The World's Progress Part 15

After the confession of the candidate for admission to the realm of Osiris, his good and evil deeds were weighed in a balance and if his virtues outweighed his failings, he was admitted to the land of the departed, a counterpart of his own Egypt.

A vast priesthood was required to preside over a religious system so complex as that of Egypt and the priests gained great influence over the people. The reason for this is apparent when we consider the prevailing ideas of the country. The body of the dead must be preserved, for upon its preservation depended the fate of the soul. To this end the body must be properly embalmed and entombed. The embalmers were under the control and supervision of the priests. Again, the soul of the departed must be a.s.sisted upon its perilous journey to Osiris by prayers said over each finger and each portion of the body. These prayers could be offered only by the priests themselves. Such a condition as this gave the priesthood of Egypt an opportunity to make itself supreme in the land, and this opportunity it was quick to seize upon.

TEMPLES.

Many questions concerning Egyptian worship still remain unanswered. What part did the citizen take in the worship of his national G.o.ds? What effect did the worship of these G.o.ds have upon his life? We do not know--we cannot tell. It appears that his ancestral G.o.ds, worshipped at an altar in his own house, where of first importance. Some understanding of the temples and temple ceremonies cannot fail to throw light upon this old religion. Several of the old ruined temples may be seen today, standing like forest trees which have outlived their neighbors.

There is not in all Egypt a temple perfectly preserved; but by locating here an avenue of approach, there, a gateway, finding courts in other places, and halls and chapels, one comes at length to piece the whole together and to get some conception of the original entirety of the ancient temple.

In Greece the people built temples to their G.o.ds. In Egypt the king built them. Offerings were brought to the shrines of the Greek G.o.ds by every citizen in the land. In Egypt most of the gifts came from the king. To be sure there were special offerings made by all on feast days, but the king and the priests were alone responsible for the Egyptian temples; and while throngs accompanied processions thither on days of sacred festival, there is nothing to show that they had any part in the ceremonies.

The general plan of the temple was this: an avenue of approach--varying in length, and lined usually on either side by rows of sphinxes--led to a gateway, guarded by towers. In the Old Empire these towers served for defense, and seem later to have been preserved for decorative purposes.

The gate admitted one to a court, open to the sky and outlined by pillars. In direct line with the gateway was the entrance to a large hall, supported by columns and lighted by small openings under the roof.

Within this hall were celebrated the sacred festivals. At the end of the hall a small chapel was built which contained an image of the G.o.d of the temple. Sometimes two other chapels were placed, one on each side of this, and contained images of the G.o.d's wife and son, or his wife and daughter. The images sometimes represented the animal sacred to the G.o.d, or, again, would have a human body and merely the head of the sacred animal or bird. Later an image of the G.o.d himself was attempted. The tiny room or cell wherein these were kept was called the Holy of Holies.

Before the door were inscribed these words: Four times must he purify himself who enters here.

Some temples were much more elaborate and complex than the simple one just described.

The doors of these chapels were always left sealed, and whenever they were opened, a clay seal was affixed. Having purified himself, the priest would fill the hall with the smoke of incense, break the seal, open the door and fall down, offering incense and kissing the ground before the image. Then a hymn of praise was probably sung.

RISE OF THE NILE.

"King and Father, gift and giver, G.o.d revealed in form of river, Issuing perfect and sublime, From the fountain-head of time;

"Whom eternal mystery shroudeth, Unapproached, untraced, unknown; Whom the Lord of heaven encloudeth With the curtains of his throne;

"From the throne of heaven descending, Glory, power, and goodness blending, Grant us, ere the daylight dies, Token of thy rapid rise."

Ha, it cometh! Furrowing, flashing, Red blood rushing o'er brown breast; Peaks and ridges, and dome dashing Foam on foam, crest on crest!

But the time of times for wonder Is when ruddy sun goes under; And the dust throws, half afraid, Silver shuttles of long shade.

Opens then a scene, the fairest Ever burst on human view; Once behold, and then comparest Nothing in the world thereto.

Every skiff a big ship seemeth, Every bush with tall wings clad; Every man his good brain deemeth The only brain that is not mad.

'Tis the signal Thebes hath waited, Libyan Thebes, the hundred-gated; Rouse and robe thee, River-priest For thy dedication feast!

--Blackmore: Florilla.

RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.

The Egyptian believed that his G.o.d had needs similar to those he himself experienced. Consequently each day the G.o.d needed to be clothed and fed.

