Interestingly i find the considerations of Constantin Volney, the French historian at the time of the Revolution, regarding Egypt, more interesting than a lot of the later romanticized notions of Egyptian religion of the 19th century.


[www.rochester.edu]


[www.fullbooks.com]


A few choice quotes;


"It was, then, on the borders of the upper Nile, among a black race
of men, that was organized the complicated system of the worship of
the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth
and the labors of agriculture; and this first worship,
characterized by their adoration under their own forms and natural
attributes, was a simple proceeding of the human mind. But in a
short time, the multiplicity of the objects of their relations, and
their reciprocal influence, having complicated the ideas, and the
signs that represented them, there followed a confusion as singular
in its cause as pernicious in its effects.


"As soon as this agricultural people began to observe the stars
with attention, they found it necessary to individualize or group
them; and to assign to each a proper name, in order to understand
each other in their designation. A great difficulty must have
presented itself in this business: First, the heavenly bodies,
similar in form, offered no distinguishing characteristics by which
to denominate them; and, secondly, the language in its infancy and
poverty, had no expressions for so many new and metaphysical ideas.
Necessity, the usual stimulus of genius, surmounted everything.
Having remarked that in the annual revolution, the renewal and
periodical appearance of terrestrial productions were constantly
associated with the rising and setting of certain stars, and to
their position as relative to the sun, the fundamental term of all
comparison, the mind by a natural operation connected in thought
these terrestrial and celestial objects, which were connected in
fact; and applying to them a common sign, it gave to the stars, and
their groups, the names of the terrestrial objects to which they
answered.*


What is
most to be regretted in their loss is that part which related to
the principles of medicine and diet, in which the Egyptians appear
to have made a considerable progress, and to have delivered many
useful observations.


"There happened early on the borders of the Nile, what has since
been repeated in every country; as soon as a new system was formed
its novelty excited quarrels and schisms; then, gaining credit by
persecution itself, sometimes it effaced antecedent ideas,
sometimes it modified and incorporated them; then, by the
intervention of political revolutions, the aggregation of states
and the mixture of nations confused all opinions; and the filiation
of ideas being lost, theology fell into a chaos, and became a mere
logogriph of old traditions no longer understood. Religion, having
strayed from its object was now nothing more than a political
engine to conduct the credulous vulgar; and it was used for this
purpose, sometimes by men credulous themselves and dupes of their
own visions, and sometimes by bold and energetic spirits in pursuit
of great objects of ambition.




This Virgin has acted very different parts in the
various systems of mythology: she has been the Isis of the
Egyptians, who said of her in one of their inscriptions cited by
Julian, the fruit I have brought forth is the sun. The majority of
traits drawn by Plutarch apply to her, in the same manner as those
of Osiris apply to Bootes: also the seven principal stars of the
she-bear, called David's chariot, were called the chariot of Osiris
(See Kirker); and the crown that is situated behind, formed of ivy,
was called Chen-Osiris, the tree of Osiris. The Virgin has
likewise been Ceres, whose mysteries were the same with those of
Isis and Mithra; she has been the Diana of the Ephesians


They denote a prophet by theimage of a dog, because the dog star (Anoubis) by its rising gives notice of the inundation. Noubi, in Hebrew signifies prophet--They
represent inundation by a lion, because it takes place under that
sign: and hence, says Plutarch, the custom of placing at the gates
of temples figures of lions with water issuing from their mouths


"The hawk is an emblem of the sun and of light, on account of his
rapid flight and his soaring into the highest regions of the air
where light abounds.


They represent the world also by the number five, being that of
the elements, which, says Diodorus, are earth, water, air, fire,
and ether, or spiritus




"Ye priests! who murmur at this relation, you wear his emblems all
over your bodies; your tonsure is the disk of the sun; your stole
is his zodiac;* your rosaries are symbols of the stars and planets.
Ye pontiffs and prelates! your mitre, your crozier, your mantle are
those of Osiris; and that cross whose mystery you extol without
comprehending it, is the cross of Serapis, traced by the hands of
Egyptian priests on the plan of the figurative world; which,
passing through the equinoxes and the tropics, became the emblem of
the future life and of the resurrection, because it touched the
gates of ivory and of horn, through which the soul passed to
heaven."





Volney had a completely opposite attitude to that which developed in the 19th century, romanticized Theosophy, which was a great influence on early Egyptology, and which laid ancient Egyptian culture open to astonishing speculative notions, and still to this day has not been rectified.




Morph







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2007 07:29AM by Morph.