This ravenous sceptre had not the dim and misty form, the long shroud

of floating draperies of our modern phantoms, but a precise and definite

shape, naked, or clothed in the garments which it had worn while yet

upon earth, and emitting a pale light, to which it owed the name of

Luminous--_Khû, Khûû_.[*] The double did not allow its family to

forget it, but used all the means at its disposal to remind them of

its existence. It entered their houses and their bodies, terrified them

waking and sleeping by its sudden apparitions, struck them down with

disease or madness,[**] and would even suck their blood like the modern

vampire.

* The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make

the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of

the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract

one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with

the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of

pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the

phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of

rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception

may have subsequently faded, and _khû the glorious one_, one

of the _mânes_, may have become one of those flattering

names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the

dead; it then came to have that significance of _resplendent

with light_ which is ordinarily attributed to it.

** The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published

by Pleyte is full are directed against _dead men or dead

women_ who entered into one of the living to give him the

_migraine_, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,

briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,

contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of

requisition of a husband whom the _luminous_ of his wife

returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for

such conduct.

One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing

these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various

provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited

their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the

dead originated in the need experienced for making provision for the

sustenance of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by

the mummification of their bodies.[*]

* Several chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ consist of

directions for giving food to that part of man which

survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "_Chapter for providing

food for the double_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and

chap, cvi., "_Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the

deceased, in Memphis_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).

[Illustration: 161.jpg SACRIFICING TO THE DEAD IN THE TOMB CHAPEL. 2]

2 Stela of Antûf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-

Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey. Below,

servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting

up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead

man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:

an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch

of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the

whole chamber. Behind Antûf stand two servants, the one

fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff

and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the

lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented

above it takes place within the tomb.

Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb

chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented

and heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them

when they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of

fresh water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them

that they might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary

tribute men bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of

some neighbour too powerful to be opposed.

The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which

death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and

gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls,

like human souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and

gradually became extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to

decay were not found in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men

to seek the kind of sepulture which gave the longest term of existence

to their souls, compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they

were buried in the hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them

as those "who are upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards,

when the art of embalming had been discovered, the gods received the

benefit of the new invention and were mummified.

* In the _Book of Knowing that which is in Hades_, for the

fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description

of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods _Hiriû Shâîtû-

senû_, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we

have a cynocephalus _upon its sand_, and the gods of the

eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.

Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,

the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted

in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional

rendering of sand, and sandy districts.

Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis

there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at

Mendes, the mummy of Tûmû at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the

gods did not change their names in altering the mode of their existence:

the deceased Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hâthor when dead were still

Nît and Hâthor, at Saïs and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became

Sokaris by dying; Uapûaîtû, the jackal of Siût, was changed into

Anubis;[**] and when his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhûri, the

sunlit sky of Thinis, was Khontamentît, Lord of the West, until the

following day.

* The sepulchres of Tûmû, Khopri, Râ, Osiris, and in each

of them the heap of sand hiding the body, are represented in

the tomb of Seti I., as also the four rams in which the

souls of the god are incarnate. The tombs of the gods were

known even in Roman times.

** To my mind, at least, this is an obvious conclusion from

the monuments of Siût, in which the jackal god is called

Uapûaîtû, as the living god, lord of the city, and Anûpû,

master of embalming or of the Oasis, lord of Ra-qrirît,

inasmuch as he is god of the dead. Ra-qrirît, _the door of

the stone_, was the name which the people of Siût gave to

their necropolis and to the infernal domain of their god.

That bliss which we dream of enjoying in the world to come was not

granted to the gods any more than to men. Their bodies were nothing

but inert larvae, "with unmoving heart,"[*] weak and shrivelled limbs,

unable to stand upright were it not that the bandages in which they were

swathed stiffened them into one rigid block. Their hands and heads alone

were free, and were of the green or black shades of putrid flesh.

* This is the characteristic epithet for the dead Osiris,

Urdu Mt, he whose heart is unmoving, he whose heart no

longer beats, and who has therefore ceased to live.

[Illustration: 164.jpg PHTAH AS A MUMMY. 2]

2 Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a bronze statuette of the

Saïte period, found in the department of Hérault, at the end

of a gallery in an ancient mine.

Their doubles, like those of men, both dreaded and regretted the light.

All sentiment was extinguished by the hunger from which they suffered,

and gods who were noted for their compassionate kindness when alive,

became pitiless and ferocious tyrants in the tomb. When once men were

bidden to the presence of Sokaris, Khontamentîfc, or even of Osiris,

"mortals come terrifying their hearts with fear of the god, and none

dareth to look him in the face either among gods or men; for him the

great are as the small. He spareth not those who love him; he beareth

away the child from its mother, and the old man who walketh on his way;

full of fear, all creatures make supplication before him, but he turneth

not his face towards them." Only by the unfailing payment of tribute,

and by feeding him as though he were a simple human double, could living

or dead escape the consequences of his furious temper. The living paid

him his dues in pomps and solemn sacrifices, repeated from year to year

at regular intervals; but the dead bought more dearly the protection

which he deigned to extend to them. He did not allow them to receive

directly the prayers, sepulchral meals, or offerings of kindred on

feast-days; all that was addressed to them must first pass through his

hands. When their friends wished to send them wine, water, bread, meat,

vegetables, and fruits, he insisted that these should first be offered

and formally presented to himself; then he was humbly prayed to transmit

them to such or such a double, whose name and parentage were pointed out

to him. He took possession of them, kept part for his own use, and of

his bounty gave the remainder to its destined recipient. Thus death

made no change in the relative positions of the feudal god and his

worshippers. The worshipper who called himself the _amakhû_ of the god

during life was the subject and vassal of his mummied god even in the

tomb;[*] and the god who, while living, reigned over the living, after

his death continued to reign over the dead.

* The word _amakhû_ is applied to an individual who has

freely entered the service of king or baron, and taken him

for his lord: _amakhû khir nibuf_ means _vassal of his

lord_. In the same way, each chose for himself a god who

became his patron, and to whom he owed _fealty_, i.e. to

whom he was _amakhû_--vassal. To the god he owed the service

of a good vassal--tribute, sacrifices, offerings; and to his

vassal the god owed in return the service of a suzerain--

protection, food, reception into his dominions and access to

his person. A man might be absolutely _nib amahkît_, master

of fealty, or, relatively to a god, _amakhû khir Osiri_, the

vassal of Osiris, _amakhû khir Phtah-Sokari_, the vassal of

Phtah-Sokaris.

He dwelt in the city near the prince and in the midst of his subjects:

Râ living in Heliopolis along with the prince of Heliopolis; Haroêris

in Edfû together with the prince of Edfû; Nît in Saïs with the prince of

Sais. Although none of the primitive temples have come down to us,

the name given to them in the language of the time, shows what

they originally were. A temple was considered as the feudal

mansion--hâît,--the house--_pirû, pi_,--of the god, better cared for,

and more respected than the houses of men, but not otherwise differing

from them. It was built on a site slightly raised above the level of

the plain, so as to be safe from the inundation, and where there was no

natural mound, the want was supplied by raising a rectangular platform

of earth. A layer of sand spread uniformly on the sub-soil provided

against settlements or infiltration, and formed a bed for the

foundations of the building.[*]

* This custom lasted into Græco-Roman times, and was part of

the ritual for laying the foundations of a temple. After the

king had dug out the soil on the ground where the temple was

to stand, he spread over the spot sand mixed with pebbles

and precious stones, and upon this he laid the first course

of stone.

This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in

by a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which

was framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from

afar the notice of worshippers; in front of its façade [*] was a court,

fenced in with palisading.

* No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to

our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we

have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the

word _temple_ in texts of the Memphite period.

[Illustration: 167.jpg THE SACRED BULL. 2]

2 A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum,

drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-

Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are

copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the

Serapeum.

Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood,

or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for

containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was

every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of

chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs,

precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode;

until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more

than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in

body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several

cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He

could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he

pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects

or things manufactured--such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**]

Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû

at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their

temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their

animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and,

subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis.

