The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

LETTER XIV.

The Palace of the Priest of Apis.

My dear Mother:

I will now describe to you my visit, with the prince, to the most remarkable shrine in Egypt. While the worship of Osiris, at On, is a series of splendid pageantries, but little differing from the gorgeous sun-worship which you witnessed some years ago at Baalbec, the rites of Apis are as solemn and severe as the temple in which they are celebrated is grand and majestic.

The temple itself is a massive and imposing edifice, of reddish Elephantine stone. It is of vast proportions, and the effect produced is that of a mountain of rock hewn into a temple, as travellers say temples are cut out of the face of cliffs in Idumea-Arabia. Its expression is majesty and grandeur. It occupies the whole of one side of the vast square described by me in my last letter.

As we were about to ascend to the gate, I was startled by a loud and menacing cry from many voices, and, looking around, perceived a Tyrian mariner, recognized by me as such by his dress, who was flying across the square with wings of fear. A crowd, which momentarily increased, pursued him swiftly with execrations and cries of vengeance! As he drew near, I noticed that he was as pale as a corpse. Seeing that he was a Phœnician, I felt interested in him, and by a gesture drew him towards me. He fell at my feet, crying—"Save me, O my prince!"

"What hast thou done?" I demanded.

"Only killed one of their cats, my lord!"

The throng came rushing on, like a stormy wave, uttering fearful cries.

"May I try and protect him, O Remeses," I asked, for I knew that, if taken, he would be slain for destroying one of their sacred animals.

"I will see if I can; but I fear my interposition will not be heeded in a case like this," he replied. At the same time he deprecatingly waved his hand to the infuriated populace, which had in a few moments increased to a thousand people.

"No, not even for the prince! He has killed a sacred animal. By our laws he also must die. We will sacrifice him to the gods!"

In vain I entreated, and Remeses interposed. The wretched man was torn from our presence by as many hands as could seize him, thrown down the steps of the temple, and trampled upon by the furious crowd, until nothing like a human shape remained. The formless mass was then divided into pieces, and carried to a temple where numerous sacred cats are kept, in order to be given to them to devour. Such is the terrible death they inflict upon one who by accident kills a cat or an ibis!

"The power of the State is weak when contending with the mad strength of superstition," remarked Remeses, as we entered the temple between two statues of brazen bulls. Entering through a majestic doorway, we came into an avenue of vast columns, the size of which impressed me with awe. The temple was originally erected to Pthah, anciently the chief deity of Memphis, and dedicated in the present reign to the sacred bull, whose apartment is the original adytum of the temple.

The worship of Apis and Mnevis, the bulls consecrated to Osiris, exhibits the highest point to which the worship of animals in Egypt has reached, and it was with no little interest I felt myself advancing into the presence of this deified animal. We were met, at the entrance of the avenue of columns, by two priests in white linen robes, over which was a crimson scarf, the sacred color of Apis. They had tall caps on their heads, and each carried a sort of crook. They received the prince with prostrations. Going one before and one behind us, they escorted us along the gloomy and solemn avenue of sculptured columns, until we came to a brazen door. A priest opened it, and we entered a magnificent peristyle court supported by caryatides twelve cubits in height, representing the forms of Egyptian women. We remained in this grand hall a few moments, when a door on the opposite side opened and the sacred bull appeared. He was conducted by a priest, who led him by a gold chain fastened to his horns, which were garlanded with flowers. The animal was large, noble-looking, and jet-black in color, with the exception of a square spot of white upon his forehead. Upon his shoulder was the resemblance of a vulture, and the hairs were double in his tail! These being the sacred marks of Apis, I observed them particularly: there should be also the mark of a scarabæeus on his tongue.

The deity stalked proudly forth, slowly heaving up and down his huge head and thick neck,—a look of barbaric power and grandeur glancing from his eye.

