Before passing on with Israel into the wilderness, a chapter may be profitably devoted to pointing out how certain divine truths were corrupted in the religion of Egypt, and thereby we may obtain an insight into the manner by which the world became idolatrous. It is important to bear in mind that God recognized the deities of Egypt as gods, and that constantly in the Scriptures heathen deities are accepted as gods. The divine abhorrence of these gods should also be kept in view. Though the deeper mysteries of the ancient Egyptian religion still baffle the efforts of the Egyptologists who seek to penetrate them, yet there are certain matters in the religion which the ordinary reader can easily understand, and some of these furnish instruction for our own times.
“Upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments” (Num. 33:44For the Egyptians buried all their firstborn, which the Lord had smitten among them: upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments. (Numbers 33:4)). What these judgments were we are not told, but that they were definite and specific, and well known to those who addressed themselves to these deities, we may be certain. Further, as is evident from the Bible story, these judgments were known to Israel. By great and terrible wonders they were delivered from Egypt, and were also taught, as sang the Psalmist, that “The Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is terrible above all gods; for all the gods of the heathen are demons” (Psa. 96:4-54For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. 5For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 96:4‑5), Septuagint Version).
What has been already brought before the reader shows that the system of the Egyptian religion was one of evolution. Ideas sprang up out of ideas; conceptions out of conceptions; additions grew out of additions, with the result that the pure beginning was lost to sight, or rather that God was displaced, and demons set up in His stead.
Philosophic principle and religious pageantry, arguments and ceremonies, however, do not suffice for the human soul, and the hymns to the gods and the prayers of the Egyptians are evidence of this fact.
Man needs that which is greater than himself, a power outside the world, a being who can speak to him and assure his heart and conscience, and any religion without such assurance is worth nothing as a reality. The ancient Egyptian wanted to hear a voice, or at least to receive direction from the unseen Nvorld, and in order to obtain this communication, idols became a necessity to him. Whether it be the intellectual and cultivated, or the ignorant and savage pagan, idols or fetishes are to him indispensable. It is through them that communications are held with the unseen, and that magic and sorcery are performed. If the people be too rude to construct an image, stocks and stones are resorted to for the purpose.
Now, in itself, “an idol is nothing” (1 Cor. 8:44As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. (1 Corinthians 8:4)). The outward form it possesses is of small moment. Some are made with consummate evil looks, others are charmingly seductive, but it is by no means the effect produced upon the imagination which we have to consider. An idol is not a mere image, it is a consecrated image, and after consecration to the deity represented, the idol becomes the habitation of the deity, and according to the system, the deity takes up his or her abode in the idol, or, at least, uses it as a medium through which communications are made to his or her clients. This principle is as old as Chaldea and Egypt, and as modern as our own day as may be proved, for example, by the habits and beliefs of the Chinese.
The god was supposed to attend and to eat the sacrificial feast provided for him, and in the person of his representative – that is, the idol – was clothed and perfumed. In Chaldea, where, unlike the refinement of Egypt, a ruggedness prevailed, gods flew like hungry flies to the savor of the sacrifice. The idol instructed the client. If the answer was a negative, it remained stiff as the stone out of which it was hewn; if an affirmative, it nodded its head. “I augment to thee millions of thy years upon earth all in the account,” said Sefekh, the goddess, to Rameses II. The sayings of the gods are inscribed upon the walls of countless temples. We can easily understand who ate the sacrificial food, and who uttered the sacred words, for the priests served both gods and worshippers, and thus served themselves; but how the image nodded its head is as mysterious as are similar acts when performed in Christendom by images of the Madonna. Through the touch of the idol, and by the passes of its hand, the god infused life into his adorers. The idol was the link between the seen and the unseen, and no less than a material agent, a tangible medium by which man held communication with the invisible.
