CHAPTER IX.

ANSWER TO CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELS.

Could Moses write the Pentateuch in the desert? Magnificence of the tabernacle and of other objects consecrated to the worship of the true God. Silence of the sacred historians in relation to Sesostris.

EVERY one will agree that Scripture is not unfrequently enveloped in obscurity, and that the reconciliation of texts is sometimes involved in very embarrassing difficulties. This is also true of most of the more recent oriental writers, and of many ancient authors; and one readily perceives that the sublimity of doctrines, the extraordinary nature of events, the diversity of manners, the few details in certain narratives which were destined for a peculiar people to whom the facts related were familiar, and finally the genius of a language so different from modern idioms and classical languages and which besides is now dead, all these circumstances have specially contributed to render obscure some considerable portions of the sacred books. In every period from the first ages of Christianity, sacred criticism has been employed in making the Scriptures easier to be understood, by the collation and discussion of passages. The works of the pious Fathers, are chiefly commentaries upon the divine writings. But then the faith of Christians was not shaken by the obscurities in question; and for this reason, the labors of commentators are not ordinarily of a polemic character. The word of God was received with respect, even when it was not entirely understood, and Christians

labored to profit from the clear and lucid

passages, which

it had pleased Providence to afford them. But it was not so at a later period, and especially in the last century. There arose a sect of unbelievers, who with an avowed aim to overturn Christianity,* unceasingly attacked the holy books, and attempted in every way to prove them to be error, or an imposture, or a contradiction and absurdity. Among these modern Titans, and conspicuous above all, is the philosopher of Ferney, who poured out his sarcasm and hatred upon truths which his frivolous erudition was unable to shake. The great men of preceding centuries had brought their acquisitions to the aid of religion, and to the illustration of the sacred books. The sophists of this new school sought on the contrary for arms to use against Christianity. Geology, astronomy, geography, chronology, history, the knowledge of ancient. languages, and all branches of science were put in requisition, in a perfidious attempt to decry the august claims of our faith.

Providence likewise raised up for religion, learned and zealous defenders. Bullet, Bergier, Guénée, and Deluc, refuted with success these pretended philosophers; and their writings still form a barrier at all points against the attacks of the adversaries of revelation. But recent discoveries and new developments in the sciences, which have been more diligently studied, furnish sacred criticism now with new data, and enable it still more ably

*This circumstance is brought to light, by the correspondence of Voltaire and his friends. The publication of their letters is a signal service rendered to the religion which they wished to crush, although their unskilful editors were far from proposing such an end. They expose, in all its disgusting nakedness, the turpitude of these pretended philosophers; and it is an infallible means of Providence to disabuse minds which have been seduced by their false theories, and which have not yet entirely abjured good faith, honor, and probity.

to defend revealed truths. It is desirable that the united efforts of learned Christians should perfect the labors of the defenders of the last century, and fortify them by all which in the present state of human knowledge can be added to the defence of the Scriptures. Such a labor would doubtless be long and toilsome; but its real utility is well adapted to excite zeal, and the authors of a well executed work on the plan of that of Bullet, would possess strong claims upon public gratitude. Our less extensive undertaking is confined to the special resources offered to sacred criticism in Egyptian studies, and we hasten to enter upon our subject, and to describe to our readers some applications of the new discoveries, in the solution of objections which have been made by infidels against the sacred books.

1. Some have doubted the high antiquity of the Pentateuch. It has been said that Moses could not be the author; and by torturing a very clear passage, it has been attributed to the high priest Hilkiah, who, according to the true sense of the Bible, found in the temple during the reign of Josiah king of Judah, a copy of the Pentateuch, or perhaps only of Deuteronomy, which was written by the hand of Moses (2 Kings xxii. 8. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). To support the pretended impossibility that the author was Moses, some have even advanced so far as to assert that Moses knew not how to write. At least it has been asked how he could have written the Pentateuch in the desert; and what portable materials he could have had in his situation to write a work of such extent ? Finally, the objector has not forgotten to remark, that the book of the Law must be reduced to very small dimensions as to its material form, in order that it might be deposited in the ark of the covenant.

A full reply has been given to the whole of this partly

ridiculous objection. The true and natural sense of the passage in the sacred text relative to Hilkiah, has been exhibited. As they had foreseen the advantages which would one day result from the monuments of Egypt, many defenders of Scripture have appealed to the coffins of mummies which contain painted inscriptions. In short, innumerable ways, showing that Moses could have written the Pentateuch even in the desert, have been pointed out. The answer to the objection was very just, very reasonable, and more than sufficient; but the researches of Champollion enable us to add the testimony of monuments of a certain date, and to reply by stating facts.

The Necropoleis* of ancient Egypt, which consist of vaults, where, as is well known, many precious discoveries have been made about the history of this celebrated country, furnish daily, among other spoils of past ages, numerous manuscripts on papyrus. Some, filled with hieroglyphics, and adorned with paintings of the divinities of Amenti or the Egyptian hell, and with mystic scenes of the passage of souls,† are only repetitions more or less complete of a kind of funereal ritual. One of these manuscripts in the Turin Museum, occupies a space sixty feet in length. Other manuscripts (and these are more rare and more important to history), are traced usually in hieratic writing. They present various kinds of acts promulgated by Egyptian monarchs, and they bear the

* The name of Necropolis or city of the dead, is given to places of sepulture among the old Egyptians, where are found mummies and other funereal monuments. This denomination, which elsewhere expresses a beautiful idea, applies literally to the vast extent of these sepulchral excavations.

+ Champollion has given in the Bulletin des sciences historiques, tom. IV. p. 347, an explanation of the principal scenes painted upon the Egyptian funereal papyrus. It has been separately published.

names and the dates of the reigns of these monarchs. To this class belongs a series of papyrus fragments, which remained for a long time unnoticed in the Turin Museum, but which have now happily been recognized by Champollion. The series is very remarkable on account of the number and variety of the pieces; and it has led to the conjecture, that it must have formed the entire archives of a temple or of some other public deposit.* An immense number of acts are there found, which belong for the most part to the eighteenth dynasty, and of which none are later than the nineteenth. But the most remarkable of all, and very certainly the most ancient manuscript known to this day, contains an act of the fifth year of the reign of Thouthmosis III., the fifth king of the eighteenth dynasty. This memorial is in itself a sufficient answer to the assertions of infidels.

Behold then a proof that writing was known and practised in the days of this Pharaoh, and that the hieratic writing was in use, which was much more easy and cursive than the hieroglyphic. Behold a proof of the use of papyrus, which some learned men, on the authority of Varro, have thought was not employed anterior to the foundation of Alexandria.t Now Thouthmosis III. governed Egypt at a later period, about the time when Joseph was carried there as a slave; and consequently, two centuries at least before the time when Moses wrote the Pentateuch. It is not then true, as Voltaire has pretended, that "in the time of Moses hieroglyphic writing only was in use, or that the

* Bulletin des sciences historiques, tom. II. p. 301.

† Pliny, who cites Varro (x11. 11), says (cap. 13), Ingentia quidem exempla contra Varronis sententiam de chartis reperiuntur; i. e. striking examples are found which contradict the opinion of Varro concerning charts. Caylus, according to Guilandin, cites also many similar passages from the ancients. See his Dissertation sur le papyrus, in tom. xxvI. of the Acad. of Inscriptions.