THE "GODS" OF THE EGYPTIANS.
Throughout this book we have had to refer frequently to the "gods" of
Egypt; it is now time to explain who and what they were. We have already
shown how much the monotheistic side of the Egyptian religion resembles
that of modern Christian nations, and it will have come as a surprise to
some that a people, possessing such exalted ideas of God as the
Egyptians, could ever have become the byword they did through their
alleged worship of a multitude of "gods" in various forms. It is quite
true that the Egyptians paid honour to a number of gods, a number so
large that the list of their mere names would fill a volume, but it is
equally true that the educated classes in Egypt at all times never
placed the "gods" on the same high level as God, and they never imagined
that their views on this point could be mistaken. In prehistoric times
every little village or town, every district and province, and every
great city, had its own particular god; we may go a step farther, and
say that every family of any wealth and position had its own god. The
wealthy family selected some one to attend to its god, and to minister
unto his wants, and the poor family contributed, according to its means,
towards a common fund for providing a dwelling-house for the god, and
for vestments, etc. But the god was an integral part of the family,
whether rich or poor, and its destiny was practically locked up with
that of the family. The overthrow of the family included the overthrow
of the god, and seasons of prosperity resulted in abundant offerings,
new vestments; perhaps a new shrine, and the like. The god of the
village, although he was a more important being, might be led into
captivity along with the people of the village, but the victory of his
followers in a raid or fight caused the honours paid to him to be
magnified and enhanced his renown.
The gods of provinces or of great cities were, of course, greater than
those of villages and private families, and in the large houses
dedicated to them, _i.e._, temples, a considerable number of them,
represented by statues, would be found. Sometimes the attributes of one
god would be ascribed to another, sometimes two or more gods would be
"fused" or united and form one, sometimes gods were imported from remote
villages and towns and even from foreign countries, and occasionally a
community or town would repudiate its god or gods, and adopt a brand new
set from some neighbouring district Thus the number of the gods was
always changing, and the relative position of individual gods was always
changing; an obscure and almost unknown, local god to-day might through a
victory in war become the chief god of a city, and on the other hand, a
god worshipped with abundant offerings and great ceremony one month
might sink into insignificance and become to all intents and purposes a
dead god the next. But besides family and village gods there were
national gods, and gods of rivers and mountains, and gods of earth and
sky, all of which taken together made a formidable number of "divine"
beings whose good-will had to be secured, and whose ill-will must be
appeased. Besides these, a number of animals as being sacred to the gods
were also considered to be "divine," and fear as well as love made the
Egyptians add to their numerous classes of gods.
The gods of Egypt whose names are known to us do not represent all those
that have been conceived by the Egyptian imagination, for with them as
with much else, the law of the survival of the fittest holds good. Of
the gods of the prehistoric man we know nothing, but it is more than
probable that some of the gods who were worshipped in dynastic times
represent, in a modified form, the deities of the savage, or
semi-savage, Egyptian that held their influence on his mind the longest.
A typical example of such a god will suffice, namely Thoth, whose
original emblem was the dog-headed ape. In very early times great
respect was paid to this animal on account of his sagacity,
intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-minded Egyptian, when he heard
him chattering just before the sunrise and sunset, assumed that he was
in some way holding converse or was intimately connected with the sun.
This idea clung to his mind, and we find in dynastic times, in the
vignette representing the rising sun, that the apes, who are said to be
the transformed openers of the portals of heaven, form a veritable
company of the gods, and at the same time one of the most striking
features of the scene. Thus an idea which came into being in the most
remote times passed on from generation to generation until it became
crystallized in the best copies of the Book of the Dead, at a period
when Egypt was at its zenith of power and glory. The peculiar species of
the dog-headed ape which is represented in statues and on papyri is
famous for its cunning, and it was the words which it supplied to Thoth,
who in turn transmitted them to Osiris, that enabled Osiris to be "true
of voice," or triumphant, over his enemies. It is probably in this
capacity, _i.e._, as the friend of the dead, that the dog-headed ape
appears seated upon the top of the standard of the Balance in which the
heart of the deceased is being weighed against the feather symbolic of
Ma[=a]t; for the commonest titles of the god are "lord of divine books,"
"lord of divine words," _i.e._, the formulae which make the deceased to
be obeyed by friend and foe alike in the next world. In later times,
when Thoth came to be represented by the ibis bird, his attributes were
multiplied, and he became the god of letters, science, mathematics,
etc.; at the creation he seems to have played a part not unlike that of
"wisdom" which is so beautifully described by the writer of Proverbs
(see Chap. VIII. vv. 23-31).
