Sec. 2.  Religious Character of the Egyptians.  Their Ritual.

But, wonderful as was the civilization of Egypt, it is not this which now chiefly interests us.  They were prominent among all ancient nations for their interest in religion, especially of the ceremonial part of religion, or worship.  Herodotus says:  “They are of all men the most excessively attentive to the worship of the gods.”  And beside his statement to that effect, there is evidence that the origin of much of the theology, mythology, and ceremonies of the Hebrews and Greeks was in Egypt.  “The names of almost all the gods,” says Herodotus, “came from Egypt into Greece” (Euterpe, 50).  The Greek oracles, especially that of Dodona, he also states to have been brought from Egypt (II. 54-57), and adds, moreover, that the Egyptians were the first who introduced public festivals, processions, and solemn supplications, which the Greeks learned from them.  “The Egyptians, then,” says he, “are beyond measure scrupulous in matters of religion (Sec. 64).  They invented the calendar, and connected astrology therewith.”  “Each month and day,” says Herodotus (II. 82), “is assigned to some particular god, and each person’s birthday determines his fate.”  He testifies (II. 123) that “the Egyptians were also the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body perishes it transmigrates through every variety of animal.”  It seems apparent, also, that the Greek mysteries of Eleusis were taken from those of Isis; the story of the wanderings of Ceres in pursuit of Proserpine being manifestly borrowed from those of Isis in search of the body of Osiris.  With this testimony of Herodotus modern writers agree.  “The Egyptians,” says Wilkinson, “were unquestionably the most pious nation of all antiquity.  The oldest monuments show their belief in a future life.  And Osiris, the Judge, is mentioned in tombs erected two thousand years before Christ.”  Bunsen tells us that “it has at last been ascertained that all the great gods of Egypt are on the oldest monuments,” and says:  “It is a great and astounding fact, established beyond the possibility of doubt, that the empire of Menes on its first appearance in history possessed an established mythology, that is, a series of gods.  Before the empire of Menes, the separate Egyptian states had their temple worship regularly organized.”

Everything among the Egyptians, says M. Maury,[153] took the stamp of religion.  Their writing was so full of sacred symbols that it could scarcely be used for any purely secular purpose.  Literature and science were only branches of theology.  Art labored only in the service of worship and to glorify the gods.  Religious observances were so numerous and so imperative, that the most common labors of daily life could not be performed without a perpetual reference to some priestly regulation.  The Egyptian only lived to worship.  His fate in the future life was constantly present to him.  The sun,