seems to substantiate their claims to a superiority in both respects over all other records of the primitive world. We need not here recapitulate the universal testimony to the antiquity of writing among the Egyptians. It is no longer a question of proving that antiquity by such evidence. But the antiquity of the written monuments and of the books, which is well authenticated, proves that testimony to be deserving of respect. The Egyptians, like all other nations possessing very ancient records, the Jews only excepted, have from early times exaggerated the dates of their history, or mixed them up with astronomical calculations relative to the primeval annals of the globe, to which their own approximated calculations difficult to understand, and which have, accordingly, been misunderstood. Moreover, the NeoPlatonists of Egypt and Syria in the third and fourth centuries, as also various Christian writers of that and a later period, have not only mixed up apocryphal or fallacious data with such as are genuine and certain, but have superadded some altogether false. We abstain, therefore, from quoting Plato's Egyptian songs and works of art ten thousand years old, or his eight thousand years of Saïtic annals; or the statements of the younger Hecatæus and other Greeks-as preserved by Diodorus -concerning the library of the primeval king Osymandyas.- Still less shall we defer to those of Iamblichus, (partly, perhaps, his own invention,) contained in his work on the Egyptian mysteries 10, which he passed off 9 Plato, Legg. ii. 657.; Tim. § 6. Diodorus, i. 49. 10 It is well known that this assumption rests upon a statement prefixed to one of the MSS., that Proclus in his commentary on the Enneads of Plotinus had asserted Iamblichus to have written this work, as a reply to Porphyry's letter to the priest Anebo, whose master the fictitious Abammon gives himself out to be. Tennemann and Tzschirner (the Fall of Paganism, p. 419. Notes) have impugned the validity of this testimony in opposition to Meiners. But the book itself is the most decisive evidence: first, its style; then the quota 11 He under the name of the Egyptian Priest Abammon. attributes to Hermes, consequently to a period before Menes, 1100 books; and describes Seleucus as having mentioned 20,000 volumes of the same Hermes, and Manetho even 36,500. This latter number is nothing but the year of the world in twenty-five Sothiac cycles of 1461 years. It was either invented by Iamblichus himself, or a Pseudo-Manetho, whose writings will be examined in the sequel. As little do we here propose to renew the inquiry concerning the celebrated antediluvian columns or stela, on which the lore of this primeval world with all its wisdom was said to be transmitted. Plato, it is well known, speaks of these columns in the opening of the Timæus. We shall examine in the fifth book whether this be any thing more than a figurative description, and how far we may be justified in assuming any connection between the Egyptian legend and the two pillars of Seth mentioned by Josephus. 12 These pillars, it is obvious, have reference to the Book of Enoch'; perhaps, also, to the pillars of Akikarus, or Akicharus, the prophet of Babylon or the Bosphorus (whose wisdom Democritus was said to have stolen), and on which Theophrastus composed a treatise.14 In tion of the work upon the gods (viii. 8.). Damascius, Proclus, Olympiodorus, and Julianus ascribe the work to Iamblichus; as, in fact, does he himself in the explanation of the Pythagorean Symbola (Gale on that passage). Iamblichus might even have been the author of some or all the books of Hermes quoted by Stobæus. It is at least remarkable that in both of them, according to all the MSS., a god, Emeph (Hμ), occurs, of whom no notice is extant elsewhere. See viii. 2. 11 Iamblichus de Mysteriis, viii. 1, 2. 12 Joseph. Antiq. i. c. 2. 13 See the English translation of this book from the Ethiopian, by Lawrence, Oxford, 1821; and compare with it the extracts from it in Syncellus (p. 9-14.) upon the so-called Egregors, who are alluded to in the Epistle of Jude (v. 6.). 14 Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 357. P. See Strabo, xvi. p. 762.; Diog. Laërt. v. 50.; and Potter and Fabric. Bibl. Gr. i. 87., &c. the Egyptian traditions that have come down to us, these primeval stela do not make their appearance until the third and fourth centuries. They are first mentioned in the so-called fragments of Hermes in Stobæus, where they are mysticised into secret symbols of created things 15; afterwards in Zosimus of Panopolis, evidently in the colouring of Judaising-Christian writers.16 They again appear in the worst shape of all somewhere in the fourth century, in the work of an impostor who assumed the name of Manetho. That, in this latter instance at least, they were connected with the narrative of Josephus, is shown by their allusion to the Syriadic Country." แ Passing over these and similar notices, attention must be called to the fact that