"The priest laid his hands on him (the image of the G.o.d), he took off the old rouge and his former clothes, all of course with the necessary formulae. He then dressed the G.o.d in the robe called the Nems, saying: 'Come white dress! come white dress! come white eye of Horus, which proceeds from the town of Nechebt. The G.o.ds dress themselves with thee in thy name _Dress_, and the G.o.ds adorn themselves with thee in thy name _Adornment_.' The priest then dressed the G.o.d in the _great dress_, rouged him, and presented him with his insignia: the sceptre, the staff of ruler, and the whip, the bracelets and anklets, as well as the two feathers which he wore on his head, because 'he has triumphed over his enemies, and is more splendid than G.o.ds or spirits.' The G.o.d required further a collarette and an amulet, two red, two green, and two white bands; when these had been presented to him the priest might then leave the chapel."[2]

Food and drink must needs be placed daily on his table. Lists of offerings made by the Ramesides have come down to us. One records offerings in the temple as follows: each day were received 3,220 loaves of bread, 24 cakes, 144 jugs of beer, 32 geese, besides honey, flowers and incense. This food was probably used to feed the corps of a.s.sistants around the temple--the priests, servants and laborers. On feast days the people sent offerings. A large number of loaves of bread are recorded on certain days; these probably came from the poorer people. Again, an overwhelming number of cakes and jugs of wine would indicate offerings from the wealthy.

On feast days the king would himself perform part of the ceremonies, and as a king he would worship himself as a G.o.d. It sometimes seems as though the offerings and the ceremonies were made more to do honor to the king than to the G.o.d. When Ramses called for plans for a new grotto temple and heard the reports of his architects, an inscription tells us that he answered them after this fashion: "The temple we have in mind already lies hidden by the G.o.ds in yonder mountain. You have but to clear away the waste material and your work is done. See to it, however, that the deities Ra and Isis and Ptah and I are all represented in becoming size on the facade as guardians--two on each side of the pylon.

And mark you: see that no G.o.d has choice of position over the king; let the likeness and the form of them all be mine. Osiris must man the eight piers which support the roof, and we four be seated in the sanctuary, side by side."

Many buildings surrounded the temple, and the whole was enclosed by a wall. Various buildings were needed in order that all the functions of the temple could be performed. On one side was a court where the animals and birds intended for sacrifice were prepared. To the rear was a kitchen. The priests often received private revenues for providing food for the departed. This food as a rule was prepared in the kitchens of the temple. Dwellings for the priests, and the servants, store houses, granaries, the treasure house, gardens and an artificial lake lay within the temple wall. In the sacred lake the priests bathed, and in it they washed the vessels pertaining to the sanctuary.

The priestly duties were manifold. Certain priests poured out drink offerings; others recited from holy books; others kept the annals of the temples. Their incomes were paid in kind--like all other obligations of the time. So many loaves of bread, so many jugs of wine, beer and cakes made up their annual revenue.

While we may gain some feeble idea of these places of worship, built to do honor to the G.o.d--and to the king,--any description of them must necessarily be inadequate. "We may agree that neither the boldest imagination nor the most exact study, can enable us to form an adequate conception of the splendors of an Egyptian temple in its perfect state.

The vast s.p.a.ce it occupied; its lofty gateways; the long avenues of sphinxes; the glittering obelisks and the lifelike expressions of the monstrous statues, form a combination of the most imposing architectural grandeur. The aesthetic qualities of these structures cannot briefly be summed up. As we ponder them we shall be willing to acknowledge, for we shall discover, the exceptional constructive power of the ancient architects; we shall see how closely they followed Nature, and at times drew as well upon foreign art, though always preserving their own principles of form. There is always one grand imaginative vein running through all their work--which expresses the princ.i.p.al idea of their faith--_imperishability_.

"The ancient Egyptians copied no one. Their art sprang from their surroundings. What they have left continues to baffle us in many ways.

We may understand perspective better than they did; we are their superiors in the use of light and shadow. We dare to build higher, and we are willing to trust thousands of lives to walls which would be wrecked if a single Egyptian column should fall against them; but we do not yet understand how they lifted their great ma.s.ses to such lofty places, nor do we know where their architects studied art."[3]

Little has thus far been said of the sphinxes which ordinarily flanked the avenues leading up to these temples. These imaginary creatures were carved in stone, and having the body of a lion, had either the head of a ram or a human head. When the _Sphinx_ is mentioned reference is usually made to the huge stone monument lying near the Great Pyramid. This was a natural rock, to which was given, more or less accurately, the external appearance of that mythological animal. The head was sculptured; the body was sculptured; the body was formed of the rock itself, filled out where necessary, by rather clumsy masonry of limestone. The total height of the Sphinx is 65 feet. The ear measures 6 feet 5 inches; the nose, 5 feet 10 inches; the mouth, 7 feet 8 inches. Its ponderous human face, grave in its eternal repose, rising in the midst of desert wastes, has been a great puzzle to people for thousands of years. It was probably hewn out of the rock as a symbol of the power of some Pharaoh of the Pyramid-age. The sphinxes which lined approaches to the temples were of course much smaller than this, and were carved merely for decorative purposes. An Egyptian G.o.d was given the image of the sphinx, and whether it was in honor of him, or merely because the symbol was a favorite one, that so many of these mystic animals were used, is not known.

