Part 3

After judgment the righteous entered into blessedness, unchanged in appearance as in nature; the only difference being that, while the existence which they had led upon earth had been limited in its duration, the life of the world to come was eternal. But the future blessedness for which the Egyptian hoped was far from being a passive state of bliss such as is promised by most of the higher religions, an absorption into the All or into the Godhead, a dreamy state of floating in everlasting repose, content, and unimpassioned joy. The average Egyptian expected to lead as active a life in the world to come as he had led here. Although with the Godhead, he counted on retaining his independent individuality in all respects and on working and enjoying himself even as he had done on earth. He expected his chief employment to be agriculture, the occupation which must have seemed most natural to a people almost entirely dependent upon the produce of the fields. A vignette belonging to chap. cx. of _The Book of the Dead_ represents the dead at work in the fields of the Blessed,[45] ploughing with oxen, casting the seed-corn into the furrows (fig. 17), cutting the ripe ears with sickles, driving oxen to tread out the grain from the straw (fig. 18), and finally piling up the corn in heaps against it was required to serve for the making of bread. For change and recreation they sailed upon the canals of the next world in their boats (fig. 19), played at draughts with their own souls, or made offerings to the gods, especially to the celestial Nile, which gave water to their fields and fertility to their seed (fig. 20). All went on exactly as here, excepting that the work of the blessed was invariably crowned with success. The Nile always overflowed the fields to best advantage, the corn grew five ells high and its ears were two ells long, the harvest never failed to be abundant, the weather was always favourable, the fresh and pleasant north wind was always blowing, the foe was always conquered, and the gods graciously accepted all offerings and requited the givers with rich gifts of all kinds. In short, the life of the dead in the kingdom of the gods was an idealised earthly life, although not always a very moral life according to our standards.

But this belief in the life of the next world as the exact counterpart of this implied a danger which involved the Egyptian in heavy cares. The dead lived, therefore they must of necessity eat and drink, for without these processes the continuation of life was inconceivable; if the dead were without food they would be starved. The inscription of the sepulchral pyramid of Ûnas, an Egyptian king of the Fifth Dynasty, gives expression to this fear. “Evil is it for Ûnas,” says that text, “to be hungry and have nothing to eat; evil is it for Ûnas to be thirsty and have nothing to drink.” The necessities of life were, indeed, partly ensured to the dead by means of the offerings made to them by their sur-vivors on recurrent feast-days, and partly mysteriously created for their use in the next world by the repetition of magic formulæ in this.[46] But if the offerings ceased, or if no one took the trouble to repeat the formulæ, the dead were left to their own resources, and must work, and till the land, and earn their own living.

Such enforced labour could hardly have appeared very attractive to Egyptians of the upper classes, and so an expedient suggested by the conditions of their earthly life was devised for evading it on their behalf. The rich man who had servants to work for him in this world was desirous of securing like service for himself in the world to come. In the time of the Ancient Empire it seems to have been taken for granted that those who were servants in this life would be servants also in the life beyond. With this selfish end in view the rich of those times had placed within their own sepulchral chambers KA-statues of their servants in order to ensure immortal life to them also (fig. 21). As the old Germans were followed into the next world by their slaves and horses; as other uncivilised nations sent the servants of the dead to the realm of death after their masters,[47] so in Ancient Egypt a certain portion of mankind was set apart to serve the rest through all eternity. But as Egyptian civilisation advanced and a more humane state of feeling dawned, these views were modified, and the thought gained ground that all Egyptians were equal in the presence of death and of the gods. So the rich man was obliged to renounce his hope of finding his servants again at his service beyond the tomb, and was face to face with the old fear of being reduced to heavy toil through the possible negligence of his successors.

A most singular expedient was adopted to avert this danger: little images of clay, or wood, or stone, or even of bronze, were made in human likeness, inscribed with a certain formula,[48] and placed within the tomb, in the hope that they would there attain to life and become the useful servants of the blessed dead; they are the so-called ÛSHABTIÛ (or Respondents), of which hundreds and thousands of specimens may be found in collections of Egyptian antiquities (see Frontispiece[49]). These “servants for the underworld,” or “servants to the OSIRIS,” as the texts call them, owed their very being and life to the dead, and stood to him in the same relation as man to God. And as men seek to testify their gratitude to the Creator by doing Him service, so it was hoped that these little figures would show their thankfulness by their diligence, and spare their master and maker all toil.

