The following texts relating to the "supreme true but hidden G.o.d" amply demonstrate that the chief characteristic of his cult was that it was shrouded in secrecy and mystification. Others, which I shall quote farther on, allow us clearly to perceive that individuals were obliged to pa.s.s through a series of initiations into the meanings of cabalistic signs and symbols of the divinity before they attained the pure knowledge of the nature of the mysterious, "hidden divinity." On reading the texts of the famous "Book of the Dead" it has frequently occurred to me that the negative confession and judgment of the soul of the departed may originally signify the actual confession and judgment of an applicant for initiation into the secrets of the priesthood and the astronomical and theological knowledge they so rigidly guarded from the ignorant mult.i.tude.

The highest knowledge and most profound secret they could impart was doubtlessly the acknowledgment and perception of the existence of a supreme power which governed the universe on a certain plan, which the rulers of the land of Egypt endeavored to apply to its organization and government in order to make it a celestial kingdom upon earth.

The rigidly-adhered-to policy of the ruling caste was, however, the shrouding and concealment of their store of knowledge from the uninitiated and the gradual admission of select individuals to the inner chambers of secrecy. The following texts show that even the true name of the supreme divinity was wrapped in impenetrable mystery, but the a.s.sumption that we are dealing with a pole-star G.o.d seems to enable us to penetrate the obscurity of the formulae employed by the scribes to veil the true meaning of the texts.

Beginning with the hymn published by Mr. Wallis Budge, in his useful handbook, "The Nile,"(110) we find Amen-Ra addressed as "King, _One_ among the G.o.ds, _myriad are his names, how many are they, is not known_ ... the lord of Law, _whose shrine is hidden, ... whose name is hidden from his children in his name Amen_."... In the legend of Ra and Isis (XXth dynasty) he is designated as "the G.o.d divine, the creator of himself, the creator of heaven, earth, breath of life, fire, G.o.ds, men, beasts, cattle, reptiles, fowl of the air, fish, king of men and G.o.ds, _in form one_, to whom periods are as years, _many of names, not known are they, not know them the G.o.ds_."(111)

The mysterious supreme G.o.d is further spoken of in the hymn as ... "the lord of the uraeus crown, exalted of the plumes; the serpent Mehen, and the two uraei are the (ornaments) of his face...." Mention is likewise made of his lordship over the Sekti boat (which sailed from the place of rising in the East) and the Atet boat (which sailed to the place of setting in the West); he is also addressed as the "G.o.d Khepera in his boat." In many pa.s.sages he is apparently identified with the sun, "the eye of Horus," but is at the same time, also addressed as Ani, the lord of the New Moon festival and he is termed "_the lord of all the G.o.ds_ whose appearances are in the horizon." His all-embracing nature is clearly conveyed by the pa.s.sages terming him "the maker and lord of things which are below and of things which are above;" "of the heaven and earth." The above evidence suffices to show that, on the one hand, Amen-Ra is constantly referred to as the "One G.o.d, without a second, the knowledge of whose nature is concealed from men and G.o.ds, who reveals himself in innumerable forms; who exerts hidden control and universal dominion and is a.s.sociated with stability and power, time and eternity." On the other hand, stress is laid on his dual nature: Amen-Ra is bi-s.e.xual and self-creative; alternately becomes light and darkness; and the sun and moon are the eyes of his "hidden face," which, literally translated, yields Amen-Hra.

In the hymn previously cited he is also termed the "lord of the sky, the establisher of all things, ... the extender of foot-steps.... _One_ in his times as among the G.o.ds...." He is apostrophized as "the maker of the G.o.ds, who hast stretched out the heavens and founded the earth," "the chief who makest the earth like unto himself,".... "President of the great cycle of the G.o.ds, _only one without his second_ ... living in Law every day.... O Form, _one_, creator of all things, O _one_ only, maker of existences ... he giveth the breath of life to (the germ) in the egg....

