History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 1 — 16 - Vol. 01, Ch. 02: The Gods of Egypt, pt. 8

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] CHAPTER III. ---THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT

_THE DIVINE DYNASTIES: RÂ, SHÛ, OSIEIS, SÎT, HOEUS--THOT, AND THE INVENTION OF SCIENCES AND WRITING--MENES, AND THE THREE FIRST HUMAN DYNASTIES.

_ _The Egyptians claim to Be the most ancient of peoples: traditions concerning the creation of man and of animals--The Heliopolitan Enneads the framework of the divine dynasties--Râ, the first King of Egypt, and his fabulous history: he allows himself to be duped and robbed by Isis, destroys rebellious men, and ascends into heaven.

The legend of Shu and Sibil--The reign of Osiris Onnophris and of Isis: they civilize Egypt and the world--Osiris, slain by Sit, is entombed by Isis and avenged by Horus--The wars of Typhon and of Horus: peace, and the division of Egypt between the two gods.

The Osirian embalmment; the kingdom of Osiris opened to the followers of Horus--The Book of the Dead--The journeying of the soul in search of the fields of Ialû--The judgment of the soul, the negative confession--The privileges and duties of Osirian souls--Confusion between Osirian and Solar ideas as to the state of the dead: the dead in the hark of the Sun--The going forth by day--The campaigns of Harmakhis against Sit.

Thot, the inventor: he reveals all sciences to men--Astronomy, stellar tables; the year, its subdivisions, its defects, influence of the heavenly bodies and the days upon human destiny--Magic arts;

incantations, amulets---Medicine: the vitalizing spirits, diagnosis, treatment--Writing: ideographic, syllabic, alphabetic.

The history of Egypt as handed down by tradition: Manetho, the royal lists, main divisions of Egyptian history--The beginnings of its early history vague and uncertain: Menés, and the legend of Memphis--The first three human dynasties, the two Thimie and the Memphite--Character and, origin of the legends concerning them--The famine stela--The earliest monuments: the step pyramid of Saqgdrah.

_ [Illustration: 221. jpg PAGE IMAGE] THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT