Thoth The Hermes of Egypt

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THOTH

THE HERMES OF EGYPT

A STUDY OF SOME ASPECTS

OF THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT IN ANCIENT EGYPT

BY

PATRICK BOYLAN M. A.

PROFESSOR or EASTERN LANGUAGES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, AND PROFESSOR OF SCRIPTURE, ST. PATRICK'S COLLEGE, MA YNOOTH

HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPETOWN BOMBA Y CALCUTT A MADRAS SHANGHAI

1922

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PRINTED BY ADOLF HOLZHAUSEN IN VIENNA (AUSTRIA)

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311227 NOV Z 6 1926 37...WA ~11

CONTENTS.

Page

The name of Thoth. . . . . . . . .

Thoth in the legends of Osiris and Horus 11

Thoth and the Enneads. of Heliopolis 49

Thoth and Re in the Solar barque S8

Thoth as lunar deity. . . '.' . 62

The symbols of Thoth 76

Thoth as the representative of Re 81

The special functions of Thoth as lunar divinity 83

Thoth as founder of social order and of sacred ritual 88

Thoth as author of the "Divine Words" 92

Thoth the all-knowing . 98

Thoth as Creator . . . . 107

Thoth in magic 124

Thoth . as god of the dead 136

Thoth in Egyptian Ritual 142

XVI. The chief temples and shrines of Thoth 147

Appendix A. List of proper names in which the name of Thoth appears 173

B. Epithets of Thoth. . . . . . . 180

C. Some divine associates of Thoth 201

Chapter I.
II.
Ill.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
» VllI.
IX.
X.
xi,
XII.
XIlI.
XIV.
XV. Additional notes

213

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-m

PREFACE.

The purpose of this essay is to indicate the chief tendencies of ancient Egyptian speculation in regard to the god Thoth. Taking as the basis of his work a fairly complete examination of the chief references to the god in Egyptian literature and ritual, the author has tried to distinguish the more important phases of Thoth's character as they were conceived by the Egyptians, and to show how these aspects, or phases, of his being help to explain the various activities which are assigned to him in the Egyptian legends of the gods, and in the ritual of tombs and temples. An attempt has been made, in many instances, to discover the simple concrete meaning which often underlies characteristic epithets of the god, and the need of seeking groupings among epithets which can in any way be associated with well-defined activities or aspects of the god has been emphasised. The author has not aimed at anything like a full analysis of the individuality of the god. That would have demanded a much closer and more detailed study of Egyptian religious literature, and a more extensive recording of re;>ults, than Egyptological scholarship has hitherto attempted in regard to any problem of ancient Egyptian religion.

It will be noticed that texts derived from the Egyptian literature of the Graeco-Roman period have been freely used throughout this essay. Every student of Ptolemaic texts becomes rapidly convinced that those texts contain a considerable amount of theology, which, though it cannot, perhaps,

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VI

PREFACE.

be always paralleled from the older texts, seems to be fully in line with genuine Egyptian thought of the early - sometimes of the very early - period. Hence, whenever the Ptolemaic texts seemed to promise any assistance in explaining aspects of Thoth, they have been used as authentic documents of Egyptian speculation and belief.

For the theological thought of the early period, the Pyramid texts have, of course, been minutely examined. Considerations of space and expense have excluded the printing of quotations from the Pyramid texts, but frequent references to the numbered Spriiche of Sethe's Pyramidentexte will enable the reader to follow and control the writer's use of the Pyramid literature. Passages from the Book of the Dead, in like fashion, have been, for the most part, referred to, rather than quoted. The references are generally to Naville's Totenbuch (in the text of which, however, certain slight emendations based on Wdrterbuch material, have sometimes been incorporated).

The theme of this essay was suggested to the writer some time before the outbreak of the Great War by Professor Erman. The subject had already been treated by the Russian scholar Turayeff in his Bor-s TOT'L which was published in 18g8. Though that study was the outcome of painstaking work on the part of the distinguished Russian Egyptologist, it was, on the one hand, inaccessible to most students of Egyptology and Comparative Religion, and, on the other, it needed to be largely supplemented -and modified in view of the great advance in Egyptological research since 18g8. Most of the results of that advance were stored up in the material which had been gradually accumulated for the Berlin Worterbuch, and Professor Erman made the composition of this essay possible by procuring permission for the writer to make free use of that material. The writer's gratitude is due to Professor Erman not only for procuring that permission, but also, - and still more, for the unfailing generosity with which he

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PREFACE.

VII

put at the writer's disposal his great store of knowledge and his keen critical ability whenever he was consulted on any question arising out of textual or other difficulties connected with the study of the character and worship of Thoth, To Professor H. Schafer, and to the other officials of the Egyptian Museum at Berlin, and to many of the young scholars who were engaged on work connected with the Wiirterbuch, the author is greatly indebted for much courtesy and kindness.

The thanks of the writer are due in a very special way to Professor Hermann Junker of Vienna. To him he owes his initiation into the Egyptian script and literature of the Ptolemaic period, and to Dr. Junker's published work on the religion of thePtolemaic period many points in the present essay are due, directly or indirectly. During the passage of this essay through the press, Dr. Junker has found time, in the midst of his academical duties in Vienna, to read the proofs, and to make many useful suggestions. For all his kindly help the writer is deeply grateful. To Dr. W. Till of Vienna who helped to prepare the MS for the printer, and assisted constantly in the proof-reading, much thanks is also due.

The title of the essay has been chosen partly to suggest from the beginning an important and intelligible aspe~t of Thoth to the general reader, and partly to remind the student that a god who, at first sight, might seem to be a divinity of purely Egyptian importance, was, nevertheless, associated with such a widely flowing current of ancient thought as the speculation of the Hermetic writings.

St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.

January 1922.

P.B.

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CORRIGENDA.
Page 3, note I, read Nav. 94.
" 4, " I, " Rylands.
" . 16, " 3, " Mysteres ego
" 64, " 5, " makes.
" 84, " commands the sJi [instead ~sbJ.
" 85, " 6, " SJi [twice]. Digitized by Coogle

Chapter I.

