DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30604#0108
c
INTRODUCTION.
vSummary of theories.
“ none other who workecl with me. I laid the foundations of all things by my will,
“ and all things evolved. themselves therefrom.1 * I united myself to my shadow,
“ and I sent forth Shu and Tefnut out from myself; thus from being one god I
“ became three, and Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Nut ancl Seb, and Nut gave
“ birth to Osiris, Horus-Khent-an-maa, Sut, Isis, and Nephthys, at one birth, one
“ after the other, and their children multiply upon this earth.”3
The reader has now before him the main points of the evidence concerning the
Egyptians’ notions about God, and the cosmic powers and their phases, and the
anthropomorphic creations with which they peopled the other world, all of which
have been derived from the native literature of ancient Egypt. The different
interpretations which different Egyptologists have placed upon the facts demonstrate
the difficulty of the subject. Speaking generally, the interpreters may be divided
into two classes : those who credit the Egyptians with a number of abstract ideas
about Gocl ancl the creation of the world ancl the future life, which are helcl to be
essentially the product of modern Christian nations ; and those who consider the
mind of the Egyptian as that of a half-savage being to whom occasional glimmerings
of spiritual light were vouchsafed from time to time. All eastern nations have
experienced difficulty in separating spiritual from corporeal conceptions, and the
Egyptian is no exception to the rule ; but if he preserved the gross idea of a
primeval existence with the sublime idea of God which he manifests in writings of
a later date, it seems that this is due more to his reverence for hereditary tradition
than to ignorance. Without attempting to decide questions which have presented
difficulties to the greatest thinkers among Egyptologists, it may safely be said that
the Egyptian whose mincl conceived the existence of an unknown, inscrutable,
eternal ancl infinite God, who was One—whatever the word One may mean here—
ancl who himself believed in a future life to be spent in a glorified body in heaven,
was not a being whose spiritual needs would be satisfiecl by a belief in gods who
could eat, and drink, love and hate, and fight and grow olcl ancl die. He was
unable to describe the infinite God, himself being finite, and it is not surprising
that he should, in some respects, have made Him in his own image.
1 The variant version has, “ I brought into my own rnouth my name as a word of power, and I
straightway came into being.”
3 The papyrus from which these extracts are taken is in the British Museum, No. 10188. A
hieroglyphic transcript and translation will be found in Archceologia, vol. lii., pp. 440-443. For the
passages quoted see Col. 26, 1. 22 ; Col. 27, 1 5 ; and Col. 28, 1. 20; Col. 29, 1. 6.
INTRODUCTION.
vSummary of theories.
“ none other who workecl with me. I laid the foundations of all things by my will,
“ and all things evolved. themselves therefrom.1 * I united myself to my shadow,
“ and I sent forth Shu and Tefnut out from myself; thus from being one god I
“ became three, and Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Nut ancl Seb, and Nut gave
“ birth to Osiris, Horus-Khent-an-maa, Sut, Isis, and Nephthys, at one birth, one
“ after the other, and their children multiply upon this earth.”3
The reader has now before him the main points of the evidence concerning the
Egyptians’ notions about God, and the cosmic powers and their phases, and the
anthropomorphic creations with which they peopled the other world, all of which
have been derived from the native literature of ancient Egypt. The different
interpretations which different Egyptologists have placed upon the facts demonstrate
the difficulty of the subject. Speaking generally, the interpreters may be divided
into two classes : those who credit the Egyptians with a number of abstract ideas
about Gocl ancl the creation of the world ancl the future life, which are helcl to be
essentially the product of modern Christian nations ; and those who consider the
mind of the Egyptian as that of a half-savage being to whom occasional glimmerings
of spiritual light were vouchsafed from time to time. All eastern nations have
experienced difficulty in separating spiritual from corporeal conceptions, and the
Egyptian is no exception to the rule ; but if he preserved the gross idea of a
primeval existence with the sublime idea of God which he manifests in writings of
a later date, it seems that this is due more to his reverence for hereditary tradition
than to ignorance. Without attempting to decide questions which have presented
difficulties to the greatest thinkers among Egyptologists, it may safely be said that
the Egyptian whose mincl conceived the existence of an unknown, inscrutable,
eternal ancl infinite God, who was One—whatever the word One may mean here—
ancl who himself believed in a future life to be spent in a glorified body in heaven,
was not a being whose spiritual needs would be satisfiecl by a belief in gods who
could eat, and drink, love and hate, and fight and grow olcl ancl die. He was
unable to describe the infinite God, himself being finite, and it is not surprising
that he should, in some respects, have made Him in his own image.
1 The variant version has, “ I brought into my own rnouth my name as a word of power, and I
straightway came into being.”
3 The papyrus from which these extracts are taken is in the British Museum, No. 10188. A
hieroglyphic transcript and translation will be found in Archceologia, vol. lii., pp. 440-443. For the
passages quoted see Col. 26, 1. 22 ; Col. 27, 1 5 ; and Col. 28, 1. 20; Col. 29, 1. 6.