Many other customs arose out of similar ideas to those which gave rise to the institution of ÛSHABTIÛ. Articles of personal adornment and for toilet use, wreaths, weapons, carriages, playthings, and tools were given to the dead, and a whole set of household furniture was often laid away in the grave in order that the OSIRIS should not be obliged to set to work at once to make or collect these things for himself on his entrance into the next world; for this purpose choice was often made of such objects as the man had used and valued in his lifetime. All this care, however, was bestowed not simply in the interest of those who had entered upon the life everlasting but also in that of those who were left behind. Among other powers possessed by the dead was that of going to and fro upon earth; and, to prevent their exercise of it, all things whose lack might impel them to revisit the scenes of their earthly lives were placed within the tombs, for their visits might not be altogether pleasant for survivors withholding any part of the goods which belonged to the dead. But these facts must not lead us to conclude that the tomb was the permanent dwelling of the dead, and that the objects placed within it were really intended for his use there, and for all time.

As the amulets laid in and about the mummy were for the use of the OSIRIS, so the furniture and implements placed near the coffin were intended not so much for the mummy lying in its tomb as for the Osiris dwelling with the gods. Each of these objects had its heavenly counterpart, even as the mummy was represented by the OSIRIS.[50]

It was thus that the Egyptians sought to make themselves homes in the next world, and to secure all the comforts and pleasures of their earthly life in the life which was to come. Nevertheless, the pious Egyptian did not expect to remain for ever as an Osiris, or as a god in human likeness: he rather hoped for ever-increasing freedom, for the power of taking other shapes and transforming himself at will into quadrupeds; or into birds—such as the swallow or the heron; or into plants—more especially the lotus; or even into gods.[51]

This is no doctrine of compulsory transmigration such as used to be freely ascribed to the Egyptians on the strength of the statements made by Herodotus[52]; there is no question here of souls being forced to assume fresh forms in which their purification is gradually worked out and their perfection achieved. To the Egyptian transmigration was not the doom of imperfect souls, but a privilege reserved for such as had already attained perfection. Again and again the texts assert that the blessed may assume any form and visit any place at will; body and place can no longer enthral him. He may travel round the heavens with the Sun-god Rā, or arise from the shades with Osiris in the “divine night” of the 26th of the month Khoiak (_i.e._ at the winter solstice); he is even as a god, nay, he is himself a god, able to live in and by Truth, actually taking it, indeed, as food and drink.

The power of the soul to incarnate itself at pleasure became one of the chief reasons for embalming the body. As we have seen, the preservation of the body was held to be necessary because the mummy was supposed to be the material form of which the Osiris was the essential reality. But this temporary need might have been met in simpler fashion, since the journey of the Soul to the Hall of Judgment was accomplished in a comparatively short time. There was, however, a further need for which provision had to be made. The soul might sometimes visit the mummy, again take up its abode in its former body, and, animating it anew, return to earth under that form and thus revisit the spots where once it had dwelt. To this end it required an earthly and tangible body, and this was supplied by the mummy. If the mummy were destroyed, then the soul not only lost one of the forms in which it might incarnate itself, but that one with which its interests were naturally most closely connected—that one which linked it to earth and best enabled it to exhort the survivors to remember the funerary offerings, and to see how it fared with those whom it had been obliged to leave behind. The destruction of the mummy did not involve the destruction of the soul, but it narrowed the soul’s circle of activity and limited its means of transmigration.

This doctrine gave rise to the necromantic theory that a soul might be compelled by means of magic formulæ to re-enter its body, and to speak through the dead lips. The magician who had brought this about could then stipulate for all kinds of favours before restoring the soul to freedom. It is true that such an attempt was reckoned highly dangerous; and, according to a tale dating from Ptolemaic times, a royal prince named Setna,[53] who had succeeded in the undertaking, paid heavily for having sought to make the spirits of the dead subject to him, when, through his own imprudence, he was overpowered by those whom he had invoked.

