COMPARISON OF EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS WITH THOSE OF THE HEBREWS

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COMPARISON OF EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS WITH THOSE OF THE HEBREWS
By FREDERIC PORTAL.




"The Symbols of the Egyptians are like unto those of the Hebrews."

(Clement of Alexandria, Stromaiu, V.)



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH,

By JOHN W. SIMONS,

NEW YORK :

MACOY PUBLISHING AND MASONIC SUPPLY COMPANY.

1904.

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This principle of significant names, recognized and
adopted as true by the celebrated Gesenius, and by all
lexicographers before him, is not to be denied, but its
application being purely arbitrary, and having been un-
dertaken without any definite purpose, has furnished
science with no useful result.

Bochart, ignoring the principle of symbology, only
sought and found purely arbitrary significations in the
names of animals; distorting the Hebrew roots according to his fancy, he repels the moral significance they
naturally present, because he does not understand the
relation that may exist between an animal and a philo-
sophical idea; when this relation is too evident, he
gives it, as it were, in spite of himself; thus he cannot
deny that the vulture signifies mercy, and the mole the
world.

The Hebrew, then, has an evident imprint of symbol-
ogy, since it gives moral significance to material objects.
Before drawing a conclusion from this remarkable fact,
let us resume the foregoing deductions. Egyptian sym-
bols, founded on homonymies, together with their reli-
gion and system of writing, were hoi rowed from Ethiopia.
We have just said that the Hebrew and Ethiopian were
derived from a common source, and we are led, in confusion, to seek whether the Hebrew will afford an ex-
planation of Egyptian symbols.

The question thus presented, can be resolved but in
two ways : by the testimony of the writers of antiquity,
and by the application of Hebrew to hieroglyphic symbols.

Clement of Alexandria, the father of modern Egyp-
tian science, says, in express terms, that, touching myste-
rious things, the symbols of the Egyptians are Like unto those
of the Hebrews.

The authority of Clemens Alexandrinus cannot be
doubted; for his testimony is the foundation on which
Champollion and the Egyptologists erect their systems
of interpreting Egyptian writings. Clemens Alexandri-
nus, fortified with Bible reading, could not have produced
so extraordinary an assimilation for a Christian and Egyp-
tian, without being in possession of proofs of the truth
of his assertion; in the Bible and the Hebrew only may
we seek for an explanation of Egyptian symbols.

Whether this interpretation appear true or false, it
cannot be affirmed nor denied without proofs; in ques-
tions of this nature, the argument is subordinate to the
facts, and to facts alone we appeal.

The first result of this system would be, to give the
explanatory method of Egyptian symbols that Champol-
lion asked for in his Precis f Salvolini, in his Analysis
of Egyptian texts (p. 225); and that Lepsius endea-
vored to find in ten different principles. The second
would be to consider the Hebrew, if not entirely, at
least in a great measure, the expression of primitive
symbology. We shall apply this principle to the sym-
bolic colors in the third chapter of this essay. Finally,
the third and most important result would be, the appli-
cation of the principle of symbology to the most sym-
bolic of all books, the Bible.

It appears evident to us, that if the Hebrew explains
the symbols of Egypt, and explains those emblems that
were the same among all the nations of antiquity, it
should also contain the explanation of those biblical
images that the learned Lowth and all other Hebrew
grammarians have failed to interpret.

In the fourth chapter, we shall give direct proof that
the sacred writers used homonymies, and confirm our
deductions by the testimony of Hebraists.

It is necessary to add, in this place, a few remarks on
the manner in which we shall proceed in these re-
searches.

Egyptian writing neglects the vowels, and is com-
pletely identified by this fact with Hebrew writing
without vowel-points. Such is the first and greatest
discovery of Champollion — a discovery on which all
others are based.' in these researches, the points in
Hebrew writing can, therefore, be of no use, and are
consequently omitted. But it is not alone on account
of the identity between Hebrew and Egyptian writ-
ing that we recognize the necessity of neglecting the
vowel-points in homonymies. Hebraists teach us the
same method in seeking for roots, since they derive one
word from another, presenting the same letters, without,
regard to differences of pronunciation, marked by vowel-
points, which method we shall employ as it is employed
on each page of Gesenius' dictionary.

Thus, the homonymy is to be established on the writ-
ten, and not on the pronounced word; for this I shall
further appeal to the testimony of the celebrated Hein-
sius, who, in interpreting a passage of the Gospel of Si.
John, says that the sacred writer alludes to the double
meaning of the Syriac word hzp cabbcl and 3-p aha/, pro-
nounced differently, but of which the letters are the
same. We shall recur to this passage in the applical ions
to the Bible (chap. iv).

