The Wisdom of the Egyptians, Chapter II :RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT

The Wisdom of the Egyptians

The Story of the Egyptians, the Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, the Ptah-Hotep
and the Ke’gemini, the “Book of the Dead,” the Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus,
Egyptian Magic, the Book of Thoth

Edited, and with an Introduction

By Brian Brown

New York: Brentano’s

[1923]

CHAPTER II

RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT

EGYPTIAN VIEW OF CREATION

MAN in all times and places, has speculated on the nature and origin of the
world, and connected such questions with his theology. In Egypt there are not
many primitive theories of creation, though some have various elaborated forms.
Of the formation of the earth there were two views.

(1) That it had been brought into being by the word of a god, who when he
uttered any name caused the object thereby to exist. Thoth is the principal
creator by this means and this idea probably belongs to a period soon after
the age of the animal gods.

(2) The other view is that Ptah framed the world as an artificer, with the
aid of eight Khnumu, or earth-gnomes. This belongs to the theology of the abstract
gods. The primitive people seem to have been content with the eternity of matter,
and only personified nature when they described space, Shu, as separating the
sky, Nut, from the earth, Seb. This is akin to the separation of chaos into
sky and sea in Genesis.

The sun is called the egg laid by the primeval goose; and in later time this
was said to be laid by a god, or modelled by Ptah. Evidently this goose egg
is a primitive tale which was adapted to later theology.

The sky is said to be upheld by four pillars. These were later connected.
with the gods of the four quarters; but the primitive four pillars were represented
together, with the capitals one over the other, in the sign dad, the emblem
of stability. These may have belonged to the Osiris cycle, as he is “lord of
the pillars,” daddu, and his center in the Delta was named Daddu from the pillars.
The setting up of the pillars or dad emblem was a great festival in which the
kings took part, and which is often represented.

The creation of life was variously attributed to different great gods where
they were worshipped. Khnumu, Osiris, Amen, or Atmu, each are stated to be the
creator. The mode was only defined by the theorists of Heliopolis; they imagined
that Atmu self-produced Seb and Nut, and they in turn other gods, from whom
at last sprang mankind.

But this is merely later theorizing to fit a theology in being.

The cosmogonic theories, therefore, were by no means important articles of
belief, but rather assumptions of what the gods were likely to have done similar
to the acts of men. The creation by the word is the more elevated idea, and
is parallel to the creation in Genesis.

The conception of the nature of the world was that of a great plain, over
which the sun passed by day, and beneath which it travelled through the hours
of night. The movement of the sun was supposed to be that of floating on the
heavenly ocean, figured by its being in a boat, which was probably an expression
for its flotation. The elaboration of the nature of the regions through which
the sun passed at night essentially belongs to the Ra theology, and only recognises
the kingdom of Osiris by placing it in one of the hours of night. The old conception
of the dim realm of the cemetery-god Seker occupies the fourth and fifth hours;
the sixth hour is an approach to the Osiride region, and the seventh hour is
the kingdom of Osiris. Each hour was separated by gates, which were guarded
by demons who needed to be controlled by magic formul

THE GODS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Before dealing with the special varieties of the Egyptians’ belief in gods,
it is best to try to avoid a misunderstanding of their whole conception of the
supernatural. The term god has come to tacitly imply to our minds such a highly
specialized group of attributes that we can hardly throw our ideas back into
the more remote conceptions to which we also attach the same name. It is unfortunate
that every other word for supernatural intelligences has become debased, so
that we cannot well speak of demons, devils, ghosts, or fairies without implying
a noxious or a trifling meaning, quite unsuited to the ancient deities that
were so beneficent and powerful. If then we use the word god for such conceptions,
it must always be with the reservation that the word has now a very different
meaning from what it had to ancient minds.

To the Egyptian the gods might be mortal; even Ra, the sun-god, is said to
have grown old and feeble, Osiris was slain, and Orion, the great hunter of
the heavens, killed and ate the gods. The mortality of gods has been dwelt on
by Dr. Frazer in the “Golden Bough,” and the many instances of tombs of gods,
and of the slaying of the deified man who was worshipped, all show that immortality
was not a divine attribute. Nor was there any doubt that they might suffer while
alive; one myth tells how Ra, as he walked on earth, was bitten by a magic serpent
and suffered torments. The gods were also supposed to share in a life like that
of man, not only in Egypt but in most ancient lands. Offerings of food and drink
were constantly supplied to them, in Egypt laid upon the altars, in other lands
burnt for a sweet savour. At Thebes the divine wife of the god, or high priestess,
was the head of the harem of concubines of the god; and similarly in Babylonia
the chamber of the god with the golden couch could only be visited by the priestess
who slept there for oracular responses. The Egyptian gods could not be cognisant
of what passed on earth without being informed, nor could they reveal their
will at a distant place except by sending a messenger; they were as limited
as the Greek gods who required the aid of Iris to communicate one with another
or with mankind. The gods, therefore, have no divine superiority to man in conditions
or limitations; they can only be described as pre-existent, acting intelligences,
with scarcely greater powers than man might hope to gain by magic or witchcraft
of his own. This conception explains how easily the divine merged into the human
in Greek theology, and how frequently divine ancestors occurred in family histories.
(By the word “theology” is designated the knowledge about gods.)

There are in ancient theologies very different classes of gods. Some races,
as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings, which are continually
being increased. Others, as the Turanians, whether Sumerian Babylonians, modern
Siberians, or Chinese, do not adopt the worship of great gods, but deal with
a host of animistic spirits, ghosts, devils, or whatever we may call them; and
Shamanism or witchcraft is their system for conciliating such adversaries. But
all our knowledge of the early positions and nature of great gods shows them
to have stood on an entirely different footing to these varied spirits. Were
the conception of a god only an evolution from such spirit worship of one god,
polytheism would precede monotheism in each tribe or race. What we actually
find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first stage traceable in theology.
Hence we must rather look on the theologic conception of the Aryan and Semitic
races as quite apart from the demon-worship of the Turanians. Indeed the Chinese
seem to have a mental aversion to the conception of a personal god, and to think
either of the host of earth spirits and other demons, or else of the pantheistic
abstraction of heaven.

Wherever we can trace back polytheism to its earliest stages we find that
it results from combinations of monotheism. In Egypt even Osiris, Isis, and
Horus–so familiar as a triad–are found at first as separate units in different
places, Isis as a virgin goddess, and Horus as a self-existent god. Each city
appears to have but one god belonging to it, to whom others were added. Similarly
in Babylonia each great city had its supreme god; and the combinations of these,
and their transformations in order to form them in groups when their homes were
politically united, show how essentially they were solitary deities at first.

Not only must we widely distinguish the demonology of races worshipping numerous
earth spirits and demons from the theology of races devoted to solitary great
gods; but we must further distinguish the varying ideas of the latter class.
Most of the theologic races have no objection to tolerating the worship of other
gods side by side with that of their own local deity. It is in this way that
the compound theologies built up the polytheism of Egypt and of Greece. But
others of the theologic races have the conception of “a jealous god,” who would
not tolerate the presence of a rival. We cannot date this conception earlier
than Mosaism, and this idea struggled hard against polytheistic toleration.
This view acknowledges the reality of other gods, but ignores their claims.
The still later view was that other gods were non-existent, a position started
by the Hebrew prophets in contempt of idolatry, scarcely grasped by early Christianity,
but triumphantly held by Islam.

