Now the period when
Semiramis lived,--a period when the patriarchal faith was still fresh in the minds of men, when Shem was
still alive, * to rouse the minds of the faithful to rally
around the banner for the truth and cause of God, made it hazardous all at once and publicly to
set up
such a system as was inaugurated by the Babylonian queen.
* For the age of Shem see Genesis
11:10, 11. According to this, Shem lived 502 years
after the flood, that is, according to the Hebrew
chronology, till BC 1846. The age of Ninus,
the husband of Semiramis, as stated in a former note, according
to Eusebius, synchronised with that of Abraham,
who was born BC 1996. It was only about nine years,
however, before the end of the reign of Ninus, that
the birth of Abraham is said to have taken place.
(SYNCELLUS) Consequently, on this view, the reign of
Ninus must have terminated, according to the usual
chronology, about BC 1987. Clinton, who is of high
authority in chronology, places the reign of Ninus
somewhat earlier. In his Fasti
Hellenici he makes his
age to have been BC 2182. Layard (in his Nineveh and its Remains) subscribes to this opinion. Semiramis
is said to have survived her husband forty-two years.
(SYNCELL) Whatever view, therefore, be adopted in
regard to the age of Ninus, whether that of Eusebius,
or that at which Clinton and Layard have arrived, it
is evident that Shem
long survived both Ninus and his wife. Of course, this argument
proceeds on the supposition of the correctness of the
Hebrew chronology. For conclusive evidence on that
subject, see note 2 below.
See how Musical Idolatry was
restored immediately after the flood.
We know, from the
statements in Job, that among patriarchal tribes that had nothing whatever to do with Mosaic institutions, but which adhered to the pure faith of the patriarchs, idolatry in any shape was held to be a crime, to be
visited with signal and summary punishment on the heads
of those who practised it.
"If I beheld
the
sun," said Job, "when
it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath
been secretly enticed, and * my mouth hath kissed my
hand; this also were an
iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that
is above" (Job 31:26-28).
See those with the MARK of the
WINE SKIN baptizing the S.U.N god as the S.O.N.
God.
The Sun god and "holy communion."
Shamash the sun god.
* That which I have rendered "and" is
in the authorised version "or," but there is no reason
for such a rendering, for the word in the original is
the very same as that which connects the previous
clause, "and my heart," &c
Wherefore do the wicked
live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Job 21:7
Their seed is established in
their sight with them, and their offspring before
their eyes. Job 21:8
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is
the rod of God upon them. Job 21:9
Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their
cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. Job 21:10
They send forth their
little ones like a flock, and their children dance. Job 21:11
They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the
sound of the organ. Job 21:12
They spend their days in wealth, and in a
moment go down to the grave. Job 21:13 T
Therefore they say unto God,
Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge
of thy ways. Job 21:14
What is the
Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we
pray unto him? Job 21:15
Lo, their good
is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is
far from me Job 21:16 .
How oft is the candle of the wicked put out
and how oft cometh their destruction upon them!
God distributeth sorrows in his anger. Job 21:17
They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff
that the storm carrieth away. Job 21:18
God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he
rewardeth him, and he shall know it. Job 21:19
His eyes shall
see his destruction, and he shall drink of
the wrath of the Almighty. Job 21:20
The end-time
Babylonians will fail because they trusted their own
fun and games and rejected God:
And the fruits
that thy soul lusted after are departed from
thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly
are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no
more at all. Revelation 18:14
And the voice of
harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters,
shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no
craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be
found any more in thee; and the sound of a
millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
Revelation 18: 22
Now if this
was the case in Job's day, much more must it have been the case
at the earlier period when the Mysteries were
instituted. It was a matter, therefore, of necessity, if
idolatry were to be brought in, and especially such foul
idolatry as the Babylonian
system contained in its
bosom, that it should be done stealthily
and in secret. *
* It will be seen by-and-by what
cogent reason there was, in point of fact, for the profoundest secrecy in the
matter. See Chapter II
Even though introduced by the hand
of power, it might have produced a revulsion,
and violent attempts might have been made by the
uncorrupted portion of mankind to put it down;
and at all events,
if it had appeared at once in all its hideousness, it
would have alarmed the consciences of men, and defeated
the very object in view.
