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directly to the gods furnish authentic information of the theo- 
logy of Egypt, and is the moi’e valuable as a very earnest 
apologist of that theology, he represents it under the most 
favourable aspect. 
It would seem that he keeps monotheism out of sight until 
it is forced on him by the suggestions of his adversary. When 
treating on gods and spirits (sect. iv. chap. 1) he speaks of 
multitudes of gods, some more excellent than others ; then on 
a sort of judicial spirits of a middle class, which make distinc- 
tion between good and evil ; and after these a third set of 
spirits, irrational and incapable of judgment; besides other 
spirits, utterly bad and pestilential. But he endeavours to 
justify their evil doings by a consideration that gods and 
spirits have a standard of justice very different from that of 
men (chap. 4). Some of the gods of Egypt govern matter, 
and others have power over spirit (chap. 14). Some are 
to be worshipped with the body, and others with the mind 
(chap. 16). Few men are wise enough to calculate their 
number (chap. 21) ; fewer still, if any, are capable of worship- 
ping all the gods within the lifetime of a man (chap. 22). 
Certain things, or certain animals, are acceptable to certain 
gods, but man is acceptable to all of them, and everywhere 
he is a sacred object (chap. 24). Mistakes in sacrificing to 
the gods, so that to every one of them the animal peculiarly 
consecrated, and no other, be offered, are to be carefully 
avoided (chap. 25); and the same caution must be observed as 
to the prayers chosen for presentation to this or that god 
(chap. 26). Jamblicus confesses that the Egyptians are less 
careful than the Chaldeans to avoid confounding demons with 
gods, and that they not only address threatenings to demons, 
but presume to threaten the gods, not even excepting the great 
ones, Isis and Osiris (sec. v. chap. 7). 
Passing beyond these generalities, on which I have touched 
very slightly, he endeavours to expound the theology of the 
Egyptians in a chapter on the god Ka, or the Sun, whom they 
believe to be the Ruler of the World. This chapter reads as 
follows : — 
“Hear, then, according to the mind of the Egyptians, the intellectual 
interpretation of symbols ; but dismiss from your imagination whatever you 
may hear as to the visible images of symbolic things, and fix your attention 
on the intellectual truth itself. 
“ Clay, therefore, you must understand to be all that which is corporeal and 
material : either nutrition and generation, or whatever appearance of mate- 
rial nature, agitated with the changing flows of matter ; or whatever contains 
