The Religion of Ancient Egypt/Lecture III

by Peter le Page Renouf

THE GODS OF EGYPT.

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Identity of the Religious Institutions from First to Last.

It was quite unnecessary for the purpose of these Lectures that the sketch of Egyptian civilization which I laid before you in the last Lecture should be completed or filled up in detail. But in studying the phenomena which a religion presents, it is indispensable that we should understand certain conditions accompanying those phenomena. Men's thoughts are forced into certain channels and assume definite forms according to the nature of their occupations. It is not a matter of indifference whether we have to do with people in what is called the hunting stage, nomadic populations, agriculturalists or merchants; with men of hot or of cold climates; with savages or with men in the most advanced stages of culture. The religions and mythologies of such peoples differ very widely. Even among those professing the same religion, great differences must necessarily be found between men of highly educated and cultivated minds, and unpolished men insensible to art or poetry of a high order. Now it is certain that at least three thousand years before Christ there was in Egypt a powerful and elaborately organized monarchy, enjoying a material civilization in many respects not inferior to that of Europe in the last century. Centuries must have elapsed before such a civilization became possible. Of a state of barbarism or even of patriarchal life anterior to the monumental period, there is no historical vestige. The earliest monuments which have been discovered present to us the very same fully developed civilization and the same religion as the later monuments. The blocks of the Pyramids bear quarry marks exhibiting the decimal notation, and are dated by the months of the calendar which was in use down to the latest times. You must remember that the calendars of other nations (Hebrews, Greeks and Romans) show great ignorance of the real length of the year. It was only after the conquest of Alexandria that the Roman calendar was reformed by Julius Cæsar. The political division into nomes (provinces, each of which had its principal deity) is as old as the age of the Pyramids. The gods whose names appear in the oldest tombs were worshipped down to the Christian times. The same kind of priesthoods which are mentioned in the tablets of Canopus and Rosetta in the Ptolemaic period are as ancient as the Pyramids, and more ancient than any Pyramid of which we know the date. There is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford the monument of a man whose priestly office had been endowed by a king of the second dynasty. Excellent scholars like Dr. Hincks and Mr. Goodwin have ascribed the monument to this early date, and have considered it the most ancient of all dated monuments. This indeed cannot be proved; but there is no doubt whatever that it is the most ancient authentic monument recording a religious endowment.

Temples.

No temples of the ancient empire are extant at present, except perhaps the monument discovered some years ago in the neighbourhood of the great Sphinx; but no one can say whether this is a temple or a tomb. But this want of early temples is certainly owing to the destruction of the most ancient cities, like Memphis and Heliopolis. There is no reason for doubting the inscription first published by M. de Rougé, which says that Chufa or Cheops built his pyramid near a temple of Isis, and that he built or endowed a temple to Hathor; or the inscriptions at Dendera, which ascribe the restoration of its ancient temple to Tehutimes III., "according to the plan found in ancient writings of the time of king Chufu." There is every reason for believing that in the ancient empire great and splendid temples were built. But we must not take for granted that temples at this early period were places of worship in our modern sense of the term. At no period of the Egyptian religion were the public admitted to the temples as worshippers. All the temples we know were royal offerings made to the divinity of the locality, and none but the priestly personages attached to the temple itself had free access to its precincts. But the image of the god and those of the divinities associated with him were often brought out in solemn processions, in which the entire population took part.

Triads and Enneads.

In the principal temple of each province, the chief deity was associated with other gods; hence the expression θεοι συνναοι of the Greek inscriptions; hence from an early period triads (consisting of the principal god, a female deity and their offspring), or enneads, consisting of nine gods. Thus at Thebes the triad consisted of Amon, Nut and Chonsu; at Abydos, of Osiris, Isis and Horus. No special importance was attached by the Egyptians to the number three and it is a mistake to look for triads everywhere, for the number of gods varied according to the place; the number nine was much more frequent, and this is often nothing more than a round number, signifying either the gods of a locality or the entire Pantheon.

Local Character of Egyptian Worship.

As each deity was connected with some locality, his name was generally followed by a phrase indicating this relationship. A deity was said to be Lord of Abydos, mistress of Senem, presiding in Thebes, inhabiting Hermopolis; sometimes a particle was interposed between the name of the god and that of the town, as "Anubis from Sechem," "Neith of Sais;" sometimes one or more epithets were added, as "the mighty," "the beneficent," "the august;" sometimes the name of an animal which was the recognized symbol of the god, a bull, a ram or a lion. Special titles were given to divinities according to the place in which they were worshipped: Osiris, for instance, was called che "the child," at Thebes; he was ura, "the great one," at Heliopolis; ati, "the sovereign," at Memphis. It happened frequently that in the same town one god was worshipped under different aspects, or as proceeding from different localities, and treated as though there were different divine persons of the same name. Chonsu in Thebes, under the name nefer-hotep, is entreated to lend his miraculous power to Chonsu in Thebes under the name ari secher. We read of Set the god of Senu, Set of Uau, Set of Un and Set of Meru. Other forms of Set are well known, but those I have cited are brought together in one inscription as children of the god Tmu. I find invocations in a very early inscription addressed to the Anubis of six different localities. Apis is the son of Ptah, of Tmu, of Osiris and of Sokari. Are all these fathers of Apis one person? Horus is the son of the goddess Isis, but he is also the son of the goddess Hathor. Isis must then be the same as Hathor, unless mythology is proof against logic. Let us admit this, and also that Seb, the father of Isis, is identical with Rā, the father of Hathor; but what shall we say on being told that Horus was born in Tattu (the Mendes of the Greeks), and also that he was born in Cheb? Geographical localities do not so easily lend themselves to identification. In a well-known text, Horus is called the son of Isis and Osiris, but shortly afterwards Seb is named as his father. Students of mythology will not be astonished or scandalized if they discover that Osiris is at once the father, brother, husband and son of Isis, and also the son of their child Horus. They will read a text on the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I., now in the Soane Museum, which speaks of "the son who proceeds from the father, and the father who proceeds from his son," and if their studies are rightly conducted, the mystery will not be hard to understand.

The Deities Innumerable.

The Egyptian deities are innumerable. There were countless gods in heaven and below the earth. Every town and village had its local patrons. Every month of the year, every day of the month, every hour of the day and of the night, had its presiding divinity, and all these gods had to be propitiated by offerings. I several times made the attempt to draw up an index of the divine names occurring in the texts, but found it necessary to abandon the enterprize. What can all these gods mean?

Mean Notions concerning these Deities.

