Pagan nations were the patriarchs of the Old Tcftamenr, . 

 With all refpecl to Sanchoniatho. and. his followers, I can; 

 no more believe that Ofiris, the firft king of Egypt, was a 

 real perfonage, and that Tot was his fecretary,. than I can 

 believe ■Saturn to be the ■patriarch ■■Abraham, and Rachel and 

 Leah, Venu$ and Minerva.. I will not fatigue the reader 

 with a detail of ufelefs reafons ; if Ofiris is a real perfonage, 

 if he was king of Egypt, and; Tot his fecretary, they furely 

 travelled to very good purpofe, as all the people of Europe 

 and Afia feem to be agreed, that in perfon they flrlt com- 

 municated letters and the art of writing to them, but a& 

 very different, and very diflant periods. , 



Thebes was built by a colony of Ethiopians from Sire,, 

 the city of Seir, or the Dog Staiv Piodorus Siculus fays, 

 that the Greeks, by putting: O before Siris, had made the 

 word unintelligible to the Egyptians : Siris, then, was Ofiris ;, 

 but he was not the Sun, no more than he was Abraham, nor 

 was he a real perfonage. He was Syrius,. or the dog-ftar,, 

 defigned under the figure of a dog, becaufe of the warning 

 he gave to Atbara, where the firfl obfervations were made 

 at his heliacal riling, or his difengaging himfelf from the 

 rays of the fun, fo as to be viable to the naked eye. He* 

 was the Latrator Anubis, and his firfl appearance was figu- 

 ratively compared to the barking of a dog, by the warning 

 it gave to prepare for the approaching inundation. I be- 

 lieve, therefore, this was the firfl hieroglyphic ; and that , 

 Ifis, Ofiris, and Tot, were all after inventions relating to it ; ; 

 and, in faying this, I am fo far warranted, becaufe there is ; 

 not in Axum (once a large city) any other hieroglyphic but : 

 of the dog-ftar, as far as I can judge from the huge frag- 

 ments, of figures of this animal, remains of which, in differ- 

 ent 



