The Egyptian conception of immortality

BL 2450 .15 R3
Reisner, George Andrew,

-19A2.
The Egyptian conception

immortality

1867
of

Sfn^erfioU Iccturcfi on ^'mmortalitp

IMMORTALITY AND THE NEW THEODICY. By
George A. Gordon, D. D. 1896.

HUMAN IMMORTALITY. Two supposed Objections
to the Doctrine. By Professor William James. 1897.

DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY: The Greek Faith
in Immortality as affected by the rise of Individual-
ism. By President Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 1898.

THE CONCEPTION OF IMMORTALITY. By Pro-
fessor JOSIAH ROYCB. 1899.

LIFE EVERLASTING. By John Fiske, LL.D. 1900.
SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. By WiLLiAM Osler,

M. D., LL. D. 1904.
THE ENDLESS LIFE. By Samuel M. Crothbrs,

D. D. 1905.
INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY. By Professor

WiLHELM OSTWALD. 1906.

THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. By Charles F.

Dole. 1907.
BUDDHISM AND IMMORTALITY. By William S.

BiGELOw, M. D. 1908.
IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? By G. Lowes

Dickinson, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

1909.
EGYPTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

By George A. Reisnbr. 191 i.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston and New York

THE

EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

OF IMMORTALITY

^- ( APR 5 1

THE EGYPTIAN

CONCEPTION OF

IMMORTALITY

BY ^y

GEORGE ANDREW REISNER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

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COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY GEORGE ANDREW REISNER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published February iqi2

THE INGERSOLL LEC-
TURESHIP

Extract from the will of Miss Carolina

Haskell Ingersolly who died in

Keene, County of Cheshirey

New Hampshire, Jan.

26, iSgj.

First. In carrying out the wishes of
my late beloved father, George Gold-
thwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his
last will and testament, I give and be-
queath to Harvard University in Cam-
bridge, Mass., where my late father was
graduated, and which he always held in
love and honor, the sum of Five thousand

vi NOTE

dollars (^5,OOo) as a fund for the estab-
lishment of a Lectureship on a plan some-
what similar to that of the Dudleian lecture,
that is — one lecture to be delivered each
year, on any convenient day between the
last day of May and the first day of De-
cember, on this subject, " the Immortality
of Man," said lecture not to form a part
of the usual college course, nor to be de-
livered by any Professor or Tutor as part of
his usual routine of instruction, though any
such Professor or Tutor may be appointed
to such service. The choice of said lecturer
is not to be limited to any one religious de-
nomination, nor to any one profession, but
may be that of either clergyman or layman,
the appointment to take place at least six
months before the delivery of said lecture.
The above sum to be safely invested and
three fourths of the annual interest thereof
to be paid to the lecturer for his services

NOTE vii

and the remaining fourth to be expended
in the publishment and gratuitous distri-
bution of the lecture, a copy of which is
always to be furnished by the lecturer for
such purpose. The same lecture to be
named and known as " the Ingersoll lecture
on the Immortality of Maa."

CONTENTS

I. Introduction i

II. Sources of the Material 7

III. The Ideas of the Primitive Race 9

IV. The Early Dynastic Period 15
V. The Old Empire zi

VI. The Middle Empire 46

VII. The New Empire 58

VIII. The Ptolemaic-Roman Period 69

IX. Summary 75

The

Egyptian Conception

of Immortality

I. INTRODUCTION

OF the nations which have con-
tributed to the direct stream
of civilization, Egypt and
Mesopotamia are at present believed
to be the oldest. The chronological
dispute as to the relative antiquity of
the two countries is of minor import-
ance; for while in Babylonia the his-
torical material_is almost entirely in-

2 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

scriptional, in Egypt we know the
handicrafts, the weapons, the arts, and,
to a certain extent, the religious be-
liefs of the race up to a period when
it was just emerging from the Stone
Age. In a word, Egypt presents the
most ancient race whose manner of life
is known to man. From the beginning
of its history — that is, from about
4500 B.C. — we can trace the devel-
opment of a religion one of whose
most prominent elements was a pro-
mise of a life after death. It was still a
great religion when the Christian doc-
trine of immortality was enunciated. In
the early centuries of the Christian era,
it seemed almost possible that the
worship of Osiris and Isis might be-
come the religion of the classical world ;
and the last stand made by civilized

OF IMMORTALITY 3

paganism against Christianity was in
the temple oflsis at Philse in the sixth
century after Christ.

It is clear that a religion of such
duration must have offered some of
those consolations to man that have
marked all great religions, chief of
which is the faith in a spirit, in some-
thing that preserves the personality of
the man and does not perish with the
body. This faith was, in fact, one of
the chief elements in the Egyptian
religion, — the element best known
to us through the endless cemeteries
which fill the desert from one end of
Egypt to the other, and through the
funerary inscriptions.

It is necessary, however, to correct
the prevailing impression that religion
played the greatest part in Egyptian

4 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

life or even a greater part than it does
in Moslem Egypt. The mistaken be-
lief that death and the well-being of
the dead overshadowed the existence
of the living, is due to the fact that the
physical character of the country has
preserved for us the cemeteries and
the funerary temples better than all the
other monuments. The narrow strip
of fat black land along the Nile pro-
duces generally its three crops a year.
It is much too valuable to use as a
cemetery. But more than that, it is
subject to periodic saturation with
water during the inundation, and is,
therefore, unsuitable for the burials of
a nation which wished to preserve the
contents of the graves. On the other
hand, the desert, which bounds this
fertile strip so closely that a dozen

OF IMMORTALITY 5

steps will usually carry one from the
black land to the grey, — the desert
offers a dry preserving soil with ab-
solutely no value to the living. Thus,
all the funerary monuments were
erected on the desert, and except
where intentionally destroyed they are
preserved to the present day. The pal-
aces, the towns, the farms, and many
of the great temples which were erect-
ed on the black soil, have been pulled
down for building material or buried
deep under the steadily rising deposits
of the Nile. The tombs of six thou-
sand years of dead have accumulated
on the desert edge.

Moreover, our impression of these
tombs has been formed from the monu-
ments erected by kings, princes, priests,
and the great and wealthy men of the

6 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

kingdom. The multitude of plain una-
dorned burial-places which the scientific
excavator records by thousands have
escaped the attention of scholars inter-
ested in Egypt from the point of view
ofa comparison of religions. It has also
been overlooked that the strikingly col-
ored mummies and the glaring burial
apparatus of the late period cost very
little to prepare. The manufacture of
mummies was a regular trade in the
Ptolemaic period at least. Mummy
cases were prepared in advance with
blank spaces for the names. I do not
think that any more expense was in-
curred in Egyptian funerals in the dy-
nastic period than is the case among
the modern Egyptians. The import-
ance of the funerary rites to the living
must, therefore, not be exaggerated.

