As Though They Had Never Been

"Besides this, however, many of their discoveries [the ancients] were ultimately lost to the world, some, as at Alexandria, by fire -- the bigoted work of a Mohammedan conquerer -- some by irruption of barbarians; and all were buried so long and so completely by the night of the dark ages, that they had to be rediscovered almost as absolutely and completely as though they had never been." -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicist, Pioneers of Science, 1893

Colliding Stars: The Etiology of the Heavy Elements In Ancient Egypt

"They [Egyptians] consider that the world had a beginning and will have an end, and that it is a sphere; they think that the stars are fire, and that it is by a combination of them that things on earth are generated." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, Lives of the Preeminent Philosophers, Introduction, 3rd century

Chang, K., Two Stars Collide; A New Star Is Born, The New York Times, Jun 2000

At the meeting, the first devoted to interstellar collisions, astronomers said they had detected what appeared to be the aftermath of a three-star collision. Scientists are also hoping to find evidence of collisions involving ultra-dense neutron stars and black holes by detecting telltale gravitational ripples.

The first clue of interstellar collisions came in the 1950's when astronomers looked at clusters of stars they knew to be nearly as old as the universe and saw what appeared to be large, young blue stars.

Sutherland, P., Colliding Stars Spark New Cosmic Blast, Skymania, May 2007

Astronomers have had their first ever grandstand view of a dramatic collision between two stars. The ‘cosmic car crash’ created a new type of explosion that had not previously been recognised in the universe.

The Atomic Theory of Moses

"And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." -- Acts 7:22

"And that the people of Colchos, in Pontius, and the Jews lying between Arabia and Syria, were colonies out of Egypt; and that therefore it is an antient custom among these nations, to circumcise all their male children after the rites and customs received from the Egyptians." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, The Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"... and, to prove that they were originally Egyptians, they bring this argument, that they are circumcised after the manner of the Egyptians, which custom continued to this colony as it did among the Jews." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, The Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"After the antient way of living in Egypt, which was, (according to their own stories), in the reigns of the gods and demigods; they say that Mnevis, a man of an heroic sprit, and famous in his generation for a commendable life, was the first that instituted written laws, feigning that he had received them from Mercury, and that from them would accrue great benefit and advantage to the public." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, The Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"For it is reported, that among the Aramaspi, Zathrautes pretended he received his laws from a good genius; and that Zamolxis, amongst the people called the Getes, patronised his by Vesta; and among the Jews, that Moses alleged the god called Jao, to be the author of his." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, The Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"Eupolemus in his book Concerning the Jews of Assyria says that the city Babylon was first founded by those who escaped from the Deluge; and that they were giants, and built the tower renowned in history. But when this had been overthrown by the act of God, the giants were dispersed over the whole earth. And in the tenth generation, he says, in Camarina a city of Babylonia, which some call the city Uria (and which is by interpretation the city of the Chaldees), in the thirteenth generation Abraham was born, who surpassed all men in nobility and wisdom, who was also the inventor of astronomy and the Chaldaic art, and pleased God well by his zeal towards religion. By reason of God's commands this man came and dwelt in Phoenicia, and pleased their king by teaching the Phoenicians the changes of the sun and moon and all things of that kind. And afterwards the Armenians invaded the Phoenicians; and when they had been victorious, and had taken his nephew prisoner, Abraham came to the rescue with his servants, and prevailed over the captors, and made prisoners of the wives and children of the enemy. And when there came to him ambassadors asking that he would ransom them for money, he did not choose to trample upon the unfortunate, but on receiving food for his young men restored the booty; he was also admitted as a guest into the temple of the city called Argarizin, which being interpreted is 'Mount of the Most High,' and received gifts from Melchizedek, who was the king, and the priest of God. But when there came a famine Abraham removed into Egypt with all his household, and dwelt there, and the king of Egypt took his wife in marriage, Abraham having said that she was his sister. He also related fully that the king was unable to consort with her, and that it came to pass that his people and his household were perishing. And when he had called for the soothsayers, they said that the woman was not a widow; and thus the king of Egypt learned that she was Abraham's wife, and gave her back to her husband. And Abraham dwelt with the Egyptian priests in Heliopolis and taught them many things; and it was he who introduced astronomy and the other sciences to them, saying that the Babylonians and himself had found these things out, but tracing back the first discovery to Enoch, and saying that he, and not the Egyptians, had first invented astrology. For the Babylonians say that the first man was Belus, who is Kronos; and that of him was born a son Belus, and Chanaan; and that this Chanaan begat the father of the Phoenicians, and that his son was Churn, who is called by the Greeks Asbolus, and is father of the Aethiopians, and a brother of Mestraim the father of the Egyptians. But the Greeks say that Atlas invented astrology, and that Atlas is the same as Enoch: and that Enoch had a son Methuselah, who learned all things through angels of God, and thus we gained our knowledge." -- Lucius C. Alexander Polyhistor, historian, Concerning the Jews, Quoted in Eusebius Preparations for the Gospel Book IX Chapter XVII, 1st century B.C.

"Artapanus in his Jewish History says that the Jews were called Ermiuth, which when interpreted after the Greek language means Judaeans, and that they were called Hebrews from Abraham. And he, they say, came with all his household into Egypt, to Pharethothes the king of the Egyptians, and taught him astrology; and after remaining there twenty years, removed back again into the regions of Syria: but that many of those who had come with him remained in Egypt because of the prosperity of the country. In certain anonymous works, however, we found that Abraham traced back his origin to the giants, and that they dwelling in Babylonia were destroyed by the gods for their impiety; but that one of them, named Belus, escaped death and settled in Babylon, and lived in a tower which he had built, and which was called Belus from the Belus who built it: and that Abraham having been instructed in the science of astrology came first into Phoenicia, and taught astrology to the Phoenicians, and afterwards passed on into Egypt." -- Lucius C. Alexander Polyhistor, historian, Concerning the Jews, Quoted in Eusebius Preparations for the Gospel Book IX Chapter XVIII, 1st century B.C.

"But Eupolemus says that the first wise man was Moses, and that he was the first to teach the Jews letters, and from the Jews the Phoenicians received them, and from the Phoenicians the Greeks, and that Moses was the first to give written laws to the Jews." -- Lucius C. Alexander Polyhistor, historian, Concerning the Jews, Quoted In Eusebius Preparations for the Gospel Book IX Chapter XXVI, 1st century B.C.

