Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Religion

V77.0719 / V90.0719 / V11.0719

TR 9:30-10:45 Tisch UC58

Lecture 13 – Notes and Terms

The problem of logic:

Some people have looked to theories about the ancient mind here which I find essentially unacceptable, for instance, The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Jaymes. The thesis of this work is essentially that the reason why the ancient Hebrews and other early religions claimed to hear the word of God or the gods, was that their brains were fundamentally different. Some people strangely believe that the ancients lived in a pre-logical state of being. However, bear in mind that the Egyptians built the pyramids and ran

a most efficient bureaucratic state. The Greeks, those very “logical” people did not remark on the Egyptians as being illogical or idiotic - just different, with odd customs they preferred, and stubbornly so. They may have not understood the Egyptians, but they certainly did not find them to be fools - read Herodotos, for instance. We might should stress here the obvious fact that the Greeks were the contemporaries of the Egyptians.

One of the most important statements about Eg. religion in Hornung’s book: “Any application of a two-valued logic, which is based on an a/not-a distinctions and on the law of the excluded middle, to Egyptian philosophical and theological thought leads at once to insoluble contradictions. We cannot avoid this fact, and “common sense” is no help here. We must choose between two alternatives. Either we equate truly logical thought with two-valued logic, in which case Egyptian thought is undeniably “illogical” or “prelogical”; or we admit the possibility of a different type of logic which is not self-contradictory, which can only be a many valued logic.”

I would like to point out that our view of logic in ancient Egypt has been excessively colored by the mortuary literature, The Book of the Dead, and similar works. I think that people often overlook two important points here. First, Egyptian mortuary literature represents a compilation of many sources, all of which are part of a multifaceted polytheism—religious writing was not informed by the desire to pursue and promote and single viewpoint to the exclusion of all others. Secondly, the Egyptian afterlife was conceived as a preeminently irrational place. For logic and order to exist in this world, Maat must prevail, but, by contrast, the next world was a place in which disorder was the prevalent condition. Even the gods had to fight against Apophis during Re’s night journey. Sometimes, strikingly enough, the god Seth had a preeminent role as the protector of Re—fighting fire with fire, so to speak.

The Solar Religion prior to the New Kingdom—The Theme of Maintenance in Egyptian Religion.

The sun god’s paramount role in Egyptian religion can be seen even as early as the Old Kingdom. During the first half of the Fifth Dynasty, the kings each built sun-sanctuaries devoted to the cult of Re as the chief god and creator of all. At the center of each sanctuary was a squat obelisk, a form of monument which is preeminently associated with solar religion. These kings donated extensive offerings to these institutions. These also are closely associated with the king’s mortuary cult, possibly because at the sun-sanctuaries the deceased king was being worshipped as being who as had merged with the solar deity.

In the classical concept of Egyptian religion, the god acts and the king reacts to his activity. The gods granted the king kingship as their agent on earth, knowing in advance that he would carry out four chief responsibilities: judging men and providing them with justice, generally achieved by protecting the weak from the strong; satisfying the gods, which is usually fulfilled by the maintenance of cult and worship; realizing Maat; and annihilating Isfet. These activities might all be subsumed under a single rubric—maintenance, i.e. keeping the world in the state in which it was found. Indeed, one of the recurring images here is that of the king as the Good Shepherd and humanity as the flock of the god’s (sometimes expressed as “god’s cattle”; or the god’s herd). Order, Maat, was not the natural state of the world and had to be imposed primarily from above—a notion which later plays into imperialistic tendencies of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Eventually, the notion of progress seldom enters into this picture—remember my observation that Maat is often connected with a sense of stasis—and the deity around whom this is centered is essentially the sun god as creator.

Somewhat contradictory here is the picture of the universe is a constant state of potential imbalance and the central metaphor of the sun in constant motion, i.e. the solar cycle and the concomitant passage of time. The Egyptians have two complementary concepts of time and eternity which fits into this picture: Eternal Change Neheh (noo) and Eternal Sameness Djet (zt). Egypt, in particular, sits as an island of order surrounded by the forces of chaos. Life both on earth and in the cosmos is dependent upon order. In the divine world the sun god and Maat are constantly challenged by Apep (or: Ipep; Apophis), the endless serpent who threatens to swallow them along with the celestial ocean.

The Religious Underpinnings of Egyptian Imperialism.

