Clavis Mythologiarum

BOOK I. OF THE PRIMEVAL DEPOSIT AND ITS DISPERSION. HEAD VI. OF MIZRAIM, AND OF THE FIRST KING OF EGYPT.

×It were premature, in the present stage of the inquiry, to do more than indicate the manner in which the second branch of the line of Ham, through which the deposit was, as I conceive, in an equal measure corrupted, is to be distinguished from the first, and the point at which a question which has commonly been taken for a single one is found, upon examination, to be two. The question, which is that of the first king of Egypt, has been so frequently proposed in the form whether he was Mizraim, that it has seemed to many a matter of course that the testimonies of the Egyptians respecting their first king are testimonies respecting the second son of Ham; and it is the object of the present head to shew that this is not a finding which has been made from the witnesses, but a premise which has been taken to them.1 I shall set down, in the first place, what the sacred text relates of Mizraim and of his sons; in the second, the opinions of Bochart and of Mr. Bryant respecting the name, and respecting the number and the seats of the families; in the third, the testimony of the Egyptian priests, as it is reported by Herodotus and by Diodorus; and I shall deliver, in the fourth, the view which I propose, with the objections which may be urged against it. NB-01-011 NB-07-011 NB-09-015

×The sacred text relates that Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim, "(out of whom came Philistim,)" and Caphtorim (Gen. x. 13, 14).2 Seven are named, and the Philistines are said to have come out of the sixth, Casluhim, and not of the fourth son of Ham; this is the whole of what the text gives of the house of Mizraim, and the places which they inhabited are not told, so that I enter it as it stands. It is to be observed that the account contains no mention of any king, nor of any worship, nor of any invention; that the sons are named, as the father is, by a plural form; and that if any of these names should be found among the heathen as the name of a god, it is to stand with the deified patriarchs, and not to be referred to the line of Mizraim until the ground of the reference is shewn. NB-01-011

×Of the name of Mizraim itself two opinions are before me, of which the first is that of Bochart, who holds that Mizraim is not the name of a man, the dual form not allowing it, and that the second son of Ham stands for the father of the inhabitants of Egypt (Bochart, Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 24), Mifrajim non est nomen hominis (Mizraim is not the name of a man).3 Mr. Bryant reports that "it is thought by many learned men, that the term, Mizraim, is properly a plural; and that a people are by it signified rather than a person," and that the head of the family is imagined to have been in the singular Misor, or Metzor (Bryant, Analysis, vol. i. Radicals, Mizraim). The two stand nearer than they appear, for Bochart denies the man, and yet allows a father of the people; and a father of a people is a person, whatever the form of his name. The argument from form, if it is good for the father, is good for the sons, whose names have the same ending as his own; and Genesis says that the father begat them. The form proves a people; whether the people had one who gave it his name the form does not decide, and I do not, in the present place, undertake to decide it. It will be seen that the question so stated is not that which has commonly been asked; for the usual inquiry, whether Mizraim was a man or a country, supposes that these are alternatives, and I find no warrant in the text for the supposition. NB-07-011

×Of the families of Mizraim, Mr. Bryant says that those who settled in Egypt were branched out into seven, of which the Caphtorim were one, "who seem to have resided between Pelusium and Mount Casius, upon the sea-coast" (Bryant, Analysis, vol. iii. Of Egypt, and its first Inhabitants).4 The number is the sacred text's, and he has it from thence; the seat is his own, and the word seem is his. Bochart, who heads a chapter with the seven sons of Mizraim, observes that Josephus, Iosephus maluit nodum secare quam solvere (Josephus preferred to cut the knot rather than untie it), confesses that of those peoples, one excepted, he knows nothing at all, save that their cities were overturned and destroyed in the Ethiopian war (Bochart, Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 25). The historian whom I rely upon for the name of Chus, and for the name of Egypt, is therefore no witness to the families; they rest upon Genesis alone, and the places assigned to them upon conjecture. Their seats are to be left unfixed until some witness be found; and I note that the historian himself, in the place where he relates the sons of Mizraim, says that of the rest, besides Ludieim, who called Libya from himself, he knows nothing but their names (Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 6). NB-08-004 NB-05-011

×The testimony of the Egyptian priests respecting their first king is reported by Herodotus in more than one place, and I begin with that in which it is attached to a work. The priests told the historian that Min was the first king of Egypt, and that he first separated Memphis from the Nile by a dam, turning the river from its channel by a bend above the city, and making dry land of what he had thus cut off, in which he founded the city which is now called Memphis, digging a lake outside it, and building in it the great temple (Herod. ii. 99).5 What the priests tell is of a man and of his works: a dam, a river turned from its channel, a city founded. They do not say that he was the son of any one, or that Min was Mizraim. Now Bochart says that Mizraim is not the name of a man, the dual form not suffering it; and Mr. Bryant reports that "many writers suppose this personage to have been Mizraim: others think it was Ham; others again that it was Noah" (Bryant, Analysis, vol. iii. Of the Egyptian Kings, and Dynasties). These two cannot both stand: if Bochart is right the many suppose a man where there is a country, and if they are right the argument from the form fails. Herodotus decides neither; and I enter his king as he gives him. NB-08-010 NB-07-011

