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him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.

36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.

37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;

38 To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath there is none else.

40 Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever.

9 Josh. 20.8. 10 Num. 21. 24. Chap. 1. 4.

41 Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sun rising;

42 That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:

43 Namely, 'Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites.

44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:

45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt,

46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel 1osmote, after they were come forth out of Egypt:

47 And they possessed his land, and the land "of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sun rising;

48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,

49 And all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.

11 Num. 21. 33. Chap. 3. 3. 12 Chap. 3. 17.

Verses 15-19. "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves," &c.—We shall not well understand this remarkable passage without recollecting that its drift is not only to preclude the representations of false gods, but also the forming fancied representations of the true God. The danger of such representations is manifest, inasmuch as the material figurations of the power and attributes of God would in time, and actually were, at least by the mass of the people, considered as distinct deities, and as such worshipped. Hence, in forming such representations, there was the two-fold danger of assigning separate deity to the separate symbols, and of paying to the symbol itself that honour which was due to God only. Thus men might, and lid, fall into idolatry, without, perhaps, in the first instance, intending any thing else than to honour the true God. This was one but not the only way in which idolatry arose, and against this in particular it seems to have been the object of the text to guard; but there is also a manifest view to the other idolatries, less excusable, and less accountable in their origin than this. It will be useful to bear in mind that, as is well expressed by Dr. Hales, "The idolatry of the heathen in general, and of the Egyptians and Canaanites in particular, consisted not only in worshipping false gods, such as the sun, moon, stars, winds, elements, &c. (Deut. iv. 19), which they supposed to be animated, and actuated by some intelligences residing in them, and exerting their beneficial or noxious powers to the advantage or detriment of mankind, but also in forming certain symbolical and figurative representations of THE TRUE GOD, under the forms of beasts, ti.ds, and fishes, expressive of their peculiar excellencies or powers; as the horns or strength of the bull, the milk or nourishment of the cow, the swiftness or sharp-sightedness of the eagle or hawk, the wisdom or cunning of the serpent, &c., until at length the symbols were forgotten or perverted by the vulgar into the most grovelling and senseless materialism on the one hand, or bestial idolatry on the other." (Analysis of Chronology,' vol. ii. p. 231.) We do not intend to enter into so large a subject as the origin and progress of dolatry, although parts of it will occasionally, as here, come under our notice in illustrating particular texts. We shall only observe here, that the ancient systems, which at the first view offer only a confused mob of gods and goddesses, many of them described as murderers, adulterers and adulteresses, thieves and drunkards, will be found, when analyzed, to consist of corrupted symbols, as above mentioned, of the heavenly bodies and the elements personified, and of eminent persons, who, after death, were deified on account of their services or exploits. Generally these classes of gods are mixed together in an undistinguishable medley, and often the different characteristics are united in the same god in a manner the most confusing; but there were some nations who confined themselves to one of the classes we have enumerated; as, for instance, the Persians, who long retained the primitive form of idolatry, adoring only the host of heaven, particularly the sun, and at the last admitted fire only as its symbol and representative. Images they hated as strongly as it was possible for the Jews to do.

Among the varions nations of antiquity, there was none which exhibited the different forms of idolatry together more strikingly than the Egyptians; and it is thought, not without the best reason, that the whole of the present exhortations were directed against any imitation of the idolatries of that country. Bishop Patrick, who seems inclined to doubt that the Egyptians entertained the forms of superstition to which the text alludes, at this early period, as conjectured by the learned Spencer, Sir John Marsham and others, yet allows that such a reference would be unquestionable were it established that the Egyptians "were so sottish in the time of Moses as they were in the time of Herodotus." We have already expressed our opinion that the Egyptian superstitions, as described by profane authors, were, in their general features, if not in every minute detail, as old as this time. How else do we account for the worship of the golden calf, which was so peculiarly Egyptian? and how else would Moses have thought of forbidding such brutish idolatries as he here interdicts, unless he, and those whom he addressed, had witnessed their exhibition? This could have only been witnessed in Egypt, for nowhere else were they collectively exhibited, and only there had they an opportunity of becoming aware of their existence; for it is to be remembered that these interdictions, now repeated on the plains of Moab, were first delivered in Sinai, soon after the exodus, and before the Israelites had much opportunity of becoming acquainted with the practices of other nations. Assuming therefore such a reference, which is now generally admitted, we have caused to be copied, from Egyptian paintings and sculptures, figures of some of the deities of Egypt, to enable the reader to perceive the classes of representations which Moses may, with the greatest probability, be supposed to have had in view. In the notes to Exod. viii. 26 and xxxii. 4, we have already entered into some details concerning the animal worship of Egypt. We need not therefore resume in detail that conspicuous part of the subject, but shall limit our attention to the general character of the Egyptian superstition, exhibiting its singularly compound character, and the principles on which it was or professed to be founded. This it is of the more importance to understand, because we shall not, without it, adequately comprehend the force of the addiction of the Hebrew mind to the "dark idolatries" of Egypt. If we see a man bowing himself down in reverence before such monstrosities as our wood-cuts exhibit, we shall not fail to feel deep pity at the degraded condition of his mind. But as the man has certainly some reasons for his conduct, with which he endeavours to satisfy his own mind, we must know what are the reasons with which his mind is satisfied, if we would accurately fathom the depths of its degradation.

"Ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you."-This evidently directs our attention to the symbolical representations of the true God. Had the Egyptians such representations? In other words, separated from the rabble of personified heavenly bodies and deified heroes, had they any notion of THE ONE GOD, the pre-eminent, the self-existent, the Creator of heaven and earth, as known to Noah, the common ancestor of mankind? It is possible that they had. We almost fail to discover this in the accounts which the Greek and Roman writers give of the Egyptian mythology; for knowing that their own system was derived from that of Egypt, they explained the Egyptian system with their own superadded imaginations, so that it is sometimes difficult, through the Greek accounts, to discover what it is that the Egyptians really believed. The Greeks therefore thought that the Egyptians were of the same opinion with themselves in excluding an intelligent Creator from having any part in the formation of the universe, and believing that there was nothing prior to the visible world-matter, not spirit, being the first principle of all things. Eusebius, who gave great attention to these matters, and to whom we owe much of our information concerning ancient cosmogonies and theogonies, concurred in this conclusion. But the materials preserved by him enabled our own eminent Cudworth to do a little more justice to the Egyptians. From these documents he proves that this people believed the creation of the world to have been presided over by an intelligent being whom they named Cneph. This also is further proved by the conclusion of Jamblicus, who was the contemporary of Eusebius, and who states that the Egyptians did not generally believe the doctrine we have cited, but acknowledged a soul superior to nature, and an Intelligence, superior to the soul, by whom the world was created. Here, then, we have their traditional knowledge of the true God; and now we shall see how they worshipped this Supreme Creator under certain figures and symbols, such as the text interdicts, and we shall thus perceive the drift of the interdiction. The god Cneph was adored under the figure of a man, holding a girdle and a sceptre, and crowned with magnificent plumes. From his mouth proceeded an egg, whence issued another god, whom they called Phtha, and the Greeks Vulcan. The explanation of this symbol will give us an insight into the nature and design of the symbolical figures with which the religious system of the Egyp tians was crowded. The plumes which overshadowed his head were explained to denote the hidden and invisible nature of his being, his power of communicating life, his universal sovereignty, and the spirituality of his operations. The egg proceeding from his mouth signified the world which he created. The same god was also figured under the similitude of a serpent, with the head of a hawk, who by opening his eyes fills the world with light, and by closing them covers it with darkness. It is no wonder if this Supreme Being, "the Good God," as they called him, was, as seems to have been the case, overlooked in, or confounded with, the multitudinous rabble of deified heroes, and personified stars and elements and attributes of Nature. Another reason why he was overlooked was, that his worship was by no means general in Egypt. It was confined to the Thebais, where the religious system was more pure and simple than in the other parts of Egypt. Plutarch mentions it to the praise of the inhabitants of this district, that they were exempt from the common superstitions, since they acknowledged no mortal God, admitting for the first principle only the god Cneph, who had no beginning, and was not subject to death.”

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16. "The likeness of male or female."-It would be very desirable to give in this place a clear account of the leading principles of the Egyptian superstition. The subject has never been clearly explained; and it is not likely that it ever will. It is surrounded with so many difficulties, that it is not perhaps possible to obtain a distinct idea of what the several gods were, and what place they occupied in the general system. We are therefore content to leave the matter unexplained the more particularly as our limits do not afford the space for detailed investigation which so perplexed a subject would require. We may however state a few considerations which may assist the inquiry, and help to the better understanding of the very numerous passages in which the ancient idolatries are mentioned. We do not say particularly "the Egyptian idolatries;" because, however different from one another at the first glance, they are all so much alike in their general principles, that what may be said of the superstitions of Egypt will be found to have a very distinct bearing on the whole subject.