The name of Thoth.

The name of the god with whom this essay is concerned occurs with considerable frequency in the texts of the Old Kingdom. In the oldest texts, however, it is written mainly with the familiar symbol of the god - an ibis on a perch, and only very rarely do we find in the most ancient texts the fully written form of the name. The Old Kingdom gives us

as a scriptio plena of Thoth's name "'( ~ ~ o. (1) This form of script is common also in the funerary texts of the Middle Kingdom, and is especially frequent in the inscriptions of the nomarchs of El-Bersheh, In addition to this script the texts of the Middle Kingdom show the following forms of the name;

(a) ~~~: Jl Lacau, Sarcophages I, 212. Lacau, Textes re-

ligieux, p. 79. The same form without the determinative; Lacau, Sarcophages 1, 201, and often in El-Bersheh, Cf. Petrie, Kahun, PI. 5.

(b) ~ ~ Jl Lacau, Sarcophages J, 206.

(c) ~~~o Lacau, Sarcophages 28111 (vol. 2, p.89) (in the personal. name ~ ~ ~ 0 ~ ~). A Middle K. sarcophagus in Leipzig shows the same form. See P. S. B. A., 1914, p. 36, for same script-form from El-Bersheh,

c=::>o n .. ~

(d) I \ \\ ~ Lepsius, AltesteTexte, 46, n. I. Ibid. Tafe12, 221~~'

(I) Common in the name of the festival "'"l ~ ~ : ~. Cf. Maspero, Trois anmEes de fouilles. Mission I, 2, p. 200, and L. D. often.

Tboth, the Hermes of Egypt.

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2

THE NAME OF THOTH.

In the New Kingdom and later periods the following scripts occur;

(a) c==:::o 8 @ 0 Cairo Ostrakon, Dynasty 20; Wb., no. 7 I.

.~ \\

(b) ~ t ~: Newberry, Ushabtis, nos. I3: 46532.

(c) n t o~~ Ptolemaic period. Edfu, Roch. I, 419,3,6.

(d) 1 t ~ \\ 1 Claimed to have been read by Brugsch in a Papyrus belonging to the Consul, Herr Konig. Vid. AZ. 1868, p. 72.

The symbolic or non-phonetic method of writing the name is far the most common in all the periods. The Pyramid script - an ibis on a perch, maintained itself in the texts of every age of Egyptian literature. Probably the script

most widely used in all the later periods is ~ 0. This com-

~\\

promise, as one might call it, between a symbol, or ideograph,

and a fully written out form of the name appears even as early as the Middle Kingdom (Cairo, 20519, Stela of the M. K.). The non-phonetic script appears in the various periods in the following forms;

I. Old and Middle Kingdom. /j

(a) ~ Pyr., EI-Bersheh.

(b) ~ Brit. Mus. 581. Stela M. K. (Griffith regards the ibis without perch as simply= heb, ibis. See Griffith, Hieroglyphs, p.2I).

(c) ~ (perch and feather) Cairo, 20473, M. K.

(d) ~~Blackden and Fraser, Hatnub, 1,2-3 (EarlyM.K.). (e) ~ ~ El-Bersheh I, IS.

(f) ~ El-Bersheh, often: Cairo, 20520 (Early M. K.). 2. New Kingdom and later.

All the above non-phonetic forms of the O. and M. Kingdoms recur in the later periods. The combined form of script

o

ibis and - is, as was said above, the most familiar script \\

of the later texts. In this form an ibis-headed man often

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-THE NAME OF THOTH.

3

takes the place of the ibis on perch - thus, IJo ~ (Naville, ~\\~

Totb., Kap, 44, 3: 95, If etc.). A parallel and rare script sub-

stitutes the ape for the ibis ~ 0 (cf. Champollion, Pantheon; ~\\

pI. 30 G). (I)

The Ptolemaic period commonly gives us such forms as ~ (u~ual); ~ : t.~ : ~ (Mar., Dend. III, 68 u) '!],

~~,m·

In late texts, especially those of the Graeco - Roman period, we find the following strange looking forms of the

god's name, ~ Ji (Book of Breathing, 2, 18); ~ m ("Complaint

of Isis and Nephthys", 63); ~ 1 (Mar., Dend. II, 14-); (2) Schafer has shown, however, that these forms are due to an inaccurate hieroglyphic reproduction of the hieratic group for

~ Ji. (3) The hieratic sign for ~ closely resembles the hieratic sign-group 4.. o. The ape has in later puzzle-script the value

n ~\\ ~

~, (4) and so also has the symbol. ill. This, together with a mis-

reading of the hieratic determinative, explains the script ;:; ~.

The name has been preserved to us in Coptic in the ancient Sahidic form eOOYT. (5) In Bohairic the name

(I) In Book of Dead, Nav.44, 4, there is a curious variant to m 0 Ji viz., 0 ~. In Lacau's Text ReI., on the coffin of ~ ~, (J Ji appears ~s a

variant for the name Thoth (Textes Re!., p. 79). The coffin of ~ ~ is froc:

EI-Bersheh. A somewhat similar case of variants from the same district is {j

and ~ ~ 0 ~ Annales du Service, Vol. II, p. 213 f. Cf. Pyr. 425 e, 7aria~ ~ (Jr,\~O

.O~ ~foro~,~,

(2) cr. n 1 <><=> In! 0, Athribis. PI. xxv.

~ <><=>11110

(3) A. Z. 40 (1902/3), p. 124. A similar reading of ~ for ~, Brit. Mus. 807. Cf. also the Turin Stela, no. '57. Cf. article by Gardiner and Sethe, A. Z. 47, P·58•

(4) Cf. GrojJe Oase 17 (Brugsch), m ~ = ~~.

(5) So in the Paris Magical Papyrus.' Cf. A. Z. 21 (1883), p. 100 f. (art. by Erman).

1*

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+

THE NAME OF THOTH.

appears as eWOYT. (I) A form e). yT also appears in Coptic. (2)

In Aramaic the name appears as M'MM (Sachau, Ararnaische Pap. aus Elephantine, passim). In Nee-Babylonian we find the form Tihut (Ranke, Keilinschriftliches Material, p .• p).

