The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) · 77 of 357 · tr. E.A. Wallis Budge
Chapter 8 (part 7)
The sacred Form, beloved, terrible and mighty in his two risings (?), the lord of space, the mighty one of the form of Khepera, who came into existence through Khepera, the lord of the form of Khepera; when he came into being nothing existed except himself.
He shone upon the earth from primeval time [in the form of] the Disk, the prince of light and radiance.
He giveth light and radiance.
He giveth light unto all peoples.
He saileth over heaven and never resteth, and on the morrow his vigour is stablished as before; having become old [to-day], he becometh young again to-morrow.
He mastereth the bounds of eternity, he goeth roundabout heaven, and entereth into the Tuat to illumine the two lands which he hath created.
When the divine ( or mighty) God, moulded himself, the heavens and the earth were made by his [1.
The literature relating to the fragment of the Sallier papyrus recording this fact is given by Wiedemann, Aegyptische Geschichte , p.
299.
2 The hieratic text is published, with a hieroglyphic transcript, by Maspero, Mémoires publiés par les Membres de la Mission Archéologique Française au Caire , t.
i., p.
594 ff., and pll.
25-27.
3 A district of Thebes on the east bank of the Nile, the modern Karnak.
4 See within, p: xcvii.
5.
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6.
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M.
Maspero translates "dieu exerçant sa fonction de dieu, dieu en activité de service," or "dieu déisant."] conception. He is the prince of princes, the mightiest of the mighty, he is greater than the gods, he is the young bull with sharp pointed horns, and he protecteth the world in his great name 'Eternity cometh with its power and bringing therewith the bounds (?) of everlastingness.' He is the firstborn god, the god who existed from the beginning, the governor of the world by reason of his strength, the terrible one of the two lion-gods, the aged one, the form of Khepera which existeth in all the gods, the lion of fearsome glance, the governor terrible by reason of his two eyes, the lord who shooteth forth flame [therefrom] against his enemies.
He is the primeval water which floweth forth in its season to make to live all that cometh forth upon his potter's wheel. He is the disk of the Moon, the beauties whereof pervade heaven and earth, the untiring and beneficent king, whose will germinateth from rising to setting, from whose divine eyes men and women come forth, and from whose mouth the gods do come, and [by whom] food and meat and drink are made and provided, and [by whom] the things which exist are created.
He is the lord of time and he traverseth eternity; he is the aged one who reneweth his youth he hath multitudes of eyes and myriads of ears; his rays are the guides of millions of men he is the lord of life and giveth unto those who love him the whole earth, and they are under the protection of his face.
When he goeth forth he worketh unopposed, and no man can make of none effect that which he hath done.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
[auto] The divine is described with human-like attributes such as age ('becometh old'), youth ('becometh young'), and physical action ('moulded himself').
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
'The heavens and the earth were made by his conception' is a direct cosmogonic statement about the origin of the world from the divine mind.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The deity is described as the 'governor of the world' who provides food and protection to those who love him.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text notes that 'from whose mouth the gods do come', implying a flow of divine beings from the supreme source.
The Egyptian principle of truth, balance, and right order underlying both the cosmos and human conduct; the parallel to Zoroastrian asha and Greek dike.
As an Egyptian text, it references the 'bounds of eternity' and the deity as 'governor of the world', reflecting the principle of cosmic order.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The god is identified with multiple forms simultaneously: Khepera, the Disk, the young bull, the lion, the primeval water, the disk of the Moon — establishing form-mutability as a constitutional property of the divine.