That object was to bind all mankind in blind and absolute submission to a hierarchy entirely dependent on the sovereigns of Babylon.
In the carrying out of this
scheme, all knowledge, sacred and profane, came to be monopolised
by the priesthood,
who dealt it out to those who were initiated
in the "Mysteries" exactly as they saw fit, according as
the interests of the grand system of spiritual despotism they had to administer might seem to
require.
Thus the people, wherever the
Babylonian system spread, were bound neck and heel to the priests.
The priests were the only depositaries of religious knowledge;
they only had the true tradition by which the writs and
symbols of the public religion could be
interpreted;and without blind and implicit
submission to them, what
was necessary for salvation could not be known. Click for Hermes - Mercury the "New
Hermeneutics"
Now compare this with the early history of the Papacy, and with its spirit and modus operandi
throughout, and how exact was the coincidence! Was it in
a period of patriarchal light that the corrupt system of
the Babylonian "Mysteries" began? It was in a period of
still greater light that that unholy and unscriptural system commenced, that has found such rank
development in the Church of Rome.
It began in the very age of the apostles, when the primitive Church was in its
flower, when the glorious fruits of Pentecost were
everywhere to be seen, when martyrs were sealing their
testimony for the truth with their blood. Even then,
when the Gospel shone so brightly, the Spirit of God
bore this clear and distinct testimony by Paul:
"THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY DOTH ALREADY
WORK" (2 Thess 2:7). That system of iniquity which then
began it was divinely foretold was to issue in a
portentous apostacy, that in due time would be awfully
"revealed," and would continue until it should be
destroyed "by the breath of the Lord's mouth (The Word),
and consumed by the brightness of His coming."
But at its first
introduction into the Church, it came in secretly
and by stealth, with "all DECEIVABLENESS of
unrighteousness." It wrought "mysteriously" under fair but false pretences,
leading men away from the simplicity
of the truth as it is in Jesus.
And it did
so secretly, for the
very same reason that idolatry was secretly
introduced in the ancient Mysteries of Babylon;
it was not safe,
it was not prudent to do otherwise. The zeal of the
true Church, though destitute of civil power, would have aroused itself, to put the false system and all its
abettors beyond the
pale of Christianity,
Therefore the
prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is
an evil time. Am.5:13
if it had appeared openly and all at once in all its grossness;
and this would have arrested its progress.
See Satan's Method of using
Praise or Flattery of Jesus to Deceive.
Therefore it was brought in secretly,
and by little and little, one corruption being introduced after another, as apostacy proceeded,
and the backsliding Church became prepared to
tolerate it, till it
has reached the gigantic height we now see, when in
almost every particular the system of the Papacy is
the very antipodes of the system
of the primitive Church.
Of the gradual
introduction of all
that is now most characteristic
of
Rome, through the
working of the "Mystery
of iniquity," we have
very striking evidence, preserved even by Rome itself,
in the inscriptions copied from the Roman catacombs.
These catacombs are extensive
excavations underground in the neighbourhood of Rome,
in which the Christians, in times of persecution
during the first three centuries, celebrated their
worship, and also buried their dead.
On some of the tombstones there
are inscriptions still to be found, which are
directly in the teeth of the now well-known
principles and practices of Rome. Take only one
example: What, for instance, at this day is a more
distinguishing mark of the Papacy than the enforced celibacy of the clergy? Yet from these inscriptions we have
most decisive evidence, that even in Rome,
there was a time when no such
system of clerical celibacy was known. Witness the
following, found on different tombs:
"To Basilius, the presbyter,
and Felicitas, his wife. They made this for themselves."
"Petronia, a priest's
wife, the type
of modesty. In this place I lay my bones. Spare your
tears, dear husband and daughter, and believe that it
is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God." (DR.
