The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

This account, my dear mother, is a more satisfactory myth than any other, if any can be so; and recognizes incarnation as the principle of the worship of Apis. This universal idea in the minds of men, that the Creator once dwelt in the body of a creature, would lead one to believe, that in ages past the Infinite had descended from heaven for the good of men, and dwelt in a body; or that, responding to this universal idea, he may yet do it. Perhaps, dear mother, the worship of Osiris under the form of Apis, may be the foreshadowing and type of what is yet really to come—a dispensation, preparing men for the actual coming of the Invisible in a visible form. What a day of glory and splendor for earth, should this prove true! The conception, dear mother, is not my own; it is a thought of the great, and wise, and good Remeses, who, if ever men are deified, deserves a place, after death, among the gods. His vast and earnest mind, enriched with all the stores of knowledge that man can compass, seems as if it derived inspiration from the heavens. His conversation is deeper than the sacred books; the ideas of his soul more wonderful than the mysteries of the temple!

The priests who seek another bull, discover him by certain signs mentioned in their sacred books. These I have already described. In the mean while, a public lamentation is performed, as if Osiris, that is, "the Lord of Heaven," had died, and the mourning lasts until the new Apis is found. This information is proclaimed by swift messengers in all the cities, and is hailed with the wildest rejoicings. The scribes who have found the young calf which is to be the new god, keep it with its mother in a small temple facing the rising sun, and feed it with milk for four months. When that term is expired, a grand procession of priests, scribes, prophets, and interpreters of omens, headed by the high-priest, and often by the king, as hereditary priest of his realm, proceed to the temple or house of the sacred calf, at the time of the new moon—the slender and delicate horns of which symbolize those of the juvenile Apis. With chants and musical instruments playing, they escort him to a gorgeously decorated baris or barge, rowed by twelve oars, and place him in a gilded cabin on costly mats. They then convey him in great pomp and with loud rejoicings to Memphis. Here the whole city receives him with trumpets blowing and shouts of welcome; garlands are cast upon his neck by young girls, and flowers strewed before him by the virgins of the temple.

Thus escorted, the "Living Soul of Osiris" is conducted to the temple provided for him, which is now, as I have before observed, an appendage to the Temple of Pthah or Vulcan, an edifice remarkable for its architectural beauty, its extent, and the richness of its decorations; indeed, the most magnificent temple in the city. A festival of many days succeeds, and the young deity is then led in solemn procession throughout the city, that all the people may see him. These come out of their houses to welcome him, with gifts, as he passes. Mothers press their children forward towards the sacred animal that they may receive his breath which, they believe, conveys the power to them of predicting future events. Returned to his sacred adytum, he henceforth reigns as a god, daintily fed, and reverently served. Pleasure-gardens and rooms for recreation are provided for him when he would exercise.

At the death of Apis, all the priests are immediately excluded from the temple, which is given up to profound solitude and silence, as if it also mourned, in solemn desolation, the loss of its god. His obsequies are celebrated on a scale of grandeur and expenditure hardly conceivable. Sometimes the rich treasury of the temple, though filled with the accumulated gold of a quarter of a century, is exhausted. Upon the death of the last Apis, the priests expended one hundred talents of gold in his obsequies, and Prince Mœris, who seeks every opportunity to make a show of piety, and to please the Egyptians, gave them fifty talents more, to enable them to defray the enormous costs of the funeral of the god.

The burial-place of the Serapis, as the name is on the mausoleum (formed by pronouncing together Osiris-Apis), is outside of the western pylon of the city. We approached it through a paved avenue, with lions ranged on each side of it. It consists of a vast gallery, hewn in a rocky spur of the Libyan cliff, twenty feet in height, and two thousand long. I visited this tomb yesterday, accompanied by the high-priest. He showed me the series of chambers on the sides of this sepulchral hall, where each embalmed Apis was deposited in a sarcophagus of granite fifteen feet in length. There were sixty of these sarcophagi, showing the permanency and age of this system of worship. They were adorned with royal ovals, inscribed, or with tablets containing dedications, to Apis. One of these bore the inscription, "To the god Osiris-Apis, the Lord of the Soul of Osiris, and emblem of the Sun, by Amense, Queen and upholder of the two kingdoms."

