CHAPTER IV.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.
The belief that the deeds done in the body would be subjected to an analysis and scrutiny by the divine powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest period of Egyptian civilization, and this belief remained substantially the same in all generations. Though we have no information as to the locality where the Last Judgment took place, or whether the Egyptian soul passed into the judgment-hall immediately after the death of the body, or after the mummification was ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as deeply rooted in the Egyptians as the belief in immortality. There seems to have been no idea of a general judgment when all those who had lived in the world should receive their reward for the deeds done in the body ; on the contrary, all the evidence available goes to show that each soul was dealt with individually, and was either permitted to pass into the kingdom of Osiris and of the blessed, or was destroyed straightway. Certain passages in the texts
THE EGYPTIAN UNDERWORLD. Ill
seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered that it was the enemies of Ba, the Sun-god, that inhabited this region ; and it is impossible to imagine that the divine powers who presided over the judgment would permit the souls of the wicked to live after they had been condemned and. to become enemies of those who were pure and blessed. On the other hand, if we attach any importance to the ideas of the Copts upon this subject, and consider that they represent ancient beliefs which they derived from the Egyptians traditionally, it must be admitted that the Egyptian underworld contained some region wherein the souls of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period. The Coptic lives of saints and martyrs are full of allusions to the sufferings of the damned, but whether the descriptions of these are due to imaginings of the mind of the Christian Egyptian or to the bias of the scribe’s opinions cannot always be said. When we consider that the Coptic hell was little more than a modified form of the ancient Egyptian Amenti, or Amentet, it is difficult to believe that it was the name of the Egyptian underworld only which was borrowed, and that the ideas and beliefs concerning it which were held by the ancient Egyptians were not at the 6ame time absorbed. Some Christian writers are most minute in their classification of the wicked in hell,
1 12
PISENTIOS TALKS WITH A MUMMY.
as w6 may sgg from the following extract fiom the life of Pisentios,1 Bishop of Keft, in the Yllth century of our era. The holy man had taken refuge in a tomb wherein a number of mummies had been piled up, and when he had read the list of the names of the people who had been buried there he gave it to his disciple to replace. Then he addressed his disciple and admonished him to do the work of God with diligence, and warned him that every man must become even as were the mummies which lay before them. “ And some,” said he, “whose sins have been many are now in Amenti, others are in the outer darkness, others are in pits and ditches filled with fire, and others are in the river of fire: upon these last no one hath bestowed rest. And others, likewise, are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works. When the disciple had departed, the holy man began to talk to one of the mummies who had been a native of the town of Erment, or Armant, and whose father and mother had been called Agricolaos and Eustathia. He had been a worshipper of Poseidon, and had never heard that Christ had come into the world. “ And,” said he, “woe, woe is me because I was born into the world. Why did not my mother’s womb become my tomb ? When it became necessary for me to die, the Kosmokrator angels were the first to come round about me, and they told me of all the sins which 1 Ed. Amelineau, Paris, 1887, p. 144 f.
THE TORTURES OF HELL. 113
I had committed, and they said unto me, ‘Let him that can save thee from the torments into which thou shalt be cast come hither.’ And they had in their hands iron knives, and pointed goads which were like unto sharp spears, and they drove them into my sides and gnashed upon me with their teeth. When a little time afterwards my eyes were opened I saw death hovering about in the air in its manifold forms, and at that moment angels who were without pity came and dragged my wretched soul from my body, and having tied it under the form of a black horse they led me away to Amenti. Woe be unto every sinner like unto myself who hath been born into the world ! 0 my master and father, I was then delivered into the hands of a multitude of tormentors who were without pity and who had each a different form. Oh, what a number of wild beasts did I see in the way ! Oh, what a number of powers were there that inflicted punishment upon me ! And it came to pass that when I had been cast into the outer darkness, I saw a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits deep, and it was filled with reptiles ; each reptile had seven heads, and the body of each was like unto that of a scorpion. In this place also lived the Great Worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that looked thereat. In his mouth he had teeth like unto iron stakes, and one took me and threw me to this Worm which never ceased to eat ; then immediately
1
THE OUTER DARKNESS.
1 14
all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and when he had filled his mouth [with my flesh], all the beasts who were round about me filled theirs.’ In answer to the question of the holy man as to whethei he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering, the mummy replied: “Yea, 0 my father, pity is shown unto those who are in torment every Saturday and every Sunday. As soon as Sunday is over we are cast into the torments which we deserve, so that we may forget the years which we have passed in the world ; and as soon as we have forgotten the grief of this torment we are cast into another which is still more grievous.”
