A typical example of such a G.o.d will suffice, namely Thoth, whose original emblem was the dog-headed ape. In very early times great respect was paid to this animal on account of his sagacity, intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-minded Egyptian, when he heard him chattering just before the sunrise and sunset, a.s.sumed that he was in some way holding converse or was intimately connected with the sun.
This idea clung to his mind, and we find in dynastic times, in thevignette representing the rising sun, that the apes, who are said to be the transformed openers of the portals of heaven, form a veritable company of the G.o.ds, and at the same time one of the most striking features of the scene. Thus an idea which came into being in the most remote times pa.s.sed on from generation to generation until it became crystallized in the best copies of the Book of the Dead, at a period when Egypt was at its zenith of power and glory. The peculiar species of the dog-headed ape which is represented in statues and on papyri is famous for its cunning, and it was the words which it supplied to Thoth, who in turn transmitted them to Osiris, that enabled Osiris to be "true of voice," or triumphant, over his enemies. It is probably in this capacity, _i.e._, as the friend of the dead, that the dog-headed ape appears seated upon the top of the standard of the Balance in which the heart of the deceased is being weighed against the feather symbolic of Ma[=a]t; for the commonest t.i.tles of the G.o.d are "lord of divine books,"
"lord of divine words," _i.e._, the formulae which make the deceased to be obeyed by friend and foe alike in the next world. In later times, when Thoth came to be represented by the ibis bird, his attributes were multiplied, and he became the G.o.d of letters, science, mathematics, etc.; at the creation he seems to have played a part not unlike that of "wisdom" which is so beautifully described by the writer of Proverbs (see Chap. VIII. vv. 23-31).
Whenever and wherever the Egyptians attempted to set up a system of G.o.ds they always found that the old local G.o.ds had to be taken into consideration, and a place had to be found for them in the system. This might be done by making them members of triads, or of groups of nine G.o.ds, now commonly called "enneads"; but in one form or other they had to appear. The researches made during the last few years have shown that there must have been several large schools of theological thought in Egypt, and of each of these the priests did their utmost to proclaim the superiority of their G.o.ds. In dynastic times there must have been great colleges at Heliopolis, Memphis, Abydos, and one or more places in the Delta, not to mention the smaller schools of priests which, probably existed at places on both sides of the Nile from Memphis to the south.
Of the theories and doctrines of all such schools and colleges, those of Heliopolis have survived in the completest form, and by careful examination of the funeral texts which were inscribed on the monuments of the kings of Egypt of the Vth and VIth dynasties we can say what views they held about many of the G.o.ds. At the outset we see that the great G.o.d of Heliopolis was Temu or Atmu, the setting sun, and to him the priests of that place ascribed the attributes which rightly belong to R[=a], the Sun-G.o.d of the day-time. For some reason or other they formulated the idea of a company of the G.o.ds, nine in number, which was called the "great company _(paut)_ of the G.o.ds," and at the head of this company they placed the G.o.d Temu. In Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead [Footnote: See _Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, p. 49.] we find the following pa.s.sage:-- "I am the G.o.d Temu in his rising; I am the only One. I came into being in Nu. I am R[=a] who rose in the beginning."
Next comes the question, "But who is this?" And the answer is: "It is R[=a] when at the beginning he rose in the city of Suten-henen (Heracleopolis Magna) crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of the G.o.d Shu were not as yet created when he was upon the staircase of him that dwelleth in Khemennu (Hermopolis Magna)." From these statements welearn that Temu and R[=a] were one and the same G.o.d, and that he was the first offspring of the G.o.d Nu, the primeval watery ma.s.s out of which all the G.o.ds came into being. The text continues: "I am the great G.o.d Nu who gave birth to himself, and who made his names to come into being and to form the company of the G.o.ds. But who is this? It is R[=a], the creator of the names of his members which came into being in the form of the G.o.ds who are in the train of R[=a]." And again: "I am he who is not driven back among the G.o.ds. But who is this? It is Tem, the dweller in his disk, or as others say, it is R[=a] in his rising in the eastern horizon of heaven." Thus we learn further that Nu was self-produced, and that the G.o.ds are simply the names of his limbs; but then R[=a] is Nu, and the G.o.ds who are in his train or following are merely personifications of the names of his own members. He who cannot be driven back among the G.o.ds is either Temu or R[=a], and so we find that Nu, Temu, and R[=a] are one and the same G.o.d. The priests of Heliopolis in setting Temu at the head of their company of the G.o.ds thus gave R[=a], and Nu also, a place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in making their own local G.o.d chief of the company, but at the same time they provided the older G.o.ds with positions of importance. In this way worshippers of R[=a], who had regarded their G.o.d as the oldest of the G.o.ds, would have little cause to complain of the introduction of Temu into the company of the G.o.ds, and the local vanity of Heliopolis would be gratified.
But besides the nine G.o.ds who were supposed to form the "great company"
of G.o.ds of the city of Heliopolis, there was a second group of nine G.o.ds called the "little company" of the G.o.ds, and yet a third group of nine G.o.ds, which formed the least company. Now although the _paut_ or company of nine G.o.ds might be expected to contain nine always, this was not the case, and the number nine thus applied is sometimes misleading. There are several pa.s.sages extant in texts in which the G.o.ds of a _paut_ are enumerated, but the total number is sometimes ten and sometimes eleven.
This fact is easily explained when we remember that the Egyptians deified the various forms or aspects of a G.o.d, or the various phases in his life. Thus the setting sun, called Temu or Atmu, and the rising sun, called Khepera, and the mid-day sun, called R[=a], were three forms of the same G.o.d; and if any one of these three forms was included in a _paut_ or company of nine G.o.ds, the other two forms were also included by implication, even though the _paut_ then contained eleven, instead of nine G.o.ds. Similarly, the various forms of each G.o.d or G.o.ddess of the _paut_ were understood to be included in it, however large the total number of G.o.ds might become. We are not, therefore, to imagine that the three companies of the G.o.ds were limited in number to 9 x 3, or twenty-seven, even though the symbol for G.o.d be given twenty-seven times in the texts.
We have already alluded to the great number of G.o.ds who were known to the Egyptians, but it will be readily imagined that it was only those who were thought to deal with man"s destiny, here and hereafter, who obtained the worship and reverence of the people of Egypt. These were, comparatively, limited in number, and in fact may be said to consist of the members of the great company of the G.o.ds of Heliopolis, that is to say, of the G.o.ds who belonged to the cycle of Osiris. These may be briefly described as follows:-- 1. TEMU or ATMU, _i.e._, the "closer" of the day, just as Ptah was the "opener" of the day. In the story of the creation he declares that he evolved himself under the form of the G.o.d Khepera, and in hymns he is said to be the "maker of the G.o.ds", "the creator of men", etc., and he usurped the position of R[=a] among the G.o.ds of Egypt. His worship must have been already very ancient at the time of the kings of the Vth dynasty, for his traditional form is that of a man at that time.