In Greek several forms of the name have been handed down. Pietschmann (Hermes Trismegistos, p. 31 f.) has brought together the chief types:

ew6 (Plato, Phaedrus, 274 c: Philebus 18 b). e~:)6 (Rosetta Stone, 1. 49).

eao (in the proper name e~ofl.w .. t;. Cf. Parthey, Agyptische Eigennamen, 117. Eh6 is the toneless form of 8(6). ew6 (Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, p. 72).

Also, ew;, 8w":, 8iX1". Spiegelberg has attempted (3) to explain these various forms from the Coptic. FromeWT, which is a contraction of the Bohairic eWOYT (like TWN from TWOYN, cf. Sethe, Verbum I, 171), Spiegelberg derives, several forms:

(a) e~ul}- an Achmimian form of eWT [cf. A. Z. 24 (1886), p. 130].

(b) aiX': ~ a Faiyum form, like MM)' T€N for MMWT€N.

(c) 8a": - a toneless form, as in 1}~":fI.WGt;. The form eOYT in compounds, according to Spiegelberg, arises from the toneless form TI)~wt (from eOOYT): u naturally becoming ~w.

(d) 80": (as in Ek:~p'iXtO;) is an older form, and not so toneless as ea";.

(e) 6auO - This Platonic form Spiegelberg confesses he cannot explain. He conjectures, however, that it has arisen from an Egyptian (Coptic) dialectic form.

(f) 6w:)O and 6w:),,; are the same as the Coptic eWOYT. (4) The various Greek forms of the name would be, thus, due

(I) Recueil, 1901, p. 199.

(2) Is this Sahidic? Cf. Ryland, Demotic Pap. IJI, p. 186. Crum, Ostraca

Ad. 44. (3) Rec, 190T, p. 199 f.

(4) Philo of Byblos quoting Sanchuniathon speaks of 'J'.x..uto; - 0" A"yulttO\ f1ev lXclAeGOIv 8wu~, 'AAEeOlVOpEi. oe 8w6. cr. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 161. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. I, p. 356. Migne, vol, 8, col. 769) calls Thoth, ew~6. Eusebius says (Praep. ev., cap. 9, p. 31 -32) 8wUO 0\ Aiyultto\, 'AAE;OIVOpEi; 8WO, 'Epf11,v oe ·E).}.'1VE,.

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THE NAME OF THOTH.

5

directly to dialectic forms, or to differently stressed forms in Coptic.

In Latin the name appears as Theuth (Cicero, De nat. deorum III, cap. 22, 56), and Thoyth (Lactantius, Instit. div. I, 6, 3, vol. I, p. 13, cd. Fritzsche).

From the foregoing textual and traditional material it is possible to reconstruct the Egyptian pronunciation of the god's name. The Sahidic eOOYT belongs to the class of Coptic substantives ending in T, in which the chief vowel stands before the consonant that precedes the T. It would suggest, therefore, an Egyptian form like l}e-lJ.owti or Te-how-ti (cf. Steindorff,Kopt. Gramm», p. 60). The form eOOYT, again, with its short 0 reminds one of nisbe-forms; and these nisbeforms present, as Sethe has shown, the same general appearance as substantives with pronominal suffixes. As UJA~T

and UJANT come from ~ ° and rfIh 0, 2p AI- 2pHI from ~,

~ I

PA2T from PW2€, so, in like manner, the apparently nisbe-

form D'lJ.owti would be derived from Dhwt.

If eOOYT has arisen from a nisbe of DlJ.wt the name Thoth would mean "He of Dhu/t", "the one from DlJ.wt", or "the Dweller in DlJ.wt". Spiegelberg has very rightly compared the names eOOYT and CIOOYT. (1) CIOOYT is "He of Siut", and eOOYT on this analogy must be "He of QlJ.wt".

The divine name ~l~: (~:) may be paralleled with such other names of deities as ~ (Harris, I, 61 a, 8) ;

+:0 (Harris 1,59, 5); r~~ JO: ~Pyr. II45); \\ 1 ~ ~ [var. ::: 1 ~J (Pyr. 2081 - ~uti = "he of the lion", i. e. Atum); -:- ~~t-HJl ("the god of Sepa" = Anubis);

'=== 0 \\

("god of Edfu" = winged Horus). ~ 0

Both from the form of the name, therefore, and the

existence of obvious parallels, these seems to be good reason

for regarding ~ ~ ~: as a nisbe, or place-adjective derived

from a place-name * "'ll ~ 0. It must be admitted, how-

(I) Recueil, 1901, p. 199; cf. A. Z, 1883, P.95. Cf. Bubastis, Sedfestival Hall of Osorkon II, Festival Hall, PI. II.

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THE NAME OF THOTH.

ever, that, while places like Sepa and Siut and Edfu etc., are well known, a town or district named ~ ~ ~: is not familiar. We find a district named ~: mentioned in Ptolemaic

texts. (I) Possibly this might be read as ~ ~ ~ 0. The townname III ~o-"the town wherein is Thoth", mentioned in the Pyrrtexts' (1271 c), may imply that the town in question was called directly DlJ,wt. But there is nowhere in Egyptian texts any-clear and indubitable evidence that any Egyptian town or district was called by that name. Of course, just as Ruti is "He of the lion", the nisbe eOOYT might be derived from something other than a place name. Here, however, we =s= again the difficulty that no substantive DlJ,wt is known in Egyptian. While it seems probable, then, that eOOYT is a nisbe-form, it is impossible, in the existing state of our knowledge, to determine any thing further in regard to its derivation. For the sake of completeness, and to illustrate by a history of failures how difficult it is to explain the name Thoth, I add here a brief account of some of the most plausible attempts which have been made to solve the problem of the origin and meaning of the name.

(a) Naville (2) regards ~ ~ ~: as an adjectival form from

a substantive ~ ~ ~ (= stork, or crane). He explains the name as meaning, "Ie dieu a tete de grue".