Nothing can be more clear than that under the name of God the Egyptians did not understand, as we do, a being without body, parts or passions. The bodies of the gods are spoken of as well as their souls, and they have both parts and passions; they are described as suffering from hunger and thirst, old age, disease, fear and sorrow. They perspire, their limbs quake, their head aches, their teeth chatter, their eyes weep, their nose bleeds, "poison takes possession of their flesh, even as the Nile takes possession of the land." They may be stung by reptiles and burnt by fire. They shriek and howl with pain and grief. All the great gods require protection. Osiris is helpless against his enemies, and his remains are protected by his wife and sister. Hathor extends her wings as a protection over the victorious Horus, or, as one form of the legend expresses it, "she protects him with her body as a divine cow;" yet Hathor in her turn needs protection, and even the sun-god Rā, though invested with the predicates of supreme divinity, requires the aid of the goddess Isis. All the gods are liable to be forced to grant the prayers of men, through fear of threats which it is inconceivable to us that any intelligence but that of idiots should have believed. There are many aspects of this religion, and some of them are extremely ridiculous. The very impulse, however, which prompts us to laugh at the religion of our fellow-men, ought to suggest a doubt whether we have really caught their meaning.

Simplification of the List.

We are tempted, in our bewilderment at the number of the gods, to ask whether the process of reduction is not applicable to them as well as that of multiplication. And we discover to our relief that such a process is actually suggested to us by documents of indisputable authority, which show that the same god is often known under many names. In the Litanies of the god Rā, which are inscribed on the walls of the royal tombs at Bibān-el-molūk, the god is invoked under seventy-five different names. A monument published in Burton's Excerpta Hieroglyphica gives the names, or rather a selection of the names, of Ptah, the principal god of Memphis. The Book of the Dead has a chapter entirely consisting of the names of Osiris. The inscriptions of the temple of Dendera give a long list of the names of the goddess Hathor. She is identified not only with Isis, but with Sechet at Memphis, Neith at Sais, Saosis at Heliopolis, Nehemauit at Hermopolis, Bast at Bubastis, Sothis at Elephantine, and many other goddesses. These authorities alone are sufficient, almost at a glance, to convince us that not only are some inferior deities mere aspects of the greater gods, but that several at least of the greater gods themselves are but different aspects of one and the same.

Lepsius, in his Dissertation on the gods of the first order, has published several lists of these divinities taken from monuments of different periods, the most ancient list being taken from an altar of the sixth dynasty. On comparing these lists together, it is again plain that Mentu and Tmu, two of the great gods of Thebes, are merely aspects of the sun-god Rā. The entire list of the gods of the first order is easily reduced to two groups; the first representing the sun-god Rā and his family, and the second Osiris and his family. It is most probable that neither Ptah nor Amon were originally at the head of lists, but obtained their places as being chief divinities of the capitals Memphis and Thebes. Both these gods are identified with the sun-god Rā, and so indeed are all the chief local divinities. The whole mythology of Egypt may be said to turn upon the histories of Rā and Osiris, and these histories run into each other, sometimes in inextricable confusion, which ceases to be wonderful when texts are discovered which simply identify Osiris and Rā. And, finally, other texts are known wherein Rā, Osiris, Amon and all the other gods disappear, except as simple names, and the unity of God is asserted in the noblest language of monotheistic religion. There are many very eminent scholars who, with full knowledge of all that can be said to the contrary, maintain that the Egyptian religion is essentially monotheistic, and that the multiplicity of gods is only due to the personification of "the attributes, characters and offices of the supreme God."

Is the Religion really Monotheistic?

No scholar is better entitled to be heard on this subject than the late M. Emmanuel Rougé, whose matured judgment is as follows:^[1]

"No one has called in question the fundamental meaning of the principal passages by the help of which we are able to establish what ancient Egypt has taught concerning God, the world and man. I said God, not the gods. The first characteristic of the religion is the Unity [of God] most energetically expressed: God, One, Sole and Only; no others with Him.—He is the Only Being—living in truth.—Thou art One, and millions of beings proceed from thee.—He has made everything, and he alone has not been made. The clearest, the simplest, the most precise conception.

"But how reconcile the Unity of God with Egyptian Polytheism. History and geography will perhaps elucidate the matter. The Egyptian religion comprehends a quantity of local worships. The Egypt which Menes brought together entire under his sceptre was divided into nomes, each having a capital town; each of these regions has its principal god designed by a special name; but it is always the same doctrine which re-appears under different names. One idea predominates, that of a single and primeval God; everywhere and always it is One Substance, self-existent, and an unapproachable God."

M. de Rougé then says that from, or rather before, the beginning of the historical period, the pure monotheistic religion passed through the phase of Sabeism; the Sun, instead of being considered as the symbol of life, was taken as the manifestation of God Himself. The second characteristic of the religion was "a mystery which does honour to the theological intellect of the Egyptians. God is self-existent; he is the only being who has not been begotten; hence the idea of considering God under two aspects, the Father and the Son. In most of the hymns we come across this idea of the Double Being who engendereth Himself, the Soul in two Twins—to signify two Persons never to be separated. A hymn of the Leyden Museum. … calls Him 'the One of One.'

"Are these noble doctrines then the result of centuries? Certainly not; for they were in existence more than two thousand years before the Christian era. On the other hand, Polytheism, the sources of which we have pointed out, developes itself and progresses without interruption until the time of the Ptolemies. It is, therefore, more than five thousand years since, in the valley of the Nile, the hymn began to the Unity of God and the immortality of the soul, and we find Egypt in the last ages arrived at the most unbridled Polytheism. The belief in the Unity of the Supreme God and in his attributes as Creator and Lawgiver of man, whom he has endowed with an immortal soul—these are the primitive notions, enchased, like indestructible diamonds, in the midst of the mythological superfetations accumulated in the centuries which have passed over that ancient civilization."

