Chapter 4 (part 10)

23 [paragraph continues] Underworld. In other words, the priests of Amen asserted the absolute sovereignty of their god, and their own religious supremacy. It is, however, interesting to note that certain kings did not entirely shake off their belief in Osiris, and in the efficacy of the Chapters of the Book of Coming Forth by Day, for Thothmes III. was swathed in a linen sheet on which was written a copy of the CLIVth Chapter, and Amen-hetep III. was rolled up in sheets whereon extracts from several Chapters of that work were inscribed. Seti I. went a good deal further, for although fully illustrated copies of Divisions I.-XI. of the Book "Am-Tuat" were painted on the walls of his tomb, he took care to have a complete copy of the Book of Gates, 1 with full illustrations, and copies of the LXXIInd and LXXXIXth Chapters of the Book of Coming Forth by Day cut on his alabaster sarcophagus. The Chapter which Thothmes III. believed to be all-powerful is entitled "Chapter of not letting the body perish," and if its words really express his convictions, he must have been terrified at the idea of his material body falling into dust and decay, and must have hoped for its resurrection through Osiris. The Chapters which Seti I. had cut on his sarcophagus are entitled the "Chapter of Coming Forth by Day, and of making a way through Ammehet," and the "Chapter of causing the soul to be united to its body in the Underworld." In the former he declares that p. 24 he knows the names of the gods who preside over the Other World, and also the proper words of power, and because he has this knowledge he demands admission into Sekhet-Aaru, a portion of Osiris's kingdom of Sekhet-hetepet, and a constant and abundant supply of wheat (for bread), barley (for beer), incense, unguents, &c., and the power to assume any form he pleases at will. In the latter he calls upon certain gods to make his soul rejoin its body, and, addressing the gods who tow the Boat of Millions of Years, he asks them to cause him to be born from the womb of the Sky-goddess Nut in the eastern horizon of heaven, [daily,] for ever. It has already been said that a complete illustrated copy of the Book of Gates was also inscribed on the sarcophagus of Seti I., and it is not easy to explain this fact until we remember the important position which it makes Osiris to hold in the Other World. That the book is formed of very ancient materials is evident from the last sections, which certainly contain magical texts and pictures specially prepared with the object of making the sun to rise, and there is little doubt that the latter are representations of the ceremonies which the, primitive Egyptians actually, performed to produce that most desirable effect. The earlier sections of the Book are, full of magical ideas, but scattered among them are expressions of beliefs which, it seems, must belong to a later period of civilization, and passages which impress the reader p. 25 with the idea that they were composed by men who believed that the righteous would be rewarded and the wicked punished in the world to come. Special prominence is given to the conception of the Judgment, wherein Osiris is the Judge of the dead. As the result of this Judgment the righteous have allotments of land meted out to them, which vary in size according to their deserts, and the wicked are slain, and their bodies cut in pieces, and their souls destroyed. In many particulars the views of the Book of Gates concerning the future state agree closely with those of the Book of Coming Forth by Day.