Egyptian Religion need not detain us. For though, there are clear traces
of Pantheistic speculation among the Priests, it can scarcely be
contended that such speculations had the same influence on the cultured
laity as the teaching of the Rishis had in ancient India. But the truth
seems to be that the oldest popular theology of Egypt was only a variety
of Negro animism and fetishism.[9] Yet these grovelling superstitions,
as is often the case, evolved in unbroken continuity a higher faith.
For, in the attempt made to adapt this savage cult to the religious
needs of various districts, all alike gradually advancing in culture,
the number and variety of divinities became so bewildering to the
priests, that the latter almost inevitably adopted the device of
recognising in parochial gods only so many hints of one
all-comprehensive divine energy. Not that they ever embraced
monotheism--or the belief in one personal God distinct from the
Universe. But if Plutarch be accurate--as there seems no reason to
doubt, in his record of an inscription in a temple of Isis--they, or at
least the most spiritual of them, found refuge in Pantheism. For the
transfigured and glorified goddess was not regarded as the maker of the
Universe, but as identical with it, and therefore unknowable, "I am all
that hath been, is, or shall be; and no mortal has lifted my veil." The
prevalence of such Pantheism, at least among the learned and spiritual
of ancient Egypt, is, to a considerable extent, confirmed by other Greek
writers besides Plutarch. But the inscription noted by Plutarch gives
the sum and substance of what they tell us.

[Sidenote: Greek Pantheism]

[Sidenote: Evolved from Polytheism]