Although some of the texts here alluded to have most probably a somewhat different meaning from that which M. de Rougé ascribes to them, the facts upon which he relies are in the main unassailable. It is incontestably true that the sublimer portions of the Egyptian religion are not the comparatively late result of a process of development or elimination from the grosser. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage of the Egyptian religion, that known to the Greek and Latin writers, heathen or Christian, was by far the grossest and most corrupt. M. de Rougé is no doubt correct in his assertion that in the several local worships one and the same doctrine re-appears under different names and symbols. But he does not venture to assert that at any time within the historical period the worship of one God was anywhere practised to the exclusion of a plurality of gods. He only infers from the course of history that, as polytheism was constantly on the increase, the monotheistic doctrines must have preceded it. Another conclusion, however, is suggested by the Egyptian texts to which he refers. The polytheistic and the so-called monotheistic doctrines constantly appear together in one context; not only in the sacred writings handed down by tradition, and subjected to interpolations and corruptions of every kind, but even more frequently in literary compositions of a private nature, where no one would dream of suspecting interpolation. Throughout the whole range of Egyptian literature, no facts appear to be more certainly proved than these: (1) that the doctrine of one God and that of many gods were taught by the same men; (2) that no inconsistency between the two doctrines was thought of. Nothing, of course, can be more absurd if the Egyptians attached the same meaning to the word God that we do. But there may perhaps be a sense of the word which admits of its use for many as well as for one. We cannot do better at starting than endeavour to ascertain what the Egyptians really meant when they used the word nutar, which we translate "god."

Evidence as to the Meaning of the word Nutar.

At first sight, the Egyptian language is less likely to throw light upon the subject than might be expected if it really belonged to the same stage of speech as either the Indo-European or the Semitic languages. In these languages almost every word is closely allied to several others connected together by derivation from a common root, and the primitive notion conveyed by the word in question can be illustrated by the signification of the kindred words and their root. Generally speaking, however, in Egyptian every word is isolated. There is no distinction between word, stem and root. The same Egyptian word may sometimes have different significations; but this, as a rule, only means that the one notion which is expressed by a word in Egyptian has no single word corresponding to it in English, French or German. It seldom happens that we can advance a step beyond such a fact as that the word nutar is rightly translated "god." I am glad, however, to be able to affirm with certainty that in this particular case we can accurately determine the primitive notion attached to the word. None of the explanations hitherto given of it can be considered satisfactory. That which I am about to propose will, I believe, be generally accepted by scholars, because it is arrived at as the result of a special study of all the published passages in which the word occurs. Such a study, as far as I am aware, has not yet been made, but if made by any other person it must necessarily lead to the same result.

The old Egyptian word nutar had already in the popular pronunciation suffered from phonetic decay, and lost its final consonant as early as the nineteenth dynasty, as we see by the inscriptions in the royal tombs at Bibān-el-molūk,^[2] and it appears in Coptic under the forms nuti, nute. It is remarkable that the translators of the Bible into Coptic, who generally abstained from the use of old Egyptian words connected with religion, and used Greek words instead, nevertheless adopted this one as expressive of their notion of God.

There is another word, nutra, very frequently used either as verb or adjective, which is closely allied to nutar. The sense of "renovation" was first attached to it by M. E. de Rougé, on the strength of its final sign, which he considered as a determinative of signification. But this conjecture, which has been very generally accepted, is really without any solid foundation; the sign in question is here expressive of nothing more than the sound tra, and it will be found to all words so ending, whatever be their meaning; as hetra, whether signifying "join," "horse," or "tribute;" petra, "behold;" tra, "season." Another more obvious sense, "sacred," "divine," may be justified by the Greek text of the tablet of Canopus, where nutra is translated ἱερὸς, as applied to the sacred animals. But this meaning, though a certain one, occurs but seldom in the Egyptian texts, and when it so occurs is, after all, only a derived meaning, as is in fact the case with the Greek ἱερὸς, the first sense of which is "strong," "vigorous."^[3] The notion expressed by nutar as a noun, and nutra as an adjective and verb, must be sought in the Coptic nomti, which in the translation of the Bible corresponds to the Greek words δύναμις, ἰσχύς, ἰσχυρὸς, ἰσχυρόω, "power," "force," "strong," "fortify," "protect."^[4]

The reason why the identification of the old form nutar with the more recent nomti as well as nuti has hitherto escaped observation is, that the connecting link nuntar has either been unknown to scholars or disregarded by them. In nuntar, a process as well known to Egyptian as to Indo-European scholars has taken place.^[5] The vowel of the first syllable has been strengthened by the addition of a nasal consonant. The old Egyptian word heket (beer) has by this process become henke in the Thebaic, and hemki in the Memphitic dialect.

The following examples will illustrate the usage of the word.

Large stones are often said to be nutru. This does not mean that they grow or that they are divine, but that they are mighty. In one of those paraphrases which are so common on the walls of Dendera, the unequivocal word uru, "great, mighty," is substituted for nutru.^[6] Sauit nutrit is a "strong wall." A crypt is aat nutrit, a "strong-hold." Three of the chambers of the temple of Dendera are said to be nutru. "Qu'est ce qu'une salle divine?" very pertinently asks M. Mariette. Sat nutrit is a "potent talisman." Seti I. in his titles is the "potent image," seχem nutra, of Chepera. Nutra is constantly brought into parallelism with words implying "might." "Great (ura) is the Eye of Horus, Mighty (āa) is the Eye of Horus, Strong (nutra) is the Eye of Horus, the Giver of Strength (senutra) is the Eye of Horus."^[7] "A mighty wall to Egypt, protecting their limbs; his force (pehti) is like Ptah in prostrating the barbarians, a child of might (sif nutra) in his coming forth like Harmachis."^[8] "He is strong (ten-re) in performing his duties to Amon-Rā, he is vigorous (nutra) in performing his duties to the sovereign, his lord." In the Demotic text of the tablet of Canopus, nutra is translated by χu, which signifies, "strengthen, fortify, protect, invigorate." It has constantly this meaning in the hieroglyphic texts. "Thy body is fortified (nutri-ta), protected (χu-ta), restored (seput-ta)."^[9] "Thy limbs are fortified (nutri-ta) by the Power (seχem) which is in heaven."^[10] Nutra men ma pet, "strong and durable as heaven." Nutra-f nut-ek er neken, "He fortifies thy city against destruction." Nutra-f Nutrit er nefu, "He strengthens Nutrit against harm."^[11] Nutrit, the name of a town (in this place equivalent to Dendera), has exactly the same meaning as Samaria, Ashdod, Gaza, Valentia, and many other names significant of strength. Religious purifications were supposed to give strength, and the verb nutra is therefore often found in parallelism with āb and tur, both of which have the sense of religious purification.

I will add one more illustration, which by itself might not be of much weight, but is really important when taken in conjunction with other evidence. The goddess Isis is distinguished among other divinities by the frequent epithet nutrit. When the inscriptions in her honour are written in Greek, she is most frequently called μεγάλη or μεγίστη.