They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended

to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these

signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for

seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the

temple.[***]

* Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor

likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed

sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine

cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other

instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in

thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life

to the statues and images which they made, and believed

(especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit

haunted images of itself."

** Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et l'Archéologie

Égyptiennes_, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; _Archéologie

Égyptienne_, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.

This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so

unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists

of the rank of M. de Rougé have taken in an abstract and

metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic

movements of divine images.

*** The bulls of Râ and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,

are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minû at

Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as

represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bâkhû

(called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is

somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later

stelæ in the Gîzeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the

texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these

sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of

ancient writers, and from examination of the figured

monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black

markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration

on p. 167.

And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as

the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors

an intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures

or by words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could

understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the

day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed

forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.

[Illustration: 169.jpg OPEN-AIR OFFERINGS TO THE SERPENT. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the

tomb of Khopirkerîsonbû. The inscription behind the urseus

states that it represents _Banûît the August, lady of the

double granary_.

Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many

embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These

latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the

prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers,

and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary

itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or

one of the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the

suzerainty of the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him

in the administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his

ministers in the government of his realm.

This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward

manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant

piety of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome

whom the people did not love any the less because of their inofficial

character; such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the

desert, a rock of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from

the mountain to which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest

hours of the day, or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which

haunted a field, a grove of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]

* It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the

hill of Shêikh Harîdî, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent

Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,

he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of

coming to life again every time that he is killed.

The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and

thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their

fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines

of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are

fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.

[Illustration: 171.jpg THE PEASANT'S OFFERING TO THE SYCAMORE. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of

Khopirkerîsonbû. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end

of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection

to the harvest.

Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding

fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun

even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon

find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and

whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They

stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them

suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually

worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers,

vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and

charitable people.

** Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie

Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224--227. They were represented

as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which

could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the

head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from

its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the

trunk reabsorbed it, or _ate_ it again, according to the

Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to

quote above; see p. 110, note 3.

Passers-by drank of the water, and requited the unexpected benefit with

a short prayer. There were several such trees in the Memphite nome, and

in the Letopolite nome from Dashûr to Gîzeh, inhabited, as every one

knew, by detached doubles of Nûît and Hâthor. These combined districts

were known as the "Land of the Sycamore," a name afterwards extended

to the city of Memphis; and their sacred trees are worshipped at the

present day both by Mussulman and Christian fellahîn.[*]

* The tree at Matarîeh, commonly called the _Tree of the

Virgin_, seems to me to be the successor of a sacred tree of

Heliopolis in which a goddess, perhaps Hâthor, was

worshipped.

The most famous among them all, the Sycamore of the South--_nûhît

rîsit_--was regarded as the living body of Hâthor on earth. Side by side

with its human gods and prophetic statues, each nome proudly advanced

one or more sacred animals, one or more magic trees. Each family, and

almost every individual, also possessed gods and fetishes, which had

been pointed out for their worship by some fortuitous meeting with an

animal or an object; by a dream, or by sudden intuition. They had a

place in some corner of the house, or a niche in its walls; lamps were

continually kept burning before them, and small daily offerings

were made to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn

feast-days. In return, they became the protectors of the household, its

guardians and its counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency

of daily life, and their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out

by their little circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal

god by the inhabitants of his principality.

[Illustration: 173.jpg THE SACRIFICE OF THE BULL.--THE OFFICIATING

PRIEST LASSOING THE VICTIM. 1]

1 Bas-relief from the temple of Seti I. at Abydos; drawn by

Boudier, from a photograph by M. Daniel Héron. Seti I.,

second king of the XIXth dynasty, is throwing the lasso; his

son, Ramses II., who is still the crown prince, holds the

bull by the tail to prevent its escaping from the slipknot.

The prince was the great high priest. The whole religion of the nome

rested upon him, and originally he himself performed its ceremonies. Of

these, the chief was sacrifice,--that is to say, a banquet which it was

his duty to prepare and lay before the god with his own hands. He went

out into the fields to lasso the half-wild bull; bound it, cut its

throat, skinned it, burnt part of the carcase in front of his idol

and distributed the rest among his assistants, together with plenty of

cakes, fruits, vegetables, and wine.[*] On the occasion, the god was

present both in body and double, suffering himself to be clothed and

perfumed, eating and drinking of the best that was set on the table

before him, and putting aside some of the provisions for future use.

This was the time to prefer requests to him, while he was gladdened and

disposed to benevolence by good cheer. He was not without suspicion as

to the reason why he was so feasted, but he had laid down his conditions

beforehand, and if they were faithfully observed he willingly yielded

to the means of seduction brought to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself

had arranged the ceremonial in a kind of contract formerly made with his

worshippers and gradually perfected from age to age by the piety of new

generations.[**] Above all things, he insisted on physical cleanliness.

The officiating priest must carefully wash--_ûâbû_--his face, mouth,

hands, and body; and so necessary was this preliminary purification

considered, that from it the professional priest derived his name of

_ûîbû_, the washed, the clean.[***]

* This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the

temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for

instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is

represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic

times was but an image, had originally been a reality.

** The most striking example of the divine institution of

religious services is furnished by the inscription relating

the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Râ,

where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension

into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.

*** The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such

variants as _ûîbû totûi_, "clean of both hands," found on

stelae instead of the simple title _ûîbû_. We also know, on

the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care

which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as

a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered

into the conception of a priest.

His costume was the archaic dress, modified according to circumstances.

During certain services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was

incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder,

and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he

must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take

the shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach

a false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the

way in which it was to be brought and bound, the manner and details of

its slaughter, the order to be followed in opening its body and cutting

it up, were all minutely and unchangeably decreed. And these were but

the least of the divine exactions, and those most easily satisfied. The

formulas accompanying each act of the sacrificial priest contained

a certain number of words whose due sequence and harmonies might not

suffer the slightest modification whatever, even from the god himself,

under penalty of losing their efficacy.[*]

* The Purification Ritual for officiating priests is

contained in a papyrus of the Berlin Museum, whose analysis

and table of chapters has been published by Herr Oscar von

Lemm, _Das Bitualbuch des Ammonsdienstes_, p. 4, et seq.

They were always recited with the same rhythm, according to a system of

chaunting in which every tone had its virtue, combined with movements

which confirmed the sense and worked with irresistible effect: one

false note, a single discord between the succession of gestures and the

utterance of the sacramental words, any hesitation, any awkwardness in

the accomplishment of a rite, and the sacrifice was vain.

Worship as thus conceived became a legal transaction, in the course of

which the god gave up his liberty in exchange for certain compensations

whose kind and value were fixed by law. By a solemn deed of transfer the

worshipper handed over to the legal representatives of the contracting

divinity such personal or real property as seemed to him fitting payment

for the favour which he asked, or suitable atonement for the wrong which

he had done. If man scrupulously observed the innumerable conditions

with which the transfer was surrounded, the god could not escape the

obligation of fulfilling his petition;[*] but should he omit the least

of them, the offering remained with the temple and went to increase

the endowments in mortmain, while the god was pledged to nothing in

exchange.

* This obligation is evident from texts where, as in the

poem of Pentaûirît, a king who is in danger demands from his

favourite god the equivalent in protection of the sacrifices

which he has offered to that divinity, and the gifts

wherewith he has enriched him. "Have I not made unto thee

many offerings?" says Ramses II. to Amon. "I have filled

thy temple with my prisoners, I have built thee a mansion

for millions of years.... Ah if evil is the lot of them who

insult thee, good are thy purposes towards those who honour

thee, O Amon!"