The ideas conveyed through the forms and attitudes of gods are full of significance. Through the material form, spiritual teaching is conveyed, respecting principles connected with life, supreme power, and judgment, these being attributes or qualities of the Eternal. Egypt was devoted to idols, and, as we have it from his own words, the Egyptian from his birth onwards, hour by hour, day by day until his death, and then on and on in the underworld, was ever under the control of the deities his idols represented. They never left him. Private houses had their shrines, before which the lamp was kept burning; the small chapels gave homage to the lesser deities, and the greater temples were devoted to the great gods; while all of them, whether what we should designate local “saints,” or mighty deities, “accepted sacrifices, answered prayers, and, if needful, prophesied.” The enormous business connected with this religion gave occupation to tens of thousands of vestment makers, image and shrine constructors, and priests innumerable.
Now, though at present the Egyptologist cannot trace back the Egyptian religion to its origin, he does pursue its development to a horrible degradation, as it proceeds age after age, from the pure to the abominable, from the light to the darkness. We propose to call attention to certain well-known articles of the Egyptian belief, in order to indicate that in them definite divine truths were perverted from their relation to God, and were devoted to the service of demons. We have to bear in mind that though enough truth was retained to hold man under its sway – for an eternal truth does hold man in its grasp the truth was so perverted, that man was not related by it to God; he was instead tied down by it to demons.
We begin with some truths relating to life, a matter of supreme importance to the ancient Egyptians. The gods are represented as not only beings, but living beings to whom life essentially or by self-right belongs. Each is portrayed as holding the mystic symbol of life, the circle and the ⊢, that is the sign ☥. Thus what pertains solely to the living God, these gods of Egypt, as we know them by their representations, all professed to have of themselves, and the living God was thereby supplanted.
The O standing by itself is a sign of life, but when combined with the ⊢, the symbol had a peculiarly sacred character; the mystic ☥ signifying divine life.
May not the ⊢ be an emblem of three yet one, and hence the tau, in combination with the circle, be the symbol of life pertaining to deity?
These gods made man. Originally these formers of man may have been embodied attributes of the Creator, but as time proceeded the attributes became deities sufficiently personal to do what the pictures of them represented; and as an example may be mentioned Khnum, as a potter, forming man out of the clay, and fashioning him upon a table. Thus was the word of truth, “The Lord God... breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:77And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)), made of none effect, and thus, from the earliest times, did man lose the recognition of the Creator.
These deities were represented not only as possessors of life, but as givers of life. The deities communicated it to man. They are frequently represented as touching the human subject with the sacred ☥, and thus, as giving life “to the nostrils.” We have already shown the ray of the sun having a hand attached to it emanating from the “sun-god,” and thus the god communicating life to the nostrils of man. In the plainest manner, therefore, the Creator’s prerogative was placed by Egyptian paganism in the hands of its gods.
But a divine truth still deeper in its relation to man lay within their beliefs. The fact of its presence in their religion evidences how closely their original belief followed the divine model. They not only believed in man’s eternal existence, but that, in bliss after this life, he would enjoy divine life in the presence of the gods. Covered over as it was with monstrous notions and degrading ideas about man in bliss being like the mythological cat, the ape, or the egg, yet under all this folly lay the profound reality, that man received divine life, which fitted him for the company of the divine – “He eats what the gods eat, he drinks what they drink, he lives as they live, and he dwells where they dwell.” When Scripture teaches of eternal life it unfolds very much more than a continuous existence – an endless life – it unfolds also the fact that God gives a new and divine life to man, by means of which man may enjoy Him, and dwell forever in His presence in glory; “The gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)); “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:33And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)).
The fact of such conceptions – distorted and perverted though they be – existing in earth’s early days is astounding, the more so, as the progress of religious thought (of course we except divine revelation) has evolved them entirely out of most of the religions now existing.
