108 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII 



trines of the Egyptian philosophers, fancy that they 

 are acquainted with all the wisdom of Egypt, though 

 they have never conversed with any of the priests, 

 nor received any information from persons initiated 

 into their mysteries. 



*' Greece,'* observes the Abbe Banier *, *' never 

 had but a confused idea of the liistory of her re- 

 ligion. Devoted without reserve on this important 

 point to her ancient poets, she looked upon them as 

 her first theologians; though these poets, as Strabot 

 judiciously remarks, either through ignorance of 

 antiquity, or to flatter the princes of Greece, had 

 arranged in their favour all the genealogies of the 

 Gods, in order to show that they were descended 

 from them. AVlienever, therefore, any heroes are 

 mentioned in their writings, we are sure to find 

 Hercules, Jupiter, or some other God at the head 

 of their genealogies ; and if the desire to pass for 

 very ancient is common to nearly all people, the 

 Greeks were, of all others, the most conspicuous for 

 this folly. It is, indeed, surprising that they, who 

 could not possibly be ignorant of their having re- 

 ceived many colonies from Egypt and Plioenicia, 

 and with them the Gods and ceremonies of their 

 religion, should venture to assert that those same 

 Deities were of Greek, or Thracian, or Phrygian 

 origin ; for it is to this conclusion that their poets 

 pretend to lead us. But two words of Herodotus, 

 who says that the Gods of Greece came from Egypt, 

 are preferable to all that their poets have put forth 



* La Mythologie expliquee par THistoire, vol.i. liv. 2. c. 5. 

 -f- Strabo, lib. x. 