The curator of the sacred animal led him once around the hall, the Egyptians prostrating themselves as he passed them, and even Remeses, instinctively, from custom, bending his head. When he stopped, the prince advanced to him, and taking a jewelled collar from a casket which he brought with him, he said to the high-priest—who, with a censer of incense, prepared to invoke the god—

"My lord priest of Apis: I, Remeses the prince, as a token of my gratitude to the god, of whom the sacred bull is the emblem, for the restoration of my mother, the queen, do make to the temple an offering of this jewelled collar for the sacred bull."

"His sacred majesty, my lord prince, accepts, with condescension and grace, your offering," answered the gorgeously attired high-priest. He then passed the necklace through the cloud of incense thrice, and going up to the bull, fastened the costly gift about his neck, already decorated with the price of a kingdom, while his forehead glittered like a mass of diamonds. A cool draft of wind passing through the open hall, a priest (at least two hundred attendant priests were assembled there to witness the prince's offering) brought a covering or housing of silver and gold tissue, magnificently embroidered, and threw it over the god.

The prince now, at the request of the queen, proceeded to obtain an omen as to the success of his army. He therefore approached and offered the bull a peculiar cake, of which he is very fond, which the animal took from his palm and ate. At this good omen there was a murmur of satisfaction; for a refusal to eat is accounted a bad omen. Remeses smiled as if gratified. Could it be that he had faith in the omen? I know not. Much must be allowed to the customs of a lifetime! Trained to all these rituals from a child, had the philosophy of his later years wholly destroyed in him all faith and confidence in the gods of his mother and his country? The priest now asked a question aloud, addressed to the god:

"Will the Prince of Egypt, O sacred Apis, be a successful king, when he shall come to the throne?"

The reply to the question was to be found in the first words Remeses should hear spoken by any one when he left the temple. He immediately departed from the peristyle, and we returned through the solemn avenue to the portico. As we descended the steps, a seller of small images of the bull called out, in reply to something said by another—

"He will never get there!"

"Mark those words, Sesostris!" he said, not unimpressed by them; "my mother is to outlive me, or Mœris will seize the throne from me!"

"Do you put faith in this omen?"

"I know not what to answer you, my Sesostris. You have, no doubt," he added, "after all I have said, marvelled at my offering to Apis. But it is hard to destroy early impressions, even with philosophy, especially if the mind has no certain revelation to cling to, when it casts off its superstitions. But here I must leave you, at the door of the hierarch's palace. This noble priest is head of the priesthood of Pthah, a part of whose temple, as you have seen, is devoted to Apis,—or rather the two temples subsist side by side. You saw him last week at our palace. He has asked you to be his guest while here. Honor his invitation, and he will not only teach you much that you desire to know, but will visit with you the great pyramidal temple of Cheops."

Having entered the palace, and placed me under the hospitality of the noble Egyptian hierarch therein, the prince took leave of me. I would like to describe to you the taste and elegance of this abode, my dear mother; its gardens, fountains, flower-courts, paintings, and rich furniture. But I must first say a little more about the god Apis, who holds so prominent a place in the mythology of Egypt. In the hieroglyphic legends he is called Hapi, and his figurative sign on the monuments is a bull with a globe of the sun upon his head, and the hieroglyphic cruciform emblem of Life drawn near it. Numerous bronze figures of this bull are cast, whereupon they are consecrated, distributed over Egypt, and placed in the tombs of the priests. The time to which the sacred books limit the life of Apis is twenty-five years, which is a mystic number here; and if his representative does not die a natural death by that time, he is driven to the great fountain of the temple, where the priests were accustomed to bathe him (for he is fed and tended with the greatest delicacy, luxury, and servility by his priestly curators), and there, with hymns chanted and incense burning, they drown him amid many rites and ceremonies, all of which are written in the forty-two books of papyrus kept in the sacred archives of the oldest temple.

No sooner does the god expire, than certain priests, who are selected for the purpose, go in search of some other bull; for they believe that the soul of Osiris has migrated into another body of one of these animals, or "Lords of Egypt," as I have heard them called. This belief of the constant transfer of himself by Osiris from the body of one bull to another, is but the expression of a popular notion here, that souls of men transmigrate from body to body; and my opinion is confirmed by a scene depicted in the judgment-hall of Osiris, where the god is represented as sending a soul, whose evil deeds outweighed his good ones, back to earth, and condemning it to enter the body of a hog, and so begin anew, from the lowest animal condition, to rise by successive transmigrations through other beasts, higher and higher; until he became man again, when, if he had acquired virtue in his probation, he was admitted to the houses of the gods and became immortal.

