The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of ReligionsAllen, Grant
Religion
The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Religions
Allen, Grant
God; Religion
I may add that a gradual growth of Osiris-worship is clearly marked on
the monuments themselves. The simpler {170}stelæ and memorials of the
earliest age seldom contain the names of any god, but display votaries
making offerings at the shrine of ancestors. Similarly, the scenes
represented on the walls of tombs of early date bear no reference to the
great gods of later ages, but are merely domestic and agricultural in
character, as may be observed at Sakkarah and even to some extent also
at Beni-Hassan. Under the Sixth Dynasty, the monuments begin to make
more and more frequent mention of Osiris, who now comes to be regarded
as Judge of the Dead and Lord of the Lower World; and on a tablet of
this age in the Boulak Museum occurs for the first time the expression
afterwards so common, “justified by Osiris.” Under the Twelfth
Dynasty, legend becomes more prominent; a solar and lunar character
seems to be given by reflex to Osiris and Isis: and the name of Ra,
the sun, is added to that of many previously distinct and independent
deities. Khem, the ithyphallic god of the Thebaid, now also assumes
greater importance, as is quite natural under a line of Theban
princes: and Khem, a local mummy-god, is always represented in his
swathing-clothes, and afterwards confounded, certainly with Amen, and
probably also with the mummy-god of Abydos. But Osiris from this time
forward rises distinctly into the front rank as a deity. “To him,
rather than to the dead, the friends and family offer their sacrifices.
A court is formed for him. Thoth, the recorder [totem-god of Abydos],
Anubis the watcher, Ra the impersonation of truth, and others, assist
in judgment on the soul.” The name of the deceased is henceforth
constantly accompanied by the formula “justified by Osiris.” About
the same time the Book of the Dead in its full form came into existence,
with its developed conception of the lower world, and its complicated
arrangement of planes of purgatorial progress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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