first instance worshipped in their palpable or visible manifestations, without symbol, image, or temple. But in process of time a new corruption arose: men began to dedicate to each particular deity some living creature, and to perform their worship to the deity before it. We may wonder by what possible process of mind, animal existences could connect themselves with any worship, even with that of the stars. But we have already mentioned that some animals were thought to discover qualities which aptly symbolized those attributed to a particular deity; or they also perhaps apprehended that the gods had made these living creatures more or less partakers of their divinity and perfections, that they might be instrumental in conveying a knowledge of them to men. Thus the hawk was thought, from its powers of vision, an apt emblem of the chief god, "the all over-seeing sun," and therefore the hawk was his symbol and representative, not less in the religion of Persia than in that of Egypt, though not exactly in the same manner of symbolization. Then again, the cat was set apart to symbolize the moon, for which many reasons are assigned, but the chief of them seems to have been the remarkable contraction or dilation of the pupil of its eye, which was thought to illustrate the decrease and increase of the moon, and the animal perhaps considered to enjoy more than an ordinary participation in the lunar deity's influence. Hence the hawk and the cat were eminently sacred in Egypt, and it was death to kill them; this being an indignity cast upon the divinities whose representatives they were. We are very much inclined to think that where this corruption originated the art of statuary was unknown, and that the animal was designed as a sort of living statue of the god. The difference in this respect between the Egyptian and other Pagan systems seems to have been, that, even after the art of statuary was cultivated, the former retained the living animal symbol, and also used its figure in sculpture, either in its natural form, or by giving its head to a human figure; whereas other nations then came to represent the deities almost exclusively in the human figure, and threw the animal symbol into a subordinate place: that is, the animal form was not (except in a few rare instances) retained as a primary representation, but as a subordinate symbol of, or an attendant upon, the divinity to whom it was consecrated. What was gained by this alteration is not very clear; and Plutarch accordingly asks the wits of Greece and Rome, who were fond of scoffing at the animal and vegetable deities of Egypt, whether the smallest organized body was not as adequate a symbol of divinity as any statue, however exquisite in its execution? He might also have mentioned that their own superstitions retained some rather strong indications of the Egyptian principle; for while the latter consecrated to each divinity some animal, or bird, or vegetable; their own systems consecrated to each deity an animal, a bird, and a plant. Thus the ram, as in Egypt, symbolized Jupiter Ammon, and the same deity had also the eagle, and the beech-tree; Mars had the horse, the vulture, and the ash-tree; Minerva had the dragon, the owl, and the olive-and so of the rest. This seems to show that the principle of animal representation was not, in its origia, peculiar to the Egyptians; indeed it certainly was not so at any time, only in no other country was the principle exhibited so broadly and on a scale so extensive. The extent to which this animal worship was there carried may be illustrated by the fact, that several districts and towns are named after the animals whose worship prevailed in them. Thus the nomes or districts of Oxyrhynchus, Lycopolis, and Cynopolis were respectively called after the fish Oxyrhynchus, and the wolf and the dog; and, in the same manner, the cities of Bubastis, Mendes, Crocodilopolis, Leontopolis, were severally named after cats, goats, crocodiles, and lions. Many other instances might be cited of this practice of naming towns and districts after the animals principally worshipped in them.

