The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) · 80 of 357 · tr. E.A. Wallis Budge
Chapter 8 (part 10)
The passage reads:-- mes Pepi pen au atf Tem an xepert pet an Gave birth to Pepi this father Tmu [when] not was created heaven, not xepert ta an xepert reth an mest neteru an xepert met was created earth, not were created men, not were born the gods, not was created death.
2.
Recueil de Travaux , I.
vii., p.
170 (l.
466).
3.
Religion und Mythologie , p.
101.
4 A number of valuable facts concerning the place of the egg in the Egyptian Religion have been collected by Lefébure, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions , t.
xvi., Paris, 1887, p.
16 ff.] according to the divine intelligence Maa .
Under the influence of Thoth, or that form of the divine intelligence which created the world by a word, eight elements, four male and four female, arose out of the primeval Nu , which possessed the properties of the male and female.
These eight elements were called Nu and Nut, Heh and Hehet, Kek and Keket, and Enen and Enenet, or Khemennu, the "Eight," and they were considered as primeval fathers and mothers. They are often represented in the forms of four male and four female apes who stand in adoration and greet the rising sun with songs and hymns of praise, but they also appear as male and female human forms with the heads of frogs or serpents. The birth of light from the waters, and of fire from the moist mass of primeval matter, and of Ra from Nu, formed the starting point of all mythological speculations, conjectures, and theories of the Egyptian priests. The light of the sun gave birth to itself out of chaos, and the conception of the future world was depicted in Thoth the divine intelligence; when Thoth gave the word, what he commanded at once took place by means of Ptah and Khnemu, the visible representatives of the power which turned Thoth's command into deed.
Khnemu made the egg of the sun, and Ptah gave to the god of light a finished body. The first paut of the gods consisted of Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys and Horus, and their governor Tmu or Atmu. Egyptian account of the Creation.
In a late copy of a work entitled the "Book of knowing the evolutions of Ra, the god Neb-er-tcher, the "lord of the company of the gods," records the story of the creation and of the birth of the gods:--"I am he who evolved himself under the form of the god Khepera, I, the evolver of the evolutions evolved myself, the evolver of all evolutions, after many evolutions and developments which came forth from my mouth. No heaven existed, and no earth, and no terrestrial animals or reptiles had come into being.
I formed them out of the inert mass of watery matter, I found no place whereon to stand .
.
.
.
.
I was alone, and the gods Shu and Tefnut had not gone forth from me; there existed [1.
Brugsch, Religion , pp.
128, 129.
2.
Ibid.
, p.
132.
3.
Ibid.
, p.
140.
4.
Ibid.
, p.
142.
5.
Ibid.
, p.
148.
6.
Ibid.
, pp.
149, 152.
7.
Ibid.
, p.
158.
8.
Ibid.
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 entire passage is a narrative of cosmic origin, describing how heaven, earth, and the gods came into being from the primeval waters of Nu.
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.
A sequence of divine generation is described, from Nu to the Eight elements, then Ra, and finally other gods like Shu and Tefnut.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The primeval Nu 'possessed the properties of the male and female,' and the eight elements are explicitly divided into four male and four female, establishing a masculine-feminine generative principle as a structural feature of creation itself.
The Egyptian principle of truth, balance, and right order underlying both the cosmos and human conduct; the parallel to Zoroastrian asha and Greek dike.
[auto] The passage explicitly references creation occurring according to the divine intelligence Maa, the Egyptian principle of truth and order.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The creator declares 'I was alone' before all multiplicity existed, establishing a singular undivided first principle from which all beings and the cosmos flow.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage explicitly states that 'when Thoth gave the word, what he commanded at once took place,' and that the world was created 'by a word' — the spoken word carries direct causal-creative force.