Chapter 43 (part 74)

The god Nu appeareth with the breath of the north wind in this hidden god who maketh for untold millions of men the decrees which abide for ever; his decrees [1. Literally "his heart," ab-f . 2 I.e. , Shu and Tefnut. 3 I.e. , the Sun and the Moon, ut'ati . 4. nehep ; other examples of the use of this word are given by Brugsch, Wörterbuch (Suppl., p. 690).] "are gracious and well doing, and they fall not to the ground until they have fulfilled their purpose. He giveth long life and multiplieth the years of those who are favoured by him, he is the gracious protector of him whom he setteth in his heart, and he is the fashioner of eternity and everlastingness. He is the king of the North and of the South, Amen-Ra, king of the gods, the lord of heaven, and of earth and of the waters and of the mountains, with whose coming into being the earth began its existence, the mighty one, more princely than all the gods of the first company thereof." Theories of the origin of the gods. With reference to the origin of the gods of the Egyptians much useful information may be derived from the pyramid texts. From them it would seem that, in the earliest times, the Egyptians had tried to think out and explain to themselves the origin of their gods and of their groupings. According to M. Maspero they reduced everything to one kind of primeval matter which they believed contained everything in embryo; this matter was water, Nu, which they deified, and everything which arose therefrom was a god. The priests of Annu at a very early period grouped together the nine greatest gods of Egypt, forming what is called the paut neteru or "company of the gods," or as it is written in the pyramid texts, paut aat , "the great company of gods"; the texts also show that there was a second group of nine gods called paut net'eset or "lesser company of the gods"; and a third group of nine gods is also known. When all three pauts of gods are addressed they appear as ###. The great cycle of the gods in Annu was composed of the gods Tmu, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys; but, though paut means " nine," the texts do not always limit a paut of the gods to that number, for sometimes the gods amount to twelve, and sometimes, even though the number be nine, other gods are substituted for the original gods of the paut . We should naturally expect Ra to stand at the head of the great paut of the gods; but it must be remembered that the chief local god of Annu was Tmu, and, as the priests of that city revised and edited the pyramid texts known to us, they naturally substituted their own form of the god Ra, or at best united him with Ra, and called him Tmu-Ra. In the primeval matter, or water, lived the god Tmu, and when he rose for the first time, in the form of the sun, he created the world. Here at once we have Tmu assimilated with Nu. A curious passage in the pyramid of Pepi I. shows that while as yet there was neither [1. La Mythologie Égyptienne ( Études , t. ii., p. 237). 2. See Pyramid of Teta, l. 307 (Maspero, Recueil de Travaux , t. v., p. 46).]