12 



EGYPTIAN COSMOGONY. 



[Ch. II. 



appeared above the waste of waters, if it were necessary, to 

 prove how easily the catastrophes of modern times might 

 give rise to traditionary narratives, among a rude people, of 

 floods of boundless extent. Nations without written records 

 and who are indebted for all their knowledge of past events 

 exclusively to oral tradition, are in the habit of confounding 

 in one legend a series of incidents which have happened at 

 various epochs ; nor must we forget that the superstitions of 

 a savage tribe are transmitted through all the progressive 

 stages of society, till they exert a powerful influence on the 

 mind of the philosopher. He may find, in the monuments of 

 former changes on the earth's surface, an apparent confirma- 

 tion of tenets handed down through successive generations, 

 from the rude hunter, whose terrified imagination drew a 

 false picture of those awful visitations of floods and earth- 

 quakes, whereby the whole earth as known to him 

 simultaneously devastated. 



was 



Egyptian Cosmogony. — Respecting the cosmogony of the 

 Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of 

 the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from 

 Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive de- 

 struction and renovation of the world.** We learn from Plu- 

 tarch, that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, 



so celebrated in the fabulous ag-es of Greece. 



It was brought 



by him from the banks of the Nile ; and we even find in his 

 verses, as in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned 

 for the duration of each successive world. f The returns 

 of great catastrophes were determined by the period of the 

 Annus Magnus, or great year — a cycle composed of the revo- 

 lutions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating when 

 these return together to the same sign whence they were 

 supposed at some remote epoch to have set out. The dura- 

 tion of this great cycle was variously estimated. According 

 to Orpheus, it was 120,000 years; according to others, 

 300,000 ; and by Cassander it was taken to be 360,000 years. J 

 We learn particularly from the Timseus of Plato, that the 



* Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 177. 

 t PI ut. de Defectu Oraculorum, cap. 

 12. Censorinus de Die Natali. See also 



Prichard's Egypt. Mythol p. 182. 

 J Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 182. 