In the plainest and most emphatic manner the religious pictures of the Egyptians taught that divine life was necessary to enable a man to live in company with the deities. The life of the god must be communicated to the human subject, if he was eventually to dwell in the company of the god. In other words, man must needs be a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:44Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:4)) in order to enable him to enjoy the divine presence. It is quite true that their religious teaching on the subject was not emphatic, as were their religious pictures, neither was it definite; further, the teaching underwent changes. The pictures preserved their ancient form through many centuries, while the verbal teaching varied with the centuries. The symbols remained hallowed by antiquity, the meaning of the symbols became altered to suit the “new light,” which arose with near generations. But if a man “lives as” the gods “live and dwells where they dwell,” having received from them the divine life inherent to them, it is obvious that he has partaken of their nature by their gift. What then was the character of the Egyptian gods? What was their moral nature? What sort of beings were they? for they obviously lived, and thought, and acted, according to the moral nature of the “divine” life which they inherently possessed. To comprehend what these ancient pagans meant by divine life we must know what, according to their belief, was the nature of their gods.
A sufficient answer may be given by stating that it would not be possible in a book addressed to the ordinary reader of a Christian country to give even the pictures of a variety of the Egyptian gods in certain of their accepted attitudes, neither would it be possible, according to the laws of our land, to publish in our own tongue all their supposed words and actions. Regarding these gods from the platform of ordinary Christian morality, and not from that of poetic and artistic sentiment, or of scientific research, they were beings both contemptible and corrupt. By making their acquaintance we understand the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the reason why a great many of the prohibitions recorded in the books of Moses were given. Therefore their “divine life” was like themselves, and this it was which they gave to their worshippers – a life, or nature, corrupt and base, part bestial and part demoniacal, even as their images represent them! Undoubtedly there are very many magnificent poetic and artistic conceptions connected with the legends of Egypt, but could these gods be presented in flesh and blood no ordinary English home would permit such personages within its doors.
It is worthy of remark that the divine life which the pagans expected to experience amongst their deities was in no sense higher or nobler than the life which they had lived on earth. Reading novels and playing at drafts were heavenly expectations. “Let me reap there,” “eat,” “drink,” “woo there,” “Let me do all these things there, even as they are done upon earth,” prays the sacred scribe, and he expected to find his field work performed for him there even as he had had it done for him by his slaves here, and he anticipated his drudge there responding to his call with, “I will work, verily I am here when thou callest there.”
May we not indeed say, that the teaching as to life in Ancient Egypt was in the serpent’s mouth, and that even as the serpent is here represented, it may be summed up? Was it the life, which is in God Himself? or the life which the Creator bestows upon His creature? or the eternal life which God gives in Christ to His people? The truth, however viewed, was turned to the service of Satan (John 8:4444Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)).
We have to remember that, notwithstanding all this, there were many admirable and moral precepts advanced in Egypt’s ancient teaching. Honor, respect for parents, and other virtues were extolled, and many a monument declares how worthily the defunct acted during his lifetime. Of course, so far as the individual was concerned, such laudations prove no more than do the epitaphs upon the tombstones in our own churchyards; but they do prove, beyond question, that goodness and kindness, and honor were valued. The truth is, the man was better than his deities; his conscience and his sense of right and wrong were not so degraded as his religion. In the pagan world, plain men, in their standards of righteousness and goodness, are usually far above their religious system. In the revelation God has given, we have the Infinite in goodness and holiness, and the most fervent follower of God is ever below and beneath the Being he obeys.
(* It is very much to be questioned whether the gods of Egypt possessed any qualities which could be inscribed under the designation – light. As for their representing in any way absolute holiness, no one would contend for such a proposition. Love, such as it was, seemed to be confined to the goddesses. They were numerous, and these names of theirs – Mistress of Heaven, Queen of Heaven, and The Mother of the gods – are so familiar as to seem almost modern.)