Hence the officiating priest assumed a formidable responsibility

as regarded his fellows: a slip of memory, the slightest accidental

impurity, made him a bad priest, injurious to himself and harmful to

those worshippers who had entrusted him with their interests before the

gods. Since it was vain to expect ritualistic perfections from a prince

constantly troubled with affairs of state, the custom was established

of associating professional priests with him, personages who devoted all

their lives to the study and practice of the thousand formalities whose

sum constituted the local religion. Each temple had its service of

priests, independent of those belonging to neighbouring temples, whose

members, bound to keep their hands always clean and their voices true,

were ranked according to the degrees of a learned hierarchy. At their

head was a sovereign pontiff to direct them in the exercise of their

functions. In some places he was called the first prophet, or rather the

first servant of the god--_hon-nûtir topi_; at Thebes he was the first

prophet of Amon, at Thinis he was the first prophet of Anhûri.[*]

* This title of _first prophet_ belongs to priests of the

less important towns, and to secondary divinities. If we

find it employed in connection with the Theban worship, it

is because Amon was originally a provincial god, and only

rose into the first rank with the rise of Thebes and the

great conquests of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.

But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose

servant he was. The chief priest of Râ at Heliopolis, and in all the

cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called _Oîrû

maû_, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of

the nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the

sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face

to face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhûri at Sebennytos was

entitled the wise and pure warrior--_ahûîti saû uîbu_--because his god

went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service a

pontiff who should be a soldier like himself.

These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves

within the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even

sometimes solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards,

orchards, slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their

livelihood and the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who

did not cherish the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron

god of his city, "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment

for the priests to institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his

behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed

real sacred fiefs--_hotpû-nûtir_--analogous to the _wakfs_ of Mussulman

Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary,

defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two,

three, or even four classes of prophets or _heiroduli_ under his orders

assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious

instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal

rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind

of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his

maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was

to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses

they held the chief rank, and were called _hierodules_, or priestesses,

_hierodules_ of Nit, _hierodules_ of Hâthor, _hierodules_ of

Pakhît.[***]

* As regards the Saïte period, we are beginning to

accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or

houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.

** We know from the _Great Harris Papyrus_ to what the

fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses

III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, _Die

Ægyptologie_, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, _Bubastis, Eighth

Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund_, p. 61, a

calculation as to the quantities of precious metals

belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;

its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.

*** Mariette remarks that priests play but a

subordinate part in the temple of Hâthor. This fact, which

surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that

Hâthor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a

temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a

man, the Tcharp-haîtû; but the persistence with which women

of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the

title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient

Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess

was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.

The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely

households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to

cut the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners,

weavers, shoemakers, florists, cellarers, water-carriers and

milk-carriers. In fact, it was a state within a state, and the prince

took care to keep its government in his own hands, either by investing

one of his children with the titles and functions of chief pontiff',

or by arrogating them to himself. In that case, he provided against

mistakes which would have annulled the sacrifice by associating with

himself several masters of the ceremonies, who directed him in the

orthodox evolutions before the god and about the victim, indicated the

due order of gestures and the necessary changes of costume, and prompted

him with the words of each invocation from a book or tablet which they

held in their hands.[*]

* The title of such a personage was _khri-habi_, the man

with the roll or tablet, because of the papyrus roll, or

wooden tablet containing the ritual, which he held in his

hand.

In addition to its rites and special hierarchy, each of the sacerdotal

colleges thus constituted had a theology in accordance with the nature

and attributes of its god. Its fundamental dogma affirmed the unity of

the nome god, his greatness, his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt

and of foreign lands[*]--whose existence was nevertheless admitted, and

none dreamed of denying their reality or contesting their power.

* In the inscriptions all local gods bear the titles of

_Nûtir ûâ_, only god; Sûton nûtirû, Sûntirû, [ Greek word],

king of the gods; of _Nûtir âa nib pit_, the great god, lord

of heaven, which show their pretensions to the sovereignty

and to the position of creator of the universe.

The latter also boasted of their unity, their greatness, their

supremacy; but whatever they were, the god of the nome was master of

them all--their prince, their ruler, their king. It was he alone who

governed the world, he alone kept it in good order, he alone had created

it. Not that he had evoked it out of nothing; there was as yet no

concept of nothingness, and even to the most subtle and refined of

primitive theologians creation was only a bringing of pre-existent

elements into play.

[Illustration: 180.jpg SHU UPLIFTING THE SKY. 2]

2 Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a green enamelled statuette

in my possession. It was from Shu that the Greeks derived

their representations, and perhaps their myth of Atlas.

The latent germs of things had always existed, but they had slept for

ages and ages in the bosom of the Nû, of the dark waters. In fulness of

time the god of each nome drew them forth, classified them, marshalled

them according to the bent of his particular nature, and made his

universe out of them by methods peculiarly his own. Nît of Saïs, who was

a weaver, had made the world of warp and woof, as the mother of a family

weaves her children's linen.

Khnûmû, the Nile-God of the cataracts, had gathered up the mud of his

waters and therewith moulded his creatures upon a potter's table. In the

eastern cities of the Delta these procedures were not so simple. There

it was admitted that in the beginning earth and sky were two lovers lost

in the Nû, fast locked in each other's embrace, the god lying beneath

the goddess. On the day of creation a new god, Shu, came forth from the

primaeval waters, slipped between the two, and seizing Nûît with both

hands, lifted her above his head with outstretched arms.[*]

* This was what the Egyptians called _the upliftings of

Shû_. The event first took place at Hermopolis, and certain

legends added that in order to get high enough the god had

been obliged to make use of a staircase or mound situate in

this city, and which was famous throughout Egypt.

Though the starry body of the goddess extended in space--her head being

to the west and her loins to the east--her feet and hands hung down to

the earth. These were the four pillars of the firmament under another

form, and four gods of four adjacent principalities were in charge of

them. Osiris, or Horus the sparrow-hawk, presided over the southern, and

Sit over the northern pillar; Thot over that of the west, and Sapdi, the

author of the zodiacal light, over that of the east. They had divided

the world among themselves into four regions, or rather into four

"houses," bounded by those mountains which surround it, and by the

diameters intersecting between the pillars. Each of these houses

belonged to one, and to one only; none of the other three, nor even

the sun himself, might enter it, dwell there, or even pass through

it without having obtained its master's permission. Sibu had not been

satisfied to meet the irruption of Shû by mere passive resistance. He

had tried to struggle, and he is drawn in the posture of a man who has

just awakened out of sleep, and is half turning on his couch before

getting up. One of his legs is stretched out, the other is bent and

partly drawn up as in the act of rising. The lower part of the body is

still unmoved, but he is raising himself with difficulty on his left

elbow, while his head droops and his right arm is lifted towards the

sky. His effort was suddenly arrested. Rendered powerless by a stroke of

the creator, Sibû remained as if petrified in this position, the obvious

irregularities of the earth's surface being due to the painful attitude

in which he was stricken. His sides have since been clothed with

verdure, generations of men and animals have succeeded each other

upon his back, but without bringing any relief to his pain; he suffers

evermore from the violent separation of which he was the victim when

Nûît was torn from him, and his complaint continues to rise to heaven

night and day.

[Illustration: 182.jpg SHÛ FORCIBLY SEPARATING SIBÛ AND NÛÎT. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the mummy-case

of Bûtehamon in the Turin Museum. "Shû, the great god, lord

of heaven," receives the adoration of two ram-headed souls

placed upon his right and left.

[Illustration: 183.jpg THE DIDÛ OF OSIRIS. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a specimen in blue enamelled

pottery, now in my possession.

[Illustration: 183b.jpg THE DIDÛ DRESSED. 2]

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a figure frequently found in

Theban mummy-cases of XXIst and XXIInd dynasties (Wilkinson,

_Manners and Customs_. 2nd edit., vol. iii. pl. xxv., No 5).

