Download Notes - John Provost, PhD

Egyptian Religion
Background
I argued last week that philosophy begins in wonder, but I think
you could also argue that at least one source of religion is also the
same wonder itself. The Egyptians would experience their own
level of radical amazement as they looked at the stars at night,
observed the movement of the sun and moon, and the regular fall
and rise of the Nile. This wonder leads to speculation and thus to
various ideas and practices that when grouped together we can call
Egyptian religion.
In studying Egyptian religion the first thing that became clear is
that while there is an abundance of original material, it is still not
understood well enough to come up with a systematic picture.
Another thing to keep in mind is that although we have some texts
inscribed as long ago as 2500 BCE, such as the Pyramid Texts of
the Old Kingdom, it must be remembered that they are much older.
The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt “occurred some 33
centuries before the Christian era, the origins off the beliefs and
practices of the united kingdom lie much further back in time”
(Cotterell, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations,
p.59).
It is also important to note that Egyptian religion was influenced,
as was all Egyptian culture, by Egypt’s relative isolation and
safety. This led to a natural conservatism in religion that tended to
hold on to old ideas even when they contradicted other ideas that
were equally sacred. Traditions can be great, but they can also be
almost impossible to change. Scholars tend to think that the
different gods of different areas were eventually joined together,
when a greater political union was achieved, in ways that do not
always make sense.
This isolation also led Egyptians, like so many other people, to feel
that they were special, that the gods favored them and that their
rulers shared in the divinity. In addition, the contrast between the
lush river valley and the deserts on either side became a “physical
reminder of the contrast between life and death [that] influenced
them to formulate, in a way in which no other people of antiquity
ever did, belief in the possibility of life after death” (Cotterell, p.
59).
Egypt, as we have learned, was centered on a river that with its rise
and fall every year brought life and even abundance to the people.
This, along with Egypt’s freedom from war for long periods and
rarely changing climate “tended to breed in the Egyptian mind a
belief that the distinguishing feature of the world in which he lived
was continuity and permanence” (Cotterell, p. 59). Probably for
reasons like this Egyptians thought of the afterlife as much like this
world, even though they would also recognize improvements that
made the next life better than this one. In this sense I am reminded
of the many Native American ideas about the afterlife that were
built on the idea that this world was a good place and thus a model
of what was possible.
As with all ancient people, the sun played a large role for the
Egyptians. Clearly it was the source of not only light, but also life
itself. But where did it go at night? And could it not be illumining
another world, or even a world underground? What was the source
off such a world and what made this world so reliable in so many
ways and yet precarious in other ways? “From daily experience the
Early Egyptians learned that land, though bountiful and rewarding,
was not entirely friendly, and that what at one moment might be
regarded as friendly could become hostile. The warmth of the sun
could turn to burning heat. The cool winds from the north could
veer round to the south, bringing choking-hot sand storms. On
occasions the river might not rise to water and fertilize its lands.
To explain this in a world that seemed so constant, the early
Egyptians began to assume that there were invisible forces,
normally beneficent, but which could become hostile, or that there
were other forces which were always ill disposed” (Cotterell, p.
60). This of course is the problem of evil, a problem that must be
dealt with by every religion and philosophy that wants to be taken
seriously.
A natural place to look for examples of these forces was to the
animal world. How could an Egyptian not admire the devotion of a
dog? And how could she or he not live in fear of the crocodile or
poisonous snake? “It is not difficult to see how such animals would
come to be regarded as living embodiments of good and evil”
(Cotterell, p. 60). As a result animals were considered a
manifestation of the divine and were held in high regard. As we
saw with the nature religions, Egyptians believed that the world
was itself alive and every part of the world partook “of a common
life in which men, animals and gods shared” (Cotterell, p. 60). The
Egyptians could see that everything was alive, but they were also
aware of the obvious fact that most things were subject to birth,
growth, decay and death. Much of Egyptian religion is concerned
with how to infuse the temporal with the eternal, how to turn the
mortal into the immortal, and how to explain the birth of the
universe itself.