Whenever and wherever the Egyptians attempted to set up a system of gods
they always found that the old local gods had to be taken into
consideration, and a place had to be found for them in the system. This
might be done by making them members of triads, or of groups of nine
gods, now commonly called "enneads"; but in one form or other they had
to appear. The researches made during the last few years have shown that
there must have been several large schools of theological thought in
Egypt, and of each of these the priests did their utmost to proclaim the
superiority of their gods. In dynastic times there must have been great
colleges at Heliopolis, Memphis, Abydos, and one or more places in the
Delta, not to mention the smaller schools of priests which, probably
existed at places on both sides of the Nile from Memphis to the south.
Of the theories and doctrines of all such schools and colleges, those of
Heliopolis have survived in the completest form, and by careful
examination of the funeral texts which were inscribed on the monuments
of the kings of Egypt of the Vth and VIth dynasties we can say what
views they held about many of the gods. At the outset we see that the
great god of Heliopolis was Temu or Atmu, the setting sun, and to him
the priests of that place ascribed the attributes which rightly belong
to R[=a], the Sun-god of the day-time. For some reason or other they
formulated the idea of a company of the gods, nine in number, which was
called the "great company _(paut)_ of the gods," and at the head of this
company they placed the god Temu. In Chapter XVII of the Book of the
Dead [Footnote: See _Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, p. 49.] we find
the following passage:--
"I am the god Temu in his rising; I am the only One. I came into being
in Nu. I am R[=a] who rose in the beginning."
Next comes the question, "But who is this?" And the answer is: "It is
R[=a] when at the beginning he rose in the city of Suten-henen
(Heracleopolis Magna) crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of the
god Shu were not as yet created when he was upon the staircase of him
that dwelleth in Khemennu (Hermopolis Magna)." From these statements we
learn that Temu and R[=a] were one and the same god, and that he was the
first offspring of the god Nu, the primeval watery mass out of which all
the gods came into being. The text continues: "I am the great god Nu who
gave birth to himself, and who made his names to come into being and to
form the company of the gods. But who is this? It is R[=a], the creator
of the names of his members which came into being in the form of the
gods who are in the train of R[=a]." And again: "I am he who is not
driven back among the gods. But who is this? It is Tem, the dweller in
his disk, or as others say, it is R[=a] in his rising in the eastern
horizon of heaven." Thus we learn further that Nu was self-produced, and
that the gods are simply the names of his limbs; but then R[=a] is Nu,
and the gods who are in his train or following are merely
personifications of the names of his own members. He who cannot be
driven back among the gods is either Temu or R[=a], and so we find that
Nu, Temu, and R[=a] are one and the same god. The priests of Heliopolis
in setting Temu at the head of their company of the gods thus gave
R[=a], and Nu also, a place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in
making their own local god chief of the company, but at the same time
they provided the older gods with positions of importance. In this way
worshippers of R[=a], who had regarded their god as the oldest of the
gods, would have little cause to complain of the introduction of Temu
into the company of the gods, and the local vanity of Heliopolis would
be gratified.
But besides the nine gods who were supposed to form the "great company"
of gods of the city of Heliopolis, there was a second group of nine gods
called the "little company" of the gods, and yet a third group of nine
gods, which formed the least company. Now although the _paut_ or company
of nine gods might be expected to contain nine always, this was not the
case, and the number nine thus applied is sometimes misleading. There
are several passages extant in texts in which the gods of a _paut_ are
enumerated, but the total number is sometimes ten and sometimes eleven.
This fact is easily explained when we remember that the Egyptians
deified the various forms or aspects of a god, or the various phases in
his life. Thus the setting sun, called Temu or Atmu, and the rising sun,
called Khepera, and the mid-day sun, called R[=a], were three forms of
the same god; and if any one of these three forms was included in a
_paut_ or company of nine gods, the other two forms were also included
by implication, even though the _paut_ then contained eleven, instead of
nine gods. Similarly, the various forms of each god or goddess of the
_paut_ were understood to be included in it, however large the total
number of gods might become. We are not, therefore, to imagine that the
three companies of the gods were limited in number to 9 x 3, or
twenty-seven, even though the symbol for god be given twenty-seven times
in the texts.
