Romans. Hence arofe the error of 5 Julius Firmicus; who, in fpeaking of the antient Chaldeans and fome of the Africans, fays that," of all the elements, they paid the greatest deference "to the air:" Affyrii et pars Afrorum aërem ducatum habere ele→ mentorum volunt: wherein he was mifled by the found. It was not the air (Aër or Ang,) but 8, Aur, fire, quite a different element, that was the principal object of their worship. The people whom Euftathius alludes to under the name of Ethiopians, Tacitus mentions as Affyrians. Sunt qui tradant Affyrios convenas, indigum agrorum populum, parte Ægypti potitos, ac mox proprias urbes Hebræafque terras et propiora Syriæ coluiffe. Eufebius calls them, as Euftathius has done, Ethiopians (a name I have fhewn the Cufeans to be often denominated by;) and fays they came from the Indus, and took up their habitation in Egypt : 7 Αιθίοπες απο 8Ινδε ποταμε αναπαντες προς τὴ Αιγυπτῳ ᾤκησαν. There is a paffage of the fame author as tranflated by St. Jerome which is very short, yet contains an epitome of all I have been saying. 9 Sub Acherre in Ægypto regnavit Telegonus, Oris Paftoris filius, feptimus ab Inacho. Telegonus is here put as a proper name of the prince who reigned. But it is not fo: it is a Greek compound; and means only an alien, one born in another country, and that came from a great distance. This being fettled, the purport of the history is to this effect. "When Acherres was king in Egypt, there like"wife reigned there a foreign prince, who was defcended " from Orus, and was of the fhepherd race :" which Orus or Alorus was, we know, originally of Babylonia. So that the whole of this short account relates to the Cufeans. But it is said at the close that this foreigner was in descent the seventh from Inachus. This feems to be an interesting part of the ་་ 5 De Errore Prof. Relig. pag. 5. Edit. Argent. 1562. 7 Eufebii Chron. pag. 25. Edit. Scalig. 8 3 By the Indus they mean the east, or a place towards the east. Eufeb. Chron. Hieron. Interpr. pag. 14. Edit. Scalig. story, ftory, which is here obfcured. What connection can a fon of Orus have with a king of Argos? What relationship could poffibly subsist between them? Carry the antiquity of Argos as high as it will possibly bear; and make Inachus, if ever there was such a man, contemporary with Abraham: yet the arrival of the Shepherds in Egypt, which is here alluded to, must have been prior to it: at least we may venture to affirm that it could not be seven generations 'later. But there is otherwife no correspondence between the terms: nor can they poffibly relate to one another. The original history, of which the above is a bad copy, I imagine was this. Sub Acherre in Ægyptum fe recepit, et partem regionis occupavit Rex alienigena Paftor; ab Oro Babylonio ortus, et feptimus a Noacho. This laft word had been probably transposed to Onacho; from whence the Greeks altered it ftill farther, and reduced it to a name they were acquainted with. If this be, as I imagine, the true reading, it makes the migration of the Shepherds to be about the time of Serug or Nabor. What is extraordinary, this is the very time when it is fuppofed by that very great chronologist archbishop Usher to have happened: who refers it • Ιωσήππος, και Ιεςος, Κλημης ὁ ἱερος στρωματεύς, Τατιανος τε, και Αφρι κανός συνομολογεσι κατα Ιναχου γεννηθηναι Μωσέα. Syncellus. pag. 121. Edit. Paris. 1652. Ὁ δε πρώτος Αργειων ἡγειται [Ιναχος] κατα τον πέμπτον μετα Σεμιράμιν Ασσυρίων βασιλέα, ν και ο ύσερον ετεσιν αυτής τε και Μώσεως. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. Lib. 10. Cap. 9. The king who reigned after the expulfion of the first Shepherds was but equal in time with Inachus: how could a perfon that preceded fome centuries be the feventh from him? Amolis laid the city Auris in ruins : κατέσκαψε δε την Αθυριάν (Αγεριν) Αμωσις, κατά τον Αργείου γενόμενος Ιναχον. Apion apud Clement. Alex. Strom. Lib. 1. pag. 320. Edit. Potter. Ο δε Αμωσις εγενείο κατ' Ιναχου Barnea. Ptol. Mendef. apud Tatianum. §. 59. Edit. Oxon. 1700. See Theophilus ad Autolycum. Lib. 3. 2 A. M. 1920. Ex vicinâ Arabiâ irrumpens gens eorum quos Hyc-fos, id eft, Reges Paftores, Ægyptii vocabant, Memphim ceperunt &c. Ufferii Annales. pag. 3. Edit. Paris. 