We therefore have to deal with the following conceptions, which fall into
two main groups, that probably belong to different divisions of mankind:

Animism
Demonology
Tribal Monotheism	At any state the unity of different gods may be accepted as a modus vivendi or as a philosophy.
Combinations forming tolerant Polytheism
Jealous Monotheism
Sole Monotheism

All of these require mention here as more or less of each principle, both
of animism and monotheism, can be traced in the innumerable combinations found
during the six thousand years of Egyptian religion: these combinations of beliefs
being due to combinations of the races to which they belonged.

Before we can understand what were the relations between man and the gods
we must first notice the conceptions of the nature of man. In the prehistoric
days of Egypt the position and direction of the body was always the same in
every burial; offerings of food and drink were placed by it, figures of servants,
furniture, even games, were included in the grave. It must be concluded therefore
that it was a belief in immortality which gave rise to such a detailed ritual
of the dead, though we have no written evidence upon this.

So soon as we reach the age of documents we find on tombstones that the person
is denoted by the khu between the arms of the ka. From later writings it is
seen that the khu is applied to a spirit of man; while the ka is not the body
but the activities of sense and perception. Thus, in the earliest age of documents,
two entities were believed to vitalize the body.

The KA is more frequently named than any other part, as all funeral offerings
were made for the KA. It is said that if opportunities of satisfaction in life
were missed it is grievous to the ka, and that the ka must not be annoyed needlessly;
hence it was more than perception, and it included all that we might call consciousness.
Perhaps we may grasp it best as the “self,” with the same variety of meaning
that we have in our own word. The ka was represented as a human being following
after the man; it was born at the same time as the man, but persisted after
death and lived in and about the tomb. It could act and visit other kas after
death, but it could not resist the least touch of physical force. It was always
represented by two upraised arms, the acting parts of the person. Beside the
ka of man, all objects likewise had their kas, which were comparable to the
human ka, and among these the ka lived. This view leads closely to the world
of ideas permeating the material world in later philosophy.

The KHU is figured as a crested bird, which has the meaning of “glorious”
or “shining” in ordinary use. It refers to a less material conception than the
ka, and may be called the intelligence or spirit.

The KHAT is the material body of man which was the vehicle of the KA, and
inhabited by the KHU.

The BA belongs to, a different pneumatology to that just noticed. It is the
soul apart from the body, figured as a human-headed bird. The conception probably
arose from the white owls, with round beads and every human expressions, which
frequent the tombs, flying noiselessly to and fro. The ba required food and
drink, which were provided for it by the goddess of the cemetery. It thus overlaps
the scope of the ka, and probably belongs to a different race to that which
define the man.

The sahu or mummy is associated particularly with the ba; and the ba bird
is often shown as resting on the mummy or seeking to re-enter it.

The khaybet was the shadow of a man; the importance of the shadow in early
ideas is well known.

The sekhem was the force or ruling power of man, but is rarely mentioned.

The ab is the will and intentions, symbolised by the heart; often used in
phrases such as a man being “in the heart of his lord,” “wideness of heart”
for satisfaction, “washing of the heart” for giving vent to temper.

The HATI is the physical heart, the “chief” organ of the body, also wed metaphorically.

The ran is the name which was essential to man, as also to inanimate things.
Without a name nothing really existed. The knowledge. of the name gave power
over its owner; a great myth turns on Isis obtaining the name of Ra by stratagem,
and thus getting the two eyes of Ra–the sun and moon–for her son Horus. Both
in ancient and modern races the knowledge of the real name of a man is carefully
guarded, and often secondary names are used for secular purposes. It was usual
for Egyptians to have a “great name” and a “little name”; the great name is
often compounded with that of a god or a king, and was very probably reserved
for religious purposes, as it is only found on religious and funerary monuments.

We must not suppose by any means that all of these parts of the person were
equally important, or were believed in simultaneously. The ka, khu, and khat
seem to form one group; the ba and sehu belong to another; the ab, hati, and
sekhem are hardly more than metaphors, such as we commonly use; the khaybet
is a later idea which probably belongs to the system of animism and witchcraft,
where the shadow gave a hold upon the man. The ran, name, belongs partly to
the same system, but also is the germ of the later philosophy of idea.

The purpose of religion to the Egyptian was to secure the favor of the god.
There is but little trace of negative prayer to avert evils or deprecate evil
influences, but rather of positive prayer for concrete favors. On the part of
kings this is usually of the Jacob type, offering to provide temples and services
to the god in return for material prosperity. The Egyptian was essentially self-satisfied,
he had no confession to make of sin or wrong, and had no thought of pardon.
In the judgment he boldly averred that he was free of the forty-two sins that
might prevent his entry into the kingdom of Osiris. If he failed to establish
his innocence in the weighing of his heart, there was no other plea, but he
was consumed by fire and by a hippopotamus, and no hope remained for him.

THE EGYPTIAN VIEW OF FUTURE LIFE

The various beliefs of the Egyptians regarding the future life are so distinct
from each other and so incompatible, that they may be classified into groups
more readily than the theology; thus they serve to indicate the varied sources
of the religion.

The most simple form of belief was that of the continued existence of the
soul in the tomb and about the cemetery. In upper Egypt at present a hole is
left at the top of the tomb chamber; and I have seen a woman remove the covering
of the hole, and talk down to her deceased husband. Also funeral offerings of
food and drink, and even beds, are still placed in the tombs. A similar feeling,
without any precise beliefs, doubtless prompted the earlier forms of provision
for the dead. The soul wandered around the tomb seeking sustenance, and was
fed by the goddess who dwelt in the thick sycamore trees that overshadowed the
cemetery. She is represented as pouring out drink for the ba and holding a tray
of cakes for it to feed upon. In the grave we find this belief shown by the
jars of water, wine, and perhaps other liquids, the stores of corn, the geese,
haunches and heads of oxen, the cakes, and dates, and pomegranates which were
laid by the dead. In an early king’s tomb there might be many rooms full of
these offerings. There were also the weapons for defence and for the chase,
the toilet objects, the stores of clothing, the draughtsmen, and even the literature
of papyri buried with the dead. The later form of this system was the representation
of all these offerings in sculpture and drawing in the tomb. This modification
probably belongs to the belief in the ka, which could be supported by the ka
of the food and use the ka of the various objects, the figures of the objects
being supposed to provide the kas of them. This system is entirely complete
in itself, and does not presuppose or require any theologic connection. It might
well belong to an age of simple animism, and be a survival of that in later
times.