"And Artapanus says, in his book Concerning the Jews, that after the death of Abraham, and of his son Mempsasthenoth, and likewise of the king of Egypt, his son Palmanothes succeeded to the sovereignty. This king behaved badly to the Jews; and first he built Kessa, and founded the temple therein, and then built the temple in Heliopolis. He begat a daughter Merris, whom he betrothed to a certain Chenephres, king of the regions above Memphis (for there were at that time many kings in Egypt); and she being barren took a supposititious child from one of the Jews, and called him Mouses (Moses): but by the Greeks he was called, when grown to manhood, Musaeus. And this Moses, they said, was the teacher of Orpheus; and when grown up he taught mankind many useful things. For he was the inventor of ships, and machines for laying stones, and Egyptian arms, and engines for drawing water and for war, and invented philosophy. Further he divided the State into thirty-six Nomes, and appointed the god to be worshipped by each Nome, and the sacred writing for the priests, and their gods were cats, and dogs, and ibises: he also apportioned an especial district for the priests. All these things he did for the sake of keeping the sovereignty firm and safe for Chenephres. For previously the multitudes, being under no order, now expelled and now set up kings, often the same persons, but sometimes others. For these reasons then Moses was beloved by the multitudes, and being deemed by the priests worthy to be honoured like a god, was named Hermes, because of his interpretation of the Hieroglyphics. But when Chenephres perceived the excellence of Moses he envied him, and sought to slay him on some plausible pretext. And so when the Aethiopians invaded Egypt, Chenephres supposed that he had found a convenient opportunity, and sent Moses in command of a force against them, and enrolled the body of husbandmen for him, supposing that through the weakness of his troops he would easily be destroyed by the enemy. But Moses with about a hundred thousand of the husbandmen came to the so-called Nome of Hermopolis, and there encamped; and sent generals to pre-occupy the country, who gained remarkable successes in their battles. He adds that the people of Heliopolis say that this war went on for ten years. So Moses, because of the greatness of his army, built a city in this place, and therein consecrated the ibis, because this bird kills the animals that are noxious to man. And he called it Hermes' city. Thus then the Aethiopians, though they were enemies, became so fond of Moses, that they even learned from him the custom of circumcision: and not they only, but also all the priests." -- Lucius C. Alexander Polyhistor, historian, Concerning the Jews, Quoted in Eusebius Preparations for the Gospel Book IX Chapter XXVII, 1st century B.C.

" ... if one must believe Poseidonius, the ancient dogma about atoms originated with Mochus, a Sidonian, born before the Trojan times. However, let us dismiss things ancient." -- Strabo, geographer, The Geography, Book XVI, 7

"Moses, namely, was one of the Aegyptian priests, and held a part of Lower Aegypt, as it is called, but he went away from there to Judaea, since he was displeased with the state of affairs there, and was accompanied by many people who worshipped the Divine Being. For he says, and taught, that the Aegyptians were mistaken in representing the Divine Being by the images of beasts and cattle, as were also the Libyans; and that the Greeks were also wrong in modelling gods in human form; for, according to him, God is this one thing alone that encompasses us all and encompasses land and sea — the thing which we call heaven, or universe, or the nature of all that exists. What man, then, if he has sense, could be bold enough to fabricate an image of God resembling any creature amongst us? Nay, people should leave off all image-carving, and, setting apart a sacred precinct and a worthy sanctuary, should worship God without an image...." -- Strabo, geographer, The Geography, Book XVI, 7

"Now I have for witnesses to what I have said, all those that have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians: for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, and Berossus who collected the Chaldean monuments, and Mochus and Hestiaeus, and besides these Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those that composed the Phenician history, agree to what I here say." -- T. Flavius Josephus, historian, Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, Chapter III, 1st century

"I will begin, then, with our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses; first explaining the times in which he lived, on authorities which among you are worthy of all credit. For I do not propose to prove these things only from our own divine histories, which as yet you are unwilling to credit on account of the inveterate error of your forefathers, but also from your own histories, and such, too, as have no reference to our worship, that you may know that, of all your teachers, whether sages, poets, historians, philosophers, or lawgivers, by far the oldest, as the Greek histories show us, was Moses, who was our first religious teacher. For in the times of Ogyges and Inachus, whom some of your poets suppose to have been earth-born, Moses is mentioned as the leader and ruler of the Jewish nation. For in this way he is mentioned both by Polemon in the first book of his Hellenics, and by Apion son of Posidonius in his book against the Jews, and in the fourth book of his history, where he says that during the reign of Inachus over Argos the Jews revolted from Amasis king of the Egyptians, and that Moses led them. And Ptolemæus the Mendesian, in relating the history of Egypt, concurs in all this. And those who write the Athenian history, Hellanicus and Philochorus (the author of The Attic History), Castor and Thallus and Alexander Polyhistor, and also the very well informed writers on Jewish affairs, Philo and Josephus, have mentioned Moses as a very ancient and time-honoured prince of the Jews. Josephus, certainly, desiring to signify even by the title of his work the antiquity and age of the history, wrote thus at the commencement of the history: 'The Jewish antiquities of Flavius Josephus,'—signifying the oldness of the history by the word 'antiquities.'" -- Justin Martyr, theologian, Hortatory Address to the Greeks, Chapter IX, 2nd century

"Numa [Pompilius] the king of the Romans was a Pythagorean, and aided by the precepts of Moses, prohibited from making an image of God in human form, and of the shape of a living creature. Accordingly, during the first hundred and seventy years, though building temples, they made no cast or graven image. For Numa secretly showed them that the Best of Beings could not be apprehended except by the mind alone. Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Samanaeans among the Bactrians; and the philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sarmanae, and others Brahmins." -- Clement of Alexandria, theologian, Stromata, Book I, Chapter XV, 2nd century

"And Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words: 'And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had manifestly studied all that is said in them.' And before Demetrius there had been translated by another, previous to the dominion of Alexander and of the Persians, the account of the departure of our countrymen the Hebrews from Egypt, and the fame of all that happened to them, and their taking possession of the land, and the account of the whole code of laws; so that it is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned philosopher [Plato] derived a great deal from this source, for he was very learned, as also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books to his own system of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?' This Moses was a theologian and prophet, and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. His family, his deeds, and life, are related by the Scriptures themselves, which are worthy of all credit ...." -- Clement of Alexandria, theologian, Stromata, Book I, Chapter XXII, 2nd century

"Having reached the proper age, he [Moses] was taught arithmetic, geometry, poetry, harmony, and besides, medicine and music, by those that excelled in these arts among the Egyptians; and besides, the philosophy which is conveyed by symbols, which they point out in the hieroglyphical inscriptions. The rest of the usual course of instruction, Greeks taught him in Egypt as a royal child, as Philo says in his life of Moses. He learned, besides, the literature of the Egyptians, and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; whence in the Acts he is said 'to have been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.' And Eupolemus, in his book On the Kings in Judea, says that 'Moses was the first wise man, and the first that imparted grammar to the Jews, that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians.' And betaking himself to their philosophy, he increased his wisdom, being ardently attached to the training received from his kindred and ancestors...." -- Clement of Alexandria, theologian, Stromata, Book I, Chapter XXIII, 2nd century

