power, and so many Dynasties to arise after his decease, CHAP. and to continue coexistent in peace and full power so V. long as these several Dynasties are supposed to do. Besides, is it not very strange that no historian should mention such a former distribution of several principalities so anciently in Egypt? But that which to me utterly overthrows the coexistence of these Dynasties in Egypt, is, by comparing with them what we find in Scripture of greatest antiquity concerning the kingdom of Egypt; which I cannot but wonder that none of those learned men should take notice of. When the Egyptian kingdom was first founded, it is not here a place to enquire; but it is evident that, in Abraham's time, there was a Pharaoh, king of Egypt, (whom Archbishop Usher thinks to have been Apophis;) not Abimelech, the first king of Egypt, Gen. xii. as Constantinus Manasses reports in his Annals, (by a ridiculous mistake of the king of Gerar for the king of Egypt.) __This Pharaoh was then certainly king of all the land of Egypt, which still in Scripture is called the Land of Misraim, from the first planter of it: and this was of very great antiquity; and therefore Funccius (though improbably) thinks this Pharaoh to have been Osiris; and Rivet thinks Misraim might have been alive till that time. Here then we find no Dynasties coexisting, but one kingdom under one king. If we descend somewhat lower, to the times of Jacob and Joseph, the evidence is so undoubted of Egypt's being an entire kingdom under one king, that he may have just cause to suspect the eyes either of his body or his mind that distrusts it. For what more evident than that Pharaoh, who preferred Joseph, was king of all the land of Egypt? Were not the seven years of famine over all the land of Egypt? Gen. xli. 55. Was not Joseph set by Pharaoh over all the land of Egypt? Gen. xli. 41, 43, 45. And did not Joseph go over all the land of Egypt to gather corn? Gen. xli. 46. Nay, did he not buy all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh? Gen. xlvii.

20.

Can there possibly be given any fuller evidences of an entire kingdom than these are, that Egypt was such then? Afterwards we read of one king after another in Egypt for the space of nigh two hundred years, during the children of Israel's slavery in Egypt; and was not he, think we, king over all Egypt, in whose time the children of Israel went out thence? And in all the following history of Scripture, is there not mention made of Egypt still as an entire kingdom, and of one king over it? Where then is there any place for these contemporary Dynasties

BOOK in Egypt? Nowhere, that I know of, but in the fancies of some learned men.

I.

VIII.

Indeed there is one place that seems to give some countenance to this opinion; but it is in far later times than the first Dynasties of Manetho are supposed to be in, which is in Isai. xix. 2. where God saith, He would set the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they shall fight every one against his brother, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. Where it seems that there were several kingdoms then existent among the Egyptians; but the Septuagint very well renders it νομὸς ἐπὶ νομόν. Now youòs among the Egyptians, as Epiphanius and others tell us, notes τὴν ἑκάςης πόλεως περιοικίδα ἤτοι περίχωρον, the precincts of every great city, such as our counties are; and therefore Pliny renders vouoì by præfecturæ. These were the several provinces of Egypt, of which there were thirtysix in Egypt, ten in Thebais, ten in Delta, the other sixteen in the midland parts; so that by kingdom against kingdom, no more is meant than one province being set against another. Isaac Vossius thinks the number of the ancient Nomi was twelve, and that over every one of these was a peculiar king; and that this number may be gathered from the Dynasties of Manetho, setting aside the Dynasties of the Persians, Ethiopians, and Phoenicians, viz. The Thinites, Memphites, Elephantines, Heracleopolitans, Diospolitan Thebans, the Lesser Diospolitans, Xoites, Tanites, Bubastites, Saïtes, Mendesians, and Sebennytes; and so that Egypt was anciently a Dodecarchy, as England in the Saxons' time was a Heptarchy. But as it already appears there could be anciently no such Dodecarchy in Egypt, so it is likewise evident that this distribution of Egypt into Nomi is a later thing; and by most writers is attributed to Sesoosis or Sesostris, whom Vide Boch. Josephus supposed to be Sesac, king of Egypt, contemGeogr. p. 1.porary with Rehoboam. Indeed if we believe Gelaldinus, 1. iv. c. 24. the Arabic historian, cited by Kircher, the most ancient disOedip. tribution of Egypt was into four parts. Misraim held one Egypt. to.i. part to himself, and gave his son Copt another, Esmun a Syntag. i, third, and Atrib a fourth part; which division the same author affirms to have continued till the time of Joseph, who made a new distribution of the whole land: after him Sesostris divided the whole into thirty several Nomi; so Kircher will needs have it, that of the three several parts of Egypt, each might have for some mystical signification its ten Nomi; of which every one had its distinct and peculiar God it worshipped, and a particular palace

Kircher.

c. 4.