The greatest theologic system was that of the kingdom of Osiris. This was
a counterpart of the earthly life, but was reserved for the worthy. All the
dead belonged to Osiris and were brought before him for judgment. The protest
of being innocent of the forty-two sins was made, and then the heart was weighed
against truth, symbolised by the ostrich feather, the emblem of the goddess
of truth. From this feather, the emblem of lightness, being placed against the
heart in weighing, it seems that sins were considered to weigh down the heart,
and its lightness required to be proved. Thoth, the god who recorded the weighing,
then stated that the soul left the judgment hall true of voice with his heart
and members restored to him, and that he should follow Osiris in his kingdom.
This kingdom of Osiris was at first thought of as being in the marsh lands of
the Delta; when these became familiar it was transferred to Syria, and finally
to the northeast of the sky, where the milky way became the heavenly Nile. The
main occupation in this kingdom was agriculture, as on earth; the souls ploughed
the land, sowed the corn, and reaped the harvest of heavenly maize, taller and
fatter than any of this world. In this land they rowed on the heavenly streams,
they sat in shady arbors, and played the games which they had loved. But the
cultivation was a toil, and therefore it was to be done by numerous serfs. In
the beginning of the monarchy it seems that the servants of the king were all
buried around him to serve him in the future; from the second to the twelfth
dynasty we lose sight of this idea, and then we find slave figures buried in
the tombs. These figures were provided with the hoe for tilling the soil, the
pick for breaking the clods, a basket for carrying the earth, a pot for watering
the crops, and they were inscribed with an order to respond for their master
when he was called on to work in the fields. In the eighteenth dynasty the figures
sometimes have actual tool models buried with them; but usually the tools are
in relief or painted on the figure. This idea continued until the less material
view of the future life arose in Greek times; then the deceased man was said
to have “gone to Osiris” in such a year of his age, but no slave figures were
laid with him. This view of the future is complete in itself, and is appropriately
provided for in the tomb.

A third view of the future life belongs to an entirely different theologic
system, that of the progress of the sun-god Ra. According to this the soul went
to join the setting sun in the west, and prayed to be allowed to enter the boat
of the sun in the company of the gods; thus it would be taken along in everlasting
light, and saved from the terrors and demons of the night over which the sun
triumphed. No occupations were predicated of this future; simply to rest in
the divine company was the entire purpose, and the successful repelling of the
powers of darkness in each hour of the night by means of spells was the only
activity. To provide for the solar journey a model boat was placed in the tomb
with the figures of boatmen, to enable the dead to sail with the sun, or to
reach the solar bark. This view of the future implied a journey to the west,
and hence came the belief in the soul setting out to cross the desert westward.
We find also an early god of the dead, Khent-amenti, “he who is in the west,”
probably arising from this same view. This god was later identified with Osiris
when the fusion of the two theories of the soul arose. At Abydos Khent-amenti
only is named at first, and Osiris does not appear until later times, though
that cemetery came to be regarded as specially dedicated to Osiris.

Now in all these views that we have named there is no occasion for preserving
the body. It is the Ba that is fed in the cemetery not the body. It is an immaterial
body that takes part in the kingdom of Osiris, in the sky. It is an immaterial
body that can accompany the gods in the boat of the sun. There is so far no
call to conserve the body by the peculiar mummification which first appears
in the early dynasties. The dismemberment of the bones, and removal of the flesh,
which was customary in the prehistoric times, and survived down to the fifth
dynasty, would accord with any of these theories, all of which were probably
pre-dynastic. But the careful mummifying of the body became customary only in
the third or fourth dynasty, and is therefore later than the theories that we
have noticed. The idea of thus preserving the body seems to look forward to
some later revival of it on earth, rather than to a personal life immediately
after death. The funeral accompaniment of this view was the abundance of amulets
placed on various parts of the body to preserve it. A few amulets are found
worn on a necklace or bracelet in early times; but the full development of the
amulet system was in the twenty-sixth to thirtieth dynasties.

We have tried to disentangle the diverse types of belief, by seeing what
is incompatible between them. But in practice we find every form of mixture
of these views in most ages. In the prehistoric times the preservation of the
bones, but not of the flesh, was constant; and food offerings show that at least
the theory of the soul wandering in the cemetery was familiar. Probably the
Osiris theory is also of the later prehistoric times, as the myth of Osiris
is certainly older than the dynasties. The Ra worship was associated specially
with Heliopolis, and may have given rise to the union with Ra also before the
dynasties, when Heliopolis was probably a capital of the kings of lower Egypt.
The boats figured on the prehistoric tomb at Hierakonpolis bear this out. In
the first dynasty there is no mummy known, funeral offerings abound, and the
khu and ka are named. Our documents do not give any evidence, then, of the Osiris
and Ra theories. In the pyramid period the king was called the Osiris, and this
view is the leading one in the pyramid inscriptions, yet the Ra theory is also
incompatibly present; the body is mummified; but funeral offerings of food seem
to have much diminished. In the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties the Ra theory
gained ground greatly over the Osirian; and the basis of all the views of the
future is almost entirely the union with Ra during the night and day. The mummy
and amulet theory was not dominant; but the funeral offerings somewhat increased.
The twenty-sixth dynasty almost dropped the Ra theory; the Osirian kingdom and
its population of slave figures is the most familiar view, and the preservation
of the body by amulets was essential. Offerings of food rarely appear in these
later times. This dominance of Osiris leads on to the anthropomorphic worship,
which interacts on the growth of Christianity as we shall see further. Lastly,
when all the theologic views of the future had perished, the oldest idea of
all, food, drink, and rest for the dead, has still kept its hold upon the feelings
of the people in spite of the teachings of Islam.

THE WORSHIP OF ANIMALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT

The worship of animals has been known in many countries; but in Egypt it
was maintained to a later pitch of civilization than elsewhere, and the mixture
of such a primitive system with more elevated beliefs seemed as strange to the
Greek as it does to us. The original motive was a kinship of animals with man,
much like that underlying the system of totems. Each place or tribe had its
sacred species that was linked with the tribe; the life of the species was carefully
preserved, excepting in the one example selected for worship, which after a
given time was killed and sacramentally eaten by the tribe. This was certainly
the case with the bull at Memphis and the ram at Thebes. That it was the whole
species that was sacred, at one place or another, is shown by the penalties
for killing any animal of the species, by the wholesale burial and even mummifying
of every example, and by the plural form of the names of the gods later connected
with the animals, Heru, hawks, Khnumu, rams, etc.

In the prehistoric times the serpent was sacred; figures of the coiled serpent
were hung up in the house and worn as an amulet; similarly in historic times
a figure of the agathodemon serpent was placed in a temple of Amen-hotep III
at Benha. In the first dynasty the serpent was figured in pottery, as a fender
around the hearth. The hawk also appears in many pre-dynastic figures, large
and small, both worn on the person and carried as standards. The lion is found
both in life-size temple figures, lesser objects of worship, and personal amulets.
The scorpion was similarly honored in the prehistoric ages.

It is difficult to separate now between animals which were worshipped quite
independently, and those which were associated as emblems of anthropomorphic
gods. Probably we shall be right in regarding both classes of animals as having
been sacred at a remote time, and the connection with the human form as being
subsequent. The ideas connected with the animals were those of their most prominent
characteristics; hence it appears that it was for the sake of the character
that each animal was worshipped, and not because of any fortuitous association
with a tribe.