* * * * *

The above sketch of the eschatology of the Ancient Egyptians is drawn from their own religious texts. As to the origin of that system and the transformations which it had undergone before reaching the form under which it is known to us we are as yet entirely ignorant; but it is obvious that it must have developed gradually and assimilated many originally heterogeneous doctrines. For instance, the Ka and the Osiris must surely once have had the same significance, and not have been considered as two different factors of the dead man’s being until time had brought about the fusion of two theological systems—in one of which the KA was regarded as the spiritual _Doppelgänger_, or Double, while in the other it was named the OSIRIS. All attempts at solving these and similar problems connected with this subject are, as yet, mere hypotheses. As far back as Egyptian history has been traced the people appear to have been in possession not only of written characters, national art and institutions, but also of a complete system of religion. As in all other departments of Egyptian life and thought, so with the Egyptian religion—we cannot trace its beginnings. In the earliest glimpse of it afforded by the Egyptian texts it appears as perfect in all its essential parts; nor were after-times able to effect much change in it by the addition of new features. What greatly intensifies the deep historical interest of Egyptian eschatology is that it testifies not only to the fact that a whole nation believed in the immortality of the soul four thousand years before the birth of Christ, but also that this nation had even then succeeded in clearly picturing the future life to themselves after a fashion which may indeed often seem strange and incomprehensible to modern minds but to which we cannot deny a certain consistency and a deep spiritual connotation.

We shall not here discuss the many analogies subsisting between Egyptian belief and the religious systems of other nations and times, nor yet its great differences from them; and it is for the sciences of anthropology and comparative religion to determine to what extent the Egyptian doctrine of immortality originated in Egypt itself, and how much was brought there by the Egyptians from the common home which they had shared with the Semites and Indo-europeans.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The whole process of embalmment is briefly described in the _Rhind Papyrus_, edited by Birch, London, 1863, and by BRUGSCH, Leipzig, 1865. The procedure of the _taricheuts_ is described in a Vienna papyrus, edited by BERGMANN, Vienna, 1887, and the conclusion of their operations in a Paris papyrus and a Bûlaq papyrus, edited by MASPERO, _Pap. du Louvre_, Paris, 1875. For the transport of the mummy, see DÜMICHEN, _Kal. Insch._, pl. 35 _sqq_. The minutely ordered ritual for the ceremonies at the door of the tomb was published and investigated in SCHIAPARELLI’S admirable work, _Il Libro dei Funerali_, Turin, 1881—1890.

[2] On these component parts cf. WIEDEMANN in the _Proceedings of the Orientalist Congress at St. Etienne_, II. (1878), p. 159 _et seq._ Many parallel texts to the additional chapter of _The Book of the Dead_, there referred to, may be found in VON BERGMANN’S _Sarkophag des Panehemisis_, I., p. 22; II., p. 74 _et seq._

[3] On this account KA was sometimes used as interchangeable with REN [Illustration: {H}]—name.

[4] There is no modern word which exactly expresses the Egyptian idea of the KA; Maspero’s translation of “DOUBLE, _Doppelgänger_” is the best hitherto proposed; Meyer’s translation of “_Ghost_” (_Gesch. Æg._, p. 83) is altogether misleading.

[5] The illustration is taken from LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III. 21. Here the solar cartouche, or throne-name, of Thothmes II., and his Horus-: or Ka-name, are palimpsests effacing the names of Queen Hatshepsû Rāmaka, the builder of the temple. The figures in this scene originally represented the Queen and her KA; but as she is always portrayed in male attire throughout the temple, it was only necessary to change her names in order to appropriate her figure as that of a king. The first satisfactory explanation of the Horus-or KA-name was given by PETRIE in _A Season in Egypt_, pp. 21, 22; cf. MASPERO, _Études Égyptologiques_ II., p. 273 _et seq._ He shows that the rectangular parallelogram in which the Horus-name is written is the exact equivalent of the square panel over the false door in the tomb, by which the KA was supposed to pass from the sepulchral vault into the upper chamber, or tomb-chapel, where offerings were provided for it. A private person had but one name, which was also the name of his KA. But, on ascending the throne, the king took four new names in addition to the one which he had hitherto borne, and among them a name for his KA.

