Ptah.
Though these four appearances may well seem to exhaust all the aspects under which the sun can be considered, there are still several other attributes belonging to him which the ancient Egyptians noticed and personified into other sun-gods. These we will enumerate more briefly. Ptah, a god of the first order, worshipped with great magnificence at Memphis, personified the life-giving power of the sun’s beams, and in this character was sometimes mixed up with Osiris, and in the ritual is spoken of also as the creative principle, the ‘word’ or ‘power’ by which the essential deity revealed itself in the visible works of creation. Another deity, Mandoo, appears to personify the fierce power of the sun’s rays at midday in summer, and was looked upon as the god of vengeance and destruction, a leader in war, answering in some measure, though not entirely, to the war-gods of other mythologies.
Sekhet-Pasht.
There were also Gom, Moui, and Kons, who are spoken of always as the sons of the sun-god, those who reveal him or carry his messages to mankind, and in them the rays, as distinguished from the disk of the sun, are apparently personified. The rays of the sun had also a feminine personification in Sekhet or Sekhet-Pasht, the goddess with the lioness’s head. To her several different and almost opposite qualities were attributed: as, indeed, an observer of the burning and enlightening rays of an Eastern sun might be doubtful whether to speak oftenest of the baleful fever-heat with which they infect the blood, or of their vivifying effects upon the germs of animal and vegetable life. Thus the lioness-goddess was at once feared and loved; dreaded at one moment as the instigator of fierce passions and unruly desires, invoked at another as the giver of joy, the source of all tender and elevating emotions. Her name, Pasht, means ‘the lioness,’ and was perhaps suggested by the fierceness of the sun’s rays, answering to the lion’s fierce strength or the angry light of his eyes. She was also called the ‘Lady of the Cave,’ suggesting something of mystery and concealment. Her chief worship was at Bubastis; but, judging from the frequency of her representations, must have been common throughout Egypt.
Thoth.
We will now take the second great light of the heavens, the moon, and consider the forms under which it was personified by the Egyptians. Rising and setting like the sun, and disappearing for regular periods, the moon was represented by a god, who, like the god of the setting sun, occupied a conspicuous position among the powers of the under-world, and was closely connected with thoughts of the existence of the soul after death, and the judgment pronounced on deeds done in the body. Thoth, ‘the Word,’ the ‘Lord of Divine Words,’ was the title given to this deity; but though always making one in the great assemblage in the judgment-hall, his office towards the dead does not approach that of Osiris in dignity. He is not the judge, he is the recorder who stands before the balance with the dread account in his hand, while the trembling soul awaits the final sentence. His character is that of a just recorder, a speaker of true words; he wears the ostrich feather, the token of exact rigid evenness and impartiality, and yet he is represented as having uneven arms, as if to hint that the cold white light of justice, untempered by the warmth of love, cannot thoroughly apprehend what it seems to take exact account of, leaving, after all, one side unembraced, unenlightened, as the moonlight casts dense shadows around the spots where its beams fall. The silent, watching, peering moon! Who has not at times felt an inkling of the parable which the ancient Egyptians told of her cold eye and her unwarming rays which enlighten chilly, and point out while they distort?
In spite of his uneven arms, however, Thoth (the dark moon and the light moon) was a great god, bearing sway in both worlds in accordance with his double character of the revealed and the hidden orb. On earth he is the great teacher, the inventor of letters, of arithmetic, and chronology; the ‘Lord of Words,’ the ‘Lover of Truth,’ the ‘Great and Great.’ Thoth was sometimes represented under the form of an ape; but most frequently with a human figure ibis-headed; the ibis, on account of his mingled black and white feathers, symbolizing the dark and the illumined side of the moon. Occasionally, however, he is drawn with a man’s face, and bearing the crescent moon on his head, surmounted by an ostrich feather; in his hand he holds his tablets and his recording pencil.
Maut and
Neit.
The sky-divinities were all feminine among the Egyptians; representing the feminine principle of receptivity, the sky being regarded by them mainly as the abode, the home, of the sun and moon gods. The greatest of the sky-deities was Maut, or Mut, the mother, who represents the deep violet night sky, tenderly brooding over the hot exhausted earth when the day was over, and wooing all living things to rest, by stretching cool, protecting arms above and around them. The beginning of all things, abysmal calm, but above all, motherhood, were the metaphysical conceptions which the ancient Egyptians connected with the aspect of the brooding heavens at midnight, and which they worshipped as the oldest primeval goddess, Maut. The night sky, however, suggested another thought, and gave rise to yet another personification. Night does not bring only repose; animals and children sleep, but men wake and think; and, the strife of day being hushed, have leisure to look into their own minds, and listen to the still small voice that speaks within. Night was thus the parent of thought, the mother of wisdom, and a personification of the night sky was worshipped as the goddess of wisdom. She was named Neit, a word signifying ‘I came from myself,’ and she has some attributes in common with the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athene, whose warlike character she shared. Nu, another sky-goddess, who personifies the sunlit blue midday sky, may also on other accounts claim kinship with the patroness of Athens. She is the life-giver—the joy-inspirer. Clothed in the sacred colour which the life-giving river reflects, the midday sky was supposed to partake of the river’s vivifying qualities, and its goddess Nu is very frequently pictured as seated in the midst of the tree of life, giving of its fruits to faithful souls who have completed their time of purification and travel in the under-world, and are waiting for admission to the Land of Aoura, the last stage of preparation before they are received into the immediate presence of the great gods.
Saté and
Hathor.