d soon have become a sacerdotal country from one end
to the other. Even when reduced by periodic usurpations, the domain of
the gods formed, at all periods, about one-third of the whole country.*

* The tradition handed down by Diodorus tells us that the
goddess Isis assigned a third of the country to the priests;
the whole of Egypt is said to have been divided into three
equal parts, the first of which belonged to the priests, the
second to the kings, and the third to the warrior class.
When we read, in the great Harris Papyrus, the list of the
property possessed by the temple of the Theban Amon alone,
all over Egypt, under Ramses III., we can readily believe
that the tradition of the Greek epoch in no way exaggerated
matters.

Its administration was not vested in a single body of Priests,
representing the whole of Egypt and recruited or ruled everywhere in
the same fashion. There were as many bodies of priests as there were
temples, and every temple preserved its independent constitution with
which the clergy of the neighbouring temples had nothing to do: the
only master they acknowledged was the lord of the territory on which
the temple was built, either Pharaoh or one of his nobles. The tradition
which made Pharaoh the head of the different worships in Egypt*
prevailed everywhere, but Pharaoh soared too far above this world
to confine himself to the functions of any one particular order of
priests: he officiated before all the gods without being specially
the minister of any, and only exerted his supremacy in order to make
appointments to important sacerdotal posts in his domain.**

* The only exception to this rule was in the case of the
Theban kings of the XXIst dynasty, and even here the
exception is more apparent than real. As a matter of fact,
these kings, Hrihor and Pinozmu, began by being high priests
of Amon before ascending the throne; they were pontiffs who
became Pharaohs, not Pharaohs who created themselves
pontiffs. Possibly we ought to place Smonkhari of the XIVth
dynasty in the same category, if, as Brugsch assures us, his
name, Mir-mashau, is identical with the title of the high
priest of Osiris at Mendes, thus proving that he was pontiff
of Osiris in that town before he became king.

** Among other instances, we have that of the king of the
XXIst Tanite dynasty, who appointed Mankh