existence which we should find, at the end of a few days, in the ambitious cities of the West, and I regretted that our year of travel, our twelve months of unrestrained life in the desert or the forest, had come to an end.
§ 5.—The Egyptian Religion and its Influence upon the Plastic Arts.
We have still to notice the profoundly religious character of Egyptian art. "The first thing that excites our surprise, when we examine the reproductions of Egyptian monuments which have been published in our day, is the extraordinary number of scenes of sacrifice and worship which have come down to us. In the collection of plates which we owe to contemporary archæologists, we can hardly find one which does not contain the figure of some deity, receiving with impassive countenance the prayers or offerings of a prostrate king or priest. One would say that a country with so many sacred pictures and sculptures, must have been inhabited by gods, and by just enough men for the service of their temples.[1] The Egyptians were a devout people. Either by natural tendency or by force of education, they saw God pervading the whole of their universe; they lived in Him and for Him. Their imaginations were full of His greatness, their words of His praise, and their literature was in great part inspired by gratitude for the benefits which He showered upon them. Most of their manuscripts which have come down to us treat of religious matters, and even in those which are ostensibly concerned only with profane subjects, mythological names and allusions occur on every page, almost at every line."[2]
An examination into the primitive religious beliefs of the Egyptians is full of difficulty. In discovering new papyri, in
- ↑ The saying of one of the characters of Petronius might be applied to Egypt: "This country is so thickly peopled with divinities that it is easier to find a god than a man." The place held by religious observances in the daily life of Egypt is clearly indicated by Herodotus (ii. 37): "The Egyptians," he says, "are very religious; they surpass all other nations in the adoration with which they regard their deities."
- ↑ Maspero, Histoire ancienne, pp. 26, 27.