OF IMMORTALITY 7

II. SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL

With the exception of certain myth-
ological explanations supplied by the
inscriptions and reliefs in the temples,
our knowledge of Egyptian ideas in
regard to the future life is based on
funerary customs as revealed by exca-
vation and on the funerary texts found
in the tombs. These tombs always show
the same essential functions through
all changes of form, — the protection
of the burial against decay and spolia-
tion, and the provision of a meeting-
place where the living may bring offer-
ings to the dead. Correspondingly,
there are two sets of customs, — burial
customs and offering customs. The
texts follow the same division. For the
offering place, the texts are magical

8 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

formulas which, properly recited by
the living, provide material benefit for
the dead. For the burial place, the
texts are magical formulas to be used
by the spirit for its own benefit in the
difficulties of the spirit life. These texts
from the burial chambers are found in
only a few graves, — those of the very
great, — and their contents show us
that they were intended only for people
whose earthly position was exceptional.
From the funerary customs and the
offering texts, a clear view is obtained
of the general conception, the ordi-
nary practice. We see what was re-
garded as absolutely essential to the
belief of the common man. From the
texts found in the burial chambers we
get the point of view of the educated
or powerful man, the things that might

OF IMMORTALITY 9

be done to gain for him an exceptional
place in the other world. Both of these
classes of material must be considered,
in order to gain a true idea of the prac-
tical beliefs. For it must be emphasized
from the beginning that we have in
Egypt several apparently conflicting
conceptions of immortality. Nor are
we anywhere near obtaining in the case
of the texts the clearness necessary to
understand fully all the differing views
held by the priestly classes during a
period of over two thousand years.

III. THE IDEAS OF THE PRIMITIVE
RACE

The earliest belief in immortality is
that which is shown to us by the burial
customs of the primitive race, — the
prehistoric Egyptian race.

10 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

About 4500 B.C. we find the Egypt-
ian race was just emerging from the
Stone Age. All the implements and
weapons found are of flint or other
stone. The men of that time were ig-
norant of writing, but show a certain
facility in line drawings of men, plants,
and animals. We have found thou-
sands of their graves which all show
the same idea of death. Each person
was buried with implements, weapons,
and ornaments, — no doubt those actu-
ally used in life, — with a full outfit
of household pots and pans, and with
a supply of food. The man was dead,
but he still needed the same things he
used in ordinary life. By a fortunate
chance we have even recovered bodies
accidentally dessicated and preserved
intact in the dry soil. These bodies

OF IMMORTALITY ii

do not show any trace of mutilation,
mummification, or any other prepara-
tion for the grave except probably
washing. The dead body was simply
laid on a mat in the grave, covered with
a cloth and a mat or a skin, and then
with clean gravel. But with it was
placed all those things which the man
might need if his life were to go on in
some mysterious, unseen way, as life
went on among those on earth. Pos-
sibly his relations as in later times
brought offerings of food to the grave,
but here even the dry soil of Egypt
fails to furnish positive evidence. All
this shows a plain simple belief in the
persistence of the life of a man as dis-
tinguished from the body — a belief
widely prevalent among primitive
people. It contains nothing unusual,

12 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

and is probably perfectly explicable
psychologically by means of dreams.

There is little or no change in this
underlying belief to be observed in
the burial customs of the Egyptians
during the late predynastic period.
Copper weapons and implements suc-
ceed stone in the graves. All those
objects in whose manufacture the new
tools are used show changes of tech-
nique and form. It is even curious to
note that some of the older stone and
flint objects, some of the older pots
and pans, are still made as a matter
of tradition. The importance of this
is not to be overlooked. For centuries
men had used flint knives and they
had baked their bread in flat mud
saucers set in the ashes. For centuries
these flint knives and these cakes with

OF IMMORTALITY 13

their saucers had been placed in the
graves. Gradually metal knives and
better bread pans displaced these more
primitive objects in daily life ; but the
older primitive objects were still placed
in the graves as a matter of tradition.

It must be remembered, of course,
that these traditional objects were also
in use in ancient traditional ceremonies
on earth. The sacrificial animals were
still slaughtered with flint knives. The
old-style cakes were still offered in
the holy places. In other words, life on
earth now consisted of ordinary material
life and a traditional life — a life that
clung to the forms of a more primitive
civilization as somehow more effective
with the divine powers. This view is
closely reflected in the grave furniture;
here, too, were the practical objects

14 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

and the traditional ceremonial objects.
Life after death is still always the same
as life on earth — with the same phys-
ical needs, with the same need of help
from supernatural powers or against
supernatural powers. The spirit of the
man needed the spirit of the copper
axe to swing in battle; but just as much
he needed the spirit of the flint knife
to make the first cut across the throat
of the spirit bull of sacrifice. Remem-
ber this — the other world, in which
lived the spirit of the dead, was filled
with the spirits or ghosts of all things
and animals. The other, the unseen, was
a duplicate of this world; all things
which have shape were there — even to
the black fields and the broad river of
Egypt. This is the foundation of the
Egyptian conception of immortality.

OF IMMORTALITY 15

Through all the modifications and ac-
cretions of the following three thou-
sand years, this foundation idea is al-
ways clearly visible. All the statues,
the carved and painted tombs, all the
curious little model boats and work-
shops, all the painted mummies, all
the amulets, the scarabs, the little fu-
nerary statuettes, — all this mummery
which seems to be so characteristic
and so essential, is only the means to
an end, and an ever changing means to
secure a successful comfortable exist-
ence of the spirit in the life after death,
— in the ghostly duplicate of life on
earth.

IV. THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD

It is clear that the effort to attain an
immortality which is merely a ghostly

i6 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

continuation of life on earth must re-
flect the general development of Egypt-
ian culture, — especially the advance
in arts and crafts. One of the most
striking examples of this fact is the
introduction of metal working men-
tioned above and the consequent plac-
ing of both flint and copper in the
grave, — the division of grave furni-
ture into practical objects and cere-
monial objects, which is the founda-
tion for the use of symbolic objects
in later times.

The advance in arts and crafts not
only suggests new ideas of the neces-
sities of the spirit, but it provides the
necessary technical skill for the more
effective satisfaction of all the needs
of the dead. This takes, first of all,
the form of supplying a place for the

OF IMMORTALITY 17

burial, which furnishes greater security
to the body and a better communica-
tion between the living and the dead.
From the First Dynasty, say from
3300 B.C. down, as soon as the Egypt-
ian had mastered the use of mud-brick
and wood, we gain the certainty of an
idea which could only be guessed at
in the primitive period. A place is
provided above the grave at which the
living could meet the spirit of the dead
with periodical offerings of food and
other necessities. In the life after death,
spirit food and drink, once used, ceased
to be, just as in life on earth, and had
to be renewed from day to day, lest
the spirit of the dead suffer from hun-
ger and thirst. One of the great devel-
opments of the first six dynasties
looked to the provision of these daily
necessities.

i8 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

The invention of writing was im-
mediately utilized. About the begin-
ning of the First Dynasty writing was
invented for administrative and other
practical purposes. Gravestones, bear-
ing in relief the name of the dead,
were set up in the offering places of
the kings and court people. These were
probably reminders for use in some
simple formula recited in presenting
the periodical offerings. As the Egypt-
ians became more familiar with the
use of writing, the offering formula
was written out in full, enlarged and
modified.

Sculptures, both relief and statuary,
in every stage of their development,
were used as magical accessories to
the offering rites.