The baboon was regarded as the emblem of Tahuti, the god of wisdom; the serious
expression and human ways of the large baboons are an obvious cause for their
being regarded as the wisest of animals. Tahuti is represented as a baboon from
the first dynasty down to late times, and four baboons were sacred in his temple
at Hemmopolis. These four baboons were often portrayed as adoring the sun; this
idea is due to their habit of chattering at sunrise.

The lioness appears in the compound figures of the goddesses Sekhet, Bast,
Mahes, and Tefnut. In the form of Sekhet the lioness is the destructive power
of Ra, the sun: it is Sekhet who, in the legend, destroys mankind from Herakleopolis
to Heliopolis at the bidding of Ra. The other lioness goddesses are probably
likewise destructive or hunting deities. The lesser felidalso appear; the
cheetah and serval are sacred to Hathor in Sinai; the small cats are sacred
to Bast, especially at Speos Artemidos and Bubastis.

The bull was sacred in many places, and his worship underlay that of the
human gods, who were said to be incarnated in him. The idea is that of the fighting
power, as when the king is figured as a bull trampling on his enemies, and the
reproductive power, as in the title of the self-renewing gods, “bull of his
mother.” The most renowned was the Hapi or Apis bull of Memphis, in whom Ptah
was said to be incarnate and who was Osirified and became the Osir-hapi. Thus
appears to have originated the great Ptolemaic god Serapis, as certainly the
mausoleum of the bulls was the Serapeum of the Greeks. Another bull of a more
massive breed was the Ur-mer or Mnevis of Heliopolis, in whom Ra was incarnate.
A third bull was Bakh or Bakis of Hermonthis the incarnation of Mentu. And a
fourth bull, Kan-nub or Kanobos, was worshipped at the city of that name. The
cow was identified with Hathor, who appears with cow’s ears and horns, and who
is probably the cow-goddess Ashtaroth or Istar of Asia. Isis, as identified
with Hathor, is also joined in this connection.

The ram was also worshipped as a procreative god; at Mendes in the Delta
identified with Osiris, at Herakleopolis identified with Hershefi, at Thebes
as Amon, and at the Cataract as Khnumu the creator. The association of the ram
with Amon was strongly held by the Ethiopians; and in the Greek tale of Nektanebo,
the last Pharaoh, having by magic visited Olympias and become the father of
Alexander, he came as the incarnation of Amon wearing the ram’s skin.

The hippopotamus was the goddess Ta-urt, “the great one,” the patroness of
pregnancy, who is never shown in any other form. Rarely this animal appears
as the emblem of the god Set.

The jackal haunted the cemeteries on the edge of the desert, and so came
to be taken as the guardian of the dead, and identified with Anubis, the god
of departing souls. Another aspect of the jackal was as the maker of tracks
in the desert; the jackal paths are the best guides to practicable courses,
avoiding the valleys and precipices, and so the animal was known as Up-uat,
“the opener of ways,” who showed the way for the dead across the western desert.
Species of dogs seem to have been held sacred and mummified on merely the general
ground of confusion with the jackal. The ichneumon and the shrewmouse were also
held sacred, though not identified with a human god.

The hawk was the principal sacred bird, and was identified with Horus and
Ra, the sun-god. It was mainly worshipped at Edfu and Hierakonpolis. The souls
of kings were supposed to fly up to heaven in the form of hawks, perhaps due
to the kingship originating in the hawk district in upper Egypt. Seker, the
god of the dead, appears as a mummified hawk, and on his boat are many small
hawks, perhaps the souls of kings who have joined him. The mummy hawk is also
Sopdu, the god of the east.

The vulture was the emblem of maternity, as being supposed to care especially
for her young. Hence she is identified with Mut, the mother goddess of Thebes.
The queen-mothers have vulture head-dresses; the vulture is shown hovering over
kings to protect them, and a row of spread-out vultures are figured on the roofs
of the tomb passages to protect the soul. The ibis was identified with Tahuti,
the god of Hermopolis. The goose is connected with Amon of Thebes. The swallow
was also sacred.

The crocodile was worshipped especially in the Fayum, where it frequented
the marshy levels of the great lake, and Strabo’s description of the feeding
of the sacred crocodile there is familiar. It was also worshipped at Onuphis;
and at Nubti or Ombos it was identified with Set, and held sacred.

Beside the name of Sebek or Soukhos in Fayum, it was there identified with
Osiris as the western god of the dead. The frog was an emblem of the goddess
Heqt, but was not worshipped.

The cobra serpent was sacred from the earliest times to the present day.
It was never identified with any of the great deities, but three goddesses appear
in serpent form: Uazet, the Delta goddess of Buto; Mert-seger, “the lover of
silence,” the goddess of the Theban necropolis; and Rannut, the harvest goddess.
The memory of great pythons of the prehistoric days appears in the serpent-necked
monsters on the slate palettes at the beginning of the monarchy, and the immense
serpent Agap of the underworld in the later mythology. The serpent has however
been a popular object of worship apart from specific gods. We have already noted
it on prehistoric amulets, and coiled round the hearths of the early dynasties.
Serpents were mummified; and when we reach the full evidences of popular worship,
in the terra-cotta figures and jewellery of later times, the serpent is very
prominent. There were usually two represented together, one often with the head
of Serapis, the other of Isis, so therefore male and female. Down to modern
times a serpent is worshipped at Sheykh Heridy, and miraculous cures attributed
to it (S. R. E. B. 213).

Various fishes were sacred, as the Oxyrhynkhos, Phagros, Lepidotos, Latos,
and others; but they were not identified with gods, and we do not know of their
being worshipped. The scorpion was the emblem of the goddess Selk, and is found
in prehistoric amulets; but it is not known to have been adored, and most usually
it represents evils, where Horus is shown overcoming noxious creatures.

It will be observed that nearly all of the animals which were worshipped
had qualities for which they were noted, and in connection with which they were
venerated. If the animal worship were due to totemism, or a sense of animal
brotherhood in certain tribes, we must also assume that that was due to these
qualities of the animal; whereas totemism in other countries does not seem to
be due to veneration of special qualities of the animals. It is therefore more
likely that the animal worship simply arose from the nature of the animals,
and not from any true totemism, although each animal came to be associated with
the worship of a particular tribe or district.

THE GROUPS OF GODS

In a country which has been subjected to so many inflows of various peoples
as has Egypt, it is to be expected that there would be a great diversity of
deities and a complex and inconsistent theology. To discriminate the principal
classes of conceptions of gods is the first step toward understanding the growth
of the systems. The broad diversion of animal gods and human gods is obvious;
and the mixed type of human figures with animal heads is clearly an adaptation
of the animal gods to the later conception of a human god. Another valuable
separator lies in the compound. names of gods. It is impossible to suppose a
people uniting two gods, both of which belonged to them aboriginally; there
would be no reason for two similar gods in a single system, and we never hear
in classical mythology of Hermes-Apollo or Pallas-Artemis, while Zeus is compounded
with half of the barbarian gods of Asia. So in Egypt, when we find such compounds
as Amon-Ra, or Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, we have the certainty that each name in the
compound is derived from a different race, and that a unifying operation has
taken place on gods that belonged to entirely different sources.

