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LIBRARY ST. IWEY'S COUEGI

THE

CONNEXION BETWEEN SCIENCE

REVEALED RELIGION.

TASK <C

2.

'TWELVE LECTURES

ON THE

CONNEXION BETWEEN SCIENCE

AND

REVEALED RELIGION.

W 7 - DELIVERED IN ROME

NICHOLAS, WISEMAN, D.D.

0

PRINCIPAL OF THE ENGLISH COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ROME.

VOL. II.

" Science should be dedicated to the service of religion."

GULISTAN, viii. 4.

97501

LONDON:

JOSEPH BOOKER, 61, NEW BOND STREET.

1836.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

LONDON : C. RICHARDS, 1'KINTEH, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, CHARING CROSS.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH

ON

EARLY HISTORY.

PART I.

CONNEXION of this Subject with the preceding. — INDIANS. Exaggerated ideas regarding their Antiquity. Their Astronomy. Bailly's attempt to prove its extraordinary antiquity. Confutation by Delambre and Montucla. Researches of Davis and Bentley. Opinions of Schaubach, Laplace, and others.— Chronology. Researches of Sir W. Jones, Wilfort, and Hamilton. Attempts of Heeren to fix the commencement of Indian History. Discoveries of Colonel Tod. — OTHER ASIATIC NATIONS. Latest researches into the early history of the Armenians, Georgians, and Chinese.

VOL. II.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

AFTER having thus ascertained, as far as we may, when was first constructed and adorned this the- atre, upon which have been acted all the great scenes of human life, it may seem superfluous to interrogate those who have trod its stage, how long it is since they commenced their varied drama of war and peace, of barbarism and civiliza- tion, of rude vices and of simple virtues. For, in nature, whom we have hitherto consulted, there is no pride, no desire, and no power, to represent herself other than in reality she is. But if we ask the oldest nations, when they sprang up, and when they first entered on the career of their social existence, there arise instantly, in the way of a candid reply, a multitude of petty ambitions, jealousies, and prejudices ; and there intervenes between us and the truth a mist of ignorance, wilful or traditional, which involves the enquiry both in mystery and perplexity, and leaves us to find our way by the aid of the most uncertain elements, with the constant danger of most serious error.

There have been, moreover, learned and acute investigators, who, having peculiar ends to gain

B2

4 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

in their researches, have allowed themselves to be borne away by these representations, — have ad- mitted as history what was only mythological fable, — have calculated upon dates, which were the purest fiction ; — and, not granting to the Jewish books the authority which they allowed to the Indian Vedas, or the Egyptian lists of kings, have most inconsistently condemned our sacred records, be- cause they imagined, at first sight, that they agreed not with those of other nations. Fortunately, however, we hav^e discovered methods which they knew not ; we have learned to cross-question nations in their early history ; we have accustomed ourselves to pore, with lawyer-like skill, over worn-out documents, till we have made out their value, or detected their flaws ; we have lost the relish for sarcastic disquisition, that levity in examination, which could give a witticism the force of an argument, and have learnt to love a sober and solemn mood in every office of science, — to prefer the real to the brilliant, — fact to theory, — and patient, plodding comparison to vague ana- logies.

The preference to which I have alluded, as given by learned and able men, to any document dis- covered in distant lands, over those which Chris- tianity received from the Jewish people, is assuredly one of those many facts, which, combined, establish a strange phenomenon of the human mind, the extravagant love of the wonderful in all that is

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 5

out of our reach, and the desire of disparaging that which we possess. I have at home an Arabic manuscript, professing to give, among other very miscellaneous matter, an account of the principal cities in the world ; and, of course, Rome could not be well excluded from the number. But alas ! not the charmed city of the wildest romance, not the fabulous splendour of the eastern Irani, not the dreamy imaginings of the most visionary Utopian, ever were planned with such a noble con- tempt of the possibilities of human wealth, as this sober representation of the Eternal City ! It is described as a city of some sixty or eighty miles in length, through which flows the majestic river called the Romulus, over which are several hundred bridges of brass, so constructed that they may be removed upon the approach of an enemy ; the gates of the city are numerous, and all of the same materials ; a minute description is given of the dimensions and riches of many churches, among which, unluckily, St. Peter's is omitted ; and the author has been careful to note how many gates of brass, and how many of silver ; how many columns of marble, how many of silver, or of gold, each of them contains. Strangely absurd as this may seem, it is but a faint parallel of what well-educated Europeans have indulged in, when first describing the historical and scientific wealth of eastern nations, then comparatively but little known amongst us. There were to be found,

6 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

astronomical processes of the most refined charac- ter, requiring observations at epochs incalculably remote one from the other ; there were periods or cycles of time, necessarily framed when the state of heavens was countless ages younger than at present; there were books manifestly written many thousand years before the west gave any signs of human life ; there were monuments obviously erected ages before the desolating flood is said to have swept over the face of earth ; there, in fine, were long lists of kings, and even of dynasties, well attested in the annals of nations, which must reach back far beyond the epoch assigned, in the comparatively modern books of Moses, to the creation of the world !

And now, what has become of all these won- ders? Why, you, who have seen, can transmute the Arab's fancies into their vulgar realities, the mighty Romulus into the yellow Tiber, the brazen gates into wooden portals, the gold and silver into stone and marble ; and you have perhaps trotted round the huge city in your morning ride. And so I trust will you be able to treat the no less baseless visions of philosophical romance ; after \ve shall have visited, to-day and at our next meeting, the countries where all those scientific and literary marvels were said to exist, you will, I trust, be convinced, that those are but as other lands, confined like ourselves within reasonable limits of duration ; that the stream of their tradi-

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 7

tions bears down with it> its due proportion of rubbish and defilement ; that the precious mate- rials, whereof their monuments and temples were said to be composed, are but the ordinary sub- stance of which all things human must consist. But in both cases the truly valuable has been overlooked. The Arab was not refined enough to understand the treasures of art which we here possess, and which are far more valuable than gates of silver, or pillars of gold; and the vain philosophers of the last century were too blind, or rather blinded, to examine the real wealth which the east was opening to their industry, in the con- firmation of primeval truths, in the illustration of holier pursuits, and in the field of ethnographical and moral knowledge which it affords.

Opposed, however, to what I have said on the tendency of men to despise what they hold in the hand, and to exaggerate what is far removed, are the very objects of which I am going to treat. For, while amongst us there seems to be this strange propensity; while any discovery at va- riance with Scripture is eagerly seized upon by many, — of which we shall have yet plenty of ex- amples, if the past lectures have not given enough — while there is an unnatural value set upon anything brought to light which seems to clash with some assertion of the sacred text ; the nations of the east so jealously cling to their sa- cred books, and so pertinaciously reject every

8 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

fact which may prove them wrong, the Chinese, and the Indians, and the ancient Egyptians, have been ever so attached to the unerring accuracy of their respective records, that we must seek some other explanation, than a natural cause, for the ease wherewith ours are so often abandoned. Nay, I believe, that had the books of Moses not been preserved by Christianity, but discovered for the first time among the Jews of China, or by Dr. Buchanan among those of Malabar,* they would have been received as a treasure of historical and philosophical knowledge, by those who have, under the present circumstances, slighted and blas- phemed them.

It is not my intention, of course, to go over the ground which has been completely drained of its interest by older writers, such as the anti- quity of the Chaldeans or Assyrians, and the ob- jections drawn in former times from the frag- ments of Berosus or Sanconiathon. They belong to the class of mere dry chronology, without a particle of historical interest, — they have been ex- hausted by many popular writers, — and they may be said to have been abandoned by the school which used to give them some value. I will, therefore, at once proceed to a country, the early history of which possesses much stronger claims to our attention, and will afford a strong illustra-

Where copies of the Pentateuch were really found.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 9

tion of the principle I have chiefly in view, through this course of lectures.

The peninsula of India should seem to be the field especially delivered by providence to the cultivation of our countrymen, and ought cer^ tainly to possess a peculiar interest for us. Nor could any thing have happened more opportunely, for the wants of the human mind, than the dis- covery of its literary wealth. The taste of Europe, which the political and religious convulsions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had driven to seek delight and food in the recollections of ancient classical lore, had almost begun to pall with the sweet but unvaried repast ; the stream of newly discovered authors, which, for a time, flowed from the young press, had ceased its re- freshing supplies ; every manuscript had been collated, every accent adjusted, every debateable letter made the theme of learned essays; we longed, if possible, for something quite original, and able to rouse and stimulate our languishing appetite. Arabia and Persia had been tried in vain. Moham- medanism sat as an incubus on all their religiouslite- rature — their exquisite poetry was too sensuous to satisfy the intellectual demands of European refine- ment, and their history was too limited, too modern, and too well known, from its connexions with our own, to excite any powerful interest. Whatever our anticipations of India may have been, they have been more than surpassed. We appear, on a sudden,

10 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

introduced to the very fountains of ancient philo- sophy, to the laboratories of those various opinions which formed the schools of the west ; to the nursery of our race, where the first accents of our language are preserved in their simplest forms ; to the very oracle or sanctuary of all ancient heathen worship, — to the innermost chamber of all mystic lore and symbolical religion. Here every thing bears the stamp of aboriginal freshness and sim- plicity ; and we feel, that whether we examine the philosophical meditations of its sages, or the early and mythological annals of its history, we are perusing the results of native genius, and the un- interpolated records of national traditions.

But we must not allow our feelings to carry us too far, nor allow ourselves to be dazzled by the novelty of the scene, to an exaggeration of its real beauties. As well might the naturalist, upon witnessing the gigantic growth of the African or American forests, compared with the pigmy sta- ture of our trees, calculate that, if the oak has required its hundreds of years to reach its strength, they must have been rooted for thousands in the soil, as the philosopher conclude, that so many ages must have been requisite to give to the systems of science which we there find, their consistency and consolidation, anterior to the appearance of philosophy in the West. There are other elements to be calculated besides time ; there is, in the one instance, the succulent vigour of the soil, and the

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 11

ripening energies of the climate; and in the other, the complex action of physical and moral influences caused by an early settlement in a congenial coun- try, by the fortunate preservation of earliest recol- lections, and a peaceful state amidst objects which draw the mind to contemplation.

I fear I have allowed my thoughts to ramble from reflection to reflection, without sufficient re- gard to the more important and substantial enter- tainment, which you require at my hand : and I therefore proceed at once to my task. I have not to consider the Indians to-day in reference to their literature, but only to their history. And this I will divide into two parts. First, I will trace the history of enquiry into the antiquity of their scientific knowledge, particularly their astronomy ; for this has been one of the most alarming topics in the hands of men hostile to religion. Then I will trace for you a brief sketch of the researches made into their annals, and the success experienced in unravelling the perplexities of their political history.

The first man of any reputation in science, who gave an unnatural antiquity to the astronomical discoveries of the Hindoos, was the unfortunate Bailly. During his life, he possessed, at least among less profound mathematicians, a very bril- liant reputation ; but he was infected with all the defects of his time, a love of bold and startling hypothesis, splendidly supported by ingenious and

12 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

diversified arguments. " It was not for learned men that he wrote/' says Delambre ; " he aspired to a more extensive reputation. He yielded to the pleasure of entering into the lists with Voltaire ; he revived the old romance of the Atlantis ; he had a good many readers, and that ruined him. The success of his first paradox led him to create others. He devised his extinct nation, and his astronomy perfected in mythological times ; he made every thing bear upon this favourite idea ; and was not very scrupulous in his choice of means to give colour to his hypothesis,"* In his History of Ancient Astronomy,, he started the theory here alluded to. By analyzing the astro- nomical formulas of the Hindoos, as far as known through the imperfect communications of Le Gentil, he concluded, that they must be based upon actual observations, but that the present state and character of the Indians will not allow us to consider them their original discoveries. He consequently treats the actual astronomy of that country as only fragments and wrecks of an earlier and far more perfect science ; and adding to these conjectures others of another class, based upon sur- mises, allegories, and obscure hints, he brings out his celebrated theory, that a nation, which has long disappeared from the world, existed many ages ago, in the north of Asia, from which all the learn-

" Astronomic du Moyen Age." Par. 1809, p. xxxiv.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 13

ing of the southern peninsula was derived. The Indians, he says, formed, in his opinion, a fully constituted nation from the year 3553 before Christ ; and this is the reduced date of their dynasties. It is astonishing, he adds in another place, to find among the Brahmans astronomical tables which are five or six thousand years old.* I will give you one specimen of his reasoning in favour of the northern origin of astronomy. The Chinese have a temple dedicated, it is said, to the northern stars ; and it is called ( the palace of the great light/ It contains no statue, but only an embroidered drapery, on which is inscribed, " To the spirit of the god Petou." The Petous are, he says, according to Magelhaens, the stars of the north. " But may not this temple be dedicated to the aurora borealis? It would appear that the name of ' palace of the great light' should sug- gest that conjecture. Why should they have made a divinity of the northern stars, rather than of those of any other quarter? They have no- thing remarkable, whereas the phenomena of the aurora borealis, those crowns, those rays, those streams of light, appear to have something in them quite divine." This conjecture is then confirmed by another of M. de Mairan, that Olympus was the seat of the Grecian gods, because that moun-

* "Histoire de 1'Astronomie ancienne." Par. 1775, pp. 107, 115.

14 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

tain was particularly seen surrounded by the northern lights. But then the aurora borealis is not at all remarkable in China ; for in thirty-two years, Father Parennin never saw anything worthy of the name. " We therefore see," thus he con- cludes, " in this species of worship, rendered to the northern lights, and to the stars of the north," (here the two objects before exchanged are artfully united) " a very strong trace of the superstition of an earlier period, and of the anterior seat of the Chinese in a more northern climate, where the phenomenon of the aurora borealis, being more extended and more frequent, must have made a more lively impression!"*

• Is this science, or is it romance ? is it history or vision ? Even Voltaire, with all his love for the new and the rash, could not stomach this creation of a new people, and this attribution of the origin of astronomy, which all the world thought, must have required bright skies and mild climates, to the country of almost perpetual snows and hazy mountains; and he addressed to Bailly several letters, written with all that levity of tone, and carelessness about the truth or falsehood of the matter, which characterizes all his works. He merely seems anxious not to give up the Brah- mans, whom he had taken under his special pro- tection, or sacrifice his own favourite theories on

* p. 101.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 15

the historical antiquity of the Indians. " Nothing ever came out to us from Scythia," he writes, " except tigers who have eaten up our lambs. Some of these tigers, it is true, have been a little astronomical, when they have gained leisure, after sacking India. But are we to suppose that these tigers came forth from their lairs, with qua- drants and astrolabes ? . . . Who ever heard of any Greek philosopher going to seek science in the country of Gog and Magog?"* In his an- swers, Bailly enters fully into the explanation and grounds of his theory. It is, I must own, almost nauseous to read the terms of fulsome compli- ment in which he addresses the superficial master of infidelity. " The Brahmans," he replies to these observations, " would be indeed proud, if they knew they possessed such an apologist. More enlightened than they can ever have been, you possess the reputation which they enjoyed in an- tiquity. Men go now to Ferney as they used to Benares ; but Pythagoras would have been better instructed by you ; for the Tacitus, the Euripides, and the Homer of the age, is, by himself worth all that ancient academy." — " If the immortal songs of the Grecian bard no longer existed," he writes in another place, " M. de Voltaire, after having described the combats and triumphs of the good Henry, would have conceived how Homer

* " Lettres sur 1'origine des sciences." — Lond. and Par. 1777. p. 6.

16 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

wrote the Iliad, and deserved his fame."* But, passing over these disgusting flatteries, I need only say that, in this work, Bailly sums up and presents in a more popular form, the arguments produced in his more scientific work in favour of his primeval people, source of all human science.

Still he was not contented ; and he undertook the more formidable task, of verifying mathema- tically the Indian calculations, and reducing to the test of rigid formulas, the astronomical processes, and results contained in the statements of tra- vellers and missionaries. It would be foreign to my plan, and could hardly be interesting to you, to follow him step by step in this toilsome under- taking. I will content myself, therefore, with giving you a slight idea of his method and re- sults.

Three sets of astronomical tables had been made known in Europe ; one of these was mani- festly borrowed from another of the number, and therefore Bailly excludes it. The other two profess to have different dates, the one 1491 of our era, the other 3102 before it. Bailly pro- ceeds to establish that it was exceedingly impro- bable, that the Indians borrowed their date from other nations, because in their methods they differ essentially from them. He concludes that both the periods must have been fixed by actual obser-

* Pp. 16,— 207.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 17

vation ; inasmuch as the account given of the heavens at each is accurate. The places of the sun and moon are given, for the early period, with a correctness that could not be obtained by calcu- lating from our best tables ; there is mention of a conjunction of all the planets, and the tables of Cassini prove that such a conjunction occurred about that period, though Venus was not in the number.* All these particulars, which I have very unscientifically stated, are apparently esta- blished by rigid calculation, through the course of his work.

Such was the specious theory of this unfortu- nate man. In his earlier work, he had imagined the scientific researches of his extinct nation to be antediluvian, and supposed the Indians, Chal- dees, and others, to be the races who inherited the broken fragments of early science, after the great catastrophe.f In this, however, no notice is taken of that hypothesis, but the astronomy of India is treated as an indigenous invention ; or, at least, Bailly contents himself with attempting to demon- strate that the supposed date of that early obser- vation in India must be correct. It was not, how- ever, long before, among his own scientific coun- trymen, he found an adversary fully equal to the

* "Traite de 1'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale." Par. 1787, p. xx. seqq.

f " Histoire de 1'Astronomie," p. 89.

VOL. II. C

18 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

task of confuting his romantic theory. Delambre, in his " History of Ancient Astronomy/' was neces- sarily led to treat of the supposed observations of the Hindoos ; and, without entering into any very profound mathematical examination of the pro- cesses and formulas so extolled by his fellow-aca- demician, laid open, one by one, the inaccuracies committed by him in the statement of the ques- tion, and his gratuitous assumption of the data on which he conducted them. He shows that there is no ground on earth to admit the truth of the supposed observations ; but approves of the solu- tions given by the English writers, of whom I shall presently speak.*

We may, perhaps, allow that the tone in which Delambre conducts his confutation of Bailly, is not such as would greatly delight an admirer of his dreams. For throughout there is but little respect shown to the science or to the cha- racter of that philosopher ; not only the cor- rectness of his mathematical inductions, but the fairness of his statements, is constantly called in question. It was in our country that Bailly found a champion to undertake his defence. Be- tween the epoch at which Bailly wrote, and the time when Delambre confuted him, much impor- tant light, as I have hinted, had been thrown on the question ; and the publication of a valuable

* "Histoire de 1'Astronomie ancienne." Par. 1817, pp. 400, seq.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 19

collection of Indian mathematical treatises by Mr. Colebrooke, gave an opportunity to the Edin- burgh Review to exalt the antiquity of Hindoo science, and censure the conduct of Delambre. The occasion, I think it must be owned, was a strange one ; for Colebrooke's work affords strong presumptive grounds for supposing the compara- tively modern origin of mathematics in India. For he gives us, in his valuable " Notes and Illus- trations to his Preliminary Discourse," a list fur- nished by the astronomers of Ujjayani to Dr. Hunter, of their most celebrated astronomical writers ; and the oldest of these is Varaha-Mihira, whom they place in the third century of the Chris- tian era. But of him there is nothing known, whereas another astronomer of the same name is very celebrated, and him Colebrooke shows to have lived, as is stated in Dr. Hunter's table, about the latter end of the sixth century. He quotes, it is true, more ancient treatises, called the five Siddhantas, but there is time enough for these to have existed and become old before his age, without arriving at any very extraordinary antiquity.* In like manner, Brahmegupta, one of the oldest mathematical writers extant, some of whose treatises Mr. Colebrooke published in this collection, cannot be considered older than

* " Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the San- scrit." Land. 1817, pp. xxxiii., xlviii. But see " Bentley's Histo- rical View of the Hindoo Astronomy." Lond. 1825, p. 167.

c 2

20 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

the seventh century ; nay, this sagacious and cri- tical orientalist, after showing the probabilities in favour of Aryabhatta's being the father and foun- der of Hindoo algebra, proceeds to establish his antiquity ; and concludes that he flourished " as far back as the fifth century of the Christian era, and perhaps in an earlier age." He was thus nearly contemporary with Diophantus ; though Mr. Colebrooke thinks he was superior to the Greek mathematician, in having methods of solv- ing complicated equations, which the other did not possess.* These statements and acknowledg- ments of so competent a judge as Colebrooke, could not have been well supposed to form a good foundation for an assertion of the Hindoo claims to great antiquity in astronomical renown. But the reviewer, admitting all these facts, boldly asserts that we must by no means consider Arya- bhatta as the inventorof his methods,but admit that many ages must have elapsed between their first invention and his improvements.! Though the writer confesses that Bailly was inaccurate, from want of local knowledge, from too great confi- dence in his informers, and from the spirit of sys- tem which carried him away, he still maintains that not only is the originality of Hindoo science quite vindicated by Mr. Colebrooke's publication, but that all must now confess that science to be

* P. x. i Edinb Rev. vol. xxix p. 143.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 2 1

only a wreck of what flourished in the Indian pe- ninsula when the Sanscrit was a living language, or perhaps, "some parent language, still more ancient, sent forth those roots which have struck with more or less firmness into the dialects of so many and so remote nations, both of the east and of the west."* A conclusion which would lead us back far beyond all reach of history, and pretty nearly to what Bailly would have desired.

