The ORIGINAL Scientists and Religionists

Les Ruins ("The Ruins"), by Constantin Francois de Volney, is the publication that resulted from this Frenchman's visits to the middle east (Syria, Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean) in the late 1700's.  He cites the words of the ancients in his descriptions of those lands, and his passages on the ancient, ancient Ethiopians as described by Diodorus of Sicily (Greek historian, 90-21 BC) and also Strabo (Hellenized Roman from Turkey, 63 BC - 24 AD) and Lucian (Syrian Roman, 125-180 AD - like the others, also wrote in Greek), who in turn cite previous Greek historians as well as the subject peoples themselves.

While meditating on the fates of formerly fabulous civilizations that have been reduced to uninhabited ruins, which struck him very deeply as he wandered through those very desert ruins, he writes of a "Genius" who imparts much knowledge to him.  Here's what he has to say about Ethiopia, which is simply and utterly fascinating to one who was not aware that this line of thought existed through the millennia only to be recounted in a famous French work over 200 years ago:

    "And the Genius proceeded to enumerate and point out the objects to me: Those piles of ruins, said  he, which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.* Behold the wrecks of her metropolis, of Thebes with her hundred palaces,** the parent of cities, and monument of the caprice of destiny. There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe."

His notes on the above passage elaborate as follows:

    "* In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is published a memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve ages anterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which I conceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerly composed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the name of Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was specially given.  This kingdom preserved its independence to the time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united to the Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, which thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and upon the different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, their metropolis."

Finally, further along in his notes with citations of Diodorus and Lucian of the Ethiopians as Fathers of Science and Religion:

    "What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himself elsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmly to establish the identity of this place of which I have spoken.  "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says he, lib. iii., "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation: and it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men.  They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every other religious practice.  They affirm that the Egyptians are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was formerly sea, became land by the conglomeration of the earth of the higher country which was washed down by the Nile.  They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters, hieroglyphics, and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians the first was known only to the priests, and by them transmitted from father to son, whereas both species were common among the Ethiopians.""

    ""The Ethiopians," says Lucian, page 985, "were the first who invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians.""

Couldn't have said it more succinctly myself!

Comments

[Thomas C. Williams]

In the first twenty chapters of Ruins of Empires, Volney defines a General Principle that applies to all countries, all continents, all cultures, all centuries--Empires Rise IF Government Allows Enlightened Self-Interest to Flourish. This General Principle was written as a refutation of the principles espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract, namely that it’s the General Interest that determines the direction of society. In the last four chapters of Ruins of Empires, Volney provides a solution to the world's enduring religious conflicts during a fictional General Assembly of Nations. Thomas Jefferson liked this book so much he translated the first twenty chapters. Joel Barlow finished the rest. (see Gaulmier, 1959 and 1980; and Chinard, 1923). Note also that Abraham Lincoln read and was significantly influenced by Ruins of Empires as a young man (see Herndon's Life of Lincoln). Quite probably, Lincoln read Jefferson's translation. That means the lessons of this book were (unwittingly) handed down from one famous president to another famous president. Why no one reads (or understands) Volney's Ruins of Empires today is beyond me...

[worth]

Thomas, unwittingly or not, these are lessons of humanity, civilization, and empire that EVERY President must learn, and not just two of the greatest in our history. Can you see a President today poring over works such as these, much less translating them from another language? It's no wonder that minds and efforts such as the forefathers we were blessed with created a system of government that has withstood all manner of injury and threat throughout its relatively short yet tumultuous history. Thank you for your "enlightening" comment.