Dying and rising gods. Religion and mythology of the ancient Egyptians Egyptian god of dying and resurrecting nature
2.1 Healing with magic
Of course, in some way the development of medicine as a science was hampered by the presence of certain magical actions in it. And, if in some cases, these actions did not cause harm, but did not help either, since they were given in conjunction with real medical actions, then, sometimes, they could cause harm, mainly due to the loss of time on them. Here is what M. A. Korostovtsev writes about this: “In the medical texts that have reached us, a combination of mutually exclusive principles is found: magical methods of treating patients and actual medical ones, developed empirically over the centuries. The Egyptians knew the value of knowledge - medical texts testify to this, but at the same time they could not rid their medicine of the heavy and unnecessary burden of magical views. According to these views, illness is caused by malicious spirits of the dead or creatures like demons. Penetrating into the body of humans and animals, they cause suffering, and only the power of magic can expel them from the suffering flesh. The disease could also be caused by the “evil eye” of an ill-wisher. It was these views that prompted the Egyptians to cultivate and deepen the use of magic in practical medicine in every possible way.”
It would be an exaggeration to say that the magical element dominates medicine itself in the medical texts that have come down to us. Many diagnoses and recipes are not accompanied by magical additions, but often medicine and magic are connected - not internally, organically, but externally, mechanically. It is recommended to treat diseases with a specific medicine, but it is better to treat them with both medicine and a magic spell. In this case, the spell does not necessarily have to correspond to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe disease or the properties of the medicine. When pronounced over a medicine, it increases its effectiveness and, thereby, contributes to a greater extent to the treatment, the expulsion from the body of the patient of the invisible and malicious creature that caused the disease. It was believed that if doctors could cure illnesses, they could also cause them. For example, in the magical demotic papyrus of London and Leiden (XX recto 13/II), in a text dating back to the beginning of the 3rd century. n. e., it is said: “Take a shrew, drown it and give this water to a man to drink - he will go blind in both eyes.” Or: “A tincture of wine and shrew bile will cause death to those who drink it.” 1
2.2 Mythology and healing
The ancient Egyptian religion existed for almost three and a half thousand years. The main deity of the ancient Egyptians was the sun god - Ra, who was depicted as a falcon or a man with the head of a falcon in a double royal crown (ruler of Southern and Northern Egypt). His name was included in the title of the pharaohs (“son of Ra”), who were recognized as the children of the Sun god.
Among the main deities of Ancient Egypt related to healing was the god Djehuti (Greek Thoth). He was revered as the inventor of hieroglyphic writing and medicine, the patron of knowledge, scribes and sages. The ibis bird and the baboon monkey were considered sacred - symbols of wisdom in Ancient Egypt Therefore, Thoth was depicted as a baboon or a man with the head of an ibis. According to legend, Thoth divided humanity into languages, invented mathematics and astronomy, the calendar and religious ceremonies, music and healing with folk remedies; he was also credited with compiling the most ancient Egyptian medical texts.
Lord the afterlife Usiri (Greek: Osiris) was revered as the god of dying and resurrecting nature. Osiris is a descendant of the god Ra, a symbol of the life-giving sun and the fertile Nile. Ancient texts describe him as the earliest king of Egypt, who ruled the country justly, but was killed and dismembered by the treacherous and envious god Seth (god of the desert). The loving wife and sister of Osiris, the goddess Yesit (Greek Isis), found and collected parts of his body, handing them over to the god Inpu (Greek Anubis) with the request to preserve Osiris forever. Anubis embalmed Osiris and prepared his mummy. After which Osiris became the ruler of the underworld and the king of the afterlife court. He was depicted as a swaddled mummy wearing a white crown with signs of royal power in his hands. The mummy was painted in green color- a symbol of resurrecting nature. According to legend, the mummy of Osiris was the first in the history of Egypt, and Anubis was revered as the inventor and first master of mummification. Before Osiris, he was the main god of the kingdom of the dead. Anubis was depicted as a black dog or jackal, and also as a man with the head of a jackal. During the afterlife judgment, he had to weigh the heart and show the way to the souls of the dead.
The goddess Isis - the devoted wife of Osiris and selfless mother - personified motherhood and fertilized nature. Hiding in the swamps of the Nile Delta, she gave birth to Osiris's son Horus, who, as an adult, defeated his father's murderer. Isis was revered as the guardian of royal power, the patroness of children and the inventor of magical healing. Medicines bearing the name of Isis were known even in Ancient Rome and are mentioned in the books of Galen (2nd century BC). She was depicted wearing a crown with a solar disk between the horns of a cow, with her son Horus in her arms. (Later, in Ancient Rome, this image had a noticeable influence on the development of the iconography of the Mother of God).
The son of Isis and Osiris is the god Horus (Greek. Horos- high-flying, or located in the heights; lat. Horus) - became one of the most significant images of Egyptian mythology. The god of the sky, whose eyes were the Sun and the Moon, he was depicted either in the form of a falcon, or a man with the head of a falcon, or a winged solar disk with two uraei (uraeus is a royal emblem, included three symbols of power (falcon, bee and cobra), placed on Pharaoh's headdress) on both sides. Having regained his father's throne, which rightfully belonged to him, he was revered as a guardian supreme power pharaohs. Horus learned the art of healing from his mother. His eye (eye of Horus) was revered by the Egyptians as a sacred eye - ujat (Egypt. ujat), a symbol of security and protection, the triumph of life over death. The Eye of Horus was depicted on amulets, often next to another symbol of protection from all enemies - the cobra goddess Wadjet (Egypt. Uajit- Green), which personified the power of the pharaoh and was depicted in a threatening fighting pose with swollen cheeks.
The cult of animals occupied a significant place in the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. Each nome (city-state) had its own sacred animal or bird: bull, cat, crocodile, ram, lion, falcon, ibis, kite, etc. The deceased cult animal was embalmed and buried with all honors. Killing a sacred animal was punishable by death.
In addition to the main deities, in ancient Egyptian mythology there were also gods of healing. The mighty Sokhmet, patroness of healers (Egypt. Sohmet or Sahmet- powerful) - the formidable goddess of war, plague and solar heat, the wife of Ptah, the supreme god of the city of Memphis; was depicted as a lioness or lion-headed woman holding a sign of life in her hand (Egypt. ankh).
The goddess of fertility Tauert was revered as the patroness of childbirth and motherhood (she was depicted as a pregnant female hippopotamus). During childbirth, small Tauert figurines were always placed next to the woman in labor and newborns, be it the heir of the great pharaoh or a simple Egyptian.
Thus, ancient Egyptian healing was associated with religious ideas and cults.
2.3 Pathological anatomy
A striking feature of Egyptian religion was the funeral cult, which arose in the predynastic period. It is the key to the entire ancient Egyptian culture. The inhabitants of Ancient Egypt believed in the afterlife and considered it an endless continuation of the earthly one. According to their ideas, human immortality is afterlife bestowed through the unity (coexistence) of three human substances: his physical body, his soul (“ba”) and his spiritual double (“ka”). The soul “ba” was understood as the physical life energy of a person; it was believed that she existed with the body of the deceased, but for a while she could leave the tomb and rise into the sky to the gods (she was depicted as a bird with a human head).
Another substance “ka” - “double” - a visible image of a person, created together with a person in his image and likeness, accompanies him throughout his life and exists after his death in the memory of people. Preserving the "ka" of the deceased by creating accurate images of the person was seen as one of the main ways to maintain his existence in the afterlife. “Ka” lives in the tomb, the other world, and even settles in the statues of the deceased. Both afterlife substances (“ba” and “ka”) are associated with the body of the deceased and live in the place of his burial. Hence the desire to preserve the body from destruction arose. For this purpose, the people of Egypt, since the predynastic period, kept the dead in the “red soil” of the deserts adjacent to the Nile Valley. The air and soil of Egypt have excellent preservative properties: the sun and hot sand saturated with salts dried the bodies of the dead, protecting them from further destruction. Thus, wrapped in mats, they were perfectly preserved (without a coffin or mummification). The development of civilization led to the construction of special premises for the burial of noble dead (mastabas, later pyramids). There was no sun, and special artificial methods were required to preserve the body. This is how mummification arose, or embalming of the dead(from Greek . balsamon- balm). It is clear that not many people had the opportunity to embalm the corpse of a deceased relative.