These ancient heathens seemed to possess the idea, that in certain ways goddesses were more tender of heart than gods. The excessive tenderness of goddesses towards, and their fondness for, the children of men, is aptly expressed by the attitude of the body, or the touch of the hand; they relax their “divine” placidity into a truly human benignance of expression. Their affection, however, was apparently reserved for kings and kings’ sons. Egypt’s religion was essentially for aristocrats. Nor did love seem to have any sort of spirituality, as we understand the word, about it. The gods had wedded their sister goddesses, and kings and nobles in some way entered the “heavenly” family circle. In pursuance of the “divine” custom respecting marriage, it was seemly for royal personages to marry their sisters. This royal habit no doubt arose from the legends respecting the times of the beginning of the human race. In the first family on the earth, brothers married sisters, and the legends give to those first men and women the high honor that a great antiquity ever bestows on things human. And we can trace in this veneration for the imperfectly known past, the notion that to do as had been done in remote antiquity is necessarily right and honorable. This notion seems to be part and parcel of humanity, and thus it is that many a bad man has ripened through the lapse of ages into a hero – nay, has become a demi-god or a saint, to whom prayers are made, and for whom solemn religious memorial services are held.
The necessity for prayer is recognized over the greater part of the earth. Humanity has not yet reached to that dead blank of belief in nothingness which is attained by the modern “Christian” philosopher. The belief in prayer contains within it the acknowledgment of human weakness and want in view of a Higher Power – a Being, who is able and willing to hear supplications, and is traceable to a divine revelation to man; such as do not attribute this value to prayer are men whose religious ideas have developed into those of the lowest order of savages, or who have sped into the darkness of agnosticism or atheism. But while the belief in prayer is almost universal on the earth, it is divorced from faith in God in the masses of mankind, and men pray to false gods. Shortly after the flood, the truth of a prayer – hearing God was misappropriated to demons. Men, women, and children praying, are to be seen on the monuments of Egypt; but all are praying to demon! To demons they uplifted their hands, and from demons they expected mercies; and, as is common to the system of paganism, they looked to their priests, as intermediaries, to obtain the answers their gods sent them. And today the greater part of mankind falls down before idols, and supplicates the god the idol represents, for mercies. And as it was in the ancient world, so today, the priests are regarded as the communicators to the worshipper of the mind of the deity supplicated.
However zealous the Egyptian was in prayer, and however earnestly the priests prayed for him, a lurking suspicion, and indeed often an avowed want of confidence in the deities supplicated, possessed him. We have already quoted from the Papyrus of Ani, the royal scribe, who held office as “scribe and accountant of all the gods,” whose wife was also a priestess, and who were both “high ecclesiastical dignitaries.” Now such a man’s copy of the Book for the Dead – that “Manifestation of Light,” written with the finger of the god of divine intelligence, Thoth – must be regarded as reliable. And what do we find in it over and over again? Poor Ani himself so little believed in the efficacy of prayer, or in its being heard on high, that in his journeys in the underworld he fell back on magic, and protected himself by circumventing the gods of the gates by uttering magical sentences. The Chinese will utilize a small windmill to roll round their slips of paper inscribed with their prayers; the wind, not their hearts, being the motive power which presents the deity with so many dozens of repetitions – so little do these moderns invest their deities with sense! The Egyptians protected themselves against their deities with magic sentences, so little did those ancients trust them. Both these moderns and those ancients are laughed to scorn by their religion, for what sort of god is it that a man can trick, and what sort of god is it that a man cannot trust? Such prayers are not the utterance of the heart of a man to the heart of God; they are not the cry of the creature to the Creator, or the expressed longings of a child to the Father, but the vacant, unreal utterances of a degenerate, or evolved system of conceptions.
Neither had the Egyptian any real trust in his religion. In “The Book of the Dead” there are chapters “of coming forth by day,” and living after death, in which the departed frequently declares he has “become a prince,” he is “victorious’’ and “glorious,” but only to add again and again the desire that his soul may not be set in bondage by “those who fetter souls and who shut in the shades of the dead” In this dilemma he falls back upon his magic to secure himself, for the book proceeds, “If this chapter be known, he shall come forth by day, and his soul shall not be shut in.” Also a protection was found in having the coffin duly inscribed with the sacred words of the book, while the wearing of amulets, and having the benefit of many prayers and performances of the priests, contributed to assist the sacred scribe. Ani had sufficient knowledge of the truth to make him fear for his eternal future, but no true knowledge of the living God by which he might find rest to his heart.
