IV.
Egyptian Traditions.—While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place in the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogonic speculations, have not afforded one, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm. When the Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the Deluge of Deucalion, their reply was that they had been preserved from it as well as from the conflagration produced by Phaëton; they even added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much importance to that event, as there had been several other local catastrophes resembling it. According to a passage in Manetho, much suspected, however, of being an interpolation, Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus had himself, before the cataclysm, inscribed on stelæ in hieroglyphical and sacred language the principles of all knowledge. After it the second Thoth translated into the vulgar tongue the contents of these stelæ. This would be the only Egyptian mention of the Deluge, the same Manetho not speaking of it in what remains to us of his "Dynasties," his only complete authentic work. The silence of all other myths of the Pharaonic religion on this head render it very likely that the above is merely a foreign tradition, recently introduced, and no doubt of Asiatic and Chaldean origin. "Thus," says M. Maury, "the Seriadic land, where the passage in question places these hieroglyphic columns, might very well be no other than Chaldea. This tradition, though not in the Bible, existed as a popular legend among the Jews at the beginning of our era, which confirms our supposition; as the Hebrews might have learnt it during the Babylonian captivity. Josephus tells us that the patriarch Seth, in order that wisdom and astronomical knowledge should not perish, erected, in prevision of the double destruction by fire and water predicted by Adam, two columns, the one in brick, the other in stone, on which this knowledge was engraved, and which subsisted in the Seriadic country." This history is evidently only a variety of the Chaldean legend of the terra-cotta tables bearing the divine revelations, and the principles of all sciences which Êa ordered Khasisatra to bury before the Deluge, "in the city of the Sun at Sippara," as we have had it above in the extracts from Berosus.
Nevertheless, the Egyptians did admit a destruction by the gods of primal men on account of their rebellion and their sins. This event was related in a chapter of the sacred books of Thoth, those famous Hermetic books of the Egyptian priesthood which are graven on the sides of one of the inmost chambers of the funereal hypogeum of Seti the First at Thebes. The text has been published and translated by M. Edouard Naville.[55]
The scene is laid at the close of the reign of the god Râ, the earliest terrestrial reign, according to the system of the priests of Thebes, the second, according to that of the priests of Memphis, which is the one followed by Manetho, who placed at the very origin of things the reign of Phtah, previous to that of Râ. Irritated by the impiety and crimes of the men he has made, the god assembles the other gods to hold counsel with them in profound secrecy, "so that men should not see it, nor their heart be afraid."
"Said by Râ to Nun:[56] 'Thou, the eldest of the gods, of whom I am born, and ye ancient gods, here are the men who are born from myself; they speak words against me, tell me what you would do in the matter; lo, I have waited, and have not slain them before hearing your words.'
"Said by the Majesty of Nun: 'My son Râ, a greater god than he who has made him and created him, I stand in great fear of thee; do thou deliberate alone.'
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'Lo, they take to flight through the country, and their hearts are afraid....'
"Said by the Gods: 'Let thy face permit, and let those men be smitten who plot evil things, thine enemies, and let none [of them remain.]'"
A goddess, whose name has unfortunately disappeared, but who seems to have been Tefnut, identified with Hathor and Sekhet, is then sent to accomplish the sentence of destruction.
"This goddess left, and slew the men upon the earth.