow of Zoroaster, it is uncertain. As for the city itself, it is agreed by all profane writers, and confirmed by the scriptures, that it exceeded all other in circuit and answerable magnificence. For it had in compass z 440 stadia, or furlongs; the walls whereof were an hundred foot upright, and had such a breadth as three chariots might pass on the rampire in front: these walls were garnished with 1500 towers, which gave exceeding beauty to the rest, and a strength no less admirable for the nature of those times.

Z Justin. 1. 1. Diod. 1. 2. Sabel. 1. en. 1.

But this city (built in the plains of Assyria, and on the banks of Tigris, and in the region of Eden) was founded long before Ninus's time, and (as ancient historians report, and more lately Nauclerus) had the name of Campsor, at such time as Ninus amplified the same, and gave it a wall, and called it after his own name.

For these works of Babylon and Nineveh begun by Nimrod in Chaldea, and in Assyria, Ninus and Semiramis made perfect. a Ninus finished Nineveh, Semiramis Babylon; wherein she sought to exceed her husband by far. Indeed in the first age, when princes were moderate, they neither thought how to invade others, nor feared to be invaded : labouring to build towns and villages for the use of themselves and their people, without either walls or towers; and how they might discharge the earth of woods, briers, bushments, and waters, to make it the more habitable and fertile. But Semiramis living in that age, when ambition was in strong youth, and purposing to follow the conquest which her husband had undertaken, gave that beauty and strength to Babylon which it had.

SECT. II.

Of the end of Ninus, and beginning of Semiramis's reign.

THIS she did after the death of her husband Ninus; who after he had mastered Bactria, and subjected unto his empire all those regions between it and the Mediterranean sea and Hellespont, (Asia the Less excepted,) and finished the work of Nineveh, he left the world in the year thereof 2019, after he had reigned fifty-two years. Plutarch reporteth, that Semiramis desired her husband Ninus, that he would grant unto her the absolute sovereign power for one day. Diod. Siculus out of Athenæus, and others, speaks of five days. In which time (moved either with desire of rule, or licentious liberty, or with the memory of her husband Menon, who perished for her) she caused Ninus her husband to be slain. But this seemeth rather a scandal cast on her by the Greeks, than that it had any truth.

a Herod. 1. 1. Justin. 1. 1. Diod. 1. 2, et 3.

Howsoever Ninus came to his end, Semiramis took on her after his death the sole rule of the Assyrian empire; of which Ninus was said to be the first monarch, because he changed his seat from Babylonia in Chaldea to Nineveh in b Assyria. Justin reports, that Semiramis (the better to invest herself, and in her beginning without murmur or offence to take on her so great a charge) presented herself to the people in the person of her son Ninias, or Zameis, who bare her external form and proportion without any sensible difference.

This report I take also to be feigned, for which many arguments might be made. But as she ruled long, so she performed all those memorable acts which are written of her by the name of Semiramis, and subscribed that letter which she sent to the king of India (her last challenge and undertaken conquest) by her own name. And were it true that her son Ninias had such a stature at his father's death, as that Semiramis (who was very personable) could be taken for him; yet it is very unlikely that she could have held the empire from him forty-two years after by any such subtilty; (for so long she reigned after the death of her husband;) but it may be true that Ninias, or Zameis, (being wholly given to his pleasures, as it is written of him,) was well pleased with his mother's prosperous government and undertakings.

SECT. III.

Of Semiramis's parentage and education, and metamorphosis of her mother.

SOME writers (of which Plutarch is one) make this famous woman to have been of base parentage, calling her after the name of her country, a Syrian. Berosus calls her after the name of her city wherein she was born, Semiramis Ascalonitis, of Ascalon, the ancient city and metropolis of the Philistines. Others report her to be the daughter of Derceta, a courtezan of Ascalon, exceeding beautiful. Others say, that this Derceta, or Dercetis, the mother of Semiramis, was sometimes a recluse, and had professed a holy and a religious life, to whom there was a temple dedicated,

b Ælian. 1. 7. ex Dione.