As the name of Delambre was mentioned some- what invidiously, with a charge of undue severity upon the memory of his brother academician, the learned astronomer lost no time in replying to the reasonings, as well as the censure of the reviewer ; and an opportunity was afforded him by the pub- lication of his work on the Astronomy of the Middle Ages. In his preliminary discourse, he examines in detail the different grounds for admi- ration proposed by the anonymous critic ; and con- cludes that, although the Indians may have now been shown to have acquired a certain degree of skill in solving algebraical problems more remark- able for their ingenuity than for their utility, no- thing has been yet done to prove them possessed of anything approaching to a correct and scientific knowledge of astronomy.f

* P. 163.

f " Histoire cle I'Astronomie clu Moycn Age." Par. 1819. p.

XXXVll.

22 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

If I have dwelt at some length upon the opi- nions of Delambre, it would not be fair to omit the concurrence in the same sentiments, of an- other celebrated historian of mathematical science, who wrote too while his country was still more under the influence of that philosophical school to which Bailly had unfortunately attached him- self. I 'allude to Montucla ; who with the utmost impartiality addresses himself to the task of exa- mining the grounds assigned by Bailly for the excessive antiquity of the Hindoo astronomy. He analyzes, for instance, the great period of the Cali-Yuga, consisting of 4,320,000 years, and finds that if divided by 24,000, it gives as quotient 180 ; which gives rise to a suspicion that this period is only the half of another composing the product of 24,000 by 360. Now, as the Arabs consider 24,000 years the term in which the fixed stars, by their progressive movement, would make one complete revolution, it would appear that having borrowed this idea from them, the Indians made their great period equivalent to a year of 360 days, the primitive length of the year, each day of which consists of one complete revolution of the heavens. This he confirms from similar calculations among the Arabs ; and this, among others, is a reason for his concluding that, so far from Indian astronomy boasting such wonderful antiquity as his ill-fated countryman had imagined,

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 23

it was borrowed from the inhabitants of western Asia.*

But it is fair to turn to the labours of our coun- trymen in this branch of astronomical history. Mr. Davis was the first, as Colebrooke has remarked, to give an accurate account of Hindoo astronomy from native treatises. Montucla had observed that the Surya Siddhanta, an astronomical work supposed to have been inspired, would be a pre- cious acquisition ; " but who," he adds, " will ever force these mysterious men to communicate it ?"f It is precisely from this very work that Mr. Davis drew his materials ; and he states that he found no jealousy on the part of the Brahmans in either communicating the book, or assisting to explain it. The object of his researches was merely to discover the processes or formulas by which the Hindoos calculate their eclipses ; and thus far he may appear to throw little or no light upon the subject of our enquiry. But still it is manifest, from his preliminary remarks, that he considers the remote periods assumed by the Hindoos as the bases or points of departure for their calculations, to have been assumed arbitra- rily by a retrograde computation, and not selected, as Bailly fancied, by actual observation. J

* fc Histoire cles Mathematiques." Par. n. vii. torn. i. p. 429.

f P. 443.

I " Asiatic Researches/' vol. ii. p. 22$. ed. Calcutta.

24 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

Mr. Bentley, however, must be acknowledged to have most earnestly and most successfully studied this and other important works of Indian astronomy, with a view to determine the true an- tiquity of the science : and with his researches, which extend over a long period of time, I shall close this portion of my task. His first essay upon this subject appeared in the sixth volumne of the " Asiatic Researches." It may be divided into two parts. In the first, he examines the astrono- mical methods of the Indians, and shows how easily a European unacquainted with them might fall into grievous error in assigning their date. He then proceeds to investigate the age of the Surya Siddhanta, to which the Brahmans modestly give an age of sundry millions of years. " The most correct and certain mode of investigating the antiquity of Hindoo astronomical works," he writes, " is by comparing the positions and motions of the planets computed from them, with those deduced from accurate European tables. For, it must be obvious, that every astronomer, let the principle of his system be what it will, whether real or artificial, must endeavour to give the true position of the planets in his own time ; or, at least, as near as he can, or the nature of his system will permit ; otherwise his labour will be totally useless. Therefore, having the positions and motions of the sun, moon, and planets, at any proposed instant of time, given by computa-

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 25

tion from any original Hindoo system ; and hav- ing also their positions and motions deduced from correct European tables for the same instant ; we can from them determine the points of time back, when their respective positions were precisely the same in both."* Mr. Bentley proceeds to apply this simple rule. He takes his data, on the one side, from the Indian Treatise, and on the other from Lalande's Tables ; and by finding the number of years requisite to give the erroneous results deducible from the former, he discovers different periods of 600, 700, and 800 years, as having elapsed from the time it was composed. But not so content, Mr. Bentley gives strong reasons to con- clude that its author was Varaha, whose disciple, Sotanund, is known to have lived about 700 years ago, a period corresponding with the mean given by the deductions from the Surya Siddhanta it- self, f

The critical periodical, which I before mentioned, as having so earnestly defended Bailly's fanciful theories, was thereby only following up the views it had taken in its first number, of Mr. Bentley's labours. To the severe and studied attack which it made upon the essay I have quoted, he answered in a strong and clear manner, in the eighth volume

* P. 564.

•|- P. 573. This, however, has been denied by Mr Colebrooke, in his " Algebra."

26 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

of the " Researches ;"* but I pass over this paper, because he has since given a more enlarged and corrected, and far more valuable explanation of his views ; and this I proceed to mention. In the very year that Mr. Bentley published his " His- torical view of the Hindoo Astronomy," the learn- ed Ideler complained at Berlin, that no one had as yet been found, who united together a competent knowledge of the Sanscrit language and of astro- nomy.f In this instance, however, these two acquirements seem to have been combined with that firmness of purpose, and eagerness of inquiry, which were necessary for directing them in their troublesome undertaking ; and probably, the se- verity wherewith their possessor had been treated for his first attempt, nerved him to the task, and materially forwarded the researches which they were intended to impede.

In this work, Mr. Bentley, after a preface, in which he confirms his former assertions regarding the Surya Siddhanta by new calculations, treats systematically of the different epochs into which Hindoo astronomy may be divided. He estab- lishes eight distinct ages or periods in its history, each of which he endeavours to define and fix by astronomical data. The first operation in any

* Pp. 193, et seqq.

f " Handbuch der Mathcmatischen and TechniscLen Chrono- logie." Berlin, 1825, vol. i. p. 5.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 27

system of astronomy, must be the division of the heavens ; without which all astronomical determi- nations would be impracticable. The earliest In- dian division is into Lunar mansions, formerly 28, and now 27 in number. While history places this operation at a period between 1528 and 1375 B. c., the astronomical data mentioned in con- junction with it, exactly coincide. For the place of the equinoxial and solstitial points, gives the year 1426 B. c.; and the singular mythology of the operation, which states the planets to have been born from different daughters of Daksha, when reduced to the astronomical language of occupations of the moon in the respective lunar mansions, gives precisely the same period, 1425 B. c.* Now, if this calculation is correct, we have undoubtedly a date for the preliminary operation of Hindoo astronomy, quite within the range of probability. The next observation on record, Mr Bentley places in 1181 before the Christian era: when the sun and moon were in conjunction, and the astronomers found that the colures had fallen back 3° 20' from their position at the former observation. This consists of the giving proper names to the months; the conditions of which decide the period. The next important era,, which is decided by the astronomical data it supposes, is the age of Rama, whose exploits form the noblest theme of

* P. 4.

28 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

Indian poetry. " The Ramayuna," or epic poem which celebrates him, gives a minute description of the heavens at his birth, and upon his reaching his twenty-first year ; and the result is, that such a state could only have occurred about 961 years before Christ.* There is, too, I may re- mark, in his history, a passage minutely correspond- ing with the battle of the gods and giants in Greek mythology.

I will not follow Mr. Bentley through the later stages of his course ; because all that we can possi- bly desire is gained in the first. It matters little to us, that the Hindoos should place the ages of their astronomers back in absurd antiquity; that Garga and Parasara should be said by them to have lived and written 3100 years before Christ ; so long as it can be proved that the science, in which they were manifestly proficients, did not commence its preliminary observations till many centuries later. But it is just to say, that the Vasishta Sidd- hanta, and the Surya Siddhanta, which the Hin- doos used to date at some million or two of years back, have been brought down by his computa- tions, to the tenth or eleventh century of the Chris- tian era.

There is one Indian legend of considerable im- portance, the age of which Mr. Bentley endea- vours to decide by astronomical computation ; that

* P. 15.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 29

is the story of Krishna, the Indian Apollo. In na- tive legends he is represented as an Avatar, or incarnation of the Divinity ; at his birth, choirs of Devatas sung hymns of praise, while shepherds surrounded his cradle ; it was necessary to con- ceal his birth from the tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been foretold that the infant should destroy him. The child escaped, with his parents, be- yond the coast of Yamouna. For a time he lived in obscurity ; but then commenced a public life, distinguished for prowess and beneficence; he slew tyrants and protected the poor; he washed the feet of the Brahmans, and preached the most perfect doctrine ; but at length the power of his enemies prevailed, he was nailed, according to one account, to a tree by an arrow, and foretold before dying the miseries which would take place in the Cali Yuga, or wicked age of the world, thirty-six years after his death.* Can we be surprised that the enemies of Christianity should have seized upon this legend as containing the original of our gospel history ? The names Christ and Krishna, perverted by some of them into Kristna, were pro- nounced identical, and the numerous parallelisms between their histories declared too clearly de- fined to permit any doubt respecting their being

* See this legend in Paulinus, a S. Bartholomseo " Systema Brahmanicum," Rome, 1802, pp. 146. seqq. Creuzer's "Religions de 1'Antiquite," par Guigniaut. Tom. i. Par. 1825, p. 205.

30 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

one and the same individual.* The ease with which the first explorers of Indian letters allowed themselves to be borne away by their enthusiasm, towards ascribing extravagant antiquity to every thing they found, came in here to aid these bold assertions. For Sir W. Jones, who was consi- dered an infallible authority in all such matters, and whose judgment certainly deserves due con- sideration, had pronounced it quite certain " that the name of Krishna, and the general outline of his history, were long anterior to the life of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer." Hence, acknowledging the impossibility of so many casual coincidences, in the two lives or his- tories, he conjectures that the points of minute resemblance were engrafted, in later times, from spurious gospels, upon the original legend.f Mau- rice, in like manner, admits its antiquity, and meets its difficulties in a manner still less qualified to assist an adversary of Christianity, by consi- dering it a remnant of an ancient, primeval tradi- tion, concerning the future coming of a Redeemer, who was to be truly an Avatar, or incarnation of the Deity. J

Now, it is to the examination of the age when

* " Volney's Ruins, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Em- pires." Par. 1820, p. 267.

f " Asiatic Researches," vol. i. p. 273.

J " History of Hindostan," Lond. 1824, vol. ii. p. 225.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 31

this god-like hero lived, that Mr. Bentley has ap- plied astronomical calculation. For he diligently sought out, in the notices regarding him, some data upon which to base an inquiry into the era of his life ; and after finding all these too scanty, though it was stated that the celebrated astronomer, Garga, assisted at his birth, and de- scribed the state of the heavens at that interest- ing moment, he was fortunate enough to procure the Janampatra of Krishna, which contains the position of the planets at the time of his birth. From computation, grounded upon European ta- bles, reduced to the meridian of Ujein, it appears that the heavens can only have been as there described on the 7th of August, A. D. 600.* Mr. Bentley therefore concludes that this legend was an artful imitation of Christianity, framed by the Brahmans for the express purpose of withholding the natives from embracing the new religion, which had begun to penetrate to the uttermost bounds of the east.

It may probably happen that many will not agree with this writer in some of his opinions ; and I must say that, without more positive proof, I cannot go to the lengths he does upon many particular points. But, still, to his de- monstration of the modern date assignable to Indian observations, and Hindoo astronomical

* P. in.

32 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

works, he certainly has the suffrages of the best modern mathematicians. Not to mention De- lambre, who considered his paper on the age of the Surya Siddhanta as quite satisfactory, we have the opinion of Schaubach, who maintains all the knowledge possessed by the Hindoos, in astro- nomy, to be derived from the Arabs, and, conse- quently, to belong rather to modern, than to ancient, science.* Laplace, whose name will surely be respected by every astronomer of mo- dern times, far beyond that of the over-rated Bailly, whose friend and warm admirer he was, thus expresses himself upon this matter. " The origin of astronomy in Persia and India is lost, as among all other nations, in the darkness of their ancient history. The Indian tables suppose a very advanced state of astronomy ; but there is every reason to believe that they can claim no very high antiquity. Herein I differ, with pain, from an illustrious and unfortunate friend." This expression clearly shows, that it was from no leaning towards our cause that Laplace decided against the claims of Sanskrit astronomy. After these remarks, he proceeds to a detailed examina- tion of the point, which, I am sure I have quite often enough repeated, whether the observations placed by the Indian tables, as bases for their cal-

* In the Baron de Zach's " Monatliche Correspondenz/' Feb. and March 1813.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 33

culations, 1491 and 3102 years before the Chris- tian era, were actually ever made ; and con- cludes that they were not, and that the tables, were not grounded upon any true observation, because the conjunctions which they suppose cannot have taken place. " The same results," he concludes, " are obtained from the mean mo- tions assigned by them to the moon, in reference to its perigee, its nodes, and the sun ; which, being more accelerated than they are according to Ptolemy, indicate that they are posterior to that astronomer. For we know from the theory of universal gravitation, that these three movements have been accelerated for a great number of years. Thus the results of this theory, so impor- tant for lunar astronomy, serve also to elucidate chronology."* To these testimonies, we may add that of Dr. Maskelyne, personally communicated to Mr. Bentley,f of Heeren,J Cuvier,§ and Kla- proth, who thus writes. — " Les tables astrono- miques des Hindous, auxquelles on avait attri- bue une antiquite prodigieuse, ont ete construites dans le septieme siecle de 1'ere vulgaire, et ont

* " Exposition du Systeme du Monde," 6th ed. Bruxelles, 1827, p. 427.

f " Preface," p. xxv.

J " Ideen iiber die Politik, Handel und Verkehr der alten Vol- ker," 4th ed. 1 Th. 3 Abtheil, p. 142.

§ " Cuvier, Discours prelim." 8vo. Par. 1825, p. 238.

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34 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

ete posterieurement reportees par des calculs a une epoque anterieure."*

After these confirmatory authorities, in addi- tion to the opinions of the older French mathema- ticians before cited, we may reasonably doubt whether any other champion will arise to defend the excessive antiquity of Indian astronomical science. It will be difficult, at any rate, to rein- state its pretensions in such a position, as shall threaten a conflict with the Mosaic chronology. There are other branches of Indian learning, which must appear to you deserving of equal investiga- tion, such as the age of the sacred and philoso- phical writings to which such absurd antiquity was attributed, by some men, a few years back ; but as it is my intention, in pursuance of my promise, to dedicate a special discourse to Oriental Litera- ture, I shall reserve to it, what appears to me most important on this head. I will, therefore, pass from the astronomy to the history of the Indians, and see if it can, any more than the other, pre- tend to rival in age the records of the Penta- teuch.

It was, indeed, only to be expected that the na- tional ambition, which led to extravagance in fix- ing an epoch for the rise of science, should have suggested a corresponding remoteness of time, for the governments under which it flourished.

* " Meraoires relatifs a 1'Asie," Par. 1824, p. 397.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 35

One fiction necessarily supposed the other ; and when Oriental nations set about giving a mytho- logical era to their origin and early history, they do not stop at trifles, or allow themselves to be restrained by the European rule of attending to probabilities. A million of years are as soon in- vented as a thousand ; very few kings are required to fill them with their reigns, if you give them a gross of centuries a-piece ; and your readers will believe it all, if you can only get them over the first step, that of believing the kings to have been descendants of the sun and moon, or some such unearthly progenitors. We cannot indeed help pitying those who have been deceived into the belief of such absurdities ; but I think we must also be inclined to extend our compassion to those who first attempted to analyze the mass of fable presented to us by Indian history, and to separate the few grains of truth which lay concealed in this Augean confusion.

Sir W. Jones led the way in this, as in most branches of Indian research. He took, for the ground-work of his enquiries, the genealogical lists of kings, extracted from the Puranas, by the Pundit Rhadacanta ; and sat down to the task of unravelling their history, with a determination not to be swayed by any consideration, however sacred, towards an unfair decision. " Attached," he writes, " to no system, and as much disposed to reject the Mosaic history, if it be proved erro-

D 2

36 • LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

neous, as to believe it, if it be confirmed by sound reasoning, from indubitable evidence, I proceed to lay before you a concise account of Indian chronology, extracted from Sanscrit books."* He soon, however, discovered that he had to deal with the high-born races before alluded to, which claimed exemption from all the laws which limit the duration of mortal dynasties. Yet, no- thing daunted by this appalling discovery, which would have driven a less enthusiastic enquirer to despair, he attempts to account for these absurd- ities, and to reconcile all contradiction. He draws up tables of kings, and assigns dates to them, according to the most plausible conjectures he can devise. The result of these very unsatisfac- tory labours, you shall hear in his own words. — " Thus," he concludes, " have we given a sketch of Indian history, through the longest period fairly assignable to it ; and have traced the foun- dation of the Indian empire above 3800 years from the present time.f " Taking, therefore, even from a most prejudiced investigator, the extent to which the annals of Hindoostan can possibly be stretched, with any regard to plausibility, we have the establishment of a government in that country no earlier than 2000 years before Christ,

* " On the Chronology of the Hindoos. — Asiatic Researches/ vol. ii. p. 1 1. P. 145.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 37

the age of Abraham, when the book of Genesis represents Egypt as possessing an established dynasty, and commerce and literature already flourishing in Phenicia.

Sir W. Jones was followed by Mr Wilfort, who endeavoured to reduce, to something like order, the dynasties of Maghada, given in the Puranas.* Hamilton succeeded him in the same course ;f but both these patient investigators found themselves checked at every step, by wilful misrepresentations or blundering contradictions. The first of these writers is an unfortunate example of the extent to which Pundits will carry their impositions, and, consequently, a proof of how far we are to trust them in those passages of their books which would carry us back to unreasonable antiquity. For Mr. Wilfort found, that a most confidential man, em- ployed by him, at considerable expense, to assist him in his labours, did not hesitate to erase and alter passages in his most sacred books ; and even, when he found that the originals would have to be collated to verify his extracts, went so far as to compose thousands of verses to screen himself from discovery. J Mr. Wilfort found, in reference to our subject, that these holy men of India had no scruple about inventing names, to insert be-

* " On the Kings of the Maghada, — Asiatic Researches," vol. ix. p. 82.

f " Genealogies of the Hindoos extracted from their sacred writings." Edinb. 1819.

% " Asiat. Res." vol. viii. p. 250.

38 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

tween those of more celebrated heroes, and de- fended their conduct on the ground that such had ever been the practice of their predecessors. Now, after all due abatements and allowances have been made, we shall find but sorry materials left where- with to construct any certain, or even probable, history. For, the two authors I have mentioned, have only, in the end, produced a series of person- ages, for whose real existence we have no better authority than poems and mythologies.

" In that case," says a sagacious writer, who, however, is rather inclined to overrate than to depress the antiquity of Hindoo literature, " they are of no more authority than the generations of heroes and kings among the Helleni ; and the tables, so published, hold the same rank in Indian mythology, which those of Apollodorus do in the Grecian. We cannot expect to find in them any critical or chronological history ; it is one by poets composed, and by poets preserved ; and, therefore, in this respect a poetical history, with- out being, on that account, entirely a fictitious history."* " The chronology and history of the Hindoos," writes another, " are in general as poetical and ideal as their geography. In this people, the imagination prevails over every other

* " Es 1st eine von Dichtern behandelte, und durch Dichter erhaltene fGeschichte ;) also in diesem Sinne eine Dichter- Geschichte, ohne das sie deshalb eine ganzlich erdichte Geschichte zu seyn braucht." — Heeren, ubi sup. p. 242.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 39

faculty."* In fact, Klaproth places the commence- ment of true chronological history in India in the twelfth century of our era.f

Heeren, however, has taken considerable pains to trace the Hindoos back to their earliest institu- tions, and reconstruct their earliest political state. He enters at length into proofs that the caste of Brahmansare a different nation or tribe from the in- habitants of the peninsula, and follows their march from their supposed mountain-seats in the north, along a line marked by temples to the south. He cites the authority of travellers to prove that they are of a lighter complexion than men of the other castes ; an assertion which, you will remember, is at variance with the observations of other travel- lers, whom I quoted to you, in treating of the varieties in the human species. However, I do not see any strong objection to this hypothesis, which alone seems to account for the absolute sway of the Brahmans over the bulk of the nation. J And, after all, though this supposes a very remote period, (for the oldest accounts of India show this system to have been firmly grounded in their times,) it does not lead us to any definite result.

The war between the Coros and Pandos, the Greeks and Trojans of Sanscrit poetry, appears to him to afford, in its historical basis, evidence of a very early political organization in the regions of

* " Guigniaut on Creuzer," ubi sup. torn. i. 2de partie, p. 585. f Ubi sup. p. 412. I Ubi sup. p. 257.

