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Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

J >> James Freeman Clarke >> Ten Great Religions




Thus universal and thus profound was the religious sentiment among the
Egyptians.



Sec. 3. Theology of Egypt. Sources of our Knowledge concerning it.


As regards the theology of the Egyptians and their system of ideas, we
meet with difficulty from the law of secrecy which was their habit of
mind. The Egyptian priesthood enveloped with mystery every opinion, just
as they swathed the mummies, fold above fold, in preparing them for the
tomb. The names and number of their gods we learn from the monuments.
Their legends concerning them come to us through Plutarch, Herodotus,
Diodorus, and other Greek writers. Their doctrine of a future life and
future judgment is apparent in their ceremonies, the pictures on the
tombs, and the papyrus Book of the Dead. But what these gods _mean_, what
are their offices, how they stand related to each other and to mankind,
what is the ethical bearing of the religion, it is not so easy to learn.

Nevertheless, we may find a clew to a knowledge of this system, if in no
other way, at least by ascertaining its central, ruling idea, and pursuing
this into its details. The moment that we take this course, light will
begin to dawn upon us. But before going further, let us briefly inquire
into the sources of our knowledge of Egyptian mythology.

The first and most important place is occupied by the monuments, which
contain the names and tablets of the gods of the three orders. Then come
the sacred books of the Egyptians, known to us by Clemens Alexandrinus.
From him we learn that the Egyptians in his time had forty-two sacred
books in five classes. The first class, containing songs or hymns in
praise of the gods, were very old, dating perhaps from the time of Menes.
The other books treated of morals, astronomy, hieroglyphics, geography,
ceremonies, the deities, the education of priests, and medicine. Of these
sacred Hermaic books, one is still extant, and perhaps it is as
interesting as any of them. We have two copies of it, both on papyrus, one
found by the French at Thebes, the other by Champollion in Turin. And
Lepsius considers this last papyrus to be wholly of the date of the
eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty, consequently fifteen hundred or sixteen
hundred years before Christ, and the only example of an Egyptian book
transmitted from the times of the Pharaohs. Bunsen believes it to belong
to the fourth class of Hermaic books, containing Ordinances as to the
First Fruits, Sacrifices, Hymns, and Prayers. In this book the deceased
is the person who officiates. His soul journeying on gives utterance to
prayers, confessions, invocations. The first fifteen chapters, which make
a connected whole, are headed, "Here begins the Sections of the
Glorification in the Light of Osiris." It is illustrated by a picture of a
procession, in which the deceased soul follows his own corpse as chief
mourner, offering prayers to the Sun-God. Another part of the book is
headed, "The Book of Deliverance, in the Hall of twofold Justice," and
contains the divine judgments on the deceased. Forty-two gods occupy the
judgment-seat. Osiris, their president, bears on his breast the small
tablet of chief judge, containing a figure of Justice. Before him are seen
the scales of divine judgment. In one is placed the statue of Justice, and
in the other the heart of the deceased, who stands in person by the
balance containing his heart, while Anubis watches the other scale. Horus
examines the plummet indicating which way the beam inclines. Thoth, the
Justifier the Lord of the Divine Word, records the sentence.[168]



Sec. 4. Central Idea of Egyptian Theology and Religion. Animal Worship.


We now proceed to ask what is the IDEA of Egyptian mythology and theology?

We have seen that the idea of the religion of India was Spirit; the One,
the Infinite, the Eternal; a pure spiritual Pantheism, from which the
elements of time and space are quite excluded. The religion of Egypt
stands at the opposite pole of thought as its antagonist. Instead of
Spirit, it accepts Body; instead of Unity, Variety; instead of Substance,
Form. It is the physical reaction from Brahmanism. Instead of the worship
of abstract Deity, it gives us the most concrete divinity, wholly
incarnated in space and time. Instead of abstract contemplation, it gives
us ceremonial worship. Instead of the absorption of man into God, it gives
us transmigration through all bodily forms.[169] It so completely
incarnates God, as to make every type of animal existence divine; hence
the worship of animals. It makes body so sacred, that the human body must
not be allowed to perish. As the Brahman, contemplating eternity, forgot
time, and had no history, so on the other hand the Egyptian priest, to
whom every moment of time is sacred, records everything and turns every
event into history; and as it enshrines the past time historically on
monuments, so it takes hold of future time prophetically through oracles.