Mummification in Ancient Egypt was carried out by special people whom the Greeks called Tarikhevtami. The embalming method was kept secret and was not described in papyri - over time it was lost forever; however, the bodies of the dead, processed thousands of years ago, have survived to this day. The best description of the mummification process was left by the ancient Greeks - Herodotus (c. 484 - 425 BC) and Diodorus (c. 90 - 21 BC).
According to Herodotus, there were three methods of embalming. The most advanced and most expensive of them are as follows: “First they remove the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook... then they make an incision in the groin with a sharp Ethiopian stone and clear the abdominal cavity of the entrails. Having cleaned the abdominal cavity and washed it with palm wine, the masters then cleanse it again with ground incense. Finally, the womb is filled with clean pounded myrrh, cassia and other incense (except incense) and stitched up again. After this, the body is placed in soda lye for 70 days... After this 70-day period, after washing the body, they are wrapped in shrouds made of fine linen cut into ribbons and smeared with gum (it is used instead of glue). After this, the relatives take the body back, make a wooden sarcophagus in the form of a human figure and place the deceased there. Having been placed in a coffin, the body is stored in the family tomb, where the coffin is placed upright against the wall.”
A corpse processed in this way was preserved for thousands of years. The entrails (liver, lungs, stomach and intestines) were stored in four special alabaster vessels with lids decorated with images of a human or animal head - canopy(from Greek kanobos- name of a city in Ancient Egypt). The heart was left in the chest cavity; According to the Egyptians, it governed the entire physical and spiritual life of man and was necessary in the kingdom of Osiris.
Research carried out in the 20th century made some adjustments and additions to Herodotus’s now classic description. Thus, scientists have found that in most cases, “the corpse was first buried for several weeks in dry natural soda, found in Egypt (it is formed when natural soda lakes dry up). Moreover, in hot conditions, the corpse was almost completely dehydrated. Then (or previously) the entrails and brain were removed from the corpse, the skull (sometimes) was filled with resin, and the abdominal cavity was filled with branches of fragrant plants. In some cases, the entrails were not removed. Next, the corpse was wrapped in a cloth such as gauze. Sometimes several hundred meters long, using incense. The face of the deceased was made up using lead gloss, pyrolusite, copper oxide, colored clays and, probably, some vegetable paints. Antimony (sulphide) was not used for this purpose in ancient times. A mask made of sheet gold was placed on the face of royal mummies. Finally, the corpse was placed in a sarcophagus."
Nowadays, only one pharaoh rests in his sarcophagus in the Valley of the Kings - the young Tutankhamun (reigned c. 1361 - 1352 BC). X-ray examinations of his skull showed that Tutankhamun’s death was the result of a strong blow to the base of the skull with its subsequent fracture and the formation of an extensive hematoma; In all likelihood, he remained alive for several weeks and died without regaining consciousness at the age of 19. His devoted wife and paternal sister, Anchsenamon, briefly outlived her husband - power in Egypt was seized by Ai, the vizier of Tutankhamun.
It is interesting to note that in Ancient Egypt, sacred animals were also embalmed: snakes, birds, cats, crocodiles, bulls. According to the religious ideas of the ancient Egyptians, every deceased person appeared before the afterlife judgment (the idea was finally formed during the era of the New Kingdom). The afterlife court was presided over by the god Osiris. The god of knowledge, Thoth, acted as the prosecutor. God Anubis weighed the heart of the deceased. If it was lighter than an ostrich feather (a symbol of law and justice), the deceased had access to the world of the gods.
The funeral cult of Ancient Egypt had no equal in any religion of the peoples of antiquity. However, the Egyptian people have always remained resilient and strong. According to the Russian Egyptologist B. A. Turaev, every Egyptian thought about death throughout his entire life and, collecting everything necessary for the afterlife, “mainly prepared to not die, despite death.”
Geb entered into a secret relationship with his sister, the sky goddess Nut, but this relationship was discovered by the jealous Ra, who cursed Nut and declared that she would not be able to give birth in any month of the year. However, the god of wisdom Thoth, also in love with the goddess, as a reward for her favor towards him, began to play checkers with the Moon and each time won 1/70 of her light. These parts, added together, amounted to five days, which he added to the 360 days of the previous year.
Birth of Osiris
- On the first of these days, Nut gave birth to Osiris, and at the moment of his coming into the world, a certain voice announced that “the ruler of the whole earth was born.”
- On the second day the Choir was born.
- On the third day Seth came into the world. (He did not appear, as expected, in due time, but came out of his mother’s side through the wound he inflicted on her).
- On the fourth day, Isis was born in the swamps of the Delta, and on the last day, Nephthys. (As for their fathers, the first two were conceived by Ra, Isis by Thoth, and Seth and Nephthys by Geb).
- Later Seth took Nephthys as his wife, and Osiris took Isis as his wife.
The children of Nut, descended from the gods, at first had to live on earth among people as mere mortals, although they occupied far from the last position here.
Mythology and religion of ancient Egypt
Osiris became the first king of Egypt, as well as the first educator and teacher of religion of mankind. He was a wise ruler - following his instructions, the people emerged from poverty and barbarism. Osiris taught the Egyptians agriculture, gardening and winemaking, the art of medicine and the construction of cities, and gave them a basic set of laws. He also taught them reverence for the gods, which they had not previously had, and cultic service.
When Egypt, thanks to Osiris, became a prosperous and prosperous country, brother Set planned to deprive Osiris of power and, using cunning, killed him. He aggravated this crime with a new one - he cut up the body of the unfortunate man and scattered his pieces throughout the country.
However, Osiris's wife, his sister Isis, managed to find them. Ra, taking pity on her, sent the jackal-headed god Anubis to earth. He gathered the members of Osiris, embalmed the body and swaddled it. After this, Isis, in the form of a falcon, alighted on her husband’s corpse and, miraculously conceiving from him, gave birth to a son, Horus.
The treacherous Seth searched for his nephew for a long time to kill him, but he never found him. Isis nursed and raised her son, hiding from the whole world in the swamps of the Delta. When Horus grew up and matured, he summoned the offender to the court of the gods and demanded that the inheritance of Osiris be returned to him.
After a long litigation that lasted 80 years, the gods recognized Horus’ claim as fair and satisfied it. Horus became the new king of Egypt and managed to resurrect his father by allowing him to swallow his magic eye. However, Osiris did not want to return to earth - he remained in the Underworld as the king of the dead, leaving Horus to reign over the living.
History of religion in ancient Egypt
This is, in general terms, the myth of Osiris. It formed from him religion of ancient egypt. Its contents are known to us from the book of the Greek historian Plutarch, from several Egyptian papyri and from countless images.
The ancient Egyptians could directly see the passions of Osiris during the sacred mysteries. One can understand why his fate worried them so much. After all, Osiris embodied in their eyes the idea of a being who was both god and man, who experienced suffering and death during his life on earth and therefore was able to sympathize with them in their illnesses and death.
If at first Osiris was seen as the god of dying and resurrecting nature, then later the features of a god who bestows immortality came to the fore.
The Egyptians believed that they, who recognized the teachings of Osiris, would share with him his victory over death, reviving again for the afterlife. With each generation, the importance of the deified Osiris became greater and greater. AND religion of ancient egypt strengthened among the people.
Already in the 25th century. BC he was revered in all corners of Egypt, and after a thousand years Osiris became something of a national god - he was attributed the attributes of the great cosmic gods of older generations, and he was now considered not only the god and judge of the dead, but also the creator of the world and all things. Being, according to myth, the son of Ra, he now turned out to be greater in many respects and took a place next to his father in heaven.
In later times, Osiris began to be considered the source and beginning of gods, people and things. In some of his incarnations, Osiris was identified with the Nile, Ra and other gods. But first of all, around the figure of Osiris, all the Egyptian ideas about the afterlife crystallized, other world.
We have a fairly accurate understanding of them thanks to a collection of funeral texts, conventionally called “The Book of the Dead” (From ancient times, these texts were written on the walls of pyramids or tombs, but in its finished form the collection was formed only in the 7th-6th centuries BC. , when a canon of 165 sayings was compiled).
The Egyptians believed in several souls per person
According to the beliefs of the Egyptians, in addition to the physical body (it was called khat - this word meant everything that is inherent in decay), a person also possessed several souls. Khat was placed in a tomb after mummification and protected from death with the help of amulets, magical ceremonies, prayers and formulas.
