How Old is Anglo-Saxon Truth?

Dating from the year A.D. 655 to the year 1634 over one hundred and fifty references to the identity of the Anglo-Saxon people with ancient Israel have been discovered. They were all reprinted in the "British Israelite" for 1879 and 1880.

The ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, part of which in its present form we know dates from A.D. 892, and which preserves the great common stock of the mouth-to-ear-handed-down history of our people, is almost a continuation of the Bible in its method and tone, and much of its information runs parallel with that which confirms Anglo-Israel truth as held today.

In 1530 Tyndale announced his amazing discovery of the likeness between the Hebrew and English languages which made English the most suitable of any language into which to translate the Bible.

In 1586, John Lily, in his EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND gives evidence of his knowledge and agreement with this truth. In 1590, Counsellor Le Loyer, a French magistrate, wrote a book on "The Ten Lost Tribes", which he says came to England.

In 1649, Dr. John Sadler declared our Israelitish origin.  In 1666 John Bunyan, in the pain of his spiritual conflicts, happened on this truth, saw how great a way it opened for his distraught spirit, but was driven off his father's denial. In 1672, the great work, THE COURT OF THE GENTILES, which anticipated modern scientific discovery in showing the Hebrew sources of knowledge which had been attributed to other nations, made an indirect contribution to men's knowledge of the truth.

But even while all this was transpiring, the Puritans in England, in their quiet and providential incubation for their great American enterprise, were feeding on the likeness between themselves and Israel. They called themselves "The Seed of Abraham, God's servant, and the children of Jacob, His chosen:. It is so written in their records.

The fifth monarchy men had more than a glimmer of the truth. They saw the succession of empires, with the Anglo-Saxon people the last and greatest: 'cut out of a mountain without hands'.

In 1723, Dean Abbadie, of Kilaloe, Ireland, wrote this: "Unless the ten tribes of Israel are flown into the air; or sunk into the earth; they must be those ten Gothic tribes that entered Europe in the fifth century. overthrew the Roman Empire and founded the ten nations of modern-Europe'. (Of course, we do not subscribe to all the statements made by those early writers. We only claim that THE IDEAS OF EXTANT - AND CONTINUING ISRAEL AS KNOWN PEOPLES has always been held).

Another work on the subject appeared in 1796. I.H Frere wrote on the subject in 1796, Ralph Wedgewood in 1814. Rev. B. Murphy, in 1817, wrote PROOFS THAT ISRAELITES CAME FROM EGYPT INTO IRELAND. In 1820 Prebendary Waddilie supported the general contention.

Modern interest on a large scale may be said to have begun with John Wilson, who was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1779. He read for a long time in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, that mine of ancient Israel lore, and seceded there in tracing the Anglo-Saxon people as far back as Media. The rest was easy.

Since his day a distinguished company of authors have explored every nook and cranny of Bible truth concerning the people, bringing out of the Scriptures treasures old and new. These notes are by no means a complete history of the rise of his truth to the public acceptance.  That history has not yet been written. And it should be.