intoxicating draught, to signify error and misery; the sword and bow, a warrior; a gigantic stature, a mighty leader; balance, weights and measures, a judge or magistrate; arms, a powerful nation, like the Roman. Of the second kind, which answers to the tropical hieroglyphic, is the calling empires, kings, and nobles, by the names of the heavenly luminaries, the sun, moon, and stars; their temporary disasters or entire overthrow, denoted by eclipses and extinctions; the destruction of the nobility, by stars falling from the firmament; hostile invasions, by thunder and tempestuous winds; and leaders of armies, conquerors, and founders of empire, by lions, bears, leopards, goats, or high trees. In a word, the prophetic style seems to be a SPEAKING HIEROGLYPHIC. These observations will not only assist us in the intelligence of the Old and New Testament, but likewise vindicate their character from the illiterate cavils of modern libertines, who have foolishly mistaken that colouring for the peculiar workmanship of the speaker's heated imagination, which was the sober established language of their times; a language which GOD and his Son condescended to employ, as the properest vehicle of the high mysterious ways of providence, in the revelation of themselves to mankind. But to come to a conclusion. We must observe in the last place, that, besides the many changes which the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics underwent, they at length suffered a very perverse corruption. It hath been already seen, how the MYSTERIES, that other grand vehicle of Egyptian wisdom, degenerated into magic: just so it happened with the HIEROGLYPHICS; for their characters being become, in a proper sense, sacred, as will be explained hereafter, it disposed the more superstitious to engrave them upon gems, and wear them as amulets or charms. But this abuse seems not to have been much earlier than the established worship of the god Serapis ; which happened under the Ptolemies; and was first brought to the general knowledge of the world by certain Christian heretics, and natives of Egypt, who had mingled a number of pagan superstitions with their Christianity. These gems, called ABRAXAS, frequently to be met with in the cabinets of the curious, are engraven with all kinds of hieroglyphic characters. For this abusive original, we have the testimony of Rufinus the ecclesiastical historian, contemproary with St Jerome: who can reckon up, says he, the horrid superstitions practised at Canopus? where under pretence of interpreting the SACERDOTAL LETTERS, for so they call the ancient Egyptian characters, a public school may be almost said to be opened for the teaching magical arts.† Hence these characters came to be called Chaldaic, the Chaldeans being particularly addicted to magic. So Cassiodorus, speaking of the obelisks in the Roman circus, which were brought from Egypt, calls the • See note C C C, at the end of this book. +-Canopi quis enumeret superstitiosa flagitia? Ubi prætextu SACERDOTALIUM LITERAROM, ita enim appellant antiquas Ægyptiorum literas, magicæ artis erat pene publica schola. -Eccles. Hist. lib, ii. cap. xxvi. inscriptions on them Chaldaica signa:* to the abraxas afterwards succeeded TALISMANS:† which (mixed, like the other, with the dotages of judicial astrology) are held in high reverence to this day, in all Mahometan countries. And here let me observe, that from the low date of these kinds of charms may be seen the impertinence of what Sir John Marsham brings from late Greek and Roman writers, to confront and discredit the mysterious elevation of the brazen serpent in the wilderness.‡ But what must we think of KIRCHER, who hath mistaken these superstitions for the ancient Egyptian wisdom: and setting up with this magic, and that other of the mysteries, which the later Platonists and Pythagoreans had jumbled together, in the production of their fanatic philosophy, soon engrossed, in imagination, all the treasures of antiquity?§ However, to be just, it must be owned that he was misled by the ancients themselves; some of whom imagined that the very first hieroglyphics were tainted with this magical pollution, just as some moderns would have the first mysteries to be corrupted by debauched practices. So Lucan, speaking of the times before alphabetic writing, says, Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere Biblos. Here, we see, the abuse and the invention are made coëval. An extravagant error, which the least attention to the history of the human mind and the progress of its operations might have prevented. To conclude, I have here presumed to dispute an unquestioned proposition, that the Egyptians invented hieroglyphics for the sake of secrecy. It will be well if the evidence of the reasoning may excuse the singularity of the paradox. This is certain, the subject hath long remained in obscurity; and as certain, that I have, some how or other, been able to throw a little scattered light into the darkest corners of it. Whether the common opinion occasioned the obscurity, and the notion here advanced has contributed to remove it, is left for the candid reader to determine. * Ubi sacra priscorum Chaldaicis signis, quasi literis, indicantur.