So, also, the whole history of Egypt-

OF IMMORTALITY 19

ian architecture was reflected in the
tomb; for every advance brought
about some change in the form or
structure. In fact, the whole develop-
ment of the form of the Egyptian tomb
depended on the development of tech-
nical skill. The same funerary func-
tions are served throughout. As all the
great artisans were at the command
of the king, all the great technical dis-
coveries and inventions were first made
in his service. But every permanent
gain in knowledge was a benefit to
the race and utilized by the common
people. So, for example, the skill ac-
quired in stone-cutting, during the con-
struction of the great pyramids, was
utilized a little later in producing rock-
cut tombs from one end of Egypt to
the other.

20 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

The functions of the grave remained
the same. Yet with the changes in
form resulting from the growth of
skill, modifications in the funerary cus-
toms crept in.

The mud-brick tombs of the early
part of the First Dynasty, like the pre-
dynastic graves, had only one cham-
ber, limited in size by the length of
logs obtainable to form the roof The
growing desire for ostentation found a
way to enlarge the tombs by building
them with a number of chambers. The
burial was placed in the central cham-
ber and the burial furniture in the
additional chambers. In this way the
separation of the furniture and the act-
ual burial was brought about.

OF IMMORTALITY 21

V. THE OLD EMPIRE

Another change comes in the Fourth
Dynasty, and is to be noted first in the
royal tombs, as is always the case. The
Egyptians had now learned to cut
stone and build with it. The burial
chambers hollowed in the solid rock
were necessarily smaller than the old
chambers dug in the gravel and no
longer sufficient to contain the great
mass of furniture gathered by a king
for his grave. On the other hand, the
chapels with the increase in architect-
ural skill could be built of great size.
Corresponding to these technical con-
ditions we find a great increase in the
importance of the chapel. It becomes
a great temple, whose magazines were
filled with all those objects which had

22 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

formerly been placed in the burial
chamber and were so necessary to the
life of the spirit. The temples of the
third pyramid, for example, contained
nearly two thousand stone vessels.
Great estates were set aside by will,
and the income appointed to the sup-
port of certain persons who on their
side were obliged to keep up the tem-
ple, to make the offerings and to re-
cite the magical formulas which would
provide the spirit with all its necessi-
ties.

Following closely the growth in im-
portance of the royal chapels, the pri-'
vate offering places assumed a greater
importance. The custom of periodic
offerings and the use of magical texts
grew until it reached its highest point
in the Fifth Dynasty. At this time there

OF IMMORTALITY 23

is a burial chamber deep underground
where the dead was laid securely in the
ancient traditional attitude, with his
clothing and a few personal ornaments.
As a rule it is only the women, always
conservative, that have anything more.
Above this grave, there is a solid rec-
tangular structure, with a chapel or
offering place on the side towards the
valley. The offering place is always
there, no matter how poor or small the
tomb. But to understand just what the
Egyptian thought, we must turn to
the better tombs. The walls are of
limestone carved with reliefs represent-
ing the important processes of daily
life, — sowing, reaping, cattle-herding,
hunting, pot-making, weaving, — all
those actions which furnish the daily
supplies. The dead man is represented

24 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

overseeing all this. Finally, near the
offering niche, he is represented seated,
usually with his wife at a table bear-
ing loaves of the traditional ta bread.
Beside him are represented heaps of
provisions — meat, cakes, vegetables,
wine and beer. A list of objects is never
missing, marked with numbers, — a
thousand loaves of bread, a thousand
head of cattle, a thousand jars of wine,
a thousand garments, and so on. We
know from later inscriptions that these
words, properly recited, created for the
spirit a store of spirit objects in equal
numbers. Below the niche is an altar
for receiving actual offerings of food
and drink. It is clear that the living,
coming to this offering place with or
without material offerings, could, by
proper recitation, secure to the spirit

OF IMMORTALITY 25

of the dead all its daily needs. This
offering niche is the door of the other
world — symbolically and actually. In
many graves the niche is carved to
represent a door — sometimes opening
in, and sometimes opening out. More-
over, in several cases the figure of the
dead is carved half emerging from the
opening door — a figure in all ways
like the figure of the dead as he is
represented in the scenes from life.
Beyond this door lives the spirit of
the dead.

In many offering chambers there is
a small hole in the wall, either in the
offering niche or in another place. If
this hole be properly lighted and the
space beyond has not been changed by
decay or violation, the light falls on the
face of a statue of the dead looking

26 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

forth to the world of the living. For be-
hind the wall is another chamber, closed
except for this small hole. This hid-
den chamber contains statues of the
dead often accompanied by statues of
his family and his servants. These stat-
ues of the dead are labeled with his
name, and are said to be the abode of
his spirit, his ka, as the Egyptians called
it. Moreover, all the offering formulas
name the ka as the recipient of the food
and drink. The duplicate spirit of the
man is his ka. In these statues we have,
then, a simulacrum of the man pro-
vided for the use of his ka — perhaps
to assist the ka to the persistence of his
earthly form, and to the remembrance
of his name. But what were the uses
of the subsidiary statues? What spirit
resided in them? The man's son in

OF IMMORTALITY 27

his turn died, and a similar room was
made for him with his statue and his
subsidiary statues. Did his ka live both
in the statue placed with his father's
statue and also in the statue in his own
grave ? We have no answer. Prob-
ably the Egyptian mind never formu-
lated the difficulty.

But the new idea is clearly expressed.
It is no longer necessary to fill the burial
chamber with a mass of household fur-
niture for the use of the dead. All these
things can be carved on the wall of the
burial chamber and so made effective
for his use. It was in any case necessary
to supply his food by means of the
offerings, and it was quite as easy to
supply all his other necessities in the
same way. In other words, there is a
distinct growth in the use of magic to

28 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

benefit the dead. At the same time, we
find the growth of the custom of sup-
plying a special abode for the ka — a
simulacrum of the man, which assisted
the ka to retain the form of the living
man and to remember his identity.

The tendency of this period is then
to place a greater dependence on magic
than on food, drink, and grave furni-
ture. It is, therefore, not surprising to
find introduced, for the first time, the
use of magical texts in the burial cham-
ber, — the so-called Pyramid Texts.
In the burial chamber in the pyramid
of Unas, last king of the Fifth Dynasty,
and in the pyramids of the kings of
the Sixth Dynasty, the walls are cov-
ered with long magical texts or chap-
ters— the oldest form of the so-called
book of the dead or "book of the

OF IMMORTALITY 29

going forth by day." The texts were
probably somewhat older, but are now
used for the first time in this man-
ner, no doubt owing to the increased
facility in carving stone. In these the
various powers of the other world are
invoked by the incidents of the Osiris-
Isis legend, to preserve the dead body,
to feed the ka^ and to assist the other
spirit, the ba, in its struggles with su-
pernatural powers.

The pyramid texts introduce us to
three important ideas, — (1) a curious
plurality of the spirit existence, (2) a
condition of immortality better than
that of the old underworld or Earu, and
(3) most important of all, the identi-
fication of the king with Osiris ac-
cording to the terms of the Osiris-Isis
legend.

