ch was for the whole people, consisted of the mythological
accounts of Isis and Osiris, the judgments of the dead, the transmigration
of the soul, and all matters connected with the ceremonial worship of the
gods. But the interior, hidden theology is supposed to have related to the
unity and spirituality of the Deity.

Herodotus informs us that the gods of the Egyptians were in three orders;
and Bunsen believes that he has succeeded in restoring them from the
monuments. There are eight gods of the first order, twelve gods of the
second order, and seven gods of the third order. The gods of the third
order are those of the popular worship, but those of the first seem to be
of a higher and more spiritual class. The third class of gods were
representative of the elements of nature, the sun, fire, water, earth,
air. But the gods of the first order were the gods of the priesthood,
understood by them alone, and expressing ideas which they shrank from
communicating to the people. The spiritual and ideal part of their
religion the priests kept to themselves as something which the people were
incapable of understanding. The first eight gods seem to have been a
representation of a process of divine development or emanation, and
constituted a transition from the absolute spiritualism of the Hindoos to
the religion of nature and humanity in the West. The Hindoo gods were
emanations of spirit: the gods of Greece are idealizations of Nature. But
the Egyptian gods represent spirit passing into matter and form.

Accordingly, if we examine in detail the gods of the first order, who are
eight, we find them to possess the general principle of self-revelation,
and to constitute, taken together, a process of divine development. These
eight, according to Bunsen, are Amn, or Ammon; Khem, or Chemmis; Mut, the
Mother Goddess; Num, or Kneph; Seti, or Sate; Phtah, the Artist God; Net,
or Neith, the Goddess of Sais; and Ra, the Sun, the God of Heliopolis. But
according to Wilkinson they stand in a little different order: 1. Neph, or
Kneph; 2. Amun, or Ammon; 3. Pthah; 4. Khem; 5. Sate; 6. Maut, or Mut; 7.
Pasht, or Diana; and 8. Neith, or Minerva, in which list Pasht, the
Goddess of Bubastis, is promoted out of the second order and takes the
place of Ra, the Sun, who is degraded.

Supposing these lists to be substantially correct, we have, as the root of
the series, Ammon, the Concealed God, or Absolute Spirit. His titles
indicate this dignity. Th