Bunsen's Egypt and the Chronology of the Bible. 383

question the tales of Livy as the statements of the Bible. Hence the heroes of Greek and Roman story, and the fabulous lists of Athenian and Alban kings, retained their hold upon our belief and their places in our popular histories long after Brute and his successors had passed into oblivion.* It was only timidly and gradually that critics ventured to apply to ancient history the laws respecting the value of evidence, and to examine the grounds upon which the ancients themselves believed in the stories which they related. It began to be perceived that in many cases these writers had no means of verifying their statements; and that they frequently derived their accounts from the tales of the poets, the traditions of the people, or the speculations of philosophers. An historian in the third century before the Christian era might have no better authorities for events which happened five hundred years before his time than we now possess two thousand years afterwards. Such a writer can only command our confidence by producing satisfactory evidence that he derived his narrative, either directly or indirectly, from credible witnesses, contemporary, or nearly so, with the events which he relates. It is the more necessary to dwell upon this fundamental law of historical evidence, because, though admitted in theory, it is constantly violated in investigations connected with the more remote periods of antiquity. Even Niebuhr, K. O. Müller, and the other distinguished scholars of Germany, have frequently drawn important conclusions from isolated statements, written long after the occurrence of the events to which they relate by unknown authors and at unknown periods. In fact we can point to only two eminent modern scholars who have fully recognized in their published works the importance of the principle for which we are contending. It is one of the many, and not least valuable, services which Sir George Cornewall Lewis and Mr. Grote have conferred upon the scholarship of this country, that they have given admirable specimens of the true method of historical research, and have consistently refused to admit as historical facts statements derived from traditionary and hearsay sources.toel M. Bunsen

* Dr. Hales, in his work upon Chronology, of which the second edition was thirty reigns of the Athenian

published so recently as 1830, observes that one of the most authentic and

kings and archons, from Cecrops to Creon, form correct documents to be found in the whole range of profane chronology.'—vol. i. p. 133.

†The following observations of Sir G. C. Lewis deserve the attentive consideration of the historical student:-'It seems to be often believed, and at all events it is perpetually assumed in practice, that historical evidence is different in its nature from other sorts of evidence. Until this error is effectually extirpated, all historical researches must lead to uncertain results. Historical evidence, like judicial evidence, is founded on the testimony of credible witnesses. Unless these witnesses had personal or immediate perception of the facts which they report ; moljenu p unless

M. Bunsen has followed another method, and adopted very different criteria as to the value of testimony. We regret that a writer of his attainments and reputation should have pursued a plan of historical criticism which cannot possibly lead to any satisfactory results. His work upon Egypt has now been some years before the public; and the way in which it has been generally criticised is a striking proof of the laxity which still prevails in forming a judgment of the history of antiquity. It would seem that even now the credence given to the history of the past is in an inverse proportion to the value of the evidence. In examining the history of the civil wars of Rome, or of any other period narrated by contemporary witnesses, their testimony is sifted, compared, and frequently questioned; but the higher we ascend the less rigid is the canon of our belief, and when nothing is known everything is believed. Even those who impugn M. Bunsen's conclusions, do not, for the most part, seem to be aware of the insecure foundations upon which his whole system rests. Startled by the antiquity which he assigns to the Egyptian monarchy, and by the remote period in which he places the first colonization of the valley of the Nile, they refuse, without any further investigation, to credit a narrative which appears to contradict the Biblical account of the creation and dispersion of man. On the other hand, those who find a difficulty in crediting the plainest historical statements of Scripture, hail with delight a theory which carries back the authentic history of Egypt to a period before the Deluge. Hence M. Bunsen's work has, to a great extent, been judged according to the theological prepossessions of the critics. The unbeliever has been credulous, and the believer sceptical: but neither the one nor the other has tested the value of the author's researches by the laws of historical evidence. We do not hesitate to acknowledge that we consider the chronology of the Scriptures to be more credible in itself, and more in accordance with the known facts of history, than the immense period of time which M. Bunsen professes to have derived from the Egyptian records; but our rejection of his theory is quite irrespective of our interpretation of the Bible. As M. Bunsen lays claim to a superior method of historical criticism, and seems to think that no one can differ from him unless blinded by religious prejudice and unless they saw or heard what they undertake to relate as having happened, their evidence is not entitled to credit. As all original witnesses must be contemporary with the events which they attest, it is a necessary condition for the credibility of a witness that he be a contemporary, though a contemporary is not necessarily a credible witness. Unless, therefore, a historical account can be traced by probable proof to the testimony of contemporaries, the first condition of historical credibility fails.-An Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History, vol. i. p. 15,

theological

theological bigotry, we propose to test his conclusions by those fundamental laws respecting the value and sufficiency of evidence which are now accepted by the most eminent modern historians. Such an inquiry, though limited to a particular subject, will enable us to illustrate the general principles of historical research. It may not be without use in the present day-when the wonderful discovery of buried cities and the deciphering of hieroglyphical and cuneiform inscriptions have given a fresh impulse to the study of the early history of the East-to call attention to the laws of historical testimony, and to caution students against the arbitrary assumptions and vague conjectures which have characterised too many of the investigations of recent writers.