30 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

In all the older offering formulas it
is only the ka spirit which is mentioned.
Here is the body perishable and de-
structible; here is the life, the ka which
fills every limb and vessel of the body
and must, therefore, have the same
form. When death comes, the ka spirit,
the image of the man, remains near the
body, and this spirit it was which was
the object of the rites and offerings in
the funerary chapel. But besides this
ka, it appears for the first time that the
king at any rate possesses also a soul
called a ba. In later times we see that
every man possessed a ba, and we learn
that each god possessed several bas.
But it is in the pyramid texts that we
learn for the first time of the ba of a
man, and that man is a king. When
death comes, the ba takes flight in the

OF IMMORTALITY 31

form of a bird or whatever form it wills.
All seems confused. The ka was near
the body, the ka was in the field of
Earu, under the earth ploughing and
sowing; the ba is fluttering on the
branches of the tree on earth, the ba has
fled like a falcon to the heavens, and
has been set as a star among the stars.
The dead king lives with the gods and
is fed by them. The goddesses give
him the breast. He lives in the Island
of Food. He lives in Earu, the Un-
derworld, a land like Egypt, with fields
and canals and flood and harvest. He
shares with the gods in the offerings
made in the great temples on earth.

It is quite clear that all this is an
expression of dissatisfaction with the
old belief in the simple duplicate
world, the world of Earu under the

32 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

earth. It is noteworthy that this
first appears in royal tombs. These
texts are written for kings alone. It is
only many centuries later that the
texts of the book of the dead showed
similar possibilities open to the com-
mon man. This is the usual course of
all advances in Egypt, — architecture,
sculpture, writing, whatever gain in
skill or knowledge there is, appears
first in the service of the royal family.
Thus, even in the conception of im-
mortality, the new ideas, the better
immortality was first thought out for
the benefit of the king. The basis
for this lay simply in the life on
earth. The king had come early to
have a sort of divinity ascribed to him.
His chief name was the Horus name.
Menes was the Horus Aha ; Cheops

OF IMMORTALITY 33

was the Horus Mejeru ; Pepy II was
the Horus Netery-khau. But he was
also the son of Ra,the sun-god, endued
with hfe forever. The king was a god,
and it could only be that in his future
life he shared the life of the gods.
Thus, all is no more confused or mys-
terious than is the conception of the
life of the gods themselves.

But the texts go even further than
this and identify the dead god-man, who
as Horus was king on earth, with the
father of Horus, the dead god of the
earth, Osiris. This identification of the
dead man with the dead god Osiris was
later enlarged to include all men, and
became in the Ptolemaic period the
most characteristic feature of the Egypt-
ian conception of life after death.

The Osiris story as it can be pieced

34 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

together from the pyramid texts ' was
briefly thus : Keb, the earth-god, and
Nut, the goddess of the sky, had four
children, — Osiris and Isis, Seth and
Nephthys, — who were thus paired in
marriage. Keb gave Osiris his do-
minion, the earth, and made him the
god of the earth, and he ruled justly
and powerfully. Seth, his brother, was
jealous, and by treachery enticed Osiris
into a box, which he closed and threw
into the water. Isis sought for the
body of her husband until she found
it, and Isis and Nephthys, her sister,
sat at his head and feet and bewailed
him. Re, the greatest of the gods,
heard Isis's complaint ; his heart was
touched, and he sent Anubis to bury

* See A. Erman : Die Aegyptische Religion,
p. 38 iF.

OF IMMORTALITY 35

Osiris. Anubis re-joined his separated
bones, bound him with cloths, and
prepared him for burial, — that is,
mummified him. This is the form in
which Osiris is represented, — as a
mummy. Isis then fanned her wings,
and the air from her wings caused the
mummy to live. His life on earth,
however, was over, could not be re-
called, so that his new life could only
be passed in the other world, the world
of the dead. Here Osiris became king,
as he had been king on earth. But Isis
conceived from the dead-living Osiris,
bore a child in secret, and suckled him,
hidden in a swamp. When the child,
the sun-god Horus, grew up, he fought
against Seth to recover his father's
kingdom, and to avenge his death.
Both gods were injured in the fight.

36 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

Horus lost an eye. But Thoth inter-
vened, separated the fighters, and
healed their wounds. Thoth spat upon
the eye of Horus and it became whole.
Horus, however, gave his eye to Osiris
to eat, and thereby Osiris became en-
dowed with life, soul, and power (i.e.
in the underworld). But Seth disputed
the legitimacy of the birth of Horus,
and the great gods held a court in the
house of Keb. In this court, justice
was done, the truth of Horus's claims
was established, and he was placed on
the throne of his father. Osiris became
the ruler in the land of the dead, Horus
in the land of the living.

The kernel of the story appears to
be this: Osiris is the god of earth, and
his life is the life of the vegetation,
dying and reviving with the course of

OF IMMORTALITY 37

the seasons, mourned by his wife I sis
and succeeded by his son Horus, the
sun-god. It is apparently a form of the
common Tammuz or Adonis story of
the Semites. This fact brings with it a
suggestion which requires at least con-
sideration.

The racial connection of the Egypt-
ians may seem to have little to do
with immortality. But I beg a mo-
ment's consideration. The two great
dominating ideas of immortality are
those held by the Christians and by the
Mohammedans, and these are essen-
tially the same idea. Both these relig-
ions are creations of the Semitic race.
It is, therefore, decidedly of importance
to find that the Egyptian race, the
creator of a third great religion, has
also a large Semitic strain. In fact, the

38 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

investigations of the last ten years ap-
pear to show that this Semitic strain
it was which gave the Egyptian race
its creative power and made possible
the development of the Egyptian civ-
ilization.

The Egyptian language furnishes us
with indisputable proof of the Semitic
affinity, as Professor Adolf Erman
showed years ago. The anatomical ex-
amination by Professor Elliot Smith
of a large number of skeletons, dated
by careful excavations, has given us a
further clue. There is a prehistoric race
found in the earliest cemeteries — nei-
ther Negroid nor Asiatic in character-
istics. In the late predynastic and the
early dynastic periods, when the great
development began, this primitive race
had become modified by an infiltration

OF IMMORTALITY 39

of broad-headed people from the north.
In the Old Empire, this broad-headed
people had become predominant, and
remain so throughout all Lower and
Middle Egypt until the present day.
This intruding race, whose advent
marks the beginning of Egyptian civ-
ilization, I believe to have been Semitic.
Remember this — the texts show
clearly older ideas in conflict with the
Osiris belief The primitive race was
not, I believe, a race of Osiris followers.
Professor Erman has stated that the
Osiris belief is as early as 4200 b.c.
That I am certain is absolutely un-
tenable. It is a question of Egyptian
chronology in which I beg to differ
radically both from Eduard Meyer
and Professor Erman. In the formal
calendar year of three hundred and

40 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

sixty-five days, there are twelve
months of thirty days and five inter-
calary days. These intercalary days
are called the birthdays of Osiris,
Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys — the
five most important figures in the
Osiris myth. According to Professor
Meyer and Professor Erman, this formal
calendar was introduced in 4200 b.c,
one of the occasions when the heli-
acal rising of the star Sothis fell on
the first of the month Thoth of the
calendar. However, if we accept with
them the date 3300 b.c as the date of
the First Dynasty, then in 4200 b.c
the Egyptians were just emerging from
a neolithic state. They were culturally
incapable of making a formal calendar
and could have no possible use for one.
Either the calendar did not originate

OF IMMORTALITY 41

in Egypt, or it was introduced in
2780 B.C., when again the heliacal rising
Sothis fell on the first of Thoth. At
this time the Osiris story was dominant,
in the religion. We have a race almost
certainly Semitic, fusing with the prim-
itive race during the period 3500-3 000,
and a few centuries later we have anew
religious idea dominating the fused
race. When we examine this new
idea, the Osiris belief, we find its earliest
form nothing more nor less than the
common Tammuz or Adonis story of
the Semites. The conclusion lies very
near at hand, that the Osiris story is in
fact the Tammuz story, brought into
Egypt by the earliest Semitic tribes.
In any case it was a race with a large
Semitic mixture which utilized this
story in working out a theory of im-

42 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

mortality; and in all probability we
have in the Osiris-Isis religion a third
great religion due to the Semitic race.

