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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	aaron_n	affirm_v	moses_n	20	3	7.0566	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51638	The Egyptian history, treating of the pyramids, the inundation of the Nile, and other prodigies of Egypt, according to the opinions and traditions of the Arabians written originally in the Arabian tongue by Murtadi, the son of Gaphiphus, rendered into French by Monsieur Vattier ... and thence faithfully done into English by J. Davies ...	Murtaḍā ibn al-ʻAfīf, 1154 or 5-1237.; Vattier, Pierre, 1623-1667.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1672 (1672)	Wing M3128; ESTC R23142	128,209	344

Gods mercy on him One of the Grandees of Egypt God shew him mercy related to me that heretofore in the Lampe-street in Masre on the Festival day after the great Feast of the Moneth Ramadan they set Kettles full of Flesh and Baskets full of Bread and that they called with a loud voice such as had need thereof as they call people to Water on the High-ways and that it happened sometimes the greatest part remained there all Night upon the place so few would take of it The remainder was carried to the Prisoners and they answered we have enough to live upon thanks be to God The Land of Egypt was then the most plentiful of any in the world the most Populous and the best cultivated and where there was more convenience of Habitation and Subsistance The Masich relates in his Annals and others affirm also that the Egyptians when they saw the Nile at the highest gave Almes released Slaves cloath'd Orphans relieved Widows and such as were destitute of Succour out of their thankfulness to God for the kindness he did them in raising the course of the Nile to its height They relate that Pharaoh after he grew Proud and Insolent and Impious commanded a Castle to be built on the descent of Mount Mactam and that his Visier Haman according to this order got workmen together from all parts of Egypt so that there were a hundred and fifty thousand Architects with what Trades-men Handy-craftsmen and Labourers were requisite He caused Brick and Mortar to be made Timber to be felled and Nails to be made then they began their Building and raised it so high that never any had done the like before for the Masons were no longer able to stand on their Feet to work But the All-mighty and All-good God about Sun-set sent Gabriel Gods peace be with him who smote the Castle with his Wing and cleft it into three pieces one whereof fell on Pharaoh's Army where it kill'd a thousand Men another fell into the Sea and appeared there like a high Mountain and the third fell into the Western Land There was not so much as one of the Coptites who wrought within it saved they all peperish'd They relate that thereupon Pharaoh was so proud as to cast an Arrow at Heaven God willing to try him returned his Arrow to him all bloody Whereupon he cry'd out I have killed Moses's God God is infinitely above what impious men can do he does what he pleases with his Servants God therefore at that very time sent Gabriel who did to the Castle as we have related One of those who were impious and proud and arrogant in the Land of Egypt was Caron the Cup-bearer He was an Israelite Cousin-german to Moses Gods peace be with him for Caron was the son of Jashar the son of Caheb and Moses was the son of Gamran the son of Caheb Others say Moses was Caron's Sisters son he was called Caron the Bright by reason of the beauty of his Face He was the most diligent of the Children of Israel in the reading of Moses's Law but he became a Hypocrite as the Samerian was and said Since the Prophecy belonged to Moses and the Sacrifice and the Oblation and the knowledge of the Law to Aaron what remains there for me They relate that Moses having brought the Chil-of Israel through the Sea gave Caron a Commission to interpret the Law and to collect the Offerings and made him one of the Chiefs The Offerings belonged then to Moses but he bestowed them on his Brother whereat Caron was troubled and envy'd them both and spoke thus to them Behold now the command is come absolutly into your hands and I have nothing to do with the affairs of the Children of Israel How long shall I suffer this It is God reply'd Moses who thus disposes of things I will not believe it reply'd Caron if you do not confirm it to me by a Miracle Then Moses commanded the Children of Israel to come all to him every one with his Rod then he ty'd all those Rods together and cast them into the Tent where God ordinarily revealed his Will to him They kept a Guard about the Rods all night and the next morning they found Aaron's Rod shaking with the Wind covered all over with green Leaves That Rod was made of a Branch of Almond-trees This is no more miraculous said Caron then what the Magicians daily perform He became thence forward more impious then before more wicked more envious and more malicious against Moses and Aaron as God affirms in his Book when he saith Caron was of the People of Moses but he was unjust towards them Injustice here signifies a persecution