Combining the information thus obtained, we learn that, according to the Egyptian representation, the soul is led by the god Thoth into Amenthe, the infernal world, the entrance to which lies in the extreme west, on the farther side of the sea, where the sun goes down under the earth. It was in accordance with this supposition that Herod caused to be engraved, on a magnificent monument erected to his deceased wife, the line, "Zeus, this blooming woman sent beyond the ocean." 17 At the entrance sits a wide throated monster, over whose head is the inscription, "This is the devourer of many who go into Amenthe, the lacerator of the heart of him who comes with sins to the house of justice." The soul next kneels before the forty two assessors of Osiris, with deprecating asseverations and intercessions. It then comes to the final trial in the terrible Hall of the two Truths, the approving and the condemning; or, as it is differently named, the Hall of the double Justice, the rewarding and the punishing. Here the three divinities Horns, Anubis, and Thoth proceed to weigh the soul in the balance. In one scale an image of Thmei, the goddess of Truth, is placed; in the other, a heart shaped vase, symbolizing the heart of the deceased with all the actions of his earthly life. Then happy is he "Who, weighed 'gainst Truth, down dips the awful scale."
Thoth notes the result on a tablet, and the deceased advances with it to the foot of the throne on which sits Osiris, lord of the dead, king of Amenthe. He pronounces the decisive sentence, and his assistants see that it is at once executed. The condemned soul is either scourged back to the earth straightway, to live again in the form of a vile animal, as some of the emblems appear to denote; or plunged into the tortures of a horrid hell of fire and devils below, as numerous engravings set forth; or driven into the atmosphere, to be vexed and tossed by tempests, violently whirled in blasts and clouds, till its sins are expiated, and another probation granted through a renewed existence in human form.
We have two accounts of the Egyptian divisions of the universe. According to the first view, they conceived the creation to consist of three grand departments. First came the earth, or zone of trial, where men live on probation. Next was the atmosphere, or zone of temporal
14 Das Todtenbuch der Agypter, edited with an introduction by Dr. Lepsius.
15 Ch. ix. of Pettigrew's History of Egyptian Mummies.
16 Champollion's Letter, dated Thebes, May 16, 1829. An abstract of this letter may be found in Stuart's trans. of Greppo's Essay on Champollion's Hieroglyphic System, appendix, note N.
17 Basnage, Hist. of the Jews, lib. ii. ch. 12, sect. 19.
punishment, where souls are afflicted for their sins. The ruler of this girdle of storms was Pooh, the overseer of souls in penance. Such a notion is found in some of the later Greek philosophers, and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jews, who undoubtedly drew it from the priestly science of Egypt. Every one will recollect how Paul speaks of "the prince of the power off the air." And Shakspeare makes the timid Claudio shrink from the verge of death with horror, lest his soul should, through ages,
"Be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world."
After their purgation in this region, all the souls live again on earth by transmigration.18 The third realm was in the serene blue sky among the stars, the zone of blessedness, where the accepted dwell in immortal peace and joy. Eusebius says, "The Egyptians represented the universe by two circles, one within the other, and a serpent with the head of a hawk twining his folds around them," thus forming three spheres, earth, firmament, divinity.