CHAPTER IV: THE CULT OF OSIRIS

Osiris

One of the principal figures in the Egyptian pantheon, and one whose

elements it is most difficult to disentangle, is Osiris, or As-ar.

The oldest and most simple form of the name is expressed by two

hieroglyphics representing a throne and an eye. These, however, cast

but little light on the meaning of the name. Even the later Egyptians

themselves were ignorant of its derivation, for we find that they

thought it meant 'the Strength of the Eye'--that is, the strength of the

sun-god, Ra. The second syllable of the name, _ar_, may, however, be in

some manner connected with Ra, as we shall see later. In dynastic times

Osiris was regarded as god of the dead and the under-world. Indeed, he

occupied the same position in that sphere as Ra did in the land of the

living. We must also recollect that the realm of the under-world was the

realm of night.

The origins of Osiris are extremely obscure. We cannot glean from the

texts when or where he first began to be worshipped, but that his

cult is greatly more ancient than any text is certain. The earliest

dynastic centres of his worship were Abydos and Mendes. He is perhaps

represented on a mace-head of Narmer found at Hieraconpolis, and on a

wooden plaque of the reign of Udy-mu (Den) or Hesepti, the fifth king of

the First Dynasty, who is figured as dancing before him. This shows that

a centre of Osiris-worship existed at Abydos during the First Dynasty.

But allusions in the Pyramid Texts give us to understand that prior to

this shrines had been raised to Osiris in various parts of the Nile

country. As has been outlined in the chapter on the _Book of the Dead_,

Osiris dwells peaceably in the underworld with the justified, judging

the souls of the departed as they appear before him. This paradise was

known as Aaru, which, it is important to note, although situated in the

under-world, was originally thought to be in the sky.

Osiris is usually figured as wrapped in mummy bandages and wearing

the white cone-shaped crown of the South, yet Dr. Budge says of him:

"Everything which the texts of all periods record concerning him goes

to show that he was an indigenous god of North-east Africa, and that

his home and origin were possibly Libyan." In any case, we may take it

that Osiris was genuinely African in origin, and that he was indigenous

to the soil of the Dark Continent. Brugsch and Sir Gaston Maspero both

regarded him as a water-god,[1] and thought that he represented the

creative and nutritive powers of the Nile stream in general, and of the

inundation in particular. This theory is agreed to by Dr. Budge, but

if Osiris is a god of the Nile alone, why import him from the Libyan

desert, which boasts of no rivers? River-gods do not as a rule emanate

from regions of sand. Before proceeding further it will be well to

relate the myth of Osiris.

The Myth of Osiris

Plutarch is our principal authority for the legend of Osiris. A complete

version of the tale is not to be found in Egyptian texts, though these

confirm the accounts given by the Greek writers. The following is a

brief account of the myth as it is related in Plutarch's _De Iside et

Osiride_:

Rhea (the Egyptian Nut, the sky-goddess) was the wife of Helios (Ra).

She was, however, beloved by Kronos (Geb), whose affection she returned.

When Ra discovered his wife's infidelity he was wrathful indeed, and

pronounced a curse upon her, saying that her child should not be born

in any month or in any year. Now the curse of Ra the mighty could not

be turned aside, for Ra was the chief of all the gods. In her distress

Nut called upon the god Thoth (the Greek Hermes), who also loved her.

Thoth knew that the curse of Ra must be fulfilled, yet by a very cunning

stratagem he found a way out of the difficulty. He went to Silene,

the moon-goddess, whose light rivalled that of the sun himself, and

challenged her[2] to a game of tables. The stakes on both sides were

high, but Silene staked some of her light, the seventieth part of each

of her illuminations, and lost. Thus it came about that her light wanes

and dwindles at certain periods, so that she is no longer the rival of

the sun. From the light which he had won from the moon-goddess Thoth

made five days which he added to the year (at that time consisting of

three hundred and sixty days) in such wise that they belonged neither

to the preceding nor to the following year, nor to any month. On these

five days Nut was delivered of her five children. Osiris was born on the

first day, Horus on the second, Set on the third, Isis on the fourth,

and Nephthys on the fifth.[3] On the birth of Osiris a loud voice was

heard throughout all the world saying, "The lord of all the earth is

born!" A slightly different tradition relates that a certain man named

Pamyles, carrying water from the temple of Ra at Thebes, heard a

voice commanding him to proclaim the birth of "the good and great king

Osiris," which he straightway did. For this reason the education of

the young Osiris was entrusted to Pamyles. Thus, it is said, was the

festival of the Pamilia instituted.

In course of time the prophecies concerning Osiris were fulfilled, and

he became a great and wise king. The land of Egypt flourished under his

rule as it had never done heretofore. Like many another 'hero-god,' he

set himself the task of civilizing his people, who at his coming were

in a very barbarous condition, indulging in cannibalistic and other

savage practices. He gave them a code of laws, taught them the arts

of husbandry, and showed them the proper rites wherewith to worship

the gods. And when he had succeeded in establishing law and order in

Egypt he betook himself to distant lands to continue there his work

of civilization. So gentle and good was he, and so pleasant were his

methods of instilling knowledge into the minds of the barbarians, that

they worshipped the very ground whereon he trod.

Set, the Enemy

He had one bitter enemy, however, in his brother Set, the Greek Typhon.

During the absence of Osiris his wife Isis ruled the country so well

that the schemes of the wicked Set to take a share in its government

were not allowed to mature. But on the king's return Set fixed on a

plan whereby to rid himself altogether of the king, his brother. For

the accomplishment of his ends he leagued himself with Aso, the queen

of Ethiopia, and seventy-two other conspirators. Then, after secretly

measuring the king's body, he caused to be made a marvellous chest,

richly fashioned and adorned, which would contain exactly the body of

Osiris. This done, he invited his fellow-plotters and his brother the

king to a great feast. Now Osiris had frequently been warned by the

queen to beware of Set, but, having no evil in himself, the king feared

it not in others, so he betook himself to the banquet.

When the feast was over Set had the beautiful chest brought into the

banqueting-hall, and said, as though in jest, that it should belong to

him whom it would fit. One after another the guests lay down in the

chest, but it fitted none of them till the turn of Osiris came. Quite

unsuspicious of treachery, the king laid himself down in the great

receptacle. In a moment the conspirators had nailed down the lid,

pouring boiling lead over it lest there should be any aperture. Then

they set the coffin adrift on the Nile, at its Tanaitic mouth. These

things befell, say some, in the twenty-eighth year of Osiris' life;

others say in the twenty-eighth year of his reign.

When the news reached the ears of Isis she was sore stricken, and cut

off a lock of her hair and put on mourning apparel. Knowing well that

the dead cannot rest till their bodies have been buried with funeral

rites, she set out to find the corpse of her husband. For a long time

her search went unrewarded, though she asked every man and woman she met

whether they had seen the richly decorated chest. At length it occurred

to her to inquire of some children who played by the Nile, and, as it

chanced, they were able to tell her that the chest had been brought to

the Tanaitic mouth of the Nile by Set and his accomplices. From that

time children were regarded by the Egyptians as having some special

faculty of divination.

The Tamarisk-tree

By and by the queen gained information of a more exact kind through the

agency of demons, by whom she was informed that the chest had been cast

up on the shore of Byblos, and flung by the waves into a tamarisk-bush,

which had shot up miraculously into a magnificent tree, enclosing the

coffin of Osiris in its trunk. The king of that country, Melcarthus

by name, was astonished at the height and beauty of the tree, and had

it cut down and a pillar made from its trunk wherewith to support the

roof of his palace. Within this pillar, therefore, was hidden the chest

containing the body of Osiris. Isis hastened with all speed to Byblos,

where she seated herself by the side of a fountain. To none of those who

approached her would she vouchsafe a word, saving only to the queen's

maidens, and these she addressed very graciously, braiding their hair

and perfuming them with her breath, more fragrant than the odour of

flowers. When the maidens returned to the palace the queen inquired

how it came that their hair and clothes were so delightfully perfumed,

whereupon they related their encounter with the beautiful stranger.

Queen Astarte, or Athenais, bade that she be conducted to the palace,

welcomed her graciously, and appointed her nurse to one of the young

princes.

The Grief of Isis

Isis fed the boy by giving him her finger to suck. Every night, when

all had retired to rest, she would pile great logs on the fire and

thrust the child among them, and, changing herself into a swallow, would

twitter mournful lamentations for her dead husband. Rumours of these

strange practices were brought by the queen's maidens to the ears of

their mistress, who determined to see for herself whether or not there

was any truth in them. So she concealed herself in the great hall, and

when night came sure enough Isis barred the doors and piled logs on

the fire, thrusting the child among the glowing wood. The queen rushed

forward with a loud cry and rescued her boy from the flames. The goddess

reproved her sternly, declaring that by her action she had deprived

the young prince of immortality. Then Isis revealed her identity to

the awe-stricken Athenais and told her story, begging that the pillar

which supported the roof might be given to her. When her request had

been granted she cut open the tree, took out the coffin containing the

body of Osiris, and mourned so loudly over it that one of the young

princes died of terror. Then she took the chest by sea to Egypt, being

accompanied on the journey by the elder son of King Melcarthus. The

child's ultimate fate is variously recounted by several conflicting

traditions. The tree which had held the body of the god was long

preserved and worshipped at Byblos.

Arrived in Egypt, Isis opened the chest and wept long and sorely over

the remains of her royal husband. But now she bethought herself of

her son Harpocrates, or Horus the Child, whom she had left in Buto,

and leaving the chest in a secret place, she set off to search for

him. Meanwhile Set, while hunting by the light of the moon, discovered

the richly adorned coffin and in his rage rent the body into fourteen

pieces, which he scattered here and there throughout the country.

Upon learning of this fresh outrage on the body of the god, Isis took

a boat of papyrus-reeds and journeyed forth once more in search of her

husband's remains. After this crocodiles would not touch a papyrus boat,

probably because they thought it contained the goddess, still pursuing

her weary search. Whenever Isis found a portion of the corpse she buried

it and built a shrine to mark the spot. It is for this reason that there

are so many tombs of Osiris in Egypt.[4]

The Vengeance of Horus

By this time Horus had reached manhood, and Osiris, returning from the

Duat, where he reigned as king of the dead, encouraged him to avenge the

wrongs of his parents. Horus thereupon did battle with Set, the victory

falling now to one, now to the other. At one time Set was taken captive

by his enemy and given into the custody of Isis, but the latter, to her

son's amazement and indignation, set him at liberty. So angry was Horus

that he tore the crown from his mother's head. Thoth, however, gave her

a helmet in the shape of a cow's head. Another version states that Horus

cut off his mother's head, which Thoth, the maker of magic, stuck on

again in the form of a cow's.

Horus and Set, it is said, still do battle with one another, yet victory

has fallen to neither. When Horus shall have vanquished his enemy,

Osiris will return to earth and reign once more as king in Egypt.

Sir J.G. Frazer on Osiris

From the particulars of this myth Sir J. G. Frazer has argued[5] that

Osiris was "one of those personifications of vegetation whose annual

death and resurrection have been celebrated in so many lands"--that he

was a god of vegetation analogous to Adonis and Attis.

"The general similarity of the myth and ritual of Osiris to those of

Adonis and Attis," says Sir J.G. Frazer, "is obvious. In all three cases

we see a god whose untimely and violent death is mourned by a loving

goddess and annually celebrated by his worshippers. The character of

Osiris as a deity of vegetation is brought out by the legend that he was

the first to teach men the use of corn, and by the custom of beginning

his annual festival with the tillage of the ground. He is said also to

have introduced the cultivation of the vine. In one of the chambers

dedicated to Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philæ the dead body

of Osiris is represented with stalks of corn springing from it, and a

priest is depicted watering the stalks from a pitcher which he holds in

his hand. The accompanying legend sets forth that 'this is the form of

him whom one may not name, Osiris of the mysteries, who springs from the

returning waters.' It would seem impossible to devise a more graphic

way of depicting Osiris as a personification of the corn; while the

inscription attached to the picture proves that this personification

was the kernel of the mysteries of the god, the innermost secret

that was only revealed to the initiated. In estimating the mythical

character of Osiris, very great weight must be given to this monument.