without any cause and a malicious and irrational Dispute Others affirm that Pharao appointed Caron to govern the Children of Israel and that he treated them injuriously and tyrannically Tyranny they say proceeds from greatness that is from the eminence and advantage which any one hath over others The advantage he had over them was grounded on his great Wealth and the multitude of his children He made say they his Garments larger by a span then theirs His Keys say they that is the Keys of his Store-houses were carried by sixty Mules Evere Store-house had its Key and every Key was but a Finger long they were of Leather Some affirm expounding that passage of the Book of the All-mighty and All-good God where it is said of him I have not received it but according to the knowledge which is within me that he was the best skilled of his time in the Law of Moses On the contrary others affirm he was skilled in Chemistry Saguid the son of Musib says that Moses had the Science of Chemistry and that he taught a third purt of it to Josuah the son of Nun a third to Caleb the son of Jethnas and a third to Caron but that Caron served the other two so well that he learnt the whole Science from them both and that afterwards he took Lead and Copper and changed it into pure Gold Others affirm that Moses taught his Sister Chemistry inasmuch as his Devotion made him despise Gold and that his Sister taught it Caron who was her Husband They relate that Moses said it was a provision for the life of this World and that he had no need thereof because it was a perishable thing and far distant from the truth which is All-mighty God and that he quitted what was perishable which his Devotion permitted him not to desire and satisfy'd himself with what was neer All-mighty God They say that Caron went abroad one day on a white Mule he had covered with a Foot-cloth of Purple and a Golden Saddle accompany'd by four thousand young Men and three hundred beautiful young Maids clad in Silk and set out with Jewels and Ornaments of great value and divers colours so that he had marching on his right hand three hundred young men and on his left

beauty of the Original and the Gold glittering in the two first pages after the manner of other Books cu●iously written in the East had not engaged my longer consideration of them whereby I was satisfied that the Italian Inscription was not answerable to the Arabian Art and could not forbear crying out O soeculum infelix● as Erasmus did upon a like occasion having found as he saith Commentaries on Mimus Publianus Qui neque coelum neque ●er●●m attingerent tamen accuratissime depictos ceu rem sacram This impertinent title had no doubt been given our Manuscript by a person who had casually cast his eye on some passages where it mentions the Enchanters of Egypt and the same injury might haply have be done by a like precipitation to the Sacred Books of Genesis and Exodus wherein there is also mention made of those Magicians and the wonderful effects of their Magick which they had the impudence to compare with the Divine miracles of Moses and Aaron These Enchanters then are part of the subject of this Book but not all as being one of the things which many ages since had raised admiration in those who considered Egypt but not the onely one nor the principal in a Country where the Earth the Waters and the Air out-vy one the other in affording extraordinary subjects of Meditation to Philosophers upon natural things and whose Inhabitants have signalized themselves by their prodigious structures and by the invention even of Philosophy it self The Land of Egypt is it self a stranger in the place of its situation if we credit the conjectures of it of Philosophers who have attentively viewed and considered it it came thither from a Countrey so remote that the industry of men could never settle any Commerce for the importation of fruits from those places whence nature conveys them the very soil whereby they are produced The air there is in a perpetual serenity never disturbed at any Season of the Year with Snow Hail Rain Lightning or Thunder The Waters there rise to a prodigious height during the greatest heats of Summer when they are elsewhere lowest or dryed up and in Winter when they are every where either frozen up or over-flown they there g●id gently below their ordinary course The surface of the Earth is spread with a pleasant verdure with so sweet a temperature of the Air that the fairest Springs of other Countries come not near it In the Moneth of March the Harvest ready to be cut down guilds the pregnant Fields which are devested thereof before the Moneth of April And in the Moneths of July and August the same Fields are changed into so many Seas and the Cities and Villages into so many Islands by a fortunate inundation which spares the Inhabitants the trouble of tilling and manuring them as must of necessity be done elsewhere for the Egyptians have no more to do but to Sow the Seeds therein when the Waters are fallen away and slightly to stir the slime which is spread thereon that they may be covered which they did heretofore as