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THE LITERARY LIFE OF Gustavus Seyffarth a. m., phil. andtheol. dr. Late Professor atthe University ofLeipzig, andthe Concordia Sesmoipnhaircya,loafnSdt.llLotueirsa,ryMos.oc;iHetoyn,.tMheembneerwoyfotrhkeLhelsetdosriPchaillo- Society, The New York Philological Society; Mem- ber oftheRoyalSaxonAcademyofScience For- ; eign Member of the Royal British Oriental Society; Cor.Member ofthe RoyalAcad- emy of Turin, of the Academy of Scienceof St. Louis,Mo.,andof Davenport, Iowa Member ; ofthe American Ori- ental Society. "AfuUatulit/tcitqut sudaviteta/stt." AN AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. NEW YORK : STEIGER K. & CO. 1886. DigitizedbyGoogle ' CONTENTS. <- .- J: '•! • *i * « .5 TTAruhiteeonbKnieioayglrtaoRpehEsigecyaaprltcihIanentsrLoiidntuecErtagityoupnr,tei,,a,nV,M'<u-se, u.ms.andPublic, Li.brar.ies 8 in SouthernGermany, Italy, France, Englandand Holland, 2Q TThhee KKeeyyttootahlelAAsntcrioennotmiPcaaglanMoRneulmieginotnss,ofthe E.gyptian.s,Gree.ks, 2S Romans,Cyprians, Indians,Mexicans,etc., . . . 30 TheTrue History—andChronologyofEgypt, 35 TMahneetNheow'sYHoyrkksoObseliTshkeanIsdratehleitePsh,araoh Dro.wned in. the Re.d Sea,. 37 1866, B.C, 38 TThheeFAigrestoOfltyhmepGiraenatGaPmyersamiinds77n7e.aB.rCCa,i.ro., .... 4410 Greek,BabylonianandotherEclipses, . 42 TheSolarMonthsoftheGreeks 42 TheSeasonsoftheGreeks, , , 44 CCoorrrreeccttiioonnssooffthBeabpyrleosneinatn,HisAtsosryyri.oafn,GreMe.ecdei,an.and.Per.s.ian H.is- 44 tories, , , , , . . .44 CorrectionsofChineseHistory, 45 Corrections ofRoman History, . . . . .46 TThheeWAontrilqdu-iPteyrioofdA,stthreontohmreye,World.-Ages,..theYu.g.as.and;A.vatar,as, 4487 TThheeOUrniivgeirnsaolfitthyeoAfltphheabDeetl,ug3e,,446B.C., .. ..... . £5i3 Alterationsofthe PrimitiveAlphabet, . . . . 56 TheOriginofEgyptianHieroglyphs. 57 HebrewthePrimitive Language, , . . . 58 LawsGoverningtheChangesinallLangu.ages,... 6q ChronologeoftheOld Testament, . . . .60 Daniel'sSeventyWeeks, . ... 62 TheSolarYearsoftheHebrews. . . . 64 ChronologyoftheNewTestament, .... 65 TDehsetrMuacrtitoynrdoofmJeorfusSta.lePme,te7r1aAn.dCS,t..Paul,.. .... .. .6667 BAipbpleinodgirxa.phy,AnEgyptolo;gist, . . . . . . 682S oogle INTRODUCTORY. HT*HE present auto-biographical sketch ofthe lateProf. Gustavus Seyffarth, (fNovember i7th, 1885, atNewYork), ispublished inaccordancewithdirectionsinhislastwill, andis intended to serve as a key to his numerous publications in the German, Latin and English languages. It was written byhim in his old age and in a language, the füll mastery of which he never acquired. The un- dersignededitorhascontentedhimselfwithmakingonlysuchchanges as the rules of English Grammar required, leaving the tenor and Contents ofthe book for which Prof. SeyrTarth alone desired to be heldresponsible, entirelyunchanged. Additional biographical details are contained intheGermanpam- phlet: ''GustavSeyffarth;einebiographischeSkizze, vonKarlKnortz," (New York, 1886, E. Steiger & Co.) KARL KNORTZ. DigitizedbyGoogle PREFACE. S scientific truths do not belong to a few seasons but to the lESSl civilized world in general and toallfuturetimes, itisaduty to remember what in this respectProvidencehasdonebyinstrumen- talityofanoldcontemporaryduringaperiodofover sixty years. It istrue, theliteraryworksoftheauthorofthepresentaphoristicsketch havealreadybeenmentioned in "Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon," "Pierer'sRealencyklopädie," "DerdeutschePionier"(Cincinnati,0.) 