Omnipotence was ascribed to the gods,
but Pantheism being full of paradoxes, the gods were not omnipotent.
Loud as were the panegyrics of the devout, the devout recognized the
limitations of their divinities. None had ever dreamed of a deity that
was actually omnipotent, actually infinite. Meneptah measured the God
of Israel by his own gods. Furthermore, the miracles did not amaze him
as they appalled Egypt. He was exceedingly superstitious; in his eye
the most ordinary natural phenomenon was a demonstration of the occult.
No matter that the advanced science of his time explained rainfall,
unusual heat or cold, over-fruitful or unproductive years, pestilence
and sudden death, eclipses, comets and meteors,--he believed them to be
the direct results of sorcery. Calamitous as the effects may have been
upon other people, he had ever escaped harm from these sources. It was
not strange that in time he ceased to fear miracles, and the
demonstrations of Moses were not so terrifying, inasmuch as they did
not greatly affect him.
His horses died, but Arabia was near to replenish his stables; the
pests annoyed him, but his servants fended them from him; the blains
troubled him, but his court physicians were able and gave him relief;
the thunders frightened him, but his fright passed with the storm.
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