Hail to thee, thou _only one_!... _He watches all people who sleep_ ...

all people adore thee.... O thou ... _the untiring watcher_, Amsu-amen lord of eternity, the Maker of Law...." Another pa.s.sage states: "the aten (disk) is thy body" (_i. e._ image or symbol). In the legend of Ra and Isis, quoted above, the G.o.d is made to say of himself: "I am the maker of the hours, the creator of days, I am the opener of the festivals of the year.... I am he who when he opens his eyes [_i. e._ the sun and moon]

becometh light, when he shutteth his two eyes, becometh darkness." Brugsch tells us that Ra, whom he accepts as the day-sun, was addressed as the master of double or two-fold force, who illuminates the world with his two eyes and "was symbolized by two lions." Further on I shall quote facts establishing that the king and queen of Egypt were respectively named the right and left eye of Amen-Ra, were a.s.sociated with sun and moon, regarded as the personifications of Osiris and Isis, and that these deities were represented in the form of uraeus serpents with human heads, and that the two serpents were employed as symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt. Mr. Wallis Budge informs us that Amen-Ra was named "bull ... in thy name of 'Amen bull of his mother,' and that he was ent.i.tled 'lord of the thrones of the two lands;' 'king of the G.o.ds;' 'maker of mortals;' 'mighty law.' " In one of his forms he is represented as wearing horns (an allusion to duality and the t.i.tle of bull) and feathers (=mat=maat=law) and holding the emblems of stability, power, dominion and rule.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 62.

Before demonstrating that the chief astronomical signs of the Egyptian zodiac partake of the nature of a rebus and express the sound of the various attributes and t.i.tles and some of the "myriad of names" of the "hidden G.o.d," contained in the preceding texts, I point out how clearly the conception of Amen-Ra, as shown in these hymns and invocations, is consistent with a pole-star origin. We have, moreover, the authoritative opinion of Brugsch that "the hieroglyph and name Ra did not only refer to the day-sun, but also designated certain brilliant stars," which he presumes to be the planets (_op. cit._ I, p. 79). This identification of the name Ra with stars involuntarily obliges one to recall the Sanscrit tara=star while the Chinese employment of a plain circle to designate "star," also finds its a.n.a.logy. Let us now examine the hieroglyphic signs and symbols of Ra and note how intelligible they become when the G.o.d is identified as Polaris.

The following (fig. 62) are some of the modes in which the name Ra is found expressed in texts published in Mr. Wallis Budge's "First steps in Egyptian:"

Fig. 62, 1. By a dot in the centre of a circle, the determinative of "time."

2. By the latter accompanied by the image of a seated G.o.d and the numeral 1.

3. _Idem_, partly surrounded by a serpent in motion and accompanied by the numeral 1.

4. The serpent and circle on the head of a hawk-headed seated G.o.d.

To these are added for purposes of comparison

5. The circle with two uraei.

6. _Idem_, to which a single uraeus and a wing are attached.

7. _Idem_, with two uraei and two wings.

8. _Idem_, with one wing.

9. _Idem_, accompanied by the numeral one and the sign for heaven, to which a cross-shaped star is hanging.

10. _Idem_, resting in the centre of the summit of a twin mountain.

11. _Idem_, resting in the centre of a boat.

12. _Idem_, with a central star instead of a dot const.i.tuting the word duat="lower hemisphere" (Brugsch).

13. The variant of this, cited by Brugsch.

14. The disk containing a single eye.

My prolonged study of the ancient Mexican picture-writings having given me the habit of regarding each primitive symbol as a possible rebus led me to look up the phonetic values of the symbols combined with the Ra sign and to note that some of them were actually mentioned in connection with Amen-Ra in the texts cited above, namely: the face, the eye, the egg, the uraeus, the disk, the "serpent Mehen." It was a surprise to find, on simply referring to the glossaries, that the name for uraeus=ara and that eye=ari; an egg=ar (also sa, se, and suht); face=hra; each word thus containing the name Ra=G.o.d, in simple or inverted form (see fig. 63, 1-4). The natural inference was that I had obtained an insight into the method devised by the ingenious Egyptian priesthood, to express, in cryptic form, the name of the "hidden G.o.d."

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 63.

