These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory details concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the history of its consecutive development from the very first; what manner of life had been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and the names or adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had left the blessed banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands; by what stages and in what length of time those who had not emigrated rose out of native barbarism into that degree of culture to which the most ancient monuments bore testimony. No efforts of imagination were needful for the satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of indigenous traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble to work it out systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous elements. The priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had already taken in hand the same task with regard to the myths referring to the creation; and the Enneads provided them with a ready-made framework. They changed the gods of the Ennead into so many kings, determined with minute accuracy the lengths of their reigns, and compiled their biographies from popular tales. The duality of the feudal god supplied an admirable expedient for connecting the history of the world with that of chaos. Tûmû was identified with Nû, and relegated to the primordial Ocean: Râ was retained, and proclaimed the first king of the world. He had not established his rule without difficulty. The "Children of Defeat," beings hostile to order and light, engaged him in fierce battles; nor did he succeed in organizing his kingdom until he had conquered them in nocturnal combat at Hermopolis, and even at Heliopolis itself.[*]
* The Children of Defeat, in Egyptian Mosû batashû, or
Mosû batashît, are often confounded with the followers of
Sit, the enemies of Osiris. From the first they were
distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the
sun, with the dragon Apôpi at their head. Their defeat at
Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the
sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order
and light for chaos and darkness. This defeat is mentioned
in chap xvii. of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition,
vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 3, et seq.), in which connexion E. de
Rougé first explained its meaning. In the same chapter of
the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis.
xxiv., xxv., 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the
battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Râ
appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
great serpent.
Pierced with wounds, Apôpi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus, the son of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the Ennead itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated him in favour of the feudal divinity,—Amon at Thebes, Thot at Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,—keeping the rest of the dynasty absolutely unchanged.[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige by becoming incarnate and descending to earth. Since they were men of finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working, were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over the infancy and childhood of primeval man. The raillery in which the Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured and even ridiculous rôles ascribed to them in certain legends, do not prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled. The greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship, the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Râ. His world was ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still reposed in the arms of Sibû, earth and sky were but one.[**]
* Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
Atûmû, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Râ."
Atûmû-Khopri-Râ being the first earthly king, it follows
that the Majesty of Thot, with whom Ptolemy identifies
himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Râ,
is also the first earthly king.
** This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is
clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of
The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky
until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an
end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in
existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of
the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it
is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the
upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before
Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her
above the body of her husband.
Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable, animal, and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and the nomes themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests, without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the time of Râ.
* This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of
the fields of Ialû in chap. ex. of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with
the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead
still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed
during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to
say, under the direct rule of Râ.
It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors. Râ dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"—Haït Sarû,—passed for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food, received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and household affairs. It was said that the oîrû maû—the high priest of Râ, the hankistît—his high priestess, and generally speaking all the servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfû (Rosellini,
Monumenti del Culto, pl. xxxviii. No. 1).