DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0075
59
with priests, whom be suspected of wishing to deceive him/and
was not allowed to visit their temples. It is probable indeed that
these priests did impart to him some philosophical explanation
of their religious worship, and of the origin of their (>ods; but
the result of these communications he purposely withholds, or
pretends to withhold, from his readers, for a reason which,
though satisfactory to his cotemporaries, is very little so to
posterity—that all men entertained the same notions on these
subjects, and therefore it would be worse than useless to unsettle
their minds upon them*. He professes, therefore, to confine
himself to the names of the religious persons and ceremonies, and
only to treat of them more at large, when obliged to it by the
thread of his discourse. Even then he frequently cuts short his
narrative, through an apparent apprehension of betraying to the
profane some hidden mysteries: and on these occasions we are
left to our conjectures, whether this religious delicacy be really a
matter of conscience, or assumed as the disguise of his ignorance.
Strabo could mark the situation of the towns, and the nature of
the country ; but it is evident from his description of them that
he never was within any of their sacred buildings f- Plutarch
indeed has left us many valuable lucubrations, in his treatise on
Isis and Osiris; but in vain you endeavour to search out the
most plausible among the various expositions he proposes.
Ptolemy tells us little on the subject. The Romans seem never
to have pushed their inquiries beyond the popular superstitions;
modern travellers have been alarmed and hurried ; and the best
of them have rather given plans of the buildings, than an account
of what they contained. The impertinence of an Aga, the sulki-
ness of a Reis, or the appearance of a Bedouin, have interrupted
and abridged the labours of the most eager and most learned.
* Herodotus, lib. ii.
I 2
t Strabo^ lib, xvii.
With
with priests, whom be suspected of wishing to deceive him/and
was not allowed to visit their temples. It is probable indeed that
these priests did impart to him some philosophical explanation
of their religious worship, and of the origin of their (>ods; but
the result of these communications he purposely withholds, or
pretends to withhold, from his readers, for a reason which,
though satisfactory to his cotemporaries, is very little so to
posterity—that all men entertained the same notions on these
subjects, and therefore it would be worse than useless to unsettle
their minds upon them*. He professes, therefore, to confine
himself to the names of the religious persons and ceremonies, and
only to treat of them more at large, when obliged to it by the
thread of his discourse. Even then he frequently cuts short his
narrative, through an apparent apprehension of betraying to the
profane some hidden mysteries: and on these occasions we are
left to our conjectures, whether this religious delicacy be really a
matter of conscience, or assumed as the disguise of his ignorance.
Strabo could mark the situation of the towns, and the nature of
the country ; but it is evident from his description of them that
he never was within any of their sacred buildings f- Plutarch
indeed has left us many valuable lucubrations, in his treatise on
Isis and Osiris; but in vain you endeavour to search out the
most plausible among the various expositions he proposes.
Ptolemy tells us little on the subject. The Romans seem never
to have pushed their inquiries beyond the popular superstitions;
modern travellers have been alarmed and hurried ; and the best
of them have rather given plans of the buildings, than an account
of what they contained. The impertinence of an Aga, the sulki-
ness of a Reis, or the appearance of a Bedouin, have interrupted
and abridged the labours of the most eager and most learned.
* Herodotus, lib. ii.
I 2
t Strabo^ lib, xvii.
With