40 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

the Ganges. But so far, again, we have only great antiquity — no decisive chronological epoch. And in reference to this event, it is consistent to remark, that it is so essentially connected with the history of Krishna, that if Mr. Bentley's theory regarding this be correct, the other must share its fate, and be reckoned a modern invention.

However, Heeren applies himself patiently to the task of arranging and reconciling the various fragments which remain of the early annals ; he endeavours to discover what were the earliest states, and the contemporary dynasties which pos- sessed them ; but the results at which he arrives, after his long investigation, through which I have no wish to lead you, is such as need not alarm the most timid believer. " From all the foregoing considerations," he writes, " we may conclude the region of the Ganges to have been the seat of considerable kingdoms and flourishing cities, many centuries, probably even 2000 years, before Christ."* Such, then, are his conclusions. Instead of the six thousand years before Alexander, attributed by some writers, on the credit of Arrian, or the millions deduced from the fables of the Brahmans, we have, as Jones and others had conjectured, the age of Abraham, as the earliest historical epoch of an or- ganized community in India.

After having thus, and at some length, carried

* P. 272.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 41

you through the history of Indian chronology during the last forty years, it would be both a grievous omission, and a violence to my feelings, to pass over without due notice the labours of one, whom I have the honour to count among my audience, and whose presence it might be thought should have made me shrink from speaking on researches which he may be said to have com- pleted. I am sure that no one can peruse the two splendid volumes on the " Annals and Antiquities of Raj as than,"* without feeling that their author has been able to bring to researches apparently exhausted, a stock at once of new materials and of superior sagacity, by which he has thrown con- siderable light, not only upon the subject which occupies us now, but likewise on those which have preceded it. And if we descend to the later periods of history, he has certainly been suffi- ciently fortunate to find a vast unoccupied tract to explore, in the annals of those states which he has been the first to describe. He has thus been able to combine, what few discoverers before him have had the good fortune to unite, new events with a new field, the varied drama of a history hardly known, with a theatre decked out in the most gorgeous scenery which nature can give, and

f By Lieut.-Col. James Tod. Lond. vol. i. 1829, vol. ii. 1832. Since these lectures were delivered, death has robbed our literature of this learned, diligent, and amiable man.

42 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

with the most sumptuous monuments that eastern art could add. Whether we consider the geogra- phical, the historical, or the artistic additions to our knowledge of India communicated in this work, or the interest of the personal narrative it contains, we may safely, I think, rank it among the most valuable, as well as among the most beautiful works upon eastern literature.

Colonel Tod has certainly gone farther than any of his predecessors in correcting and arranging the lists of Indian dynasties. He shows that there is a general conformity between the genealogies pro- duced by Jones, Bentley, and Wilfort, and such as he himself had collected from different sources ; and as there is sufficient discrepancy among them to warrant their being derived from various ori- ginals, he concludes, not improbably, that they have some foundation in truth. The two prin- cipal races, as I before observed, are those of the Sun and Moon ; and it is remarkable, that the number of princes in the two lines, through the entire descent, preserves a tolerable proportion. Now assuming Boodha to be, what seems not unlikely, the regenerator of mankind after the deluge, as he is the beginning of the lunar line of princes, we should have, according to the genea- logical tables, " fifty-five princes from Boodha to Crishna and Youdishtra ;" (I quote Colonel Tod's own words,) " and, admitting an average of twenty years for each reign, a period of eleven hundred

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 43

years ; which being added to a like period calcu- lated from thence to Vicramaditya, who reigned fifty-six years before Christ, I venture to place the establishment in India Proper of these two grand races, distinctively called those of Soorya and Chandra, at about 2,256 years before the Chris- tian era ; at which period, though somewhat later, the Egyptian, Chinese, and Assyrian monarchies are generally stated to have been established, and about a century and a half after that great event, the Flood."* Thus far, certainly, there is nothing to excite a moment's uneasiness ; and if we take the chronology of the Septuagint, which many moderns are disposed to follow, we have even an ampler period between that scourge and the epoch here allotted to the establishment of these royal houses.

What may serve to confirm this calculation, is the uniformity of other results obtained by a similar process.

But the most original, and doubtless most valu- able of Colonel Tod's discoveries in the Hindoo annals, consist in the historical connexions which he seems clearly to have established between the early Indians and those tribes towards the west, which, we before saw, exhibited a common origin, through the evidences of comparative philology. He shows, in the first instance, that the Hindoos

* Vol. i. p. 37.

44 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

themselves establish the birth-place of their nation towards the west, and probably in the region of the Caucasus. But at different periods those tribes, which remained in that portion of Asia, and had received the name of Scythians, seem to have become the invaders of the new settlements of their brethren, and to have considerably modi- fied Indian manners and religion, at the same time that they gave rise to some of the most dis- tinguished lines of kings. About 600 years be- fore Christ, we have notice of an irruption of those tribes into India, which is nearly contem- porary with a similar invasion, from the same quarter, towards Asia Minor, the north of Europe, and eastward as far as Bactria, where they over- threw the Greek dominion. The ancient Getse are to be discovered in the Jits of modern India, where they are spread from the mountains of Joud to the shores of the Mekran, and yet follow the same nomadic form of life which they did in their more northern latitudes. The Asi of ancient history are probably the Aswa race of India.* After establishing these resemblances in name, the learned writer proceeds to trace such points of similarity between the inhabitants of the north, and the present occupiers of the Rajasthan, in dress, in theogony, in warlike customs, in religious forms, and civil observances., as cannot leave any

* Page 63.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 45

reasonable doubt regarding the affinity of the two races.* Whether the hypothesis be well sustained, that these resemblances arise from a sub- sequent invasion, or whether they are remains of a primary affinity, may be, I think, a matter of free discussion. And whether some of the etymologies can be maintained I have reason to doubt ; for I fear in some places the resemblance of names is not sufficiently confirmed by historical data, to war- rant our conclusion of identity of objects. But all these are considerations of secondary import- ance ; quite enough has been done by my learned friend to satisfy us of the earlier connexion be- tween the tribes that yet occupy Scandinavia, and those which still hold dominion in India. And this will afford grounds for several reflections.

For, you will perceive how, on several occasions, besides my principal object of tracing the bearings of scientific researches upon sacred truths, I have endeavoured to call your attention to the light which one pursuit casts upon another. And so, here, I wish you to note how our former enquiries seem to receive striking illustration from these totally different researches, yet so as to confirm still farther the evidence they gave in favour of the inspired narrative. Thus we found, that every new step in the comparative study of languages brought us nearer to a positive demonstration, that mankind were originally one family ; and the investigation of the early history of nations, as-

* Page 65—80.

46 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

sisted by the observation of their manners, reli- gions, and habits, brings us to precisely the same conclusion. Nor is this confined merely to the members of the same ethnographic family, such as the Germans and Indians ; but Colonel Tod has certainly pointed out such curious coincidences between the origin assigned to their respective nations by the Monguls and Chinese, and the early mythological annals of the Indians, as seem to place us, in the historical investiga- tion of their common origin, much in the same position, as the discoveries of Lepsius and others do in respect of the ethnographical enquiry, that is, in the possession of strong probability, that families of men, now completely distinguished by different languages, may be shown to have been originally one. In each science perhaps only one step has been made, but that is so successful, as to augur still fuller and more satisfactory disco- veries. And if the common origin of these nations can be historically established, we have a strong proof that some great and unknown cause must have acted, to give each of them a language so essentially peculiar and distinct.

Again, by these researches, we have it still farther proved, that climate or some other cause may change the outward habit and physiognomy of a people. For, taking the learned writer's hy- pothesis to its full extent, and supposing the race now occupying the Rajasthan to be a northern

* Page 56.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 47

tribe, who invaded it from the north only 600 years before Christ, indeed to be a portion of that nation which, about the same period, took pos- session of Jutland, we have it shown how two colonies of the same tribe may, in the course of some centuries, have acquired the most different physical characteristics ; the one receiving the fair and xanthous traits of the Dane, the other, the dusky hue of the Indian. But, if we do not go so far, and only suppose the resemblances of names and manners to be traces of a primeval affinity, we may still draw a similar conclusion, va- rying only in a comparative vagueness of date, that the Getse of Scythia formed the fairest of the Caucasian race, while those of Hindoostan rank among the darkest of the Mongul. This reflec- tion, too, will go far to overthrow Heeren's hypo- thesis of the existence of two different races in the Indian peninsula, discernible at this day by variety of colour, and constituting the Brahman and the inferior castes.

The complete resemblance between the mytho- logical systems of India, Greece, and Scandina- via, obvious not merely in the characters and attributes of their respective deities, but even in their names and in the minutest circumstances of their legends, is a discovery which belongs to the earlier history of these studies. Sir W. Jones, Wilfort, and others, in the last generation, had abundantly established this point. The last-mentioned wri-

48 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

ter also renewed with elaborate care the old hy- pothesis, that a close affinity existed between the ancient worshippers of the Nile and the Ganges ; but, unfortunately, the circumstances I have al- ready detailed, regarding him, have cast a damp upon the interest which his researches must have otherwise excited. Col. Tod has, however, added many interesting points of resemblance, to those which we already possessed, between the mytho- logies of the two countries. I will content my- self with alluding to his description of the festival of Goure, as kept with great solemnity in Mewar, and to the remarks which he has added as a com- mentary upon it.* Here then, again, we have an accession of strength to those reasons which would lead us to suspect affinity between two nations be- longing to different families, according to their philological distribution.

This growing accumulation of proof in favour of the common origin of nations, drawn from re- searches which have no natural direction to its discovery, must greatly strengthen our confidence in the usefulness of every study, when reduced to proper harmony with its sister sciences, and made to advance with them at an even pace.

After having thus seen the chronology of India brought down to reasonable limits, and new ana- logies discovered, in its early history, with the

* P.570.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 49

origin of other nations, there can be little to de- tain us amidst the inhabitants of Asia. No other people of that continent has afforded scope for such assiduous investigation,, partly because none has materials of equal interest to stimulate the industry of scholars, partly, because our connexion with that country has given us greater opportuni- ties of cultivating the language in which its re- cords are written. But that I may not appear uncourteous to other nations, and that no suspi- cion may arise that their annals are not so easily dealt with as those which I have discussed, I will briefly give you the opinion of one or two writers who have, in our times, taken pains to unravel their native chronologies.

Klaproth, in an essay several times reprinted by him, in various forms and languages, has at- tempted to fix the dates for the commencement of certain and of doubtful history, in different Asiatic nations, following chiefly their own his- torians.* He soon disposes of all Mohammedan kingdoms which have no early history except what they borrow from Moses, or engraft upon a Jewish stock. Even the Persian annals can hardly go back beyond the accession of the Sassanides to the

* " Examen des historiens Asiatiques," first published in the "Journal Asiatique," Sept. and Nov. 1823; then reprinted in his "Memoires relatifs a 1'Asie," vol. i. p. 389, which I shall refer to in the text. The essay re-appeared, under the title of " Wiirdi- gung der asiatischen Geschichtschreiber," in his "Asia Polyglot ta," pp. 1-18.

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50 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

throne in 227. Cyrus appears in them as a heroic or mythological person ; before him we have the dynasty of the Pishdadians, a region of mere fa- ble ;* and it is a dispute among the learned, whether Gustasp, the contemporary of Zerdusht, or Zoroaster is the Hystaspes of history, or a so- vereign coeval with Ninus,f or, in fine, the Me- dian Cyaxares.J

In much the same condition are those Christian nations, whose history, comparatively modern, has fallen into the hands of the clergy, the natural annalists of a less refined people. These would, of course, reject those crude legendary traditions which form the remote history of pagan nations, whom they would not wish any longer to resem- ble, by descent from unclean and impious deities : and they would seek to substitute such early re- cords as the inspired writings afforded them, in their room. This we find to be actually the case with the Georgians and Armenians. The first portion of their annals is drawn from the Bible, they endeavour to find their forefathers in that

* Hyde, " De religione veterum Persarum," p. 312. Von Hammer, " Heidelberg Jahrbucher, 1823, p. 86. Guigniaut, ubi sup. p. 688.

f Rhode, " Die heilige Sage . . . der alten Baktrer, Meder und Perser." Frank/. 1820, p. 152, seqq. Volney, " Recherches nouvelles sur 1'Histoire ancienne." Par. 1822, p. 283.

J The opinion preferred by Tychsen, " Comment. Soc. Goet- ting," vol. xi. p. 112, and Heeren, " Ideen," i. Th. i. Abth. p. 440.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 51

store-house of primeval history, the book of Gene- sis ; they next fill up a long space with accounts gleaned from foreign historians, and, at last, at- tach to them their own meagre narratives, too modern to trouble the most delicate sensitiveness, on the score of revelation. The earliest period to which any thing among them pretending to the name of history can reach, is, according to Kla- proth, two or three centuries before Christ.*

But we still have China to dispose of; and surely it, at least, must be excepted from the re- marks which I have made. For it possesses a native literature, of great antiquity, and pretends to be the first or primary nation of the globe. We all know, too, that it carries back its annals to a very formidable age ; and it might be expected, that as much attention should be devoted to its claims as we have bestowed on its rival's in India. I will, however, content myself with laying before you, in a few words, the conclusions to which Klaproth came, from the study of its authors, to which he was principally devoted ; and I can assure you, that you will have the decision of a judge by no means disposed to second our desires, by depreciating the glories of the Chinese.

According to him, therefore, the earliest histo- rian of China was its celebrated philosopher and moralist, Confucius. He is said to have drawn up

* P. 412.

E 2

52 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

the annals of his country, known under the name of Chu-King, from the days of Yao, till his own times. Confucius is supposed to have lived about four or five hundred years before Christ, and the era of Yao is placed at 2557 years before the same era. Thus, then, we have upwards of 2000 years between the first historian and the earliest events which he records. But this antiquity, however remote, did not satisfy the pride of the Chinese ; and later historians have prefixed other reigns to that of Yao, which stretched back to the venerable antiquity of three million two hundred and seventy- six thousand years, before Christ.

That you may estimate still more accurately the authenticity of the Chinese annals, I must not omit to state, that two hundred years after the death of Confucius, the Emperor, Chi-Hoangti, of the dynasty of Tsin, proscribed the works of the philosopher, and ordered all the copies of them to be destroyed. The Chu-King, however, was recover- ed, in the following dynasty of Han, from the dictation of an old man, who had retained it by memory. Such, then, is the origin of historical science in China ; and in spite of all due veneration for the great moralist of the east, and of respect for his assertion, that he only wrought on materials already existing, Klaproth does not hesitate to deny the existence of historical certainty in the Celes- tial empire, earlier than 782 years before Christ, pretty nearly the era of the foundation of Rome,

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 53

when Hebrew literature was already on the de- cline.*

The Japanese, in historical knowledge, are but the copiers of the Chinese. They, too, pretend to their millions of years before the Christian era. But the first portion of their annals is purely mythological ; the second presents us with the Chinese dynasties as reigning in Japan ; and it is not till the accession of the Dairi to the throne, only 660 years before Christ, that any dependance can be placed upon their records, f

In glancing back over the chronology of the different nations of which I have treated, you can- not help being struck with the circumstance, that every attempt has failed to establish, for any of them, a system of chronology derogatory to the authority of the Mosaic records. In most of them, even when we have granted a real existence to the most doubtful portions of their history, we are not led back to an epoch anterior to what Scripture assigns for the existence of powerful empires in eastern Africa, and enterprising states on the western coasts of Asia.

* P. 406. Abel-Remusat is disposed to allow Chinese history to reach back to the year 2200 before Christ, and plausible tradition to go as far back as 2637. Even this antiquity presents nothing formidable to a Christian's convictions. — "Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques," torn. i. p. 61. Par. 1829. P. 408.

54 LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

The learned Windischmann, whom I feel a pride in calling my friend, admits the entire period of Chinese history allotted by Klaproth to the un- certain times, and shows its agreement with another form of computation, drawn from the cycles of years adapted by the Chinese ; and the result is a sufficiently accurate accordance between the date assigned to the foundation of the celestial empire by Fo-hi, or Fu-chi, whom some have even supposed to be Noah, the time of the deluge, according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the beginning of the Indian Cali-Yuga, or iron age.* The philosophical Schlegel not only concurs in the same view, but approves also of Abel-Remusat's idea, that the written Chinese character must be 4000 years old ; " this," he observes, " would bring it back within three or four generations from the deluge, according to the vulgar era, — an estimate which certainly is not exaggerated. "f

Even in India, you have seen authors, like Col. Tod, assuming, almost without limitation, the chronological tables of the country, and yet coming pretty exactly to the same period for the commencement of its history. Surely a converg- ence like this must have force of proof with the most obstinate mind, and produce conviction, that some

* " Die Philosophic in Fortgang der Weltgeschichte." 1 Th. 1 Abtheil. Bonn. 1827, p. 18. f " Philosophy of History," vol. i. p. 106, Robertson's transl.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH. 55

great and insuperable barrier must have interposed between nations'and any earlier definite traditions, at the same time that it allowed some faint rays of recollection to pass, of the original state and happier constitution of the human race. A sudden catastrophe, whereby mankind were, in great part, though not totally, extinguished, presents the most natural solution of all difficulties, and the concurrent testimony of physical phenomena, with the silent acknowledgment of the vainest nations, must assuredly shield, from every attack, this re- cord of our inspired volume.

There is yet another nation, whose history is perhaps more interesting than any which we have discussed; but, it will afford us" sufficient matter for another meeting.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. EARLY HISTORY.

PART II.

EGYPTIANS. — 1 . Historical Monuments. Mystery of their Monuments, — Excessive Antiquity ascribed to the Nation. — The Rosetta Stone. — First researches into the Egyptian Characters on it, by Akerblad and De Sacy, Young and Champolliou. Hieroglyphic Alpha- bet.— Opposition raised. — Applications of the Chrono- logy discovered through it to the illustration of Scripture by Coquerel, Greppo, and Bovet. — Inedited Letter by Champollion on this subject. — Rosellini ; his series of Egyptian Kings ; — their coincidence with those of Scripture. — Vindication and illustration of a Prophecy in Ezechiel.

2. Astronomical Monuments. Zodiacs of Dendera and Esneh. Absurd antiquity ascribed to them. Discoveries of Mr. Bankes, MM. Champollion and Letronne. Proved to be purely Astrological. — Commentary on some observations in the British Critic.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

FROM the soil of Asia, over which late we strayed, fruitful in every science, and varied by the dis- play of every degree in cultivation, from the rest- less nomade, or the untamed mountaineer, to the luxurious Persian, or the polished Ionian, we have now to turn to a country whereon nature seemeth to have set the seal of desolation physical and moral. One redeeming spot alone of Africa has been the seat of an indigenous civilization, a na- tive dynasty and a domestic class of monuments ; and the valley of the Nile appears rightly placed in such a geographical situation, as almost de- taches its inhabitants from the degraded tenants of the wilderness, and links them with the more favoured regions of the East.

At every period, this extraordinary nation has interested the attention of the learned. Its origin seemed to have been a problem to itself, and con- sequently to all others. The mysterious allegories of its worship, the dark sublimity of its morality, and, above all, the impenetrable enigma of its written monuments, threw a mythological veil over its history. The learned approached it, as if in the most obvious facts they had to decypher

60 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

a hieroglyphic legend ; and we were inclined to look upon the Egyptians, as a people, which, even in its more modern periods, retained the shadowy tints and ill-defined traits of remote antiquity, and which might consequently boast an existence far beyond the reach of calculation. We were almost tempted to believe them, when they told us, that their first monarchs were the Gods of the rest of the world.

When, after so many ages of darkness and un- certainty, we see the lost history of this people revive, and take its stand beside that of other ancient empires ; when we read the inscriptions of its kings, recording their mighty exploits and regal qualities, and gaze upon their monuments, with the full understanding of the events which they commemorate, the impression is scarcely less striking to an enlightened mind, than what the traveller would feel, if, when silently pacing the catacombs at Thebes, he should see those corpses, which the embalmer's skill has for so many ages rescued from decay, on a sudden burst their cere- ments, and start resuscitated from their niches.

While such a darkness overhung the history of Egypt, it is no wonder that the adversaries of religion should have retreated within it, as a strong-hold, and eagerly attacked her from behind its shelter. They collected together the scattered fragments of its annals, just as Isis did the torn limbs of Osiris, and tried to re-construct, by their

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 61

re-union, a favorite idol, a chronology of countless ages, totally incompatible with that of Moses. Volney had no hesitation in placing the formation of sacerdotal colleges in Egypt, 13,300 years be- fore Christ, and calling that the second period of its history !* Even the third period, in which he supposes the temple of Esneh to have been built, goes as far back as 4,600 years before that era ; somewhere about what we reckon the epoch of creation ! But the mysterious monuments of Egypt formed the most useful entrenchments for these assailants. They called upon those huge and half-buried colossal images, and those now sub- terraneous temples, to bearwitness to the antiquity and early civilization of the nation which erected them ; they appealed to their astronomical remains, to attest the skill, matured by ages of observation, of those who projected them. More than all, they saw in those hieroglyphic legends the venerable dates of sovereigns, deified long be- fore the modern days of Moses or Abraham ; they pointed in triumph to the mysterious characters which an unseen hand had traced on those prime- val walls, and boasted that only a Daniel was wanted that could decypher them, to show that the evidences of Christianity had been weighed and found wanting ; and its kingdom divided be- tween the infidel and the libertine ! Vain boast !