There is yet another Egyptian word cognate to those we have been studying. Nutrit signifies "eye-ball." The notion here is of something fortified, protected, guarded. "Custodi me ut pupillam oculi:" "Keep me as the apple of the eye." The Arabic word hadaqat, which means the same thing, has an exactly similar etymology. And several other parallel instances might be cited.

The Egyptian nutar, I argue therefore, means Power, which is also the meaning of the Hebrew El. The extremely common Egyptian expression nutar nutra^[12] exactly corresponds in sense to the Hebrew El Shaddai, the very title by which God tells Moses that He was known to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. "And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, 'I am Jahve: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name Jahve was I not known to them.'" Nutar nutra amtu heret is "the Almighty Power which is in heaven."

It is very remarkable that "Brahman in Sanskrit meant originally Power, the same as El. It resisted for a long time the mythological contagion, but at last it yielded like all other names of God, and became the name of one God."^[13] But the Egyptian nutar never became a proper name. It was indeed restricted in its use, as far back as our knowledge of the language enables us to trace it, but it never ceased to be a common noun, and was applied indifferently to each of the powers which the Egyptian imagination conceived as active in the universe, and to the Power from which all powers proceed. Horus and Rā and Osiris and Set are names of individual finite powers, but a Power without a name or any mythological characteristic is constantly referred to in the singular number, and can only be regarded as the object of that "sensus numinis," or immediate perception of the Infinite, which, like my learned predecessor Professor Max Müller, I consider "not the result of reasoning or generalizing, but an intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our senses."^[14] The following instances are taken from the moral writings of which I spoke in the last Lecture.

The Power.

1. The Maxims of Ptahhotep.

They speak of "God forbidding" and "God commanding."

"The field which the great God hath given thee to till."

"If any one beareth himself proudly, he will be humbled by God, who maketh his strength."

"If thou art a wise man, bring up thy son in the love of God."

"The magnanimous man is the object of God's regard, but he who listens to his belly is scorned by his own wife."

"Thy treasure has grown to thee through the gift of God."

"God loveth the obedient and hateth the disobedient."

A good son is spoken of as "the gift of God."

2. A papyrus of Leyden.^[15]

"Happy is the man who eateth his own bread. Possess what thou hast in the joy of thy heart. What thou hast not, obtain it by work. It is profitable for a man to eat his own bread; God grants this to whosoever honours Him."

3. A papyrus at St. Petersburg.^[16]

"Praised be God for all His gifts."

"God knows the wicked; He smites the wicked, even to blood."

4. The Maxims of Ani.^[17]

"Whoso acts, God will raise his name above the sensual man."

"The sanctuary of God abhors [noisy manifestations?]. Pray humbly with a loving heart all the words of which are uttered in secret. He will protect thee in thine affairs; He will listen to thy words; He will accept thine offerings."

"In making thine oblation to God, beware of what He abhors. … Exaggerate not the liturgical prescriptions; it is forbidden to give more than what is prescribed. Let thine eyes consider the acts of His wrath. Thou shalt make adorations in His name. It is He who granteth genius with endless aptitudes; who magnifieth him who becometh great. The God of the world is in the light above the firmament; His emblems are upon earth; it is to them that worship is rendered daily."

Another section is upon maternal affection. It describes the self-sacrifice of an affectionate mother from the earliest moments of the child's existence, and continues as follows: "Thou wast put to school, and whilst thou wast being taught letters she came punctually to thy master, bringing thee the bread and the drink of her house. Thou art now come to man's estate; thou art married and hast a house; but never do thou forget the painful labour which thy mother endured, nor all the salutary care which she has taken of thee. Take heed lest she have cause to complain of thee, for fear that she should raise her hands to God and He should listen to her prayer."

"Give thyself to God, keep thyself continually for God, and let to-morrow be like to-day. Let thine eyes consider the acts of God; it is He who smiteth him that is smitten."

5. The author of the Maxims contained in the demotic papyrus of the Louvre.

"Curse not thy master before God."

It was in this style that in all periods of their history, in the earliest not less confidently than in the latest, the Egyptians spoke of the Nutar in the singular number. There can, I trust, be no doubt who that Power is which, in our translations, we do not hesitate to call God. It is unquestionably the true and only God, who "is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being," whose "eternal power and Godhead" and government of the world were made known through "that Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world." In the extracts which I have quoted, and in many similar passages, we recognize the elements of true religion, free from all admixture of mythology. But if such be the Power, what are the "powers" (nutriu), and what are their relations to it?

The Powers.

In the formation of a theory of the universe, the notion of Power productive of results may, according as it is defined, lead to very different consequences. It may be conceived very much in the same sense as a Cause, and lead, as the notion of Cause will always lead reflecting men, in spite of the protests of critical philosophers, to the admission of One First Cause or Power from which all others are derived. But, as we know equally well from the history of speculation, the notions of Power and Substance may be identified, and it is easy to imagine one universal Force in nature, in itself eternal and unchangeable, but manifesting itself in the most different forms. In both cases the result is Unity; Theistic in the first case, Pantheistic in the second. I shall have occasion to speak of the complete and final triumph of the latter of these conceptions. But the triumph did not take place till a comparatively late period, and till then the Egyptian religion may be considered as susceptible of either a Theistic or a Pantheistic interpretation. In either case the gods of the mythology represent the real or imaginary powers of the universe; and what these powers were in the most primitive conception entertained of them by the Egyptians, can only be discovered by the same scientific process which has been applied with such success to the mythology of the Indo-European races.

Myth and Legend.

The most common opinion held by the best scholars only a few years ago was, that however many gods the Egyptians might have, they had no mythology properly speaking. The only myth they were supposed to possess was that about Osiris, and even this was imagined to have been brought into shape through Hellenic influences. This opinion is altogether an erroneous one: it confuses the notion of myth with that of mythological tale or legend; and whilst the Egyptians really had an abundance of legendary tales, their myths are simply innumerable. The tale of Osiris is as old as Egyptian civilization itself; that is, very much more than two thousand years before Hellenic influences came into operation.

Several mythological tales of considerable extent are now well known to us. The legend of the revolt of the first men against the god Rā and his destruction of them was discovered by M. Naville in one of the tombs at Bibān-el-molūk. A long narrative of the victories of Horus was copied by the same accomplished scholar from the walls of the temple at Edfu. It is written in the style of the heroic annals of the kings of Egypt, and accounts for the names of geographical localities by the exploits of the divine warrior. The tale of Osiris, as told in the Greek work attributed to Plutarch, is made up out of several genuine Egyptian legends, and the wanderings of the widowed Isis formed the subject of many legendary narratives. But the religious texts are literally crowded with allusions to mythological legends, and these allusions, though they are necessarily obscure to us, must have been familiar to the Egyptians.

