The priests made a great boast of their learning and philosophy, and could each repeat by heart those books of Thot which belonged to his own order.  The singer, who walked first in the sacred processions, bearing the symbols of music, could repeat the books of hymns and the rules for the king’s life.  The soothsayer, who followed, carrying a clock and a palm-branch, the emblem of the year, could repeat the four astrological books; one on the moon’s phases, one on the fixed stars, and two on their heliacal risings.  The scribe, who walked next, carrying a book and the flat rule which held the ink and pen, was acquainted with the geography of the world and of the Nile, and with those books which describe the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, and the furniture of the temple and consecrated places.  The master of the robes understood the ten books relating to education, to the marks on the sacred heifers, and to the worship of the gods, embracing the sacrifices, the first-fruits, the hymns, the prayers, the processions, and festivals.  The prophet or preacher, who walked last, carrying in his arms the great water-pot, was the president of the temple, and learned in the ten books, called hieratic, relating to the laws, the gods, the management of the temples, and the revenue.  Thus, of the forty-two chief books of Thot, thirty-six were learned by these priests, while the remaining six on the body, its diseases, and medicines, were learned by the Pastophori, priests who carried the image of the god in a small shrine.  These books had been written at various times:  some may have been very old, but some were undoubtedly new; they together formed the Egyptian bible.  Apollonius, or Apollonides Horapis, an Egyptian priest, had lately published a work on these matters in his own language, named Shomenuthi, the book of the gods.

[Illustration:  130.jpg RELIGIOUS PROCESSION]

But the priests were no longer the earnest, sincere teachers as of old; they had invented a system of secondary meanings, by which they explained away the coarse religion of their statues and sacred animals.

They had two religions, one for the many and one for the few; one, material and visible, for the crowds in the outer courtyards, in which the hero was made a god and every attribute of deity was made a person; and another, spiritual and intellectual, for the learned in the schools and sacred colleges.  Even if we were not told, we could have no doubt but the main point of secret knowledge among the learned was a disbelief in those very doctrines which they were teaching to the vulgar, and which they now explained among themselves by saying that they had a second meaning.  This, perhaps, was part of the great secret of the goddess Isis, the secret of Abydos, the betrayer of which was more guilty than he who should try to stop the baris or sacred barge in the procession on the Nile.  The worship of gods, before whose statues the nation had bowed with unchanging devotion for at least two thousand years was now drawing to a close.  Hitherto the priests had been able to resist all new opinions.