As with all ancient people, they turned to stories to seek the truth
they were searching for. Before rational thought exploded into the
world during the Axial Age, there was mythological thought.
Mythology is often confused with untruths and lies. But this is not
the meaning of the word in academic circles when the
mythological age is spoken of. Rather mythology is understood as
wisdom and truth in the form of a story. For example, think of the
story of “the boy who cried wolf.” The story might not be literally
true, but it relates a truth that we can still appreciate today, namely
that if you have a reputation for dishonesty, eventually people will
not believe you even when you are telling the truth.
The creation stories of Egypt are complex, varied, and even
contradictory. This probably is an example of how different local
traditions were joined together when larger unions were formed. I
find these stories as confusing as I do the Sumerian and Greek
legends where so many of the gods and goddesses seem to change
names and places depending on who is telling the story. In the end
a common theme is that there was a state of reality that is very
unclear but nevertheless divine and out of this divinity the world is
created, very literally in the myths, through actions of the gods
such as spitting, that causes the world as we know it to come into
being. The gods themselves seem to come from this primordial
divinity, but this original divinity remains sketchy and unknown.
We find sky gods in many parts of the world, and they can be
found in Egypt as well. Perhaps the first is known as Hor (not to be
confused with Horus). “In the records of ancient Egypt it is clear
that not only were the phenomena of the sky observed and noted,
but that the same phenomena were ascribed to a being living in the
sky” (Cotterell, p. 63). We don’t have a clear picture about this sky
god because there is so much conflicting information, once again
probably representing different groups with their own names and
ideas eventually merging. We also know that early on both the sun
and moon were seen as divine, but the sun would take greater
precedence. “To the very end of the history of ancient Egypt,
worship of the sun God Re in one form or another permeated the
whole of religious thought and practice” (Cotterell, p. 63).
While the moon was not as important as the sun, it too was
worshipped in many ways over the years. “It was believed that
under its influence women conceived, cattle multiplied their
young, the germ grew in the egg, and all throats were filled with
fresh air. Among the explanations of the waxing and waning of the
moon’s disc was one stating that it was one of the eyes of Horus
damaged in a conflict with Set, the rival of Horus, and restored by
the goddess Isis” (Cotterell, p. 64). The stars also held significance.
The larger and better know ones were considered divine and the
many unnamed ones filling the heavens were considered “to be the
dead, who had found their way to heaven to wander in eternal
glory with the gods” (Cotterell, p. 64).
Osiris and Isis
One of the most well know gods, Osiris, may have actually been a
foreign god, but he goes so far back that he has been fully
Egyptianized. Osiris “was both a nature deity and a god of the
dead. Two annual events in the Nile Valley profoundly influenced
the Ancient Egyptian’s concepts about Osiris. The annual
inundation and the yearly growth and decline of vegetation not
only emphasized to an agricultural people the contrasting facts of
life and death, but by their annual regularity suggested the
existence of a controlling force behind these events, which out of
death could bring life. However, certain traditions about
Osiris…have led some scholars to see in Osiris a human king who
in the remote past once reigned over Egypt from his capital in the
eastern Delta. His traditional death at the hands of his brother Set
has been interpreted as his death during a rebellion led by the city
of Ombos, the seat of Set worship. The consequence of the death
of Osiris was the division of Egypt into two kingdoms, though
these were later re-united by a victorious campaign led by Horus,
the son of Osiris. The dead Osiris was then deified, and a personal
creed attached to his life and death. Under this creed Osiris, risen
from the dead, was assigned to rule over the world of the dead. A
further extension of this creed was to see in the resurrection of
Osiris and the defeat of Set the eventual triumph of good and
justice over evil” (Cotterell, p. 69). It is amazing to me how some
of these themes, such as the struggle between good and evil, go
back as far as our knowledge goes and they will continue with us
throughout our journey through Western civilization.