1874), "Vapereau'sDictionairedesContemporains," "Appleton'sand Johnson'sCyclopaedias," "Aliborne'sDictionaryofAuthors,"etc., but astheseStatementsaremostlyimperfect and inmany respects erroneous,thefollowingCommunicationsmaybeexcused. Inreadingthepresentsketchitistobebornein mindthatalldates B. C, cited hereafter, refer to the astronomicalmethodofreckoning theyearsastheonlytrueandpracticalone. New York, 1S81. GUSTAVUS SEYFFARTH. DigitizedbyGoogle AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. THE authorwas born July ißth, 1796, at Uebigau, a Saxon village, near Torgau, in which his father, the Reverend Traugott August Seyffarth, Ph. D., D. D., was a minister of the Lutheran Church. Besides the regulär Instructionof the parochial school, hereceived private les- sons from a young candidate of theology in Latin and Greek, and made such progress that in hisfourteenth year hewas able to read several of the Latin classics and the New Testament in the original, and translate fluentlyfrom Latin andGreek into his native tongue. Hethen became an "alumnus" of "St. Afra," the so-called Fürstenschule at Meissen nearDresden. At the time of theReformation there existed inSaxony three immensely rieh monasteries, viz., Grimma, Meissen andSchulpforta, whichwere secularizedand convertedinto Gymnasia by the pious Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. Theincomeof these institutionssufficedtopaythe salaries of fiveprofessors and some other teachers, and to supportfrom 90to 150pupilseach. Everytownof Saxony had the privilege of sendingoneortwo boysof the age of fourteen to these places of learning, and in this waythe gifted sonof the poorest.familyhad an opportunityto re- ceiveagratuitous academicaleducation. The buildings of the "St. Afra" Schoolwere surrounded by high walls, the doors of which were opened to the students onlyupon a written permit bythe Rector. The Instruction, though pre-eminentlyof a religious character, was such, that the Alumni of the first andsecond classes were enabled toread andunderstandPlato, Sophocles, Pin- dar, Horace and Cicero, and to fluently write and speak Latin, theofficial vernacular of the professors andinstruc- DigitizedbyGoogle 6 tors. Many of the students of"St. Afra" afterwards occu- pied influential positions as professors of philologyin the universitiesandgymnasiaofGermanyandofothercountries. Inthe year 1815 the author left Meissen with flattering testimonialsandwenttoLeipzig to study theology, being desirous, however, of learning all that might be worth knowing. He did not content himself with attending theological, philosophical and philological lectures, butalso busiedhimselfwith the study of mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, botany, history,mineralogy,mechanics,drawing, music, and especiallyOriental languages. Afterfouryearshe was madeArtiumMagister, Doctorof Philosophy, and Candidatus Reverendi Minister», and re- turned to St. Afra for the purpose of preparing himself foratheological professorship. Hewas underthe impression that it wouldbe necessary for him, in order to interpret the Old and New Testa- ments, to study their ancient versions, and, therefore, he learned during the following four years all the languages into which the HolyBible had once been translated, from fourteen to sixteen hours dailybeing devoted tothistask. The first result of his studies was the conviction that the usual pronunciation of the Greek and Hebrew letters ought tobe modified. His viewshe expounded in thework "De SonisliterarumGraecarum tum genuinis tumadoptivis, libri duo. Accedunt commentatio de literis Graecorumsub- inde usitatis, dissertationes,index ettabulaeduae,cumprae- fatione Godefredi Hermanni, Lipsiae, 1824." Bydefending his theory in a Latin disputation with members of the philosophical faculty, the author was honored with the privilege ofdelivering public lectures (1823). In the following year Prof. F. A. W. Spohn, who had occupiedhimselfpriorto Champollion with Egyptian literature and had prepared thebulkywork "De lingua et literis veterumAegyptiorum,"died inthebloomofhis life,scarcely thirtyyearsold. Theauthor, beingtheonly person in the city familiär with