Ka, the spiritual double of man, his life force, was connected with the body in a special way. Ka was born and grew up with a person, had his shortcomings and advantages. He could exist independently of the physical body, move freely on earth or ascend to heaven and talk with the gods there. The Egyptians believed that he could eat, drink, and enjoy the aromas of incense.
Finally, there was still ba, or the highest consciousness in man, the receptacle of his pure ideas. The Ba had the ability to become corporeal or incorporeal, but it was believed that it was an ethereal substance.
Ba could leave the tomb and ascend to heaven, where, according to the beliefs of the Egyptians, he enjoyed eternal existence in all its splendor. In a way, it was a container of life. When the ba returned to the body, the person came to life.
The Egyptians believed that after a person died, his body remained in the underworld with Osiris:
- Ba - in the sky, where it flew away, trying to reunite with the primary source of life - the Sun-Pa.
- And the spirit lived in the tomb.
The main purpose of the funeral ritual was the magical resurrection of the huts of the deceased. For this it was necessary:
- Keep the body in such a state that ba and ka can connect with it.
- Ensure the existence of the ka in the tomb.
- Find the soul of the ba, return it to the body and revive the latter.
All this was achieved by mummification of the corpse, construction of a tomb, sacrifices and special funeral rituals.
In ancient times, the posthumous fate of a person was determined mainly by the condition of the tomb and the funeral cult. Therefore, the construction of the tomb was the main concern of those Egyptians who had the means to build an eternal home.
Tombs of the Pharaohs and the Book of the Dead
The pharaohs began building tombs from the first days of their reign, and many nobles in ancient Egyptian documents pointed to the construction of the tomb as the most important event in their biography. obliged to this religion of ancient egypt.
In this regard, we must remember that for the Egyptians the tomb was not a sarcophagus, not a crypt in our sense of the word, but a house. Artists and sculptors depicted the deceased on its walls in the best years of his life, in the prime of his life. He was surrounded by portraits of his wife, children, servants, colorful pictures of feasts, dances, and sacrifices. There they painted villas and granaries, reeds and birds, herds of cows and sheep. All this, according to the deep conviction of the Egyptians, came to life at certain moments, and the deceased, finding himself in a familiar environment, could enjoy eternal happiness in his tomb-home.
Later, the idea of posthumous retribution arose. The fate of the deceased was made dependent on what sentence Osiris and the other gods who participated in the trial would give him.
The road to this trial was a particular problem. The path of the deceased ran through many regions of the underworld and through many palaces, the doors of which were guarded by hostile creatures. He also needed to cross underground rivers in a boat and receive help from the gods and rulers of different regions.
The Book of the Dead provided him with texts and formulas that had to be repeated out loud to achieve his goal. But these formulas turned out to be powerless in the eyes of all-knowing judges. Here, only a righteously lived life served as protection for the deceased.
Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead contains a long list of sins for which punishment was required. The deceased, accordingly, had to assure the judges that he did not commit them.
He said: “I did no evil... I did not lie to anyone... I did not snare the birds of the gods... I did not divert the flow of water... I did not steal... I did not reduce the victims... I did not rebel ... I did not speak evil against the king... I did not despise the gods...”
Judgment of Osiris
His words, however, were not taken at face value. In one of the Egyptian drawings we can see an image of the afterlife court. Osiris sits on the throne, wearing a crown, holding the staff and whip of the king. At the top are 42 gods from different regions of Egypt, who form a judgment seat. In the center of the courtroom there are scales on which the gods Horus and Anubis weigh the heart of the deceased.
On one side of the scale there is a heart, on the other there is a figurine of the goddess of truth. If the heart really did not weigh the same, the deceased was devoured by the terrible monster Amamat. But if the scales were balanced, the deceased was recognized as justified and his soul could ascend to heaven and share heavenly pleasures with the gods. Moreover, she not only stayed with Ra in his boat, but also merged with him.
In Chapter 42 of the Book of the Dead, the deceased says: “There are no members of my body that are not members of God. God Thoth united my body, and I am Ra day after day.”
It should be emphasized that as ideas about the power of Osiris expanded, his cult became more and more democratic. If in ancient times Osiris was primarily the royal god (and each pharaoh, dying, was likened to Osiris, and his heir - Horus), then later every Egyptian, turning to his deceased father with a prayer, called him Osiris, and himself Horus.
In later funeral texts, any deceased person was declared identical with Osiris. This identification had a mystical meaning - in terms of the participation of all people in the nature of the deity. Thus, the Osiric teaching came to a very important idea about the universal equality of people before the impartial judge of the dead.
In the Egyptian city of Abydos, every year in the fourth month a holiday was celebrated in honor of good god fertility of Osiris. The vast temple courtyard was filled with crowds of people. A barge with a huge statue of a god was moving before the eyes of the audience. The priests, depicting the companions of Osiris, waved swords and spears, as if repelling his enemies. Suddenly the statue collapsed with a crash, and the temple courtyard was filled with loud crying and piercing cries: “Osiris has died! The great god has died!
The Egyptians believed that the good god Osiris and his wife the goddess Isis taught people to cultivate the land, sow cereals and grow grapes, and then the good god, who gave people food, was killed by the god of the arid winds of the desert, his envious brother Set. The priests spoke about the death of Osiris in different ways, contradicting each other. Some said that Set, during a feast, lured Osiris into a beautiful coffin, slammed the lid and threw him into the water; others - that Set cut Osiris into 14 parts and scattered pieces of his body throughout the country, and Isis, with tears, collected them and united them together. They especially readily talked about how the good goddess, hiding from Set in the swamps, gave birth to and raised a son, Horus (the deity of the sun), who later defeated his uncle Set and revived Osiris.
Many such wonderful stories were passed from mouth to mouth while the priests were playing out a sacred drama (mystery), in which there was so much mysterious and incomprehensible. The wise elders profoundly stated that ordinary people one is not supposed to know divine secrets. It is enough for an ordinary person to blindly believe and submit to the will of the gods. But then two beautiful lizards appeared on the temple site, dressed in women's clothes. On the shoulder of one of them was written “Isis”, on the shoulder of the other - “Nephthys”. These were the divine wife and sister of Osiris. They sat on either side of the fallen statue of the god and with tears begged him to get up, assuring him that the danger had passed, that the enemies had already been defeated. Suddenly the statue rose by itself (in reality, of course, it was raised by the priests hidden in the barge). General rejoicing began. Everyone shouted that the good god had come to life, that Osiris had conquered death, that the hot desert where Set lived was neutralized and the fertile land would again give its fruits to people.
They told a completely different story about the death and resurrection of the good god of vegetation in Babylonia. When the cold winter set in, the Babylonian priests declared that the fertility goddess Ishtar descended into the underworld for her lover, the untimely death of the young Tammuz (the deity of spring). The gatekeeper of the “land of no return” stripped the beautiful goddess Ishtar of all her clothes and jewelry. And she languishes there in eternal darkness, suffers from 60 diseases, and the souls of the dead fly around, dressed in feathers, like birds. They feed on dust and clay and yearn for earthly life. Simultaneously with the captivity of the goddess, plant life on earth also ceased. The leaves on many of them have dried out and fallen off. Seeing this, the gods demanded from the queen of the underworld the release of Ishtar and Tammuz. When they came to earth, spring began, all nature came to life. This is how the priests explained the change of seasons.
However, they also said about another Babylonian god, Marduk, that he dies and is resurrected every year. In one of the temples, the priests represented the trial of evil demons over the good god. Marduk was interrogated, beaten with a whip and taken away for execution, and the people were shown bloody clothes. And then the priest portraying the god appeared amid general rejoicing - “Marduk has risen from the dead!”
Some other agricultural peoples of antiquity also believed in the death and resurrection of the god of fertility.
The Phoenicians established mourning in memory of young Adonis, who was allegedly killed by a wild boar in the mountains, and they assured that the Adonis River (named after the god) turns red in the fall from the blood of the dead god. True, there were sober people who explained this “miracle” by natural causes. They said that the waters of the river turn red from the sand that the autumn rains wash away from the Lebanese mountains. However, overcoming superstition was not easy.
Belief in Adonis in the 3rd - 2nd centuries. BC e. spread among the Greeks, who declared him the lover of Aphrodite herself, the goddess of love and beauty. The goddess, according to them, searched for the corpse of Adonis for a long time, wandering barefoot along the wild rocks, and her feet were wounded by stones and thorns, but roses grew from drops of her blood, and the young god she found miraculously came to life.
