2. Religion, Arts, and General Culture.
Classes of Society.—Egyptian society was divided into three great classes, or orders,—priests, soldiers, and common people; the last embracing shepherds, husbandmen, and artisans.
The sacerdotal order consisted of high-priests, prophets, scribes, keepers of the sacred robes and animals, sacred sculptors, masons, and embalmers. They enjoyed freedom from taxation, and met the expenses of the temple services with the income of the sacred lands, which embraced one third of the soil of the country.
The priests were extremely scrupulous in the care of their persons. They bathed twice by day and twice by night, and shaved the entire body every third day. Their inner clothing was linen, woollen garments being thought unclean; their diet was plain and even abstemious, in order that, as Plutarch says, "their bodies might sit light as possible about their souls."
Next to the priesthood in rank and honor stood the military order. Like the priests, the soldiers formed a landed class. They held one third of the soil of Egypt. To each soldier was given a tract of about eight acres, exempt from all taxes. They were carefully trained in their profession, and there was no more effective soldiery in ancient times than that which marched beneath the standard of the Pharaohs.
The Chief Deities.—Attached to the chief temples of the Egyptians were colleges for the training of the sacerdotal order. These institutions were the repositories of the wisdom of the Egyptians. This learning was open only to the initiated few.
The unity of God was the central doctrine in this private system. They gave to this Supreme Being the very same name by which he was known to the Hebrews—Nuk Pu Nuk, "I am that I am."
[1] The sacred manuscripts say, "He is the one living and
- ↑ It is evident what a new light this discovery throws on the sublime passage in Exodus iii. 14; where Moses, whom we may suppose to have been initiated into this formula, is sent both to his people and to Pharaoh to proclaim the true God by this very title, and to declare that the God of the
