81 
of the Past , vol. iv. p. 93), nothing has been discovered : but it would be wholly 
coutrary to human experience to suppose that in a religion which flourished 
for more than 3,000 years there were no important variations of faith such 
as would constitute distinct creeds with subtly-defined systems of exposition. 
We have unfortuatcly only the orthodox texts, which were probably, I might 
almost write certainly, accepted by all parties. How these texts were in- 
terpreted by the various bodies of sectarian teachers within the Egyptian 
clergy we have no means of knowing. Judging from the analogy of Chris- 
tianity, while Protestants, Homan Catholics, and Anglicans agree in accept- 
ing the Bible and the Hymns of the Early Church as authentic, yet their 
deductions of the doctrines therein contained are so various and so opposed 
that without their respective commentaries a very imperfect idea of the 
religious state of Europe would be obtained, and an outsider describing 
Christianity from the Bible and Hymn Book alone would give a hopelessly 
incorrect account of the religions of Europe which yet are all generally 
called Christian. Hence it is quite likely that a Horus text of the XHtlx 
Dynasty and another of the XVIIIth, though employing exactly similar 
phrases, would at those periods be accepted and understood in a widely 
different sense ; and even in the same dynasty precisely similar formulae of 
adoration or deprecation would be interpreted in a diametrically opposite 
manner, according as they were read at Syene in Upper Egypt or at Memphis 
in the Delta. All these elements of discordance must be accepted as at 
present insoluble, and therefore too hastily formed analogies or contrarieties, 
either for or against the divine conception of Christianity, must not be educed 
from the Myth of Horus. 
The Chairman (C. Brooke, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., Y.P.). — I am sure you will 
unite with me in returning our best thanks to Mr. Cooper for his very able 
exposition of Egyptian mythology,* and to the Itev. T. M. Gorman for the 
pleasing manner in which he has read it. It is now open for any present to 
offer remarks upon the paper. 
Rev. Canon Titcomb. — The suggestive and valuable paper, which has 
been read, contains so much important matter that we should be wrong in 
not fairly dealing with the questions which arise out of it. The point of 
greatest interest will, I think, lie in a discussion as to how' far infidelity 
has a right to say that the theology of the Bible was borrowed from Egypt, 
instead of being, as we believe, a distinct aud independent revelation from 
heaven. This, at all events, will be the subject to which I shall now address 
myself. 
* As there are instances of a similarity in the language of some Egyptian 
records with that of Holy Scnpture, a careful inquiry into the cause cannot be 
unimportant , when there arc those who would attribute an Egyptian origin to 
the statements in the latter . — Ed. 
YOL. XII. 
a 