[6] We have a crude representation of this KA sign, dating from the reign of Amenemhat I., of the Twelfth Dynasty; see PETRIE, _Tanis I._ (Second Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), pl. I., No. 3.

[7] LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III. 186. The hands of the KA-staff have doubtless a common origin with those of the KA-sign—[Illustration: {H}].

[8] LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III. 87.

[9] In the course of his excavations at Dêr el Bahri, for the Egypt Exploration Fund, M. Naville discovered the originals of these scenes in a series of bas-reliefs representing the birth of Queen Hatshepsû which were plagiarised by Amenophis III.

[10] LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III. 21, 129.

[11] LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III., pl. 75.

[12] Such prayers were also inscribed on funerary stelæ in order that passers-by might repeat them for the benefit of the dead. These inscriptions vary but little. The prayer on the funerary tablet of Khemnekht (now in the Agram Museum) dates from the Thirteenth Dynasty, and runs as follows: “O every scribe, every Kherheb (lector, priestly reciter), all ye who pass by this stele, who love and honour your gods, and would have your offices to flourish (shine) for your children, say ye: ‘Let royal offerings be brought unto Osiris for the Ka of the priest Khemnekht’”: For an account of the development of the formulæ on funerary stelæ, see WIEDEMANN, _Observations sur quelques stèles funéraires égyptiennes, Le Muséon X._, 42, 199 _et seq._

[13] The particulars above summarised may be verified from contracts which a prince (_erpā-hā_) of Siût concluded with the priests of Anubis under the Tenth or Eleventh Dynasty (discussed by MASPERO, _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_ VII., p. 6 _et seq._, _Études de Mythologie_, I., p. 62 _et seq._, and ERMAN, _Æg. Zeitschr._, 1882, p. 159 ff., the best publication of these inscriptions being that by GRIFFITH, _Inscriptions of Siût and Dêr Rîfeh_, London, 1889. Similar contracts were made even in the times of the pyramid-building kings: cf. _e.g._ LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, II. 3-7; DE ROUGÉ, _Inscriptions hiéroglyphiques_, pl. I.; MARIETTE, _Les Mastabahs_, p. 316 _et seq._)

[14] As in the case of statues found in the temple of Ptah at Memphis (MARIETTE, _Mon. div._, pl. 27 b), and in that of Amon at Karnak (MARIETTE, _Karnak_, pl. 8 f; cf. LEPSIUS, _Auswahl_, pl. 11).

[15] This striking theory was first broached by MASPERO, _Rec. de Trav._, I., p. 154; _Études de Mythologie_, I., p. 80.

[16] We find occasional mention of the Ka of the East and the Ka of the West (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 2nd ed., III., pp. 200, 201), which are to be considered as being the Kas of the deities of the East and of the West, and not as Kas of the abstract conceptions of East and West.

[17] LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, III. 194, l. 13; DÜMICHEN, _Tempelinschriften_, I., pl. 29; VON BERGMANN, _Hierogl. Insch._, pl. 33 pl. 61, col. 2; RENOUF, _Transactions of the Society of Biblical_ _Archæology_, VI., pp. 504 _et seq._; BRUGSCH, _Dictionary, Supplt._, pp. 997 _et seq._, 1230.

[18] Cf. 1 Chron. XXIX. 11, 12; Isa. XI. 2.