Under the influence of all these beliefs, it developed later and Christian teaching about God voluntarily going to martyrdom to save people (see page 114). The stories about Jesus Christ crucified on the cross are in many ways reminiscent of the myths about Osiris, Tammuz and Adonis.
Why did such similar religious beliefs arise that instill in people in different ways the same idea about the torment of a good God? This was no accident. The powerlessness of ancient people before nature, the inability to subjugate it and rationally explain natural phenomena gave rise to faith in the mysterious forces that govern the world.
Gradually, people began to subjugate nature through hard work, but the old beliefs remained firmly in their minds. Representatives of the ruling classes of society, which included clergymen of various religions, energetically supported the belief in the suffering of a deity, be it Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis or Jesus Christ. The suffering gods were set as examples for people. The working people and the oppressed were taught that they should not complain about poverty, hunger, or hard work, that they should endure it without complaint, that this was the divine will. The class role of religion is most clearly reflected in the false teaching about the inevitability and necessity of suffering - “the Lord endured and commanded us.”
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The Egyptian state, one of the oldest in the world, arose in the 5th millennium BC. e. The formation and strengthening of a centralized slave state in Egypt dates back to 3600–2700. BC e. The economic conditions of Egypt contributed to the development and strengthening of a despotic form of government and the emergence of a large bureaucracy. Egypt is characterized by a caste division of society. Priests, officials, and the clan aristocracy headed by the pharaoh constituted the ruling elite and concentrated land, trade, and government in their hands. They called themselves “great”, “big”, and all other free and dependent people - “small” (nedzhes).
Both in agriculture and in industry, small-scale production, serviced by forced or free labor, predominated. Forced labor was also widely used in the construction of tombs for the pharaohs, temples, irrigation structures, and in quarries. The exploitation of slaves was taken to the extreme. Relations between social groups and classes in ancient Egypt were extremely diverse. The caste division of society did not coincide with the class division. The caste included people with different financial status.
During the transition from the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom, the process of differentiation of the rural community intensified. A significant group of free and dependent people became rich, became slave owners and separated from the community. In this regard, a struggle broke out between the old, tribal aristocracy, priests and new slave owners. In the field of ideology, this was reflected in the intensification of the struggle against religion, in the denial of the doctrine of the afterlife.
The doctrine of the afterlife occupied a significant place in the theological systems of ancient Egypt. This was partly facilitated by the natural-geographical conditions of the country, the unusually sharp contrasts of nature: on the one hand there is a barren desert, on the other there is a fabulously fertile valley. The dryness of the climate, thanks to which substances subject to decay are preserved for a long time, as B. A. Turaev wrote, “promoted a special direction of ideas about the afterlife, determined concern for the preservation of bodies and caused an exceptional development of interest and teaching about the other world among other religions.”
Sacred Bull Apis
The ancient Egyptian religion underwent many changes. In the predynastic period, it was reduced mainly to magic, totemic ideas and the cult of ancestors. In a more developed slave-owning society, the remnants of totemism took the form of the cult of sacred animals (bull, ibis, hawk, cat, jackal, cow, crocodile, etc.) and acquired new social content.
In ancient Egypt, sacred animals were inviolable. Killing them was considered the greatest crime and was punishable by death. Herodotus reports that the death of a cat was mourned more among the Egyptians than the death of a son. Sacred animals lived in temples. According to the beliefs of the Egyptians, they were carriers of the soul of one or another god. Sacred animals were supposed to have certain characteristics, for example, the Apis bull was supposed to be black with a white spot on its forehead.
Egyptian religion, like any religion class society, was called upon to defend and theoretically justify social inequality between people and the dominance of the exploiting classes. Its forms changed depending on the economic and political development of the country. With the centralization of political power, the kingdom of God is endowed with all the features of the earthly, an entire hierarchy of gods is created, headed by the king-god, with a huge staff of archangel-satraps and angelic officials. The gods, like earthly rulers, wage wars among themselves, make peace, and when they grow old, retire, transferring power to an heir. It is no coincidence that the ancient Egyptian historian Manetho speaks of a “dynasty of gods.”
With the strengthening of the agricultural aristocracy in Egyptian religion, an increasing place is given to the doctrine of the afterlife, the judgment of God and the journey of souls. The priests, in order to eliminate the inconsistency and discord in the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, tried to systematize them and merge them into one religious doctrine. The most famous, according to B. A. Turaev, was the theological system created in the north of Egypt in the city of Iliopolis. According to this system, the local god Atum was identified with the sun god Ra and the following hierarchy of gods was established: the supreme god Ra, the creator of the world, the first king of gods and people; his children are the god of air Shu and the goddess of moisture Tefnut; they gave the next pair - the sky god Nut and the earth goddess Hebe, from whom other deities emerged, including Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys. These nine gods made up the so-called great Ennead.
Under the god Ra, the vizier was the wise Thoth, the god of the moon, measures, numbers, letters, “the lord of the word of God,” the patron of “writing and literature... scientists, writers,” scribes. Thus, the scribe in the story of two brothers remarks at the end: “Whoever objects to this book, let him be his enemy.” Egyptian priests tried to instill in the people that culture, writing, and literature were a gift from the gods, “the word of God.” Thoth was credited with the invention of writing and the authorship of all the numerous sacred books. The Greeks called the sacred books of the Egyptians “Books of Hermes,” that is, the books of the Egyptian god Hermes-Thoth. Clement of Alexandria (2nd century AD) mentions forty-two “Books of Hermes” (the number 42 was considered sacred in Egypt). Of these, thirty-six, he said, contained the entire philosophy of the Egyptians. These books, in addition to a detailed description of religious rituals and hymns in honor of the gods, contained information of a medical, astronomical, and geographical nature. However, they drowned and dissolved in theological systems. Knowledge of the sacred books was mandatory for priests and was distributed according to the priestly levels.
Triad: Horus, Osiris, Isis
The religious-idealistic worldview was dominant in ancient Egypt. It was created and developed by representatives of the slave-owning aristocracy. Marx emphasized: “The dominant ideas of any time have always been only the ideas of the ruling class.” In ancient Egypt, the influence of religion on the economic, political and spiritual life of society was especially strong. Religion preached the inviolability of the slave system, the eternity of social inequality between people, and instilled in the masses a belief in the supernatural and slavish submission to fate. Herodotus called the ancient Egyptians the most pious people, for religion played a special role in their lives, regulating every step from birth to death.
The funeral cult served in the hands of the priests as a serious spiritual weapon for strengthening the slave system. The god of water and vegetation, Osiris, already in ancient times was considered the god of dying and resurrecting nature. The cult of Osiris apparently dates back to primitive times. Ancient Egyptian believed that human life is similar to the life of Osiris:
As Osiris truly lives, so do you live,
Just as he truly does not die, so you do not die.
Just as he is not truly destroyed, so you are not destroyed either.
It was no coincidence that the cult of the dying and resurrecting god Osiris was ubiquitous and personified agricultural labor. Osiris was considered the "god of grain." As one ancient Egyptian text says, it “gives universal light, grain and food. He introduces satiety and reveals himself in the form of water.”
According to the myth of Osiris, the latter was the son of the sky god Nut and the earth goddess Hebe. The younger brother of Osiris, the god of evil Set, decided to destroy his older brother. For this purpose, he made a box and by cunning forced Osiris to lie down in it. Then Seth slammed the lid and threw the box into the Nile. The faithful wife of Osiris, the goddess Isis, after a long search, found her husband’s corpse. After the death of Osiris, Isis gave birth to a son, Horus. A figurine of Isis breastfeeding a baby was widespread in Egypt. The image of Isis and the baby Horus subsequently formed the basis for the creation of the image mother of god with Christ in her arms. When Horus grew up, he opposed Set and defeated him. Horus, as the heir of Osiris, takes the throne in the kingdom of the living, and the resurrected and restored Osiris reigns in world of the dead. The myth of Osiris subsequently entered many religions, including Christianity and Islam.