A sense of man’s need in relation to God, deeper than that of prayer, is found in the belief of the value of sacrifice. The idea of sacrifice contains in it the acknowledgment that God is holy and that man is sinful, and that the sinful one is accountable to the Holy One, who requires a propitiation at the hand of man on account of the sins he has committed. This belief plainly implies a revelation of God to man. But the revealed truth became in time entirely misplaced and distorted; and as years ran on, the demon stood in the place of God in man’s religion. And the demon required propitiating according to his nature, which, as has been observed, was base and horrible.
“The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons” (1 Cor. 10:2020But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. (1 Corinthians 10:20)). For some thousands of years, propitiatory sacrifices have been offered to demons, and are still offered to them over the greater part of the world.
The seal of the Egyptian priests marking the victim for sacrifice is noteworthy. It bears upon it the sign of the human being lashed to a post with a knife pointed to the throat, as indicating readiness for immolation. The Egyptians on occasions offered human sacrifices to their gods. “Man,” said they, “alone was worthy with his blood to wash away the sins of men.” The adjoining outline taken from Lanzone, gives the victims lashed to the post, but does not indicate the knife. It is not unlike the traditional seal, but the attitude of the hands does not mark the terror of the victims at impending death, as in the other representation, and may indicate merely the securing of captives. The men in each case are of different nationalities. As time proceeded, animals were to a considerable extent substituted for human victims, and thus in the seal is enshrined a substitutionary idea.
Offerings and sacrifices were developed into a sort of bribery to the gods, or were tendered to the deities in prepayment of expected favors, as well as being regarded as thankofferings; yet even in this view of the offering, the god generally made large promises of future benefits to the offerer. The idea of an infinitely righteous and holy Being, in His own wisdom and goodness, requiring life to be rendered to Him, because by sin man had forfeited his own life, had completely vanished from these pagan conceptions of sacrifice and propitiation. The pure original had been corrupted and dissipated by centuries of religious development.
The effect of religious evolution is perhaps most painfully evident in the ideas of the Egyptians, respecting the serpent. The serpent held a very emphatic position in reference to man at the beginning, but one of evil. In the course of time the serpent in Egypt held a position of the utmost importance, but one of good.
Reference has already been made to the perversion of the first revelation respecting the woman’s Seed. The words, “Her Seed... shall bruise thy head,” were addressed to the serpent. What, then, shall be said of this picture – a serpent-headed woman nurturing a child? It is the goddess Rannu, who has been already mentioned. This representation is taken from a picture of the goddess in a temple at Denderah. The child in the arms of the goddess is the infant King Amenophis III. This was painted in the days of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt, over one hundred years before their exodus.
The climax of apostasy is here reached. The human being is united to the serpent, and the little child finds its nourishment and rest in the monster’s bosom!
As a moral sequence to all this corruption, animal worship may be fittingly referred to. All animal worship is a slight cast upon humanity, and a degradation of the divine Being. It lowers in man’s eyes the place assigned to him by the Creator, and its result is necessarily debasing. After the flood, God expressly said to Noah and his sons – after one of whom, Ham, the land Egypt was named – “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered” (Gen. 9:22And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. (Genesis 9:2)). According to the Egyptian religion men might say “into their hands are you delivered.” The following representations of gods in the form of birds, reptiles and beasts, are samples of what the brave and intellectual people of the land of Ham believed had power over man! Diodorus Siculus tells us that the priests assigned a peculiar and hidden reason for this worship of animals, while amongst those commonly reported among the people, he states the following: – “In the early ages of the world, the gods being in fear of the numbers and wickedness of mankind, assumed the form of animals in order to avoid their cruelty and oppression. And having at length obtained the dominion of the world, they decreed, as a reward to those animals by whom they had been saved, that mankind should ever respect and nourish them while alive, and perform funereal honors for them at their decease.”