Now, it is easy to see from the above description of the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer, that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excava¬ tion of tombs which has gone on in Egypt during the last few years ; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. The outer darkness, i.e ., the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts which describe the passage of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. Having once misunderstood the general meaning of such scenes,
THE SAGE HERUTATAF. 1 1 5
it was easy to convert the foes of Ea, the Sun-god, into the souls of the damned, and to look upon the burning up of such foes — who were after all only certain powers of nature personified — as the well-merited punishment of those who had done evil upon the earth. How far the Copts reproduced unconsciously the views which had been held by their ancestors for thousands of years cannot be said, but even after much allowance has been made for this possibility, there remains still to be explained a large number of beliefs and views which seem to have been the peculiar product of the Egyptian Christian imagination.
It has been said above that the idea of the judgment of the dead is of very great antiquity in Egypt ; indeed, it is so old that it is useless to try to ascertain the date of the period when it first grew up. In the earliest religious texts known to us, there are indica¬ tions that the Egyptians expected a judgment, but they are not sufficiently definite to argue from ; it is certainly doubtful if the judgment was thought to be as thorough and as searching then as in the later period. As far back as the reign of Men-kau-Ea, the Mycerinus of the Greeks, about B.c. 3600, a religious text, which afterwards formed chapter 30b of the Book of the Dead, was found inscribed on an iron slab, in the hand¬ writing of the god Thoth, by the royal son or prince Herutataf.1 The original purpose of the composition
1 See Chapters of Coming Forth, by Day, Translation, p. 80.
II 6 ANTIQUITY OF RELIGIOUS TEXTS.
of this text cannot be said, but there is little doubt that it was intended to benefit the deceased in the judgment, and, if we translate its title literally, it was intended to prevent his heart from “ falling away from him in the underworld.’’ In the first part of it the deceased, after adjuring his heart, says, " May naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment; may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the sovereign princes ; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the Balance ! . . . May the officers of the court of Osiris (in Egyptian Shenit), who form the conditions of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink ! Let [the judgment] be satisfactory unto me, let the hearing be satisfactory unto me, and let me have joy of heart at the weighing of words. Let not that which is false be uttered against me before the Great God, the Lord of Amentet.
Now, although the papyrus upon which this state¬ ment and prayer are found was written about two thousand years after Men-kau-Ba reigned, there is no doubt that they were copied from texts which were themselves copied at a much eailiei peiiod, and that the story of the finding of the text inscribed upon an iron slab is contemporary with its actual discovery by Herutataf. It is not necessary to inquire here whether the word “ find ” (in Egyptian qem) means a genuine discovery or not, but it is clear that those who had the papyrus copied saw no absurdity or impropriety
THE DECEASED AND HIS HEART. 1 1 7
in ascribing the text to the period of Men-kau-Ba, Another text, which afterwards also became a chapter of the Book of the Dead, under the title " Chapter of not letting the heart of the deceased be driven away from him in the underworld,” was inscribed on a coffin of the Xltli dynasty, about B.c. 2500, and in it we have the following petition : “ May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of the trial (literally, ‘ lords of things ’) ; let it not be said of me and of that which I have done, ‘ He hath done deeds against that which is very right and true ’ ; may naught be against me in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of Amentet.” 1 From these passages we are right in assuming that before the end of the IArth dynasty the idea of being “ weighed in the balance” was already evolved; that the religious schools of Egypt had assigned to a god the duty of watching the balance when cases were being tried ; that this weighing in the balance took place in the presence of the beings called Shenit, who were believed to control the acts and deeds of men ; that it was thought that evidence unfavourable to the deceased might be produced by his foes at the judgment ; that the weighing took place in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of Amentet ; and that the heart of the deceased might fail him either physically or morally. The deceased addresses his heart, calling it his “ mother,”
1 Chapters of Coming Forth by Day , p. 78.
II 8 THE GOD KHNEMU.
and next identifies it with his ha or double, coupling the mention of the ha with the name of the god Khnemu : these facts are exceedingly important, for they prove that the deceased considered his heart to he the source of his life and being, and the mention of the god Khnemu takes /the date of the composition back to a period coaeval with the beginnings of religious thought in Egypt. It was the god Khnemu who assisted Thoth in performing the commands of God at the creation, and one very interesting sculpture at Philte shows Khnemu in the act of fashioning man upon a potter’s wheel. The deceased, in mentioning Khnemu’s name, seems to invoke his aid in the judg¬ ment as fashioner of man and as the being who is in some respects responsible for the manner of his life upon earth.
