Lecture VIII. The Sacred Books.
Like all other organised religions, that of ancient Egypt had its
sacred books. According to St. Clement of Alexandria, the
whole body of sacred literature was contained in a collection of
forty-two books, the origin of which was ascribed to the god
Thoth. The first ten of these“Hermetic”volumes were entitled
“the Prophet,”and dealt with theology in the strictest sense of
the term. Then followed the ten books of“the Stolist,”in which
were to be found all directions as to the festivals and processions,
as well as hymns and prayers. Next came the fourteen books
of“the Sacred Scribe,”containing all that was known about the
hieroglyphic system of writing, and the sciences of geometry
and geography, astronomy, astrology, and the like. These were
followed by two books on music and hymnology; and, finally,
six books on the science and practice of medicine.^149
The Hermetic books were written in Greek, and were a
compilation of the Greek age. Such a systematic epitome of the
learning of ancient Egypt belonged to the period when Egyptian
religion had ceased to be creative, or even progressive, and [182]
the antiquarian spirit of Greek Alexandria had laid hold of the
traditions and institutions of the past. But they were derived from
genuine sources, and represented with more or less exactitude
the beliefs and practices of earlier generations. They were, it
is true, a compilation adapted to Greek ideas and intended to
satisfy the demands of Greek curiosity, but it is no less true
that the materials out of which they were compiled went back
to the remotest antiquity. The temple libraries were filled with
rolls of papyri relating not only to the minutest details of the
(^149) Clem. Alex. Strom.vi. p. 260, ed. Sylb. See Lepsius,Einleitung
zur Chronologie der Aegypter, pp. 45, 46. The remains ascribed to Hermes
Trismegistos, including the Dialogue calledPœmandres, have been translated
into English by J. D. Chambers (1882). The Dialogue is already quoted by
Justin Martyr (Exhort. ad Græcos, xxxviii.).