The whole system of THE PRIESTHOOD was transplanted into Christianity from Paganism; the Egyptian priesthood, however, was in great part hereditary, and in this differs from the Christian, while resembling the Jewish.  The priests of the temple of Dea (Syria) were, on the other hand, celibate, and so were some orders of the Egyptian priests.  Some classes of priests closely resembled Christian monks, living in monasteries, and undergoing many austerities; they prayed twice a day, fasted often, spoke little, and lived much apart in their cells in solitary meditation; in the most insignificant matters the same similarity may be traced.  “When the Roman Catholic priest shaves the top of his head, it is because the Egyptian priest had done the same before.  When the English clergyman—­though he preaches his sermon in a silk or woollen robe—­may read the Liturgy in no dress but linen, it is because linen was the clothing of the Egyptians.  Two thousand years before the Bishop of Rome pretended to hold the keys of heaven and earth, there was an Egyptian priest with the high-sounding title of Appointed keeper of the two doors of heaven, in the city of Thebes” ("Egyptian Mythology,” S. Sharpe, preface, p. xi.).  The white robes of modern priests are remnants of the same old faith; the more gorgeous vestments are the ancient garb of the priests officiating in the temple of female deities; the stole is the characteristic of woman’s dress; the pallium is the emblem of the yoni; the alb is the chemise; the oval or circular chasuble is again the yoni; the Christian mitre is the high cap of the Egyptian priests, and its peculiar shape is simply the open mouth of the fish, the female emblem.  In old sculptures a fish’s head, with open mouth pointing upwards, is often worn by the priests, and is scarcely distinguishable from the present mitre.  The modern crozier is the hooked staff, emblem of the phallus; the oval frame for divine things is the female symbol once more.  Thus holy medals are generally oval, and the Virgin is constantly represented in an oval frame, with the child in her arms.  In some old missals, in representations of the Annunciation, we see the Virgin standing, with the dove hovering in front above her, and from the dove issues a beam of light, from the end of which, as it touches her stomach, depends an oval containing the infant Jesus.

The tinkling bell—­used at the Mass at the moment of consecration—­is the symbol of male and female together—­the clapper, the male, within the hollow shell, the female—­and was used in solar services at the moment of sacrifice.  The position of the fingers of the priest in blessing the congregation is the old symbolical position of the fingers of the solar priest.  The Latin form, with the two fingers and thumb upraised—­copied in Anglican churches—­is said rightly by ecclesiastical writers to represent the trinity; but the trinity it represents is the real human trinity:  the more elaborate Greek form is intended to represent