MAITLAND'S Church in the
Catacombs)
A prayer
here and there for
the dead: "May God refresh thy spirit," proves that even
then the Mystery of iniquity had begun to
work; but inscriptions such as the above equally show
that it had been slowly and cautiously working,--that up
to the period to which they refer, the Roman Church had
not proceeded the length it has done now, of absolutely
"forbidding its priests to 'marry.'"
Craftily and gradually did Rome lay the foundation of its
system of priestcraft, on which it was afterwards to rear so vast a superstructure. At its commencement, "Mystery"
was stamped upon its system.
In an Essay on
the Religion of Christianity in the Christian
Baptist, October 4, 1824, Thomas Campbell wrote:
WHILE many writers
and teachers, some of them too of high repute in the
christian world, so called, compliment christianity, I mean
the New Testament exhibition of it, upon the
superexcellency of its moral dictates, who, at the
same time are ignorant of, and even averse to, the religion it inculcates;
and whilst others
profess to embrace it as a system of religion, without imbibing the
spirit, realizing the truth, and experiencing the
power of its religious
institutions; but merely superstruct to themselves, rest in, and are
satisfied with, a form of godliness; and that, very often,
a deficient, imperfect form, or such as their own
imagination has devised;
See
Why
Thomas Paine was a Deist.
But this feature of "Mystery" has
adhered to it throughout its whole course. When it had
once succeeded in dimming the light of the Gospel,
obscuring the fulness and freeness
of the grace of God,
and drawing away the souls of men from direct and immediate dealings with the One Grand Prophet and High Priest
of our profession, a mysterious power was attributed to the clergy, which gave
them "dominion over the faith" of the people--
a dominion directly disclaimed
by apostolic men (2 Cor 1:24), but which, in connection with the
confessional, has become at least as absolute and
complete as was ever
possessed by Babylonian priest over those initiated in the
ancient Mysteries.
The clerical power of
the Roman priesthood culminated in the erection of the confessional. That confessional was itself borrowed
from Babylon. The
confession required of the votaries of Rome is entirely
different from the confession prescribed in the Word of
God.
The dictate of Scripture in regard to confession is,
"Confess your faults one
to another" (James 5:16), which implies that the priest should
confess to the people, as well as the people to the
priest, if either should sin against the other.
This could never have served any
purpose of spiritual
despotism; and
therefore,
Rome, leaving
the
Word of God, has had
recourse to the Babylonian
system. In that
system, secret
confession to the
priest, according to a prescribed form, was required
of all who were admitted to the "Mysteries"; and till
such confession had been made, no complete initiation
could take place. Thus does Salverte refer to this
confession as observed in Greece, in rites that can be
clearly traced to a Babylonian origin: "All the
Greeks, from Delphi to Thermopylae, were initiated in
the Mysteries of the temple of Delphi.
"Candles from the Catholic
Encyclopedia: The word candle (candela, from candeo,
to burn) was introduced into the English language as
an ecclesiastical term, probably as early as the
eighth century. It was known in classical times and
denoted any kind of taper in which a wick, not
uncommonly made of a strip of papyrus, was encased in
wax or animal fat.
We need not shrink
from admitting that CANDLES, like incense and
lustral water, were commonly employed in pagan worship and in the rites paid to the
DEAD.
But the Church from
a very early period took them into her service, just
as she adopted many other things indifferent in
themselves, which seemed proper to enhance the
splendour of religious ceremonial.
We must not forget
that most of these adjuncts to worship, like MUSIC, LIGHTS, perfumes, ablutions,
floral decorations, canopies, fans, screens, bells,
vestments, etc. were not identified with any idolatrous cult
in particular; they were COMMON TO ALMOST ALL
CULTS.
This was
initiated in connection with HOLY SATURDAY.
Their silence in regard to everything they were commanded to keep secret was secured both by the fear of the penalties threatened to a perjured revelation, and
by the general CONFESSION exacted of the aspirants after
initiation-- a confession which caused them greater dread of the indiscretion of the priest, than gave him reason to dread their
indiscretion." (See Erasmus on Monks and
Confessions)
This confession is also
referred to by Potter, in his "Greek Antiquities,"
though it has been generally overlooked.
