"Then," said I to the prince, to whom I had listened with surprise and pleasure—for, mother, similar to these are the deep mysteries taught by our most sacred priests of Io, into which I was initiated when I became twenty-five years of age—"then you believe that God is Intellect conceiving itself, and that the creation of man was but the beginning of an infinite series of resistless conceptions of Himself?"
"Not resistless, but voluntary. Finding Himself existing, He multiplied Himself, for His own glory and delight primarily; and secondly, for the happiness of the offspring of His Intellect."
"We are then His offspring, that is, our souls?"
"Without doubt, if my theories be founded in truth," he answered contemplatively. We were then in mid-river, and the forty-four rowers of our gilded barge were slowly dipping their brazen-mounted oars into the glassy water, while with gentle motion we were borne towards the isle of palaces and terraces. Our heads were shaded from the sun by a silken pavilion stretched above the stern of the galley, under which we reclined upon sumptuous cushions as we conversed. Remeses, however, is by no means a voluntary seeker of luxurious ease; but in Egypt, where splendor and voluptuous furniture everywhere invite to indulgence, one must either deprive himself of all comforts, for the sake of enduring hardship, or yield unchallenging to the countless seductive forms of couches, lounges, chairs, and sofas, which everywhere, on the galleys and in houses, offer themselves to his use.
The air was balmy and soft, and fanned our faces; while the beautiful shores, lined with villas of the chief men of the court, afforded a grateful picture to the eye. Our rowers let their sweeps fall and rise to the low and harmonious time of a river chant, which, while it inspired conversation between the prince and myself, did not disturb, but rather veiled our subdued voices.
"Do you believe there are lesser gods?" I asked.
"Do you mean, Sesostris, beings higher in rank than men, and so created, to whom the Supreme Intellect of the Universe delegates a part of His authority and power over man and nature? Such, in its purity, is our Egyptian idea of gods."
"Such is not the Phœnician," I answered, hesitatingly; for I felt how far in advance of the hero demigods of our Assyrio-Median mythology was the Egyptian theological conception of a god, while the still sublimer idea held by Remeses, that they are celestial princes under the Supreme Prince, created as his servants, yet so far above men as to be as gods to us, took fast hold of my imagination, and commended itself to my intellect.
"What, my dear Sesostris, is the mythology of your country?" he asked, with a look of deep interest. "I have read some of your sacred books, and from them I perceive we obtain our myths of Isis, Mars, Hercules, Vulcan, and even Venus, who is your Astarte and our Athor. We owe much of our religion and learning to you Tyrians, my Sesostris."
"The recipient has become mightier than the giver," I replied. "Without doubt you have received from us the great invention of the phonetic alphabet, which your scholars are already making use of, though I learn the priests oppose it as an invasion upon the sacred writing of the hieroglyphic representations. I have seen here many rolls of papyrus written in our Phœnician letter, in the vernacular Koptic words, and executed with taste and beauty."