"At the sacred games at Olympia, immediately after the immolation of the bull in honour of the God called Myiodes, whole clouds of the flies take their departure from that territory."—IBID. 1. XXIX. c. 34. Incredible as it may appear, flies were in many places worshipped. "At Actium they sacrifice an ox to the flies."-ÆLIAN. Hist. anim. 1. II. c. 8. Flies are often mentioned as the instruments of Divine vengeance, as in Isaiah VII. 18. "I will hiss for the fly of Egypt." In the fable of Io, the fly is sent to torment her. -Stung with that heaven-sent pest "Io: From land to land, a wanderer, I'm driven." "PELASGUS: What new device to kill the wretched heifer ? IBID. Suppl. v. 304. The flies of Egypt were troublesome even in ordinary seasons, especially near the water. "The Egyptians are provided with a remedy against gnats, of which there are a surprising number. As the wind will not suffer these insects to rise far from the ground, the inhabitants of the higher part of the country usually sleep in turrets. They who live in the marshy grounds use this substitute: each person has a net with which they fish by day, and which they render useful by night. They cover their beds with their nets, and sleep securely under them."-HDT. 1. II. c. 95. The following from Diodorus is founded perhaps upon the tradition of the plague of flies, and the storms of rain and hail which took place in the adjoining country. The historian alludes at the same time to a plague of frogs (see v. 6) and to another of lice (v. 17). "There is a large tract of country bordering on that of the Acridophagi or locusteaters which was formerly inhabited, but in consequence of an excessive fall of rain, a vast number of spiders and scorpions were bred there by which the people were driven out. At first they attempted to master them; but whoever was bitten or stung by them immediately fell down dead, and not knowing how to endure the plague, they were forced at length to abandon their country."-DIOD. SIC. 1. III. c. 30. “A swarm of flies drove out the people of Megara, and a plague of wasps the inhabitants of Phaselis."-ELIAN. Hist. anim. 1. XI. c. 28. 26. Shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? "The people of Marea and Apis, who inhabit the borders of Libya disliked the religious ceremonies of the country, and that particular restriction which did not permit them to kill heifers for food."-HDT. 1. II. c. 18. "The Egyptians put no cattle to death."-IBID. 1. II. c. 41. "The ox, which the Egyptians worship for the god Apis, the Jews sacrifice." TAC. Hist. 1. v. c. 4. "He that wilfully kills any of the sacred beasts of Egypt is put to death; but if any kill a cat, or the bird ibis, whether intentionally or not, he is dragged away to death by the multitude without any formal trial or judgment. So great is the superstition of these people, that when the Romans were about making a league with Ptolemy, and all the people were anxious to show the greatest kindness and favour to the Latin nation, and to avoid everything that might give offence to them, yet when a Roman soldier had chanced, inadvertently, to kill a cat, the people ran in a tumult to seize him; nor could the fear of the Romans, nor the persuasions of the princes who were sent to them from the king, deliver the soldier from the fury of the populace. Of this I was an eye-witness at the time of my travels into Egypt."-DIOD. SIC. I. I. c. 83. EXODUS IX. 6. And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. "The Egyptians esteem bulls as sacred to Epaphus: the females are sacred to Isis. They venerate cows far beyond all other cattle."-HDT. I. II. c. 38-41. "The god Apis or Epaphus is the calf of a cow which can have no more young. The Egyptians say that on this occasion the cow is struck with lightning, from which she conceives and brings forth Apis."-IBID. 1. III. c. 28. "The priests of Egypt hold bulls in great veneration and renew their mourning for Osiris over the graves of those beasts."-DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 21. "At Memphis the ox Apis is kept in a sort of sanctuary, and is held to be a god. In front of the sanctuary is a court, in which there is another sanctuary for the dam of Apis. Into this court Apis is let loose at times for the purpose of exhibiting him to strangers."-STRAB. 1. XVII. c. 1. 66 'Heliopolis contains a temple of the sun, and the ox Mneyis, which is kept in a sanctuary, and is regarded by the inhabitants as a god, as Apis is regarded by the people of Memphis."-IBID. "At Hermonthis, both Apollo and Jupiter are worshipped. They also keep an ox there."-IBID. "The ox Mneyis is nourished at Heliopolis, at the common expense of the city. He is consecrated to Osiris, and is said by some to be the sire of Apis." PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 33. Thus, when the murrain spread over the cattle, the Egyptians not only suffered a severe loss, but they beheld the representatives of their deities, and the deities themselves sink before the God of the Hebrews. 