Loret (3) has put forward a similar view. He explains the god's name as = "Ie dieu en forme d'ibis". and postu-

lates the existence ?f a word f\~= €T€O)I, TI~I (sic!) "ibis" ..

Piehl (4) follows Naville, assuming that c:::=::> ~ ~: means "crane-headed" and that the epithet is derived from a word ~l ~ = crane or ibis.

----

(I) Mar., Dend. II, 27. 15; II, 39 d ; Diim., Geogrc Inschr. Ill, 22; Edfu Roch. I, 333.

(2) A. Z. 18n, 28 tf. If Naville thought that the primitive symbol of Thoth was the ibis-headed man, he had no basis in the texts for the view.

(3) Bulletin de l'inst, fran". d'arch. or., vol. 3, p. 18. Cf. Brugsch, Rei. u.

MytholoGie, p. 439 f. (4) Sphinx II, p. 51.

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THE NAME OF THOTH.

7

(b) Maspero (I) derives the god's name from n ~ - the name of some sort of bird. He gives no text however, in which this bird-name occurs. He seems also inclined (2)

to connect the god's name somehow with : ».' and to

explain it as "le dieu ibis". .

In an article in the Recueil (3) Ahmed Bey Kamal identi-

fies the word : '00 ~ with n}: and with the Coptic TI,t,1. He seems also (ibid.) to find a close relation between Thoth and i \1r ~J1 (=Thagout, Kor'an c.IV,S4)·

(c) Goodwin (4) explained ~ l ~: as a dual of c:::=> l ~ (= TI,t,1 "grus"). He explains the dual as an intensive form, and suggests that the god's name means "Great Ibis".

At an earlier period Goodwin derived the name from

~ l @ which he explained as "artist" or "craftsman". (S) The ending 0, being a "dual of excellence". would make n ~: th~\ artist xiXt' i~oz'ljv. Levi in his dictionary, accepting apparently this view, gives us the word ~ l ~ on Goodwin's authority.

(d) Pietschmann (6) agrees with Goodwin in regarding 0 as

\\

a dual ending, and explains the god's name as "double

ibis", or "ibis XiX':' e;ozr.v". He points out that the (so-called) dual ending is omitted when the "superlative" epithet "twice-great" is used with the name. Pietschmann admits,

however, that the superlative force of the ending 0 is

\\

sometimes forgotten by Egyptian scribes. Pietsch mann,

like Goodwin, then, supposes the existence of a word

n 1? or c:::=> l1? meaning "ibis".

(e) Lieblein (7) thinks that the name il1?: suggests the lunar character of the god. II ~ is connected with

(I) Biblioth. eg., vol. 28, p. 119 f. (2) ibid.

(3) 1902, p. 21 f.

(4) A. Z. 1874, p. 38. (~) A. Z. 1872, p. 22 f.

(6) Hermes Trismegistos, p. 3.

(7) Gammelaegyptisk religion, p. 72 f.

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THE NAME OF THOTH.

1 ~ W, and this word means either the yellow topaz, or jasper. The word refers mainly to the yellow, or pale-

yellow, colour of the stones. The ending 0 is adjectival, and the name 1 R 0 should mean the yellow, or pale-

- 0 ~ \\

yellow, god. This would be a name for Thoth as moon-

god, and would suggest the peculiar appearance of the moon. Lieblein seems also to think that 1 ~ might mean the yellow coloured bird, i. e., the ibis. He lays stress in this connection on the point that Thoth as moon is usually depicted with a yellow-coloured head. (I)

(f) Lefebure (2) long ago connected n ~: with ~ ~ ~ 000 (= lead) and sought support for this view in the expression ~ 0 ~ 1.... In"""""" CJ (Bk. of D. Nav. c. d.t.

. \\ ~ ~ 'i <:::>

+-5)' Unfortunately for this view, however, T )'2T (=

lead) and eOOYT do not seem to be in any way really connected.

Against all the above attempts at explanation stands the fact that there exists, so far as we know, no Egyptian word

for crane or ibis of the form n ~ or ~ ~~. Neither is it possible to find a proof of the existence of Maspero's n~. We find, indeed, in an EMu text (3) ~ 1 ~ <:::::7

Q ~ ~:. But the bird ~ is, apparently, the same as the bird in ~o, i. e., Baklieh in the Delta (near Hermo-

00

polis Parva). I have not been able to discover any text which

would justify Maspero's reading of ~ as n.

The suggestion that the god's name is based on a word oJ!.. meaning 'ibis', is a mere assumption. There is really :; such word as 0 with the meaning ibis. Ibis is 0 f\NV'oM, not

_---_ - ~ "

(I) Ibid., p. 74. Cf. Pietschmann, Hermes Trismegistos, p. 7.

(2) My tile Osirien, p. 208. A somewhat similar view is put forward by Petrie in Ancient Egy-pt 1917, p. 116. Petrie thinks that Dehuti means "he who is

the moon" - the root of the word being zehat (i. e., apparently ~ ~ : 0°0) which = the white metal, i. e., lead. Petrie supposes also that Dehuti may be connected with the Hebrew ns,

(3) Edfu Roch. I, 307. ~ is probably to be read simply as bllll1.

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THE NAME OF THOTH.

.9

o

. It is, however, quite true that in- late texts Thoth is

.. 0 <:> m

occasionally- called . \Ve find 0 as a name of Thoth

~ ~

in Dendereh, (I) and, at times, his name is written as -0. m.

We have here, however, no more than a mere epithet of the god. <:> 0 is the tongue of a balance, and Thoth appears in

o

many familiar scenes of the Book of the Dead in very close

relation with the scale or balance in which the heart of the deceased is weighed against the feather of Truth. From his role in the Judgment-scene, Thoth has become, familiarly, the

tongue (: 0) of the balance, just as he has become, from his role in the same Judgment-scene, ADO. In the judgment-

~ \\ I

scenes of the funerary texts we sometimes see the ape of

Thoth represented actuatly as the tongue of the scales of Judgment. When <:> is used as a name for Thoth, it is used,

e

then, as a mere epitheton, and is in no wise connected with

h~:·

It is well known that the first month of the Egyptian

year was called in the later period Thoth. It might, then, seem not improbable that there should be some connection between this circumstance and the early name <:> 0 given to

T.r.' \\

the first month of the .!:W::!. season. (2) Is there, then, some

etymological connection b~t:een ~ ~ <:> and <:> as month-

I {Jr" 4\l "

names?

