Produced by Al Haines
[Transcriber's note: refer to the more detailed notes at the end of
this etext for more information.]
Religions Ancient and Modern
[Frontispiece: EGYPTIAN GODS. PETRIE COLLECTION]
THE RELIGION OF
ANCIENT EGYPT
By
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
D.C.L., LL.D., LIT.D., PH.D., T.R.S., F.B.A., F.S.A. SCOT.
EDWARDS PROFESSOR OF EGYPTOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
16 JAMES STREET HAYMARKET
1906
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE NATURE OF GODS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. THE NATURE OF MAN, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
III. THE FUTURE LIFE, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
IV. ANIMAL WORSHIP, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
V. THE GROUPS OF GODS. ANIMAL-HEADED GODS, . . . . . 28
VI. THE HUMAN GODS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
VII. THE COSMIC GODS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
VIII. THE ABSTRACT GODS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
IX. THE FOREIGN GODS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
X. THE COSMOGONY, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
XI. THE RITUAL AND PRIESTHOOD, . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
XII. THE SACRED BOOKS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
XIII. PRIVATE WORSHIP, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
XIV. EGYPTIAN ETHICS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
XV. THE INFLUENCE OF EGYPT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
INDEX, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
PRINCIPAL WORKS ON EGYPTIAN RELIGION
LANZONE.--_Dixionario di Mitologia Egizia_, 1881-86.
1312 pp., 408 pls. About £4 second hand. (The
indispensable storehouse of facts and references.)
WIEDEMANN.--_Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, 1897.
307 pp, 73 figs. 12s. 6d. (The best general view of the
subject.)
WIEDEMANN.--Article in supplement to _Hastings's Dictionary
of the Bible_. (Excellent outline.)
WIEDEMANN.--_Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of Immortality_,
1895. 71 pp., 21 figs., 2 pls. 3s.
MASPERO.--_Dawn of Civilisation_, see pp. 81-222, 1894. 25s.
(A popular outline by a master.)
MASPERO.--_Études de Mythologie_, 1893, 895 pp.
MASPERO.--_Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqara_, 1894.
456 pp., 9 pl.
RENOUF.--_Book of the Dead_, 1893-1902. 308 pp., 53 pl. £2.
(The standard translation with the illustrations.)
BUDGE.--_Gods of the Egyptians_, 1904. 908 pp., 131 figs.,
98 pls. £3. 3s. (Useful repertory, but illustrations not
exact.)
SAYCE.--_Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia_, 1902.
509 pp. 7s. 6d. (Useful for comparative view.)
PETRIE.--_Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt_, 1898.
176 pp. 2s. 6d. (A study of the nature of conscience,
and the tribal aspect of religion.)
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THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT
CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF GODS
Before dealing with the special varieties of the Egyptians' belief in
gods, it is best to try to avoid a misunderstanding of their whole
conception of the supernatural. The term god has come to tacitly imply
to our minds such a highly specialised group of attributes, that we can
hardly throw our ideas back into the more remote conceptions to which
we also attach the same name. It is unfortunate that every other word
for supernatural intelligences has become debased, so that we cannot
well speak of demons, devils, ghosts, or fairies without implying a
noxious or a trifling meaning, quite unsuited to the ancient deities
that were so beneficent and powerful. If then we use the word god for
such conceptions, it must always {2} be with the reservation that the
word has now a very different meaning from what it had to ancient minds.
To the Egyptian the gods might be mortal; even Ra, the sun-god, is said
to have grown old and feeble, Osiris was slain, and Orion, the great
hunter of the heavens, killed and ate the gods. The mortality of gods
has been dwelt on by Dr. Frazer (_Golden Bough_), and the many
instances of tombs of gods, and of the slaying of the deified man who
was worshipped, all show that immortality was not a divine attribute.