The mythological legend grew out of the myth, but must not be confounded with it. The myth was in Egypt, what it was everywhere else, a mere phrase, often consisting of not more than a single word, descriptive of some natural phenomenon, such as the rising or setting of the sun, the struggle between light and darkness, and the alternate victory of the one or the other. The science of Language has established the fact that all names were general terms; and one of the most eminent masters of the science^[18] begins a work on "Proper Names" by laying it down as a first principle that for the etymologist there are no such things as "proper names," but only "appellatives." These appellatives, when applied to natural phenomena, are either such predicates as the most prosaic observer might use at the present day, or they are metaphorical. An early stage of language is always highly metaphorical, its terms being derived from sensuous perception, and being ill adapted to express abstract ideas. Many roots were required to express the different stages or determinations of a single notion. Even in reference to so simple a notion as that expressed by the verb to see, the Greeks had recourse to no less than three roots (in ὁράω, ὄψομαι, εἶδον), according as the action was considered as continued, completed or momentary. We ourselves say I go, but I went; je vais, nous allons, j'irai. As the motives for applying an appellative to a phenomenon are many, it is evident that many myths may refer to the same phenomenon under different names. And every myth which involves a metaphor naturally suggests a legend, which in its turn is susceptible of an indefinite amount of development in the hands of poets or other mythographers, long after the primitive meaning of the myth has been forgotten.

It is therefore only through a radical misconception of the nature of a myth that attempts can be made to discover a consistent system in the mythology of any country. One myth was originally quite independent of every other.

Another serious mistake is to suppose that all the details of a mythological legend are of equal importance. The Psalmist speaks of a tabernacle in the heavens set for the sun, whom he compares to "a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." Call the sun the Bridegroom or the Racer (and he is so named in several mythologies), and a series of images will at once be suggested correlative to each of these names, and adventures will be invented to suit them. But these details are no real part of the myth, and frequently conceal its true meaning. One of the chief difficulties in dealing with a myth lies in distinguishing the essential from the non-essential portions of the legend to which it has given rise.

On the other hand, the moment we understand the nature of a myth, all impossibilities, contradictions and immoralities disappear. If a mythical personage really be nothing more than a name of the sun, his birth may be derived from ever so many different mothers. He may be the son of the Sky or of the Dawn or of the Sea or of Night. He may be identical with other mythical personages which are also names of the sun, and yet be absolutely different from them, as the midday sun differs from the rising and from the setting sun, or the sun of to-day from that of yesterday. He may be the husband of his own mother without the guilt or stain of incest. All myths are strictly true, but they can only be harmonized when translated into the language of physical reality.

All phenomena which attracted sufficient attention furnished matter for myths. It had been remarked, for instance, that certain stars never set, whereas all others, after performing their course, sink below the horizon. The Egyptians expressed this by the myth of the Crocodile of the West which fed upon the Achmu Uretu (the setting stars).^[19] Thunder and lightning, storm and wind and cloud and rain, were no doubt duly personified, but they occupy a very small part of the mythology, which is almost exclusively concerned with the regularly and perpetually recurring phenomena. Whatever may be the case in other mythologies, "I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month, every year, in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject"^[20] of Egyptian mythology.

Ra and his Family.

There can be no controversy about the meaning of Rā. Rā is not only the name of the sun-god, it is the usual word for sun. In other mythologies the sun-god is borne in a chariot or on horseback; in Egypt, his course across the sky is made in a boat. The sky (Nu) is accordingly conceived as an expanse of water, of which the Nile is the earthly representative. Rā is said to proceed from "Nu, the father of the gods." His adversary is Apap, who is represented as a serpent pierced with the weapons of the god. The conflict is not between good and evil, but the purely physical one between light and darkness. Shu and Tefnut are the children of Rā; Shu is Air, and Tefnut is some form of moisture, probably Dew.^[21]

Osiris and his Family.

The myth of Osiris, though much more elaborate, has the same meaning. Osiris is the eldest of the five children of Seb and Nut. "He is greater than his father, and more powerful than his mother." He wedded his sister Isis whilst they were yet in their mother's womb, and their offspring was the elder Horus. Set and Nephthys, another wedded pair, are their brother and sister. In this myth the antagonist of Osiris is Set, by whom he is slain, but he is avenged by his son Horus, and he reigns in the nether world, like the Indian Yama, and judges the dead from his throne in the hall of the Two-fold Eight. And this he does daily.

The explanation of this myth exercised the imaginations of the ancients. The priests and poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties already identified Osiris with the highest of all Powers. In later times, as we see from the treatise ascribed to Plutarch, he was identified with various abstract "principles." By the help of the light which comparative mythology supplies, we are enabled to arrive at a truer sense of the myth.

The parents of Osiris are Seb and Nut, and about these there can be no mistake. Seb is the Earth, and Nut is Heaven. Seb is identified with the earth in the older texts, and in the later ones "the back of Seb" is a familiar term for the earth. Seb is also the Egyptian name for a certain species of goose, and in accordance with the homonymous tendency of the mythological period of all nations, the god and the bird were identified; Seb was called "the great cackler," and there are traces of the myth of a "mundane egg" which he "divided" or hatched. Nut is the name of a female goddess,^[22] frequently used synonymously with the other names of the sky, and she is as frequently pictured with her arms and legs extended over the earth, with the stars spread over her body. The marriage of Heaven and Earth is extremely common in mythologies; what is peculiar to the Egyptian myth is that Earth is not represented as the Mother of all things, Θεῶν μήτηρ, ἄλοχ' Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος, but the Father,^[23] and Heaven is here the Mother; though, as we have seen in speaking of Rā, Heaven was also conceived as a male power, like the Indian Varuna and the Greek Uranos. From the union of Seb and Nut sprung the mild Osiris, the Sun, and Isis, the Dawn, wedded before they were born, and the fruit of their marriage was Horus, the Sun in his full strength. Set the destroyer is also the son of Seb and Nut, but his triumph is in the west; he is Darkness, and his spouse Nephthys, a deity of mixed character, is the Sunset. There are the traces of a legend according to which Osiris mistook Nephthys for his wife Isis. Nephthys, who loved him, encouraged the illusion, and from their embraces Anpu (Anubis) was born. Anubis, like his mother, is a deity of a mixed character, partly belonging to the diurnal, partly to the nocturnal powers. It is said of him that "he swallowed his father Osiris." I believe that he represents the Twilight or Dusk immediately following the disappearance of the sun.