We are disposed fully to agree with those who think that the earliest form of idolatry was the worship of the stars, and particularly of the sun and moon. There is historical proof of this; and if there were none, we might easily conclude that men could scarcely at once make abruptly the great transition from even a faded knowledge of a Spiritual Being, to the grosser forms of idolatry in which we ultimately find them immersed. We see that this worship of the heavenly bodies is mentioned particularly in v. 19, and strongly interdicted. We shall not here expatiate on this idolatry (to which the name of Zabianism, or Zabiism, has been given) as this primitive corruption will demand particular observation in the note to Job xxxi. 26.

The elements and powers of Nature seem to have been next added to the "host of heaven:" and they were in the 442

first instance worshipped in their palpable or visible manifestations, without symbol, image, or temple. But in process of time a new corruption arose: men began to dedicate to each particular deity some living creature, and to perform their worship to the deity before it. We may wonder by what possible process of mind, animal existences could connect themselves with any worship, even with that of the stars. But we have already mentioned that some animals were thought to discover qualities which aptly symbolized those attributed to a particular deity; or they also perhaps apprehended that the gods had made these living creatures more or less partakers of their divinity and perfections, that they might be instrumental in conveying a knowledge of them to men. Thus the hawk was thought, from its powers of vision, an apt emblem of the chief god, "the all over-seeing sun," and therefore the hawk was his symbol and representative, not less in the religion of Persia than in that of Egypt, though not exactly in the same manner of symbolization. Then again, the cat was set apart to symbolize the moon, for which many reasons are assigned, but the chief of them seems to have been the remarkable contraction or dilation of the pupil of its eye, which was thought to illustrate the decrease and increase of the moon, and the animal perhaps considered to enjoy more than an ordinary participation in the lunar deity's influence. Hence the hawk and the cat were eminently sacred in Egypt, and it was death to kill them; this being an indignity cast upon the divinities whose representatives they were. We are very much inclined to think that where this corruption originated the art of statuary was unknown, and that the animal was designed as a sort of living statue of the god. The difference in this respect between the Egyptian and other Pagan systems seems to have been, that, even after the art of statuary was cultivated, the former retained the living animal symbol, and also used its figure in sculpture, either in its natural form, or by giving its head to a human figure; whereas other nations then came to represent the deities almost exclusively in the human figure, and threw the animal symbol into a subordinate place: that is, the animal form was not (except in a few rare instances) retained as a primary representation, but as a subordinate symbol of, or an attendant upon, the divinity to whom it was consecrated. What was gained by this alteration is not very clear; and Plutarch accordingly asks the wits of Greece and Rome, who were fond of scoffing at the animal and vegetable deities of Egypt, whether the smallest organized body was not as adequate a symbol of divinity as any statue, however exquisite in its execution? He might also have mentioned that their own superstitions retained some rather strong indications of the Egyptian principle; for while the latter consecrated to each divinity some animal, or bird, or vegetable; their own systems consecrated to each deity an animal, a bird, and a plant. Thus the ram, as in Egypt, symbolized Jupiter Ammon, and the same deity had also the eagle, and the beech-tree; Mars had the horse, the vulture, and the ash-tree; Minerva had the dragon, the owl, and the olive-and so of the rest. This seems to show that the principle of animal representation was not, in its origia, peculiar to the Egyptians; indeed it certainly was not so at any time, only in no other country was the principle exhibited so broadly and on a scale so extensive. The extent to which this animal worship was there carried may be illustrated by the fact, that several districts and towns are named after the animals whose worship prevailed in them. Thus the nomes or districts of Oxyrhynchus, Lycopolis, and Cynopolis were respectively called after the fish Oxyrhynchus, and the wolf and the dog; and, in the same manner, the cities of Bubastis, Mendes, Crocodilopolis, Leontopolis, were severally named after cats, goats, crocodiles, and lions. Many other instances might be cited of this practice of naming towns and districts after the animals principally worshipped in them.