In Chapter 30a there is no mention made of the “ guardian of the balance,” and the deceased says, “ May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of things ! ” The “ lords of things ” may be either the “ lords of creation,” i.e., the great cosmic gods, or the “ lords of the affairs [of the hall of judgment],” i.e., of the trial. In this chapter the deceased addresses not Khnemu, but “ the gods who dwell in the divine clouds, and who are exalted by reason of their sceptres,” that is to say, the four gods of the cardinal points, called Mestha, Hapi Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf, who also presided over the
THE DECEASED AND HIS HEART. 119
chief internal organs of the human body. Here, again, it seems as if the deceased was anxious to make these gods in some way responsible for the deeds done by him in his life, inasmuch as they presided over the organs that were the prime movers of his actions. I11 any case, he considers them in the light of inter¬ cessors, for he beseeches them to u speak fair words unto Ba” on his behalf, and to make him to prosper before the goddess Neliebka. In this case, the favoui of Ba, the Sun-god, the visible emblem of the almighty and eternal God, is sought for, and also that of the serpent goddess, whose attributes are not yet accurately defined, but who has much to do with the destinies of the dead. No mention whatever is made of the Lord of Amentet — Osiris.
Before we pass to the consideration of the manner in which the judgment is depicted upon the finest examples of the illustrated papyri, reference must be made to an interesting vignette in the papyri of Nebseni 1 and Amen-neb.2 In both of these papyri we see a figure of the deceased himself being weighed in the balance against his own heart in the presence of the god Osiris. It seems probable that a belief was current at one time in ancient Lgypt concerning the possibility of the body being weighed against the heart, with the view of finding out if the former had obeyed the dictates of the latter; be that as it may, however, 1 British Museum, No. 9900. 2 British Museum, No. 9964.
120 ANTIQUITY OF BELIEF IN A JUDGMENT.
it is quite certain that this remarkable variant of the vignette of Chapter 30b had some special meaning, and, as it occurs in two papyri which date from the XVIIIth dynasty, we are justified in assuming that it represents a belief belonging to a much older period. The judgment here depicted must, in any case, be different from that which forms such a striking scene in the later illustrated papyri of the XVIIIth and following dynasties.
"VVe have now proved that the idea of the judgment of the dead was accepted in religious writings as early as the IVtli dynasty, about B.c. 3600, but we have to wait nearly two thousand years before we find it in picture form. Certain scenes which are found in the Book of the Dead as vignettes accompanying certain texts or chapters, e.g., the Fields of Hetep, or the Elysian Fields, are exceedingly old, and are found on sarco¬ phagi of the Xlth and Xllth dynasties ; but the earliest picture known of the Judgment Scene is not older than the XVIIIth dynasty. In the oldest Theban papyri of the Book of the Dead no Judgment Scene is forthcoming, and when we find it wanting in such authoritative documents as the Papyrus of Xebseni and that of Xu,1 we must take it for granted that there was some reason for its omission. In the great illustrated papyri in which the Judgment Scene is given in full, it will be noticed that it comes at the
1 British Museum, No. 10,477.
HYMN SAID TO RA AT THE JUDGMENT. 12 1
beginning of the work, and that it is preceded by hymns and by a vignette. Thus, in the Papyrus of Ani,1 we have a hymn to Ba, followed by a vignette representing the sunrise, and a hymn to Osiris ; and in the Papyrus of Hunefer,2 though the hymns are different, the arrangement is the same. We are justified, then, in assuming that the hymns and the Judgment Scene together formed an introductory section to the Book of the Dead, and it is possible that it indicates the existence of the belief, at least during the period of the greatest power of the priests of Amen, from B.c. 1700 to B.c. 800, that the judgment of the dead for the deeds done in the body preceded the admission of the dead into the kingdom of Osiris. As the hymns which accompany the Judgment Scene are fine examples of a high class of devotional com¬ positions, a few translations from some of them are here given.
Hymn to Ea.3
“ Homage to thee, 0 thou who risest in Nu,4 and who at thy manifestation dost make the world bright vj ith light; the whole company of the gods sing hymns of praise unto thee after thou hast come forth.