"Of all these, by far the oldest is the Jewish race; and that their philosophy committed to writing has the precedence of philosophy among the Greeks, the Pythagorean Philo shows at large; and, besides him, Aristobulus the Peripatetic, and several others, not to waste time, in going over them by name. Very clearly the author Megasthenes, the contemporary of Seleucus Nicanor, writes as follows in the third of his books, On Indian Affairs: 'All that was said about nature by the ancients is said also by those who philosophise beyond Greece: some things by the Brahmins among the Indians, and others by those called Jews in Syria.'" -- Clement of Alexandria, theologian, Stromata, Book I, Chapter XXV, 2nd century

"But now it seems proper for me to demonstrate that our philosophy is older than the systems of the Greeks. Moses and Homer shall be our limits, each of them being of great antiquity; the one being the oldest of poets and historians, and the other the founder of all barbarian wisdom." -- Tatian, theologian, Address to the Greeks, Chapter XXXI, 2nd century

"After the Chaldeans, the testimony of the Phœnicians is as follows. There were among them three men, Theodotus, Hypsicrates, and Mochus; Chaitus translated their books into Greek, and also composed with exactness the lives of the philosophers. " -- Tatian, theologian, Address to the Greeks, Chapter XXXVII, 2nd century

"Therefore, from what has been said it is evident that Moses was older than the ancient heroes, wars, and demons. And we ought rather to believe him, who stands before them in point of age, than the Greeks, who, without being aware of it, drew his doctrines [as] from a fountain." -- Tatian, theologian, Address to the Greeks, Chapter XL, 2nd century

"Next there was brought in a flat pudding made of milk, meal-cakes, and honey; the Romans call it libum. And Cynulcus said: 'Stuff yourself, Ulpian, with your native chthorodlapsum, a word, as Demeter is my witness, which is not recorded in any ancient writer, unless it be the historians of Phoenicia, your compatriots Sanchuniathon and Mochos.'" -- Athenaeus, historian, The Dinner Sophists, 2nd century

"But when one has spoken upon this point, and sealed it by the testimonies of Plato, it will be necessary to go back and connect it with the precepts of Pythagoras, and to appeal to the nations of good repute, bringing forward their rites and doctrines, and their institutions which are formed in agreement with those of Plato, all that the Brachmans, and Jews, and Magi, and Egyptians arranged." -- Numenius, philosopher, On the Good, Book I, Quoted in Eusebius Book IX Chapter VII, 2nd century

"Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi, and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei, among the Indians the Gymnosophistae, and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called Druids and Semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers. Besides those men there were the Phoenician Ochus ...." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, Introduction, 3rd century

"For Musaeus was born among the Athenians, and Linus among the Thebans; and they say that the former, who was the son of Eumolpus, was the first person who taught the system of the genealogy of the gods, and who invented the spheres; and that he taught that all things originated in one thing, and when dissolved returned to that same thing; and that he died at Phalerum, and that this epitaph was inscribed on his tomb: 'Phalerum's soil beneath this tomb contains Musaeus dead, Eumolpus' darling son.' And it is from the father of Musaeus that the family called Eumolpidae among the Athenians derive their name. They say too that Linus was the son of Mercury and the Muse Urania; and that he invented a system of Cosmogony, and of the motions of the sun and moon, and of the generation of animals and fruits; and the following is the beginning of his poem, 'There was a time when all the present world Uprose at once.' From which Anaxagoras derived his theory, when he said that all things had been produced at the same time, and that then intellect had come and arranged them all in order." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, Introduction, 3rd century

"Enjoying such advantages, therefore, he [Pythagoras] sailed to Sidon, which he knew to be his native country, and because it was on his way to Egypt. In Phoenicia he conversed with the prophets who were the descendants of Moschus the physiologist, and with many others, as well as with the local hierephants. He was also initiated into all the mysteries of Byblus and Tyre, and in the sacred functions performed in many parts of Syria. He was led to all this not from any hankering after superstition as might easily be supposed, but rather from a desire of and love for contemplation, and from an anxiety to miss nothing of the mysteries of the divinities which deserved to be learned. After gaining all he could from the Phoenician mysteries, he found that they had originated from the sacred rites of Egypt, forming as it were an Egyptian colony." -- Iamblichus, philosopher, Life of Pythagoras, 3rd century

"I must express my surprise that Celsus should class the Odrysians, and Samothracians, and Eleusinians, and Hyperboreans among the most ancient and learned nations, and should not deem the Jews worthy of a place among such, either for their learning or their antiquity, although there are many treatises in circulation among the Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and Greeks, which testify to their existence as an ancient people, but which I have considered it unnecessary to quote. For any one who chooses may read what Florins Josephus has recorded in his two books, On the Antiquity, of the Jews, where he brings together a great collection of writers, who bear witness to the antiquity of the Jewish people; and there exists the Discourse to the Greeks of Tatian the younger, in which with very great learning he enumerates those historians who have treated of the antiquity of the Jewish nation and of Moses. It seems, then, to be not from a love of truth, but from a spirit of hatred, that Celsus makes these statements, his object being to asperse the origin of Christianity, which is connected with Judaism. Nay, he styles the Galactophagi of Homer, and the Druids of the Gauls, and the Getae, most learned and ancient tribes, on account of the resemblance between their traditions and those of the Jews, although I know not whether any of their histories survive; but the Hebrews alone, as far as in him lies, he deprives of the honour both of antiquity and learning. And again, when making a list of ancient and learned men who have conferred benefits upon their contemporaries (by their deeds), and upon posterity by their writings, he excluded Moses from the number; while of Linus, to whom Celsus assigns a foremost place in his list, there exists neither laws nor discourses which produced a change for the better among any tribes; whereas a whole nation, dispersed throughout the entire world, obey the laws of Moses. Consider, then, whether it is not from open malevolence that he has expelled Moses from his catalogue of learned men, while asserting that Linus, and Musaeus, and Orpheus, and Pherecydes, and the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras, discussed these topics, and that their opinions were deposited in books, and have thus been preserved down to the present time...." -- Origen, theologian, Against Celsus, Chapter XVI, 248

"And yet, against his will, Celsus is entangled into testifying that the world is comparatively modern, and not yet ten thousand years old, when he says that the Greeks consider those things as ancient, because, owing to the deluges and conflagrations, they have not beheld or received any memorials of older events. But let Celsus have, as his authorities for the myth regarding the conflagrations and inundations, those persons who, in his opinion, are the most learned of the Egyptians, traces of whose wisdom are to be found in the worship of irrational animals, and in arguments which prove that such a worship of God is in conformity with reason, and of a secret and mysterious character. The Egyptians, then, when they boastfully give their own account of the divinity of animals, are to be considered wise; but if any Jew, who has signified his adherence to the law and the lawgiver, refer everything to the Creator of the universe, and the only God, he is, in the opinion of Celsus and those like him, deemed inferior to him who degrades the Divinity not only to the level of rational and mortal animals, but even to that of irrational also!--a view which goes far beyond the mythical doctrine of transmigration, according to which the soul falls down from the summit of heaven, and enters into the body of brute beasts, both tame and savage! And if the Egyptians related fables of this kind, they are believed to convey a philosophical meaning by their enigmas and mysteries; but if Moses compose and leave behind him histories and laws for an entire nation, they are to be considered as empty fables, the language of which admits of no allegorical meaning!" -- Origen, theologian, Against Celsus, Chapter XX, 248