We have already alluded to the great number of gods who were known to
the Egyptians, but it will be readily imagined that it was only those
who were thought to deal with man's destiny, here and hereafter, who
obtained the worship and reverence of the people of Egypt. These were,
comparatively, limited in number, and in fact may be said to consist of
the members of the great company of the gods of Heliopolis, that is to
say, of the gods who belonged to the cycle of Osiris. These may be
briefly described as follows:--
1. TEMU or ATMU, _i.e._, the "closer" of the day, just as Ptah was the
"opener" of the day. In the story of the creation he declares that he
evolved himself under the form of the god Khepera, and in hymns he is
said to be the "maker of the gods", "the creator of men", etc., and he
usurped the position of R[=a] among the gods of Egypt. His worship
must have been already very ancient at the time of the kings of the
Vth dynasty, for his traditional form is that of a man at that time.
2. SHU was the firstborn son of Temu. According to one legend he
sprang direct from the god, and according to another the goddess
Hathor was his mother; yet a third legend makes him the son of Temu by
the goddess Ius[=a]set. He it was who made his way between the gods
Seb and Nut and raised up the latter to form the sky, and this belief
is commemorated by the figures of this god in which he is represented
as a god raising himself up from the earth with the sun's disk on his
shoulders. As a power of nature he typified the light, and, standing
on the top of a staircase at Hermopolis Magua, [Footnote: See above,
pp. 69 and 89.] he raised up the sky and held it up during each day.
To assist him in this work he placed a pillar at each of the cardinal
points, and the "supports of Shu" are thus the props of the sky.
3. TEFNUT was the twin-sister of Shu; as a power of nature she
typified moisture or some aspect of the sun's heat, but as a god of
the dead she seems to have been, in some way, connected with the
supply of drink to the deceased. Her brother Shu was the right eye of
Temu, and she was the left, _i.e._, Shu represented an aspect of the
Sun, and Tefnut of the Moon. The gods Temu, Shu, and Tefnut thus
formed a trinity, and in the story of the creation the god Temu says,
after describing how Shu and Tefnut proceeded from himself, "thus from
being one god I became three."
4. SEB was the son of the god Shu. He is called the "Erp[=a]," _i.e._,
the "hereditary chief" of the gods, and the "father of the gods,"
these being, of course, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. He was
originally the god of the earth, but later he became a god of the dead
as representing the earth wherein the deceased was laid. One legend
identifies him with the goose, the bird which, in later times was
sacred to him, and he is often called the "Great Cackler," in allusion
to the idea that he made the primeval egg from which the world came
into being.
5. NUT was the wife of Seb and the mother of Osiris, Isis, Set, and
Nephthys. Originally she was the personification of the sky, and
represented the feminine principle which was active at the creation of
the universe. According to an old view, Seb and Nut existed in the
primeval watery abyss side by side with Shu and Tefnut; and later Seb
became the earth and Nut the sky. These deities were supposed to unite
every evening, and to remain embraced until the morning, when the god
Shu separated them, and set the goddess of the sky upon his four
pillars until the evening. Nut was, naturally, regarded as the mother
of the gods and of all things living, and she and her husband Seb were
considered to be the givers of food, not only to the living but also
to the dead. Though different views were current in Egypt as to the
exact location of the heaven of the beatified dead, yet all schools of
thought in all periods assigned it to some region in the sky, and the
abundant allusions in the texts to the heavenly bodies--that is, the
sun, moon, and stars--which the deceased dwells with, prove that the
final abode of the souls of the righteous was not upon earth. The
goddess Nut is sometimes represented as a female along whose body the
sun travels, and sometimes as a cow; the tree sacred to her was the
sycamore.
6. Osiris was the son of Seb and Nut, the husband of Isis and the
father of Horus. The history of this god is given elsewhere in this
book so fully that it is only necessary to refer briefly to him. He
was held to be a man although of divine origin; he lived and reigned
as a king on this earth; he was treacherously murdered by his brother
Set, and his body was cut up into fourteen pieces, which were
scattered about Egypt; after his death, Isis, by the use of magical
formulae supplied to her by Thoth, succeeded in raising him to life,
and he begot a son called Horus; when Horus was grown up, he engaged
in combat with Set, and overcame him, and thus "avenged his father";
by means of magical formulae, supplied to him by Thoth, Osiris
reconstituted and revivified his body, and became the type of the
resurrection and the symbol of immortality; he was also the hope, the
judge, and the god of the dead, probably even in pre-dynastic times.
