III. From the Papyrus of Ani.1

The following beautiful composition, part hymn and
part prayer, is of exceptional interest.

“ Hail, thou Disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on
the horizon day by day ! Shine thou with thy beams
of light upon the face of Osiris Ani, who is true of
voice; for he singeth hymns of praise unto thee at
dawn, and he maketh thee to set at eventide with
words of adoration. May the soul of Ani come forth
with thee into heaven, may he go forth in the Matet
boat. May he come into port in the Sektet boat, and
may he cleave his path among the never-resting stars
in the heavens.

“ Osiris Ani, being in peace and triumph, adoreth
his lord, the lord of eternity, saying, ‘ Homage to
thee, 0 Heru-khuti (Harmachis), who art the god
Khepera, the self-created one ; when thou risest on
the horizon and sheddest thy beams of light upon
the lands of the North and of the South, thou art

1 Plate 20.

D

34

PRAYER FOR A RENEWED BODY.

beautiful, yea beautiful, and all the gods rejoice when
they behold thee, the king of heaven. The goddess
Nebt-Unnut is stablished upon thy head; and her
uraei of the South and of the North are upon thy
brow ; she taketh up her place before thee. The god
Thoth is stablished in the bows of thy boat to destroy
utterly all thy foes. Those who are in the Tuat
(underworld) come forth to meet thee, and they bow
low in homage as they come towards thee, to behold
thy beautiful form. And I have come before thee
that I may be with thee to behold thy Disk each day.
May I not be shut up [in the tomb], may I not be
turned back, may the limbs of my body be made new
again when I view thy beauties, even as [are those of]
all thy favoured ones, because I am one of those who
worshipped thee upon earth. May I come unto the
land of eternity, may I come even unto the everlasting
land, for behold, 0 my lord, this hast thou ordained
for me.’

“ ‘ Homage to thee, 0 thou who risest in thy horizon
as Ka, thou restest upon Maat.1 Thou passest over
the sky, and every face watcheth thee and thy course,
for thou hast been hidden from their gaze. Thou
dost show thyself at dawn and at eventide day by
day. The Sektet boat, wherein is thy Majesty, goeth
forth with might ; thy beams are upon [all] faces ;
thy rays of red and yellow cannot be known, and thy

1 I.e.j unchanging and unalterable law.

RA THE LIKENESS OF GOD.

9

35

bright beams cannot be told. The lands of the gods
and the eastern lands of Punt1 must be seen ere that
which is hidden [in thee] may be measured.2 Alone
and by thyself thou dost manifest thyself [when] thou
comest into being above Nu. May I advance, even
as thou dost advance ; may I never cease [to go
forward], even as thy Majesty ceaseth not [to go
forward], even though it be for a moment; for with
strides dost thou in one brief moment pass over spaces
which [man] would need hundreds of thousands, yea,
millions of years to pass over ; [this] thou doest, and
then thou dost sink to rest. Thou puttest an end to
the hours of the night, and thou dost count them, even
thou ; thou endest them in thine own appointed season,
and the earth becometh light. Thou settest thyself
before thy handiwork in the likeness of Ea ; thou
risest in the horizon.’

“ Osiris, the scribe Ani, declareth his praise of thee
when thou sliinest, and when thou risest at dawn he
crieth in his joy at thy birth, saying : —

“ ‘ Thou art crowned with the majesty of thy beauties ;
thou mouldest thy limbs as thou dost advance, and
thou bringest them forth without birth-pangs in the
form of Ea, as thou dost rise up in the celestial height.
Grant thou that I may come unto the heaven which

1 l.e the east and west coasts of the Red Sea, and the north-east
coast of Africa.

2 I am doubtful about the meaning of this passage.

t>6 RA THE POWER OF POWERS.

is everlasting, and unto the mountain where dwell thy
favoured ones. May I be joined unto those shining
beings, holy and perfect, who are in the underworld ;
and may I come forth with them to behold thy beauties
when thou shines t at eventide, and goest to thy mother
Nut. Thou dost place thyself in the west, and my
hands adore [thee] when thou settest as a living being.1
Behold, thou art the everlasting creator, and thou art
adored [as such when] thou settest in the heavens.
I have given my heart to thee without wavering, 0

thou who art mightier than the gods.’

“ A hymn of praise to thee, 0 thou who risest like
unto gold, and who dost flood the world with light on
the day of thy birth. Thy mother giveth thee birth,
and straightway thou dost give light upon the path
of [thy] Disk, 0 thou great Light who shinest in the
heavens. Thou makest the generations of men to
flourish through the Nile-flood, and thou dost cause
gladness to exist in all lands, and in all cities, and
in all temples. Thou art glorious by reason of thy
splendours, and thou makest strong thy KA (i.e.
Double) with divine foods, 0 thou mighty one of
victories, thou Power of Powers, who dost make strong
thy throne against evil fiends — thou who art glorious
in Majesty in the Sektet boat, and most mighty in
the Atet 2 boat ! ”

. 1 I.e., “because when thou settest thou dost not die.”