"And the like Opinion has been by some of the Antients ascrib'd to the Phoenicians, from whom Thales himself is conceiv'd to have borrow'd it; as probably the Greeks did much of their Theologie, and, as I am apt to think, of their Philosophy too; since the Devising of the Atomical Hypothesis commonly ascrib'd to Lucippus and his Disciple Democritus is by Learned Men attributed to one Moschus a Phoenician. And possibly the Opinion is yet antienter than so; For 'tis known that the Phoenicians borrow'd most of their Learning from the Hebrews." -- Robert Boyle, chemist, The Sceptical Chymist, 1661

"... that Pythagoras was acquainted with the Mosaical or Jewish Philosophy, there is ample Testimony of it in Writers; as of Aristobulus, an Egyptian Jew in Clemens Alexandrinus ... St Ambrose adds, that he was a Jew himself. And though he gives no belief to the report yet that learned Antiquary Mr Selden seems inclinable enough to think it true in his first book De jure Naturali juxta Hebraeos ... Besides all these, Iamblichos also affirms that he lived at Sidon , his native country, where he fell acquainted with the Prophets, and successors of one Mochus the Physiologer ... Wherefore it is very plain that Pythagoras had his Philosophy from Moses." -- Henry More, philosopher, Appendix to the Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala, 1662

"Wherefore we have made it evident, that that very mechanical or atomical philosophy, that hath been lately restored by Cartesius and Gassendus, as to the main substance of it, was not only elder than Epicurus, but also than Plato and Aristotle, nay, than Democritus and Leucippus also, the commonly reputed fathers of it. And therefore we have no reason to discredit the report of Posidonius the Stoic, who, as Strabo tells us, affirmed this atomical philosophy to have been ancienter than the times of the Trojan war, and first to have been brought into Greece out of Phoenicia. ... And since it is certain from what we have shown, that neither Epicurus nor yet Democritus were the first inventors of this physiology, this testimony of Posidonius the Stoic ought in reason to be admitted by us. Now, what can be more probable than that this Moschus the Phoenician, that Posidonius speaks of, is the very same person with that Moschus the physiologer, that Jamblichus mentions in the Life of Pythagoras, where he affirms, that Pythagoras, living some time at Sidon in Phoenicia, conversed with the prophets that were the successors of Mochus the physiologer, and was instructed by them: ... 'He conversed with the prophets that were the successors of Mochus and other Phoenician priests.' And what can be more certain than that both Mochus and Moschus, the Phoenician and philosopher, was no other than Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, as Arverius [Johannes Arcerius] rightly guesses: ... 'It seems that it ought to be read Moschus, unless any had rather read it Mochus or Moses.' Wherefore according to the ancient tradition, Moschus or Moses the Phoenician being the first author of the atomical philosophy, it ought to be called neither Epicurean nor Democritical, but Moschical or Mosiacal." -- Ralph Cudworth, philosopher, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Volume III, 1671

"That all matter consists of atoms was a very ancient opinion. This was the teaching of the multitude of philosophers who preceded Aristotle, namely Epicurus, Democritus, Ecphantus, Empedocles, Zenocrates, Heraclides, Asclepiades, Diodorus, Metrodorus of Chios, Pythagoras, and previous to these Moschus the Phoenician whom Strabo declares older than the Trojan war. For I think that same opinion obtained in that mystic philosophy which flowed down to the Greeks from Egypt and Phoenicia, since atoms are sometimes found designated by the mystics as monads." -- Isaac Newton, alchemist/mathematician, Portsmouth Manuscript, 1687

"During the late sixteenth century, the diffusion of works of Strabo, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and Plutarch revived certain tradition about the origins of atomism, which, in turn, suggested a prisca doctrine to clothe it in respectability and reconcile it with orthodoxy. Relying on a now lost work of Posidonius, these authorities named a certain Moschus, a Phoenician, who lived before the Trojan war, as the first expositor of atomism. In 1598, [Johannes] Arcerius, a Friesian philologist, identified Moschus with Mochus, another Phoenician, whose successors Pythagoras (according to Iamblichus) had encountered and conversed with during a sojourn to Sidon. But Arcerius went much farther: he suggested that Moschus-Mochus was no other than Moses himself. It was a momentous identification which proved popular and influential through the seventeenth century. Many leading Protestant scholars lent their support to it. The great Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) confirmed that Mochus was the Tyrian name for Moses. John Selden (1584-1654) accepted the identification. Gerardus Vossius (1577-1649) discussed Strabo's account of Moschus's natural philosophy." -- J.E. McGuire and P.M. Rattansi, historians, Newton and the Pipes of Pan, 1966

"... certain of these scientists, notably Isaac Newton, were shown to have borrowed a theory of origins of atomism from the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth." -- Danton B. Sailor, historian, Newton's Debt to Cudworth, Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 49, Number 3, Pages 511-518, Jul-Sep 1988

"[Daniel] Sennert, [Robert] Boyle and [Isaac] Newton were among the many who thought that Moses had possessed a divine insight into the laws of nature. Atomism, in their view, did not owe its existence to the heathen and atheist Democritus, but to the prophet Moses." -- Helge Kragh, historian, An Introduction to the Historiography of Science, 1989

"Newton considered Moses to be a trained physicist. Moses knew about gravity and other natural forces, and Copernican astronomy. And he depicted the historical events of creation in the order they had occured. His only change was linguistic. Instead of reporting the events of creation in the technical language of a trained scientist, Moses deflated his depiction to make it comprehensible to uneducated people. He did not falsify his knowledge. By necessity, he simplified his report to improve the understanding of non-professionals. According to Newton, had Moses described these events in scientific terms, his narration would have been confusing and boring. And it would have amused his audience who would have viewed him more as a philosopher than as a prophet." -- Peter A. Redpath, philosopher, Masquerade of the Dream Walkers, 1998

"There's a tradition of scholarship that was very popular in the Renaissance called the prisca sapientia, the primal wisdom. It claimed that there was a secret wisdom that was first trasmitted by an archetypal figure--say, for example, Moses--and then passed down through the line of successors, usually including Pythagoras, Plato, and so forth, and that this wisdom was really the ultimate tool for understanding the universe. Newton clearly believed that." -- Bill Newman, historian, NOVA Interview, November 15th 2005