Osiris was in one aspect a solar deity, and originally he seems to
have represented the sun after it had set; but he is also identified
with the moon. In the XVIIIth dynasty, however, he is already the
equal of R[=a], and later the attributes of God and of all the "gods"
were ascribed to him.
7. Isis was the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus; as a nature
goddess she had a place in the boat of the sun at the creation, when
she probably typified the dawn. By reason of her success in
revivifying her husband's body by means of the utterance of magical
formulae, she is called the "lady of enchantments." Her wanderings in
search of her husband's body, and the sorrow which she endured in
bringing forth and rearing her child in the papyrus swamps of the
Delta, and the persecution which she suffered at the hands of her
husband's enemies, form the subject of many allusions in texts of all
periods. She has various aspects, but the one which appealed most to
the imagination of the Egyptians, was that of "divine mother"; in this
character thousands of statues represent her seated and suckling her
child Horus whom she holds upon her knees.
8. Set was the son of Seb and Nut, and the husband of Nephthys. At a
very early period he was regarded as the brother and friend of "Horus
the Elder," the Aroueris of the Greeks, and Set represented the night
whilst Horus represented the day. Each of these gods performed many
offices of a friendly nature for the dead, and among others they set
up and held the ladder by which the deceased made his way from this
earth to heaven, and helped him to ascend it. But, at a later period,
the views of the Egyptians concerning Set changed, and soon after the
reign of the kings called "Seti," _i.e._, those whose names were based
upon that of the god, he became the personification of all evil, and
of all that is horrible and terrible in nature, such as the desert in
its most desolate form, the storm and the tempest, etc. Set, as a
power of nature, was always waging war with Horus the Elder, _i.e._,
the night did battle with the day for supremacy; both gods, however,
sprang from the same source, for the heads of both are, in one scene,
made to belong to one body. When Horus, the son of Isis, had grown up,
he did battle with Set, who had murdered Horus's father Osiris, and
vanquished him; in many texts these two originally distinct fights are
confused, and the two Horus gods also. The conquest of Set by Horus in
the first conflict typified only the defeat of the night by the day,
but the defeat of Set in the second seems to have been understood as
the victory of life over death, and of good over evil. The symbol of
Set was an animal with a head something like that of a camel, but it
has not yet been satisfactorily identified; figures of the god are
uncommon, for most of them were destroyed by the Egyptians when they
changed their views about him.
9. NEPHTHYS was the sister of Isis and her companion in all her
wanderings and troubles; like her she had a place in the boat of the
Sun at creation, when she probably typified the twilight or very early
night. She was, according to one legend, the mother of Anubis by
Osiris, but in the texts his father is declared to be R[=a]. In
funeral papyri, stelae, etc., she always accompanies Isis in her
ministrations to the dead, and as she assisted Osiris and Isis to
defeat the wickedness of her own husband (Set), so she helped the
deceased to overcome the powers of death and the grave.
Here then we have the nine gods of the divine company of Heliopolis, but
no mention is made of Horus, the son of Isis, who played such an
important part in the history of his father Osiris, and nothing is said
about Thoth; both gods are, however, included in the company in various
passages of the text, and it may be that their omission from it is the
result of an error of the scribe. We have already given the chief
details of the history of the gods Horus and Thoth, and the principal
gods of the other companies may now be briefly named.
NU was the "father of the gods," and progenitor of the "great company
of the gods"; he was the primeval watery mass out of which all things
came.
PTAH was one of the most active of the three great gods who carried
out the commands of Thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of
the primeval, creative Power; he was self-created, and was a form of
the Sun-god R[=a] as the "Opener" of the day. From certain allusions
in the Book of the Dead he is known to have "opened the mouth"
[Footnote: "May the god Ptah open my mouth"; "may the god Shu open my
mouth with his implement of iron wherewith he opened the mouth of the
gods" (Chap. XXIII.)] of the gods, and it is in this capacity that he
became a god of the cycle of Osiris. His feminine counterpart was the
goddess SEKHET, and the third member of the triad of which he was the
chief was NEFER-TEMU.
