MttrTpaioi of Josephus, and of the Syncellus ; hut the latter uses it in his preface to a
document, the Old Chronicle, -which every scholar repudiates in some mode more or
less decisive. Those who now pretend to accept the Old Chronicle, or the Laterculus,
as genuine Egyptian, slur over Letronne’s blighting criticisms. The hand of Judaizing
Christian imposture stands out undisguisedly in the other portion of the Syncellus’s
ehronography — where he oommences his “ Laterculus ” with Mtarpatg o *6t Mm s —
Mestraim (for Mizraim) the same as M e n e s ! That the first Pharaoh of Egypt, Menes,
should be metamorphosed into MTsRIM, the Egyptians, of Xth Genesis, by a harmonizing
monk of Byzantium some 800 years after Christ, and at least 4500 after the death
of Menes, is not extraordinary, when one remembers the pious frauds of a school in
which the Syncellus was neither the first nor the last ornament ; but that writers in
our day should reason from such and similar Greek-church literary juggleries, that
Mitsraim of Xth Genesis was a man, instead of an Oriental personification of Egypt,
merely proves such writers to possess, as Bunsen has it, - “ little learning, or less
honesty.” Our note 596 indicates volume and page wherein complete destruction of
rd raXaiòv xpovnciv, i the Chronicle of the old times, or events,’ may be found ; and we
are content to follow in the wake of Letronne, Biot, Matter, Barucchi, Bockh, Bunsen,
Raoul-Rochette, Lepsius, Kenrick, Alfred Maury, &c. — all of whom, more or less
earnestly, reject the Old Chronicle, uniting with Bunsen’s condemnation of it and
“ similia, quse hominis sunt Christiani, parum docti, at impudentissimi.”
All Grecian antiquity, from Homer to Strabo, has designated Egypt by names in
which no form of Mitsraim plays a part ; nor can it be yet said that any true equivalent
for the Semitic Muss’r has been discovered amid the numberless appellatives given
to their own country by Egyptian hierogrammates. Leaving aside old fanciful analogies
that might be retwisted out of Champollion’s Grammaire and Hictionnaire, Dr.
Hinck’s ingenious TO-MuTeRI, ‘Land of the two Egypts,’ fell beneath the knife of
Mr. DavydW. Nash, who substituted TO-MuRE-KHAFTO, ‘ the beloved land of the
two Egypts.’ Syncellus’s “ Mestrseans ” was supposed by Lenormant to be a compound
WOrd MES-n-RE, ‘ son of the sun’ : but, 1st, this has not been found as a proper
name in hieroglyphics ; and, 2dly, the word Mcmpam is but a modern Greek transcriber’s
corruption (not of an Egyptian name, but) of the Hebrew and foreign word Mitsra-im.
Mr. Birch’s “ Merter (Mitzraim), is red under thy sandals,” is the nearest approximation
to Muss’r hitherto suggested ; and saves discussion here of the various Hebraical
solutions proposed by Rosellini, Portal, or Lanci; some of which would admirably
explain why the Hebrews gave to Egypt the name of MTsRIM, but none of which prove
that the Egyptian natives ever recognized such foreign designation— any nearer, phi-
iologically, than “ Americus Vespucius” might, by some etymological gladiator, be
wrenched out of our “ Uncle Sam.” We return, therefore, as in so many other
instances, to Champollion’s fiat of forty years ago : viz., that Muss’r, MTsUR, and
MTsRIM, in all their forms, were probably alien to the denizens of the Nile, but
were names given to Egypt and Egyptians by Semitic populations.
But one query remains. In the original idea of thè writer of Xth Genesis, was
MTsRIM a dual or a plural ? The surviving punctuated Text (written or printed in
the post-Christian square-letter) reads, dualistically, Mitsraim ; which would correspond
perfectly to the Pharaonic division into “ two Egypts,” Upper and Lower — preserved
still in the Saeld and Bahrelyeh of the modern Fellaheen. We would submit, notwithstanding,
that the Masorete diacritical marks float between A. c. 506, and the eleventh
century (age of the earliest MSS. extant) ; and therefore such minute contingencies as a
dual or a plural become, archseologically speaking, rather problematical. For ourselves,
we think the plural form, Mitsrim, most natural— 1st, because it is the Hebrew literal
expression without the later and superfluous points; and, 2d, because the plural
MiTsRIm, as the Israelitish name for Egyptians, amply satisfied all chorographic and
ethnological exigencies whensoever Xth Genesis was projected.