However this maybe, it is clear that
the craving of the king for a special
immortality, for an exalted future life,
found itsjustification through the Osiris-
Isis myth. Horus was the successor
of Osiris as lord of the earth and the
living. The kings of Egypt were the
successors of Horus. The chief name
of the king was his Horus name ;
Menes was the Horus Aha, Cheops
the Horus Mejeru. When the king
died, he became Osiris, and passed to
the kingdom of Osiris. He passed
through the underworld with the sun-
god, abode there as Osiris, the god-
king, or sped to the heavens to the

OF IMMORTALITY 43

celestial gods. Thus comes the entering
wedge of a great change in the concep-
tion of immortality — an ordinary im-
mortality for the common man, a special
divine immortality for the divine man,
the king.' Even at this early age, it
was, of course, clearly stated that the
king must be righteous, morally satis-
factory in the eyes of the world and of
the gods. The gods, as always, were on
the side of the moral code, and espe-
cially on the side of the organized re-
ligion. It is perhaps significant that the
chief sins of the kings of the Fourth
Dynasty, so execrated by the Egypt-
ian priests in the Ptolemaic period,

* It appears probable that the deification of
the king and the assumption of a divine immor-
tality for him was prior in time to the statement
of these beliefs in the terms of the Osiris story.

44 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

were sins against the great gods. The
other charges are for the most part
plainly slanders. In practice every king
whose family remained in power was
justified before gods and men, and
took his place among the gods in the
islands of the blessed in the northern
part of the heavens.

The dead body was laid in the grave,
supplied with all these magic texts
which were to restore and revive the
soul and guide it across waters and
through dangers to the place of Osiris.
But the chapel was not wanting, the
cult of the ka was maintained, the
statues were placed in the hidden room,
the food and drink were brought daily
to the door of the grave. Thus, while
a special immortality was evolved for
the king, the funeral customs continue

OF IMMORTALITY 45

to show the same service of the ka as
in the earlier period.

In the Sixth Dynasty, there is a re-
turn to the older practice of placing
objects in the grave itself At present
we are unable to point out the rea-
sons for this. Possibly experience had
taught men that endowments and
carved walls left to the care of de-
scendants were insecure supports for
a life after death which was to last
forever. At any rate, the custom arose
of making small models in wood or
stone or metal of those scenes and ob-
jects which were carved in relief on
the walls of the chapel, — models of
houses, granaries, of kitchens, of brick-
yards ; models of herds and servants
and soldiers ; models of boats and
ships ; models of dance-halls with the

46 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

man seated drinking wine, around
him musicians, before him dancing
girls ; models of swords, of vessels, of
implements. Poorer people must be
contented with poorer things, down to
the peasant who is buried with the few
little necessary pots and pans of his
daily life. But always, in every grave,
the chapel, small or great, is there.
The endowment of funerary priests
continues. Every man, I suppose, how-
ever poor, had some one to make at
least one offering at his grave. And
so it was down to the New Empire.

VI. THE MIDDLE EMPIRE

During the Middle Empire, the
burial and offering customs show the
persistence of the old belief in life

OF IMMORTALITY 47

after death as on earth, Pots, vessels,
tools, weapons, ornaments, clothing,
and models of scenes from life, con-
tinue to be placed in the burial cham-
ber. The walls of the offering chambers
of the nobles, at this time cut in the
rock, still bear representations from
life carved in relief The symbolical
doors and the offering formulas still
mark the spot where the dead receive
the necessities of life from the living.
All graves of every class testify to
the faith in a life after death similar
to life on earth. Yet certain modifi-
cations are apparent which are signifi-
cant for the future development of the
conception of immortality: (1) the
pyramid texts are used by the pro-
vincial nobles for their own benefit;
(2) Abydos assumes a great import-

48 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

ance as the burial place of Osiris;
(3) the swathed mummy comes into
general use in burials.

The first identification of the king
with Osiris in the pyramid texts marks
the conception of a better immortal-
ity for him. So, as the possibility of
a better immortality was claimed by
wider and wider circles of men, the
use of the pyramid texts, or similar
texts, also became wider. In the Mid-
dle Empire, texts practically identical
with the pyramid texts, but furnished
with illustrations somewhat like those
of the later books of the dead, are found
in the coffins of provincial nobles.

The power of the monarchy had
been weakening during the Fifth and
Sixth Dynasties, partly owing to the
dissipation of national resources by

OF IMMORTALITY 49

royal extravagance, partly owing to
other causes. After the Sixth Dynasty,
the country was clearly in a period
of economic depression ; and the gov-
ernment was broken up into a series
of nearly independent baronies corre-
sponding roughly to the later divis-
ion into provinces or nomes. Our
material is scanty. The tombs of very
few great men have been found. But
when in the Twelfth Dynasty an
abundance of material is at hand, we
see, alongside the old forms of the
burial customs, the use of the pyramid
texts on the inside walls of the coffins
of the great man. It was now possible
for the ba of the great landed noble
to seek refuge with the gods in the
northwest heavens and share their life.
The increasing importance of Aby-

50 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

dos as the burial place of Osiris is of
still greater significance. The tomb of
a king of the First Dynasty was identi-
fied by the priests as the actual burial
place of Osiris. Many great people
made graves for themselves in the same
field; or, if they lived at a distance, built
empty cenotaphs there. A great tem-
ple of Osiris stood near by, and became
the centre of the celebration of mys-
teries illustrating the death and revival
of Osiris. Fortunately, a certain high
official named I-kher-nofret has left
us an account of the Osiris passion-
play as performed under his oversight
in the nineteenth year of Sesostris III,
nearly two thousandyearsbeforeChrist.'

^ See Schafer's article, "DieOsiris-mysterien,**
in Sethe's Vntersuchungen zur Geschichte Aegyp-
tensy IV, 2, pp. 1-42.

