Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life: Chapter III. The ''Gods'' of the Egyptians

CHAPTER III.

THE "GODS" OF THE EGYPTIANS.

THROUGHOUT this book we have had to refer frequently to the "gods" of Egypt; it is now time to explain who and what they were. We have already shown how much the monotheistic side of the Egyptian religion resembles that of modern Christian nations, and it will have come as a surprise to some that a people, possessing such exalted ideas of God as the Egyptians, could ever have become the byword they did through their alleged worship of a multitude of "gods" in various forms. It is quite true that the Egyptians paid honour to a number of gods, a number so large that the list of their mere names would fill a volume, but it is equally true that the educated classes in Egypt at all times never placed the "gods" on the same high level as God, and they never imagined that their views on this point could be mistaken. In prehistoric times every little village or town, every district and province, and every great city, had its own particular god; we may go a step farther, and

The gods of Egypt whose names are known to us do not represent all those that have been conceived by the Egyptian imagination, for with them as with much else, the law of the survival of the fittest holds good. Of the gods of the prehistoric man we know nothing but it is more than probable that some of the gods who were worshipped in dynastic times represent, in a modified form, the deities of the savage, or semi-savage, Egyptian that held their influence on his mind the longest. A typical example of such a

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 Maât; for the commonest titles

i.e., the formulæ 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 god 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 gods they always found that the old local gods 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 gods, 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 gods. 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

paut) of the gods," and at the head of this company they placed the god Temu. In. Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead 1 we find the following passage:--

"I am the god Temu in his rising; I am. the only One. I came into being in Nu. I am Râ, who rose in the beginning "

Next comes the question, "But who is this?" And the answer is: "It is Râ when at the beginning he rose in the city of Suten-henen (Heracleopolis Magna) crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of the god Shu were not as yet created when he was upon the staircase of him that dwelleth in Khemennu (Hermopolis Magna)." From these statements we learn that Temu and Râ were one and the same god, and that he was the first offspring of the god Nu, the primeval watery mass, out of which all the gods

But besides the nine gods who were supposed to

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 god, 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 Râ, were three forms of the same god; and if any one of these three forms was included in a paut or company of nine gods, the other two forms were also included by implication, even though the paut then contained eleven instead of nine gods. Similarly, the various forms of each god or goddess of the paut were understood to be included in it, however large the total number of gods might become. We are not, therefore, to imagine that the three companies of the gods were limited in number to 9 x 3, or twenty-seven, even though the symbol for god be given twenty-seven times in the texts.

We have already alluded to the great number of

2. SHU was the firstborn son of Temu. According to one legend he sprang direct from the god, and according to another the goddess Hathor was his mother; yet a third legend makes him the son of Temu by the goddess Iusâset. He it was who made his way between the gods Seb and Nut and raised up the latter to form the sky, and this belief is commemorated by the figures of this god in which he is represented as a god raising himself up from the earth with the sun's disk on his shoulders. As a

Osiris being embraced by Isis and Nephthys. The four mummy figures are the Children of Horus, Akeset, Hap, Tuamutef, and Qebhsenuf. The deities in the circles are Amen and Râ, Shu and Tefnut, Keb and Nut, Hathor and Maât.

From a bas-relief at Philae.

Isis and Nephthys bewailing the death of Osiris.

From a bas-relief at Philae.

Thoth, the advocate of Osiris, bearing life and serenity.

Thoth, the advocate of Osiris, writing on his palette.

From the Papyrus of Hunefer.

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 god 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 gods Temu, Shu, and Tefnut thus formed a trinity, and in the story of the creation the god Temu says, after describing how Shu and Tefnut proceeded from himself, "thus from being one god I became three."

4. SEB was the son of the god Shu. He is called the "Erpâ," i.e., the "hereditary chief" of the gods, and the "father of the gods," these being, of course, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. He was originally the god of the earth, but later he became a god 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

7. ISIS was the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus; as a nature goddess 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

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 gods 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 god, 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

PTAH was one of the most active of the three great gods 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-god Râ as the "Opener" of the day. From certain allusions in the Book of the Dead he is known to have "opened the mouth" 1 of the gods, and it is in this capacity that he became a god of the cycle of Osiris. His feminine counterpart was the goddess

KHEPERA was an old primeval god, 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 Sûdân pound the dried scarabæus or beetle and drink it in water, believing that it will insure them a numerous progeny The name "Khepera" means "he who rolls," and

11. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the habitations of Ament, behold [thy] body is Temu.

12. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the hidden place of Anubis, behold [thy] body is Khepera.

13. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, 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 Râ, thou exalted Power, . . . behold [thy] body is Tefnut.

16. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, thou exalted Power, thou mighty being who dost judge, . . . behold [thy] body is Nut.

17. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, thou exalted Power, the lord . . . behold [thy] body is Isis.

18. "Praise be unto thee, O Râ, 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 Râ, 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 Râ, thou exalted Power, who dost dwell in and illumine the celestial deep, behold [thy] body is Nu." 1

In the paragraphs which follow Râ, is identified with a large number of gods 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 gods 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

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 the king were, but it is certain that he wished to substitute the cult of Aten, a form of the Sun-god 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 Râ, and the worship of "Râ, 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 1 some distance to the north of that city, where he carried on the worship of his beloved god Aten. In the pictures of the Aten worship which have come down to us the god 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

1 must suffice to describe the estimation in which the god was held about B.C. 1000. In this Amen is addressed as "the holy god, the lord of all the gods, Amen-Râ, 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 god who liveth by right and truth, the first ennead who gave birth unto the other two enneads, 2 the being in whom every god 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 space, 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 god moulded himself, the heavens and the earth were made by his heart (or mind). . . . He

1 Such a God 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 "gods."

But, besides Râ, there existed in very early times a god called Horus, whose symbol was the hawk, which, it seems, was the first living thing worshipped by the Egyptians; Horus was the Sun-god, like Râ, 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, (, 4) 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 gods of the cardinal points, or the "four spirits of Horus," who supported heaven at its four corners; their names were HÂPI, TUAMUTEF, 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 gods. Other important gods of the dead are: (1) ANUBIS, the son of Râ or Osiris, who presided over the abode of the dead, and with AP-UAT

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 goddess 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 goddess 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 gods. (10) UATCHET, who was a form of Hathor, and who had dominion over the northern sky, just as NEKHEBET was mistress of the southern sky. (11) NEHEB-KA, who was a goddess who possessed

The names of the beings who at one time or another were called "gods" 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 a considerable number are enumerated and described.

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Footnotes

113:1 See Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 49.

124:1 "May the god Ptah open my mouth"; "may the god Shu open my mouth with his implement of iron wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods" (Chap. XXIII.)

128:1 For the text see Annales de Musée Guimet: Le Tombeau de Seti. I. (ed. Lefébure), Paris, 1886, pl. v.

130:1 The site is marked by the ruins of Tell el-Amarna.

131:1 For a hieroglyphic transcript of the hieratic text, see Maspero, Mémoires, tom. i., p. 594 ff.

131:2 I.e., the great, the little, and the least companies of the gods; each company (paut) contained nine gods.

133:1 See Deut, vi. 4; and Koran, chapter cxii.