The next stage of descent in the low deep of idolatry was to pay divine honours to men, who after their deaths were raised to the rank of gods, and worshipped as such. It was not concealed that they had been men, and their history as men-as kings, heroes, inventors-was related, and the manner of their death recorded; and in some instances, at least in Egypt, it was professed that their embalmed bodies were retained in sepulchres. But still they were not the less gods: and that the simple aspect of such a doctrine might not be too palpably revolting, it was alleged that their spirits had passed into, and become the animating principle, of some heavenly body. Then, if we can understand this by no means lucid subject, the anterior mythological history of the heavenly body became part of the history of the deified mortal; which accounts for the strange discrepancies which meet us on every hand when one part of the history of the same being exhibits him as the artificer, not to say creator, of the world; and another exhibits him as human, and subject to oppression and to death. We may thus understand what is meant when, in the early history of nations, they tell us, for instance, that their first king was the sun; by which they mean that their first king was deified, and became the animating intelligence of that great luminary. The fact of such a process of deification is well known, and has existed in almost all nations; and heaven might thus, in a two-fold sense, be said to have been peopled with deified mortals. Who were these mortals? Mr. Faber, in his most elaborate work on Pagan Idolatry, seems to follow Banier in concluding that they were, in the first instance, the first fathers of mankind, to whom others-kings, heroes, legislators, inventors-were afterwards added. Faber resolves the earliest and most exalted into Adam and his immediate family, as reappearing in Noah and his family: he would therefore say, that Osiris, as a mortal, was Noah: whereas Banier, who has a less finished system to support, is satisfied with thinking that Osiris was Mizraim, the grandson of Noah, by whom Egypt was first settled. Be this as it may, it seems to us probable that these deified mortals had, as such, other animal symbols assigned to them separately from those which belonged to them in their sidereal character; and we would thus explain the fact, that most of the Egyptian gods had two symbolical characters-and, for instance, we would thus understand that the hawk was the symbol of Osiris as the sun, and the bull, as a deified mortal. We thus see that the worship of dead men was intimately connected with the worship of the host of heaven and the powers of Nature. Or, to sum up the whole, Nature itself, or the world, was looked upon comprehensively as a divinity: but to what extent they recognised a Being above nature, it is difficult to discover. We have shown above that the Egyptians, in their Cneph, appear to have had some faint idea of him. It is true that Mr. Faber refuses to entertain the idea that the TRUE GOD was the One Being into whom he admits that all the Gentile gods may ultimately be resolved: but then, in the Egyptian system, for instance, he traces the one God no higher than Osiris, and if we entertained this opinion, we should admit his conclusion. But we think it very palpable that, in the Egyptian system, Osiris was not the eldest of the gods, whether as a sidereal deity or a deified mortal; nor are we aware that even the Egyptians professed that he was such; and Cneph, "he who had no beginning," was anterior even to the sun. Yet, after all, we do not contend that Cneph was the true God, but only that he was an idea of the true God turned into an idol.

We do not, however, object to the notion that most, if not all the gods-certainly all the most popular gods-of Egypt may be resolved into Osiris. Macrobius long ago contended that all male deities might be resolved into the sun (in Egypt, Osiris), and all the female into the moon (in Egypt, Isis), the latter being also resolvable into the former. Mr. Faber adopts this opinion with some modification, allowing that all the deities terminate in a male and female, and, a step farther, in one hermaphrodite being, the same who becomes the male after the female has been born from his substance, as Eve from Adam. We allow that the host of gods may thus be disposed of, being resolved into one, whether male or hermaphrodite; but we believe this termination not to be ultimate, but intermediate only, dissenting in this both from Macrobius and Mr, Faber; otherwise, how are we to understand the celestial as distinguished from the mortal

origin of Osiris? It is, that as Phtha, who is confessedly the same as Osiris, he issued from the egg which proceeded from the mouth of Cneph. Cneph, therefore, not Osiris, is the being to whom we are ultimately referred, although we may be intermediately referred to Osiris. We have not alluded to this subject in vain, because our task is thus simplified in attempting to say a few words about the gods represented in our cuts, which exhibit the forms in which the principal gods of the Egyptians were usually displayed.

It will be understood that Osiris (male) and Isis (female) were the only deities whose worship was universal in Egypt. The worship of the others was confined to particular towns and districts. In fact, although Osiris and Isis. in a particular sense, were the sun and moon, these most glorious of luminaries being considered most appropriate to them; yet, in a general sense, they were pantheistic also, that is, they included all nature, the different characters of which, as personified in other deities, were ultimately referred to them. The egg from which Osiris proceeded was the universe, but that universe itself had proceeded from Cneph. Some of the male figures are, however, more immediately than others referred to Osiris as the sun, and others to Isis, as the moon; being probably no other than symbols and personifications of different characteristics of these glorious bodies. It is very possible that the different names and personifica tions which occur, are those under which the luminaries and powers of nature were worshipped before the spirits of deified men were assigned to them as guiding intelligences, and under which they continued to be worshipped afterwards. It thus appears that the Egyptian idolatry combined the worship of the host of heaven, of the powers and qualities of nature, of animal symbols, and of deified mortals, comprehending nearly all the forms of idolatry into which the mind of man has ever been deluded, and which are so solemnly interdicted in the text before us.

