OUR brief stay in Egypt was now drawing rapidly to a close, but there still remained one Scriptural spot which we had not visited, namely, Heliopolis, the ancient On, which lies some six miles to the north of Cairo. Our route, at the commencement, lay through a maze of bazaars and small streets. We in England can have no idea, unless we have visited the East, how rigidly the sun is excluded there; hence the tall and overlapping houses, and the narrow bazaars, which only just give room to pass down them, and which render the inevitable encounter with a loaded camel so perilous. Time and tide are said to wait for no man, and camels may be safely added to the list. Onward they come, their great elastic feet making no sound upon the stony street, and if your attention is otherwise attracted the first notification of their presence is the blow which you receive from a block of stone weighing a couple of hundredweight, or some such similar trifle, which is ordinarily seen upon camels' backs.
Vociferating loudly, his presence no doubt originally necessitated by the narrowness of the thoroughfares and the abounding obstructions, runs a brilliantly uniformed cavass, clearing the way before his Turkish master. And even he has a Biblical interest for us, for was not John the Baptist endowed with the same office as forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ?
But perhaps we ought to explain what an Eastern bazaar is like. Imagine, then, a narrow alley, covered in wholly or in part, and lined on either side with a series of booths about two yards square, crossed-legged in which, with their chibouques in their mouths, and the slippers and coffee by their sides, the respective proprietors squat. And notice there is no mixture of wares in the East, as with us. Here we are in the shoemakers' bazaar, and, as far as the eye can see, it rests on shoes-shoes red, shoes green, shoes with pointed toes and shoes with broad, rough shoes for the fellaheen, and dainty gold-embroidered slippers for the ladies of the harem. And now again we are in the coppersmiths' bazaar, where they are manufacturing elaborate swinging lamps, or hammering out embossed platters and bowls. From the deafening din of this bazaar we gladly escape, perhaps, into the carpet bazaar, or we turn aside to the jewel bazaar, or where phials of attar of roses, scarce an inch high, at a sovereign a bottle, are to be purchased. Through such scenes as these, with many a shout of " Ouar-r-r Inglik " (" Take care -an Englishman ") from our donkey-boy, we pursue our way, until we emerge into broader streets, lined with large houses, where, our donkey-boy explains, the "Jew-man" lives, and so debouch into the open country at last.
Having passed the barracks, we halt at a gateway to a garden, and dismount to inspect the Virgin's tree, a gnarled old sycamore, where by tradition the Virgin rested on the flight into Egypt. The garden is intersected by runnels of delicious water, said to have been miraculously made so at the same time. Needless to say, we pay no heed to such traditions; but it is interesting to watch the way by which the water is raised from the well by a contrivance, called a “sakiyeh." This consists of a number of pitchers fastened round a wheel, which is made to revolve vertically by cogs and a beam worked by oxen above. As the wheel revolves the pitchers first fill themselves in the well below, and then rise, and, in turning to descend, empty their contents into a shoot, so contrived as to catch the water without interfering with the pitchers themselves.
Remounting our donkey, a few minutes suffice to bring us to the foot of the obelisk of Heliopolis—all that now remains to mark the site of On, the first university in the world. Here it was that the cult of Ra, the sun-god, flourished, hence its Greek name Heliopolis, i.e., city of the sun. This was the spot which witnessed the nuptials of Joseph with the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On; here, doubtless, it was that Moses; as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, for the priests of Egypt, like the Roman priesthood in medieval times, were the depositaries of learning in their day. And many a time, doubtless, has the great Law-giver stood at the foot of the obelisk, meditating perhaps the deliverance of his people. Hither in a later day, attracted by the world-wide name of the city, came, as learners, those learned Greeks, Herodotus, and Plato, and Eudoxus. But now its glories have departed, and the obelisk alone remains to testify to the fulfillment of God's word, “He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh” (i.e., the "house of the sun"), that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire." (Jer. 43:1313He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire. (Jeremiah 43:13).)
Returning to Cairo, it was the writer's great privilege to be invited to the Palais Matatia, the residence of Dr. Grant Bey, the well-known Egyptologist, to hear him deliver a lecture on his favorite subject, and it is to him that he owes the following particulars of the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians.
