Religion of Ancient Egypt.
The life of the ancient Egyptians was in a great measure controlled by their religious beliefs. In prehistoric times, as has already been explained, each nome, or province, was independent, and was the home of some tribe or tribes. Just as we find the American Indian worshipping the stick that was powerful enough to throw him in the forest, so these primitive people worshipped animals and trees. Each animate object was conceived as possessing a soul or spirit, and this spirit accounted for the qualities or characteristics of the object—were they good or ill. A lion possessed savage tendencies—hence they would worship him and propitiate his spirit, and their attitude was the same toward the crocodile, the ram, the elephant, and many other animals. The date-palm brought them great blessings—therefore they would worship the tree and insure a continuance of these blessings. As time went on, they grew to worship gods, and to the gods these trees and animals, worshipped earlier on their own account, were thought sacred.
Each village and town had its own local deity and special objects of worship, while the nome as a whole recognized gods of a more general character. In this way, each province of Upper Egypt—which was older in civilization than the Delta—and various portions of Lower Egypt, developed religions complete and independent of one another. After many hundred years, when all Egypt was united under one government and one king, the priests attempted to comprise these various beliefs into a common faith, to recognize the principal gods of all the nomes in the temples, and to evolve one religious system from the many local systems. This they never succeeded in fully accomplishing. They included in their lists some seventy deities, and harmonized some features of worship, but each locality clung to its ancient deity and several different religions can be traced throughout Egyptian history.
Like most primitive people, the Egyptians worshipped the sun. This god revealed himself in many forms, but chiefly as Horus, represented by a falcon, and Re or Ra, represented by the Scarabaeus.
Osiris ruled in the kingdom of the dead, and he was thought to be just and good. With his wife, Isis, and his son, Horus, he was worshipped throughout the land, while everywhere Set was regarded as the principle of Evil.
Qeb was the god of Earth and Nut, his wife, the queen of the heavens, which in this connection signifies the skies. Their children were Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nebthet (Nephthys). Mat was the goddess of truth and justice.
One finds similarities between some of these divinities and the divinities of the Greeks—as for example, Nut reminds one of Hera, and Set was feared as much as Pluto; but it is dangerous to make these comparisons, for the religious conceptions of the two nations were fundamentally different.
The Egyptians usually represented their deities with human bodies and the heads of the animal sacred to each. So, for example, Horus always has the head of a sparrow-hawk; Thot, that of an Ibis, and so on. The prominent feature of this religion was the veneration of animals. It was believed that sometimes the god-spirit took up his abode within certain animals, and for this reason certain animals were regarded as sacred and were therefore, objects of worship. Ptah was the god of Memphis. He, it was believed, took the form of the Apis-bull, hence this bull was regarded as sacred.
"The Apis bull dwelt in a temple of his own near the city, had his train of attendant priests, his meals of the choicest food, his grooms and currycombers who kept his coat clean and beautiful, his chamberlains who made up his bed, his cup-bearers who brought his water, and on certain days was led in a festive procession through the main streets of the town, so that the inhabitants might see him, and come forth from their dwellings and make obeisance. When he died he was carefully embalmed, and deposited, together with magnificent jewels and statuettes and vases, in a polished granite sarcophagus, cut out of a single block, and weighing between sixty and seventy tons. The cost of an Apis funeral amounted sometimes, as we are told, to as much as $100,000. Near Memphis the number of Apis bulls buried in this fashion was found to be sixty-four."[1]
In another locality the crocodile was the object of adoration, because, as in the case of the Apis bull, it was believed that some god dwelt within it.