The next stage of descent in the low deep of idolatry was to pay divine honours to men, who after their deaths were raised to the rank of gods, and worshipped as such. It was not concealed that they had been men, and their history as men-as kings, heroes, inventors-was related, and the manner of their death recorded; and in some instances, at least in Egypt, it was professed that their embalmed bodies were retained in sepulchres. But still they were not the less gods: and that the simple aspect of such a doctrine might not be too palpably revolting, it was alleged that their spirits had passed into, and become the animating principle, of some heavenly body. Then, if we can understand this by no means lucid subject, the anterior mythological history of the heavenly body became part of the history of the deified mortal; which accounts for the strange discrepancies which meet us on every hand when one part of the history of the same being exhibits him as the artificer, not to say creator, of the world; and another exhibits him as human, and subject to oppression and to death. We may thus understand what is meant when, in the early history of nations, they tell us, for instance, that their first king was the sun; by which they mean that their first king was deified, and became the animating intelligence of that great luminary. The fact of such a process of deification is well known, and has existed in almost all nations; and heaven might thus, in a two-fold sense, be said to have been peopled with deified mortals. Who were these mortals? Mr. Faber, in his most elaborate work on Pagan Idolatry, seems to follow Banier in concluding that they were, in the first instance, the first fathers of mankind, to whom others-kings, heroes, legislators, inventors-were afterwards added. Faber resolves the earliest and most exalted into Adam and his immediate family, as reappearing in Noah and his family: he would therefore say, that Osiris, as a mortal, was Noah: whereas Banier, who has a less finished system to support, is satisfied with thinking that Osiris was Mizraim, the grandson of Noah, by whom Egypt was first settled. Be this as it may, it seems to us probable that these deified mortals had, as such, other animal symbols assigned to them separately from those which belonged to them in their sidereal character; and we would thus explain the fact, that most of the Egyptian gods had two symbolical characters-and, for instance, we would thus understand that the hawk was the symbol of Osiris as the sun, and the bull, as a deified mortal. We thus see that the worship of dead men was intimately connected with the worship of the host of heaven and the powers of Nature. Or, to sum up the whole, Nature itself, or the world, was looked upon comprehensively as a divinity: but to what extent they recognised a Being above nature, it is difficult to discover. We have shown above that the Egyptians, in their Cneph, appear to have had some faint idea of him. It is true that Mr. Faber refuses to entertain the idea that the TRUE GOD was the One Being into whom he admits that all the Gentile gods may ultimately be resolved: but then, in the Egyptian system, for instance, he traces the one God no higher than Osiris, and if we entertained this opinion, we should admit his conclusion. But we think it very palpable that, in the Egyptian system, Osiris was not the eldest of the gods, whether as a sidereal deity or a deified mortal; nor are we aware that even the Egyptians professed that he was such; and Cneph, "he who had no beginning," was anterior even to the sun. Yet, after all, we do not contend that Cneph was the true God, but only that he was an idea of the true God turned into an idol.

We do not, however, object to the notion that most, if not all the gods-certainly all the most popular gods-of Egypt may be resolved into Osiris. Macrobius long ago contended that all male deities might be resolved into the sun (in Egypt, Osiris), and all the female into the moon (in Egypt, Isis), the latter being also resolvable into the former. Mr. Faber adopts this opinion with some modification, allowing that all the deities terminate in a male and female, and, a step farther, in one hermaphrodite being, the same who becomes the male after the female has been born from his substance, as Eve from Adam. We allow that the host of gods may thus be disposed of, being resolved into one, whether male or hermaphrodite; but we believe this termination not to be ultimate, but intermediate only, dissenting in this both from Macrobius and Mr, Faber; otherwise, how are we to understand the celestial as distinguished from the mortal

origin of Osiris? It is, that as Phtha, who is confessedly the same as Osiris, he issued from the egg which proceeded from the mouth of Cneph. Cneph, therefore, not Osiris, is the being to whom we are ultimately referred, although we may be intermediately referred to Osiris. We have not alluded to this subject in vain, because our task is thus simplified in attempting to say a few words about the gods represented in our cuts, which exhibit the forms in which the principal gods of the Egyptians were usually displayed.

It will be understood that Osiris (male) and Isis (female) were the only deities whose worship was universal in Egypt. The worship of the others was confined to particular towns and districts. In fact, although Osiris and Isis, in a particular sense, were the sun and moon, these most glorious of luminaries being considered most appropriate to them; yet, in a general sense, they were pantheistic also, that is, they included all nature, the different characters of which, as personified in other deities, were ultimately referred to them. The egg from which Osiris proceeded was the universe, but that universe itself had proceeded from Cneph. Some of the male figures are, however, more immediately than others referred to Osiris as the sun, and others to Isis, as the moon; being probably no other than symbols and personifications of different characteristics of these glorious bodies. It is very possible that the different names and personifica tions which occur, are those under which the luminaries and powers of nature were worshipped before the spirits of deified men were assigned to them as guiding intelligences, and under which they continued to be worshipped afterwards. It thus appears that the Egyptian idolatry combined the worship of the host of heaven, of the powers and qualities of nature, of animal symbols, and of deified mortals, comprehending nearly all the forms of idolatry into which the mind of man has ever been deluded, and which are so solemnly interdicted in the text before us.