* " Recherches," vol. ii. p. 440.

62 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

Thetemples of Egypt have at length answered their appeal, in language more intelligible than they could possibly have anticipated, for a Daniel has been found in judicious and persevering study. After the succession had been so long interrupted, Young and Champollion have put on the linen robe of the hierophant; and the monuments of the Nile, unlike the fearful image of Sais, have allowed themselves to be unveiled by their hands, without any but the most wholesome and consoling results having followed from their labour.

The history of the discovery to which I allude is not perhaps difficult to unravel ; but it is by no means easy to allot to each claimant his share of merit. There certainly were approximating steps in the researches of sagacious antiquaries, before the announcement of a complete system of hiero- glyphic literature flashed upon Europe. It is more than probable that Champollion would not so easily have attained it, had not the way been pioneered before him ; but still, the step which he at once made, from the conjectural course and de- tached applications which others had pursued be- fore him, to a general system, at once applicable to any case ; and yet more, the public interest which his publication drew upon the study, making it pass from the hands of a few profound scholars, into the general literature of the day ; are grounds which he might well advance for being considered the discoverer, or restorer, of hieroglyphic learn- ing.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 63

In the last century, Warburton, and after him, Zoega, had conjectured that the hieroglyphics, in reality represented letters, but neither could pre- tend to have verified the opinion by any practical observation. In fact, it was not even known with accuracy, what the language of ancient Egypt was. Jablonsky had made it extremely probable that it was the same as the Coptic, or modern ecclesi- astical language of the same country ; for he had sufficiently explained from this, the Egyptian names and words which occur in the Old Testa- ment.* But, if any doubt existed regarding this matter, it was completely removed by the learned Quatremere, in his interesting work on the lan- guage and literature of Egypt,f wherein the identity or close affinity, of the ancient and modern languages was amply demonstrated. One great obstacle, therefore, to the decyphering of ancient Egyptian inscriptions was removed, supposing them to be composed of alphabetical characters. It is just, also, to observe, that before the discovery which dimmed the glory he would otherwise have received from his former researches, Champollion was one of the first and most assiduous to gather information from Coptic literature, upon the geo- graphy and history of ancient Egypt. J

* •' Opuscula quibus lingua et antiquitas ^Egyptiorum^ diffi- cilia LL. SS. loca illustrantur." Lugd. Eat. 1804.

f " Recherches sur la langue etla litterature de 1'Egypte." Par. 1808.

f " L'Egypte sous les Pharaons." Par. 1814.

64 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

When the language is known, or may be proba- bly conjectured, in which inscriptions are written, there are certain rules whereby they may be re- duced to intelligible characters. The great diffi- culty is to know where to begin, for the first step must be conjectural. Thus it was, for instance, with the arrow, or nail, or wedge-headed inscriptions of Persepolis, which had perplexed the learned world since they were first made known by Niebuhr, till they were almost simultaneously decyphered by Saint-Martin, in Paris, and Grotefend, at Vienna. The process followed by the former was exceedingly simple and obvious. The language, he supposed, would be Persian, and the ancient dialect is sufficiently known in the modern and in the Zend, to give him some lever wherewith to commence his work. He selected an inscription, from its form and position manifestly historical ; and assuming, that in any such, if in honour of a Persian monarch, the title of "King of Kings" would be found, he turned his attention to two words or groups of letters placed together, exactly similar, except that the termination of one was sufficiently varied, to give ground for supposing that it was the plural of the other. Having by this means acquired the power of the letters which composed these two words, he applied them to a proper name, which nearly resembled them, and thus was in possession of the name of Xerxes, which does, in reality, bear an affinity in sound to

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 65

the old Persian title of King.* The ground-work was thus laid, and by applying the letters gradu- ally discovered, to other words wherein they oc- curred in conjunction with others unknown, these in their turn yielded to his investigation, and placed him in possession of his alphabet.

The process pursued in the examination and discovery of hieroglyphics was precisely similar. The difficulty, as I before hinted, was where to begin ; but fortunately a plausible conjecture, which as in the other instance, proved well grounded, gave a firm foundation to the entire system of discovery. You cannot have failed to observe, how, on all Egyptian monuments, certain groups of hieroglyphics are enclosed in an oblong frame, or parallelogram, with rounded corners. It had long been conjectured, with great appear- ance of plausibility, that these distinguished hiero- glyphics expressed proper names ; and nothing was wanting to begin the work upon them ; for proper names could never be well expressed in any language by emblems, but must be somehow composed of phonetic, or sound expressing charac- ters. This is the case even in Chinese ; where the language is ideographic, or representative of objects or ideas, yet is reduced to the necessity of adopting a different system for words which represent neither, but only an artificial combina-

* Journal Asiatique. Tom. ii. 1833, pp. 75-79. VOL. II. F

66 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

tion of sounds, denoting a person or place. If, therefore, it could be once possible to know a single name contained in one of these squares, the decomposition of it into its primary elements, or letters, would give the nucleus of an alphabet, which might be easily extended.

All this reasoning is extremely simple, and though, in detailing it, I am rather giving you a retrospective view of acts and their consequences, than a line of argument, distinctly and system- atically planned beforehand, it may serve to show you by what consistent and well-warranted steps, the entire investigation proceeded. These were not, indeed, the work of one man, nor of one country ; and so far from any rivalry or jealousy being felt by learned men on different sides of the Channel, about the apparent appropriation of each other's literary discoveries, I think it should be matter of congratulation, to observe how two nations, after having fought bravely for the time- worn spoils of Egypt, have been led to sit down together in peace and harmony around them, for their illustration ; and if the mutilated fragment of the Rosetta stone has been to us a military tro- phy, it has been to our neighbours the monument of a more glorious conquest over the darkest mys- teries of a hidden art.

This celebrated stone, is, at present, an irre- gular block of basalt, smooth on one side, and may be considered the foundation stone of this important

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 67

study ; as all discoveries in it owe their origin and strength to the first elements of knowledge which it supplied. This almost shapeless mass, which a few years ago would have been thrown aside into the lumber-room of the Museum, is now one of the most valuable monuments of our national collec- tion, and was originally discovered by the French expedition in digging the foundation of a fort near Rosetta. It contains three inscriptions, one in Greek, another in hieroglyphics, and a third in an intermediate alphabet, which in the Greek legend is called enchorial.* It was evident from this, that each inscription contained nearly the same sense, and that each was probably a version of the others. Here there was some hope of a discovery in the unknown, from its being joined, as in equation, with the known. The Greek inscription con- tains proper names, so must the other two ; but in the first instance, probably from considering the task as hopeless, the hieroglyphic inscription hardly obtained attention from the learned, who rather applied themselves to the study of the enchorial, or, as it has since been called, demotic legend. Perhaps I should observe that the lan- guage so called was the vernacular dialect of Egypt, the Coptic, and that the alphabet used in

* This custom of polyglott inscriptions, intended only for one country, which might be frequented by strangers, illustrates and explains the reasons of Pilate's commanding a trilingual inscrip- tion to be placed over our Saviour's cross.

F2

68 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

it is a linear one, formed, however, undoubt- edly, through several gradations, from the hiero- glyphic.

The illustrious Silvestre de Sacy was the first to make any interesting discovery on this subject. He observed that the letters or symbols used to express the proper names, in the demotic character, were grouped together, so as to have the appear- ance of being letters ; and by comparing different words, wherein the same sounds occurred, he found them represented by the same figure ; and thus he extracted from them the rudiments of a demotic alphabet, which was farther illustrated and extended by Akerblad, at Rome, and Dr. Young in England. All these researches and par- tial discoveries occurred as early as 1814, and by no means close the history of the demotic literature of Egypt. Dr. Young, who truly deserves the title of the father of this portion of Egyptian studies, pushed them forward to the almost com- plete formation of the current alphabet, and was aided in his researches, by some most extraordi- nary combinations of circumstances.

Thus, for instance, a copy of a demotic manu- script, brought to Europe by Casati, was placed in his hands by M. Champollion, at Paris, in 1822, because it seemed to bear considerable resemblance to the preamble of the Rosetta stone. Champol- lion had already decyphered the names of the witnesses who signed it, for it seemed to be a deed.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 69

It so happened that after Dr. Young's return to England, Mr. Grey placed at his disposal a Greek papyrus, which he had purchased at Thebes, toge^ ther with others in Egyptian characters. The very same day, he proceeded to explore this trea- sure, and to use the Doctor's own expression, he could scarcely believe that he was awake and in his sober senses, when he discovered it to be no- thing less than a translation of the very manuscript which he had procured at Paris ; and it actually bore the title of " a copy of an Egyptian writing." " I could not, therefore, but conclude," he says, " that a most extraordinary chance had brought into my possession a document, which was not very likely, in the first place, even to have existed, still less to have been preserved uninjured for my information, through a period of near two thou- sand years ; but that this very extraordinary translation should have been brought safely to Europe, to England, and to us, at the very moment that it was most desirable to me to possess it, as the illustration of an original which I was then studying, but without any other reasonable hope of being fully able to comprehend it ; this com- bination would, in other times, have been con- sidered as affording ample evidence of my being an Egyptian sorcerer."*

* (< An account of some recent discoveries in hieroglyphical literature." Land. 1823, p. 58. A writer on this subject en-

70 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

But I have pursued farther than was necessary, the history of this secondary branch of Egyptian discovery ; which is interesting from the influence it had on the decyphering of hieroglyphical legends. Here also Dr. Young decidedly took the first step, however imperfect it may be considered. He conjectured that the frames which occurred in the inscription of Rosetta included the name of Pto- lemy, and that another, in which was inscribed a group, with what he considered justly the sign of a feminine, contained that of Berenice. This conjecture was correct, but it must be allowed that the principle on which it was maintained could hardly be called a preliminary step to the discoveries of Champollion. For, as he observes, Dr. Young considered each hieroglyphic to be syl- labic and to represent a consonant with its vowel, a system which would have fallen to the ground, on the very next attempt at verification. For, he read the two names, PTOLEMEAS and BIRENIKEN, and not, as was subsequently proved correct, PTOLMES and BRNEKS.* Dr. young seems, there-

creases the strange combination recorded in the text, still farther, by asserting that both the documents were copies of a bilingual inscription in Drovetti's collection, which Dr. Young, with an illi- berality most unusual in Italy, had not been allowed to copy. See the Marquis Spineto's " Lectures on the elements of hieroglyphics." Land. 1829, p. 68. But of this still more extraordinary coinci- dence not a hint is given by Dr. Young.

* " Precis du Systeme hieroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens," Par. 1824, p, 31.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 71

fore, entitled to little more than the praise of having practically attempted the discovery of a hieroglyphical alphabet; an attempt, which, perhaps spurred Champollion on to his more successful efforts.

If the merit of the very first step has been thus contested, the second has been, no less, an object of rival claims. This was taken as follows. In the island of Philae, situated high up the Nile, an obelisk was found, and thence brought to England, on which were two cartouches, or frames contain- ing hieroglyphics, joined together. One of these presented invariably the group already explained in the Rosetta stone by the name of Ptolemy. The other, evidently contained a name composed, in part, of the same letters, and followed by the sign of the feminine gender. This obelisk had been originally placed on a base bearing a Greek inscription, which contained a petition of the priests of Isis to Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and spoke of a monument to be raised to both.* There was, consequently, every reason to suppose that the obelisk bore these two names conjointly ; and observation proved that the three letters com- mon to both, P, T, and L, were represented in the female name by the same signs as occurred for them

* This inscription was illustrated by Letronne in a learned essay upon it, entitled " Eclaircissements sur une inscription Grecque," &c. Par. 1822. The inscription had been copiecf by the diligent and accurate Cailliaud.

72 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

in the king's. Thus, there could be no reasonable doubt, as to this second name, which put the learned investigators in possession of the other letters which enter into its composition. All this Champollion claimed as exclusively his own.* Mr. Bankes, how- ever, maintains that he had previously decyphered the name of Cleopatra, and endeavours to show that Champollion must have been aware of the dis- covery. For, he says, that he had been led to the observation, that when two figures occur together on any temple, they are so repeated throughout. Now, over the portico at Dios- polis Parva, is a Greek inscription to Cleopatra and Ptolemy, the only instance of the female preceding; and, so through the temple, she is always placed before the effigy of the king. Over the latter is the same hieroglyphical group as Dr. Young had assigned to the name from the Rosetta stone, and therefore Mr. Bankes plausibly conjec- tured, that the legend over the other expressed the name of the queen, Cleopatra. He then ascer- tained that both on the obelisk and on the temple at Philae, which were determined, by Greek in- scriptions, to be dedicated to the same two sove- reigns, similar hieroglyphic groups were found. This led him to the certain conclusion, that as the one designated Ptolemy, so the other must con- tain the name of his consort. As these cir-

* " Lcttrc a M. Dacier." Par. 1822, p. 6.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 73

cumstances were marked by him in pencil on the very engraving of his obelisk which he presented to the Institute, as they alone could have suggested a clue to Champollion's conjectures, and as he re- ferred to this very print, Mr. Bankes and his friends conclude, that this important step in hieroglyphic investigation, should be attributed to him.*

When these first, and more laborious measures had been once taken, the work was comparatively easy, arid Champollion, who at first had imagined that his system could only apply to the reading of Greek or Latin names hieroglyphically expressed, soon found that the older names yielded to the key ; and that the successive dynasties of Pharaohs and of Persian monarchs who had ruled in Egypt, had recorded their names also, with their titles and their exploits, in the same character.f It was after his researches had reached this point, that they could be said to possess a real value for history, and aid us in unravelling the compli- cated difficulties of the early Egyptian annals. But, before proceeding to trace the history of their results, I must pause to explain the system which they introduced.

Many scattered passages exist in ancient writers regarding the hieroglyphical writings of the Egyp-

* Salt, " Essay on Dr. Young's and M. Champollion's phone- tic system of Hieroglyphics." Land. 1825, p. 7, note, f " Precis du Systeme," &c. p. 2.

74 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

tians, but there was one which seemed to treat the subject with peculiar detail. It lay treasured up in that vast repertory of philosophical learn- ing, the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria ; but so encased in impenetrable difficulties, that it may rather be said to have been explained by these modern discoveries, than to have led the way towards them. It has, however, rendered them most essential service, by strongly corroborating what must be considered the essential foundation of their results, the position that alphabetical letters were used by the Egyptians. When this passage was examined, after Champollion's disco- very, it was found to establish this point, which had not been suspected by older investigators, and moreover to explain the various mixture of alphabetical and symbolical writing used in Egypt, in a manner exactly corresponding to what monu- ments exhibit. The result of this passage, as translated, and commented on by Letronne, is, that the Egyptians used three different sorts of writing: the epistolo graphic, or current hand; the hieratic, or the character used by the priests ; and the hieroglyphic, or monumental character. Of the two former we have sufficient examples ; the first being the demotic or enchorial, of which I have already spoken ; the second a species of reduced hieroglyphical character, in which a rude outline represents the figures, and which is found on manuscripts which accompany mummies. The

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 75

third, which is the most important, is composed, according to Clement, first of alphabetical words, and secondly of symbolical expressions, which again are threefold, being either representations of objects, or metaphorical ideas drawn from them, as when courage is represented by a lion, or else merely enigmatical or arbitrary signs.* Now ob- servation has fully confirmed all these particulars ; for even on the Rosetta stone, it was noticed, that when some object was mentioned in the Greek, the hieroglyphics presented a picture of it, as a statue, a temple, or a man. On other occa- sions objects are represented by emblems which must be considered completely arbitrary, as Osiris by a throne and eye, and a son by a bird most re- sembling a goose.

Suffice it to say, that new discoveries have gra- dually enlarged, and perhaps almost completed the Egyptian alphabet till we are in possession of a key to read all proper names, and even, though not with equal certainty, other hieroglyphical texts. To proper names the application is so simple, that you may be said to possess a means of verifying the system, perfectly within reach. For you have only to walk to the Capitol, or the

* " Precis," p. 330. See also the passage in the Marquis de Fortia d'Urban's Essay, " Sur les trois sistemes (sic] d'ecriture des Egiptiens (sic], Par. 1833, p. 10. The passage of Clement occurs in " Stromata," Lib. v. § 9-. p. 245. ed. Potter.

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Vatican, with Champollion's alphabet, and try your skill upon the proper names in any of the Egyptian inscriptions.

The fate of this brilliant discovery was the same as we saw allotted to Geology, and to other sci- ences. Scarcely was it announced to Europe, than timid minds took the alarm, and reprobated it, as tending to lead men to dangerous investiga- tions. It was feared, apparently, that the early Egyp- tian history, thus brought to light, would be em- ployed as that of the Chaldeans and Assyrians had been in the last century, for the purpose of im- pugning the Mosaic annals. Rosellini, who was the first to make the new discovery known in Italy, as he has been the means of bringing it to its perfec- tion, justly observed, that such an outcry has been raised against every important discovery. Those who raise it, he adds, do but little justice to the truth, by being so timid on its account. " This truth is founded on eternal bases, neither can the envy of man disprove it, nor can ages deface it. And if men, eminent for their piety and learning, admit the new system, what has revelation to fear from it?"* In fact, the holy Pontiff who then sat in the Chair of St. Peter, expressed to Champollion his confidence, that his

* In his Italian abridgment of " Champollion's Letters to the Duke de Blacas."

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discovery would render essential service to reli- gion.* In spite of this high sanction, the opposi- tion has since continued, and, I regret to say, with a degree of personal feeling, and a severe ani- mosity, which seem hardly worthy of a just mind employed on literary pursuits.f

Perhaps the best conducted attack on the sys- tem, because, while free from the feelings which I have just blamed, it is united to the desire of substituting something better in its place, is that lately made by the Abbe Count De Robiano, who ingeniously exposes the weak parts of the hiero- glyphical system, especially through the demotic character. He institutes a very patient and suc- cessful analysis of the demotic text on the Rosetta stone, as compared with the Greek, and concludes, with great apparent reason, first, that the one is not a verbal or very close version of the other, and secondly, that nothing has been done, or well can be hoped, towards proving the identity of the Egyptian phrases thus discovered, with corre-

* " Bulletin Universel," 7e sect. torn. iv. p. 6. Par. 1825.

•\ I will not mention the various essays by Riccardi ; but the learned Professor Lanci has been particularly zealous in his resist- ance. " Svanira," he writes, " il tiraore che il nuovo geroglifico sistema possa mai adombrare in alcuna parte, quella storia che sola merita la universale venerazione." " Illustrazione di un Kilanoglifo," in his " Osservazioni sul basso rilievo Fenico-Egizio." Rome, 1825, p. 47. — See Champollion's answer, in the '•' Memorie Romane di Antichita." 1825. Append, p. 10.

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spending Coptic words.* The Abbe is himself of opinion, that the language of Egypt is of Semitic origin ; and, on this hypothesis, he at- tempts to explain one or two inscriptions by the Hebrew language.f This attempt, though inge- nious and learned, does not seem to me successful. However, I do not think it necessary to follow the arguments of this learned ecclesiastic ; be- cause it does not strike me that any theory which he has advanced, at all affects the only part of the system interesting to our present enquiries, its power of decyphering proper names.

One of the first applications made by M. Cham- pollion, of his discovery, was an attempt to re- store the series of Egyptian kings. The table of AbydosJ had given him a list of pronomens, and the examination of monuments exhibited the names of the kings who bore them. These cor- responded pretty accurately with the eighteenth dynasty, contained in the lists of kings quoted from the Egyptian priest, Manetho, by Eusebius, Syncellus, and Africanus ; and by combining the two documents together, he endeavoured to trace the ancient history of Egypt. As the Museum of Turin had supplied him with the greater part of his monuments, he communicated his results

* " Etudes sur 1'ecriture, les hieroglyphics et la langue de 1'Egypte." Paris, 1834, 4to. with atlas of plates, pp. 16-24, &c. t P. 43. j " Precis du Systeme," p. 241.

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in letters upon that magnificent collection, ad- dressed to his great Mecaenas, the Duke of Bla- cas.* His relative, M. Champollion-Figeac, pre- viously known for his learned work on the Lagi- des, added as an appendix to each of these letters, a chronological disquisition, having for its object to reconcile together the discrepancies in the quotations from Manetho given by ancient writers.

It was natural to expect that a comparison between the chronology thus established and that of scripture, would soon be instituted, and in this instance, the task was undertaken by the friends, not as heretofore by the enemies, of revelation. That malignant spirit, which at the last century's close had so often induced able and learned men to direct the whole force of their genius, and many years of deep research, to the overturning of sacred history, had now passed away, or at least altered its form of attack.

The first who appeared in the field was M. Charles Coquerel, a Protestant clergyman at Am- sterdam, who, in a pamphlet of a few pages, in 1825, compared the two chronologies, and pointed out the advantages which one derived from the other.f

I believe I had the satisfaction of being the

* " Lettres a M. le Due de Blacas, relatives au Musee Royal Egyptien de Turin, Premiere Lettre." Paris, 1824. 2de, 1826.

f " Lettre a M. Charles Coquerel sur le Systeme Hieroglyphi- que de M. Champollion considere dans ses rapports avec 1'ecritttre sainte." Par A. L. Coquerel. Amsterd. 1825.

