China and the West

Shuckford, Samuel. The sacred and profane history of the world connected. [ID D27255].
Quellen :
Bibel.
Martini, Martino. Sinicae historiae decas prima [ID D1703].
Confucius sinarum philosophus [ID D1758].
Couplet, Philippe. Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae [ID D1757].
Alvaro Semedo.

The Chinese have been supposed to have records that reach higher than the history of Moses ; but we find by the best accounts of their antiquities that this is false. Their antiquities reach no higher than the times of Noah, for Fohi was their first king. They pretend to no history or memoirs that reach up higher than his times ; and by all their accounts, the age of Fohi coincides with that of Moses' Noah. Their writers in the general agree, that Fohi lived about 2952 years before Christ. The author of 'Mirandorum in Sina et Europa' computes him to reign but 2847 years before our Saviour ; and Alvarez Sevedo places his reign not so early, imagining it to be but 2060 years ; and all these computations agree well enough with the times of Noah ; for Noah was born, according to Archbishop Usher, 2945 years, and died 2016 years before Christ ; so that all the several computations about Fohi, fall pretty near within the compass of Noah's life. But we shall hereafter see many reasons to conclude Moses' Noah, and the Chinese Fohi, to be the same person…
Fourthly, The language, learning and history of the Chinese, do all favour this account; their language seems not to have been altered in the confusion of Babel ; their learning is reported to have been full as ancient as the learning of the more western nations ; their polity is of another sort ; and their government established upon very different maxims and foundations ; and their history reaches up indisputable to the times of Noah, not falling short, like the histories of other nations, such a number of years as ought to be allowed, for their inhabitants removing from Shinaar, to their place of settlement. The first king of China was Fohi ; and as I have before observed that Fohi and Noah were contemporaries, at least, for there are many reasons, from the Chinese traditions concerning Fohi, to think him and Noah the same person. First, they say Fohi had no father, i.e. Noah was the first man in the post-diluvian world ; his ancestors perished in the Flood, and no tradition hereof being preserved in the Chinese annals, Noah, or Fohi, stands there as if he had no father at all. Secondly, Fohi's mother is said to have conceived him encompassed with a rainbow ; a conceit very probably arising from the rainbow's first appearing to Noah, and the Chinese being willing to give some account of his original. Thirdly, Fohi is said to have carefully bred seven sorts of creatures, which he used to sacrifice to the Supreme Spirit of heaven and earth : and Moses tells us that Noah took into the ark, of every clean beast by sevens, and of fowls of the air by sevens ; and after the Flood Noah built an altar, and took of every clean beast, and every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings. Fourthly, the Chinese derive the name of Fohi from his oblation ; and Moses gives Noah his name upon account of the grant of the creatures for the use of men, which he obtained by his offering. Lastly, the Chinese history supposes Fohi to have settled in the province of Xensi, which is the north-west province of China, and near to Ararat, where the ark rested. But, sixthly, the history we have of the world does necessarily suppose, that these eastern parts were as soon peopled, and as populous as the land of Shinaar. For in a few ages, in the days of Ninus and Semiramis, about three hundred years after the dispersion of mankind, the nations that came of that dispersion attacked the inhabitants of the East with their united force ; but found the nations about Bactria, and the parts where we suppose Noah settled, fully able to resist and repel all their armies, as I shall observe hereafter in its proper place. Noah, therefore, came out of the ark near Saga Scythia on the hills beyond Bactria, north of India. Here he lived, and settled a numerous part of his posterity, by his counsels and advice. He himself planted a vineyard, lived a life of retirement, and after having seen his offspring spread around him died in a good old age. It were much to be wished that we could attain a thorough insight into the antiquities and records of these nations, if there be any extant. As they spread down to India south, and farther east into China ; so it is probable they also peopled Scythia, and afterwards the more Northern continent ; and if America be any where joined to it, perhaps all that part of the world came from these originals…
There is one consideration more which makes it very probable that the use of letters came from Noah, and out of the first world, and that is the account which the Chinese give of their letters. They assert that their first emperor, whom they call Fohi, was the inventor of them ; before Fohi they have no records, and their Fohi and Noah were the same person. Noah came out of the ark in these parts of the world, and the letters uses here were derived from him ; and it happened here, as it afterwards did in other parts of the world, Noah being the sole instructor of his descendants, what he taught them was by after ages reported to be his own invention, though he himself had learned it from those who lived before him. Bishop Walton offers arguments to prove that the Chinese had not the earliest use of letters ; but all his arguments arise from his supposing that the ark rested in Armenia, and that mankind lived in Assyria soon after the Flood, and before they came to China, which I have proved not likely to be true…
If we look among the Chinese, we find in fact what I have been treating of. They have no notion of alphabetical letters, but make use of characters to express their meaning. Their characters are not designed to express words, for they are used by several neighbouring nations who differ in language ; nor are there any set number or collection of them, as one would imagine art and contrivance would, at one time or other, have reduced them to ; but the Chinese still write in a manner as far from art, as one can conceive the first writer to have invented. They have a mark for every thing or action they have to write of ; and not having contrived to use the same mark for the same thing, with some common distinctions for the accidental circumstances that may belong to it, every little difference of time, manner, place, or any other circumstance, causes a new mark ; so that though their words are but few, their letters are innumerable. We have, in Europe, as I before hinted, characters to express numbers, which are not designed for any particular sounds, or words ; but then, we have artificially reduced them to a small number ; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and the cypher 0, will express all numbers that can possibly be conceived. Without doubt the Chinese character might be contracted by a proper method, but the writing of this people, as well as their language, has little improvement. When mankind began first to make their marks for things, having but few things to mark down, they easily found marks enough for them. As they grew further acquainted with the work, and wanted more characters, they invented them, and the number increasing by degrees, it might cause no great trouble to persons who were skilled in the received characters, and had only to learn the new ones as they were invented. But it is strange, that a nation should go on in this method for thousands of years, as the Chinese have really done ; one would think, that it must easily be foreseen to what a troublesome number their letters must in time grow, and that a sense of the common convenience should, at one time or other, have put them upon trying to reduce them ; but we find, in fact, they have not done it. The Chinese report that their letters were invented by Fohi, or Noah ; and in reality, both their letters and their language seem so odd, that they might well pass for the invention of the early and uncultivated ages of mankind. Without doubt the Chinese have added to the number of their letters since the time of their emperor Fohi, and probably altered the sound of their old words, and made some new ones ; but they differ so remarkably, both in writing and language, from the rest of mankind, that I think they are the descendants of men, who never came to Shinaar, and who bad no concern or communication with those who were thence dispersed, by the confusion of Babel, over the face of the Earth…
I think there was an ancient character in Egypt, distinct from both the vulgar letters and common hieroglyphics ; yet I cannot agree with Dr. Burnet, that it was like the letters used in China. The Chinese letters express no words, or particular sounds whatsoever ; but the old Egyptian letters did, as appears plainly from the account we have of Agathodaemon's translating them…