2. SHU was the firstborn son of Temu. According to one legend he sprang direct from the G.o.d, and according to another the G.o.ddess Hathor was his mother; yet a third legend makes him the son of Temu by the G.o.ddess Ius[=a]set. He it was who made his way between the G.o.ds Seb and Nut and raised up the latter to form the sky, and this belief is commemorated by the figures of this G.o.d in which he is represented as a G.o.d raising himself up from the earth with the sun"s disk on his shoulders. As a power of nature he typified the light, and, standing on the top of a staircase at Hermopolis Magua, [Footnote: See above, pp. 69 and 89.] he raised up the sky and held it up during each day.
To a.s.sist him in this work he placed a pillar at each of the cardinal points, and the "supports of Shu" are thus the props of the sky.
3. TEFNUT was the twin-sister of Shu; as a power of nature she typified moisture or some aspect of the sun"s heat, but as a G.o.d of the dead she seems to have been, in some way, connected with the supply of drink to the deceased. Her brother Shu was the right eye of Temu, and she was the left, _i.e._, Shu represented an aspect of the Sun, and Tefnut of the Moon. The G.o.ds Temu, Shu, and Tefnut thus formed a trinity, and in the story of the creation the G.o.d Temu says, after describing how Shu and Tefnut proceeded from himself, "thus from being one G.o.d I became three."
4. SEB was the son of the G.o.d Shu. He is called the "Erp[=a]," _i.e._, the "hereditary chief" of the G.o.ds, and the "father of the G.o.ds,"
these being, of course, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. He was originally the G.o.d of the earth, but later he became a G.o.d of the dead as representing the earth wherein the deceased was laid. One legend identifies him with the goose, the bird which, in later times was sacred to him, and he is often called the "Great Cackler," in allusion to the idea that he made the primeval egg from which the world came into being.
5. NUT was the wife of Seb and the mother of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Originally she was the personification of the sky, and represented the feminine principle which was active at the creation of the universe. According to an old view, Seb and Nut existed in the primeval watery abyss side by side with Shu and Tefnut; and later Seb became the earth and Nut the sky. These deities were supposed to unite every evening, and to remain embraced until the morning, when the G.o.d Shu separated them, and set the G.o.ddess of the sky upon his four pillars until the evening. Nut was, naturally, regarded as the mother of the G.o.ds and of all things living, and she and her husband Seb were considered to be the givers of food, not only to the living but also to the dead. Though different views were current in Egypt as to the exact location of the heaven of the beatified dead, yet all schools of thought in all periods a.s.signed it to some region in the sky, and the abundant allusions in the texts to the heavenly bodies--that is, the sun, moon, and stars--which the deceased dwells with, prove that the final abode of the souls of the righteous was not upon earth. The G.o.ddess Nut is sometimes represented as a female along whose body the sun travels, and sometimes as a cow; the tree sacred to her was the sycamore.
6. Osiris was the son of Seb and Nut, the husband of Isis and the father of Horus. The history of this G.o.d is given elsewhere in this book so fully that it is only necessary to refer briefly to him. He was held to be a man although of divine origin; he lived and reigned as a king on this earth; he was treacherously murdered by his brother Set, and his body was cut up into fourteen pieces, which were scattered about Egypt; after his death, Isis, by the use of magical formulae supplied to her by Thoth, succeeded in raising him to life, and he begot a son called Horus; when Horus was grown up, he engaged in combat with Set, and overcame him, and thus "avenged his father"; by means of magical formulae, supplied to him by Thoth, Osiris reconst.i.tuted and revivified his body, and became the type of the resurrection and the symbol of immortality; he was also the hope, the judge, and the G.o.d of the dead, probably even in pre-dynastic times.
Osiris was in one aspect a solar deity, and originally he seems to have represented the sun after it had set; but he is also identified with the moon. In the XVIIIth dynasty, however, he is already the equal of R[=a], and later the attributes of G.o.d and of all the "G.o.ds"
were ascribed to him.
7. Isis was the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus; as a nature G.o.ddess she had a place in the boat of the sun at the creation, when she probably typified the dawn. By reason of her success in revivifying her husband"s body by means of the utterance of magical formulae, she is called the "lady of enchantments." Her wanderings in search of her husband"s body, and the sorrow which she endured in bringing forth and rearing her child in the papyrus swamps of the Delta, and the persecution which she suffered at the hands of her husband"s enemies, form the subject of many allusions in texts of all periods. She has various aspects, but the one which appealed most to the imagination of the Egyptians, was that of "divine mother"; in this character thousands of statues represent her seated and suckling her child Horus whom she holds upon her knees.
8. Set was the son of Seb and Nut, and the husband of Nephthys. At a very early period he was regarded as the brother and friend of "Horus the Elder," the Aroueris of the Greeks, and Set represented the night whilst Horus represented the day. Each of these G.o.ds performed many offices of a friendly nature for the dead, and among others they set up and held the ladder by which the deceased made his way from this earth to heaven, and helped him to ascend it. But, at a later period, the views of the Egyptians concerning Set changed, and soon after the reign of the kings called "Seti," _i.e._, those whose names were based upon that of the G.o.d, he became the personification of all evil, and of all that is horrible and terrible in nature, such as the desert in its most desolate form, the storm and the tempest, etc. Set, as a power of nature, was always waging war with Horus the Elder, _i.e._, the night did battle with the day for supremacy; both G.o.ds, however, sprang from the same source, for the heads of both are, in one scene, made to belong to one body. When Horus, the son of Isis, had grown up, he did battle with Set, who had murdered Horus"s father Osiris, and vanquished him; in many texts these two originally distinct fights are confused, and the two Horus G.o.ds also. The conquest of Set by Horus in the first conflict typified only the defeat of the night by the day, but the defeat of Set in the second seems to have been understood as the victory of life over death, and of good over evil. The symbol of Set was an animal with a head something like that of a camel, but it has not yet been satisfactorily identified; figures of the G.o.d are uncommon, for most of them were destroyed by the Egyptians when they changed their views about him.