The name

<:>

seems to refer to the Feast of the Drun-

CIt \\

kenness of Hathor (3) which was celebrated in the first month,

and thus gave its name to the entire month. There is, therefore, no need to assume an etymological connection between' the two month-names in question. The name <:> seems to

e "

have been given to the first month before Thoth's name was

connected with that month in the time of the X VIII th Dy-

(I) Mar., Dend, I, 39 d. In Mar., Dend. II, 41 a, the king is described as

o <:> ~

00 0 = "the balance-tongue of Thoth",

• CIt

(2) Ramesseum L. D. lII, lio-171. Medinet Habu, Treasury of Ramses JII.

Sethe, Heft 15, 119 (unpub.). Tomb of Min, Mission V, 365.

. (3) See text pub. in Mission, V, 365, and cf, Theban tomb of + ~ czz: 0·1 (copy by Sethe 10, 60).

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10

THE NAME OF THOTH.

nasty. (I) The connection of Thoth's name with the first month seems to indicate the steadily growing importance of the "Lord of time" in the New Kingdom. (2)

It seems, then, to be impossible to connect the name of

the god with any word n~, c=::::s~~, or n~. It is no less impossible to connect, as Naville proposes to do, (3) a postulated c::e:> l} with SHOY - as if Thoth were socalled because he was a wind-god. If the name is to be explained by derivation from the designation of some familiar object, that designation must, at least, be known as an element of the Egyptian vocabulary.

It would seem, then, that the only reasonable probability which emerges regarding the name of the god is that it presents a nisbe-form resembling the familiar nisbe-titles of the gods of Sepa, of Edfu, of Siut etc. The apparent confusion

of the consonants ~, ~ and 0 in the Egyptian forms of the name raises no difficulty of importance. The Egyptian ~ often passes into ~, and later into 0. (4) That the Greek form of the name ends or begins sometimes with -:, and sometimes with 6 is due, in large measure to the want of fixity in the Egyptian consonants, and partly also to the tendences of Greek -. to pass into 6 and vice versa in the transliteration of foreign, especially Egyptian, names.

(I) See article by Gardiner, A. Z. 1907, p. 136 If. Cf. art. by Erman, A. Z. 1901, p. 128 f. dealing with month-names on the reverse of Ebers Papyrus.

(2) A contracted form of the god's name sometimes occurs. Thus in a

Berlin Pap., in a proper name, ~ ~ ~ J1 ("Thoth-comes"). With this may be . compared the play on words in the Turin Pap. 238 f. I am Thoth: ~ ~

c::::=>

nn~...J&ol I 1999 ~-~ cC>1~ C::::=>1f,. Onn~ ~~I 110 \\ I NVVVV\ III~:~~~IVIIIMI\~~@~~IVIIIMI\

~ J1 "The hearts of the gods are made sad by his mouth in this his name Thoth·'. (3) A. Z. I8n, p. 29.

(4) See Maspero in Rec. 1915, p. 160 f. r ~~ becomes r ~~,

and then r:;,~· So 0 r 'ffil, 0 r ffi (~ = r: and, hence, nlnn). A close parallel to ~I ~ 0 > R 0 etc. is ~ 0 0 _ c::::::::> 8 0 0 . _

~oo 8 L}(\\ ".l(\\ I {\\III R\\III

o noted by Maspero, ibid., p. 168.

\\ III

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Chapter II.

Thoth in the legends of Osiris and Horus.

Of all the numerous myths and legends to which ancient Egyptian monuments and texts refer there is but one which we can reconstruct with reasonable completeness. It is the legend or myth of Osiris. This legend, however, would have remained for us as incomplete and fragmentary as the multitudes of others alluded to in passing, or vaguely outlined, in Egyptian rituals or calendars, had not the divinity which supplied its theme, become, in virtue of the most vigorous of ancient religious propagandas, and of historical accidents which are but obscurely known, the most powerful and venerable of the Egyptian gods. Another circumstance - quite external- has contributed greatly to make the Osiris-legend of decisive importance for modern students of Egyptian religion:

Plutarch selected that legend to illustrate by its various phases his theories on the nature and growth of religious beliefs. Plutarch has thus given us a moderately systematic account of the worship of Osiris, and of the origins of that worship; and in Plutarch we find, grouped together to form a single picture, many features of the Osirian legend which would 'otherwise have remained for us without bond of connection, scattered here and there throughout the literature of Ancient Egypt. But, while Plutarch has thus systematised for us much that would have remained without him empty of meaning and reference, his very tendency to systematise, and his preoccupations of theory often diminish the value of his work for modern students. He seems, at times, to confuse fact and symbol, and his groupings of incident are often, no doubt, due more to the needs of logical construction, than to the realities of ancient Egyptian belief. Yet, however much Plutarch's philosophy may colour his description of fact, we may take his account of the Osirian legend as largely reliable. The control

.._----~-~-

Diailizeli.bv Cooo Ie

12 THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS.

which native Egyptian texts - especially very ancient ones - supply, is, in the main, a ground of trust in Plutarch's account.

The legend of Osiris, as outlined in Egyptian texts, and in Plutarch, may well be taken as the best starting-point for the study of the most ancient organised Egyptian theology. It will serve here to supply important points of view in regard to Thoth. To discover the real place of our god in the Osirian Cycle is to ascertain his importance in the most ancient religious thought of Egypt. It is necessary to discuss whether Thoth belongs to the legend of Osiris essentially or merely extrinsically; wether his importance as a divinity preceded, or was mainly due to, the growth of Osirian cult. It must obviously be of importance to show whether there are any outstanding aspects of Thoth which owe their origin solely or chiefly to the story and the religion of Osiris. And, as the legend of Osiris is closely involved with those of Horus the son of Isis, and Horus the Sun-god, it will be necessary to investigate Thoth's role in relation to the two Horuses. If we succeed in defining, even vaguely, Thoth's place in these ancient legends, we shall have reached some notion of his importance among the gods of Ancient Egypt, and some idea of his character as it was primitively conceived.

a) Thoth in the legend of Osiris.

