mys

to support the credit of those interpretations, nor a perplexity sufficiently copious to support the nyltery of this application.-But by the time hieroglyphics were become facred, Egypt was very learned. - Now they were sacred in the days of Joseph, as appears from the use of interpreting dreams according to those Symbols. Therefore learned Egypt of very high antiquity.

II. My second argument for this antiquity is deduced from the true original of ANIM ALWORSHIP; and stands thus: We have observed, that in those improved hieroglyphics, called Symbols (in which, it is confessed, the an-, cient Egyptian learning was contained the less obvious properties of animals occasioned their becoming marks, by analogical adaption, for very different ideas, whether of substances or modes; which plainly intimates that physical knowledge had been long cultivated. Now these symbols I hold to be the true original of ANIMAL-WORSHIP in Egypt. But animal worship was the established worship in the time of Moses, as is evident from the book of Exodus : Therefore the Egyptian learning was of this high antiquity'. The only proposition,

in

a

a

But if you will believe a late writer, Animal-worship was so far from coming from Hieroglyphics, that Hieroglyphics came out of Animal-worship. This is an unexpected change of the scene ; but, for our comfort, 'tis only the forced consequence of a falle hypothefis, which will be well considered in its place : “ The bierogliphical infcriptions of the Egyptians (says he) are

pretty full of the figures of birds, fishes, beasts, and men, “ with a few letters sometimes between them; and this alone is “ sufficient to hint to us, that they could not come into use be« fore the animals, represented in inscriptions of this fort, “ were become by allegory and mythology capable of exprefling “ various things by their having been variously used in the “ ceremonies of their religion.” Connect. of ihe Sacred and

Profune

a

in this argument, that needs any proof, is the first. The reasons therefore which induce me to think fymbolic writing to be the fole origin of Animal-worfhip are thefe:

1. This kind of idolatry was peculiar to the Egyptian fuperftition; and almost unknown to all the Cafts of paganism, but fuch as were evidently copied from that original: MOSES treats it as their diftinguishing fuperftition": The Greeks and Romans, though at a lofs for its original, yet speak of it as the peculiar extravagance of Egypt: And the moft intelligent of the moderns confider it in the very fame light'.

2. The Egyptians not only worshiped Animals, but PLANTS; and, in a word, every kind of being that had qualities remarkably fingular or efficaci

Profane Hiftory, vol. ii. p. 294. But if this were the cafe, How came thefe animals to be fo capable of expreffing by allegory and mythology? or in other words, How came they to be the objects of worship? We are yet to feek; and it must be more than a bint that can fupply us with a reason.

Such as the feveral gentile nations of Palestine and India.

h DEUT. iv. ver. 14, to 21.

i The learned Fourmont thus expreffes himself:- Mais pour parler fimplement & fans fard, il faudra bon gré malgré en revenir à ceci, qui les Egyptiens etcient, &, s'ils penfoient un peu, devoient fe croire eux mémes un peuple fort extravagant; on n'apotheofe point fans folie les Oignons & les Afperges: que pensez encore des Dieux Oifeaux, Poiffons, Serpens, Crocodiles? mais non-feulement ils avoient deifié les animaux; ce qui eft plus etrange encore, infatuez de la Metempsycofe, ils s'etoient enthoufiafmez la deffus de Myflagogies incomprehenfibles. Leurs pretres, par un zele qu'on ne connait pas trop, s'etoient rendus les Predicateurs de ces mêmes folies; & ils en avoient dans leurs conquêtes, ou par des miffions, infecté toute l'Inde, toute la Chine, tout le Japon. Reflex. Crit. fur les Hift. des Anc. Peuples, tom. i. p. 227.

ous

ous; becaufe all these had found their place in fymbolic writing: For, as hath been fhewn when Hieroglyphics came to be employed for mystery, no fooner was one Symbol grown common and vulgar, than another was invented of a more recondite meaning: fo that the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms would be all explored to paint the hiftories of their Gods.