Coptic, the fundamental language of Egyptian literature, was asked by the university to com- DigitizedbyGoogle 7 plete and edit Spohn'swork. He accepted this offerand his scientificcareerwasthusimpelled inanewdirection. Having examined the immense mass of Spohn's manu- Scripts deposited in the College library, hecame to the con- clusion, that it would be impossible for him to accomplish his task, unless Ije previously examined all the Egyptian museums of Europe andcopiedthe principal papyri and inscriptions. Accordingly, during the years 1826-1828, he visited the public and private collections of Egyptian an- tiquities at Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Turin, Milan, Venice, Florence, Leghorn, Rome, Naples, Lyons, Paris, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Leyden, and Amsterdam, and took copies of all important inscriptions, which now constitute the writer's MBibliothecaAegyptiaca Manuscripta," awork offifteen volumes in royal folio, which will, after his death, become the propertyofthe NewYork Historical Society. In theyeari854 he resigned his Leipzigprofessorshipand in 1856emigrated to the United States, which has since become hissecond home. As"some ofhis former pupils had founded at St. Louis, Mo., the so-called Concordia CoU legium, a theological seminary,hewas offered a professor- shipofarchaeologyand cognatesciences,whichheaccepted, and for several years he gave gratuitous instruction and lectures to the students. In the year 1859, however, he severed his connection withtheinstituteand went to New York, where the treasures of the Astor Library gave him ample opportunity forpursuing his favorite studies and de- votinghis lastyears to earnest literarywork. His writings, since 1821 (chronologicallyenumerated in this book), were published forthe purpose ofdiffusingknowledge and refut- ingfalsehoods. Theytreat ofthefollowingsubjects: Egyp- tianphilologyand palaeography; the ancient astronomy of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Cypriotes; universal history and chronology, especially of the Old and New Testaments, of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babyloni- ans, Chinese, etc., mythology, ancient geography, apolo- getics, etc. DigitizedbyGoogle The Key to Egyptiax Literature. The ancient Egyptians, from 2780B. C. to 200A. C, un- derstood, as well as we do, the art ofvisiblyexpressing the words oftheir spoken language, but their mannerofwriting diflered essentially from the present one. Instead of 25 letters they used 630 figures, which were images of heavenly bodies and geographical objects, human beings and their limbs, quadrupeds and parts oftheirbodies, birds, insects, fishes, serpents, trees, plants, fruits, architectural objects, furniture, vases, clothing textures, implements and — the like in short, ofnearlyall things obvious in primitive life. These630images constituted the aiphabet with which, duringa period of 3000 years, the Egyptians wrote their numberless books and inscriptions. Thisimmense literature wasstill intelligibleinthetimeofthe firstRomanemperors, but afterwards it sank into oblivion, tili, in the year 1799, the Rosette Stone, withahieroglyphic inscription, accom- panied bya Greek translation, was discovered. In the meantime, itistrue, the JesuitKircher (1639) had published seven volumes, containingtranslationsofinscrip- tions on Roman obelisks, but his method ofdeciphering hieroglyphs was too arbitraryto be of any value to the student of Egyptology. He took each of the 630 hieroglyphs for a complete word, sometimes for aSubstantive, averb, oranadverb. Forinstance,thegroup "CasarDom- itianus" he interpreted as follows: "Saturn, the ruler of Ayingtime, andthe benevolent god, promotingthe fertility ofthe fields,mighty in human nature, thebeneficent power of generation, mightybythe god of theheight and of