OF IMMORTALITY 51

The play began by the procession of
the statue of the jackal-god Wep-wawet
(the road-opener) going forth to help
his father Osiris. Then the statue of
Osiris himself in the Neshemet boat
came forth as triumphant king of the
earth. Sham battles took place refer-
ring to the conquest of the earth by
Osiris. These processions were only
introductory. The principal procession
took place on the following day (or
days), when Osiris went forth to his
death at Nedit. The actual death scene
certainly took place in secret. But
when the dead body was found, the
multitude joined in the wailing and
the lamentations. The god Thoth went
forth in a boat and brought back the
body of Osiris. The body was prepared
for burial and taken in funeral proces-

52 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

sion to the grave at Peker. Osiris was
avenged on his enemies in a great bat-
tle on the water at Nedit. Finally, the
god, his life revived, comes from Peker
in triumphant procession and enters
his temple at Abydos.

Osiris mysteries were celebrated at
other places, at least in later times and
perhaps even in the Middle Empire ;
but it is not easy to discern the part
these mysteries played in the Middle
Empire in the beliefs of the common
people regarding their immortality.
The Osiris story was one of the most
widespread in Egypt, and, powerful
in its effect on the feelings of all
classes, was certain, sooner or later,
to prepare the way for a general be-
lief in a better immortality; but, if
we may judge from the burial cus-

OF IMMORTALITY 53

toms, the great mass of the people
still believed merely in an underworld,
Earu, a duplicate of the earthly life,
but with greater possibilities of danger
and evil.

During the course of Egyptian his-
tory the position in which the body is
buried undergoes a series of remark-
able changes. During the early pre-
dynastic period, the body, loosely
enfolded in cloths and skins, is laid
in the grave doubled up on the left
side, usually with the head south (i.e.
upstream). This position becomes
the custom, with very few excep-
tions, during the late predynastic
period and the first three dynasties.
Throughout the Fourth to Sixth
Dynasties, the body was in the same
position, but with the head north,

54 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

loosely covered with shawls and gar-
ments. The crouching position, with
some slight modifications, continues
to be used for the poorest class down
to the New Empire. Among the Nu-
bians, it is universal to the New Empire
and customary even later in unmixed
Nubian communities. The swathed
extended burials begin in Egypt in
the Fourth Dynasty, so far as remains
are preserved. Some members of the
royal family of Cheops were buried in
swathed wrapping, lying extended on
the left side with the knees bent. Dur-
ing the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties this
extended position on the side becomes
customary for the better classes; and
during the Middle Empire it becomes
almost universal.

The final burial position, the swathed

OF IMMORTALITY 55

mummy lying extended on the back,
does not become general until the
New Empire, about 1 600 b.c, although
it is the position hitherto regarded
as the characteristic Egyptian burial
position. A few isolated cases, some
of them perhaps accidental, occur as
early as the Old Empire ; but in the
New Empire the extended burial on
the back is practically the only one to
be observed. In other words, begin-
ning in the predynastic period with a
burial position which may be called
natural and primitive, the Egyptian
gradually adopted a position which
imitated the form of the dead Osiris,
the god of the dead. Each new
change is first adopted by the royal
family, and is taken up by the other
classes in turn until it becomes uni-

56 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

versal. In the final form, the mummy
was a simulacrum of the dead as
Osiris.

Alongside these changes in the
burial position progressed the art of
preserving the body. The earliest at-
tempts were made on the body of the
king ; and the knowledge of embalm-
ing gained in preserving his body was
gradually utilized for the higher classes
and finally for all but the poorest. It
seems indisputable that the royal per-
sonages of the Fourth and Sixth
Dynasties were mummified — i.e. the
entrails were drawn, the body prepared
with spices and resins and wrapped
tightly in cloths smeared with resin.
But the mummies of the nobles, even
of this period, show no trace of such
treatment. The receptacles for the

OF IMMORTALITY 57

viscera are sometimes found in their
graves in the Sixth Dynasty, but are,
as a rule, empty, being mere dummy
vases. Even in the Middle Empire,
the preservation of the bodies of the
better classes was extremely imperfect.
The bundles of wrappings have kept
their form to the present day and it
seems as if the mummy were still in-
tact; but an examination of the interior
shows only loose bones. Successful
mummification appears among better-
class people in the New Empire for
the first time and becomes a general
custom in the Late Period. The pro-
cesses of successful mummification
necessitated the practical destruction
of the body.

In the Middle Empire, which is the
period under discussion, the process

58 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

of mummification had reached a mid-
dle stage, and, while we are unable to
explain exactly the causal relation-
ship, it is clear that this advance in
the treatment of the body accompanied
a spread of the belief in the Osirian
immortality.

VII. THE NEW EMPIRE

The New Empire (1600-1200 b.c.)
was the great period of foreign con-
quest. The Hyksos, Asiatic invaders,
had held Egypt for a century or more.
The Theban princes who drove them
out became kings of Egypt, and fol-
lowed them into Asia. With an army
trained in war by the long struggle with
the Hyksos, the Egyptian kings, hav-
ing tasted the sweetness of the spoils

OF IMMORTALITY 59

of war, entered on the conquest of
western Asia and the Sudan. The
plunder of both these regions poured
into Egypt. Under Thothmes III an
annual campaign was conducted into
Syria to bring back the spoils and the
tribute. Foreign slaves and the pro-
ducts of foreign handicraft were for sale
in every market-place. The treasury
was filled to overflowing. A large share
was assigned to Amon, the god of the
Theban family. Temples were built
for him; estates established for the
maintenance of his rites; thousands of
priests enrolled for the service of his
properties. The god became, in a ma-
terial sense, the greatest god in Egypt,
the national god; and his priesthood
became the most powerful organiza-
tion in the kingdom. The high priest

6o EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

of Amon usurped the power of the
king and finally supplanted him. Such
was the period in which the next great
development of the Egyptian idea of
immortality is to be noted — a period
of priestly activity in the beginning
and of priestly domination in the end.
The priests are the scribes, the men
of learning. They have the lore of
all magic, medicine, rules of conduct,
religious rites. It is not mere chance,
therefore, that the New Empire was
marked by a great increase of magic
in all its forms — texts and symbolic
objects — and by a great development
in the knowledge of the other world.
In some of the texts the geography of
the underworld, in which Osiris is king,
is worked out in great detail. When
the sun sets in the west, Ra in his

OF IMMORTALITY 6i

boat enters the underworld and passes
through it during the twelve hours of
the night, bringing light and happi-
ness to those who are in the under-
world. In the effort to secure the tomb
against plundering, the royal graves had
been cut in the solid rock, — long and
complicated passages with false leads
and deceptive turns and the burial
chamber in an unexpected place. The
long walls of these rooms presented a
great surface suitable to decoration,
and they were utilized to depict scenes
from the underworld and the passage
of Ra through it, so that the tombs
became in fact representations of the
land of the dead, and were so consid-
ered. These royal tombs were at a
distance from the cultivated land, hid-
den in valleys in the desert. Their fu-

62 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

nerary temples were built on the edge
of the desert beside the temples of the
gods of the place.

