Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/740

716 E G Y P T [RELIGION. of the mythological elements of the important seventeenth chapter. He traces the solar gods to Heliopolis, and considers the Osiris myth as probably derived from Abydos, and added at a later time. 1 Professor Lepsius does not admit the Heliopolite origin of the solar group, on account of the small political importance of Heliopolis. Yet the circumstance that the chief divinities of that city, which had the sacred name Pe-ra, the abode of Ra, were Atmu, Shu, and Tefnet (Kit. xviii. 4, ap. Erugsch, Geoyr. Inschr., i. 254, cf. 255) seems conclusive. 2 Some account may now be given of these divinities in the order of the lists, the later additions being noticed last and then lesser divinities. It will be impossible to give more than the simplest particulars, and many names in the Pantheon must ba omitted altogether. Ra, the sun, is usually represented as a hawk-headed man, occasionally as a man, in both cases generally bearing on his head the solar disk, round which the urteus, symbolic of royal power, is sometimes coiled. His symbol is either the solar disk or the hawk. Ra had the most general worship of any Egyptian divinity, except Osiris. The worship of Osiris under his own name was more common than that of Ra under his, but this was in some degree compensated for by the union of Ra with other gods besides solar ones, such as Amen, Num, Sebek, forming the compound divinities Amen-ra, Num-ra, Sebek-ra (Lepsius, Erst. Aeg. Golterkreis), j ami by his bcii.g the type of sovereignty, so that each king was a Ra son of Ea. This importance of his worship was due to the adoption of Ra as the leading representative of the supreme being, from whom indeed he is sometimes undistinguishoble in the Ritual, though as already noticed this docs not seem to have been the primitive opinion, for there are evidences of his inferiority to the supreme god and to Osiris (De Rouge, "Etudes," Rev. Arch.,n.s. , i. 358). In the religious paintings he is the supreme being, carrying on in his course a constant warfare with and triumph over evil, repre sented by the great serpent Apap, a wholly evil being, not a divinity. His careei resembles that of Osiris, but with notable differences. Ra is purely solar. He is rarely associated with any consort, and if so associated his consort is a female Ea (Lepsius, Erst. Ac.g. Goiter - breis). He is always victorious. He protects mankind, but has nothing in common with them. Osiris on the other hand is only solar because he is the beneficent power of nature. He is con stantly associated with Isis. He has a life-long conflict with a maleficent power, his brother or son Seth, who is not wholly evil. Vanquished and killed he recovers his life and wins, but it is rather Horus his son who wins, and Ilorus, a sun-god, is the direct link with Ra in the Osiris family. Osiris protects mankind because his life resembled theirs : if he did not live on earth, at bast his tomb was shown there. At Heliopalis two animals sacred to Ra were reverenced, the black bull Mnevis, sacred to Ra and Atmu, and the Plucnix (Bennu) sacred to Ra. Both are connected with Osiris, the bull by the worship of Apis at Heliopolis, the Phcenix as also representing Osiris (Brugsch, Gcoyr. Inschr., i. 257, 258). In addition the sacred Persea-tree was reverenced at Heliopolis. In the attempt under Dynasty XVIII. to establish sun-worship in an original or ideal simplicity, the only representation is the solar disk with the uranis entwined round it, and rays ending in human hands, one of which offers the symbol of life to the worshipper. The great sun-temple then founded contained :uo statue whatever (Lepsius, Erst. Aeg. QMcrkrcis). Mentu and Atmu may best be noticed together as merely t^o phases of Ra, representing, as already stated, the rising and the setting sun, the sun of the upper and the lower world. Their twin- character is seen in the circumstance that Mentu was Worshipped at Southern An (llennonthis) and Atmu at Northern An (Helio- polis, the On of the P>ible). Mentu, or Mentu-ra, is represented as Ra with the tall plumes of Amen, Atmu in a human form. Both cannot be distinguished from Ra except that probably their attri butes were more restricted, and while Mentu seems to be within limits identical with Ra, the human form of Atmu may perhaps hint a relation to Osiris. 3 1 " 11 est facile d apercevoir, dans tons ces caracteres, les symboles osiriaques, qui composaientprobablement la doctrine primitive d" Abydos, se superposant aux emblemes d Heliopolis" (Rev. Arch., n. s., i. 359,360). M. Mariette, on the other hand, writes " Originairement Osiris est le soleil nocturne, il est la nuit primordiale ; il precede la lumiere : il est par consequent aateriear a Ra, le soleil dhirne " (M us. riouluq, 1869, 100). - Shu is, however, not mentioned among the divinities of Heliopolis in the great Papyrus of Ramses III. Records oj .he Past, vi. 52 seqq. 3 In the 17th chapter of the Ritual the justified dead is called in his new condition Turn, equivalent to Atmu. This may be merely Shu is light, and is a type of celestial force, for he is represented supporting the goddess of heaven. M. de Rouge remarks that it is curious to find in this ancient cosmogony the