Syncretism.—The hymns contain several other speculative positions about the gods ([see above] sqq.), and we may briefly mention these. Syncretism, as we saw, is very largely represented in Egyptian thought, and enters, indeed, into its very bone and marrow. In the ennead of a city the great gods may be arranged together after the fashion of a court where one or two rule over the rest; but in numberless passages we find the relations of gods adjusted in another way, by making them one. Ra "comes as" Tum, the god is known here under one name or aspect and there under another. The names of two deities being added together, a new deity is produced; and in later times these gods with double, treble, or multiple names are among the most important. Raharmachis and Amonra are national gods, and have left much evidence of themselves.
It is a little step from syncretism to pantheism. Let the gods once lose the individual character that keeps them separate from each other, and it is possible for one god, who grows strong and great enough, to swallow up all the rest, till they appear only as his forms. In the position which they occupied in Egypt the various gods could not disappear, their local connections kept them alive; but they were so like one another that one of them could be regarded as a form of another, and a multitude of them as forms of one. The god who did most in the way of swallowing up the rest was Ra, the great sun-god of Thebes. The Litany of Ra7 represents that god as eternal and self-begotten, and sings in seventy-five successive verses seventy-five forms which he assumes; they are the forms of the gods and of all the great elements and parts of the world. The separate gods are reduced from the rank of independent potentates to shapes of Ra, and thus a kind of unity is set up in the populous Egyptian Pantheon. But Ra is not strong enough to get the better of these shapes, and to rule a sole monarch by his own right, in his own way. He is the god, but he is not an independent god; it is pantheism, not theism, to which he owes his exaltation. The one in Egypt cannot govern the many; the pure exaltation of Ra as a supreme and absolute god does not prevent the worship of a different being in each different town. The one sole god is for the priests alone, not for the people; and this belief in him does not even lead to attempts to root out the worship of animals, or to concentrate the service of the temples on him alone. And in the absence of such attempts we read the sentence condemning a religion which produced most noble fruits of thought, to grow worse and not better as time went on, and to pass away without bringing any permanent contribution to the development of the religion of the world.
7 Records of the Past, viii. 105.
Worship.—The Egyptian temple was constructed rather to afford the god a splendid residence among his people than to accommodate a large congregation at an act of worship. The temple was the public place of the community, its point of meeting (for the Egyptian town has no market-place), and its fortress when attacked (for the town is not fortified). But while the courts of the temple were open to the people, there was a holy place which only the priests might enter, where the sacred ark, the symbol of the god, remained, and where sacrifices were offered. The images about the temple were not placed there to be worshipped, but were votive offerings meant to provide the god with a body which he might enter when he chose. The obelisk is such a symbol or incorporation of the sun. On certain days the sacred objects and animals were taken in procession through the temple grounds, or made voyages on the lake belonging to the temple, or were even taken through the nome among the fields and dwellings of their people; and on these occasions representations took place symbolising the principal events in the history of the god. It was thus that the private individual came to know the god; it was a great festival and an occasion of the utmost joy when the divine protectors and benefactors of the nome, who generally remained in their splendid retirement, came forth to mingle for a brief space with the faithful community. The worship of the gods was in Egypt, as in every nation of the ancient world, a matter of state, not of individual concern. It is the chief branch of the public service; the state is under the direct rule of the gods; never was there a more absolute theocracy. The king is a child of the god,—a conception often treated in the most material way,—and being thus of more than human race, becomes himself the object of worship, and even offers sacrifice to himself. It is one of the king's chief cares to provide a stately dwelling for the god; the king himself offers sacrifice on the most important occasions. The god in his sacred ark goes with his people when they are at war and fights along with them, so that every war is a holy war. The priests are public officials, and often exercise immense influence. The king institutes them into their functions; they are exempt, as we may read in Genesis, from public burdens; every function involving learning or art is in their hands. Framed in such institutions religion is not likely to have any free growth; the time is far distant here when men will form voluntary associations of their own for spiritual ends. Yet, no doubt, the lay Egyptian had a private religion of his own as well as his share in the great public acts he witnessed. Though the gods of Egypt are nearly all good, the evil power Set was much worshipped, and would be approached in private as well as in the public acts depicted on the monuments, by all who had anything to fear from him—that is to say, by all. Every one had to treat with kindness and respect the animal species sacred in his nome, and other sacred animals. The belief in magic was strong; hidden powers had to be reckoned with on manifold occasions; sickness was imputed to the agency of evil spirits, and treated by exorcism, by persons duly trained and learned in such arts. Lucky and unlucky days, and days suitable or unsuitable for particular undertakings, filled the calendar; the belief in amulets and charms was universal. Such things we expect to find among the people, even where religious thought has risen highest.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE OTHER LIFE
Most of our knowledge about ancient Egypt is drawn from the tombs. No other nation ever bestowed so much care on the dead as the Egyptians did, nor thought of the other world so much. The living had to prepare for his further existence after death, and the dead claimed from his successors on earth elaborate offices of piety. It is in this part of the religion that there is most growth, and this part of it in its ultimate form is best known.
1. Treatment of the Dead.—The doctrine of the other world takes its rise with the Egyptians in the belief common to all early races, which was described [above]. The spirit still lives when the body dies, and it comes back to the body, and is affected by the treatment the body receives. To care for the dead is the first duty of the living, and a man must marry in order to have offspring who will pay him the necessary attention after his death. Various things are buried with the corpse for the use of the spirit, and offerings are made to it from time to time afterwards. This is no more than the common primitive belief, but the Egyptians carried it out more fully in practice than any other people. They sought to make the body incorruptible, embalming it and restoring to it all its organs, so that the spirit should be able to discharge every function of life. They placed the mummy if possible in such a situation that it should never be disturbed to the end of time; the grave they called an eternal dwelling. They even instituted endowments to secure due offerings to the dead in all coming time.
Cultivated as this part of religion was in Egypt, it could not fail to assume a special character. For one thing, there is a variety of names for what survives of man after death; we hear of his heart, his soul, his shade, his luminosity; and in the later doctrine these are all combined and made parts of one theory; all the different parts of the man have to come together again after their dispersion at death before his person is complete. The principal term, however, is the "ka," image, or, as we say, genius, of the man, a non-substantial double of him which has journeys and adventures to make, and to which the offerings are addressed. The "ka" needs food, and regular gifts are made to it of all it can require; it needs guidance and instruction, and these can be conveyed to it by pictures and writings on the walls of the tomb or in the mummy-case; even its amusement and its need of society and of ministration can be to some extent met in this way. It is not peculiar to Egypt that the advantages of wealth and rank are continued after death, and that the rich can do much more, or cause much more to be done for his eternal welfare, than the poor. The king's mummy lies in a pyramid, where it will never be moved; that of the noble in a rock-tomb or a stately edifice or "mastaba"; the poor man has to be content with an inferior kind of embalming, and a tomb of tiles if he gets any at all; and no priest can be retained to pray for him.
2. The Spirit in the Under-world.—Before history opens, this common belief and practice in regard to the dead had come to be combined in Egypt with the worship of a solar deity; a step of immense importance, which added immeasurably to the pathos and the moral power of this kind of religion.
Milton says in Lycidas—