Gradual Deterioration of Primeval Faith. 19 The language of St. Paul does not describe sudden defection, but gradual departure from a known standard of faith in God, from purity in worship, and from the moral restraints of religion. Patient research will certainly lead to demonstrative evidence that when the hieroglyphic pictures and hieratic writing were cut into the marbles which now yield so rich treasure to the Egyptologues, the Egyptians had not sunk so low as they were in the days of the Apostles, but were less unlike the theists to whom he pointedly refers in the former lines of his description. We have not now space to pursue this line of inquiry, and must therefore be content with producing a single indication out of many which continually occur in course of reading, that the progress of departure from a primitive norm of truth might be traced by noting the succession of innovations, the successive invention of new fables, or admission of new tenets, as time advanced. The relation of Osiris to the dead and to the lower world, with the assumption of his name for the deceased, has been just now noted, and this constitutes the principal feature in the Doctrine of the Dead, as this branch of Egyptian mythology may be called. But, "it is remarkable," says Dr. Birch in one of his contributions to the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache,* "that although the existence of the Osiris myth can be traced as early as the fourth dynasty, as shown in the tombs of the period, from the constant adoration paid to Anup, or Anubis, an inferior personage in the same myth, yet no individual, however high in rank, receives that designation till the fifteenth dynasty. This shows a distance of about 400 or 420 years between the first appearance of an essential feature of this religion to an important practical application of it, and on the collation of but a few more examples of the kind might be conducted a very useful retrospective chart, with probable estimate of the state of doctrine at the time of the earliest records known." can conceive that the result of such a review in Egypt would be very satisfactory, but when we read the vain. imaginings of those who wrote with advancing license in the Book of the Dead, speaking of objects visible, but so unable to understand what they saw that they invested every object with the garb of wildest fable, and so ignorant of humanity and of themselves that they could only boast how Z. f. ä. Sprache, April, 1869. We just they were, and how well-pleasing to the gods; how they fancied themselves to be divine, no less than members of the Supreme, Omnipotent, All-present, and Eternal One, one with Tum, the root of all existences, and fountain of all the vitality and power in the universe; one with Rá, the glorious radiance of the Godhead, one with Osiris, eternal too, we acknowledge that, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and perceive how inevitably they fell into the creature-worship that was prevalent in Egypt at the time when they had the Hebrews in captivity. Neither can we be surprised at the ridiculous forms of creature-worship described by a Roman satirist in verses so often quoted that it would be superfluous to quote them now. After Juvenal, in the first century of our era, came Porphyry in the third. Juvenal had derided the Egyptians for worshipping leeks and other matters, or paying them extravagant reverence equivalent with worship; but there is some reason to apprehend that the Romans represented them to be more besotted than they really were, even in those latter times, and we do not think that in the age of Moses there was yet any certain trace of Nigritian fetishism. Porphyry attacked their superstitions with argument, indeed, but with his own unfeeling cynicism. He wrote a letter to Anebo, an Egyptian slave, containing hard questions about the religion of Egypt, which poor Anebo had not skill to answer, but Iamblicus, his master, took up the correspondence, and wrote a letter to Porphyry which is still extant. Iamblicus was a philosopher of Chalcis, superstitious enough, but profoundly versed in the subject on which he undertook 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 lamblicus 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, such gods and demons as we read of on the marbles and the papyri, with making a gratuitous concession that there are gods. Iamblicus resents the concession. He objects that there is contempt implied in the very thought of making such a concession of what is above doubt. "It is not right," he says, "to speak thus, for there exists in our very being the implanted knowledge of gods, ἡ περὶ θεῶν ἔμφυτος γνώσις, which, better than all judgment and choice preceding, anticipates reasoning and demonstration. It does not become us to speak of conceding the existence of gods and demons, as if such existence were doubtful, and as if the concession might therefore be withheld, for in this Being we are contained, or rather we ourselves are filled with it, and whatever we are we owe to our knowledge of the gods."* Here we must remember the doctrine held by some Egyptians, at least, that Tum was the fountain of all being, the parent of all gods, who were no more than emanations from him, and held that the good demons, or souls of justified men, returned into the same fountain of all spiritual existence; and at this point the degeneration of monotheism into pantheism was complete. Of this one God, however, Iamblicus does not cease to speak, either plainly or by implication, and says that the Egyptians "affirm that all things which exist were created, that He who gave them being is their first Father and Creator, προπάτορά τε τῶν ἐν γενέσει δημιούργον προτάττουσι, and acknowledge the existence of a vital power before heaven was. They say that Mercury, the Egyptian Thoth, taught, and that Bitys the prophet found it written in hieroglyphics, that the way to heaven was the name of God which penetrates 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-Tò dè ἀνθρώπινον τὴν πρὸς ἀυτὸν ἔνωσιν. The attribution of so great efficacy to the all-penetrating name of this god answers 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 henósis or unification of the good man with the one god, affirmed by Iamblicus, repeats what we read in the Book of the Dead. "The name of a god,' or of the god,' that is Osiris, annihilates + Ibid. viii. 4. Iamblicus, de Mysteriis, sec. i. cap. 4. § Ibid. x. 8. or does away with the accusers in the future state. Hence, no doubt, the mystery of prefixing it to the names and titles of the deceased, called Osiris. The deceased was protected by the mystery of the name from the ills which afflicted the dead. The goddess (Nut), painted and invoked on the coffin, was an additional security to her adopted son, the deceased King Mencheres." 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 prefixed to them they became the directory for practice. But the earliest appearance of rituals was in the eleventh dynasty. It was then that extracts of these sacred books were inscribed on the inner sides of the sarcophagi, more particularly portions of the seventeenth and other chapters, besides others that are not preserved in the papyrus above-quoted, and which probably had become obsolete at the later period when that papyrus was written. The soul, this Book taught, dies first when born into this world, and is imprisoned in human form, which becomes to it a living death. But notwithstanding this view of humanity, originally true enough, they paid even an excessive honour 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 especial gift of Tum. The book opens with * Dr. Birch, in the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und älterthumskurde, April, 1869, p. 51. an address of Thoth himself, followed by addresses of the soul, immediately after separation from the body, to the infernal gods. The defunct enumerates his titles to the favour of Osiris, and demands admission into his empire. The choir of glorified souls intervenes, 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. Thus pass the first and second sections of the Book. The third section contains fanciful speculations on "the Reconstruction of the Deceased." A mouth is to be given him in Amenti, and opened by the faculty of speech. Charms are given him for the production of ideas, and another charm for giving him a name. A heart will be made for him, and the person so reconstructed will rejoice in the amplitude of his powers. Thus rejoicing, he exclaims (chap. 26): "My heart is given to me in the place of hearts, my heart in the place of hearts. I have received my heart, it is at peace within me. For I have not eaten food where Osiris is in the filthy East. Going and returning I have not gone (with indecision). I know what I have eaten, going and 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 (cat-headed) goddess. I have opened heaven. I have done what is ordered in Ptah Ka. I know by my heart. I prevail by my heart. I prevail by my arm. I prevail by my feet. I do what my soul wishes. My soul is not separated by my body from the gates of the West." |