ld they speak with certainty,
where they were led by hearsay?_ In another place[542] he excuses the
mistakes of the antient poets, saying, that we must not wonder if they
sometimes deviated from the truth, when people in ages more enlightened
were so ignorant, and so devoted to every thing marvellous and incredible.
He had above given the poets even the preference to other writers: but
herein his zeal transported him too far. The first writers were the poets;
and the mischief began from them. They first infected tradition; and mixed
it with allegory and fable. Of this Athenagoras accuses them very justly;
and says, [543]_that the greatest abuses of true knowledge came from them.
I insist_, says this learned father, _that we owe to Orpheus, Homer, and
Hesiod, the fictitious names and genealogies of the Pagan Daemons, whom they
are pleased to style Gods: and I can produce Herodotus for a witness to
what I assert. He informs us, that Homer and Hesiod were about four hundred
years prior to himself; and not more. These, says he, were the persons who
first framed the theogony of the Greeks; and gave appellations to their
Deities; and distinguished them according to their several ranks and
departments. They at the same time described them under different
appearances: for till their time there was not in Greece any representation
of the Gods, either in sculpture or painting; not any specimen of the
statuary's art exhibited: no such substitutes were in those times thought
of._

The antient history and mythology of Greece was partly transmitted by the
common traditions of the natives: and partly preserved in those original
Doric hymns, which were universally sung in their Prutaneia and temples.
These were in the antient Amonian language; and said to have been
introduced by [544]Pagasus, Agyieus, and Olen. This last some represent as
a Lycian, others as an Hyperborean: and by many he was esteemed an
Egyptian. They were chanted by the Purcones, or priests of the Sun: and by
the female, Hierophants: of whom the chief upon record were [545]Phaennis,
[546]Phaemonoe, and Baeo. The last of these mentions Olen, as the inventor of
verse, and the most antient priest of Phoebus.

[547][Greek: Olen d' hos geneto protos Phoiboio prophetes,]
[Greek: Protos d' archaion epeon technosat' aoidan.]

These hymns grew, by length of time, obsolete; and scarce intelligible.
They were, however, translated, or rather imitated, by Pamphos, Rhianus,