The story that his mangled remains were scattered up and down the land

may be a mythical way of expressing either the sowing or the winnowing

of the grain. The latter interpretation is supported by the tale

that Isis placed the severed limbs of Osiris on a corn-sieve. Or the

legend may be a reminiscence of the custom of slaying a human victim

as a representative of the corn-spirit, and distributing his flesh or

scattering his ashes over the fields to fertilize them."

"But Osiris was more than a spirit of the corn; he was also a

tree-spirit, and this may well have been his original character, since

the worship of trees is naturally older in the history of religion

than the worship of the cereals. His character as a tree-spirit was

represented very graphically in a ceremony described by Firmicus

Maternus. A pine-tree having been cut down, the centre was hollowed out,

and with the wood thus excavated an image of Osiris was made, which was

then 'buried' in the hollow of the tree. Here, again, it is hard to

imagine how the conception of a tree as tenanted by a personal being

could be more plainly expressed. The image of Osiris thus made was kept

for a year and then burned, exactly as was done with the image of Attis

which was attached to the pine-tree. The ceremony of cutting the tree,

as described by Firmicus Maternus, appears to be alluded to by Plutarch.

It was probably the ritual counterpart of the mythical discovery of the

body of Osiris enclosed in the erica-tree. We may conjecture that the

erection of the _Tatu_ pillar at the close of the annual festival of

Osiris was identical with the ceremony described by Firmicus; it is to

be noted that in the myth the erica-tree formed a pillar in the king's

house. Like the similar custom of cutting a pine-tree and fastening an

image to it, in the rites of Attis, the ceremony perhaps belonged to

the class of customs of which the bringing in the Maypole is among the

most familiar. As to the pine-tree in particular, at Denderah the tree

of Osiris is a conifer, and the coffer containing the body of Osiris is

here depicted as enclosed within the tree. A pine-cone often appears on

the monuments as an offering presented to Osiris, and a manuscript of

the Louvre speaks of the cedar as sprung from him. The sycamore and the

tamarisk are also his trees. In inscriptions he is spoken of as residing

in them, and his mother Nut is frequently portrayed in a sycamore. In a

sepulchre at How (Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is depicted overshadowing

the coffer of Osiris; and in the series of sculptures which illustrate

the mystic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philæ a

tamarisk is figured with two men pouring water on it. The inscription

on this last monument leaves no doubt, says Brugsch, that the verdure

of the earth was believed to be connected with the verdure of the tree,

and that the sculpture refers to the grave of Osiris at Philæ, of

which Plutarch tells us that it was overshadowed by a _methide_ plant,

taller than any olive-tree. This sculpture, it may be observed, occurs

in the same chamber in which the god is depicted as a corpse with ears

of corn sprouting from him. In inscriptions he is referred to as 'the

one in the tree,' 'the solitary one in the acacia,' and so forth. On

the monuments he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree or

with plants. It accords with the character of Osiris as a tree-spirit

that his worshippers were forbidden to injure fruit-trees, and with his

character as a god of vegetation in general that they were not allowed

to stop up wells of water, which are so important for the irrigation of

hot southern lands."

Sir J.G. Frazer goes on to combat the theory of Lepsius that Osiris was

to be identified with the sun-god Ra. Osiris, says the German scholar,

was named Osiris-Ra even in the _Book of the Dead_, and Isis, his

spouse, is often called the royal consort of Ra. This identification,

Sir J.G. Frazer thinks, may have had a political significance. He

admits that the myth of Osiris might express the daily appearance and

disappearance of the sun, and points out that most of the writers who

favour the solar theory are careful to indicate that it is the daily,

and not the annual, course of the sun to which they understand the myth

to apply. But, then, why, pertinently asks Sir J. G. Frazer, was it

celebrated by an annual ceremony? "This fact alone seems fatal to the

interpretation of the myth as descriptive of sunset and sunrise. Again,

though the sun may be said to die daily, in what sense can it be said to

be torn in pieces?"

Plutarch says that some of the Egyptian philosophers interpreted Osiris

as the moon, "because the moon, with her humid and generative light,

is favourable to the propagation of animals and the growth of plants."

Among primitive peoples the moon is regarded as a great source of

moisture. Vegetation is thought to flourish beneath her pale rays, and

she is understood as fostering the multiplication of the human species

as well as animal and plant life. Sir J. G. Frazer enumerates several

reasons to prove that Osiris possessed a lunar significance. Briefly

these are that he is said to have lived or reigned twenty-eight years,

the mythical expression of a lunar month, and that his body is said to

have been rent into fourteen pieces--"This might be interpreted as the

waning moon, which appears to lose a portion of itself on each of the

fourteen days that make up the second half of the lunar month." Typhon

found the body of Osiris at the full moon; thus its dismemberment would

begin with the waning of the moon.

Primitive Conceptions of the Moon

Primitive man explains the waning moon as actually dwindling, and it

appears to him as if it is being broken in pieces or eaten away. The

Klamath Indians of South-west Oregon allude to the moon as 'the One

Broken in Pieces,' and the Dacotas believe that when the moon is full a

horde of mice begin to nibble at one side of it until they have devoured

the whole. To continue Sir J.G. Frazer's argument, he quotes Plutarch

to the effect that at the new moon of the month Phanemoth, which was

the beginning of spring, the Egyptians celebrated what they called 'the

entry of Osiris into the moon'; that at the ceremony called the 'Burial

of Osiris' they made a crescent-shaped chest, "because the moon when it

approaches the sun assumes the form of a crescent and vanishes"; and

that once a year, at the full moon, pigs (possibly symbolical of Set, or

Typhon) were sacrificed simultaneously to the moon and to Osiris. Again,

in a hymn supposed to be addressed by Isis to Osiris it is said that

Thoth

Placeth thy soul in the barque Maāt

In that name which is thine of god-moon.

And again:

Thou who comest to us as a child each month,

We do not cease to contemplate thee.

Thine emanation heightens the brilliancy

Of the stars of Orion in the firmament.

In this hymn Osiris is deliberately identified with the moon.[6]

In effect, then, Sir James Frazer's theory regarding Osiris is that

he was a vegetation or corn god, who later became identified, or

confounded, with the moon. But surely it is as reasonable to suppose

that it was because of his status as moon-god that he ranked as a deity

of vegetation.

A brief consideration of the circumstances connected with lunar worship

might lead us to some such supposition. The sun in his status of deity

requires but little explanation. The phenomena of growth are attributed

to his agency at an early period of human thought, and it is probable

that wind, rain, and other atmospheric manifestations are likewise

credited to his action, or regarded as emanations from him. Especially

is this the case in tropical climates, where the rapidity of vegetable

growth is such as to afford to man an absolute demonstration of the

solar power. By analogy, then, that sun of the night, the moon, comes to

be regarded as an agency of growth, and primitive peoples attribute to

it powers in this respect almost equal to those of the sun. Again, it

must be borne in mind that, for some reason still obscure, the moon is

regarded as the great reservoir of magical power. The two great orbs of

night and day require but little excuse for godhead. To primitive man

the sun is obviously godlike, for upon him the barbarian agriculturist

depends for his very existence, and there is behind him no history of

an evolution from earlier forms. It is likewise with the moon-god.

In the Libyan desert at night the moon is an object which dominates

the entire landscape, and it is difficult to believe that its intense

brilliance and all-pervading light must not have deeply impressed the

wandering tribes of that region with a sense of reverence and worship.

Indeed, reverence for such an object might well precede the worship of

a mere corn and tree spirit, who in such surroundings could not have

much scope for the manifestation of his powers. We can see, then, that

this moon-god of the Neolithic Nubians, imported into a more fertile

land, would speedily become identified with the powers of growth through

moisture, and thus with the Nile itself.

Osiris in his character of god of the dead affords no great difficulties

of elucidation, and in this one figure we behold the junction of the

ideas of the moon, moisture, the under-world, and death--in fact, all

the phenomena of birth and decay.

Osiris and the Persephone Myth

The reader cannot fail to have observed the very close resemblance

between the myth of Osiris and that of Demeter and Kore, or Persephone.

Indeed, some of the adventures of Isis, notably that concerning the

child of the king of Byblos, are practically identical with incidents

in the career of Demeter. It is highly probable that the two myths

possessed a common origin. But whereas in the Greek example we find the

mother searching for her child, in the Egyptian myth the wife searches

for the remains of her husband. In the Greek tale we have Pluto as the

husband of Persephone and the ruler of the under-world also regarded,

like Osiris, as a god of grain and growth, whilst Persephone, like Isis,

probably personifies the grain itself. In the Greek myth we have one

male and two female principles, and in the Egyptian one male and one

female. The analogy could perhaps be pressed further by the inclusion in

the Egyptian version of the goddess Nephthys, who was a sister-goddess

to Isis or stood to her in some such relationship. It would seem,

then, as if the Hellenic myth had been sophisticated by early Egyptian

influences, perhaps working through a Cretan intercommunication.

It remains, then, to regard Osiris in the light of ruler of the

underworld. To some extent this has been done in the chapter which deals

with the _Book of the Dead_. The god of the underworld, as has been

pointed out, is in nearly every instance a god of vegetable growth, and

it was not because Osiris was god of the dead that he presided over

fertility, but the converse. To speak more plainly, Osiris was first god

of fertility, and the circumstance that he presided over the underworld

was a later innovation. But it was not adventitious; it was the logical

outcome of his status as god of growth.

A New Osirian Theory

We must also take into brief consideration his personification of Ra,

whom he meets, blends with, and under whose name he nightly sails

through his own dominions. This would seem like the fusion of a sun and

moon myth; the myth of the sun travelling nightly beneath the earth

fused with that of the moon's nocturnal journey across the vault of

heaven. A moment's consideration will show how this fusion took place.

Osiris was a moon-god. That circumstance accounts for one half of the

myth; the other half is to be accounted for as follows: Ra, the sun-god,

must perambulate the underworld at night if he is to appear on the

fringes of the east in the morning. But Osiris as a lunar deity, and

perhaps as the older god, as well as in his character as god of the

underworld, is already occupying the orbit he must trace. The orbits of

both deities are fused in one, and there would appear to be some proof

of this in the fact that, in the realm of Seker, Afra (or Ra-Osiris)

changes the direction of his journey from north to south to a line due

east toward the mountains of sunrise. The fusion of the two myths is

quite a logical one, as the moon during the night travels in the same

direction as the sun has taken during the day--that is, from east to

west.

It will readily be seen how Osiris came to be regarded not only as

god and judge of the dead, but also as symbolical of the resurrection

of the body of man. Sir James Frazer lays great stress upon a picture

of Osiris in which his body is shown covered with sprouting shoots of

corn, and he seems to be of opinion that this is positive evidence that

Osiris was a corn-god. In our view the picture is simply symbolical of

resurrection. The circumstance that Osiris is represented in the picture

as in the recumbent position of the dead lends added weight to this

supposition. The corn-shoot is a world-wide symbol of resurrection. In

the Eleusinian mysteries a shoot of corn was shown to the neophytes as

typical of physical rebirth, and a North American Indian is quoted by

Loskiel, one of the Moravian Brethren, as having spoken: "We Indians

shall not for ever die. Even the grains of corn we put under the earth

grow up and become living things." Among the Maya of Central America,

as well as among the Mexicans, the maize-goddess has a son, the young,

green, tender shoot of the maize plant, who is strongly reminiscent of

Horus, the son of Osiris, and who may be taken as typical of bodily

resurrection. Later the vegetation myth clustering round Osiris was

metamorphosed into a theological tenet regarding human resurrection,

and Osiris was believed to have been once a human being who had died

and had been dismembered. His body, however, was made whole again by

Isis, Anubis and Horus acting upon the instructions of Thoth. A good

deal of magical ceremony appears to have been mingled with the process,

and this in turn was utilized in the case of every dead Egyptian by the

priests in connexion with the embalmment and burial of the dead in the

hope of resurrection. Osiris, however, was regarded as the principal

cause of human resurrection, and he was capable of giving life after

death because he had attained to it. He was entitled 'Eternity and

Everlastingness,' and he it was who made men and women to be born again.

