by the mediation of others; and alfo to have Year of the first given names to the twelve Gods.

* They had a great many deities of different ranks and orders. Those who were chiefly honoured in Egypt, were Ofiris and Ifis, by which it is most probable they originally meant the fun and the moon, whofe influences governed and preferved the world; those two planets being reckoned by them, the great causes of nutrition and generation, and as it were, the fources from whence the

other parts of nature, which also they looked upon as Gods, and to which they gave diftinct names, were derived. These were Jupiter, or spirit, the vis vivica of living creatures; Vulcan, or fire; Ceres, or the earth ; Oceanus, (by which the Egyptians meant their Nile) or moisture; and Minerva, or

air.

Befides these celeftial or eternal Gods, they had also terrestrial and mortal deities, which had merited the honours paid them. by the benefits they conferred on mankind B 2

* Pliny's Natural History, book x. chap. 66.

in

flood, 352before Chrift

1996.

Year of the in their life time, feveral of them having

flood 35

before Chrift been kings of Egypt: fome of these bore the

1996.

fame names with the celeftial Gods, and

but

others had proper names of their own; such were the Sun, Chronus or Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, (called by them Ammon) Juno, Vulcan, Vesta, Hermes or Mercury, Orus, Venus, Pan, and others. Serapis is said to have been an upftart deity, introduced by one of the Ptolemies at Alexandria: others fuppofe that to be only another name for Ofiris, who was alfo called Bacchus. As Ofiris was fuppofed to have been of a good and beneficent nature, fo his brother Typhon was esteemed the reverfe, and held in univerfal deteftation, for the evils brought by him on his family and nation. Though the bodies of these mortal deities remained in their fepulchres on earth, yet they believed their fouls fhone in the ftars in heaven; the foul of Ifis in particular in the dog ftar, called by them Sothis; the foul of Orus in Orion; and that of Typhon in the bear *

Notwithstanding this polytheism of the Egyptians, they are said, in reality, to have

* Plutarch, page 362.

acknow

food 352

before Christ

.1996.

acknowledged one fupreme God, the maker Year of the and ruler of the world, whom they fometimes denoted by the name of Ofiris or Serapis, fometimes by that of Ifis, and at other times by that of Neith, on whose temple at Sais was the following remarkable inscription:

I am all that hath been, is, and shall be, and my veil hath no mortal yet uncovered *.'

There is also an infcription to Ifis, ftill remaining at Capua, to this effect.

To thee, who, being one, art all things, the goddess of ‹ Ifis.

The inhabitants of Thebais, are reported to have worshipped only the immortal and unbegotten God Cneph, or Emeph; for which reason they were exempt from all contributions towards the maintenance of the facred animals which were worshipped in the lower Egypt +.

From this God Cneph, they fuppofed a fecondary God proceeded, reprefenting the world, and was called Phtha, which word is

B 3

at

• Plutarch, page 354.

+ Idem, page 359.

Year of the at prefent ufed among the Copts, to fignify

flood 352

before Chriit the divine being.

1996.

However the idolatrous humour, which pevailed at first, perhaps only in some parts of Egypt, appears at length to have entirely over-run it, and, what feems scarcely credible, they came at length to bestow divine honours on feveral amimals, nay even on vegetables; as leeks and onions; and that with fo great variety and difagreement among themselves, that, except fome of the principal Gods, who were honoured all over the kingdom, the worship of every deity was confined to one or two cities or provinces; whence it come to pafs, that a great number of the chief cities of Egypt, were by the Grecians named after the Gods or animals that were worshipped there: as Diofpolis, or the city of Jupiter, Heliopolis, or the city of the fun; and in the fame manner, others bore the names of Pan, Apollo, Latona, Hermes, Hercules, and Venus, and alfo of the dog, the lion, the wolfe, the crocodile, &c.

if

This diverfity of worship was fometimes at tended with very ill confequences, efpecially their deities happened to be fuch as were naturally enemies to one another; the inhabitants of one place, often paying their adoration to that kind of animals which were held in the greatest abhorrence by their neighbours. Hence proceeded inveterate quarrels and dangerous wars; as happened in particular between those of Heracleopolis who worshipped the Ichneumon, and those of Arfinoe, who worshipped the crocodile ; and to mention no more between the cities of Oxyrynchus and Cynopolis, the former of which facrificed and eat dogs, the deity of the latter, in revenge for their eating that fort of fish which was the object of their own worship *. It was thought, however, that the kings themfelves, out of policy, firft occafioned, or at leaft encouraged and fomented these diffentions, to divert the people from attempting any thing against the state; for Diodorus tells us that one of their first and most prudent kings finding the Egyptians very prone to fedition, enjoined to each province the worship of some particular animal; different from