Chapter 43 (part 98)

It has been urged that the Egyptians never advanced to pure monotheism because they never succeeded in freeing themselves from the belief in the existence of other gods, but when they say that a god has "no second," even though they mention other "gods," it is quite evident that like the Jews, they conceived him to be an entirely different being from the existences which, for the want of a better word, or because these possessed superhuman attributes, they named "gods." The powers of darkness or evil. The gods above enumerated represent the powers who were the guides and protectors and givers of life and happiness to the deceased in the new life, but from the earliest times it is clear that the Egyptians imagined the existence of other powers who offered opposition to the dead, and who are called in many places his "enemies." Like so many of the ancient gods, these powers were originally certain forces of nature, which were believed to be opposed to those which were regarded as beneficient to man, as for example darkness to light, and night to day; with darkness and night were also associated the powers which contributed in any way to obscure the light of the sun or to prevent his shining. But since the deceased was identified with Horus, or Ra, and his accompanying gods, the enemies of the one became the enemies of the other, and the welfare of the one was the welfare of the other. When the Egyptians personified the beneficent powers of nature, that is say, their gods, they usually gave to them human forms and conceived them in their own images; but when they personified the opposing powers they gave to them the shapes of noxious animals and reptiles, such as snakes and scorpions. As time went on, the moral ideas of good and right were attributed to the former, and evil and wickedness to the latter. The first personifications of light and darkness were Horus and Set, and in the combat--the prototype of the subsequent legends of Marduk and Tiamat, Bel and the Dragon, St. George and the Dragon, and many others--which took place between them, the former was always the victor. But, though the deceased was identified with Horus or Ra, the victory which the god gained over Set only benefited the spiritual body which dwelt in heaven, and did not preserve the natural body which lay in the tomb. The principal enemy of the natural body was the worm, and from the earliest times it seems that a huge worm or serpent was chosen by the Egyptians as the type of the powers which were hostile to the dead and also of [1. ###, Deut. vi., 4. Compare ###, Deut. iv., 35; and ###, Isaiah xlv., 5.] the foe against whom the Sun-god fought. Already in the pyramid of Unas a long section of the text contains nothing but formulæ, the recital of which was intended to protect the deceased from various kinds of snakes and worms. These are exceedingly ancient, indeed, they may safely be said to form one of the oldest parts of the funeral literature of the Egyptians, and we find from the later editions of the Book of the Dead and certain Coptic works that the dread of the serpent as the emblem of physical and moral evil existed among the Egyptians in all generations, and that, as will be seen later, the belief in a limbo filled with snakes swayed their minds long after they had been converted to Christianity.