Phrases such as the following may be gleaned from Akhnaton’s hymns: “Thy rising is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, O living Aton, who dispensest life; shining from the eastern horizon of heaven, Thou fillest Egypt with Thy beauty.” “Thy setting is beautiful, O living Aton, ... who guidest ... all countries that they may make laudations at Thy dawning and at Thy setting.” “When the Aton rises all the land is in joy; His rays produce eyes for all that He has created; and men say, ‘It is life to see Him, there is death in not seeing Him.’” “When Thou settest alive,[47] O Aton, West and East give praise to thee.” “Thou settest behind the western horizon; Thou settest in life and gladness, and every eye rejoices though they are in darkness after Thou settest.” “When Thou hast risen they live; when Thou settest they die.”
The ceremonial side of the religion does not seem to have been complex. The priests, of whom there were very few, offered sacrifices, consisting mostly of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, to the Aton, and at these ceremonies the king and his family often officiated. They then sang psalms and offered prayers, and, with much sweet music, gave praise to the great Father of joy and love. The Aton, however, was not thought to delight in these ceremonies as He did in more natural thanksgivings. Why should God be praised in set phrases and studied poses when all the fair world was shouting for the joy of Him? The young calf frisking through the poppy-covered meadows, the birds singing upon the trees, the clouds racing across the sky, were the true worshippers of God.
One of the recently discovered sayings of Christ closely parallels Akhnaton’s utterances. “Ye ask,” it runs, “who are those that draw us to the kingdom if the kingdom is in heaven? The fowls of the air, and all the beasts that are under the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the kingdom is within you.” The contemplation of nature was more to Akhnaton than many ceremonies, and his thoughts were more easily drawn upwards by the rustle of the leaves than by the shaking of the systrum.
4. THE GOODNESS OF ATON.
In the gardens of the City of the Horizon Akhnaton was surrounded on all sides by the joyous beauties of nature. Here the birds sang merrily in the laden trees, here the cool north wind rustled through the leaves, setting them dancing upon their stems, here the many-coloured blossoms nodded to their reflections in the still lakes; and, as he watched the sunlight playing with the blue shadows, his heart seemed to fill to repletion with gratitude to God. “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!” was his constant cry. “The whole land is in joy and holiday because of Thee. They shout to the height of heaven, they receive joy and gladness when they see Thee.” How “fair of form” was the formless Aton, how “radiant of colour”! “All that Thou hast made,” said the king, “leaps before Thee.” “Thou makest the beauty of form through Thyself alone.” “Eyes have life at sight of Thy beauty; hearts have health when the Aton shines.”
As the psalmist sang, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” so Akhnaton, in the fulness of his heart, cried, “There is no poverty for him who hath set Thee in his heart; such an one cannot say, ‘O, that I had.’” “When Thou bringest life to men’s hearts by Thy beauty, there is indeed life.” The Aton “gave health to the eyes by His rays,” and, “bright, great, gleaming, high above all the earth,” he was “the cause of plenty,”—the very “food and fatness of Egypt.” To David, several centuries later, God seemed to be “a strong tower of defence”; and, thinking along the same lines, Akhnaton called the Aton his “wall of brass of a million cubits.” The Aton was “the witness of that which pertains to eternity,” and to those whose thoughts had strayed he was “the remembrancer of eternity.” He was the “Lord of Fate,” the “Lord of Fortune,” the “Master of that which is ordained,” the “Origin of Fate,” the “Chance which gives Life”; and in so describing him Akhnaton reached a philosophical position which even to-day is quite unassailable.
Unlike Jehovah, who was described as “great above all other gods,” the Aton was conceived as being without rivals; and Akhnaton now never mentions the word “gods.” “The living Aton beside whom there is no other,” is one of the common phrases; and of Him again it is written, “Thou art alone, but infinite vitalities are in Thee by means of which to give life to Thy creatures.”
Unlike Jehovah again, who was not infrequently thought to be a wrathful god, surrounded by clouds and darkness, and speaking through the roar of the thunders, the Aton was the “Lord of Peace,” who could not tolerate battle and strife. Akhnaton was so opposed to war that he persistently refused to offer an armed resistance to the subsequent revolts which occurred in his Asiatic dominions. The Aton was a deity to whose tender heart human bloodshed made no appeal. In an age of martial glory, when the sword and buckler, the plumed helmet and the shirt of mail, glittered in every street and upon every highway, Akhnaton set himself in opposition to all heroics, and saw God without melodrama.
Above all things the Aton loved truth. Frankness, sincerity, straightforwardness, honesty, and veracity were qualities not always to be found in the heart of an Egyptian; and Akhnaton, in antagonism to the sins of hypocrisy and deception which he saw around him, always spoke of himself as “living in truth.” “I have set truth in my inward parts,” says one of his followers, “and falsehood is my loathing; for I know that the King rejoiceth in truth.”