On the Origins or the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language

see how those who proclaim the most ancient language of all to be useless will hand down the origin of things. I proceed with the rest, not for the demonstration of the argument, which I believe is most proven, but so that I may not seem to have been lacking in handing down any origin of things, so that by this our moderate diligence, men of absolute erudition may be aroused to an absolute treatment of the argument. Japhet, whom profane histories name Iapetus and Attalus, inhabited parts of the world celebrated in the letters or fables of the Greeks, from the Assyrians and Medes through all of Asia Minor, and the better-known regions as far as the Tanais, and the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and the eastern parts of Europe. Horace mentions him as the most ancient of all men, when he says, "The bold race of Iapetus brought fire to the nations through evil fraud," etc., which passage seems to be taken from Hesiod in "Works and Days," where he treats of the origin of things and the seven ages of the world. I join his words:
Iapetionide panton peri medea eidos / chairois pyr klepsas, kai emas phrenas heperopeusas / soi t' auto mega pema, kai andrasin essomenoisin (Ιαπετιονίδη πάντων περὶ μήδεα εἰδὼς / χαίροις πῦρ χλέψας, καὶ ἐμὰς φρένας ἠπεροπεύσας / σοί τ' αὐτῷ μέγα πῆμα, καὶ ἀνδράσιν ἐσσομένοισι).
Jupiter speaks there about Prometheus, the son of Iapetus. This whole passage is transferred in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Virgil treats of it not dissimilarly, though with fewer words, in the sixth Aeneid. For all, as I have often said, had received by a certain common rumor those things which Moses and all the wise men of the Chaldeans had written concerning the creation of the world and that primeval origin of men and things, which had been described by the Platonists and Pythagoreans in equal veils, nor would they have been omitted by Aristotle himself, had he not, through a certain diversity and confidence of genius, wished to be, or at least to appear, different from all others, since he possessed that one special trait of rising up against his teacher and his dogmas. But perhaps it did not seem so to Providence, namely that before the light itself shone upon things to be restored anew, Christ did not want the sacred to be mixed with profane histories, of which fact the historiographer Theopompus gave proof, who, when he wished to mix sacred history with his trifles, was struck with blindness until he desisted and repented of his rashness.