Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	aaron_n	affirm_v	priest_n	22	3	7.4828	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

which to that end were translated out of the Aegyptian Tongue into the Greek which argues by the way that even at that time there were Greek Versions made of Books writ in other Languages contrary to the opinion which some Learned Men seem to have lately taken up That ancient Language of the Aegyptians was written from the right hand to the left after the manner of the Oriental Tongues as Herodotus hath observed wherefore the Coptick writing now used from the left to the right seems rather to have come from the Greek then the Greek from it whatever J. Kircher tells us of it in his Prodromus Copticus As to the ancient Religion of the Aegyptians though the Book we here Translate in several places mentions their Idols Strabo affirms that in his time there was not any Figure in their Temples at least any representing a Man's body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence it might be suspected that our Author took the Images of Christian Churches for Idols since it may be particularly observed that he seems in some places to put the Crosses into the same rank which be it said without derogation from the approved Worship due to both The same Strabo and before him Herodotus would make us believe that Circumcision and what they call Excision which is the circumcision of Women were ever used in Aegypt and that the other Nations who observed it as the Colchi the Ethiopians the Phoenicians the Syrians nay the Jews themselves took it from them which is not without some ground For Circumcision was not enjoyned Abraham till after his travelling into Aegypt Strabo observes it as a singularity that the Aegyptians brought up all the children that were born to them which was not done by the Greeks who exposed some nay sometimes killed some of them as we have it from Terence in his Heautontimorumenos This commendable and indulgent custom no doubt proceeded also from the goodness and fertility of their Countrey which was such that the children were no great charge to their Parents and which endowed its Inhabitants with greater mildnesse of disposition and tendernesse towards such as were so nearly related to them then the Greeks had upon the like occasions The same Authors relate divers other remarkable things of the ancient Religion of Aegypt and the manners of its inhabitants all which have met with several changes by the Conquests which have been made of that Province at several times since that at the very first which is come to our knowledge to wit that of the Persians 't is questionlesse the Ceremonies of their Superstitions were very much altered by the persecution of Cambyses which came to that height as to kill Oxe Apis which passed for a God at Memphis as some other Creatures did elsewhere though all those which were reverenced by the Aegyptians in several places were not adored in the quality of Gods but many of them only in the quality of Sacred Animals whom it was not lawful to injure And it is very probable according to Cicero's conjecture that at first they were all accounted only such in asmuch as those who then governed the People thought fit for some reasons to preserve such Beasts as much as might be as being advantageous for something and that in processe of time the Superstition and Ignorance of those who comprehended not the true cause why they were spared came to imagine something Divine in them which in my judgment proceeded from the demeanour of the Priests towards other men whom they blinded what they could especially seeing the Priesthood belonged to certain Families and was not communicable to all no more then the other principal Functions of the Commonwealth as Arms Arts and Agriculture for that made every one absolutely ignorant of those things which belong'd not to him and whereto he never had any right to aspire and occasioned their being many times exercised by such as had not any natural disposition thereto and consequently were not much capable thereof This Mysterious Carriage of the Egyptian Priests extended not onely to things concerning Religion but even to such as were indifferent which they communicated not without much trouble For Strabo affirms that the 13 Years during which Plato and Eudoxus continued at Heliopolis were not simply spent by them in learning Astronomie but in courting the favour and friendship of the Priests that they might be thereby induced to teach them something of what they knew in that Science If they were so shie in communicating to others what they had observed in the Heavens and which any others might have seen as well as they it may well be imagined they much more carefully concealed the Historie of their Countrie so that it is not to be admired there is so little come to our knowledge of what passed there before the Conquest made by the Persians Nay if the Ethiopions had commanded there before and that for a long tract of time as Herodotus mentions it is likely that even then the Sources of the Nile were not unknown nor the causes of its Inundation And who knows whether in the time of Herodotus the Priests knew not more of those things then they would communicate to him For if they had relations of a Voyage of 4 Moneths that is above 1200 Leagues continually ascending partly upon the Nile partly on the sides of it beyond the Tropick of Cancer those who had made it must have passed all the Torrid Zone and found the source and origine of the Nile But they said that in those Countries the Nile flowed from West to East and not from South to North as it did in Aegypt which is not consonant to the reason given by Herodotus himself of the overflux of that River nor the Modern Geographies according to which the Sources of the Nile are far beyond the Equinoctial Line This then passing for certain with a length of the course of the Nile equal to that attributed thereto by Herodotus methinks there might be a reason found out of its overflowing in Aegypt more probable then those which many have hitherto given thereof For what makes the overflux miraculous is that it happens as we have already said during the great heats of Summer when all other Rivers are at the lowest or dryed up which occasioned a perswasion that it proceeds from a cause different from that of others which manifestly depend on the Rains which fall and the Snow which ordinarily melts in great abundance towards the end of Winter at which time the Nile is at the lowest Some therefore have been of opinion as Herodotus relates that the Nile overflows in Summer because then there come into Aegypt continually certain Winds called the Etesian from the Northern Coast which obstruct its course and so croud up its Waters depriving them of the freedom of falling into the Sea as they ordinarily do as the reflux of the Ocean daily does the Rivers which fall into it Others attributed the cause of it to the