PTAH-SEKER is the dual god formed by fusing Seker, the Egyptian name
of the incarnation of the Apis Bull of Memphis, with Ptah.
PTAH-SEKER-AUSAR was a triune god who, in brief, symbolized life,
death, and the resurrection.
KHNEMU was one of the old cosmic gods who assisted Ptah in carrying
out the commands of Thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of
the primeval, creative Power, he is described as "the maker of things
which are, the creator of things which shall be, the source of created
things, the father of fathers, and the mother of mothers." It was he
who, according to one legend, fashioned man upon a potter's wheel.
KHEPERA was an old primeval god, and the type of matter which contains
within itself the germ of life which is about to spring into a new
existence; thus he represented the dead body from which the spiritual
body was about to rise. He is depicted in the form of a man having a
beetle for a head, and this insect became his emblem because it was
supposed to be self-begotten and self-produced. To the present day
certain of the inhabitants of the Sûdân, pound the dried scarabaeus or
beetle and drink it in water, believing that it will insure them a
numerous progeny. The name "Khepera" means "he who rolls," and when
the insect's habit of rolling along its ball filled with eggs is taken
into consideration, the appropriateness of the name is apparent. As
the ball of eggs rolls along the germs mature and burst into life; and
as the sun rolls across the sky emitting light and heat and with them
life, so earthly things are produced and have their being by virtue
thereof.
R[=A] was probably the oldest of the gods worshipped in Egypt, and his
name belongs to such a remote period that its meaning is unknown. He
was in all periods the visible emblem of God, and was the god of this
earth to whom offerings and sacrifices were made daily; time began
when R[=a] appeared above the horizon at creation in the form of the
Sun, and the life of a man was compared to his daily course at a very
early date. R[=a] was supposed to sail over heaven in two boats, the
[=A]TET or M[=A] TET boat in which he journeyed from sunrise until
noon, and the SEKTET boat in which he journeyed from noon until
sunset. At his rising he was attacked by [=A]pep, a mighty "dragon" or
serpent, the type of evil and darkness, and with this monster he did
battle until the fiery darts which he discharged into the body of
=Apep scorched and burnt him up; the fiends that were in attendance
upon this terrible foe were also destroyed by fire, and their bodies
were hacked in pieces. A repetition of this story is given in the
legend of the fight between Horus and Set, and in both forms it
represented originally the fight which was supposed to go on daily
between light and darkness. Later, however, when Osiris had usurped
the position of R[=a], and Horus represented a divine power who was
about to avenge the cruel murder of his father, and the wrong which
had been done to him, the moral conceptions of right and wrong, good
and evil, truth and falsehood were applied to light and darkness, that
is to say, to Horus and Set.
As R[=a] was the "father of the gods," it was natural that every god
should represent some phase of him, and that he should represent every
god. A good illustration of this fact is afforded by a Hymn to R[=a], a
fine copy of which is found inscribed on the walls of the sloping
corridor in the tomb of Seti I., about B.C. 1370, from which we quote
the following:--
11. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost enter
into the habitations of Ament, behold [thy] body is Temu.
12. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost enter
into the hidden place of Anubis, behold, [thy] body is Khepera.
13. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, whose duration
of life is greater than that of the hidden forms, behold [thy] body is
Shu.
14. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, .... behold
[thy] body is Tefnut.
15. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who bringest
forth, green things in their season, behold [thy] body is Seb.
16. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, thou mighty
being who dost judge,... behold [thy] body is Nut.
17. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, the lord....
behold [thy] body is Isis.
18. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, whose head
giveth light to that which is in front of thee, behold [thy] body is
Nephthys.
19. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, thou source of
the divine members, thou One, who bringest into being that which hath
been begotten, behold [thy] body is Horus.
20. "Praise be unto thee, O R[=a], thou exalted Power, who dost dwell
in and illumine the celestial deep, behold [thy] body is Nu."
[Footnote: For the text see _Annales du Musée Guimet: Le Tombeau de
Seti 1_. (ed. Lefébure), Paris, 1886, pl. v.]
