EGYPT
84
EGYPT
eonifications of moral and intellectual abstractions. The iiiconijrriious cliaracter of the religion necessitates this supposition, and the ease witli which it admitted extraneous additions in the historical period confirms it. There were, according to Herodotus, three orders of gods — the eight great gods, who were the most an- cient, the twelve lesser, and the Osirian group. They ■were represented in human forms, sometinies having the heads of animals sacred to them, or bearing on their heads cosmic or otlier objects of worship. The fetichism included, besides the worship of animals, that of trees, rivers, and hills. Each of these creatures or objects was appropriated to a divinity. There was no prominent hero-worship, although deceased kings and other individuals often received divine honors — in one case, that of Osirtasen II, of the 12th dynasty, the old Sesostris, of a very special character. The great doc- trines of the immortalit}' of the soul, man's respon- sibility, and future rewards and punishments, were taught. Among the rites, circumcision is the most re- markable : it is as old as the time of the 4th dynasty. Wilkinson gives us the following classification of the Egyptian deities (^Materia Hierogbiphica, p. .58, modified by himself in Rawlinson's Herod, ii, 241 sq.) : I. FiKST Ordek.
1. Amen, or Amun-ra, "the king of all the gods."
2. Maut, or Mut (Sanchon. 7)toO, the material principle,
sometimes as Buto (:=Latona).
3. Xoum, Nu, Nef, or Kiiepli=Mercury. 4 S'ite=Juno.
5. Ptliah, or Ptah, the creative power [a function assigned by
others to Kuepli]:^ Vulcan. C. Neith, self-born and of masculine character^^Minerva.
7. Khera, the generative principle (phallus).
8. Pasht=Diana.
II. Second Order.
1. Re, Ra, or Phrah, the Sun, father of many deities, often
combined with those of the others.
2. Seb, the Earth^Saturn, father of the inferior gods.
3. Netpc, wife of Seb, the Sky, mother of gods^Rhea.
4. Khoiis, son of Amun and Maut, the Moon=;Hercule3.
5. Anouke [Fire]=zVesta.
6. Almu [?or Mat], Darkness, or Twilight.
7. Miti, or Shu, son of Re, Light [= Phoebus].
8. Tai)hne (Daphne), or Tafnet, a lion-headed goddess.
9. Thoth, the Intellect^Hermea and the Moon.
10. Sanak-re, or Sebak.
11. Eilithyia:=Lucina.
12. Mandu, or Munt=Mars.
III. Third Order.
2 Isis '^' ( ^'^^ ^^^ daughter of Seb and Netp6.
3. Aroeris, the elder llorus, son of XetpS.
4. Seth, or Typhon, the destructive principle [Death].
5. Ncptliys (Nebtei), "lady of the house"=Vesta. C. Horns the younger, god of Victory=Apollo.
7. Harpocrates, son of Osiris and Isia, emblem of Youth.
8. Anubis, son of Osiris.
IV. Miscellaneous.
1. Thmei, or Ma {Oe/JM:), goddess of Truth and Justice, head-
less.
2. Athor (eit-Hor)=Veaus, another daughter of Ra.
3. Nophr-Atmu, perhaps a variation of Atmu above.
4. Ilor-llat, a winged globe, as ujaOodaifiaiv.
5. llakte (Hecate), a lion-headed goddess.
6. Selk, a scorpion-headed goddess.
7. Tori', a god connected with Ptah.
8. Amunta, perhaps a female Amim.
9. The, "the heavens."
lu. Hapi, or the god of the Nile.
11. Ranno, an asp-headed goddess, as Uyaffodaifiuiv.
12. Hermes Trisniugistus, a form of Thoth.
13. Asclcpius, Motli, or Imopli, " son of Ptah."
14. Soph, the goddess of Speech.
Together with about 50 more, some of them local divini- ties, and personifications of cities, besides deified ani- mals, etc.