I am quite aware that texts may be quoted to prove that Osiris is the Moon, but these texts belong to a pantheistic period in which the god was recognized under all forms.^[24] It might rather be doubted whether the story of Osiris had not reference to the annual rather than to the daily sun. His death might be supposed to represent the reign of winter. Some of the Egyptian usages in commemoration of his death and resurrection, such as the sowing of plants and watching their growth, might be cited in support of this view. But the closer we look at these matters of detail, the less will they disturb our conviction that the victory of Set over Osiris is that of Night over Day, and the resurrection of Osiris is the rising of the Sun. And I do not think Osiris will be spoken of as dead throughout an Egyptian winter by any one who has had any experience of that delightful season.

There is a passage in the Book of the Dead^[25] which says that "Osiris came to Tattu (Mendes) and found the soul of Rā there; each embraced the other, and became as one soul in two souls." This may be a mythological way of saying that two legends which had previously been independent of each other were henceforth inextricably mixed up. This, at all events, is the historical fact. In the words of a sacred text, "Rā is the soul of Osiris, and Osiris the soul of Rā."

Horus.^[26]

But Horus also is one of the names of the Sun, and had his myths quite independently of Rā or Osiris. The most prominent ones in comparatively later times described his victories over Set or the monster Tebha (the Typhon of the Greeks). But the victory of Darkness over Light was appropriately represented by the myth of the Blind Horus. An ancient text speaks of him as "sitting solitary in the darkness and blindness." He is introduced in the royal Ritual at Abydos, saying, "I am Horus, and I come to search for mine eyes." According to the 64th chapter of the Book of the Dead, "his eye is restored to him at the dawn of day." A legend contained in the 112th chapter of the same Book describes Horus as wounded in the eye by Set in the form of a black boar. Anubis fomented the wound, of which Horus appears at first to have thought him the author,^[27] and according to another legend, Isis stanched the blood which flowed from the wound. But according to another account, Set swallowed the eye, and was compelled to vomit it from the prison in which he was confined, with a chain of steel fastened about his neck. The Eye of Horus is constantly spoken of as a distinct deity, terrible to the enemies of light.

The conflict of Light and Darkness is represented in many other mythical forms. The great Cat in the alley of Persea trees at Heliopolis, which is Rā, crushes the serpent. In most parts of Egypt the sun sets behind a mountain-range; it is only in the north that the body of Osiris is said to have been plunged into the waters. According to another legend, the crocodile Maka, the son of Set, devoured the arm of Osiris. Other disastrous mutilations are described as befalling Osiris, Rā, Horus and Set, in their turn. Set and the other powers of darkness assumed the forms of fishes. Horus pursued them, and Set was caught in a net.^[28] Horus, on the other hand, was changed into a fish, and was saved by his mother Isis.

Set.

Set, though the antagonist of Light in the myths of Rā, Osiris and Horus, is not a god of evil. He represents a physical reality, a constant and everlasting law of nature, and is as true a god as his opponents. His worship is as ancient as any. The kings of Egypt were devoted to Set as to Horus, and derived from them the sovereignty over north and south. On some monuments, one god is represented with two heads, one being that of Horus, the other that of Set. The name of the great conqueror Seti signifies, "he that is devoted to Set." It was not till the decline of the empire that this deity came to be regarded as an evil demon, that his name was effaced from monuments, and other names substituted for his in the Ritual.

Thoth.

The Egyptian god Tehuti is known to the readers of Plato under the name of Thōyth. He is the Egyptian Hermes, and the name of Hermes Trismegistos is translated from the corresponding Egyptian epithet which is often added to the name of Tehuti. He represents the Moon, which he wears upon his head, either as crescent or as full disk; and as our word moon is derived from the root mâ, to measure, and "was originally called by the former the measurer, the ruler of days and weeks and seasons, the regulator of the tides, the lord of their festivals, and the herald of their public assemblies,"^[29] we shall not be surprised if we find a very similar account of the etymology and attributes of Tehuti. There is no such known Egyptian word as tehu, but there is teχu which is a dialectic variety, and is actually used as a name of the god. This form supplies us with the reason why the god is represented as an ibis. As Seb is the name both of a goose and of the Earth-god, so is Techu the name of an ibis and of the Moon-god. Tehuti probably signifies, as M. Naville has suggested, the "ibis-headed." But it means something besides. Techu is the name of the instrument^[30] which corresponds to the needle of the balance for measuring weights, the ancient Egyptian cubit of Techu. He is called "the measurer of this earth." He is said to have "calculated the heaven and counted the stars," to have "calculated the earth and counted the things which are in it."^[31] He is "the distributor of time," the inventor of letters and learning (particularly of geometry), and of the fine arts. Whatever is without him is as though it were not. All this is because the Moon is the measurer.

It is impossible, after this rapid, but, I trust, not deceptive glance at the myths of some of the chief Egyptian gods, to withstand the conviction that this mythology is very similar indeed to that of the Indo-European races. It is the very same drama which is being acted under different names and disguises. The god slays the dragon, or a monster blinds, maims or devours the god. What bright god is born from the embrace of Heaven and Earth, and who is his twin sister and spouse? Who are his two wives? Who is the "husband of his own mother"? Who is the divine youth who emerges from the lotus-flower? And what is the lotus? Which is the god who, having performed his course from east to west, is worshipped as the king and judge of the departed? Sanskrit scholars who do not know a word of Egyptian, and Egyptologists who do not know a word of Sanskrit, will give different names to these personages. But the comparative mythologist will hardly hesitate about assigning his real name to each of them, whether Aryan or Egyptian. One of the most curious instances of the identification of myths is to be seen in a bas-relief at the Louvre, wherein the legend of our own St. George and the Dragon, which is at bottom the same as that of Indra and Vritra, is represented by Horus spearing a crocodile.^[32]

The Lectures on the Science of Language delivered nearly twenty years ago by Professor Max Müller, have, I trust, made us fully understand how, among the Indo-European races, the names of the sun, of sunrise and sunset, and of other such phenomena, came to be talked of and considered as personages of whom wondrous legends are told. Egyptian mythology not merely admits, but imperatively demands, the same explanation. And this becomes the more evident when we consider the question how these mythical personages came to be invested with the attributes of divinity by men who, like the Egyptians, as we have seen, had so lively a sense of the divine. Here we are at once brought into contact with the notion of the Reign of Law.

The Reign of Law.