Nor was there any doubt that they might suffer while alive; one myth
tells how Ra, as he walked on earth, was bitten by a magic serpent and
suffered torments. The gods were also supposed to share in a life like
that of man, not only in Egypt but in most ancient lands. Offerings of
food and drink were constantly supplied to them, in Egypt laid upon the
altars, in other lands burnt for a sweet savour. At Thebes the divine
wife of the god, or high priestess, was the head of the harem of
concubines of the god; and similarly in Babylonia the chamber of the
god with the golden couch could only be visited by the priestess who
slept there for oracular responses. The Egyptian gods could not be
cognisant of what passed on earth {3} without being informed, nor could
they reveal their will at a distant place except by sending a
messenger; they were as limited as the Greek gods who required the aid
of Iris to communicate one with another or with mankind. The gods,
therefore, have no divine superiority to man in conditions or
limitations; they can only be described as pre-existent, acting
intelligences, with scarcely greater powers than man might hope to gain
by magic or witchcraft of his own. This conception explains how easily
the divine merged into the human in Greek theology, and how frequently
divine ancestors occurred in family histories. (By the word 'theology'
is designated the knowledge about gods.)
There are in ancient theologies very different classes of gods. Some
races, as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings,
which are continually being increased. Others, as the Turanians,
whether Sumerian Babylonians, modern Siberians, or Chinese, do not
adopt the worship of great gods, but deal with a host of animistic
spirits, ghosts, devils, or whatever we may call them; and Shamanism or
witchcraft is their system for conciliating such adversaries. But all
our knowledge of the early positions and nature of great gods shows
them to stand on an {4} entirely different footing to these varied
spirits. Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such
spirit worship we should find the worship of many gods preceding the
worship of one god, polytheism would precede monotheism in each tribe
or race. What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is
the first stage traceable in theology. Hence we must rather look on
the theologic conception of the Aryan and Semitic races as quite apart
from the demon-worship of the Turanians. Indeed the Chinese seem to
have a mental aversion to the conception of a personal god, and to
think either of the host of earth spirits and other demons, or else of
the pantheistic abstraction of heaven.
Wherever we can trace back polytheism to its earliest stages we find
that it results from combinations of monotheism. In Egypt even Osiris,
Isis, and Horus (so familiar as a triad) are found at first as separate
units in different places, Isis as a virgin goddess, and Horus as a
self-existent god. Each city appears to have but one god belonging to
it, to whom others were added. Similarly in Babylonia each great city
had its supreme god; and the combinations of those, and their
transformations in order to form them in {5} groups when their homes
were politically united, show how essentially they were solitary
deities at first.
Not only must we widely distinguish the demonology of races worshipping
numerous earth spirits and demons, from the theology of races devoted
to solitary great gods; but we must further distinguish the varying
ideas of the latter class. Most of the theologic races have no
objection to tolerating the worship of other gods side by side with
that of their own local deity. It is in this way that the compound
theologies built up the polytheism of Egypt and of Greece. But others
of the theologic races have the conception of 'a jealous god,' who
would not tolerate the presence of a rival. We cannot date this
conception earlier than Mosaism, and this idea struggled hard against
polytheistic toleration. This view acknowledges the reality of other
gods, but ignores their claims. The still later view was that other
gods were non-existent, a position started by the Hebrew prophets in
contempt of idolatry, scarcely grasped by early Christianity, but
triumphantly held by Islam.
We therefore have to deal with the following conceptions, which fall
into two main groups, {6} that probably belong to different divisions
of mankind:--
( Animism.
( Demonology.
( Tribal Monotheism. ) At any stage the unity of
( Combinations forming ) different gods may be
( tolerant Polytheism. ) accepted as a _modus vivendi_
( Jealous Monotheism. ) or as a philosophy.
( Sole Monotheism. )
All of these require mention here, as more or less of each principle,
both of animism and monotheism, can be traced in the innumerable
combinations found during the six thousand years of Egyptian religion:
these combinations of beliefs being due to combinations of the races to
which they belonged.
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