DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5309#0147
FRAGMENT OF AN EGYPTIAN IDOL.
There is perhaps not a monument of higher antiquity than the subject exhibited in
this Plate, and any endeavour to trace it to its origin, would but serve to involve us in
a labyrinth of endless obscurity. The Egyptians, and especially those of Thebes, as
Diodorus Siculus informs us, had the vanity to think themselves the most ancient
nation in the world ; Thebcei vetustissimos omnium mortalium se esse predicant : and,
according to their calculation, the time which elapsed in the Theocracy, and the
government of their Heroes, made up the number of thirty-six thousand five hundred
and twenty-five years, as may be seen in the Chronology of George Sincellus. Our
figure represents the idol Cneph, or Phtha, which the philosophers of Egypt con-
sidered as the source and principle of all earthly things ; and is the same that was
noticed by Count Caylus. I cannot however see the reason that led him to call it the
Egyptian Bacchus. It is true that the Greeks, who borrowed their mythology of the
Egyptians, changed all the names but the Phtha, or Vulcan : and though we do not
see the sceptre, the belt, the feathers, nor the egg, which, as Porphyrius tells us, were
the usual attributes and decoration of the Phtha ; we must observe, that the deities of
Egypt were represented under two different forms ; as appears by what Ovid, Mani-
hus, and others, have said concerning the metamorphoses of the Egyptian divinities :
in order to escape the malice of Typhon, J upiter transformed himself into a ram, Juno
assumed the form of a cow, Diana of a cat, Mercury of an ibis, Venus of a fish, Bac-
chus of a goat, and Vulcan of a species of monkey. Our idol had a most magnificent
temple in the city of Memphis, which had been erected to his honour by the piety of
King Mnetes, and enriched by several of his successors, and chiefly by Sesostris, who
worshipped him with a peculiar devotion on account of a certain miracle, which Hero-
dotus has related at large. And when Cambyses paid it a visit, and found that this
great god seemed nothing better than a large baboon, he could not help bursting into
a fit of laughter, and ordered it to be burnt, together with the other idols ; causing
also the god Apis, or the sacred ox, to be roasted. The Egyptian priests not thinking
it proper to expose their naked opinions to the profanation of the vulgar, kept them
secret : this point has been alluded to by Herodotus, in his first book, where he de-
clares, that the religion of the Egyptians contained the most profound secrets, which it
was unbecoming to disclose. There is nothing better known than the story of Vulcan :
his deformity, his fall from heaven, his forge, the denial which he met with from
Minerva when he paid her his addresses, his marriage with Venus, and finally, the net
wherein he exposed her infidelity ; which, though they appear only poetical fancies,
yet have a more deep and mysterious signification.
91
There is perhaps not a monument of higher antiquity than the subject exhibited in
this Plate, and any endeavour to trace it to its origin, would but serve to involve us in
a labyrinth of endless obscurity. The Egyptians, and especially those of Thebes, as
Diodorus Siculus informs us, had the vanity to think themselves the most ancient
nation in the world ; Thebcei vetustissimos omnium mortalium se esse predicant : and,
according to their calculation, the time which elapsed in the Theocracy, and the
government of their Heroes, made up the number of thirty-six thousand five hundred
and twenty-five years, as may be seen in the Chronology of George Sincellus. Our
figure represents the idol Cneph, or Phtha, which the philosophers of Egypt con-
sidered as the source and principle of all earthly things ; and is the same that was
noticed by Count Caylus. I cannot however see the reason that led him to call it the
Egyptian Bacchus. It is true that the Greeks, who borrowed their mythology of the
Egyptians, changed all the names but the Phtha, or Vulcan : and though we do not
see the sceptre, the belt, the feathers, nor the egg, which, as Porphyrius tells us, were
the usual attributes and decoration of the Phtha ; we must observe, that the deities of
Egypt were represented under two different forms ; as appears by what Ovid, Mani-
hus, and others, have said concerning the metamorphoses of the Egyptian divinities :
in order to escape the malice of Typhon, J upiter transformed himself into a ram, Juno
assumed the form of a cow, Diana of a cat, Mercury of an ibis, Venus of a fish, Bac-
chus of a goat, and Vulcan of a species of monkey. Our idol had a most magnificent
temple in the city of Memphis, which had been erected to his honour by the piety of
King Mnetes, and enriched by several of his successors, and chiefly by Sesostris, who
worshipped him with a peculiar devotion on account of a certain miracle, which Hero-
dotus has related at large. And when Cambyses paid it a visit, and found that this
great god seemed nothing better than a large baboon, he could not help bursting into
a fit of laughter, and ordered it to be burnt, together with the other idols ; causing
also the god Apis, or the sacred ox, to be roasted. The Egyptian priests not thinking
it proper to expose their naked opinions to the profanation of the vulgar, kept them
secret : this point has been alluded to by Herodotus, in his first book, where he de-
clares, that the religion of the Egyptians contained the most profound secrets, which it
was unbecoming to disclose. There is nothing better known than the story of Vulcan :
his deformity, his fall from heaven, his forge, the denial which he met with from
Minerva when he paid her his addresses, his marriage with Venus, and finally, the net
wherein he exposed her infidelity ; which, though they appear only poetical fancies,
yet have a more deep and mysterious signification.
91