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Ancient Egyptian Religion

The Egyptians were originally what is called ammists; that is to say, they believed that, just as man is endowed with a soul, so every animal, every plant, ay, every inanimate object is also endowed with a soul, or rather is possessed of a spirit or demon which is the cause of the good or evil qualities the animal, plant, or thing in question possesses. The animal, plant, or thing in question thus ecame the object of a primitive cult with a view to propitiating the same. The two great motives of primitive cults are always love and fear, and of the two fear is the stronger.

From this early animism was developed in the course of time a pofydemonism — i.e., a belief in many demons or spirits. This is the second stage in religious development; the spirit has been abstracted from the animal, plant, or thing it inhabited and possessed, and has been given a separate, independent existence. From this pofydemonism was later on developed polytheism, or the belief in many gods.

This development must have taken place in the various localities before their union and independently in each, for they present to us very varied religious beliefs. Each locality had its own peculiar local divinities and its own local theosophy. The head of the local pantheon had his temple in the local capital. These local divinities were all supreme in their own localities, and it is them that the people worshiped, whatever divinity might be the head of the national pantheon. Every house had attached to it a chapel, in which the local divinities were worshiped. These local deities were all, as a matter of policy, recognized by the national government as the guardian deities of their respective localities. The national religion was, in return, recognized by the various local governments, and the head of the national pantheon had dedicated to him a chapel in each of the local temples.

In many localities the head of the local pantheon had associated with him two other divinities, who shared his eminence and formed with him what we call a triad. Such' a triad consisted generally of father, mother, and son. Thus, the triad of Memphis embraced Ptah, his wife Sochet, and their son Imhotep; that of Abydos, Osiris, his wife Isis, and their son Horus; and that of Thebes, Amon, his wife Mut, and their son Chonsu. But we also find triads consisting of one male and two female members—possibly father, mother, and daughter—e. g., that of Elephantine: Chnum, Satet, and Anuket.

Another combination of gods is the ennead, or circle of nine gods. The ennead first appears in the fourth Dynasty (about 3000 BC). It consists of nine members, combined in an apparently arbitrary manner: 1. Shu; 2. Tefnut; 3. Qeb; 4. Nut; 5. Osiris; 6. Isis; 7. Horus; 8. Set; 9. Nephthys; where Shu and Tefnut are brother and sister, Qeb and Nut man and wife, parents of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys; Osiris, Iris, and Horus are father, mother, and son; and Set and Nephthys man and wife. The ennead was originated by the priests of On-Heliopolis in order to bring into closer connection the various local religions. These priests claim that it was originated by Tum, a solar deity, who was in Heliopolis considered the leader of the ennead, though standing outside of it. In fact, the ennead, which had national acceptance, was everywhere assigned a different deity, the head of the local pantheon as leader, though its membership remained fixed, except that in later times Set was eliminated, and Horwer, a form of the god Horus, or Thot, put in his place.

These were not, however, the cosmological gods proper. There was a number of other gods of undoubted cosmological origin that had not the slightest connection with any pantheon, some of which were worshiped by the people generally, while others were mere speculative deities, the full import of which was known to the priesthood alone. One of the chief divinities of the former class was Ranutet, the goddess of the harvest, who was recognized and worshiped throughout the land. She had her chapels in the granaries and her altars in the open field, and was ardently worshiped by the great land-owners as well as by the small farmers. Of her official cult we know nothing. Another popular cosmological figure was Hapi, the god of the Nile.

Results of cosmological speculation are likewise the "eight gods of the elements," so called—the ogdoas of Chmunu-Hermopolis, the home of Thot. They appear in four couples: 1. Nun and Nut; 2. Heh and Hehet; 3. Kek and Keket; and 4. Nenu and Nenut. Originally there were only the four male divinities, as they appear in the paintings on the walls of the tomb of Seti I (died about 1300 B. C); the goddesses are later additions, their names being merely the feminine forms of those of the male divinities. The meaning ascribed to them is this: 1. Nun is the male generative principle of the universe, the father of Rd, Nut is the female conceptive principle, while together they personify the original chaos; 2. Heh and Hehet personify eternity; 3. Kek and Keket, darkness; and, 4. Nenu and Nenut, moisture. The full development of this curious cosmological doctrine seems to belong to a later theosophy. Another cosmological couple are Shu and his sister Tefnut. Shu is the god that supports the heavens, and is, in all probability, a personification of the atmosphere. His sister Tefnut owes her existence merely to the desire of giving every god a female companion. Qeb and Nut, his wife, are also a cosmological couple. He is a personification of the earth, she of the heavens. They are given a place in one of the acknowledged national religions as parents of Osiris, Isis. Set, and Nephthys (Egyptian name, Nebhat).