"... Moses might also have been identified with the figure of Mochus, who is frequently mentioned in Greek sources." -- G.H. Van Kooten, Moses/Musaeus/Mochos and his God Yahweh, Iao, and Sabaoth,
Seen from a Graeco-Roman Perspective, 2005

Stephen J. Gould On Prisca Sapientia

"... since we have a lamentable tendency to view our own age as best, these divisions often saddle the past with pejorative names while designating successively more modern epochs with words of light and progress." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"Our conventional divisions of Western history are mired in these twinned errors of false categorization and pejorative designation." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"I write this essay to point out that the most prominent of all scientific stories in this mode -- the supposed Dark and Medieval consensus for a flat earth -- is entirely mythological." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"Classical scholars, of course, had no doubt about the earth's sphericity." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"There was never a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"Virtually all major scholars affirmed the earth's roundness." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"Purveyors of the flat-earth myth could never deny this plain testimony of Bede, Bacon, Aquinas, and others -- so they argued that these men acted as rare beacons of light in pervasive darkness. But consider the absurdity of such a position. Who formed the orthodoxy representing the consensus of ignorance? Two pip-squeaks named Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes? Bede, Bacon, Aquinas, and their ilk were not brave iconocalasts. They formed the establishment, and their convictions about the earth's roundness stood canonical, while Lactantius and colleagues remained entirely marginal." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"As another interesting similarity, both men developed their basic model of science vs. theology in the context of a seminal and contemporary struggle all too easily viewed in this light – the battle for evolution, specifically for Darwin’s secular version based on natural selection." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Darwinian revolution directly triggered this influential nineteenth-century conceptualization of Western history as a war between two taxonomic categories labeled science and religion. White made an explicit connection in his statement about Agassiz (the founder of the museum where I now work, and a visiting lecturer at Cornell). Moreover, the first chapter of his book treats the battle over evolution, while the second begins with the flat-earth myth" -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"Draper wraps himself even more fully in the Darwinian mantle." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

"... the myth of a war between science and religion remains all too current...." -- Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, Late Birth of a Flat Earth, 1995

Stephen J. Gould: Dinosaur In a Haystack, The Late Birth of the Flat Earth, 1995

Francis Atterbury On Prisca Sapientia

"Modesty teaches us to speak of the ancients with respect, especially when we are not very familiar with their works. Newton, who knew them practically by heart, had the greatest respect for them, and considered them to be men of genius and superior intelligence who had carried their discoveries in every field much further than we today suspect, judging from what remains of their writings. More ancient writings have been lost than have been preserved, and perhaps our new discoveries are of less value than those that we have lost." -- Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, 18th century

Ancient Hindu Astronomy: The Surya Siddhanta

"... the Surya Siddhanta was revealed more than 2,164,960 years ago, that amount of time having elapsed, according to Hindu reckoning, since the end of the Golden Age ...." -- Ebenezer Burgess, polymath, May 1858

Brahmarishi Mayan, The Surya Siddhanta, ~ 2,166,818 B.C.-490 A.D.

5. I will give thee the science upon which time is founded, the grand system of the planets. ...

8. Listen with concentrated attention to the ancient and exhalted science, which has been spoken, in each successive Age, to the Great Sages (maharishi) .... ...

9. This is that very same original text-book which the Sun of old promulgated: only, by reason of the revolution of the Ages, there is here a difference of times. ...

10. Time is the destroyer of the worlds ....

18. One and seventy Ages are styled here a Patriarchate (manvantara); at it's end is said to be a twilight which has the number of years of a Golden Age, and which is a deluge. ...

24. ... years passed while the All-wise [Brahma/God] was employed in creating the animate and inanimate creation, plants, stars, gods, demons, and the rest. ...

34. Of the asterisms, one billion, five hundred and eighty-two million, two hundred and thirty-seven thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-eight.

Democritus and the Ancient Telescopes of Babylon

"Anaxagoras, Democritus, and their schools say that the milky way is the light of certain stars." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, Book I, 350 B.C.

"Of the Galaxy or the Milky Way: It is a cloudy circle, which continually appears in the air, and by reason of the whiteness of its colors is called the galaxy, or the milky way. Some of the Pythagoreans say that, when Phaeton set the world on fire, a star falling from its own place in its circular passage through the region caused an inflammation. ... Democritus [said], that it is the splendor which ariseth from the coalition of many small bodies, which, being firmly united amongst themselves, do mutually enlighten one another." -- Plutarch, historian, On the Opinions of the Philosophers, Book III, 1st century

"He [Democritus] said that the ordered worlds are boundless and differ in size, and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, but that in others, both are greater than with us, and yet with others more in number. And that the intervals between the ordered worlds are unequal, here more and there less, and that some increase, others flourish and others decay, and here they come into being and there they are eclipsed. But that they are destroyed by colliding with one another. And that some ordered worlds are bare of animals and plants and all water." -- Hippolytus, priest, The Refutation of All Heresies, 2nd century

"He [Democritus] was a pupil of some of the Magi and Chaldaeans, whom Xerxes had left with his father as teachers, when he had been hospitably received by him, as Herodotus [Metrodorus] informs us; and from these men he, while still a boy, learned the principles of astronomy and theology." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, Life of Democritus, 3rd century

"... sight is made precise by the compass, rule, and telescope." -- Iamblichus, philosopher, Life of Pythagoras, 3rd century

"It is reported that Democritus the Abderite was wise, besides other things, in desiring to live unknown, and that he wholly endeavoured it. In pursuit whereof he travelled to many Countries; he went to the Chaldæans, and to Babylon, and to the Magi, and to the Indian Sophists. When the estate of his Father Damasippus was to be divided into three parts amongst the three Brothers, he took onely so much as might serve for his travel, and left the rest to his Brethren. For this Theophrastus commends him, that by travelling he had gained better things than Menelaus and Ulysses." -- Aelian, historian, Various History, Book IV, Chapter XX, 3rd century

"Greater things than these may be performed by refracted vision. For it is easy to see by the canons above mentioned that the greatest objects may appear exceedingly small, and the contrary, also that the most remote objects may appear just at hand, and the converse; for we can give such figures to transparent bodies, and dispose them in such order with respect to the eye and the objects, that the rays shall be refracted and bent towards any place we please, so that we shall see the object near at hand or at any distance under any angle we please. And thus from an incredible distance we may read the smallest letters, and may number the smallest particles of dust and sand, by reason of the greatness of the angle under which we see them. ... Thus also the sun, moon, and stars may be made to descend hither in appearance, and to be visible over the heads of our enemies, and many things of the like sort, which persons unacquainted with such things would refuse to believe." -- Roger Bacon, natural philosopher, Opus Majus, 1267

"[Roger Bacon] did perfectly understand all kinds of optic glasses, and knew likewise the method of combining them so as to compose some such instrument as our telescope." -- William Molyneux, natural philosopher, Dioptrica Nova, 1692

