History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 1 — 17 - Vol. 01, Ch. 03: The Legendary History of Egypt, pt. 1

_The divine dynasties: Râ, Shû, Osiris, Sît, Horus--Thot, and the invention of sciences and writing--Menés, and the three first human dynasties.

_ The building up and diffusion of the doctrine of the Ennead, like the formation of the land of Egypt, demanded centuries of sustained effort, centuries of which the inhabitants themselves knew neither the number nor the authentic history.

When questioned as to the remote past of their race, they proclaimed themselves the most ancient of mankind, in comparison with whom all other races were but a mob of young children;

and they looked upon nations which denied their pretensions with such indulgence and pity as we feel for those who doubt a well-known truth.

Their forefathers had appeared upon the banks of the Nile even before the creator had completed his work, so eager were the gods to behold their birth.

No Egyptian disputed the reality of this right of the firstborn, which ennobled the whole race; but if they were asked the name of their divine father, then the harmony was broken, and each advanced the claims of a different personage.

[*] Phtah had modelled man with his own hands;[**] Khnûmû had formed him on a potter's table.

[***] * We know the words which Plato puts into the mouth of an Egyptian priest: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no old man who is a Greek!

You are all young in mind; there is no opinion or tradition of knowledge among you which is white with age."

Other nations disputed their priority--the Phrygians, the Medes, or rather the tribe of the Magi among the Medes, the Ethiopians, the Scythians.

A cycle of legends had gathered about this subject, giving an account of the experiments instituted, by Psamtik, or other sovereigns, to find out which were right, Egyptians or foreigners.

** At Philæ and at Denderah, Phtah is represented as piling upon his potter's table the plastic clay from which he is about to make a human body, and which is somewhat wrongly called the egg of the world.

It is really the lump of earth from which man came forth at his creation.

*** At Philas, Khnûmû calls himself "the potter who fashions men, the modeller of the gods."

He there moulds the members of Osiris, the husband of the local Isis, as at Erment he forms the body of Harsamtaûi, or rather that of Ptolemy Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar and the celebrated Cleopatra, identified with Harsamtaûi. Râ at his first rising, seeing the earth desert and bare, had flooded it with his rays as with a flood of tears; all living things, vegetable and animal, and man himself, had sprung pell-mell from his eyes, and were scattered abroad with the light over the surface of the world.

[*] Sometimes the facts were presented under a less poetic aspect.

The mud of the Nile, heated to excess by the burning sun, fermented and brought forth the various races of men and animals by spontaneous generation, having moulded itself into a thousand living forms.

Then its procreative power became weakened to the verge of exhaustion.

Yet on the banks of the river, in the height of summer, smaller animals might still be found whose condition showed what had once taken place in the case of the larger kinds.

Some appeared as already fully formed, and struggling to free themselves from the oppressive mud; others, as yet imperfect, feebly stirred their heads and fore feet, while their hind quarters were completing their articulation and taking shape within the matrix of earth.

[**] * With reference to the substances which proceeded from the eye of Râ, see the remarks of Birch, _Sur un papyrus magique du Musée Britannique_.

By his tears (_romîtû_) Horus, or his eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men, Egyptians (_romîtû, rotû_), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting only the negroes.

The latter were born from another part of his body by the same means as those employed by Atûmû in the creation of Shû and Tafnûît. ** The same story is told, but with reference to rats only, by Pliny, by Diodorus, by Ælianus, by Macrobius, and by other Greek or Latin writers.

Even in later times, and in Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus Fredericus Wendelinus, _Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili_, Franco-furti, mdcxxiii.

, cap.

xxi.

pp. 157-183. In Egypt all the fellahîn believe in the spontaneous generation of rats as in an article of their creed.

They have spoken to me of it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayûm. The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest the fields in countless bands during the dry season, suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new waters.

It was not Râ alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power.

All divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once it had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as that which came from the eyes of Râ.

[Illustration: 224. jpg KHNÛMÛ MODELLING MAN UPON A POTTER'S TABLE.

1] 1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet.

The scene is taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god Khnûmû is seen completing his modelling of the future King Amenôthes III.

and his double, represented as two children wearing the side-lock and large necklace.

The first holds his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing at his sides.

The individual character of the creator was not without bearing upon the nature of his creatures; good was the necessary outcome of the good gods, evil of the evil ones; and herein lay the explanation of the mingling of things excellent and things execrable, which is found everywhere throughout the world.

Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and his partisans were the cause and origin of all that is harmful.

