Note 186.2 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

The practice, however, is so well known that it would be waste of time to multiply illustrations. I will only add that in the valley of the Nile, in the days when the worship of animals, whatever its exact origin or meaning, prevailed, the sacred beasts were carefully tended and trained, and all their wants were provided for. In return they were expected to grant their worshippers’ wishes. If they “could not or would not help in emergency they were beaten; and if this measure failed to prove efficacious, then the creatures were punished by death;… and it was the priests themselves who condemned and executed the sacred animal. Afterwards indeed they sought to secure its immortality by the embalmment of the body, thereby hoping to appease the wrath of the god, lest he should avenge the killing of the creature in which he had been incarnate.”186.2 There is such a thing as carrying punishment too far, especially when you cannot carry it far enough to put an end to a being of indefinite but superhuman power, who will bottle up his anger until he can catch you off your guard. This inconvenience is incident to the theory evolved by Egyptian syncretism that the sacred animals were incarnations of the divinities.