Our authority for the nature of this religion is derived mainly from the Todtenbuch or Book of the Dead, which was the Egyptian bible. This sacred Book was of immense antiquity, and much of it was certainly in existence before the time of Menes. We know it from the multiplied copies which were frequently deposited in tombs, and from the innumerable extracts and quotations which appear on almost every mummy-case and sarcophagus, as well as from the many manuscripts of works on religious subjects which have been preserved in papyri. The fundamental idea was that of a primitive ocean, or, if you like to call it chaos, of nebulous matter without form and void, and of a one infinite and eternal God who evolved himself and the Universe from his own essence. He is called in the Todtenbuch "the one only being, the sole Creator, unchangeable in his infinite perfection, present in all time, past and future, everywhere and yet nowhere." But although one in essence, God is not one in person. He exists as Father, but reproduces himself under another aspect as Mother, and under a third as Son. This Trinity is three and yet one, and has all the attributes of the one--infinity, eternity, and omnipotence. Thus far the Athanasian Creed might be a chapter of the Todtenbuch, and it is very evident where the Alexandrian saint got those subtle metaphysical ideas, which are so opposed to the rigid monotheistic creeds of Judaism and Mahometanism. But the Egyptian religion was more logical, and carried these ideas much further than an original Trinity. It is evident that if we admit the two fundamental ideas, 1st, that God is the only real existence, author of and identical with the universe; 2nd, that this incomprehensible essence or First Cause can be made more comprehensible by personifying his various qualities and manifestations, there is no reason why we should stop at three. If we admit a Trinity of Father, Mother, and Son, why not admit a daughter and other descendants; or if you personify the Power to make a universe, the Knowledge how to make it, and the Will to do it, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, why not the Benevolence to do it well, the Malevolence to do it badly, and a hundred other attributes which metaphysical ingenuity can devise to account for the complication of the known, and the mysteries of the unknown facts of existence?