—Blackmore: Florilla.
Religious Ceremonies.
The Egyptian believed that his god had needs similar to those he himself experienced. Consequently each day the god needed to be clothed and fed. "The priest laid his hands on him (the image of the god), he took off the old rouge and his former clothes, all of course with the necessary formulae. He then dressed the god in the robe called the Nems, saying: 'Come white dress! come white dress! come white eye of Horus, which proceeds from the town of Nechebt. The gods dress themselves with thee in thy name Dress, and the gods adorn themselves with thee in thy name Adornment.' The priest then dressed the god in the great dress, rouged him, and presented him with his insignia: the sceptre, the staff of ruler, and the whip, the bracelets and anklets, as well as the two feathers which he wore on his head, because 'he has triumphed over his enemies, and is more splendid than gods or spirits.' The god required further a collarette and an amulet, two red, two green, and two white bands; when these had been presented to him the priest might then leave the chapel."[2]
Food and drink must needs be placed daily on his table. Lists of offerings made by the Ramesides have come down to us. One records offerings in the temple as follows: each day were received 3,220 loaves of bread, 24 cakes, 144 jugs of beer, 32 geese, besides honey, flowers and incense. This food was probably used to feed the corps of assistants around the temple—the priests, servants and laborers. On feast days the people sent offerings. A large number of loaves of bread are recorded on certain days; these probably came from the poorer people. Again, an overwhelming number of cakes and jugs of wine would indicate offerings from the wealthy.
On feast days the king would himself perform part of the ceremonies, and as a king he would worship himself as a god. It sometimes seems as though the offerings and the ceremonies were made more to do honor to the king than to the god. When Ramses called for plans for a new grotto temple and heard the reports of his architects, an inscription tells us that he answered them after this fashion: "The temple we have in mind already lies hidden by the gods in yonder mountain. You have but to clear away the waste material and your work is done. See to it, however, that the deities Ra and Isis and Ptah and I are all represented in becoming size on the facade as guardians—two on each side of the pylon. And mark you: see that no god has choice of position over the king; let the likeness and the form of them all be mine. Osiris must man the eight piers which support the roof, and we four be seated in the sanctuary, side by side."
Many buildings surrounded the temple, and the whole was enclosed by a wall. Various buildings were needed in order that all the functions of the temple could be performed. On one side was a court where the animals and birds intended for sacrifice were prepared. To the rear was a kitchen. The priests often received private revenues for providing food for the departed. This food as a rule was prepared in the kitchens of the temple. Dwellings for the priests, and the servants, store houses, granaries, the treasure house, gardens and an artificial lake lay within the temple wall. In the sacred lake the priests bathed, and in it they washed the vessels pertaining to the sanctuary.
The priestly duties were manifold. Certain priests poured out drink offerings; others recited from holy books; others kept the annals of the temples. Their incomes were paid in kind—like all other obligations of the time. So many loaves of bread, so many jugs of wine, beer and cakes made up their annual revenue.
While we may gain some feeble idea of these places of worship, built to do honor to the god—and to the king,—any description of them must necessarily be inadequate. "We may agree that neither the boldest imagination nor the most exact study, can enable us to form an adequate conception of the splendors of an Egyptian temple in its perfect state. The vast space it occupied; its lofty gateways; the long avenues of sphinxes; the glittering obelisks and the lifelike expressions of the monstrous statues, form a combination of the most imposing architectural grandeur. The æsthetic qualities of these structures cannot briefly be summed up. As we ponder them we shall be willing to acknowledge, for we shall discover, the exceptional constructive power of the ancient architects; we shall see how closely they followed Nature, and at times drew as well upon foreign art, though always preserving their own principles of form. There is always one grand imaginative vein running through all their work—which expresses the principal idea of their faith—imperishability.
"The ancient Egyptians copied no one. Their art sprang from their surroundings. What they have left continues to baffle us in many ways. We may understand perspective better than they did; we are their superiors in the use of light and shadow. We dare to build higher, and we are willing to trust thousands of lives to walls which would be wrecked if a single Egyptian column should fall against them; but we do not yet understand how they lifted their great masses to such lofty places, nor do we know where their architects studied art."[3]