“ Misrajim.” Bochart declared 200 years ago, “ non est nomen hominis. Id non
patitur forma dualis” ; wherefore, denying that there e v e r was a wan called “ Mizraim,”
we read simply, for MiTsRIM — the Egyptians.™
1 7 . £3 1 2 — I W T — ‘ P h u t . ’
Hamitic ; not the Hebrew I fat,’ I despioable,’ &c.! ,
That this is Barbary — i. e., the African coast along the Mediterranean west of
Egypt — no one doubts. Differences of opinion here resolve themselves into mere
conjectures as to space. _ . .
The most salient feature of Phut, observable in Xth Genesis, is that this personification
has no children - i . e . , colonies^ or affiliations; which, coupled with the vague
demarcations of Phut in other Scriptural passages (Nahum iii. 9), shows that to the
Hebrews this name meant generally North-western Africa; embracing families of man
too remote to be described. The word has since spread very extensively over Africa,
if Foute, Fouta-Toro, ibuia-Bondou, Fhuia-DjaUon, &c., names of Fellatah States and
tribes, be its derivatives; as Fits, the kingdom of Fez, is, without question; nominally
replacing the Regio Phutensis of Jerome’s time; Ptolemy’s city of Foutis-, and
Pliny’s river Phuth flowing in Mauritania, the country which Josephus considers the
equivalent of Phut. Indeed, there is no lack of old names, throughout the Moghreb,
(part of which containing “ Putea urbs, Phut flumen, Phthia portus, Pythis extrema,”
was anciently called Futeya), like Phthamphu, Phthemphuti, Phautusii, &c., to establish
Phut’s existence at all recorded ages, close to the Loublm, LehabXm, and similar Libyan
designations in Xth Genesis. ^ . . . .
Bunsen reads Phut as Mauritania; considering, that the'river Phut of Pliny is equivalent
to the Punt of hieroglyphics; the n or M left out, as in Moph for Memphis,
or Shishah for Sheshonk. Birch holds the hieroglyphical sign (which ascends in antiquity
to the earliest monuments) to mean the “ nine bows. This word has been read
Peti, and supposed to be the Scriptural Phut, the Libyans or Moors; but it must be
observed that the hieroglyphical word Peti is always applied to a large unstrung bow,
in ethnic names.” Upon the cuneatic sculptures of Assyria, and among the conquests
of Asarhaddon, De Saulcy has read — “ Populum Pout, hos et gentes fcederatas.”
As “ PAeT-AaA,” or bow-country, or as “ NiPAT— countries,” determined by nine
bows, this name for the last quarter of a century has been identified with Phut, (or
rather, comfounded with the NiPAaiaT — true representatives of the HaphtukMm of
Gen. x. 13,) in Egyptian sculptures of every epoch; and, without doubt, refers, in
hieroglyphics, to Libyan families of Amcairghs, Shillouhs, &c., that under the present
general denomination of Berbers Btretch westwards from Lower Egypt to the Atlantic.
Deferring some critical minutife until we reach the Naphtukhim, our opinion on Phut
is, that in Xth Genesis it means those countries now called Barbary; while in other
biblical texts it covers Hamitic affiliations along the Mediterranean face of Africa; to
the exclusion of the more inland Negro races, by Hebrew chroniclers unmentioned™
18. 3 3— K N A aN— f Canaan.’
Hamitic; not the Hebrew ‘ merchant,’ ‘ tribulation, &c.
Upon no terrestrial personification in Xth Genesis, except Cosh and Nimbou, has
more theory been piled upon hypothesis, than in respect to this luckless cognomen
and the historical nations that bore it. #
Assuming that the Jehovistic document of Genesis IXth was penned by the same individuality
who compiled the chart of Genesis Xth, orthodox commentators, from the
Rabbis and Fathers down to the uninspired annotators of our own generation, sorely
vex themselves with Noah’s inebriate malediction — “ accursed be Kanaan. Let him
be ilBD-rlBDIM, slave of slaves, to his brethren (Gen. ix. 25) — whereas, in the Text
itself, Ham the father, not K a n a a n the son, was the graceless offender. In Hesiod’s