In his account of the Eleusinian
mysteries, after
describing the preliminary ceremonies and instructions
before the admission of the candidates for initiation
into the immediate
presence of the divinities, he thus proceeds: "Then the priest that
initiated them called the Hierophant, proposed certain QUESTIONs, as, whether
they were fasting, &c.; to which they returned
answers in a set form."
The etcetera here might not strike a casual reader; but
it is a pregnant etcetera, and contains a great deal. It means,
Are you free from every violation of chastity? and that
not merely in the sense of moral impurity, but in that factitious sense of chastity which Paganism always
cherishes. Are you free from
the guilt of murder?--for no one guilty of slaughter,
even accidentally, could be admitted till he was purged
from blood, and there were certain priests, called Koes, who "heard confessions" in such cases,
and purged the guilt away.
The strictness of the inquiries in
the Pagan confessional is evidently implied in certain
licentious poems of Propertius, Tibullus, and Juvenal.
Wilkinson, in his chapter on "Private Fasts and
Penance," which, he says, "were strictly enforced," in
connection with "certain regulations at fixed
periods," has several classical quotations, which
clearly prove whence Popery derived the kind of questions
which have stamped that character of obscenity on its
confessional, as exhibited in the notorious pages of
Peter Dens.
The pretence under which this auricular confession was required, was, that the solemnities
to which the initiated were to be admitted were so
high, so heavenly, so holy, that no man with guilt lying on his conscience, and sin
unpurged, could lawfully be admitted to them.
For the safety, therefore of those who were
to be initiated, it
was held to be indispensable that the officiating priest should thoroughly probe their consciences, lest coming without due purgation
from previous guilt contracted, the wrath of the
gods should be provoked against the profane
intruders.
(This is the
thesis of Musical Worship teams which are supposed
to Lead you into the presence of God.)
This was the pretence; but when we
know the essentially
unholy nature, both of
the gods and their worship, who can fail to see that
this was nothing more than a pretence; that the grand
object in requiring the candidates for initiation to make confession to the priest of all their secret faults and
shortcomings and sins, was
just to put them entirely in the power of those to whom the inmost feelings of
their souls and their most important secrets were
confided?
Now, exactly in the same way, and
for the very same purposes, has Rome
erected the confessional. Instead of requiring
priests and people alike, as the Scripture does, to
"confess their faults one
to another," when
either have offended the other, it commands all, on
pain of perdition, to confess to the priest, *
whether they have transgressed against him or no,
while the priest is under no obligation to confess
to the people at all.
* BISHOP HAY'S Sincere Christian. In this work, the following question
and answer occur: "Q. Is this confession of our sins
necessary for obtaining
absolution? A. It is
ordained by Jesus Christ as absolutely necessary for this purpose." See also Poor Man's Manual, a work in use in Ireland.
Without such confession, in the Church
of Rome, there can be no
admission to the Sacraments, any more than in the days of Paganism
there could be admission without confession to the
benefit of the Mysteries.
Now, this confession is made by
every individual, in SECRECY AND IN SOLITUDE, to the priest sitting in the name and clothed with the
authority of God, invested with the power to examine
the conscience, to judge the life, to absolve
or condemn according to his mere arbitrary will and
pleasure.
This is the grand pivot on which the
whole "Mystery of iniquity," as embodied in the
Papacy, is made to turn; and wherever it is submitted
to, admirably does it serve the design of binding men in abject subjection to the priesthood.
In conformity with the principle out
of which the confessional grew, the Church, that is,
the clergy,
claimed to be the sole
depositories of the true faith of Christianity.
As the Chaldean priests were believed alone to possess
the key to the
understanding of the
Mythology of Babylon, a key handed down to them from
primeval antiquity, so the priests of Rome set up to be
the sole interpreters of Scripture; they only had the true tradition,
transmitted from age to age, without which it was
impossible to arrive at its true meaning.
They, therefore, require implicit faith
in their dogmas; all
men were bound to believe as the Church believed, while the Church in this
way could shape its faith as it pleased.
