It is astonishing to see a nation, which boasted its superiority above all others with regard to wisdom and learning, thus blindly abandon itself to the most gross and ridiculous superstitions. Indeed, to read of animals and vile insects, honoured with religious worship, placed in temples, and maintained with great care, and at an extravagant expense;[352] to read, that those who murdered them were punished with death; and that these animals were embalmed, and solemnly deposited in tombs assigned them by the public; to hear that this extravagance was carried to such lengths, as that leeks and onions were acknowledged as deities; were invoked in necessity, and depended upon for succour and protection; are absurdities which we, at this distance of time, can scarce believe; and yet they have the evidence of all antiquity. “You enter,” says Lucian,[353] “into a magnificent temple, every part of which glitters with gold and silver. You there look attentively for a god, and are cheated with a stork, an ape, or a cat;” “a just emblem,” adds that author, “of too many palaces, the masters of which are far from being the brightest ornaments of them.”
Several reasons are assigned for the worship paid to animals by the Egyptians.[354]
The first is drawn from fabulous history. It is pretended that the gods, in a rebellion made against them by men, fled into Egypt, and there concealed themselves under the form of different animals; and that this gave birth to the worship which was afterwards paid to those animals.
The second is taken from the benefit which these several animals procure to mankind:[355] oxen by their labour; sheep by their wool and milk; dogs by their service in hunting, and [pg 036] guarding houses, whence the god Anubis was represented with a dog's head: the ibis, a bird very much resembling a stork, was worshipped, because he put to flight the winged serpents, with which Egypt would otherwise have been grievously infested; the crocodile, an amphibious creature, that is, living alike upon land and water, of a surprising strength and size,[356] was worshipped, because he defended Egypt from the incursions of the wild Arabs; the ichneumon was adored, because he prevented the too great increase of crocodiles, which might have proved destructive to Egypt. Now the little animal in question does this service to the country two ways. First, it watches the time when the crocodile is absent, and breaks his eggs, but does not eat them. Secondly, when the crocodile is asleep upon the banks of the Nile, (and he always sleeps with his mouth open,) the ichneumon, which lies concealed in the mud, leaps at once into his mouth; gets down to his entrails, which he gnaws; then piercing his belly, the skin of which is very tender, he escapes with safety; and thus, by his address and subtilty, returns victorious over so terrible an animal.
Philosophers, not satisfied with reasons which were too trifling to account for such strange absurdities as dishonoured the heathen system, and at which themselves secretly blushed, have, since the establishment of Christianity, supposed a third reason for the worship which the Egyptians paid to animals, and declared, that it was not offered to the animals themselves, but to the gods, of whom they are symbols. Plutarch, in his treatise where he examines professedly the pretensions of Isis and Osiris, the two most famous deities of the Egyptians, says as follows:[357] “Philosophers honour the image of God wherever they find it, even in inanimate beings, and consequently more in those which have life. We are therefore to approve, not the worshippers of these animals, but those who, by their means, ascend to the Deity; they are to be considered as so many mirrors, which nature holds forth, and in which the Supreme Being displays himself in a wonderful manner; or, as so many instruments, which he makes use of to manifest outwardly his incomprehensible wisdom. Should men therefore, [pg 037] for the embellishing of statues, amass together all the gold and precious stones in the world; the worship must not be referred to the statues, for the Deity does not exist in colours artfully disposed, nor in frail matter destitute of sense and motion.” Plutarch says in the same treatise,[358] “that as the sun and moon, heaven, earth, and the sea, are common to all men, but have different names, according to the difference of nations and languages; in like manner, though there is but one Deity, and one providence which governs the universe, and which has several subaltern ministers under it; men give to the Deity, which is the same, different names, and pay it different honours, according to the laws and customs of every country.”
But were these reflections, which offer the most rational vindication that can be suggested of idolatrous worship, sufficient to cover the absurdity of it; could it be called a raising of the divine attributes in a suitable manner, to direct the worshipper to admire and seek for the image of them in beasts of the most vile and contemptible kinds, as crocodiles, serpents, and cats? Was not this rather degrading and debasing the Deity, of whom even the most stupid usually entertain a much greater and more august idea?
And even these philosophers were not always so just, as to ascend from sensible beings to their invisible Author. The Scriptures tell us, that these pretended sages deserved, on account of their pride and ingratitude, to be “given over to a reprobate mind; and whilst they professed themselves wise, to become fools, for having changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”[359] To show what man is when left to himself, God permitted that very nation, which had carried human wisdom to its greatest height, to be the theatre in which the most ridiculous and absurd idolatry was acted. And, on the other side, to display the almighty power of his grace, he converted the frightful deserts of Egypt into a terrestrial paradise; by peopling them, in the time appointed by his providence, with numberless multitudes of illustrious hermits, whose fervent piety and rigorous penance have done so much honour to the Christian religion. I cannot [pg 038] not forbear giving here a famous instance of it; and I hope the reader will excuse this kind of digression.
“The great wonder of Lower Egypt,” says Abbé Fleury, in his Ecclesiastical History,[360] “was the city of Oxyrinchus, peopled with monks, both within and without, so that they were more numerous than its other inhabitants. The public edifices and idol temples had been converted into monasteries, and these likewise were more in number than the private houses. The monks lodged even over the gates and in the towers. The people had twelve churches to assemble in, exclusive of the oratories belonging to the monasteries. There were twenty thousand virgins and ten thousand monks in this city, every part of which echoed night and day with the praises of God. By order of the magistrates, sentinels were posted at the gates, to take notice of all strangers and poor who came into the city; and the inhabitants vied with each other who should first receive them, in order to have an opportunity of exercising their hospitality towards them.”
Sect. II. The Ceremonies of the Egyptian Funerals.—I shall now give a concise account of the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians.
The honours which have been paid in all ages and nations to the bodies of the dead, and the religious care which has always been taken of sepulchres, seem to insinuate an universal persuasion, that bodies were lodged in sepulchres merely as a deposit or trust.