"If this steel mirror [the Pharos of Alexandria] did really exist we cannot refuse to the ancients the glory of the first invention [of the telescope], for this mirror can be only effected by as much as the light reflected by its surface was collected by another concave mirror placed at its focus, and in this consists the essence of the telescope and the merit of its construction." -- Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, historian, Natural History, 1749–88

"Some modern writers deny the fact that a great mirror was placed in the light-house of the Alexandrian port for the purpose of discovering vessels at a distance at sea. But the renowned [French historian] Buffon believed in it; for he honestly confesses that 'If the mirror really existed, as I firmly believe it did, to the ancients belong the honor of the invention of the telescope.'" -- Helena P. Blavatsky, theosophist, Isis Unveiled, 1877

"The credit of the discovery of the telescope has been a fruitful subject of discussion. Thus, because Democritus announced that the Milky Way is composed of vast multitudes of stars, it has been maintained that he could only have been led to form such an opinion from actual examination of the heavens with a telescope. Other passages from the Greek and Latin authors have similarly been cited to prove that the telescope was known to the ancients." -- Encyclopaedia Britannica 1888, 1893, & 1911

"The Chaldeans must have understood the manufacture of the telescope, for [Austen H.] Layard reported the discovery of a lens of power in the ruins of Babylon. Nero the emperor of Rome had optical glasses from the east." -- Drusilla D. Houston, historian, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, Chapter XIII: The Civilization of Babylonia, 1926

"Thomas Wright marveled in 1750 that Democritus had believed the Milky Way to be composed mainly of unresolved stars: 'long before astronomy reaped any benefit from the improved sciences of optics; [he] saw, as we may say, through the eye of reason, full as far into infinity as the most able astronomers in more advantageous times have done since.'" -- Carl Sagan, professor, Cosmos, 1980

"Galileo always insisted that the ancients had telescopes." -- Ivan Van Sertima, historian, Blacks In Science: Ancient and Modern, The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview, 1983

"It is a short and simple step to place one lens in front of another to make a telescope, and the chances are it could have happened and many times." -- Hunter H. Adams III, archaeoastronomer, African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question, 1983

"The ancients apparently used the telescope long before Pythagoras's time." -- Larry B. Radka, historian, Telescopes and the Ancients, 2010

George Rawlinson: The Seven Great Monarchies of the Eastern World, Volume 4: Babylon, 1862-67

There is said to be distinct evidence that they [Babylonians] observed the four satellites of Jupiter, and strong reason to believe that they were acquainted likewise with the seven satellites of Saturn.

... strange as it may seem to us ... the Babylonians possessed optical instruments of the nature of telescopes, since it is impossible, even in the clear and vapor-less sky of Chaldaea, to discern the faint moons of that distant planet [Saturn] without lenses. A lens, it must be remembered, with a fair magnifying power, has been discovered amongst the Mesopotamian ruins.

Last year I got into a big argument with Paul Cartledge and one of his stooges James Warren over the issue of Democritus's unbelievably precise cosmology. Professor i.e. Sophist Paul Cartledge wrote to me in a personal email, "D's views- all his views - were purely theoretical and in no way empirically based or tested." To which I gave an Abderite LOL. According to them, Democritus was unable to observe because he lived before 1608 and therefore the greatest lucky guesser who ever walked the face of the Earth. Absurd and absolutely ridiculous. And they fancy themselves scholars. Pity.

Galileo's Rediscoveries

"During the past three or four hundred years science has been rediscovered rather than discovered." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not The First, 1971

"Our science has only rediscovered and perfected old ideas." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not The First, 1971

"Sunspots were known to the ancient Greeks, but this knowledge was lost in the West and the spottiness of the Sun only rediscovered by Galileo in the early seventeenth century." -- John R. Gribbin, astrophysicist, The Death of the Sun, 1980

"If you look at practically any of the writings of ancient civilizations, the ancient Sanskrit writings of India are the ones I'm most familiar with, speak of spaceships, of weapons resembling our modern weapons, they had, apparently, the ability to look inside the human embryo and see what was going on, so, it appears, yes, ancient peoples did have quite a bit of knowledge that perhaps, some of it that we're rediscovering." -- Michael A. Cremo, author, August 2006

Jonathan Henry: Galileo's Rediscoveries

The history of astronomy is littered with forgotten discoveries which, when later discovered again, were heralded as brand new knowledge. ...

Knowledge is often lost or forgotten, and many "new" discoveries may be only the regaining of old knowledge. The "discoveries" of Galileo illustrate this concept. ...

Galileo thought, or at least claimed, that he had discovered the mountains of the moon. But he had simply rediscovered ancient knowledge that was lost. ...

... many modern discoveries are, in fact, rediscoveries of ancient knowledge. ...

How much past knowledge has humanity forgotten?

Time Dilation in the Vishnu Purana

"Scientists generally have little historical sense, so that each single generation knows little of the struggles and inner difficulties of the former generation. Thus it happens that many ideas at different times are repeatedly conceived anew, without the initiator knowing that these subjects had been considered already before." -- Albert Einstein, mathematician, May 22nd 1954

"So it's a proof of no cosmology at all if it can be predicted by all of them." -- Jean-Claude Pecker, astronomer, 2003

Vishnu Purana, Book IV, Chapter 1

The son of this prince [Revata] was Raivata or Kakudmín, the eldest of a hundred brethren. He had a very lovely daughter [Revati], and not finding any one worthy of her hand, he repaired with her to the region of Brahmá [outerspace] to consult the god where a fit bridegroom was to be met with. When he arrived, the quiristers Háhá, Húhú, and others, were singing before Brahmá; and Raivata, waiting till they had finished, imagined the ages that elapsed during their performance to be but as a moment. At the end of their singing, Raivata prostrated himself before Brahmá, and explained his errand. "Whom should you wish for a son-in-law?" demanded Brahmá; and the king mentioned to him various persons with whom he could be well pleased. Nodding his head gently, and graciously smiling, Brahmá said to him, "Of those whom you have named the third or fourth generation no longer survives, for many successions of ages have passed away whilst you were listening to our songsters: now upon earth the twenty-eighth great age of the present Manu is nearly finished, and the Kali period is at hand. You must therefore bestow this virgin gem upon some other husband, for you are now alone, and your friends, your ministers, servants, wife, kinsmen, armies, and treasures, have long since been swept away by the hand of time." ...

Being thus instructed by the lotus-born divinity, Raivata returned with his daughter to earth, where he found the race of men dwindled in stature, reduced in vigour, and enfeebled in intellect. Repairing to the city of Kuśasthalí, which he found much altered ....

Einstein, Born, and Møller invoked gravitational time dilation to explain the empirical experiences and aging described in the Vishnu Purana.

Scientism & The Myth of Progress

Scientism is defined as the fundamentalist pseudoscientific and pseudoskeptic belief that contemporary science is infallible.