Such fantastical reconstructions of
the other world, however, never found
general favor and are confined to a
few royal tombs. The priests and other
prominent people have rolls of papy-
rus buried with them, bearing copies
of books of the dead. These books of
the dead are made up of a series of
chapters, each complete in itself and
each dealing with some phase of the
future life. There is no set order of
chapters. There is no fixed number
of chapters. Each scribe seems to have
selected the chapters which he consid-
ered useful. The general title is: Chap-
ters of the going forth by day. The
general character may be given by a

OF IMMORTALITY 63

paragraph attached to one of the chap-
ters in the Book of Ani the Scribe : '
" If this book be known on earth and
written on the coffin, it is my mouth.
He shall come forth by day in any
form he desires and he shall go into his
place without being prevented. There
shall be given to him bread and beer
and meat upon the altar of Osiris. He
shall enter in, in peace, to the field of
Earu according to this decree of the one
who is in the City of Dedu. There
shall be given to him wheat and barley
there. He shall flourish as he did upon
earth. He shall do his desires like these
nine Gods who are in the underworld,
as found true millions of times. He is
the Osiris : the Scribe Ani." There are
chapters to overcome all the evil which
' Edited by E. A. W. Budge, p. 26.

64 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

a soul may encounter ; there are words
to greet all the gods whom the soul
desires to visit. The Scribe Ani had an
exceptional position on earth; he de-
sires to do his desire in the other world;
and in the name of Osiris he recites the
magic words that bring him the power.
He is Ani, but he calls himself Osiris;
just as the priestly doctor mixes his
dose of medicine and calls it " the eye
of Horus tested and found true."

In addition to magical texts, there
are also magical, or symbolic, objects
placed in the graves, — amulets of va-
rious kinds which were to be used in
the other world. Some of these were
simply the amulets used in daily life
to guard against sickness, bite of snake,
and other earthly evils which were also
incident to the life after death. Other

OF IMMORTALITY 65

amulets, like the so-called Ushabtiu^
were to meet special conditions of the
other world. These Ushabtiu^ or " an-
swerers," were little images of work-
men bearing agricultural implements
whose duty it was to take the place of
the dead in the fields of Earu when
Osiris as king called him to do his
share of the field work. Even the king
appears liable to this service, and for
him thousands of these figures were
made, — sometimes labeled each with
the day of the year. In a few cases
there was even a charm written on the
figure to prevent it hearing the com-
mand of any one but its master.

Alongside these manifold manifes-
tations of the belief in magic, other
furniture — implements, weapons, and
utensils — are still placed in the grave.

66 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

The offering places are still main-
tained. All burials are now extended
on the back and wrapped in bandages.
Yet the common graves lack the re-
ceptacles for the viscera, lack magical
texts, lack ushabtiu, and — in a word
— lack all those things which are
typical of the better-class graves of
the period. The conception of the
future life among the common people
is apparently not essentially different
from that of the Old Empire. But the
books of the dead and the offering
formulas show that the priests and high
officials at death were called Osiris.

By the end of the Late Period the
Osiris cult of the dead had come
to be universal. No doubt political
events had much to do with this. The
absorption of the powers of the king

OF IMMORTALITY ^ 67

by the priesthood of the national god
Amon-Ra, the crushing of the nobility
by a succession of foreign invaders,
and the general uncertainty of life, had
disturbed the old fixed relations. The
hope of every Egyptian turned to a
glorified future life as Osiris.

The tendency to use magical texts
and symbolic objects reached its height.
About 700 B.C. a revival of national
life, brought about by the establish-
ment of the Egyptian kings of Sais
as kings of Egypt, led to a renaissance
of Egyptian art. The old monuments
were copied and imitated, the old
funerary texts and offering formulas
were sought out in the older graves.
Even the pyramid texts reappear after
one thousand years of practical obliv-
ion. The value of master words was

68 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

so firmly fixed in the Egyptian mind
that misunderstood texts of all sorts
were copied out and placed in the
graves to secure to the dead some
vague benefit in the other world.

The process of mummification was
at its height. The bodies were no longer
preserved. The process was merely
the creation of a simulacrum of the
dead Osiris So-and-So. All the per-
ishable parts of the body were re-
moved or destroyed by chemicals.
Only the skin, bones, hair, and teeth
remained to be padded with mud and
resin, wrapped in cloths, covered with
a painted and gilded cartonnage to
represent the glorified Osiris mummy.

OF IMMORTALITY 69

VIII. THE PTOLEMAIC-ROMAN
PERIOD

In the Ptolemaic-Roman period we
see the final stage of the Osiris cult.
Every dead man is laid in his grave
without furniture, prepared as a sim-
ulacrum of Osiris. The wealthiest
people have gilded and painted
mummy cases with amulets and funer-
ary papyrus. The poorer are merely
bundles of wrappings. Every dead
man is Osiris, and no doubt carried
with him words learned on earth to
gain his way to a place in the king-
dom of Osiris. The offering places
above the grave are still made and
offerings are still brought.

To gain some idea of the way in
which these two conceptions of the

70 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

living dead were worked out in actual
life, one has only to turn to the funer-
ary customs of the modern Egyptians.
In the case of both Christians and
Moslems, the grave rites are similar;
but with those of the Moslems I am
more familiar. The grave consists still
of the two parts, the burying place
and the offering place. The swathed
body is laid on the right side, with the
right hand under the cheek and the
face towards Mecca. At the burial
the confession of the faith is recited
over and over, lest the dead forget it.
Korans are sometimes placed in the
graves; and I have even seen a con-
fession of the faith written on paper
and placed on a twig before the face
of the dead. At the appointed sea-
sons— especially at the great Feast

OF IMMORTALITY 71

of Sacrifice — offerings are brought
to the grave. The family party passes
through the cemetery, the women
bearing baskets of bread and bottles
of water, the men turning the head to
the right and to the left and reciting
the fatha in propitiation of the spirits.
The party enters the offering inclosure
of the grave of their relative. The
wives greet the dead — " Peace unto
thee, oh, my husband, oh, my father,
we have wept until we have watered
the earth with our tears on thy ac-
count." The offerings are laid before
the tomb. A scribe is called and re-
cites or reads some chapter of the
Koran over and over, one hundred,
one hundred and fifty, five hundred,
one thousand times, and concludes:
" I have read this for thee, oh, such

72 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

and such a one." Or, "I have trans-
ferred the merit of this to thee." When
you question these people as to the
particulars of their belief, you find
their ideas vague and indefinite.
Among the men a dispute quickly
starts, — -the people who have been
found good by the examining an-
gels on the night of the burial are
there, but the bad are somewhere
else. No, says another, they are all in
their graves, but the bad suffer tor-
ment. Still another maintains that the
good have already passed to the low-
est heaven. These are all mere rem-
nants of theological discussions caught
from the sheikhs. The women stolidly
maintain that the dead are in their
tombs and the offerings must be
brought. When you inquire which

OF IMMORTALITY 73

are the good and which the bad, there
is again a great divergence of opinion;
but it is clear that every man be-
lieves in his heart that a knowledge
of the prayers and forms of the Mos-
lem religion is absolutely essential and
entirely sufficient to gain a desirable
future life. The great master word is
the confession of faith — there is no
god but Allah and Mohammed is his
prophet.

So it must have been in the last
stage of the Osiris cult. Immortality,
a glorified future existence as an Osiris
in the kingdom of Osiris, with all the
pleasures and comforts of life, was se-
cured to him who was buried with the
proper rites and knew the magic words.
And yet the old feeling was never lost
that the dead was somehow in the

74 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

grave and might suffer hunger and
thirst.