We must beware of reading our modern ideas into the ancient views. As we
noticed in an earlier part of this chapter, each tribe or locality seems to
have had but one god originally; certainly the more remote our view, the more
separate are the gods. Hence to the people of any one district “the god” was
a distinctive name for their own god; and it would have seemed as strange to
discriminate him from the surrounding gods, as it would to a Christian in Europe
if he specified that he did not mean Allah or Siva or Heaven when he speaks
of God. Hence we find generic descriptions used in place of the god’s name,
as “lord of heaven,” or “mistress of turquoise,” while it is certain that specific
gods as Osiris or Hathor are in view. A generic name “god” or “the god” no more
implies that the Egyptians recognised a unity of all the gods, than “god” in
the Old Testament implies that Yahvah was one with Chemosh and Baal. The simplicity
of the term only shows that no other object of adoration was in view.

We have already noticed the purely animal gods; following on these we now
shall describe those which were combined with a human form, then those which
are purely human in their character, next those which are nature gods, and lastly
those which are an abstract character.

Animal-headed Gods: Beside the worship of species of animals, which we have
noticed in the last chapter, certain animals were combined with the human form.
It was always the head of the animal which was united to a human body; the only
converse instance of a human head on an animal body–the sphinxes–represented
the king and not a god. Possibly the combination arose from priests wearing
the heads of animals when personating the god, as the high priest wore the ram’s
skin when personating Amon. But when we notice the frequent combinations and
love of symbolism, shown upon the early carvings, the union of the ancient sacred
animal with the human form is quite in keeping with the views and feelings of
the primitive Egyptians. Many of these composite gods never emerged from the
animal connection, and these we must regard as belonging to the earlier stage
of theology.

Seker was a Memphite god of the dead, independent of the worship of Osiris
and of Ptah, for he was combined with them as Ptah-Seker-Osiris; as he maintained
a place there in the face of the great worship of Ptah, he was probably an older
god, and this is indicated by his having an entirely animal form down to a late
date. The sacred bark of Seker bore his figure as that of a mummified hawk;
and along the boat is a row of hawks which probably are the spirits of deceased
kings who have joined Seker in his journey to the world of the dead. As there
are often two allied forms of the same root, one written with k and the other
with g, 1 it seems probable that Seker, the funeral god of
Memphis, is allied to

Mert Seger (lover of silence). She was the funeral god of Thebes, and was
usually figured as a serpent. From being only known in animal form, and unconnected
with any of the elaborated theology, it seems that we have in this goddess a
primitive deity of the dead. It appears, then, that the gods of the great cemeteries
were known as Silence and the Lover of Silence, and both come down from the
age of animal deities. Seker became in late times changed into a hawk-headed
human figure.

Two important deities of early times were Nekhebt, the vulture goddess of
the southern kingdom, centred at Hierakonpolis, and Uazet, the serpent goddess
of the northern kingdom, centred at Buto. These appear in all ages as the emblems
of the two kingdoms, frequently as supporters on either side of the royal names;
in later times they appear as human goddesses crowning the king.

Khnumu, the creator, was the great god of the cataract. He is shown as making
man upon the potter’s wheel; and in a tale he is said to frame a woman. He must
belong to a different source from that of Ptah or Ra, and was the creative principle
in the period of animal gods, as he is almost always shown with the head of
a ram. He was popular down to late times, where amulets of his figure are often
found.

Tahuti, or Thh, was the god of writing and learning, and was the chief
deity of Hermopolis. He almost always has the head of an ibis, the bird sacred
to him. The baboon is also a frequent emblem of his, but he is never figured
with the baboon head. The ibis appears standing upon a shrine as early as on
a tablet of Mena; Thh is the constant recorder in scenes of the judgment,
and he appears down to Roman times as the patron of scribes. The eighteenth
dynasty of kings incorporated his name as Thhmes, “born of Thh,” owing to
their Hermopolite origin.

Skhmet is the lion goddess, who represents the fierceness of the sun’s heat.
She appears in the myth of the destruction of mankind as slaughtering the enemies
of Ra. Her only form is that with the head of a lioness. But she blends imperceptibly
with

Bastet, who has the head of a cat. She was the goddess of Pa-bast or Bubastis,
and in her honor immense festivals were there held. Her name is found in the
beginning of the pyramid times; but her main period of popularity was that of
the Shisaks who ruled from Bubastis, and in the later times images of her were
very frequent as amulets. It is possible from the name that this feline goddess,
whose foreign origin is acknowledged, was the female form of the god Bes, who
is dressed in a lion’s skin, and also came in from the east.

Mentu was the hawk-god of Erment south of Thebes, who became in the eighteenth
to twentieth dynasties especially the god of war. He appears with the hawk head,
or sometimes as a hawk-headed sphinx; and he became confused with Ra and with
Amon.

Sebek is figured as a man with the crocodile’s head; but he has no theologic
importance, and always remained the local god of certain districts.

Heqt, the goddess symbolised by the frog, was the patron of birth, and assisted
in the infancy of the kings. She was a popular and general deity not mainly
associated with particular places.

Hershefi was the ram-headed god of Herakleopolis, but is never found outside
of that region.

We now come to three animal-headed gods who became associated with the great
Osiride group of human gods. Set or Setesh was the god of the prehistoric inhabitants
before the coming in of Horus. He is always shown with the head of a fabulous
animal, having upright square ears and a long nose. When in entirely animal
form he has a long upright tail. The dog-like animal is the earliest type, as
in the second dynasty; but later the human form with animal head prevailed.
His worship underwent great fluctuations. At first he was the great god of all
Egypt; but his worshippers were gradually driven out by the followers of Horus,
as described in a semi-mythical history. Then he appears strongly in the second
dynasty, the last king of which united the worship of Set and Horus. After suppression
he appears in favor in the early eighteenth dynasty; and even gave the name
to Sety I and II of the nineteenth dynasty. His part in the Osiris myth will
be noted below.

Anpu or Anubis was originally the jackal guardian of the cemetery, and the
leader of the dead in the other world. Nearly all the early funeral formul
mention Anpu on his hill, or Anpu lord of the underworld. As the patron of the
dead he naturally took a place in the myth of Osiris, the god of the dead, and
appears as leading the soul into the judgment of Osiris.

Horus was the hawk-god of upper Egypt, especially of Edfu and Hierakonpolis.
Though originally an independent god, and even keeping apart as Hor-ur, “Horus
the elder,” throughout later times, yet he was early mingled with the Osiris
myth, probably as the ejector of Set who was also the enemy of Osiris. He is
sometimes entirely in hawk form; more usually with a hawk’s head, and in later
times he appears as the infant son of Isis entirely human in form. His special
function is that of overcoming evil; in the earliest days the conqueror of Set,
later as the subduer of noxious animals, figured on a very popular amulet, and
lastly, in Roman times, as a hawk-headed warrior on horseback slaying a dragon,
thus passing into the type of St. George. He also became mingled with early
Christian ideas; and the lock of hair of Horus attached to the cross originated
the chi rho monogram of Christ.