Manetho, an Egyptian priest, writing in Greek a history of his country and people, at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus, for the Grand Library of Alexandria, tells us that the history of Egypt, as gathered from the hieroglyphic archives in the temple libraries, was divided into two periods, viz., the mythical and historical. These periods were again sub-divided into dynasties, of which the mythical period had four, and the historical thirty, the latter ending with Nectanebo II., the last Pharaoh of Egyptian blood.
As the ancient Egyptian religious beliefs were derived from the mythical period, we will confine ourselves to the consideration of it, and its four dynasties.
The first dynasty consisted of the rule of gods (corresponding with the Hebrew Elohim) over nature and the lower creation, and comprised the creation of the world.
The second dynasty was marked by the rule or gods over the higher creation, man! It was distinguished from the first dynasty by the existence of man, and by the fact that the gods not only ruled over man, but had intercourse with him.
The third dynasty displayed the rule of demi-gods over man. From some cause, which Manetho does not explain, the gods were obliged to withdraw themselves from man. The latter, who was naturally religious, was ill at ease, owing to their withdrawal, so the gods had pity on him, and since man could not raise himself to the level of the gods, the latter lowered themselves to man's level by partaking of his nature, and thus, as demi-gods, they came again to earth to rule over and have friendly intercourse with the human race.
This was taught the people allegorically, thus: the sky was deified, and called Nut (pronounced Noot), a goddess, and the earth was deified, and called Seb, a god. These married, and there was born to them a family, partly celestial, partly terrestrial, the more prominent among whom were Osiris, who married his sister Isis, and Set, who married his sister Nephthis.
Osiris, who was the personification of everything good, had his seat of government at Abydos, but frequently went on journeys for the sake of benefiting his subjects. All was happiness and contentment till undue ambition on the part of Set led him to conspire against his brother and to slay him.
Henceforth Set became the personification of what was evil, and usurped the place of Osiris.
But even as Isis, in great distress, wept over her dead husband, she miraculously conceived, and in due time gave birth to 'Torus, who was destined to wage war against Set, and to overcome him.
Now we may well pause, and ask ourselves whether under the teaching of the priests of On there did not lie the germs of the great doctrine of Atonement; of the Seed of the woman whose heel the serpent should bruise in death, but who, rising from the dead, should bruise the serpent's head?
But quite apart from any analogy which may exist between the Egyptian system and Christian revelation, the student of Church history will note, with interest, the fact that the Church of Rome adopted its idolatrous worship from the Egyptians. For the latter worshipped Osiris, Isis, and Horus, as a triad; and Isis, who is so frequently represented with the child Horus on her knee, give rise to the combination of the Madonna and Child; and we may he sure that pagans the more readily embraced a Christianity which did not rob them of their idolatry, but merely bade them exchange the worship of Isis or Ashtoreth for that of the Madonna.
Dr. Grant Bey's concluding words are so weighty that we give them verbatim. "It is my opinion that the primitive Egyptians had a true revelation from God of man's loss of God's favor, and of God's plan of redemption by a God-man Savior. It is not difficult to trace up this revelation to Paradise itself, where primitive man had God as his schoolmaster. That this pure and spiritual religion ultimately became debased and even filthy, goes without saying."
Let us beware that our pure and spiritual Christianity does not become simply materialistic and ceremonial, having a name without power. Do you suppose there is no idol worshipped among us? Is bowing to an altar any less idolatrous than bowing to an image that represents God, or some attribute of God? If we do not address the sun in words, we perhaps unwittingly adore that luminary in our church service by turning to the east. Let us take warning from the Egyptians, and eschew material and ritualistic forms substituted for spiritual truths.
In our English church at Cairo we have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, for on one of our stained windows there is a kingly personage, seated on a throne that might do for a David or a Solomon, but he is labeled, not to say libeled, the "Lord of Hosts." Christ in His teaching used mind pictures, not eye pictures, when He would have men understand spiritual truth. May Christ preserve the Church from idolatry.' To which we would add our unfeigned "Amen." J. F.
[Figures of the goddess Isis seated, of bronze or porcelain, have been found in great numbers. They are generally of the period of the 26th dynasty, about B.C. 630, and continue till the period of the Roman conquest B.C. 30.]