V.

in the Labyrinth, and a peculiar Sanhedrin, or court of CHAP. justice, belonging to it. But it evidently appears by that vain-glorious Oedipus, that it is a far easier matter to make new mysteries than to interpret old ones; which as it might be easily discovered in the main foundations whereon that structure stands, so we have some evidence of it in our first entrance into it, in this part of the Chorography of Egypt. For from whence had he this exact division of Egypt into thirty Nomi; ten of which belonged to the Upper Egypt, or Thebais, ten to Delta, or the Lower Egypt, and the ten remaining to the midland country? Hath he this from Ptolemy, whose scheme of the several Nomi he publisheth? No; Ptolemy and Pliny, Kircher by his own confession afterwards, add many other to Dedip. Egypt.to.I. these, as Omphile, Phanturites, Tanites, Phatnites, Neut, Synt. 1. c.2. Heptanomos, &c. Hath he it from Strabo, whose autho- p. 7. rity he cites for it? No such matter; for Strabo saith ex- Strab. pressly, that Thebais had ten Nomi, Delta ten, and the l. xii. midland sixteen; only some are of opinion, saith he, that P. 541. there were as many Nomi as palaces in the Labyrinth, which were toward thirty; but yet the number is uncertain still. We see by this how ominous it is for an Oedipus to stumble at the threshold, and how easy a matter it is to interpret mysteries, if we may have the making of them. We see then no evidence at all for these contemporary Dynasties of Manetho; which yet if we should grant, would be a further argument of the uncertainty of Heathen chronology, when among them implicit years are given out to the world for solid; so that which way soever Manetho's Dynasties be taken, they will prove the thing in hand, whether we suppose them at least most part fabulous, or should grant he had taken those in succession to each other which were coexistent with one another.

1.

CHAP. VI.

The uncertain Epochas of Heathen Chronology.

I. An Account of the Defect of Chronology in the eldest Times. Of the solar Year among the Egyptians; the Original of the Epacts; the Antiquity of Intercalation among them. Of the several Canicular Years; the Difference between Scaliger and Petavius considered. The certain Epochas of the Egyptian History no older than Nabonassar. II. Of the Grecian Accounts. The Fabulousness of the heroical Age of Greece. III. Of the ancient Grecian Kingdoms. The Beginning of the Olympiads. IV. The uncertain Origins of the Western Nations. Of the Latin Dynasties. The different Palilia of Rome. The uncertain Reckoning ab Urbe condita. V. Of Impostures as to ancient Histories. Of Annius, VI. Inghiramius, and others. VII. Of the Characters used by Heathen Priests. VIII. No sacred Characters among the Jews. IX. The Partiality and Inconsistency of Heathen Histories with each other. From all which the Want of Credibility in them as to an Account of ancient Times is clearly demonstrated.

BOOK THE next thing to evidence the uncertainty of the HeaI. then Chronology, is the want of certain Parapegmata, or some fixed periods of time, according to which the account of times must be made. For if there be no certain Epochas by which to reckon the succession of ages, the distance of intervals, and all intervening accidents, we must of necessity fluctuate in continual uncertainties, and have no sure foundation to bottom any account of ancient times upon. The great reason of this defect is the little care which those who lived in the eldest times had to preserve the memory of any ancient tradition among themselves, or to convey it to posterity in such a way as might be least liable to imposture. Of all kinds of learning, Chronology was the most rude in eldest times; and yet that is well called by Scaliger, the life and soul of history, without which history is but a confused lump, a mere mola, an indigested piece of flesh, without life or form. The ancient accounts of the world were merely from year to year; and that with abundance of obscurity, uncertainty, and variety: sometimes going by the course of the moon; and therein they were as mutable as the moon herself how to conform the year regularly to her

year of

c. 50.

VI.

Vide Scali

motion; and it was yet greater difficulty to regulate it by CHAP. the course of the sun, and to make the accounts of the sun and moon meet. There was so much perplexity and confusion about the ordering of a single year, and so long in most nations before they could bring it into any order, that we are not to expect any fixed periods by which to find out the succession of ages among them. Among the Egyptians, who are supposed most skilful in the account of the year, it was a long time before they found out any certain course of it. It is agreed by most, that when the Egyptian priests had found out the form of the year by the course of the sun, (which is attributed by Diodorus to the Heliopolitan priests,) yet the year in Diodor. 1. i. common use was only of 360 days, which in any great period of years must needs cause a monstrous confusion, by reason that their months must of necessity by degrees change their place; so that in the great Canicular 730 Thoyth, which was the beginning of the summer solstice in the entrance into that period, would be removed into the midst of winter; from whence arose that Egyptian fable in Herodotus, that in the time of their Herod. Eueldest kings the sun had twice changed his rising and terp. c. 142. setting; which was only caused by the variation of their months, and not by any alteration in the course of the Emend. sun: which defect the Egyptian priests at last observing, Temp. l. iii. saw a necessity of adding five days to the end of the year, P. 195. which thence were called Tayousvay, which implies they were not anciently in use among them, being afterwards added to make up the course of the year: which the Egyptians give an account of, as Plutarch tells us, under this fable. Mercury being once at dice with the moon, he Plutarch.de got from her the 72d part of the year, which he after added Iside et Osito the 360 days which were anciently the days of the year, Edit. Oxon. which they called rayóμevas, and therein celebrated the festivals of their Gods. Thence the names of the several nayoueva were taken from the Gods. The first was called 'Oripis, it being celebrated in honour of him; the second, 'Agapis, by which Scaliger understands Anubis, but Vossius, more probably, the senior Orus; the third to Typho; Voss. de the fourth to Isis; the fifth to Nephtha, the wife of Typho, and sister to Isis. This course of the year Scaliger thinks that the Egyptians represented by the serpent called Nari, being described in a round circle biting some part of his tail in his mouth; whereby, saith he, they would have it understood that the form of the year was not perfect without that adjection of five days to the end of the year; for to this

ger. de

ride, c. 12.

Idol. 1. i.

c. 28.