Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

First then—What was the cause of this long life, this stability of the religion of Egypt? The primary cause was that, as we have seen, it was thoroughly in harmony with the circumstances and conditions of the Egypt of its time. It had thoroughly and comprehensively grasped those circumstances and conditions. It had, with a wise simplicity, interpreted them, and adapted itself to them. But that was not all. In a manner possible at that time it had made itself the polity and the social life, as well as the religion, of the nation; and having done this—that is, having absorbed and taken up into itself every element of power—it gave to itself a fixed and immutable form. The physical characteristics, too, of the country, while, as we have seen, they made despotism inevitable in the political order, could not have been favourable to any kind of intellectual liberty. Thenceforth, all fermentation, or disposition to change, in political and social matters, and too in manners and customs, and even in art and thought, became impossible: for all these things go together. The natural condition, therefore, of Egypt became one of fixity and equilibrium: there was no tendency to move from the status quo, or even to do anything in a way different from that, in which men had done it, or to feel in a manner different from that, in which men had felt for, at least, four thousand years. What were now the instincts of the people were all in the opposite direction. It appeared as if Egypt had never been young, and could never become old; as if it had never had a beginning, and could never have an end. Time could not touch it. Society worked with the regularity of the sun and of the river.

This will show us, too, why it did not spread. This religion, and this system, which were so admirably adapted to the existing conditions and natural circumstances of Egypt, were not adapted to the conditions and circumstances of other countries. If the world had been composed, physically and morally, only of so many possible Egypts, so that the discovery of new regions might have issued only in the addition of new Egypts to those already known, then the temples of Abydos, Memphis, Heliopolis, and Karnak would still be crowded with the devout worshippers of the gods of old Egypt, and so would the temples of thousands of other cities. The ideas in the minds of these worshippers would still be the ideas which had existed in the minds of Sethos and Rameses, and the Egyptians of their day—neither better nor worse—and they would have been propagated, and would continue to be propagated, to the other Egypts of the world. But, fortunately, the world is not a repetition of Egypts, nor of anything else; and so an insuperable barrier existed, in the very nature of things, to prevent the outflow of Egyptianism into other lands.

But what was it that overthrew it in its own home, where it was so strong? We may infer that it will probably be something, not that was spontaneously generated within, but that came from without. And so it was. But what was that something? It was not force. That the Persians had tried, and it had been powerless. Nor could the dominion of foreign laws and customs at the summit of society overthrow it: that has, elsewhere, sapped and undermined domestic institutions; but in Egypt it, too, was powerless, as was demonstrated by ages of Greek and Roman rule.

Nor did the religion of old Egypt fall because it had aimed in a wrong direction. By their religion I mean their philosophy of the whole, their purposed organization of the entire domain of experience, and observation, and thought, including in its range the invisible as well as the visible world. Its object had been the moral improvement of man. Though, of course, from this statement some very damaging deductions must be made; for it had not aimed equally at the moral improvement of all, that is to say, of every man because he was a man. It had failed here because it had had another co-ordinate aim, necessary for those times: the maintenance of the social, intellectual, and material advantages of a part of the community at the expense of the rest. This was, though necessary, immoral or, at all events, demoralizing. Still, however, it made the present only a preparation for the higher and the better life. The things that are now seen it regarded as the ladder, by which man mounts to the things that are not yet seen, which alone are eternal realities. Of these aims and doctrines of the religion every man’s understanding and conscience approved. Without this approval the religion could not have maintained itself.

Neither did it fall because the civilization of Egypt had at last, after so many thousands of years, worn itself out. There were no symptoms of the life within it having become enfeebled through time, or from anything time had brought. The propylons, the enclosing wall, the monolithic granite shrine, the mighty roof-stones, the sculptures of the Ptolemaic Temple of Edfou, and the massive monolithic granite shaft of the pillar raised at Alexandria to the honour of Diocletian, prove that, down to the last days of this long period, they could handle, as deftly as ever their forefathers had done, masses of stone so ponderous that to look at them shortens our breathing; and which they sculptured and polished in the same way as of old. The priests who explained the sculptures of Thebes to Germanicus were lineally the descendants of those who had formed the aristocracy, and had supplied the magistracy, and the governing body of Thebes, and of Egypt, under Rameses the Great, under Cheops, under Menes. Nor can we suppose that any such amount of moral, or intellectual degeneration had been brought about, as might not easily have been recovered by the restitution of the old conditions of the country. The Egyptian system, which left so little to the individual, seemed to provide, just as they had taken care that their great buildings should, against whatever contingencies might arise. It still had in itself the capacity for rising, Phœnix-like, into new life.

So would it have been had Egypt been able to maintain its old insulation. The day, however, for that had gone by. It now formed a part of the general system of the civilized world; and, looking at it in its relations to other people, we discover in it elements of weakness, immorality, and effeteness; and these precisely it was that, under the then existing circumstances, caused its fall. The state of things that had arisen could have had no existence during the four thousand years, or more, it had passed through. What that state of things was, and how it acted, is what we have now to make out distinctly to our thoughts.

If the mind of man had been incapable of advancing to other ideas, and the heart of man incapable of higher moral sentiments, than the ideas and sentiments that had been in the minds and hearts of Sethos and Rameses, and the Egyptians of their day, then all things would have continued as they had been. But such has not been, is not, and, we may suppose, will never be, the condition of man on this earth. Ideas and sentiments are powers—the greatest powers among men. And there were ideas and sentiments yet to come which were higher generalizations than those of old Egypt, and which, therefore, were instinct with greater power. Knowledge, and corresponding moral sentiments, had been the power of old Egypt, but now they were to be confronted by profounder knowledge, and more potent moral sentiments. The Egyptians, however, had put themselves into such a position that they could not add the new light to the old, or graft the scion of the improved vine upon the old stock. The only result, then, that was possible was that that which was stronger and better must sweep away that which was not so strong or so good, and take its place. It must be a case, not of amalgamation, but of substitution.

The old Egyptians, in order to perpetuate, and render available their knowledge, and to bring out immediately, and fully, its working power, had swathed both it, and society, in bands of iron. In doing this they had seen clearly what they wanted, and how to produce it. They knew that morality only could make and maintain a nation; and that within certain limits morality could be created, and shaped, and made instinctive. They knew precisely what morality they wanted for their particular purpose, and how they were to create this, and shape it, and how they were to make it instinctive. In this supreme matter they did everything they wanted to do. This, this precisely, and nothing else, was the wisdom of Egypt.[8] It was the greatest wisdom any nation has ever yet shown. It took in hand every individual in the whole community, and made him what it was wished and needed that he should be. If we do not understand these statements the wisdom of Egypt is to us a mere empty phrase. If we do understand them, the phrase conveys to us the profoundest lesson history can teach; and at the present juncture, when the foundations of social order are being shifted, a transference of political power taking place, new principles being introduced, and old ones being applied in a new fashion, and in larger measures, it is, of all the lessons that can be found in the pages of history, the one that would be of most service to ourselves.