After what we have said, it will be evident that it must be very difficult to distinguish the different deities of Egypt, and state their several attributes and characteristics. For although it may be possible, by the light of recent discoveries, to read the Egyptian names annexed to their figures, the great difficulty often remains of discovering to which of them we shall assign the names of Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, &c., under which the Egyptian deities are mentioned and characterised by the Greek and Roman writers, from whom most of our knowledge of the Egyptian theology is derived. We shall therefore merely index the figures now offered to the reader, and yet without professing to be able to render such an index correct. The figures, as well as the names affixed to them, are from the Description de l'Egypte,' and will nearly all be found in the following list of the twenty-four principal deities of Egypt. It is proper to add, that the names are said to be faithfully transcribed from the pictorial symbols annexed to the figures on the Egyptian monuments, according to the phonetic values assigned to such symbols by M. Champollion. We have therefore not interfered with the names, although we apprehend that there are some concerning which considerable doubt might be entertained. In the subjoined list we have placed the names in the order and class in which the best mytholo gists place them, and to the names have added a few particulars principally with a view to illustrate the engravings. The twenty-four deities are divided into two classes of twelve each, of whom the first are distinguished as the "great gods." It is possible that those placed in this class, whether twelve, or more, or fewer, obtained that distinction from being deified sooner than the others; and if they were originally men and women, it is likely enough that they existed sooner, being, as some think, antediluvians, whereas those of the second class, of whatever number, lived later, and were perhaps postdiluvians. We must confess, however, that we are much inclined to suspect that those of the first class were the personified stars and elements, worshipped prior to the introduction of deified mortals, and that it is in this sense they are called “great” and “most ancient," and that the others were deified mortals, assigned as presiding intelligences to the same stars and elements previously and afterwards thus personified and worshipped. This view is remarkably corroborated by our finding the great and popular divinities Osiris and Isis at the head, not of the first class, but of the second.

(1) PHTHA-SOKARIS.

(3) Sovк.

(7) CNOUPHIS.

(9) AMMON-RE.

FIRST CLASS.-1. Phtha (called Vulcan by the Greeks).-The sun; the same as Osiris, when the latter is considered as the sun only, and not a deified mortal. Their symbols then coincide. The deified beetle which so often appears on Egyptian remains was the peculiar symbol of Phtha, or the sun. This idol is said also to have represented the pure "eternal" fire, and, reflectively, the generating power of the world. This is he who issued from the mystic egg. 2. Anouke (Vesta), also fire: although both Phtha and Vesta are said to be emblems of fire, we very much suspect that Phtha symbolized heat, and Vesta flame. 3. Sovk (Saturn, or Chronos), thought to be the same with the well-known personage in classical mythology; the god of time, or rather, the emblem of time. 4. Rhea, Saturn's wife, probably represented the earth, as when adopted into classical mythology; and if so, this must have been one of the names and characters of the pantheistic Isis, who was not only the moon, but also the earth. 5. Ceres, or Isis as the goddess of agriculture, which Isis is said to have taught. 6. Neith (Minerva), or Isis as wisdom diffusing itself through all things: Isis frequently occurs in this form and character. Bouto (Latona), in our cut is one of the forms of Neith, and therefore of Isis. 7. Cnouphis or Canopus, the element of water, and particularly the Nile; a sort of Egyptian Neptune. As represented in our cut, he is regarded as a manifestation of the great god Cneph, an opinion which is rather sanctioned by the analogy of name. When represented with the attributes of Osiris, he is considered a mani

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(5*) ATHOR.

(11) SATE.

(6) Bouro.

(11) SEVEN. festation of Osiris. 8, 9, 10. Mythologists are perplexed about the Egyptian Jupiters, as mentioned by the Greeks; and they determine on three, that is, Jupiter, Ammon (confounded with Jupiter), and another Jupiter called Uranus. There is probably some difference; and Ammon in particular, of whose worship, under the symbol of a ram, Thebes was the centre, may be conceived to have been only another form of the god Cneph, the creator of the universe. If not, Ammon, though said to symbolize the universe itself, according to some accounts, but, according to others, the sun, must be resolved into Osiris. Our cut exhibits what is certainly Ammon; but whether the figure which the cut gives as that of Cnouphis (Cneph), with the head of another species of ram, be really the great deity, perhaps admits of a question. 11. Sate (Juno), Isis as queen of the lower world. The figures named Seven in the cuts are said to be representations of the same goddess as Juno Lucina, the protectress of maternity. 12. Mars; another manifestation of Osiris.

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(1*) PHRE.

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(11**) THOTH.

(8) CNOUPHIS-NILUS. SECOND CLASS. (Distinguished by an asterisk in the cuts.)-1. Osiris, already so much mentioned; symbolized by the bull and the hawk, and represented with the head of one or the other of these animals, or else in a human form, usually with horns, and an orb between them. Phré and Pooh, in the cuts, are also identified with Osiris as the sun.

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