The prince assures me that the belief in the transmigration of souls is almost universal in the Thebaïd, as well as among the lower orders in the northern nomes; and that the universal reverence for animals is, without doubt, in a great measure to be traced to this sentiment. A monstrous doctrine of the perpetual incarnation of deity in the form, not of man, but of the brute, seems to be the groundwork of all religious faith in Egypt. This idea is the key to the mysteries, inconsistencies, and grossness of their outward worship; the interpreter of their animal Pantheon.

"There is a tradition," said to me, to-day, the prince-priest Misrai, with whom I am now remaining, "that when Osiris came down to earth, in order to benefit the human race by teaching them the wisdom of the gods, evil men, the sons of Typhon, pursued to destroy him, when he took refuge in the body of a bull, who protected and concealed him. After his return to the heavens, he ordained that divine honors should be paid to the bull forever."

This account, my dear mother, is a more satisfactory myth than any other, if any can be so; and recognizes incarnation as the principle of the worship of Apis. This universal idea in the minds of men, that the Creator once dwelt in the body of a creature, would lead one to believe, that in ages past the Infinite had descended from heaven for the good of men, and dwelt in a body; or that, responding to this universal idea, he may yet do it. Perhaps, dear mother, the worship of Osiris under the form of Apis, may be the foreshadowing and type of what is yet really to come—a dispensation, preparing men for the actual coming of the Invisible in a visible form. What a day of glory and splendor for earth, should this prove true! The conception, dear mother, is not my own; it is a thought of the great, and wise, and good Remeses, who, if ever men are deified, deserves a place, after death, among the gods. His vast and earnest mind, enriched with all the stores of knowledge that man can compass, seems as if it derived inspiration from the heavens. His conversation is deeper than the sacred books; the ideas of his soul more wonderful than the mysteries of the temple!

The priests who seek another bull, discover him by certain signs mentioned in their sacred books. These I have already described. In the mean while, a public lamentation is performed, as if Osiris, that is, "the Lord of Heaven," had died, and the mourning lasts until the new Apis is found. This information is proclaimed by swift messengers in all the cities, and is hailed with the wildest rejoicings. The scribes who have found the young calf which is to be the new god, keep it with its mother in a small temple facing the rising sun, and feed it with milk for four months. When that term is expired, a grand procession of priests, scribes, prophets, and interpreters of omens, headed by the high-priest, and often by the king, as hereditary priest of his realm, proceed to the temple or house of the sacred calf, at the time of the new moon—the slender and delicate horns of which symbolize those of the juvenile Apis. With chants and musical instruments playing, they escort him to a gorgeously decorated baris or barge, rowed by twelve oars, and place him in a gilded cabin on costly mats. They then convey him in great pomp and with loud rejoicings to Memphis. Here the whole city receives him with trumpets blowing and shouts of welcome; garlands are cast upon his neck by young girls, and flowers strewed before him by the virgins of the temple.

Thus escorted, the "Living Soul of Osiris" is conducted to the temple provided for him, which is now, as I have before observed, an appendage to the Temple of Pthah or Vulcan, an edifice remarkable for its architectural beauty, its extent, and the richness of its decorations; indeed, the most magnificent temple in the city. A festival of many days succeeds, and the young deity is then led in solemn procession throughout the city, that all the people may see him. These come out of their houses to welcome him, with gifts, as he passes. Mothers press their children forward towards the sacred animal that they may receive his breath which, they believe, conveys the power to them of predicting future events. Returned to his sacred adytum, he henceforth reigns as a god, daintily fed, and reverently served. Pleasure-gardens and rooms for recreation are provided for him when he would exercise.