This may be satisfactory in the region of myths, but the Scriptures give a very plain reason for the entry of such notions into the mind of pagans. God turned their wisdom into foolishness, as a judgment upon them for not retaining Him in their knowledge (Rom. 1:2828And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; (Romans 1:28)), and thus man fell into the notion that the deity was part human, part beast – like, and that the animals so elevated were themselves gods! Sacred apes, cows, and serpents are common enough still in India and other places. Paganism, in all its forms, degrades humanity. Animal reverence is a great step down in man’s development from the early time when the head of this creation, Adam, its king and priest, with divinely given intelligence, named the various animals God brought to him to look upon (Gen. 2:1919And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. (Genesis 2:19)). The system of worshipping sacred animals is not only antagonistic to God, but is degrading to man, whom God created in His own image and likeness, and whom He made the head of this earth-creation, and whom He ordained to stand in direct relationship to his Maker.
( “The worship of Bast was widely spread... Her great city was Bubastis, in the Delta, which was wholly dedicated to her... Once a year a great festival was held at this place, accompanied by indecent ceremonies.” – Rawinson, History of Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1, 382. “The number of those who attend, counting only the men and women, and omitting the children, amounts, according to native reports; to seven hundred thousand.” Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Vol. IL p. 104.)
( At Denderah... it is said that the soul of Hathor likes to leave heaven “in the form of a human-headed sparrow-hawk... to come and unite herself to the statue.” – Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 119, note.)
With such perverted conceptions of life, life with the gods, and the nature of the gods; of prayer, and the deities supplicated; of sacrifice, and of the requirements of the gods to whom sacrifice was made; we shall not be surprised at the corruption amongst the Egyptians of the truth of resurrection. The fact that man would rise again was made known to man at the beginning of the divine revelation to him (Heb. 6:22Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:2); Matt. 22:23-3223The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, 24Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: 26Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27And last of all the woman died also. 28Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. 29Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 31But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 32I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (Matthew 22:23‑32)). It was contained in the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. Abraham, brought out froth the gloomy idolatry and monster deities of Ur of the Chaldees, and given to trust the Almighty, counted God able to raise the dead (Heb. 11:1919Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. (Hebrews 11:19)). Job expressed his faith in the fact, and in God by whom the resurrection occurs, most plainly (Job 19:25-2725For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. (Job 19:25‑27)). Simply and unhesitatingly, he says, though his body should be destroyed, “yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold.” The doctrine was held in Egypt from an unknown antiquity, and though perverted and corrupted, was stamped from the earliest times upon the monuments of the nation.
The disbelief in the resurrection is comparatively a modern infidelity. The ancient world was too near to the first-given revelation of God to forget the great fact of man living again after death. The great resurrection legend of the Egyptians concerned Osiris) and parts of this legend and the beliefs which surrounded it are so colored by Scripture truth as to be positively startling.
We give some illustrations of the legend. The first two are to be found in the Isle of Phil, the third is from Denderah. Lanzone gives a series of these pictures. The legend related to Osiris, and also to the dead, who, being justified, could be regarded as the god himself.
Osiris having been slain when on earth by his evil god-brother, and his body having been dismembered, its parts were buried in different places in Egypt. But Osiris had two sisters, who were goddesses, and they wept and prayed that he might return to life again; in answer to their lamentations, and by virtue of their tears, the dead and dismembered form was gathered together, limb by limb, and, at length, Osiris was restored to life.