As possessing supreme authority, also,
over the faith, they could let
out little or much, as
they judged most expedient;
and "RESERVE" in
teaching the great truths of religion was as essential a
principle in the system of Babylon, as it is in Romanism
or Tractariansim at this day. *
It was this priestly claim to dominion over the faith of men, that "imprisoned the truth in
unrighteousness" ** in the ancient world, so that "darkness covered the earth, and gross
darkness the people." It
was the very same claim, in the hands of the Roman
priests, that ushered in the dark ages, when, through
many a dreary century, the Gospel was unknown, and the
Bible a sealed book to millions who bore the name of
Christ. In every respect, then, we see how justly Rome
bears on its forehead the name, "Mystery,
Babylon the Great."
* Even among the initiated there was
a difference. Some were admitted only to the "Lesser
Mysteries"; the "Greater" were for a favoured few.
WILKINSON'S Ancient
Egyptians
** Romans 1:18. The best
interpreters render the passage as given above. It
will be observed Paul is expressly speaking of the
heathen.
The wrath of God
is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the
truth by their wickedness, Rom 1:18NIV
Katecho (g2722) kat-ekh'-o;
from 2596 and 2192; to hold down (fast), in various
applications (lit. or fig.): - have, hold (fast),
keep (in memory), let, * make toward, possess,
retain, seize on, stay, take, withhold.
Because that which
may be known of God is manifest in them; for God
hath shewed it unto them. Rom 1:19
Notes negro
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Woman with Golden Cup
In Pausanias we find
an account of a goddess represented in the very attitude
of the Apocalyptic "Woman." "But of this stone [Parian marble]
Phidias," says he, "made a statue of Nemesis;
and on the head of the goddess there is a crown adorned
with stags, and images of victory of no great magnitude.
[1.33.3] Of this marble Pheidias made a statue of
Nemesis, and on the head of the goddess is a crown
with deer and small images of
Victory. In her left hand she holds an apple
branch, in her right hand a
cup on which are wrought Aethiopians. As to the
Aethiopians, I could hazard no guess myself, nor
could I accept the statement of those who are
convinced that the Aethiopians have been carved
upon the cup be cause of the river Ocean. For the
Aethiopians, they say, dwell near it, and Ocean is
the father of Nemesis.
In her left hand, too, she holds a branch of
an ash tree, and in her right A CUP, in
which Ethiopians are carved." (PAUSANIAS, Attica)
Pausanias declares himself unable to assign any reason
why "the Ethiopians" were carved on the cup; but the meaning
of the Ethiopians and the stags too will be apparent to all who read
further. We find, however, from statements made in the
same chapter, that though Nemesis
is commonly represented as the goddess of revenge, she must have been also known in quite
a different character.
Of Inanna: As the goddess of war and
strife, she held the title Ninkur-ra-igi-ga, "the queen who eyes
the highland" meaning that other lands feared
her. Battle was called the "dance of Inanna, and she was at the
very heart of it. She was "the star of the
battle-cry, who can make brothers
who have lived together in harmony fight each
other". She is known for causing the fall of the
city of Agade.
Thus Pausanias proceeds, commenting
on the statue: "But neither has this statue of the
goddess wings. Among the Smyrneans, however, who possess the most holy
images of Nemesis, I perceived afterwards that these
statues had wings. For, as this goddess principally pertains to lovers, on this account they may be
supposed to have given wings to Nemesis, as well as to
love," i.e., Cupid. The giving of wings to Nemesis, the
goddess who "principally pertained to lovers," because
Cupid, the god of love, bore them, implies that, in the
opinion of Pausanias, she was the counterpart of Cupid,
or the goddess of love--that
is, Venus.
While this is the inference
naturally to be deduced from the words of Pausanias,
we find it confirmed by an express statement of
Photius, speaking of the statue of Rhamnusian Nemesis:
"She was at first erected in the form of Venus (Lucifer and here Inanna), and therefore bore also the branch of an apple tree." (PHOTII, Lexicon) Though a goddess of love and a goddess
of revenge might seem very remote in their characters
from one another, yet it is not difficult to see how
this must have come about.