I take the exact opposite view -- namely Prisca Sapientia i.e. the heresy of ancient wisdom.

"There is no teaching, but only recollection." -- Plato, philosopher, Meno, 380 B.C.

"Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we learned that which we now recollect." -- Plato, philosopher, Phaedo, 360 B.C.

"... all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed on the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the very word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare began with digging up old vases and manuscripts." -- G. K. Chesterton, writer, What's Wrong With the World, Chapter IV: The Fear of the Past, 1910

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." -- Alfred N. Whitehead, mathematician/philosopher, 1929

"During the past three or four hundred years science has been rediscovered rather than discovered." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not the First, 1971

"Our science has only rediscovered and perfected old ideas." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not the First, 1971

"...the Corpus Hermeticum -- Greek and Latin translations of supposedly ancient Egyptian concepts -- Newton regarded the stream of such writings as an expression of the prisca sapientia, as it was called in Renaissance times, i.e., the wisdom of the ancients." -- I.M. Oderberg, writer, 1986

"There's a tradition of scholarship that was very popular in the Renaissance called the prisca sapientia, the primal wisdom. It claimed that there was a secret wisdom that was first trasmitted by an archetypal figure--say, for example, Moses--and then passed down through the line of successors, usually including Pythagoras, Plato, and so forth, and that this wisdom was really the ultimate tool for understanding the universe. Newton clearly believed that." -- Bill Newman, historian, November 15th 2005

"If you look at practically any of the writings of ancient civilizations, the ancient Sanskrit writings of India are the ones I'm most familiar with, speak of spaceships, of weapons resembling our modern weapons, they had, apparently, the ability to look inside the human embryo and see what was going on, so, it appears, yes, ancient peoples did have quite a bit of knowledge that perhaps, some of it that we're rediscovering." -- Michael A. Cremo, author, August 2006

"Personally I believe that when we really understand this Mill and how it works we will find out where we are in time and that's something that's very precious that I think has been lost by this linear view that anything that came before us must be more primitive. With that view, there's really nothing that we can learn in ancient history." -- Walter Cruttenden, author, October 2008

Galen: On Prisca Sapientia

"While, however, the statements which the Ancients made on these points were correct, they yet omitted to defend their arguments with logical proofs; of course they never suspected that there could be sophists so shameless as to try to contradict obvious facts. ... For I find that a great many things which have been conclusively demonstrated by the Ancients are unintelligible to the bulk of the Moderns owing to their ignorance -- nay, that, by reason of their laziness, they will not even make an attempt to comprehend them; and even if any of them have understood them, they have not given them impartial examination. The fact is that he whose purpose is to know anything better than the multitude do must far surpass all others both as regards his nature and his early training. And when he reaches early adolescence he must become possessed with an ardent love for truth, like one inspired; neither day nor night may he cease to urge and strain himself in order to learn thoroughly all that has been said by the most illustrious of Ancients. And when he has learnt this, then for a prolonged period he must test and prove it, observing what part of it is in agreement, and what in disagreement with obvious fact; thus he will choose this and turn away from that. To such an one my hope has been that my treatise would prove of the very greatest assistance. Still, such people may be expected to be quite a few in number, while, as for the others, this book will be as superfluous to them as a tale told to an ass." -- Galen, philosopher/physician, On the Natural Faculties, Book III, 2nd century

The Ancient Origins of Intelligent Design

"Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:" -- Amos 5:8

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands." -- Psalm 19:1

"The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD." -- Proverbs 16:33

"He [God] directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth." -- Job 37:3

"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it to them." -- Romans 1:19

"All things were mixed up together, then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order." -- Anaxagoras, philosopher, 5th century B.C.

"Then I heard someone who had a book of Anaxagoras, as he said, out of which he read that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was quite delighted at the notion of this, which appeared admirable, and I said to myself; If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place ...." -- Socrates, philosopher, Phaedo, 360 B.C.

"Some people even question whether they [chance and spontaneity] are real or not. They say that nothing happens by chance, but that everything which we ascribe to chance or spontaneity has some definite cause ...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"... if chance were real, it would seem strange indeed, and the question might be raised, why on earth none of the wise men of old in speaking of the causes of generation and decay took account of chance; whence it would seem that they too did not believe that anything is by chance." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"Certainly the early physicists found no place for chance among the causes which they recognized...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"There are some too who ascribe this heavenly sphere and all the worlds to spontaneity. They say that the vortex arose spontaneously, i.e. the motion that separated and arranged in its present order all that exists. This statement might well cause surprise. For they are asserting that chance is not responsible for the existence or generation of animals and plants, nature or mind or something of the kind being the cause of them (for it is not any chance thing that comes from a given seed but an olive from one kind and a man from another); and yet at the same time they assert that the heavenly sphere and the divinest of visible things arose spontaneously, having no such cause as is assigned to animals and plants. Yet if this is so, it is a fact which deserves to be dwelt upon, and something might well have been said about it. For besides the other absurdities of the statement, it is the more absurd that people should make it when they see nothing coming to be spontaneously in the heavens ...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"Spontaneity and chance, therefore, are posterior to intelligence and nature. Hence, however true it may be that the heavens are due to spontaneity, it will still be true that intelligence and nature will be prior causes of this All and of many things in it besides." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"... Anaxagoras, who says that all things were together and at rest for an infinite period of time, and that then Mind introduced motion and separated them...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book VIII, 350 B.C.

"... nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter [nature] to spontaneity and chance. When one man said, then, that reason was present -- as in animals, so throughout nature -- as the cause of order and of all arrangement, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. We know that Anaxagoras certainly adopted these views, but Hermotimus of Clazomenae is credited with expressing them earlier." -- Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, 350 B.C.

"As with these productions of art, so also is it with the productions of nature." -- Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, Book I, 350 B.C.

"Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that many of the characters presented by animals were merely the result of incidental occurrences during their development; for instance, that the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it happened to be broken owing to the contorted position of the foetus in the womb. In so saying he overlooked the fact that propogation implies a creative seed endowed with certain formative properties. Secondly, he neglected another fact, namely, that the parent animal pre-exists, not only in idea, but actually in time. For man is generated from man; and thus it is the possession of certain characters by the parent that determines the development of like characters in the child." -- Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, Book I, 350 B.C.

"Yet even from this inferior intelligence of man we may discover the existence of some intelligent agent that is divine, and wiser than ourselves; for, as Socrates says in Xenophon, from whence had man his portion of understanding?" -- Marcus T. Cicero, philosopher, The Nature of the Gods, Book II, Chapter VI, 1st century B.C.

"Yet these people doubt whether the universe, from whence all things arise and are made, is not the effect of chance, or some necessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine mind. According to them, Archimedes shows more knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial globe than nature does in causing them, though the copy is so infinitely beneath the original." -- Marcus T. Cicero, philosopher, The Nature of the Gods, Book II, Chapter XXXV, 1st century B.C.