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second in the field. In making out his Egyptian chronology, Champollion-Figeac found it neces- sary, on one occasion, to depart from his usual guides, and adopt the term of years attributed to Horus by only one document, the Armenian trans- lation of Eusebius's chronicle. I was fortunate enough to discover a Syriac fragment in the margin of a Vatican MS. which coincided exactly with this view, and in publishing it, I took occa- sion to sketch out a comparison between the sacred and the Egyptian chronologies.* I was not, however, able to see Coquerel's pamphlet till several years later.

In 1829, a learned and diligent investigation of this subject was published by M. Greppo, Vicar- General of the diocese of Belley, entitled fe Essai sur le Systeme hieroglyphique de M. Champollion le Jeune, et sur les avantages qu'il offre a la cri- tique sacree." After a clear and popular expo- sition of Champollion's system, and a few remarks on some philological connexions which it seems to have with early Hebrew literature, the author proceeds to a minute analysis of the biblical and Egyptian chronology, endeavouring to discover in the latter each of the Pharaohs mentioned in Scripture.

The same year, another work upon the same subject appeared in France, entitled, " Des Dy-

* " Horse Syriacse," torn. i. Rome, 1828. Particula iv. p. 263.

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nasties Egyptiennes," by M. Bovet, formerly Archbishop of Toulouse. The parallel into which he enters of the two chronologies, is much more minute than Greppo's, but on some points, as in the attempt to find the Hyk-Shos, or shepherd kings in the Jews, he does not seem to me so judicious. He appears to have imbibed much of the opinion introduced before the revolution, by Boulanger and Guerin de Rocher, that a great part of all ancient annals only contains the history of the Jewish people. All these authors have undertaken the same task of demonstrating what beautiful confirmation sacred history and chronology have received from the latest discoveries in hierogly- phical and Egyptian learning.

But, in the mean time, great and important ad- vances have been made in the history of the Egyptian dynasties, by persons labouring in that country. Messrs. Burton and Wilkinson, the latter of whom only returned within a few months, remained several years in Egypt, copying, print- ing, and illustrating its ancient monuments. Bur- ton's " Excerpta Hieroglyphica," was lithographed at Cairo ; Wilkinson's " Materia Hieroglyphica, containing the Egyptian Pantheon, and the suc- cession of the Pharaohs," was published at Malta in 1828 ; and by reason of their appearing in such remote places, I believe both works have been comparatively little known. Burton's book is valuable for our studies merely from the accuracy VOL. n. a

82 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

of its drawings/' especially of the table of Abydos. Wilkinson's contains many interesting discoveries applicable to the illustration of Scripture, and I shall refer to it more than once.

Every preceding work, however, has been eclipsed by the splendid and accurate publication now in the press at Pisa, under the direction of Prof. Rosellini. He was the companion of Cham- pollion in the literary expedition sent, at joint expense, by the French and Tuscan governments. Champollion's death threw the entire task of pub- lication upon Rosellini, who is acquitting himself of it in a manner that leaves nothing to regret. The monuments of the kings are already publish- ed, and two volumes of text contain their illus- tration from historians and other monuments.

Before showing you by examples, the advantage derived by sacred chronology, and the authenticity of Holy Writ,' from this modern study, I must lay before you a highly interesting document connected with our inquiry. The chronological part of the letters to the Due de Blacas was en- tirely executed by Champollion-Figeac, as I before observed ; but the author of the great discovery, though well known to be perfectly sound in his principles, never published any thing tending to prove the conformity of his chronology with that of Scripture. But I have the pleasure of laying before you an original letter from him in my possession, wherein he not only indignantly

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repels the imputation that his studies tend even slightly to impugn scripture history, but endea- vours to show how exactly the two histories give and obtain mutual support. This interesting do- cument I will read you in the original. It is dated Paris, May 23, 1827.

" J'aurai 1'honneur de vous adresser sous peu de jours une brochure, contenant le resume de mes decouvertes historiques et chronologiques. C'est 1'indication sommaire des dates certaines, que portent tous les monuments existants en Egypte, et sur lesquels doit desormais se fonder la veri- table chronologic Egyptienne.

" MM. De San Quintino et Lanci trouveront la une reponse peremptoirea leurs calomnies,puisque j'y demontre qu'aucun monument Egyptien n'est reellement anterieur a 1'an 2,200 avant notre ere. C'est certainement une tres haute antiquite, mais elle n'offre rien de contraire aux traditions sacrees ; et j'ose dire meme qu'elle les confirme sur tous les points : c'est en effet en adoptant la chrono- logic et la succession des rois donnees par les monuments Egyptiens, que 1'histoire Egyptienne concorde admirablement avec les livres saints. Ainsi par example : Abraham arriva en Egypte vers 1900, — c'est-a-dire, sous les Rois Pasteur s. Des rois de race Egyptienne n'auraient point permis a un etranger d'entrer dans leur pays, — c'est egalement sous un roi pasteur que Joseph est ministre en Egypte, et y etablit ses freres, — ce

G 2

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qui n'eut pu avoir lieu sous des rois de race Egyptienne. Le chef de la dynastie des Diospo- litains, dite la XVIIP, est le rex novus qui igno- rdbat Joseph de 1'Ecriture sainte, lequel etant de race Egyptienne, ne devait point connaitre Joseph, ministre des rois usurpateurs ; c'est celui qui reduit les Hebreux en esclavage. La captivite dura autant que la XVIIP dynastie ; et ce fut sous Ramses V, dit Amenophis, au commencement du X Ve siecle, que Moyse delivra les Hebreux. Ceci se passait dans 1'adolescence de Sesostris, qui suc- ceda immediatement a son pere, et fit ses con- quetes en Asie pendant que Moyse et Israel erraient pendant quarante ans dans le desert. C'est pour cela que les livres saints ne doivent point parler de ce grand conquerant. Tous les autres rois d'Egypte nommes dans la Bible, se retrouvent sur les monuments Egyptiens, dans le meme ordre de succession, et aux epoques pre- cises, ou les livres saints les placent. J'ajouterai meme que la Bible en ecrit mieux les veritables noms, que ne 1'ont fait les historiens Grecs. Je serais curieux de savoir ce qu' auront a repondre ceux qui ont malicieusement avance que les etudes Egyptiennes tendent a alterer le croyance dans les documents historiques fournis par les livres de Moyse. L'application de ma decouverte vient, au contraire, invinciblement a leur appui.

" Je compose dans ce moment-ci le texte expli- catif des Obelisques de Rome, que Sa Saintete a

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daigne faire graver a ses frais. C'est un vrai service qu'Elle rend a la science, et je serais heu- reux que vous voulussiez bien mettre a ses pieds 1'hommage de ma reconnaissance profonde."

But it is high time to lay before you the results of these combined labours ; and always anxious to select them from the latest and best writers, I will run through the connexions between sacred and Egyptian history as given in the different parts of Rosellini's work, to show you what new lights and striking confirmation the former has received from these researches, and how groundless were the alarms of their early antagonists. In the first place I must observe that Rosellini takes the Scripture chronology as a necessary basis to all his calculations ; so far that he is willing to reject every part of the early history of Egypt which cannot enter within the limits prescribed by Ge- nesis.*

The first point in Scripture on which the la- bours of Rosellini throw new light, is the origin and signification of the title of Pharaoh ; though on this point he may be said to have received a hint from our learned countrymen, Wilkinson and Major Felix. By several analogies between the Hebrew and Egyptian letters, he shows the title to be identical with that of Phra or Phre, the sun, which is prefixed to the names of the kings upon

* " I Monument! dell' Egitto e della Nubia." Vol. i. p. 1 1 1.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

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their monuments.* Coming down to a later period, we have an extraordinary coincidence be- tween the facts related in the history of Joseph, and the state of Egypt at the period when he and his family entered it. We are told in the book of Genesis, that Joseph, upon presenting his father and brethren to Pharaoh, was careful to tell him that they were shepherds, and that their trade had been to feed cattle, and that they had brought their flocks and herds with them.f But in his in- structions to them there seems to be an extraordi- nary contradiction : — " When Pharaoh shall call on you and say ' What is your occupation/ ye shall say, ' Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle, from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers' ; that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomina- tion unto the Egyptians." J Now, why make it such a point to tell Pharoah that his family were all shepherds, because all shepherds were an abomina- tion to the Egyptians ? This contradiction is re- moved by the circumstance, that when Joseph was in Egypt, the greater part of its kingdom was un- der the dominion of the Hyk-Shos, or shepherd kings, a foreign race, probably of Scythian origin, who had seized upon the kingdom. Thus we have it, at once, explained how strangers, of whom the

* P. 117. f Gen. xlvi. 33, 34. xlvii. 1. | ]b. xlvi. 34, cf. xlvii. 6, 11.

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Egyptians were so jealous, should be admitted into power ; how the king should be even glad of new settlers, occupying considerable tracts of his territory ; and how the circumstance of their being shepherds, though odious to the conquered people, would endear them to a sovereign whose family followed the same occupation. These Hyk-Shos are supposed by Champollion to be represented by the figures painted on the soles of Egyptian slip- pers, in token of contempt.* By this state of Egypt we can also more easily explain the measures pursued by Joseph during the famine, to bring all the land and persons of the Egyptians into a feu- dal dependance upon their sovereign.f And before leaving this period, I may observe that the name given to Joseph of " Saviour of the world," has been well explained by Rosellini from the Egyptian language.

After the death of Joseph, the Scripture tells us that a king arose who knew not Joseph. This strong expression could hardly be applied to any lineal successor of a monarch who had re- ceived such signal benefits from him. It would lead us rather to suppose that a new dynasty, hos- tile to the preceding, had obtained possession of the throne. " The Scripture," says James of Edessa, " does not mean one particular Pharaoh,

* Champollion, Lettre i. pp. 57, 58. f Rosellini, ib. p. 1 80.

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when it says a new king, but all the dynasty of that generation."*

Now, this is exactly the case. For, a few years later the Hyk-Shos, or Shepherd Kings, who cor- respond to the 17th Egyptian dynasty, were expelled from Egypt by Amosis, called on mo- numents Amenophtiph, the founder of the 18th or Diospolitan dynasty. He would naturally re- fuse to recognize the services of Joseph, and would consider all his family as necessarily his enemies ; and thus, too, we understand his fears lest they should join the enemies of Egypt, if any war fell out with them.f For the Hyk-Shos, after their expulsion, continued long to harass the Egyptians, by attempts to recover their lost do- minion. J Oppression was, of course, the means employed to weaken first, and then extinguish, the Hebrew population. The children of Israel were employed in building up the cities of Egypt. It has been observed, by Champollion, that many of the edifices erected by the 18th dynasty are upon the ruins of older buildings, which had been manifestly destroyed. § This circumstance, with the absence of older monuments in the parts .of

* Cod. Vat. Syr. 104. fol. 44.

f /Exod. i. 10. Also Maretho, ap. " Joseph. Cont. Appion." Lib. i.

% Resell, p. 291.

§ Champollion, 2de Lett. pp. 7, 10, 17.

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Egypt occupied by the Hyk-Shos, confirms the testimony of historians, that these usurpers de- stroyed the monuments of native princes ; and thus was an opportunity given to the restorers of a native sovereignty to employ those whom they considered their enemies' allies, in repairing their injuries. To this period belong the magnificent edifices of Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet-Abu. At the same time, we have the express testimony of Diodorus Siculus, that it was the boast of the Egyptian kings, that no Egyptian had put his hand to the work, but that foreigners had been compelled to do it.*

It was under a king of this dynasty, according to Rosellini, of Ramses, that the Children of Israel went out from Egypt. The Scripture narrative describes this event as connected with the de- struction of a Pharoah, and so the chronological calculation adopted by Rosellini, would make it

* 14 Tom. ii. p. 445. ed Havercamp.

* Lib. i. p. 66, Ed. Wesseling. I omit noticing the opinion, formerly held by Josephus, and others, (ubi. stip.} repeated by many modern writers, as Marsham (Canon JEgypt. Lips. 1676, pp. 90, 106) and Rosenmiiller, (Scholia in Vet. Test Pa. i. vol. ii. p. 8, ed. tert.) and upheld even since the discovery of the hiero- glyphical alphabet by a few, as Bovet and Wilkinson : (Materia Hierogliphica, Malta, 1828, part ii. p. 80) that the shepherd kings were no other than the Children of Israel. This opinion appears now quite untenable, and not likely to find many supporters. The Hyk-Shos, as represented on monuments, have the features, colour, and other distinctives of the Scythian tribes.

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coincide with the last year of that monarch's reign.*

At this point we are met with a serious diffi- culty. Ancient historians speak of Sesostris as of a mighty conqueror, who, issuing from Egypt, and passing along the coast of Palestine, subjected innumerable nations to his sceptre. The Scrip- ture never once alludes to this great invasion, which must have passed over the country inhabited by the Israelites. And this silence has been charged against sacred history, as involving a serious omission, ruinous to its authenticity. For a long time it was supposed, that the Sethos yEgyptus of Manetho was identical with the Sesos- tris of Herodotus. Even Champollion, from a want of sufficient monuments, had fallen into an error on this point, and subsequently changed his opinion. Rosellini has taken great pains to prove that the two were distinct, and by this discovery, entirely removes all difficulty. For he shows that the great conqueror, Ramses Sethos ^Egyptus, a totally different person from Ramses Sesostris, or the Sesoosis of Herodotus and Diodorus, was the sovereign who conducted that mighty expedition,

* As the Scripture speaks, with the exception of one poetical passage, of the destruction of Pharaoh's host, rather than of the monarch's, some writers, as Wilkinson (p. 4, Remarks, at the end of Materio Hieroglyph.) and Greppo, to whom I cannot now re- fer, maintain, that we need not necessarily suppose the death of a king to coincide with the exit from Egypt. In Rosellini's scheme this departure from the received interpretation is not wanted.

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and founded the 19th Egyptian dynasty. As the Israelites had left Egypt shortly before the con- clusion of the 18th, it follows that the exploits of this conqueror, and his passage through Palestine, happened exactly during their forty years' wander- ing through the wilderness, and could have no influence on the state of that people, and conse- quently needed not to be recorded in their na- tional annals.*

Connected with this application, is a curious and interesting monument, which has for some time formed the topic of discussion among our Roman antiquaries, and deserves a passing notice. Herodotus mentions that the great conqueror Sesostris marked the route which he took by a series of monuments, some of which he himself saw in Palestine, while others existed in lonia.f Maundrell was the first to notice " some strange figures of men, carved in the natural rock, in mezzo relievo, and in bigness equal to life," on the mountain, which overhangs the ford across the river Lycus, or the Nahr-el-Kelb, not far from Beirut.

Champollion, in his " Precis," noticed this mo- nument as Egyptian, and as appertaining to Ramses or Sesostris. It appears that his informa- tion came from a sketch made of it by Mr. Bankes; but an earlier one, by Mr. Wyse, had led Sir W.

* Resell, p. 305. f Lib. ii. c. 105.

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Gell to the same discovery of the hero whom it represents. Mr. Levinge, at Sir William's request, examined the monument, and pronounced that the hieroglyphical legend was quite defaced.* Mr. Lajard published a farther notice, from a sketch by MM. Guys, but turned his attention chiefly to the Persian monuments which are on the same rock. Later, he collected all the information he could from M. Callier, who had not, however, any drawings to illustrate his description/)" Mr. Bonomi at length fully investigated this interest- ing matter, and his observations, with the draw- ings that accompany them, both published by Mr. Land seer, leave little more to be desired.

It appears, then, that on the side of the road, which passes along the side of a mountain skirted by the Lycus, are ten ancient monuments. Two of these are comparatively of small interest, being a Latin and an Arabic inscription, regarding some repairs done to the road. Of the others, Mr. Bonomi speaks as follows : — " The most ancient, but, unfortunately, the most corroded, of the an- tiquities, are three Egyptian tablets. On these may be traced, in more places than one, the name, expressed in hieroglyphics, of Ramses the Second; to the period of whose reign, any connoisseur in

* " Bulletino dell' Institute di Correspondenza Archeologica,1 Gennaro, 1834. No. I. b. p. 30. No. VI. Luglio, p. 155. f Ibid, and " Builetino," No. III. a.Marzo. 1825. p. 23.

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Egyptian art would have attributed them, even if the evidence of the name had been wanting, from the beautiful proportions of the tablets, and their curvetto mouldings. "* I will content myself with mentioning, that beside this is a Persian ri- lievo, representing a king, with astronomical em- blems, and covered with an arrow-headed inscrip- tion. Of this precious monument a cast was made, with great difficulty, by Mr. Bonomi.f Mr. Landseer supposes it to represent Salmanasor, or some other early Assyrian invader. J The Chev. Bunsen, without having inspected the cast or drawing, conjectures, with great appearance of reason, that its hero is Cambyses.§

But to return to our Egyptians; — Champollion, and after him Wilkinson, considered the Sesostris of history to be identical with Ramses II. to whom Bonomi attributes the hieroglyphical legend on the Syriac monument ;|| but, probably, he added the number to his name only on account of that received idea. Champollion changed his opinion, I believe, before his death, and was followed, as

* " Landseer's Sabean Researches continued/' Lond. 1835, p. 5. See the drawing prefixed to his essay.

f The original cast is at present in possession of my friend, W. Scoles, Esq.

{ Ib.p. 14.

§ " Bulletino," No. [II. a. 1835, p. 21.

|| " Lettres ecrites d'Egypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829." Par. 1833, pp. 362, 438. Wilkinson's " Topography of Thebes," Lond. 1835, p. 51 ; also " Materia Hieroglyph."

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you have seen, by Rosellini. But M. Bunsen, who has long been occupying himself with an at- tempt to unravel the complications of Egyptian chronology, has observed, that Ramses III. is undoubtedly the Sesostris of the Greeks : and that there is a mistake of three or four centuries in the date assigned by Champollion to the com- mencement of his reign.*

Proceeding downwards in order of time, Rosel- lini, with all other chronologists, places the 5th year of Rehoboam, when Shishak overran the kingdom of Judah, and conquered Jerusalem, in the year 971 B.c.f Now, in Egyptian monuments, we find that Sheshonk began his reign with the 21st dynasty, precisely at the same period. J

Rosellini has published many monuments of Shishak, one of which particularly affords the strongest confirmation of sacred by profane his- tory, hitherto any where discovered. But this morning I am treating only of pure chronology, and must, therefore, reserve this interesting monu- ment for our next meeting, when we shall discuss archeology.

The Zarach of the Second book of Chronicles, (xiv. 9-15) has been supposed by Greppo and

* " Bulletino," ib. p. 23. f 3 or 1 Kings, xiv. 25.

| Resell, p. 83. See also Champollion 2de Lett. p. 120, 164. Also his Letter to Mr. G. A. Brown, in " Les principanx monu- mens Egyptiens du Musee Britannique, par le T. H. Charles Yorke, et M. le Col. M. Leake," Lond. 1827, p. 23.

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others to be the Osorchon of monuments. Rosel- lini, however, rejects this opinion, though, I con- fess, I do not think his reasons very satisfactory : they consist in the slight difference of the name, and in his being called an Ethiopian, a circumstance which rather confirms the coincidence, for the dynasty to which he belonged was the Bubastian, considered by Champollion, Ethiopian.*

Rosellini, however, has added new monuments to those already furnished by Champollion, as commemorating two other kings mentioned later in sacred history: — Sua, the Sevechus of the Greeks, and the Shabak of monuments, commemorated in the palaces of Luxor and Karnak, and by a statue in the Villa Albani ; and Teraha, comme- morated at Medinet-Abu, under the name of Tahrak.f

To conclude these chronological details, one of the most striking confirmations of Scriptural accuracy yet remains. In Ezechiel xxix. 30-32, and Jerem. xliv. 30, we have a donation made by God, of Pharaoh and his land to Nabuchodo- nosor, and " there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." Yet we find mention made of Amasis by Herodotus and Diodorus, as king of Egypt, after that period.

How are these two facts to be reconciled ? By his monuments, first published by Mr. Wilkinson.

* Ubi sup. p. 122. | Pp. 107, 109. Wilkinson, pp. 98, 99.

96 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

Upon them Amasis never receives the Egyptian titles of royalty, but, instead a of pronomen, has the Semitic title ofMelek, showing that he reigned on behalf of a foreign lord.* Two circumstances put this, I may say, beyond a doubt. 1st. Diodo- rus tells us that Amasis was of low birth, conse- quently, he did not inherit the kingdom. 2dly. A son of Amasis seems to have governed Egypt under Darius, for he bears the same title. Now, certainly, under the Persian conquest there was no native king, for monuments bear the names of the Persian monarchs. The title Melek will thus be proved to denote vice-regal authority ; which again, is still farther confirmed by a monument published by Rosellini, who does not seem to have observed Wilkinson's remark. This is an inscrip- tion at Kosseir, belonging to the times of the Persian domination, recording " the Melek of Upper and Lower Egypt."f Thus is a serious difficulty removed ; Amasis was not a king, but only a viceroy.

But it is time to turn to another application of Egyptian researches ; to the illustration of its astronomical representations. The attention to Egyptian monuments and literature, in modern times, has been indeed fertile in objections to sacred history, which, like every other study, it has overthrown in its advance. The controversy

* " Materia Hierogl." p. 100, 101. f P- 243.

