Beacon Lights of History, Volume 01 | Page 5

was complex and even contradictory. What it
lost in logical sequence it gained in variety. Wilkinson enumerates
seventy-three principal divinities, and Birch sixty-three; but there were
some hundreds of lesser gods, discharging peculiar functions and
presiding over different localities. Every town had its guardian deity, to
whom prayers or sacrifices were offered by the priests. The more
complicated the religious rites the more firmly cemented was the power
of the priestly caste, and the more indispensable were priestly services
for the offerings and propitiations.
Of these Egyptian deities there were eight of the first rank; but the list
of them differs according to different writers, since in the great cities
different deities were worshipped. These were Ammon--the concealed
god,--the sovereign over all (corresponding to the Jupiter of the
Romans), whose sacred city was Thebes. At a later date this god was
identified with Ammon Ra, the physical sun. Ra was the sun-god,
especially worshipped at Heliopolis,--the symbol of light and heat.
Kneph was the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters, whose
principal seat of worship was in Upper Egypt. Phtha was a sort of
artisan god, who made the sun, moon, and the earth, "the father of
beginnings;" his sign was the scarabaeus, or beetle, and his patron city
was Memphis. Khem was the generative principle presiding over the
vegetable world,--the giver of fertility and lord of the harvest. These
deities are supposed to have represented spirit passing into matter and
form,--a process of divine incarnation.
But the most popular deity was Osiris. His image is found standing on
the oldest monument, a form of Ra, the light of the lower world, and
king and judge of Hades. His worship was universal throughout Egypt,
but his chief temples were at Abydos and Philae. He was regarded as
mild, beneficent, and good. In opposition to him were Set, malignant
and evil, and Bes, the god of death. Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris,
was a sort of sun goddess, representing the productive power of Nature.

Khons was the moon god. Maut, the consort of Ammon, represented
Nature. Sati, the wife of Kneph, bore a resemblance to Juno. Nut was
the goddess of the firmament; Ma was the goddess of truth; Horus was
the mediator between creation and destruction.
But in spite of the multiplicity of deities, the Egyptian worship centred
in some form upon heat or fire, generally the sun, the most powerful
and brilliant of the forces of Nature. Among all the ancient pagan
nations the sun, the moon, and the planets, under different names,
whether impersonated or not, were the principal objects of worship for
the people. To these temples were erected, statues raised, and sacrifices
made.
No ancient nation was more devout, or more constant to the service of
its gods, than were the Egyptians; and hence, being superstitious, they
were pre-eminently under the control of priests, as the people were in
India. We see, chiefly in India and Egypt, the power of
caste,--tyrannical, exclusive, and pretentious,--and powerful in
proportion to the belief in a future state. Take away the belief in future
existence and future rewards and punishments, and there is not much
religion left. There may be philosophy and morality, but not religion,
which is based on the fear and love of God, and the destiny of the soul
after death. Saint Augustine, in his "City of God," his greatest work,
ridicules all gods who are not able to save the soul, and all religions
where future existence is not recognized as the most important thing
which can occupy the mind of man.
We cannot then utterly despise the religion of Egypt, in spite of the
absurdities mingled with it,--the multiplicity of gods and the doctrine of
metempsychosis,--since it included a distinct recognition of a future
state of rewards and punishments "according to the deeds done in the
body." On this belief rested the power of the priests, who were
supposed to intercede with the deities, and who alone were appointed to
offer to them sacrifices, in order to gain their favor or deprecate their
wrath. The idea of death and judgment was ever present to the thoughts
of the Egyptians, from the highest to the lowest, and must have
modified their conduct, stimulating them to virtue, and restraining them

from vice; for virtue and vice are not revelations,--they are instincts
implanted in the soul. No ancient teacher enjoined the duties based on
an immutable morality with more force than Confucius, Buddha, and
Epictetus. Who in any land or age has ignored the duties of filial
obedience, respect to rulers, kindness to the miserable, protection to the
weak, honesty, benevolence, sincerity, and truthfulness? With the
discharge of these duties, written on the heart, have been associated the
favor of the gods, and happiness