' The Sun’s evening and morning boats respectively.

37

HYMN TO RA (ABOUT B.C. I IOO).

This selection may be fittingly closed by a short
hymn 1 which, though of a later date, reproduces in
a brief form all the essentials of the longer hymns
of the XVIlIth dynasty (about b.c. 1700 to 1400).

“ Homage to thee, 0 thou glorious Being, thou who
art dowered [with all sovereignty]. 0 Temu-Harma-
chis,2 when thou risest in the horizon of heaven, a
cry of joy cometh forth to thee from the mouth of
all peoples. 0 thou beautiful Being, thou dost renew
thyself in thy season in the form of the Disk within
thy mother Hathor;3 therefore in every place every
heart swelleth with joy at thy rising for ever. The
regions of the North and South come to thee with
homage, and send forth acclamations at thy rising
in the horizon of heaven ; thou illuminest the two
lands with rays of turquoise light. Hail, Ba, thou
who art Ba-Harmachis, thou divine man-child, heir
of eternity, self-begotten and self-born, king of the
earth, prince of the underworld, governor of the regions
of Aukert ( i.e ., the underworld) ! Thou didst come
forth from the water, thou hast sprung from the god
Nu, who cherisheth thee and ordereth thy members.
Hail, god of life, thou lord of love, all men live when
thou shinest ; thou art crowned king of the gods. The
goddess Nut doetli homage unto thee, and the goddess

1 From the Papyrus of Nekht (Brit. Mus. No. 10,471).

2 The evening and morning sun respectively.

3 Like Nut, a goddess of the sky, but particularly of that portion
of it in which the sun rises.

38 PRAISES OF RA THE ETERNAL GOD.

Maat embraceth thee at all times. Those who are in
thy following sing unto thee with joy and bow down
their foreheads to the earth when they meet thee,
thou lord of heaven, thou lord of earth, thou king
of Right and Truth, thou lord of eternity, thou prince
of everlastingness, thou sovereign of all the gods, thou
god of life, thou creator of eternity, thou maker of
heaven, wherein thou art firmly established. The
company of the gods rejoice at thy rising, the earth
is glad when it beholdeth thy rays ; the peoples that
have been long dead come forth with cries of joy to
see thy beauties every day. Thou goest forth each
day over heaven and earth, and art made strong each
day by thy mother Nut. Thou passest through the
heights of heaven, thy heart swelleth with joy; the
abyss of the sky is content thereat. The Serpent-
fiend hath fallen, his arms are hewn off, and the knife
hath cut asunder his joints. Ra liveth in Maat the
beautiful. The Sektet boat draweth on and cometh
into port; the South and the North, the West and the
East, turn to praise thee, 0 thou primeval substance of
the earth who didst come into being of thine own
accord. Isis and Neplithys salute thee, they sing unto
thee songs of joy at thy rising in the boat, they
protect thee with their hands. The souls of the East
follow thee, the souls of the West praise thee. Thou
art the ruler of all the gods, and thou hast joy of
heart within thy shrine ; for the Serpent-fiend Nak

RESPECT FOR TRADITIONAL BELIEFS. 39

hath been condemned to the fire, and thy heart shall
be joyful for ever.”

From the considerations set forth in the preceding
pages, and from the extracts from religious texts of
various periods, and from the hymns quoted, the
reader may himself judge the views which the ancient
Egyptian held concerning God Almighty and his visible
type and symbol Ea, the Sun-god. Egyptologists differ
in their interpretations of certain passages, but agree
as to general facts. In dealing with the facts it cannot
be too clearly understood that the religious ideas of
the prehistoric Egyptian were very different from
those of the cultured priest of Memphis in the Ilnd
dynasty, or those of the worshippers of Temu or Atum,
the god of the setting sun, in the IVtli dynasty.
The editors of religions texts of all periods have
retained many grossly superstitious and coarse beliefs,
which they knew well to be the products of the imagi¬
nations of their savage, or semi-savage ancestors, not
because they themselves believed in them, or thought
that the laity to whom they ministered would accept
them, but because of their reverence for inherited
traditions. The followers of every great religion in
the world have never wholly shaken off all the super¬
stitions which they have in all generations inherited
from their ancestors ; and what is true of the peoples
of the past is true, in a degree, of the peoples of
to-day. In the East the older the ideas, and beliefs,

40 DEVELOPMENT OF SPIRITUAL CONCEPTIONS.

and traditions are, the more sacred they become; but
this has not prevented men there from developing high
moral and spiritual conceptions and continuing to
believe in them, and among such must be counted
the One, self-begotten, and self-existent God whom the
Egyptians worshipped.

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