Herodotus relates by driving Herds of Swine after the Sowers Thus do they get the Fruits of the most fertile piece of earth in the Universe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use the terms of the same Author most easily and without any trouble after they have gathered the productions of the Waters by a yet more easie fishing or rather as Aelian expresses it by an Harvest of Fish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lie scattered on the slime in the midst of the Fields These natural prodigies have alwaies engaged the greatest wits in an enquiry into their causes which are reducible onely to two heads For the serenity of the Air proceeds no doubt from the nature of the adjacent and neighbouring Countries and Waters which are not apt to send thither any vapours which might be condensed into Rain Hail or Snow nor yet any mineral exhalations which might cause thunder and lightning and the other Miracles which are seen by the Raies of that delightful Sun are the effects of that admirable River which keeps the Inhabitants of that Countrey in such quiet after it hath brought them the soil which is to sustain and nourish them For the better understanding of this it is to be observed that Aegypt is only a Plain or rather a spacious Valley reaching in length from South to North from the Tropick of Cancer or a little beyond it to the Mediterranean Sea for the space of about two hundred and thirty Leagues and in breadth from East to West between two Mountains which are its limits one towards Arabia and the other towards Africk but not alwaies at an equal distance one from the other For at the Northern extremity along the Shore of the Mediterranean Sea that distance is about six score leagues above the places where Heliopolis heretofore stood and where now Cairo is about fifty leagues distant from the Sea it diminishes so for the space of about seventy leagues that the two Mountains are not above six or seven leagues distant one from the other Above that space they dilate again and the Countrey grows wider even to its Meridional extremitie which makes the upper Aegypt otherwise called Thebais Thus is Aegypt naturally divided into three parts which may be called Upper the Lower and the Middle In the Middle which is much narrower then the others and which our Author calls Gize as much as to say the passage was the City of Memphis near the Western Mountain on which not far thence there are several Pyramids and those of the most sumptuous In the upper Aegypt was heretofore the famous City Thebes which had a hundred Gates and was afterwards called Diospolis and Syene seated directly under the Tropick of Cancer so that the day of the Summer Solstice the Sun at noon shined to the bottoms of Wells and streight and perpendicular Pillars made not any shade and Elephantina beyond which presently began Ethiopia and Copta whence there was a way to the Red Sea the shortest and easiest of any along that Coast by which there were brought on Camels abundance of Indian Commodities which were afterwards embarqu'd on the Nile and the little Cataract where Strabo saies the Mariners fell down from the top to the bottom with their Boats in the presence of the Governour of Aegypt to make him sport and the Lake of Maeris with two Pyramids in the midst of it each six hundred foot in height three hundred under water and three hundred above and the Labyrinth yet more prodigious then the Pyramids In the Lower Aegypt are the mouths of the Nile whereof the two most distant one from the other make the Delta which is a Triangular Island the Basis whereof is the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the two sides the two arms of the Nile which come to those mouths Cairo is above the Delta towards Arabia near the place where heretofore Heliopolis stood The Arabians now call

of God Gracious and Merciful God bless Mahumet and his Family From Gabdol Omar the son of Chettabus Commander of the Faithful to the Nile of Egypt After that If thou hast flow'd hitherto onely by thy own virtue flow no more but if it hath been the Only and Almighty God that hath caused thee to flow we pray the Only Great and All-mighty God to make thee flow again Gods peace and mercy be with Mahumet the Idiot-Prophet and his Family Gamrou took the Note and came to the Nile one day before they celebrated the Feast of the Cross the Egyptians and others being ready to leave the Countrey for they could not carry on their affairs nor subsist therein but by the annual overflowing of the Nile but the next morning they found that God had caused the Waters to rise sixteen Cubits in one night So God delivered the Mussulmans out of that affliction praise and thanksgiving be to him for it Gabdol the son of Gamrou the son of Gasus Gods peace be with them both speaks thus of the Nile The Nile of Egypt is the Lord of Rivers God obliges all the Rivers from the the East to the West to wait on it at the time of its overflowing he turns them all into its Chanel and increases its course with their waters When God would have the Nile of Egypt to overflow for the convenience of the Inhabitants