This conception of resurrection appears to have been in vogue in Egypt

from very early times. The great authority upon Osiris is the _Book of

the Dead_, which might well be called the 'Book of Osiris,' and in

which are recounted his daily doings and his nightly journeyings in his

kingdom of the underworld.

Isis

Isis, or Ast, must be regarded as one of the earliest and most important

conceptions of female godhead in ancient Egypt. In the dynastic period

she was regarded as the feminine counterpart of Osiris, and we may take

it that before the dawn of Egyptian history she occupied a similar

position. The philology of the name appears to be unfathomable. No

other deity has probably been worshipped for such an extent of time,

for her cult did not perish with that of most other Egyptian gods, but

flourished later in Greece and Rome, and is seriously carried on in

Paris to-day.

Isis was perhaps of Libyan origin, and is usually depicted in the form

of a woman crowned with her name-symbol and holding in her hand a

sceptre of papyrus. Her crown is surmounted by a pair of horns holding

a disk, which in turn is sometimes crested by her hieroglyph, which

represents a seat or throne. Sometimes also she is represented as

possessing radiant and many-coloured wings, with which she stirs to life

the inanimate body of Osiris.

No other goddess was on the whole so popular with the Egyptians, and

the reason for this is probably to be found in the circumstances of

travail and pity which run through her myth. These drew the sympathies

of the people to her, but they were not the only reasons why she was

beloved by the Egyptian masses, for she was the great and beneficent

mother-goddess and represented the maternal spirit in its most intimate

and affectionate guise. In her myth, perhaps one of the most touching

and beautiful which ever sprang from the consciousness of a people,

we find evolved from what may have been a mere corn-spirit a type of

wifely and maternal affection mourning the death of her cherished

husband, and seeking by every means in her power to restore him to life.

Isis as the Wind

Although Isis had undoubtedly many forms, and although she may be

regarded as the great corn-mother of Egypt, the probabilities are that

in one of her phases she represents the wind of heaven. This does not

appear to have been recognized by students of Egyptology, but the record

seems a fairly clear one. Osiris in his guise of the corn dies and comes

to life again and is sown broadcast over the land. Isis is disconsolate

and moans terribly over his loss; in fact, so loud and heartrending is

her grief that the child of the King of Byblos, whom she is nursing,

dies of terror. From her, grateful odours emanate, as the women of the

Queen of Byblos experience. She transforms herself into a swallow.

She restores the dead Osiris to life by fanning him with her wings

and filling his mouth and nostrils with sweet air. It is noteworthy

that she is one of the few Egyptian deities who possess wings. She is

a great traveller, and unceasingly moans and sobs. If these qualities

and circumstances are not allegorical of the wind, a much more

ingenious hypothesis than the above will be necessary to account for

their mythological connexion. Isis wails like the wind, she shrieks in

tempest, she carries the fragrance of spices and flowers throughout

the country, she takes the shape of a swallow, one of the swiftest of

birds and typical of the rapidity of the wind, she employs the element

of which she is mistress to revivify the dead Osiris, she possesses

wings, as do all deities connected with the wind, and like the rest of

her kind she is constantly travelling up and down the land. We do not

advance the hypothesis that she is a wind-goddess _par excellence_, but

in one of her phases she certainly typifies the revivifying power of the

spring wind, which wails and sobs over the grave of the sleeping grain,

bringing reanimating breath to the inert seeds.

Isis is one of those deities who from fortuitous and other circumstances

are fated to achieve greatness. From a Libyan spirit connected in some

manner with the growth of the crops, she rose to such supreme importance

during her reign of nearly four thousand years in Egypt that every

description of attribute was heaped upon her in abundance. This is

invariably the case with successful deities. Not only do they absorb

the attributes of their contemporaries in the pantheon, but qualities

which are actually at variance with their original character are grafted

upon them because of their very popularity. This was the case, for

instance, with Tezcatlipoca, a Mexican deity, originally god of the air,

who later became god of fate and fortune, and practically head of the

Aztec pantheon; and many other instances might be adduced. Thus Isis is

a giver of life and food to the dead in the Duat--that is, she brings

with her the fresh air of heaven into the underworld--and as the air-god

Tezcatlipoca was identified with justice, so Isis is identified with

Maāt, the goddess of justice.

Isis may also typify the wind of morning, from which the sun is born.

In most countries at the moment of sunrise a wind springs up which may

be said to usher the sun into existence. In her myth, too, we find that

on leaving the house where she had been imprisoned by Set (the summer

dwelling of the wind, which during that season leaves Egypt altogether)

she is preceded by seven scorpions, the fierce-stinging blasts of

winter. They show her the way through swamps and marshes. Women shut

the doors in her face; a child is stung by one of the scorpions, but

Isis restores it to life--that is, the child recovers with the approach

of better weather. Her own son Horus is stung by a scorpion--that is,

the heat of the sun is rendered weak by the cold of winter until it is

restored by Isis, the genial spring wind.

Manifold Attributes of Isis

The myth of Isis became so real to the people of Egypt that they came

to regard her very intimately indeed, and fully believed that she had

once been a veritable woman. In a more allegorical manner she was

of course the great feminine fructifier of the soil. She was also a

powerful enchantress, as is shown by the number of deities and human

beings whom she rescued from death. Words of great and compelling power

were hers. Her astronomical symbol was the star Sept, which marked the

spring and the approach of the inundation of the Nile, an added evidence

that in one of her phases she was goddess of the winds of spring. As

the light-giver at this season of the year she was called Khut, and as

goddess of the fruitful earth Usert. As the force which impelled the

powers of spring and sent forth the Nile flood she was Sati, and as the

goddess of fertile waters she was Anqet. She was further the deity of

cultivated lands and fields, goddess of harvest and goddess of food.

So that from first to last she personified the forces which make for

growth and nourishment. She personifies the power of the spring season,

the power of the earth to grow and yield grain, motherhood and all the

attributes and affinities which spring therefrom. It is not necessary

in this place to trace her worship into Greece, Rome, and Western

Europe, where it became greatly degraded from its pristine purity. The

dignified worship of the great mother took on under European auspices

an orgiastic character which appealed to the false mystic of Greece,

Rome, Gaul, and Britain just as it does to-day to his Transatlantic or

Parisian prototype. But the strength of the cult in the country of its

origin is evinced by the circumstance that it was not finally deserted

until the middle of the fifth century A.D.

Horus

As we have seen, the god Ra was depicted as a falcon, but there was

another god of similar form who had been worshipped before him in the

land of Egypt. This was the god Heru, or Horus, 'He who is above.'

This god had many shapes. As Horus the Elder he is delineated as a

man with the head of a falcon, and was believed to be the son of Geb

and Nut. Horus proper was perhaps regarded as the face of heaven, the

countenance of the sky, and as Horus the Elder he represented the

face by day in contradistinction to Set, who was the face by night.

Horus the Younger, or Harpocrates as he was called by the Greeks to

distinguish him from Horus the Elder, is represented as a youth, and

was the son of a Horus-god and the goddess Rat-Tauit, who appears to

have been worshipped at Hermonthis in the form of a hippopotamus. Horus

the Younger represented the earliest rays of the rising sun, and had no

fewer than seven aspects or forms. To detail all the variants of Horus

would be foreign to the purpose of this work, so it must suffice to

enumerate the more important of them. The Horus of the Two Horizons,

the Harmachis of the Greeks, was one of the chief forms of the

sun-god Ra, and represented the sun in his diurnal course from sunrise

to sunset. He thus included the personalities of Ra, Tem, and Khepera,

and this affords a good example of the widespread system of overlapping

which obtained in Egyptian mythology, and which does not appear to

such an extent in any other mythology. Probably a number of these

Horus-gods were local. Thus we find Harmachis worshipped principally

at Heliopolis and Apollinopolis. His best-known monument is the famous

Sphinx, near the pyramids of Gizeh. We find the first mention of the

Sphinx in inscriptions in the days of Thothmes IV, when we read in the

text inscribed on the stele between the paws of the Sphinx the following

legend of Thothmes and the Sphinx.

The Dream of Thothmes

There was a king in Egypt called Thothmes, a mighty monarch, skilled in

the arts of war and of the chase. He was good to look upon, too, with a

beauty like unto that of Horus, whom Isis bare in the Northern Marshes,

and greatly was he loved by gods and men.

He was wont to hunt in the burning desert, alone, or with only a few

companions, and this is told of one of his hunting expeditions.

One day, before he had ascended the throne of Egypt, he was hunting

unattended in the desert. It was noontide, and the sun beat fiercely

down upon him, so that he was fain to seek the shadow of the mighty

Harmachis, the Sphinx. Great and powerful was the god, and very majestic

was his image, with the face of a man and the body of a lion, a snake

upon his brow. In many temples were sacrifices made to him, in many

towns did men worship with their faces turned toward him.

In the great cool shadow Thothmes laid himself down to rest, and sleep

enchained his senses. And as he slept he dreamed, and behold! the Sphinx

opened its lips and spoke to him; it was no longer a thing of motionless

rock, but the god himself, the great Harmachis. And he addressed the

dreamer thus:

"Behold me, O Thothmes, for I am the Sun-god, the ruler of all peoples.

Harmachis is my name, and Ra, and Khepera, and Tem. I am thy father,

and thou art my son, and through me shall all good come upon thee if

thou wilt hearken to my words. The land of Egypt shall be thine, and the

North Land, and the South Land. In prosperity and happiness shalt thou

rule for many years."

He paused, and it seemed to Thothmes as if the god were struggling to

free himself from the overwhelming sands, for only his head was visible.

"It is as thou seest," Harmachis resumed; "the sands of the desert are

over me. Do that quickly which I command thee, O my son Thothmes."

Ere Thothmes could reply the vision faded and he awoke. The living god

was gone, and in his place was the mighty image, hewn from the solid

rock.

And here the story must perforce end. It is inscribed on a stele in

the little temple which lies between the paws of the Sphinx, and the

remainder of the inscription is so defaced as to be indecipherable.

Heru-Behudeti

One of the greatest and most important of all the forms of Horus is

Heru-Behudeti, who typifies midday, and therefore the greatest heat

of the sun. It was in this form that Horus waged war against Set. His

principal shrines were at Edfû, Philæ, Mesen, Aat-ab, and Tanis, where

he was worshipped under the form of a lion trampling upon its enemies.

In general, however, he is depicted as hawk-headed and bearing in his

hand a weapon, usually a club or mace to symbolize his character as a

destroyer. In the old Arthurian romances, and, indeed, in many mediæval

tales which have a mythological ancestry, we read of how certain knights

in combat with their enemies grew stronger as the sun waxed in the

heavens, and when his beams declined their strength failed them. So was

it with Sir Belin, with King Arthur, who in his frenzy slew thousands,

and with St George, the patron saint of England, originally an Egyptian

hero. These figures were all probably sun-gods at some early period

of their development. They are obscure in birth and origin, as is

the luminary they symbolize--that is, they spring from the darkness.

Arthur's origin, for example, was unknown to him until the age of

manhood, and the same holds good of Beowulf. As they grew in power, like

the sun which they typify, the solar heroes frequently became insane,

and laid about them with such pitiless fury that they slaughtered

thousands in a manner of which no ordinary paladin would be capable.

This is typical of the strength and fury of the sun at midday in Eastern

climates. Heru-Behudeti, then, because he was god of the midday sun, was

the pitiless warrior wielding the club, perhaps typifying sunstroke, and

the bow and arrows, symbolizing his fierce beams which were to destroy

the dragon of night and his fiendish crew. He was well represented as

a lion, for what is so fierce as the tropical sun? At midday he was

all-conquering and had trampled the night-dragon out of sight. In this

manner, too, he represented the force of good against that of evil. The

following is the myth of his battles with Set and the battalions of his

evil companions.

The Myth of the Winged Disk

In the year 363 of the reign of Ra-Horakhti upon the earth it befell

that the god was in Nubia with a mighty army. Set, the Evil One, had

rebelled against him, for Ra was advanced in years, and Set was of all

beings the most cunning and treacherous. He it was also who had slain

his twin-brother Osiris, the great and good king; and for this reason

Horus, the brother of Osiris, desired greatly to have his life.

