livers himself in these very words, which I quote without the least deviation, that they may suffice to confirm his testimony. "We had a king whose name was Timæus; and in his reign we fell, beyond all imagination, under God's heavy displeasure. There came flowing in upon us, a rugged, robust people out of the east, that made an inroad into the province; and there encamping, took it by force, and carried all before them without so much as a stroke, putting our princes in chains, cruelly laying our city in ashes, demolishing our temples, and miserably oppressing our inhabitants; some being cut to pieces, and others, with their wives and children, sent away in bondage. After this, they set up a king from among themselves, whose name was Salatis. "The new king advanced to Memphis, and having subjected both the upper and lower provinces, and put garrisons into all tenable places, he fortified to the eastward in a more especial manner, for fear of an invasion from the Assyrians, whom he looked upon as the stronger of the two. He found in the country. of Saites, a city, formerly called Avaris, which was situated very conveniently for his purpose, to the east of the river Bubastis. This city he improved and repaired, and fortified it with strong works and walls, and a body of two hundred and forty thousand men to cover it. He made choice of harvest time for the execution of his design, with a regard both to the plenty of the season for provisions, to the means of paying his soldiers, and to the securing himself likewise against all assaults or invasions, by his excellent discipline and conduct. : "Salatis died in the nineteenth year of his reign, and one Boon succeeded him, who governed forty-four years. After him came Apachnas, and reigned six and thirty years and seven months. Apochis came next, and ruled sixty years and one month: Janias, fifty years and one month and last of all came Assis, who ruled forty-nine years and two months. These six were the first kings, and perpetually in war, to exterminate the Egyptians. The people we called hycsos; that is to say, king shepherds: for hyc, in the holy tongue, is as much as king; and sos, according to the vulgar, is a shepherd: so that hycsos is taken as a compound. Some will have it that these people were Arabians. According to some other copies, hyc does not signify king-shepherd, but shep herd-captive; for hyc and hac, with an aspiration sound, in Egyptian, is as much as captive; and it seems to me the more reasonable interpretation of the two, as it suits better with the ancient history." We have it upon credit of the same author, "that when those (by whatever name they may be called) kings, or shepherds, and their train, had kept the government of Egypt in their own hands for the space of five hundred and eleven years, the king of Thebes, and the remainder of Egypt, that was not as yet subjected, made a violent and obstinate war upon the shepherds, and routed them, under the command of king Ali-fragmuthosis: and when the greatest part of them were driven out of Egypt, the rest withdrew into a place called Avaris, of ten thousand acres in extent; and this the shepherds (according to Manethon) inclosed with a strong substantial wall, that secured to them all necessaries within themselves." He says farther, "that Themosis, the son of Alisfragmuthosis, laid siege to it with four hundred and eighty thousand men but when he found the place was not to be carried by assault, they came to conditions, upon articles to depart Egypt, and a safe convoy to go whither they would. Upon these terms they marched out with their goods and families, to the number of two hundred and forty thousand souls, by the way of the wilderness, into Syria; and, for fear of the Assyrians, who were then masters of Asia, retired into a country that is now known by the name of Judea, where they erected a city large enough to receive this vast multitude, and called it Jerusalem." The same Manethon tells us, in another book of his Egyptian History," that he finds these people in books of great authority, distinguished by the name of Captive Shepherds;" our ancestors having been brought up to grazing, and from that pastoral employment taking the name of shepherds. They imagined that they had some ground for calling them captives: it was by that name that our father Joseph made himself known to the king of Egypt, when he obtained permission to send for his brethren. But of this more particularly elsewhere. So that it will be sufficient, at present, to consult the testimonies of the Egyptians upon this subject, and to hear Manethon, in his own words, about the time when this happened. : "King Themosis reigned five and twenty years and four months, from the departure of the shepherds out of Egypt, to the building of Jerusalem. His son Chebron took the kingdom after him, and governed thirteen years and after him Amenophis, twenty years and seven months: his sister Amesses, one and twenty years and nine months: her son Memphres twelve years and nine months: his son Mephramuthosis, five and twenty years and ten months his son Themosis, nine years and eight months: his son Amenophis, thirty years and ten months: his son Orus, thirty-six years and five months: his daughter Acencheres, twelve years and one month: Rathotis, her brother, nine years: his son Acepcheres, twelve years and five months: another Acencheres, his son, twelve years and three months: his son Armais, four years and one month his son Armesis, one year and four months his son Armesses Miamun, sixty-six years and two months: Amenophis, nineteen years and six months: Sethosis, having raised a great force, both at sea and land, constituted his brother Armais lieutenant-general of