“The worship of Osiris was widespread in Egypt and especially so
since his cult introduced in religion an element which was lacking
in the cults of the other gods. This element was the belief that men
could as individuals become identified with Osiris and enter into
an afterlife which was open to all. However, entry into the other
world was conditioned on proof of proper observance of morality.
It should be noted that what would be regarded in modern times as
morality was not the same as that understood by the vast majority
of Egyptians. For them there was no clear-cut distinction between
intellectual and moral qualities, such as good behavior and virtue,
respect for the outward practices of religion and genuine piety, or
unquestioning obedience to the king and submission to the divine
will. The idea of a divine judgment awaiting the deceased had
already appeared in the Old Kingdom, but it is most strikingly
presented in the New Kingdom in scenes reproduced in…the Book
of the Dead. In these pictorial representations the judge seated on a
throne is Osiris, generally attended by the goddess Isis. The dead
person is led in by Anubis and his heart is placed in a balance to be
weighed against the feather of Ma’at” (Cotterell, p. 69). Ma’at
refers to the Law or Harmony of the Universe, reminding me of
what the Chinese mean by Tao or the Hindu philosophy by
dharma. Ma’at is divine order and Egyptians were to lead their
lives in accordance with this divine order, the same order found in
nature.
Ideas about Osiris were transferred around the Mediterranean
world, especially the myth of the dying and rising god. But, in
general, most Egyptians gods were gods of the Nile and they
seemed to have stayed in Egypt rather than transferring easily to
other places and cultures. The only exception to this case is Isis,
the wife of Osiris, especially in the first years of the Roman
Empire.
The Role of Pharaoh and the Temples
When you think of ancient Egypt one of the images that comes to
mind is all of their great temples. With this in mind it is interesting
to note that they played only a small role in the life of the common
people. “The temples were not places to which men resorted to
make individual prayers, rather they existed to serve the gods,
providing them with daily sustenance and necessities in return for
which the gods would maintain world order. While daily offerings
of food and clothing were made to them, the one essential offering
was that of the presentation of the emblem of Ma’at, who
personified the balance or equilibrium of the creation. Depicted as
a goddess wearing an ostrich feather, by her association with equal
balance she also came to personify order, justice, and eventually
truth. In theory her offering had to be made by the pharaoh but, as
the number of temples made this impossible, what was regarded as
the special duty of the pharaoh was carried out by his deputies, the
high priests” (Cotterell, p. 70). It is not a coincidence that a woman
is still used as an emblem of justice, as in our own Supreme Court
here in the United States.
The pharaoh was not simply a deified man, someone blessed by the
gods in a special way. Rather Egyptians believed that the pharaoh
was born divine, god on earth. “In the Old Kingdom he was
regarded as the son of Re. In the New Kingdom, when the great
state god Amun was in the ascendant, he was thought to be issue of
Amun himself. Reliefs on the walls of the temple at Luxor [as well
as other temples] show how the birth of the pharaoh is the birth of
a god. Amun assumes the form of the reigning pharaoh and unites
with the queen mother to achieve the miraculous birth. A divine
origin meant that that the pharaoh stood in much closer relation to
the gods and as such could more effectively represent the world of
men. Further, the harmony of the world depended on the pharaoh’s
health. To assure his continued vitality each ruler celebrated,
usually at the end of 30 years’ reign, the festival of the jubilee in
which his vital force was renewed. Often referred to as the good
god during his lifetime, at death he was raised to the sky, united
with the solar disc and his body absorbed by his creator. The
earthly remains of the man-god were then interred in a sumptuous
tomb. It can be stated that the mass of funerary beliefs, which owe
their origins to royal burials, were based for their theological
justification on the divine nature of the former kings. Though other
factors entered into the eventual demise of the Ancient Egyptian
religion, there is little doubt that the end of the line of resident
pharaohs in Egypt contributed significantly to the end of the old
faith and its increasing replacement by Christianity during the third
century A.D.” (Cotterell, p. 70). Christianity would play a large
role and is still present in Egypt in a variety of forms, the most
Egyptian of which is Coptic Christianity. But as you all know,
Egypt will eventually become a Muslim nation.