Lepsius found on monuments of as early a date as the twelfth dynasty, the last but one of the Old Empire, the hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus roll. That of the stylus and inkstand was observed by him on those of the fourth" consequently in the fifth century after Menes, or the earliest period of which we possess hieroglyphical monuments. All that has hitherto been identified as belonging to the third dynasty are royal Rings and Pyramids the latter devoid of inscriptions. The monumental characters, however, can be traced on contemporary records above a century earlier, and in forms altogether similar to those of later times. With such evidence we can hardly hesitate to assume — whatever preconceived ideas it may disturb-that this genuine Egyptian writing, combining Phonetic with figurative signs, is, in its essential elements, at least as old 15 Stobæi, Ecl. Eth. Aóyos "Iσidoç, p. 930. Comp. 978. The author was a Neo-Platonist; probably, however, an Egyptian. 16 Syncellus, p. 13., from the ninth book of his work "Imuth" (Æsculapius), in which also the "Chemia" was introduced, i. e. the science of medicine and alchemy- from "Chemi," Egypt. 17 Lepsius, the Todtenbuch of the Egyptians, Leip. 1842, Pref. p. 17. as the time of Menes. It is the general tradition of the ancients, that the chronological registers of the Egyptian kings above referred to commenced with him - and there is no tradition of antiquity which admits of being better authenticated. III. THE ANTIQUITY AND HISTORICAL CONTENTS OF THE SACRED WITH these facts before us, it may here be proper to meet a question hitherto neglected by Egyptologers: whether the genuine books of Hermes, that is, the really Sacred Books of the Egyptians, contained any historical element, and in what shape? May not the older registers of the kings have been themselves, perhaps, a part of the Sacred Books? Or did the contents of the latter embody any considerable amount of matter of fact concerning the reigns of those kings? If they did so in ever so slight a degree, we must certainly consider them as a main source of historical tradition. For in a nation whose literature had a religious origin, and remained always in the hands of the priests, the most ancient history must also necessarily have been contained in the Sacred Writings. The progress of our researches will show how important this inquiry may become in forming any judgment upon the sources of history which have been preserved to us; and even at this stage of our subject it may throw some new light upon the Sacred Books. We are indebted for our knowledge of these writings to Clemens of Alexandria alone; the very remarkable passage of whose work we give in our Appendix of Authorities.18 From it we learn that the Egyptians in his time had forty-two Sacred Books—a canon, which must have been closed at latest in the time of the Psammetici, but probably earlier. The last six of these 18 See Zoega de Obeliscis, p. 505. &c. books treated of the art of medicine, which had taken root in Egypt in the darkest ages of antiquity, and boasted royal authors from Athotis down to Nechepso. The books of both these kings are quoted, and that of the former (a son of Menes) was certainly a sacred one. The other thirty-six books were divided into five classes, each of which requires separate consideration. 1. The Two Books of the Chanter. The first book of the first class contained songs in honour of the gods; the second a description of royal life and its duties. The Chanter was required to know both by heart. The first book, therefore, was something like the Rig-Veda. Such was the reputed antiquity and sanctity of the Egyptian hymns, that some of them, according to Plato 19, were ascribed to Isis, and, like the earliest paintings and sculptures, were held to be 10,000 years old, and that not, he adds, by mere figure of speech, but in the literal sense. In fact the fragments of Hermes, preserved by Stobæus, place hymns in the mouth of Isis, who teaches them to Horus. Stobæus has omitted the compositions themselves, and their genuine antiquity is very questionable.20 The title of the second book reminds us of the precepts which Manu's Code lays down for the Indian Kings, and even of some passages in the Vedas. This book was not strictly of an historical nature, although it may have contained, doubtless, as Zoega himself remarks, a few particulars of the lives or ordinances of primeval rulers by 19 Plato de Legg. ii. p. 657. : Σκοπῶν δὲ εὑρήσεις τὰ μυριοστὸν ἔτος γεγραμμένα ἢ τετυπωμένα — οὐχ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν μυριοστόν, ἀλλ ̓ ὄντως — τῶν νῦν δεδημιουργημένων οὔτε τι καλλίονα, οὔτ ̓ αἰσχίω, τὴν αὐτὴν δὲ τέχνην ἀπειργασμένα. And soon after where he speaks of the songs which were prescribed as being an institution worthy of the divinity, or of the divine name: καθάπερ ἐκεῖ φασι τὰ τὸν πολὺν τοῦτον σεσω σμένα χρόνον μέλη τῆς Ισιδος ποιήματα γεγονέναι. 20 Stob. Eclog. Eth. ed. Heeren, p. 980. |