9. NEPHTHYS was the sister of Isis and her companion in all her wanderings and troubles; like her she had a place in the boat of the Sun at creation, when she probably typified the twilight or very early night. She was, according to one legend, the mother of Anubis by Osiris, but in the texts his father is declared to be R[=a]. In funeral papyri, stelae, etc., she always accompanies Isis in her ministrations to the dead, and as she a.s.sisted Osiris and Isis to defeat the wickedness of her own husband (Set), so she helped the deceased to overcome the powers of death and the grave.
Here then we have the nine G.o.ds of the divine company of Heliopolis, but no mention is made of Horus, the son of Isis, who played such an important part in the history of his father Osiris, and nothing is said about Thoth; both G.o.ds are, however, included in the company in various pa.s.sages of the text, and it may be that their omission from it is the result of an error of the scribe. We have already given the chief details of the history of the G.o.ds Horus and Thoth, and the princ.i.p.al G.o.ds of the other companies may now be briefly named.
NU was the "father of the G.o.ds," and progenitor of the "great company of the G.o.ds"; he was the primeval watery ma.s.s out of which all things came.
PTAH was one of the most active of the three great G.o.ds who carried out the commands of Thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of the primeval, creative Power; he was self-created, and was a form of the Sun-G.o.d R[=a] as the "Opener" of the day. From certain allusions in the Book of the Dead he is known to have "opened the mouth"
[Footnote: "May the G.o.d Ptah open my mouth"; "may the G.o.d Shu open my mouth with his implement of iron wherewith he opened the mouth of the G.o.ds" (Chap. XXIII.)] of the G.o.ds, and it is in this capacity that he became a G.o.d of the cycle of Osiris. His feminine counterpart was the G.o.ddess SEKHET, and the third member of the triad of which he was the chief was NEFER-TEMU.
PTAH-SEKER is the dual G.o.d formed by fusing Seker, the Egyptian name of the incarnation of the Apis Bull of Memphis, with Ptah.
PTAH-SEKER-AUSAR was a triune G.o.d who, in brief, symbolized life, death, and the resurrection.
KHNEMU was one of the old cosmic G.o.ds who a.s.sisted Ptah in carrying out the commands of Thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of the primeval, creative Power, he is described as "the maker of things which are, the creator of things which shall be, the source of created things, the father of fathers, and the mother of mothers." It was he who, according to one legend, fashioned man upon a potter"s wheel.
KHEPERA was an old primeval G.o.d, and the type of matter which contains within itself the germ of life which is about to spring into a new existence; thus he represented the dead body from which the spiritual body was about to rise. He is depicted in the form of a man having a beetle for a head, and this insect became his emblem because it was supposed to be self-begotten and self-produced. To the present day certain of the inhabitants of the Sudan, pound the dried scarabaeus or beetle and drink it in water, believing that it will insure them a numerous progeny. The name "Khepera" means "he who rolls," and when the insect"s habit of rolling along its ball filled with eggs is taken into consideration, the appropriateness of the name is apparent. As the ball of eggs rolls along the germs mature and burst into life; and as the sun rolls across the sky emitting light and heat and with them life, so earthly things are produced and have their being by virtue thereof.
R[=A] was probably the oldest of the G.o.ds worshipped in Egypt, and his name belongs to such a remote period that its meaning is unknown. He was in all periods the visible emblem of G.o.d, and was the G.o.d of this earth to whom offerings and sacrifices were made daily; time began when R[=a] appeared above the horizon at creation in the form of the Sun, and the life of a man was compared to his daily course at a very early date. R[=a] was supposed to sail over heaven in two boats, the [=A]TET or M[=A] TET boat in which he journeyed from sunrise until noon, and the SEKTET boat in which he journeyed from noon until sunset. At his rising he was attacked by [=A]pep, a mighty "dragon" or serpent, the type of evil and darkness, and with this monster he did battle until the fiery darts which he discharged into the body of =Apep scorched and burnt him up; the fiends that were in attendance upon this terrible foe were also destroyed by fire, and their bodies were hacked in pieces. A repet.i.tion of this story is given in the legend of the fight between Horus and Set, and in both forms it represented originally the fight which was supposed to go on daily between light and darkness. Later, however, when Osiris had usurped the position of R[=a], and Horus represented a divine power who was about to avenge the cruel murder of his father, and the wrong which had been done to him, the moral conceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood were applied to light and darkness, that is to say, to Horus and Set.
As R[=a] was the "father of the G.o.ds," it was natural that every G.o.d should represent some phase of him, and that he should represent every G.o.d. A good ill.u.s.tration of this fact is afforded by a Hymn to R[=a], a fine copy of which is found inscribed on the walls of the sloping corridor in the tomb of Seti I., about B.C. 1370, from which we quote the following:-- 11. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the habitations of Ament, behold [thy] body is Temu.
12. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the hidden place of Anubis, behold, [thy] body is Khepera.
13. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, whose duration of life is greater than that of the hidden forms, behold [thy] body is Shu.
14. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, .... behold [thy] body is Tefnut. 15. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who bringest forth, green things in their season, behold [thy] body is Seb.
16. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, thou mighty being who dost judge,... behold [thy] body is Nut.
17. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, the lord....
behold [thy] body is Isis.
18. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, whose head giveth light to that which is in front of thee, behold [thy] body is Nephthys.
19. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, thou source of the divine members, thou One, who bringest into being that which hath been begotten, behold [thy] body is Horus.
20. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost dwell in and illumine the celestial deep, behold [thy] body is Nu."
[Footnote: For the text see _Annales du Musee Guimet: Le Tombeau de Seti 1_. (ed. Lefebure), Paris, 1886, pl. v.]
In the paragraphs which follow R[=a] is identified with a large number of G.o.ds and divine personages whose names are not of such common occurrence in the texts as those given above, and in one way or another the attributes of all the G.o.ds are ascribed to him. At the time when the hymn was written it is clear that polytheism, not pantheism as some would have it, was in the ascendant, and notwithstanding the fact that the Theban G.o.d Amen was gradually being forced to the headship of the companies of the G.o.ds of Egypt, we find everywhere the attempt being made to emphasize the view that every G.o.d, whether foreign or native, was an aspect or form of R[=a].