The goddess who was revealed to the
initiated in the Mysteries, in the most alluring
manner, was also known to be most unmerciful and unrelenting in taking
vengeance upon those
who revealed these
Mysteries; for every
such one who was discovered was unsparingly put to
death. (POTTER'S Antiquities, "Eleusinia") Thus, then, the
cup-bearing goddess was at once Venus, the goddess
of licentiousness,
and Nemesis, the stern and unmerciful one to all
who rebelled against
her authority. How
remarkable a type of the woman, whom John saw,
described in one aspect as the "Mother of harlots," and in another as "Drunken with
the blood of the saints"!
____________________
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Hebrew Chronology
Dr. Hales has
attempted to substitute the longer chronology of the
Septuagint for the Hebrew chronology. But this implies
that the Hebrew Church, as a body, was not faithful to
the trust committed to it in respect to the keeping of
the Scriptures, which seems distinctly opposed to the
testimony of our Lord in reference to these Scriptures
(John 5:39; 10:35), and also to that of Paul (Rom
3:2), where there is not the least hint of
unfaithfulness.
Then we can find a reason that
might induce the translators of the Septuagint in
Alexandria to 83 lengthen out the period of the ancient history
of the world; we can find no reason to induce the
Jews in Palestine to shorten it. The Egyptians had long, fabulous
eras in their history, and Jews dwelling in Egypt
might wish to make their sacred history go as far
back as they could, and the addition of just one
hundred years in each case, as in the Septuagint, to
the ages of the patriarchs, looks wonderfully like
an intentional forgery; whereas we cannot imagine
why the Palestine Jews should make any change in
regard to this matter at all. It is well known that
the Septuagint contains innumerable gross errors and
interpolations.
Bunsen casts overboard all
Scriptural chronology whatever, whether Hebrew,
Samaritan, or Greek, and sets up the unsupported
dynasties of Manetho, as if they were sufficient to
over-ride the Divine word as to a question of
historical fact. But, if the Scriptures are not
historically true, we can have no assurance of their
truth at all. Now it is worthy of notice that,
though Herodotus vouches for the fact that at one
time there were no fewer than twelve contemporaneous
kings in Egypt, Manetho, as observed by Wilkinson,
has made no allusion to this, but has made his
Thinite, Memphite, and Diospolitan dynasties of
kings, and a long etcetera of other dynasties, all
successive!
The period over which the
dynasties of Manetho extend, beginning with Menes,
the first king of these dynasties, is in itself a
very lengthened period, and surpassing all rational
belief. But Bunsen, not content with this, expresses
his very confident persuasion that there had been
long lines of powerful monarchs in Upper and Lower
Egypt, "during a period of from two to four thousand
years," even before the reign of Menes. In coming to
such a conclusion, he plainly goes upon the
supposition that the name Mizraim, which is the
Scriptural name of the land of Egypt, and is
evidently derived from the name of the son of Ham,
and grandson of Noah, is not, after all, the name of
a person, but the name of the united kingdom
formed under Menes out of "the two Misr," "Upper and
Lower Egypt," which had previously existed as
separate kingdoms, the name Misrim,
according to him, being a plural word. This
derivation of the name Mizraim, or Misrim, as a
plural word, infallibly leaves the impression that
Mizraim, the son of Ham, must be only a mythical
personage. But there is no real reason for thinking
that Mizraim is a plural word, or that it became the
name of "the land of Ham," from any other reason
than because that land was also the land of Ham's
son. Mizraim, as it stands in the Hebrew of Genesis,
without the points, is Metzrim; and Metzr-im signifies "The encloser
or embanker of the sea" (the word being derived from Im, the
same as Yam, "the sea," and Tzr,
"to enclose," with the formative M
prefixed).
