to Him and to one another which follow on the belief of one maker and ruler of the world. The polytheists, to get over the difficulty of the origin of evil, imagined bad gods as well as good gods, and thus felt their devotion weakened, their gratitude divided, and their duty doubtful; they thought their conduct blamed by one while approved by another of their objects of devotion. Though an attempt to explain the origin of evil by the war between the old serpent and the human race finds a place in the book of Genesis, it formed no part of the Jewish philosophy; it belongs to the legend on the Egyptian sarcophagus. That man fell from a state of innocence by tasting the forbidden fruit offered to him by woman, was an Egyptian, not a Jewish opinion. The Israelites knew no other cause for the origin of evil, as of good, but the Almighty's will. From a devout habit of tracing the hand of God in every event of life, the chronicles of their nation became religious lessons; and thus, while we owe to the Egyptians our first steps in physical science, we must grant to their Jewish servants the higher rank of being our first teachers in religion. Little could the Egyptian have perceived that the land of Goshen would possess an historic interest which Thebes and Memphis would want, and that the history of Egypt would be chiefly valued for the light which it throws upon the history of these persecuted Israelites. (15) Among the sciences which the Israelites brought out of Egypt was the use of an alphabet and the art of writing, in which they soon surpassed their teachers, as far as in the more important matters of religion and philosophy. The Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were at first a syllabic method of writing, were never further improved than to add the use of letters to that of syllables. In their enchorial writing, their running hand, used on papyrus for less ornamental purposes, as they had a number of characters to choose from, they laid aside the more cumbersome, and made all the strokes of one thickness with a reed pen. Unfortunately their religion led them to forbid changes and attempts at reform, and hence they continued the use of the old hieroglyphics in all those ornamental and more careful writings which would be likely to improve the characters; and the enchorial writing was only used as a running hand. Nor a Р f Fig. 57. ח did this last ever reach the simplicity of a modern alphabet. The square letters of the Hebrews (see Fig. 57) are taken directly from the hieroglyphics; and it is to them that the world owes the great discovery that symbols should never be used, and that an alphabet is improved by having only one character for each sound. From the Egyptians also they borrowed the names of some of the letters, such g as Teth, Nun, Pe, Tau, the Egyptian for d t hand, water, heavens, and hill. For others they copied the Egyptian plan of naming e them after the objects which they seemed to represent, though without regarding what the Egyptian sculptors had meant z them to represent. The Israelites had wondered at the vast Egyptian buildings, th t but made no attempt to copy them. They had lived within sight of the great pyramids, and might have learned when and k why they were built; but they contented themselves with remarking that there were giants in those days. The Jewish phi- m losophy and religion were not natives in the valley of the Nile. Among the Jews trade was discouraged and interest of money forbidden; women were not admitted into the priesthood; rewards for n goodness and punishments for crime were. looked for in this life, not after death; and mysteries in religion were as foreign t to them as the notion that the earth could be flooded by rain from heaven was to the Hebrew Letters, with their Hieroglyphic originals. Egyptians. The Levitical threat that our i 1 r n sh s s sh לי ג צ ש crimes should be followed by misfortunes in this world may seem to fall short of the Egyptian trial of the dead, which told of an unseen reward or punishment awaiting every man after death; but it was no doubt wisely judged that coarser minds need the threat of speedier punishment, and indeed we all feel that our acts as certainly meet with their just rewards now as they will hereafter. But upon the whole, VOL. I. F Heliopolis received as much science and philosophy from the east as it sent back. (16) We must not hope to find among the Egyptians many traces of what they in return may have learned from the Israelites; the opinions and manners of a small and enslaved people would have little weight with a great nation. The Coptic language is indeed sprinkled with Hebrew words; but they may have been learnt from the Arabs, or from the Jews in after centuries. We are able to trace, from the names for several of the Egyptian months, that it was through the Hebrews or their language that the Egyptians gained some of their astronomical knowledge from Babylon, the birth-place of that science. Though the months Thoth and Athur are named after the Egyptian gods, and Phamenoth after King Amunothph, yet Pachon or Bethon, the month of increase; Payni or Beni, the month of fruits; Epiphi or Abib, the month of corn in ear, are clearly Hebrew names, and describe the seasons in which those months fell about the time of the reformation of the calendar; while Mechir or Mether, the month of rain, proves that these names were brought from Babylon, or Syria, as this last cannot have been a native of Egypt, where rain is nearly unknown. The names of the months do not, however, help us to fix the date of the Exodus. The Israelites left Egypt in the month Abib or ch. xiii. 4; Epiphi, which was by the Mosaic law declared to ch. xii. 2. be the first month of the Jewish year; but it was not till a few years before the reign of David that the first day of the month of Abib really became in Egypt so early as the spring equinox; so that this does not settle when the event took place, but only when that part of the narrative was written. Moses lived, say the genealogies of the Old Testament, three generations after Joseph, and seven before David, which is the best clue that we possess to the dates of these early events. Exodus, B.C. 1300. (17) The hieroglyphical inscriptions, which enable us to determine the ages in which the various remains of early civilisation were made, disappoint us in telling but little more. It would seem that every other art and science had reached what must have been thought perfection before the art of history was invented; our pages during these years contain little more than a list of kings' names, and of the temples which were built in their reigns. It may be that while, from the want of history, other deeds were to live only during the memory of one or two short-lived races of men, buildings seemed the chief means of gaining lasting fame and honour. 'Tablet of Young's Thebes. (18) Thothmosis IV. (see Fig. 58) succeeded Amunothph II. He built the small temple between the forelegs of the huge sphinx near Memphis, which is now Abydos. always buried in the sands except when the Hieroglyp. enterprise of an European traveller has it dug pl. 80. open to the light of heaven (see Fig. 59). Within the temple is the figure of Thothmosis worshipping the sphinx; so that in this reign at least, though probably much earlier, the rock had been carved into the form of that monster. He also built a temple, five hundred Wilkinson, miles above the cataract of Syene, at El Birkel, or Napata, the capital of Ethiopia. On his death, his widow Mautmes (see Fig. 60) governed the kingdom during the childhood of her son. On the walls of the palace at Luxor we have a sculpture representing the miraculous birth of this son (see Fig. 61). In the first place, Queen Mautmes is receiving a message from heaven through the god Thoth, that she is to give birth to a child. Then the god Kneph, the Fig. 60. spirit, takes her by the hand, and with the goddess Athor puts into her, through her mouth, life for the child that is to be born. She is then placed upon a stool, after the custom of the Egyptian mothers, as mentioned in the ch. i. 16. book of Exodus. While seated there, two nurses chafe her hands to support her against the pains of child-birth; and the new-born child is held up beside her by a third nurse. In another place the priests and nobles are saluting their future king. In this way the sculpture declares that the young king had no earthly father; and it explains what lib. i. 47. Diod. Sic. was meant by the royal title of Son of Amun-Ra, and also how the Greeks came to be afterwards told that the Egyptian queens were Jupiter's concubines. (19) AMUNOTHPH III. (see Fig. 62), her son, though not one of the Tablet of greatest EgypAbydos, tian kings, is Denon, one of those pl. 44. best known, from his celebrated musi cal statue. It is one of two colossal figures, each above fifty feet high, sitting side by side in the plain opposite Thebes, having their feet washed |