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| Chapter XXVIII.—The Heathen Gods Were Simply Men.
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Chapter XXVIII.—The Heathen Gods Were Simply Men.
But it is perhaps necessary, in accordance with what
has already been adduced, to say a little about their names. Herodotus,
then, and Alexander the son of Philip, in his letter to his mother (and
each of them is said to have conversed with the priests at Heliopolis, and
Memphis, and Thebes), affirm that they learnt from them that the gods had
been men. Herodotus speaks thus: “Of such a nature were, they said,
the beings represented by these images, they were very far indeed from
being gods. However, in the times anterior to them it was otherwise; then
Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt
upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above the rest. The last
of these was Horus the son of Osiris, called by the Greeks Apollo. He
deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is
named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks.”801
| 801 ii. 144. Mr. Rawlinson’s translation is used in
the extracts from Herodotus. | “Almost all the names of
the gods came into Greece from Egypt.”802
Apollo was the son of Dionysus and
Isis, as Herodotus likewise affirms: “According to the Egyptians,
Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and Isis; while Latona
is their nurse and their preserver.”803
These beings of heavenly origin they
had for their first kings: partly from ignorance of the true worship of
the Deity, partly from gratitude for their government, they esteemed them
as gods together with their wives. “The male kine, if clean, and
the male calves, are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally;
but the females, they are not allowed to sacrifice, since they are
sacred to Isis. The statue of this goddess has the form of a woman but
with horns like a cow, resembling those of the Greek representations of
Io.”804
And who can be more deserving of credit in making these statements,
than those who in family succession son from father, received not only
the priesthood, but also the history? For it is not likely that the
priests, who make it their business to commend the idols to men’s
reverence, would assert falsely that they were men. If Herodotus alone
had said that the Egyptians spoke in their histories of the gods as of
men, when he says, “What they told me concerning their religion it
is not my intention to repeat, except only the names of their deities,
things of very trifling importance,”805
| 805 ii. 3. The text is here uncertain, and differs from that
of Herodotus. [Herodotus, initiated in Egyptian mysteries, was doubtless
sworn to maintain certain secrets of the priests of Osiris.] |
it would behove us not to credit even Herodotus as being a fabulist. But
as Alexander and Hermes surnamed Trismegistus, who shares with them
in the attribute of eternity, and innumerable others, not to name them
individually, [declare the same], no room is left even for doubt that
they, being kings, were esteemed gods. That they were men, the most
learned of the Egyptians also testify, who, while saying that ether,
earth, sun, moon, are gods, regard the rest as mortal men, and the temples
as their sepulchres. Apollodorus, too, asserts the same thing in his
treatise concerning the gods. But Herodotus calls even their sufferings
mysteries. “The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of
Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude,
both of men and women, many thousands in number, beat themselves at the
close of the sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious scruple
forbids me to mention.”806
| 806
ii. 61. [The name of Osiris.] | If they are gods, they are
also immortal; but if people are beaten for them, and their sufferings
are mysteries, they are men, as Herodotus himself says: “Here,
too, in this same precinct of Minerva at Saïs, is the burial-place
of one whom I think it not right to mention in such a connection. It
stands behind the temple against the back wall, which it entirely
covers. There are also some large stone obelisks in the enclosure, and
there is a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone. In form it
is circular, and in size, as it seemed to me, about equal to the lake at
Delos called the Hoop. On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent
by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this
representation they call their mysteries.”807
And not only is the sepulchre of
Osiris shown, but also his embalming: “When a body is brought to
them, they show the bearer various models of corpses made in wood, and
painted so as to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after
the manner of him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection
with such a matter.”808
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