—Lib. iii. ep. 51, et lib. iii. ep. 2. + See note D D D, at the end of this book. See note E E E, at the end of this book. The following are three of his six postulata on which he founds his whole interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics: 1. Hieroglyphica Ægyptiorum doctrina nihil aliud est quam arcana de Deo, divinisque Ideis, Angelis, Dæmonibus, cæterisque mundanarum polestatum classibus ordinibusque scientia, saxis potissimùm insculpta. 5. Hieroglyphica symbola non tantùm sublimium erant significativa sacramentorum; sed et naturalem quandem efficaciam habcre credabantur, tum ad genios bonos quibuscum occultum, et in abdita naturæ abysso latentem sympathiam habere putabantur, attrahendos; tum ad contrarios et antitechnos genios, ob eorundem cum iis antipathiam, coërcendos pro fligandosque. 6. Hieroglyphica symbola nihil aliud quàm prophylactica quædam signa, omnium malo_ rum averruncativa, ob mirificum catenarum mundialium consensum connexionemque, esse existimabantur,—Œdip. Ægypt, t. iii. p. 4. || See note F F F at the end of this book, AND now to apply this matter to the proof of our proposition; for this long discourse on hieroglyphic writing is particularly given to deduce from its nature, origin, and use, an internal argument for the high antiquity of Egyptian learning, Let us see then how the evidence stands: the true Egyptian learning, which the early Greek sages brought from thence to adorn their own country, was, by the concurrent testimony of these writers, all contained in hieroglyphics. They record a simple fact; and, in a fact of this nature, they could not be deceived; though in the causes of it they well might; and, as we have shown, indeed were. But hieroglyphic-writing thus invented, was improved into a contrivance to record their secret wisdom, long before an alphabet was found out; and yet an alphabet was of so high and almost immemorial antiquity as to pass for an invention of the gods: and consequently to deceive some men into an opinion that letters were prior in time to hieroglyphics.* To this it may be objected, "that, as I pretend hieroglyphics were not invented for secrecy, but afterwards turned to that use, and even employed in it, long after the invention of alphabetic letters, it might very well be, that this profound learning, which all agree to have been recorded in hieroglyphics, was the product of ages much below the antiquity inquired after." Now, not to insist upon the Grecian testimony, which makes the learned hieroglyphics coeval with the first race of kings; I reply, and might well rest the matter on this single argument,-That if at the invention of letters, much high-prized learning had not been contained in hieroglyphics, but only plain memorials of civil matters, no plausible reason can be given why the Egyptians did not then discontinue a way of writing so troublesome and imperfect. It hath been shown, that in the very early ages of the world, all nations, as well as the Egyptian, used to record the succession of time and revolutions of state in hieroglyphic characters: but, of these, none, besides the Egyptians, continued to write by marks for things, after the invention of letters. All others immediately dropt their hieroglyphics on the discovery of that more commodious method. The reason of which is plain; all others were totally unlearned in those periods of their existence preceding the knowledge of letters; consequently, as their hieroglyphics were employed in nothing but to record the rude annals of their history, they had no inducement to continue them but at this remarkable era, Egypt was very learned: and hieroglyphies being the repositories of its learning, these monuments would be in high veneration, and that veneration would perpetuate their use. There is but one example perhaps in the world, besides the Egyptian, where a people's learning was first recorded in hieroglyphic characters; and this one example will support our argument: the people I mean are the CHINESE; who, as the missionaries assure us, bear such esteem and reverence for their ancient character, that, when they find it curiously * See note G G G, at the end of this book. written, they prefer it to the most elegant painting, and purchase the least scrap at an excessive price: they will not, we are told, apply the paper even of any common book, on which these characters are written, to a profane or vulgar use; and their joiners and masons do not dare to tear a printed leaf which they find pasted to the wall or wainscot.* Now if, at length, these people should be prevailed on to use the more excellent way of writing with the letters of an alphabet, can any one doubt but that their mandarins would still continue these venerable hieroglyphic characters in their works of science and religion? Thus, what we see would be the case here was without all question the case of the Egyptians; characters become the vehicle of such treasures of learning must be in the highest reverence: and, indeed, the name of hieroglyphics, under which they were delivered to the Greeks, shows they were in fact thus reverenced.† But that learning which was contained in hieroglyphics, and was, of itself, sufficient to perpetuate their use, gave birth to a tradition which would effectually secure it; and this was, that the GODS themselves invented hieroglyphic writing. On the whole, the argument drawn from their CONTINUED USE seems so sure a proof of the high antiquity of Egyptian learning in general, that one might safely rest the whole upon it: but to remove all cavil, I shall proceed to other, and, as I think, incontestable proofs of the antiquity of that learning, and particularly the theologic: the one taken from the true original of the art of ONEIROCRITIC, or interpretation of dreams ; and the other from the true original of ANIMAL WORSHIP: both of these fantastic superstitions being the genuine and peculiar growth of EGYPT. 