With his chariots and horsemen and foot-soldiers Ra embarked on the

Great River and came to Edfû, where Horus of Edfû joined him.

"O Ra," said Horus, "great are thine enemies, and cunningly do they

conspire against thee!"

"My son," answered Ra, "arm thee and go forth against mine enemies, and

slay them speedily."

Thereupon Horus sought the aid of the god Thoth, the master of all

magic, by whose aid he changed himself into a great sun-disk, with

resplendent wings outstretched on either side. Straight to the sun

he flew, and from the heavens he looked so fiercely upon his enemies

and Ra's, that they neither heard nor saw aright. Each man judged his

neighbour to be a stranger, and a cry went up that the foe were upon

them. Each turned his weapon against the other, the majority were slain,

and the handful of survivors scattered. And Horus hovered for a while

over the battle-plain, hoping to find Set, but the arch-enemy was not

there; he was hiding in the North Country.

Then Horus returned to Ra, who embraced him kindly. And Horus took Ra

and the goddess Astarte, and showed them the battlefield strewn with

corpses.

Ra, king of the gods, said to those in his train: "Come, let us voyage

to the Nile, for our enemies are slain." But Set still had a large

following, and some of his associates he commanded to turn themselves

into crocodiles and hippopotami, so that they might swallow the

occupants of the divine barque and yet remain invulnerable by reason

of their thick hides. Horus, however, had gathered his band of smiths,

each of whom made for himself an iron lance and a chain, on which Thoth

bestowed some of his ever-powerful magic. Horus also repeated the

formulæ in the _Book of Slaying the Hippopotamus_. So that when the

fierce animals charged up the river the god was ready for them; many of

them were pierced by the magic weapons and died, while the remainder

fled. Those who fled to the south were pursued by Horus, and were at

length overtaken. Another great conflict ensued, wherein the followers

of Set were again vanquished. According to the desire of Ra, a shrine

was raised to commemorate the victory, and his image placed therein. Yet

another encounter, however, was to take place in the South Land ere the

followers of Set were utterly destroyed.

The Slaughter of the Monsters

Then Horus and Ra sailed northward toward the sea in search of Set and

his allies, hoping to slay all the crocodiles and hippopotami, which

were the bodily forms of their foes. But the beasts kept under water,

and four days had elapsed ere Horus caught sight of them. He at once

attacked them, and wrought great havoc with his glittering weapons, to

the delight of Ra and Thoth, who watched the conflict from the boat. A

hundred and forty-two prisoners were taken on this occasion. Yet did

Horus continue to pursue his enemies, always in the form of a burning

disk with wings like unto the sunset, and attended by the goddesses

Nekhbet and Uazet in the shape of two snakes. Once more he overtook

the allies of Set, this time at the Western Waters of Mert. On this

occasion, as on the others, Horus was victorious, and nearly four

hundred prisoners were brought to the boat of Ra and slain.

Then was Set very greatly incensed, and decided to come forth in person

to do battle with Horus. Horrible indeed were his cries and curses when

he heard the losses his army had sustained. And Horus and his followers

went out to meet the army of Set, and long and furious was the battle.

At length Horus took a prisoner whom he believed to be Set. The wretched

being was dragged before Ra, who gave him into the hands of his captor,

bidding the latter do with him what he would. Then Horus killed his

prisoner, cut off his head, dragged him through the dust, and cut his

body in pieces, even as Set had done to Osiris. But, after all, it was

only one of Set's associates who had perished thus miserably. The Evil

One himself was still at large, vowing vengeance on his enemies. In

the form of a large snake he hid himself under the earth, while his

followers took courage from the knowledge that he had eluded his enemy.

Yet again, however, were they defeated by Horus, who slew great numbers

of them. The gods remained for six days on the canal, waiting for the

reappearance of the foe, but none were to be seen. Then Horus scattered

abroad his followers to destroy the remnant of Set's army.

The last two battles were fought at Thalû (Zaru), and at Shaïs, in

Nubia. At Thalû Horus took the form of a fierce lion, and slew a

hundred and forty-two enemies. At Shaïs he appeared once more in the

shape of a great shining disk with wings of splendid plumage, and with

the goddesses Nekhbet and Uazet on either side of it in the shape of

crowned snakes. On these occasions also Horus was victorious.

There are various endings to this myth. It is said that the prisoner

whom Horus caused to be decapitated was none other than Set, whose fate,

however, did not hinder him from living again and taking the form of

a serpent. According to this version Horus of Edfû was accompanied by

Horus the Child, son of Isis and Osiris. In the same inscription which

gives an account of the battles Horus the Elder and Horus the Child

are utterly confused at the end. So while Horus the Elder fights the

battles, Horus the Child kills Set. They are looked upon as one and the

same. On capturing Set, therefore, Horus, according to one account,

delivered him into the hands of Isis, who cut off his head.

Another version, again, has it that the decisive battle has not yet been

fought, and that Horus will finally destroy his enemy, when Osiris and

the gods once more return to earth.

Other Horus Legends

Yet another account states that when Horus the Child had become a man

Set came forth and challenged him to mortal combat. So Horus set out in

a boat splendidly decorated by Isis, who also laid magic spells upon it,

so that its occupant might not be overcome. Meanwhile the arch-foe of

the gods had taken upon himself the shape of a huge red hippopotamus.

And he caused a raging storm to break over the boats of Horus and

his train, so that the waters were lashed into fury; and had it not

been that the boats were protected by magic, all would assuredly have

perished. Horus, however, held on his course undismayed. He had taken

the form of a youth of giant stature, and towered at the gilded prow of

his boat, which shone like sunlight amid the storm and the darkness.

A great harpoon was poised in his hand, such a weapon as an ordinary

mortal could not lift. In the water the red hippopotamus waited for the

wrecking of the boat, so that he might swallow his enemies. But this he

was destined never to do, for directly he showed himself above water

the mighty harpoon was launched at his head and sank into his brain.

And this was the end of Set, the Evil One, the murderer of Osiris and

the enemy of Ra. In honour of Horus the Conqueror hymns and triumphal

choruses were sung throughout the land.

In the myth of the battles of Horus it is easy to discern what is

perhaps the most universal of all mythological conceptions--the solar

myth. Horus (called in the Edfû text Horbehûdti, _i.e._ Horus of Edfû)

was originally a sun-god, and as such was equivalent to Ra, but in time

the two gods came to be regarded as separate and distinct personages,

Ra being the highest, and Horus serving him as a sort of war-captain.

The winged disk, therefore, and all his train represented the powers of

light, while the wicked Set and his companions symbolized darkness. Thus

it is that while Horus was always victorious over his enemies, he never

succeeded (according to the most widespread form of the tradition) in

destroying them utterly.

When Horus had routed the enemy in the form of a winged disk, that

symbol came to be regarded as an excellent protective against violence

and destruction. It was therefore repeated many times--especially in

the New Kingdom--in temples, on monuments, stelæ, and so on, and it was

believed that the more numerous the representations of it, the more

efficacious did the charm become. In its simplest form the image is

merely that of a winged disk, but at times there is a serpent on either

side of the disk, representing the goddesses Nekhbet and Uazet.

The principal version of the myth, dealing with Hor-Behûdti, or Horus

of Edfû, was really a local form belonging to Edfû, though in time it

gained a wider acceptance. In other forms of the legend other gods took

the chief _rôle_ as destroyer of the enemies of Ra.

With this legend of light and darkness came to be fused another, that

which relates how Horus avenged the death of Osiris. It is noticeable

that in this second myth there exists some confusion between Horus the

Elder and Horus the Child, respectively brother and son of Osiris.

No mention is made of Osiris in the Edfû text, but that this myth is

a sequel to the legend of Osiris is implied by the circumstance that

Set is handed over for punishment to Isis and Horus the Child. In the

later form of the story the conflict is not properly between light and

darkness, but rather between the forces of good and evil.

In this legend one of the most noteworthy circumstances is that the

followers of Horus were armed with weapons of metal. His followers are

called in the Egyptian text Mesniu, or Mesnitu, which in all probability

signifies 'workers in metal,' or 'blacksmiths.' The worshippers of Horus

of Behudet continually alluded to him as 'Lord of the Forge-city,' or

Edfû, where tradition asserted he carried on the work of a blacksmith.

At Edfû, indeed, the great golden disk of the sun itself had been

forged, as we see from a certain inscription, and in the temple of that

city was a chamber behind the sanctuary called Mesnet, or 'the foundry,'

where the blacksmith caste of priests attended upon the god. From

sculptures upon the walls of the temple we see that these are arrayed

in short robes and a species of collar which is almost a cape, that they

carry their spears head downward, and a weapon of metal resembling a

dagger. Horus of Behudet, who accompanies them, is dressed in a similar

fashion, and is represented as spearing a hippopotamus, round which he

has wound a double chain of metal. This illustrates the story of the

defeat of Set by Horus of Behudet, and we may be justified in believing

that the legend possessed a more or less historic basis. Here we have

a tribe or caste of metal-workers at war with what is obviously a

more primitive race, whom they defeat with their weapons of metal and

bind with their chains, afterward slaughtering them at leisure. It is

significant that they do not slay them out of hand. For what, then, do

they reserve them? Obviously for human sacrifice. They are a caste of

sun-worshippers, and human blood was as necessary to the sustenance of

the sun in early Egypt as it was in ancient Mexico, where the military

caste, living under the patronage of the sun, always refrained from

slaying an enemy in battle if they could make him prisoner, to be

sacrificed at leisure. The circumstances of the legend would appear to

indicate that we are here following the adventures of some West Asiatic

invader who, with followers armed with metal, landed on the soil of

Egypt, made himself master of Edfû, and, marching northward, established

himself in the land by force of arms. This story, or portion of history,

probably became amalgamated, perhaps by priestly influence, with the

legend of Horus, the god of heaven in the earliest times.

Another important form of Horus was that known as Horus, son of Isis,

and of Osiris. He represented the rising sun, as did several other

forms of Horus, and possessed many aspects or variants. His shrines

were so numerous that at one epoch or another he was identified with

all the other Horus-gods, but he chiefly represented the new sun, born

daily, and he was son and successor of Osiris. He was extremely popular,

as being a well-marked type of resurrection after death. As Osiris

represented 'yesterday,' so Horus, his son, stood for 'to-day' in the

Egyptian mind. Although some texts state that Osiris was his father,

others claim this position for Ra, but the two in this instance are

really one and the same and interchangeable.

Osiris became the father of Horus after he was dead; such is the origin

of several sun-heroes. As has been said, the birth of such is usually

peculiar and obscure. Isis, while tending the infant Horus and in fear

of the persecutions of Set, took shelter in the swamps of the Delta, and

hid herself and her child amidst a dense mass of papyrus plants. To the

Egyptian of the Delta it would of course seem as if the sun took its

rise from amidst the papyrus-covered swamps which stretched on every

side to the horizon, so we may regard this part of the myth as allegory

pure and simple. The circumstances of the escape of Isis from Set have

already been detailed in the myth of Osiris.

The filial respect which Horus displayed for the memory of his father

Osiris won him much honour from the Egyptians. He it was who fixed the

details of the god's mummification, and who set the standard for the

pious Egyptian son. In this respect he was regarded as a helper of

the dead, and was thought to mediate between them and the judges of

the Taut. In his work of caring for the deceased he had a number of

helpers, known as the followers of Horus, who were regarded as gods of

the cardinal points. They are given positions of great importance in

the _Book of the Dead_, and shared the protection of the body of the

deceased, as has been mentioned in the paragraph concerning the mummy.

They were four in number and were named Hapi, Tuamutef, Amset, and

Qebhsennuf.

Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, was regarded as of such importance that

he absorbed the attributes of all the other Horus-gods, but in certain

texts he is represented as a child, with forefinger to lip, and wearing

the lock of hair at the side of the head which indicates youth. In later

times he was figured in a great many different fanciful forms.

The Black Hog

Ra, Set, and Horus are concerned in an Egyptian myth which attempts an

explanation of eclipses of the sun and moon. Set and Horus were bitter

enemies, yet Set did not dare to enter the fray openly, for he feared

Horus as evil must ever fear good. So he devised subtle and underhand

schemes whereby he might compass the fall of Horus, and this is how the

matter fell out.