[19] This prayer is contained in that part of _The Book of the Dead_, chap, CV., entitled _Chapter whereby the KA of a person is satisfied in the Nether world_: “Hail to thee who wast my KA during life! Lo! I come unto thee, I arise resplendent, I labour, I am strong, I am hale (_var._, I pass on), I bring grains of incense, I am purified thereby, I purify thereby that which goeth forth from thee. This conjuration of evil which I say; this warding off of evil which I perform; (this conjuration) is not made against me (?)” The conjuration runs as follows: “I am that amulet of green felspar, the necklace of the god Rā, which is given (_var._, which I gave) unto them who are upon the horizon. They flourish, I flourish, my KA flourishes even as they, my duration of life flourishes even as they, my KA has abundance of food even as they. The scale of the balance rises, Truth rises high to the nose of the god Rā in that day on which my KA is where I am (?) My head and my arm are made (?) to where I am (?) I am he whose eye seeth, whose ears hear; I am not a beast of sacrifice. The sacrificial formulæ proceed where I am, for the upper ones”—otherwise said, “for the upper ones of heaven.” The funerary papyrus of Sûtimes (NAVILLE, _Todtenbuch_, I., pl. 117) contains the following addition at the end of this chapter: “I enter (?) unto thee (to the _Ka_?). I am pure, the Osiris is justified against his enemies.” The accompanying vignette for this chapter shows the deceased as worshipping or sacrificing before the KA-sign on a standard. Occasionally we find the KA sign represented as enclosing pictures of offerings, a form explained by the common double meaning of the word KA, which signifies both “_Double_” and _food_.

[20] In the religious texts the heart is called both {H} _áb_ and {H} _hāti_. Sometimes, as in _The Book of the Dead_, chap. XXVI. _et seq._, the two were differentiated; but, generally speaking, the two terms appear to have been synonymous.

[22] PLUTARCH, _Septem sap. conviv._, p. 159 B: “We then, said I” (Diales), “render these tributes to the belly (τῇ γαστρί). But if Solon or any one else has any allegation to make we will listen.” “By all means,” said Solon, “lest we should appear more senseless than the Egyptians, who cutting up the dead body showed [the entrails] to the sun, then cast them into the river, but of the rest of the body, as now become pure, they took care. For in reality this [the belly] is the pollution of our flesh, and the Hell, as in Hades,—full of dire streams, and of wind and fire confused together, and of dead things.”

PLUTARCH, _De esu carnium orat._, ii., p. 996, 38: “As the Egyptians, taking out from the dead the belly (τὴν κοιλίαν) and cutting it up before the sun, cast it away, as the cause of all the sins which the man has committed; in like manner that we ourselves, cutting out gluttony and bloodthirstiness, should purify the rest of our life.”

PORPHYRY, _De abst._, iv., 10: “When they embalm those of the noble that have died, together with their other treatment of the dead body, they take out the belly (τὴν κοιλίαν), and put it into a coffer, and holding the coffer to the sun they protest, one of the embalmers making a speech on behalf of the dead. This speech, which Euphantus translated from his native language, is as follows: “O Lord, the Sun, and all ye gods who give life to men, receive me and make me a companion to the eternal gods. For the gods, whom my parents made known to me, as long time as I have had my life in this world I have continued to reverence, and those who gave birth to my body I have ever honoured. And for the rest of men, I have neither slain any, nor defrauded any of anything entrusted to me, nor committed any other wicked act, but if I haply in my life have sinned at all,: by either eating or drinking what was unlawful, not on my own account did I sin, but on account of these (showing the coffer in which the belly [ἡ γαστήρ] lay).” And having said these things he throws it into the river; but the rest of the body, as pure, he embalms. Thus they thought that they needed to excuse themselves to the Deity on account of what they had eaten and drunk, and therefore to reproach the belly.”

[23] It was in this sense that the Egyptians regarded the heart as the seat of the feelings, and spoke of the heart as rejoicing, as mourning, as weeping.

[24] The illustration is taken from photographs of a scarab in the Edwards collection at University College, London.

[25] For the translation of chap, xxx b. of The Book of the Dead, which formed the usual inscriptions on heart scarabs, see p. 53.

[26] The possession of the formula in chap, cxlviii. of _The Book of the Dead_, from line 8, ensured abundance (of food) to the BA of the dead.

[27] Illustrations 7 and 8 are taken from photographs of objects in the Edwards Museum at University College.

[28] _See The Book of the Dead_, NAVILLE’S edition, pls. 4, 97, 101, 104; LEPSIUS’ edition, pls. 33, etc., etc.