ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ΕΝ ἔσμεν. Here we observe scribe sudden defection, but gradual that the sentence of the Evangelist and departure from a known standard of faith the sentence of the hierophant are pre- in God, from purity in worship, and from cisely parallel, the same grammatical the moral restraints of religion. Patient form being chosen by both to express research will certainly lead to demonstrathe same mystery of the unity of God.tive evidence that when the hieroglyphic The commentary in the Aufank papyrus, pictures and hieratic writing were cut as quoted by Lepsius, adds, "as primary into the marbles which now yield so rich water," rendered by the learned German, treasure to the Egyptologues, the Egyp"Ich eines bin, als urgewägser." Then tians had not sunk so low as they were the Egyptian explainer of the name Tum in the days of the Apostles, but were less says that it means, "He that is locked unlike the theists to whom he pointedly up (out of sight), he that is hidden," was refers in the former lines of his descriponly one. It was the indestructible tion. We have not now space to pursue germ of unity which lay in the primal this line of inquiry, and must therefore water, that abyss, the great deep, whence be content with producing a single indiall things rose. This, however, repre- cation out of many which continually sents the esoteric teaching of the priests, occur in course of reading, that the not the vulgar notion of "the gods of progress of departure from a primitive Egypt," the polytheistic perception of form of truth might be traced by noting the matter alone familiar to Pharaoh and the succession of innovations, the sucto his servants, and communicated to the cessive invention of new fables, or adpeople by the magicians in their conflict mission of new tenets, as time advanced. with Moses and Aaron. The relation of Osiris to the dead and to Having learned, not only from Greek the lower world, with the assumption of historians, but from actual monuments his name for the deceased, has been just of the old Egyptians themselves, that now noted, and this constitutes the printhey acknowledged one God, the Father cipal feature in the doctrine of the dead, of all, Creator of the world, and believed as this branch of Egyptian mythology themselves immortal, and that they and may be called. But it is remarkable," their successors, although retaining these says Dr. Birch in one of his contribuarticles of primeval revelation, fell deeper tions to the Zeitschrift für ägyptische and deeper into practical polytheism with Sprache,*"that although the existence its inseparable folly and depravity, we of the Osiris myth can be traced as early must not fail to observe how these facts as the fourth dynasty, as shown in the confirm an explicit statement of St. Paul, tombs of the period, from the constant who wrote not less than 2,500 years after adoration paid to Anup, or Anubis, an Mentuhotep. The Apostle describes inferior personage in the same myth, yet the gradual departure of the Gentile no individual, however high in rank, reworld from an original knowledge of es- ceives that designation till the fifteenth sential truth, and the moral degradation dynasty. This shows a distance of about consequent. Originally, he tells us, they 400 or 420 years between the first apheld the truth, but did not retain God in pearance of an essential feature of this their knowledge. God had shown unto religion to an important practical applicathem that which might be known of Him. tion of it, and on the collation of but a The invisible things of Him were clearly few more examples of the kind might be seen from the creation of the world. His conducted a very useful retrospective eternal power and Godhead were clearly chart, with probable estimate of the state understood. They knew God; but, when of doctrine at the time of the earliest they knew Him, they glorified Him not records known." We can conceive that as God. They became vain in their im- the result of such a review in Egypt aginations. Their foolish heart was would be very satisfactory, but when we darkened. They changed the glory of read the vain imaginings of those who the incorruptible God into an image wrote with advancing license in the Book made like to corruptible man. They of the Dead, speaking of objects visible, professed themselves to be wise, but be- but so unable to understand what they came fools. They changed the truth of saw that they invested every object with God into a lie, and worshipped and served the garb of wildest fable, and so ignorant the creature more than the Creator. of humanity and of themselves that they could only boast how just they were, anl * The language of St. Paul does not de Rom. i. 19-25. Z. f. ä. Sprache, April, 1869. how well-pleasing to the gods; how they such gods and demons as we read of