One day Horus sought Ra with a request to be allowed to read the future

in his eyes. This request Ra granted willingly because of his love for

Horus, the beloved of gods and men. Whilst they conversed there passed

them a black hog, a huge, sinister animal, ferocious of aspect, and with

eyes that glinted with cunning and cruelty. Now, though neither Ra nor

Horus was aware of the fact, the black hog was Set himself, who had the

power to take upon him the shape of any animal he chose.

"What an evil monster!" cried Ra, as he looked upon the animal.

Horus also turned his gaze in the direction of the black hog, in whom

he still failed to recognize his enemy. This was Set's opportunity. He

shot a bolt of fire straight into the eye of the god. Horus was half

crazed with the violence of the pain. "Set hath done me this evil,"

he cried; "he shall not go unpunished." But Set had vanished, and was

not to be found anywhere. Yet for the evil that had come upon Horus Ra

cursed the pig.

When the young god recovered his sight Ra gave to him the city of Pé,

whereat he was much delighted; and at his smile the cloud of darkness

passed away, and all the land rejoiced.

A Greek version of the myth has it that the black hog tore out the eye

of Horus and swallowed it, but was forced by Ra (Helios) to restore

it. The eyes of Horus are of course the sun and moon, one of which

is swallowed or destroyed by the 'black hog' during an eclipse. The

restoration of light to the earth is occasioned by the joy of Horus on

being presented with the city of Pé.

Nephthys

The female counterpart of Set was Nephthys. She was the daughter of

Geb[7] and Nut, the sister and wife of Set, and the mother of Anubis,

but whether by Osiris or Set is not clear. The words Nebt-het mean 'the

lady of the house,' or sky. Although Nephthys is associated with Set,

she appears to remain more faithful to her sister Isis, whom she assists

to regain the scattered limbs of Osiris. She is represented in the

form of a woman wearing upon her head the symbol of her name, _i.e._ a

basket and a house (reading Nebt-het). She appears in some ways in the

_Book of the Dead_ as an assistant of her sister Isis, standing behind

Osiris when the hearts of the dead are weighed, and kneeling at the

head of Osiris' bier. She was supposed to possess great magical powers

like her sister, and resembles her in possessing many forms. She is also

supposed to protect Osiris in his form of moon-god. Plutarch throws some

light upon Egyptian belief concerning this goddess. He says that Anubis

was the son of Osiris and Nephthys, and that Typhon or Set was first

apprised of their amour by finding a garland of flowers which had been

left behind him by Osiris. As Isis represents fruitfulness, so, he says,

Nephthys signifies corruption. Dr. Budge, commenting upon this passage,

says that it is clear that Nephthys is the personification of darkness

and of all that belongs to it, and that her attributes were of a passive

rather than of an active character. "She was the opposite of Isis in

every respect. Isis symbolized birth, growth, development, and vigour;

but Nephthys was the type of death, decay, diminution, and immobility."

The two goddesses were, however, associated inseparably with each other.

"Isis, according to Plutarch, represents the part of the world which

is visible, whilst Nephthys represents that which is invisible....

Isis and Nephthys represent respectively the things which are and the

things which are yet to come into being, the beginning and the end,

birth and death, and life and death. We have unfortunately no means of

knowing what the primitive conception of the attributes of Nephthys

was, but it is most improbable that it included any of the views on the

subject which were current in Plutarch's time. Nephthys is not a goddess

with well-defined characteristics, but she may, generally speaking,

be described as the goddess of the death which is not eternal." Dr.

Budge proceeds to say that Nephthys, although a goddess of death, was

associated with the coming into existence of the life which springs

from death. With Isis she prepared the funeral bed of Osiris and made

his mummy-wrappings. Along with Isis she guarded the corpse of Osiris.

In later times the goddesses were represented by two priestesses whose

hair was shaved off and who wore ram's-wool garlands upon their heads.

On the arm of one was a fillet inscribed to Isis, and the other wore a

like band inscribed to Nephthys.

Set

The cult of Set was of the greatest antiquity, and although in later

times he was regarded as evil personified, this was not his original

_rôle_. According to the priests of Heliopolis he was the son of Geb and

Nut, and therefore brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, husband of the

latter goddess and father of Anubis. These relationships, however, were

all manufactured for him at a comparatively late period. In the Pyramid

Texts we find Set acting as a friend to the dead, and he even assisted

Osiris to reach heaven by means of a ladder. He is also associated with

Horus and is regarded as his equal. But in time they came to be regarded

as mortal enemies, who were only prevented from entirely destroying one

another by the wise Thoth. Horus the Elder was the god of the sky by

day, and Set the god of the sky by night. The one was in fact the direct

opposite of the other.

The derivation of the name Set presents many difficulties of

elucidation. The determinative of his hieroglyph is either the figure

of an animal or a stone, which latter seems to symbolize the stony

or desert country on either side of the Nile. As to the animal which

pictorially represents him, it has by no means been identified, but

various authorities have likened it to a camel and an okapi. In any

case it must have been a denizen of the desert inimical to man.

As Horus was the god of the North, so was Set god of the South. Dr.

Brugsch considered Set symbolized the downward motion of the sun in

the lower hemisphere, thus making him the source of the destructive

heat of summer. As the days began to shorten and the nights to lengthen

it was thought that he stole the light from the sun-god. He was

likewise instrumental in the monthly destruction of the moon. Storms,

earthquakes, and eclipses and all natural phenomena which caused

darkness were attributed to him, and from an ethical point of view he

was the god of sin and evil.

We find the myths of the combat between Set and Horus evolving from a

simple opposition of day and night into a combat between the two gods.

Ra and Osiris, instead of Horus, are sometimes ranged against Set. The

combat symbolized the moral idea of the victory of good over evil, and

those of the dead who were justified were regarded as having overcome

Set as Osiris had done. In his combat with the sun-god Set took the form

of the monster serpent Apep and was accompanied by an army of lesser

serpents and reptiles of every description. In later times we find him

identified with Typhon. All desert animals and those which inhabited

the waters were regarded as the children of Set, as were animals with

red hair or skins, or even red-haired men. Such animals were often

sacrificed ritually in propitiation of Set. In the month Pachons an

antelope and a black pig were sacrificed to him in order to deter him

from attacking the full moon, and on the great festival of Heru-Behudeti

such birds and fish as were thought to be of his following were trodden

underfoot to the cry that Ra had triumphed over his enemies.

Set had also a kingdom in the northern sky, and his peculiar abode was

the Great Bear. As in some other countries, the north was considered

by the Egyptians as the place of darkness, cold, and death. Thus we

find that by the Mexicans and Maya the abode of the god of death

was considered to be the north, and that among the latter people

the hieroglyph for the north is a human bone placed before the head

of the death-god. The goddess Reret, who has the head and body of

a hippopotamus, was supposed to have the evil influence of Set in

restraint. She is pictured as holding darkness fettered by a chain, and

is considered to be a form of Isis.

It was probably about the Twenty-second Dynasty that the worship of Set

began to decline, and that he took on the shape of an evil deity. The

theory has been put forward that the Hyksos invaders identified him

with certain of their gods, and that this sufficed to bring him into

disrepute with the Egyptians.

Set and the Ass

Plutarch, in his _De Iside et Osiride_, has an interesting passage

concerning the alleged resemblance between the ass and Set. He says (the

translation is the old one of Squire):

"Hence their ignominious treatment of those persons, whom from the

redness of their complexions they imagine to bear a resemblance to him;

and hence likewise is derived the custom of the Coptites of throwing an

Ass down a precipice; because it is usually of this colour. Nay, the

inhabitants of Busiris and Lycopolis carry their detestation of this

animal so far, as never to make any use of trumpets, because of the

similitude between their sound and the braying of an ass. In a word,

this animal is in general regarded by them as unclean and impure,

merely on account of the resemblance which they conceive it bears to

Typho; and in consequence of this notion, those cakes which they offer

with their sacrifices during the last two months Paϋni and Phaophi,

have the impression of an ass, bound, stamped upon them. For the same

reason likewise, when they sacrifice to the Sun, they strictly enjoyn

all those who approach to worship the God, neither to wear any gold

about them, nor to give provender to any ass. It is moreover evident,

say they, that even the Pythagoreans looked upon Typho to have been of

the rank or order of Demons, as, according to them, 'he was produced

in the even number fifty-six.' For as the power of the Triangle is

expressive of the nature of Pluto, Bacchus, and Mars, the properties

of the Square of Rhea, Venus, Ceres, Vesta, and Juno; of the Dodecagon

of Juppiter; so, as we are informed by Eudoxus, is the figure of 56

angles expressive of the nature of Typho: as therefore all the others

above-mentioned in the Pythagorean system are looked upon as so many

Genii or Demons, so in like manner must this latter be regarded by them.

'Tis from this persuasion likewise of the red complexion of Typho,

that the Egyptians make use of no other bullocks in their sacrifice

but what are of this colour. Nay, so extremely curious are they in

this respect, that if there be so much as one black or white hair in

the beast, 'tis sufficient to render it improper for this service. For

'tis their opinion, that sacrifices ought not to be made of such things

as are in themselves agreeable and well-pleasing to the Gods, but, on

the contrary, rather of such creatures wherein the souls of wicked and

unjust men have been confined during the course of their transmigration.

Hence sprang that custom, which was formerly observed by them, of

pronouncing a solemn curse upon the head of the beast which was to be

offered in sacrifice, and afterwards of cutting it off and throwing it

into the Nile, though now they dispose of it to foreigners. No bullock

therefore is permitted to be offered to the Gods, which has not the seal

of the Sphragistæ first stamped upon it, an order of priests peculiarly

set apart for this purpose, from whence likewise they derive their

name. Their impress, according to Castor, is 'a man upon his knees with

his hands tied behind him and a sword pointed at his throat'. Nor is

it from his colour only that they maintain a resemblance between the

ass and Typho, but from the stupidity likewise and sensuality of his

disposition; and agreeably to this notion, having a more particular

hatred to Ochus than to any other of the Persian monarchs who reigned

over them, looking upon him as an execrable and abominable wretch, they

gave him the nickname of the Ass, which drew the following reply from

that prince, 'But this ass shall dine upon your ox,' and accordingly he

slew the Apis: this story is thus related by Dino."

In certain phases of his myth Set is symbolized as a black pig.

Especially is this the case when he is shown by Ra to Horus, and tears

the latter's eye out of his head.

Anubis

Anubis, or, as the Egyptians called him, An-pu, was, according to some,

the son of Osiris and Nephthys, and to others the son of Set. He had the

head of a jackal and the body of a man, and was evidently symbolical of

the animal which prowled about the tombs of the dead. His worship was of

great antiquity, and it may be that in early times he had been a totem.

He was the guide of the dead in the underworld on their way to the abode

of Osiris. In many mythologies a dog is the companion of the dead man

to the otherworld. Its remains are found in prehistoric graves; in both

Mexico and Peru dogs were sacrificed at burial, and, indeed, the custom

is a very widespread one. Now it is not improbable that Anubis may have

typified the prehistoric half-domesticated jackal, or early type of dog

that was supposed to guide the wanderer through the underworld. Plutarch

says of Anubis that the Egyptians imagine a resemblance between him and

the dog.

Anubis was particularly worshipped at Lycopolis, Abt, and elsewhere. He

plays a prominent part in the _Book of the Dead_, especially in those

passages which are connected with the justification and the embalming

of the deceased. He it was who embalmed the body of Osiris. Indeed, he

rendered great assistance to the mourning sisters, and in this he may

typify the faithful and helpful qualities of the dog. This is all the

more striking if he is to be accepted as the son of Set, and the whole

evolution of the deity would seem to imply that whereas the semi-savage,

half-domesticated dog was originally nocturnal and of doubtful value,

under domestication its virtues became apparent. It is probable that,

could research be pushed back to a sufficiently remote epoch, and did

paintings of such an early period exist, we should find Anubis pictured

as the faithful dog preceding the deceased on the journey to the Duat.

Later, when every deity in the picture had received a special function

through the aid of priestly ingenuity, and perhaps in an area where

the jackal or dog was totemic, we find the companion of the dead still

accompanying him indeed, still his guide through the darkness, but in

the guise and with the attributes of a full-grown deity. How he came to

be the mummifier of Osiris it would, indeed, be hard to say; probably

the association or the jackal with the burial-ground would account for

this. He was symbolical of the grave. Professor Petrie has put it on

record that the best guides to Egyptian tombs are the jackal-trails. A

speech of Anubis in the _Book of the Dead_, chapter cli, is suggestive

of his protective character. "I have come," he says, "to protect

Osiris." In many countries the dog is dispatched with the deceased for

the purpose of protecting him against various grisly enemies he may meet

on the way to Hades, and it is not unlikely that Anubis played a similar

part in very early times.

It is the duty of Anubis to see that the beam of the great balance

wherein the heart of the deceased is weighed is in its proper position.

As Thoth acts for the gods, so Anubis appears for the dead man, whom

he also protects against the 'Eater of the Dead.' He also guided the

souls of the dead through the underworld, being assisted in this duty

by Up-uaut, another jackal-headed deity, whose name signifies 'Opener

of the Ways.' These gods have sometimes been confounded with one

another, but in certain texts they are separately alluded to. The name

of the latter deity is significant of his probable early function.

Anubis, thinks Dr. Budge, was the opener of the roads of the north,

and Up-uaut of those of the south. "In fact," he says, "Anubis was the

personification of the summer solstice, and Ap-uat [Up-uaut] of the

winter solstice." He goes on to say that when they appear with the two

Utchats, or eyes of Ra, they symbolize the four quarters of heaven and

of earth, and the four seasons of the year. Plutarch has also a passage

upon the astronomical significance of Anubis which seems far from clear.

At Heliopolis, Anubis was to some extent fused with Horus as regards

his attributes, and in some manner he took on the character of the old

fusion between Horus and Set, in this latter connexion personifying

death and decay. In the _Golden Ass_ of Apuleius we find that Anubis had

votaries in Rome, and it is noticeable that in this account he is spoken

of as having a dog's head.

Thoth

Thoth, or Tehuti, was a highly composite deity. His birth was coeval

with that of Ra. Let us enumerate his attributes before we seek to

disentangle his significance. He is alluded to as the counter of the

stars, the measurer and enumerator of the earth, as being twice great

and thrice great lord of books, scribe of the gods, and as possessing

knowledge of divine speech, in which he was 'mighty.' In general he was

figured in human form with the head of an ibis, but sometimes he appears

in the shape of that bird. He wears upon his head the crescent moon and

disk, the Atef crown, and the crowns of the North and South. In the

_Book of the Dead_ he is drawn as holding the writing reed and palette

of the scribe, and as placing on his tablets the records of the deceased

whose heart is being weighed before him. There is no reason to suppose

that Thoth was totemic in character, as he belongs to the cosmogonic

or nature deities, few or none of whom were of this type. Another form

of Thoth is that of the dog-headed ape, which, it has been stated,

symbolizes his powers of equilibrium. His principal seat of worship was

Hermopolis, where Ra was supposed to have risen for the first time. To

Thoth was ascribed the mental powers of Ra, and, indeed, the dicta of Ra

seem to have come from his lips. He was the Divine Speech personified.

But we are looking ahead. Let us discover his primitive significance

before we enumerate the more or less complex attributes which are heaped

upon him in later times.

It is pretty clear that Thoth is originally a moon-god. He is called

the 'great god' and 'lord of heaven.' Among primitive peoples the moon

is the great regulator of the seasons. A lunar calendar is invariably

in use prior to the introduction of the computation of time by solar

revolution. The moon is thus the 'great measurer' of primitive life.

Thus primitive peoples speak about the 'seed moon,' the 'deer moon,'

the 'grain' or 'harvest moon,' and so on. Thoth, then, was a measurer

because he was a moon-god, and conversely because of his lunar

significance he was _the_ measurer. As Aah-Tehuti he symbolizes the

new moon, as it is from the first appearance that time is measured by

primitive peoples. His eye signifies the full moon in the same manner

that the eye of Ra signifies the sun at mid-day. But it also symbolizes

the left eye of Ra, or the cold half of the year, when the sun's rays

were not so strong. It is sometimes also called the 'black eye of

Horus,' the 'white eye' being the sun. This serves to illustrate how

greatly the attributes of the Egyptian deities had become confused. As

he was a moon-god, so he was to some extent connected with moisture, and

we find him alluded to in chapter xcv of the _Book of the Dead_ as a

rain and thunder god.

Thoth as Soul-Recorder

It is, however, as the recorder of souls before Osiris that Thoth was

important in the eyes of the Egyptian priesthood. He held this office

because of his knowledge of letters and his gift of knowing what was

right or in equilibrium. Again, he had the power of imparting the

manner in which words should be correctly spoken. As has already been

said, the mode of speech, the tone in which words were pronounced,

spelt success or failure in both prayer and magical incantations. The

secret of this Thoth taught to men, and this it was that the Egyptians

especially desired to learn. Through the formula of Thoth the gates of

the Duat were opened to the deceased, and he was safeguarded against its

terrors. The _Book of the Dead_ was indeed believed to be the work of

Thoth, as was the _Book of Breathings_, a much later work.

The Greek writers upon things Egyptian imagined Thoth, whom they called

Trismegistos, or Hermes the Thrice Great, as the prime source of all

learning and wisdom. They ascribed to him the invention of the sciences

of astronomy and astrology, mathematics, geometry, and medicine. The

letters of the alphabet were also his invention, from which sprang the

arts of reading and writing. According to them the 'Books of Thoth' were

forty-two in number, and were divided into six classes, dealing with law

and theology, the service of the gods, history, geography and writing,

astronomy and astrology, religious writings and medicine. It is almost

certain that most of this mass of material was the work of Alexandrian

Greeks sophisticated by ancient Egyptian lore.

Maāt

The goddess Maāt closely resembles Thoth, and has indeed been regarded

as the female counterpart of that god. She was one of the original

goddesses, for when the boat of Ra rose above the waters of the primeval

abyss of Nu for the first time she had her place in it beside Thoth.

She is symbolized by the ostrich feather, which she either holds or

which decorates her headdress. Dr. Budge states that the reason for

the association of the ostrich feather with Maāt is unknown, as is

the primitive conception which underlies her name. But it is likely

that the equal-sidedness of the feather, its division into halves,

rendered it a fitting symbol of balance or equilibrium. Among the Maya

of Central America the feather denoted the plural number. The word,

we are told, indicates "that which is straight." The name Maāt with

the ancient Egyptians came to imply anything which was true, genuine,

or real. Thus the goddess was the personification of law, order, and

truth. She indicated the regularity with which Ra rose and set in the

sky, and, assisted by Thoth, wrote down his daily course for him every

day. In this capacity she is called the 'daughter of Ra' and the 'eye

of Ra.' As the personification of justice her moral power was immense

and inexorable. In fact, she came to be regarded as that fate from whom

every man receives his deserts. She sat in a hall in the underworld

to hear the confessions of the dead, the door of which was guarded by

Anubis. The deceased had to satisfy forty-two assessors or judges in

this hall, after which he proceeded to the presence of Osiris, whom he

assured that he had 'done Maāt,' and had been purified by her.

The Book of the Dead

The _Book of the Dead_, the Egyptian title of which, _Pert em hru_, has

been variously translated 'coming forth by day' and the 'manifestation

day,' is a great body of religious compositions compiled for the use

of the dead in the otherworld. It is probable that the name had a

significance for the Egyptians which is incapable of being rendered

in any modern language, and this is borne out by another of its

titles--'The chapter of making perfect the Khu' (or spirit). Texts

dealing with the welfare of the dead and their life in the world beyond

the grave are known to have been in use among the Egyptians as early

as 4000 B.C. The oldest form of the _Book of the Dead_ known to us is

represented in the Pyramid Texts. With the invention of mummification

a more complete funerary ritual arose, based on the hope that such

ceremonies as it imposed would ensure the corpse against corruption,

preserve it for ever, and introduce it to a beatified existence among

the gods. Almost immediately prior to the dynastic era a great stimulus

appears to have been given to the cult of Osiris throughout Egypt. He

had now become the god of the dead _par excellence_, and his dogma

taught that from the preserved corpse would spring a beautified astral

body, the future home of the spirit of the deceased. It therefore

became necessary to adopt measures of the greatest precaution for the

preservation of human remains.

The generality of the texts comprised in the _Book of the Dead_ are in

one form or another of much greater antiquity than the period of Mena,

the first historical king of Egypt. Indeed, from internal evidence it

is possible to show that many of these were revised or edited long

before the copies known to us were made. Even at as early a date as 3300

B.C. the professional writers who transcribed the ancient texts appear

to have been so puzzled by their contents that they hardly understood

their purport.[8] Dr. Budge states: "We are in any case justified in

estimating the earliest form of the work to be contemporaneous with the

foundation of the civilization which we call 'Egyptian' in the valley of

the Nile."[9]

A 'Discovery' 3400 Years Old

A hieratic inscription upon the sarcophagus of Queen Khnem-nefert,

wife of Mentu-hetep, a king of the Eleventh Dynasty (_c._ 2500 B.C.),

states that a certain chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ was discovered

in the reign of Hesep-ti, the fifth king of the First Dynasty, who

flourished about 4266 B.C. This sarcophagus affords us two copies of

the said chapter, one immediately following the other. That as early

as 2500 B.C. a chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ should be referred

to a date almost 2000 years before that time is astounding, and the

mind reels before the idea of a tradition which, during comparatively

unlettered centuries, could have conserved a religious formula almost

unimpaired. Thus thirty-four centuries ago a portion of the _Book of

the Dead_ was regarded as extremely ancient, mysterious, and difficult

of comprehension. It will be noted also that the inscription on the

tomb of Queen Khnem-nefert bears out that the chapter in question was

'discovered' about 4266 B.C. If it was merely discovered at that early

era, what periods of remoteness lie between that epoch and the time when

it was first reduced to writing? The description of the chapter on the

sarcophagus of the royal lady states that "this chapter was found in the

foundations beneath the Dweller in the Hennu Boat by the foreman of the

builders in the time of the king of the South and North, Hesep-ti, whose

word is truth"; and the Nebseni Papyrus says that the chapter was found

in the city of Khemennu or Hermopolis, on a block of alabaster, written

in letters of lapis-lazuli, under the feet of the god. It also appears

from the Turin Papyrus, which dates from the period of the Twenty-sixth

Dynasty, that the name of the finder was Heru-ta-ta-f, the son of

Cheops, who was at the time engaged in a tour of inspection of the

temples. Sir Gaston Maspero is doubtful concerning the importance which

should be attached to the statement regarding the chapter on the tomb of

Queen Khnem-nefert, but M. Naville considers the chapter in question one

of the oldest in the _Book of the Dead_.

A bas-relief of the Second Dynasty bears an inscription dedicating

to the shade of a certain priest the formula of the "thousands of

loaves of bread, thousands of jugs of ale," and so forth, so common

in later times. We thus see that 4000 years B.C. it was regarded as a

religious duty to provide offerings of meat and drink for the dead,

and there seems to be good evidence, from the nature of the formula

in question, that it had become fixed and ritualistic by this period.

This passage would appear to justify the text on the sarcophagus of the

wife of Mentu-hetep. A few centuries later, about the time of Seneferu

(_c._ 3766 B.C.), the cult of the dead had expanded greatly from the

architectural point of view, and larger and more imposing cenotaphs were

provided for them. Victorious wars had brought much wealth to Egypt,

and its inhabitants were better able to meet the very considerable

expenditure entailed upon them by one of the most expensive cults known

to the history of religion. In the reign of Men-kau-Ra a revision of

certain parts of the text of the _Book of the Dead_ appears to have been

undertaken. The authority for this is the rubrics attached to certain

chapters which state that they were found inscribed upon a block of

alabaster in letters of lapis-lazuli in the time of that monarch.