God Thoth
God Seth
The cult of the dying and resurrecting god in Egypt was closely connected with the funeral cult. The Egyptians believed not only in the resurrection of the soul, but also in the resurrection of the body and flesh. The “Books of the Dead” (religious and magical collections) says: “You live again, and your soul is not separated from your body.” The content of the Books of the Dead is incredibly colorful and varied. Basically, these are collections of spells and conspiracies supposedly necessary for safety in the kingdom of the dead. Some chapters are specifically devoted to the behavior of the deceased. In the 125th chapter, for example, a description is given of the afterlife judgment, at which the deceased denies the 42 sins he has committed. It is characteristic that at the judgment seat it is not the soul that is weighed on the scales, but the heart of the deceased, since among the Egyptians the heart served as a symbol of the soul. In the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead, the dead man conjures his heart not to testify against him at the posthumous trial.
Astral cults were also very common in Egypt. In connection with the development of agriculture and irrigation, as well as astronomy, the cult of the sun god Ra, who headed egyptian pantheon gods. The Egyptians considered the sun to be menacing destructive force, the beginning of warmth and light.
Goddess Isis with her son Horus.
God Osiris
Although religious beliefs played a large role in the life of the Egyptians, they could not completely destroy free thought. Social inequality, class contradictions, social and industrial practices of the masses inevitably gave rise to doubts about the social and ideological principles that the priests preached. The situation of the workers was extremely difficult. Some ancient Egyptian literary monuments have been preserved, describing the life of peasants, artisans and slaves doomed to hard, hopeless work. In one of the documents, an old scribe recommends that his son choose the profession of a scribe. The blacksmith, he says, has fingers as rough as things made of crocodile skin, and he smells worse than fish roe. The profession of artisans, who have no more rest than cultivators, and who work even at night, is no better.
It is no coincidence that in those days physical labor was considered a punishment for sins. The brutal exploitation of the poor and slaves by the ruling classes led to the aggravation of social contradictions. The situation of people engaged in hard work was completely unbearable. Their labor was paid in bread, which was distributed on the first day of each month. But there was only enough bread for half a month; for the remaining fifteen days the workers starved. As a result, hunger strikes and riots arose. Some of the workers' demands were preserved in ancient Egyptian literary monuments. In one of the documents, these demands are formulated as follows: “We are starving, and there are still eighteen days left until next month. We came, driven by hunger, driven by thirst, we have nothing to wear, we have no oil, no fish, no vegetables. Send to Pharaoh, our sovereign, send to the king, our lord, so that we can be given a means of subsistence.”
But the protests of the masses were not always peaceful in nature. During the middle kingdom, major riots and uprisings of free and slaves took place against the slave-owning aristocracy, the pharaoh and the priesthood. The rebels destroyed and plundered the “cities of the dead” (i.e., cemeteries where wealthy people were buried). The robbing of the tombs of pharaohs, priests and slave-owning nobility testifies to the disbelief of the masses in the afterlife and in the resurrection of the dead.
The struggle between the haves and the have-nots took place not only in the field of economics and politics, but also in the field of ideology. From this point of view, the “Teaching” of Tsar Akhtoy to his son is of significant interest, in which Akhtoy strives to theoretically and morally justify the slave system, to prove the eternity and inviolability of social inequality and exploitation. The author of the Instruction warns that the most dangerous enemy of the state is the poor. Therefore, they should not be allowed even into the army. He recommends appointing only wealthy slave owners to major government and military positions. Akhtoy advises dealing with fugitives and rebels decisively and mercilessly: “Exterminate him, kill him, erase his name, destroy his loved ones, destroy the memory of him and the people who love him.”
Tsar Akhtoy is an ardent defender of the private property of the slave owner. He considers any attempt on her immoral: “He who envyes what others have is a fool, for life on earth passes, it is not long, but he who leaves a good memory of himself is a lucky man... Is there a person who lives forever?..” . Akhtoy defends the divine origin of royal power, the superiority of the king over other people from birth: “The king, who has nobles, is not ignorant - he is intelligent from birth, and God raised him up with millions of people.”
The “Instructions” of Tsar Akhtoy set out the basic norms of slave-owning morality. It is interesting that even then the slave-owning classes resorted to the notorious idea of heredity to prove their superiority by birth. The Instruction says that the king is reasonable and rules over millions at the behest of God. The fact that the author of the “Teaching” has to prove the right to power of the king and slave owners indicates the existence of an opposite opinion at that time.
It should be remembered that materialist and atheistic literature, which reflected the worldview of the working people, was destroyed by the ideologists of the slave-owning class. We can judge it mainly in the transmission of representatives of the ruling classes, who deliberately distorted the views of their opponents. But even what has survived shows that the masses did not always believe in the divine origin of the ruling classes and did not always put up with their power. As many sources testify, representatives of the ruling classes of ancient Egypt described with horror the unrest of the “rabble” and predicted new revolutionary upheavals and coups. The words of the priest Onhu emanate pessimism and fear: “I am thinking about what is happening, about the state of affairs on earth. A change is happening. One year is harder than the next. The country is in disorder. The truth is thrown out, the untruth is thrown out in the Council chamber. The destinies of the gods have been trampled underfoot, there is lamentation everywhere, towns and cities are in mourning.”
Many “teachings” written by high-ranking nobles and priests have reached us. “Teachings” are unique sociological treatises of a political, ethical and philosophical nature. The reason for their emergence was, apparently, a sharp intensification of the struggle between peasants, slaves and slave owners, between workers and the aristocracy. The “teachings” clearly reflected the uprising of slaves and the poor. Their authors defend the idea of the naturalness and eternity of economic and social inequality between people and consider the struggle of the masses against the exploiting classes as a struggle against the existing religious worldview, against divine and royal laws.
The Middle Kingdom was especially rich in “teachings” - a period of major popular uprisings. To this time, Soviet historians attribute, in particular, the “Speech of Ipuver,” which describes one of these uprisings. The uprising of the masses, as Ipuver testifies, led to the seizure of state power: “The poor drove out the king.” Being an ideologist of the ruling classes, Ipuver deliberately downplays the scale of the uprising, saying that “a few people who did not know the law deprived the country of royal power.” Following the social revolution, there was also the destruction of the political apparatus of the slave-owning aristocracy. Most of the gentlemen and officials were killed, and the survivors were dispersed throughout the country; The scrolls of the laws of the judicial chamber are thrown directly into the street, and the rebels break the seals on them. “The Great Court of Justice became the place of exit and entry into it. Poor people go out and enter the great palaces (the courtroom of judges. - A. A.)».
The masses of the people who rebelled against the exploiters spared neither the “divine” king, nor the secrets of the gods, nor the wealth of the temples. They revealed the secrets of religious witchcraft and magical “secrets” that constituted the monopoly of the priestly caste. Ipuver recalls with horror the days when “the poor man achieved the existence of nine gods... The secret of the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt was exposed... Those who lay embalmed... were thrown onto the heights... Magic formulas became publicly available. “Shem” spells (appearance or disappearance of an evil spirit. - A.A.) and “sehen” spells (possession of an evil spirit. - A.A.) have become dangerous, because they are now remembered by all people. Archives were opened, tax lists were confiscated" (documents confirming the slave status of a person. - A.A.). During the coup, not only the property of nobles and temples was damaged, but also the royal pyramids were robbed. “Things have been accomplished that never seemed to be able to happen... What the pyramid hid now stands empty” (i.e., the tombs of the kings. - A. A.).
From the numerous “teachings” of this period it is clear that the rebels had their own leaders and ideological leaders. The author of one of the “teachings” advises not only to deal mercilessly with the rebels, but also to take decisive measures against those who incite the people to revolt. "The talker is a danger to the city." “Twist down the crowd and remove the flames that come from it. Do not support a person who is hostile, for he is poor... He is an enemy.” "Teachings" indicate that driving force uprisings were the working people. From the victory of the uprising “the rich man is in despair, the poor man is full of joy.” As a result of the coups, a redistribution of wealth occurred, new wealthy strata of society emerged with their own special economic and political interests, with their own ideology.
The rebels challenged religion, which justified and legitimized oppression and exploitation. The authors of the “teachings” are forced to admit “disbelief in gods” among the rebels. “Hot heads say: “If I knew where God is, I would sacrifice to him.” Civil wars, coups, changes in the dynasties of kings, a major breakdown in social relations convincingly proved the falsity of statements about the eternity and inviolability of the existing system, about the divinity and immortality of kings. Before the eyes of the workers, the tombs fell into disrepair and fell apart; God's punishment did not reach those who robbed the tombs of kings, nobles and priests.