As this method of neglecting the points may appear
arbitrary to some readers, it is necessary to explain it.

At the time when writing was invented, all words
written alike had probably the same pronunciation; at
a later period, revolutions occurred m languages, the
differenl significations of a word were distinguished by
different pronunciation on the vowels, and finally, when
these changes extended to a majority of words in the
Hebrew, there was felt a necessity of recurring to the
vowel-points — an invention going back, at the furthest, to
Esdras. Traces of this revolution in the Hebrew are
equally evident in the quiescents, that is, the old vowels,
which, though in pronunciation in Moses' day, have
liually been left out of it; as is the result of the con-
cordance of several words and proper names to be found
in the Bible, on the monuments of Egypt, and in Greek
authors.

In the succeeding chapter we shall give an explana-
tion of fifty symbolic signs, as they result from the
testimony of the Hebrew, Horapollo, and the monuments;
we might easily have multiplied the number of these
examples, but it has seemed to us that for the reader the
best demonstration of the truth of this method whs to
make new discoveries. Thus we have neglected those
signs that may be considered figurative; smoke signify-
ing fire, the arm designating strength, the ladder, the as-
sault, etc. (Horapollo). These significations, which may
also be found in the Hebrew, 1 are, nevertheless, not a
proof of the symbolic character of that language, since
these images are the rhetorical tropes of all people.

There is a large number of Egyptian symbols, the
Hebrew name of which I have not been able to find;
thus, among animals, the Ibis, the Oryx, the Swan, the
Elephant, the Pelican, etc., named by Horapollo, cannot
be explained.

In Horapollo, as in the anaglyphs or symbolic pictures,
there exist sacred myths that language fails to give a
direct explanation to, as the fable of the ape and its two
little ones — one, carried in front, it loves and kills, the
other, carried behind, it hates and nourishes. (Hora-
pollo II., 66.)

The cynocephalus ape was in Egypt, as in India, the
symbol of regeneration, of the passage from the state
of an animal to that of man, and from death to eternal
life; it is on this account that, when in a sitting posture,
it represents the two equinoxes (Horap. I., 16), that is,
the state of equilibrium between light and darkness,
between good and evil, truth and error, or between brute
and man : the funeral ritual represents the ape seated on
the scale forjudging souls.

The ape represented souls traversing the circle of
purification before entering the field of truth; which we
also learn from its Hebrew name Epp, an Ape, and to form
a circle, achieve a revolution.

The explanation of this myth becomes easy; the little
one that the ape carries on its breast, that it loves and
kills, represents those good sentiments, those virtuous
actions that we love, that conscience ever presents to
our sight, and yet which we kill in our hearts; the
young one that the ape carries on its back, which it
hates and nourishes, symbolizes those evil sentiments,
those perverse actions, which we should ever repel,
which in our consciences we hate, and yet which we
cherish, as it were, in spite of ourselves. 1 These ex-
planations, though more or less probable, I shall neglect,
as not necessarily connected with these researches.

In concluding these preliminary observations, I must
add, that several attempts to interpret the Egyptian
monuments by the Hebrew, have led to no scientific
result, because they were, doubtless, founded on two
capital errors : first, that the language of Moses was
that of the Pharaohs; and, secondly, that the hierogly-
phics formed a series of symbols.

The principle of Egyptian symbology, laid down by
Horapollo and taught by Zoega, is recognized even by
those authors who depend on the Hebrew, as Lacour of
Bordeaux and Janelli of Naples; it was desired to
make a triple application of it, to the Hebrew, to
Horapollo and the monuments, but I believe it has
never been accomplished.

.Symbology, being the most mysterious, must have
been the last part of the Egyptian writings discovered
it being necessary to understand the Egyptian language
and system of writing before being able to penetrate
the sanctuary. Science had to follow the route taken
by the Egyptian initiates. Clemens Alexandrinus says
they first learned epistolographic writing, then hier-
archical, and, finally, the hieroglyphic, containing sym
bology. It was in this manner that the labors of
Sylvester de Sacy and Akerblad were first directed to
epistolographic writing; that, at a latter period, Cham-
pollion deciphered the hierarchical and hieroglyphic
writings and that, in our day, we have to find again the
elements of Egyptian symbology. The principle being
already known and acknowledged by science, the en-
lightened critic will not, of course, refuse to apply it to
hieroglyphic language, as Salvolini has done, and to
the Hebrew, as I propose to do in this essay.

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