1845.] Notices of the Jews by Tacitus. 373 "According to some, the Jews, fleeing from the island of Crete, found an abode in the most distant parts of Libya, at the time that Saturn was violently dethroned by Jupiter. A proof is obtained from the name. There is a celebrated mountain in Crete called Ida; the inhabitants are termed Idaei, and by a barbarous enlargement of the word, Judaei. Others report, that in the reign of Isis, a multitude pouring forth from Egypt, removed into the contiguous territories, under the lead of Hierosolymus and Judas. Most maintain that they are descended from the Ethiopians, who, compelled by fear and hatred of their king, Cepheus, changed their habitation. Others relate that an Assyrian mixed population, being destitute of land, took possession of a part of Egypt, and by and by inhabited Hebrew cities and territories as their own right, and then the neighboring parts of Syria. Others give a distinguished origin to the Jews. The Solymi, a people celebrated in the poems of Homer, founded the city Jerusalem, and called it from their own name." And this is from the calm, careful and reflecting Tacitus, written after the Jewish nation had been in existence almost two thousand years, after the country had become a Roman province, when Rome was filled with Jews, and when, by a few minutes' walk, he could have found the true account of the origin of the Jews from the Antiquities of Josephus, or, perhaps, from that author's own mouth. From these legends related by Tacitus, we learn, that a profound historian might neglect with impunity to obtain accurate information in respect to a people so despicable as the Jews; and we may also see what vague and unsatisfactory stories then prevailed throughout the civilized world in regard to the history of the Hebrews. These facts show with sufficient clearness, that some of the Greek and Roman writers were altogether ignorant of the true origin and condition of the Hebrews, while others looked upon them with prejudice and contempt. Why then should we prefer these historians as authorities to the Hebrew writers, when the affairs of the Jews are in question? Yet this has been the prevailing habit. Diodorus is put first, Moses second. If Manetho corroborates the lawgiver, well; if not, then the pagan must be set up as the standard. If Daniel's chronology does not agree with that of Abydenus, then the Hebrew is pronounced to be in error, and an additional proof is supposed to be furnished against the authenticity of his prophecies. 4. Early Origin of Alphabetic Writing. It has often been alleged as an argument against the genuineness of the Pentateuch, that alphabetic writing did not exist at the time of Moses, or if it had been discovered, the knowledge of it was very limited, much too limited to admit of the existence and use of such a book as the Pentateuch. That alphabetic writing, however, did exist at or before the age of Moses, i. e. 1500 B. C., is capable of proof from a great variety of considerations. If each of the following positions does not of itself establish the fact, yet all, taken together, can leave no reasonable doubt on the subject. 1. So far as there is any evidence from tradition, it is in favor of the very early discovery of alphabetic writing. The traditions of all the nations of antiquity coincide in this, that the art of writing belonged to the origin of the human race or to the founders of particular nations. "Several kinds of alphabetical writing were in existence in Asia," says William von Humboldt, “in the earliest times." The Egyptians attribute the discovery of alphabetic writing to Thaaut; the Chaldeans, to Oannes, Memnon or Her. mes; many of the Greeks to Cecrops, who probably came from Egypt; some to Orpheus; others to Linus; Aeschylus assigns it to Prometheus; and Euripides, to Palemedes, the Argive;-all these are witnesses that the discovery reached beyond the commencement of history, so that Pliny remarks, not without reason, ex quo apparet aeternus literarum usus. 2. It will hold good as a general fact that the most useful arts would be first invented or discovered. Such as are necessary to man's inward or outward the support of human life, those which necessities would first crave, would, in general, be the first that would be originated. Necessity deeply felt is the mother of art. Feelings of joy or sorrow, common to man, and which require for their full expression some outward symbol, or some auxiliary accompaniment, would necessarily lead to the invention of musical instruments. Some of the more important uses of iron would be early found out, because any degree of civilization, or even of comfort, would be hardly conceivable without it. The violent passions, which agitate man, would early lead him to invent armor, defensive and offensive. Journeys or marches would be impossible for any considerable distance without means for crossing deep 'Hengstenberg, Beiträge, I. p. 425. 1845.] Necessity would lead to the discovery of an Alphabet. 375 rivers and narrow seas. Civilization, in any proper sense of that word, would imply a considerable knowledge of house architecture, if not of such contrivances as chimnies and glass windows, yet some substitute for them. Now we can conceive of few things more necessary, where there was any degree of refinement, where the sciences were at all cultivated, or where there was any measure of commercial activity, than the art of writing. A patriarch burying a beloved wife among strangers in a strange land, would feel desirous to erect something more than a heap of stones, and to affix something more than a rude portrait or hieroglyphic. He would wish to write her name on the rock forever. Among all nations, particularly the oriental, there is a strong disposition for constructing and handing down genealogical tables and family registers. The practice has its origin in one of the deepest feelings of our nature. Yet this would be hardly possible in the absence of an alphabet. A long list of proper names might be engraven on the memory of a single person. But how could it thus be accurately propagated through a number of centuries? We have abundant proof that the Chaldeans were early engaged in some kind of astronomical calculations. But how could these be carried on without the use of letters or figures? and would this skill in astronomy be any less difficult than the invention of an alphabet? would it