The G.o.d Amen just referred to was originally a local G.o.d of Thebes, whose shrine was either founded or rebuilt as far back as the XIIth dynasty, about B.C. 2500. This "hidden" G.o.d, for such is the meaning of the name Amen, was essentially a G.o.d of the south of Egypt, but when the Theban kings vanquished their foes in the north, and so became masters of the whole country, Amen became a G.o.d of the first importance, and the kings of the XVIIIth, XIXth, and XXth dynasties endowed his temples on a lavish scale. The priests of the G.o.d called Amen "the king of the G.o.ds,"
and they endeavoured to make all Egypt accept him as such, but in spite of their power they saw that they could not bring this result about unless they identified him with the oldest G.o.ds of the land. They declared that he represented the hidden and mysterious power which created and sustains the universe, and that the sun was the symbol of this power; they therefore added his name to that of R[=a], and in this form he gradually usurped the attributes and powers of Nu, Khnemu, Ptah, H[=a]pi, and other great G.o.ds. A revolt headed by Amen-hetep, or Amenophis IV. (about B.C. 1500), took place against the supremacy of Amen in the middle of the XVIIIth dynasty, but it was unsuccessful. This king hated the G.o.d and his name so strongly that he changed his own name into that of "Khu-en-Aten," _i.e._, "the glory of the solar Disk," and ordered the name of Amen to be obliterated, wherever possible, on temples and other great monuments; and this was actually done in many places. It is impossible to say exactly what the religious views of theking were, but it is certain that he wished to subst.i.tute the cult of Aten, a form of the Sun-G.o.d worshipped at Annu (_i.e._, On or Heliopolis) in very ancient times, for that of Amen. "Aten" means literally the "Disk of the Sun," and though it is difficult to understand at this distance of time in what the difference between the worship of R[=a] and the worship of "R[=a] in his Disk" consisted, we may be certain that there must have been some subtle, theological distinction between them. But whatever the difference may have been, it was sufficient to make Amenophis forsake the old capital Thebes and withdraw to a place [Footnote: The site is marked by the ruins of Tell el-Amarna.]some distance to the north of that city, where he carried on the worship of his beloved G.o.d Aten. In the pictures of the Aten worship which have come down to us the G.o.d appears in the form of a disk from which proceed a number of arms and hands that bestow life upon his worshippers. After the death of Amenophis the cult of Aten declined, and Amen resumed his sway over the minds of the Egyptians.
Want of s.p.a.ce forbids the insertion here of a full list of the t.i.tles of Amen, and a brief extract from the Papyrus of the Princess Nesi-Khensu [Footnote: For a hieroglyphic transcript of the hieratic text, see Maspero, _Memoires_, tom. i., p. 594 ff.] must suffice to describe the estimation in which the G.o.d was held about B.C. 1000. In this Amen is addressed as "the holy G.o.d, the lord of all the G.o.ds, Amen-R[=a], the lord of the thrones of the world, the prince of Apt (_i.e._, Karnak), the holy soul who came into being in the beginning, the great G.o.d who liveth by right and truth, the first ennead who gave birth unto the other two enneads, [Footnote: _i.e._, the great, the little, and the least companies of the G.o.ds; each company (_paut_) contained nine G.o.ds.]
the being in whom every G.o.d existeth, the One of One, the creator of the things which came into being when the earth took form in the beginning, whose births are hidden, whose forms are manifold, and whose growth cannot be known. The holy Form, beloved and terrible and mighty.... the lord of s.p.a.ce, the mighty One of the form of Khepera, who came into existence through Khepera, the lord of the form of Khepera; when he came into being nothing existed except himself. He shone upon the earth from primeval time, he the Disk, the prince of light and radiance.... When this holy G.o.d moulded himself, the heavens and the earth were made by his heart (_or_ mind).... He is the Disk of the Moon, the beauties whereof pervade the heavens and the earth, the untiring and beneficent king whose will germinateth from rising to setting, from whose divine eyes men and women come forth, and from whose mouth the G.o.ds do come, and [by whom] food and meat and drink are made and provided, and [by whom] the things which exist are created. He is the lord of time, and he traverseth eternity; he is the aged one who reneweth his youth.... He is the Being who cannot be known, and he is more hidden than all the G.o.ds.... He giveth long life and multiplieth the years of those who are favoured by him, he is the gracious protector of him whom he setteth in his heart, and he is the fashioner of eternity and everlastingness. He is the king of the North and of the South, Amen-R[=a], king of the G.o.ds, the lord of heaven, and of earth, and of the waters and of the mountains, with whose coming into being the earth began its existence, the mighty one, more princely than, all the G.o.ds of the first company."
In the above extract, it will be noticed that Amen is called the "One of One," or the "One One," a t.i.tle which has been explained as having no reference whatever to the unity of G.o.d as understood in modern times: but unless these words are intended to express the idea of unity, whatis their meaning? It is also said that he is "without second," and thus there is no doubt whatever that when the Egyptians declared their G.o.d to be One, and without a second, they meant precisely what the Hebrews and Arabs meant when they declared their G.o.d to be One. [Footnote: See Deut., vi. 4; and _Koran_, chapter cxii.] Such a G.o.d was an entirely different Being from the personifications of the powers of nature and the existences which, for want of a better name, have been called "G.o.ds."
But, besides R[=a], there existed in very early times a G.o.d called HORUS, whose symbol was the hawk, which, it seems, was the first living thing worshipped by the Egyptians; Horus was the Sun-G.o.d, like R[=a], and in later times was confounded with Horus the son of Isis. The chief forms of Horus given in the texts are: (1) HERU-UR (Aroueris), (2) HERU-MERTI, (3) HERU-NUB, (4) HERU-KHENT-KHAT, (5) HERU-KHENT-AN-MAA, (6).
HERU-KHUTI, (7) HERU-SAM-TAUI, (8) HERU-HEKENNU, (9) HERU-BEHUTET.
Connected with one of the forms of Horus, originally, were the four G.o.ds of the cardinal points, or the "four, spirits of Horus," who supported heaven at its four corners; their names were HAPI, TUAMUTEE, AMSET, and QEBHSENNUF, and they represented the north, east, south, and west respectively. The intestines of the dead were embalmed and placed in four jars, each being under the protection, of one of these four G.o.ds.
Other important G.o.ds of the dead are: (1) ANUBIS, the son of R[=a] or Osiris, who presided over the abode of the dead, and with AP-UAT shared the dominion of the "funeral mountain"; the symbol of each of these G.o.ds is a jackal. (2) HU and SA, the children of Temu, or R[=a], who appear in the boat of the sun at the creation, and later in the Judgment Scene.
(3) The G.o.ddess MA[=A]T, who was a.s.sociated with Thoth, Ptah, and Khnemu in the work of creation; the name means "straight," hence what is right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable, and the like. (4) The G.o.ddess HET-HERT (Hathor), _i.e._, the "house of Horus," which was that part of the sky where the sun rose and set. The sycamore tree was sacred to her, and the deceased prays to be fed by her with celestial food from out of it (5) The G.o.ddess MEH-URT, who represented that portion of the sky in which the sun takes his daily course; here it was, according to the view held at one period at least, that the judgment of the deceased was supposed to take place.