1 British Museum, No. 10,470.
2 British Museum, No. 9901.
3 See The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 7.
4 The sky personified.
122 HYMN SAID TO RA AT THE JUDGMENT.
The divine Merti1 goddesses who minister unto thee cherish thee as King of the North and South, thou beautiful and beloved Man-child. When thou risest men and women live. The nations rejoice in thee, and the Souls of Annu2 (Heliopolis) sing unto thee songs of joy. The Souls of the city of Pe,3 and the Souls of the city of Nekhen 4 exalt thee, the apes of dawn adore thee, and all beasts and cattle praise thee with one accord. The goddess Seba overthrow eth thine enemies, therefore hast thou rejoicing in thy boat; thy mariners are content thereat. Thou hast attained unto the Atet boat,5 and thy heart swelleth with joy. 0 lord of the gods, when thou didst create them they shouted for joy. The azure goddess Nut doth compass thee on every side, and the god Nu floodeth thee with his rays of light. 0 cast thou thy light upon me and let me see thy beauties, and when thou goest forth over the earth I will sing praises unto thy fair face. Thou risest in heaven’s horizon, and thy disk is adored when it resteth upon the mountain to give life unto the world.”
“ Thou risest, thou risest, and thou comest forth from the god Nu. Thou dost renew thy youth, and
1 Literally, the Two Eyes, i.e., Isis and Nephthys.
2 I.e. , Ra, Shu, and Tefnut,
3 Part of the city of Buto (Per-Uatchit). The souls of Pe were Horus, Mestha, Hapi.
4 I.e , Horus, Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf.
5 I.e., the boat in which the sun travels until noon.
HYMN SAID TO OSIRIS AT THE JUDGMENT. 1 23
thou dost set thyself in the place where thou wast yesterday. 0 thou divine Child, who didst create thyself, I am not able [to describe] thee. Thou hast crnie with thy risings, and thou hast made heaven and earth resplendent with thy rays of pure emerald light. The land of Punt 1 is stablished [to give] the perfumes which thou smellest with thy nostrils. Thou risest, 0 marvellous Being, in heaven, and the two serpent- goddesses, Merti, are stablished upon thy brow. Thou art the giver of laws, 0 thou lord of the world and of all the inhabitants thereof ; all the gods adore tliee.”
Hymn to Osiris.2
“Glory be to thee, 0 Osiris Un-nefer, the great god within Abydos, king of eternity and lord of everlasting¬ ness, the god who passest through millions of years in thy existence. Thou art the eldest son of the womb of Nut, thou wast engendered by Seb, the Ancestor of the gods, thou art the lord of the Crowns of the North and of the South, and of the lofty white crown. As Prince of the gods and of men thou hast received the crook, and the whip, and the dignity of thy divine fathers. Let thy heart which is in the mountain of Ament 3 be con¬ tent, for thy son Horus is stablished upon thy throne. Thou art crowned the lord of Tattu (Mendes) and ruler
1 I.e., the land on each side of the Red Sea and North-east Africa.
2 See The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day , p. 11.
3 I.e., the underworld.
124 HYMN SAID TO OSIRIS AT THE JUDGMENT.
iii Abtu. (Abydos). Through thee the world waxeth green in triumph before the might of Neb-er-tchei. Thou leadest in thy train that which is, and that which is not yet, in thy name of * Ta-her-sta-nef thou to west along the earth in thy name of ‘Seker; thou ait exceedingly mighty and most terrible in thy name of ‘ Osiris ; ’ thou endurest for ever and for ever in thy name of ‘ Un-nefer.’ ”
“ Homage to thee, 0 thou King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of Princes ! From the womb of Nut thou hast ruled the world and the underworld. Thy body is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee. 0 thou god An, who hast had existence for millions of years, who pervadest all things with thy body, who art beautiful in countenance in the Land of Holiness (i.e., the underworld), grant thou to me splendour in heaven, might upon earth, and triumph in the underworld. Grant thou that I may sail down to Tattu like a living soul, and up to Abtu like the phoenix ; and grant that I may enter in and come forth irom the pylons of the lands of the underworld without let or hindrance. May loaves of bread be given unto me in the house of cool¬ ness, and offerings of food and drink in Annu (Helio¬ polis), and a homestead for ever and for ever in the Field of Feeds 2 with wheat and barley therefor/’
1 A name of Osiris.
• A division of the “ Fields of Peace” or Elysiau Fields.
