CHAPTER IV

THE SPIRITUAL FAITH OF ANCIENT EGYPT

THANKS to the enterprising spirit of the present enquiring age, we need not remain in serious doubt as to what was the faith of those mysterious ancient people who were old as a nation long before the Joseph of the Pentateuch was appointed to high station under one of the Pharaohs, native princes of Mizraim. Though the very greatest interest has long centred in a single monument, the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, whose splendid and exact mathematical proportions are still a living wonder to the chief among modern Egyptologists, it is by no means a thankless task to wander far from that unique structure, which stands unrivaled, internally if not externally, among the world’s discovered monuments, and gaze upon the numerous erections which thickly stud the Delta of the Nile, all bearing testimony to the faith and life of a mighty and curious people who largely influenced Greece, and through Greece the entire civilized world, after their own supremacy among nations had been utterly extinguished.

“The Book of the Dead,” which contains an enormous mass of fascinating information for students of ancient beliefs and customs, can now be obtained in a partly English dress without much difficulty, and it is from that extraordinary volume that we can gather enough concerning ancient Egypt to familiarize us pretty thoroughly with the Egyptian theory of the soul and its transmigrations entertained long before the period of the Israelitish Exodus.

The remarkable silence of the Old Testament concerning the state of the departed soul is not so much due to the materialistic tenor of early Hebrew thought as to the close acquaintance with Egyptian Eschatology which undoubtedly prevailed among the people who were led by Moses out of Egypt to found a new nation in Palestine.

Though considerable superstition, some of it beautiful and some of it repellent, attaches to this old body of doctrine, it has for the most part a noble moral tendency, as the entire philosophy of a future life elaborated in ancient Egypt exalts character far above belief; and the influence of this early faith upon the Jewish mind is easily traced by even the most casual reader of the Pentateuch. Life was in ancient Egypt, exactly as it was in later Palestine, a continuous round of religious duties. The universe was regarded as living, and all the forces of Nature were looked upon as spiritual agencies. Therefore there was no atheism or infidelity, and very little scepticism, rationalism, or agnosticism among Egyptians, and there is very little among their descendants to-day. The average Christian from Europe or America has an utterly false idea of Solar worship, and also of Sex worship, two of the very oldest forms of worship of which any traces have been found; and though boasting of exceptional culture, and the possession of a perfect divine revelation, Christian nations until very recently have been engulfed in superstitions of a materialistic type, such as pagan peoples never entertained.

William Rounseville Alger in his long famous work, “The Destiny of the Soul; A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life” informs us that the ancient Egyptians can only be understood, as to their views concerning a future existence, when we have comprehended the motives which led them to lay the immense stress they laid on embalming the dead. Contrary to many widespread opinions favoring the gratuitous assumption that in early Egypt belief in a literal physical resuscitation of the corpse prevailed we are led, alike by analogy and testimony, to conclude that the Egyptian theory of resurrection was far more nearly in accord with some modern ideas attributed to Theosophists than with the old school orthodox Christian conception of a literal physical re-animation. Herodotus declares that the Egyptians of old believed that after the dissolution of the flesh the soul passed through a round of transmigrations, and eventually reassumed a physical human body, but not the same body that it had laid aside. This is an ancient view of reincarnation, a doctrine which in one or other of its varied aspects is constantly cropping out in modern literature and laying hold upon popular thought.

The body which was embalmed was always seriously mutilated; the brain was extracted, and the skull stuffed with cotton. A most important section of the anatomy was therefore unpreserved. This fact alone is sufficient to prove that the resurrection of the identical physical structure was not a primitive Egyptian anticipation. The real object of embalming may fairly, in general outline, be stated as follows:

While the practice of embalming was clearly not connected with any idea of a future physical resuscitation, it was intended to keep constantly in vision the images of the departed, much as we employ portraits and statues without the slightest expectation that our departed friends will incarnate within them; though it is quite generally believed in India that sacred images do, in a certain sense, possess magical qualities, and that they furnish links of communion, more or less direct, between us and those who are represented by the images. Therein is a mild explanation of much that is commonly called idolatry, a view which frees a good portion of idolatrous practice from actually reprehensible associations. This view, now quite widely entertained by students of Oriental beliefs and practices, furnishes a considerable clue to the Egyptian customs of embalming, which were by no means confined to human bodies, but extended to all venerated animals, a fact clearly attested by the presence of mummied cats in the British Museum in London.

Modern research among Egyptian antiquities is revealing with constantly increasing clearness the spirit of the religion of that curious ancient land whose extant monuments furnish overwhelming evidence in favor of the doctrine of immortality couched in the symbolic language of figurative art. Cats, dogs, beetles, and other “sacred” creatures were not probably venerated to the extent that comparatively modern Christian critics have supposed, but they were undoubtedly used as reminders of certain definite qualities, and often regarded as links with some of the lesser divinities. Mummy-cases are, in very many instances, profusely decorated with scenes intended to represent the experiences of souls in Hades (an inclusive term intended to include many varied conditions of post-mortem existence, ranging from very gloomy to almost glorious states). The god Thoth is frequently described leading the soul into Amen, the underworld in which souls polluted by grievous sins suffer greatly, but which holds no terrors for those who have led pure lives. The soul of the newly departed is often represented kneeling and interceding before the forty-two assessors of Osiris. The final trial takes place in the Hall of Two Truths, one of which approves, and the other condemns. Another name is the Hall of Dual Justice, which metes out rewards and penalties. Three divinities, Horus, Anubis, and Thoth, weigh every soul in an unvarying balance. In one scale an image of a female divinity is placed, in the other a heart-shaped vase, symbolizing the heart of the departed with all the actions of the earthly life. Thoth notes the results on a tablet, and the soul advances with it to the foot of the throne of Osiris, who pronounces sentence, which his assistants execute. A condemned soul, one whose evil acts outweigh the good, is either sent back immediately to be re-born as a repulsive animal or reptile, or driven into the atmosphere at the mercy of the tempests, till all sins are expiated; after which another terrestrial human life begins.