We do not find a text comprising the _Book of the Dead_ as a whole until

the reign of Unas (3333 B.C.), whose pyramid was opened in 1881 by Sir

G. Maspero. The stone walls were covered with texts extremely difficult

of decipherment, because of their archaic character and spelling, among

them many from the _Book of the Dead_. Continuing his excavations at

Saqqarah, Maspero made his way into the pyramid of Teta (3300 B.C.),

in which he discovered inscriptions, some of which were identical with

those in the pyramid of Unas, so that the existence of a fully formed

_Book of the Dead_ by the time of the first king of the Sixth Dynasty

was proven. Additional texts were found in the tomb of Pepi I (3233

B.C.). From this it will be seen that before the close of the Sixth

Dynasty five copies of a series of texts, forming the _Book of the Dead_

of that period, are in evidence, and, as has been observed, there is

substantial proof that its ceremonial was in vogue in the Second, and

probably in the First, Dynasty. Its text continued to be copied and

employed until the second century of the Christian era.

It would appear that each chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ had an

independent origin, and it is probable that their inclusion and adoption

into the body of the work were spread over many centuries. It is

possible that some of the texts reflect changes in theological opinion,

but each chapter stands by itself. It would seem, however, that there

was a traditional order in the sequence of the chapters.

The Three Recensions

There were three recensions or versions of the _Book of the Dead_--the

Heliopolitan, the Theban, and the Saïte. The Heliopolitan Recension

was edited by the priests of the College of Anu, or On, known to the

Greeks as Heliopolis, and was based upon texts not now recoverable.

The Pyramids of Unas, Teta, and Pepi contain the original texts of this

recension, which represent the theological system introduced by the

priests of Ra. The essentials of the primitive Egyptian religion are,

however, retained, the only modification in them being the introduction

of the solar doctrine of Ra. In later times the priesthood of Ra were

forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Osiris, and this theological

defeat is visible in the more modern texts. Between the Sixth and

Eleventh Dynasties the priests of On edited a number of fresh chapters

from time to time.

The Theban Recension was much in vogue from the Eighteenth to the

Twenty-second Dynasties, and was usually written upon papyri and painted

upon coffins in hieroglyphs. Each chapter was preserved distinct from

the others, but appears to have had no distinct place in the entire

collection.

The Saïte Recension was definitely arranged at some date prior to the

Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and is written upon coffins and papyri, and also

in hieratic and demotic script. It continued to be employed to the end

of the Ptolemaic period.

As we have previously noticed, the _Book of the Dead_ was for their

use from the moment when they found themselves inhabitants of the

otherworld. Magic was the very mainspring of existence in that sphere,

and unless a spirit was acquainted with the formulæ which compelled the

respect of the various gods and demons, and even of inanimate objects,

it was helpless. The region to which the dead departed the primitive

Egyptians called Duat. They believed it to be formed of the body of

Osiris. It was regarded as dark and gloomy, containing pits of fire

and dreadful monsters which circled the earth, and was in its turn

bounded by a river and a lofty chain of mountains. The part of it that

was nearest to Egypt was regarded as a description of mingled desert

and forest, through which the soul of the deceased might not hope to

struggle unless guided by some benevolent spirit who knew the paths

through this country of despair. Thick darkness covered everything, and

under veil of this the hideous inhabitants of the place practised all

sorts of hostility to the new-comer, unless by the use of words of power

he could prove his superiority over them. But there was one delectable

part in this horrid region--the Sekhet Hetepet, the Elysian fields which

contained the Sekhet Aaru, or the Field of Reeds, where dwelt the god

Osiris and his company. At first he had domain over this part of the

Duat alone, but gradually he succeeded in extending it over the entire

country of the dead, of which he was monarch. We find also a god of the

Duat named Duati, but who appears to have been more a personification of

the region than anything else. Now the wish of all good men was to win

to the kingdom of Osiris, and to that end they made an exhaustive study

of the prayers and ritual of the _Book of the Dead_, in order that they

might the more easily penetrate to the region of bliss. This they might

reach by two ways--by land and by water. The path by water was no whit

less dreadful than that by land, the passage of the soul being barred by

streams of fire and boiling water, and the banks of the rivers navigated

were populous with evil spirits.

The Place of Reeds

We learn from the Theban Recension that there were seven halls or

mansions in the Field of Reeds, all of which had to be passed through

by the soul before it was received by the god in person. Three

gods guarded the door of each hall--the doorkeeper, watchman, and

questioner. It was necessary for the new-comer to address each god by

his name. There were also names for the doors which must be borne in

mind. The name of each god was in reality a spell consisting of a number

of words. The Place of Reeds was divided into fifteen regions, each of

which was presided over by a god. The first of these was called Amentet,

where dwelt those souls who lived upon earth-offerings; it was ruled

over by Menuqet. The second was Sekhet Aaru, the Field of Reeds proper,

the walls surrounding which were formed of the stuff of which the sky is

made. Here dwelt the souls, who were nine cubits high, under the rule of

Ra Heru-Khuti, and this place was the centre of the kingdom of Osiris.

The third was the place of the spirit-souls, a region of fire. In the

fourth dwelt the terrible serpent Sati-temui, which preyed on the dead

who dwelt in the Duat. The fifth region was inhabited by spirits who fed

upon the shadows of the weak and helpless souls. They appear to have

been a description of vampire. The remaining regions were very similar

to these.

The Journey of Osiris

We find other descriptions of the Duat in the _Book of Gates_ and the

_Book of Him that is in the Duat_, in which is outlined the journey

that the sun-god makes through the otherworld after he has set upon the

earth-world. Immediately after sinking he takes the form of Osiris,

which in this instance is that of a ram with a man's head. Coming to the

antechamber of the Duat in the west, his entrance is heralded by songs

of praise, raised by the Ape-gods, while serpents blow fire from their

mouths by the light of which his Pilot-gods steer his craft. All the

doors are thrown open, and the dead, revived by the earthly air which

Osiris carries with him, come to life again for a brief hour. All the

creatures of this portion of the Duat are provided with meat and drink

by command of the god. Such of the dead as dwell here are those who have

failed to pass the various tests for entrance to his court, and all that

they exist for is the material comfort provided for them by the brief

diurnal passage of the deity. When the sun, who in this form is known

as Af Ra, reaches the entrance to the second part of the Duat, which

is called Urnes, the gods of the first section depart from him, and do

not again behold his face until the following night. At this point the

boat of Af Ra is met by the boats of Osiris and his attendant gods, and

in this place also Osiris desires that the dead should receive food,

light, and air. Here he grapples with the serpents Hau and Neha-her, as

do most sun-gods during the time of darkness, and, having overcome them,

is led into the Field of the Grain-gods, where he reposes for a while.

When there he hearkens to the prayers of the living on behalf of the

dead, and takes account of the offerings made by them. Continuing his

journey, he traverses the twelve sections of the Duat. In some of these

we see what were probably quite separate realms of the dead, such as the

Realm of Seker, a god who is perhaps of greater antiquity than Osiris.

In this place his boat is useless, as there is no river in the gloomy

kingdom of Seker, which appears completely alien to Osiris. He therefore

repeats words of awful power, which compel the gods of the place to lead

him by subterranean passages from which he emerges into Amhet, where is

situated a stream of boiling water. But he is not out of the kingdom of

Seker until he reaches the sixth section, where dwell the dead kings of

Egypt and the 'Khu' or Spirit-souls. It is at this point of his journey

that Af Ra turns his face toward the east and directs his course to the

Mountain of the Sunrise; previous to this he has been journeying from

the south to the north. In the seventh section he is joined by Isis and

other deities, and here his path is obstructed by the wicked serpent

Apep, through whose body the attendant deities drive their daggers.

A company of gods tow him through the eighth section, but his vessel

sails itself through the ninth, and in the tenth and eleventh he seems

to pass over a series of lakes, which may represent the lagoons of the

eastern delta. In the latter section his progress is lighted by a disk

of light, encircled by a serpent, which rests upon the prow of the boat.

The twelfth section contains the great mass of celestial waters called

Nu, and here dwells Nut, the personification of the morning. Before the

boat looms the great serpent Ankh-neteru, and twelve of the gods, taking

hold of the tow-line, enter this serpent at the tail and draw the god in

his boat through the monstrous body, bringing Af Ra out at its mouth;

but not as Af Ra, for during this passage he has been transformed into

Khepera, in which shape he is towed into the sky by twelve goddesses,

who lead him before Shu, the god of the atmosphere of the terrestrial

world. Shu places him in the opening in the semicircular wall which

forms the end of the twelfth section, and he now appears to mortal eyes

as a disk of light, having discarded his mummified form, in which he

traversed the Duat. His progress is followed by the acclamations of his

company of gods, who fall upon and destroy his enemies and sing hymns of

praise to him. The Duat, as described in the _Book of Gates_, differs

considerably from that of the _Book of Him that is in the Duat_, but it

also possesses twelve sections, and a similar journey is outlined in it.

The principal gods alluded to in the _Book of the Dead_ are: Tem or

Atmu, Nu, Ra, Khepra, Ptah, Ptah-Seker, Khnemu, Shu, Set, Horus, Thoth,

Nephthys, Anubis, Amen, and Anu--in fact, the majority of the principal

divinities of Egypt. Besides these there were many lesser gods and a

great company of spirits, demons, and other supernatural beings. Many

of these demons were very ancient forms of half-forgotten deities. It

will be noticed that at practically every stage of his journey Osiris

left behind him one or more of his divine companions, who henceforth

were supposed to become the rulers or satraps of the regions in which he

had quitted them. So might an earthly Pharaoh reward his courtiers for

services rendered.

It was only during the Middle Kingdom that the conception of Osiris as

judge of the dead took definite form and received general recognition.

In one of the chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ we find him seated

in a large hall the roof of which is covered with fire and symbols of

truth. Before him are the symbol of Anubis, the four sons of Horus, and

the Devourer of the West, a monster who serves as his protector. In

the rear sit the forty-two judges of the dead. The deceased makes his

appearance before the god and his heart is placed in a great balance

to be weighed by Anubis, Thoth, the scribe of the gods, standing by to

note the result upon his tablets. Having communicated this to Osiris,

the dead man, if found worthy, is presented to the deity, to whom he

repeats a long prayer, in which he states that he has not committed any

evil. Those who could not pass the test were hurried away, and so far as

is known were in danger of being devoured by a frightful monster called

Beby, which awaited them outside. The justified deceased took part in

the life of Osiris and the other gods, which appears to have been very

much the same as that of the Egyptian aristocracy. As has been said, the

deceased might also transform himself into any animal form he cared.

The life of the justified dead is well outlined in an inscription on

the tomb of Paheri, prince of El Kab, which is as follows: "Thou goest

in and out with a glad heart, and with the rewards of the gods.... Thou

becomest a living soul; thou hast power over bread, water, and air. Thou

changest thyself into a phœnix or a swallow, a sparrow-hawk or a heron,

as thou desirest. Thou dost cross in the boat and art not hindered. Thou

sailest upon the water when a flood ariseth. Thou livest anew and thy

soul is not parted from thy body. Thy soul is a god together with the

illuminated, and the excellent souls speak with thee. Thou art among

them and (verily) receivest what is given upon earth; thou possessest

water, possessest air, hast superabundance of that which thou desirest.

Thine eyes are given to thee to see, and thine ears to hear speech, thy

mouth speaketh, thy legs move, thy hands and arms bestir themselves for

thee, thy flesh grows, thy veins are in health, and thou feelest thyself

well in all thy limbs. Thou hast thine upright heart in thy possession,

and thy earlier heart belongs to thee. Thou dost mount up to heaven, and

art summoned each day to the libation table of Wennofre, thou receivest

the good which has been offered to him and the gifts of the Lords of the

necropolis."

The _Book of the Dead_ is obviously an allegory of the passage of the

sun through the underworld. The sinking of the sun at nightfall would

naturally arouse in primitive man thoughts as to where the luminary

dwelt during the hours of gloom, for the sun was to early man a living

thing. He could watch its motion across the sky, and the light and

other benefits which he received from it came to make him regard it

as the source of all good. It appeared plain to him that its diurnal

career was cut short by the attacks of some enemy, and the logical

sequel of the belief in the solar deity as a beneficent power was of

course that the force hostile to him must be of evil disposition. It

came to be figured as a serpent or dragon which nightly battled with the

luminary and for a season prevailed. The gods of many religions have to

descend into the otherworld to do battle with the forces of death and

hell. We may see an analogy to the _Book of the Dead_ in the Central

American _Popol Vuh_, in which two hero-gods, the sons and nephews of

the sun and the moon, descend into the dark abyss of the Maya Hades,

rout its forces, and return triumphant. It has been suggested that the

_Book of the Dead_ was nothing more or less than the ritual of a secret

brotherhood, and that the various halls mentioned in it symbolized the

several stages of initiation through which the members had to pass.

