MUST NATURALLY BE ACCIDENTAL AND INFER Cicero arid •Eusebius mehtion Phthah as the same with Vulcan; and Eratosthenes, on the authori ty of the Egyptian priests, interprets •••110EPHTHA, Phikphaestus, or loving Vulcan, which in Coptic would be exactly expressed by MAIMITHAM, as MAISON is loving a brother. Mr Akerblad quotes, from a Coptic sermon of Sinnethi, the words, " He phaestus, who is Ptah;" and this remarkable passage proves, as he justly observes, how much Jablonsky was mistaken in his orthography of Phihash, on which he founded one of his fanciful etymologies.
S. Neim, the Minerva of the Egyptians, had a celebrated temple at Sais, in which was the well known inscription on the goddess of universal na ture, whose offspring, in the translation of the in scription, as preserved by Proclus, is said to be the sun. It seems, therefore, natural to call Neith the wife of Phthah ; as Plato also observes, that arts were invented by Vulcan and his wife; but we are told, that Neith is to be considered as both male and fe male. The name is mentioned by Plato as synony
mous with Minerva, and Eratosthenee explains Ni tocris, Minerva the victorious.
4. Rs, or Puns, the Sun, otherwise called On, is mentioned by Manetho as the son of Vulcan. He married Rhea, and, having discovered her infidelity, condemned her to bear no offspring on any day or any night of the whole 860•that then made the year. Plutarch says, that he was represented by a young child rising out of a lotus ; but this emblem is more probably attributable to Horus, who is another of the forms of the solar power, and is sometimes im. properly confounded with Apollo. The word Phre IS often found in Greek letters on the amulets, accom. parried by emblems of the sun.