As Assmann points out in his “State and Religion in the New Kingdom,” even though we cannot speak of a “state” and “church” in Egypt, we must not forget that there was what we would call a political dimension to religion. Furthermore, it was during the New Kingdom that there was increasingly something which one might call a state or national religion. This does not imply that in earlier times the royal house did not tend to worship one group of deities above others (henotheism). Indeed, the brief sketch of solar religion prior to the New Kingdom which I have just given above is a good example of an early form of state religion. The rather emphatic form of state supported religion which developed during the New Kingdom was something different, growing as it did out of what might be termed a “war of national liberation” during the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasties when a group of foreigners known as the Hyksos, who had dominated Egypt during a good part of the Second Intermediate Period, were expelled by the Egyptians under the leadership of a group of Theban princes. Egypt once more was unified under a native dynasty originating at Thebes, the great religious and ceremonial capital in the south. The prestige that this military campaign was further increased when the same group of dynasts managed to crush and expel the great Kushite kingdom to the south and expand Egyptian control of Nubia as far south as the Third and Fourth cataracts. To the north, this Dynasty, which Egyptologists call the Tuthmosides, were to repel several attempts on the part of the expelled foreigners to reassert their influence. Eventually, the Egyptians were able to establish a group of buffer states along the Syro-Palestinian coast. Not quite an imperium there, but something close to it. Egypt seems to have been interested in controlling a “sphere of interest” rather than pursuing some form of “Empire” in this part of the world. If Egypt behaved as an imperialist nation in the true sense of the word, this was in connection mostly in connection with the Nubian lands to the South.

The result of the near-constant marching and counter-marching during the campaigns of the Eighteenth Dynasty not only created an Egyptian “Empire” of sorts, it also effective militarized contemporary kingship. For the first time in its history, Egypt now had a standing army so that the king now had an additional role as a military ruler. He was both king and general-in-chief; but the deity commanded the campaigns. Since all foreigners were now more closely associated with the forces of chaos than ever before, there developed a greatly increased sense that the chief Egyptian king was a “defender of the faith” and lord and master of all foreign nations as well. Naturally enough, it is only a short step from such concepts to seeing the chief deities of Egypt as having a responsibility over the entire world, not just Egypt alone. True, this notion was implicit in the concept of the creator god of earlier ages, but it was now greatly strengthened. Another impetus for the growth of such universalist concepts was the idea that military campaigns were essentially commissioned and blessed by the state deity, normally Amun. After the campaign had succeeded and much booty was taken away, this would be returned in large part to the deity as a repayment for guaranteeing Egyptian victory abroad. We saw traces of this “feedback loop” of tribute in the Ikhernofret Stela. Nevertheless, it is critical to understand that unlike similar religious themes connected with the classic European imperialism of the Eighteen and Nineteenth Centuries of our era, the Egyptians had no desire to convert the foreigners under their domination to the worship of Egyptian deities. If the foreigners decided or not to worship Egyptian deities, that was their business; the Egyptians made to effort to compel such worship.

Universalism:

The consequence of this line of thought might be called universalism. The principle is simple: at the same time that we see the king becoming the king of more and more of the world in his titularies, in the various contemporary sun-hymns there was an increasing tendency to assimilate other deities with the sun-god Re, and to make him in his form as Amun-re the god of the world. The sun god not only is supreme deity among the other gods, but he is increasingly seen as the god in control over the entire earth. You saw a little of that development present in the prayer of Ramesses II at the Battle of Kadesh. Breasted once said: “Monotheism is but imperialism in religion.” This is unfair, but it does illuminate an aspect of contemporary worship.

Personal Piety and its Precursors -- “Theology of Volition” and “Anthropology of Will”

Although a real discussion of the phenomenon of “personal piety” will be delayed until later, it is important for our understanding of New Kingdom religion to have some knowledge of what it is about. Noticeably absent from the picture of the interplay of king, solar creator, and cosmos sketched above is any mention of what relationship might exist between the average individual and the deity. In the Old Kingdom, judging from the few contemporary texts we have—the Wisdom of Ptahhotep, incidentally is a Middle Kingdom text which is only set in the OK—most private people interacted with the deity primarily through the king. There does not seem to have been a well-developed concept of a personal relationship with a god. However, beginning with the Middle Kingdom, we find more and more allusions to the concept that the private person might have a relationship with a personal god independent of his relationship with the king. Even so we find the loyalty to the king a more central concept in Didactic Literature and other sources. At the beginning of the “Loyalist Instruction” (Sehetepibre Stela; Lichtheim, Literature I 128), we find the remark: “I say a great thing, I let you hear, / I let you know counsel everlasting, / Right conduct of life, passing the lifetime in peace: Worship King Nimaatre, ever-living in your bodies, / Cleave to him in your hearts! He is Sia in the hearts . . .” Notice here two things—the call to put the king in your heart and the deliberate comparison of the king with Sia, a ‘god,’ but really only a hypostasis of the sun-god. The text goes on to promulgate the idea of the king as a good shepherd. The private person, particularly in the latter half of Dyn. 12 acts at the king’s order, the monarch monopolizes initiative. The ideal of virtue or inward quality (nfrw) is wisdom, a quality with which one is not born, but is acquired by instruction. The person possessing these qualities is said to be ‘silent’ grw, a term with great implications as we shall see later on in the course.

