CHAP. Xril. EARLY MODE OF WORSHIP. ^91 



could only be the visions of speculators (like the 

 many allegorical fancies, to which facts mentioned 

 in the Bible hav^e been doomed to submit by the 

 Cabbala), forming no part of their religious belief, 

 and unsupported by the authority of monuments. 



In my Pantheon, I had introduced Re among the 

 eight great Deities, in consequence of the important 

 station he holds in the temples, both of the Upper 

 and Lower Country ; but, as before observed*, it is 

 probable that Amun-re and Re were not of the same 

 class of Gods, since the Intellectual was of more 

 consequence than the Physical Sun, and Manetho 

 calls him the son of Pthah ; I have therefore placed 

 him among those of the second order. 



If the Egyptians, like some other Eastern people, 

 adopted at first a Sabacan mode of worship t, and 

 afterwards substituted for it the deification of va- 

 rious attributes of the Deity himself, there would be 

 reason to suppose that the Sun once held the first 

 l^lace in their Pantheon, and was not removed from 

 it till they had learnt to consider the divine mind 

 of the Creator superior to the work he had created. 

 But it is now impossible to settle this question; 

 and it will probably always remain uncertain, if 

 that was the primitive mode of worship in Egypt, 

 or if their religion was corrupted from the origin- 

 ally pure idea communicated to them by the early 

 descendants of Noah, who established themselves 

 in the valley of the Nile. The great importance 

 of the name of Re may seem to argue in favour 



* Snpra, p. 210. 228.246. 



f Supra, p. 209. 242. Y'ldc Diodor. i. 1 1. 



u 2 