"Can any one in his sense imagine that this disposition of the stars, and this heaven so beautifully adorned, could ever have been formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Or what other nature, being destitute of intellect and reason, could possibly have produced these effects, which not only required reason to bring them about, but the very character of which could not be understood and appreciated without the most strenuous exertions of well-directed reason?" -- Marcus T. Cicero, philosopher, The Nature of the Gods, Book II, Chapter XLIV, 1st century B.C.

"Again, he who does not perceive the soul and mind of man, his reason, prudence and discernment, to be the work of a divine providence, seems himself to be destitute of those faculties." -- Marcus. T. Cicero, philosopher, The Nature of the Gods, Book II, Chapter LIX, 1st century B.C.

"He [Anaxagoras] said that the beginning of the universe was mind and matter, mind being the creator and matter that which came into being. For that when all things were together, mind came and arranged them." -- Hippolytus, priest, 2nd century

Also see: Keener, C., Ancient Philosophers and Intelligent Design, Aug 2007

Ancient Plasma Cosmology

"The thunderbolt steers the course of all things." -- Herakleitos, philosopher, 5th century B.C.

"The ancients possessed a plasma cosmology and physics themselves, and from laboratory experiments, were well familiar with the patterns exhibited by [Anthony] Peratt's petroglyphs. They chose, for some strange reason, to disguise their knowledge by creating myths and legends in archaic petroglyphs and mythological symbols." -- Joseph P. Farrell, author, 2007

"Notably, [Anthony] Peratt focuses his attention on petroglyphs thought to be dated from 10,000 to 20,000 B.C.." -- Joseph P. Farrell, author, 2007

"Plasma physicist Anthony Peratt argues that some ancient petroglyphs -- some dating to over 20,000 years ago -- demonstrate remarkable accuracy in the depiction of standard plasma instabilities, and reasons that ancients must have witnessed such instabilities on a massive celestial scale thousands of years ago." -- Joseph P. Farrell, author, 2007

Our Iron Sun: The Ancients Were Right Again

"Favorinus, in his Univeral History, says that Democritus said of Anaxagoras, that his opinions about the sun and moon were not his own, but were old theories, and that he had stolen them." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, 3rd century

"He [Anaxagoras] asserted that the sun was a mass of burning iron...." -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, 3rd century

"... Sotion, in his Succession of the Philosophers, says, that he [Anaxagoras] was persecuted for impiety by Cleon because he said that the sun was a fiery ball of iron. And though Pericles, who had been his pupil, defended him, he was, nevertheless, fined five talents and banished ... and that he was condemned to death in his absence. " -- Diogenes Laertius, historian, 3rd century

"The form of the corona and the motion of the prominences suggest that it [the sun] is a magnet." -- George E. Hale, astronomer, 1913

Some imbecile named "Joe" the Plumber made the ignorant and uneducated remark that the ancients "saw the sun as a disk in the sky and nothing more." Having recently been focused on Diogenes Laertius, I knew this to be a lie. Anaxagoras said the sun is a mass of burning iron. So I went to see if Anaxagoras's statement is accurate. Guess what? The sun is in fact burning iron: The Surface Of The Sun.

While the gas model has enjoyed popular support over the past 50 years, that has not always been the case. In fact astronomers of 100 years ago believed in a predominantly iron sun, most notably Dr. Kristian Birkeland. ...

The surface crust of the sun is mostly made of iron.

Science Daily: The Sun: A Great Ball Of Iron?

ScienceDaily (July 17, 2002) — For years, scientists have assumed that the sun is an enormous mass of hydrogen. But in a paper presented before the American Astronomical Society, Dr. Oliver Manuel, a professor of nuclear chemistry at UMR, says iron, not hydrogen, is the sun's most abundant element.

TheSunIsIron.

Prisca Sapientia: Primal Wisdom

"Monsieur Newton croit avoir decouvert assez clairement que les Anciens comme Pythagore, Platon, &c, avoient toutes les demonstrations qu'il donne du veritable Systeme du Monde...." -- Nicolas Fatio de Duiller, mathematician, February 5th 1691/2

"This [heliocentrism] was the philosophy taught of old by Philolaus, Aristarchus of Samos, Plato in his riper years, the whole sect of Pythagoreans, and that wisest king of the Romans, Numa Pompilius." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1694

"...the Egyptians...concealed mysteries that were above the common herd under the veil of religious rites and hieroglyphic symbols." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1694

"...the Corpus Hermeticum -- Greek and Latin translations of supposedly ancient Egyptian concepts -- Newton regarded the stream of such writings as an expression of the prisca sapientia, as it was called in Renaissance times, i.e., the wisdom of the ancients." -- I.M. Oderberg, writer, 1986

"This question of measurement is only one example of Newton's faith in the prisca sapientia of Ancient Egypt. He was also convinced that atomic theory, heliocentricity and gravitation had been known there [See McGuire and Rattansi (1966, p. 110)]." -- Martin Bernal, historian, 1987

"There's a tradition of scholarship that was very popular in the Renaissance called the prisca sapientia, the primal wisdom. It claimed that there was a secret wisdom that was first transmitted by an archetypical figure—say, for example, Moses—and then passed down through a line of successors, usually including Pythagoras, Plato, and so forth, and that this wisdom was really the ultimate tool for understanding the universe. Newton clearly believed that." -- Bill Newman, historian, November 15th 2005

MathPages.Com: Prisca Sapientia.

It's ironic that most of the men who participated in the "scientific revolution", whose contributions seem (to us) so original and innovative, were themselves convinced that they were merely re-discovering the vast body of pristine knowledge (prisca sapientia) that had been possessed by the ancients, but somehow lost and forgotten during the centuries that came to be called the "dark ages" of western civilization. This was not an entirely unreasonable belief, because the great works, both material and intellectual, of the classical civilizations were (and to some extent still are) very imposing. The intellectual culture of Western Europe really did decline during the fall of Rome, and the institutions for preserving and passing along knowledge, as well as the inclination to do so, were severely diminished. Then, after so long an absence, when the ancient texts were re-discovered, the scholars of the Renasiance and later periods were acutely aware of their intellectual inferiority vis-a-vis "the ancients". Also, the fact that many of the ancient texts were now available only in fragmentary form, often in third-hand translations, and many of the references were to works totally unknown and presumably lost, contributed to the impression that the ancients had known far MORE, if we could only find it out.

This attitude toward the past is, in some ways, the exact opposite of our usual view today, which is of a totally ordered sequence of eras progressing from less knowledge in the past to more knowledge in the future. It's hard for us to imagine, today, the intellectual climate among people who believed (knew) they were scientifically and mathematically inferior to their ancestors in the distant past.

Well, it's not hard for me anyway. I recognize the ancients were centuries (if not millenia) more scientifically and technologically advanced than we are today.