Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative TheologyClarke, James Freeman
Islamic
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
Clarke, James Freeman
Christianity and other religions; Religions
But we must now remember that two races meet in Egypt,--an Asiatic race,
which brings the ideas of the East; and an Ethiopian, inhabitants of the
land, who were already there. The first race brought the spiritual ideas
which were embodied in the higher order of gods. The Africans were filled
with the instinct of nature-worship. These two tendencies were to be
reconciled in the religion of Egypt. The first order of gods was for the
initiated, and taught them the unity, spirituality, and creative power of
God.[190] The third order--the circle of Isis and Osiris--were for the
people, and were representative of the forms and forces of outward
nature. Between the two come the second series,--a transition from the one
to the other,--children of the higher gods, parents of the lower,--neither
so abstract as the one nor so concrete as the other,--representing neither
purely divine qualities on the one side, nor merely natural forces on the
other, but rather the faculties and powers of man. Most of this series
were therefore adopted by the Greeks, whose religion was one essentially
based on human nature, and whose gods were all, or nearly all, the ideal
representations of human qualities. Hence they found in Khunsu, child of
Ammon, their Hercules, God of Strength; in Thoth, child of Kneph, they
found Hermes, God of Knowledge; in Pecht, child of Pthah, they found their
Artemis, or Diana, the Goddess of Birth, protector of women; in Athor, or
Hathor, they found their Aphroditê, Goddess of Love. Seb was Chronos, or
Time; and Nutpe was Rhea, wife of Chronos.
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