48 Was all Record of' the Science of' 



of tlie god ; and that he also entered the temple of the Cabirian 

 gods, and having in like manner mocked at the images, ordered 

 them to be burnt. This is the sum of the detail given by the 

 historian nearest the time of that oppression to which the sa- 

 cerdotal caste was subjected by Cambyses. Had it been of that 

 terrible and exterminating character that would have involved 

 the loss of their science, we should certainly have had from that 

 historian a more full account of it ; for he expresses great dis- 

 approbation of the Persian king for deriding religious institu- 

 tions, and has given a very detailed and graphic account of the 

 king's madness, and of his murders of many of his own Per- 

 sians and relations. 



The time that Cambyses remained in Egypt after the inci- 

 dent of the god Apis, was too short to admit of any extensive 

 extermination of the priests and their science; for his whole 

 reign was only seven years and five months, most of which must 

 have been consumed in the negociations and preparations that 

 preceded his Egyptian war, and the campaigns he made, in- 

 cluding the delay occasioned by his embassy to the Macrobians. 



Accordingly, Herodotus himself finds the priests still in full 

 possession of their sacerdotal authority, and all branches of the 

 Egyptian superstition flourishing in full vigour. He describes 

 many of their temples as seen by himself still standing, and the 

 scene of the same degrading rites to which they were originally 

 destined ; and the priests could yet shew him the spacious 

 building which contained the images of all the high priests, from 

 father to son, and could repeat their genealogies. Besides this, 

 the priests were yet in possession of an accurate outline account 

 of some part of the Egyptian history preceding the time of 

 Cambyses, as is evident from the good agreement, in point of 

 time at least, between the narrative which Herodotus received 

 from them regarding Sennacherib and Necho and Apries, and 

 the statements regarding these kings in the Jewish history *. 



• It is highly probable that we shall arrive ultimately at the conclusion, that 

 the Sesostris of Herodotus is the same as the Shishak of the sacred writings. 

 "We are enabled, we see, by the histories of the Jews, to authenticate the out- 

 line of Herodotus' Egyptian history to about two hundred and sixty or seventy 

 years before his time, and we find no such change or break in the character 

 or arrangement of his narrative upwards to Sesostris, as, prima facie, to throw 

 any more susj)icion on the correctness of the general bearing of the early 



