The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia

by A. H. Sayce

It is indeed true that the Egyptians of a later period, when the Osirian doctrine of the Resurrection was fully developed, found an analogy to it in the seed that is sown in order to grow again. The tomb of Ma-her-pa-Ra, the fan-bearer of Amon-hotep ii. of the Eighteenth Dynasty, discovered by M. Loret in the valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, contains a proof of this. In it was a rudely-constructed bed with a mattress, on which the figure of Osiris had been drawn. On this earth was placed, and in the earth grains of corn had been sown. The corn had sprouted and grown to the height of a few inches before it had withered away. But such symbolism is, like the similar symbolism of Christianity, the result of the doctrine of the resurrection and not the origin of it. It is not till men believe that the human body can rise again from the sleep of corruption, that the growth of the seed which has been buried in the ground is invoked to explain and confirm their creed.

How came this doctrine of the resurrection to be attached to the cult of Osiris and to become an integral part of Egyptian belief? There is only one answer that can be given to this: the doctrine of the resurrection was a necessary accompaniment of the practice of mummification, and Osiris was a mummified god.

We have already seen that old Babylonian hymns [pg 168] describe Asari or Merodach as the god “who raises the dead to life.” We have also seen that Osiris was not the only mummified god known in Egypt. Ptaḥ of Memphis was also a mummy; so too was the mummified Horus of Nekhen, who was worshipped even in the Delta in the “Arabian” nome of Goshen on the borders of Asia. Whether or not the practice of embalming first originated at Nekhen, where it was discovered that bodies buried in the nitrogenous soil of El-Kab were preserved undecayed, it is certain that, like the art of writing, it characterised the Pharaonic Egyptians from the earliest times. In no other way can we explain the existence among them of their mummified gods. But its adoption by the older races who still formed the bulk of the people was but gradual. It did not become universal before the age of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

It was not, however, the bulk of the people, but the ruling classes, who worshipped Osiris, and among whom his cult spread and grew. He became for them Un-nefer, “the good being,” ready to heal for them even the pains of death, and to receive them in his realm beyond the grave, where life and action would be restored to them. The sun shone there as it did here, for was not Osiris himself a sun-god? the fields of the blessed were like those of Egypt, except that no sickness or death came near them, that no blight ever fell on fruit or corn, that the Nile never failed, and that the heat was always tempered by the northern breeze.

The “field of Alu,” the Elysion of the Greeks, was at first in the marshes of the Delta near the mouths of the Nile, like the paradise of early Babylonia, which too was “at the mouth of the rivers.” But it soon migrated to the north-eastern portion of the sky, and the Milky Way became the heavenly Nile. Here the dead lived [pg 169] in perpetual happiness under the rule of Osiris, working, feasting, reading, even fighting, as they would below, only without pain and eternally.[142]

But, in order to share in this state of bliss, it was necessary for the believer in Osiris to become like the god himself. He must himself be an Osiris, according to the Egyptian expression. His individuality remained intact; as he had been on earth, so would he be in heaven. The Osiris, in fact, was a spiritualised body in which the immortal parts of man were all united together. Soul and spirit, heart and double, all met together in it as they had done when the individual was on earth.

It is clear that the doctrine of the Osiris in its developed form is inconsistent with the idea of the ka. But it is also clear that without the idea of the ka it would never have been formed. Both presuppose an individuality separate from the person to which it belongs, and yet at the same time material, an individuality which continues after death and manifests itself under the same shape as that which characterised the person in life. The popular conception of the ghost, which reproduces not only the features but even the dress of the dead, is analogous. Fundamentally the Osiris is a ka, but it is a ka which represents not only the outward shape, but the inner essence as well. The whole man is there, spiritually, morally, intellectually, as well as corporeally. The doctrine of the Osiris thus absorbs, as it were, the old idea of the ka, and spiritualises it, at the same time confining it to the life after death.

But if the conception of a double, unsubstantial and yet materialised, underlay the belief in the Osiris, the practice of embalming was equally responsible for it. The continued existence of the double was dependent on the continued existence of the body, for the one presupposed the other, and it was only the mummified body which could continue to exist. As long as the double was believed to haunt the tomb, and there receive the food and other offerings which were provided for it, the connection between it and the mummy presented no difficulties. But when the Egyptian came to look forward to the heaven of Osiris, first on this nether earth and then in the skies, the case was wholly altered. The mummy lay in the tomb, the immortal counterpart of the man himself was in another and a spiritual world. The result was inevitable: the follower of Osiris soon assured himself that one day the mummified body also would have life and action again breathed into it and rejoin its Osiris in the fields of paradise. Had not the god carried thither his divine body as well as its counterpart? and what the god had done those who had become even as he was could also do.

In this way the doctrine of the resurrection of the body became an integral part of the Osirian faith. The future happiness to which its disciples looked forward was not in absorption into the divinity, or contemplation of the divine attributes, or a monotonous existence of passive idleness. They were to live as they had done in this life, only without sorrow and suffering, without sin, and eternally. But all their bodily powers and interests were to remain and be gratified as they could not be in this lower world. The realm over which Osiris ruled was the idealised reproduction of that Egypt which the Egyptian loved so well, with its sunshine and light, its broad and life-bearing river, its fertile fields, [pg 171] and its busy towns. Those who dwelt in it could indeed feast and play, could lounge in canoes and fish or hunt, could read tales and poems or write treatises on morality, could transform themselves into birds that alighted among the thick foliage of the trees; but they must also work as they had done here, must cultivate the soil before it would produce its ears of wheat two cubits high, must submit to the corvée and embank the canals. The Osirian heaven had no place for the idle and inactive.

No sooner, indeed, had the dead man been pronounced worthy of admittance to it, than he was called upon to work. At the very outset of his new existence, before any of its pleasures might be tasted, he was required to till the ground and guide the plough. This was no hardship to the poor fellah who had spent his life in agricultural labour. But it was otherwise with the rich man whose lands had been cultivated by others, while he himself had merely enjoyed their produce. In the early days of Egyptian history, accordingly, it was the fashion for the feudal landowner to surround his tomb with the graves of his servants and retainers, whose bodies were mummified and buried at his expense. What they had performed for him in this world, it was believed they would perform for him in the world to come. There, too, the Osiris of the fellah would work for the Osiris of the wealthy, whose necessary task would thus be performed vicariously.