CHAPTER VI.

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.

THE whole of the subject which is now before us is still under investigation; and though, as we have seen, much has been already accomplished, yet much remains to be done in every department of it. On the very difficult question of dates especially, large accessions to our knowledge may be expected from future researches; and they are certainly wanted before we can arrive at satisfactory conclusions respecting many of them, and especially those relating to events occurring at early periods of the history of Egypt. It is on this account that we decline entering upon this difficult and by no means interesting subject. It will abundantly suffice to have ascertained, that the civilization, so many monuments of which are now existing in Egypt, is that which prevailed there in the times of Abraham; and this is a point which we will now endeavour to establish.

It has been already noticed that, according to the Scriptures, Egypt was then governed by a monarch who took the title of Pharaoh. This title is written in the Hebrew Bible, Pharaoh. By the help of two other Egyptian names, which also occur in the inspired narrative, we shall be able to discover its meaning. The one is that of the

I

priest of On, whose daughter the patriarch Joseph married, , Potipherah, or Potiphrah, Gen. xli. 45.

This

name is by no means uncommon on mummy cases and similar remains; and is written in hieroglyphics thus: ANETE pe. The first two characters represent the demonstrative pronoun ПET, signifying "he who belongs to;" the third corresponds to the definite article T or; the fourth is the representation of the disc of the sun surrounded by the Uræus, or hooded snake, the symbol of sovereignty. The Egyptian word for the sun is PH; in the Hebrew is therefore represented in the hieroglyphics by O.

The other Egyptian name written in Hebrew characters, which we will endeavour to analyze, is that of one of the treasure cities which the children of Israel built in Egypt after they were made bondsmen. It is written on Remsses. This name is also a common one with some of the earlier monarchs of Egypt, and a great many transcriptions of it in hieroglyphics have been copied from the monuments. It is not unfrequently written thus ; the first syllable of the Hebrew word being represented by the image of the sun's disc, or Ol; and the last, o, by the same consonants, letter for letter, CC; the entire name signifying "child, or descendant of the sun." This comparison afforded us the certainty that is the Hebrew transcription of the Egyptian word PH, and that the definite article of the same language is represented by the Hebrew character . But the mystic or inaugural title of all the ancient monarchs of Egypt commences, without one

exception, with the image of the sun's disc. The following

This title, seems to have denoted, that what the sun was in the firmament, that Pharaoh ought to be in Egypt -the sun of his country. It had also a mythic allusion ; for over the second ring, which contains the name of the monarch, is very commonly written the group, which reads "son of the sun," allusive to PH, or the god-sun, as the first monarch of Egypt, and of whose throne the Pharaohs were therefore the heirs and successors. Phre seems on this account to have been, in an especial manner, the tutelary divinity of the kings of Egypt. The epithets and names applied to the kings most commonly connect them with this luminary, either by the ties of relationship or friendship, as "child of the sun," "approved of the sun," "beloved of the sun."

These considerations appear to justify the conclusion, that the name of the first monarch of Egypt, (according to the fabulous legends of the Egyptians, PH,) became the generic title of all his successors, Pharaoh; conformably with a custom which also obtained in the neighbouring countries.

The application, therefore, of this name to the monarch with whom Abraham came in contact, is a proof that he was one of that long line of kings, so many of whose titles yet remain, and of which, as we shall see hereafter, Menes was the founder. This proof is independent of that which is furnished by the Scripture dates; and also of the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, who informs us that Menes reigned many years before the patriarch Abraham.*

Another circumstance is also necessary to be fully understood, which is equally important to the question. The religion of Egypt underwent no alteration from the time of its establishment by Menes to that of its abolition by Christianity.

The reading of the hieroglyphics has elicited this singular fact, the proofs of which may be discovered in almost any class of remains to which we direct our attention. A large proportion of those which are deposited in the museums of Europe consists of funereal monuments; such as sarcophagi in granite or alabaster, mummy cases, votive tablets, and papyri. On several of these are inscribed the name of the rulers of Egypt during whose reigns they were executed; and even where this is wanting, the style of the execution will enable a practised eye to determine the date with considerable probability. We know, therefore, that these monuments belong to all the periods of the history of Egypt, from the Pharaohs of the 16th dynasty, who were contemporary with Abraham, down to the emperor Alexander Severus who lived in the third century of the Christian era. The narrow slip of papyrus, covered with a clumsy and almost illegible

*Ant. 1. 8. 6. § 2.

They

scrawl, which accompanies the Egyptio-Greek, or Roman mummy, is a faithful copy, nevertheless, of some part of the long roll of prayers and rubical directions, whose elegantly formed characters, and exquisitely finished illuminations, indicate that it belongs to those remote periods when the arts in Egypt were at their perfection. The same divinities are besought for the same blessings in both. This uniformity is still more evident on the wooden mummy cases, which are very common in all collections. likewise belong to various epochs. Sotimes, the priest, whose mummy is at Turin, lived in the times of the 18th dynasty, about 1500 years B.C. Ensa-amon, the scribe, whose body is in the Leeds museum, was contemporary with the 20th, about 1100 years B.C. There is a splendid case at Liverpool which had been the depositum of Apries, one of the sons of Psammetichus II., of the 26th dynasty, who lived about 600 years B.C. There are mummy-cases also in the British Museum, and in the Louvre, having Greek inscriptions, which inform us that they contained the remains of the descendants of the same family; and that they died, the one, Petemen, (at Paris) in the 19th year of the emperor Trajan, A. D. 117; the other, Tphout, (Brit. Mus.) in the fifth of Adrian's reign, A.D. 122. But all these are decorated in accordance with the tenets of the same mythic system. Differing from each other very widely as to the pattern or mode of disposing the parts of the picture, the same divinity is, nevertheless, depicted and invoked on all of them, over the same part of the body. So that in the 1600 years which elapsed from the time of Sotimes to that of Tphout, the religion of Egypt had undergone no alteration. This is also corroborated by the numerous similar monuments without dates