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upon the zodiacs of Dendera, the ancient Tentyris, and Esneh, or Latopolis, is a remarkable proof of this assertion.

The expedition into Egypt under Napoleon, which shed as much lustre on the literary ardour of France, as it cast shadow upon her martial prowess, first made us acquainted with these curious monu- ments. At Dendera were found two ; one was an oblong painting, formed by two parallel but sepa- rated bands, enclosed within two monstrous female figures. Upon these bands, in an inner sub-division, were disposed the zodiacal signs, with numerous mythological representations ; on the outside were a series of boats, representing the decans of each sign. This zodiac was painted in the portico of a temple, where, like alt the others, it occupied the ceiling. The second zodiac, or rather planisphere, is circular, and has been trans- ported to France, from an upper chamber of the same temple, by MM. Saulnier and Lelorrain. Esneh contributed also two zodiacs, one from the greater, the second from the smaller of its temples. These two, with the rectangular zodiac of Dendera, can alone claim particular attention ; the circular planisphere must follow the fate of the zodiac painted in the same temple.

No sooner were representations of these monu- ments published, than Europe, and particularly France, teemed with memoirs and dissertations, discussing their antiquity. It was in general

98 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

taken for granted, that they represented the state of the heavens at the period when they were pro- jected, and when the edifices, which they adorned, were erected. Some discovered in them the point in which the solstitial colures cut the ecliptic at that time, and, with Burckhardt, attributed to the great zodiac of Esneh the frightful antiquity of 7000, to that of Dendera of 4000 years; while Dupuis, upon the same premises, stinted the latter to 3562.* Others assumed that they represented the state of the heavens at the commencement of a Sothic period ; and, like Sir W. Drummond, assigned to that of Dendera 1322,f to that of the great temple of Esneh 2800, years before our era.J A third class, in fine, saw in them the heliacal rising of Sirius, at some given period, and concluded, with Fourier, that the zodiacs of Esneh were construct- ed 2500, that of Dendera 2000 years, before Christ,§ or with Nouet, that the latter was traced 2500, the greater of the former 4600 years ante- rior to that era. || I need not weary you farther, by enumerating such systems as these. The same basis led different speculators to opposite conclu- sions ; and error thus betrayed itself by the cha- racteristic variety of its hues.

* See Cuvier, ubi sup. p. 251.

f " Memoir on the antiquity of the Zodiacs of Esneh and Dendera," Lond. 1821, p. 141, vid. p. 7. % Ib. p. 59.

§ See Guigniaut, p. 9 19. J[ Volney's " Recherches nouvelles," 3e partie, Par. 1814, p. 336.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 99

Early in the contest, there was a class of inves- tigators who ventured to suggest, that the alarm- ing antiquity thus conceded to these curious monuments should be examined, not upon astro- nomical, but on archaeological principles. The venerable and learned Monsignor Testa, and the celebrated antiquary Visconti, were among the number. * The latter remarked, in particular, that the temple of Dendera, though of Egyptian architecture, bore characteristic marks which could not be more ancient than the Ptolemies, and that Greek inscriptions upon it referred to a Caesar, who, he thought, must be Augustus or Tiberius. This reasoning, however, was over- looked for twenty years, and astronomical illustra- tions were alone admitted. Mr. Bankes, during his visit to Egypt, paid considerable attention to this interesting investigation ; and in a letter to Mr. David Baillie, communicated his grounds for believing these temples to be of no greater anti- quity than the reigns of Adrian and Antoninus Pius.f He remarked, that while the capitals of the most ancient columns of Thebes are a simple bell, and placed on polygonal or fluted shafts, those of Esneh and Dendera are laboriously rich with foliage and fruit. More than this, the hiero-

* " Testa sopra due zodiac! novellamente scoperti nell' Egitto." Rome, 1802. Visconti in Larcher's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 567. seqq.

•f- Sir W. Drummond's Memoir, p. 56.

H 2

100 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

glyphics upon the columns are not certainly Egyptian, for Mr. Bankes found an inscription, stating that they were traced in the reign of An- toninus.*

The archaeological arguments, however, for the modern construction of these monuments, received their full development from the hand of M. Letronne. This learned scholar collected all ne- cessary information from the publications and reports of travellers, regarding their architecture, and illustrated the inscriptions still existing upon them. MM. Huyot and Grau furnished him with interesting particulars on the former subject. Among other facts they proved, from its style, and from the colours employed, that the Pronaon of the small temple of Esneh, in which the zodiac is painted, is of the same date with the temple itself. Now, an inscription, probably the same alluded to by Mr. Bankes, was copied by these artists from a column of the latter, in which it is stated that two Egyptians caused the paintings to be executed in the tenth year of Antoninus— the 147th after Christ.f Such, then, is the date of the small zodiac of Esneh, to which an age had been assigned of from two to three thousand years anterior to Christ. The temple of Dendera has

* Ib. p. 57. This, I suppose, is meant of the temple at the north of Esneh, known by the name of the small temple.

f " Recherches pour servir a 1'histoire de 1'Egypte pendant la domination des Grecs et des Remains." Paris, 1823, p. 456.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 101

shared the same fate. A Greek inscription on its portico, which had been overlooked, declares it to be dedicated to the safety of Tiberius.*

While Letronne was thus occupied in examin- ing the Greek inscriptions on these supposed ves- tiges of hoary antiquity, M. Champollion was maturing his alphabet of hieroglyphics, and soon confirmed, by his researches, the conclusion of his friend. On the pronaon of the temple of Dendera, he also read the hieroglyphical legend of Tiberius.f On the circular planisphere of the same temple, he decyphered the letters AOTKRTR; or, supply- ing the vowels, AYTOKPATQP, the title which Nero takes upon his Egyptian medals. J Only the zodiac of the great temple of Esneh remains, and M. Champollion has disposed of its antiquity, together with the temple on which it is painted, in an equally unceremonious manner. When at Naples, in August 1826, Sir William Gell com- municated to him accurate drawings of the Esneh zodiac, taken by Messrs. Wilkinson and Cooper ; and he discovered that this monument was dedi- cated, not as the astronomers would have conjec- tured, under the reign of some rough-named Egyp-, tian Pharaoh, but under the Roman Emperor

* Ib. p. 180.

f Lettre a M. Letronne, at the end of Observations, &c. as below, p. 111.

J Lettre a M. Dacicr, p. 25, Letronne, p. xxxviii.

102 LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

Commodus.* The sculptures of this temple he had before demonstrated to have been executed in the reign of Claudius, f

It was with justice, then, that the Minister of the Interior, the Viscount de la Rochefaucauld, in a letter addressed to the king of France, dated May 15th, 1826, attributed to M. Champollion, the merit of having decided the controversy, in the opinion of every unprejudiced person.

" The public suffrage," says he, " of the most distinguished learned men in Europe has conse- crated results, the application of which has al- ready been very useful to the truth of history — and the assurance of sound literary doctrines. For your Majesty has not forgot that the disco- veries of M. Champollion have demonstrated, with- out opposition, that the Zodiac of Dendera, which appeared to alarm public belief, is only a work of the Roman epoch in Egypt."

It was not, however, to be expected, that the resistance of adversaries would be fully over- come by these vigorous attacks. Too much learning had been expended in the support of ela- borate theories, too much confidence had been exhibited in asserting favourite systems, for their authors to yield them up without a pang, and in some instances without a struggle.

" Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem."J

* Bulletin Universe!, ut sup. to vi. f Letronne.

Catul. Car.lxxvi. 13.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 103

The temples, it might be granted, were indeed, proved to be modern, and consequently the zodi- acs which they bear ; but the latter must have been copied from others of an ancient date. " Thus, the original scheme of the round zodiac of Dendera must have been formed at least seven centuries before our era." Such was the defence raised by the late Sir William Drummond, in his last work,* and when he penned it, he cannot have been acquainted with the learned disserta- tion, published a few months before, in which Letronne gave the finishing stroke to this and every other defence of the absurd antiquity of the zodiacs.f

The enterprising traveller, Cailliaud, on his return from Egypt, brought, among other rari- ties, a mummy discovered at Thebes, and distin- guished by several peculiarities. The two most important were, a Greek legend much defaced, and a zodiac, very exactly resembling that of Dendera. J In the dissertation to which I have alluded, M. Letronne undertakes the illustration of thesa two points, and their application to the zodiacal representations in the Egyptian temples.

* " Origines; or Remarks on the origin of several Empires," vol. ii. p. 227. Lond. 1825.

f " Observations critiques et archeologiques sur 1'objet des Re- presentations Zodiacales/'Pam, Mars. 1824. Sir W. Drummond's dedication is dated Sept. 17, 1824.

t " Voyage a Mcroc, an Fleuve Blanc, &c." Par. 1823. fol. vol. ii. pi. Ixxi.

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The inscription he restores with a felicity that must satisfy the most supercilious critic, and dis- covers the mummy to be that of Petemenon, son of Soter and Cleopatra, who died at the age of twenty-one years, four months, and twenty-two days, in the nineteenth year of Trajan, the 8th Payni, or June 2, A.D. 116.*

The zodiac on the interior of the case, 1 have already said, resembles that of Dendera. Like it, protected by a disproportioned female figure, whose arms are extended, it exhibits the zodiacal signs in two parallel bands ascending and de- scending precisely in the same order, and in a similar style of design. Even the cow reposing in a boat, and emblematic of Isis or of Sirius, is not wanting. The identity, therefore, of the two representations, may be said to be fully established. But there is one peculiarity in the miniature re- presentation. The sign of Capricorn is withdrawn from the series, and placed over the head of the figure, in an isolated situation, where it appears to dominate.f

The very existence of a zodiac upon the case of a mummy must suggest the idea that it has a reference to the embalmed ; in other words, that it is astrological and not astronomical. In this case, the detached sign may be supposed to repre- sent that under which the individual was born,

* Page 30.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 105

and which consequently was to rule his fate through life. This hypothesis is easily verified. We have the exact age of Petemenon, with the date of his death. Calculating from these, we find that he was born on January 12, A.D. 95. On that day the sun is situated at nearly two thirds of Capricorn. If instead of the sign we prefer the constellation, the conclusion will be the same ; for, calculating from Delambre's table, according to the annual precession, we find that at the period in question, the whole constellation was comprised in the sign, and that on the 12th of January the sun was about the 16th degree of the former.*

We can therefore entertain no doubt that the zodiac expresses a natal theme ; and analogy would lead us to the same conclusion regarding that of Dendera, even if the appearance of the decans, recognized by Visconti and demonstrated by Champollion, who has read beside them the names given them in Julius Firmicus, did not already authorise us to consider it astrological.

M. Letronne, however, does not content him- self with this general conclusion, but enters into an elaborate examination of the astrology of the ancients. This, originally the offspring of Egypt, passed into Greece and Rome, and returned to its mother country, ennobled and consecrated, by

* Pages 53, 54.

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the patronage of the Caesars.* Precisely at the moment when the celebrated zodiacs were sketch- ed, this science, if it may bear that name, had attained its zenith, and culminated over its native soil. Manilius, in the reign of Augustus, Vettius Valens in that of M. Aurelius, wrote their trea- tises concerning it ; but the numerous astrologi- cal medals of Egypt, under Trajan, Adrian, and Antoninus, demonstrate its prevalence in that country .f This was likewise the age of astrolo- gical sects, of Gnostics, Ophites, and Basilidians, whose Abraxas, exhibiting various astrological combinations, had been gravely taken by some of the illustrators of the zodiacs, for monuments of 3863 years before the Christian era.J This con- centration of evidence, the modern and nearly con- temporary dates of all the zodiacs, the decided astrological character of one, the Decans upon another, and above all, the prevalence of astrolo- gical ideas at the only time when any zodiac ex- isting in Egypt was made, leaves no room to doubt that all such representations are purely remnants of the occult science, and only exhibit genethliacal themes.§

What a waste of talents, of time, and of learn- ing, has not truth to deplore, in retracing the history of this memorable controversy ! Over

* Pages 58-86. f Ib. 86-92.

\ Ib. 70. § Ib. 105-108.

LECTURE THE EIGHTH. 107

what a glittering heap of ruined systems has not error to mourn — systems where all was brilliant, all was imposing, all was confident, but where all was, at the same time, hollow and brittle, and un- sound. We have, indeed, many cases where a sportive or malicious fraud has deluded the inge- nuity and study of an antiquary, and made him pay, like Scriblerus, to modern rust, the venera- tion and homage reserved to that of antiquity.* But never before did the world see an instance where " a spirit of giddiness" had so completely invaded such a large portion of learned and able men, as that they should ascribe countless ages to monuments comparatively modern, undeterred by the fall of system after system, —

" And still engage

Within the same arena where they see Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree."

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. 94.

Never, in fact, did error bear more completely its hydra form. Each head was cut off the moment it appeared, but a new one rose instantly at its side, equally bold, and equally " speaking great things." For more than twenty years, this galling warfare continued ; but, as prejudice was gra- dually exhausted, and true science gained strength, the vital powers of the monster became less vigo- rous, and the wounds which it received more

* See DTsraeli's " Curiosities of Literature," 2d series, 2d ed. Lond. 1824. vol. iii. p. 49, seqq. But many other curious ex- amples might be added to those cited by D'Israeli.

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fatal. Its last gasp has long since died away ; the last flap of its mortal struggles has ceased ; and only existing among the records of history, it can now present no more terrors to the most simple and timid, than the " gaunt anatomy/' or well preserved coils of some desert monster, in the cabinet of the curious.

Still, it is a pleasure to see the catalogue of great names who did not bend their knee to this favourite idol, and it is only justice to record them. A writer in an English journal, long after the last researches which I have detailed, had the boldness to assert, that " on the Continent," — and he is speaking of France in particular — " the an- tiquity of the zodiacs of Dendera hasbeen considered as quite sufficiently established to prove that the Egyptians were a learned and scientific people, long before the date which our belief affixes to the crea- tion of man;" while in England, not only was this de- nied, but the contrary demonstrated,ybr the first time, by Mr. Bentley !* By a logical process, unfor- tunately too common in the pages of that journal, the writer finds the cause of this phenomena in the religions of the countries. " The baneful influence of Popery," he says, induces the philoso- phical enquirer "to reject all revelation as no better than priestcraft," while " in our own free country, the encouragement given to a full and free ex-

* " British Critic/' April 1826, p. 137, cf. 149.

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animation of the evidence of Christianity, has taught acute reasoners to know its strength."* All this was written two years after the last work of Letronne had closed the lists in France on the subject of the zodiacs. But if the critic had been less borne away by the desire of tilting against Catholicity, even where his challenge was with infidelity — the common adversary — he surely would have recollected the names, not only of Le- tronne and Champollion, but of Lalande, Visconti, Paravey, Delambre, Testa, Biot, Saint-Martin, Halma, and Cuvier, every one of whom had as- signed a modern epoch to these monuments. And where not numbers, but astronomical science is required, such names as those of Lalande, De- lambre, and Biot, may surely weigh in the balance against many others, and redeem the French savans from the sweeping imputation so injuri- ously cast upon them.

* P. 136, seq.

LECTURE THE NINTH.

ARCHEOLOGY.

INTRODUCTORY remarks. — MEDALS : Reconciliation of an apparent contradiction between Genesis and the Acts. — Frohlich's application of medals to the defence of the chronology of the Maccabees. — Alexander called the first king among the Greeks : Death of Antiochus Evergetes. Acknowledgments of his opponents ; accordance of Eckhel. M. Tochon d'Annecy's objections. — Apamean medals ; history of them ; comparison with other monu- ments.— INSCRIPTIONS. Verbal illustrations of Scrip- ture from them. — Gibbon and Dodwell's assertions re- garding the small number of Christian martyrs, and Burnet's objections, answered by Visconti, from inscrip- tions.— MONUMENTS. Use of wine in Egypt denied, and the Scripture consequently assailed. — Confutation of this cavil from Egyptian monuments. — -Costaz, Jo- mard, Champollion, and Rosellini. — Curious vase found in the Roman Campagna, referable to the deluge. — Conquest of Juda by Shishak, represented at Karnak. — Concluding remarks.

LECTURE THE NINTH.

OUR last enquiries have gradually led us amongst the monuments of antiquity ; and, from the ex- amination of such great chronological points as touched on the authenticity of sacred history, we found ourselves almost imperceptibly brought to the discussion of individual monuments of kings, and of their people. It might, therefore, be said, that the study on which we have now to enter, has been already introduced ; or, at least, that the connexion between what has been said, and what will follow, is so close and natural, as hardly to warrant a separation into two distinct pursuits. But, in all the histories hitherto examined, we have had one specific object in view, the recon- ciliation of their early monuments with sacred chronology, and the process we have pursued has been consequently uniform and simple. We have followed the actual progress of science ; and, com- paring its results with our sacred records, have in- variably discovered that it removed all difficulties, and gave us a variety of new and interesting chro- nological coincidences.

There are, however, a multitude of monuments bearing upon the Christian evidences which could not enter into this class, and which, if introduced

VOL. II. I

114 LECTURE THE NINTH.

under the same science, would have disturbed our process, and broken the unity of our design. These, therefore, I will throw together into a distinct class, under the name of archaeology. Obviously, its character will hardly allow us to pursue so uniform and progressive a method as in our last researches ; for, like the objects which it discusses, it is necessarily of a fragmentary nature. It owns not the unities of time, place, or action ; it professes to deal with the remains of every age, and of every country, composed of every sort of materials, and shaped in every pos- sible form. Thus, as it turns its attention from Greece to Italy, from Sicily to Egypt, as it decy- phers an inscription, discusses a medal, fixes the locality of an edifice, or judges of its age, it must vary its rules, its methods, and its direction. Hence, as a science it cannot be said to have one definite onward movement, tending to the de- velopment of any general conclusion. Our course must be of a similar nature ; we will here pick up a medal ; there will pore over an inscription ; we will content ourselves with such monuments as chance shall throw in our way, and carefully store up in our cabinet such illustrations or confirma- tions, however slight, as they may seem to afford to our sacred convictions.

To these remarks I must further add, that here I can only pretend to glean what others have left behind. Of the species of confirmatory evidences

LECTURE THE NINTH. 115

which these lectures pursue, none has been oftener or more fully handled than the illustrations from such antiquarian remains. Every elementary in- troduction to Scripture dedicates a chapter to this subject ; though, in some instances, as in the monument of the Assyrian captivity given by Home from Kerr Porter, the examples are far from certain ; in others, as in the Apemean medal, by no means accurate. Now, I have pledged myself to bring forward no examples already given in works upon the evidences, and therefore I must be content with such as the industry of others may have overlooked.

I cannot avoid mentioning, in this place, a work which has taken one class of monuments out of our hands, those that relate to the history of Christianity. I mean Walsh's " Essay on ancient coins, medals, and gems, as illustrating the pro- gress of Christianity in the early ages."* It is a work, however, which must disappoint expecta- tion. Most of its materials are but of a secondary interest ; a great portion of the volume is taken up with an account of the Gnostics, and their doc- trines, and makes but a sorry figure beside the profound researches of such continental writers as Neander and Hahn. The second part of the work gives a series of medals, illustrative of the imperial history from Dioclesiari to John Zemis-

* London 1828.

12

116 LECTURE THE NINTH.

cus in 969, and so far is interesting; but it contains many inaccuracies, and gives the author oppor- tunities of displaying an ill-timed illiberality.

With these disadvantages, we will enter upon our researches among the medals, inscriptions, and monuments of antiquity.

I. There is an apparent contradiction between the narratives in Gen. xxxiii. 19, and in Acts vii. 16, relating to the purchase of a field by Jacob from the Hemorites. For, St. Stephen, in the latter pas- sage, tells us that the price was paid in a sum of money, n^g apyup'ou, whereas the original text of Genesis says that it was paid by a hundred lambs, or sheep. At least, the Hebrew word there used, fTO'tPp (Kesita), is so rendered by every ancient version. Hence, the English version, which ren- ders it by pieces of money, has added in the mar- gin, as nearer the original, the other interpretation. Supposing this rendering of the ancient versions to be correct, and there must have been some rea- son for their all giving that meaning to the word, there was a very simple method of reconciling the two passages, by considering the same term to have expressed both objects; in other words, by conjecturing that the ancient Phenician coin bore upon it the figure of a lamb, for which it was an equivalent, and that, from this emblem, it also derived its name. For, nothing is more common than such a substitution. Among our ancestors, the angel and cross, so often alluded to in Shake-

LECTURE THE NINTH. 117

speare, received their names from the representa- tion they bore ; and, among the Romans, the very name of money, pecunia, is allowed to be derived from the exactly similar case of a sheep be- ing stamped upon it. Any apparent difficulty would thus be satisfactorily removed, by a highly probable conjecture. But the publication of a medal, found by Dr. Clarke near Citium in Cyprus, has given us all the evidence we might desire. The late learned Dr. Munter, presented a disser- tation on this subject to the Royal Danish Academy, inserted in their Acts for 1822.* In it he observes, that the coin, which is of silver, is undoubtedly Phenician, as it bears upon the reverse a legend in Phenician characters. On the obverse is the figure of a sheep ; and no doubt can be entertain- ed of its extreme antiquity. Here, then, he con- cludes, it is extremely probable, that we have the very coin alluded to in Scripture; at least, we now know for certain that the Phenicians had a coin with a symbol corresponding to the meaning of the word Kesita ; and the element alone wanting to make the conjectural reconciliation morally cer- tain, now exists.f

* Philosophical and Historical Class.

f On the reverse, with the legend, is a crown of pearls. One would be tempted to suspect, that such a circumstance may account for the strange translation of the two Targums of Onkelos and Jeru- salem, which both render JlD^p HKD a hundred Kesitas by JlKD a hundred pearls.

