Lecture V. Animal Worship.
St. Clement of Alexandria thus describes the religion of his
Egyptian neighbours (Pædag.iii. 2):“Among (the Egyptians)
the temples are surrounded with groves and consecrated pastures;
they are provided with propylæa, and their courts are encircled
with an infinite number of columns; their walls glitter with
foreign marbles and paintings of the highest art; the sanctuary
is resplendent with gold and silver and electrum, and many-
coloured stones from India and Ethiopia; the shrine within it is
veiled by a curtain wrought with gold. But if you pass beyond
into the remotest part of the enclosure in the expectation of
beholding something yet more excellent, and look for the image
which dwells in the temple, apastophorusor some other minister,
singing a pæan in the Egyptian language with a pompous air,
draws aside a small portion of the curtain, as if about to show
us the god; and makes us burst into a loud laugh. For no god is
found therein, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent sprung from
the soil, or some such brute animal ... and the Egyptian deity is
revealed as a beast that rolls itself on a purple coverlet.”
St. Clement was a Christian philosopher and apologist, but
the animal worship of the Egyptians was quite as much an object
of ridicule to the pagan writers of Greece and Rome.“Who has
not heard,”says Juvenal (Sat. xv.),—“who has not heard, where [101]
Egypt's realms are named—
“What monster gods her frantic sons have framed?
Here Ibis gorged with well-grown serpents, there
The crocodile commands religious fear;...
And should you leeks or onions eat, no time
Would expiate the sacrilegious crime;
Religious nations sure, and blest abodes,
Where every orchard is o'errun with gods!”