Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

But, supposing that the mummy had passed this earthly ordeal, he was then committed to his earthly resting-place; and this Book of the Dead, either the whole, or what was deemed the most essential part of it, was placed on, or in the mummy case: sometimes it was inscribed on the sarcophagus. These were the instructions which were to guide him on the long, dread, difficult course upon which he was about to enter. He will have to appear in the hall of two-fold Divine Justice—the justice, that is, which rewards as well as punishes. Osiris, the judge of the dead, will look on, as president of the court. He will wear the emblem of truth, and the tablet breast-plate, containing the figure of Divine Justice. The scales of Divine Justice will be produced. The heart of the mummy will be placed in one scale, and the figure of Divine Justice in the other. The mummy will stand by the scale in which his heart is being weighed. Anubis, the Guardian of the Dead, will watch the opposite scale. Thoth, who had been the revealer to man of the divine words, of which the Sacred Books of Egypt were transcripts, will be present to record the sentence.

The book contains, for the use of the mummy, the forty-two denials of sin he will have to make in the presence of this awful court, while his heart is in the balance, and the forty-two avenging demons, all ape-faced, symbolizing man in the extremity of degradation, with reason perverted and without conscience, and each with the pitiless knife in his raised hand, will be standing by, ready to claim him, or some part of him, if the balance indicates that the denial is false. These forty-two denials have reference to the ordinary duties of human life, such as all civilized people have understood them; though, of course, as might have been expected, the forms of some of these duties are Egyptian, as, for instance, that of using the waters of the irrigation fairly, and without prejudice to the rights of others: an application to the circumstances of Egypt, of the universally received ideas of fairness and justice, which the working of human society must, everywhere, give birth to. The denials also include, as again we might be sure they would, the mummy’s observance of Egyptian ceremonial law.

There is still a great deal more in the book. The mummy will have to achieve many difficult passages before he can attain the empyrean gate, through which those who have been found true in the balance, for that is the meaning of the Egyptian word for the justified, are at last admitted to the realms of pure and everlasting light. This gate is the gate of the Sun, and this light is the presence of the Sun-god. There will be many adversaries that will be lying-in-wait for him, seeking to fasten charges of one kind or another upon him, and to destroy him. The book tells him how he is to comport himself, and what he is to do, as each of these occasions arise. There are certain halls, for instance, through which he will have to pass. These halls he will find inhabited by demons, but they are a necessary part of the great journey. And the entrance to them he will find barred and guarded by demon door-keepers. Here mystical names and words must be used, which alone will enable the mummy to get by these demon door-keepers, and through these demon-inhabited halls. These names and words of power he will find in the book. We here have traces of the thought of primitive times, when men regarded with wonder, deepening into awe, the supposed mysterious efficacy of articulate sound.

One demon, in particular, will endeavour to secure the mummy’s head. In a hellish place he must cross, a net will be spread to entangle him. He will have to journey through regions of thick darkness, and to confront the fury of the Great Dragon. He will have to go through places where he may incur pollution; through others where he may become subject to corruption. He will have to submit to a fiery ordeal. He will have to work out a course of carefully and toilsomely conducted husbandry, the harvest of which will be knowledge. He will have to obtain the air that is untainted, the water that is of heaven, and the bread of Ra and Seb. The book will give him all the needful instructions on these, and on all other matters where he will require guidance.

Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress enables us to understand this Book of the Dead. The aim of both is the same. Each presents a picture of the hindrances and difficulties, both from within and from without, and of the requirements and aids of the soul, in its struggle to attain to the higher life. The Egyptian doctrine places the scene in the passage from this life to the next. The Elstow tinker places it, allegorically, in this life. But this is a difference that is immaterial. The ideas of both are fundamentally the same. The consciousness to which they both appeal is the same. The old Egyptian of 5,000 or 6,000 years ago received the teaching of his book on precisely the same grounds as we ourselves at this day receive the teaching of the Pilgrim. With how much additional authority does this discovery invest these ideas! The mind must be more or less than human that arrays itself against what has, so overwhelmingly, approved itself semper, ubique, et omnibus.

The antiquity of the book is very great. Portions of it are found on the mummy cases of the eleventh dynasty. This shows that it was in use 4,000 years ago. But this was very far from having been the date of its first use; for even then it had become so old as to be unintelligible to royal scribes; and we find that, in consequence, it was at that remote time the custom to give together with the sacred text its interpretation.

All collections of Egyptian antiquities contain copies of this book, or of portions of it. Several are to be seen in our British Museum. Of course this abundance of copies results from the nature of the book, and the use to which it was put. It was literally the viaticum, the itinerary, the guide and hand-book, the route and instructions, for the mummy to and through that world, from which no traveller returns. Each of its sections is accompanied by a rubric, and generally illustrated by a vignette, directing, and showing the mummy, how the section is to be used.

I know nothing more instructive and more touching in human history than one of these old Egyptian Books of the Dead, with its doctrine, its invocations, its hymns, its prayers, its instructions, its rubrics, its illustrations. All its images are of the earth earthy. How could it be otherwise? The soul that has kept all the commandments, that has been tried in the balance and not found wanting, that has fought the good fight to final triumph through all the dangers, and temptations, and pollutions, that beset its path, reaches at last only a purer ether and eternal light.

It is easy to endeavour to dismiss all this with cold indifference, or with a cheap sneer. But those who placed this book by the side of a departed relative had hearts that were still turned towards those they could never any more behold in the flesh. All their care and thought were not for themselves. And, too, they believed in right and truth, in justice and goodness. And because they believed in them, they believed also in a world and in a life of which those principles would be the law.