In the Osirian legend of Plutarch" there are five chief dramatis personae - Osiris, the prudent king who procured for Egypt the blessings of peace, well-being, and civilisation, Isis his faithful spouse, Horus his son and heir, Typhon (Set), his unscrupulous and energetic rival, and Hermes (Thoth) who appears chiefly as the friend and legal advocate of Horus. Plutarch speaks of a great law-suit which Horus had to sustain against Typhon in which the strong support of Hermes secured a victory for Horus. (I) The aim of Typhon in the law-suit was to prove the illegitimacy of Horus, and, thus, to deprive the latter of all right of succession to the throne of Osiris. Through the brilliant support of Thoth the legitimacy of Horus was established, and his right of succession

(I) Is. et O. ch, 54, 3-4 : 19; 8.

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THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS. 13

to Osiris confirmed. This victory of Horus over Set through the advocacy of Thoth Plutarch calls a victory of reason (Logos) over disorder and evil.

Plutarch's description of this great law-suit, though we can follow it in its main features, is confused in detail. It is obvious that Plutarch had not sufficient data to give a perfectly clear and consistent narrative of the legal conflict between Horus and Set, or of the part played in it by Thoth. There are gathered together in his narrative strands from several ancient legends. With the help of the native Egyptian texts, however, we can complete the Plutarch ian version of the Osirian legend and of Thoth's place in it.

It is clear from his work that Plutarch did not really regard Osiris as an ancient king who had founded the civilisation of Egypt, and had been opposed, and, at last, destroyed by his rival and brother. Osiris is for Plutarch a symbol either of the all-fertilising Nile, or of the moist reproductive powers of nature (I). He is satisfied that Osiris is somehow symbolic of generative or reproductive power in nature, for he finds that Osiris and Dionysos have been identified. He, further, raises with the Mathematikoi the question whether Osiris and Set (Typhon) are not to be contrasted with each other as sun and moon. (2) In this reference Plutarch finds many points in Osiris which suggest, strangely enough, his identification with the moon.

Plutarch, then, is not seriously concerned with the idea of Osiris as a king. Whether, however, Plutarch was led to explain the Osirian legend symbolically rather than historically, because he had closely studied the native Egyptian teaching on the matter, or because a symbolical interpretation fitted in best with his theories of religious developments, we cannot determine. He is wrong, at all events, in attempting, as he does, to reduce every feature of the legend to symbolism. In the legend of Osiris, as in most ancient myths, popular constructive fancy and priestly speculation have added many details of importance to the primitive myth. And these additions have not always been made in the spirit

(I) Is. et O. c. 32, 2 If. : c.33.

(2) Is. et O. c.34. Cf. cc. 36-39 : 41-42.

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of the legend's primitive symbolism. Hence, in order to ascertain Thoth's true role in the Osirian story, we must seek to disentangle that story from the accretions made to it by the popular, and priestly mind. We cannot hope, however, to set up more than a purely tentative reconstruction of the primitive myth of Osiris. But it is obviously only by discovering the primitive form of the legend that we can decide whether Thoth was, in reality, one of its dramatis personae.

I. The primitive Osiris-myth.

The Osirian religion appears as well established in the oldest religious literature of Egypt - the Pyramid texts. It is, indeed, the dominant religion of that literature. That the Osirian cult had passed through a long period of development before it appears in a stereotyped form in the Pyramid period must be assumed. But, even in the oldest texts, the primitive form of the myth, the nucleus out of which Osirian religion had grown, is almost forgotten. Even in the oldest texts we can see that a large mass of heterogeneous detail has already been built up about and above the primitive myth. Yet sometimes in the Pyramid texts the ideas of the primitive Osirismyth show through the details superadded by century-long speculation. From these occasional glimpses of the primitive myth which the early literature gives us, much support can be derived for Plutarch's symbolic interpretation of the Osirian legend, and, particularly, for his view that Osiris represents somehow the reproductive forces of nature.

It is well known that the ritual of the Osirian cult resembles, even in the oldest texts, the ritual of the so-called "mystery" -religions, ( I) and we know that in the ancient world the "mysteries" were, as a rule, attempts to dramatise occurrences in nature. It would be reasonable, therefore, to regard the "mysteries" of Osiris, or the "Passion" of Osiris as a dramatisation of some event in nature, - possibly of the death of nature in late autumn and winter, and its revival in spring. If the primitive cult of Osiris was based on the recurrence

(I) Herodotus II, 1 iO f. speaks of the representation of the passion of Osiris at Sais as p.vat~Fux. Plutarch also speaks of the dramatisation of Osiris' sorrows as tEAm,( (Is. et O. 27). Cf. Moret, La Passion d'Osiris. Revue de Paris, 1909, p.615-660.

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of natural events, it will have had associated with it, very probably, some of the practices of sympathetic magic. That there is a well-pronounced magical element in the oldest Osirian texts seems fairly evident. But, so far, scholars have given little attention to this feature of early Osirian theology.

The data at hand to determine the meaning of the primitive myth of Osiris are few. This essay is concerned with them only in so far as they help to throw light on the growth of the cult of Thoth. We give, therefore, no more than the general heads of the Egyptian evidence for the Plutarchian or symbolical theory of the Osirian cult.

Osiris is represented in the Pyramid texts (1) as carrying off the dead as his booty, i. e. in his capacity as earthgod, or Geb. (2) It appears, again, from ancient texts(3) that Osiris was sometimes worshipped as a tree. Schafer has given reasons (4) for connecting Osiris with the pkr-tsee in Abydos by means of the notion of tree-worship. This pkr-tree stands in the closest connection with Osiris. It is mentioned in the "mysteries" of the god. It is not impossible that the motif of the legend in which the coffin of Osiris is discovered in the. erica tree (5) is derived from the cult of Osiris as a tree.

