Learn
about the ancient Babylonian and its off-spring-- Roman
Catholicism
The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop
Chapter I
Distinctive Character of the Two Systems
In leading proof of the Babylonian
character of the Papal Church the first point to which I solicit the
reader's attention, is the character of MYSTERY which attaches alike to
the modern Roman and the ancient Babylonian systems. The gigantic system
of moral corruption and idolatry described in this passage under the
emblem of a woman with a "GOLDEN CUP IN HER HAND" (Rev 17:4), "making all
nations DRUNK with the wine of her fornication" (Rev 17:2; 18:3), is
divinely called "MYSTERY, Babylon the Great" (Rev 17:5). That Paul's
"MYSTERY of iniquity," as described in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, has its
counterpart in the Church of Rome, no man of candid mind, who has
carefully examined the subject, can easily doubt. Such was the impression
made by that account on the mind of the great Sir Matthew Hale, no mean
judge of evidence, that he used to say, that if the apostolic description
were inserted in the public "Hue and Cry" any constable in the realm would
be warranted in seizing, wherever he found him, the bishop of Rome as the
head of that "MYSTERY of iniquity." Now, as the system here described is
equally characterised by the name of "MYSTERY," it may be presumed that
both passages refer to the same system. But the language applied to the
New Testament Babylon, as the reader cannot fail to see, naturally leads
us back to the Babylon of the ancient world. As the Apocalyptic woman has
in her hand A CUP, wherewith she intoxicates the nations, so was it with
the Babylon of old. Of that Babylon, while in all its glory, the Lord thus
spake, in denouncing its doom by the prophet Jeremiah: "Babylon hath been
a GOLDEN CUP in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the
nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad" (Jer
51:7). Why this exact similarity of language in regard to the two systems?
The natural inference surely is, that the one stands to the other in the
relation of type and antitype. Now, as the Babylon of the Apocalypse is
characterised by the name of "MYSTERY," so the grand distinguishing
feature of the ancient Babylonian system was the Chaldean "MYSTERIES,"
that formed so essential a part of that system. And to these mysteries,
the very language of the Hebrew prophet, symbolical though of course it
is, distinctly alludes, when he speaks of Babylon as a "golden CUP." To
drink of "mysterious beverages," says Salverte, was indispensable on the
part of all who sought initiation in these Mysteries. These "mysterious
beverages" were composed of "wine, honey, water, and flour." From
the ingredients avowedly used, and from the nature of others not avowed,
but certainly used, there can be no doubt that they were of an
intoxicating nature; and till the aspirants had come under their power,
till their understandings had been dimmed, and their passions excited by
the medicated draught, they were not duly prepared for what they were
either to hear or to see. If it be inquired what was the object and design
of these ancient "Mysteries," it will be found that there was a wonderful
analogy between them and that "Mystery of iniquity" which is embodied in
the Church of Rome. Their primary object was to introduce privately, by
little and little, under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath,
what it would not have been safe all at once and openly to propound. The
time at which they were instituted proved that this must have been
the case. The Chaldean Mysteries can be traced up to the days of
Semiramis, who lived only a few centuries after the flood, and who is
known to have impressed upon them the image of her own depraved and
polluted mind. *
* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS compared
with JUSTINUS, Historia and EUSEBIUS' Chronicle. Eusebius
says that Ninus and Semiramis reigned in the time of Abraham.
That beautiful but abandoned queen
of Babylon was not only herself a paragon of unbridled lust and
licentiousness, but in the Mysteries which she had a chief hand in
forming, she was worshipped as Rhea, the great "MOTHER" of the gods, with
such atrocious rites as identified her with Venus, the MOTHER of all
impurity, and raised the very city where she had reigned to a bad eminence
among the nations, as the grand seat at once of idolatry and consecrated
prostitution. *
* A correspondent has pointed out
a reference by Pliny to the cup of Semiramis, which fell into the hands
of the victorious Cyrus. Its gigantic proportions must have made it
famous among the Babylonians and the nations with whom they had
intercourse. It weighed fifteen talents, or 1200 pounds. PLINII,
Hist. Nat.
Thus was this Chaldean queen a fit
and remarkable prototype of the "Woman" in the Apocalypse, with the
golden cup in her hand, and the name on her forehead, "Mystery, Babylon
the Great, the MOTHER of harlots and abominations of the earth."
(Fig.
1) The Apocalyptic emblem of the Harlot woman with the cup in
her hand was even embodied in the symbols of idolatry, derived from
ancient Babylon, as they were exhibited in Greece; for thus was the Greek
Venus originally represented, (see note below) and
it is singular that in our own day, and so far as appears for the first
time, the Roman Church has actually taken this very symbol as her own
chosen emblem. In 1825, on occasion of the jubilee, Pope Leo XII struck a
medal, bearing on the one side his own image, and on the other, that of
the Church of Rome symbolised as a "Woman," holding in her left hand a
cross, and in her right a CUP, with the legend around her, "Sedet super
universum," "The whole world is her seat." (Fig.
2) 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.
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).
* 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.
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. 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, 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, if
it had appeared openly and all at once in all its grossness; and this
would have arrested its progress. 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:
1. "To Basilius, the
presbyter, and Felicitas, his wife. They made this for
themselves."
2. "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.
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. 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." 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 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 depositaries 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.
Notes
[Back]
Woman
with Golden Cup Woman
with Golden Cup [Back] 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. 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. 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, 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"!
____________________
[Back] 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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