the queen of
heaven, was the deity to whom they bowed with the most tender devotion,
and to swear by Isis was their favourite oath; and hence the leek, in
their own language named Isi, was no doubt the vegetable called a god by
the satiric Juvenal.

At the same time also the towns of Oxyrrhynchos and Cynopolis, in
the Heptanomos, had a little civil war about the animals which
they worshipped. Somebody at Cynopolis was said to have caught an
oxyrrhynchus fish in the Nile and eaten it; and so the people of
Oxyrrhynchos, in revenge, made an attack upon the dogs, the gods of
Cynopolis. They caught a number of them, killed them in sacrifice to
their offended fish-god, and ate them. The two parties then flew to arms
and fought several battles; they sacked one another's cities in turns,
and the war was not stopped till the Roman troops marched to the spot
and punished them both.

But we gain a more agreeable and most likely a more true notion of the
mystical religion and philosophy of the Egyptians in these days from the
serious enquiries of Plutarch, who, instead of looking for what he could
laugh at, was only too ready to believe that he saw wisdom hidden
under an allegory in all their superstitions. Many of the habits of
the priests, such as shaving the whole body, wearing linen instead of
cotton, and refusing some meats as impure, seem to have arisen from a
love of cleanliness; their religion ordered what was useful. And it
also forbade what was hurtful; so to stir the fire with a sword was
displeasing to the gods, because it spoilt the temper of the metal.
None but the vulgar now looked upon the animals and statues as gods; the
priests believed that the unseen gods, who acted with one mind and with
one providence, were the authors of all good; and though these, like the
sun and moon, were called in each country by a different name, yet, like
those luminaries, they were the same over all the world.

[Illustration: 078b.jpg SCENE IN A SEPUUCHRAL CHAMBER]

Outward ceremonies in religion were no longer thought enough without a
good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a
philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure
would not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a
secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the
outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey
and figs in honour of Thot, they sang "Sweet is tr