PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 51 



tion and oratory. When the Waganga [apparently the plural of Mganga] 

 pretended they could not find an answer the idols were consulted, and one 

 of the fetich men who was a clever ventriloquist made the necessary reply, 

 the poor dupes believing it to he spoken by the idol." 



Of ancient historic evidence readers will at once recall that 

 which the Hebrews yield. 



There is in the Bible clear proof that the ideas of law and of 

 divine will were equivalents. Their equivalence is shown alike 

 in the bringing down of the tables from Sinai and in the elaborate 

 code of regulations for life contained in Leviticus', where the 

 rules even for diet, agricultural operations, and commercial trans- 

 actions, are set down as prescribed by God. Still more specific 

 evidence, elucidating both the general theory of law and the func- 

 tions of the priestly class, is supplied by the following passages 

 from Deuteronomy : 



" If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood 

 and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being 

 matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get 

 thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose ; and thou 

 shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in 

 those days, and inquire ; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judg- 

 ment; and thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that 

 place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee." 



Moreover, beyond the often recurring injunction to " inquire of 

 the Lord," we have the example furnished by the authority and 

 actions of Samuel, who, dedicated to him from childhood was a 

 " prophet of the Lord," who as a priest built an altar, and, as we 

 see in the case of Agag, was the medium through whom God con- 

 veyed his commands, and who played the part of both judge and 

 executioner. 



Of course we may expect that Egypt with its long history fur- 

 nishes good evidence, and we find it. Here are relative facts from 

 three authorities Bunsen, Brugsch, and Erman. 



" That the oldest laws were ascribed to Hermes, implies however noth- 

 ing more than that the first germ of the civil law sprung from the Sacred 

 Books, and that it was based in part upon the religious tenets wliich they 

 contained." 



Mentu-hotep, a priest and official of the 12th dyn., on his tomb, 

 " prides himself on having been ' a man learned in the law, a legis- 

 lator.' " 



" The chief judge was always of highest degree ; if he was not one of the 

 king's own sons, he was chief priest of one of the great gods, an hereditary 

 prince." 



"All the judges of higher rank served Mo'at, the goddess of Truth, as 

 priests, and the chief judge wore a small figure of this goddess as a badge 

 round his neck." 



A court which held a sitting in the 46 of Ramses II consisted of 9 priests 



