Shoreham.
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
_Jews and Egyptians._--Has any writer ever started the idea that the early
colonisers of some of the Grecian states, who are commonly stated to have
been Egyptians, may have been, in fact, Jews? It seems to me that a good
deal might be said in favour of this hypothesis, for the following reasons,
amongst others:
1. The Egyptian tradition preserved by Hecatæus, and quoted from him by
Diodorus, that Danaus and Cadmus were leaders of minor branches of the
great emigration, of which the main body departed under the guidance of
Moses.
2. The near coincidence in point of time, as far as can be traced, of the
appearance of Danaus, Cadmus, and Cecrops, in Greece, with the Jewish
exodus.
3. The letter, preserved by Josephus, of Areus, king of Sparta, to the
high-priest of the Jews, claiming a common descent with the latter from
Abraham, and proposing an alliance. It is difficult to explain this claim
on any other supposition than that Areus had heard of the tradition
mentioned by Diodorus, and, as he and his people traced their descent from
Danaus through Hercules, they consequently regarded themselves as sprung
from a common stock with the Hebrews.
I throw out this theory for the consideration of others, having myself
neither leisure nor opportunity for pushing the subject any farther; but
still I think that a distinguished statesman and novelist, who amused the
world some years ago by endeavouring to trace most of the eminent men of
modern times to a Jewish origin, might, with at least as much reason, claim
most of the glories of ancient Greece for his favourite people.