When we come to speak of the ancient Egyptian religion, we are at last on safe ground. The inter pretation of hieroglyphics has laid before us a mass of documents, acquainting us almost as. fully with its tenets as do the classical writings with those of pagan Gieece and Rome. The result is, that we are compelled to discard, at least for the present, the philosophical theories which we had been accustomed to regard as the very mainsprings of Egyptian belief, but which are probably for the most part fabrications constructed in the attempt to fortify the ancient religion against the shocks of a new and vital faith. We are indeed compelled finally to put aside all ideas that the Egyptian religion formed one philosophical whole, and to admit that it consists of several distinct elements, which were never fused, because their nature for bade so complete a union.
The strongest and most remarkable peculiarity of the Egyptian religion is the worship of animals, trees, and like objects, which was universal in the country, and was even connected with the belief in the future state. No theory of the usefulness of certain animals can explain the worship of others that were utterly useless, nor can a theory of some strange analogy find even as wide an application. The explanation is to be discovered in every town, every village, every hut, of the Negroes, whose fetishism corresponds perfectly with this low nature worship of the ancient Egyptians.
Connected with fetishism, was the local charac ter of the religion. Each nome, city, town, and probably village, had its divinities, and the posi tion of many gods in the Pantheon was due rather to the importance of their cities than any powers or qualities they were supposed to have.
The Egyptian Pantheon shows three distinct elements. Certain of the gods are only per.
sonifications connected mith low nature-worship. Others, the great gods, are of Shemite origin, and are connected with high nature-worship, though showing traces of the worship of ancestors. In addition, there are certain personifications of ab stract ideas. The first of these classes is evidently the result of an attempt to connect the old low nature-worship with some higher system. The second is no doubt the religion of the Shemite settlers. It is essentially the same in character as the Babylonian and Assyrian religion, and as the belief of a dominant race took the most important place in the intricate system of which it ultimately formed a part. The last class appears to be of later
invention, and to have had its origin in an endea vour to construct a philosophical system.
In addition to these particulars of the Egyptian religion, it is important to notice that it comprised very remarkable doctrines. Alan was held to be a responsible being, whose future after death de pended upon his actions done while on earth. He was to be judged by Osiris, ruler of the West, or unseen world, and either rewarded with felicity or punished with torment. Whether these future states of happiness and misery were held to be of eternal duration is not certain, but there is little doubt that the Egyptians believed in the immor tality of the soul.
The religion of the Shepherds is not as distinctly known to us. It is, however, clear from the monu ments that their chief god was SET or SUTEKH, and we learn front a papyrus that one of the Shepherd kings, APEPEE, probably Manetho's Apophis,' established the worship of SET in his dominions, and reverenced no other god, raising a great temple to him in Zoan, or Avaris. SET continued to be worshipped by the Egyptians until the time of the 22d dynasty, when we first find no trace of him on the monuments. At this period or after wards his figure was effaced in the inscriptions. The change took place long after the expulsion of the Shepherds, and was effected by the 22d dynasty, which was probably of Assyrian or Babylonian origin : it is, therefore, rather to be considered as a result of the influence of the Median doctrine of Ormazd and Ahriman, than as due to the Egyptian hatred of the foreigners and all that concerned them. Besides SET, other foreign divinities were worshipped in Egypt, the god RENPU, the goddesses KEN or KETESH, ANTA, and ASTARTA. All these divinities, except ASTARTA, as to whom we have no particular information, are treated by the Egyptians as powers of destruction and war, as SET was considered the personification of physical evil. SET was always identified by the Egyptians with Baal : we do not know whether he was worshipped in Egypt before the Shepherd period, but this is almost certain.
This foreign worship in Egypt was probably never reduced to a system. What we know of it shews no regularity, and it is not unlike the imita tions of the Egyptian idols made by Phcenician artists, probably as representations of Phoenician divinities. The gods of the Hycsos are foreign objects of worship in an Euptian dress.