THE RITUAL AND PRIESTHOOD
The accounts which we have of the temple ritual are of the later
periods, and we must look to the buildings themselves to trace
differences in the system. The oldest form of shrine was a wicker hut,
with tall poles forming the sides of the door; in front of this
extended an enclosure which had two poles with flags on either side of
the entrance. In the middle of the enclosure or court was a staff
bearing the emblem of the god. This type of shrine and open court was
kept up always, and is like the Jewish type. We find stone used for
the doors in the sixth dynasty, and stone-built temples in the twelfth
dynasty. The earlier type of temple was essentially a resting-place
for the god between the excursions of the festivals. It was open at
both front and back, and a processional way led through it, so that the
priests walked through, taking up the ark of the god, {71} carrying it
in procession, and then returning and depositing it again in the temple
as they passed. This form lasted till the middle of the eighteenth
dynasty; but the fixed shrine was already coming into use then, and
seems to have become the only type after that age. This was emphasised
still more in the twenty-sixth dynasty by the great monolith boxes of
granite which contained not only precious statuettes, but even
life-sized statues of granite. It seems that the processional form of
ritual had been supplanted by the service of a more mysterious Holy of
Holies.
The course of daily service by the priests was of seven parts. 1st.
_Fire-making_--rubbing the fire sticks, taking the censer, putting
incense in it, and lighting it. 2nd. _Opening the Shrine_--going up to
the shrine, loosening the fastening, and breaking the seal, opening the
door, seeing the god. 3rd. _Praise_--various prostrations, and then
singing a hymn to the god. 4th. _Supplying food and incense_--offering
oil and honey and incense, retiring from the shrine for a prayer,
approaching and looking on the god, various prostrations, again
incense, and then prayers and hymns, a figure of Maat (goddess of
truth) was then presented to the god, and, lastly, more incense for all
the companions of the god. {72} 5th. _Purifying_--cleansing the figure
and its shrine, and pouring out pitchers of water, and fumigating with
incense. 6th. _Clothing_--dressing the god with white, green, bright
red, and dark red sashes, and supplying two kinds of ointment and black
and green eye paint, and scattering clean sand before him. The priest
then walked four times round the shrine. 7th. _Purifying_--with
incense, natron of the south and north, and two other kinds of incense.
Probably such a ritual was a gradual growth of successive ages. Where
a living animal was maintained as sacred, the feeding of it was a
considerable service. A court was built at Memphis for the sacred Apis
bull to take his exercise, and special bundles of fodder were provided.
A large tank was made for the sacred crocodile in the Fayum, and the
priests used to follow the reptile around the tank with the offerings
brought by devotees. Similarly at Epidauros is a deep circular trench
cut in the rock, with a central niche; in this a sacred serpent could
be visited and fed without its being able to escape.
The priesthood was elaborated in many different kinds, and varied
grades in each. There were the 'servants of the god,' who had charge
of the worship and ritual; the 'pure men,' who were {73} occupied with
the acts of offerings and service; the 'divine fathers,' who had charge
of the property of a god and the providing for the services; the
'reciters'; the 'female singers'; and others; and there were four
grades of most of the classes.
A special divine gift was the _sa_, an essence which was imparted to
the king when he knelt with his back to the god and the divine hand was
placed on him. This was also imparted to a class of priests or
initiated who were described as 'impregnated with the sa' of four
different grades. This seems to have been a kind of ordination
imparting special powers.
A fundamental idea was that the king was the priest of the land, and
that all offerings (especially those for the dead) were made by him.
Even though the king could not physically perform all the offerings,
yet when others did so they were only acting on behalf of the priestly
king of the nation. So strongly was this held that the regular formula
for all offerings for the dead was 'A royal giving of offerings of such
and such things for the _ka_ of such an one,' or it may be rendered
'May the king give an offering.' The act itself is shown on some
funeral tablets, where the king appears as making the offering, {74}
while the person for whom he acts stands behind him.
Much light on the sources of the rise of the priesthood is given by the
titles borne by the priests of the various capitals of the provinces or
nomes. Many of these refer to what were purely secular occupations in
later times, and we thus learn that the priestly character was attached
to the principal person, be he king, or leader in other ways. In one
city it was the King and His Loved Son who were the priests, in another
it was the General, in another the Warrior who became the priest;
elsewhere it was the Great Constructor, in another city the Great
Commander of Workmen; one city raised the Manager of the Inundation to
the priesthood, and very naturally the Great Physician or medicine man
became priest in another place. The Eldest Son was the title of
another priesthood, much as the later kings made their eldest son high
priest. A very curious view of the priestess preceding the
establishment of a priest is given by some cities; one where she was
called the Nurse, and the priest was the Youth, and another city names
the priestess the 'Appeaser of the Spirit' and the priest the
'Favourite Child.'
Purely religious functions are only a minority {75} of the priestly
titles in the Delta, such as the Seer, the Great Seer, the Chief of the
Feast, and the Opener of the Mouth, referring to enabling the statue of
the god to speak, or opening the mouth of the mummy to enable it to
live. A full analysis of the priestly titles would give a picture of
the society in which priesthood arose, but it is a subject which has
not been systematically studied.
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