In the first illustration part of the body has come together. But a portion of the trunk, the arms, and head are still wanting. In the second, the god is rising up from the couch whereon the body had lain. In the third he is, moving off the couch and carrying the emblems of royal rule, the crook and the flail. On his head is the crown of Egypt, and on either side of the crown are the royal ostrich feathers. He has arisen, and is about to reign. We have already seen Osiris in various positions of power and glory; he reigned, let it be remembered, after his resurrection, and then became judge of the dead. It will be well when reading about the legend to bear in mind Christ’s words, “In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven;” for Egyptian ideas of resurrection were of a most sensuous kind. There was no spiritual conception in them, as Christians use the word, neither did their legends allow the thought enforced by the apostle, “there is a spiritual body”
What was believed in the most ancient of the ancient days of Egypt is not at present fully known; but our remarks are of a general kind, and they apply to a period extending over many hundreds of years.
The foundation for the legend is evident to the reader of Scripture. The good god is slain by the evil one, he rises up from among the dead, and in his resurrection-glory becomes the king. But most remarkable is the idea that the “justified” dead should be as Osiris; they became identified with the god and were called by his name at least subject to certain conditions which the priests would fulfill. As the sister goddesses prayed and wept back Osiris into life, so by magical recitations would the priests fulfill the same good office for the pious defunct.
In an image of Osiris the following magical recitation was discovered by the relentless explorer of our century. The papyrus reads, “Where this is recited, the place is holy in the extreme. Let it be seen or heard by no one, excepting by the principal high priests,” and it was supposed that the defunct, to whom the writing was consecrated, would benefit by its recitation, and would rise into life as Osiris had done.
“Come to thine abode, come to thine abode!
God An, come to thine abode!
Thine enemies (exist) no more.
Oh, excellent sovereign, come to thine abode!
Look at me; I am thy sister who loveth thee.
Do not stay far from me, oh, beautiful youth.
Come to thine abode, with haste, with haste!
“Will it be long ere I see thee?
Beholding thee is happiness;
Beholding thee is happiness.
(Oh,) God An, beholding thee is happiness.
Come to her who loveth thee!
Come to her who loveth thee!
“Hail to the divine lord!
There is no god like unto thee!
Heaven hath thy soul; Earth hath thy remains;
The lower heaven is in possession of thy mysteries.
“Thy two sisters are near thee,
Offering libations to thy person.”
The praying and reciting priests stood in the place of the female deities, and thus a most ingenious system for the maintenance of their religious importance was preserved. We need not, therefore, wonder at the wealth of the priestly class, at their magnificent temples, jewels and gorgeous robes; they held the key to the resurrection of the dead! The influence of the priests of those times might suggest some fresh ideas to the priests of our own times, who take an inferior position to that of the Egyptians, inasmuch as they hold the key merely to the bates of purgatory! But though the importance of the priests was so great, such is human nature that the “State” of Egypt would at times despoil its “Church,” that is the temples, and enrich itself out of the gifts that had been made to endow Religion.
In the third illustration we have added some emblems which occur in various representations of the subject – the dog-headed ape, to whom prayers arose from the purgatorial fires, is there, and the serpent standing erect – attitude emblematic of life.
Little more can be said respecting the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, in their relation to the revealed truths of the Divine Word, than that notable remains of revealed truth are to be found amongst them. Now in things of ordinary nature, the fact of notable remains being found would be taken as evidence of a source from whence they had come. Let us suppose ourselves searching for gold. We come to a bend in the bed of the stream in which the small stones brought down from miles above are accumulated in heaps. An experienced miner with us at once declares, “This is the place for finding gold.” And so it proves to be. Amongst the stones are numerous particles of the metal. Is it not obvious that these particles were washed down the stream and carried by the water from their first place to their present location? In like manner particles of divine truth were carried on by the stream of time down the ages, and they are found by explorers in the stone heaps of Egyptian mythology. The bed of gold lies higher up the stream of time; it is God’s revelation to the men who lived before the flood.
The system of religious evolution, which was active through so many centuries in ancient Egypt, is still vigorous, and though it is in some respects easier to trace its movements in the distant past, still it is to be seen in operation today in Christendom. Let us suppose the results of the labors of a scientific explorer of a thousand years hence, laid out in his study in precise array. Hard facts about the Christian centuries are arranged in order of date. Traditions, teachings, practices, are all tabulated and placed under their various epochs; and together with them are also placed the Divine Record of Christianity in its origin and plan and also first century Christian practice! By a comparison of the beginning of the Christian era with the nineteenth century, we should see that Christendom is in no way behind Egypt in religious evolution.
