They were always recited with the same rhythm, according to a system of chaunting in which every tone had its virtue, combined with movements which confirmed the sense and worked with irresistible effect: one false note, a single discord between the succession of gestures and the utterance of the sacramental words, any hesitation, any awkwardness in the accomplishment of a rite, and the sacrifice was vain.
Worship as thus conceived became a legal transaction, in the course of which the god gave up his liberty in exchange for certain compensations whose kind and value were fixed by law. By a solemn deed of transfer the worshipper handed over to the legal representatives of the contracting divinity such personal or real property as seemed to him fitting payment for the favour which he asked, or suitable atonement for the wrong which he had done. If man scrupulously observed the innumerable conditions with which the transfer was surrounded, the god could not escape the obligation of fulfilling his petition;[*] but should he omit the least of them, the offering remained with the temple and went to increase the endowments in mortmain, while the god was pledged to nothing in exchange.
* This obligation is evident from texts where, as in the
poem of Pentaûirît, a king who is in danger demands from his
favourite god the equivalent in protection of the sacrifices
which he has offered to that divinity, and the gifts
wherewith he has enriched him. "Have I not made unto thee
many offerings?" says Ramses II. to Amon. "I have filled
thy temple with my prisoners, I have built thee a mansion
for millions of years.... Ah if evil is the lot of them who
insult thee, good are thy purposes towards those who honour
thee, O Amon!"
Hence the officiating priest assumed a formidable responsibility as regarded his fellows: a slip of memory, the slightest accidental impurity, made him a bad priest, injurious to himself and harmful to those worshippers who had entrusted him with their interests before the gods. Since it was vain to expect ritualistic perfections from a prince constantly troubled with affairs of state, the custom was established of associating professional priests with him, personages who devoted all their lives to the study and practice of the thousand formalities whose sum constituted the local religion. Each temple had its service of priests, independent of those belonging to neighbouring temples, whose members, bound to keep their hands always clean and their voices true, were ranked according to the degrees of a learned hierarchy. At their head was a sovereign pontiff to direct them in the exercise of their functions. In some places he was called the first prophet, or rather the first servant of the god—hon-nûtir topi; at Thebes he was the first prophet of Amon, at Thinis he was the first prophet of Anhûri.[*]
* This title of first prophet belongs to priests of the
less important towns, and to secondary divinities. If we
find it employed in connection with the Theban worship, it
is because Amon was originally a provincial god, and only
rose into the first rank with the rise of Thebes and the
great conquests of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.
But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose servant he was. The chief priest of Râ at Heliopolis, and in all the cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called Oîrû maû, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of the nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face to face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhûri at Sebennytos was entitled the wise and pure warrior—ahûîti saû uîbu—because his god went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service a pontiff who should be a soldier like himself.
These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves within the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even sometimes solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards, orchards, slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their livelihood and the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who did not cherish the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron god of his city, "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment for the priests to institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed real sacred fiefs—hotpû-nûtir—analogous to the wakfs of Mussulman Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary, defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two, three, or even four classes of prophets or heiroduli under his orders assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses they held the chief rank, and were called hierodules, or priestesses, hierodules of Nit, hierodules of Hâthor, hierodules of Pakhît.[***]
* As regards the Saïte period, we are beginning to
accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or
houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.
** We know from the Great Harris Papyrus to what the
fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses
III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, Die
Ægyptologie, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, Bubastis, Eighth
Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, p. 61, a
calculation as to the quantities of precious metals
belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;
its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.
*** Mariette remarks that priests play but a
subordinate part in the temple of Hâthor. This fact, which
surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that
Hâthor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a
temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a
man, the Tcharp-haîtû; but the persistence with which women
of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the
title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient
Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess
was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.
The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to cut the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners, weavers, shoemakers, florists, cellarers, water-carriers and milk-carriers. In fact, it was a state within a state, and the prince took care to keep its government in his own hands, either by investing one of his children with the titles and functions of chief pontiff', or by arrogating them to himself. In that case, he provided against mistakes which would have annulled the sacrifice by associating with himself several masters of the ceremonies, who directed him in the orthodox evolutions before the god and about the victim, indicated the due order of gestures and the necessary changes of costume, and prompted him with the words of each invocation from a book or tablet which they held in their hands.[*]
* The title of such a personage was khri-habi, the man
with the roll or tablet, because of the papyrus roll, or
wooden tablet containing the ritual, which he held in his
hand.