In many places Osiris appears quite unambiguously as god of burgeoning nature, or of vegetation. He it was, as we learn from Greek sources, (6) who discovered the vine, and taught men how to cultivate corn. This would not, of course, make Osiris a primitive corn-god, or vine-god - for he was not anything so definite as this to start with. (7) But the ancient Egyptian texts certainly bring him into close relation with developing plant-life. (8) He is lord of the vine when it is luxuriantly abundant (Pyr. 1524)' We find Osiris sending

(I) Pyr. 145 : 350.

(2) Cf. Erman,' Religion, P: 104.

(3) Pyr. 1285-87 : Cf. Is. et O. C.20.

(4) A. Z. 1904, p. 109. U-PlJr - "the District of the Pkr-tree", was the

name of Osiris' burial-place in Abydos.

(5) Is. et O. c. 15. Cf. Pyr. 1285-7.

(6) Diodorus I 14 : 15, 8 : Pluto Is. et O. 13, I.

(7) Cf. Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 29 (1909), p.86. Art. by ScottMoncrieff,

(8) Pyr. 699 : 1019.

Digitized by GOOQ I.e_..

...... _-- ----.- 0


the dead king as herald of a year of plenty. (1) A calendarnote of the late period for the 25 th of the month Thoth points in the same direction: "On this day nothing must be eaten which bears any resemblance to the grape of Busiris." (2)

With this aspect of Osiris as symbol of nature in its growth we may well connect the custom of planting cornseed in clay images of Osiris, and also the custom of outlining the figure of Osiris with corn-seeds planted in the soil. (3) When the corn sprouted in the clay image of the god, and when the green of the sprouting corn outlined the figure of the god, he could readily be seen to stand for nature in its reproductive power. A similar custom existed of sketching the figure of Osiris on a piece of stuff, strewing the outlined figure with earth, and planting corn in the earth thus strewn. (4)

These customs seem to point clearly to an association of Osiris with the life of vegetation. It may, therefore, perhaps, be safely assumed that, in some, at least, of his primitive aspects, Osiris was regarded as the fructifying principle of nature in its growth. It falls in well with this view, that, ac-

. cording to Plutarch, (5) the feast of the death of Osiris was celebrated on the 17th Hathor (November). The Papyrus

(1) Pyr. 1194/5, Cf.Osiris· title.:g:~.Jl, Sharpe and Bonomi Seti I, XVIII c. 5.

(2) Wressinski, Tagwdhlerei im alten .4gyptell. Archil'.fu" Rel., Vol. XVI, P·90f.

(3) Brugsch, .4. Z. 1881, p. 80-82 : Murray, Osil'eioll, p. 28. Moret, Mystel'es ge., p. 41. Naville, Totb, IOI, 10-12. Cf. Egypt. Explor. and A<rch. Report, 1902/3, P.5 : 1898/9, P·24·

(4) Daressy, Fouiiles dans la vallee des Rois, p. 26. For the whole question of Osiris's character as at once Nile-god, earth-god, and god of vegetation, see Breasted, Development of Religion and thought ill ancien! Egypt, p. 18-23. The pertinent Pyramid texts are carefully quoted in this work. cr. also E. Meyer, .4g'ypten Zltr Zeit der Pyramidenbauer, p. 19; Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, p. 19I. The theory of the connection of Osiris with vegetation is supported by Frazer (Adonis', p. 269 If.) : E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altertums, Bd.l", p. 70 : Erman, . Religion', p. 21 f. A strong attack on this view, and an attempt to make the primitive Osiris a god of the dead, from the pen of Scott-Moncrieff, may be read in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1909, p.86. An important statement of some aspects of the Os irian problem, tending to weaken the evidence for the vegetation-theory has been made by Gardiner, in Davies and Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, pp. 55; 81-93.

(5) Is. et O. c. 42, I.

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Sallier assigns the "weeping of Isis" to this same month. (I) Thus, at the time when the Nile was sinking, when the trees shed their foliage, when nature was visibly tending to decay, when the south winds (Typhon) began to prevail over the pleasant winds from the north, - at this time of general death, Osiris also died. His death synchronised with the death of nature.

With the symbolism of Osiris as representing the reproductive powers of nature is connected his identification with the Nile. Thus, it is said, Pyr. 589: "Horus comes: he perceives his father in thee, fresh (2) as thou art, in thy name fresh (living) water." In Edfu there is an unmistakable passage. Osiris is represented as spewing forth the Nile, and the accompanying text says: "I hide my body to make thy fields prosper." (3) With this we may connect the frequent designation of the Nile as the "outflow of Osiris". (4) In the Shabaka text Osiris appears as "He to whom the waters of the inundation belong, and who is drowned himself therein"; and one must agree with Erman when he says of this passage:

"His (i. e. Osiris') role as god of the cultivated fields and of vegetation, could scarcely be expressed more clearly." (5)

The dramatic element, which is known to have been anciently present in the cult of Osiris, points, as was suggested above, to the probability that that cult developed from a nature-myth. Further, it has been shown that Egyptian literature gives clear, if not frequent, indications that Osiris was regarded anciently both as a Nile-god, and as an earth-god. It is not a very great assumption, then, to suppose that in the primitive myth of Osiris, this god represented, or was identified

(1) From the 18th to the 25th Hathor were made the Osirian barley-beds.

Indeed it would seem as if all the chief Osirian festivals were celebrated in the month of Hathor. Cf. Davies and Gardiner, 10mb of Amenemhet, p. 115. Whether the feast of "Earth-hacking", which was held on the 22nJ Hathor, points to agricultural aspects of Osiris, is uncertain. Cf. J. of Eg. Arch., 1915,P. 121 If. (Review of Frazer's Adonis, Attis, Osiris by Gardiner). Is there any connection between the Osirian barley-beds and the c'?9!',:_ '!!'2; of Isaiah 17, 10'

(2) Cf. with this the Pyr. texts 211 I and 848. (3) Edfu, R. II, 48.