on fancied themselves to be divine, no less the marbles and the papyri, with making than members of the Supreme, Omnipo- a gratuitous concession that there are tent, All-present, and Eternal One, one gods. Iamblicus resents the concession.. with Tum, the root of all existences, and He objects that there is contempt imfountain of all the vitality and power in plied in the very thought of making such the universe; one with Rá, the glorious a concession of what is above doubt. radiance of the Godhead, one with Osiris, "It is not right," he says, "to speak thus, eternal too, we acknowledge that, pro- for there exists in our very being the imfessing themselves to be wise, they be planted knowledge of gods, Tepi tɛin came fools, and perceive how inevitably upuтos yvwots, which, better than all judgthey fell into the creature-worship that was ment and choice preceding, anticipates prevalent in Egypt at the time when they reasoning and demonstration. It does had the Hebrews in captivity. Neither can not become us to speak of conceding the we be surprised at the ridiculous forms existence of gods and demons, as if such of creature-worship described by a Ro-existence were doubtful, and as if the man satirist in verses so often quoted concession might therefore be withheld, that it would be superfluous to quote for in this being we are contained, or them now. rather we ourselves are filled with it, and After Juvenal, in the first century of whatever we are we owe to our knowlour era, came Porphyry in the third.edge of the gods."* Here we must reJuvenal had derided the Egyptians for member the doctrine held by some Egyp worshipping leeks and other matters, or tians, at least, that Tum was the fountain paying them extravagant reverence of all being, the parent of all gods, who equivalent with worship; but there is were no more than emanations from him, some reason to apprehend that the Ro- and that the good demons, or souls of mans represented them to be more justified men, returned into the same besotted than they really were, even in fountain of all spiritual existence; and at those latter times, and we do not think this point the degeneration of monothethat in the age of Moses there was yet ism into pantheism was complete. Of any certain trace of Nigritian fetishism. this one God, however, Iamblicus does Porphyry attacked their superstitions not cease to speak, either plainly or by with argument, indeed, but with his own implication, and says that the Egyptians unfeeling cynicism. He wrote a letter" affirm that all things which exist were to Anebo, an Egyptian slave, containing created, that He who gave them being is hard questions about the religion of their first Father and Creator, pоπúтoрú Egypt, which poor Anebo had not skill τε τῶν ἐν γενέσει δημιούργον προτάττουσι, and to answer, but Iamblicus, his master, acknowledge the existence of a vital powtook up the correspondence, and wrote a er before heaven was. They say that letter to Porphyry which is still extant. Mercury, the Egyptian Thoth, taught, Iamblicus was a philosopher of Chalcis, and that Bitys the prophet found it writsuperstitious enough, but profoundly ten in hieroglyphics, that the way to versed in the subject on which he under-heaven was the name of God which pentook to treat; and if the two men may be estimated by their writings, Iamblicus the philosopher was very far superior to Porphyry the sceptic. On examining this work of their apologist, it is to ourselves apparent that in spite of the pitiful trifling of priests and magicians, there yet remained among them a tradition of the truth. Even more than this if Iamblicus did not overstate their case, there does appear a probability that the establishment of Jews in Egypt from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the subsequent establishment of Christianity, had served to revive the better element in the religion of the country, and create a better understanding of that truth. Porphyry had begun his letter to Anebo concerning gods and good demons, etrates through all the world. Divine good they consider to be God, and human good to be union with Him, or, if we translate more exactly, identification with Him - τὸ δὲ ἀνθρώπινον τὴν πρὸς ἀυτὸν ἕνωσιν, δ all-penetrating name of this God answers The attribution of so great efficacy to the to the fact so conspicuous in the document now under review, that the name itself had power to frank its bearer into the lower world, together with gods and justified persons; and the henosis or unification of the good man with the one God, affirmed by Iamblicus, repeats what we read in the Book of the Dead. Iamblicus, de Mysteriis, sec. i. cap. + The name of "a god," or of "the god," especial gift of Tum. The book opens that is Osiris, annihilates or does away with with an address of Thoth himself, folthe accusers in the future state. Hence, no lowed by addresses of the soul, immedoubt, the mystery of prefixing it to the names diately after the separation from the and titles of the deceased, called Osiris. The body, to the infernal gods. The defunct deceased was protected by the mystery of the name from the ills which afflicted the dead. enumerates his titles to the favour of Osiris, and demands admission into his The goddess (Nut), painted and invoked on the coffin, was an additional security to her empire. The choir of glorified souls inadopted son, the deceased King Mencheres.