The aspect of the inundated plains of the Delta, of the river by which

they are furrowed and fertilized, and of the desert sands by which they

are threatened, had suggested to the theologians of Mendes and Bûto an

explanation of the mystery of creation, in which the feudal divinities

of these cities and of several others in their neighbourhood, Osiris,

Sit, and Isis, played the principal parts. Osiris first represented the

wild and fickle Nile of primitive times; afterwards, as those who dwelt

upon his banks learned to regulate his course, they emphasized

the kindlier side of his character and soon transformed him into

a benefactor of humanity, the supremely good being, Ûnnofriû,

Onnophris.[*] He was lord of the principality of Didû, which lay along

the Sebennytic branch of the river between the coast marshes and the

entrance to the Wâdy Tûmilât, but his domain had been divided; and the

two nomes thus formed, namely, the ninth and sixteenth nomes of the

Delta in the Pharaonic lists, remained faithful to him, and here

he reigned without rival, at Busiris as at Mendes. His most famous

idol-form was the Didû, whether naked or clothed, the fetish, formed

of four superimposed columns, which had given its name to the

principality.[**]

* It has long been a dogma with Egyptologists that Osiris

came from Abydos. Maspero has shown that from his very

titles he is obviously a native of the Delta, and more

especially of Busiris and Mendes.

** The Didû has been very variously interpreted. It has

been taken for a kind of nilometer, for a sculptor's or

modeller's stand, or a painter's easel for an altar with

four superimposed tables, or a sort of pedestal bearing four

door-lintels, for a series of four columns placed one behind

another, of which the capitals only are visible, one above

the other, etc. The explanation given in the text is that of

Reuvens, who recognized the Didû as a symbolic

representation of the four regions of the world; and of

Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie

Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 359, note 3. According to Egyptian

theologians, it represented the spine of Osiris, preserved

as a relic in the town bearing the name of _Didû, Bidît_.

[Illustration: 185.jpg OSIRIS-ONNOPHRIS, WHIP AND CROOK IN HAND. 1]

1 Drawn by Boudier from a statue in green basalt found at

Sakkarah, and now in the Gîzeh Museum.

They ascribed life to this Didû, and represented it with a somewhat

grotesque face, big cheeks, thick lips, a necklace round its throat, a

long flowing dress which hid the base of the columns beneath its folds,

and two arms bent across the breast, the hands grasping one a whip and

the other a crook, symbols of sovereign authority. This, perhaps, was

the most ancient form of Osiris; but they also represented him as a

man, and supposed him to assume the shapes of rams and bulls,[*] or

even those of water-birds, such as lapwings, herons, and cranes, which

disported themselves about the lakes of that district.[**]

* The ram of Mendes is sometimes Osiris, and sometimes the

soul of Osiris. The ancients took it for a he-goat, and to

them we are indebted for the record of its exploits.

According to Manetho, the worship of the sacred ram is not

older than the time of King Kaiekhos of the second dynasty.

A Ptolemaic necropolis of sacred rams was discovered by

Mariette at Tmai el-Amdid, in the ruins of Thmûis, and some

of their sarcophagi are now in the Gîzeh Museum.

** The Bonû, the chief among these birds, is not the

phoenix, as has so often been asserted. It is a kind of

heron, either the _Ardea cinerea_, which is common in Egypt,

or else some similar species.

The goddess whom we are accustomed to regard as inseparable from him,

Isis the cow, or woman with cow's horns, had not always belonged to him.

Originally she was an independent deity, dwelling at Bûto in the

midst of the ponds of Adhû. She had neither husband nor lover, but had

spontaneously conceived and given birth to a son, whom she suckled among

the reeds--a lesser Horus who was called Harsiîsît, Horus the son of

Isis, to distinguish him from Haroêris. At an early period she was

married to her neighbour Osiris, and no marriage could have been better

suited to her nature. For she personified the earth--not the earth in

general, like Sibu, with its unequal distribution of seas and mountains,

deserts and cultivated land; but the black and luxuriant plain of the

Delta, where races of men, plants, and animals increase and multiply

in ever-succeeding generations. To whom did she owe this inexhaustible

productive energy if not to her neighbour Osiris, to the Nile? The Nile

rises, overflows, lingers upon the soil; every year it is wedded to the

earth, and the earth comes forth green and fruitful from its embraces.

[Illustration: 187.jpg ISIS, WEARING THE COW-HORN HEAD-DRESS. 1]

1 Drawn by Boudier from a green basalt statue in the Gîzeh

Museum. Prom a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

The marriage of the two elements suggested that of the two divinities;

Osiris wedded Isis and adopted the young Horus. But this prolific and

gentle pair were not representative of all the phenomena of nature.

The eastern part of the Delta borders upon the solitudes of Arabia, and

although it contains several rich and fertile provinces, yet most of

these owe their existence to the arduous labour of the inhabitants,

their fertility being dependent on the daily care of man, and on his

regular distribution of the water. The moment he suspends the straggle

or relaxes his watchfulness, the desert reclaims them and overwhelms

them with sterility. Sit was the spirit of the mountain, stone and sand,

the red and arid ground as distinguished from the moist black soil of

the valley. On the body of a lion or of a dog he bore a fantastic head

with a slender curved snout, upright and square-cut ears; his cloven

tail rose stiffly behind him, springing from his loins like a fork. He

also assumed a human form, or retained the animal head only upon a man's

shoulders. He was felt to be cruel and treacherous, always ready to

shrivel up the harvest with his burning breath, and to smother Egypt

beneath a shroud of shifting sand. The contrast between this evil being

and the beneficent couple, Osiris and Isis, was striking. Nevertheless,

the theologians of the Delta soon assigned a common origin to these

rival divinities of Nile and desert, red land and black. Sibû had

begotten them, Nûît had given birth to them one after another when the

demiurge had separated her from her husband; and the days of their birth

were the days of creation.[*]

* According to one legend which is comparatively old in

origin, the fous* children of Nûît, and Horus her grandson,

were born one after another, each on one of the intercalary

days of the year. This legend was still current in the Greek

period.

At first each of them had kept to his own half of the world. Moreover

Sit, who had begun by living alone, had married, in order that he might

be inferior to Osiris in nothing.

[Illustration: 189.jpg NEPHTHYS, AS A WAILING WOMAN. 1 and THE GOD SÎT,

FIGHTING. 2]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted wooden statuette

in my possession, from a funeral couch found at Akhmîm. On

her head the goddess bears the hieroglyph for her name; she

is kneeling at the foot of the funeral couch of Osiris and

weeps for the dead god.

2 Bronze statuette of the XXth dynasty, encrusted with

gold, from the Hoffmann collection: drawn by Faucher-Gudin

from a photograph taken by Legrain in 1891. About the time

when the worship of Sît was proscribed, one of the Egyptian

owners of this little monument had endeavoured to alter its

character, and to transform it into a statuette of the god

Khnûmû. He took out the upright ears, replacing them with

ram's horns, but made no other change. In the drawing I have

had the later addition of the curved horns removed, and

restored the upright ears, whose marks may still be seen

upon the sides of the head-dress.

As a matter of fact, his companion, Nephthys, did not manifest any great

activity, and was scarcely more than an artificial counterpart of the

wife of Osiris, a second Isis who bore no children to her husband;[*]

for the sterile desert brought barrenness to her as to all that it

touched.

* The impersonal character of Nephthys, her artificial

origin, and her derivation from Isis, have been pointed out

by Maspero (_Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie

Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 362-364). The very name of the

goddess, which means _the lady (nibît)_ of the_ mansion

(haït)_, confirms this view.

[Illustration: 190.jpg PLAN OF THE RUINS OF HELIOPOLIS. 2]

2 Drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'Egypte_

(Atlas, Ant., vol. v. pl. 26, 1).

Yet she had lost neither the wish nor the power to bring forth, and

sought fertilization from another source. Tradition had it that she had

made Osiris drunken, drawn him to her arms without his knowledge, and

borne him a son; the child of this furtive union was the jackal Anubis.

Thus when a higher Nile overflows lands not usually covered by the

inundation, and lying unproductive for lack of moisture, the soil

eagerly absorbs the water, and the germs which lay concealed in the

ground burst forth into life. The gradual invasion of the domain of

Sît by Osiris marks the beginning of the strife. Sit rebels against the

wrong of which he is the victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises

and treacherously slays his brother, drives Isis into temporary

banishment among her marshes, and reigns over the kingdom of Osiris

as well as over his own. But his triumph is short-lived. Horus, having

grown up, takes arms against him, defeats him in many encounters, and

banishes him in his turn. The creation of the world had brought the

destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to face: the history of the

world is but the story of their rivalries and warfare.