(6) NEITH, the mother of SEBEK, who was also a G.o.ddess of the eastern portion of the sky. (7) SEKHET and BAST, who are represented with the heads of a lion and a cat, and who were symbols of the destroying, scorching power of the sun, and of the gentle heat thereof, respectively. (8) SERQ, who was a form of Isis. (9) TA-URT (Thoueris), who was the genetrix of the G.o.ds. (10) UATCHET, who was a form of Hather, and who had dominion over the northern sky, just as NEKHEBET was mistress of the southern sky. (11) NEHEB-KA, who was a G.o.ddess who possessed magical powers, and in some respects resembled Isis in her attributes. (12) SEBAK, who was a form of the Sun-G.o.d, and was in later times confounded with Sebak, or Sebek, the friend of Set. (13) AMSU (or MIN or KUEM), who was the personification of the generative and reproductive powers of nature. (14) BEB or BABA, who was the "firstborn son of Osiris." (15) H[=a]pi, who was the G.o.d of the Nile, and with whom most of the great G.o.ds were identified.
The names of the beings who at one time or another were called "G.o.ds" in Egypt are so numerous that a mere list of them would fill scores of pages, and in a work of this kind would be out of place. The reader is, therefore, referred to Lanzone"s _Mitologia Egizia_, where aconsiderable number are enumerated and described.
CHAPTER IV.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.
The belief that the deeds done in the body would be subjected to an a.n.a.lysis and scrutiny by the divine powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest period of Egyptian civilization, and this belief remained substantially the same in all generations. Though we have no information as to the locality where the Last Judgment took place, or whether the Egyptian soul pa.s.sed into the judgment-hall immediately after the death of the body, or after the mummification was ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as deeply rooted in the Egyptians as the belief in immortality. There seems to have been no idea of a general judgment when all those who had lived in the world should receive their reward for the deeds done in the body; on the contrary, all the evidence available goes to show that each soul was dealt with individually, and was either permitted to pa.s.s into the kingdom of Osiris and of the blessed, or was destroyed straightway. Certain pa.s.sages in the texts seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered that it was the enemies of R[=a], the Sun-G.o.d, that inhabited this region; and it is impossible to imagine that the divine powers who presided over the judgment would permit the souls of the wicked to live after they had been condemned and to become enemies of those who were pure and blessed.
On the other hand, if we attach any importance to the ideas of the Copts upon this subject, and consider that they represent ancient beliefs which they derived from the Egyptians traditionally, it must be admitted that the Egyptian underworld contained some region wherein the souls of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period. The Coptic lives of saints and martyrs are full of allusions to the sufferings of the d.a.m.ned, but whether the descriptions of these are due to imaginings of the mind of the Christian Egyptian or to the bias of the scribe"s opinions cannot always be said. When we consider that the Coptic h.e.l.l was little more than a modified form of the ancient Egyptian Amenti, or Amentet, it is difficult to believe that it was the name of the Egyptian underworld only which was borrowed, and that the ideas and beliefs concerning it which were held by the ancient Egyptians were not at the same time absorbed. Some Christian writers are most minute in their cla.s.sification of the wicked in h.e.l.l, as we may see from the following extract from the life of Pisentios, [Footnote: Ed. Amelineau, Paris, 1887, p. 144 f.] Bishop of Keft, in the VIIth century of our era. The holy man had taken refuge in a tomb wherein a number of mummies had been piled up, and when he had read the list of the names of the people who had been buried there he gave it to his disciple to replace. Then he addressed his disciple and admonished him to do the work of G.o.d with diligence, and warned him that every man must become even as were the mummies which lay before them. "And some," said he, "whose sins have been many are now in Amenti, others are in the outer darkness, others are in pits and ditches filled with fire, and others are in the river of fire: upon these last no one hath bestowed rest. And others, likewise,are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works." When the disciple had departed, the holy man began to talk to one of the mummies who had been a native of the town of Erment, or Armant, and whose father and mother had been called Agricolaos and Eustathia. He had been a worshipper of Poseidon, and had never heard that Christ had come into the world. "And," said he "woe, woe is me because I was born into the world. Why did not my mother"s womb become my tomb? When, it became necessary for me to die, the Kosmokrator angels were the first to come round about me, and they told me of all the sins which I had committed, and they said unto me, "Let him that can save thee from the torments into which thou shalt be cast come hither." And they had in their hands iron knives, and pointed goads which were like unto sharp spears, and they drove them into my sides and gnashed upon me with their teeth. When a little time afterwards my eyes were opened I saw death hovering about in the air in its manifold forms, and at that moment angels who were without pity came and dragged my wretched soul from my body, and having tied it under the form of a black horse they led me away to Amonti. Woe be unto every sinner like unto myself who hath been born into the world!
O my master and father, I was then delivered into the hands of a mult.i.tude of tormentors who were without pity and who had each a different form. Oh, what a number of wild beasts did I see in the way!
Oh, what a number of powers were there that inflicted punishment upon me! And it came to pa.s.s that when I had been cast into the outer darkness, I saw a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits deep, and it was filled with reptiles; each reptile had seven heads, and the body of each was like unto that of a scorpion. In this place also lived the Great Worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that looked thereat. In his mouth he had teeth like unto iron stakes, and one took me and threw me to this Worm which never ceased to eat; then immediately all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and when he had filled his mouth [with my flesh], all the beasts who were round about me filled theirs." In answer to the question of the holy man as to whether he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering, the mummy replied: "Yea, O my father, pity is shown unto those who are in torment every Sat.u.r.day and every Sunday. As soon as Sunday is over we are cast into the torments which we deserve, so that we may forget the years which we have pa.s.sed in the world; and as soon as we have forgotten the grief of this torment we are cast into another which is still more grievous."
Now, it is easy to see from the above description of the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer, that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excavation of tombs which has gone on in Egypt during the last few years; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. The outer darkness, _i.e._, the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts which describe the pa.s.sage of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. Having once misunderstood the general meaning of such scenes, it was easy to convert the foes of R[=a], the Sun-G.o.d, into the souls of the d.a.m.ned, and to look upon the burning up of such foes--who were after all only certain powers of nature personified--as the well-merited punishment of those who had done evil upon the earth. How far the Copts reproduced unconsciously the views which had been held by their ancestors for thousands of years cannot be said, but even after much allowance has been made for this possibility,there remains still to be explained a large number of beliefs and views which seem to have been the peculiar product of the Egyptian Christian imagination.