1. The art of ONEIROCRITIC, from whose original I deduce my first proof, made a very considerable part of ancient pagan religion. Artemidorus, who lived about the beginning of the second century, and wrote a treatise on dreams, collected from much earlier writers, divides dreams into two kinds, the speculative and the allegorical; the first kind is that which presents a plain and direct picture of the matter about which the dream gives information; the second is an oblique intimation of it, by a tropical or symbolic image. This latter, which makes up the large farrago of dreams, is the only kind that needs an interpreter; on which account Macrobius defines a dream to be the notice of something hid in allegory which wants to be explained.§ * Ils preferent méme un beau caractere à la plus admirable peinture, et l'on en voit souvent qui achetent bien cher une page de vieux caracteres, quand ils sont bien formés. Ils honorent leurs caracteres jusques dans les livres les plus ordinaires, et si par hasard quelques feuilles étoient tombées, ils les ramassent avec respect: ce seroit, selon eux, une grossiereté et une impolitesse, d'en faire un usage profane, de les fouler aux pieds en marchant, de les jetter même avec indifference; souvent il arrive, que les menuisiers et les maçons n'osent pas dechirer une feuille imprimée, qui se trouve collée sur le mur, ou sur le bois. Ils craignent de faire une faute.-Du Halde, Descr. de l'Empire de la Chine, t. ii. p. 228. + See p. 25; and see note H H H at the end of this book. † Ετι τῶν ὀνείρων, οἱ μὲν εἰσὶ θεωρηματικοί, οἱ δὲ ἀλληγορικοί· καὶ θεωρηματικοὶ μὲν οἱ τῇ ἑαυτῶν θεωρία προσεοικότες, ἀλληγορικοὶ δὲ οἱ δὲ ἄλλων ἄλλα σημαίνοντες.—Artemid. Oneir lib. i. cap. 2. § Somnium proprie vocatur, quod tegit figuris et velut ambagibus, non nisi interpretatione intelligendam, signíficationem rei quæ demonstratur.-In Somn. Scrip. lib. i. cap. 3. So that the question will be, on what grounds or rules of interpreta. tion the oneirocritics proceeded, when, if a man dreamed of a dragon, the interpreter assured him it signified majesty; if of a serpent, a disease; a viper, money; frogs, impostors; pigeons and stock-doves, women; partridges, impious persons; a swallow, sorrow, death, and disaster; cats, adultery; the ichneumon, deceitful and mischievous men,* &c. for the whole art of ancient oneirocritic was concerned in these remote and mysterious relations. Now the early interpreters of dreams were not juggling impostors; but, like the early judicial astrologers, more superstitious than their neighbours; and so the first who fell into their own delusions. However, suppose them to have been as arrant cheats as any of their successors, yet at their first setting up they must have had materials proper for their trade; which could never be the wild workings of each man's private fancy. Their customers would look to find a known analogy, become venerable by long application to mysterious wisdom, for the groundwork of their deciphering; and the decipherers themselves would as naturally fly to some confessed authority, to support their pretended science. But what ground or authority could this be, if not the mysterious learning of symbolic characters? Here we seem to have got a solution of the difficulty. The Egyptian priests, the first interpreters of dreams, took their rules for this species of DIVINATION, from their symbolic riddling, in which they were so deeply read: a ground of interpretation which would give the strongest credit to the art; and equally satisfy the diviner and the consulter: for by this time it was generally believed that their gods had given them hieroglyphic writing. So that nothing was more natural than to imagine that these gods, who in their opinion gave dreams likewise, had employed the same mode of expression in both revelations. This, I suppose, was the true original† of oneirocritic, or the interpretation of those dreams called allegorical; that is, of dreams in general; for the wildness of an unbridled fancy will make almost all natural dreams to be of that kind. It is true, the art being now well established, every age adorned it with additional superstitions; so that at length the old foundation became quite lost in these new incrustations. If this account of its original stood in need of farther evidence, I might urge the rules of interpretation here given from Artemidorus, and a great many more which might have been given; all of them conformable to the symbolic hieroglyphics in Horapollo. Herodotus, in Clio, tells us, how Cyrus, dreaming that young Darius had WINGS on his shoulders, which, when spread out, shaded Asia and Europe, understood this dream by the assistance of his interpreters, to signify (as we must needs conclude) a conspiracy formed against him by that young man. Now Sanchoniatho tells us that in the most ancient hieroglyphic writing, a supreme governor was designed by a man • Vid. Artemidor. See note II I, at the end of this book. See above, p. 26 of this volume. |