THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL LIFE.
Egyptian belief in a future life.
The doctrine of eternal life in the VIth dynasty.
The ideas and beliefs which the Egyptians held in reference to a future existence are not readily to be defined, owing to the many difficulties in translating religious texts and in harmonizing the statements made in different works of different periods. Some confusion of details also seems to have existed in the minds of the Egyptians themselves, which cannot be cleared up until the literature of the subject has been further studied and until more texts have been published. That the Egyptians believed in a future life of some kind is certain; and the doctrine of eternal existence is the leading feature of their religion, and is enunciated with the utmost clearness in all periods. Whether this belief had its origin at Annu, the chief city of the worship of the sun-god, is not certain, but is very probable; for already in the pyramid texts we find the idea of everlasting life associated with the sun's existence, and Pepi I. is said to be "the Giver of life, stability, power, health, and all joy of heart, like the Sun, living for ever."[1] The sun rose each day in renewed strength and vigour, and the renewal of youth in a future life was the aim and object of every Egyptian believer. To this end all the religious literature of Egypt was composed. Let us take the following extracts from texts of the VIth dynasty as illustrations:--
1. ha Unas an sem-nek as met-th sem-nek anxet
Hail Unas, not hast thou gone, behold, [as] one dead, thou hast gone [as] one living
hems her xent Ausar.
to sit upon the throne of Osiris.[2]
[1. ### Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 167 (1. 65).
2. Recueil Travaux, t. iii., p. 201 (1. 206). The context runs "Thy Sceptre is in thy hand, and thou givest commands unto the living ones. The Mekes and Nehbet sceptres are in thy hand, and thou givest commands unto those whose abodes are secret."]
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2. O Ra-Tum i-nek sa-k i-nek Unas . . . . . . sa-k pu en
O Ra-Turn, cometh to thee thy son, cometh to thee Unas . . . . . thy son is this of
t'et-k en t'etta
thy body for ever.[1]
3. Tem sa-k pu penen Ausar ta-nek set'eb-f anx-f anx-f
O Turn, thy son is this Osiris; thou hast given his sustenance and he liveth; he liveth,
anx Unas pen an mit-f an mit Unas pen
and liveth Unas this; not dieth he, not dieth Unas this.[2]
4. hetep Unas em anx em Amenta
Setteth Unas in life in Amenta.[3]
5. au am-nef saa en neter neb ahau pa neheh t'er-f
He[4] hath eaten the knowledge of god every, [his] existence is for all eternity
pa t'etta em sah-f pen en merer-f ari-f mest'et'-f
and to everlasting in his sah[5] this; what he willeth he doeth, [what] he hateth
an ari-nef
not doth he do.[6]
[1. Recueil Travaux, t. iii., p. 208 (ll. 232, 233).
2. Recueil de Travaux, t. iii., p. 209 (l. 240)
3. Ibid., t. iv., p. 50 (l. 445). The allusion here is to the setting of the sun.
4. I.e., Unas.
5. See page lix.
6. Recueil de Travaux, t. iv., p. 61 (ll. 520, 521).]
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6. anx anx an mit-k
Live life, not shalt thou die.[1]
The doctrine of eternal life in the XVIIIth dynasty.
In the papyrus of Ani the deceased is represented as having come to a place remote and far away, where there is neither air to breathe nor water to drink, but where he holds converse with Tmu. In answer to his question, "How long have I to live?"[2], the great god of Annu answers:--
auk er heh en heh aha en heh
Thou shalt exist for millions of millions of years, a period of millions of years.
In the LXXXIVth Chapter, as given in the same papyrus, the infinite duration of the past and future existence of the soul, as well as its divine nature, is proclaimed by Ani in the words:--
nuk Su paut ba-a pu neter ba-a pu heh
I am Shu [the god] of unformed matter. My soul is God, my soul is eternity.[3]
When the deceased identifies himself with Shu, he makes the period of his existence coeval with that of Tmu-Ra, i.e., he existed before Osiris and the other gods of his company. These two passages prove the identity of the belief in eternal life in the XVIIIth dynasty with that in the Vth and VIth dynasties.
But while we have this evidence of the Egyptian belief in eternal life, we are nowhere told that man's corruptible body will rise again; indeed, the following extracts show that the idea prevailed that the body lay in the earth while the soul or spirit lived in heaven.
1. ba ar pet sat ar ta
Soul to heaven, body to earth.[4] (Vth dynasty.)
[1. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 170 (Pepi, 1. 85).
2. ###. Plate XIX., l. 16 (Book of the Dead, Chapter CLXXV.).
