Chapter 8 (part 5)

The opinion of Tiele is that the religion of Egypt was from the beginning polytheistic, but that it developed in two opposite directions: in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptians drew nearer and nearer to monotheism. The sun the emblem of God. From a number of passages drawn from texts of all periods it is clear that the form in which God made himself manifest to man upon earth was the sun, which the Egyptians called Ra and that all other gods and goddesses were forms of him. The principal authorities for epithets applied to God and to His visible emblem the sun are the hymns and litanies which are found inscribed upon [1. Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie , pp. 96-99. The whole chapter on the ancient Egyptian conception of God should be read with M. Maspero's comments upon it in La Mythologie Égyptienne ( Études de Mythologie , t. ii., p. 189 ff.). 2. Hibbert Lectures , p. 99. 3. Hypothezen omtrent de wording van den Egyptischen Godsdienst (in Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid , Amsterdam, 1893, p. 25); and see Lieblein, Egyptian Religion , Leipzig, 1884, p. 10. 4 See the chapter "Dieu se manifestant par le soleil," in Pierret, Essai sur la Mythologie Égyptienne , pp. 18, 19.] Confusion of gods. the walls of tombs, stelæ, and papyri of the XVIIIth dynasty; and these prove that the Egyptians ascribed the attributes of the Creator to the creature. The religious ideas which we find in these writings in the XVIIIth dynasty are, no doubt, the outcome of the religion of earlier times, for all the evidence now available shows that the Egyptians of the later periods invented comparatively little in the way of religious literature. Where, how, and in what way they succeeded in preserving their most ancient texts, are matters about which little, unfortunately, is known. In course of time we find that the attributes of a certain god in one period are applied to other gods in another; a new god is formed by the fusion of two or more gods; local gods, through the favourable help of political circumstances, or the fortune of war, become almost national gods; and the gods who are the companions of Osiris are endowed by the pious with all the attributes of the great cosmic gods--Ra, Ptah, Khnemu, Khepera, and the like. Thus the attributes of Ra are bestowed upon Khnemu and Khepera; the god Horus exists in the aspects of Heru-maati, Heru-khent-an-maa, Heru-Khuti, Heru-nub, Heru-behutet, etc. , and the attributes of each are confounded either in periods or localities: Tmu-Ra, and Menthu-Ra, and Amen-Ra are composed of Tmu and Ra, and Menthu and Ra, and Amen and Ra respectively, and we have seen from the hymn quoted above (p. lii.) that already in the XVIIIth dynasty the god Osiris had absorbed the attributes which belonged in the earlier dynasties to Ra alone. History of the god Amen. Still more remarkable, however, is the progress of the god Amen in Egyptian theology. In the early empire, i.e. , during the first eleven dynasties, this god ranked only as a local god, although his name is as old as the time of Unas; and [1. E.g.