We have now passed briefly over the principal gods which combined the animal
and human forms. We see how the animal form is generally the older, and bow
it was apparently independent of the human form, which has been attached to
it by a more anthropomorphic people. We see that all of these gods must be accredited
to the second stratum, if not, to the earliest formation, of religion in Egypt.
And we must associate with this theology the cemetery theory of the soul which
preceded that of the Osiris or Ra religions.

We now turn to the deities which are always represented in human form, and
never associated with animal figures; neither do they originate in a cosmic–or
nature–worship, nor in abstract idea. There are three divisions of this class,
the Osiris family, the Amon family, and the goddess Neit.

GODS IN HUMAN FORM

Osiris–Asar or Asir–is the most familiar figure of the pantheon, but it
is mainly on late sources that we have to depend for the myth; and his worship
was so much adapted to harmonize with other ideas, that care is needed to trace
his true position. The Osiride portions of the Book of the Dead are certainly
very early, and precede the solar portions, though both views were already mingled
in the pyramid texts. We cannot doubt but that the Osiris worship reaches back
to the prehistoric age. In the earliest tombs offering to Anubis is named, for
whom Osiris became substituted in the fifth and sixth dynasties. In the pyramid
times we only find that kings are termed Osiris, having undergone their apotheoisis
at the sed festival; but in the eighteenth dynasty and onward every justified
person was entitled the Osiris, as being united with the god. His worship was
unknown at Abydos in the earlier temples, and is not mentioned at the cataracts;
though in later times he became the leading deity of Abydos and of Phil Thus
in all directions the recognition of Osiris continued to increase; but, looking
at the antiquity of his cult, we must recognize in this change the gradual triumph
of a popular religion over a state religion which had been superimposed upon
it. The earliest phase of Osirism that we can identify is in portions of the
Book of the Dead. These assume the kingdom of Osiris, and a judgment preceding
admission to the blessed future; the completely human character of Osiris and
his family are implied, and there is no trace of animal or nature worship belonging
to him. How far the myth, as recorded in Roman times by Plutarch, can be traced
to earlier and later sources is very uncertain. The main outlines, which may
be primitive, are as follows. Osiris was a civilising king of Egypt, who was
murdered by his brother Set and seventy-two conspirators. Isis, his wife, found
the coffin of Osiris at Byblos in Syria and brought it to Egypt. Set then tore
up the body of Osiris and scattered it. Isis sought the fragments, and built
a shrine over each of them. Isis and Horus then attacked Set and drove him from
Egypt, and finally down the Red Sea. In other aspects Osiris seems to have been
a corn god, and the scattering of his body in Egypt is like the well-known division
of the sacrifice to the corn god, and the burial of parts in separate fields
to ensure their fertility.

How we are to analyse the formation of the early myths is suggested by the
known changes of later times. When two tribes who worshipped different (rods
fought together and one overcame the other, the god of the conqueror is always
considered to have overcome the god of the vanquished. The struggle of Horus
and Set is expressly stated on the Temple of Edfu to have been a tribal war,
in which the followers of Horus overcame those of Set, established garrisons
and forges at various places down the Nile Valley, and finally ousted the Set
party from the whole land. We can hardly therefore avoid reading the history
of the animosities of the gods as being the struggles of their worshippers.

If we try to trace the historic basis of the Osiris myth, we must take into
account the early customs and ideas among which the myths arose. The cutting
up of the body was the regular ritual of the prehistoric people, and, even as
late as the fifth dynasty, the bones were separately treated, and even wrapped
up separately when the body was reunited for burial. We must also notice the
apotheosis festival of the king, which was probably his sacrificial death and
union with the god, in the prehistoric age. The course of events which might
have served as the basis for the Osiris myth may then have been somewhat as
follows. Osiris was the god of a tribe which occupied a large part of Egypt.
The kings of this tribe were sacrificed after thirty years’ reign–like the
killing of kings at fixed intervals elsewhere–and they thus became the Osiris
himself. Their bodies were dismembered, as usual at that period, the flesh ceremonially
eaten by the assembled people–as was done in prehistoric times–and the bones
distributed among the various centres of the tribe, the head to Abydos, the
neck, spine, limbs, etc., to various places of which there were fourteen in
all. The worshippers of Set broke in upon this people, stopped this worship,
or killed Osiris, as was said, and established the dominion of their animal
god. They were in turn attacked by the Isis worshippers, who joined the older
population of the Osiris tribe, reopened the shrines, and established Osiris
worship again. The Set tribe returning in force attacked the Osiris tribe and
scattered all the relies of the shrines in every part of the land. To re-establish
their power, the Osiris and Isis tribes called in the worshippers of the hawk
Horus, who were old enemies of the Set tribe, and with their help finally expelled
the Set worshippers from the whole country. Such a history, somewhat misunderstood
in a later age when the sacrifice of kings and anthropophagy was forgotten,
would give the basis for nearly all the features of the Osiris myth as recorded
in Roman times.

If we try to materialize this history more closely, we see that the Osiris
worshippers occupied both the Delta and upper Egypt, and that fourteen important
centres were recognised at the earliest time, which afterwards became the capitals
of nomes, and were added to until they numbered forty-two divisions in later
ages. Set was the god of the Asiatic invaders who broke in upon this civilization;
and about a quarter through the long ages of the prehistoric culture, perhaps
7500 B.C., we find material evidences of considerable changes brought in from
the Arabian or Semitic side. It may not be unlikely that this was the first
triumph of Set. The Isis worshippers came from the Delta, where Isis was worshipped
at Buto as a virgin goddess, apart from Osiris or Horus. These followers of
Isis succeeded in helping the rest of the early Libyan inhabitants to resist
the Set worship, and re-establish Osiris. The close of the prehistoric age is
marked by a great decline in work and abilities, very likely due to more trouble
from Asia, when Set scattered the relies of Osiris. Lastly we cannot avoid seeing
in the Horus triumph the conquest of Egypt by the dynastic race who came down
from the district of Edfu and Hierakonpolis, the centres of Horus worship; and
helped the older inhabitants to drive out the Asiatics. Nearly the same chain
of events is seen in later times, when the Berber king Aahmes I helped the Egyptians
to expel the Hyksos. If we can thus succeed in connecting the archlogy of
the prehistoric age with the history preserved in the myths, it shows that Osiris
must have been the national god as early as the beginning of prehistoric culture.
His civilizing mission may well have been the introduction of cultivation, at
about 8000 B.C., into the Nile Valley.

The theology of Osiris was at first that of a god of those holy fields in
which the souls of the dead enjoyed a future fife. There was necessarily some
selection to exclude the wicked from such happiness, and Osiris judged each
soul whether it were worthy. This judgment became elaborated in detailed scenes,
where Isis and Neb-hat stand behind Osiris who is on his throne, Anubis leads
in the soul, the heart is placed in the balance, and Thh stands to weigh it
and to record the result. The occupation of the souls in this future we have
noticed in an earlier part of this chapter. The function of Osiris was therefore
the reception and rule of the dead, and we never find him as a god of action
or patronizing any of the affairs of life.