118 LECTURE THE NINTH.

A most complete and valuable application of numismatics, to the vindication of sacred chron- ology, has been made in reference to the latest historical works of the Jews, the two books of Maccabees. No books of Scripture had been subjected to a stricter examination than these, be- cause they entered among the topics of religious dispute, after the Reformation. The Catholic, who believes them to form part of the canonical Scriptures, feels necessarily a livelier interest con- cerning them ; but to all Christians they must ap- pear of immense value, from forming the last and only historical link in the connexion between the old and new dispensations, and the only record of the fulfilment of those promises, which foretold the restoration and continuation of the Jewish sceptre till the Messiah should come. Great difficulties, however, existed regarding the dates assigned by them to events related no less in classical history, and the manner in which they recounted them. By some strange inconsistency, it has almost always happened, that when the evi- dence of any sacred book is compared with that of a profane author, it is taken for granted that the former must be in error, if both do not agree. This we have seen to be the case, in treating of Indian and Egyptian antiquities. Where they did not harmonize with Scripture chronology, this was pronounced in fault; though, critically speak- ing, it must be allowed at least an equal weight

LECTURE THE NINTH. 119

with them. Now, precisely the same course was pursued here. Discrepancies were undoubtedly found to exist between the dates assigned to events in these and in other authors later in time, and more distant in country from the scene of those actions ; and, of course, the sacred book was con- demned as inaccurate. Erasmus Frohlich, in the preface to his " Annals of the Kings and Events of Syria," a numismatic work of great authority and research, has undertaken the task of compar- ing the chronology of these books, not with the vague testimony of other historians, often differ- ing among themselves, but with the contempo- rary and incontestable evidence of medals. And the result has been, a table confirming, in every respect, the order and epochs of events recorded in the inspired history.*

You will easily suppose, that the objections were not given up without a struggle. The first edition of Frohlich's work appeared in 1744, and two years later, Ernest Fred. Wernsdorff appeared in the field against him.f His efforts were not considered satisfactory by his party, and his bro- ther, Gottlieb, came to his assistance in the fol-

* " Annales compendiarii Regum et Rerum Syriae." Ed. sec, Vien. 1754. The second part of his Prolegomena is entirely taken up with the vindication of these books.

f " De foritibus Historije Syriae in Libris Maccabseorum pro- lusio." Lips. 1746.

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lowing year.* Both were fully answered by an anonymous work in 1749 ;f and, in spite of the virulence exhibited by the two brothers, I think, whoever reads the controversy, will be satisfied that the victory was not with them. However, in giving two or three examples of Frohlich's illus- trations, I will select such as the Wernsdorffs themselves acknowledge to be satisfactory.

In the first book of Maccabees, vi. 2, Alexander the Great is introduced with this description, —

og eflaaiXtvGS TT/OWTOC iv rote eXXrjGi — who jlTSt WCLS

king among the Greeks. This, it has been al- leged, is false ; inasmuch as Alexander had several predecessors in Macedon, who certainly were kings, and reigned among the Greeks. It may be answered, indeed, that he was the first among them who founded an empire bearing their name; but the solution given by Frohlich is far more sa- tisfactory. For it is extraordinary, that whatever may have been the power of other monarchs be- fore him, not one ever took the title of Ba<nA£vc, or king, upon his coins before him. " Certainly," says Frohlich, " it is not without importance, that no medal of undoubted genuineness of sove-

* " Gottlieb Wernsdorffii Commentatio historico-critica de fide historica librorum Maccabaicorum." Wratislau. 1747.

f " Auctoritas utriusque libri Maccab. canonico-historica adserta.... a quodam Soc. Jesu sacerdote, Curante Casparo Schmidt bibliopego." Vien. 1749.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 121

reigns in Macedon, anterior to Alexander, should bear the title of king. They have barely the names of the monarchs, as Amyntas, Archelaus, Perdicas, Philip ; and some coins have simply Alexander, but many more, King Alexander."* Gottlieb Wernsdorff acknowledges that this solu- tion is correct. — " This," he says, " is right, I could hardly suppose that any doubt could exist on this point. For Jewish historians, under the name of Greeks, (rwv EAXrjvwv) always understand the Macedonians, and by kingdom,the Macedonian empire, or more peculiarly that of the Seleucidae." He, however, charges Frohlich with a double fraud; first, in attributing to Philip Aridseus a medal of Philip Amyntor, given by Spanheim, on which the title of king occurs ; secondly, in overlooking a medal of Argaeus. — " Dicitur quoque extare numus Argsei, regis antiquissimi cum epigraphe 'Ap-yaou |3aeriX£wc."t To these objections the anony- mous defender of Frohlich replies — that the sup- posed Amyntor of Spanheim is manifestly, from the style of art, a coin of a Gallo-Grecian king ; and that the Argseus of Tollius, no one had fever seen, or could pretend to trace. He assures us

* " Sane non de nihilo est, veterum qui ante Alexandrum fuissent Macedonia regum certa numisraata fiaffiXews titulum non prae se ferre: sola coraparent regum nomine : a^wra vel a^wrov, ap^eXaoVf trepdtKKov, fyiXunrov, et quaedam numismata a\e£at>3pov legimus, alia plura /3a<n\£(uc aXi^av^poi/." — FROHLICH, p. 31.

f " Commentatio," § xxii. p. 39.

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also, that he and Frohlich had carefully examined every medal in the imperial and other cabinets, and had never found the title upon any prior to Alexander.*

Again, the second book gives us, in the first chapter, a letter from the Jews of Palestine to their brethren in Egypt, dated in the year of the Seleucidae 188, and containing a detailed narrative of the death of king Antiochus in Persia. What Antiochus, it has been asked, could this be? In- dependently of chronological objections, it could not certainly be Antiochus Soter, who died at Antioch; not his successor, Antiochus Theus, who was poisoned by Laodice; nor Antiochus Magnus, who was friendly to the Jews. Of Antiochus Epiphanes's end, we have quite a different account in the very same book. (ix. 5.) Antiochus Eupa- tor, his successor, after a reign of two years, was killed by Demetrius, and the infant of the same royal name, who was proclaimed king by Tryphon, was soon poisoned by him as well. No other sovereign of this name remains, but Antiochus Sidetes, called also Evergetes, whose reign alone coincides with the time of the letter. But a difficulty, apparently as serious as any of the preceding, seemed to exclude him. For, this monarch commenced his reign in 174, and Por- phyrius and Eusebius agree in assigning less than nine years as the term of its duration.

* Oper. cit. p. 170.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 123

He must, therefore, have died in war, accord- ing to them, about the year 182. How, then, could the Jews, in 188, give an account of his death as of a recent event ? Could we imagine, for instance, the members of any religious com- munity now-a-days, writing a common letter to their brethren in a very near country, to convey the intelligence that the sovereign who oppressed them was dead, full six years after that event? This concurring testimony of two historians was considered decisive against the Jewish historian, and Prideaux unhesitatingly adopted it as correct.* Now, Frohlich has proved beyond a doubt, that they must be wrong. First, he produced two me- dals bearing the name of Antiochus, with dates, one of 183, the other 184 ; consequently later by two years than the time which those historians assign to his death. One is as follows : —

BAICAEQC. ANTtoXou TYP: IEP: ACY. AHP. Of Iting Antiochus ; of Tyre, the sacred Asylum

The controversy upon these medals has been carried down into our own times. Ernest Werns- dorff acknowledges the genuineness of the medal, and allows that it satisfactorily proves Antiochus Sidetes to have lived beyond the period assigned

* " Old and New Testaments connected," Chronolog. table at the end of vol, iv. ed 1749.

f P. 24. See the medals in his plate xi. Nos. 27, 29.

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to him by profane history ; and even seems to add his own testimony to that of Frohlich. For he thus expresses himself: — " Quamquam igitur quod ad numismata et annos iisdem inscriptos attinet facile assentior; eidem cum ipsi mini, beneficio consultissimi viri complures ab Antiocho procusos numos oculis usurpare manibusque tractare conti- gerit."* His auxiliary, however, was more un- yielding, for he suggests that the legend has been misread, and that, probably, a slight alteration in a letter has changed the number 181 into 184.f But if even we allow all that has been written against these two medals to be valid, there are others, produced subsequently to the animadver- sions of the two brothers, which seem to place the matter out of doubt. For Frohlich afterwards published a medal of the same king, with the date of 185 ;J and Eckhel added a fourth, struck in 186.§

This point of sacred chronology was re-examined a few years ago by M. Tochon d'Annecy,[| who

* " De fontibus historise Syriae," P. xiii.

-}- " Commode legi posset AIIP 181, cum elementum A et A adeo similibus lineis exaretur, ac numus ipse mutilus sit, ut ne nomen quidem Antiochi distincte exhibeat." — Ubi sup. sec. xlii. p. 79. cf. the reply, p. 288.

J " Ad numismata regum veterum anecdota et rariora accessio nova/' p. 69.

§ " Sylloge Numorum veterum," p. 8. " Doctrina numorum veterum," torn. iii. p. 236.

|| " Dissertation sur 1'Epoque de la mort d'Antiochus VII. Evergetes, Sidetes." Paris, 1815.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 125

was manifestly guided by no desire to weaken the authority of the books of Maccabees. He proves what every one will allow, that serious difficulties surround every hypothesis, and that the concur- rent testimony of historians should not be lightly rejected. Apparent contradictions, indeed, must meet us in every part of history ; the difficulty is where to lay the blame. The medals struck for the coronation of Louis XIV. give a different day from that which all contemporary historians accord in fixing, for the date of that event. Of them all, one only, D. Ruinart, has noticed a circumstance which reconciles this discrepancy. For, he alone has recorded, that the coronation had been ap- pointed to take place on a certain day, the one given by the medals, which were accordingly prepared, but circumstances caused a delay till the one which historians assign. Nothing can be more simple than all this ; yet, in a thousand years, had no such explanation been given, anti- quaries might have been sadly perplexed to find a reconciliation. In that case, then, the medals were wrong, and the historians right ; in ours we are equally driven to condemn one class of autho- rities, and I think the critic will hardly hesitate which to prefer. For, in the example given, the medals are inaccurate, from the date once placed on them not having been changed, when the event which they commemorated was deferred ; but here we must suppose the incredible error of sue-

126 LECTURE THE NINTH.

cessive false dates, in consequence of new medals being struck to a monarch who was long before dead.

M. Tochon rejects the two earlier medals, chiefly that of 184, on grounds different from WernsdorfFs, but admitted by Eckhel, that the supposed A. or 4, which is somewhat indistinct, appears to be a B, or 2, of peculiar shape.* But against the two later medals, he urges nothing but plausibilities ; the difficulties which we incur by considering them genuine, to the disparagement of so many historical authorities.f In some re- spects he is hardly just to Frohlich; for he assumes throughout, that the learned Jesuit places the death of the king in 1S8,J and consequently asks, how it happens, that we have medals of his successor, Antiochus Grypus, with the date of 187. § Now Frohlich places the death of Antio- chus Evergetes, in 186. || In this manner, the circumstance of no medal of Antiochus Grypus bearing an older date, forms a negative confirma- tion of his opinion. Thus far, therefore, it should

* " Dissertation," p. 22.

f Page 64.

+ Pages 24-29, &c.

§ " Comment alors supposer, que la mort d'Antiochus Everge- tes puisse etre arrivee 1'an 188 ? Elle serait posterieure au regne de son fils." P. 61.

|| " Anno CLXXXVI. Circa hoc tempus contigisse existimo csedem Antiochi VII. Evergetis." P. 88.

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seem that the application of medals has served to defend the chronology of these sacred records.

I will now call your attention to a class of me- dals, long the subject of serious disputes and endless conjectures, and allusive to that great revolution which has already several times occu- pied our notice. After the proofs we have seen of the deluge in the traditions of every country, " from China to Peru," after the visible evidences of its action, which we have discovered, piled up on the mountains and scooped out in the valleys of our globe, it will perhaps appear mere trifling to occupy ourselves about the petty monuments on which any particular nation, much more any city, may have thought proper to inscribe its tra- ditions concerning it. Still must we not neglect small things, on account of greater ; but make all contribute where they can, to the noble and glo- rious cause of religion. It is evident that the ancients had two very different legends of the deluge, one a popular fable adapted to their na- tional mythology, another far more philosophical, derived from the traditions of the east, and con- sequently much more in accordance with the scriptural narration. The former is the deluge of the poets, such as Ovid has described it ; and Millin has observed, that no monument exists whereon it is represented.* The other account

* " Galerie Mythologique." Par. 1811, torn. ii. p. 136.

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of this event is preserved in the writings of Lu- cian and Plutarch. According to this tradition, Deucalion is represented as making an ark or chest, (Xapva/ca) into which he retired, taking with him a couple of every species of animals as well as his wife and children. In this ark they sailed so long as the inundation lasted, and " this," says Lucian at the end of his narrative, " is the his- torical account given by the Greeks concerning Deucalion."* Plutarch adds, that the return of a dove, first gave notice to Deucalion of the waters being dried up.f Now, the medals of which I am going to treat, with another monument which I shall by and by describe, contain the representa- tion of this traditional history.

These imperial bronze medals of the city of Apamea, in Phrygia, bear on one side the head of different emperors, of Severus, Macrinus, and Philip the elder. The reverse is uniform, having the representation drawn on the lithograph placed in your hands, (pi. 1, fig. 1.) It is thus described by Eckhel. " A chest swimming upon the waters, in which a man and woman appear from the breast upwards. Without it, advance with their faces turned from it, a woman robed, and a man in a short garment, holding up their right hands. On the lid of the chest stands a

* " De Dea Syra," vol. ii. p. 661, Ed Bened. Amst. 1687. f " Utrum animalia terrestria aut aquatica magis sint solertia,' Oper. Par. 1572, torn. iii. p. 1783.

o I,

MIB3DAJL

Ton firm r.Tp 3 ."B Q o"fe-pnr

Sir.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 129

bird, and another balanced in air, holds in its claws an olive branch."* The small compass of a medal could hardly give a more expressive repre- sentation of this great event. We have two different scenes, but manifestly the same actors. For, the costume and heads of the persons stand- ing outside, do not allow us to consider them others than the figures in the ark. We have these individuals first floating over the waters in an ark, then standing on dry land in an attitude of admiration,f with the dove bearing the symbol of peace above them.

But the most interesting circumstance yet re- mains. On the front panel of this ark are some letters, and the discussion of their import has been the subject of many learned dissertations. The first who published these medals was Octavius Fal- conieri, in Rome, in 1667. The engraving which he gives of the Paris Severus, has the letters NHTQN ; which he reads in continuation of MAr /zayvTjrwv. J Vaillant pretended to read on it, and on the Chigi medal of Philip, NEQK, for v^Kopuv. The Rev. Mr. Mills gave an essay on this subject, inserted in the fourth volume of the Archseologia, by the Royal Antiquarian Society, in which he maintains all to be spurious which read not thus. Bianchini pub-

* " Doctr na numorum veterum." Vienna, 1793, parti, vol. iii. p. 130.

f Eckhel, ibid p. 136.

% " De nummo Apamensi Deucalionei diluvii typum exhi- bente Dissertatio, ad P. Seguinum." Rome, 1667.

VOL. II. K

130 LECTURE THE NINTH.

lished two copies of this medal, on one of which he reads NQE, and on the other NEQ,* the former of which readings Falconieri also gives upon another medal. Thus we had four versions of this legend, and every new enquiry seemed still more to involve the controversy. The reading NQE appeared too favourable to the object proposed in the first pub- lication of these medals, not to be held in suspi- cion ; and such was the dread of admitting any thing so good to be true, that Mr. Barrington, allowing this to be the correct legend, would not believe it to have any allusion to the scriptural name, but rather supposed it to stand for NftI, we, dual of €yw, and be a compendious representation of Ovid's words ; " Nos duo turba sumus !"f The fact is, that of all these readings not one is correct ; for Eckhel has proved that the medals only bear two letters, Nfl. This he has proved from his own and Frohlich's observation of the Vienna and Florence medals, from Venuti's of that in the Albani cabi- net, and Barthelemy's, of the Paris Severus. Indeed, in some only the N is visible, but at the same time, in most, trace of a third letter is dis- cernible, which has not been purposely erased, but worn out from being the most prominent point in the relief. Eckhel, after examining the different explanations given by others to this

* " La Storia universale provata con monumenti." Rome, 1697, pp. 186, 191.

T Archseologia, vol. iv. p. 315.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 131

legend, rejects them, and concludes, that as the entire scene, represented on the medal, bears manifest reference to the Noachian deluge, so must the inscription on the ark ; and that, con- sequently, it is the name of that patriarch. This he illustrates, from the coins of Magnesia in Ionia, on which is the figure of a ship, bearing the inscription APFft; no doubt for the purpose of clearly specifying the mythological event to which it refers, the expedition of the Argo- nauts.*

But here an obvious difficulty occurs ; what could have induced the Apameans to chuse such an event for their symbol on their coins ? This difficulty, too, is satisfactorily removed. It was customary for cities to take, as their emblems, any remarkable event which was fabled to have happened there. Thus the city of Thermae in Sicily, has Hercules upon its coins, because he is supposed in mythology to have there reposed. Now, this is precisely the case with Apamea ; or, as it anciently was called, Celsene. For the Sibylline books, which, however spurious, are sufficient testimony of the existence of a popular tradition, expressly tell us, that in the neighbour- hood of Celaene stands the mountain Ararat, upon which the ark reposed. This tradition, evidently having no reference to Deucalion's deluge, the

f Page 132.

K 2

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seat of which was Greece, is sufficient to account for the adoption of such a representation upon the Apamean coins. Hence, too, probably arose another ancient name of this city Kt€wroc, the Ark, as Winkelmann has shown, and this name is the very word used by the Septuagint and Jose- phus in describing Noah's ark.*

Here, then, we have an instance of a monu- ment illustrative of Scripture, which owes its cer- tainty and authority to the progress of the very science which first presented it. For we have seen the learned medallist, who may be said to have first reduced the study of coins into a sys- tematic order, and incorporated the whole science into one plan, was also the first to clear away all uncertainty from these interesting documents, and place their meaning above all doubt.

But it might be objected that such a represen- tation of the ark can hardly be considered in accordance with either the sacred or the profane description of the deluge before rehearsed ; inas- much as these suppose not merely Noah and his wife, but all his family, and many animals, to have been shut up in the ark. Such circumstances can hardly be expressed by the representation of a small chest, containing two individuals. To remove this difficulty, I would propose a com-

* See Winkelmann's " Monumenti antichi inediti." Rome, 1767, torn. ii. p. 258. Eckhel. ib. pp. 132, 139.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 133

parison between the early Christian monuments and the representation on the medals, for in the former, no one can doubt that the Scripture narra- tive was kept in view. In them the ark is always represented as a square chest, floating upon a stream of water. In it is seen only the figure of the patriarch from the waist upwards ; and above, the dove bearing the olive-branch towards him. Such is the representation on four marble sar- cophagi given by Aringhi,* and in the paint- ing of the second chamber in the cemetery of Callistus.f An exactly similar representation is given from a metal lamina by the senator Buona- rotti,J and illustrated by Ciampini.§ Some of these paintings seem to show the cover of the chest raised open above the head of the patriarch, as in the Apamean medals. || Again, as in these, the figure of Noah is sometimes seen out of the ark, standing on dry land, with the symbolic

* " Roma subterranea." Rome, 1651. Tom. i. pp. 325, 331, 333; Tom^ii.p. 143.

f Ib. p. 539. See also pp. 551, 556.

} " Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro. " Tom. i. Fig. 1.

§ " Dissertatio de duobus emblematibus Musaei Card. Carpinei." Rome, 1748, p. 18. Bianchini has also published, from an an- cient glass, a miniature representation of the same scene. ( De- mon stratio historiae ecclesiasticae quadripartitae comprobatae monu- mentis. Rome, 1753, p. 585.) It is marked No. 159, in the last sheet of the second plate, illustrative of the second century.

|| See examples in Aringhi. Tom. ii. pp. 67, 105, 187, 315.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

134 LECTURE THE NINTH.

dove to specify who he is. For, so Boldetti enu- merates, among the common Christian symbols : " Noe dentro e talvolta fuori dell' area, colla co- lomba."* In fine, the dove is sometimes seen perched upon the ark, as on the medal, but then the figure of the patriarch is wanting. Thus it is on the Fogginian gem, described by Mamachi.f To enable you better to make the comparison between the sacred and profane representations, I have had a painting from the cemetery of Callis- tus, drawn beside the Apamean medal, (Fig. 2.) And I think, after seeing the two together, you will conclude, not only, that thereby is removed every difficulty as to whether such an ark as Noah's could ever have been represented as we see it on the medals, but that the resemblance between the two classes of monuments is such as to warrant our considering their subjects identi- cal. Add to this that the difference of age between the two cannot be very great ; and that it is evi- dent the Christians, in these paintings, which are so uniform in different monuments, had a common type, quite distinct from the sacred narrative, for their designs, and that this type was probably borrowed from other traditions.