×Two witnesses, each reporting what the priests said, name the first king: Herodotus, Min (Herod. ii. 4), and Diodorus, Menas (Diod. Sic. i. 45).6 Both place gods before him, and Herodotus describes him as the first human king; the names differ, though not by much, and Menas I take for the Menes of the lists. Neither calls him Mizraim, nor Ham, nor Noah; and these are what Mr. Bryant reports as the opinions of writers, so that they are brought to the name from without, the identification being a premise taken to the witnesses and not a finding made from them. The opinions, further, cannot all be held of one man, Ham being the father of Mizraim (Gen. x. 6–8); and the report is of the disagreement of the writers, and not of any witness. Mr. Bryant, I should add, afterwards doubts that Mizraim reigned in Egypt, and holds Menes to have been another person. The verses of Genesis say of one in the line of Cush that "he began to be a mighty one in the earth"; of any king in the line of Mizraim they say nothing. I enter the three opinions, and the objection to the first, and no more: it is to be asked, when the lists have been collected, whether they will admit any of the three; and the priests' account of what was done, and what is afterwards made of it, are to be kept in two columns. NB-09-015 NB-09-010

×The view which I propose, as at present sketched, is that the share of Mizraim in the corruption of the deposit is not to be determined by the question whether he was the first king of Egypt, and that the two inquiries, which have been joined, are to be separated; that the testimonies of the priests are to be received for what they say of Min or Menas, and of what he did, and that the identification with the second son of Ham is to be examined, in its place, as an hypothesis which may or may not be sustained by the lists; and that the part of Mizraim, as the father of a people who inhabited the country of the Nile, and whose name is preserved in the name of the country, is in either case at the least equal to that of Chus. It will be observed that the view puts the identification at some risk, for the sake of leaving the thesis free of it, and that I do not on that account suppose that Min was not Mizraim; I say only that it has not been shewn.7 NB-01-011 NB-07-011 NB-08-004 NB-08-010 NB-09-015 NB-09-010

×It may be objected, in the first place, that by refusing to identify the first king with Mizraim I have deprived the thesis of its most natural support, since a patriarch who was the father of the Egyptians would naturally be the first of their kings; to which I answer that this is an inference from what would be natural, and that a premise which is natural is not on that account found. It may be objected, in the second place, that the form of the name, which Bochart holds to forbid a man, ought to be allowed more weight than I have given it; to which I answer that the form proves a people, and that a people which had no head would be a new thing, and one for which I am aware of no testimony. It may be objected, in the third place, that the names Min and Menas are so nearly alike that their identity is evident; to which I answer that I have taken them for one, and that what is evident is the likeness of the names, and not the likeness of the king to any son of Ham. And it may be objected, lastly, that the testimony of Diodorus, that the first king taught the people to worship the gods, and to offer sacrifices, supports the view that the corruption began with him; to which I answer that it is a testimony of a rite delivered, and that whether it was the deposit or the corruption of the deposit is not the thing which it says. These objections, and others which may be urged with less force, will be considered at greater length under the next head. NB-08-010 NB-09-015 NB-01-011 NB-07-011

Footnotes

  1. See the first head of the present Book, where the testimony of Diodorus respecting the teaching of worship by the first king is entered; and for the sixth thesis, which concerns the proof by names, the sixth head of the Introduction. Of the premise, in the form in which it is stated in the text, I have not found that any author who has made it has stated the grounds upon which it is made. ↩

  2. Gen. x. 13, 14. The words in the parenthesis are those of our translation; and they are important in this connexion, for they relate that the Philistines came of the line of Mizraim, and not of that of Canaan, whose border the sacred writer has already described, and for the border see the fourth head of the present Book. ↩

  3. Bochart, Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 24. The words in the text are the opening of the chapter. The learned author adds that the Arabs still call the chief city of Egypt Mejer, and that he takes the name, by contraction, from a form of Mazor, which he says means a fortified place, and ties it to the natural defence of Egypt, citing Diodorus. I have read the opening of the chapter and the argument from Mazor; the rest I have not read, and I speak of the whole upon no other ground. ↩

  4. Bryant, Analysis, vol. iii. Of Egypt, and its first Inhabitants. He adds that the Caphtorim made an early migration into Canaan, where they were called Philistines; but upon this the testimony of Genesis, which derives the Philistines from Casluhim, is at issue with his own. Bochart, in the same chapter in which he says that Josephus knows nothing of the six, calls the account of the Ethiopian war, which he says Josephus took from sources outside Scripture, the foulest falsehoods; but of that war and its sources I have nothing here to say. ↩

  5. Herod. ii. 99. I have given the sense of the passage, and not the words, the account in the original being longer; the relation of the founding of Memphis and of the temple is entire in the place, and I have not added to it. It is not said that Min was of any family, or that he reigned in any other city. ↩

  6. Herod. ii. 4; Diod. Sic. i. 45. Herodotus says of the same king that in his time all of Egypt except the Thebaic district was a marsh; the Greek name is Mên, and I write it Min. Diodorus says that he introduced luxury, of which I make no use, as in the first head of the present Book. Whether the Menas of Diodorus is the king whom Herodotus calls Min is a matter of some consequence, and it is for that reason that I have said that I take it. ↩

  7. I have not, in the text, said how I propose to settle the identification, since the means of settling it are not yet in my hands. The lists themselves are not before me in a form which would permit the question to be put, and it is to be put when they are. ↩

← BOOK I. OF THE PRIMEVAL DEPOSIT AND ITS DISPERSION. HEAD V. OF CHUS, AND OF THE CUSHITE NAME.BOOK I. OF THE PRIMEVAL DEPOSIT AND ITS DISPERSION. HEAD VII. OF GOG AND MAGOG. →