Isis–Aset or Isit–became attached at a very early time to the Osiris worship;
and appears in later myths as the sister and wife of Osiris. But she always
remained on a very different plane to Osiris. Her worship and priesthood were
far more popular than those of Osiris, and she appears far more usually in the
activities of life. Her union in the Osiris myth by no means blotted out her
independent position and importance as a deity, though it gave her a far more
widespread devotion. The union of Horus with the myth, and the establishment
of Isis as the mother goddess, was the main mode of her importance in later
times. Isis as the nursing mother is seldom shown until the twenty-sixth dynasty;
then the type continually became more popular, until it outgrew all other religions
of the country. In the Roman times the mother Isis not only received the devotion
of all Egypt, but her worship spread rapidly abroad, like that of Mithra. It
became the popular devotion of Italy; and, after a change of name due to the
growth of Christianity, she has continued to receive the adoration of a large
part of Europe down to the present day as the Madonna.

Nephthys–Neb-hat–was a shadowy double of Isis; reputedly her sister, and
always associated with her, she seems to have no other function. Her name, “mistress
of the palace,” suggests that she was the consort of Osiris at the first, as
a necessary but passive complement in the system of his kingdom. When the active
Isis worship entered into the renovation of Osiris, Nebhat remained of nominal
importance, but practically ignored.

Horus–Heru or Horu–has a more complex history than any other god. We cannot
assign the various stages of it with certainty, but we can discriminate the
following ideas:

(a) There was an elder or greater Horus, Hor-ur–or Aroeris of the Greeks–who
was credited with being the brother of Osiris, older than Isis, Set, or Nephthys.
He was always in human form, and was the god of Letopolis. This seems to have
been the primitive god of a tribe cognate to the Osiris worshippers. What connection
this god had with the hawk we do not know; often Horus is found written without
the hawk, simply as hr, with the meaning of “upper” or “above.” This word generally
has the determinative of sky, and so means primitively the sky or one belonging
to the sky. It is at least possible that there was a sky-god her at Letopolis,
and likewise the hawk-god was a sky-god her at Edfu, and hence the mixture of
the two deities.

(b) The hawk-god of the south, at Edfu and Hierakonpolis, became so firmly
embedded in the myth as the avenger of Osiris, that we must accept the southern
people as the ejectors of the Set tribe. It is always the hawk-headed Horus
who wars against Set, and attends on the enthroned Osiris.

(c) The hawk Horus became identified with the sun-god, and hence came the
winged solar disk as the emblem of Horus of Edfu, and the title of Horus on
the horizons–at rising and setting–Hor-emakhti, Harmakhis of the Greeks.

(d) Another aspect resulting from Horus being the “sky” god, was that the
sun and moon were his two eyes; hence he was Hor-merti, Horus of the two eyes;
and the sacred eye of Horus–uza–became the most usual of all amulets.

(e) Horus, as conqueror of Set, appears as the hawk standing on the sign
of gold, nub, nubti was the title of Set, and thus Horus is shown trampling
upon Set; this became a usual title of the kings. There are many less important
forms of Horus, but the form which outgrew all others in popular estimation
was

(f) Hor-pe-khroti, Harpokrates of the Greeks, “Horus the child.” As the son
of Isis he constantly appears from the nineteenth dynasty onward. One of the
earlier of these forms is that of the boy Horus standing upon crocodiles, and
grasping scorpions and noxious animals in his hands. This type was a favorite
amulet down to Ptolemaic times, and is often found carved in stone to be placed
in a house, but was scarcely ever made in other materials or for suspension
on the person,

The form of the young Horus seated on an open lotus flower was also popular
in the Greek times. But the infant Horus with his finger to his lips was the
most popular form of all, sometimes alone, sometimes on his mother’s lap. The
finger, which pointed to his being a sucking child, was absurdly misunderstood
by the Greeks as an emblem of silence. From the twenty-sixth dynasty down to
late Roman times the infant Horus, or the young boy, was the most prominent
subject on the temples, and the commonest figure in the homes of the people.

The other main group of human gods was Amon, Mut, and Khonsu of Thebes. Amon
was the local god of Karnak, and owed his importance in Egypt to the political
rise of his district. The Theban kingdom of the twelfth dynasty spread his fame,
the great kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasty ascribed their victories
to Amon, his high priest became a political power which absorbed the state after
the twentieth dynasty, and the importance of the god only ceased with the fall
of his city. The original attributes and the origin of the name of Amon are
unknown; but he became combined with Ra, the sun-god, and as Amon-Ra he was
“king of the gods,” and “lord of the thrones of the world.” The supremacy of
Amon was for some centuries an article of political faith, and many other gods
were merged in him, and only survived as aspects of the great god of all. The
queens were the high priestesses of the god, and he was the divine father of
their children; the kings being only incarnations of Amon in their relation
to the queens.

Mut, the great mother, was the goddess of Thebes, and hence the consort of
Amon. She is often shown as leading and protecting the kings, and the queens
appear in the character of this goddess. Little is known about her otherwise.

Khonsu is a youthful god combined in the Theban system as the son of Amon
and Mut. He is closely parallel to Thh as being a god of time, as a moon god,
and of science, “the executor of plans.” A large temple was dedicated to him
at Karnak, but otherwise he was not of religious importance.

Neit was a goddess of the Libyan people; but her worship was firmly implanted
by them in Egypt. She was a goddess of hunting and of weaving, the two arts
of a nomadic people. Her emblem was a distaff with two crossed arrows, and her
name was written with a figure of a weaver’s shuttle.

She was adored in the first dynasty, when the name Merneit, “loved by Neit,”
occurs; and her priesthood was one of the most usual in the pyramid period.
She was almost lost to sight during some thousands of years, but she became
the state goddess of the twenty-sixth dynasty, when the Libyans set up their
capital in her city of Sais. In later times she again disappears from customary
religion.

SUN AND SKY GODS

The gods which personify the sun and sky stand apart in their essential idea
from those already described, although they were largely mixed and combined
with other classes of gods. So much did this mixture pervade all the later views
that some writers have seen nothing but varying forms of sun-worship in Egyptian
religion. It will have been noticed however in the foregoing what a large body
of theology was entirely apart from the sun-worship, while here we treat the
latter as separate from the other elements with which it was more or less combined.