There were several deities that owed their existence to pure speculation and had, as a rule, no connection with the pantheons. The most important of these was Mat, the goddess of truth and justice, who is the personification of these qualities. She had national importance as ladypatroness of justice and its ministers, the judges, who were all priests of Mat. There is little reason to doubt the statement of Herodotus that the judges wore her picture on their breasts. Safchet, the goddess of wisdom, of which she is a personification, was regarded as the wife of Thot, and was no doubt a very old figure in the theosophy of Chmunu-Hermopolis. Thot himself is a result of speculation, the personification of learning and wisdom; the scribe of the gods, and as such the patron of scribes. He has in this capacity national recognition. His home, Chmunu, seems to have been a great seat of speculative theosophy.

Eight of these religions came with time to have national sway: those of Ptah of Memphis, of Ra of Heliopolis, Osiris of Abydos, Amon of Thebes, Sebak of Crocodolilopolis, Neit of Sais, Hathor of Denderah, and Horus of Edfu. The causes of this lay partly in the character of the religion itself, partly in the history of the nation. Three religions seem to have come into prominence much at the same time: those of Ra, Osiris, and Ptah. Ra owes his early prominence to the fact that he was the solar deity par excellence; he was looked upon as the first divine king of Egypt. His religion is of peculiar interest to us, for it finally culminated in a solar monotheism under Amenhetep IV (about 1382-1370 BC), who set up Aten, the solar disk, as the supreme and, to a certain extent, the only god of Egypt. After the suppression of this reform, Ra seems rapidly to have lost his national prestige, and to have sunk to the rank of the local deity of Heliopolis, becoming merged with Amon as Amon-Ra.

Osiris also owes his early prominence to religious reasons. He was god of the dead, the ruler of the Amend, and as such was a prominent figure in all epochs of Egyptian history. Together with him, Horus, and his mother Isis, and Nebhat (Nephthys), the sister of Osiris, came into prominence. Set, his brother, gained an unenviable notoriety through the Osiris mythology, as the evil god—the great enemy of his brother Osiris. Anubis is also drawn into the circle by being made the son of Osiris and Nebhat.

Ptah was originally merely the head of the Memphitic pantheon, and as such was no more than the head of any other local pantheon. The rise of Mena, however, the union of the North and South, and the fact that through this union Memphis became the capital of the united kingdom, gave him a commanding place in the national pantheon. He became the god of the government, and, as such, the chief god of the nation; and, even after Amon had succeeded him in this position, he held a high place in the religion until, under the Ptolemies, he was merged with Osiris into the new god Serapis, who was imported from Asia Minor and given out as a union of Osiris and the Apis-bull, the sacred animal of Ptah.

By 2100 BC Thebes was the capital of Egypt; and, as a consequence, the head of its local pantheon, Amon, a deity hitherto obscure, is the official head of the national pantheon. He retained this position throughout the eleventh and twelfth dynasties, but in the thirteenth dynasty (about 1930 BC) he seems to have surrendered the supremacy to Sebak, of Crocodilopolis in the Fayoum. Sebak did not retain his position long, for the thirteenth dynasty ended in anarchy, and soon after its fall the Hyksos invaded Egypt. For several centuries the foreign invaders ruled supreme; but about 1530 BC they were driven out by Aahmes I, a Theban king, and Thebes again became the capital of Egypt. As one consequence of this, Amon again became the official head of the pantheon. But about 1400 BC he was again dethroned, when King Amenhetep IV (Chuenaten) instituted his religious reform. This reform was short-lived, dying soon after its founder. Again, Amon, now called Amon-Ra, ruled supreme.

Finally, when Psemtek I founded the twenty-sixth dynasty, Amon-Ra gave way to Neit of Sais. She seems to have retained the place at the head of the national pantheon until the times of the Ptolemies, when Hathor of Denderah and Horus of Edfu shared the supremacy with Serapis. They, too, finally passed away with the advent of Christianity. Alone of all the old deities Isis retained her sway, even in Christian times, well into the fourth century AD on the Island of Philae; but she, too, finally yielded, and passed away before the new religion.