PETITION OF HUNEFER.
125
In the long and important hymn in the Papyrus of Hunefer1 occurs the following petition, which is put into the mouth of the deceased : —
“ Grant that I may follow in the train of thy Majesty even as I did upon earth. Let my soul be called [into the presence], and let it be found by the side of the lords of right and truth. I have come into the City of God, the region which existed in primeval time, with [my] soul, and with [my] double, and with [my] translucent form, to dwell in this land. The God thereof is the lord of right and truth, he is the lord of the tchefau food of the gods, and he is most holy. His land draweth unto itself every land ; the South cometh sailing down the river thereto, and the North, steered thither by winds, cometh daily to make festival therein according to the command of the God thereof, who is the Lord of peace therein. And doth he not say, ‘ The happiness thereof is a care unto me ’ ? The god who dwell eth therein worketh right and truth; unto him that doeth these things he giveth old age, and to him that folio weth after them rank and honour, until at length he attaineth unto a happy funeral and burial in the Holy Land ” (i.e., the underworld).
The deceased, having recited these words of prayer and adoration to Pia, the symbol of Almighty God, and to his son Osiris, next “ cometh forth into the Hall of Maati, that he may be separated from every sin which 1 See The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, pp. 343-34G.
X2 6 THE HALL OF THE MAATI.
lie hath done, and may behold the faces of the gods.” 1 From the earliest times the Maati were the two goddesses Isis and Nephthys, and they were so called because they represented the ideas of straightness, integrity, righteousness, what is right, the truth, and such like ; the word Maat originally meant a measuring reed or stick. They were supposed either to sit in the Hall of Maat outside the shrine of Osiris, or to stand by the side of this god in the shrine ; an example of the former position will be seen in the Papyrus of Ani (Plate 31), and of the latter in the Papyrus of Hunefer (Plate 4). The original idea of the Hall of Maat or Maati was that it contained forty-two gods, a fact which we may see from the following passage in the Intro¬ duction to Chapter CXXY. of the Book of the Dead.
The deceased says to Osiris : —
“ Homage to thee, 0 thou great God, thou Lord of the two Maat goddesses ! I have come to thee, 0 my Lord, and I have made myself to come hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee, and I know thy name, and I know the names of the two and foity cods who live with thee in this Hall of Maati, who live as watchers of sinners and who feed upon their blood on that day when the characters (or lives) of men are reckoned up (or taken into account) in the presence of the god Un-nefer. Verily, God of the Bekhti-Merti
1 This quotation is from the title of Chapter CXXY. of the Book of the Dead.
THE FORTY-TWO GODS.
127
( i.e ., the twin sisters of the two eyes), the Lord of the city of Maati is thy name. Verily I have come to thee, and I have brought Maat unto thee, and I have destroyed wickedness.”
The deceased then goes on to enumerate the sins or offences which he has not committed, and he con¬ cludes by saying : “I am pure ; I am pure ; I am pure ; I am pure. My purity is the purity of the great Bennu which is in the city of Suten-lienen (Heracleopolis), for, behold, I am the nostrils of the God of breath, who maketh all mankind to live on the day when the Eye of Ba is full in Annu (Heliopolis) at the end of the second month of the season Pert.1 I have seen the Eye of Ka when it was full in Annu ; 2 therefore let not evil befall me either in this land or in this Hall of Maati, because I, even I, know the names of the gods who are therein.”
Now as the gods who live in the Hall of Maat with Osiris are two and forty in number, we should expect that two and forty sins or offences would be mentioned in the addresses which the deceased makes to them ; but this is not the case, for the sins enumerated in the Introduction never reach this number. In the great illustrated papyri of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties we find, however, that notwithstanding the fact that
1 I.e., the last day of the sixth month of the Egyptian year, called by the Copts Mekhir.
2 The allusion here seems to be to the Summer or Winter Solstice.
128
THE HALL OF THE MAATI.