Egypt, and vested him with all sovereign powers and privileges, the wearing of the crown excepted; and, with a caution not to oppress the queen or her family, nor to intermeddle with the king's concubines. Sethosis, upon this, marched up to Cyprus and Phoenicia, and so forward to the Medes and Assyrians, conquering still as he went; some by the sword, others by the very terror and reputation of his arms. He was so elevated by his successes, that he stopped at nothing, but laying all waste to the eastward, carried the whole country before him. While this was doing, his brother Armais, without any difficulty or scruple, broke faith with his brother in Egypt, and did just the contrary to what he should have done. He expelled the queen, abused the king's concubines, and, at the instance and advice of his false friends, assumed the crown, and took up arms against his brother. The Egyptian high-priest gave Sethosis notice of all these indignities from time to time; upon which advice the king came immediately back again by the way of Pelusium, and made good his government. From this prince the country took the name of Egypt; for Sethosis was called Egyptus, and his brother Armais named likewise Danaus." This is the account of Manethon; from which it is evident, upon a clear computation, that our predecessors, otherwise known by the name of shepherds, left Egypt three hundred and ninetythree years before Danaus went to Argos; though the Greeks pique themselves mightily upon the antiquity of that prince. Manethon therefore advances two great points for us out of the Egyptian records; the first, that our forefathers came out of another country into Egypt; the second, that their deliverance out of it was of so ancient a date, as to precede the siege of Troy almost a thousand years. With respect to some other particulars which Manethon adds, not out of the Egyptian records, but, as he himself confesses, from stories of an uncertain original, I shall demonstrate hereafter, that they are no better than groundless fictions. I shall now pass from these records to those of the Phoenicians, concerning our nation, and from them produce attestations of what I have advanced. There are among the Tyrians public records of great antiquity, and they are so carefully preserved, as to contain all transactions that are worthy of memorial. Amongst other passages concerning our nation, they make mention of king Solomon's erecting a temple at Jerusalem, a hundred and fortythree years and eight months before their predecessors built Carthage; describing also, in their annals, the very model of the temple. Hiram, king of Tyre, had so great a friendship for David, and his son Solomon for his sake, that he presented him with a hundred and twenty talents of gold, towards the ornaments of the fabric, and furnished him with the most excellent timber from mount Libanus for the roof and wainscot. Nor was Solomon wanting, on the other hand, in a magnificent return, as, among other acknowledgments, he made him a present of Zebulon, in Naphtali. But the love of wisdom, or a kind of philosophic passion, cemented the friendship betwixt them. They sent problems and intricate cases to be solved by each other; and Solomon evinced a superiority to Hiram. There are extant among the Tyrians, to this day, divers copies of the letters that passed betwixt them; and for confirmation of the same I shall refer to Dius, a historian among the Phoenicians, of unquestionable credit. These are his words. "Hiram, the son of Abibal, succeeded his father in the government. He repaired and improved divers cities in the eastern parts of his dominion, enlarged Tyre, and, by raising a causeway between them, joined it to the temple of Jupiter Olympus, standing in an island, and beautified it with many rich donations. After this he went up to mount Libanus to cut down wood for temples. They say farther, that Solomon, king of Jerusalem, and Hiram, interchanged certain problems to be solved, upon condition that he who failed in the solution, should incur a forfeiture; and that Hiram, finding the question too difficult for him, paid the penalty; and proposed new ones for Solomon to interpret, upon the penalty of paying forfeit to Hiram." This is what Dius records upon this subject. I now proceed to Menander, the Ephesian, an author who made a historical collection of the transactions of the Greeks and Barbarians under every one of the Tyrian kings, which, for the better authority of the work, he has extracted from their own records. Having passed through the succession of the Tyrian kings as far as Hiram, he thus writes: "Upon the death of Abibal, his son Hiram came to the crown, and lived to enjoy it thirty-four years. This prince threw up a large bank, that joined Eurychorus to the city of Tyre; and dedicated a golden pillar to Jupiter, which was there deposited in his temple. He went after this into a forest, to a mountain called Libanus, where he cut down all the cedar for roofs for temples; raising the old buildings, and advancing others. One he dedicated to Hercules, another to Astarte: the former in the month Peritius, and the other when he marched against the Tyrians, for not paying their taxes: but, upon their reduction, he presently re turned. "Hiram had, at this time, a young man, a servant in his house, whose office it was to expound Solomon's riddles; his name was Abdemonus. From this king's time to the building of Carthage, the computation runs thus :— Baleazar, the son of Hiram, succeeded his father, and died in the forty-third year of his age, and the seventh of his reign. The next was Abdastartus, the son of Baleazar, who died in the twentieth year of his life, and the ninth of his reign. This prince |