Daily their eyes shed upon the world those juices by which plants are made poisonous, as well as malign influences, crime, and madness.

Their saliva, the foam which fell from their mouths during their attacks of rage, their sweat, their blood itself, were all no less to be feared.

When any drop of it touched the earth, straightway it germinated, and produced something strange and baleful--a serpent, a scorpion, a plant of deadly nightshade or of henbane.

But, on the other hand, the sun was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life infallibly partook of its benignity.

Wine that maketh man glad, the bee who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than the Eye of Horus under different aspects, and in his name they were presented in sacrifice.

The devout generally were of opinion that the first Egyptians, the sons and flock of Râ, came into the world happy and perfect;[*] by degrees their descendants had fallen from that native felicity into their present state.

* In the tomb of Seti I, the words _flock of the Sun, flock of Râ_, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.

Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and perfection.

To the Egyptians _the times of Râ, the times of the god_--that is to say, the centuries immediately following on the creation---were the ideal age, and no good thing had appeared upon earth since then.

Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so many brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life.

They knew nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by cries only, like other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both speech and writing.

These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre fare for the intelligence of the learned.

The latter did not confine their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory details concerning the beginnings of humanity.

They wished to know the history of its consecutive development from the very first; what manner of life had been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and the names or adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had left the blessed banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands;

by what stages and in what length of time those who had not emigrated rose out of native barbarism into that degree of culture to which the most ancient monuments bore testimony.

No efforts of imagination were needful for the satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of indigenous traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble to work it out systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous elements.

The priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had already taken in hand the same task with regard to the myths referring to the creation; and the Enneads provided them with a ready-made framework.

They changed the gods of the Ennead into so many kings, determined with minute accuracy the lengths of their reigns, and compiled their biographies from popular tales.

The duality of the feudal god supplied an admirable expedient for connecting the history of the world with that of chaos.

Tûmû was identified with Nû, and relegated to the primordial Ocean: Râ was retained, and proclaimed the first king of the world.

He had not established his rule without difficulty.

The "Children of Defeat," beings hostile to order and light, engaged him in fierce battles; nor did he succeed in organizing his kingdom until he had conquered them in nocturnal combat at Hermopolis, and even at Heliopolis itself.

[*] * The _Children of Defeat_, in Egyptian _Mosû batashû_, or _Mosû batashît_, are often confounded with the followers of Sit, the enemies of Osiris.

From the first they were distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the sun, with the dragon Apôpi at their head.

Their defeat at Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order and light for chaos and darkness.

This defeat is mentioned in chap xvii.

of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i.

pl.

xxiii.

1. 3, et seq.

), in which connexion E. de Rougé first explained its meaning.

In the same chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i.

pis.

xxiv.

, xxv.

, 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Râ appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the great serpent.

Pierced with wounds, Apôpi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at the very moment when the new year began.

The secondary members of the Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus, the son of Isis.

The local schools of theology welcomed this method of writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the Ennead itself.

Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated him in favour of the feudal divinity,--Amon at Thebes, Thot at Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,--keeping the rest of the dynasty absolutely unchanged.

[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige by becoming incarnate and descending to earth.

Since they were men of finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working, were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over the infancy and childhood of primeval man.

The raillery in which the Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured and even ridiculous _rôles_ ascribed to them in certain legends, do not prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled.

The greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship, the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were held.

Nothing shows this better than the history of Râ.

His world was ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still reposed in the arms of Sibû, earth and sky were but one.

[**] * Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the first king.

One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of Atûmû, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Râ."

Atûmû-Khopri-Râ being the first earthly king, it follows that the _Majesty of Thot_, with whom Ptolemy identifies himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Râ, is also the first earthly king.

** This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of The Destruction of Men.

Nuit does not rise to form the sky until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in existence for many centuries.

In chap.

xvii.

of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i.

pl.

xxiii.

11. 3-5) it is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her above the body of her husband.

Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable, animal, and human life.

Egypt was there, all complete, with her two chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and the nomes themselves.

Then the soil was more generous; the harvests, without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the time of Râ.

* This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of the fields of Ialû in chap.

ex.

of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i.

pis.

cxxi.

~ cxxiii.

).

As with the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to say, under the direct rule of Râ.

It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors.

Râ dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"--Haït Sarû,--passed for having been his palace.

His court was mainly composed of gods and goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men.

It contained also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food, received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and household affairs.

It was said that the _oîrû maû_--the high priest of Râ, the _hankistît_--his high priestess, and generally speaking all the servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.