The chief peculiarity about the religion of Egypt, and that which has
always caused the greatest astonishment to foreigners, was the worship of
animals. Herodotus says (Book II. Sec. 65), "That all animals in Egypt, wild
and tame, are accounted sacred, and that if any one kills these animals
wilfully he is put to death." He is, however, mistaken in asserting that
_all_ animals are sacred; for many were not so, though the majority were.
Wilkinson gives a list of the animals of Egypt to the number of over one
hundred, more than half of which were sacred, and the others not. As
hunting and fishing were favorite sports of the Egyptians, it is apparent
that there must have been animals whom it was lawful to kill.
Nevertheless, it is certain that animal worship is a striking peculiarity
of the Egyptian system. Cows were sacred to Isis, and Isis was represented
in the form of a cow. The gods often wore the heads of animals; and Kneph,
or Amun, with the ram's head, is one of the highest of the gods, known
among the Greeks as Jupiter Ammon. The worship of Apis, the sacred bull of
Memphis, the representative of Osiris, was very important among the
Egyptian ceremonies. Plutarch says that he was a fair and beautiful image
of the soul of Osiris. He was a bull with black hair, a white spot on his
forehead, and some other special marks. He was kept at Memphis in a
splendid temple. His festival lasted seven days, when a great concourse of
people assembled. When he died his body was embalmed and buried with great
pomp, and the priests went in search of another Apis, who, when discovered
by the marks, was carried to Memphis, carefully fed and exercised, and
consulted as an oracle. The burial-place of the Apis bulls was, a few
years ago, discovered near Memphis. It consists of an arched gallery hewn
in the rock, two thousand feet long and twenty feet in height and breadth.
On each side is a series of recesses, each containing a large sarcophagus
of granite, fifteen by eight feet, in which the body of a sacred bull was
deposited. In 1852 thirty of these had been already found. Before this
tomb is a paved road with lions ranged on each side, and before this a
temple with a vestibule.

In different parts of Egypt different animals were held sacred. The animal
sacred in one place was not so regarded in another district. These sacred
animals were embalmed by the priests and buried, and the mummies of dogs,
wolves, birds, and crocodiles are found by thousands in the tombs. The
origin and motive of this worship is differently explained. It is certain
that animals were not worshipped in the same way as the great gods, but
were held sacred and treated with reverence as containing a divine
element. So, in the East, an insane person is accounted sacred, but is not
worshipped. So the Roman Catholics distinguish between Dulia and Latria,
between the worship of gods and reverence of saints. So, too, Protestants
consider the Bible a holy book and the Sabbath a holy day, but without
worshipping them. It is only just to make a similar distinction on behalf
of the Egyptians. The motives usually assigned for this worship--motives
of utility--seem no adequate explanation. "The Egyptians," says Wilkinson,
"may have deified some animals to insure their preservation, some to
prevent their unwholesome meat being used as food." But no religion was
ever established in this way. Man does not worship from utilitarian
considerations, but from an instinct of reverence. It is possible, indeed,
that such a reverential instinct may have been awakened towards certain
animals, by seeing their vast importance arising from their special
instincts and faculties. The cow and the ox, the dog, the ibis, and the
cat, may thus have appeared to the Egyptians, from their indispensable
utility, to be endowed with supernatural gifts. But this feeling itself
must have had its root in a yet deeper tendency of the Egyptian mind. They
reverenced the mysterious manifestation of God in all outward nature. No
one can look at an animal, before custom blinds our sense of strangeness,
without a feeling of wonder at the law of instinct, and the special,
distinct peculiarity which belongs to it. Every variety of animals is a
manifestation of a divine thought, and yet a thought hinted rather than
expressed. Each must mean something, must symbolize something. But what
does it mean? what does it symbolize? Continually we seem just on the
point of penetrating the secret; we almost touch the explanation, but are
baffled. A dog, a cat, a snake, a crocodile, a spider,--what does each
mean? why were they made? why this infinite variety of form, color,
faculty, character? Animals thus in their unconscious being, as
expressions of God's thoughts, are mysteries, and divine mysteries.[170]

Now every part of the religion of Egypt shows how much they were attracted
toward _variety_, toward nature, toward the outward manifestations of the
Divine Spirit. These tendencies reached their utmost point in their
reverence for animal life. The shallow Romans, who reverenced only
themselves, and the Greeks, who worshipped nothing but human nature more
or less idealized, laughed at this Egyptian worship of animals and plants.
"O sacred nation! whose gods grow in gardens!" says Juvenal. But it
certainly shows a deeper wisdom to see something divine in nature, and to
find God in nature, than to call it common and unclean. And there is more
of truth in the Egyptian reverence for animal individuality, than in the
unfeeling indifference to the welfare of these poor relations which
Christians often display. When Jesus said that "not a sparrow falls to the
ground without your Father," he showed all these creatures to be under the
protection of their Maker. It may be foolish to worship animals, but it is
still more foolish to despise them.

