DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4668#0023
!•] The Book of the A/aster. 5
modern writers have called the " Book of the
Dead," hut which claims for itself the title of
the " Book of the Master of the Hidden Places."
Vivid as is the interest now awakened in those
writings, little progress has been made in
elucidating their meaning. The doctrines
inculcated by their religion, the relations of
the worshipper to the object or objects
worshipped, the signification of the particular
symbol under which those relations were at
once veiled and expressed, are but little better
understood at the present time, notwithstand-
ing particular reason assigned. But it appears to me to
be as good a word as any which can be used as a popular
expression ; though doubtless the Catholic term, " Office
of the Dead," would be preferable if it were sufficiently
familiar to our ears. The title "Book of the Dead,"
devised by Lepsius, appears to me, I own, singularly
unfortunate. For in the first place the Papyrus is not
a book, but a collection of sacred writings ; and in the
second, that title appears to refer to the practice of bury-
mg copies or parts of the copy with the mummy ; so that
't gives the idea of regarding the holy departed as dead :
whereas the whole conception of the doctrine was the
entrance of the departed on life and light.
modern writers have called the " Book of the
Dead," hut which claims for itself the title of
the " Book of the Master of the Hidden Places."
Vivid as is the interest now awakened in those
writings, little progress has been made in
elucidating their meaning. The doctrines
inculcated by their religion, the relations of
the worshipper to the object or objects
worshipped, the signification of the particular
symbol under which those relations were at
once veiled and expressed, are but little better
understood at the present time, notwithstand-
ing particular reason assigned. But it appears to me to
be as good a word as any which can be used as a popular
expression ; though doubtless the Catholic term, " Office
of the Dead," would be preferable if it were sufficiently
familiar to our ears. The title "Book of the Dead,"
devised by Lepsius, appears to me, I own, singularly
unfortunate. For in the first place the Papyrus is not
a book, but a collection of sacred writings ; and in the
second, that title appears to refer to the practice of bury-
mg copies or parts of the copy with the mummy ; so that
't gives the idea of regarding the holy departed as dead :
whereas the whole conception of the doctrine was the
entrance of the departed on life and light.