It is curious that in his recent interesting book on _Mexican

Archæology_ Mr. T. Athol Joyce, of the British Museum, has mentioned

that the court of the Maya underworld, as alluded to in the _Popol Vuh_,

"seems to have been conducted on the principle of a secret society with

a definite form of initiation." It is practically certain that the

mysteries of Eleusis, and similar Greek initiatory ceremonies, were

concerned with the life of the underworld, especially with the story of

Demeter and Kore, or Ceres, and that a theatric representation of the

wanderings of the mother in search of her daughter in the underworld

was given in the course of the ceremonial. These Greek deities, besides

being gods of the dead, were gods of agriculture--corn-gods; but gods

of the underworld often presided over the growth of the crops, as it

was believed that the grain germinated underneath the earth by their

influence. For example, we find in the _Popol Vuh_ that Xquiq, daughter

of one of the lords of the underworld, was able to reap a field of maize

in a few minutes in a spot where before there had been none. All this

would seem to point to the probability that if the _Book of the Dead_

did not contain an early type of initiatory ceremonial, it may have

powerfully influenced the ceremonial of mysteries when they arose. The

mysteries of the Cabiri, for example, are supposed to be of Egyptian

origin. On the other hand, it may be possible that the _Book of the

Dead_ represents the ceremonial of an older prehistoric mystery, which

had been forgotten by the dynastic Egyptians. Savage races all over

the world possess such mysteries. The Indians of North America and the

Blackfellows of Australia possess most elaborate initiatory ceremonies;

and it is quite possible that the _Book of the Dead_ may preserve the

ritual of Neolithic savages who practised it thousands of years prior to

its connexion with the worship of Osiris.

The Place of Punishment

Although there does not appear to have been a portion of the Duat

specially reserved for the wicked, they were sufficiently tormented

in many ways to render their existence a punishment for any misdeeds

committed during life. At one end of this region were pits of fire where

grisly deities presided, superintending the destruction of the bodies of

the deceased and hacking them to pieces before they were burned. Their

punishment was, however, mitigated by the appearance of Ra-Osiris on his

nightly journey, for as he advanced their torments ceased for the time

being.

The deities who inflicted punishment upon the damned were the enemies

of Ra-Osiris--personifications of darkness, night, fog, mist, vapour,

tempest, wind, and so forth, and these were destroyed daily by the

fiery beams of the luminary. These were pictured in human form, and the

scenes of their destruction by fire have often been mistakenly supposed

to represent the burning of the souls of the doomed. This evil host

was renewed with every revolution of the sun, so that a fresh phalanx

of enemies appeared to attack Ra each night and morning. It was during

the interval between dawn and sunrise that they were discomfited and

punished. The souls of the doomed were in no wise enabled to hinder the

progress of Ra, but in later times these were in some measure identified

with the enemies of Ra, with whom they dwelt and whom they assisted

to attack the sun-god. In the strife which ensued they were pierced

by the fiery sun-rays, symbolized as darts or spears, and the knives

which hacked their bodies in pieces were typical of the flames of fire

emanating from the body of Ra. The lakes and pits of fire in which they

were submerged typified the appearance of the eastern heavens at sunrise.

There was nothing in the Egyptian creed to justify the belief in

everlasting punishment, and such a view is unsupported by the material

of the texts. There is, in fact, no parallel in the Egyptian religion

to the Gehenna of the Hebrews, or the Purgatory and Hell of medieval

Europe. The Egyptian idea of death did not include the conception of

the resurrection of a second physical body in the underworld, but,

should the physical body be destroyed, they considered that the _ka_ or

double, the shadow and spirit of man, might also perish. It is strange,

all the same, to observe that the Egyptian idea of temporary punishment

after death appears to have coloured the medieval Christian conception

of that state through Coptic sources. Indeed, the Coptic Christians

of Egypt appear to have borrowed the idea of punishment in the Duat

almost entire from their pagan ancestors or contemporaries. Amélineau

cites a Coptic work in which a dead Egyptian tells how at the hour of

dissolution avenging angels collected around him with knives and other

weapons, which they thrust through and through him. Other spirits tore

his soul from his body and, securing it to the back of a black horse,

galloped off with it to Amentet. On arrival there he was first tortured

in a place filled with noisome reptiles, and was then thrust into outer

darkness. He fell into another pit at least two hundred feet deep, in

which were assembled reptiles of every description, each having seven

heads, and here he was given over to a serpent which had teeth like

iron stakes. From Monday to Friday of each week this monster gnawed

and tore at the doomed wretch, who rested only from this torment on

Saturday and Sunday. In the circumstance that it does not posit eternal

punishment, the region of torment, if so it can be named, differs from

similar ideas in other mythologies; but in the essence concerning the

nature of the punishment meted out, the cutting with knives, stabbing

with spears, burning with fire, and so forth, it is practically at

one with the underworlds of other faiths. The scenery of the Egyptian

infernal regions also closely resembles that of its equivalents in other

mythologies. It was not to be supposed that the Egyptians, with their

elaborate precautions against bodily attack after death, should believe

in eternal punishment. They may have believed in punishment for each

other, but it is highly improbable that any Egyptian who had devoted any

time to the study of the _Book of the Dead_ believed that he himself

was doomed. His whole future, according to that book, hung upon his

knowledge of the words of power written therein, and surely no one with

such a comparatively easy means of escape could have been so foolish as

to neglect it.

The Egyptian Heaven

As has been said, the exact position of heaven does not appear to have

been located, but it may be said in a general sense that the Egyptians

believed it to be placed somewhere above the sky. They called it Pet,

which expression they used in contradistinction to the word Nu, meaning

sky. The heavens and the sky they regarded as a slab, each end of which

rested on a support formed of the two mountains Bakhau and Manu, the

mountains of sunrise and sunset. In primitive times heaven was conceived

as consisting of two portions, the east and the west; but later it was

divided into four parts, each of which was placed under the sovereignty

of a god. This region was supported by four pillars, each of which again

was under the direction of a deity, and at a comparatively late period

an extra pillar was added to support the middle. In one myth we find the

heavens spoken of as representing a human head, the sun and moon forming

the eyes, and the supports of heaven being formed by the hair. The gods

of the four quarters who guarded the original pillars were those deities

known as Canopic (see p. 28), or otherwise called the Children of Horus.

In heaven dwelt the great god Ra, who sat upon a metal throne, the sides

of which were embossed with the faces of lions and the hoofs of bulls.

His train or company surrounded him, and was in its turn encircled by

the lesser companies of deities. Each of the gods who presided over the

world and the Duat had also his own place in heaven. Beneath the lesser

gods again came beings who might well be described as angelical. First

among these were the Shemsu-heru, or followers of Horus, who waited

upon the sun-god, and, if necessary, came to his protection. They were

regarded as being essential to his welfare. Next came the Ashemu, the

attributes of which are unknown, and after those the Henmemet, perhaps

souls who were to become human beings, but their status is by no means

clear. They were supposed to live upon grain and herbs. There were also

beings called Utennu and Afa, regarding the characteristics of which

absolutely nothing is known. Following these came an innumerable host

of spirits, souls and so forth, chiefly of those who had once dwelt

upon the earth, and who were known collectively as 'the living ones.'

The Egyptians thought these might wander about the earth and return

to heaven at certain fixed times, the idea arising probably because

they wished to provide a future for the body as well as for the soul

and spirit. As explained previously, the gods of heaven had their

complements or doubles on earth, and man in some degree was supposed to

partake of this dual nature. The Egyptian conception of heaven altered

slowly throughout the centuries. An examination of the earliest records

available shows that the idea of existence after death was a sort of

shadowy extension of the life of this world. Such an idea is common

to all primitive races. As they progressed, however, this conception

became entirely changed and a more spiritual one took its place. The

soul, _ba_, and the spirit, _khu_, which were usually represented as a

hawk and a heron in the hieroglyphic texts, partook of heavenly food and

became one with the gods, and in time became united with the glorified

body or heavenly frame, so that the soul-spirit, power, shade, double,

and name of the deceased were all collected in the one heavenly body

known as _sahu_, which may be described as the spiritual body. It was

considered to grow out of the dead body, and its existence became

possible through the magic ceremonies performed and the words of power

spoken by the priests during the burial service.

How the Blessed Lived

In the _Book of the Dead_ it is stated that the spirits of heaven are in

number 4,601,200. It has been suggested that this number was probably

the Egyptian enumeration of all those human spirits who had died and

had attained to heaven; but this is hardly probable, for obvious

reasons. The manner in which these spirits employed their time is a

little obscure. Some directed the revolutions of the heavenly bodies;

others accompanied the great gods in their journey through the heavens;

while still others superintended mundane affairs. They chanted eternal

praises of Ra as supreme monarch of the gods, and their hymns described

the wonders of his power and glory. They lived upon the rays of light

which fell from the eye of Horus--that is, they were nourished upon

sunlight, so that in time their bodies became wholly composed of light.

According to one myth the gods themselves lived upon a species of plant

called the 'plant of life,' which appears to have grown beside a great

lake. But such a conception is in consonance with an almost separate

theological idea to the effect that the deceased dwelt in a Paradise

where luxuriant grain-fields were watered by numerous canals, and where

material delights of every kind abounded. It was perhaps this place in

which the 'bread of eternity' and the 'beer of eternity,' the celestial

fig-tree, and other such conceptions were supposed to form the food of

the dead. The blessed were supposed to be arrayed in garments similar

to those which clothed the gods, but certain of them seem to have worn

white linen apparel, with white sandals on their feet.

All this goes to show that the heaven of the primitive Egyptians was

nothing more than an extension of terrestrial conditions, or perhaps

it might be said an improvement upon them. So long as the Egyptian

had the wherewithal to make bread and to brew beer, and had cleanly

garments, and shelter under a homestead the ground round which was

intersected with numerous canals, he considered that to be the best of

all possible heavens. The crops, of course, would grow of themselves.

The whole idea was quite a material one, if the life was simple but

comfortable. There is nothing sophisticated about the Egyptian heaven

like the Mohammedan or Christian realms of bliss; even the manner of

reaching it was primitive, the early dwellers by the Nile imagining

that they could reach it by climbing on to its metal floor by way of

the mountains which supported it, and their later descendants believing

that a ladder was necessary for the ascent. In many tombs models of

these ladders were placed so that the dead people might make use of

their astral counterparts to gain the celestial regions. Even Osiris

required such a ladder, and was helped to ascend it by Ra and Horus,

or by Horus and Set. Many pictures of such ladders are also found in

various papyri of the _Book of the Dead_ which were placed in tombs. Its

length was regulated by the deceased himself according to the power of

the magical words he pronounced over it. The deceased by words of power

was further enabled to turn himself into many bird and animal shapes. It

is difficult to understand the reason for these animal transformations

in Paradise, but the conception has a parallel in the idea of the Aztec

warriors that when they entered the domain of the sun-god they would

accompany him in his course and would descend to earth during part of

his daily journey in the shape of humming-birds.

[1] See _Zeitschrift fϋr Aeg. Sprache_, li. p. 127: "The Cult of the

Drowned in Egypt."

[2] The moon is always masculine in Egypt. I am here following

Plutarch.--AUTHOR.

[3] Another version gives the children of Nut thus: Osiris, Isis, Set,

Nephthys, and Anubis.

[4] Lang states (art. "Mythology" in _Encyclopædia Britannica_) that

"the Osirian myth originated in the same sort of fancy as the Pacullic

story of the dismembered beaver out of whose body things were made."

[5] _Golden Bough_, vol. ii. p. 137.

[6] See M.A. Murray, _Osireion at Abydos_, p. 26.

[7] Or Seb.

[8] Maspero, _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. iv, p. 62.

[9] _Book of the Dead_, Papyrus of Ani, vol. i, p. 7.