Nut—A woman curved so as to touch the ground with her fingers. She represents the vault of Heaven, and is the mother of the gods.
Hathor—Cow-headed, and crowned with the disk and plumes. Deity of Amenti, or the Egyptian Hades. Worshiped at Denderah.
Bast and Sekhet—Bast and Sekhet appear to be two forms of the same goddess. As Sekhet she is represented as a woman, lion-headed, with the disk and uræus; as Bast, she is cat-headed, and holds a sistrum. Adored at Bubastis.
APPENDIX III.
THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF THE EGYPTIANS.
Did the Egyptians believe in one eternal god whose attributes were merely symbolized by their numerous deities; or must the whole structure of their faith be resolved into a solar myth, with its various and inevitable ramifications? This is the great problem of Egyptology, and it is a problem that has not yet been solved. Egyptologists differ so widely on the subject that it is impossible to reconcile their opinions. As not even the description of a temple is complete without some reference to this important question, and as the question itself underlies every notion we may form of ancient Egypt, and ancient Egyptians, I have thought it well to group here a few representative extracts from the works of one or two of the greatest authorities upon the subject.
“The religion of the Egyptians consisted of an extended polytheism represented by a series of local groups. The idea of a single deity self-existing or produced was involved in the conception of some of the principal gods, who are said to have given birth to or produced gods, men, all beings and things. Other deities were considered to be self-produced. The sun was the older object of worship, and in his various forms, as the rising, midday and setting sun, was adored under different names, and was often united, especially at Thebes, to the types of other deities, as Amen and Mentu. The oldest of all the local deities, Ptah, who was worshiped at Memphis, was a demiurgos or creator of Heaven, earth, gods and men, and not identified with the sun. Besides the worship of the solar gods, that of Osiris extensively prevailed, and with it the antagonism of Set, the Egyptian devil, the metempsychosis or transmigration of the soul, the future judgment, the purgatory or Hades, the Karneter, the Aahlu or Elysium, and final union of the soul to the body after the lapse of several centuries. Besides the deities of Heaven, the light, and the lower world, others personified the elements or presided over the operations of nature, the seasons and events.”—“Guide to the First and Second Egyption Rooms: Brit. Mus.” S. Birch, 1874.
“This religion, obscured as it is by complex mythology, has lent itself to many interpretations of a contradictory nature, none of which have been unanimously adopted. But that which is beyond doubt, and which shines forth from the texts for the whole world’s acceptance, is the belief in one God. The polytheism of the monuments is but an outward show. The innumerable gods of the Pantheon are but manifestations of the one being in his various capacities. That taste for allegory which created the hieroglyphic writing, found vent likewise in the expression of the religious idea; that idea being, as it were, stifled in the later periods by a too-abundant symbolism.”—P. Pierret, “Dictionaire d’Arch. Égyptienne,” 1875. Translated from an article on “Réligion.”
“This god of the Egyptians was unique, perfect, endued with knowledge and intelligence, and so far incomprehensible that one can scarcely say in what respects he is incomprehensible. He is the one who exists by essence; the one sole life of all substance; the one single generator in heaven and earth who is not himself engendered; the father of fathers; the mother of mothers; always the same, immutable in immutable perfection; existing equally in the past, the present and the future. He fills the universe in such wise that no earthly image can give the feeblest notion of his immensity. He is felt everywhere; he is tangible nowhere.”—G. Maspero. Translated from “Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient.” Paris, 1876, chap, i, p. 26.
“Unfortunately, the more we study the religion of ancient Egypt the more our doubts accumulate with regard to the character which must finally be attributed to it. The excavations carried on of late at Denderah and Edfu have opened up to us an extraordinary fertile source of material. These temples are covered with texts, and present precisely the appearance of two books which authoritatively treat not only of the gods to which these two temples are dedicated, but of the religion under its more general aspects. But neither in these temples, nor in those which have been long known to us, appears the one god of Jamblichus. If Ammon is ‘The First of the First’ at Thebes, if Phtah is at Memphis ‘The Father of all Beings, without Beginning or End,’ so also is every other Egyptian god separately endowed with these attributes of the Divine Being. In other words, we everywhere find gods who are uncreate and immortal; but nowhere that unique, invisible deity, without name and without form, who was supposed to hover above the highest summit of the Egyptian pantheon. The Temple of Denderah, now explored to the end of its most hidden inscriptions, of a certainty furnishes no trace of this deity. The one result which above all others seems to be educed from the study of this temple, is that (according to the Egyptians) the universe was god himself, and that Pantheism formed the foundation of their religion.”—A. Mariette Bey. Translated from “Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte.” Alexandria, 1872, p. 54.
“The sun is the most ancient object of Egyptian worship found upon the monuments. His birth each day when he springs from the bosom of the nocturnal Heaven is the natural emblem of the eternal generation of the divinity. Hence the celestial space became identified with the divine mother. It was particularly the nocturnal Heaven which was represented by this personage. The rays of the sun, as they awakened all nature, seemed to give life to animated beings. Hence that which doubtless was originally a symbol became the foundation of the religion. It is the sun himself whom we find habitually invoked as the supreme being. The addition of his Egyptian name, Ra, to the names of certain local divinities, would seem to show that this identification constituted a second epoch in the history of the religions of the Valley of the Nile.”—Viscount E. de Rougé. Translated from “Notice Sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens du Louvre.” Paris, 1873, p. 120.