the depth,whoaugmentstheaffluxofsacredhumidity,demitted from heaven." DigitizedbyGoogle 9 Such was the condition of Egyptian philologywhen Dr. ThomasYoungpublished his article,"Egypt,"in the "En- cyclopffidia Brittannica" (I819), in which he compared the namesof.Ptolomy, Cleopatra and Berenice with each other, and pointed out for the first time fifteen hieroglyphs, some grammatical forms, and the meaning of a numberof hieroglyphic groups. The rest of Young's hieroglyphic System, however, feil short. Threeyears laterChampollion, who wasunawareofthese discoveries,published hispamphlet,"DeVecriturehieratiquc desanciensEgyptiens," inwhichhe emphaticallydenied the existence ofphonetic hieroglyphs. As soon, however, as he examined Dr. Young's article he changed his opinion, and published, in 1822, his "LettreäM. Darier" inwhich he, nevertheless, did not mention the name of the real dis- coverer. Finally, in the year I824, Champollion's "Priels du Sys- teme hieroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens" appeared, in whichthe following theseswere defended : 1. The Egyptian literature originated from primitive ideologic writing, and consists partly of phonetic figures, and partlyof phonetic images, expressing unphonetically definite ideas. 2. None of the 630 hieroglyphs signified one or more syllables. 3. The languageoftheEgyptiansisrelatedtotheCoptic, as preserved in our Coptic grammarsand dictionaries. This theory, apart from a number of other erroneous Statements, proved abortivewhen the newbilingual inscription on the Tanis Stone was discovered (1866). Agreat numberofpropernames, ofwhich the pronunciation has been preserved by Greekand Roman authors, can- not be spelled by means of Champollion's System; for instance,the royal names on theTurin Manetho, thenames of planetsandconstellations, etc. That it is an impossibility to translate any hieroglyphic text entirelyafterChampollion'sSystem has been stated by DigitizedbyGoogle IO * Lepsiusand Birch, and by Bunsen in his work, "Egypt's Place,"etc. Furthermore, Champollion was repeatedlychallenged to verifyhistheorybyatranslation of the Rosette Stone, but failedin his attempts. In 1866 Prof. Lepsius published his translation ofjthe Tanis Stone, according to Champollion's System, but found himselfunable to interpret440groups. Ofthe other 4,100 groups nearlyeach onewas misinterpreted. He translated Cyprus by Phoenicia, Asia by Valley\ Greek by brook, etc. Instead ofbringingout Coptic words, as required byCham- pollion'sSystem,hediscoveredmonstrouswordswhichdonot exist in any language. Lepsius' "Das Decret von Kano- pus" contains about40 words correctly spelled and translated. Morever,in the same yearReinischand Roeslerpublished another translation of the Tanis Stone, likewise following theprevailing theory, but nearlyall the words spelled and translated bythem differmaterially from those in Lepsius' Statement. Again, in the "Records of the Past" (Vol. IV., p. 65, London, 1875) appeared a translation of the Pompeian Tablet, made byGoodwin,according to the largedictionary and grammar by the Champollionist, Brugsch-Bey; but, alas, not even halfadozen characterswefe correctlyinter- preted. Champollion'stheoryhasgivenrise tonumberlessabsurdi- ties. Brugsch-Bey,for instance,discovered that the Egyp- tianswere fond oflagerbeer, and that some thousandyears before Christ breweries existed in Egypt. Ebers, too, learned that "one gallon oflagerbeer" constituted a dose forasick Egyptian. The same professor discovered that the queen-bee signified symbolically honey, which he took foran ingredient of forty different prescriptions, while in realitythe queen-bee expressedthe letters tn> l, k, i. e.,me- tissa,apiastrum, balsatnent. VicomtedeRouge,Champollion'ssuccessorintheLouvre, discovered that in Moses' days an Egyptian obtained seven DigitizedbyGoogle