principle of force identified with the luminous principle ("Etudes," Rev. Arch., i. 2?5, 236). His figure is human and he sometimes bears on his head the ostrich-feather, which, though the initial of his name, must here have its symbolical sense of " truth." The relation of light and truth is not less remarkable than that of light and force. Tefnet, associated with Shu in the cycle, is represented with the head of a lioness. This is the most common compound form of Egyptian goddesses, as the hawk-headed cf the gods. Both arc connected with solar worship. The lioness was probably chosen as the highest form <i the family to which the luminous-eyed cat, one of the most popular of the sacred animals, belonged. Seb stands at the head of the family of Osiris. He is repre sented in human form like his consort Nut. They are called " father of the gods" and "bearer of the gods." Seb was the god of the earth (De Rouge, Ibid. 238), and Nut the goddess of heaven. Her name means the abyss, though curiously the primordial abyss is called, iu ch. xvii. of the Ritual, nit, in the masculine (Ibid. 359). Osiris, in Egyptian Hcsiri, is usually represented as a mummy, wearing the royal cap of Upper Egypt, which may indicate the Thinite origin of his worship, or that, as Horus and Seth were the special divinities of Upper and Lower Egypt, so h<; was particularly connected with the upper country. His cap is usually flanked by ostrich plumes, which probably have a reference to Ma-t the goddess tf truth and justice. The myth of Osiris is the most interesting because the most human part of Egyptian mythology. It is im possible to attempt a full account of it : the materials have yet to be gathered. We cannot accept the treatise On Isis and Osiris as representing the older form of the myth. In different documents we seem to trace its growth, and notably do we find in those later than Dyn. XXII. the change due to the altered theory of good and evil. Yet the general outlines are the same in what we may icason- ably hold to be the earliest documents. It is these that are, as far as possible, used here. Osiris is essentially the good principle : hence his name Un- nefer, the good being, rather than the revcaler of good (Maspero, Jlisloire Ancienne, 38). Like Ra he is the creator, and like him in perpetual warfare with evil. His brother, or son, Typhon, Seth (Set), is his opponent. They are light and darkness, pl^-sical good and evil, the Nile and the desert, Egypt and the foreign land. Osiris is certainly moral good, Sethis to a certain extent moral evil. Throughout the Ritual they are in conflict for right and wrong, for the welfare and destruction of the human soul. Inch, xvii., which was preserved intact from a remote age, this conflict appears. Seth is, however, not there distinctly named as the opponent of Osiris, except in the glosses, which may be as old or (like the case of the Mishna and the Gemara) older than the text, and once in the text he appears as joining with Horus his adversary in accomplishing the final condition of the deceased who had reached the abode of happiness (ver. 35) ; and on the other hand, one gloss explains the executioner of souls to be Seth, but otherwise Ilorus the elder, brother of Osiris, who is but a variation of the younger Horus (vcr. 33). Yet the opposition of Osiris and Seth is a perpetual combat. Osiris is vanquished. He is cut in pieces and submerged in the water. Watched by his sisters, Isis his consort and Nephthys the con sort of Seth, he revives. Horus his son avenges him, and with the aid of Thoth, or reason, he destroys the power of Seth, but does not annihilate him. The myth is a picture of the daily life of the sun, combating darkness yet at last succumbing to it, to appear again in renewed splendour, as the young Horus a solar god triumphs over Seth. It is also a picture of human life, its perpetual conflict and final seeming destruction, to be restored in the new youth of a brighter existence. In this view suffering is not wholly evil, but has its beneficent aspect in the accomplishment of final good. There are two ,vays of explaining the origin of this myth. Either we may regard Osiris as the sun of the night, and so the protector of those who pass away into the realm of shades, or we may suppose that once taken as the type and ruler of mankind in the after state, the hidden sun was naturally chosen to represent him, the sun being with the Egyptians the source and governor of all life. Those who make the solar idea the first form of the myth have to explain its specially human aspect, and particularly why we see no such aspect in any deep sense in the case of Atmu the sun of the night in the group of solar divinities. It will be easily seen how such a story took ho d of the affections of the Egyptians. Osiris was the type of humanity, its struggles, its sufferings, its temporary defeat, and its final victory. The liv ing, and still more the dead, were identified with him. Under his name, without distinction of sex, they passed into the hidden place because the word turn has the sense man, and maybe thus a play upon the name of the divinity (cf. De Rouge, " Etudes," 350, 351), but it is more likely that Tun; is here used as Osiris everywhere to indicate

the divine quality of the, justified.