Few literary monuments reflecting the aspirations and moods of the disadvantaged working masses have reached us, but even these fragmentary data indicate the beginnings of a materialistic and atheistic worldview in ancient Egypt. A striking document of atheistic thought is the famous “Harper's Song,” dating back to the Middle Kingdom. Its author denies the basis of the foundations of the Egyptian religion - the doctrine of the afterlife. The Harper's Song says that none of the dead returned to tell about the afterlife. Immortality is an invention of the priests. Both gods and people are mortal.
Bodies die and are destroyed,
Others are replacing them, since the time of their ancestors, -
such is the cycle of movement. There is nothing eternal under the sun, even earthly gods die: “The gods that were before rest in their pyramids; also mummies and spirits are buried in their tombs.” Therefore, the author of the song advises not to think about the afterlife, but to enjoy the joys of earthly existence:
Multiply your pleasures even more,
Don't let your heart be sad,
Follow his wishes and indulge in pleasures,
Organize your affairs on earth
According to the dictates of your heart
And don't be sad
Until the day of mourning (for you) comes.
He whose heart does not beat (Osiris) does not listen to complaints,
And mourning does not bring anyone back from the grave.
So, celebrate the joyful day.
Cheer up,
For no one takes his goods with him,
None of those who went there returned back.
Due to its atheistic orientation, “Conversation of a Disappointed Man with His Spirit” is of great interest, in which the progressive social thought of ancient Egypt was clearly reflected. The author of the “Conversation” raises numerous questions of a philosophical and ethical nature, denies the existence of the other world, the possibility of immortality. The social focus of this work is manifested in the description of inequality and injustice in ancient Egyptian society, in the general conclusion: “There is no truth on earth.” Not a single literary work of ancient Egypt expresses anger and protest against the slave system so strongly. Many researchers note the pessimistic nature of the Conversation. But pessimism is different from pessimism. The pessimism of the author of “Conversations,” which reveals the hopeless situation of the poor man, for whom death is deliverance from earthly suffering, is a challenge to religion with its teachings about the afterlife and immortality.
“The Conversation” is a dialogue between a poor man and his spirit. A poor man who has reached the limit of poverty decides to commit suicide and convinces his spirit to voluntarily go into kingdom of the dead, hoping that in the judgment seat of the gods he would be treated mercifully. The spirit dissuades him, proves that the poor man has no reason to count on immortality, for belief in posthumous existence is vain. There is no afterlife. Death equalizes everyone: both those who were buried in expensive tombs and those who died on the seashore without relatives and friends. The Spirit advises the poor man not to believe the stupid tales of the nobles of this world about a blissful other life. “Listen to me, it is good for a person to obey, spend your time having fun. Forget your worries."
The poor man, in the end, manages to convince his spirit to follow him to the kingdom of the dead, for it is impossible to live in an evil and soulless world, where people hate the poor man. “Hearts are evil,” says the poor man, “everyone robs his neighbor. A person with a gentle gaze is wretched; kindness is neglected everywhere. The person you rely on is heartless. There is no justice. The earth is a haven for villains. I am depressed by misfortune, I have no true friend. The evildoer plagues the earth, and there is no end to it.” In “The Conversation” one can clearly feel the mental discord, the dispute between a person and himself.
Egyptologists give contradictory characteristics of this document. B. A. Turaev believes that “Conversation” reflects a person’s personal tragedy: “Here is the torment of a thinking soul over the greatest problems of existence... Here before us... is a sufferer, driven to despair by everyday hardships.” I. M. Lurie, polemicizing with B. A. Turaev, gives a different assessment of the “Conversation”, considering it an expression of protest against the violation of the usual order of life. M. E. Mathieu joins Lurie’s opinion. He writes: “People, suddenly deprived of their usual high position and the comfortable environment of a prosperous life, not only expressed their dissatisfaction with angry statements, but sometimes literary works carried these protests to the point of choosing death over life in unacceptable conditions.” It can be assumed that the author of the Conversation, driven to despair by the conditions of public life, reflected the sentiments of broad sections of the dispossessed and oppressed masses.
Of course, “The Song of the Harper” and “The Conversation of the Disappointed with His Spirit” are extremely important documents for characterizing the development of social thought in ancient Egypt. In these works, imbued with atheism and free-thinking, a skeptical attitude towards the dominant ideology and religion was clearly manifested. Apparently, not only in ancient Greece and Rome, but also in ancient Egypt, skepticism was a convenient form of cover for atheism.
It is quite natural that the slave-owning aristocracy and priests waged a decisive struggle against the social ideas expressed in the “Harper’s Song”, “Conversation”, etc. For example, King Akhtoy in his “Teaching”, which we have already talked about, defends the idea of an afterlife and the immortality of the soul, advises his son to build tombs: “Create for God - may he do the same for you - with sacrifices filling altars and inscriptions - this is the preservation of your name, for God knows who creates for him.”
Freethinking, disbelief in afterlife retribution, and atheism especially flourish in connection with the religious reform of Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), who sought to strengthen his power by weakening the hereditary, including priestly, nobility. Akhenaten's reform was ultimately political in nature. In contrast to the polytheism that dominated Egypt, Akhenaten put forward a new, monotheistic religious doctrine, which proclaimed Aten, the god of the solar disk, to be the only god.
In the myth-making of peoples, the solar cult played a huge role. The miraculous properties of fire evoked a feeling of horror and awe among primitive people. Many fantastic ideas were associated with the sun and solar rays. “Why is the skin of a living person warm, why does the blood, heart, and entrails taken from a living animal emit steam? The ancients had one answer to these questions: warmth is of divine origin, it is an innate property of people and animals.”
Solar gods existed in the religious systems of ancient Egypt even before Akhenaten. We have already said that the cult of the sun god Ra was widespread in Egypt and competed with the cult of the national god Amun. However, Akhenaten's religious reform was not a return to the old cult. ancient egyptian god Ra. The god of the solar disk Aten had nothing in common with the god Ra. Akhenaten's god was a living being, unlike the sun. But the deification of the sun was also associated with warmth: “The heat that resides in the sun (Aten) ....” The symbol of the god Aten was the solar disk. The highest symbol of the new god was in sharp contradiction with the religious tradition of the Egyptians.
This partly explains why the Egyptian priests declared Akhenaten an atheist and a blasphemer. Of course, Akhenaten’s struggle against the cult of the god Amun was purely political in nature and was a struggle against the all-powerful caste of priests of the temple of Amun. But it would be a mistake not to take into account the theological element in this struggle. In a kind of religious reformation, all the numerous cults of the gods of ancient Egypt suffered to one degree or another, giving way to the cult of a single god.
The main Theban god Amun
It is characteristic that in the time of Akhenaten they avoided using the plural of the word “god”.
There are different views on the question of what caused the cult of the one supreme god Aten and whether this was a transition to monotheism. So, in " World history“It is said that “the widespread opinion about the new faith of Amenhotep IV, as monotheism, does not correspond to reality.” Undoubtedly, Akhenaten's reforms were not associated with theogonic and theological disputes. Already during the time of Akhenaten, polytheism ceased to satisfy the new political conditions. Apparently, theological systems had to correspond to political ones. This can partly explain the emergence of the idea of monotheism, which was supposed to correspond to the political dominance of Egypt as a world power. The ancient Egyptian gods were incomprehensible and alien to many peoples inhabiting the Egyptian empire; the idea of a single global imperial god in the form of a solar disk was much more accessible to them.
Akhenaten's religious reform had a huge impact on all aspects of Egyptian social life and led to a sharp break with old traditions, foundations and conventions.
Hymns attributed to Pharaoh Akhenaten were created in honor of the new god Aten. They are interesting not only as literary monuments, but also as a unique religious philosophical concept, as a worldview of that era. Here is one of them:
Your sunrise is beautiful on the horizon,
O living Aten, originator of life!
You produce a human embryo in a woman,
You create a seed in a man
You give life to a son in the body of a mother,
How varied all your works are!
They are hidden from us
O you, the only god, besides whom there is no other.
You created the earth according to your will.