1673. Bifhop Cumberland fuppofes that the Shepherds invaded Egypt A. M. 1937; in the time of the fame patriarchs, according to the Hebrew chronology. Remarks on Sanchon. pag. 170. it to the year of the world 1920, according to the Hebrew computation; in the hundred and first year of the life of Serug the seventh from Noah; and in the forty second of Terah; eighty eight years before the birth of Abraham. But this is a degree of exactness that I do not pretend to arrive at. Let it fuffice, that near this period I imagine this event to have happened.. OF SOME EVIDENCES STILL REMAINING, WHICH Illuftrate these early Occurrences.. HE lower part of Egypt being annually overflowed,. TH must have been liable to fome alteration in a long course. of years. Among other changes that it has undergone, it has fuffered fome in refpect to it's streams and canals. One of the principal of these, if not the very chief arm of the Nile, was the Canobic, or great channel; which is in many places dry, except at the time of the inundation: by this means, all the interamnian country which we have been fpeaking of, the nome of Cushan and part of the Heliopolitan province, is joined to the firm land, and constitutes a portion of of Libya. The Nile, that was first divided at Cercafora between Babylon and the pyramids, is not feparated till you come eighteen miles lower: fo that the extreme part of Delta is now formed by some broken land, that probably belonged to the inferior part of the antient Heliopolitan nome. By this means the extent of lower Egypt is in fome degree abridged. It may feem wonderful, if, after an interval of fo many ages, and after fuch alterations, any traces should now remain of those early transactions that we have been speaking of. Yet I think some evidences may still be found amid the ruins of this antient kingdom. Marcellinus obferves that, though the Grecians, and particularly Seleucus Nicator, rebuilt many cities in Afia, and arbitrarily impofed names taken from their own language and country; yet the antient and original names given by the first founders of thofe places, and which were in the Affyrian tongue, were never entirely effaced. The fame obfervation will hold good in refpect to many places in Egypt. In a province, that feems to have been formerly part of the Heliopolitan nome, is a village at this day called Cofru Coffin, or "village of Coffin:" which, from it's situation and the fimilitude of it's name, I should think had a reference to the antient land of Gofhen. The temple at Heliopolis was called Beth-fhemesh or " houfe of the fun;" and Ain-fhems, or Shemesh, the fountain of the fame. In this district there is a place remaining, called Beer Shems; which is of the fame purport: it fignifies "the well of the fun;" and is a lasting memorial of the antient religion of the place. I have mentioned that the Arabian nome was fo denominated from Nicator Seleucus-abufus multitudine hominum, quam tranquillis in re-. bus diutiùs rexit, ex agreftibus habitaculis urbes conftruxit, multis opibus firmas et viribus: quarum ad præfens pleraque licet Graecis nominibus appellentur, quæ iifdem ad arbitrium impofita funt conditoris, primogenia tamen nomina non amittunt, quæ eis Affyria linguâ inftitutores veteres indiderunt. Lib. 14. Cap. 8. 2 from Cushan, which was the fame as Gohen. The Seventy calls this Geffem and Gefem; Artapanus 2 Kerσa and Kara: and it is called by St. Jerome 3 Terra Gefen: where each writer denominates the place by the name that it went by in his own. time. I make no doubt, but in the town of 4 Geeza we fee the remains of the ancient Gefen and Gofhen; as it has been at different times expreffed. This may be proved from Herodotus. I have fhewn that Gofhen was the province of Cushan, and had a city of the fame name: and that this province and city were the uppermoft in lower Egypt, where the Nile divided. In this very nome Herodotus mentions a principal city, called by him Cercaforum, but by Strabo Cercafoura: which has undoubtedly fuffered fome change in it's orthography and pronunciation; yet it is not fo far fophifticated, but that it's true etymology may be arrived at. The original name was Caer Cufh Aur, "the Arabian city Aur:" the laft term was the true name of the place, which was the antient city of Orus: the other, Carcufha, as well as Phaccufa (by which it is called by Ptolemy) being accidental terms, and gentile marks of distinction; the one given to distinguish it's inhabitants, the other to denote it's fituation. Carcufa is therefore no more than the Cufean city, as Carour is the city of Ur or fire, by which it was fometimes called. Car or Caer, "P, Kir, in most of the oriental languages fignifies a city or fortrefs; as appears in Carchemish, Carthaida, Carteia, Carnaim: and, among the Britons of Phenician extraction, in Car 2 Пpwтov μεv Tv Keσσav oxodoμnoα. Apud Eufeb. Præp. Evang. Lib. 9. Cap. 27. Μετα δε ταυτα παραγενέθαι τον τε πατέρα και τις αδελφος κομι ζοντας πολλην ὑπαρξιν, και κατοικισθήναι εν τη πολει Καισαν. Ibid. Lib. 9. Cap. 23. Conftantine Manaffes calls it Gofem: Ev yn ForEM DIXIČETαI, XPa τns Apaßias. pag. 40. Edit. Meurf. 3 Vol. 1. pag. 49. Edit. Benedict. Paris. 1693. In the book of Judith of the Vulgate tranflation Chap. 1. v. 9. it is called Jeffe. 4 It is called Gizéy by Vanfleb, Gize by Dr. Pocock, Geeza by Shaw, Chifi by Egmont and Heyman; and is the Algize of the Nubian geographer. |