Having probed the chronologies of India, Babylonia, Phœnicia,[75] China, &c, and having found that one and all, when touched with the talisman of history, shrink within the limits of the Septuagint, and even of the Hebrew text, we come, perforce, to the conclusion, that there is one nation, and one only, which presents a primâ facie antiquity irreconcileable with Holy Writ—viz. Egypt.
This impression is sustained by the knowledge, somewhat indefinite and in something disturbed, that the Egyptian tradition had always attributed a fabulous antiquity to the dynasties of its kings, and that these dynasties have been marvellously resuscitated through the discovery which has enabled us to decipher the inscriptions on their tombs and monuments.
My reader need not fear, however, lest I should plunge him into the chaos of hieroglyphics; not, indeed, that much has not been rescued from the abyss, and that there is not good expectation of more to come, but when once it is established, as we may now consider to be the case, that many of these dynasties were cotemporaneous, and not successive, an uncertainty is introduced which again reduces the chronology to primitive chaos, although floating objects in it, the débris of tombs and dynasties, remain clearly distinguishable, and, in point of fact, have been perfectly identified. If we had no other evidence, I should feel irresistibly drawn to the dictum of M. Mariette (ap. Mgr. Meignan, “L’Homme Primitif,” p. 391), “Le plus grand de tous les obstacles à l’établissement d’une chronologie égyptienne regulière, c’est que les Egyptiens eux-mêmes n’ont jamais eu de chronologie.”
I shall, on the contrary, from another point of view, attempt to show, not only that they had a chronology, but that this chronology has actually been re-discovered and re-constituted.
In the conviction that this is the case, and that it is not sufficiently known that it is so, I shall devote some space to an abstract of Mr William Palmer’s “Egyptian Chronicles” (1861), in which it appears to me that this exposition and solution is to be found.
Mr Palmer at least has brought the Egyptian chronology (upon the system of the Old Chronicle) to so close a reconciliation with Scripture (upon the basis of a collation of the Septuagint and Josephus), that we have a right to compare any Egyptologist making an attempt to advance into the interior to the monuments, whilst disregarding it, to a commander leaving an important fortress in his rear.[76] As Mr Palmer takes his stand upon the Old Chronicle, and as the Old Chronicle has been in considerable disrepute with Egyptologists (Bunsen, i. 216), I do not see that I can adopt a better plan of bringing the whole subject before the reader, than by confronting Mr W. Palmer’s discovery and exposition with Baron Bunsen’s strictures on the Old Chronicle.
Bunsen (i. 214–217) says (the italics are mine)—
“‘The Egyptians,’ says Syncellus, ‘boast of a certain Old Chronicle, by which also, in my opinion, Manetho (the impostor) was led astray.’ ... The origin of this fiction is obvious. Its object, as well as that of the pseudo-Manetho, is to represent the great year of the world of 36,525 years, or twenty-five Sothic cycles. The timeless space of the book of Sothis becomes the rule of Vulcan.... The number fixed for the other gods, 3984, is quite original; perhaps it may not be mere accident that it agrees with the computation of some chronographers for the period from the Creation to B.C. The dynasty of the demigods reflects the same judicious moderation as in the scheme of the pseudo-Manetho (214½). Then comes a series of corruptions of the genuine Manetho, i.e., of the Manetho of the thirty historical Egyptian dynasties. He is, however, confounded with the Manetho of the Dog-star, and hence it is that the fifteen dynasties of Manetho are called the fifteen dynasties of the Sothiac cycle. But how is the number 443 to be explained? Is this entry to be understood in the same sense as the similar one in Clemens, namely, that the first fifteen dynasties comprehended the 443 years prior to the beginning of the last cycle, consequently prior to 1322? or is it simply taken, with a slight alteration by Eusebius, to the fourteenth and fifteenth dynasties (435)? The following dates for the length of reigns are in the gross evidently borrowed from Eusebius.... In the sequel, there is no more reckoning by dynasties, but seventy-five generations are numbered, in order to make up the 113 of Manetho. So palpable is that,.... Lastly, the dates and numbers ... are brought into shape by various arbitrary expedients; but Eusebius on all occasions appears as the authority.... As the dates of the individual dynasties now run, 184 years are wanting to make up the promised 36,525 years. It is scarcely worth while to inquire where the mistake lies.” He finally pronounces the Old Chronicle to be the compilation of a Jewish or Christian impostor of the third century, or later.
As Mr Palmer has not directly adverted to this passage from Bunsen in his “Egyptian Chronicles,” I will give an extract from a letter which I have received from Mr Palmer on the subject, which will clear off some of the tissues of confusion into which the strictures of Baron Bunsen have got entangled.
“I assert, in the first instance (there being nothing whatever to the contrary), that we have the Old Chronicle in a perfectly genuine form, i.e. in the text of Syncellus and Africanus, but by no means in Bunsen; and further, that it really is, and they from whom we have it tell us it was, the oldest Greco-Egyptian writing of the kind current in the time of Africanus.... Bunsen pronounces the Old Chronicle to be the compilation of a Jewish or Christian impostor of the third century (‘Eusebius appearing on all occasions as the authority,’ &c) In the Old Chronicle, as given by Syncellus and Africanus, there is nothing whatever borrowed from Eusebius; but Eusebius has borrowed from and altered the Old Chronicle, so as to suit his own sacred chronology. The ‘Book of Sothis,’ too, has worked up and altered the Old Chronicle, with which it is by no means to be identified.... But I deal with three so-called Manethos—viz. (1.) the original Manetho of Josephus and Eratosthenes, who had only twenty-three historical dynasties of his total of thirty dynasties (the Old Chronicle, from which he took the number of thirty, having twenty-nine historical and one [that of the sun god] unhistorical); (2.) the Manetho of Ptolemy of Mendes, which is the Manetho of Africanus, who has thirty-one dynasties, all pretending to be historical; and, lastly, the Manetho of the ‘Book of Sothis,’ used by Anianus and Panadorus (to which last alone Bunsen’s ... mention of ‘fifteen dynasties of the Dog-star’ refers).... If any figures in the Manetho of the ‘Book of Sothis’ of the fifth century A.D., are borrowed from Eusebius, there is nothing in this, Eusebius himself having used and altered the Old Chronicle before, just as the author of the Book of Sothis or Anianus may have used Eusebius and the old chronicle. But I am not now dealing with the question of fact, whether Eusebius’ figures were so followed or not.... When Bunsen says, ‘Perhaps it may not be mere accident that the figures 3984 agrees,’ &c; he should have said rather that some ‘chronographers’ ‘agree’ ‘with it,’ and perhaps so agree not by accident. I do not remember whether any one, or who in particular, of modern chronographers agree with it; but certainly if any do, it is quite by accident. The number 3984, as given by the Old Chronicle to Chronos and the other twelve gods, has no relation whatever to any reckoning of the year of the world to Christ; and a chronologer might as well adapt his sum of years from the Creation to Christ, or to any other fanciful number, as to this. The truth is, that with the shorter numbers of the Vulgate, many chronologers have made out sums of about four thousand years, some rather more, some less.”