The idea of monotheism, the supreme ruler, the creator of everything that exists is the content of all these hymns. Everything that Aton created in nature and society is harmonious and purposeful. Aten is "the father and mother of all that he created." Akhenaten's new state god differs sharply from the old Egyptian gods in that he is not a warlike conqueror of other nations, but a virtuous father of all tribes. Hymns in honor of Aten, apparently, represented unique dogmas of the new faith. B. A. Turaev notes that these hymns have a universal character: there is nothing specifically Egyptian in them. Foreigners are not barbarians, but the same children of a common god, distinguished only by language and skin color by the will of this god.
The new faith completely lacks the doctrine of the afterlife, the traditional kingdom of the dead of Osiris and the cult of Osiris itself. In the cult of Aten there is not even a mention of the afterlife judgment, of terrible torment and death of souls in the other world. Of course, this cannot be associated only with the name of Akhenaten, for even before him there were people who did not believe in the traditional teaching. But Akhenaten’s religious reform certainly contributed to changing people’s ideas about the afterlife and the immortality of the soul. It was in connection with the destruction of the cult of the old gods and the revision of many seemingly unshakable religious traditions, canons and rules that free-thinking developed and doubts arose about the existence of the afterlife.
It must be assumed that the priesthood waged a fierce struggle against atheistic and free-thinking movements, hence the abundance of prophetic literature, painting in black colors the future horrors that await people in the near future if they do not follow the path outlined by God. This prophetic literature was subsequently borrowed by the Jewish priests and formed the basis of many biblical legends and tales. Egyptian prophetic literature sought to prove the truth of the cult of Osiris, the existence of the afterlife and eternal peace. Thus, in one of the texts, the deceased Ani, in a conversation with the god Atum (before Akhenaten’s reform, was considered supreme god in the pantheon of Egyptian gods) expresses doubt about the existence of an afterlife, but the god Atum refutes his doubts:
Ani : O Atum, what does it (mean) that I am going to the desert? There is no water there, no air, it is deep, deep, dark, dark, eternal, eternal!
Atum : You will live in it with a peaceful heart!
Ani : But there are no joys of love in it!
Atum : I gave enlightenment instead of water, air and the joys of love, peace of the heart - instead of bread and beer!
The idea of monotheism was not accidental in Egypt. It existed before Akhenaten and in different forms appeared after him. During the New Kingdom, philosophical and religious movements moved away from traditional ideas. Issues of politics, ethics, and social problems become their focus. The ideas of monotheism are closely intertwined with the ideas of atheism.
The “Teaching”, dating back to the 13th century, is very interesting. BC e. If the hymns in honor of Aten simply do not mention the kingdom of the dead, then the author of this document directly opposes religious superstitions, rituals and canons, against the existence of an afterlife, the construction of necropolises, pyramids, and tombs. He considers the creators of books and scientific works to be truly immortal. The author of the “Teaching” strongly protests against submission to fate: “Beware lest you say: every person (created) in his own image; the ignorant and the wise are equal; fate and upbringing are written in the scriptures of God himself, and every person goes through his life like an hour.” In its ideological content, this “Teaching” echoes not only the “Harper’s Song”, but also the ideas of religious reformation, and hymns in honor of the Aten. However, unlike “The Harper's Song” and other similar works, which have elements of hedonism and skepticism, optimism predominates in it.
Akhenaten's worship of the sun
One of the important documents for characterizing the views of the ancient Egyptians is the “Dispute of Horus with Set,” in which the Egyptian gods, like the Greek ones, are shown with all the weaknesses inherent in humans. In this work, not only elements of freethinking were clearly manifested, but also a skeptical attitude towards the gods. Objecting to the god Osiris, who considers himself the creator of the plant world, the god Ra says: “If you did not exist and if you were not born, there would still be barley and shooting.”
Another Egyptian monument, “Conversation of Khakheperseib with his heart,” is closer in content to “Conversation of the Disappointed with his Spirit.” “Reflecting on what is happening, on the state of affairs on earth,” the author comes to the conclusion that there is no justice on earth. Sorrow and need reign everywhere. Fair “criticism causes enmity, hearts do not accept the truth.” You can’t rely on anyone, you can only talk with your heart.
An interesting atheistic document is a song dedicated to the priest Nefergotep (died about 1340 BC), which largely coincides in content with the Harper's Song. It also denies the funeral cult, the existence of the afterlife and praises the joys of earthly life:
Celebrate the joyful day, O priest!..
Throw away all your worries and think about joy and think about joy,
Until the day comes when they will take you
You to the country that loves silence!
Celebrate the joyful day, O Nefergotep,
Wise, with clean hands!
I heard everything that happened to my ancestors -
Their bodies fell apart
There is no place for them anymore
They certainly never existed.
As we have already noted, the progressive thought of ancient Egyptian society came to us in the transmission of its enemies, often in a distorted form, but even from this fragmentary information it is clear that the ancient Egyptian atheists opposed religion, religious dogmas and traditions. It was in the struggle against religious idealistic views that a naive materialistic and atheistic worldview took shape. During the era of ancient Egypt, scientific knowledge received significant development. The Roman scientist Macrobius called Egypt the mother of sciences, and the Egyptians the founders of all philosophy, the first people who dared to explore and measure the heavens, and the only ones who penetrated into all the divine secrets. The increasing complexity of social relations and the development of the economy, to one degree or another, required the development of science. Marx in Capital emphasizes that “the need to calculate the periods of the Nile flood created Egyptian astronomy, and at the same time the dominance of the priestly caste as leaders of agriculture.”
The development of irrigated agriculture and the construction of irrigation structures led to the accumulation of astronomical knowledge. In Egypt, the first calendar was created, dividing the year into 12 months, 30 days in each, which, together with five additional days, amounted to 365 days. Dio Cassius says that the distribution of days among the seven planets was invented by the Egyptians and much later communicated by them to other people; the ancient Greeks knew nothing about this.
Shu separates heaven from earth
The Egyptians achieved significant success in the field of medicine. They were familiar with anatomy, surgery; Ancient Egyptian doctors created a veterinary clinic. Although in ancient Egypt science was closely connected with religion, doctors looked for the causes of illness without resorting to magic and spirits. In this regard, the Eliot Smith papyrus, published in 1930, is interesting. It not only gives an accurate description of the parts of the body, but for the first time indicated that damage to the brain inevitably causes a painful state of the entire organism. Egyptian medicine believed that the center of the body was the heart, and the center of consciousness was the brain.
The ideas of ancient Egyptian thinkers were of a naive materialistic, hylozoistic nature. They proceeded from the fact that all objects and natural phenomena have a material origin. They considered water to be the source and basis of all things: “The cool water that is in this country, which produced living things and from which all things come.” Air, as a material principle, not only fills space, but also “abides in all things.” Ancient Egyptian philosophers imagined the earth in the form of a box or box.
However, materialistic thought in ancient Egypt, due to the characteristics of the slave society, could not develop freely. Religious ideology dominated the ideological and cultural life of Egypt. Theologians already in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. argued that “everything that exists first came into being in the mind of God” Ptah. In their opinion, human thought and speech also have a divine origin. The Memphis god Ptah was considered by the ancient Egyptians to be the patron of architecture, crafts, and art. Subsequently, the god Ptah began to be called higher mind. Everything that exists in nature, and nature itself, exists in the mind of Ptah. The living and the dead, man and the gods, came from the mind or heart of Ptah. A hymn in honor of the god Ptah shows how people in those days explained the origin of the world:
Ptah the Great - the mind and speech of the gods...
Ptah, from whom came the power of mind and speech,
What is born from every mind
And from every mouth,
All gods, all people, all animals, all reptiles,
Who live by thinking and doing
Everything he (Ptah) commands.
It (mind) gives birth to every fruitful action.
He is speech repeating the thoughts of the mind;
He (mind) gave form to all the gods...
At a time when every divine word
Arose into existence from the thoughts of the mind
And the commands of speech.
The strong influence of the religious-mystical worldview on all layers of ancient Egyptian society is explained, among other things, by the fact that numerous religious literature was clothed in artistic form. Among religious hymns, the hymns to the sun god Aten are of greatest historical, scientific and artistic interest.
Thus, eastern despotism was maintained not only with the help of terror, political and economic oppression, but also with the help of a whole system of religious beliefs, which were based on the deification of royal power and the cult of dead kings. In the Pyramid Text, the pharaoh is depicted as a deity: “You stand, O Pepi, like a god in the form of Osiris on his throne.” In the ancient Eastern despotisms and especially in Egypt, the deification of the king was of a political nature and was designed to strengthen the royal power and the entire state apparatus. The priests assured that the king was a deity, that his power and rights were given by God. Therefore, uprisings against the king were considered sacrilege and were punishable by death.