At the death of Apis, all the priests are immediately excluded from the temple, which is given up to profound solitude and silence, as if it also mourned, in solemn desolation, the loss of its god. His obsequies are celebrated on a scale of grandeur and expenditure hardly conceivable. Sometimes the rich treasury of the temple, though filled with the accumulated gold of a quarter of a century, is exhausted. Upon the death of the last Apis, the priests expended one hundred talents of gold in his obsequies, and Prince Mœris, who seeks every opportunity to make a show of piety, and to please the Egyptians, gave them fifty talents more, to enable them to defray the enormous costs of the funeral of the god.

The burial-place of the Serapis, as the name is on the mausoleum (formed by pronouncing together Osiris-Apis), is outside of the western pylon of the city. We approached it through a paved avenue, with lions ranged on each side of it. It consists of a vast gallery, hewn in a rocky spur of the Libyan cliff, twenty feet in height, and two thousand long. I visited this tomb yesterday, accompanied by the high-priest. He showed me the series of chambers on the sides of this sepulchral hall, where each embalmed Apis was deposited in a sarcophagus of granite fifteen feet in length. There were sixty of these sarcophagi, showing the permanency and age of this system of worship. They were adorned with royal ovals, inscribed, or with tablets containing dedications, to Apis. One of these bore the inscription, "To the god Osiris-Apis, the Lord of the Soul of Osiris, and emblem of the Sun, by Amense, Queen and upholder of the two kingdoms."

In front of the sculptured entrance of this hall of the dead god is the Sarapeum, a funeral temple for perpetual obsequies. It has a vestibule of noble proportions, its columns being of the delicately blue-veined alabaster from the quarries in the south. On each side of the doorway is a crouching lion, with a tablet above one, upon which a king is represented making an offering. Within the vestibule stand, in half circle, twelve statues of ancient kings. In a circle above these sit, with altars before each, as many gods. Upon a pedestal in the centre stands the statue of the Pharaoh who erected this beautiful edifice.

Thus, my dear mother, have I endeavored, as you requested, to present before your mind a clear view of the system of theology, and the forms of worship of the Egyptians. To evolve from the contradictory and vague traditions a reasonable faith; to select from the countless myths a dominating idea; to separate the true from the false, to bring harmony out of what, regarded as a whole, is confusion; to know what is local, what national in rites, and to reconcile all the theories of Osiris with one another, is a task far from easy to perform. At first, I believed I should never be able to arrive at any system in these multifarious traditions and usages, but I think that my researches have given me an insight into the difficulties of their religion, and enabled me, in a great measure, to unravel the tangled thread of their mythology.

I will now resume my pen, which, since writing the above, I laid down to partake of a banquet with the priest, my princely host, at which I met many of the great lords of Memphis, namely—the lord-keeper of the royal signet, the lord of the wardrobe and rings of the queen's palace, and the lord of the treasury. These men of rank I well knew, having met them before at the table of the queen. There were also strangers whom I had not met before—men of elegant address, and in rich apparel, each with the signet of his office on his left hand; among others, the lord of the nilometer, who reports the progress of the elevation of the river in the annual overflows, and by which all Lower Egypt is governed in its agricultural work; the president of the engravers on hard stones, an officer of trust and high honor; the governors of several nomes, in their gold collars and chains; the lord of the house of silver; the president of architects; the lord of sculptors; the president of the school of art and color; with other men of dignity. There were also high-priests of several fanes, of Athor, of Pthah, of Horus, of Maut, and of Amun. Besides these gentlemen, there was a large company of noble ladies, their wives and daughters, who came to the banquet by invitation of the Princess Nelisa, the superb and dark-eyed wife of the Prince Hierarch, and one of the most magnificent and queenly women (next to the queen herself) I have seen in this land of beautiful women.

It was a splendid banquet. The Lady Nelisa presided with matchless dignity and grace. But I have already described a banquet to you. This was similar in display and the mode of entertaining the guests.