the other Rivers lend it their waters and God causes new Springs to rise out of the Earth When its course is risen to the height that God would he orders the waters to return to their Sources God All-mighty speaks thus of it And we have made them to issue out of the Gardens and the Fountains and out of the manured lands and out of the precious places The Gardens saith he were the two sides of the Nile from its beginning to its end upon both the Banks between Syene and Rasid Egypt had then sixteen Cubits of water accounting from the lowest part of the flat Countrey They empty'd and filled the Chanels and Rivulets of it every year What was yet more noble were the Places appointed for Orations which were a thousand in number upon which they called upon God for Pharao and they pray'd him to grant him a long life and to make him liberal and of easie access Aburaham the Semaguian in his Comment upon these words of Pharao Is not the Kingdom of Egypt mine and the rest of the Verse peaks thus There was then no greater King upon Earth then the King of Egypt for all the other Kings stood in need of Egypt All the Currents were made with the hands of Men and the Aqueducts and the Fountains and the Bridges all according to Measure and Geometrical proportion They drew them out of the Nile and brought them into all their Houses and into all their Castles and made them flow under the places of their Habitations detaining them when they pleased and dismissing them in like manner Mechacol the Son of Tabicus speaks of it in these terms I have read a hundred Books upon the Law of Moses and have found in one of them that there are seven Climats in the world which pray to God every year weeping and crying and say O Lord send plenty into Egypt and make its Nile flow For when Egypt is water'd we have Meat and Drink enough Withall there is on our surface of Wild Beasts and Reptiles and Tame and Rational Creatures Gabdol the son of Gamrou said By the true God I know not any year wherein the Inhabitants of Egypt went out of their Countrey to seek a subsistence elsewhere We shall never go out of it says one of them if some enemy do not force us thereto Not so reply'd he but your Nile shall be swallowed under ground so that there shall not be a drop of it left It shall be full of Sand-banks and the wild Beasts of the Earth shall devour its Fishes Jezidus the son of Chebibus speaks thus of it The Nile of Egypt in the time of Pharao and the Precedent Kings had People appointed to make its Chanels to repair its Bridges and Banks and to clear its Rivulets and Trenches of Oziers Ordures Paper-plants and what ever might obstruct the course of the Water when there was occasion to the number of six score thousand Work-men always ready to work Winter and Summer receiving their pay Monethly out of the publick Treasury as the Soldiery as well by Sea as Land receiv'd theirs out of the Kings Money The son of Lahigus saith that he heard it of one of Alexandria that the Nile one day discover'd a Rock on which there was somewhat written in the Roman Language which was read and signify'd as followeth I do what is good and he seems to forget it but when I do what is evil he remembers it well He who is such will not be long ere he meet with a long repose An Abbridgement of what is said of Pharao and how God destroy'd him by the Decree of his Divine Will Gali the son of Abutalchus speaks thus of him Pharao King of Egpyt was a Dwarf or little Man but seven spans in height Others say he was three Cubits high and that his Beard was two Cubits long so that when he sate he drew one Cubit of it on the ground before him He twisted up his Mustachoes and put them above his two ears When the water of the Nile was turned into Blood in the time of Moses Pharao drunk the juice of Orange-leaves with fine Sugar put into it Some affirm he was of low Stature mark'd with white spots and that he trod on his Beard it was so long Abubeker the Truth-teller Gods peace be with him said that Pharao had lost all his Teeth Others affirm he was of the Race of the Amalekites Others say he had a large fleshy face Others say they call'd him Abumarus that is Married Others say he was a Weaver of Ciprus an Inhabitant of Ispahan and that Haman was his Associate that both of them became poor and lost all they had so that necessity having forc'd them to quit the Countrey and run away they came together into Egypt and prevail'd so much by their sleights and artifices that they became Masters of it and that there happened to them what God revealed to Mahumet Gods peace and merey be with him as it is related by the son of Gubasus Others say that Pharao was a Coptite of a City named Damra the most Western of any in Egypt and that his name was Dolmes Mahumet the son of Gali the son of Gabdol the Teminian says thus A Barbarian Egyptian of the Inhabitants of Copta skill'd in the History of Egypt and what concerns the nature and properties of the Countrey told me that he found it written in one of their ancient Books that the Nile of Egypt hath its rising out of a Lake in the most remote Countries of the West on both