34 TPIB PHARAOH OP THE EXODUS 



mony given by tlie Apologist Fathers of the Christian Church'' in 

 favour of a doctrine that received support from such enlightened 

 heathens as Hecataeus of Abdera/ Diodorus Siculus^ and Cicero;^" in 

 the adhesion to it of many of the greatest divines of France, Catholic 

 and Beformed;" and in the countenance afforded by the Christian 

 philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton,^^ together with some of the brightest 

 lights in the Church of England :^^ I am very far from supposing, with 

 certain of them, that the stories of antiquity are mere corruptions of 

 parts of the Sacred Narrative. Still less would I be disposed to accept 

 Mr. Gladstone's remarkable theory, that Mythology is a poetical exhi- 

 bition of the truths of Divine Revelation.^* 



My position is simply this. The Old Testament contains a record of 

 events which, from their connection with civilized nations, deserve to 

 be called historical, as distinguished from others that happened to indi- 

 viduals and obscure tribes ; such I conceive to have been the destruction 

 of the cities of the Plain and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. 

 The truthful nature of the record, in regard to later historical events, 

 is attested by existing monuments and by profane historians, in whose 

 general veracity the scientific world is pretty well agreed. We have 

 reason, therefore, to believe that the earlier events recorded have an 

 equal basis of truth; and that, if profane records existed of what 

 occurred at the same time and in the same neighbourhood, confirmation 

 would not be lacking in their case. In regard to time, we cannot com- 

 plain of the Greek historians : some of these go far enough back into 

 the past to satisfy the zeal for antiquity of the late Baron Bunsen, 

 Neither do we find any difficulty in regard to place : Syria, Phoenicia, 

 Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya are well described, and the history 

 of many of these countries given at length. But, restricting ourselves 

 to the limits which both of these elements (time and place) impose 

 upon our research, we find nothing that is generally received as histo- 

 rical : all is mythology ! Shall we at once conclude that search is 

 hopeless, in view of what certain superstitious Greeks and fanciful 



7 TertuUian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Minucius Felix, Lactantius, Arnobius, Buse- 

 bius, Augustine, all favoured the system of Euhemerus, and argued upon it as a basis against 

 Paganism. 



8 Ap. Eusebii, Praep. Evangel. L. iii, et ap. Clem. Alex. Stromata, v. 



9 Bibliotheca Historica, L. i, c. 7, L. iii, c. 29 ; Frag. ap. Buseb. Prep. Ev. L. ii. 



10 De Natura Deorum, Lib. iii. 



11 As Bossuet, Banier, Huet, Thomassin, Tournemiue, Bochart, Le Clerc. 



12 The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended. 



13 Usher, Stillingfleet, Cumberland, Shuckford, &c. 

 1* Homer and the Homeric Age. Juventus Mundi. 