Egypt is characterized by classical forms of the cult of the deification of the king. Pharaoh was called “the great god,” “the son of the Sun from his flesh.” Already in the era of the Old Kingdom, grandiose royal tombs were built - pyramids, which with their size were supposed to inspire awe and faith in the divinity of earthly despots.
The isolation of Egyptian society left its mark on the entire course of cultural development in Egypt. The separation of mental labor from physical labor and the emergence of a separate priestly caste created the conditions for the dominance of religious ideology. The theological systems of Egypt during the Hellenistic era had a significant influence on the development of idealistic philosophical thought. Of course, Egypt's extensive trade and political ties with neighboring peoples played a certain role in the development of the Egyptian religion, but to an even greater extent, Egyptian religious views and religious practices influenced the religion of neighboring peoples, especially the Jews, Greeks and Romans. Undoubtedly, Egyptian religious monotheism played a large role in the formation of biblical monotheism, and in the era of the decline of Hellenism, the cult of Isis and Osiris contributed to the formation of Christianity. Herodotus says: “The Egyptians were the first to establish assemblies, processions and pilgrimages in honor of the gods,” and “the Greeks learned all this from them.”
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From the book Secret Knowledge. Secrets of the Western Esoteric Tradition author Wallace-Murphy Tim From the book History of World Culture author Gorelov Anatoly AlekseevichChapter 6 Ancient Egypt: river civilizations The Phoenix's reward is rebirth from the ashes. A. Toynbee In presenting the material of individual cultures, their history is first presented, then the main industries. In history we are interested in moments that influenced the development of culture, From the author's book
Egypt The Egyptian state, one of the oldest in the world, arose in the 5th millennium BC. e. The formation and strengthening of a centralized slave state in Egypt dates back to 3600–2700. BC e. The economic conditions of Egypt contributed to the development and
As the main character of myths (especially characteristic of the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean) U. and V. b. finds himself in enmity with a dragon, a chthonic demon or a deity personifying the destructive forces of nature (for example, Osiris with Set, Balu with Mutu, Inanna with Ereshkigal), or by some voluntary or involuntary offense provokes the wrath of the mother goddess or his divine partner ( Dumuzi - Inanna, Adonis - Artemis, Dionysus - Hera). As a result of the conflict, the god - hero of the myth dies (Osiris, Balu, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus), disappears (Telepinus, Demeter), suffers temporary defeat, loses some vital organ (Horus, son of Osiris, - eye, Hittite god of thunder - eyes and heart). A sister, mother, wife, or, less often, a son or other relative goes to search for God (or to help him). They find a god, return him to his home or revive him to life, while the god alone or, more often, with their assistance, kills his demonic opponent (for example, Balu - Mutu and Yamma, the Hittite god of thunder with the help of Inara and Hupasiyas - the serpent Illuyanku). The resurrected (or returned) god regains his former status, but sometimes simultaneously becomes the god of the underworld (like Osiris, whose earthly substitute turns out to be Horus).
Myths about dying (more broadly: disappearing) and resurrecting (returning) gods are, as a rule, characterized by natural, agricultural semantics. Thus, the Egyptian Osiris was taught agriculture by his wife-sister Isis and himself, as a cultural hero, taught people agriculture and cattle breeding; he is identified in myths with a grain of barley or wheat, and his death and resurrection with the ebb and flow of the Nile. In Sumerian mythology, Inanna personifies the fertility of the earth, and her husband Dumuzi, who renews the world in a constant series of seasons, represents the productive forces of spring. The death of Balu, the god of storms, rain and rain-related fertility, leads to drought and withering, his resurrection leads to the flowering of nature. Crop failure, drought and famine caused by the death or departure of a god, and, accordingly, the awakening of nature upon his appearance are reported in the myths about Adonis, Attis, Demeter and Persephone, etc.
In Ancient Egypt, the drama of the death and resurrection of Osiris was played out at a great agricultural festival, timed to coincide with the greatest flood of the Nile. In Mesopotamia back in the 3rd millennium BC. e. during the spring or autumn equinox The sacred marriage of Dumuzi and Inanna was ritually reenacted, symbolizing the revival of fertility in nature. The theme of the death and resurrection of the Ugaritic Balu also appears to have been at the heart of the corresponding ritual ceremony. Among the Hittites, the myth about the struggle between the thunder god and the dragon Illuyanka was part of the ritual texts of the purulli festival, which took place in the spring and was intended to ward off the drought that threatened the earth after the winter rains stopped. The cults that were essentially agricultural were the cult of Adonis, which spread from Syria throughout the Mediterranean, the Greek Dionysia, as well as the Eleusinian mysteries dedicated to Demeter and Persephone and dating back to the festival of the first harvest. An indispensable component of them was the ritual lamentation of the participants about the dead (or disappeared) god and the subsequent impoverishment of the earth. Thus, these myths represent the main variety of natural, calendar myths (see Calendar). The cult figure of the Great Mother Goddess, personifying the creative forces of nature, retains its significance in them. However, with the development of an agrarian society and the strengthening of the male pantheon, she usually cedes some of her functions to the male agricultural deity (Osiris, Balu, Telepinus, Adonis, Dionysus, etc.) and appears in calendar myths mainly as his mother, sister, lover or wife.
The myth about U. and V. b., represented in the ancient agricultural civilizations of the Mediterranean, has correspondences in both archaic and later cultures (cf. myths about the dying and resurrecting beast among Paleo-Asians and many other peoples). In direct or indirect relation to the myths about U. and V. b. There are also a number of archaic rituals: the killing of the sorcerer king as an act of agricultural magic; killing an animal identified with a serpent or water spirit as part of a rain-making procedure; the sacrifice of a girl to a water demon to ensure fertility, as well as numerous spring rites.
At the same time, the semantics of the myth about U. and V. b. (the seasonal cycle of the year is compared with the solar cycle of the day, the organic cycle human life, periodic clashes between the forces of “order” and “chaos”, regular renewal of royal power, etc.), and its compositional structure, going back to the archaic mythological model (the hero’s departure from the everyday world - the fight against otherworldly forces - victory over them - mastery the object necessary to restore well-being is return), determined its closeness and sometimes natural syncretism with a wide range of astral, cosmogonic, eschatological, initiation myths. Thus, the idea of U. and V. b. turns out to be organic for a group of myths associated with the daily movement of the sun and moon: the transition from light to darkness and from darkness to light is depicted in them as a consequence of the struggle of the solar god with the chthonic monster, the defeat of the god and his subsequent victory (compare the Egyptian myth of Ra and Apophis ). The influence of the content and compositional models of myths about Ukraine and history is generally recognized. b. to a very wide range of myths about heroes (in particular, Hercules, Actaeon, Orpheus and Eurydice), fairy tales (cf., for example, the Egyptian “Tale of the Two Brothers”), religious legends and ideas (cf. the Gospel story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). But their connection with the plot schemes of the classical epic is also noticeable. An epic conflict is caused, as a rule, either by an encroachment on the well-being of the hero by a supernatural enemy associated with chthonic forces, or by the anger of an offended goddess against him. The hero (heroine) dies, is kidnapped or temporarily disappears (Akhat, Enkidu, Sita, Briseis, Helen, Odysseus, Pandavas, Rama). Husband, sister, relatives fight with monsters and demons (Gilgamesh with Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven, Achilles with Xanthus, Odysseus with monsters of the sea, Pandavas and Rama with Rakshasas), find themselves in the underworld (Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Rama), almost die ( Gilgamesh, Achilles, Odysseus, Rama, Pandavas). In the end, the heroes win, unite, and restore their lost well-being.
Lit.: Meletinsky E. M., Myths of the ancient world in comparative light, in the collection: Typology and interrelations of the literature of the ancient world, M., 1971, pp. 68-133, Grintser R. A., Epic of the ancient world, ibid., pp. 134- 205, Ivanov V.V., Toporov V.N., Research in the field of Slavic antiquities, M., 1974, Meletinsky E.M., Poetics of myth, M., 1976.
P. A. Grintser [Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia: The Dying and Rising God, pp. 7 ff. Myths of the peoples of the world, p. 7802 (cf. Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia, p. 549 Dictionary)]