"great in the earth" that the destruction of the race by the Flood resulted. The apocryphal Book of Enoch, composed, it is agreed, about 100 or 150 years before the birth of Christ, is very definite in regard to this legend, showing that it was current among the Jews at that period. We read in that Book, that "They (the angels) dwelt with them and taught them sorcery, enchantments, the properties of roots and trees, magic signs, and the art of observing the stars." Alluding to one of these angels particularly it is said "he taught them the use of the bracelets and ornaments, the art of painting, of painting the eyelashes, the uses of precious stones, and all sorts of tinctures, so that the world was corrupted."
Hermes.
With Osiris and Isis is always associated the Egyptian Thoth whom the Greeks called Hermes, and who is also identified with Mercury. He was described as the friend, or the secretary, of Osiris. Eusebius quotes an earlier author who identified Hermes with Moses; but if Moses was the inventor of medicine and all other sciences it would be hardly exact to speak of him as "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Thoth, who is also claimed as a Phoenician, as Canaan the son of Ham, and as an associate of Saturn, attained perhaps the greatest fame as an inventor of medicine. He was the presumed author of the six sacred books which the Egyptian priests were bound to follow in their treatment of the sick. One of these books was specially devoted to pharmacy.
Thoth, or Hermes, is supposed to have invented alchemy as well as medicine, the art of writing, arith-