None of these conceptions alone sufficed to explain the whole mechanism

of creation, nor the part which the various gods took in it. The priests

of Heliopolis appropriated them all, modified some of their details

and eliminated others, added several new personages, and thus finally

constructed a complete cosmogony, the elements of which were learnedly

combined so as to correspond severally with the different operations by

which the world had been evoked out of chaos and gradually brought to

its present state. Heliopolis was never directly involved in the great

revolutions of political history; but no city ever originated so many

mystic ideas and consequently exercised so great an influence upon the

development of civilization.[*]

* By its inhabitants it was accounted older than any

other city of Egypt.

[Illustration: 192.jpg HORUS, THE AVENGER OF HIS FATHER, AND ANUBIS

ÛAPÔAÎTÛ. 2]

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béato of a

bas-relief in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos. The two gods

are conducting King Ramses II., here identified with Osiris,

towards the goddess Hâthor.

It was a small town built on the plain not far from the Nile at the apex

of the Delta, and surrounded by a high wall of mud bricks whose remains

could still be seen at the beginning of the century, but which have now

almost completely disappeared.

[Illustration: 191.jpg THE SUN SPRINGING FROM AN OPENING LOTUS-FLOWER]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The open lotus-flower, with a bud

on either side, stands upon the usual sign for any water-

basin. Here the sign represents the Nû, that dark watery

abyss from which the lotus sprang on the morning of

creation, and whereon it is still supposed to bloom.

One obelisk standing in the midst of the open plain, a few waste mounds

of débris, scattered blocks, and two or three lengths of crumbling wall,

alone mark the place where once the city stood. Ka was worshipped there,

and the Greek name of Heliopolis is but the translation of that which

was given to it by the priests--Pi-ra, City of the Sun. Its principal

temple, the "Mansion of the Prince," rose from about the middle of the

enclosure, and sheltered, together with the god himself, those animals

in which he became incarnate: the bull Mnevis, and sometimes the Phoenix.

According to an old legend, this wondrous bird appeared in Egypt only

once in five hundred years. It is born and lives in the depths of

Arabia, but when its father dies it covers the body with a layer of

myrrh, and flies at utmost speed to the temple of Helio-polis, there to

bury it.[*]

* The Phoenix is not the _Bonû_ (cf. p. 186, note 2), but a

fabulous bird derived from the golden sparrow-hawk, which

was primarily a form of Haroêris, and of the sun-gods in

second place only. On the authority of his Heliopolitan

guides, Herodotus tells us (ii. 83) that in shape and size

the phoenix resembled the eagle, and this statement alone

should have sufficed to prevent any attempt at identifying

it with the Bonû, which is either a heron or a lapwing.

[Illustration: 194.jpg THE PLAIN AND MOUNDS OF HELIOPOLIS FIFTY YEARS

AGO.2]

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a water-colour published by

Lepsius, _Denkm_., i. 56. The view is taken from the midst

of the ruins at the foot of the obelisk of Usirtasen. A

little stream runs in the foreground, and passes through a

muddy pool; to right and left are mounds of ruins, which

were then considerable, but have since been partially razed.

In the distance Cairo rises against the south-west.

In the beginning, Râ was the sun itself, whose fires appear to be

lighted every morning in the east and to be extinguished at evening

in the west; and to the people such he always remained. Among the

theologians there was considerable difference of opinion on the point.

Some held the disk of the sun to be the body which the god assumes when

presenting himself for the adoration of his worshippers. Others affirmed

that it rather represented his active and radiant soul. Finally, there

were many who defined it as one of his forms of being--_khopriû_--one of

his self-manifestations, without presuming to decide whether it was his

body or his soul which he deigned to reveal to human eyes; but whether

soul or body, all agreed that the sun's disk had existed in the Nû

before creation. But how could it have lain beneath the primordial ocean

without either drying up the waters or being extinguished by them? At

this stage the identification of Râ with Horus and his right eye served

the purpose of the theologians admirably: the god needed only to have

closed his eyelid in order to prevent his fires from coming in contact

with the water.[*]

* This is clearly implied in the expression so often used by

the sacred writers of Ancient Egypt in reference to the

appearance of the sun and his first act at the time of

creation: "_Thou openest the two eyes_, and earth is flooded

with rays of light."

He was also said to have shut up his disk within a lotus-bud, whose

folded petals had safely protected it. The flower had opened on the

morning of the first day, and from it the god had sprung suddenly as

a child wearing the solar disk upon his head. But all theories led the

theologians to distinguish two periods, and as it were two beings in

the existence of supreme deity: a pre-mundane sun lying inert within the

bosom of the dark waters, and our living and life-giving sun.

[Illustration: 196.jpg HAKMAKHÛÎTI-HAKMAKHIS, THE GREAT GOD. 1]

1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger of an

outer wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Harmakhis grants

years and festivals to the Pharaoh Seti I., who kneels

before him, and is presented by the lioness-headed goddess

Sokhît, here described as a magician--_Oîrît hilcaû_.

One division of the Heliopolitan school retained the use of traditional

terms and images in reference to these Sun-gods. To the first it left

the human form, and the title of Râ, with the abstract sense of creator,

deriving the name from the verb _râ_, which means to give. For

the second it kept the form of the sparrow-hawk and the name of

Harma-khûîti--Horus in the two horizons--which clearly denoted his

function;[*] and it summed up the idea of the sun as a whole in the

single name of Râ-Harmakhûîti, and in a single image in which the

hawk-head of Horus was grafted upon the human body of Râ. The other

divisions of the school invented new names for new conceptions. The sun

existing before the world they called Creator--_Tûmû, Atûmû_ [**]--and

our earthly sun they called _Khopri_--He who is.

* Harmakhûîti is Horus, the sky of the two horizons; _i.e._

the sky of the daytime, and the night sky. When the

celestial Horus was confounded with Râ, and became the sun

(cf. p. 133), he naturally also became the sun of the two

horizons, the sun by day, and the sun by night.

** E. de Rouge, _Études sur le Rituel funéraire_, p. 76:

"His name may be connected with two radicals. Tem is a

negation; it may be taken to mean _the Inapproachable One,

the Unknown_ (as in Thebes, where _Aman_ means mystery).

Atûm is, in fact, described as 'existing alone in the

abyss,' before the appearance of light. It was in this time

of darkness that Atûm performed the first act of creation,

and this allows of our also connecting his name with the

Coptic tamio, _creare_. Atûm was also the prototype of man

(in Coptic tme, _homo_), and becomes a perfect 'tûm' after

his resurrection." Rugsch would rather explain _Tûmû_ as

meaning _the Perfect One, the Complete_. E. de Rougé's

philological derivations are no longer admissible; but his

explanation of the name corresponds so well with the part

played by the god that I fail to see how that can be

challenged.

Tûmû was a man crowned and clothed with the insignia of supreme power, a

true king of gods, majestic and impassive as the Pharaohs who succeeded

each other upon the throne of Egypt. The conception of Khopri as a disk

enclosing a scarabæus, or a man with a scarabous upon his head, or a

scarabus-headed mummy, was suggested by the accidental alliteration of

his name and that of Khopirrû, the scarabæus. The difference between

the possible forms of the god was so slight as to be eventually

lost altogether. His names were grouped by twos and threes in every

conceivable way, and the scarabæus of Khopri took its place upon the

head of Râ, while the hawk headpiece was transferred from the shoulders

of Harmakhûîti to those of Tûmû. The complex beings resulting from these

combinations, Râ-Tûmû, Atûmû-Râ, Râ-Tûmû-Khopri, Râ-Harmakhûîti-Tûmû,

Tûm-Harmakhûîti-Khopri, never attained to any pronounced individuality.

