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a gross and complicated polytheism, which it was apparently for the
interest of the priesthood to perpetuate.

The Egyptian religion was the worship of the powers of Nature,--the sun,
the moon, the planets, the air, the storm, light, fire, the clouds, the
rivers, the lightning, all of which were supposed to exercise a
mysterious influence over human destiny. There was doubtless an
indefinite sense of awe in view of the wonders of the material universe,
extending to a vague fear of some almighty supremacy over all that could
be seen or known. To these powers of Nature the Egyptians gave names,
and made them divinities.

The Egyptian polytheism was complex and even contradictory. What it
lost in logical sequence it gained in variety. Wilkinson enumerates
seventy-three principal divinities, and Birch sixty-three; but there
were some hundreds of lesser gods, discharging peculiar functions and
presiding over different localities. Every town had its guardian deity,
to whom prayers or sacrifices were offered by the priests. The more
complicated the religious rites the more firmly cemented was the power
of the priestly caste, and the more indispensable were priestly services
for the offerings and propitiations.

Of these Egyptian deities there were eight of the first rank; but the
list of them differs according to different writers, since in the great
cities different deities were worshipped. These were Ammon--the
concealed god,--the sovereign over all (corresponding to the Jupiter of
the Romans), whose sacred city was Thebes. At a later date this god was
identified with Ammon Ra, the physical sun. Ra was the sun-god,
especially worshipped at Heliopolis,--the symbol of light and heat.
Kneph was the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters, whose
principal seat of worship was in Upper Egypt. Phtha was a sort of
artisan god, who made the sun, moon, and the earth, "the father of
beginnings;" his sign was the scarabaeus, or beetle, and his patron city
was Memphis. Khem was the generative principle presiding over the
vegetable world,--the giver of fertility and lord of the harvest. These
deities are supposed to have represented spirit passing into matter and
form,--a process of divine incarnation.

But the most popular deity was Osiris. His image is found standing on
the oldest monument, a form of Ra, the light of the lower world, and
king and judge of Hades. His worship was universal throughout Egypt, but
his chief t