It has been said above that the idea of the judgment of the dead is of very great antiquity in Egypt; indeed, it is so old that it is useless to try to ascertain the date of the period when it first grew up. In the earliest religious texts known to us, there are indications that the Egyptians expected a judgment, but they are not sufficiently definite to argue from; it is certainly doubtful if the judgment was thought to be as thorough and as searching then as in the later period. As far back as the reign of Men-kau-R[=a], the Mycerinus of the Greeks, about B.C.
3600, a religious text, which afterwards formed chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead, was found inscribed on an iron slab; in the handwriting of the G.o.d Thoth, by the royal son or prince Herut[=a]t[=a]f. [Footnote: See _Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, Translation, p. 80.] The original purpose of the composition of this text cannot be said, but there is little doubt that it was intended, to benefit the deceased in the judgment, and, if we translate its t.i.tle literally, it was intended to prevent his heart from "falling away from him in the underworld." In the first part of it the deceased, after adjuring his heart, says, "May naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment; may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the sovereign princes; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the Balance!... May the officers of the court of Osiris (in Egyptian _Shenit_), who form the conditions of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink! Let [the judgment] be satisfactory unto me, let the hearing be satisfactory unto me, and let me have joy of heart at the weighing of words. Let not that which is false be uttered against me before the Great G.o.d, the Lord of Amentet."
Now, although the papyrus upon, which this statement and prayer are found was written about two thousand years after Men-kau-R[=a] reigned, there is no doubt that they were copied from texts which were themselves copied at a much earlier period, and that the story of the finding of the text inscribed upon an iron slab is contemporary with its actual discovery by Herut[=a]t[=a]f. It is not necessary to inquire here whether the word "find" (in Egyptian _qem_) means a genuine discovery or not, but it is clear that those who had the papyrus copied saw no absurdity or impropriety in ascribing the text to the period of Men-kau-R[=a]. Another text, which afterwards also became a chapter of the Book of the Dead, under the t.i.tle "Chapter of not letting the heart of the deceased be driven away from him in the underworld," was inscribed on a coffin of the XIth dynasty, about B.C. 2500, and in it we have the following pet.i.tion: "May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of the trial (literally, "lords of things"); let it not be said of me and of that which I have done, "He hath done deeds against that which is very right and true"; may naught be against me in the presence of the Great G.o.d, the Lord of Amentet."
[Footnote: _Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, p. 78.] From these pa.s.sages we are right in a.s.suming that before the end of the IVth dynasty the idea of being "weighed in the balance" was already evolved; that the religious schools of Egypt had a.s.signed to a G.o.d the duty of watching the balance when cases were being tried; that this weighing in the balance took place in the presence of the beings called _Shenit_, who were believed to control the acts and deeds of men; that it was thought that evidence unfavourable to the deceased might be produced byhis foes at the judgment; that the weighing took place in the presence of the Great G.o.d, the Lord of Amentet; and that the heart of the deceased might fail him either physically or morally. The deceased addresses his heart, calling it is "mother," and next identifies it with his _ka_ or double, coupling the mention of the _ka_ with the name of the G.o.d Khnemu: these facts are exceedingly important, for they prove that the deceased considered his heart to be the source of his life and being, and the mention of the G.o.d Khnemu takes the date of the composition back to a period coaeval with the beginnings of religious thought in Egypt. It was the G.o.d Khnemu who a.s.sisted Thoth in performing the commands of G.o.d at the creation, and one very interesting sculpture at Philae shows Khnemu in the act of fashioning man upon a potter"s wheel. The deceased, in mentioning Khnemu"s name, seems to invoke his aid in the judgment as fashioner of man and as the being who is in some respects responsible for the manner of his life upon earth.
In Chapter 30A there is no mention made of the "guardian of the balance," and the deceased says, "May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of things!" The "lords of things"
may be either the "lords of creation," _i.e._, the great cosmic G.o.ds, or the "lords of the affairs [of the hall of judgment]," _i.e._, of the trial. In this chapter the deceased addresses not Khnemu, but "the G.o.ds who dwell in the divine clouds, and who are exalted by reason of their sceptres," that is to say, the four G.o.ds of the cardinal points, called Mestha, H[=a]pi Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf, who also presided over the chief internal organs of the human body. Here, again, it seems as if the deceased was anxious to make these G.o.ds in some way responsible for the deeds done by him in his life, inasmuch as they presided, over the organs that were the prime movers of his actions. In any case, he considers them in, the light of intercessors, for he beseeches them to "speak fair words unto R[=a]" on his behalf, and to make him to prosper before the G.o.ddess Nehebka. In this case, the favour of R[=a], the Sun-G.o.d, the visible emblem of the almighty and eternal G.o.d, is sought for, and also that of the serpent G.o.ddess, whose attributes are not yet accurately defined, but who has much to do with the destinies of the dead. No mention whatever is made of the Lord of Amentet--Osiris.
Before we pa.s.s to the consideration of the manner in which the judgment is depicted upon the finest examples of the ill.u.s.trated papyri, reference must be made to an interesting vignette in the papyri of Nebseni [Footnote: British Museum, No. 9900.] and Amen-neb. [Footnote 2: British Museum, No. 0964.] In both of these papyri we see a figure of the deceased himself being weighed in the balance against his own heart in the presence of the G.o.d Osiris. It seems probable that a belief was current at one time in ancient Egypt concerning the possibility of the body being weighed against the heart, with the view of finding out if the former had obeyed the dictates of the latter; be that as it may, however, it is quite certain that this remarkable variant of the vignette of Chapter 30B had some special meaning, and, as it occurs in two papyri which date from the XVIIIth dynasty, we are justified in a.s.suming that it represents a belief belonging to a much older period.
The judgment here depicted must, in any case, be different from that which forms such a striking scene in the later ill.u.s.trated papyri of the XVIIIth and following dynasties.
We have now proved that the idea of the judgment of the dead was accepted in religious writings as early as the IVth dynasty, about B.C.3600, but we have to wait nearly two thousand years before we find it in picture form. Certain scenes which are found in the Book of the Dead as vignettes accompanying certain texts or chapters, _e.g._, the Fields of Hetep, or the Elysian Fields, are exceedingly old, and are found on sarcophagi of the XIth and XIIth dynasties; but the earliest picture known of the Judgment Scene is not older than the XVIIIth dynasty. In the oldest Theban papyri of the Book of the Dead no Judgment Scene is forthcoming, and when we find it wanting in such authoritative doc.u.ments as the Papyrus of Nebseni and that of Nu, [Footnote: British Museum, No.