[Illustration: 198.jpg KHOPRI, IN HIS BARK]

They were as a rule simple duplicates of the feudal god, names rather

than persons, and though hardly taken for one another indiscriminately,

the distinctions between them had reference to mere details of their

functions and attributes. Hence arose the idea of making these gods into

embodiments of the main phases in the life of the sun during the day

and throughout the year. Râ symbolized the sun of springtime and before

sunrise, Harmakhûîti the summer and the morning sun, Atûmû the sun of

autumn and of afternoon, Khopri that of winter and of night. The people

of Heliopolis accepted the new names and the new forms presented for

their worship, but always subordinated them to their beloved Râ. For

them Râ never ceased to be the god of the nome; while Atûmû remained the

god of the theologians, and was invoked by them, the people preferred

Râ. At Thinis and at Sebennytos Anhûri incurred the same fate as befell

Râ at Heliopolis. After he had been identified with the sun, the similar

identification of Shû inevitably followed. Of old, Anhûri and Shû were

twin gods, incarnations of sky and earth. They were soon but one god in

two persons--the god Anhûri-Shû, of which the one half under the title

of Auhûri represented, like Atûmû, the primordial being; and Shû, the

other half, became, as his name indicates, the creative sun-god who

upholds (_shû_) the sky.

Tûrnû then, rather than Râ, was placed by the Heliopolitan priests at

the head of their cosmogony as supreme creator and governor. Several

versions were current as to how he had passed from inertia into action,

from the personage of Tûmû into that of Râ. According to the version

most widely received, he had suddenly cried across the waters, "Come

unto me!"[*] and immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its

petals, and Râ had appeared at the edge of its open cup as a disk,

a newborn child, or a disk-crowned sparrow-hawk; this was probably a

refined form of a ruder and earlier tradition, according to which it

was upon Râ himself that the office had devolved of separating Sibû from

Nûît, for the purpose of constructing the heavens and the earth.

* It was on this account that the Egyptians named the first

day of the year the _Day of Come-unto-me!_

But it was doubtless felt that so unseemly an act of intervention was

beneath the dignity even of an inferior form of the suzerain god; Shû

was therefore borrowed for the purpose from the kindred cult of Anhûri,

and at Heliopolis, as at Sebennytos, the office was entrusted to him

of seizing the sky-goddess and raising her with outstretched arms. The

violence suffered by Nûît at the hands of Shû led to a connexion of the

Osirian dogma of Mendes with the solar dogma of Sebennytos, and thus the

tradition describing the creation of the world was completed by another,

explaining its division into deserts and fertile lands. Sîbû, hitherto

concealed beneath the body of his wife, was now exposed to the sun;

Osiris and Sit, Isis and Nephthys, were born, and, falling from the sky,

their mother, on to the earth, their father, they shared the surface of

the latter among themselves. Thus the Heliopolitan doctrine recognized

three principal events in the creation of the universe: the dualization

of the supreme god and the breaking forth of light, the raising of the

sky and the laying bare of the earth, the birth of the Nile and the

allotment of the soil of Egypt, all expressed as the manifestations

of successive deities. Of these deities, the latter ones already

constituted a family of father, mother, and children, like human

families. Learned theologians availed themselves of this example to

effect analogous relationships between the rest of the gods, combining

them all into one line of descent. As Atûmû-Râ could have no fellow, he

stood apart in the first rank, and it was decided that Shû should be

his son, whom he had formed out of himself alone, on the first day of

creation, by the simple intensity of his own virile energy. Shû, reduced

to the position of divine son, had in his turn begotten Sibû and Nûît,

the two deities which he separated. Until then he had not been supposed

to have any wife, and he also might have himself brought his own progeny

into being; but lest a power of spontaneous generation equal to that

of the demiurge should be ascribed to him, he was married, and the wife

found for him was Tafnûît, his twin sister, born in the same way as

he was born. This goddess, invented for the occasion, was never fully

alive, and remained, like Nephthys, a theological entity rather than a

real person. The texts describe her as the pale reflex of her husband.

[Illustration: 201.jpg THE TWIN LIONS, SHÛ AND TAFNÛÎT. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a vignette in the papyrus of

Ani in the British Museum, published by Lepage-Renouf in the

_Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, vol.

xi., 1889-90, pp. 26-28. The inscription above the lion on

the right reads _safu_, "yesterday;" the other, _dûaû_,

"this morning."

Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives

the newborn sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a

lioness when Shû is a lion, a woman when he is a man, a lioness-headed

woman if he is a lion-headed man; she is angry when he is angry,

appeased when he is appeased; she has no sanctuary wherein he is not

worshipped. In short, the pair made one being in two bodies, or, to use

the Egyptian expression, "one soul in its two twin bodies."

Hence we see that the Heliopolitans proclaimed the creation to be the

work of the sun-god, Atûmû-Râ, and of the four pairs of deities who were

descended from him. It was really a learned variant of the old doctrine

that the universe was composed of a sky-god, Horus, supported by his

four children and their four pillars: in fact, the four sons of the

Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shû and Sibû, Osiris and Sit, were occasionally

substituted for the four older gods of the "houses" of the world. This

being premised, attention must be given to the important differences

between the two systems. At the outset, instead of appearing

contemporaneously upon the scene, like the four children of Horus, the

four Heliopolitan gods were deduced one from another, and succeeded each

other in the order of their birth. They had not that uniform attribute

of supporter, associating them always with one definite function, but

each of them felt himself endowed with faculties and armed with special

powers required by his condition. Ultimately they took to themselves

goddesses, and thus the total number of beings working in different ways

at the organization of the universe was brought up to nine. Hence they

were called by the collective name of the Ennead, the Nine gods--_paûit

nûtîrû_,[*]--and the god at their head was entitled _Paûîti_, the god of

the Ennead.

* The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in

writing _paûît_ with the sign _kh_, and the word _khet,

other_. E. de Rougé was the first to determine its phonetic

value: "it should be read Paû, and designates a body of

gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of

gods invoked by E. de Rougé must have consisted of nine "--

of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted

either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic

interpretation of the word in his _Mémoire sur la mère

d'Apis_, or by E. de Rougé, or by Chabas. The interpretation

a _Nine_, an _Ennead_, was not frankly adopted until later,

and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid

texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course

the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of

name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists.

When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by

countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were

not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries

to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and

continued working of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected

eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of

Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded

as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation. The first of the two

secondary Enneads, generally known as the Minor Ennead, recognized

as chief Harsiesis, the son of Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an

earth-god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the

banishment of his mother by Sit; that is, he had restored fulness to the

Nile and fertility to the Delta. When Harsiesis was incorporated into

the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed

as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality

was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was

transplanted. He was identified with Râ through the intervention of the

older Horus, Haroêris-Harmakhis, and the Minor Ennead, like the Great

Ennead, began with a sun-god. This assimilation was not pushed so far

as to invest the younger Horus with the same powers as his fictitious

ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the everyday sun, while Atûmû-Râ was

still the sun pre-mundane and eternal. Our knowledge of the eight other

deities of the Minor Ennead is very imperfect.

[Illustration: 204.jpg THE FOUR FUNERARY GENII, KHABSONÛF, TIÛMAÛTF,

HAPI, AND AMSÎT. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's _Manners and

Customs_, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.

We see only that these were the gods who chiefly protected the sun-god

against its enemies and helped it to follow its regular course. Thus

Harhûditi, the Horus of Edfû, spear in hand, pursues the hippopotami

or serpents which haunt the celestial waters and menace the god. The

progress of the Sun-bark is controlled by the incantations of Thot,

while Uapûaîtû, the dual jackal-god of Siufc, guides, and occasionally

tows it along the sky from south to north. The third Ennead would seem

to have included among its members Anubis the jackal, and the four

funerary genii, the children of Horus--Hapi, Amsît, Tiûmaûtf, Kabhsonûf;

it further appears as though its office was the care and defence of

the dead sun, the sun by night, as the second Ennead had charge of

the living sun. Its functions were so obscure and apparently so

insignificant as compared with those exercised by the other Enneads,

that the theologians did not take the trouble either to represent it

or to enumerate its persons. They invoked it as a whole, after the

two others, in those formulas in which they called into play all the

creative and preservative forces of the universe; but this was rather as

a matter of conscience and from love of precision than out of any true

deference. At the initial impulse of the lord of Heliopolis, the three

combined Enneads started the world and kept it going, and gods whom

they had not incorporated were either enemies to be fought with, or mere

attendants.