Unacceptable though this doctrine may be to some modern philosophers, it is immeasurably superior to any view of endless useless torment such as many benighted Christian theologians have proclaimed, for the simplest reasoning must suffice to prove that any penalty which ultimately uplifts the one who undergoes it may be benevolent at core, while unending misery is a conception for which there is neither rational explanation nor apology.

Ancient Egyptian theories of cosmogony are distinctly worthy of consideration, particularly in consequence of the side-light they throw upon the familiar accounts in Genesis. The divisions of the universe popularly accepted in the Egypt of long ago included the earth, considered as a place of trial where all live a probationary existence, and an atmosphere in which all sins are punished, and where all offenses may be expiated. The spiritual realm is described as a serene blue sky where the blessed dwell in peace and happiness imperturbable.

Many allusions to Egyptian beliefs are discoverable in several of St. Paul's epistles, and his mention of the “Prince of the Powers of the Air” clearly refers to some continuation in early Christian thought of a primitive Egyptian belief in Pooh the ruler of the realm of storms and the overseer of souls in penance. The sun is always conceived of in Egyptian theology as the central sphere of life and the abode of the mightiest of deities, and all planets are regarded as spiritual spheres robed awhile in physical habiliments, much as human souls are robed in forms of exterior matter during certain periods in their history.

The number 12 figures very largely in Egyptian symbolism the upper realm of spiritual existence being divided into twelve sections, at the entrance to each of which a sentinel-divinity is stationed. To each of these gods the newly arrived soul must present satisfactory credentials or it cannot pass the portal. The twelve sections of the higher realm correspond with the twelve day hours, while the twelve sections of the lower realm correspond with the twelve hours of night; the holy hours ranging from six A. M. to six P. M., the unholy from six P. M. to six A. M.

The picturesque and highly impressive symbolism connected with the venerable Sun-worship which found its central home in Egypt through many generations, served to impress upon the public mind the idea that this is indeed a spiritual universe, and though the esoteric theories and customs which prevailed among the populace suggested geocentric rather than heliocentric astronomy, every student of the inscriptions upon the ancient papyri, and the still older monuments, cannot fail to discern a far wiser and immeasurably sublimer view of universal order than could possibly be gathered from a simple investigation of those superficial modes of thought and practice which characterized the belief and practice of the uninitiated multitudes. Astronomy and astrology (the two were never separated) constituted a vital part of Egyptian theology, for the stars were regarded literally as spiritual orbs dressed in material garments, a concept which raises the ancient science of astrology to a place of dignity which it can never enjoy in modern days until its essential propositions have been entirely rescued from fanatical and fatalistic accretions. Though some authors tell us that the great planets were anciently regarded as deities, we may not find sufficient grounds for accepting that assertion without some discount. A better definition, and one far less liable to serious dispute, is that the various planets were regarded as homes of deities who presided over the life of the worlds placed under their immediate charge.

Wm. R. Alger rightly says, “There was much poetic beauty and ethical power in these doctrines and symbols. The necessity of virtue, the dread ordeals of the grave, the certainty of retribution, the mystic circuits of transmigration, a glorious immortality, the paths of planets, gods and souls through creation, all were impressively enounced dramatically shown. The solemn linking of the fate of man with the astronomic universe, this grand blending of the deepest of moral doctrines with the most august of physical sciences, plainly betrays the brain and hand of that ancient world.” “That such a system of belief was too complex and elaborate to have been a popular development is evident, but that it was really held by the people there is no room to doubt. Parts of it were publicly enacted on festival days by multitudes numbering more than 100,000. Parts of it were dimly shadowed out in the secret recesses of temples, surrounded by the most astonishing accompaniments that unrivalled learning, skill, wealth, and power could contrive. Its authority commanded the allegiance, its charm fascinated the imagination of the people. Its force built the pyramids, and enshrined whole generations of Egypt's embalmed population in richly adorned sepulchres of everlasting rock. Its substance of esoteric knowledge and faith, in its form of exoteric exhibition gave it vitality and endurance long. In the vortex of change and decay it sank at last, and now it is only after its secrets have been buried for thirty centuries that the exploring genius of modern times has brought its hidden hieroglyphics to light, and taught us what were the doctrines originally contained in the altar-lore of those priestly schools which once dotted the plains of the Delta, and studded the banks of eldest Nile, where now, disfigured and gigantic, the solemn

‘Old Sphinxes lift their countenances bland,
Athwart the river sea, and sea of sand.’ ”