BOOK I. OF THE PRIMEVAL DEPOSIT AND ITS DISPERSION. HEAD V. OF CHUS, AND OF THE CUSHITE NAME.

×It were premature to attempt, under a head which is concerned only with the first of the two branches in which the second thesis finds the chief corruption of the deposit, more than a statement of what is known of the seat of Chus and of the extent of his name, and of the manner in which the second may be used without being made to carry what it cannot sustain; for the name of Chus is that which Mr. Bryant has made the foundation of his system, and it is not possible to say how much of that system may be received until the limits of the name have been fixed.¹ I shall set down, in the first place, what the sacred text and the historians relate of the sons of Chus and of the seat of the line; in the second, the testimony of Josephus respecting the name, together with the opinions of Bochart and of Mr. Bryant which are founded upon it or are opposed to it; and in the third I shall propose the view which I take to be consistent with both, reserving for the next head the part which Mizraim may be shewn to have had in the same corruption, and for later heads the proof of anything which is here asserted only in outline. NB-03-005 NB-05-011 NB-07-003

×The sacred text names the sons of Cush as Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah, and the sons of Raamah as Sheba and Dedan, and names no country for any of them (Gen. x. 6–8).² Bochart, in the summary of his fourth book, places Chus in Arabia, as one long an exile from his country, Et Chus dudum e patria exul in Arabiam (and Chus, long an exile from his country, into Arabia); and I do not say upon what grounds, for the preface only is read, and the chapter is not yet before me.³ It is the more proper to reserve judgment upon the opinion, that the question to which it is an answer, namely whether the seat of the father is to be learned from the names of the sons, is one which the text does not itself determine; Bochart may have answered it, and the chapter is to be read for the answer. I observe only that the opinion, if it be well founded, does not contradict anything which the sacred text relates, and that it is to be distinguished from the opinion which carries the name of Chus into countries remote from Arabia; for the first is a determination of seat, and the second is a tracing of a name, and the evidence required for the one is not the evidence required for the other. NB-03-005

×The first seat of the line of Cush which the sacred text names is the land of Shinar, and the first of his cities Babel; for it is said that Cush begat Nimrod, and that "the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar" (Gen. x. 8–12), and it is further said that out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh.⁴ Josephus has Nimrod remain and rule at Babylon, which I take to be the Babel of the text: "But Nimrod, the son of Chus, stayed and tyrannized at Babylon" (Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 6). Whether the line of Cush is confined to this land, the verses do not say, nor does Josephus, in this sentence, say; and it is not to be concluded, from the circumstance that the earliest seat which the text names is in Shinar, that no other seat was ever named for any son of Chus. The seat of Nimrod is to be entered as Shinar, and nothing more is to be inferred from it until the other places of the name have been collected; and I observe, in anticipation of what is to be said in the next paragraph, that a line which has for its first seat a country in the east cannot be inferred to have been the line which carried the name of Chus to the countries of the south. NB-05-011

×The testimony of Josephus respecting the name is of a different class. He affirms that, "of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves, and by all men in Asia, called Chusites"; and he adds, in the same sentence, that "the memory also of the Mesraites is preserved in their name," Egypt being called by all who inhabit Judea Mestre, and the Egyptians Mestreans (Joseph. Antiq. i. 6. § 2).⁵ The two names are of the same kind, and are found in the same place; and the historian gives to the one no greater preservation than to the other. Bochart, who places Chus in Arabia, is at issue with Josephus as to the seat, though not as to the name. Mr. Bryant, on the other hand, makes the sons of Chus the most considerable and the most enterprising branch of the whole family, tracing them into countries widely distant by their family title, and supposing the Greeks to have turned the name into their word for gold. That the name was carried abroad I admit; that it is to be recognised in every name which resembles it I do not; and it is not without some appearance of reason that the extent of the second proposition may be doubted by those who have observed that the same writer, whose general merits are not in dispute, has given to the sons of Chus a pre-eminence which the testimony cited for it does not establish. A name which is preserved in the mouths of a people, as that of the Chusites is said to have been, needs no etymology to be found; a name which is recovered by the comparison of syllables, as that of Chruse is supposed to be, is a name of which the identity with the first is itself the matter to be proved; and it is to the confusion of these two that the whole weight of the system appears to me to have been committed.⁶ NB-07-003 NB-03-005

×It is to be considered, therefore, whether Mr. Bryant has not given to one son what belongs to the whole line of Ham, and whether Mizraim has not at the least an equal share; and I propose, as the view which is consistent with the testimonies, that the name of Chus is to be recognised where it is preserved, in Shinar and in the country of the Ethiopians, and is to be admitted elsewhere only when the ancient witness is produced; that the limits of the Cushite name are to be fixed before anything is built upon it; and that the corruption of the deposit, which Mr. Bryant ascribes to the Cuthites, is to be shared with the line of Mizraim, whose name Josephus preserves with the same fidelity. The proof, as has been said, is deferred, and the objections which may be anticipated are the following. It may be objected that the testimony of Josephus is that of a single writer, and that a name which has been preserved to his day may have been introduced into the country by the Greeks; to which I answer that he says that the name was used by the Ethiopians themselves, and by all men in Asia, and that a name so used is not of Greek bestowing. It may be objected, in the second place, that the opinion of Bochart, which places Chus in Arabia, is incompatible with the seat in Shinar; to which I answer that a family may have more than one seat, and that the sacred text nowhere says that the sons of Chus were confined to a single country. And it may be objected, lastly, that in dividing the corruption between Chus and Mizraim I have only substituted one family title for two; to which I answer that this is so far true that the division does not diminish the part of Chus, but that it relieves the etymologies, which have been made to bear the weight of the whole, of a burden which they are not able to sustain. These objections, and others which may be urged with less force, will be considered at greater length under the next head. NB-07-003 NB-05-011 NB-03-005