1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a vignette in the papyrus of
Ani in the British Museum, published by Lepage-Renouf in the
Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol.
xi., 1889-90, pp. 26-28. The inscription above the lion on
the right reads safu, "yesterday;" the other, dûaû,
"this morning."
Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives the newborn sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a lioness when Shû is a lion, a woman when he is a man, a lioness-headed woman if he is a lion-headed man; she is angry when he is angry, appeased when he is appeased; she has no sanctuary wherein he is not worshipped. In short, the pair made one being in two bodies, or, to use the Egyptian expression, "one soul in its two twin bodies."
Hence we see that the Heliopolitans proclaimed the creation to be the work of the sun-god, Atûmû-Râ, and of the four pairs of deities who were descended from him. It was really a learned variant of the old doctrine that the universe was composed of a sky-god, Horus, supported by his four children and their four pillars: in fact, the four sons of the Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shû and Sibû, Osiris and Sit, were occasionally substituted for the four older gods of the "houses" of the world. This being premised, attention must be given to the important differences between the two systems. At the outset, instead of appearing contemporaneously upon the scene, like the four children of Horus, the four Heliopolitan gods were deduced one from another, and succeeded each other in the order of their birth. They had not that uniform attribute of supporter, associating them always with one definite function, but each of them felt himself endowed with faculties and armed with special powers required by his condition. Ultimately they took to themselves goddesses, and thus the total number of beings working in different ways at the organization of the universe was brought up to nine. Hence they were called by the collective name of the Ennead, the Nine gods—paûit nûtîrû,[*]—and the god at their head was entitled Paûîti, the god of the Ennead.
* The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in
writing paûît with the sign kh, and the word khet,
other. E. de Rougé was the first to determine its phonetic
value: "it should be read Paû, and designates a body of
gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of
gods invoked by E. de Rougé must have consisted of nine "—
of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted
either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic
interpretation of the word in his Mémoire sur la mère
d'Apis, or by E. de Rougé, or by Chabas. The interpretation
a Nine, an Ennead, was not frankly adopted until later,
and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid
texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course
the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of
name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists.
When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and continued working of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation. The first of the two secondary Enneads, generally known as the Minor Ennead, recognized as chief Harsiesis, the son of Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an earth-god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the banishment of his mother by Sit; that is, he had restored fulness to the Nile and fertility to the Delta. When Harsiesis was incorporated into the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was transplanted. He was identified with Râ through the intervention of the older Horus, Haroêris-Harmakhis, and the Minor Ennead, like the Great Ennead, began with a sun-god. This assimilation was not pushed so far as to invest the younger Horus with the same powers as his fictitious ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the everyday sun, while Atûmû-Râ was still the sun pre-mundane and eternal. Our knowledge of the eight other deities of the Minor Ennead is very imperfect.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's Manners and
Customs, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.
We see only that these were the gods who chiefly protected the sun-god against its enemies and helped it to follow its regular course. Thus Harhûditi, the Horus of Edfû, spear in hand, pursues the hippopotami or serpents which haunt the celestial waters and menace the god. The progress of the Sun-bark is controlled by the incantations of Thot, while Uapûaîtû, the dual jackal-god of Siufc, guides, and occasionally tows it along the sky from south to north. The third Ennead would seem to have included among its members Anubis the jackal, and the four funerary genii, the children of Horus—Hapi, Amsît, Tiûmaûtf, Kabhsonûf; it further appears as though its office was the care and defence of the dead sun, the sun by night, as the second Ennead had charge of the living sun. Its functions were so obscure and apparently so insignificant as compared with those exercised by the other Enneads, that the theologians did not take the trouble either to represent it or to enumerate its persons. They invoked it as a whole, after the two others, in those formulas in which they called into play all the creative and preservative forces of the universe; but this was rather as a matter of conscience and from love of precision than out of any true deference. At the initial impulse of the lord of Heliopolis, the three combined Enneads started the world and kept it going, and gods whom they had not incorporated were either enemies to be fought with, or mere attendants.
The doctrine of the Heliopolitan Ennead acquired an immediate and a lasting popularity. It presented such a clear scheme of creation, and one whose organization was so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of tradition, that the various sacerdotal colleges adopted it one after another, accommodating it to the exigencies of local patriotism. Each placed its own nome-god at the head of the Ennead as "god of the Nine," "god of the first time," creator of heaven and earth, sovereign ruler of men, and lord of all action. As there was the Ennead of Atûmû at Heliopolis, so there was that of Anhûri at Thinis and at Sebennytos; that of Minû at Coptos and at Panopolis; that of Haroêris at Edfû; that of Sobkhû at Ombos; and, later, that of Phtah at Memphis and of Amon at Thebes. Nomes which worshipped a goddess had no scruples whatever in ascribing to her the part played by Atûmû, and in crediting her with the spontaneous maternity of Shû and Tafnûît.