•

After what we have said, it will be evident that it must be very difficult to distinguish the different deities of Egypt, and state their several attributes and characteristics. For although it may be possible, by the light of recent discoveries, to read the Egyptian names annexed to their figures, the great difficulty often remains of discovering to which of them we shall assign the names of Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, &c., under which the Egyptian deities are mentioned and characterised by the Greek and Roman writers, from whom most of our knowledge of the Egyptian theology is derived. We shall therefore merely index the figures now offered to the reader, and yet without professing to be able to render such an index correct. The figures, as well as the names affixed to them, are from the Description de l'Egypte,' and will nearly all be found in the following list of the twenty-four principal deities of Egypt. It is proper to add, that the names are said to be faithfully transcribed from the pictorial symbols annexed to the figures on the Egyptian monuments, according to the phonetic values assigned to such symbols by M. Champollion. We have therefore not interfered with the names, although we apprehend that there are some concerning which considerable doubt might be entertained. In the subjoined list we have placed the names in the order and class in which the best mythologists place them, and to the names have added a few particulars principally with a view to illustrate the engravings. The twenty-four deities are divided into two classes of twelve each, of whom the first are distinguished as the "great gods." It is possible that those placed in this class, whether twelve, or more, or fewer, obtained that distinction from being deified sooner than the others; and if they were originally men and women, it is likely enough that they existed sooner, being, as some think, antediluvians, whereas those of the second class, of whatever number, lived later, and were perhaps postdiluvians. We must confess, however, that we are much inclined to suspect that those of the first class were the personified stars and elements, worshipped prior to the introduction of deified mortals, and that it is in this sense they are called "great" and "most ancient," and that the others were deified mortals, assigned as presiding intelligences to the same stars and elements previously and afterwards thus personified and worshipped. This view is remarkably corroborated by our finding the great and popular divinities Osiris and Isis at the head, not of the first class, but of the second.

AMAR

(1) PHTHA-SOKARIS.

(3) Sovк.

(7) CNOUPHIS.

(9) AMMON-RE.

FIRST CLASS.-1. Phtha (called Vulcan by the Greeks).—The sun; the same as Osiris, when the latter is considered as the sun only, and not a deified mortal. Their symbols then coincide. The deified beetle which so often appears on Egyptian remains was the peculiar symbol of Phtha, or the sun. This idol is said also to have represented the pure "eternal" fire, and, reflectively, the generating power of the world. This is he who issued from the mystic egg. 2. Anouke (Vesta), also fire: although both Phtha and Vesta are said to be emblems of fire, we very much suspect that Phtha symbolized heat, and Vesta flame. 3. Sork (Saturn, or Chronos), thought to be the same with the well-known personage in classical mythology; the god of time, or rather, the emblem of time. 4. Rhea, Saturn's wife, probably represented the earth, as when adopted into classical mythology; and if so, this must have been one of the names and characters of the pantheistic Isis, who was not only the moon, but also the earth. 5. Ceres, or Isis as the goddess of agriculture, which Isis is said to have taught. 6. Neith (Minerva), or Isis as wisdom diffusing itself through all things: Isis frequently occurs in this form and character. Bouto (Latona), in our cut is one of the forms of Neith, and therefore of Isis. 7. Cnouphis or Canopus, the element of water, and particularly the Nile; a sort of Egyptian Neptune. As represented in our cut, he is regarded as a manifestation of the great god Caeph, an opinion which is rather sanctioned by the analogy of name. When represented with the attributes of Osiris, he is considered a mani

TIPHE.

(6) Bouro.

(11) SEVEN.

(5*) ATHOR. (11) SATE. festation of Osiris. 8, 9, 10. Mythologists are perplexed about the Egyptian Jupiters, as mentioned by the Greeks; and they determine on three, that is, Jupiter, Ammon (confounded with Jupiter), and another Jupiter called Uranus. There is probably some difference; and Ammon in particular, of whose worship, under the symbol of a ram, Thebes was the centre, may be conceived to have been only another form of the god Cneph, the creator of the universe. If not, Ammon, though said to symbolize the universe itself, according to some accounts, but, according to others, the sun, must be resolved into Osiris. Our cut exhibits what is certainly Ammon; but whether the figure which the cut gives as that of Cnouphis (Cneph), with the head of another species of ram, be really the great deity, perhaps admits of a question. 11. Sate (Juno), Isis as queen of the lower world. The figures named Seven in the cuts are said to be representations of the same goddess as Juno Lucina, the protectress of maternity. 12. Mars; another manifestation of Osiris.

A

(1*) Роон.

(11*) THOTH.

(8) CNOUPHIS-NILUS.

(1) PHRE. SECOND CLASS. (Distinguished by an asterisk in the cuts.)-1. Osiris, already so much mentioned; symbolized by the bull and the hawk, and represented with the head of one or the other of these animals, or else in a human form, usually with horns, and an orb between them. Phré and Pooh, in the cuts, are also identified with Osiris as the sun.

