Religion of egypt

Introduction. Official religion and popular faith. i, Cosmocony. (A) Creation of the world. (1) Supposed reciprocal relation between deities and men. (2) Creation myths attributing the formative effect to acts: (a) separation of heaven and earth, (6) origin of the sun, (c) origin of gods and men animals and plants, (@) methods of creation. s a series of births, (6) artificial construction, (7 procreation. (3) Creation myths attributing the formative effect to, words. Supposed connexion between an object and its name, Creation by inarticulate a late conception. (B) Destruction of the world. (1) Supposed allusions. (2) A deluge checked by the Deity, (3) Ra’s partial destruction of the human race. ii. THE GoDs, (A) Historical development of the power of particular gods a gn ES PL PIS. SS aeer RELIGION OF EGYPT (1) Want of unity in the Egyptian religion. 2) The nome gods. 3) Attempted reformation by Amenophis rv. 4) Changing fortunes of the principal gods, 5) Doppelguingers amongst the gods. (6) Uncertainties due to our lack of complete information. (B) List of gods. 1) Native Egyptian deities. 2 Foreign deities : (a) Libyan, (8) African, (c) Asiatic. 3) Deified men. (4) The popular gods. Partition of the great gods. (a) heaven and earth, and the heavenly bodies, (b) stone worship, (¢) worship of high places, (d) cult of springs and streams, (e) animal worship, (/) worship of plants and trees, (g) city divinities, (A) veneration of buildings, (5) Deified abstract notions. fii, THe Ovtrus, The daily temple ritual. iv. CONCEPTIONS OF A FUTURE LIFE. (1) Notions connected with the sun and his 24-hours’ course. 2) Dwelling-place of the gods. 3) Realm of the dead variously placed: (a) above the earth, in heaven, (0) under the earth, in Duat, (c) on the earth, in the Plain of Aalu. (4) The Osirian doctrine of immortality : (a) the Osiris myth, (0) later influences of sun-god myths, (c) judgment in the world beyond, (d) the Book of the ead, etc., (€) principal features of the Osirian faith. Part-souls, Literature, Introduction.—In studying the religion of ancient Egypt we encounter a phenomenon which it has in common with almost all religions. Two forms of sonception may be distinguished, which started from the same principles and exercised a perma- nent influence upon one another, but which at the same time exhibit a number of radical differences in the view they take of Divine things. These two are, respectively, the official religion of the upper classes, and the popular faith. It is true that the difference is not so pronounced in the Nile valley as elsewhere, since the Egyptian religion was never subjected to a systematizing process and a logical establishing of its various dogmas, but always remained in a fluid condition, so that even the official religion was thus permanently exposed to powerful influence from the side of the popular conceptions. The sources of information of which modern investigation can avail itself in seeking to arrive at a knowledge of the official religion of ancient Egypt are very copious. It is the subject of the inscriptions on temples, and of almost all the texts found in tombs and on monuments (including the religious papyri) dedicated to the worship of the dead. Far fewer materials have to be taken account of in estimating the popular religion. Its adherents belonged in general to the poorer classes, who were not in a position to erect any fine monuments. Besides, in the texts they destined for publicity, such persons almost uniformly em- ployed the E ainclory and the formule of the _ Official monuments, even in cases where they understood the dogmas in view differently from the priestly colleges of the great sanctuaries. In order to recover this realm of ideas belonging to the popular faith, our main resources are a series of ill-executed sepulchral steles and rock-inscriptions, sporadic passages in the temple texts and those concerning the dead which show traces of popular influence, and in which, notably for instance in the so-called Book of the Dead, the popular doctrine could occasionally not be passed over. When referred to, this doctrine is, strangely enough, spoken of as a-great secret. Lastly, we have to take account of the statements of the classical writers, who, like their countrymen that were settled in the Nile valley, were brought into con- tact less with the Priocta and the upper classes than with the great mass of the people proper, 80 that their accounts reproduce primarily the notions of the latter. What holds good of these Greeks applies also to the Israelites, who, if they