Miscellanies Christian and Judaical, Chapter 29
CAP. XXIX. Of letters.
THat the Hebrew tongue was from the foundation of the world, none denie, but whether the letters be so ancient, some question. Some hold that those letters that God wrote with his owne hand in the two tables, were the first letters that euer were written. The studious Pliny thinkes, that among the Assyrians, letters hauehave beene alwayes, but Gellius thinks they were inuented in Egypt by Mercury, and others think among the Syrians. If we examine Pliny well, we shall find him true in the first and last, howeuer in the middle. If the Assyrian tongue were the Chaldee tongue (as most like it was) then were those letters from the beginning of the world: the Hebrew and Chaldee letter, being all one, vnlesse the Assyrian differed from both. If you take Syrian in the sence that Theodoret does for Hebrew, then Pliny speakes true, that letters were first among the Syrians. For Theodoret calls the Hebrew tongue Syrian, as the Gospell calls the Syrian tongue Hebrew, Ioh. 19.20. But Pliny concludes that Cadmus first brought letters into Greece out of Phaenicia. Iustin Martyr saith, that Greece thinkes so her selfe. Athanasius holdeth the Phaenicians for the first inuentors of letters. That the Phaenicians and Syrians first found out letters, is a receiued opinion in Clemens Alexandrinus. Eupolemus thinkes that the Phaenicians receiued Grammar from the Iewes, and the Greeks from the Phaenicians. And Euphorus thinks that Cadmus was hee that conueyed them. Chaerilus in Eusebius makes Phaenicians and Iewes all one. For he nameth Iewes in Xexes armie, and names their tongue the Phaenician, his words be these:
foreign
foreign
foreign.
In English thus.
A wondrous people marcht behind along:
Their Dialect was the Phaenician tongue.
On hill of Solymae they dwelt: thereby
A spacious lake not farre remote doth lie.
These Phaenicians (if you will call them so) or Iewes, were the first that had letters. But the Iewes were not Phaenicians indeed nor their tongue the same, yet for bordering of their Countries, the Poet makes them all one. The Phaenician is not now to be had, vnlesse the *The Syrian translating of the word Phaenicia in the new Testament, seemes to confirme this for true.Punick or Carthaginian, and Phaenick or Phaenician, were all one (which most like they were) And then some few lines of the tongue are to be found in Plautus his Paenulus, which as Paraeus saith, can little or nothing be made off. Eusebius speakes of Sancuniathou, that wrote the Phaenician history in the same tongue, but more of the language he saith not: But to the matter. That letters were so long in vse before the giuing of the Law, I am induced to beleeue vponupon these reasons.
First Iosephus is of this mind, that letters were before the flood. And the Scripture cites Enochs prophecie, which whether it were written by him or not, is vncertaine: yet if there were any such thing, those many places which we find of it in Tertullian, Clemens, and others, do argue, that so much could not punctually bee kept by word of mouth.
A second reason to mooue mee to thinke of letters before the giuing of the Law is, to thinke of Iosephs accounts in Egypt, which seeme almost impossible without writing.
Thirdly: But omitting that, I cannot see how all arts and sciences in the world should then flourish, as (considering their infancy) they did without the groundworke of all learning, letters.
Fourthly: Againe for the Iewes, vponupon the writing of the law to be put to spelling (as they that had neuer seene letters before) and not to be able to reade it, had beene a law vponupon the law, adding to the hardnesse of it.
Fiftly: Nor can I thinke, that when Moses saith, blot me out of thy book that hee taketh the Metaphor from his owne bookes (which it is probable he had not yet written) but from other bookes which were then abounding in the world.
Sixtly: the Egyptian Chronicles of so many thousand yeares in Diodorus and Laertius, I know are ridiculous; yet their carefulnesse of keeping Records I hauehave euer beleeued. The Greekes were boyes to them, as it is in Plato, and Moses was scholler to them or their learning. Act. 7.
Now I cannot thinke that this their exceeding humane learning was kept onelyonly in their braines, and none in writing. Nor do I think that if it were written, that it was decyphered onelyonly in their obscure Hieroglyphicks, but that some of it came to ordinary writing of familiar letters