Y

Osiris was also the principle of good, in the theory which made the mixed good and evil of the world the result of the conflict between the principles of good and evil. 2. Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris; properly the moon, but also pantheistic, including ultimately all the properties and powers represented by female deities. All the Egyptian theology may be said to be concealed under the symbols of Osiris and Isis. The cow was sacred to her, and she usually wears its head or horns or ears on a human head. 3. Typhon, their brother and enemy, the evil principle. He was a sort of Satan, but worse; Satan being an evil being only, not an evil principle-symbolized by the crocodile, sometimes the wolf;-sometimes represented as a monster with a hundred heads and hands, wreathed with serpents, and covered with feathers and scales-a bloated Caliban sort of figure when represented in the human form. 4. Nephthe, sister of Osiris and Typhon, and wife of the latter. The serpent and the dragon were her symbols, and we more than suspect that her figure may be found in the second of those named Seven in the cuts. 5. Ather (Venus). Quite identical with Isis. Indeed the cut bearing her name might, in most respects, stand very well for a figure of Isis. She was the sister of the sun (Osiris), and the wife of Phtha (Osiris), circumstances peculiar to Isis. 6. Orus. Son of Osiris and Isis; identified with Osiris as the sun. Usually represented as a child. He is sometimes represented as a lad with his finger on his lip, in token of mystery and silence. He is then called Harpocrates, whom, however, some accounts make his brother. 7. Arneris. Eldest son of Osiris and Isis, and the model of the Greek Apollo. 8. Cnouphis-Nilus or Canopus. The same in name as one mentioned in the former list, but different and inferior. The difference is, however, not very clear. Usually represented as one of the jars used for percolating the Nile water, with a head and pair of hands on the top. Perhaps this one was particularly the god of the inundation, and the other of the Nile river, and of all waters in general. 9. Bubastis (Diana). Another form of Isis, as the moon. The cat was the symbol of Bubastis, and the city of that name was the chief seat of the cat-worship. 10. Anubis. The brother of Osiris according to some accounts, but, according to others, the illegitimate son of that god, and who assisted Isis with his counsels when she was left regent of the kingdom during the absence of Osiris. He was the more ancient Thoth, and the first teacher of that philosophy and science which the second Thoth revived and completed. The dog was his symbol on account of its vigilance and sagacity, and he is almost invariably represented with a dog's head. The Greeks confounded him with Mercury, calling him Hermes-Anubis. 11. Thoth (2nd), or Hermes-Trismegistus,

symbolized by the ibis. He was the thirty-fifth king of Thebes, and is said to have been the reviver and second founder of the theology, laws, and social institutions of the Egyptians, all of which he brought into that system which has been regarded with wonder in every subsequent age. For these services he was deified. 12. Mendes, worshipped in the city of that name, under the form of a goat, represented the prolific principle of the universe. The Greeks identified him with their own Pan, perhaps for no better reason than that both were symbolized by the goat.

This is not a complete list of all the gods of Egypt. Such a list would be difficult to form, and useless for our purpose when formed. It includes all the principal idols, we believe; but that each occupies its proper class and place in this list, it is impossible to say. The only one represented in the cuts which it does not mention is Tiphe-a name we do not remember to have met with except in the great work from which the figures are taken, and where she is identified with Urania, or the heavens. In concluding this notice of the various forms of idolatry which prevailed in Egypt and elsewhere, it is proper to direct attention to the fact, that the only true God did not regard one form with more favour than another, but equally forbade every form of idolatry, and every thing that tended thereto. The command, "Thou shalt have no other gods but me," struck at the root of idolatry, even when unconnected with image or animal worship; and the present commands break up the gently descending road into the depths of idolatry by interdicting all representative or symbolical worship.

GODS OF WOOD."-IDOLS OF PAINTED SYCAMORE.

28. "Gods, the work of men's hands, wood."-To complete the series of Egyptian idols, we here give representations of some small images of painted wood, copied from the originals in the British Museum. Figures of this sort are frequently found, and appear to have been a sort of household gods. They are made of the native sycamore wood, and in general bear much resemblance to the form and character of the mummy-cases in which they are most usually found. Wooden statues, on a very large scale, are known to have existed in Egypt, and are mentioned by ancient writers; but the perishable character of the material, as well perhaps as its usefulness as fuel to the barbarians who now occupy the country, has prevented their preservation. Belzoni, however, found two wooden figures, of very fine workmanship, about seven feet high, in the tombs of the kings of Thebes. (See Egyptian Antiquities,' vol. i. pp. 370-374, in Library of Entertaining Knowledge.') We postpone some further observations on the subject of wooden idols to the note on Isaiah xl, 20.

"

•

CHAPTER V.

1 The covenant in Horeb. 6 The ten commandments. 22 At the people's request Moses receiveth the law from God.

AND Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day,

Heb. keep to do them.

that ye may learn them, and 'keep, and do them.

2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.

4 The LORD talked with you face to

2 Exod. 19. 5.