Note 011 Plato AEgyptum peregravit ut a sacerdotibus barbaris numeros et 'caelestia' acciperet. Cicero de I ibus, v. 29. The Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144. Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.

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Note to Chapter 21 of Decline and Fall by Gibbon