* tervenes, supporting the prayer. The priest on earth speaks in his turn and implores divine clemency. Then Osiris encourages the defunct to speak to his father and enter freely into Amenti, the Hades of Egypt. Many chapters of less importance follow, relating to the first funeral ceremonies. At last the deceased is admitted into Amenti, and is amazed at the glory of the sun-god whom he sees for the first time there. He chants a hymn of praise, with many invocations. A chapter Of Escaping out of the Folds of the Great Serpent tells how he has defied Apophis, the evil one, and escapes from him. Passing through the gate of the west, as the sun Osiris, he has opened all his paths in heaven and earth, he has come from the mummy. The gods and goddesses give way before him. After this view of the chief points which are suggested by the works before us, it is time to glance over the Book of the Dead, as we have it in the lucid translation of Dr. Birch, who puts the cramped and mysterious Egyptian into plain English. The authorship of this book, as it is conventionally called, is attributed to Thoth, generally identified with the Hermes of the Greeks. The several fragments, or as much of existing parcels as were then adopted for use, are believed to have been collected into one mass some time in the twenty-sixth dynasty, from B.C. 664 to B.C. 525, or thereabout, and are usually called Hermetic. In all that relates to the state of the departed, as written by a god, the chapters were held to be inspired; they were the rule of faith, and with the rubrics pre- Thus pass the first and second sections fixed to them they became the directory of the book. The third section contains for practice. But the earliest appear- fanciful speculations on The Recoustrucance of rituals was in the eleventh dy- tiou of the Deceased. A mouth is to be nasty. It was then that extracts of these given him in Amenti, and opened by the sacred books were inscribed on the in-faculty of speech. Charms are given ner sides of the sarcophagi, more partic-[him for the production of ideas, and anularly portions of the seventeenth and other charm for giving him a name. A other chapters, besides others that are heart will be made for him, and the pernot preserved in the papyrus above- son so reconstructed will rejoice in the quoted, and which probably had become amplitude of his powers. Thus rejoiobsolete at the later period when that cing, he exclaims (chap. 26): "My heart papyrus was written. is given to me in the place of hearts, my The soul, this book taught, dies first heart in the place of hearts. I have rewhen born into this world, and is impris-ceived my heart, it is at peace within me. oned in human form, which becomes to For I have not eaten food where Osiris it a living death. But notwithstanding is in the filthy east. Going and returnthis view of humanity, originally true ing I have not gone (with indecision). enough, they paid even an excessive hon- I know what I have eaten, going and our to the human person, and at least five principles were held necessary to complete a man, namely: - Ba, the soul, represented in hieroglyphic by the figure of a hawk with human head and arms, Akh or Khu, intelligence; Ka, existence, or breath of life; Khaba, or shade; Kha, or body; and lastly, the Sah, or mummy. The soul is not described as created, but the Ka, existence, or breath of life, is the Dr. Birch, in the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und älterthumskunde, April, 1869, p. 51. stopping (decidedly). My mouth has been given for me to speak, my legs to walk, my arms to overthrow my adversaries. I open the doors of heaven. I have passed Seb, the lord of the gods. I fly. He has opened my eyes wide. Anup (the god who weighs the souls in judgment) has fashioned my heel. I attach myself to him. I rise as Pasht the (catheaded) goddess. I have opened heaven. I have done what is ordered in Ptah Ka. heart. I prevail by my arm. I prevail I know by my heart. I prevail by my says: by my feet. I do what my soul wishes. | enter into the kingdom of God, nor that My soul is not separated by my body from corruption cannot inherit incorruption, the gates of the west." the Egyptian mystagogue tells of metaGreat was the virtue of the 64th chap-morphoses of the vile into the glorious, ter, and it is very long. The rubric changing men into gods, and clothing "If this chapter is known, he the mortals departed in the forms of has been justified upon earth. In Amenti heavenly beings; the hawk of gold, the he does all that the living do. It is the aged chief, the lily, the phoenix, the nyccomposition of a great god. This chap- ticorax, the swallow, the serpent of parater was found at Sesennu (Hermopolis), dise, the forms of many gods, and the on a brick of burnt clay, painted with soul of the earth. Then comes a chapter real lapis lazuli, under the feet of the (89) of the visit of the soul to the body in great god. It was found in the days of Karneker, while yet the time for final King Ramenkar, the justified."