Further glimpses of light seemed obtained when I found that, as written by German Egyptologists, the determinative for divinity, the banner=nutar, notar, netar, or neter, not only expressed the same sound as the word nut, but also contained the letters "r" and "a" (5). The disk=atun, aton or aten might also be regarded as an anagram, being the inverted form of nutar, minus the last letter (6). The names for wing (7) being tun, ton or ten, the wing attached to the disk const.i.tuted a complementary sign, duplicating the final syllable. At the same time, as a second name for wing was meh, or mah (_cf._ mat and its synonym su=feather), there seemed to be an explanation of the "serpent mehen" applied to Amen-Ra and the possibility that it signified the "winged serpent," such as is frequently depicted in texts published by Brugsch (8). It was obvious that the uraeus=ara and the wing meh, would form an ingenious anagram expressing, by means of the signs, a-meh-ra, the name Amen-Ra.

The constantly recurring form of the Ra sign, in which the serpent is represented as gliding around the circle, enclosing the central point of fixity, naturally suggests the inference that this variant must have been adopted at a time when the constellation Draco, the "Old serpent," or "Nakkasch qodmun," was circ.u.mpolar and was equally familiar, under this name, to the Egyptian and Euphratean astronomers. This inference seems to be confirmed by the fact that, in the hymn to Amen-Ra, cited above, the name Nak is given to "the serpent with knives stuck in his back," who, according to the myth, was the demon of night and the enemy of the sun-G.o.d, the ruler of day. The fact that, in the temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes, a service was recited daily for the destruction of the serpent Nak by Horus, appears to indicate the growth of the idea of a combat between light and darkness and the dual forces of nature, which would naturally tend to create the thought of an antagonism existing not only between the s.e.xes, but also between the two divisions of Egypt and the separate cults of the nocturnal heaven (Polaris and the moon) and the diurnal heaven (the sun).

In the list of festivals, dating from the Ptolemaic period and inscribed in the temple at Edfu, there are mentioned: "the festival of the end or point of the triangle," simultaneous with that of "the serpent Nai or Na,"

immediately followed by "the festivals of the 'tena'=[aten?], and of the great serpent Na," and "of the Ken=the festival of darkness, and of the red serpent Na" (Brugsch _op. cit._ I, p. 51). Commenting upon the above names I draw attention to the curious fact that in the above word ken, we seem to have the inversion of nak, the name of the "night-serpent" and that na is actually the inversion of the word an, which signifies "he who turns or winds himself around." I shall show further on, in astronomical texts, that this name is actually identified with the pole.

When these facts are borne in mind the full import of the familiar Egyptian symbol for eternity=tet, becomes clear. It consists of the image of a mummy, symbolizing fixity, around which a great serpent is winding itself, conveying the idea of circling motion (fig. 63, 9 and 10). It is well known that this group symbolized eternity=tet and the sign is always interpreted as expressing the sound tet. If a.n.a.lyzed more closely, however, and interpreted as a rebus, it appears to yield a fund of deeper meaning.

The serpent Na furnishes the word An=the winder or he who moves around.

Linked to one of the names for mummy=sah, the group might be read as An-sah, a name which invites comparison with Anshar, the a.s.syrian pole-star G.o.d who was said to shoot arrows in all directions, _i. e._ to turn around, and the Akkadian t.i.tle for Ursa Major, Akanna=the Lord of Heaven. The second name for mummy, given in Mr. Wallis Budge's Nile, is tut, the exact word which signifies "to engender," which explains why images of the creator should have been made in mummy form. The word tut directs attention to the name of the G.o.d Tehuti=Thoth, "the Measurer," a name to be weighed in connection with the fact that time was measured by the circ.u.mpolar constellations. It does not appear impossible that the word khat=corpse may also have been brought into use in the rebus and furnished an anagram or allusion to the ak or centre.

The other well-known symbol for eternity, _i. e._ stability, is the column tet, representing a pillar usually consisting of four or five parts (fig.