The doctrine of the Heliopolitan Ennead acquired an immediate and a

lasting popularity. It presented such a clear scheme of creation, and

one whose organization was so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit

of tradition, that the various sacerdotal colleges adopted it one after

another, accommodating it to the exigencies of local patriotism. Each

placed its own nome-god at the head of the Ennead as "god of the Nine,"

"god of the first time," creator of heaven and earth, sovereign ruler

of men, and lord of all action. As there was the Ennead of Atûmû at

Heliopolis, so there was that of Anhûri at Thinis and at Sebennytos;

that of Minû at Coptos and at Panopolis; that of Haroêris at Edfû; that

of Sobkhû at Ombos; and, later, that of Phtah at Memphis and of Amon

at Thebes. Nomes which worshipped a goddess had no scruples whatever in

ascribing to her the part played by Atûmû, and in crediting her with the

spontaneous maternity of Shû and Tafnûît.

Illustration: 206.jpg [PLAN OF THE RUINS OP HERMOPOLIS MAGNA. 1]

1 Plan drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'

Egypte_, Ant., vol. iv. pl. 50.

Nît was the source and ruler of the Ennead of Saïs, Isis of that of

Bûto, and Hâthor of that of Denderah.[**] Few of the sacerdotal colleges

went beyond the substitution of their own feudal gods for Atûmû.

Provided that the god of each nome held the rank of supreme lord, the

rest mattered little, and the local theologians made no change in the

order of the other agents of creation, their vanity being unhurt even by

the lower offices assigned by the Heliopolitan tradition to such powers

as Osiris, Sibû, and Sit, who were known and worshipped throughout the

whole country.

** On the Ennead of Hâthor at Denderah, see Mariette,

Denderah, p. 80., et seq., of the text. The fact that Nît,

Isis, and, generally speaking, all the feudal goddesses,

were the chiefs of their local Enneads, is proved by the

epithets applied to them, which represent them as having

independent creative power by virtue of their own unaided

force and energy, like the god at the head of the

Heliopolitan Ennead.

The theologians of Hermopolis alone declined to borrow the new system

just as it stood, and in all its parts. Hermopolis had always been one

of the ruling cities of Middle Egypt. Standing alone in the midst of the

land lying between the Eastern and Western Mies, it had established upon

each of the two great arms of the river a port and a custom-house, where

all boats travelling either up or down stream paid toll on passing. Not

only the corn and natural products of the valley and of the Delta, but

also goods from distant parts of Africa brought to Siûfc by Soudanese

caravans, helped to fill the treasury of Hermopolis. Thot, the god of

the city, represented as ibis or baboon, was essentially a moon-god, who

measured time, counted the days, numbered the months, and recorded the

years. Lunar divinities, as we know, are everywhere supposed to exercise

the most varied powers: they command the mysterious forces of the

universe; they know the sounds, words, and gestures by which those

forces are put in motion, and not content with using them for their own

benefit, they also teach to their worshippers the art of employing them.

[Illustration: 208.jpg THE IBIS THOT. 1; and THE CYNOCEPHALOUS THOT. 2]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an enamelled pottery figure

from Coptos, now in my possession. Neck, feet, and tail are

in blue enamel, the rest is in green. The little personage

represented as squatting beneath the beak is Mâit, the

goddess of truth, and the ally of Thot. The ibis was

furnished with a ring for suspending it; this has been

broken off, but traces of it may still be seen at the back

of the head.

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a green enamelled pottery

figure in my possession (Saïte period).

Thot formed no exception to this rule. He was lord of the voice, master

of words and of books, possessor or inventor of those magic writings

which nothing in heaven, on earth, or in Hades can withstand.[***]

*** Cf. in the tale of Satni (Maspero, _Contes populaires

de l'Ancienne Egypte_, 2nd edit., p. 175) the description of

the book which Thot has himself written with his own hand,

and which makes its possessor the equal of the gods. "The

two formulas which are written therein, if thou recitest the

first thou shalt charm heaven, earth, Hades, the mountains,

the waters; thou shalt know the birds of the sky and the

reptiles, how many soever they be; thou shalt see the fish

of the deep, for a divine power will cause them to rise to

the surface of the water. If thou readest the second

formula, even although thou shouldest be in the tomb, thou

shalt again take the form which was thine upon earth; thou

shalt even see the sun rising in heaven, and his cycle of

gods, and the moon in the form wherein it appeareth."

He had discovered the incantations which evoke and control the gods; he

had transcribed the texts and noted the melodies of these incantations;

he recited them with that true intonation--_mâ khrôû_--which renders

them all-powerful, and every one, whether god or man, to whom he

imparted them, and whose voice he made true--_smâ khrôû_--became like

himself master of the universe. He had accomplished the creation not

by muscular effort to which the rest of the cosmogonical gods primarily

owed their birth, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone,

"the first time" when he awoke in the Nû. In fact, the articulate word

and the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces,

not remaining immaterial on issuing from the lips, but condensing, so

to speak, into tangible substances; into bodies which were themselves

animated by creative life and energy; into gods and goddesses who lived

or who created in their turn. By a very short phrase Tûmû had called

forth the gods who order all things; for his "Come unto me!" uttered

with a loud voice upon the day of creation, had evoked the sun from

within the lotus. Thot had opened his lips, and the voice which

proceeded from him had become an entity; sound had solidified into

matter, and by a simple emission of voice the four gods who preside over

the four houses of the world had come forth alive from his mouth without

bodily effort on his part, and without spoken evocation. Creation by the

voice is almost as great a refinement of thought as the substitution

of creation by the word for creation by muscular effort. In fact, sound

bears the same relation to words that the whistle of a quartermaster

bears to orders for the navigation of a ship transmitted by a speaking

trumpet; it simplifies speech, reducing it as it were to a pure

abstraction. At first it was believed that the creator had made the

world with a word, then that he had made it by sound; but the further

conception of his having made it by thought does not seem to have

occurred to the theologians. It was narrated at Hermopolis, and the

legend was ultimately universally accepted, even by the Heliopolitans,

that the separation of Nûît and Sibû had taken place at a certain spot

on the site of the city where Sibû had ascended the mound on which

the feudal temple was afterwards built, in order that he might better

sustain the goddess and uphold the sky at the proper height. The

conception of a Creative Council of five gods had so far prevailed at

Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity

the name of the "House of the Five;" its temple was called the "Abode of

the Five" down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince,

who was the hereditary high priest of Thot, reckoned as the first of his

official titles that of "Great One of the House of the Five."

The four couples who had helped Atûmû were identified with the four

auxiliary gods of Thot, and changed the council of Five into a Great

Hermopolitan Ennead, but at the cost of strange metamorphoses. However

artificially they had been grouped about Atûmû, they had all preserved

such distinctive characteristics as prevented their being confounded one

with another. When the universe which they had helped to build up

was finally seen to be the result of various operations demanding a

considerable manifestation of physical energy, each god was required to

preserve the individuality necessary for the production of such effects

as were expected of him. They could not have existed and carried on

their work without conforming to the ordinary conditions of humanity;

being born one of another, they were bound to have paired with living

goddesses as capable of bringing forth their children as they were of

begetting them. On the other hand, the four auxiliary gods of Hermopolis

exercised but one means of action--the voice. Having themselves come

forth from the master's mouth, it was by voice that they created and

perpetuated the world. Apparently they could have done without goddesses

had marriage not been imposed upon them by their identification with the

corresponding gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives

had but a show of life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods

worked after the manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his

form and reigned along with him as so many baboons. When associated with

the lord of Hermopolis, the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the

character and the appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they

were merged. They were often represented as eight baboons surrounding

the supreme baboon, or as four pairs of gods and goddesses without

either characteristic attributes or features; or, finally, as four pairs

of gods and goddesses, the gods being, as far as we are able to judge,

the couple Nû-Nûît answers to Shû-Tafnûît; Hahû-Hehît to Sibû and Nûîfc;

Kakû-Kakît to Osiris and Isis; Ninû-Ninît to Sit and Nephthys. There

was seldom any occasion to invoke them separately; they were addressed

collectively as the Eight--_Khmûnû_--and it was on their account that

Hermopolis was named _Khmûnû_, the City of the Eight. Ultimately they

were deprived of the little individual life still left to them, and were

fused into a single being to whom the texts refer as Khomninû, the god

Eight.