3. Plate XXVIII., 1. 15.
4 Recueil de Travaux, t. iv., p. 71 (l. 582).]
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2. mu-k er pet xa-k er ta
Thy essence is in heaven, thy body to earth.[1] (VIth dynasty.)
3. pet xer ba-k ta xeri tut-k
Heaven hath thy soul, earth hath thy body.[2] (Ptolemaic period.)
Constancy in the belief in the resurrection.
There is, however, no doubt that from first to last the Egyptians firmly believed that besides the soul there was some other element of the man that would rise again. The preservation of the corruptible body too was in some way connected with the life in the world to come, and its preservation was necessary to ensure eternal life; otherwise the prayers recited to this end would have been futile, and the time honoured custom of mummifying the dead would have had no meaning. The never ending existence of the soul is asserted in a passage quoted above without reference to Osiris; but the frequent mention of the uniting of his bones, and of the gathering together of his members,[3] and the doing away with all corruption from his body, seems to show that the pious Egyptian connected these things with the resurrection of his own body in some form, and he argued that what had been done for him who was proclaimed to be giver and source of life must be necessary for mortal man.
The khat or physical body.
The physical body of man considered as a whole was called khat, a word which seems to be connected with the idea of something which is liable to decay. The word is also applied to the mummified body in the tomb, as we know from the words "My body (khat) is buried."[4] Such a body was attributed to the god Osiris;" in the CLXIInd Chapter of the Book of the Dead "his great
[1. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 43 (l. 304).
2. Horrack, Lamentations d'Isis et de Nephthys, Paris, 1866, p. 6.
3. Already in the pyramid texts we have "Rise up, O thou Teta! Thou hast received thy head, thou hast knitted together thy bones, thou hast collected thy members." Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 40 (1. 287).
3. Book of the Dead, Chapter LXXXVI., 1. 11.
4. Papyrus of Ani, pl. vii., 1. 28, and pl. xix., 1. 8.]
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divine body rested in Annu."[1] In this respect the god and the deceased were on an equality. As we have seen above, the body neither leaves the tomb nor reappears on earth; yet its preservation was necessary. Thus the deceased addresses Tmu[2]: "Hail to thee, O my father Osiris, I have come and I have embalmed this my flesh so that my body may not decay. I am whole, even as my father Khepera was whole, who is to me the type of that which passeth not away. Come then, O Form, and give breath unto me, O lord of breath, O thou who art greater than thy compeers. Stablish thou me, and form thou me, O thou who art lord of the grave. Grant thou to me to endure for ever, even as thou didst grant unto thy father Tmu to endure; and his body neither passed away nor decayed. I have not done that which is hateful unto thee, nay, I have spoken that which thy ka loveth: repulse thou me not, and cast thou me not behind thee, O Tmu, to decay, even as thou doest unto every god and unto every goddess and unto every beast and creeping thing which perisheth when his soul hath gone forth from him after his death, and which falleth in pieces after his decay . . . . . Homage to thee, O my father Osiris, thy flesh suffered no decay, there were no worms in thee, thou didst not crumble away, thou didst not wither away, thou didst not become corruption and worms; and I myself am Khepera, I shall possess my flesh for ever and ever, I shall not decay, I shall not crumble away, I shall not wither away, I shall not become corruption."
The sahu or spiritual body.
But the body does not lie in the tomb inoperative, for by the prayers and ceremonies on the day of burial it is endowed with the power of changing into a sahu, or spiritual body. Thus we have such phrases as, "I germinate like the plants,"[3] "My flesh germinateth,"[4] "I exist, I exist, I live, I live, I germinate, I germinate,"[5] "thy soul liveth, thy body germinateth by the command of Ra
[1. ###. Lepsius, Todtenbuch, Bl. 77,1. 7.
2. This chapter was found inscribed upon one of the linen wrappings of the mummy of Thothmes III., and a copy of the text is given by Naville (Todtenbuch, Bd. L, Bl. 179); for a later version see Lepsius, Todtenbuch, Bl. 75, where many interesting variants occur.
3. ###. Chapter LXXXIII., 3.
4. ###. Chapter LXIV., 1. 49. (Naville, Todtenbuch, Bd. I., Bl. 76.)
5. ###. Chapter CLIV. (Lepsius, Todtenbuch, 75.)]
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himself without diminution, and without defect, like unto Ra for ever and ever."[1] The word sahu though at times written with the determinative of a mummy lying on a bier like khat, "body," indicates a body which has obtained a degree of knowledge[2] and power and glory whereby it becomes henceforth lasting and incorruptible. The body which has become a sahu has the power of associating with the soul and of holding converse with it. In this form it can ascend into heaven and dwell with the gods, and with the sahu of the gods, and with the souls of the righteous. In the pyramid texts we have these passages:--