In the New Kingdom, there seems to be a decided trend in both tomb biographies and the sun hymns a replacement of Maat as the will of state (and King) and community with the will of the deity. Assmann sees this as a slow replacement of wisdom by piety. Looking particularly at another important group of sources, a small number of papyri dating to the reign of Amenophis II or before, we see some other themes in addition to loyalty to the king and the king’s great importance in the advancement of an official’s career. Now, the god rather than the king is placed in the heart. With this, of course, there is a growth in a personal relationship between god and the private individual. We also see a growing trend to see the god as protector. It would be a great mistake, however, to see the king as fading as either a central figure in the state or as the most important person in one’s civil life. He is still a protect or the land and a great, respected warrior.

Generally speaking, most individual contact with the gods prior to the New Kingdom seems to have used the king as the intermediary between the divine sphere and the individual. Participation in festivals was of great importance. However, alongside of this there are allusions to deities intervening for better or for worse in the affairs of individuals. The central idea of this belief, then, is that the god manifests his personal will, intention, and purpose—whence Assmann’s term “a theology of volition.” Although “Personal Piety” is said to be a Ramesside (i.e. Nineteenth Dynasty) phenomenon, there is good evidence to show that features of it were already in place in the early part of Dynasty 18. Especially interesting are textual references both in tomb inscriptions and in literature which speak of taking the deity into one’s heart. By doing so, one subordinates oneself not only to the king, but now directly to the one’s personal god. In a way, one might say that taking the god into one’s heart means that one is sidestepping the king, religiously speaking. Moreover, in biographical inscriptions of officials both large and small, there is usually reference to that individual having protected the poor from the powerful in the exercise of his duties. Again, we can see in this individuals assuming some of the king’s religious functions. A concept which is frequently associated with this development is that one of the good official’s salient qualities is ‘silence,’ i.e. a pious reserve, inwardness, and confidence in the god.

The New Solar Theology and Related Developments

An important development in the Egyptian religion just prior to the Amarna heresy was the development of the “New Solar Theology,” as scholars have named it, reaching its culmination in the reign of Amenophis III, the father of Akhenaten. One of the many interesting aspects of this development is that it could be justly described as non-esoteric; most of the aspects of this solar theology can be found in texts of private individuals. These new expressions of religion as they appear in solar hymns were not expounded just in royal tombs or inaccessible areas of temples—they appear to have been based on knowledge generally available to the elite. On one hand these new beliefs were more wide-spread, on the other hand, they were also rather intellectualized and in that sense probably not particularly accessible to the great mass of the population. Still, the king and the priests no longer seem to have a monopoly on religious knowledge. From the modern Judeo-Christian and Muslim point of view, these developments may seem most favorable, a moving towards a religious point of view much closer to our own. Yet, from an Egyptian point of view, especially if one is interested in radically altering the standard Egyptian polytheism, this could prove an impediment. If a monarch wished to place himself at the head of a religious revolution “from the top,” so to speak, then a viewpoint which kept the monarch at center stage in the god-king-humanity relationship might not be so desirable.

In the new view of the role of the sun-god, in whom much of the religion has focussed (see the discussion of henotheism), a “religious phenomenology” comes to the fore. This phenomenology is derived from the visible manifestations of divine activity and is closely related to what might be called a natural theology, that is, one derived from and centered on natural phenomena. The chief manifestation of this divine activity becomes the solar cycle as the sun travels through the sky, set into the underworld, and continues traveling (though now out of sight) through the underworld. Much of the deity’s nature is obscure, beyond the grasp of humanity, yet we can still gather his intentions. He is, above all, manifest in the life-giving light. The visibility of the god, naturally enough, is a organizing principle—when he is visible the earth is alive; when he set and goes into the underworld, he must confront and defeat the forces of chaos. Although the sun god is worshipped in his visibility above all, he remains essentially inscrutable and mysterious. There is something ironic about this—as the religious material becomes available to a wider audience, the deity still retains a great deal of mystery. In this theology, the other deities are increasing playing a secondary role in the running of the universe, and the tendency is to see them more and more as essentially being his emanations and embodiments of his central, divine principle. Needless to say, this point of view skirts on the edge of monotheism, the step which Akhenaten was to make by making this supreme deity the only deity as well. The chief impediment to such views would have been not so much the rather intellectualized clergy of Amun-Re and the other deities, but rather the polytheistic mass of the Egyptian populace who would be innately reluctant to immerse themselves in such arcane and seemingly bloodless theological speculations.

Another related development, one which Akhenaten was in many ways to derail, was the increasing belief in a personal god to whom one could appeal without recourse to a (royal) intermediary. This personal deity, furthermore, looked down upon the common man with great indulgence and both rewarded, protected, or punished that individual according to his or her behavior. Beliefs of this sort apparently were sweeping the entire ancient Near East at the time of the middle and late Eighteenth Dynasty. This, of course, intimately related to the phenomenon of “personal piety,” which will be the subject of extensive discussion later.