Num, Nu, or Knepk, was one of the most important of the gods, corresponding to the "soul" of the uni- verse, to whom was ascribed the creation of gods, men, and the natural world. He is represented as a man with tlic liead of a ram and curved horns. The chief god of Thebes was Amen, or Amen-Ra, or Amen-Ra Kh<!m, also worshipped in the great oasis, and- some- times i)()rtrayed under the forjn of Kneph. He was the Jupiter Amnion of the classics. The goddess Mut, or "the mother," is the companion of Amen, and is
represented as a female wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the vulture head-dress of a queen. Khem was the god by whom the productive- ness of nature was symbolized. His name reminds us of the patriarch Ham. The Greeks identified him with Pan, and called Chemmis, a city in the Thebais, where he was worshipped, Panopolis. He is accom- panied by a tree or a flower on the scul])tures, which maj' have been, as supposed by IMr. Poole, the aahej-ah or sacred grove spoken of in the Bible. Ptah was the god of Memphis, and worshipped there under the form of a pigmy or cliild ; but, as his temples have been de- stroyed, little is known of his worship. The goddess Neit or Neith is often associated with Ptah. Slie was the patron deit}^ of Sais, in the Delta ; and the Greeks saj- that Cecrops, leading a colony from thence to Ath- ens, introduced her worship into Greece, where she was called Athene. This name may be derived from the Egj'ptian, if we suppose the latter to have been sometimes called Thenei, with the article prefixed like the name of Thebes. She is represented as a female with the crown of Lower Egj'pt on her head. Ra, or the sun, was worshipjjed at Heliopolis. His common figure is that of a man with a hawk's head, on which is placed the solar disk and the roj^al asp. Thoth was the god of science and letters, and was worshipped at Hermopolis Magna. His usual form is that of a man with the head of an ibis surmounted bj' a crescent. Bast was called Bubastis by the Greeks, who identified her with Artemis. She is represented as a lion or cat- headed female, with the globe of the sun on her head. There is a similar goddess called Pa.sht. Athoi- was the daughter of Ra, and corresponded to the Aphrodite of the Greeks ; the town of Tentyra or Denderah was under her jjrotection. Shu represented solar or Jihys- ical light, and Ma-t or Thma (Themis) moral light, truth, or justice. Sebak was a son of Ka. He lias a crocodile's head. Osiris is the most remarkal)le per- sonage in the Egj'ptian Pantheon. His form is that of a mummied figure holding the crook and flail, and wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, generally with an ostrich featlier on each side. He was regarded as the personification of moral good. He is related to have been on earth instructing mankind in useful arts ; to have been slain by his adversary Typlion (Set or Seth), b}^ whom he was cut in pieces ; to have been bewailed by his wife and sister Isis ; to liave been em- balmed ; to have risen again, and to have become the judge of the dead, among whom the righteous were called by his name, and received his form — a wonder- ful fore-feeling of the Gospel narrative, and most lilce- ly symbolizing the strife between good and evil. Isis was the sister and spouse of Osiris, worshipped at -Vby- dus and the island of Phils. JIvrus was their son. Apep, Apophis of the Greeks, an enormous serpent, was the onlj' representative of moral evil. The wor- ship of animals is said to have been introduced bj' the second king of the second dynasty, when the bull Apis, at Memphis, and Mnevis, at Heliopolis, and the INIen- desian goat, were called gods. The cat was sacred to Pasht, the ibis to Thoth, the crocodile to Sebak, the scaraba;us to Ptah and a solar god Atum. In their worship of the gods, sacrifices of animals, fruit, and vegetables were used, as well as libations of wine and incense. No decided instance of a human sacrifice has been found. After death a man was brought be- fore Osiris : his heart weighed against the feather of trutli. Ho was questioned by fortv-two assessors as to whetlicr lie had committed forty-two sins about which tliey inquired. If guiltless, he took the form of Osiris, apparently after long series of transformations and many ordeals, and entered into bliss, dwelling among the gods in perpetual day on the banks of the celestial Nile. If guilty he was often changed into the fonn of some base animal, and consigned to a liery place of punishment and perpetual night. From this abstract it may be seen that the Egyptian religion is to be re»