10. And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast. The Egyptians had many gods who were supposed to preside over pharmacy and medicine. The invention of this art was ascribed by some to the Egyptian goddess Isis. "This goddess used to reveal herself to people in their sleep, when they laboured under any disorder, and afford them relief. Many who placed their confidence in her influence were wonderfully restored. Many, likewise, who had been despaired of and given over by the physicians, on account of the stubbornness of their distemper, were reinstated by this goddess. Numbers who had been deprived of their eyes and other organs of their bodies, recovered them by their application to Isis." DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 25. "Orus, the last of the gods who reigned in Egypt, is reported to have learnt the science of physic, as well as of prophecy, from his mother Isis."-IBID. The Egyptians were continually providing against disorders, and they had persons who pretended to foretell their coming, both upon man and beast. "The Egyptian priests foretell both famine and plenty, grievous diseases likely to seize upon man or beast, earthquakes and inundations; and through long experience, they are able to predict with such accuracy as it would be thought impossible for the wisdom of man to attain to."- DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 81. The physicians of Egypt were celebrated in all the neighbouring countries. "These drugs so friendly to the joys of life, Hом. Odyss. 1. IV. v. 227. "The art of medicine in Egypt is thus exercised. One physician is confined to the study and management of one disease. There are of course a great number who study this art; some attend to the disorders of the eyes, others to those of the head; some take care of the teeth, others are conversant with all diseases of the bowels, &c." HDT. 1. II. c. 84. "This man (a certain Egyptian) was a physician, and when Cyrus had once requested of Amasis the best medical advice which Egypt could afford for a disorder in his eyes, the king had forced him from his wife and family, and sent him into Persia." IBID. 1. III. c. 1. "Go and sell them to the Egyptians; they are convenient for measuring their purgative draughts."-ARISTOPH. Pax, v. 1254. "We hear it said that all the Egyptians are physicians."-PLUT. Gryllus, c. 9. "The Egyptians will have it that the medical art was first discovered among them."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. VII. c. 57. "When the lichen, or leprosy, entered Italy, several physicians repaired to Rome from Egypt."-IBID. 1. XXVI. c. 3. Many writers concur in the following account:-That when Egypt was overrun by a pestilent disease, contaminating living bodies, and very foul to behold, Bocchoris, the king, applying for a remedy to the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, was ordered to purge his kingdom and to remove into another country that generation of men (the Jews) so detested by the deities."-TAC. Hist. 1. v. c. 3. "The leprosy is a disease which appears in Egypt and nowhere else, being caused by the waters of the Nile."-LUCRET. de rer. nat. 1. vi. v. 1112. "Elephantiasis generally makes its first appearance in the face. In its primary form it bears a considerable resemblance to a small lentil upon the nose; the skin gradually dries up all over the body, is marked with spots of various colours, and presents an unequal surface, being thick in one place, thin in another, indurated every here and there, and covered with a sort of rough scab. At a later period the skin assumes a black hue, and compresses the flesh upon the bones; the fingers and toes becoming swollen. This disease was originally peculiar to Egypt."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. xxvI. c. 5. The furnace was an emblem of affliction. "The Lord hath taken you out of the furnace," i.e. out of Egyptian thraldom. (Deut. iv. 20). The Egyptians, moreover, sacrificed human victims to their gods, burning them alive upon the high altar; and these probably were selected from the Jewish bondmen. "In the city of Idithya, as Manetho says, it was the custom to burn men alive: they called them Typhonii, and their ashes, when they had reduced them to powder, they scattered abroad till they had entirely disappeared. This was done only at certain seasons, which were called Cynades, or Canicular."-PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 73. If the design of this scattering was that a blessing might follow wherever any portion of the ashes happened to alight, there was a marked contrast in the act of Moses, the ashes which he dispersed carrying with them a plague and a curse, which all the physicians of Egypt, divine or human, could not counteract. 10. Upon man and beast. The Egyptians held in idolatrous reverence nearly all animals, both savage and domestic. "The number of beasts in Egypt is comparatively small; but all of them, both those which are wild and those which are domestic, are regarded as sacred. "Their laws compel them to cherish animals: a certain number of men and women are appointed to this office, which is esteemed so honourable that it descends in succession from father to son. In the presence of these animals the inhabitants of the cities perform their vows. It is a capital offence designedly to kill any one of them." HDT. 1. II. c. 65. "In whatever family a cat by accident happens to die, every individual cuts off his eyebrows; but on the death of a dog they shave their heads and every part of their bodies."