a large number of sins, which tlie deceased declares he has not committed, are mentioned in the Introduc¬ tion, the scribes and artists added a series of negative statements, forty-two in number, which they set out in a tabular form. This, clearly, is an attempt to make the sins mentioned equal in number to the gods of the Hall of Maat, and it would seem as if they preferred to compose an entirely new form of this section of the one hundred and twenty- fifth chapter to making any attempt to add to or alter the older section. The artists, then, depicted a Hall of Maat, the doors of which are wide open, and the cornice of which is formed of uraei and feathers, symbolic of Maat. Over the middle of the cornice is a seated deity with hands extended, the right over the Eye of Horus, and the left over a pool. At the end of the Hall are seated the goddesses of Maat, i.e., Isis and Nephthys, the deceased adoring Osiris who is seated on a throne, a balance with the heart of the deceased in one scale, and the feather, symbolic of Maat, in the other, and Thoth painting a large feather. In this Hall sit the forty-two gods, and as the deceased passes by each, the deceased addresses him by his name and at the same time declares that he has not committed a certain sin. An examination of the different papyri shows that the scribes often made mistakes in writing this list of gods and list of sins, and, as the result, the deceased is made to recite before one god the confession which strictly
EGYPTIAN RELIGION AND MORALITY. 1 29
belongs to another. Inasmuch as the deceased always says after pronouncing the name of each god, “ I have not done ” such and such a sin, the whole group of addresses has been called the “ Negative Confession.” The fundamental ideas of religion and morality which underlie this Confession are exceedingly old, and we may gather from it with tolerable clearness what the ancient Egyptian believed to constitute his duty towards God and towards his neighbour.
It is impossible to explain the fact that forty-two gods only are addressed, and equally so to say why this number was adopted. Some have believed that the forty-two gods represented each a nome of Egypt, and much support is given to this view by the fact that most of the lists of nomes make the number to be forty-two ; but then, again, the lists do not agree. The classical authors differ also, for by some of these writers the nomes are said to be thirty-six in number, and by others forty-six are enumerated. These differ¬ ences may, however, be easily explained, for the central administration may at any time have added to or taken from the number of nomes for fiscal or other considera¬ tions, and we shall probably be correct in assuming that at the time the Negative Confession was drawn up in the tabular form in which we meet it in the XVIIIth dynasty the nomes were forty-two in number. Support is also lent to this view by the fact that the earliest form of the Confession, which forms the
K
130
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
Introduction to Chapter CXXV., mentions less than forty sins. Incidentally we may notice that the forty- two gods are subservient to Osiris, and that they only occupy a subordinate position in the Hall of Judgment, for it is the result of the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the balance that decides his future. Before passing to the description of the Hall of Judgment where the balance is set, it is necessary to give a rendering of the Negative Confession which, presumably, the deceased recites before his heart is weighed in the balance ; it is made from the Papyrus of Xu.1
1. “ Hail Usekh-nemtet (i.e., Long of strides), who comest forth from Annu (Heliopolis), I have not done iniquity.
2. “ Hail Hept-seshet (i.e., Embraced by flame), who comest forth from Kher-aba,2 I have not robbed with violence.
3. “ Hail Eenti (i.e., Nose), who comest forth from Khemennu (Hermopolis), I have not done violence to any man.
4. “ Hail Am-khaibitu (i.e., Eater of shades), who comest forth from the Qereret (i.e., the cavern where the Nile rises), I have not committed theft.
5. “Hail Neha-hra (i.e., Stinking face), who comest forth from Piestau, I have slain neither man nor woman.
6. “Hail Piereti (i.e., Double Lion-god), who comest forth from heaven, I have not made light the bushel.
1 British Museum, No. 10,477.
2 A city near Memphis.
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION. 1 3 I
7. “Hail Maata-f-em-seshet ( i.e ., Fiery eyes), who comest forth from Sekhem (Letopolis), I have not acted deceitfully.
8. “Hail Neba (i.e., Flame), who comest forth and retreatest, I have not purloined the things which belong unto God.
9. “ Hail Set-qesu (i.e., Crusher of bones), who comest forth from Suten-henen (Heracleopolis), I have not uttered falsehood.
10. “ Hail Khemi (i.e., Overthrower), who comest forth from Shetait (i.e., the hidden place), I have not carried off goods by force.
11. “ Hail Uatch-nesert (i.e., Vigorous of Flame), who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah (Memphis), I have not uttered vile (or evil) words.
12. “ Hail Hra-f-ha-f (i.e., He whose face is behind him), who comest forth from the cavern and the deep, I have not carried off food by force.
13. “ Hail Qerti (i.e., the double Nile source), who comest forth from the Underworld, I have not acted deceitfully.