That the belief in transmigration is the explanation of animal worship is
the opinion of Bunsen. The human soul and animal soul, according to this
view, are essentially the same,--therefore the animal was considered as
sacred as man. Still, we do not _worship_ man. Animal worship, then, must
have had a still deeper root in the sense of awe before the mystery of
organized life.



Sec. 5. Sources of Egyptian Theology. Age of the Empire and Affinities of the
Race.


But whence came this tendency in the human mind? Did it inhere in the
race, or was it the growth of external circumstances? Something, perhaps,
may be granted to each of these causes. The narrow belt of fertile land in
Egypt, fed by the overflowing Nile, quickened by the tropical sun, teeming
with inexhaustible powers of life, continually called the mind anew to the
active, creative powers of nature. And yet it may be suspected that the
law of movement by means of antagonism and reaction may have had its
influence also here. The opinion is now almost universal, that the impulse
of Egyptian civilization proceeded from Asia. This is the conclusion of
Bunsen at the end of his first volume. "The cradle of the mythology and
language of Egypt," says he, "is Asia. This result is arrived at by the
various ethnological proofs of language which finds Sanskrit words and
forms in Egypt, and of comparative anatomy, which shows the oldest
Egyptian skulls to have belonged to Caucasian races." If, then, Egyptian
civilization proceeded from Central Asia, Egyptian mythology and religion
probably came as a quite natural reaction from the extreme spiritualism of
the Hindoos. The question which remains is, whether they arrived at their
nature-worship directly or indirectly; whether, beginning with Fetichism,
they ascended to their higher conceptions of the immortal gods; or,
beginning with spiritual existence, they traced it downward into its
material manifestations; whether, in short, their system was one of
evolution or emanation. For every ancient theogony, cosmogony, or ontogony
is of one kind or the other. According to the systems of India and of
Platonism, the generation of beings is by the method of emanation.
Creation is a falling away, or an emanation from the absolute. But the
systems of Greek and Scandinavian mythology are of the opposite sort. In
these, spirit is evolved from matter; matter up to spirit works. They
begin with the lowest form of being,--night, chaos, a mundane egg,--and
evolve the higher gods therefrom.

It is probable that we find in Egypt a double tendency. One is the Asiatic
spiritualism, the other the African naturalism. The union of the ideal and
the real, of thought and passion, of the aspirations of the soul and the
fire of a passionate nature, of abstract meditation and concrete life, had
for its result the mysterious theology and philosophy which, twenty
centuries after its burial under the desert sands, still rouses our
curiosity to penetrate the secret of this Sphinx of the Nile.

We have seen in a former section that the institutions of Egypt, based on
a theocratic monarchy, reach back into a dim and doubtful antiquity.
Monuments, extending through thirty-five centuries, attest an age
preceding all written history. These monuments, so far as deciphered by
modern Egyptologists, have confirmed the accuracy of the lists of kings
which have come to us from Manetho. We have no monument anterior to the
fourth dynasty, but at that epoch we find the theocracy fully
organized.[171] The general accuracy of Manetho's list has been
demonstrated by the latest discoveries of M. Mariette, and has rendered
doubtful the idea of any of the dynasties being contemporaneous.

The main chronological points, however, are by no means as yet fixed.
Thus, the beginning of the first dynasty is placed by Boeckh at B.C. 5702,
by Lepsius B.C. 3892, by Bunsen B.C. 3623, by Brugsch B.C. 4455, by Lauth
B.C. 4157, by Duncker 3233.[172] The period of the builders of the great
Pyramids is fixed by Bunsen at B.C. 3229, by Lepsius at B.C. 3124, by
Brugsch at B.C. 3686, by Lauth at B.C. 3450, and by Boeckh at B.C.
4933.[173]

The Egyptian priests told Herodotus that there were three hundred and
thirty-one kings, from Menes to Moeris, whose names they read out of a
book. After him came eleven others, of whom Sethos was the last. From
Osiris to Amasis they counted fifteen thousand years, though Herodotus did
not believe this statement. If the three hundred and forty-two kings
really existed, it would make Menes come B.C. 9150,--at an average of
twenty-five years' reign to each king. Diodorus saw in Egypt a list of
four hundred and seventy-nine kings. But he says in another place that
Menes lived about four thousand seven hundred years before his time.
Manetho tells us that from Menes there were thirty dynasties, who reigned
five thousand three hundred and sixty-six years. But he gives a list of
four hundred and seventy-two kings in these dynasties, to the time of
Cambyses. The contradictions are so great, and the modes of reconciling
Manetho, Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes, and the monuments are so
inadequate, that we must regard the whole question of the duration of the
monarchy as unsettled. But from the time when the calendar must have been
fixed, from the skill displayed in the Pyramids, and other reasons
independent of any chronology, Duncker considers the reign of Menes as old
as B.C. 3500.