II. From medals let us turn to inscriptions, a

* " Osservazioni sopra i Cimiterii," &c. Rome, 1720. Lib. i. p. 22. f " Originum et antiquitatum Christianar." Lib. xx. Tom. iii. Rome, 1731, p. 22. Tab. ii. fig. 6.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 135

higher order of monuments, inasmuch as they are generally more detailed in the information they convey. The greatest advantage which has been derived from this class of ancient remains, consists in verbal illustrations of obscure passages in Scripture, which they have often afforded; but were I to enlarge upon this species of philologi- cal confirmation or explanation, which the sacred text has received from them, it is plain that I should lead you into minute detail and learned disqui- sition, hardly suitable to the purport of these lectures. Yet, whatever throws new light upon any passage of scripture, and whatever vindicates its phraseology from any charge of inconsistency or barbarism, tends likewise to encrease our clear apprehension of it, and gives us additional evi- dence of its authenticity. I will therefore content myself with one example, taken from a learned dissertation by Dr. Fred. Munter, entitled, " Spe- cimens of Sacred Observations from Greek Mar- bles ;" inserted a few years ago in the Copenhagen Miscellany.* In Jo. iv. 46, mention is made of a TIC j3a<riXiKoc, a certain nobleman, or ruler, or cour- tier, for in all these ways it is rendered. The English version has the first, with the other two in the margin, and of this interpretation a modern

* " Symbolae ad interpretationem N. T. ex marmoribus, numis, lapidibusque cselatis, maxime Greeds." In the "Miscellanea Hafnensia theologici et philologici argument!." Tom i. fascic. i. Copenhag. 1816.

136 LECTURE THE NINTH.

commentator observes, that it " conveys the notion of hereditary rank, and certain dignities, to which there was nothing in Palestine, or even in Syria, that corresponded."* Some have thought it meant one of the royal blood, another a royal soldier ; others have considered it a proper name. The most probable explanation of the word seemed that of Krebs, that it signified a minister or ser- vant of the king's, f The examples he brought from authors, did not satisfy many commentators. A new one produced by Miinter, from an inscrip-

* Campbell, iu loc,

f " Observations Flavians/' p. 144. Six of Griesbacb's codi- ces read, flatnXlcrKos, and it is evident that tbe translator of the vulgate read it so ; for that version has " quidam regulus" or as we have rendered it, " a certain ruler." Schleusner supposes this reading to have arisen from the vulgate, but the contrary is much more probable. It may not be out of place to remark in this note, that although the vulgate has rendered the word by a diminutive, in Hellenistic Greek it has by no means that signification. This appears from an inscription of Silco, king of Nubia, first published from a less perfect copy of M. Gau, by Niebuhr, in his " Inscrip- liones Nubienses." Rome, 1820; and again, from one of M. Cail- laud, by Letronne, in the " Journal des Savans" Feb. 1825, pp. 98, 99. This king begins the magnificent recital of his victories by Eyw 2t\Kw ftaffiXiffKOQ TWV Nov/5a&uv *cu oXwv ruv AtOioTrwr. Even if the judicious axiom of M. Salverte, in his " Essai sur les noms propres ;" " Jamais peuple ne s'est donne a lui-meme un nom peu honorable," did not apply to monarchs, in the proclama- tion of their titles, the words in the tenth and eleventh lines would leave no doubt of the true meaning. For he there says ; ore eye-yore ^r\v fiaaCkiaMQ, " I was not behind other princes, but I have been superior to them." M. Letronne illustrates many phrases of this inscription from the Greek of the Septuagint and New Testament.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 137

tion on Memnon's statue, written in the same Greek dialect, the Hellenistic, as the New Testa- ment, puts this translation on a more secure footing. For in it mention is made of A/orcpSwpoe TlroXt/jLaiov jSao-iAiKoc, Artemidorus, the courtier, or servant of Ptolemy. For the addition of the king's name will admit of no other translation.*

To come now to instances of more general im- portance and interest, and from words to things, I will give you an example of the services which inscriptions may render to the great evidences of Christianity. Whoever has but superficially studied these, is aware of the importance of the argument drawn from the alacrity with which the early Christians encountered death, in defence of their religion. From the visions of the Revelations, to the great ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, the Church annals present us a cloud of witnesses, a host of martyrs, who returned love for love, and life for life, sealing their confession with their blood, and setting at nought the malice and cruelty of relentless persecutors. And in this firmness of conviction, this steadfastness of faith, this boldness of profession, and this enthusiasm of love, we have surely proof of the powerful might with which a thousand evidences, now read, but then seen and felt, laid hold of their minds ; and in the strength which supported them through

* " Miscellanea/' p. 18.

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every cruel trial, we have a demonstration of a strong inward principle counteracting in them the feebleness of our nature ; and in the nothingness of every effort to overcome them, or utterly de- stroy them, we have evidence of a protecting arm, of the secure promise of One who could bring to nought every weapon forged against his work. Who, then, can be surprised at the ingenuity with which every discredit has been thrown upon that interesting fact of ecclesiastical history, and that Gibbon should have employed all the mere- tricious brilliancy of his own style, and borrowed all the learning of his predecessors, to prove that Christianity had but few martyrs, and that these suffered death rather from their own imprudence, than from any malice or hatred to Christianity in their enemies ; that they were driven to the scaf- fold by an ambitious or restless spirit, rather than by any hallowing and inspired motive. — " Their persons," he concludes, " were esteemed holy, their decisions were admitted with deference, and they too often abused by their spiritual pride, and licentious manners, the predominance which their zeal and interpidity had acquired. Distinctions like these, whilst they display their exalted merit, betray the inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who died, for the profession of Christianity."* The learned Dodwell, in his

* " Decline and Fall/' ch. xvi.

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dissertations on St. Cyprian, had prepared the way for this attack upon the historical evidences of Christianity, by maintaining that the number of martyrs was but inconsiderable, and that, after the reign of Domitian, the Church enjoyed perfect tranquillity.* Doubtless Ansaldi and others have well performed the task of confuting these asser- tions upon historical grounds ; but monumental inscriptions afford the most direct and satisfactory means of overthrowing them. Visconti has taken the pains to collect, from the voluminous works on Christian antiquity, such inscriptions as show the number of those who shed their blood for Christ.f

The cruelty of the heathen persecutions, even under emperors of mild principles and gentle rule, is sufficiently attested by a pathetic inscription given by Aringhi, from the cemetery of Callistus. f( Alexander is not dead, but liveth above the stars, and his body rests in this tomb. He finished his life under the emperor Antoninus, who, when he saw that much favour was due, instead of kindness returned him hatred. For, when bending his knee about to sacrifice to the true God, he was dragged off to punishment. Oh unhappy times ! wherein amidst our sacred rites and prayers we cannot be safe, even in caverns ! What is more miserable

* " Dissertationes Cyprianicae." Dissert, xi. p. 57, ad calc. Cypr. Opp. Oxon. 1682.

f In the " Memorie Romane di Antichita," torn. i. Rome, 1825.

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than life ? But on the other hand, what more miserable than death ? for we cannot be even buried by our friends and families."* This pathetic lamentation will explain the difficulties which the Christians must have experienced in recording the names of their martyrs, and why they were so often obliged to content themselves with giving their numbers. Thus, we have the following in- scriptions in the catacombs : — f

MARCELLA ET CHRISTI MARTYRES CCCCCL.

(Marcella and 550 martyrs of Christ.)

HlC REQUIESCIT MEDICUS CUM PLURIBUS. (Here rests Medicus with many.)

CL MARTYRES CHRISTI.

(150 Martyrs of Christ.)

These inscriptions clearly prove the cruelty of the persecutions, and the great number of the martyrs.

Having thus seen the custom of commemorating in one short inscription, so many sufferers for the faith of Christ, we are led to the natural conclu-

* " Alexander mortuus non est, sed vivit super astra, et corpus in hoc tumulo quiescit. Vitam explevit cum Antonino Imp. qtii ubimultum benefitii antevenireprevideretpro gratia odium reddit : genua enim flectens, vero Deo sacrificaturus, ad supplicia ducitur O tempora infausta ! quibus inter sacra et vota ne in cavernis qui- dem salvari possimus ! Quid miserius vita ? sed quid miserius in morte, cum ab amicis et parentibus sepeliri nequeant !" — Aringhi, " Roma Subterranea," torn. ii. p. 685.

f Visconti,pp. 112, 113.

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sion, that when a simple number is found in- scribed upon a stone, it may refer to the same cir- cumstance. This, the antiquarian to whom I have referred, seems satisfactorily to have proved ; for it had often been supposed that such numerals re- ferred to some series, in which the inscriptions had been arranged. But, not to say that any such series, or any approximation to it, cannot be dis- covered, these cyphers are sometimes inscribed in a manner which could hardly have been adopted, were they simple progressive numbers. For instance, they are sometimes surrounded by a wreath, sup- ported by doves : in one place, the word TRIGINTA, thirty, is written at full, with the monogram of Christ's name before and after, which excludes all idea of its being merely a reference to a progres- sive series : in another, the number xv is followed by IN Pace, in peace. The conjecture that such simple inscriptions record the death of as many martyrs as the numbers signify, passes into abso- lute certainty, when confirmed by a passage in Prudentius, writing on the catacombs while the traditions regarding them were yet fresh: — " There are many marbles," he tells us, " closing tombs, which only indicate a number ; you thus know how many bodies lie piled together ; but you read not their names. I remember I learnt there, that the remains of sixty bodies were buried under one heap."

142 LECTURE THE NINTH.

" Sunt et multa tamen tacitas claudentia tumbas Marmora quae solum significant numerum.

Quanta virum jaceant congestis corpora acervis Scire licet, quorum nomina nulla legas.

Sexaginta illic defossa mole sub una

Reliquias memini me didicisse hominum."*

These verses leave us nothing to desire ; they put us in possession of a great many inscriptions, which, while they only record numbers, prove most suffi- ciently that they were truly many, who, in those first ages, bore testimony to the Lord Jesus.

But a new antiquarian difficulty here meets us. For Burnet has asserted, that no monument has been found whereby it can be proved that the Chris- tians possessed the catacombs before the fourth cen- tury .f General negative assertions are always easy to make, and, doubtless, hard to prove ; but on the other hand, they are the easiest to confute, for one instance to the contrary will suffice. So it is here. One only of the numeral inscriptions al- ready explained will demonstrate all that we want. It runs thus : —

N. XXX- SURRA- ET SENEO COSS-

(30. In the consulate of Surra and Senecio.)

Now, Surra and Senecio were consuls in the year of Christ 107, the very era of Trajan's perse- cution. But there is another most valuable in- scription given by Marangoni, which places this question out of doubt. It is that of Gaudentius,

* " Carmina." Rome, 1788, torn. ii. p. 1164, Carm. xi. f " Some Letters from Italy." Land. 1724, p. 224.

LECTURE THE NINTH. 143

an architect, whom this learned antiquarian believes to have been the director in building the Colos- seum. The inscription in the catacombs tells us that he suffered death under Vespasian. Nor can it be supposed that it was erected later to his honour. For it is distinguished by a particular sort of ac- cents, or apices, over some syllables, which the learned Marini has shown to have been in use only from Augustus to Trajan.* Consequently, the inscription must have been engraved before this emperor's reign.

These inscriptions are a strong additional evi- dence what numbers must have laid down their lives for the faith, and have thus conduced towards confuting a powerful objection against one of the most interesting and beautiful confirmations of Christianity.

III. Although medals and inscriptions may just- ly be considered monuments, yet I have reserved this term rather for the class of more completely commemorative symbols, which, by representations speaking to the eye, preserve the remembrance of great events, or of the practices and customs of ancient times. The value of such monuments must be very great; for they are the deliberate committal of the fame of generations to those that follow them ; — the representatives and substitutes of nations, who, knowing themselves to be perish-

* " Atti del Fratelli Arvali," p. 760.

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able and mortal, have erected them, fashioning them as best they could, to their own image and likeness, — have clothed them with that grandeur and splendour which might best symbolize their own estate, — have written on them all the thoughts of pride which influenced their ewn hearts, — have embodied in them all the vastness of their ambi- tion, and the immeasurableness of their wishes, and have breathed into them a soul of silent re- collections, an appealing power, which fastens on the sympathies, and speaks to the heart of living generations, as though they communed with the concentrated energy of the whole extinguished race. And alas ! too well have they made them in general typical of themselves : epigraphs, like their history, an enigma for the scholar to pore over ; ground- plans, like their constitutions, a ruinous labyrinth for the antiquarian to restore; sculptured images, like their national character, time-worn and fea- tureless, for the poet to muse on ; mighty fabrics, like the mighty men who raised them, disjointed, mouldered, scattered into dust, whereon the philo- sopher may meditate, and whereby human pride may be humbled. But a far sweeter lesson will they speak to us, if man's design, or providence's guidance, shall have somewhere caused them to bear any slight uneffaced memorial of things sacred to us, though worthless to those who noted them, if, as among the sculptured images on Titus's triumphal arch, the emperors who erected them,

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and who ride thereon in triumph, shall have been mutilated, disfigured, and almost blotted from the very record of their greatness ; but the golden candlestick of the temple, the lamp of holy evi- dence, shall remain upon them, — a trophy then of war, now of propjiecy, — a token to them of victory, and to us of unconquerable strength.

In the last century, the books of Moses were often attacked on account of grapes and vine- yards being mentioned in them,* and perhaps wine,f as used in Egypt. J For Herodotus ex- pressly tells us, that in Egypt there were no vine- yards^ and Plutarch assures us, that the natives of that country abhored wine, as being the blood of those who had rebelled against the gods.|| So conclusive did these authorities appear, that the contrary statements of Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, and Athenaeus, were considered by the learned author of the " Commentaries on the laws of Moses," as quite overbalanced by the testimony of Herodotus alone.^f Hence, he concluded, that wine was ordered in the Jewish sacrifices, express- ly to break through any Egyptian prejudice re- garding it, and detach the chosen people still

* Gen. xl. 9, xliii. 13. f Num. xx. 5.

j See Bullet, " Reponses critiques," Besangon, 1819, torn. iii. p. 142. Duclot's " Bible vengee," Brescia, 1821, torn ii. p. 244. § Lib. ii. cap. Ixxvii. || " De Iside et Osiride," § 6. f Vol. iii. pp. 121. seqq. English trans.

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more from their overweaning affection for that country, and its institutions. In this opinion he has been followed by many able men. Dr. Prichard mentions oblations of \vine among those rites, which stand either " in near relation or contradic- tion to the laws of Egypt ;"* and as it cannot certainly enter into the first of these classes, I presume we must consider him of the same opinion as Michaelis. So long as the authority of Hero- dotus was thus held superior to the concurrent testimonies of other writers, the reply to the ob- jection was necessarily feeble. Accordingly, we find the authors who undertook this reply, either having recourse to conjecture, from the impro- bability of such a statement, or else supposing a chronological difference of circumstances, and a change of customs between the ages of Moses and Herodotus.

But Egyptian monuments have brought the question to issue, and have, of course, decided in favour of the Jewish legislator. In the great description of Egypt, published by the French government after the expedition into that country, M. Costaz describes the minute representation of the vintage in all its parts, as painted in the hypogeae, or subterraneans of Eilithyia, from the dressing of the vine to the drawing off of its wine ; and he

* " Analysis of Egyptian mythology," p. 422. Guenee, "Let- tres de quelques Juifs." Par. 1821, torn. i. p. 192.

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takes Herodotus severely to task for his denial of the existence of vineyards in Egypt.*

In 1825, this question was mooted once more in the Journal des Debuts, where a critic, review- ing a new edition of Horace, took occasion to ob- serve, that the vinum mareoticum mentioned in the 37th Ode of the first book, could not be an Egyptian wine, but the production of a district in Epirus called Mareotis. This was in the paper of June 26 ; and on the 2d and 6th of the follow- ing month, Malte-Brun examined the question in the same paper, chiefly in reference to the autho- rity of Herodotus ; but his proofs went no farther back than the times of Roman and Grecian domi- nion. M. Jomard, however, took occasion to discuss the point more fully ; and in a literary periodical, better suited than a daily paper to such discussions, pushed his enquiries into the times of the Pharaohs. In addition to the painted repre- sentations already quoted by Costaz, he appeals to the remains of amphorae, or wine vessels, found in the ruins of old Egyptian cities, and as yet en- crusted with the tartar deposited by wine.f But since Champollion's discovery of the hieroglyphic alphabet, the question may be considered as quite decided : as it now appears certain, not only that

* " Description de 1'Egypte, Antiquites Mem." torn. i. Par. 1809, p. 62.

•j- "Bulletin universel," 7e section, torn. 4, p. 78.

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wine was known in Egypt, but that it was used in sacrifices. For, in the paintings of offerings, we have, among other gifts, flasks coloured red up to the neck, which remains white, as if transparent ; and beside them is read in hieroglyphics the word EPII, which, in Coptic, signifies wine.*

Rosellini has given, in the plates of his splendid work, representations of every department of a vintage and wine manufactory. But, before this, he had published at Florence an Egyptian basso- rilievo, from the Grand-Ducal gallery, containing a prayer in hieroglyphics, as he supposes, to the goddess Athyr. She is requested to bestow upon the deceased wine, milk, and other good things. These objects are symbolized by vessels supposed to contain them, with their names written in hiero- glyphics around them. Round the first are the feather, mouth, and square, the phonetic charac- ters of the letters EPIT.f And here I will observe, that the learned Schweighauser, in his observa- tions on Athenaeus, appears to doubt the correct- ness of Casaubon's assertions, that ^TTIC was the Egyptian for wine,J though proved clearly from

* " Lettres a M. le Due de Blacas," 1st Lett. p. 37.

f "Di un basso-rilievo Egiziano della I. e R. Galleria di Firenze," ib. 1826, p. 40. Wilkinson has also read the same word, " Materia hieroglyphica." p. 16, note 5.

{ Athenaeus, " Deipnosoph. Epit." lib. ii. torn. 1. p. 148, ed. Schweighauser, has the word epme in a quotation from Sappho, though, in another passage, (lib. x. torn. 4. p. 55) he reads o\7rtv. The learned critic seems to have proved, that the latter is the cor-

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Eustathius and Lycophron. Had he written after this discovery of the word in hieroglyphics, he would doubtless have altered his opinion. And, on the other hand, I doubt not but Champollion and Roscllini would have confirmed their inter- pretation from those ancient writers, had they been aware of their testimony.

Allow me now to claim your attention to an extremely curious monument, which seems to bear no other explanation but such as we saw given to the Apamean medals ; the considering it as commemorative of the deluge. In the year 1696, in excavating a monument in the neigbourhood of Rome, a workman found an earthen vase, covered with a tile. In removing this the cover fell and broke. The workman then drew out a number of seals and amulets, consisting of closed hands, oxen's heads, and olive berries all rudely worked in stone. Below these he felt something hard and even ; and in his impatience to discover it, broke the vase in two, and not so satisfied, broke it open below : upon which there dropped out a bronze circle, which had fitted exactly into the lower portion of the vase, and a thin plate, which evi-

rect reading. (Animadv, in Athen. Argentor. 1804, torn. v. p. 375.) This discovery, however, of the Egyptian name given to wine by ancient writers, in hieroglyphic charaeters, under the circum- stances noticed in the text, must be considered a strong corrobora- tion of the correctness of the phonetic system.

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dently had covered it. It had no bottom ; but, from the fibres of wood which were found mixed with the earth, it was conjectured that this was originally formed of that material. At the same time, there fell out a number of figures which I will presently describe. This curious monument came into the possession of the antiquarian Ficoroni, and a minute account of it was published by Bianchini in the following year.* An engrav- ing accompanies it, very rudely executed ; but a later edition of this exists, without date, but stat- ing below that the objects were in the house of the Ab. Giovanni Domenico Pennacchi. From this I have had a copy made, without attending to the imperfect drawing exhibited in both the en- gravings, which are sufficiently different from each other to show that perfect accuracy of design was not an object in either. You have it before you,f and I proceed to explain it.

The figure is divided into three compartments. The first, on the left hand, represents the vase A, made of earthen ware, of a different quality from ordinary terra cottas, inasmuch as it was mixed up with shining metallic fragments, and bits of marble. In shape it somewhat resembles a small barrel, or the vase represented on the Isiac pomp in the Palazzo Mattei. The figure represents it

* " La storia universale provatacoi monurnenti," pp. 178, seqq. -j- See PI. II, prefixed to this Volume.

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as it was broken, and shows the distribution of the trinkets within at C. Beside it, B is the cover which was found upon it. Passing to the second compartment, you have the shape and proportion of the lower part of the vase, two-thirds the size of the reality. In the same proportion nearly, are the figures distributed in this and the third com- partment. D represents the metal circle which lined the lower portion of the vessel, composed of small plates nailed together, as if in imitation of a wooden frame work. At intervals are windows or open spaces, with shutters over them. There is no door, but, to supply this deficiency, there is a bronze ladder of five steps, as if intended to give entrance above. The structure of this metal box seems thus evidently to indicate a desire of repre- senting a building or edifice, probably of wood, not to be entered from the ground. At certain distances, the side is raised higher than the rim of this