M. de Rougé, in the extract which I have read from his Lecture, quotes the Egyptian expression, "the Only Being, living in truth," "le seul Etre, vivant en vérité." But the original words, ānχ em maāt, mean very much more than "living in truth." A more grammatically exact translation would be, "who lives by truth," or "whose existence depends upon truth;" but "truth" is not the exact meaning of maāt. When speaking of the moral code recognized by the Egyptians, I used the word "Right" as including both Truth and Justice. But it now becomes necessary to define the term more precisely.

Maāt as a noun signifies a perfectly straight and inflexible rule. It is evidently, I believe, derived from the root mā, "to stretch out," or "hold out straight before one," "protendere," as in the act of presenting an offering, mā hotep.^[33] "I have stretched out (mā-na) my hand, as the master of the crown," says the Osiris in the Book of the Dead.^[34] "Tehuti has extended to her (mā-nes) his hand," is said in one of the texts at Dendera.^[35] With this notion of stretching out are connected, in the Egyptian as well as in the Indo-European and the Semitic languages, the notions of "straight, right, righteous, true, rule, row, order." Our own word rule, like the Latin regula and rectus, is derived from the Aryan root arg, from which we have in Sanskrit ringe, I stretch myself (like the Greek ὀρέγομαι), rigus straight, right, righteous; rāgis, a line, a row; in Zend, erezu, straight, right, true, and, as a substantive, finger.^[36] In Gothic we have rak-ja (uf-rak-ja, stretch out), rach-ts, right, straight.^[37] The Egyptian maāt is not only Truth and Justice, but Order and Law, in the physical as well as in the moral world. It is in allusion to the fixed and unalterable laws of nature (which of course were very imperfectly known to them) that the Egyptians used the expression ānχ em maāt, "living or existing by or upon rule," which, if not actually a term equivalent to divinity, is at least with them the attribute most constantly connected with it. It was in consequence of the persistent recurrence of the same physical phenomena in an order which never varied and was never violated, that the Sun and Moon and other powers, even the days of the month and the twenty-four hours of day and night, became the great and everlasting gods.

There is another Egyptian expression extremely frequent in the religious texts, the accurate meaning of which has never been recognized. Em ser en maāt^[38] is now generally allowed to mean "rightly," "perfectly," but it does not literally signify "in calculo veritatis," as Brugsch says in his Lexicon. Ser is the measuring line used by builders, and em ser signifies "ad amussim," "nach der Schnur," "au cordeau," "according to the line;" hence, "with the strictest accuracy." The whole expression therefore means, "according to the strict accuracy of Law," to which is constantly added, hehu en sep, "millions of times." Maāt is Law,^[39] not in the forensic sense of a command issued either by a human sovereign authority or by a divine legislator, like the Law of the Hebrews, but in the sense of that unerring order which governs the universe, whether in its physical or in its moral aspect. This is surely a great and noble conception.

You will not be surprised to learn that Maāt is spoken of as a mythical personage. She is called mistress of heaven, ruler of earth and president of the nether world, which indeed is recognized as her special domain. She is called the daughter of Rā, but she might as truly have been called his mother. Each of the great gods is said to be neb maāt, literally, "lord or master of Maāt;" but it is equally said that "she knows no lord or master." If she is brought into closer connection with Thoth than with other gods, this is because Thoth is essentially the "Measurer;" and if certain texts speak of the winds as proceeding from either Thoth or Maāt, it is not because these personages are wind-gods, but because the cardinal points from which the winds come are naturally the domain of the god who has measured and mapped out the universe, and because the winds themselves are obedient to Law.

Such were the gods of Egypt. They were not the ghosts of ancestors or other dead men, or representatives of abstract principles, as ancient and modern philosophers have supposed, nor were they impure spirits or foul demons, as an uncritical though not unnatural interpretation of their Scriptures led the early Christian missionaries to imagine. "All the gods of the nations are nought," says the Psalmist; but the Greek and Latin translators used the word "dæmonia," which in Christian times never meant anything but "devils." The gods of the Egyptian, as well as those of the Indian, Greek or Teutonic mythologies, were the "powers" of nature, the "strong ones," whose might was seen and felt to be irresistible, yet so constant, unchanging and orderly in its operations, as to leave no doubt as to the presence of an ever living and active Intelligence.^[40]