The history of Egypt is divided into three periods, that of the old, the
middle, and the new monarchy. The first extends from the foundation of the
united kingdom by Menes to the conquest of the country by the Hyksos. The
second is from this conquest by the Hyksos till their expulsion. The
third, from the re-establishment of the monarchy by Amosis to its final
conquest by Persia. The old monarchy contained twelve dynasties; the
Hyksos or middle monarchy, five; the new monarchy, thirteen: in all,
thirty.

The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were at first supposed to be the Hebrews:
but this hypothesis adapted itself to none of the facts. A recent treatise
by M. Chabas[174] shows that the Hyksos were an Asiatic people, occupying
the country to the northeast of Egypt. After conquering Lower Egypt,
Apapi was king of the Hyksos and Tekenen-Ra ruled over the native
Egyptians of the South. A papyrus, as interpreted by M. Chabas, narrates
that King Apapi worshipped only the god Sutech (Set), and refused to allow
the Egyptian gods to be adored. This added to the war of races a war of
religion, which resulted in the final expulsion of the Shepherds, about
B.C. 1700. The Hyksos are designated on the monuments and in the papyri as
the "Scourge" or "Plague," equivalent in Hebrew to the _Tzir'ah,_ commonly
translated "hornet," but evidently the same as the Hebrew _tzavaath_,
"plague," and the Arabic _tzeria_, "scourge," or "plague."[175]

According to the learned Egyptologist, Dr. Brugsch, the Hebrew slaves in
Egypt are referred to in a papyrus in the British Museum of the date of
Ramses II. (B.C. 1400), in a description by a scribe named Pinebsa of the
new city of Ramses. He tells how the slaves throng around him to present
petitions against their overseers. Another papyrus reads (Lesley, "Man's
Origin and Destiny"): "The people have erected twelve buildings. They made
their tale of bricks daily, till they were finished." The first
corroboration of the biblical narrative which the Egyptian monuments
afford, and the first synchronism between Jewish and Egyptian history,
appear in the reign of Ramses II., about B.C. 1400, in the nineteenth
dynasty.

It appears from the monuments and from the historians that somewhere about
B.C. 2000, or earlier, this great movement of warlike nomadic tribes
occurred, which resulted in the conquest of Lower Egypt by the pastoral
people known as Hyksos. It was perhaps a movement of Semitic races, the
Bedouins of the desert, like that which nearly three thousand years after
united them as warriors of Islam to overflow North Africa, Syria, Persia,
and Spain. They oppressed Egypt for five hundred years (Brugsch), and
appear on the monuments under the name of Amu (the herdsmen) or of Aadu
(the hated ones). Their kings resided at Tanis (in Egyptian Avaris), in
the Delta. That their conquests had a religious motive, and were made,
like that of Mohammed, in the interest of monotheism, seems possible. At
all events, we find one of them, Apapi, erecting a temple to Sutech (the
Semitic Baal), and refusing to allow the worship of other deities.[176]

The majority of Egyptologists believe that the Hebrews entered Egypt while
these Hyksos kings, men of the same Semitic family and monotheistic
tendencies, were ruling in Lower Egypt. The bare subterranean temple
discovered by M. Mariette, with the well near it filled with broken
statues of the Egyptian gods, is an indication of those tendencies. The
"other king, who knew not Joseph," was a king of the eighteenth dynasty,
who conquered the Hyksos and drove them out of Egypt. Apparently the
course of events was like that which many centuries later occurred in
Spain. In both cases, the original rulers of the land, driven to the
mountains, gradually reconquered their country step by step. The result of
this reconquest of the country would also be in Egypt, as it was in Spain,
that the Semitic remnants left in the land would be subject to a severe
and oppressive rule. The Jews in Egypt, like the Moors in Spain, were
victims of a cruel bondage. Then began the most splendid period of
Egyptian history, during the seventeenth, sixteenth, fifteenth, and
fourteenth centuries before Christ. The Egyptian armies overran Syria,
Asia Minor, and Armenia as far as the Tigris.