63, 11). It appears. .h.i.therto to have escaped attention that the Egyptian for hand being tet, the hand, employed as a rebus, would actually express the name for eternity and may well have been employed as a secret sign for the divine centre, eternal stability and the sacred number five, consisting of the Middle and the Four Quarters, symbolized by the fingers and thumb (fig. 63, 12). To this must be added the interesting fact that, in hieratic script, the hand expressed the sound "a" which means "power"

while aa=great, aat=great and mighty, aa=mighty one. To those initiated in the mysteries of hieroglyphic writing the hand thus clearly const.i.tuted a rebus, expressing the eternal, permanent, stable, great, mighty power, one yet double and fourfold, the sacred five in one, the Middle and Four Quarters.(112)

The following is a group of animal and other figures, which are repeated, with variations of form, combination and position, in the different zodiacs.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 64.

The princ.i.p.al and the phonetic values of their names are figured as follows: the thigh=uart, khepes or maskhet; the bull, ox or cow=ka, ah, aua; the hawk=bak, designated as an, kher or heu=Horus; the cynocephalus ape and phallus=aaani and ka; the lion=mahes; the jackal (anubis) uher or sabi; the scorpion=tart or serkhet; the crocodile=sebek, also amsuk or emsuh, and seta; the vase or jar=nu (_cf._ nut); the female hippopotamus=tebt, shown by Dr. Gensler to have been a.s.sociated with the name menat=nurse, she who nurses (see Brugsch I, p. 130).

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Plate V.

In the Edfu zodiac, the latter, whose name furnishes an anagram of amen=hidden, is represented with the Ra sign on her head and holds a cord to which the constellation of Ursa Major is attached. This is figured, with its seven stars, as the thigh (pl. V, 2), with the head of a bull, elements which furnish the phonetic values of uart, khepes or maskhet and aua, ka or ah, to which should be added that the Egyptian mode of saying "a bull"=ua en ka, literally "one of bull," the female form being "uat en ka" (see Wallis Budge, First steps in Egyptian).

After having studied the hymns and invocations to Amen-Ra we are aware, not only that the "hidden G.o.d" is named "the bull," but that great stress is laid upon his being "One"=ua, yet double=ka. It therefore appears very significant to find these words incorporated in the name for Ursa Major=thigh, uart, and this combined with bull=ua or ka which furnishes the anagram ak=middle. What is more, the second name for thigh being khepes, this might form a rebus for the common name for (1) luminary or star in general=khebs or khabs, literally, lights, lamps, flames, _cf._ seb=star; (2) kheper=life, existence, to come into existence, _cf._ khepdes=uterus, kher khepd=the navel, khepesh=power.

The fact that one t.i.tle of Amen-Ra was Khepera=the creator, lends additional interest to the a.s.sociation of his secret sign, the hippopotamus, with the constellation Ursa Major, which he apparently holds and guides and which emblematizes life, _i. e._ motion-The thigh=khepes, scarab=kheper, fish, khepanen, crocodile=seta or sebek, which, inverted, yields the word khebes=star, and royal sickle=khepes, thus appear to have been but different modes of expressing the same meaning and the t.i.tle of Khepera (fig. 63, 13-16). It can be readily understood why the scarab beetle, which encloses its egg in a ball of mud and rolls this to a safe hatching place, became the favorite secret sign for the "hidden G.o.d,"

since none but the initiated would see in the beetle, holding the ball of earth enclosing its egg, the actual rebus of Khepera, the creator, expressed by the kheper; and the circle or disk, the sign of Ra, containing the germ of life.

Returning to an examination of the signs for Ursa Major employed by the Egyptian astronomer scribes, we find, beside the more elaborate form given by Mr. Wallis Budge (pl. V, 3), the variants (4 and 5) which constantly recur in the texts published by Brugsch, and which reveal that the thigh, accompanied by a single star, const.i.tuted the essential elements of the sign. It is one of the curiosities of Egyptian hieroglyphics that the image of a star may express either seb=star, or the numeral five=tuau.

This being the case, and the word for thigh being either khepes or uart, it is obvious that the thigh and star yield more than one interpretation from the rebus point of view, and may either be read as seb khepdes, seb-uart or tuau-uart-in one case containing the divine t.i.tle "creator"