6

M. Bunsen has a two-fold object in the work before us. He not only proposes to reconstruct the authentic chronology' of Egypt for a period of nearly 4000 years before the Christian era, but he undertakes to restore to the ancient history of the world the vital energy of which it has been so long deprived,' and to 'fasten the thread of universal chronology round the apex of the Pyramids.' Gifted with a lively imagination, and possessing great skill in the construction of theories, he claims for his researches a degree of accuracy and certainty which it is difficult to attain even in the history of the Peloponnesian war or in the campaigns of Julius Cæsar. The first Egyptian kings to whom he assigns definite dates were further removed from Herodotus and Thucydides than the earliest heroes of Greek and Roman story are from us. Beginning with the accession of Menes, which he places in the year 3643 before Christ, he carries down the history of Egypt, in an unbroken succession of kings, till the conquest of the country by the Persians: 'a succession of time,' as he observes, 'the vastest hitherto established anywhere in the Old World.' In reconstructing this immense period of history, his chief, and, indeed, almost his sole, authorities are Manetho and Eratosthenes. These writers lived in Egypt, under the Ptolemies, in the third century before the Christian era, and consequently more than 3000 years after the commencement of the period which they are supposed to authenticate. They are, therefore, of no value as independent witnesses. Accordingly, it becomes a matter of primary importance to inquire into the sources from which they derived their statements, and to endeavour to ascertain the historical value of those sources. We know from the concurrent testimony of ancient authors and of the earliest monuments that the art of writing was of great antiquity in Egypt. In the time of Herodotus the Egyptians possessed numerous written documents, to which the inquisitive traveller of Halicarnassus

frequently

frequently refers. The priests read to him from a papyrus the names of 330 kings between Menes and Moris,* and they told him that between Dionysus and Amasis was a period of 15,000 years, respecting which they said they could not be mistaken, since they always kept an account and always wrote down the number of years.'t In like manner Diodorus Siculus relates that the Egyptians possessed in their sacred books registers (avaygapai) of all their kings, beginning with the gods and heroes and coming down to the time of the Ptolemies. Such registers were drawn up by the priests and preserved in the temples. They evidently ascended to a very remote antiquity, but their value as historical documents would of course depend upon the time of their composition, whether they were contemporary records or the compilations of a later age. They may be compared with the chronicles of the middle ages, which, beginning with some distant epoch unknown to the writers, terminate with an annual entry of contemporary events;§ or they may be likened to the genealogies of our monarchs, still preserved in the records of cathedrals, which trace the descent of our royal families from Odin and his divine sons, through a long succession of fabulous and real personages. The registers of the Egyptian priests contained an immense series of kings, divine and mortal, extending through a period of 30,000 years. The lower members of the series are clearly historical, and the upper as clearly fabulous; but we possess no means of drawing the line of demarcation between the two classes, and of determining where the fabulous element ceases and the historical begins.

M. Bunsen supposes that the mythical age closes with the last king of the divine dynasties; and that the real history begins with their successor Menes, the first mortal king of Egypt. But

* Herodot, ii, c. 100.

Diodor. Sic. i. c. 44.

tii. c. 145.

§ The remarks of Mr. Stevenson, in the preface to his excellent edition of the Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon (London, 1858), may be applied to many other documents of a similar kind:- Here, as elsewhere, it is not safe to decide upon secondary evidence; and this chronicle, as far as its charters are concerned, is nothing more. The copy, as we here have it, may possibly be carelessly transcribed; numerals and names, the principal data on which to form an estimate, may possibly be corrupted; difficulties and doubts may hence arise which would be removed on the production of the original instrument. The author has

arranged the documentary materials according to date, not according to subject matter, but without any strict chronological accuracy; a rough classification under reigns being considered sufficient for the object which he had in view. But here several grave errors have been committed. For example, he has confounded Ethelbald, king of Mercia, with Ethelbald, king of Wessex, who lived a century later. Under the reign of Edward the Elder, we have a charter granted by his namesake the Confessor. A grant executed by Ethelred, the brother of Alfred, is attributed to king Eadred.'-pp. vi. vii.

such

such a distinction between the two classes of rulers is quite arbitrary, and entirely foreign to the Egyptian mode of thought. The divine and the mortal kings were to the Egyptians equally real; and they had the same evidence for the existence of Osiris as for the existence of Menes. We have no right to reject the former and accept the latter, simply because the former is represented as a god and the latter as a man. If we do, we are falling into the old error of making the impossibility or possibility of a recorded fact in history the sole standard of its falsehood or truth. Between the darkness of the mythical and the broad daylight of the historical ages, there is a dim and doubtful period, peopled with flitting shadows and indistinct forms, perhaps fabulous, perhaps real. It is contrary to all analogy and to all experience, that the mythical age should at once burst forth into the full blaze of authentic history, and that a single person, like Menes, should thus suddenly form the transition between fable and reality. Menes is probably quite as fabulous as Osiris, and may be classed among those mythical founders of empires of whom ancient history presents so many examples.*

In endeavouring to ascertain the historical value of the Egyptian registers from which we may fairly conclude that Manetho and Eratosthenes derived their statements, there is an important circumstance which must not be overlooked. The Egyptians appear not to have possessed any generally received and well authenticated history. The temples contained separate registers, which differed materially from one another. Such differences in the original documents were apparently the occasion of the great discrepancies in the narratives of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, the former of whom derived his information from the priests of Memphis, and the latter from those of Thebes.† The priests of other temples probably differed in like manner from their brethren at Memphis and Thebes; and hence arose the various chronological systems to which Diodorus Siculus more than once alludes. If so many rival historical and chronological schemes existed among the priests themselves, have we any possible means of distinguishing the true from the false? Or can we feel such implicit confidence in Manetho's judgment as to rest satisfied with his selection?

*The similarity of the name of Menes to the names of other mythical personages such as the Indian Menu, the Lydian Manes, the Cretan Minos, and the German Mannus-has been frequently noticed, and is certainly entitled to some weight, though it is dismissed by M. Bunsen with contempt.

† Heeren called attention to this fact (Egyptians, p. 209, Eng. transl.); and it has been noticed by most subsequent writers. See Kenrick (Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. ii. p. 102).

doti. c. 23, seq.

Vol. 105.-No. 210.