In front of the sculptured entrance of this hall of the dead god is the Sarapeum, a funeral temple for perpetual obsequies. It has a vestibule of noble proportions, its columns being of the delicately blue-veined alabaster from the quarries in the south. On each side of the doorway is a crouching lion, with a tablet above one, upon which a king is represented making an offering. Within the vestibule stand, in half circle, twelve statues of ancient kings. In a circle above these sit, with altars before each, as many gods. Upon a pedestal in the centre stands the statue of the Pharaoh who erected this beautiful edifice.

Thus, my dear mother, have I endeavored, as you requested, to present before your mind a clear view of the system of theology, and the forms of worship of the Egyptians. To evolve from the contradictory and vague traditions a reasonable faith; to select from the countless myths a dominating idea; to separate the true from the false, to bring harmony out of what, regarded as a whole, is confusion; to know what is local, what national in rites, and to reconcile all the theories of Osiris with one another, is a task far from easy to perform. At first, I believed I should never be able to arrive at any system in these multifarious traditions and usages, but I think that my researches have given me an insight into the difficulties of their religion, and enabled me, in a great measure, to unravel the tangled thread of their mythology.

I will now resume my pen, which, since writing the above, I laid down to partake of a banquet with the priest, my princely host, at which I met many of the great lords of Memphis, namely—the lord-keeper of the royal signet, the lord of the wardrobe and rings of the queen's palace, and the lord of the treasury. These men of rank I well knew, having met them before at the table of the queen. There were also strangers whom I had not met before—men of elegant address, and in rich apparel, each with the signet of his office on his left hand; among others, the lord of the nilometer, who reports the progress of the elevation of the river in the annual overflows, and by which all Lower Egypt is governed in its agricultural work; the president of the engravers on hard stones, an officer of trust and high honor; the governors of several nomes, in their gold collars and chains; the lord of the house of silver; the president of architects; the lord of sculptors; the president of the school of art and color; with other men of dignity. There were also high-priests of several fanes, of Athor, of Pthah, of Horus, of Maut, and of Amun. Besides these gentlemen, there was a large company of noble ladies, their wives and daughters, who came to the banquet by invitation of the Princess Nelisa, the superb and dark-eyed wife of the Prince Hierarch, and one of the most magnificent and queenly women (next to the queen herself) I have seen in this land of beautiful women.

It was a splendid banquet. The Lady Nelisa presided with matchless dignity and grace. But I have already described a banquet to you. This was similar in display and the mode of entertaining the guests.

I was seated opposite the daughter of the Priest of Mars, of whose beauty I have before spoken. She asked many questions, in the most captivating way, about Tyre, and yourself, and the Phœnician ladies generally. She smiled, and looked surprised, when I informed her that I was betrothed to the fair Princess Thamonda, and asked me if she were as fair as the women of Egypt. She inquired if Damascus had always been a part of Phœnicia, and how large your kingdom was. When I told her that your kingdom was composed of several lesser kingdoms, once independent, but now united far east of Libanus, under your crown, she inquired if you were a warlike queen to make such conquests. I replied that this union of the free cities of Phœnicia, and of the cities of Cœle-Syria under your sceptre, was a voluntary one, partly for union against the kings of Philistia, partly from a desire to be under so powerful and wise a queen. She said that if the danger were passed, or you were no more, the kings of these independent cities might dissolve the bonds, and so diminish the splendor of the crown which I was to wear. To this I replied, that to be king of Tyre and its peninsula was a glory that would meet my ambition. "Yes," said she, "for Tyre is the key of the riches of the earth!"