An analogy at once presents itself between the manner of the initiation of each development; in Egypt the chief priests held the higher mysteries hidden in their own custody; in Christendom – over its greater area – the chief priests hide the Divine Record within their colleges.
In Egypt the pure doctrine of eternal life was so surrounded and obscured by traditions as to be of no effect among the people; over the chief part of Christendom the doctrine is now hidden. The fundamental principle respecting life is, that it is inherent to the living God and the eternal Son of God, of whom it is written,” In Him was life” ( John 1:44In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)), and who declared “I am... the Life” (John 11:2525Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: (John 11:25)). The eternal life is bestowed upon men by the gift of God (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)); “I give unto them eternal life” (John 10:2828And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28)); “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (John 5:1111He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. (John 5:11)). Further, as to those who receive it, the words are plain – “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)). In the minds of millions in Christendom, educated and directed by their religious teachers, the Scripture teaching in reference to eternal life has no place whatever, religious evolution having as completely covered it up, as the swiftly accumulating peat has buried the relics of former generations over which it has spread itself.
In no less striking a manner have the original Christian ideas respecting prayer been lost to millions in Christendom by religious development. To demonstrate this it is only necessary to set out some few of the injunctions of Christ and His apostles upon the subject, and then to inscribe in succession under them the instructions from the books of devotion which millions of persons in this nineteenth century in Christendom regard as authoritative. By studying the words of Christ in reference to prayer, we can form a very fair notion of the simple manner in which “prayer was made... of the church” (Acts 12:55Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. (Acts 12:5)) at the beginning; now, however, there have been evolved the notions of merit accompanying the act of repeating and of reciting prayers; of rewards being given for the number of times saints and others are addressed; of priestly powers in obtaining favors for both the living and the dead by the recitation of prayers; and of the propriety of procuring such prayers from the priests by money payments! Religious progress in Christendom has evolved out of the Christian original of prayer a genuine ancient pagan art. Amulets prayed over by priests, scapulas and charms to be placed upon the body of the living and the dead have been also religiously evolved, and thus a genuine ancient pagan trade has become a part of evolved Christianity. And men rest in the hope of the pagan Egyptians, that a charm placed upon their corpses will expedite their entrance into bliss! Into bliss! – into the Divine presence we will not say, for God, to whom alone effective prayer can be made, has disappeared from the system.
The change of thought relative to the Scripture teaching on atonement is also most marked. In the Divine Record it stands, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for (the sins of) the whole world” (* 1 John 2:22And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)). The nineteenth century religious thinkers have evolved the notion that the Divine Being does not require propitiation, and that man does not need it. Indeed, the advance guard of these thinkers repudiates the very thought of atonement by sacrificial blood as coarse and false. Man, according to them, is too good to need it, and God, according to them, must not be supposed to require it.
Life, prayer, propitiation, resurrection, are all losing their original form and character under the expanding process of religious thought in this century. Sometimes the word as used in the Scriptures remains, but the word in these schools of thought no longer stands for what it means, and for what it meant at the beginning. By the process of analogy we have a right to suppose that in the progress of their thoughts, the men who object to be guided by the revelation of God will follow the usual course of human thought, and that some day something will be set up by them, as an object for worship. The Egyptian evolutionist in his deities, half-man, half-beast, had his primal ancestors before him in a concrete form. The Chinese worship their immediate ancestors. Man cannot forget that he has had an origin. Believers in God worship their Creator; and if man does not believe he was created in God’s image, but believes instead that he is the outcome of a base and common organism, an emerged reptile or ape, it would be but natural that the evolutionist philosopher, on becoming religious, should, like the wise and the religious Egyptian, worship that out of which he evolved.