10,477.] we must take it for granted that there was some reason for its omission. In the great ill.u.s.trated papyri, in which, the Judgment Scene is given in full, it will be noticed that it comes at the beginning of the work, and that it is preceded by hymns and by a vignette. Thus, in the Papyrus of Ani, [Footnote: British Museum, No. 10,470.] we have a hymn to R[=a] followed by a vignette representing the sunrise, and a hymn to Osiris; and in the Papyrus of Hunefer, [Footnote 2: British Museum, No. 9901.] though the hymns are different, the arrangement is the same. We are justified, then, in a.s.suming that the hymns and the Judgment Scene together formed an introductory section to the Book of the Dead, and it is possible that it indicates the existence of the belief, at least during the period of the greatest power of the priests of Amen, from B.C. 1700 to B.C. 800, that the judgment of the dead for the deeds done in the body preceded the admission of the dead into the kingdom of Osiris. As the hymns which accompany the Judgment Scene are fine examples of a high cla.s.s of devotional compositions, a few translations from some of them are here given.
HYMN TO R[=A]. [Footnote: See _The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, p.
7.].
"Homage to thee, O thou who risest in Nu, [Footnote: The sky personified.] and who at thy manifestation dost make the world bright with light; the whole company of the G.o.ds sing hymns of praise unto thee after thou hast come forth. The divine Merti [Footnote: Literally, the Two Eyes, _i.e._, Isis and Nephthys.] G.o.ddesses who minister unto thee cherish thee as King of the North and South, thou beautiful and beloved Man-child. When, thou risest men and women live.
The nations rejoice in thee, and the Souls of Annu [Footnote: _i.e._, R[=a], Shu and Tefnut.] (Heliopolis) sing unto thee songs of joy. The Souls of the city of Pe, [Footnote: Part of the city of Buto (Per-Uatchit). The souls of Pe were Horus, Mestha, H[=a]pi.] and the Souls of the city of Nekhen [Footnote: _i.e._, Horus, Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf.] exalt thee, the apes of dawn adore thee, and all beasts and cattle praise thee with one accord. The G.o.ddess Seba overthroweth thine enemies, therefore hast thou rejoicing in thy boat; thy mariners are content thereat. Thou hast attained unto the [= A]tet boat, [Footnote: _i.e._, the boat in which the sun travels until noon.] and thy heart swelleth with joy. O lord of the G.o.ds, when thou didst create them they shouted for joy. The azure G.o.ddess Nut doth compa.s.s thee on every side, and the G.o.d Nu floodeth thee with his rays of light. O cast thou thy light upon me and let me see thy beauties, and when thou goest forth over the earth I will sing praises unto thy fair face. Thou risest in heaven"s horizon, and thy disk is adored when it resteth upon the mountain to give life unto the world."
"Thou risest, thou risest, and thou comest forth from the G.o.d Nu. Thou dost renew thy youth, and thou dost set thyself in the place where thou wast yesterday. O thou divine Child, who didst create thyself, I am not able [to describe] thee. Thou hast come with thy risings, and thou hast made heaven and earth resplendent with thy rays of pure emerald light. The land of Punt [Footnote: _i.e._, the land on each side of the Red Sea and North-east Africa.] is established [to give]
the perfumes which, thou smellest with thy nostrils. Thou risest, O marvellous Being, in heaven, and the two serpent-G.o.ddesses, Merti, are established upon thy brow. Thou art the giver of laws, O thou lord of the world and of all the inhabitants thereof; all the G.o.ds adore thee."
HYMN TO OSIRIS [Footnote: See _The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, p.
11.].
"Glory be to thee, O Osiris Un-nefer, the great G.o.d within Abydos, king of eternity and lord of everlastingness, the G.o.d who pa.s.sest through millions of years in thy existence. Thou art the eldest son of the womb of Nut, thou wast engendered by Seb, the Ancestor of the G.o.ds, thou art the lord of the Crowns of the North and of the South, and of the lofty white crown. As Prince of the G.o.ds and of men thou hast received the crook, and the whip, and the dignity of thy divine fathers. Let thy heart which is in the mountain of Ament [Footnote: _i.e._, the underworld.] be content, for thy son Horus is established upon thy throne. Thou art crowned the lord of Tattu (Mendes) and ruler in Abtu (Abydos). Through thee the world waxeth green in triumph before the might of Neb-er-tcher. [Footnote: A name of Osiris.] Thou leadest in thy train that which is, and that which is not yet, in thy name of "Ta-her-sta-nef;" thou towest along the earth in thy name of "Seker;" thou art exceedingly mighty and most terrible in thy name of "Osiris;" thou endurest for ever and for ever in thy name of "Un-nefer.""
"Homage to thee, O thou King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of Princes! From the womb of Nut thou hast ruled the world and the underworld. Thy body is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee. O thou G.o.d An, who hast had existence for millions of years, who pervadest all things with thy body, who art beautiful in countenance in the Land of Holiness (_i.e._, the underworld), grant thou to me splendour in heaven, might upon earth, and triumph in the underworld.
Grant thou that I may sail down to Tattu like a living soul, and up to Abtu like the phoenix; and grant that I may enter in and come forth from the pylons of the lands of the underworld without let or hindrance. May loaves of bread be given unto me in the house of coolness, and offerings of food and drink in Annu (Heliopolis), and a homestead for ever and for ever in the Field of Reeds [Footnote: A division of the "Fields of Peace" or Elysian Fields.] with wheat and barley therefor."
In the long and important hymn in the Papyrus of Hunefer [Footnote: See _The Chapters of Coming Forth By Day_, pp. 343-346.] occurs the following pet.i.tion, which is put into the mouth of the deceased:-- "Grant that I may follow in the train of thy Majesty even as I did upon earth. Let my soul be called [into the presence], and let it be found by the side of the lords of right and truth. I have come into the City of G.o.d, the region which existed in primeval time, with [my] soul, and with [my] double, and with [my] translucent form, to dwell in this land. The G.o.d thereof is the lord of right and truth, he is the lord of the _tchefau_ food of the G.o.ds, and he is most holy. His land draweth unto itself every land; the South cometh sailing down the river thereto, and the North, steered thither by winds, cometh daily to make festival therein according to the command of the G.o.d thereof, who is the Lord of peace therein. And doth he not say, "The happiness thereof is a care unto me"? The G.o.d who dwelleth therein worketh right and truth; unto him that doeth these things he giveth old age, and to him that followeth after them rank and honour, until at length he attaineth unto a happy funeral and burial in the Holy Land" (_i.e._, the underworld).