Ramses II., the most powerful monarch of this epoch, is probably the king
whose history is given by Herodotus and other Greek writers under the name
of Sesostris.[177] M. de Rouge believes himself able to establish this
identity. He found in the Museum at Vienna a stone covered with
inscriptions, and dedicated by a person whose name is given as Ramses
Mei-Amoun, exactly in the hieroglyphics of the great king. But this
person's name is also written elsewhere on the stone _Ses_, and a third
time as _Ses Mei-amoun,_ showing that _Ses_ was a common abbreviation of
Ramses. It is also written _Sesu_, or _Sesesu_, which is very like the
form in which Diodorus writes Sesostris, namely, _Sesoosis_.[178] Now
Ramses II., whose reign falls about B.C. 1400, erected a chain of
fortresses to defend the northeastern border of Egypt against the Syrian
nomads. One of these fortresses was named from the King Ramses, and
another Pachtum. The papyri contain accounts of these cities. One papyrus,
in the British Museum,[179] is a description by a scribe named Pinebsa, of
the aspect of the city Ramses, and of the petitions of the laborers for
relief against their overseers. These laborers are called _Apuru_,
Hebrews. In a papyrus of the Leyden Museum, an officer reports to his
superior thus: "May my lord be pleased. I have distributed food to the
soldiers and to the Hebrews, dragging stones for the great city Ramses
Meia-moum. I gave them food monthly." This corresponds with the passage
(Exodus i. 11): "They built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and
Raamses."[180]

The birth of Moses fell under the reign of Ramses II. The Exodus was under
that of his successor, Menepthes. This king had fallen on evil times; his
power was much inferior to that of his great predecessor; and he even
condescended to propitiate the anti-Egyptian element, by worshipping its
gods. He has left his inscription on the monuments with the title,
"Worshipper of Sutech-Baal in Tanis." The name of Moses is Egyptian, and
signifies "the child."

"Joseph," says Brugsch, "was never at the court of an Egyptian Pharaoh,
but found his place with the Semitic monarchs, who reigned at Avaris-Tanis
in the Delta, and whose power extended from this point as far as Memphis
and Heliopolis." The "king who knew not Joseph" was evidently the
restored Egyptian dynasty of Thebes. These monarchs would be naturally
averse to all the Palestinian inhabitants of the land. And the monuments
of their reigns represent the labors of subject people, under
task-masters, cutting, carrying, and laying stones for the walls of
cities.

To what race do the Egyptians belong? The only historic document which
takes us back so far as this is the list of nations in the tenth chapter
of Genesis. We cannot, indeed, determine the time when it was written. But
Bunsen, Ebers,[181] and other ethnologists are satisfied that the author
of this chapter had a knowledge of the subject derived either from the
Phoenicians or the Egyptians. Ewald places his epoch with that of the
early Jewish kings. According to this table the Egyptians were descended
from Ham, the son of Noah, and were consequently of the same original
stock with the Japhetic and Semitic nations. They were not negroes, though
their skin was black, or at least dark.[182] According to Herodotus they
came from the heart of Africa; according to Genesis (chap. x.) from Asia.
Which is the correct view?

The Egyptians themselves recognized no relationship with the negroes, who
only appear on the monuments as captives or slaves.

History, therefore, helps us little in this question of race. How is it
with Comparative Philology and Comparative Anatomy?

The Coptic language is an idiom of the old Egyptian tongue, which seems to
belong to no known linguistic group. It is related to other African
languages only through the lexicon, and similarly with the Indo-European.
Some traces of grammatic likeness to the Semitic may be found in it; yet
the view of Bunsen and Schwartz, that in very ancient times it arose from
the union of Semitic and Indo-European languages, remains only a
hypothesis.[183] Merx (in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon) says this view "rests
upon a wish formed in the interest of the Philosophy of History; and the
belief of a connection between these tongues is not justified by any
scientific study of philology. No such ethnological affinity can be
granted,--a proof of which is that all facts in its favor are derived from
common roots, none from common grammar." Benfey, however, assumed two
great branches of Semitic nationalities, one flowing into Africa, the
other into Western Asia.[184] Ebers[185] gives some striking resemblances
between Egyptian and Chaldaic words, and says he possesses more than three
hundred examples of this kind; and in Bunsen's fifth volume are
comparative tables which give as their result that a third part of the old
Egyptian words in Coptic literature are Semitic, and a tenth part
Indo-European. If these statements are confirmed, they may indicate some
close early relations between these races.

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