XX

OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE EGYPTIANS, AND THEIR SYMBOLS

THE LANGUAGE of the Egyptians had no affinity to that of the nations of Asia. You do not find among this people, the word Adeni, or Adonai, nor Bal, nor Baal, terms which signify the Lord; nor Mitra, which, with the Persians, was the Sun; nor Melch, which signified King, in Syria; nor Shak, which signifies the same thing amongst the Indians. On the contrary, you find that Pharaoh was the Egyptian name that answers to king. Ashireth (Osiris) answering to the Mirah of the Persians; and the vulgar word On, signified the Sun. The Chaldean priests called themselves Maf; those of the Egyptian Choens, as Diodorus Siculus relates. The hieroglyphics, characters, and alphabets of Egypt, which time has spared, and which we still find engraved upon the obelisks, have no relation to those of any other people.

Before men had invented hieroglyphics, they had doubtless representative signs; for in fact, what could the first men do, besides what we do, when we are in their place? Let a child be in a country ignorant of its language, and he will talk by signs; if he is not understood, he will draw upon a wall, with a piece of charcoal, the things that he wants, if he has the least sagacity.

They therefore, at first, painted in a very clumsy style, what they wanted to communicate; and the art of drawing, doubtless, preceded that of writing. Thus it was, that the Mexicans and Peruvians wrote: they had not made any farther progress in the art: such was the method of all the first polished people. In time, they invented symbolical figures: two hands united signified peace; arts, represented war; an eye, signified the divinity; a scepter, implied royalty; and lines, which joined these figures, expressed short phrases.

The Chinese at length invented characters, to express each word of their language. But what people invented the alphabet, which in placing before our eyes the different sounds that can be articulated, facilitates the combination of all possible words by writing? who could teach men to engrave thus easily their thoughts? I shall not here repeat all the stories of the ancients upon this art, which eternizes all arts, I shall only say that many centuries were necessary to compass it.

The Choens, or priests of Egypt, continued for a long time to write in hieroglyphics, which is forbidden by the second law of the Hebrews; and when the people of Egypt had alphabetical characters, the Choens adopted different ones, which they called sacred; and in order to keep a constant barrier between them and the people, the Magi and the Bramins made use of the same kind of characters; so necessary has the art of disguise to men appeared, in order to govern them. Those Choens not only had characters peculiar to themselves, but they had still preserved the ancient language of Egypt, when time had changed the vulgar tongue.

Manetho, who is quoted by Eusebius, speaks of two columns engraved by Toth, the first Hermes, in the characters of the sacred language. But who knows the period of this Hermes’ existence?

The Egyptians were particularly careful in preserving their first symbols. It is curious to observe upon their monuments, a serpent biting his own tail, to represent the twelve months of the year, and each of these months expressed by animals which are not the signs of the zodiac, known to us. We again see the five days added to the twelve months, under the form of a little serpent, with five figures upon it; these are a sparrow-hawk, a man, a dog, a lion, and a stork. We see them drawn in Kirker, after the monuments preserved at Rome. Thus we find that almost every thing in antiquity was symbolical and allegorical.