236 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



in his mention of Jupiter, Diodorus * had in view 

 the God Neph : Jupiter t, he observes, signifying, 

 among the P^gyptians, the Spirit, "being the cause 

 of Hfe in animals, and, therefore, the father of all" 

 The same idea may have led to the Greek and 

 Persian notion t, of Jupiter being the air which 

 surrounds the world. " If, as I have observed in a 

 previous work §, the sons of Ham taught their de- 

 scendants, the early inhabitants of Egypt, the true 

 worship of one spiritual and eternal Being, who had 

 disposed the order of the universe, divided the light 

 from the darkness, and ordained the creation of 

 mankind, the Egyptians, in process of time, for- 

 sook the pure ideas of a single Deity, by admitting 

 his attributes to a participation of that homage 

 which was due to the Divinity alone ;" and thus 

 the sole indivisible God was overlooked and be- 

 came at length totally unknown, except to those 

 who were admitted to ])articipate in the important 

 secret of his existence. 



Kneph, or more properly Neph or Nef ||, was 

 retained as the idea of the 'Spirit^ of God, which 

 moved upon the face of the waters.' But having 

 separated the Spirit from the creator of tlie uni- 

 verse, and purposing to set apart, and deify each at- 

 tribute which presented itself to their imagination, 



* Diodor. i. 12. 



f The name, Ai'c, Atoe, Oios, and the Latin Deus, are evidently from 

 the same origin ; the Deity par excellence. 



i. Ilerodot. i. 131. Conf. Hor. " Manet sub Jove frigido." I. Od. i. 25. 



§ Materia Hierog. Part i. p. 1, 2. 



jl Nef, which signified spirit or breath, is still retained in the Arabic 

 of the present day. The Emeph of lanibHchus was probably corrupted 

 from Kneph by the copyists. J7r/c p. 216. 243. 



t HorapoUo says, " the snake is the emblem of the Spirit which per- 

 vades the universe." 



