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THE THREE ORDERS OF GODS IN HERODOTUS ARE COREGYPTIAN MONUMENTS AND AU

ROBORATED BY THE

THORITIES, AND ARE

ALSO MORE FULLY DETAILED

AND CORRECTED.

I.

HERODOTUS AND THE EGYPTIAN ANNALISTS.

IN reference to what has been stated in the First Book, and in the Appendix of Authorities, as well as to the dictum of Lepsius,

That Herodotus was in error in representing the Circle of Osiris as belonging to the Third Order instead of the First,

it will be sufficient to elucidate the leading facts by the following synopsis, and thus render it easy for our readers to form an independent judgment for themselves.

I. The First Seven Reigns of the Gods:

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7. Horus (Her, son of Osiris). 7. Her.

The agreement between the Papyrus, in so far as it is preserved, and Manetho is too obvious not to render it imperative upon us to give the preference to Seyffarth's testimony over that of Salvolini. Besides which, if Seb were omitted, we should be forced to introduce Isis as the fifth; and there is no instance of Goddesses being found in the series of the First Order of Gods or dynasties of Gods—not even in the case of Isis herself, who is preeminently called the Great Goddess.

But after this there is a total discrepancy between the dates in the epitome of Manetho and the Papyrus. The epitome passes directly on to Bytis, whom we must identify as a strictly human king belonging to historical tradition. On the other hand, the Papyrus gives two other orders of ruling Gods. The section in the series of Gods after Horus is fully established by general testimony: in the Papyrus even a mythological period is calculated by the time which has elapsed since the reign of Horus, that is, from the beginning of the reign of Thoth.

The Second Order contains five Gods, reckoning Thoth among them if we transpose him back to the First, it has four.

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The Third Order commences authentically with III. 13. The name of the God is wanting; but the section is marked.

We do not know, again, of how many Gods this order consisted; and whether any, and how many, human kings prior to Menes succeeded them. It can hardly be accidental that the number twelve of Herodotus is here mentioned. It would seem to be the sum

total of the first two orders, which is very natural according to the literal sense of the account in Herodotus. We may also find a way of accounting for the discrepancy between the eight Gods which he gives to the First Order, and the seven in the Papyrus. Thoth, the eighth, whose sacred name was "the Eighth," constituted originally the last member of the series of seven, as we shall show hereafter, in Asia as well as Egypt. The number eight might therefore either be explained by supposing that the informants of Herodotus added Thoth on to the seven; or we might even suppose that they would not exclude Isis, the venerated Queen of Heaven, from the highest order. Lepsius has shown that some of the accounts of a later date do make such an exception in favour of the Queen of Heaven (after the deposition of Set), and give her rank next to Osiris. But this is only for the purpose of representing groups of the highest deities then worshipped, not of giving a succession of the orders of Gods in the primeval world. The only difference, therefore, is that Herodotus adopted two traditions, and mixed them up together. According to one of them, Horus was the last divine ruler, which is certainly the older and better authenticated tradition. But then he was told that there were three orders: the eight Gods became twelve by the addition of four new Gods (fragments of the idea of the earliest pre-Osirite Gods), and then again, in the Third Order, others of like origin and held in equal. veneration. Jumbling these two traditions together, he placed the Osiris Gods after his twelve, some of whom were also Goddesses.

But the existence of this discrepancy must not cause us to overlook the accordance in the two principal features. In the first place, he, as well as the authentic Egyptian tradition, makes the Osiris circle an exclusive one; and in the second place, it is always the final one.

It remains, therefore, to be seen whether the number

eight, of which Thoth was the last, does not belong to the original tradition.

We will endeavour, therefore, to establish the relation. of Herodotus to the groups of Gods which are found on the monuments, and which Lepsius has analysed so thoroughly and critically.

II.

HERODOTUS AND THE MONUMENTS.

THE whole matter may be comprised in the following thesis:

I. The number of the seven Great Gods, alluded to by the Egyptian authorities, is the same as that of the greater groups, if we reduce them to the supreme Gods (not including the Goddesses).

There is no authority whatever in the monuments for the number twelve, considering them as independent and original Gods. All the dreams about the signs of the zodiac would consequently fall to the ground, even had not the Egyptians been ignorant of the ecliptic before the time of Trajan, and even had the number twelve not been clearly shown to be a novelty to the Greeks themselves.

The evidence in favour of the number seven will be found in the illustration of the following theses: II. The seven Gods are divided into two groups: the last four are always the Osiris-Gods (Seb, Osiris, Set, Horus; after the deposition of Set sometimes Isis, sometimes Thoth is introduced).

III. The three Gods of the First Order are interchangeable, but are reducible to two vast types, that of the Lower and that of the Upper Country (Memphis and Thebes); the latter is devoted exclusively to the worship of the sun, in the former

Ptah, as a kosmogonical deity, takes precedence of
Helios.

The two series which Lepsius arrives at are as follows:

according to the Memphitic doctrine,

Ptah-Ra- Mu;

according to the Theban doctrine,

Atmu Mentu-Mu.

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The third God is the same in both: Maû, Mu, i. e. splendour, the son of Ra-Helios. But in the Theban representations, instead of the latter, the two phases of the sun take precedence of him:

1. Atumu, "the sun of the night," the setting sun, sun of the Lower World.

2. Mentu, "the sun of the day," the rising sun.

Atumu, or Atmu, may be resolved into AT-MU, i. e. "creator of the mother," or night, out of which Light proceeds; an expression which has merely a kosmogonical sense, like all the other known Egyptian names, not a physical one. Mentu is MNTU (the passive participle of mn, to establish, to found), like matu, the justified, deceased, from ma.

IV. The Theban form implies the existence of an earlier one, in which the kosmogonical element was represented.

One might be tempted to suppose, viewing it by itself, that the worship of Ra in Upper Egypt was originally the only prevailing one. But the facts are the other way. Amun and Num appear there as local deities at the first dawn of our chronological history. But Helios himself is omitted in that order: it is only the partial manifestations and derivatives of Ra which appear as the First Order. We are driven, therefore, to the assumption that when the worship of the sun became general in Upper Egypt, it superseded the first primeval

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