Akhenaten and Aton Worship
Ancient Egyptian religion is polytheistic, but there was one short
period where the pharaoh Akhenaten tried to establish a
monotheistic faith. It did not last long and he is not considered to
be anywhere near great, but if nothing else it may be a
demonstration that monotheism, soon to dominate the Western
world, was “in the air” so to speak. Akhenaten abandoned Thebes
and established a new kingdom for himself in Middle Egypt. “Here
he promulgated the worship of Aton, the sun disc, at the same time
proscribing the worship of Amun-Re. Opinions about Akhenaten
have ranged between the one extreme of seeing him as a great
religious reformer, some crediting him with being the first
monotheist, and the other extreme of concluding that he was an
eccentric materialist, most dangerous because, as pharaoh, his
power was absolute. His religious beliefs were not entirely
original, for Aton had long been regarded as the visible and
positive experience of the sun-god. …However Akhenaten’s
religious innovations are viewed, as a ruler he was a disaster, most
of Palestine and Syria being lost. … He was remembered as ‘the
Great Criminal’” (Cotterell, p. 70).
Reflections
Ancient Egypt did not give birth to a systematic philosophy that
we have record of the way the Greeks did, but they did give birth
to a number of profound ideas that could be considered an
incubator of philosophy. Immortality of the soul is an idea that
many people still believe in today. It is obvious that the body does
not last, but the soul can live forever, although this is not promised,
rather it is simply a potential. “Such a re-birth of the dead to
immortality, was the recompense promised by the Egyptian
religion, to the soul of the man pious and good during this life, but
the wicked were to be tortured, transformed into lower forms, or
annihilated” (Isaac Meyer, The Importance of the Heart in the
Ancient Egyptian Religion, p.94) These ideas of justice being
distributed at death if not in this life are still with us today. They
also believed that the earth itself was alive (traces of animism?)
and that matter does not disappear, but simply transforms. This
idea has not come back into our understanding of energy in
modern physics. We are told that no energy is ever lost. “God and
his universe, existence and change or transformation, death and
dissolution, all of which were only considered as regeneration and
rebirth in another form” (Meyer, p. 95).
The Egyptians also gave birth to a psychology that posited a soul
within people that was divided up in several different ways. In
general the souls was referred to as the Ba. “This was a part of the
spiritual self that was thought to contain the elements necessary for
the world-life of a man, such as judgment and conscience. It seems
to be the same term as psyche used by the Greeks [to refer to the
inner nonmaterial self]. The Ba performed the pilgrimage in the
underworld, and was judged for the conduct of the man it inhabited
in this world by Osiris. It was usually represented as a bird,
especially as a human-headed sparrow-hawk” (Meyer, pp. 95-96).
They divided the soul up into other areas such as the Khu, the
intellectual part of the soul, much like the Greek nous. It was
connected to the divine in the same way as the Greek nous was
connected to the Logos, the Greek form of Ma’at, the ruling
principle in the universe, the force that made our universe a
cosmos rather than chaos. There was also a shadow self, a
personality self, and even a double self which sounds like the
higher parts of human beings that some people today call the spark
of the divine or the true self.
Plato and Aristotle will take up these ideas of a soul and of
immortal life in great detail. Plato is thought to have traveled
through Egypt while a young man and one can only wonder how
much of his philosophy was influenced by what he learned there.
What we see in ancient Egypt is a noble and great people
struggling with some of the same questions we struggle with today.
They spoke in the language of mythology and religion rather than
rational philosophy, but if we listen carefully we can still resonate
with their quest to discover and understand the truth of human
existence.