In the Theban period, accordingly, Amon is no longer a simple god. He is Amon-Ra, to whom all the attributes of Ra have been transferred. The solar element is predominant in his character; and, since the other gods of the country are but subordinate forms of Amon, in their characters also. Most of the religious literature of Egypt which we possess belongs to the Theban period or is derived from it; it is not astonishing, therefore, if Egyptologists have been inclined to see the sun-god everywhere in Egyptian theology. The Theban trinity was modelled on the orthodox lines. Mut, “the mother,” a local epithet of the goddess of Southern Egypt, was made the wife of Amon, while Khonsu, a local moon-god, became his son. But in acquiring this relationship Khonsu lost his original nature.(127) Since the divine son was one with his divine father, he too became a sun-god, with the solar disc and the hawk’s head. As the designer of architectural plans, however, he still preserved a reminiscence of his primal character. But he was eventually superseded by Mentu, a result of the decadence of Thebes and the rise of Erment to the headship of the nome. It is needless to say that Mentu had long before become Mentu-Ra. We can trace the evolution of Amon, thanks to the multiplicity of the texts which belong to the period when his city was supreme. We can watch him as he rises slowly from the position of an obscure provincial deity to that of the supreme god of all Egypt, and can follow the causes which brought it about. We can see him uniting himself with the sun-god, and then absorbing the rest of the Egyptian gods into himself. The theological thought, of which he was the subject and centre, gradually but inexorably passes from a narrow form of polytheism into a materialistic pantheism. There, however, it ends. It never advances further into a monotheism in which the creator is separate from his creation. With all its spirituality, the Egyptian conception of the divine remained concrete; the theologians of Egypt never escaped the influence of the symbol or recognised the god behind and apart from matter. It was through matter that they came to know God, and to the last it was by matter that their conception of the Godhead was bounded. Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith. The legend of Osiris as it existed at the end of the first century is recorded by Plutarch. It has been pieced together from the myths and folk-tales of various ages and various localities that were current about the god. The Egyptian priests had considerable difficulty in fitting them into a consistent story; had they been Greek or Roman historiographers, they would have solved the problem by declaring that there had been more than one Osiris; as it was, they were contented with setting the different accounts of his death and fortunes side by side, and harmonising them afterwards as best they might.