CHAP. XIII. THOTH THE INTELLECT. 9 



liaving been chosen as an emblem of" sin. ^lian 

 says, *' they sacrifice a sow to the Moon once a 

 year;" which statement is confirmed by Herodotus, 

 who asserts, that " the only Deities to whom the 

 Egyptians are permitted to offer the pig are the 

 Moon and Bacchus (Osiris)." But he makes no 

 mention of Typho ; and the supposed "discovery of 

 the body of Osiris by Typho, while hunting a wild 

 boar at the full Moon*," would rather lead them to 

 offer it to Osiris than to Typho. For as Plutarch 

 himself confesses, *' the opinion of the Egyptians 

 was that sacrifices ought not to be of things in 

 themselves agreeable to the Gods, but, on the con- 

 trary, of creatures into which the souls of the 

 wicked have passed t ;" and the pig was an emblem 

 ofEvih 



I have observed that Thoth, in one of his cha- 

 racters, corresponded to the Moon, in the other to 

 Mercury. In the former, he was the beneficent 

 property of that luminary, the regulator and dis- 

 penser of time, who presided over the fate of man, 

 and the events of his life : in the latter, the God 

 of letters and the patron of learning, and the means 

 of communication between the Gods and man- 

 kind. It was through him that all mental gifts 

 were imparted to man. He was, in short, a dei- 

 fication of the abstract idea of the intellect, or 

 a personification of the intellect of the Deity. 

 This accords well with a remark of lamblichus, 

 that Hermes was the God of all celestial knowledge, 

 which being communicated by him to the priests, 



* Plut. de Is. s. 18. t Pint, de Is. s. 31. 



