But Aten was in the things which he had created; [pg 099] he was the living one in whom all life is contained, and at whose command they spring into existence. There was no chaos of matter outside and before him; he had created “that which was not,” and had formed it all. He was not, therefore, a national or tribal god, whose power and protection did not extend beyond the locality in which he was acknowleged and the territory on which his high places stood; on the contrary, he was the God of the whole universe; not only Egypt, but “all lands” and all peoples are called upon to adore him, and even the birds and the flowers grow and live through him. For the first time in history, so far as we know, the doctrine was proclaimed that the Supreme Being was the God of all mankind.
The fact is remarkable from whatever point of view it may be regarded. The date of Khu-n-Aten is about 1400 b.c., a century before the Exodus and the rise of Mosaism. More than once it has been suggested that between Mosaism and the “doctrine” of Aten there may have been a connection. But in Mosaism we look in vain for any traces of pantheism. The Yahveh of the Commandments stands as much outside His creation as the man whom He had made in His own image; His outlines are sharply defined, and He is the God of the Hebrews rather than of the rest of the world. The first Commandment bears the fact on its forefront: other nations have their gods whose existence is admitted, but Yahveh is the God of Israel, and therefore Him only may Israel serve.
Lecture V. Animal Worship.
St. Clement of Alexandria thus describes the religion of his Egyptian neighbours (Pædag. iii. 2): “Among (the Egyptians) the temples are surrounded with groves and consecrated pastures; they are provided with propylæa, and their courts are encircled with an infinite number of columns; their walls glitter with foreign marbles and paintings of the highest art; the sanctuary is resplendent with gold and silver and electrum, and many-coloured stones from India and Ethiopia; the shrine within it is veiled by a curtain wrought with gold. But if you pass beyond into the remotest part of the enclosure in the expectation of beholding something yet more excellent, and look for the image which dwells in the temple, a pastophorus or some other minister, singing a pæan in the Egyptian language with a pompous air, draws aside a small portion of the curtain, as if about to show us the god; and makes us burst into a loud laugh. For no god is found therein, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent sprung from the soil, or some such brute animal ... and the Egyptian deity is revealed as a beast that rolls itself on a purple coverlet.”
St. Clement was a Christian philosopher and apologist, but the animal worship of the Egyptians was quite as much an object of ridicule to the pagan writers of Greece and Rome. “Who has not heard,” says Juvenal (Sat. [pg 101] xv.),—“who has not heard, where Egypt's realms are named—
“What monster gods her frantic sons have framed?
Here Ibis gorged with well-grown serpents, there
The crocodile commands religious fear;...