Alongside of the myth of the great cackler which in the form of a goose lays the sun-ege, runs another, according to which the sun- and also the moon-egg are fashioned by a deity upon the potter’s wheel, a process in which it ig especially the by- form of the god of Memphis, Ptah-Tatunen (relief at Phils, in Rosellini’s Mon. del culto, pl. 21), that we find engaged. To Ptah is attributed also the creation of the whole world, in which réle he is called ‘the great artificer,’ so that in this instance we have to think not of a crude tearing apart of the primeval mass, but of an artificial construction of the universe. In this work the god had a number of coadjutors, the so-called Chnumu or ‘formers.’ These are little, dwarf-like, deformed, thick-headed forms, which, eight in number, were regarded as sons of Ptah, or, at a later period, also of Ra. Images of them were frequently put in a grave along with the corpse. As they had once co-operated in the forming of the world, they would now in the world beyond devote themselves to the reconstruction of the deceased, and help him to attain to a new and everlasting life.
(c) But the creation of the world was a subject of far less interest to the Egyptians than the origin of the living beings and the objects it contains, gods and men, animals and plants. But in the myths connected with this subject we meet again with that want of systematizing which shows it- self everywhere in the Egyptian world of ideas. We have statements as to the origin of particular beings and objects, but there is no finished story of creation such as we find, for instance, at the be- ginning of the Bk. of Genesis. It is this inability to combine individual notions into a whole that explains also how it was possible for the numerous particular statements to maintain their existence side by side in spite of their contradictions. Since it was not required to unite them into a harmonious system, there was no need to separate duplicate legends, or to exclude or harmonize irreconcilable elements.
For the most part, one was content to celebrate in general terms the praises of this or that god as creator. Thus, ¢c. 1500 B.c., it is said of Osiris (stele in Paris, Bibl. Nat., published by Ledrain in Mon. égypt. de la Bibl. Nat. pli. 21-26; cf. Chabas, Rev. arch. X1v. i. 65ff., 193 ff.) : ‘He formed with his hand the earth, its water, its air, its plants, all its cattle, all its birds, all its winged fowl, all its reptiles, all its four-footed creatures,’ Again, we read of the ram-headed god Chnum: ‘He created all that is, he formed all that exists, he is the father of fathers, the mother of mothers,’ ‘he fashioned men, he made the gods, he was father from the beginning,’ ‘he is the creator of the heaven, the earth, the under world, the water, the mountains,’ ‘he formed a male and a female of all birds, fishes, wild beasts, cattle, and of all worms.’ In another passage the god of Thebes, Amon-Ra, is celebrated as ‘the father of the gods, the fashioner of men, the creator of cattle, the lord of all being, the creator of the fruit trees, the former of the grass, the giver of life to the cattle.’
Similar functions are attributed also to other members of the Pantheon, and it even happens not infrequently that in the same tomb or temple different deities are hailed as creator in almost identical terms, without any sense of contradic- tion. It is seldom, however, that one gets beyond general language ; and above all it is impossible to establish a fixed order in the succession of creative acts. Sometimes it is gods that first come into being, at other times men, or again animals or plants, etc. ; at
(d) The choice of methods of creation, again, is left to the different deities—nay, one and the same god adopts one method according to one
180 RELIGION OF EGYPT
author, and another according to another.
(a) Relatively most frequent is the conception of crea- tion, after the analogy of earthly conditions, as a
series of births. A god and a goddess are placed at the beginning of the development ; these unite and have children born to them, who in their turn are gods. But gradually their posterity degener- ates, becoming demi-gods and at last men. To avoid the difficulty of having to postulate the pre- existence of two deities, a myth, which recurs from the Pyramid era down to that of the Ptolemies, makes only one god pre-exist, namely Tum, who by means of Onani formed the first divine pair, Shu and Tefnut (Pyramid Pepi I., 1. 465 f. =Mer-en-Ra, 1. 528f.; Papyr. Brit. Mus. 10188, ed. Budge, * On the Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu’ in Archwologia, lii., 1891; cf. Pleyte, Rec. de trav. rel. a VEgypt. iii. p. 57ff. ; Budge, PSBA ix. p. 11 ff. ; Brugsch, Religion der alten Aegypter, 470F. ; and, for the creation myth, Wiedemann, Urquell, ii. p. 57 ff., where a collection will be found also of further ancient statements bearing upon the same circle of conceptions). ‘Then were born to Shu and Tefnut the god Seb and the goddess Nut, who were the parents of Osiris and the gods of his group, whose children multiplied upon this earth. This gene- alogy shows that the Onanistic creation was placed before the heavens and earth were formed, the representatives of these first making their appear- ance as grandchildren of the pre-existing god.