* glorification is not come. If this chapter Sixteen chapters relate to the preser- be known to the person deceased, his vation of the body in the sepulchre. body is not injured; his soul does not Enchantments and amulets are supposed enter into his body again for millions of to guard it from violation by the hands years. If this chapter is known, his body of the profane, who would seek to steal is not decayed, his soul is not thrust into away the consecrated heart, or to take his body forever. He sees his body, he away the mind, and to prevent the hun- is at peace with his mummy, he is not gry crocodile from devouring the flesh, troubled, his body will not be strangled protect it from the gnawing worm, the forever. snake, the tortoise, the malignant fiends, and the noisome vermin that swarm in the region of Karneker (the grave). Nine chapters are provided for recitation by the living, to save the departed from a second death, the first death being this present life, from the defilement of evil, destruction in hell, and an eternal overthrow. Twelve chapters concern the celestial diet, in which there shall be nothing loathsome, impure, or poisonous. Fifteen chapters are employed in describing the metamorphoses, or transmigrations. In all this the Egyptian speaks as one who, more than all others, cares for the honour and preservation of his body. Every part of it is sacred, and is under the protection of its own peculiar god. "There is not a limb of him without a god." This elaborate ritual at once confesses and distorts the truth inculcated by inspired writers of Holy Scripture, one of whom says, remonstrating with licentious Gentiles, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, for ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are His."* Other twelve chapters are supposed to describe "the manifestation to light" of the reconstructed human body, invested with undying powers, and surrounded with manifold defences against mortality. The departed one is assured that he shall come forth as the day, prevail against all enemies, break through the barriers of Twenty-six chapters relate to The Prosepulchral night, and that as the god, tection of the Soul. The first is a chapafter entering the gate of the west at ter (91) Of not Allowing a Person's Soul sunset, emerges in the east with return- to be Sniffed out in Karneker. By viring day, and mounts up into the meridian tue of another chapter the person "goes glory, so shall body and soul, the material out as the day. His soul is not detained and the divine again united, quit the in Karneker." earth, and ascend towards Aahenru, or Heaven. Still unequal to the conception of so sublime a mystery as the resurrection of the body, though longing after it, and not knowing that flesh and blood cannot *This rubric was afterwards rendered differently by the same translator. "Let this chapter be known. He is justified from earth to Hades. He makes all the transformations of life. His food is that of a great god. This chapter was found at Hermopolis on a Brick of polished brass, written in blue under the feet of that god in the days of the King Mencheres the justified." - Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache, June, 1867, p. 55, The phraseology-so near as difference of language may permit is used which we find employed with reference to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Thou wilt not abandon My soul to Sheól, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption," the Sheol of the Hebrew being equivalent with the Amenti of the Egyptian. The tomb, or grave, is the Egyptian Karneker, answering to the Hebrew corruption. 