14. “ Hail Ta-ret (i.e., Fiery-foot), who comest forth out of the darkness, I have not eaten my heart (i.e. lost my temper and become angry).
15. “ Hail Hetch-abehu (i.e., Shining teeth), who comest forth from Ta-she (i.e., the Fay yum), I have invaded no [man’s land].
16. “ Hail Am-senef (i.e., Eater of blood), who comest
132
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
forth from the house of the block, I have not slaughtered animals which are the possessions of God.
17. “ Hail Am-besek ( i.e ., Eater of entrails), who comest forth from Mabet, I have not laid waste the lands which have been ploughed.
18. “ Hail Neb-Maat (i.e., Lord of Maat), who comest forth from the city of the two Maati, I have not pried into matters to make mischief.
19. “ Hail Thenemi (i.e., Retreater), who comest forth from Bast (i.e., Bubastis), I have not set my mouth in motion against any man.
20. “ Hail Anti, who comest forth from Annu (Heliopolis), I have not given way to wrath without due cause.
21. “Hail Tututef, who comest forth from the nome of Ati, I have not committed fornication, and I have not committed sodomy.
22. “Hail Uamemti, who comest forth from the house of slaughter, I have not polluted myself.
23. “ Hail Maa-ant-f (i.e., Seer of what is brought to him), who comest forth from the house of the god Amsu, I have not lain with the wife of a man.
24. “ Hail Her-seru, who comest forth from Nehatu, I have not made any man to be afraid.
25. “Hail Neb-Sekhem, who comest forth from the Lake of Kaui, I have not made my speech to burn with anger.1
1 Literally, “ I have not been hot of mouth.”
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
1 3 3
26. “ Hail Seshet-kheru ( i.e Orderer of speech), who comest forth from Urit, I have not made myself deaf unto the words of right and truth.
27. “Hail JSTekhen (i.e., Babe), who comest forth from the Lake of Heqat, I have not made another person to weep.
28. “Hail Kenemti, who comest forth from Kenemet, I have not uttered blasphemies.
29. “Hail An-hetep-f (i.e., Bringer of his offering), who comest forth from Sau, I have not acted with violence.
30. “Hail Ser-kheru (i.e., Disposer of Speech), who comest forth from Unsi, I have not hastened my heart.1
31. “Hail ISTeb-hrau (i.e., Lord of Faces), who comest forth from Netchefet, I have not pierced (?) my skin (?), and I have not taken vengeance on the god.
32. “Hail Serekhi, who comest forth from Uthent, I have not multiplied my speech beyond what should be said.
33. “Hail Neb-abui (i.e., Lord of horns), who comest forth from Sauti, I have not committed fraud, [and I have not] looked upon evil.
34. “ Hail Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Ptah- het-ka (Memphis), I have never uttered curses against the king.
35. “Hail Tem-sep, who comest forth from Tattu,
I have not fouled running water.
1 I.e., acted without due consideration.
134 THE negative confession.
36. “Hail Ari-em-ab-f, who comest forth from Tebti, I have not exalted my speech.
37. “Hail Ahi, who comest forth from Hu, I have not uttered curses against God.
38. “Hail Uatch-rekhit [who comest forth from his shrine (?)], I have not behaved with insolence.
39. “Hail Heheb-nefert, who comest forth from his temple, I have not made distinctions.1
40. “Hail Neheb-kau, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not increased my wealth except by means of such things as are mine own possessions.
41. “Hail Tcheser-tep, who comest forth from thy shrine, I have not uttered curses against that which belongetli to God and is with me.
42. “Hail An-a-f ( i.e.f Bringer of his arm), [who comest forth from Aukert], I have not thought scorn of the god of the city.”
A brief examination of this “ Confession ” shows that the Egyptian code of morality was very comprehensive, and it would be very hard to find an act, the com¬ mission of which would be reckoned a sin when the “ Confession ” was put together, which is not included under one or other part of it. The renderings of the words for certain sins are not always definite or exact, because we do not know the precise idea which the framer of this remarkable document had. The deceased states that he has neither cursed God, nor thought scorn
* I.e., I have not been guilty of favouritism.
THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART. 1 35
of the god of his city, nor cursed the king, nor com¬ mitted theft of any kind, nor murder, nor adultery, nor sodomy, nor crimes against the god of generation ; he has not been imperious or haughty, or violent, or wrathful, or hasty in deed, or a hypocrite, or an accepter of persons, or a blasphemer, or crafty, or avaricious, or fraudulent, or deaf to pious words, or a party to evil actions, or proud, or puffed up ; he has terrified no man, he has not cheated in the market-place, and he has neither fouled the public watercourse nor laid waste the tilled land of the community. This is, in brief, the confession which the deceased makes ; and the next act ^ in the Judgment Scene is weighing the heart of the deceased in the scales. As none of the oldest papyri of the Book of the Dead supplies us with a representation of this scene, we must have recourse to the best of the illustrated papyri of the latter half of the XVIIIth and of the XIXth dynasties. The details of the Judg¬ ment Scene vary greatly in various papyri, but the essential parts of it are always preserved. The follow¬ ing is the description of the judgment of Ani, as it appears in his wonderful papyrus preserved in the British Museum.
In the underworld, and in that portion of it which is called the Hall of Maati, is set a balance wherein the heart of the deceased is to be weighed. The beam is suspended by a ring upon a projection from the standard of the balance made in the form of the feather which
136 THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART.
is the symbol of Maat, or what is right and true. The tongue of the balance is fixed to the beam, and when this is exactly level, the tongue is as straight as the standard; if either end of the beam inclines down¬ wards the tongue cannot remain in a perpendicular position. It must be distinctly understood that the heart which was weighed in the one scale was not expected to make the weight which was in the other to kick the beam, for all that was asked or required of the deceased was that his heart should balance exactly the symbol of the law. The standard was sometimes sur¬ mounted by a human head wearing the feather of Maat ; sometimes by the head of a jackal, the animal sacred to Anubis ; and sometimes by the head of an ibis, the bird sacred to Thoth; in the Papyrus of Ani a dog¬ headed ape, the associate of Thoth, sits on the top of the standard. In some papyri (e.g., those of Ani 1 and Hunefer 2), in addition to Osiris, the king of the under¬ world and judge of the dead, the gods of his cycle or company appear as witnesses of the judgment. In the Papyrus of the priestess Anhai 3 in the British Museum the great and the little companies of the gods appear as witnesses, but the artist was so careless that instead of nine gods in each group he painted six in one and five in the other. In the Turin papyrus4 we see the whole of the forty-two gods, to whom the deceased recited the
1 About b.c. 1500. 2 About b.c. 1370. 3 About b.c. 1000.
4 Written in the Ptolemaic period.
The weighing of the heart of the scribe Ani in the Balance in the presence of the gods.
THE GODS IN JUDGMENT.
139
“Negative Confession,” seated in the judgment-hall. The gods present at the weighing of Ani’s heart are—
1. Ka-Harmachis, hawk-headed, the Sun-god of the dawn and of noon.
2. Temu, the Sun-god of the evening, the great god of Heliopolis. He is depicted always in human form and with the face of a man, a fact which proves that he had at a very early period passed through all the forms in which gods are represented, and had arrived at that of a man. He has upon his head the crowns of the South and North.
3. Shu, man-headed, the son of Ra and Hathor, the personification of the sunlight.
4. Tefnut, lion-headed, the twin-sister of Shu, the personification of moisture.
5. Seb, man-headed, the son of Shu, the personifica¬ tion of the earth.
6. Nut, woman-headed, the female counterpart of the gods Nu and Seb ; she was the personification of the primeval water, and later of the sky.
7. Isis, woman-headed, the sister-wife of Osiris, and mother of Horus.
8. Nephthys, woman-headed, the sister-wife of Osiris and mother of Anubis.
9. Hokus, the “great god ,” hawk-headed, whose worship was probably the oldest in Egypt.
10. Hatiior, woman-headed, the personification of that portion of the sky where the sun rose and set.
140
THE “EATER OF THE DEAD.”
11. Hu, man-headed, and
12. Sa, also man-headed; these gods are present in the boat of Ra in the scenes which depict the creation.
On one side of the balance kneels the god Anubis, jackal-headed, who holds the weight of the tongue of the balance in his right hand, and behind him stands Thoth, the scribe of the gods, ibis-headed, holding in his hands a reed wherewith to write down the result of the weighing. Hear him is seated the tri-formed beast Am-mit, the “ Eater of the Dead,” who waits to devour the heart of Ani should it be found to be light. In the Papyrus of Heb-qet at Paris this beast is seen lying by the side of a lake of fire, at each corner of which is seated a dog-headed ape; this lake is also seen in