The Religion of Ancient Egypt

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

CHAPTER XI

THE RITUAL AND PRIESTHOOD

The accounts which we have of the temple ritual are of the later periods, and we must look to the buildings themselves to trace differences in the system. The oldest form of shrine was a wicker hut, with tall poles forming the sides of the door; in front of this extended an enclosure which had two poles with flags on either side of the entrance. In the middle of the enclosure or court was a staff bearing the emblem of the god. This type of shrine and open court was kept up always, and is like the Jewish type. We find stone used for the doors in the sixth dynasty, and stone-built temples in the twelfth dynasty. The earlier type of temple was essentially a resting-place for the god between the excursions of the festivals. It was open at both front and back, and a processional way led through it, so that the priests walked through, taking up the ark of the god, carrying it in procession, and then returning and depositing it again in the temple as they passed. This form lasted till the middle of the eighteenth dynasty; but the fixed shrine was already coming into use then, and seems to have become the only type after that age. This was emphasised still more in the twenty-sixth dynasty by the great monolith boxes of granite which contained not only precious statuettes, but even life-sized statues of granite. It seems that the processional form of ritual had been supplanted by the service of a more mysterious Holy of Holies.

The course of daily service by the priests was of seven parts. 1st. Fire-making—rubbing the fire sticks, taking the censer, putting incense in it, and lighting it. 2nd. Opening the Shrine—going up to the shrine, loosening the fastening, and breaking the seal, opening the door, seeing the god. 3rd. Praise—various prostrations, and then singing a hymn to the god. 4th. Supplying food and incense—offering oil and honey and incense, retiring from the shrine for a prayer, approaching and looking on the god, various prostrations, again incense, and then prayers and hymns, a figure of Maat (goddess of truth) was then presented to the god, and, lastly, more incense for all the companions of the god. 5th. Purifying—cleansing the figure and its shrine, and pouring out pitchers of water, and fumigating with incense. 6th. Clothing—dressing the god with white, green, bright red, and dark red sashes, and supplying two kinds of ointment and black and green eye paint, and scattering clean sand before him. The priest then walked four times round the shrine. 7th. Purifying—with incense, natron of the south and north, and two other kinds of incense. Probably such a ritual was a gradual growth of successive ages. Where a living animal was maintained as sacred, the feeding of it was a considerable service. A court was built at Memphis for the sacred Apis bull to take his exercise, and special bundles of fodder were provided. A large tank was made for the sacred crocodile in the Fayum, and the priests used to follow the reptile around the tank with the offerings brought by devotees. Similarly at Epidauros is a deep circular trench cut in the rock, with a central niche; in this a sacred serpent could be visited and fed without its being able to escape.

The priesthood was elaborated in many different kinds, and varied grades in each. There were the 'servants of the god,' who had charge of the worship and ritual; the 'pure men,' who were occupied with the acts of offerings and service; the 'divine fathers,' who had charge of the property of a god and the providing for the services; the 'reciters'; the 'female singers'; and others; and there were four grades of most of the classes.

A special divine gift was the sa, an essence which was imparted to the king when he knelt with his back to the god and the divine hand was placed on him. This was also imparted to a class of priests or initiated who were described as 'impregnated with the sa' of four different grades. This seems to have been a kind of ordination imparting special powers.

A fundamental idea was that the king was the priest of the land, and that all offerings (especially those for the dead) were made by him. Even though the king could not physically perform all the offerings, yet when others did so they were only acting on behalf of the priestly king of the nation. So strongly was this held that the regular formula for all offerings for the dead was 'A royal giving of offerings of such and such things for the ka of such an one,' or it may be rendered 'May the king give an offering.' The act itself is shown on some funeral tablets, where the king appears as making the offering, while the person for whom he acts stands behind him.

Much light on the sources of the rise of the priesthood is given by the titles borne by the priests of the various capitals of the provinces or nomes. Many of these refer to what were purely secular occupations in later times, and we thus learn that the priestly character was attached to the principal person, be he king, or leader in other ways. In one city it was the King and His Loved Son who were the priests, in another it was the General, in another the Warrior who became the priest; elsewhere it was the Great Constructor, in another city the Great Commander of Workmen; one city raised the Manager of the Inundation to the priesthood, and very naturally the Great Physician or medicine man became priest in another place. The Eldest Son was the title of another priesthood, much as the later kings made their eldest son high priest. A very curious view of the priestess preceding the establishment of a priest is given by some cities; one where she was called the Nurse, and the priest was the Youth, and another city names the priestess the 'Appeaser of the Spirit' and the priest the 'Favourite Child.'

Purely religious functions are only a minority of the priestly titles in the Delta, such as the Seer, the Great Seer, the Chief of the Feast, and the Opener of the Mouth, referring to enabling the statue of the god to speak, or opening the mouth of the mummy to enable it to live. A full analysis of the priestly titles would give a picture of the society in which priesthood arose, but it is a subject which has not been systematically studied.