not be much further from the wants of common life? Again, we learn from many unquestionable sources that the Phoenicians were, in very early times, engaged in an extensive commerce, embracing at least all the shores and the principal islands of the Mediterranean. Now these marine adventures presuppose a sufficient degree of activity of mind in the Phoenicians to invent an alphabetic system, if they did not before possess one. Besides how extremely difficult, if not impossible, to conduct an extensive system of barter, to transport into distant regions a great variety of goods, as we know the Phoenicians did, to commission agencies or something equivalent to them, and to carry home the proceeds or the exchanged articles, and distribute them to a variety of owners, without any written record whatever, in dependence merely on the memory, or on some rude visible signs. For these purposes, no Mexican painting or Chaldean symbols would be sufficient. The Egyptian hieroglyphics did not render a contemporaneous alphabetic writing unnecessary. For some of the most important purposes of a civilized people, hardly any invention could be more clumsy than the hieroglyphics. How could the deed of a piece of land, the forms and inflections of grammar, thousands of foreign names and terms and the numerous commercial and statistical details which would be indispensable in a kingdom like Egypt, be expressed by pictures, by the representations of visible objects, however ingenious? 3. The perception of historical truth exists in such close connection with the knowledge and extension of the art of writing, that where the latter is wanting, the former is never found, not even among those nations which have certain elements of it.1 This is strikingly illustrated by the example of the Arabians before the age of Mohammed. All which we know of their history, says De Sacy, was found in the midst of oral traditions, and showed everywhere that entire lack of chronological order, that mixture of fables and marvels, which characterize the period, when a nation has no other historians than the poets, and no other archives than the memory of succeeding generations. Now the Pentateuch, according to the unanimous opinion of men engaged in the same department of literature-the historians, with whom, to a certain extent, agree the most prejudiced among the theologians, has a truly historical character. In this respect, it is totally unlike the Arabian traditions referred to. It may be said, indeed, that the Pentateuch was composed at a period much later than Moses, and thus acquired its historical character when the art of writing was generally practised by the Israelites. But according to the theory generally entertained by those who hold to the late origin of the Pentateuch as a whole, there are fragments, portions larger or smaller, which must have been written at or before the time of Moses. Now these fragments have the genuine historical stamp as clearly as the supposed later portions; and in them, also, are references to historical works, like the "Book of the Wars of the Lord," which have perished. 4. The theory of the early discovery of the art of writing derives strong confirmation from the fact of the very high antiquity of many of the arts in Egypt, and especially of such as are necessary to the art of writing. If arts, requiring great skill and strong powers of invention, were in use at a very early period, then we may suppose that the art of writing, requiring no higher, perhaps less, powers of invention, might have been discovered. "We have been enabled," says Sir J. G. Wilkinson, "to fix, with a sufficient degree of precision, the bondage of the Israelites and the arrival of Joseph; and though these events took place at an age when nations are generally supposed to have been in their Hengstenberg's Authentie, I. 409. 1845.] High Antiquity of the Arts in Egypt. 377 infancy, and in a state of barbarism; yet we perceive that the Egyptians had then arrived at as perfect a degree of civilization as at any subsequent period of their history. They had the same arts, the same manners and customs, the same style of architecture, and were in the same advanced state of refinement, as in the reign of Remeses II. The most remote point, to which we can see, opens with a nation possessing all the arts of civilized life already matured. The same customs and inventions that prevailed in the Augustan age of that people after the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, are found in the remote age of Osirtasen I.; and there is no doubt that they were in the same civilized state when Abraham visited the country. Many obelisks, each of a single block of granite, had been hewn and transported twelve miles, from the quarries at the cataracts of Syene, as early at least as the time of Joseph; and the saine mechanical skill had already existed even before that period, as is shown from the construction of the pyramids near Memphis, which in the size of the blocks and the style of building, evince a degree of architectural knowledge, perhaps inferior to none possessed at a subsequent period. The wonderful skill the Egyptians evinced in sculpturing or engraving hard stones? is still more surprising than their ability to hew and transport blocks of granite. We wonder at the means employed for cutting hieroglyphics, frequently to the depth of more than two inches, on basalt, or sienite, and other stones of the hardest quality. Their taste, too, was not deficient in originality, while it is universally allowed to have been the parent of much that was afterwards perfected, with such wonderful success, by the ancient Greeks.3 The Egyptians appear to have been acquainted with glassblowing as early as the reign of Osirtasen I, 1700 B. C. The process is represented in the paintings of Beni Hassan, executed during the reign of that monarch and his immediate successors. A bead, bearing a king's name, who lived 1500 B. C., has been found at Thebes, the specific gravity of which is precisely the same as that of crown glass, now manufactured in England. Glass vases, for holding wine, appear to have been used as early as the Exodus. The colors of some Egyptian opaque glass not 1 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 2d ed. Vol. I. Preface, Vol. III. p. 260. 2 "To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them," etc. Ex. 31: 4, 5. * Wilkinson, III. 85. |