When Christianity came into Egypt,
all the gaudy apparatus of the Osiris
religion was swept out of existence.
The body was to rise again and might
not be mutilated. Mummification,
which destroyed the body in order to
preserve a conventional simulacrum,
ceased abruptly. Grave furniture was
of course unthinkable. But the use of
charms did not cease. Crosses were
embroidered in the gravecloths; or
small crosses of metal or wood placed
on the breast or arm; the gravestone
bore a simple prayer to the Holy Spirit
for the peaceful rest of the soul. But
the offering place was still maintained;
prayers were recited on the feast days;
lamps were allowed to remain at the

OF IMMORTALITY 75

grave ; food was brought, but given
to the poor.

In all periods there are thousands of
graves of poor people without a single
thing to secure their future life, —
people who were probably content
simply to lay down the burdens of life.
In the Christian period these thousands
of unnamed dead all have one mark.
They are laid with their feet to the
east. Each one was a Christian and se-
cure in his future life, according to his
faith and his life on earth.

IX. SUMMARY

To sum up, the essential idea of the
Egyptian conception of immortality
was that the ghost or spirit of the man
preserved the personality and the form

76 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

of the man in the existence after death;
that this spirit had the same desires, the
same pleasures, the same necessities,
and the same fears as on earth. Life
after death was a duplicate of life on
earth. On earth life depended on work,
on getting food from the fields and the
herds, on forming stone and metal,
hide and vegetable fibre, into useful
objects. In other words, life depended
on human power over the natural ma-
terials of the earth. At the same time
there were many things which could
not be controlled by power over the
earth and its elements, — the sting of
the scorpion, the bite of the adder, the
rise of the Nile, sickness, the sudden
onslaught of the enemy, the stray-
ing of cattle, the disfavor of the god.
For these evils man's only hope was

OF IMMORTALITY -j^

magic, — the set words spoken in
the proper manner which have power
over all unseen influence. So in the
case of life after death, all which hu-
man strength can provide of stores of
grain and drink and garments must
be secured for his use; but he must
also be provided with the magic words
to meet the chance evils of the future
life.

It is not surprising that the unknown
future presented to the imagination
many evils unknown on earth. The
spirit might forget its name, it might
lose its heart, it might be bound fast by-
evil powers in the grave and unable
to come forth by day. The mummy
might decay; the spirit might forget
its form. So, as time went on, the use
of magic words became of greater and

78 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

greater Importance, until, to modem
eyes, it seemed to overshadow all else
in the Egyptian conception of life after
death.

As a part of the magical provisions
of the dead, the Osiris myth, probably
built up in explanation of old rites,
was drawn into the belief in a future
life, and apparently at the beginning
solely for the benefit of the king, for the
benefit of those who claimed a certain
divinity on earth. The earth-god Osiris,
god of the living, had died and had
been brought to life as god of the dead.
So, also, the earth-king, the Horus, the
son of Ra, must die, but he also would
live again in the other world and share
the throne of Osiris. More than this
even, he became Osiris. He was ad-
mitted to the life of the gods. Of

OF IMMORTALITY 79

course the ideas of the existence of the
gods were never clear and consistent.
They lived in secret places, their
whole life was mysterious as well as
powerful. These are the field of know-
ledge which the Egyptian mind could
not oversee with any satisfaction to it-
self The most it could do was to form-
ulate the magic words, invoking the
names of the gods and conjuring them
by the events in the Osiris myth to
accept this king as Osiris. The excep-
tional man, the super-man, must have
an exceptional future life; but to ob-
tain it, he must have the knowledge
of the names and words necessary to
force the powers of the other world.

Thus the ideaof antAceptional fu-
ture life, a heaven, was brought into
the Egyptian conception of life after

8o EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

death. Admission to it depended on
the exceptional position on earth of
those admitted. As even this excep-
tional position was only of avail when
combined with the knowledge of cer-
tain formulas, it is not difficult to see
how the knowledge of these formulas
might be considered sufficient to ob-
tain the better future life, even for
others than the king. When in the de-
pression that followed the extravagance
of the pyramid age the central mon-
archy lost its power, Egypt broke up
into a series of tribal baronies (nomes).
In each was a ruler almost independent
of the king, a man who might presume
with the proper knowledge to claim
a glorified future life similar to that of
the king. And, indeed, we find from
the burial inscriptions of the Middle

OF IMMORTALITY 8i

Empire that such was the result. Feud-
alism extended the possibilities of
heaven to the great nobles. In the
New Empire, the royal power was
gradually absorbed by the priestly or-
ganization of the national religion —
the religion of Amon-Ra; and the
principle comes into practice that any
priest having the necessary knowledge
could obtain for himself an exceptional
place in the future life. The Osirian
burial customs spread even among the
people. The swathed body extended
on the back becomes universal, even
though true mummification was still
only for the rich.

In the Ptolemaic period, the prepa-
ration of all the apparatus of the Osi-
ris burial was divided up into trades.
Factories, one may say, turned out

82 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

mummy cases of various kinds, with
a scale of prices to fit every purse.
Other factories tumed out amulets and
charms. Magical texts, the preparation
of the body, the construction of the
grave — all things were done by regu-
lar crafts. The cheapening of the ap-
paratus is most striking. At the same
time all but the poorest burials bear
direct evidence of their character as
Osiris burials.

On the side of the moral require-
ment we must not look too closely.
There were powerful words which
could compel even the great judges
of the dead to return a favorable ver-
dict. There were magic hearts of stone
which might be worn in place of the
heart, and, laid in the scales by Anubis,
weigh heavier than the truth. One

OF IMMORTALITY 83

might by words compel Anubis to
accept this stone heart instead of the
real heart.

In general, one may say that the
hope of immortality had little influ-
ence on the moral life of the ordinary
Egyptian. The moral code was simple
and sound and not greatly different
from other primitive codes, — forbid-
ding all those things which the body
of men regard as unpleasant in others,
commanding the plain virtues which
were found pleasant in others. Here,
again, I think we may well look to
modern Egypt for a picture of ancient
Egypt. We must not exaggerate the
influence of the belief in immortality
on general morality. We must not
think too well of the life of the people
— nor, on the other hand, too evil.

84 EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION

They had their sins and their virtues.
The common herd was driven by ne-
cessity and lived as it could. They
clung to the belief in a life in the
grave. The greater people had leisure
to learn and to provide the magic nec-
essary to secure a comfortable future
life. They loved life and hated death.
Thus it was when the priests of
the Osiris-Isis religion made their bid
to the classical world. They offered
immortality by initiation. Learn the
proper rites, learn the master words,
and secure eternal life among the
great gods. It was a religion for the
exceptional man down to the last;
it required training and knowledge.
Even in its most popular form in the
Ptolemaic period, a specially instructed
class was required, who sold for money

OF IMMORTALITY 85

the benefits of their knowledge, and
men took rank in their security of fu-
ture life according to their means.

Not until Christianity came, offer-
ing eternal life free and without price,
did the common people find at last a
road open to equal immortality with
the great men of the earth.

THE END

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

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Princeton Theoioaicil <^fn n^rv Sn^^ f

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