If the accounts which ancient
history has handed down to us of the original state
of Egypt be correct, the first man who formed a
settlement there must have done the very thing implied in
this name. Diodorus Siculus tells us that, in
primitive times, that which, when he wrote, "was
Egypt, was said to have been not a country, but one universal sea." Plutarch also says (De Iside)
that Egypt was sea. From Herodotus, too, we have
very striking evidence to the same effect. He
excepts the province of Thebes from his statement;
but when it is seen that "the province of Thebes"
did not belong to Mizraim, or Egypt proper, which,
says the author of the article "Mizraim" in Biblical Cyclopoedia, "properly denotes Lower Egypt"; the
testimony of Herodotus will be seen entirely to
agree with that of Diodorus and Plutarch. His
statement is, that in the reign of the first king,
"the whole of Egypt (except the province of Thebes)
was an extended marsh. No part of that which is now
situate beyond the lake Moeris was to be seen, the
distance between which lake and the sea is a journey
of seven days." Thus all Mizraim or Lower Egypt was
under water.
This state of the country arose
from the unrestrained overflowing of the Nile,
which, to adopt the language of Wilkinson, "formerly
washed the foot of the sandy mountains of the Lybian
chain." Now, before Egypt could be fit for being a
suitable place for human abode--before it could
become what it afterwards did become, one of the
most fertile of all lands, it was indispensable that
bounds should be set to the overflowings of the sea
(for by the very name of the Ocean, or Sea, the Nile
was anciently called--DIODORUS), and that for this
purpose great embankments should enclose
or confine its waters. If Ham's son, then, led a
colony into Lower Egypt and settled it there, this
very work he must have done. And what more natural
than that a name should be given him in memory of
his great achievement? and what name so exactly
descriptive as Metzr-im, "The embanker of the sea,"
or as the name is found at this day applied to all
Egypt (WILKINSON), Musr or Misr? Names always tend
to abbreviation in the mouths of a people, and,
therefore, "The land of Misr" is evidently just "The
land of the embanker." From this statement it
follows that the "embanking of the sea"--the
"enclosing" of it within certain bounds, was the making
of it as a river, so far as Lower Egypt was concerned.
Viewing the matter in this light, what a meaning is
there in the Divine language in Ezekiel 29:3, where
judgments are denounced against the king of Egypt,
the representative of Metzr-im, "The embanker of the
sea," for his pride: "Behold, I am against thee,
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth
in the midst of his rivers, which saith, My river is
mine own, I have made it for myself."
When we turn to what is recorded
of the doings of Menes, who, by Herodotus, Manetho, and
Diodorus alike, is made the first historical king of
Egypt, and compare what is said of him,
with this simple explanation of the meaning of the
name of Mizraim, how does the one cast light on the
other? Thus does Wilkinson describe the great work
which entailed fame on Menes, "who," says he, "is
allowed by universal consent to have been the first
sovereign of the country." "Having diverted the
course of the Nile, which formerly washed the foot
of the sandy mountains of the Lybian chain, he
obliged it to run in the centre of the valley,
nearly at an equal distance between the two parallel
ridges of mountains which border it on the east and
west; and built the city of Memphis in the bed of
the ancient channel. This change was effected by
constructing a dyke about a hundred stadia above the
site of the projected city, whose lofty mounds and
strong EMBANKMENTS turned the water to the eastward,
and effectually CONFINED the river to its new bed.
The dyke was carefully kept in repair by succeeding
kings; and, even as late as the Persian invasion, a
guard was always maintained there, to overlook the
necessary repairs, and to watch over the state of
the embankments." (Egyptians)
When we see that Menes,
the first of the acknowledged historical kings of
Egypt, accomplished that very achievement which is
implied in the name of Mizraim, who can resist the
conclusion that menes and Mizraim are only two
different names for the same person? And if so, what
becomes of Bunsen's vision of powerful dynasties of
sovereigns "during a period of from two to four
thousand years" before the reign of Menes, by which
all Scriptural chronology respecting Noah and his
sons was to be upset, when it turns out that Menes
must have been Mizraim, the grandson of Noah
himself? Thus does Scripture contain, within its own
bosom, the means of vindicating itself; and thus do
its minutest statements, even in regard to matters
of fact, when thoroughly understood, shed surprising
light on the dark parts of the history of the world.
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