Notes

1. "Conférence sur la religion des anciens Egyptiens, prononcée au Cercle Catholique, 14 avril, 1869," published in the Annales de la Philosophie Chrétienne, tome XX. p. 327.
2. Zeitschr. f. Aegypt. Spr. 1874, p. 105, and M. Maspero's article in the Mélanges d'Archéologie, 1874, p. 140. The orthography of these popular forms is philologically of the highest importance. The form nuntar I reserved for a future study; M. Maspero published it with the rest, but no one appears to have noticed it.
3. Ἱερός corresponds to the Sanskrit ish-ira-s, vigorous, from ish, juice, strength. See Curtius, Zeitschr. für vergleichende Sprachforsehung, III. 154, and his "Griechische Etymologie," p. 372. Plutarch (Mor. 981 D) mentions this original physical sense of the word as maintained by certain persons, and the ὀστοῦν ἱερον, "os sacrum," is given as an example. Ἱερὰ νόσος, also called μεγάλη, is another striking instance. In the Homeric poems, this physical sense gives the true force to such expressions as Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον, ἱερὴν πόλιν Ἠετίωνος, ἱερῷ ἔνι δίφρῳ, ἱερὸν Ἀλκινόοιο, ἱερὴ ἲς Τηλεμάχοιο.
4. The Alexandrians invented the barbarous word δυναμόω, which can always be used as a translation of the verb nutra.
5. The change of n into m before t, as though the latter were preceded by a labial consonant, is not usual, but it is not without a parallel in other languages. Cf. χρίμπτω from root χρι, the Latin tempto and the Lithuanian temptyva, both the latter from root ta, nasalized tan. The observations of Curtius, "Gr. Et.," pp. 46 and 481, on the m in γαμεῖν and the Lithuanian gim-ti appear to me to justify the form tempto, which Corssen rejects, though it occurs in the best manuscripts as well as inscriptions.
6. Mariette, Dendera, I. pl. 67. So in the royal titles of the eighteenth dynasty, nutra sutenit of Tehutimes II. corresponds to the uah sutenit of Tehutimes III. and to the simpler ur sutenit of Chut en Aten.
7. Sharpe, "Egyptian Inscriptions," Vol. II. p. 28.
8. Duemichen, Historische Inschr. Vol. II. pp. 46, 12.
9. J. de Rougé, Inscriptions, Vol. I. pl. 25.
10. Sharpe, Vol. II. p. 92.
11. Many of the examples occur in Mariette's Dendera, Vol. I. pl. 6, 46.
12. M. de Rougé, Chrestomathie, Fasc. iii p. 25, translates this, "dieu devenant dieu," and says in a note, "On ne sait pas au juste le sens du verbe nuter, qui forme le radical du mot nuter, 'dieu.' C'est une idée analogue à 'devenir' ou 'se renouveler,' car nuteri est appliquée a l'âme resuscitée qui revet sa forme immortelle."
13. M. Müller, "Chips," Vol. I. p. 363.
14. "Science of Language," Second Series, p. 479, 7th ed.
15. Published in Leemans's Monuments Egyptiens du Musée de Leide, Pap. i. p. 344, i.—vi. An account of it is given in Dr. Lauth's "Altägyptische Lehrsprüche," in the Transactions of the Academy of Munich, July, 1872.
16. This is described by Dr. Golenischeff in Lepsius' Zeitschrift, 1876, p. 107.
17. This very interesting book, published with the other papyri of Bulaq by M. Mariette, has been described by Brugsch-Bey in the Zeitschrift, 1872, and has been translated by M. E. de Rougé and M. Chabas. The version of the latter scholar is the most careful and exact, all the difficulties of the text being minutely considered and discussed. It occupies the greater part of the scientific journal l'Egyptologie, entirely written by M. Chabas.
18. Pott, "Die Personennamen."
19. Todt. 32, 2. The translation of aχmu uretu by "restless" is inadmissible. See M. Chabas, "Papyrus Magique," p. 84. We have nothing here to do with planets and fixed stars.
20. Max Müller, "Science of Language," Second Series, p. 565.
21. In the legend of the Destruction of Mankind, Ea calls before him Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, and the fathers and mothers who were with him when he was still in Nu.
22. In the legend of the Destruction of Mankind, Nu and Nut address each other as father and daughter. But in the Book of the Dead, 42, 20, Unbu (one of the names of Osiris) issues from Nu, his mother being Nut.
23. There is indeed a passage (Duemichen, Hist. Inschr. II. 44 e) in which Seb seems to be called the mother of Osiris. But as the words are immediately followed by "whom Nut brought forth," I suspect an error in the text.
24. A hymn at Dendera says: "Hail to thee, Osiria, lord of eternity! When thou art in heaven thou appearest as the sun, and thou renewest thy form as the moon." Mariette, Dendera, Vol. IV. 44 a.
25. Ch. xvii. l. 42, 43.
26. M. Lefébure has published several important essays illustrative of the myths of Osiris and Horus. I should be glad to find real evidence of allusions to lunar eclipses, but it is impossible to reconcile the lunar hypothesis about these myths with the most elementary astronomy. How can a lunar eclipse, for instance, regularly coincide with a fixed day in a month of thirty days? The synodical month is nearly of this length, but the eclipses depend upon the nodes.
27. And he said, "Behold, my eye is as though Anubis had made an incision in my eye."—Todt. 112. Although Anubis in the sequel restores the eye, the allusion is clearly to his nocturnal power.
28. Indra used a net as well as other weapons against his foes.
29. Max Müller, "Science of Language," I. p. 7.
30. The instrument itself is a vase, and the primitive meaning of the word teχu is to be "full;" hence the sense of drunkenness which it sometimes has. Dr. Duemichen has thoroughly illustrated the use of the word in his "Bauurkunde v. Dendera," and in the Zeitschrift, 1872, p. 39.
31. See Brugsch, Zeitschrift, 1872, p. 9.
32. "Horns et St. George d'après un bas-relief inédit du Louvre," by M. Clermont Ganneau, in the Rev. Arch. 1876, September and December.
33. Sharpe and Bonomi, "Sarcophagus," pl. 8, lines 5 and 8.
34. Todt. 40, 2, comp. with 12, 2.
35. Other words connected with the same root are maāt, an offering, πρόθεσις, mā signifying that part of the forehead from which the horns project in cattle, mā a fair wind, and mā an extent of water.
36. A finger is sometimes in Egyptian found as a "determinative" of mā.
37. Curtius, "Gr. Et." p. 184. Compare Gesenius on the Hebrew עָרַךְ—"ordine s. ad lineam disposuit, struxit, nostr. reihen, richten, gr. τάσσω, τάττω (vic. אׇרַךְ recta protendit, extendit, et in linguis indo-germ. Reihe [Reige, Riege] reihen intens. rechen; rego [non pro reago ut nonnulli volunt] regula, rectus." "עֶרֶךְ … ordo, strues.
38. P. 575. The sign which I read ser was formerly read hebs, which has the same ideograph. But "in calculo" implies the very different word hesb, and if blundering scribes sometimes misspelt these words, this is no reason for attributing the ideograph of hebs in the very best texts to a word which is only confounded with it by a clerical error. The connection of ideas between hesb and ser is however very intimate. See Todt. 100, 8, hesb su Tehuti em ser maāt.
39. The opposite notion to Maāt, considered as Law, is asfet, lawlessness, disorder, iniquity.
40. Much in this Lecture will be new, and perhaps appear doubtful, to my learned colleagues in Egyptology, especially to those whose studies have not led them into the field of Indo-European philology. From the time of Champollion, the Egyptian language and literature have been almost exclusively illustrated from Semitic, not to say purely Hebrew, sources. This is a fatal mistake, though perhaps inevitable at first. I have for years been humbly endeavouring to bring the Science of Language to bear upon Egyptian philology, and I trust this Lecture will at least induce some eminent scholars to study the Egyptian by the light of other mythologies. M. Lefébure has already done most valuable work in this direction. M. Grébaut, though confining himself entirely to Egyptian mythology, has, in his "Hymne à Ammon-Rā," published in the Bibliothèque de l'ecole des hautes études, and in an article of the Mélanges d'Archéologie, tome 11. p. 247, demonstrated several important truths, and he has very nearly approached the true conception of Maāt. As regards the identification of certain deities, I have very nearly been anticipated by M. Naville, who in his admirable work on the "Litany of the Sun," p. 38, is inclined to consider Isis and Nephthys "comme personnifiant des êtres dont chacun caractérisait plus particulièrement l'un des horizons; pent être l'étoile du matin et celle du soir, ou encore le crépuscule du matin et celui du soir; les deux formules de la litanie se comprendraient alors facilement." But he puts Isis at the west, and Nephthys at the east.