I was seated opposite the daughter of the Priest of Mars, of whose beauty I have before spoken. She asked many questions, in the most captivating way, about Tyre, and yourself, and the Phœnician ladies generally. She smiled, and looked surprised, when I informed her that I was betrothed to the fair Princess Thamonda, and asked me if she were as fair as the women of Egypt. She inquired if Damascus had always been a part of Phœnicia, and how large your kingdom was. When I told her that your kingdom was composed of several lesser kingdoms, once independent, but now united far east of Libanus, under your crown, she inquired if you were a warlike queen to make such conquests. I replied that this union of the free cities of Phœnicia, and of the cities of Cœle-Syria under your sceptre, was a voluntary one, partly for union against the kings of Philistia, partly from a desire to be under so powerful and wise a queen. She said that if the danger were passed, or you were no more, the kings of these independent cities might dissolve the bonds, and so diminish the splendor of the crown which I was to wear. To this I replied, that to be king of Tyre and its peninsula was a glory that would meet my ambition. "Yes," said she, "for Tyre is the key of the riches of the earth!"

I repeat this conversation, dear mother, in order to show you that the high-born daughters of Egypt are not only affable and sensible, but that they possess no little knowledge of other lands, and take an interest in countries friendly to their own. The grace and beauty of this maiden, as well as her modesty, rendered her conversation attractive and pleasing. She is to become the wife of a brave young captain of the chariot battalion, when he returns from the Ethiopian war.

My visit to the pyramids I will now describe, dear mother, although in a letter to the Princess Thamonda I have given a very full account of it. Accompanied by the hierarch and a few young lords—his friends and mine—we rode in chariots out of the gate of the city, passed the guards, who made obeisance to the high-priest, and entered upon an avenue (what noble avenues are everywhere!) of trees growing upon a raised and terraced mound which bounded each side of it. The mound was emerald-green with verdancy, and the color of the foliage of the palms, acacias, and tamarisk trees was enriched by the bright sunshine as seen through the pure atmosphere. At intervals we passed a pair of obelisks, or through a grand pylon of granite. Then we came to a beautiful lake—the Lake of the Dead—where we passed a procession of shrines. Every nome and all large cities have such a lake. I will here state its use, which, like every thing in Egypt, is a religious one. It is connected with the passage of the dead from this world to the next; for the Egyptians not only believe in a future state, but that rewards or punishments await the soul. When a person of distinction dies, after the second or third day his body is taken charge of by embalmers, a class of persons whose occupation it is to embalm the dead. They have houses in a quarter of the city set apart for this purpose. Here the friends of the dead are shown three models of as many different modes of embalmment, of which they choose one, according to the expense they are willing to incur. "The most honorable and most costly," said the high-priest to me, as we were surveying the Lake of the Dead, towards which a procession was moving from the city, when we came before it, "is that in which the body is made to resemble Osiris. And a custom prevails among us, that the operator who first wounds the body with the sharp embalming flint, preparatory to embalming, is odious by the act, and is compelled to take to flight, pursued with execrations and pelted with stones. No doubt the man we saw flying out of a house this morning, as we passed, was one of these incisors."

The body remains seventy days, if that of a person of rank, at the embalmers. It is then either taken to the house, to be detained a longer or shorter time—according to the attachment of relatives, and their reluctance to part with it—or is prepared for entombment. During the interval of seventy days, the mourners continue their signs of lamentation, which often are excessive in degree, such as tearing off raiment, beating the breast, and pouring dust upon the head. The pomp of the burial of the Pharaohs, I am informed, is inconceivably grand and imposing. The whole realm joins in the rites and processions, and every temple is crowded with sacrificers and incense-burners.

We stopped our chariots to witness the funeral procession advance to the shore of the lake, from the wide street leading from Memphis.

First came seven musicians, playing a solemn dirge upon lyres, flutes, and harps with four chords. Then servants carrying vases of flowers; and others followed, bearing baskets containing gilded cakes, fruit, and crystal goblets of wine. Two boys led a red calf for sacrifice in behalf of the dead, and two others carried in a basket three snow-white geese, also for sacrifice. Others bore beautiful chairs, tablets, napkins, and numerous articles of a household description; while others still, held little shrines, containing the household gods or effigies of their ancestors. Seven men carrying daggers, fans, sandals, and bows, each having a napkin on his shoulder, followed. Next I saw eight men appear, supporting a table; and lying upon it, as offerings, were embroidered couches and lounges, richly inlaid boxes, and an ivory chariot with silver panels, which, with the foregoing articles, the high priest informed me had belonged to the deceased, who, from the cartouch on the chariot, was Rathmes, "lord of the royal gardens."

