e willingly yielded
to the means of seduction brought to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself
had arranged the ceremonial in a kind of contract formerly made with his
worshippers and gradually perfected from age to age by the piety of new
generations.[**] Above all things, he insisted on physical cleanliness.
The officiating priest must carefully wash--_uabu_--his face, mouth,
hands, and body; and so necessary was this preliminary purification
considered, that from it the professional priest derived his name of
_uibu_, the washed, the clean.[***]

* This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the
temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for
instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is
represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic
times was but an image, had originally been a reality.

** The most striking example of the divine institution of
religious services is furnished by the inscription relating
the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Ra,
where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension
into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.

*** The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such
variants as _uibu totui_, "clean of both hands," found on
stelae instead of the simple title _uibu_. We also know, on
the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care
which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as
a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered
into the conception of a priest.

His costume was the archaic dress, modified according to circumstances.
During certain services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was
incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder,
and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he
must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take
the shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach
a false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the
way in which it was to be brought and bound, the manner and details of
its slaughter, the order to be followed in opening its body and cutting
it up, were all minutely and unchangeably decreed. And these were but
the least of the divine exactions, and those most easily satisfied. The
formulas accompanying each act of the sacrificial priest contained