In the paragraphs which follow R[=a] is identified with a large number
of gods and divine personages whose names are not of such common
occurrence in the texts as those given above, and in one way or another
the attributes of all the gods are ascribed to him. At the time when the
hymn was written it is clear that polytheism, not pantheism as some
would have it, was in the ascendant, and notwithstanding the fact that
the Theban god Amen was gradually being forced to the headship of the
companies of the gods of Egypt, we find everywhere the attempt being
made to emphasize the view that every god, whether foreign or native,
was an aspect or form of R[=a].
The god Amen just referred to was originally a local god of Thebes,
whose shrine was either founded or rebuilt as far back as the XIIth
dynasty, about B.C. 2500. This "hidden" god, for such is the meaning of
the name Amen, was essentially a god of the south of Egypt, but when the
Theban kings vanquished their foes in the north, and so became masters
of the whole country, Amen became a god of the first importance, and the
kings of the XVIIIth, XIXth, and XXth dynasties endowed his temples on a
lavish scale. The priests of the god called Amen "the king of the gods,"
and they endeavoured to make all Egypt accept him as such, but in spite
of their power they saw that they could not bring this result about
unless they identified him with the oldest gods of the land. They
declared that he represented the hidden and mysterious power which
created and sustains the universe, and that the sun was the symbol of
this power; they therefore added his name to that of R[=a], and in this
form he gradually usurped the attributes and powers of Nu, Khnemu, Ptah,
H[=a]pi, and other great gods. A revolt headed by Amen-hetep, or
Amenophis IV. (about B.C. 1500), took place against the supremacy of
Amen in the middle of the XVIIIth dynasty, but it was unsuccessful. This
king hated the god and his name so strongly that he changed his own name
into that of "Khu-en-Aten," _i.e._, "the glory of the solar Disk," and
ordered the name of Amen to be obliterated, wherever possible, on
temples and other great monuments; and this was actually done in many
places. It is impossible to say exactly what the religious views of the
king were, but it is certain that he wished to substitute the cult of
Aten, a form of the Sun-god worshipped at Annu (_i.e._, On or
Heliopolis) in very ancient times, for that of Amen. "Aten" means
literally the "Disk of the Sun," and though it is difficult to
understand at this distance of time in what the difference between the
worship of R[=a] and the worship of "R[=a] in his Disk" consisted, we
may be certain that there must have been some subtle, theological
distinction between them. But whatever the difference may have been, it
was sufficient to make Amenophis forsake the old capital Thebes and
withdraw to a place [Footnote: The site is marked by the ruins of Tell
el-Amarna.]some distance to the north of that city, where he carried on
the worship of his beloved god Aten. In the pictures of the Aten worship
which have come down to us the god appears in the form of a disk from
which proceed a number of arms and hands that bestow life upon his
worshippers. After the death of Amenophis the cult of Aten declined, and
Amen resumed his sway over the minds of the Egyptians.
Want of space forbids the insertion here of a full list of the titles of
Amen, and a brief extract from the Papyrus of the Princess Nesi-Khensu
[Footnote: For a hieroglyphic transcript of the hieratic text, see
Maspero, _Mémoires_, tom. i., p. 594 ff.] must suffice to describe the
estimation in which the god was held about B.C. 1000. In this Amen is
addressed as "the holy god, the lord of all the gods, Amen-R[=a], the
lord of the thrones of the world, the prince of Apt (_i.e._, Karnak),
the holy soul who came into being in the beginning, the great god who
liveth by right and truth, the first ennead who gave birth unto the
other two enneads, [Footnote: _i.e._, the great, the little, and the
least companies of the gods; each company (_paut_) contained nine gods.]
the being in whom every god existeth, the One of One, the creator of the
things which came into being when the earth took form in the beginning,
whose births are hidden, whose forms are manifold, and whose growth
cannot be known. The holy Form, beloved and terrible and mighty.... the
lord of space, the mighty One of the form of Khepera, who came into
existence through Khepera, the lord of the form of Khepera; when he came
into being nothing existed except himself. He shone upon the earth from
primeval time, he the Disk, the prince of light and radiance.... When
this holy god moulded himself, the heavens and the earth were made by
his heart (_or_ mind).... He is the Disk of the Moon, the beauties
whereof pervade the heavens and the earth, the untiring and beneficent
king whose will germinateth from rising to setting, from whose divine
eyes men and women come forth, and from whose mouth the gods do come,
and [by whom] food and meat and drink are made and provided, and [by
whom] the things which exist are created. He is the lord of time, and he
traverseth eternity; he is the aged one who reneweth his youth.... He is
the Being who cannot be known, and he is more hidden than all the
gods.... He giveth long life and multiplieth the years of those who are
favoured by him, he is the gracious protector of him whom he setteth in
his heart, and he is the fashioner of eternity and everlastingness. He
is the king of the North and of the South, Amen-R[=a], king of the gods,
the lord of heaven, and of earth, and of the waters and of the
mountains, with whose coming into being the earth began its existence,
the mighty one, more princely than, all the gods of the first company."