-IBID. c. 66. "Other nations will not suffer animals to approach the place of their repast; but in Egypt they live promiscuously with the people.”—IBID. c. 36. "The adoration and worshipping of beasts among the Egyptians seems to many, and with reason, a strange and unaccountable thing: for they worship some creatures most extravagantly, when they are dead as well as when they are alive, as cats, ichneumons, dogs, kites, the ibis, wolves, and crocodiles, and many other such like." DIOD. SIC. I. I. c. 83. "All the Egyptians worship in common sacred animals; three among the land animals, the ox, the dog and the cat. The people of Lycopolis worship a wolf; those of Hermopolis the cynocephalus; those of Babylon a cephus, which has the countenance of a satyr, and in other respects is between a dog and a bear; it is bred in Ethiopia. The inhabitants of Theba worship an eagle; the Leontopolita a lion; the Mendesians, a male and female goat; the Anthribitæ, a shrew-mouse."-STRAB. 1. XVII. c. 1. "The Egyptians worship an ox, and a bird, and a goat, not to mention the monsters of the Nile."-MAX. TYR. Diss. 38. "In Egypt the temple itself is found to be beautiful, and ample in its dimensions: built with choice stones and ornamented with gilding and hieroglyphics. But if you pry within to find out the god, you meet with a monkey or a crane, or else a goat or a cat."-LUCIAN. Imagin. c. 11. "You Egyptian dog's-face, with the linen wrapper about you, who are you? and how came you to think you may bark among the gods? And what means that pied bull of Memphis there, by the genuflexions he receives, by the oracles he delivers, and the prophets he keeps in his pay? I should blush to mention the storks and the apes, and the goats, and the other still more preposterous deities from Egypt." IBID. Deor. Concil. c. 10. 16. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. "The Deity makes use of some wicked persons as executioners to punish others; and thus he generally deals, as I think, with most tyrants.". PLUT. de sera num. vind. c. 7. 23. And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground: and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. Rain was almost unknown in Egypt: the want of it being supplied by dews, and by the overflowing of the Nile. "During the rain of Psammenitus, Egypt beheld a most remarkable prodigy. There was rain at the Egyptian Thebes, a circumstance which had never happened before, and which, as the Thebans themselves assert, has never occurred since. In the higher parts of Egypt it never rains; but at that period, we read, it rained in distinct drops." HDT. 1. III. c. 10. "No moisture of the air is ever here condensed into showers." PLUT. de facie in orb. lun. c 25. "How shall the bard the secret source explore, Whence, Father Nile, thou draw'st thy watery store? Thou dost benignly all their wants supply."-TIBUL. 1. 1. eleg. 8. Both fire and water were among the divinities of the Egyptians. It would appear, therefore, that, as in the former plagues their gods had suffered with them, so in this, as well as in the plague of darkness which followed, they had turned against them. See Exod. III. 2. "The Egyptians denominated fire Hephaistos, esteeming it a mighty deity, which contributed largely towards generation and the ultimate perfection of beings." DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 1. "The Persians offer sacrifice to fire and water."-STRAB. 1. XV. c. 3. LUCIAN. de Jove trag. c. 42. 25. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Even the herbs of the field were esteemed sacred by the Egyptians, and these lesser divinities were now also destroyed. "Garlic and onions are invoked by the Egyptians, when taking an oath, in the number of their deities."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. XIX. c. 32. "Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend, The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend? The snake-devouring Ibis these enshrine, Others, where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground, Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape, Thousands regard the hound with holy fear; The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane. And you may eat it without scandal there."--Juv. Sat. xv. v.1. 'Gainst whom thy vengeance wings its distant way! Disease devours the flocks, dire hail and rain Destroy the harvest and lay waste the plain. The hoary sire, for guilty deeds undone, Shaves his grey locks, and mourns his dying son." CALLIM. H. in Dian. v. 124. 31. And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. 32. But the wheat and the rie were not smitten; for they were not grown up. "Wheat and barley is a common article of food in other countries, but it is in Egypt thought mean and disgraceful. The diet here consists principally of spelt-a kind of corn which some call (etá." (Probably rye is intended.)—HDT. Î. II. c. 36. "To their bread, which they make with spelt, they give the name of cyllestis. They have no vines in the country, but they drink a liquor fermented from barley." IBID. c. 77. The flax of Egypt, and the linen manufactured from it, were highly esteemed. "Fine linen of Egypt" is mentioned Prov. vii. 16, and Ezek. xxvii. 7. "The habit of the Egyptians which they call caliris, is made of linen." HDT. 1. II. c. 81. "The flax of Egypt is that from which the greatest profits are derived." |