3. Befides the adoration of almost every thing exifting, the Egyptians worshiped a thousand Chimeras of their own creation: Some with human bodies, and the head or feet of brutes; others with brutal bodies, and the heads or feet of men; while others again were a fantastic compound of the feveral parts of beafts, birds, and reptiles, terreftrial and aquatic: For befides the simpler method, in hieroglyphic writing, of expreffing their herogods by an intire plant or animal, there were two others which the more circumftantial hiftory of those deities brought in ufe. Thus when the subject was only one fingle quality of a god or hero, the human shape was only partially deformed*; with the head of a dog, hawk, or ram; to denote fidelity, vigilance, or ftrength; with the feet and thighs of a goat, to reprefent rufticity, agility, or luft; and this gave Being to their Anubis, Pan, and Jupiter Ammon: But where the fubject quired a fuller catalogue of the hero's virtues or ufeful qualities, there they employed an affemblage of the feveral parts of various animals: each of which, in hieroglyphic writing, was fignificative of a diftinct property: in which affemblage, that ani

as

* Εἴκασαι παρ' αὐτοῖς τις μέχρι τραχήλα ἀνθρωποειδής, τὸ δὲ πρόσωπον ὀργέω, ή λέσης, ἢ ἄλλο τινὸς ζώς κεκλημένος· καὶ πάλιν αυ κεφαλὴ ἀνθρωπείες, καὶ ἄλλων τινων ζώων μέρη τῆ μὲν υποκείμια, τῆ a. Porph. de Abft. 1. iv.

Q 4

mal, more peculiarly representative of the God, was molt confpicuous. This will explain the verse of Anticlides in his hymn to the fun,

Ηέλιος δὲ Νότοιο "Αναξ ΙΕΡΑΞ ΠΟΛΥΜΟΡΦΕ.

The fun was generally expreffed by a hawk; but this fymbolic hawk, under various confiderations, had the various parts of other animals added to it.

4. That animal which was worshiped in one city was facrificed in anot. Thus, though at Memphis they adored the ox, at Mendes the goat, and at Thebes the ram; yet, in one place or other, each of these animals was ufed in facrifice: but bulls and clean calves were offered up in all places. The reafon of this can only be that at Memphis the ox, was, in hieroglyphic learning, the symbol of fome deity; at Mendes the goat; and at Thebes the ram; but the bull and calf no where: For what else can be faid for the original of fo fantastical a diverfity in reprefentative deities within a kingdom of one national religion?-But farther, the fame animal was feafted in one place, with divine honours; in another it was purfued with the direst execrations. Thus, at Arfinoë, the crocodile was adored; because having no tongue it was made in hieroglyphic writing the fymbol of the divinity'; elsewhere it was had in horror, as being made in

Plutarch, in general, tells us, that the Egyptians thus confidered the crocodile; but this author, for private ends, de livering a falfe original of Animal-worfhip, it was not to his purpose to tell us it was fo confidered in fymbolic writing: μὴν ἐδὲ ὁ Κροκόδειλον αἰτίας· πιθανῆς ἀμοιρᾶσαν ἔσχηκε τιμὴν, ἀλλὰ • μίμημα δεν λέγεται γεγονέναι, μόνο μὲν ἄγλωσσα ὢν φωνῆς γὰρ é du réy, a#gooding is - De 1. & Ofir.

४

the

the fame writing the fymbol of Typhon "; that is, it was used as a facred character in the history both of their natural and civil Theology.

5. Brute-worship was, at first, altogether objective to their hero-gods; of whom animals were›› but the representatives. This is feen from the rank they hold on ancient monuments; from the» unvaried worship of some few of them, as the Apis, which still continued to be adored as the reprefentative of Ofiris:-and from the express teftimony of Herodotus; who fays, that, when the Egyptians addreffed the facred Animal, their devotions were paid to that God to whom the beast belonged".

6. But to make the matter ftill plainer, it may be obferved, that the moft early brute-worship in Egypt was not an adoration of the living animal, but only of its picture or image. This truth Herodotus feems to hint at in Euterpe, where he says, the Egyptians erected the firft altars, images, and temples to the gods, and carved the FIGURES Of ANIMALS on stones. Now, were the original of brute-worship any other than what is here fuppofed, the living animal must have been first worshiped, and the image of it would have been only an attendant fuperftition. From the SECOND COMMAND

The fubfequent doctrine of the Metempfychofis foon made this the foundation of a fable, that the foul of Typhon had paffed into a crocodile,-that Typhon had affumed that figure, &c. ́ See Elian's Hift. of Animals, lib. x. cap. 21.

- Οἱ δὲ ἐν τῇσι πόλισι ἔκατοι εὐχὰς τὰς δέ σφι ἀποτελέεσι· εὐχόμεν BOS TO DIE THAT To 9ngio-lib. ii. c. 65.

ο Βωμός τε καὶ ἀγάλματα καὶ τὰς θεοῖσι ἀπονείμαι σφέας πρώτες, καὶ ζῶν ἐν λίθοισι ἐγλύψαι. ε. 4.

MENT,