gion were already numbered when the book of Jamblichos was written. Constantine was reigning, and the gods of Egypt were already being deserted by their worshippers, who transferred their devotion to Christianity in one of its austerest forms. A very few years after the work of Jamblichos was written, the emperor Valens issued an edict against the monks of Egypt, and a detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand men, was sent into the desert of Nitria to compel the able-bodied ascetics who had retired thither to enlist in the imperial armies. In the next generation, Gibbon tells us, "The stately and populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices and even the ramparts, to pious and charitable uses; and the bishop who might preach in twelve churches computed 10,000 females and 20,000 males of the monastic profession. The Egyptians, who gloried in this marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope and to believe that the number of monks was equal to the remainder of the people."

We have unfortunately no history of the gradual conversion of the Egyptians to Christianity. But when we compare the notions of the Divinity as contained in the authorized books of Egyptian theology with those which we ourselves hold, we cannot but ask whether so intelligent a people never came nearer to the truth than their most recent books would appear to show.

What, then, do we mean by God? I will not venture to use my own words, but will use those of one of the greatest masters of the English language.

True Notion of God.

"I mean, then, by the Supreme Being, one who is simply self-dependent, and the only Being who is such; moreover, that he is without beginning, or eternal; that in consequence he has lived a whole eternity by himself; and hence that he is all-sufficient, sufficient for his own blessedness, and all-blessed, and everblessed. Further, I mean a Being who, having these prerogatives, has the supreme Good, or rather is the supreme Good, or has all the attributes of Good in infinite intenseness; all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all beautifulness; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; ineffably one, absolutely perfect; and such that we do not know, and cannot even imagine of him, is far more wonderful than what we do and can. I mean, moreover, that he created all things out of nothing, and preserves them every moment, and could destroy them as easily as he made them; and that in consequence he is separated from them by an abyss, and is incommunicable in all his attributes. And farther, he has stamped upon all things, in the hour of their creation, their respective nature, and has given them their work and mission, and their length of days,

greater or less, in their appointed place. I mean, too, that he is ever present with his works, one by one, and confronts everything he has made by his particular and most loving Providence, and manifests himself to each according to its needs; and has on rational beings imprinted the moral law, and given them power to obey it, imposing on them the duty of worship and service, searching and scanning them through and through with his omniscient eye, and putting before them a present trial and a judgment to come."

Now as I carefully examine each paragraph of this beautiful passage (in which many will at once recognize the language of John Henry Newman),1 I am obliged to acknowledge that single parallel passages to match can be quoted from Egyptian far more easily than either from Greek or from Roman religious literature. I am not speaking of philosophy, which both in Greece and Rome was generally subversive of the popular religion. Where shall we find a heathen Greek or Latin saying like that of a papyrus on the staircase of the British Museum: "The great God, Lord of heaven and of earth, who made all things which are"? Or where shall we find such a prayer in heathen Greek or Roman times as this: "O my God and Lord, who hast made me, and formed me, give me an eye to see and an ear to hear thy glories"? On the other hand,

1 "Idea of a University," p. 60 and following.

passages like these are constantly accompanied by others in which the old polytheistic language is used without hesitation. Some phrases, again, are ambiguous, and if their true sense be a good one, the popular interpretation may be a bad one. No words can more distinctly express the notion of "self-existent Being" than chepera cheper t'esef, words which very frequently occur in Egyptian religious texts. But the word chepera signifies scarabaeus as well as being, and the scarabaeus was in fact an object of worship, as a symbol of divinity. How many Egyptians accepted the words in a sense which we ourselves should admit to be correct? Was there really, as is frequently asserted, an esoteric doctrine known to the scribes and priests alone, as distinct from the popular belief? No evidence has yet been produced in favour of this hypothesis.

Henotheism.

The nature of Henotheism as distinct from Monotheism was explained in last year's Lectures as a phase of religious thought in which the individual gods invoked are not conceived as limited by the power of others. "Each god is to the mind of the suppliant as good as all the gods. He is felt at the time as a real divinity, as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which to our mind a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest

disappear from the vision, . . .... and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers."1

This phase of religious thought is chiefly presented to us in a large number of hymns, beginning with the earliest days of the eighteenth dynasty. It is certainly much more ancient, but the literature, properly speaking, of the older period is very small. None of the hymns of that time have come down to us.

One of the most interesting hymns to Osiris is engraved on a funereal tablet now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and was published and translated in 1857 by M. Chabas. The ancient date of it is marked by the hammering out of it of the name Amon, during the period of the sun-disk worshippers. It probably belongs to the time of Tehutimes III.

Osiris is called "Lord of eternity, king of the gods, of many names, of holy transformations, of mysterious forms in the temples.. He is the substance of the world, Atmu, feeder of beings among the gods, beneficent spirit in the abode of spirits. From him the (celestial ocean) Nu derives its waters, from him comes the wind, and respirable air is in his nostrils for his satisfaction and the taste of his heart. For him the ground brings forth its abundance; in obedience to

1 Max Müller, "Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by the Religions of India," p. 285.