provided for, than in other nations. They had lands settled upon them in the time of Joseph; and according to Diodorus Siculus, a third part of the whole land of Egypt was theirs. Lord Shaftsbury's triumphs here run very high against the church lands, and the landed clergy, as he is pleased to call the Egyptian' priests of these times. This right honourable writer asserts, That the magistrate, according to the Egyptian regulation, had resigned his title or share of right in sacred things; and could not govern as he pleased, nor check the growing number of these professors.", And that in this mother land of superstition the sons of these artists were by law obliged always to follow the same calling with their fathers. Thus the son of a priest was always a priest by birth; as was the whole lineage after him without interruption.' Many other particulars are enlarged upon by this author, which I choose to pass over. If I give an account of the Egyptian priesthood, from what the ancient. writers hint about it; this alone will shew, how widely some writers err in their account of ancient facts, out of humour and inclination to reflect upon the. clergy and the church. Religion was in the early times looked upon by all the nations in the world as a positive institution of Gon; and it was as firmly believed, that none could be the ministers in it, butthose persons whom Gon himself had appointed to. perform the offices of it. Aristotle indeed, who threw off tradition, and founded his opinions upon what he thought to be the dictates of right reason; seems to give every state or community a power of appointing their ministers of religion; hinting at the same time, that the citizens of an advanced age, who were past engaging in laborious employments for the service of the public, were the proper persons to be appointed to the sacred offices. But Plato, who had a greater regard to the ancient customs and traditions, makes a divine designation absolutely necessary, for the rightly authorising any person to perform the offices of reli, gion. He advises the founders of cities, if they could find any priests, who had received their office from their fathers, in a long succession backward, to make use of them; but if such could not be had, and some must be created, that they would leave the choice to the gods; appointing proper candidates, and choosing out of them by lot, such as the deity should cause the lot to fall upon; and that they should send to the oracle at Delphos to be directed what rites, ceremo, nies and laws of religion they should establish. This was the ancient universal sense of all nations; and we may observe that both Romulus and Numa took care at least to seem to act according to these maxims. Romulus built his city by consultation with the Etruscan Haruspices; and upon his appointing new orders of priests, he made a law to devolve the confirming them to the Vates or Augurs, who were to declare x Aristot. de Repub. lib. 7. cap. 9. b to the people the will of the gods about them." And Numa was thought to do nothing but by inspiration; pretending the directions of the goddess Egeria for all his institutions. The most ancient priesthood was that which fathers or heads of families exercised in and for their own families and kindred; and the divine institution of this was what all nations were so fully convinced of, that the public and established religions did not supersede it, but left it as they found it. So that though private persons, who were not publicly called to that office, might not offer sacrifices on the public altars; yet each head of a family was priest for his own family at his private focus, or domestic altar; and these private or family-priests, I imagine, were the persons whom Dionysius of Halicarnassus speaks of, as having τας συγγενικας ιερωσυνας, or a priesthood over those of the same lineage with themselves. And what reverence and regard was paid them, may be guessed by the observation of Athenæus, who remarks, that of all sacrifices those were esteemed the most sacred, which a man offered for his own domestics. Indeed they might well be so accounted; the persons who offered them being perhaps the only persons in the heathen nations, who had a just right to offer any sacrifices. с d Dionys. Halicar. [Antiq. Rom. lib. 2. c, 12. Id. ibid. c. 60. Plutarch, in Vit. Numæ. Florus, lib. 1. c. 3. Dionys. Antiq. Rom. lib. 2. c. 21. • Όσιωτατη γαρ η θυσία θεοις και προσφιλέστερα η δια των CIXIY Athenæus Deipnosoph. lib. 1. c. 8. As this sense of things appears not to have been extinguished even in the time of Romulus, nay even ages after him; so it is most probable, that men kept very strict to it in the first times. We must not suppose, that, at the first erecting kingdoms and civil societies, the several bodies of men appointed whom they would to be their priests. It is more likely, that they thought, as Plato the great master of the ancient customs and traditions of all nations did, that the priesthood which had descended from father to son, was still to be retained. Accordingly, where kingdoms were originally planted by but one single family; the king or head of that one family might be the sole public minister of religion for all his people; but where the kingdoms were originally peopled by many families independent of each other; they might agree to institute, that the persons who in private life had been priests of the several families of which the body politic was constituted, should become jointly national priests for all the land. Thus the Egyptian priests might be originally the heads of the several families which constituted the kingdom. That this conjecture does not err much, if any thing, from the truth, will appear to any one who considers duly the ancient Egyptian polity. 1, For they thought their priests almost equal in dignity to their kings; and the priests had a great share in the administration of affairs; for they continually attended to advise, direct, с Ιερων δε ιερέας τις μεν εισι πατειαι ιερωσυναι μη XLIVSIV. Plat. de Legibus, lib. 6. p. 860, I am and assist in the weighty affairs of the kingdom." 2, They thought it an irregularity to have any one made their king, who was not one of their priests; but if it did so happen, as in length of time it sometimes did, the person who was to be king was obliged to be first received into the order of priests, and then was capable of the crown. 3, Whenever a priest died, his son was made priest in his room." sensible, that the very particulars I have produced, are frequently made use of to hint the great ascendancy, which priestcraft and religion gained over king and people in the land of Egypt; but no one truly versed in antiquity can use them to this purpose. It was not the priesthood, which by religious craft raised the possessors of it in ancient times to the highest stations and dignity; but rather, none but persons of the highest stations and dignity were thought capable of being priests; and of consequence, the men of this order could not but shine with double lustre. They were as great as the civil state could make them, before they entered upon religious ministrations; for it was reckoned a monstrous thing to make priests of the meanest of the people. Accordingly, Romulus appointed the noblest and the wealthiest of the sena-. Καθολις γας περι των μεγιστων στοι προβαλευόμενοι συνδίαστα είβεσι τω βασιλεί, των μεν συνεργοί, των δε εισηγηται και διδάσκαλοι volvo. Diodor. Sic. lib. 1. p. 66. Plato in Politico, p. 550. Plutarch. lib. de Iside et Osiride, p. 354. Herodot. lib. 2. c. 37. 1 Kings xiii. 33. |