Behind this chariot came the charioteer, with a pair of horses caparisoned with harness for driving, but which he led on foot out of respect to his late master.

Then came a venerable man, with the features and beard of the Hebrew race. Surprised to see one of these people anywhere, save with an implement of toil in his hand, or bowed down to the earth under a burden, I looked more closely, and recognized the face of the head gardener, Amrami, or Amram, whom I had often seen in the queen's garden, and whom Remeses had taken, as it were, into his service, as he was his foster-father: for it is no uncommon thing with the nobles to have Hebrew nurses for their infants; on the contrary, they are preferred. When Remeses was an infant, it seems, therefore, that the wife of this fine-looking old Hebrew was his foster-mother, or nurse. I have before spoken of the striking resemblance he bears to Remeses. Were he his father (if I may so speak of a prince in connection with a slave), there could not be a much greater likeness.

This venerable man, who must be full seventy years of age, bore in his hand a bunch of flowers, inverted and trailing, in token that his lord was no more. He was followed by not less than fifty under-gardeners, four or five of whom had Hebrew lineaments, but the rest were Egyptians and Persians,—the latter celebrated for the culture of flowers, which are so lavishly used here in all the ceremonies of society and rites of religion.

After them followed four men, each bearing aloft a vase of gold, upon a sort of canopy, with other offerings; then came a large bronze chest, borne by priests, containing the money left to their temple by the deceased. Then, in succession, one who bore his arms; another, a pruning-hook of silver; another, his fans; a fourth, his signets, jewelled collars, and necklaces, displayed upon a cushion of blue silk, adorned with needle-work; and a fifth, the other insignia peculiar to a noble who had been intrusted with the supervision of all the royal gardens in the Memphite kingdom.

Now came four trumpeters and a cymbal-player, performing a martial air, in which voices of men mingled, called "The Hymn of Heroes."

Next appeared a decorated barge or baris,—a small, sacred boat, carried by six men, whom I saw elevate to view the mysterious "Eye of Osiris;" while others carried a tray of blue images, representing the deceased under the form of that god, also of the sacred bird emblematic of the soul. Following these were twelve men, bearing, upon yokes balanced across the shoulders, baskets and cases filled with flowers and crystal bottles for libation. Next were a large company of hired females, with fillets upon their brows, beating their bared breasts, and throwing dust upon their heads,—now lamenting the dead, now praising his virtues.

Then came the officiating priest, his sacred leopard-skin cast over his shoulders, bearing in his hand the censer and vase of libation, and accompanied by his attendants holding the various implements required for the occasion. Behind this priest came a car, without wheels, drawn by four white oxen and seven men, yoked to it, while beside them walked a chief officer, who regulated the movements of the procession. Upon this car was the consecrated boat, containing the ark or hearse. The pontiff of the Temple of Horus walked by the sarcophagus, which was decked with flowers, and richly painted with various emblems. A panel, left open on one side, exposed to view the head of the mummy.

Finally came the male relatives of the dead, and his friends. In his honor the queen's grand-chamberlain and the master of horse marched together in silence, and with solemn steps, leaning on their long sticks. Other men followed, whose rich dresses, and long walking-canes, which are the peculiar mark of an Egyptian gentleman, showed them to be persons of distinction. A little in the rear of these walked a young man, who dropped a lotus-flower from a basket at every few steps, and closed the long procession.

In no country but this, where rain seldom falls, and it is always pleasant in the open air, could such a procession safely appear bearing wares so delicate and frail. The only danger to be apprehended is from storms of sand from the desert beyond the pyramids, of the approach of which, however, the atmosphere gives a sufficient warning.

This letter is quite long enough, dear mother, and I close it, with wishes for your happiness, and assurances of the filial devotion of

Your son,

Sesostris