The hippopotamus was not considered divine rather than by the inhabitants of the high Egypt. These animals were sacred and a crime was hurt them. The sanctuaries remained a live animal that the faithful would worship. One of the sources, a doctor of the Christian Church, Clement of Alexandria, scoffed at this custom; If you go to a temple, a priest being pursued seriously, singing a song, and lifts a veil to show you God. See what then?, a cat, a crocodile, a snake, or some other animal.
The God of Egyptians appears, it is a wild animal that is stirred in a purple tapestry. Clement of Alexandria: SEIGNOBOS: pp. 46 Shodu in Thebes, the priests had a domesticated crocodile. They put them in rings of gold or porcelain ears and legs bangles. The traveler of Strabo, who lived in time of Jesus Christ, refers as well to your visit to crocodile Shodu; Our host picked up cakes, fish roast and a drink made with honey, and then led us to the Lake. The animal was laying to the shore. The priests approached him, two of them opened his mouth and another echo in these first cakes, then fish and finally the concoction. The crocodile was launched into the water and was to be routed to the other shore.
Another foreigner arrived with the same offering than us, and priests took it, were seen around the Lake, the crocodile seized again and made him swallow the offering in the same way. Ibid.: pp. 46 In Mendes is worshipped at a goat; in Heliopolis a bird of passage. The Greeks called it Phoenix. The ox Apis – in Memphis, the sacred animal was the ox Apis. It is the preferred sign of fertility of livestock and the force: trampling his enemies. It was not a common ox, it had to be black, bear forehead a white spot in triangular shape, on the spine the figure of an eagle, the language a beetle wing, and tail hairs they had to be double.