[Illustration: 230. jpg AT THE FIRST HOUR OF THE BAY THE SUN EMBARKS FOB HIS JOURNEY THROUGH EGYPT.

1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfû (Rosellini, _Monumenti del Culto_, pl.

xxxviii.

No. 1).

In the morning he went forth with his divine train, and, amid the acclamations of the crowd, entered the bark in which he made his accustomed circuit of the world, returning to his home at the end of twelve hours after the accomplishment of his journey.

He visited each province in turn, and in each he tarried for an hour, to settle all disputed matters, as the final judge of appeal.

He gave audience to both small and great, he decided their quarrels and adjudged their lawsuits, he granted investiture of fiefs from the royal domains to those who had deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income needful for their maintenance.

He pitied the sufferings of his people, and did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent formulas against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil spirits, and the best recipes for preventing illness.

His incessant bounties left him at length with only one of his talismans: the name given to him by his father and mother at his birth, which they had revealed to him alone, and which he kept concealed within his bosom lest some sorcerer should get possession of it to use for the furtherance of his evil spells.

But old age came on, and infirmities followed; the body of Râ grew bent, "his mouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to earth and his saliva dropped upon the ground."

Isis, who had hitherto been a mere woman-servant in the household of the Pharaoh, conceived the project of stealing his secret from him, "that she might possess the world and make herself a goddess by the name of the august god."

Force would have been unavailing; all enfeebled as he was by reason of his years, none was strong enough to contend successfully against him.

But Isis "was a woman more knowing in her malice than millions of men, clever among millions of the gods, equal to millions of spirits, to whom as unto Râ nothing was unknown either in heaven or upon earth."

She contrived a most ingenious stratagem.

When man or god was struck down by illness, the only chance of curing him lay in knowing his real name, and thereby adjuring the evil being that tormented him.

Isis determined to cast a terrible malady upon Râ, concealing its cause from him; then to offer her services as his nurse, and by means of his sufferings to extract from him the mysterious word indispensable to the success of the exorcism.

She gathered up mud impregnated with the divine saliva, and moulded of it a sacred serpent which she hid in the dust of the road.

Suddenly bitten as he was setting out upon his daily round, the god cried out aloud, "his voice ascended into heaven and his Nine called: 'What is it?

what is it?'

and his gods: 'What is the matter?

what is the matter?'

but he could make them no answer so much did his lips tremble, his limbs shake, and the venom take hold upon his flesh as the Nile seizeth upon the land which it invadeth."

Presently he came to himself, and succeeded in describing his sensations.

"Something painful hath stung me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my two eyes see it not; my hand hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth it what it is, yet have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain that may overpass it....

Fire it is not, water it is not, yet is my heart in flames, my flesh trembleth, all my members are full of shiverings born of breaths of magic.

Behold!

let there be brought unto me children of the gods of beneficent words, who know the power of their mouths, and whose science reacheth unto heaven."

They came, these children of the gods, all with their books of magic.

There came Isis with her sorcery, her mouth full of life-giving breaths, her recipe for the destruction of pain, her words which pour life into breathless throats, and she said: "What is it?

what is it, O father of the gods?

May it not be that a serpent hath wrought this suffering in thee; that one of thy children hath lifted up his head against thee?

Surely he shall be overthrown by beneficent incantations, and I will make him to retreat at the sight of thy rays."

On learning the cause of his torment, the Sun-god is terrified, and begins to lament anew: "I, then, as I went along the ways, travelling through my double land of Egypt and over my mountains, that I might look upon that which I have made, I was bitten by a serpent that I saw not.

Fire it is not, water it is not, yet am I colder than water, I burn more than fire, all my members stream with sweat, I tremble, mine eye is not steady, no longer can I discern the sky, drops roll from my face as in the season of summer."

Isis proposes her remedy, and cautiously asks him his ineffable name.

But he divines her trick, and tries to evade it by an enumeration of his titles.

He takes the universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in the morning, Râ at noon, Tûmû in the evening."

The poison did not recede, but steadily advanced, and the great god was not eased.

Then Isis said to Râ: "Thy name was not spoken in that which thou hast said.

Tell it to me and the poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced in his own name."

The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the burning of flame, and the Majesty of Râ said, "I grant thee leave that thou shouldest search within me, O mother Isis!

and that my name pass from my bosom into thy bosom."

In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden within the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which is about to be mummified.

Isis undertook it, carried it through successfully, drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue of the name.

The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Râ of his last talisman.