In the above extract, it will be noticed that Amen is called the "One of
One," or the "One One," a title which has been explained as having no
reference whatever to the unity of God as understood in modern times:
but unless these words are intended to express the idea of unity, what
is their meaning? It is also said that he is "without second," and thus
there is no doubt whatever that when the Egyptians declared their god to
be One, and without a second, they meant precisely what the Hebrews and
Arabs meant when they declared their God to be One. [Footnote: See
Deut., vi. 4; and _Koran_, chapter cxii.] Such a God was an entirely
different Being from the personifications of the powers of nature and
the existences which, for want of a better name, have been called
"gods."
But, besides R[=a], there existed in very early times a god called
HORUS, whose symbol was the hawk, which, it seems, was the first living
thing worshipped by the Egyptians; Horus was the Sun-god, like R[=a],
and in later times was confounded with Horus the son of Isis. The chief
forms of Horus given in the texts are: (1) HERU-UR (Aroueris), (2)
HERU-MERTI, (3) HERU-NUB, (4) HERU-KHENT-KHAT, (5) HERU-KHENT-AN-MAA, (6)
HERU-KHUTI, (7) HERU-SAM-TAUI, (8) HERU-HEKENNU, (9) HERU-BEHUTET.
Connected with one of the forms of Horus, originally, were the four gods
of the cardinal points, or the "four, spirits of Horus," who supported
heaven at its four corners; their names were HAPI, TUAMUTEE, AMSET, and
QEBHSENNUF, and they represented the north, east, south, and west
respectively. The intestines of the dead were embalmed and placed in
four jars, each being under the protection, of one of these four gods.
Other important gods of the dead are: (1) ANUBIS, the son of R[=a] or
Osiris, who presided over the abode of the dead, and with AP-UAT shared
the dominion of the "funeral mountain"; the symbol of each of these gods
is a jackal. (2) HU and SA, the children of Temu, or R[=a], who appear
in the boat of the sun at the creation, and later in the Judgment Scene.
(3) The goddess MA[=A]T, who was associated with Thoth, Ptah, and Khnemu
in the work of creation; the name means "straight," hence what is right,
true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast,
unalterable, and the like. (4) The goddess HET-HERT (Hathor), _i.e._,
the "house of Horus," which was that part of the sky where the sun rose
and set. The sycamore tree was sacred to her, and the deceased prays to
be fed by her with celestial food from out of it (5) The goddess
MEH-URT, who represented that portion of the sky in which the sun takes
his daily course; here it was, according to the view held at one period
at least, that the judgment of the deceased was supposed to take place.
(6) NEITH, the mother of SEBEK, who was also a goddess of the eastern
portion of the sky. (7) SEKHET and BAST, who are represented with the
heads of a lion and a cat, and who were symbols of the destroying,
scorching power of the sun, and of the gentle heat thereof,
respectively. (8) SERQ, who was a form of Isis. (9) TA-URT (Thoueris),
who was the genetrix of the gods. (10) UATCHET, who was a form of
Hather, and who had dominion over the northern sky, just as NEKHEBET was
mistress of the southern sky. (11) NEHEB-KA, who was a goddess who
possessed magical powers, and in some respects resembled Isis in her
attributes. (12) SEBAK, who was a form of the Sun-god, and was in later
times confounded with Sebak, or Sebek, the friend of Set. (13) AMSU (or
MIN or KUEM), who was the personification of the generative and
reproductive powers of nature. (14) BEB or BABA, who was the "firstborn
son of Osiris." (15) H[=a]pi, who was the god of the Nile, and with whom
most of the great gods were identified.
The names of the beings who at one time or another were called "gods" in
Egypt are so numerous that a mere list of them would fill scores of
pages, and in a work of this kind would be out of place. The reader is,
therefore, referred to Lanzone's _Mitologia Egizia_, where a
considerable number are enumerated and described.