DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0216
198 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
To seek beyond the frontier that security which might no
longer be found in Egypt, would seem therefore to be the
obvious course of a priestly guild devoted to its trust.
This, of course, is mere conjecture, to be taken for what it
may be worth. The decadence of Abydos coincides, at all
events, with the growth of Philajj and it is only by help of
some such assumption that one can understand how a new
site should have suddenly arisen to such a height of
holiness.
The earliest temple here, of which only a small propylon
remains, would seem to have been built by the last of the
native Pharaohs (Nectanebo II, B.C. 361) ; but the high
and palmy clays of Phils belong to the period of Greek
and Roman rule. It was in the time of the Ptolemies that
the holy island became the seat of the sacred college- and
the stronghold of a powerful hierarchy. Visitors from
all parts of Egypt, travelers from distant lands, court func-
tionaries from Alexandria charged with royal gifts, came
annually in crowds to offer their vows at the tomb of the
god. They have cut their names by hundreds all over the
principal temple, just like tourists of to-day. Some of
these antique autographs are written upon and across
those of preceding visitors; while others—palimpsests upon
stone, so to say—having been scratched on the yet un-
sculptured surface of doorway and pylon, are seen to be
older than the hieroglyphic texts which were afterward
carved over them. These inscriptions cover a period of
several centuries, during which time successive Ptolemies
and Cajsars continued to endow the island. Rich in lands,
in temples, in the localization of a great national myth, the
sacred college was yet strong enough in A.D. 379 to oppose
a practical insistence to the edict of Theodosius. At a
word from Constantinople the whole land of Egypt was for-
cibly Christianized. Priests were forbidden under pain of
death to perform the sacred rites. Hundreds of temples were
plundered. Forty thousand statues of divinities were de-
stroyed at one fell swoop. Meanwhile, the brotherhood of
Phils, intrenched behind the cataract and the desert, sur-
vived the degradation of their order and the ruin of their
immemorial faith. It is not known with certainty for
how long they continued to transmit their hereditary
privileges; but two of the above-mentioned votive inscrip-
tions show that so late as A.u. 453 the priestly families
To seek beyond the frontier that security which might no
longer be found in Egypt, would seem therefore to be the
obvious course of a priestly guild devoted to its trust.
This, of course, is mere conjecture, to be taken for what it
may be worth. The decadence of Abydos coincides, at all
events, with the growth of Philajj and it is only by help of
some such assumption that one can understand how a new
site should have suddenly arisen to such a height of
holiness.
The earliest temple here, of which only a small propylon
remains, would seem to have been built by the last of the
native Pharaohs (Nectanebo II, B.C. 361) ; but the high
and palmy clays of Phils belong to the period of Greek
and Roman rule. It was in the time of the Ptolemies that
the holy island became the seat of the sacred college- and
the stronghold of a powerful hierarchy. Visitors from
all parts of Egypt, travelers from distant lands, court func-
tionaries from Alexandria charged with royal gifts, came
annually in crowds to offer their vows at the tomb of the
god. They have cut their names by hundreds all over the
principal temple, just like tourists of to-day. Some of
these antique autographs are written upon and across
those of preceding visitors; while others—palimpsests upon
stone, so to say—having been scratched on the yet un-
sculptured surface of doorway and pylon, are seen to be
older than the hieroglyphic texts which were afterward
carved over them. These inscriptions cover a period of
several centuries, during which time successive Ptolemies
and Cajsars continued to endow the island. Rich in lands,
in temples, in the localization of a great national myth, the
sacred college was yet strong enough in A.D. 379 to oppose
a practical insistence to the edict of Theodosius. At a
word from Constantinople the whole land of Egypt was for-
cibly Christianized. Priests were forbidden under pain of
death to perform the sacred rites. Hundreds of temples were
plundered. Forty thousand statues of divinities were de-
stroyed at one fell swoop. Meanwhile, the brotherhood of
Phils, intrenched behind the cataract and the desert, sur-
vived the degradation of their order and the ruin of their
immemorial faith. It is not known with certainty for
how long they continued to transmit their hereditary
privileges; but two of the above-mentioned votive inscrip-
tions show that so late as A.u. 453 the priestly families