For the lirst seventeen dynasties, numbering in Afr. more than 4000 years, a bare statement of their con- tents and of the monumental evidence would greatly exceed the limits of this article. Perhaps the time is not far distant when the attempt to educe a connected chronology from Manetho (whether for or against the Mosaic numbers) will be abandoned by all sensible men. Full and unprejudiced inquiry can have but one result: for times anterior to B.C. 700 Egypt has no fixed chro- nolofiy. De Kouge has in two words set the whole mat- ter in its true light : ■' Les texlies de IManethon sont pro- fondement alteres, et la serie des dates monumentales est tres incomplete.^'' The incompleteness of the record is palpable : the alteration of the texts is the result of their having passed through numerous hands, and been refashioned according to various intentions, by which tlie whole inquiry has been complicated to a degree that baMles all attempts to determine what was their original form. These intentions were mainly cyclical. A very brief statement of facts, not resting on critical conjecture and questionable combinations, as in the elaborate treatise of Bcickh, but lying on the surface, will place the character and relations of the several texts in a clear light. Menes stands, 1. In Africanus (according to Syncellus's running summation of the numbers in book i) just three complete sothiac cycles, 3 X 1460 Julian years, before B.C. 1322; 2. In luisebius, ac- cording to the epigraphal sum of book i, f/n-ee cycles be- fore the epoch of Sethosis, dyn. xix ; 3. In Eusebius, ac- cording to the actual sum of book i, three cycles before the year B.C. 978-77, meant as the goal of the Diospol- itan monarchy or epoch of Shishak ; 4. In Syncellus's period of oobb years (accepted by Lepsius and Bunsen as the true Manelhonic measure from Menes to Nectane- biis), tvo cycles before the same goal; 5. In the Old Chronicle, according to its sothiac form, 07ie cycle before the same goal ; 6. In the Sothis, one cycle before B.C. 1322; but here it is contrived that Osiropis, or the com- mencement of Diospolitan monarchy, stands one cycle before Susakeim = Shishak. The inquirer may easily verify these facts for himself. In the series of papers, " Cycles of Egyptian Chronology-," published in Arnold's Theol. Critic, 1851-.'32,he will find them fully stated, with many other like facts, which prove that these chronog- rajiliics, one and all, are intensely cyclical. But if Ma- netho, as we have him, is cyclical, then, Lepsius himself confesses (A'. B. p. 6, 7), " the historiccd character of his vnrk falls to the groitnd ; for the very fact of Menes heading a sothiac circle could only be the result of af- ter-contrivance ;" and Bunsen {Aey. St. iv, 13") sees that in place of "the genuine historical work of Jlanetho, the venerable priest and conscientious inquirer," we get v.— Y Y
"a made-vp thing, systematically carved to shape, and therefore really fabulous.^'' Whether or not the original " Manetho," whatever its authorship and date, was con- trived upon a cyclical plan, we have but the lists as they come to us finally from the hands of Annianus and Pan- doras through Syncellus. It may be observed, however, that the cardinal dates given by JJiciearchus, which we have from an independent source, imply that the cycli- cal treatment of Egyptian chronology is at least as old as the alleged time of Manetho {''Cycles," etc., u. s., sec. 4,16,34,30).
For literature additional to the above, see under Egypt ; also Fruin, Dissertatio Ilistorica de Manethove (Leyd. 1847, 8vo) ; BiJckh, Manetho (Berlin, 1845, 8vo) ; A. H. von Sagaus, Mctnethos, die Origines unserer Gesch. (Gotha, 1865, 8vo) ; A m. Presb. Rev. Jan. 1866, p. 180.
Manger is the rendering found in Luke ii, 7, 12, 16, of the term tftciTvi], used to designate the place in which the infant Eedeemer was cratUed ; which seems to de- note a crib or " stall" for feeding cattle, as it is rendered in Luke xiii, 15 (see Horrei Miscell. Crit. Leon. 1738, bk. ii, ch. xvi). It is emplo}-ed in the Sept. in a similar sense for the Heb. O^^N, Job xxxix, 9; Isa. i, 3; also by Josephus, Ant. viii, 2, 4; comp. Lucan, Tim. p. 14; Xenophon, Eg. iv, 1. Gersdorff {Eeitrdge zur Sprach- charalcterestik des N. T. p. 220) is in favor of translating the word crib everywhere, and quotes /Elian (apud Suid. s. v.), Philo {De somniis, p. 872, b. ed. Colon. 1613), and SybUe. Eryth. (ap. Lactantius, vii, 24, 12) to that effect. Schleusner {Lex. s. v.) says it is any enclosure, but es- pecially the vestibule to the house, where the cattle ■were enclosed, not with walls, but wooden hurdles; but in common Greek the word undoubtedly often refers to a trough hollowed out to receive the food for horses, etc. (see Homer, II. y, 271; x, 568; xxiv, 280). The Peshito Version evidently so understands it. On the other hand, it is doubtful if such a contrivance as a proper manger was known in the East, especially in the khans or "inns" of the description alluded to in the text. See Caravansehai. " Stables and mangers, in the sense in which we understand them, are of compar- atively late introduction into the East (see the quota- tions from Chardin and others in Harmer's OhservationSy ii, 205), and, although they have furnished material tO' modern painters and poets, did not enter into the cir- cumstances attending the birth of Christ, and are hard- ly less inaccurate than the 'cradle' and the 'stable' which are named in some descriptions of that event" (Smith). 'Wq, are therefore doubtless here to regard the term as designating the ledge or projection in the end of the room used as a stable, on which the hay or other food of the animals of travellers was placed. (See Strong's Harmony and Expos, of the Gospels, p. 14.) Several of the Christian fathers maintain that the stable itself was in a cave, and the identical manger in which the infant Jesus is traditionally stated to have lain is still shown by the superstitious monks, being no other than a marble sarcophagus; but the whole storj' is at variance with the narrative in the Gospels. (See Mel- don, De p7-cesepi Christi, .Jen. 1662.) See Bethlehem. Tavernier, speaking of Aleppo, states that " in the cara- vanserais, on each side of the hall, for persons of the best quality, there are lodgings for every man by him- self. These lodgings are raised all along the court, two or three steps high, just behind which are the stables, where many times it is as good lying as in the cham- bers. Bight against the head of every horse there is a niche witli a window into the lodging-chamber, out of which every man may see that his horse is looked after. These niches are usualh' so large that three men may lie in them, and here the servants dress their victuals." In modern Oriental farm-houses, however, something corresponding to a Western " manger" may be found. "It is common to find two sides of the one room where the native farmer resides with his cattle fitted up with these mangers, and the remainder elevated about two feet higher for the accommodation of the family. The