The deceased, having recited these words of prayer and adoration to R[=a], the symbol of Almighty G.o.d, and to his son Osiris, next "cometh forth into the Hall of Ma[=a]ti, that he may be separated from every sin which he hath done, and may behold the faces of the G.o.ds." [Footnote: This quotation is from the t.i.tle of Chapter CXXV. of the Book of the Dead.] From the earliest times the Ma[=a]ti were the two G.o.ddesses Isis and Nephthys, and they were so called because they represented the ideas of straightness, integrity, righteousness, what is right, the truth, and such like; the word Ma[=a]t originally meant a measuring reed or stick.
They were supposed either to sit in the Hall of Ma[=a]t outside the shrine of Osiris, or to stand by the side of this G.o.d in the shrine; an example of the former position will be seen in the Papyrus of Ani (Plate 31), and of the latter in the Papyrus of Hunefer (Plate 4). The original idea of the Hall of Ma[=a]t or Ma[=a]ti was that it contained forty-two G.o.ds; a fact which we may see from the following pa.s.sage in the Introduction to Chapter CXXV. of the Book of the Dead. The deceased says to Osiris:-- "Homage to thee, O thou great G.o.d, thou Lord of the two Ma[=a]t G.o.ddesses! I have come to thee, O my Lord, and I have made myself to come hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee, and I know thy name, and I know the names of the two and forty G.o.ds who live with thee in this Hall of Ma[=a]ti, who live as watchers of sinners and who feed upon their blood on that day when the characters (_or_ lives) of men are reckoned up (_or_ taken into account) in the presence of the G.o.d Un-nefer. Verily, G.o.d of the Rekhti-Merti (_i.e._, the twin sisters of the two eyes), the Lord of the city of Ma[=a]ti is thy name. Verily I have come to thee, and I have brought Ma[=a]t unto thee, and I have destroyed wickedness."
The deceased then goes on to enumerate the sins or offences which he has not committed; and he concludes by saying: "I am pure; I am pure; I am pure; I am pure. My purity is the purity of the great Bennu which is in the city of Suten-henen (Heracleopolis), for, behold., I am the nostrils of the G.o.d of breath, who maketh all mankind to live on the day when the Eye of R[=a] is full in Annu (Heliopolis) at the end of the second month of the season PERT. [Footnote: _i.e._, the last day of the sixth month of the Egyptian year, called by the Copta Mekhir.] I have seen the Eye of R[=a] when it was full in Annu; [Footnote: The allusion here seems to be to the Summer or Winter Solstice.] therefore let not evil befall me either in this land or in this Hall of Ma[=a]ti, because I, even I, know the names of the G.o.ds who are therein."
Now as the G.o.ds who live in the Hall of Ma[=a]t with Osiris are two andforty in number, we should expect that two and forty sins or offences would be mentioned in the addresses which the deceased makes to them; but this is not the case, for the sins enumerated in the Introduction never reach this number. In the great ill.u.s.trated papyri of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties we find, however, that notwithstanding the fact that a large number of sins, which the deceased declares he has not committed, are mentioned in the Introduction, the scribes and artists added a series of negative statements, forty-two in number, which they set out in a tabular form. This, clearly, is an attempt to make the sins mentioned equal in number to the G.o.ds of the Hall of Ma[=a]t, and it would seem as if they preferred to compose an entirely new form of this section of the one hundred and twenty-fifth chapter to making any attempt to add to or alter the older section. The artists, then, depicted a Hall of Ma[=a]t, the doors of which are wide open, and the cornice of which is formed of uraei and feathers, symbolic of Ma[=a]t.
Over the middle of the cornice is a seated deity with hands extended, the right over the Eye of Horus, and the left over a pool. At the end of the Hall are seated the G.o.ddesses of Ma[=a]t, _i.e._, Isis and Nephthys, the deceased adoring Osiris who is seated on a throne, a balance with the heart of the deceased in one scale, and the feather, symbolic of Ma[=a]t, in the other, and Thoth painting a large feather. In this Hall sit the forty-two G.o.ds, and as the deceased pa.s.ses by each, the deceased addresses him by his name and at the same time declares that he has not committed a certain sin. An examination of the different papyri shows that the scribes often made mistakes in writing this list of G.o.ds and list of sins, and, as the result, the deceased is made to recite before one G.o.d the confession which strictly belongs to another. Inasmuch, as the deceased always says after p.r.o.nouncing the name of each G.o.d, "I have not done" such and such a sin, the whole group of addresses has been called the "Negative Confession." The fundamental ideas of religion and morality which underlie this Confession are exceedingly old, and we may gather from it with tolerable clearness what the ancient Egyptian believed to const.i.tute his duty towards G.o.d and towards his neighbour.
It is impossible to explain, the fact that forty-two G.o.ds only are addressed, and equally so to say why this number was adopted. Some have believed that the forty-two G.o.ds represented each a name of Egypt, and much support is given to this view by the fact that most of the lists of names make the number to be forty-two; but then, again, the lists do not agree. The cla.s.sical authors differ also, for by some of these writers the names are said to be thirty-six in number, and by others forty-six are enumerated. These differences may, however, be easily explained, for the central administration may at any time have added to or taken from the number of names for fiscal or other considerations, and we shall probably be correct in a.s.suming that at the time the Negative Confession was drawn up in the tabular form in which we meet it in the XVIIIth dynasty the names were forty-two in number. Support is also lent to this view by the fact that the earliest form of the Confession, which forms the Introduction to Chapter CXXV., mentions less than forty sins.
Incidentally we may notice that the forty-two G.o.ds are subservient to Osiris, and that they only occupy a subordinate position in the Hall of Judgment, for it is the result of the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the balance that decides his future. Before pa.s.sing to the description of the Hall of Judgment where the balance is set, it is necessary to give a rendering of the Negative Confession which, presumably, the deceased recites before his heart is weighed in the balance; it is made from the Papyrus of Nu. [Footnote: British Museum,No. 10,477.]
1. "Hail Usekh-nemtet (_i.e._, Long of strides), who comest forth from Anuu (Heliopolis), I have not done iniquity.
2. "Hail Hept-seshet (_i.e._, Embraced by flame), who comest forth from Kher-[=a]ba, [Footnote: A city near Memphis.] I have not robbed with violence.
3. "Hail Fenti (_i.e._, Nose), who comest forth from Khemennu (Hermopolis), I have not done violence to any man.
4. "Hail [=A]m-khaibitu (_i.e._, Eater of shades), who comest forth from the Qereret (_i.e._, the cavern where the Nile rises), I have not committed theft.
5. "Hail Neha-bra (_i.e._, Stinking face), who comest forth from Restau, I have slain neither man nor woman.
6. "Hail Rereti (_i.e._, Double Lion-G.o.d), who comest forth from heaven, I have not made light the bushel.