The Religion of Ancient Egypt Part 2

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CHAPTER VI

THE HUMAN G.o.dS

We now turn to the deities which are always represented in human form, and never a.s.sociated with animal figures; neither do they originate in a cosmic--or nature--worship, nor in abstract ideas. There are three divisions of this cla.s.s, the Osiris family, the Amon family, and the G.o.ddess Neit.

+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 harmonise 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 {38} became subst.i.tuted in the fifth and sixth dynasties. In the pyramid times we only find that kings are termed Osiris, having undergone their apotheosis at the _sed_ festival; but in the eighteenth dynasty and onward every justified person was ent.i.tled the Osiris, as being united with the G.o.d. 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 Philae. Thus in all directions the recognition of Osiris continued to increase; but, looking at the antiquity of his cult, we must recognise 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 a.s.sume 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 follow. Osiris was a civilising king of Egypt, who was murdered by his brother Set and seventy-two {39} 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 G.o.d, and the scattering of his body in Egypt is like the well-known division of the sacrifice to the corn G.o.d, and the burial of parts in separate fields to ensure their fertility.

How we are to a.n.a.lyse the formation of the early myths is suggested by the known changes of later times. When two tribes who worshipped different G.o.ds fought together and one overcame the other, the G.o.d of the conqueror is always considered to have overcome the G.o.d 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 G.o.ds as being the struggles of their worshippers.

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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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled 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 {41} of their animal G.o.d. They were in turn attacked by the Isis worshippers, who joined the older population of the Osiris tribe, re-opened the shrines, and established Osiris worship again. The Set tribe returning in force attacked the Osiris tribe and scattered all the relics 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 materialise 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 G.o.d of the Asiatic invaders who broke in upon this civilisation; and about a quarter through the long ages of the prehistoric culture (perhaps 7500 B.C.) we find material evidences of {42} 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 G.o.ddess, 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 relics 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 archaeology of the prehistoric age with the history preserved in the myths, it shows that Osiris must have been the national G.o.d as early as the beginning of prehistoric culture. His civilising mission may well have been the introduction of cultivation, at about 8000 B.C., into the Nile valley.

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The theology of Osiris was at first that of a G.o.d of those holy fields in which the souls of the dead enjoyed a future life. 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 Thoth stands to weigh it and to record the result. The occupations of the souls in this future we have noticed in chapter iii. The function of Osiris was therefore the reception and rule of the dead, and we never find him as a G.o.d of action or patronising 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, persons were named after her much more often than after Osiris, and she appears far more usually in the activities of life. Her union in the Osiris myth by no moans blotted out her independent position and importance as a deity, though it gave her {44} a far more widespread devotion. The union of Horus with the myth, and the establishment of Isis as the mother G.o.ddess, 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 a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.sive 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 {45} history than any other G.o.d. We cannot a.s.sign 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 G.o.d of Letopolis. This seems to have been the primitive G.o.d of a tribe cognate to the Osiris worshippers. What connection this G.o.d 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-G.o.d _her_ at Letopolis, and likewise the hawk-G.o.d was a sky-G.o.d _her_ at Edfu, and hence the mixture of the two deities. (_B_) The hawk-G.o.d 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-G.o.d, and hence came the winged solar disk as the emblem {46} of Horus of Edfu, and the t.i.tle of Horus on the horizons (at rising and setting) Hor-em-akhti, Harmakhis of the Greeks.

(_D_) Another aspect resulting from Horus being the 'sky' G.o.d, 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 t.i.tle of Set, and thus Horus is shown trampling upon Set; this became a usual t.i.tle 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 favourite 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 {47} 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 G.o.ds was Amon, Mut, and Khonsu of Thebes.

_Amon_ was the local G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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-G.o.d, and as Amon-Ra he was 'king of the G.o.ds,' and 'lord of the thrones of the world.' The supremacy of Amon was for some centuries an article of political faith, and many other G.o.ds were merged in him, and only survived as aspects {48} of the great G.o.d of all. The queens were the high priestesses of the G.o.d, 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess. Little is known about her otherwise, and she disappears in the later theology.

+Khonsu+ is a youthful G.o.d combined in the Theban system as the son of Amon and Mut. He is closely parallel to Thoth as being a G.o.d of time, as a moon G.o.d, 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 G.o.ddess of the Libyan people; but her worship was firmly implanted by them in Egypt. She was a G.o.ddess 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 {49} usual in the pyramid period. She was almost lost to sight during some thousands of years, but she became the state G.o.ddess 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.

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CHAPTER VII

THE COSMIC G.o.dS

The G.o.ds 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 cla.s.ses of G.o.ds. 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 previous chapters 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-G.o.d, to whom every king pledged himself, by adopting on his accession a motto-t.i.tle embodying the G.o.d's name, such as _Ra-men-kau_, 'Ra established the kas,' _Ra-sehotep-ab_, 'Ra satisfies the heart,' _Ra-neb-maat_, 'Ra is the lord of truth'; and these t.i.tles were those by {51} 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 t.i.tle '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 honour 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-G.o.d Atmu, who was the true G.o.d of the nome; and Ra, though worshipped throughout the land, was not the aboriginal G.o.d 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 t.i.tle of the ruler of that place was the _heq_, a Semitic t.i.tle; and the _heq_ sceptre was the sacred treasure of the temple. The 'spirits of Heliopolis' were specially honoured, an idea more Babylonian than Egyptian. This city was a centre of literary {52} learning and of theologic theorising which was unknown elsewhere in Egypt, but familiar in Mesopotamia. A conical stone was the embodiment of the G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.ate 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 modification 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.

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

The worship of Ra outshone all others in the nineteenth dynasty.

United to the G.o.d of Thebes as Amon Ra, he became 'king of the G.o.ds'; 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 (see chap. xi). By the Greek times this belief seems to have largely given place to others, and it had practically vanished in the early Christian age.

+Atmu+ (Tum) was the original G.o.d 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 be that he was simply a creator-G.o.d, and that the introduction of Ra led to his being unified with him. Those who take the view that the names of G.o.ds are connected with tribes, as {54} Set and Suti, Anuke and Anak, might well claim that Atmu or 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 to 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 G.o.d' in Egypt, and this worship was exclusive of all others, and claims universality. There are traces of it shortly before Amonhotep in. 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 {55} 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 G.o.d of Thinis in Upper Egypt, and Sebennytos in the Delta, a human sun-G.o.d. His name is a mere epithet, 'he who goes in heaven'; and it may well be that this was only a t.i.tle of Ra, who was thus worshipped at these places.

+Sopdu+ was the G.o.d 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 G.o.ds,' the power that {56} went before all the later G.o.ds, 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 Seb and Nut were the primaeval G.o.ds of the aborigines of Hottentot type, before the Osiris worshippers of European type ever entered the Nile valley.

+Shu+ was the G.o.d of s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce or chaos. His emblem was the ostrich feather, the lightest and most voluminous object.

+Hapi+, the Nile, must also be placed with Nature-G.o.ds. 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 {57} 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 honour of the river attribute all prosperity and good to its benefits.