The religions of ancient Egypt and BabyloniaSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Religion
The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Assyro-Babylonian religion; Egypt -- Religion
With the spread of the Osirian form of faith the doctrine of the Trinity
became universal throughout Egypt. The organisation of the faith had
included the reduction of the cycle of divinities connected with Osiris
into a trinity. Thoth and Anubis, Nebhât and Set, were separated from him,
and henceforth he was made the head of a triad, in which Isis was the
second person, and Horus, the avenger of his father, was the third. How
completely the father and son were merged together may be seen from a hymn
to Horus which has been translated by Chabas(185)—
“The gods are joyous at the arrival of Osiris,
the son of Horus, the intrepid,
the truth-speaking, the son of Isis, the heir of Osiris. The
divine chiefs join him,
the gods recognise the omnipotent child himself ...
the reign of justice belongs to him.
Horus has found his justification, to him is given the title of
his father;
he appears with the _atef_-crown by order of Seb. He takes the
royalty of the two worlds,
the crown of Upper Egypt is placed upon his head.
He judges the world as he likes,
heaven and earth are beneath his eye,
he commands mankind—the intellectual beings, the race of the
Egyptians and the northern barbarians.
The circuit of the solar disc is under his control;
the winds, the waters, the wood of the plants, and all
vegetables....
Sanctifying, beneficent is his name ...
evil flies afar off, and the earth brings forth abundantly under
her lord.
Justice is confirmed by its lord, who chases away iniquity.
Mild is thy heart, O (Osiris) Un-nefer, son of Isis;
he has taken the crown of Upper Egypt; for him is acknowleged the
authority of his father in the great dwelling of Seb;
he is Ra when speaking, Thoth when writing; the divine chiefs are
at rest.”
Here Osiris is identified with Horus, and so becomes the son of his own
wife.
The Egyptian trinity has thus grown out of the triad under the influence
of the solar theology, and of the old conception of a personality which
possessed a concrete form. Once introduced into the Osirian creed, it
spread with it throughout Egypt, and became a distinguishing feature of
Egyptian theology. Along with the doctrines of the resurrection of the
body and of a judgment to come, it passed into the schools of Alexandria,
and was there thrown into the crucible of Greek philosophy. The Platonic
doctrine of ideas was adapted to the Egyptian doctrine of personality, and
the three persons of the trinity became Unity, Mind, and Soul—absolute
thought, absolute reason, and absolute energy.(186)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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