ISRAEL IN GREECE

By Brigadier-General W. H. Fasken, C.B.

WE have now to go back to a much earlier period to understand what was the racial composition of the inhabitants of Greece at the period we are discussing. This is dealt with in chapter 9 of Danvers’ Israel Redivivus, and will be used as the basis of our information. In the fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties Lower Egypt (41) was ruled over by Hyksos kings. Manetho says that they ruled for 511 years and that they were Arabs.The Hyksos were driven out, and the Theban dynasty was restored, under “the king who knew not Joseph.”(42) This first king of the restored dynasty (43) died, and the Exodus took place under the second king.

“During the troublous times, lasting for about one hundred years, whilst the war between the Theban kings and the Hyksos continued, a great number of the people of the country were compelled to seek foreign settlements.”

Greek tradition (44) History of Greece from the Earliest Period, Manual of Ancient History (p. 121), Gillies’ Greece (p. 1), Historical Researches, Vol.II, p. 122) relates the establishment of four successive colonies erected in Greece by foreigners. The principle ones were:(45)

The invaders (46) introduced the Phoenician alphabet, improved agriculture, multiplied the rites of religion, taught the former inhabitants the use of metals, adopted the Grecian language and, generally, conformed to Grecian customs and institutions.Strabo (47) describes the Pelasgi as barbarians. Thucydides regarded the Pelasgi and the Hellenes as one nation. Danaus moved first to establish his colony in the island of Rhodes, but, not being satisfied, moved thence to Argos (48) in the Peloponnesus, where he established his sovereignty. Danvers gives the following arguments to support the case – on historical grounds – that it was Israel, and principally the tribe of Dan, which furnished the human element of classic Greece.

(1) Dan, together with the other tribes of Israel, was in occupation of the very district whence the emigrations took place from Egypt to Greece, and that it is only reasonable to suppose that Danaus and his companions were Israelites, and that the leader was of the tribe of Dan.

(2) That, as the Egyptians were never known to be colonists, the migration under Cecrops was also probably of the Israelite race, especially as these two migrations-after arrival in Greece-merged into one race under one name.

(3) Grote, (49) in his History of Greece, while admitting that these migrations took place, repudiates the idea that the Greeks – from an examination of their character and attitude – could have derived from either Egyptian or Phoenician ancestry.

(4) Bishop Thirwall, (50) in his History of Greece, on the other hand, discredits the migrations, on the ground that the commonly accepted tradition that these migrations were by Egyptian colonies is incredible, because it was known that the true Egyptian was averse from migration and dreaded sea voyages.

(5) That the Israelites were spoken of as Egyptians is evident from:

(a) Exodus 2:19, (51) where Moses is described by the daughters of Reuel, the priest of Midian, as an Egyptian;
(b) Strabo, (52) where Moses is called an Egyptian priest.

(6) Latham (53) in his Ethnology of Europe, says: “neither do I think that the eponymus of Argive Danai was other than that of the Israelite tribe of Dan.”

“Traditional genealogies, (54) collated by Hecateus and others enabled Eratosthenes to date the ‘fall of Troy’ to 1194 B.C. in the third generation before the ‘coming of the Dorians’.”

From the article from which the above is quoted it is gathered that there is more historical background for the ‘tale of Troy’ than the nineteenth century gave credit to epic tradition for.

It continues

“Egyptian references to repeated sea-raids into the Levant between 1230 and 1190 B.C. depict a situation closely resembling Homeric descriptions; and the Aquaiusha, Danauna, and probably other participants in these raids may be safely recognized as Achaeans and Danaans in Greek tradition.”

Subsequent to the Trojan War, Dorians (55) – starting from Macedonia and from Mount Pindus in Thessaly – and Aetolians, dispossessed the former inhabitants of Argus, who now joined their kinsmen in Athens, and the two combined (descendants of Danaus and Cecrops respectively) became known as Ionians.

“As one of the consequences (56) of the Doric invasion the Ionic race retained no part of the mainland of Greece except Attica. Another consequence was that many Ionians left the mainland and established colonies on the southern coast of Lydia and the northern coast of Caria which, together with the islands of Samos and Chios, took from them the name of Ionia …The general colonial expansion of Greece took place during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Miletus was the most powerful colony.”

From there Sinope, (57) the ancient Assyrian port, in the middle of the south coast of the Black Sea, was settled about 785 B.C., and all the shores of the Black Sea.

The original inhabitants of Greece have long since departed and, presumably, joined the general migration of Israel north-west. Latham the ethnologist, says, “the whole country is Slavonized.” The Greeks of to-day are not their descendants.

Herodotus tells us that the Lacedaemonians (Spartans) were in his day the most famous branch of the Danai, while the Books of the Macabees (I, xii, 21) and Josephus say that the Lacedaemonians claimed affinity with the Jews as being themselves of the stock of Abraham. This claim was admitted by the Jewish High Priest.

41 “Israel Redivivus,” Danvers, p. 144.
42 Exodus 1:8.
43 Exodus 2:23.
44 “Israel Redivivus,” Danvers, p. 151.
45 Ibid., p. 152.
46 Gillie’s “History of Greece.”
47 “Israel Redivivus,” Danvers, p. 153.
48 Ibid., p. 154.
49 Grote, Vol.II, p. 191.
50 Ibid., p. 155.
51 Exod.2:19.
52 Strabo, Geo XVI, ii 34, 35.Ibid., p. 154.
53 “Israel Redivivus,” Danvers, p. 157.
54 Ency.Brit.14th edit., Vol.XXII, p. 504.
55 “Ancient History,” Heerens, p. 127.
56 “Israel Redivivus,” Danvers, pp. 176,177.
57 Ibid., pp. 178, 179. §