Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

III.] The Heresy of Khuenaten. 99

or " Illuminate of the Disc "—a title which,
as we may see, clearly outrages the Ritual
which we have seen embodied in the masonry.
For as the disc of the sun is but its visible
surface, so the " disc " of the tomb was but its
entrance gate which was lifted by Shu (the
Light) " when the sun sets from the world of
life;" and to place the illumination therefore
at that point was to ignore all the grades of
the Postulant, the Initiate, and the Adept, and
to destroy the most essential conditions of
illumination. In the same way the expression
"Living in Truth," which, as Mr. Petrie points
out, was constantly employed by Khuenaten,

was to substitute the solar disc (Aten) as an object of
worship for the personal Deity—Ra, the Hidden God and
Uncreated Light, Amen—previously worshipped under
Various symbols. This attempt, as well as the distinction
between the disc and the rays—which he also considers
Khuenaten to have introduced—Mr. Petrie characterize?
as a striking advance in philosophical truth : thousrh it
18 difficult to understand in what way the adoration of a
material object in place of a Personal and Unseen God
can be philosophically regarded as an advance.