The Ancient Egyptians

Article 3. The Ancient Egyptians

The most ancient Egyptian people lived in the lower Nile valley. Their history is very obscure. Our knowledge of Egyptian philosophy is gathered from the sacred writings, or hieroglyphics, left in picture form on monuments and papyri, from the “Look of the Dead,” of which various versions are extant, and from accounts given by Greek writers.

a) Of God and the Origin of Things.—The most ancient Egyptians were monotheists. The one supreme God was called by different names in different localities—Atum, Horus, Knum, Amon, Thot, Phath—but everywhere, and under any name He was regarded as supreme. In Heliopolis, the ancient intellectual centre of Egypt, the supreme God was called Atum. He was thought to reside in a primordial chaos of waters, whence He emerged under the form of the sun (Ra). Thus He came to be called Atum-Ra, and sometimes simply Ra. He generated a son and a daughter, and from these came another pair of divinities, and from these came Osiris, Isis, Set, and Neph-thys. All these divinities except Ra were personifications of the elements or of parts of the universe. To these many lesser gods were added, as time went on. but Ra remained supreme. Ra was the creator of heaven and earth and of all things produced on the earth.

With the mighty religious revival which occurred in Egypt when that country regained its ancient splendor under the Sais kings (7 century b. c.) such fervor attached to the making of oblations that the very animals of sacrifice came to be reverenced and even worshipped. This was the beginning of animal worship (zodlatry) in Egypt—a practice utterly unknown to the most ancient Egyptians.

Later, Greek elements were incorporated into the religious-philosophy of the Egyptians, and, in the time of Alexander the Great (4 century b. c.), Jupiter was worshipped along with Amon and Osiris.

b) Of Man and Moral Duties.—The ancient Egyptians believed that man is composed of three elements: body, soul, and Ka. Ka was regarded either as an invisible genie, a kind of guardian angel attendant upon man, or as an intermediate element linking body and soul. In course of time, every living thing was believed to have its Ka. Ka required a material dwelling place, and the Egyptians took great pains that it might not go homeless; to this end they preserved bodies as mummies, or set up monuments to harbor the Kas of deceased men and of sacred animals.

The Egyptians always believed in the immortality of the human soul, in the retributions of a life to come, and in the resurrection of the body. The gods were thought to reconstruct the body for the separated soul, and the resurrected man had to appear before Osiris and forty-two judges to receive sentence of reward or punishment for his life on earth. Transmigration of souls (metempsychosis) was no part of the most ancient Egyptian belief; it appeared in Egyptian religion about the 7 century b. c., but we can only conjecture as to the occasion or manner of its origin.

The ideal of human conduct among the ancient Egyptians was of a high order. The practice of virtues, particularly of charity and benevolence, was regarded as necessary for obtaining happiness in the life to come. But, as a matter of fact, Egyptian morality was of no remarkable quality. The people trusted to magical arts to deceive the gods; and sometimes magical formulas were written in the Book of the Dead and buried with the body to help out the deceased at judgment. The living also believed that they could assist their dead by recourse to magic, deceive the judges, and so enable even the unjust man to escape punishment for his misspent life.

Remark: The Egyptian philosophy* like that of the Hebrews and the Chaldeans, offers clear evidence that monotheism was man’s primitive belief and that polytheism was a deterioration and a lapse.