[Illustration: 212.jpg THE HERMOPOLITAN OGDOAD. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Béato. Cf.

Lepsius, Denkm., iv. pl. 66 c. In this illustration I have

combined! the two extremities of a great scene at Philæ, in

which the _Eight_, divided into two groups of four, frog-

headed men, and the goddesses serpent-headed women. Morning

and evening do they sing; and the mysterious hymns

wherewith they salute the rising and the setting sun ensure

the continuity of his course. Their names did not survive

their metamorphoses; each pair had no longer more than a

single name, the termination of each name varying according

as a god or a goddess was intended:--Nu and Nûît, Hehû and

Hehît, Kakû and Kakît, Ninû and Ninît, the god One and the

god Eight, the Monad and the Ogdoad. The latter had scarcely

more than a theoretical existence, and was generally

absorbed into the person of the former. Thus the theologians

of Hermopolis gradually disengaged the unity of their feudal

god from the multiplicity of the cosmogonie deities.

[Illustration: 213.jpg AMON. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette found at

Thebes, and now in my possession.

By degrees the Ennead of Thot was thus reduced to two terms: take part

in the adoration of the king. According to a custom common towards the

Græco-Roman period, the sculptor has made the feet of his gods like

jackals' heads; it is a way of realizing the well-known metaphor which

compares a rapid runner to the jackal roaming around Egypt.

As the sacerdotal colleges had adopted the Heliopolitan doctrine, so

they now generally adopted that of Hermopolis: Amon, for instance, being

made to preside indifferently over the eight baboons and over the four

independent couples of the primitive Ennead. In both cases the process

of adaptation was absolutely identical, and would have been attended by

no difficulty whatever, had the divinities to whom it was applied only

been without family; in that case, the one needful change for each city

would have been that of a single name in the Heliopolitan list, thus

leaving the number of the Ennead unaltered. But since these deities had

been turned into triads they could no longer be primarily regarded as

simple units, to be combined with the elements of some one or other of

the Enneads without preliminary arrangement. The two companions whom

each had chosen had to be adopted also, and the single Thot, or single

Atûmû, replaced by the three patrons of the nome, thus changing the

traditional nine into eleven. Happily, the constitution of the triad

lent itself to all these adaptations. We have seen that the father

and the son became one and the same personage, whenever it was thought

desirable. We also know that one of the two parents always so far

predominated as almost to efface the other. Sometimes it was the goddess

who disappeared behind her husband; sometimes it was the god whose

existence merely served to account for the offspring of the goddess, and

whose only title to his position consisted in the fact that he was her

husband. Two personages thus closely connected were not long in blending

into one, and were soon defined as being two faces, the masculine and

feminine aspects of a single being. On the one hand, the father was one

with the son, and on the other he was one with the mother. Hence the

mother was one with the son as with the father, and the three gods of

the triad were resolved into one god in three persons.

[Illustration: 215.jpg THE THEBAN ENNEAD]

1 This Ennead consists of fourteen members--Montû,

duplicating Atûmû; the four usual couples; then Horus, the

son of Isis and Osiris, together with his associate deities,

Hâthor, Tanu, and Anît.

Thanks to this subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was

nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the

three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted

to the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of

Amon-Maut-Khonsû, Shû, Tafnûît, Sibû, Nûît, Osiris, Isis, Sît, and

Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct as the

typical Ennead itself. In such Enneads Isis is duplicated by goddesses

of like nature, such as Hâthor, Selkît, Taninît, and yet remains but

one, while Osiris brings in his son Horus, who gathers about himself

all such gods as play the part of divine son in other triads. The

theologians had various methods of procedure for keeping the number of

persons in an Ennead at nine, no matter how many they might choose to

embrace in it. Supernumeraries were thrown in like the "shadows" at

Roman suppers, whom guests would bring without warning to their host,

and whose presence made not the slightest difference either in the

provision for the feast, or in the arrangements for those who had been

formally invited.

Thus remodelled at all points, the Ennead of Heliopolis was readily

adjustable to sacerdotal caprices, and even profited by the facilities

which, the triad afforded for its natural expansion. In time the

Heliopolitan version of the origin of Shû-Tafnûît must have appeared too

primitively barbarous. Allowing for the licence of the Egyptians during

Pharaonic times, the concept of the spontaneous emission whereby Atûrnû

had produced his twin children was characterized by a superfluity of

coarseness which it was at least unnecessary to employ, since by

placing the god in a triad, this double birth could be duly explained

in conformity with the ordinary laws of life. The solitary Atûrnû of the

more ancient dogma gave place to Atûrnû the husband and father. He had,

indeed, two wives, Iûsâsît and Nebthotpît, but their individualities

were so feebly marked that no one took the trouble to choose between

them; each passed as the mother of Shû and Tafnûîfc. This system of

combination, so puerile in its ingenuity, was fraught with the gravest

consequences to the history of Egyptian religions. Shu having been

transformed into the divine son of the Heliopolitan triad, could

henceforth be assimilated with the divine sons of all those triads which

took the place of Tûmû at the heads of provincial Enneads. Thus we find

that Horus the son of Isis at Bûto, Arihosnofir the son of Nit at Sais,

Khnûmû the son of Hâthor at Esneh, were each in turn identified with

Shû the son of Atûrnû, and lost their individualities in his. Sooner

or later this was bound to result in bringing all the triads closer

together, and in their absorption into one another. Through constant

reiteration of the statement that the divine sons of the triads were

identical with Shû, as being in the second rank of the Ennead, the idea

arose that this was also the case in triads unconnected with Enneads; in

other terms, that the third person in any family of gods was everywhere

and always Shû under a different name. It having been finally admitted

in the sacerdotal colleges that Tûmû and Shû, father and son, were one,

all the divine sons were, therefore, identical with Tûmû, the father

of Shû, and as each divine son was one with his parents, it inevitably

followed that these parents themselves were identical with Tûmû.

Reasoning in this way, the Egyptians naturally tended towards that

conception of the divine oneness to which the theory of the Hermopolitan

Ogdoad was already leading them. In fact, they reached it, and the

monuments show us that in comparatively early times the theologians were

busy uniting in a single person the prerogatives which their ancestors

had ascribed to many different beings. But this conception of deity

towards which their ideas were converging has nothing in common with the

conception of the God of our modern religions and philosophies. No god

of the Egyptians was ever spoken of simply as God. Tûmû was the "one

and only god"--_nûtir ûâû ûâîti_--at Heliopolis; Anhûri-Shû was also the

"one and only god" at Sebennytos and at Thinis. The unity of Atûmû did

not interfere with that of Anhûri-Shû, but each of these gods, although

the "sole" deity in his own domain, ceased to be so in the domain of the

other. The feudal spirit, always alert and jealous, prevented the higher

dogma which was dimly apprehended in the temples from triumphing over

local religions and extending over the whole land. Egypt had as many

"sole" deities as she had large cities, or even important temples; she

never accepted the idea of the sole God, "beside whom there is none

other."

[Illustration: 218.jpg TAILPIECE]

[Illustration: 219.jpg PAGE IMAGE]

[Illustration: 220.jpg PAGE IMAGE]