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. ↑ Ps. xvi. 10. men. I have not told falsehood in the Tribu I nal of Truth. I have had no acquaintance have not made the labouring man do more with evil. I have not done any wicked thing. than his task daily. I have not let my name approach to the boat, nor endeavoured to make my name approach to the... nor exceeded what is ordered. . . . I have not been idle. I have not failed. I have not ceased. I have not been weak. I have not done what is hateful to the gods. I have not calumniated the slave to his master. I have not sacrificed. There is a chapter (100) For Giving | faults. I have not privily done evil against Peace to the Soul, to be pronounced as a mankind. I have not afflicted persons or charm over the body of the deceased, written on a scrap of linen, placed on his knee, or on his flesh, and not to be approached. Some words of it are remarkable: "I am made the second after Isis, the third after Nepthys, I have grown strong by their prayers, I have twined the cord, I have stopped the Apophis (the evil serpent), I have turned back his feet." A serpent with many feet feet growing by pairs out of the annular ribs of his skeleton is a prominent figure on some I have not made to weep. I have not murdered. I have not given orders to smite a of the old mummy-chests, that of Rameses II., for example, in the Sloane Muse-person privily. I have not committed fraud to men. I have not changed the measures of um; while other serpents have none, but the country. I have not injured the images go on their bellies. This is a fact worth of the gods. I have not taken scraps of the noting, as it may possibly indicate the bandages of the dead. I have not committed remembrance, or the tradition, of such a adultery. I have not spat against the priest serpent, and if that be substantiated, it of the god of my country. I have not thrown will throw light on Gen. iii. 14: "Upon down. I have not falsified measures. I have thy belly shalt thou go." not thrown the weight out of the scale. have not cheated in the weight of the balance. sucklings. I have not hunted wild animals in their pasturages. Eight chapters describe the freedom attained by the justified, soul and body being reunited, to go along the roads of Rusta, or plains of Amenti, and of coming out thence, or returning thither. But the section of the Hall of the Two Truths, or Scales of Justice, is of the highest interest. Until the reader comes to this part of the book, he may reasonably suppose that the Egyptian relied on nothing for happiness beyond the grave except charms or protestations of his own. Here he finds mention of a judgment after death. This being known to the Egyptians when the chapters of this Book of the Dead were written, could not have been unknown to Moses during his early education in Egypt, which continued until he was forty years of age. The 125th chapter relates to Going to the Hall of the Two Truths, and separating a Person from his Sins when he has been made to see the Faces of the Gods. The person to be judged and weighed in the balance by Anup, or Anubis, judge of the dead, appeals to the supreme judge and his assessors. Oh ye lords of truth! oh thou great god, lord of truth! I have come to thee, my lord, I have brought myself to see thy blessings. I have known thee. I have known thy name. I have known the names of the forty-two gods, who are with thee in the Hall of the Two Truths, living by catching the wicked, fed off their blood in the day of reckoning words before the Good Being, the justified. Placer of Spirits, Lord of the Truth is thy name. Oh ye lords of the truth, let me know ye. I have brought ye truth. Rub ye away iny I I have not withheld milk from the mouths of I have not netted sacred birds. I have not caught the fish which typify them. I have not stopped running water. I have not put out a light at its proper hour. I have not robbed the gods of their proper haunches. I have not stopped a god from his manifestation. I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! Pure is tis). Because I am the nostril of the lord of that Phoenix which is in Suten Khen (Bubasthe winds, giving life to the good. The day of veiling the eye in Annu (Heliopolis, or On) before the Lord of heaven and earth on the 30th Epiphi. I have seen the filling of the eye in Annu. Let no evil be done to me in the land of truths, because I know the names of the gods who are with thee in the Hall of Truth. Save me from them!* The person who thus presents himself at the seat of judgment next invokes by name the forty-two gods' assessors, protesting that he is innocent of the offences above enumerated, and pleads expressly "I have no sins, no perversion. let me pass the roads of darkness. Let me follow thy servants in the gate, let me come out of Rusta from the Hall of Truth. Let me pass the lintel of the gate." This day of veiling and unveiling the eye in Heliopolis must refer to the participation of the deceased in the mysteries of Osiris which were represented there and at Bubastis. So says Herodotus (ii. 171): “On this lake around Bubasti it is that the Egyptians repre sent his sufferings whose name (Osiris) I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their mysteries. I know well the whole course of the proceedings in their ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips." |