Ra was the great sun-god to whom every king pledged himself, by adopting
on his accession a motto-title embodying the god’s name such as Ra-men-kau,
“Ra established the kas”; Ra-sehotep-ab,

“Ra satisfied the heart”; Ra-neb-maat, “Ra is the lord of truth,” and these
titles were those by which the king was best known ever after. This devotion
was not primitive, but began in the fourth dynasty, and was established by the
fifth dynasty being called sons of Ra, and every later king having the title
“son of Ra” before his name. The obelisk was the emblem of Ra, and in the fifth
dynasty a great obelisk temple was built in his honor at Abusir, followed also
by others. Heliopolis was the centre of his worship, where Senusert I, in the
twelfth dynasty, rebuilt the temple and erected the obelisks, one of which is
still standing. But Ra was preceded there by another sun-god, Atmu, who was
the true god of the nome; and Ra, though worshipped throughout the land, was
not the aboriginal god of any city. In Heliopolis he was attached to Atmu, at
Thebes attached to Amen. These facts point to Ra having been introduced into
Egypt by a conquering people, after the theologic settlement of the whole land.
There are many suggestions that the Ra worshippers came in from Asia, and established
their rule at Heliopolis. The title of the ruler of that place was the heq,
a semitic title; and the heq sceptre was the sacred treasure of the temple.
The “spirits of Heliopolis” were specially honored, an idea more Babylonian
than Egyptian. This city was a centre of literary learning and of theologic
theorizing which was unknown elsewhere in Egypt, but familiar in Mesopotamia.
A conical stone was the embodiment of the god at Heliopolis, as in Syria. On,
the native name of Heliopolis, occurs twice in Syria, as well as other cities
named Heliopolis there in later times. The view of an early Semitic principate
of Heliopolis, before the dynastic age, would unify all of these facts; and
the advance of Ra worship in the fifth dynasty would be due to a revival of
the influence of the eastern Delta at that time.

The form of Ra most free from admixture is that of the disk of the sun, sometimes
figured between two hills at rising, sometimes between two wings, sometimes
in the boat in which it floated on the celestial ocean across the sky. The winged
disk has almost always two cobra serpents attached to it, and often two rams’
horns; the meaning of the whole combination is that Ra protects and preserves,
like the vulture brooding over its young, destroys like the cobra, and creates
like the ram. This is seen by the modifications where it is placed over a king’s
head, when the destructive cobra is omitted, and the wings are folded together
as embracing and protecting the king.

This disk form is connected with the hawk-god, by being placed over the head
of the hawk; and this in turn is connected with the human form by the disk resting
on the hawk-headed man, which is one of the most usual types of Ra. The god
is but seldom shown as being purely human, except when identified with other
gods, such as Atmu, Horus, or Amon.

The worship of Ra outshone all others in the nineteenth dynasty. United to
the god of Thebes as Amon Ra, he became “king of the gods,” and the view that
the soul joined Ra in his journey through the hours of the night absorbed all
other views, which only became sections of this whole. By the Greek times this
belief seems to have practically given place to others, and it had practically
vanished in the early Christian age.

Atmu (Tum) was the original god of Heliopolis and the Delta side, round to
the gulf of Suez, which formerly reached up to Ismailiyeh. How far his nature
as the setting sun was the result of his being identified with Ra, is not clear.
It may The that the introduction of Ra led to his being unified with him. Those
who take the view that the names of gods are connected with tribes, as Set and
Suti, and Anak, might well claim that Atmu and Atum belonged to the land of
Aduma or Etham.

Khepera has no local importance, but is named as the morning sun. He was
worshipped about the time of the nineteenth dynasty.

Aten was a conception of the sun entirely different from Ra. No human or
animal form was ever attached to it; and the adoration of the physical power
and action of the sun was the sole devotion. So far as we can trace, it was
a worship entirely apart and different from every other type of religion in
Egypt; and the partial information that we have about it does not so far, show
a single flaw in a purely scientific conception of the source of all life and
power upon earth. The Aten was the only instance of a “jealous god” in Egypt,
and this worship was exclusive of all others, and claims universality. There
are traces of it shortly before Amenhotep III. He showed some devotion to it,
and it was his son who took the name of Akhenaten, “the glory of the Aten,”
and tried to enforce this as the sole worship of Egypt. But it fell immediately
after, and is lost in the next dynasty. The sun is represented as radiating
its beams on all things, and every beam ends in a hand which imparts life and
power to the king and to all else. In the hymn to the Aten the universal scope
of this power is proclaimed as the source of all life and action, and every
land and people are subject to it, and owe to it their existence and their allegiance.
No such grand theology had ever appeared in the world before, so far as we know;
and it is the forerunner of the later monotheist religions, while it is even
more abstract and impersonal, and may well rank as a scientific theism.

Anher was the local god of Thinis in upper Egypt, and Sebennytos in the Delta
a human sun-god. His name is a mere epithet, “he who goes in heaven”; and it
may well be that this was only a title of Ra, who was thus worshipped at these
places.

Sopdu was the god of the eastern desert, and he was identified with the cone
of glowing zodiacal light which precedes the sunrise. His emblem was a mummified
hawk, or a human figure.

Nut, the embodiment of heaven, is shown as a female figure dotted over with
stars. She was not worshipped nor did she belong to any one place, but was a
cosmogonic idea.

Seb, the embodiment of the earth, is figured as lying on the ground while
Nut bends over him.

He was the “prince of the gods,” the power that went before all the later
gods, the superseded Saturn of Egyptian theology. He is rarely mentioned, and
no temples were dedicated to him, but he appears in the cosmic mythology. It
seems, from their positions, that very possibly the Set and Nut were the primeval
gods of the aborigines of Hottentot type, before the Osiris worshippers of European
type ever entered the Nile Valley.

Shu was the god of space, who lifted up Nut from off the body of Seb. He
was often represented, especially in late amulets; possibly it was believed
that he would likewise raise up the body of the deceased from earth to heaven.
His figure is entirely human, and he kneels on one knee with both hands lifted
above his head. He was regarded as the father of Seb, the earth having been
formed from space or chaos. His emblem was the ostrich feather, the lightest
and most voluminous object.

Hapi, the Nile, must also be placed with nature-gods. He is figured as a
man, or two men for the upper and lower Niles, holding a tray of produce of
the land, and having large female breasts as being the nourisher of the valley.
A favourite group consists of the two Nile figures tying the plants of upper
and lower Egypt around the emblem of union. He was worshipped at Nilopolis,
and also at the shrines which marked the boating stages, about a hundred in
number, all along the river. Festivals were held at the rising of the Nile,
like those still kept up at various stages of the inundation. Hymns in honor
of the river attribute all prosperity and good to its benefits.

Ptah, the creator, was especially worshipped at. Memphis. He is figured as
a mummy; and we know that full length burial and mummifying begin with the dynastic
race. He was identified with the earlier animal-worship of the bull Apis; but
it is not likely that this originated his creative aspect, as he creates by
moulding clay, or by word and will, and not by natural means. He became united
with the old Memphite god of the dead, Seker, and with Osiris, as Ptah-Seker-Osiris.
Thus we learn that he belonged neither to the animal worshippers, the believers
in Seker, nor to the Osiride race, but to a fourth people.

Min was the male principle. He was worshipped mainly at Ekhmim and Koptos,
and was there identified with Pan by the Greeks. He also was the god of the
desert, out to the Red Sea. The oldest statues of gods are three gigantic limestone
figures of Min found at Koptos; these bear relief designs of Red Sea shells
and swordfish. It seems, then, that he was introduced by a people coming across
from the east. His worship continued till Roman times.

Hathor was the female principle whose animal was the cow; and she is identified
with the mother Isis. She was also identified with other earlier deities; and
her forms are very numerous in different localities. There were also seven Hathors
who appear as fates, presiding over birth.

Footnotes

1 For instance the words sek, to move; seg, to go;
sek, to destroy.