But there is another side to the picture. No people has ever developed a culture like that of the Egyptians without also reaching a purer conception of God. Way back in the Fifth dynasty we find the beginnings of a monotheistic tendency in the religion of Egypt. Indeed even earlier the priests of Heliopolis had taught the idea of the unity of the deity who manifested himself in the creative energy of the Sun. The Pharaohs of the Fifth dynasty took up the cult of Re (or Ra) as this god was called, raising mighty obelisks on the edge of the desert back of Memphis, before which stood altars of alabaster under the open sky: for this god could not be represented by any image and consequently needed no temple, no house of god. As time went on this idea of the unity of the deity--largely, it is true, as a "mystery" understood only by the priests and other "initiated" ones, spread over the whole of Egypt. As a result the local deities, no matter what their origin, came to be regarded as manifestations of the one god Re, whose name was added to those of the local gods. We are all familiar with Amon of Thebes. This god, whose origin is very obscure, was of course a local deity, and when Thebes became the capital of the Empire, was raised to the kingship of all the gods. But it will be observed that to do this, the priests felt it necessary to identify him with Re and to speak of him henceforth not as Amon, but as Amon-Re. But this was not a step forward. The priests of Re had taught that god is one and might be worshiped anywhere. It was not even necessary to have temples. When, however, such a local divinity as Amon of Thebes was identified with Re, as one of this god's manifestations, he received all the attributes of the one god, but at the same time remained god of Thebes and the priests never raised any theological objections when the Pharaohs erected the mighty temples of that city for the glory of their god and the perpetuation of their own deeds. Indeed the Pharaohs regarded themselves as his viceroys on earth. The attempted "reform" of Amen-hotep IV., which, as we saw, was so disastrous for his line, was largely an attempt to restore the purer worship of the Sun-god, not as Re but as Aton. But the priests of Amon-Re, who had already looked with disfavor, which they dared not express, upon the claims of the earlier Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty--Amen-hotep III. during his lifetime had gone so far as to build a temple in which he worshipped his own _ka_, broke with Amen-hotep IV., were persecuted by him after he had removed to his new city, but in the end were able to overthrow the dynasty and place upon the throne kings who would recognize them as the intermediaries between god and man. In the end they themselves seized the throne--and it was not long before Egyptian history was at an end.