A final word regarding the faith which prompted the building of the Egyptian temples should perhaps be added. We hear much about the absurd and corrupt side of the Egyptian religion, but few have taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with its brighter side. Our ideas on the subject have been determined largely by the writings of the Greeks and Romans who knew only the last decadent period of Egyptian history. The decipherment of the hieroglyphs has enabled us to study the contemporary doc.u.ments and inscriptions, and as a result the religious ideas developed by the Egyptians have not only aroused our deepest interest, but are commanding our admiration.

Like all other peoples in the same stage of culture, the primitive Egyptians feared and tried to render harmless, and perchance useful, the powers of nature, always mysterious because not understood. Thus arose the worship of natural phenomena, plants, animals and the dead. If we remember that among our own ignorant ma.s.ses many of the religious ideas of our primitive forefathers survive in what we call superst.i.tion, we will not judge the common people of Egypt for holding fast to the beliefs of their ancestors, for it is true that they did so all through Egypt's long history. Hence the ridicule of the Greeks.

But there is another side to the picture. No people has ever developed a culture like that of the Egyptians without also reaching a purer conception of G.o.d. Way back in the Fifth dynasty we find the beginnings of a monotheistic tendency in the religion of Egypt. Indeed even earlier the priests of Heliopolis had taught the idea of the unity of the deity who manifested himself in the creative energy of the Sun. The Pharaohs of the Fifth dynasty took up the cult of Re (or Ra) as this G.o.d was called, raising mighty obelisks on the edge of the desert back of Memphis, before which stood altars of alabaster under the open sky: for this G.o.d could not be represented by any image and consequently needed no temple, no house of G.o.d.

As time went on this idea of the unity of the deity--largely, it is true, as a "mystery" understood only by the priests and other "initiated" ones, spread over the whole of Egypt. As a result the local deities, no matter what their origin, came to be regarded as manifestations of the one G.o.d Re, whose name was added to those of the local G.o.ds. We are all familiar with Amon of Thebes. This G.o.d, whose origin is very obscure, was of course a local deity, and when Thebes became the capital of the Empire, was raised to the kingship of all the G.o.ds. But it will be observed that to do this, the priests felt it necessary to identify him with Re and to speak of him henceforth not as Amon, but as Amon-Re.

But this was not a step forward. The priests of Re had taught that G.o.d is one and might be worshiped anywhere. It was not even necessary to have temples. When, however, such a local divinity as Amon of Thebes was identified with Re, as one of this G.o.d's manifestations, he received all the attributes of the one G.o.d, but at the same time remained G.o.d of Thebes and the priests never raised any theological objections when the Pharaohs erected the mighty temples of that city for the glory of their G.o.d and the perpetuation of their own deeds. Indeed the Pharaohs regarded themselves as his viceroys on earth. The attempted "reform" of Amen-hotep IV., which, as we saw, was so disastrous for his line, was largely an attempt to restore the purer worship of the Sun-G.o.d, not as Re but as Aton. But the priests of Amon-Re, who had already looked with disfavor, which they dared not express, upon the claims of the earlier Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty--Amen-hotep III. during his lifetime had gone so far as to build a temple in which he worshipped his own _ka_, broke with Amen-hotep IV., were persecuted by him after he had removed to his new city, but in the end were able to overthrow the dynasty and place upon the throne kings who would recognize them as the intermediaries between G.o.d and man. In the end they themselves seized the throne--and it was not long before Egyptian history was at an end.

"G.o.d is the Eternal One. He is eternal and infinite; and endureth forever and ever. He hath endured for countless ages and He shall endure to all eternity.

"No man knoweth how to know Him. His name remaineth hidden. His name, is a mystery unto His children. His names are innumerable; they are manifold and none knoweth their number."

--_Trans. from Brugsch; quoted in Budge, Egyptian Religion._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Mariette's Monuments of Upper Egypt.

[2] Ancient Egypt, 274.

[3] Edward Wilson, Scribner, Oct. '88.

CHAPTER XIV.

ART AND DECORATION.

During the Old Empire certain rules regulating drawing were invented which were adhered to throughout the history of Egypt. The stiff, unnatural appearance of all Egyptian figures was due to strict observance of these rules, which became binding upon artists and prevented any perfection of art in the valley of the Nile.