(4) L. D. IV. 13 b (Ptolemaic).

(5) Erman, Ein Denkmal memphitischer Theologie, p. 934.

Thoth, the Hermes of Egypt.

2

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with, the fructifying and generative element in nature, (I) whether we take him as vine-god, tree-god, or god of corn, or god of the earth or of the Nile. This idea of Osiris may possibly underlie the legend of the dismembering and restoration of his body. As in other lands, so also in Egypt, the waning and rebirth of nature furnished motifs for religious dramas. With the "Passion" of Osiris one is forced to compare the saga of Tammuz, and the cult of Dionysos and Artis.

The ancient nature-dramas - Semitic, Asiatic, Greekagree substantially in the number and roles of their dramatis personae. There are present in all the dying nature-god, his spouse who bewails him, and his malicious foe and rival who brings about his destruction. How many actors do we find in the drama of Osiris?

Isis appears in the drama obviously as the female counterpart of Osiris. (2) Both are children of Heaven and Earth. If Osiris is the fructifying principle of nature, Isis must be the fructified nature that brings f-orth. She is, according to Plutarch (3) the female principle of nature. Isis is rE'IEGt;, just like Osiris, and from the two proceed the ),c·I'Ir,ttl'.x\ lipzccl. To put it another way: Horus, according to Plutarch, (4) is the child of the Nile, and of the inundated soil, and hence his birthplace is the marshland, Buto. Isis, further, in her aspect as Selene, is regarded as mother of the Kosmos. (5) When everything seems to sink into the sleep of death in the shortening days of autumn, Isis bewails her dying spouse, - nature unfructified bewails the passing of the life which would have kept her living and productive.

Thus Osiris and Isis, as the fructifying and the fructified elements of life and nature, belong, of necessity, to the primitive nature-myth. Is the god Typhon, or Set, an equally necessary figure in the drama?

(I) Plutarch says (Is. et 0., c. 51, 4) that Osiris was represented ithyphallically, "because of his generative and luxuriant nature". Cf. chapters 33-35 ibid. (2) For the Greeks Isis was, at times, identical with Demeter: Cf. Herodotus II, 59; Diod. Sic. I, 2;, 96. For Isis as goddess of fertility and corngrowing, cf. Augustine, De ciJl, Dei, VIII, 27.

(3) Is. et O. c. 53, I.

(4) Is. et O. c. 38, 3.

5) Is. et O. c. 43. Cf. Reitzenstein, Zwei religiose Fragen, p. 106.

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The god of nature dies: his death, however, comes not from himself, but from an enemy. Set is this enemy. He is the brother of Osiris because the rivalry of brothers is the most obvious, and the most widely known. From the cosmic standpoint he is the power which brings the moisture and life of nature to an end. He is the evil principle which brings distruction to the source of fertility, to the "good god", the

~!~. He is not the ocean which swallows up the Nile, (I) but rather a symbol of what dries up and destroys (2). He symbolises all things which hinder or destroy the generative powers of nature. (3) With the destructive burning glow of the south wind (4) he fights against his brother. When the Nile failed to reach the wonted level of inundation, this was ascribed to the hindering power of the hostile Typhon. Every influence, indeed, which made difficult, or impossible, the tilling of the fields, or the growth of the crops, was incorporated in Set.

All this is not stated, of course, about Set in the ancient Egyptian texts, and much of the above is based on Plutarch's philosophising. In some such way, however, we must recon- . struct the part of Set in the original myth of Osiris. As we shall see presently, however, the story of Osiris is so inextricably interwoven with that of Horus, that the features of the Osirian Set are quite obscured by details derived from the legend of Horus.

It remains now to inquire what part - if any, can have been played by Thoth in this primitive nature-myth of Osiris,' this dramatic rehearsal of the phenomena of nature's growth and decay. Were Thoth primitively an astral deity, one might infer his right to some place in the drama in question, for the heavenly bodies - particularly the sun and moon, might be looked on as influencing greatly the growth of nature, and the phases of agricultural life, both as life-giving, and as time-determining factors. Yet, so far as we can see, the old Osirian legend had just as little to do with the heavenly

(I) Is. et O. c. 32, 2. (2) Is. et O. c. 33, I. (3) Is. et O. c. 49, 4. (3) Is. et O. c. 39, 2.

__ -=:D-"1ig"",itiz=,",~ GOOQ Ie

. LJ


bodies as had the parallel nature-myths in the ancient world. No doubt, as thought developed, there were interwoven with the Osiris-legend many other myths which were concerned with thl! sun and moon. But these myths had little or nothing to do with the primitive cult of Osiris. An astral Thoth does not, therefore, fit into the primitive Osiris-legend, and the other aspects of Thoth, which we shall have to discuss, seem to fit him just as little as his astral qualities, to play a part in the drama of a vegetation-deity.

Yet it cannot be denied that Thoth appears in a striking way in the saga of Osiris. This is evident, not merely from Plutarch, but from ancient native Egyptian texts. There is, however, the possibility that this activity of Thoth in the Osirian legend is due to secondary factors, - that, while having no part in the primitive nature-myth. Thoth becomes nevitably connected with a more developed form of that myth.

2. The Saga of Osiris as King.

It was more or less inevitable that a nature-myth like that of the dying Osiris should gradually be built up into a semi-historical drama; and the story of Plutarch shows us the semi-historical form into which the Osirian legend developed. The transformation of the primitive myth must have begun very early, since, even in the oldest religious texts, it has gone so fi\r as to obscure almost completely the original story. In the Pyramid texts Osiris appears usually, not as a dying and revivified god of nature, but as a half-human, halfdivine king of ancient Egypt, who succumbs to the malice and intrigues of his brother, is bewailed by his faithful spouse, and, finally, avenged by his posthumous son and successor, Horus.

The chief shrines of ancient Osiris-cult seem to have stood in northern Egypt, and we may, therefore, possibly conjecture a northern origin of the developed form of the legend. To the ancient nature-myth Horus, the son of Isis hardly belongs. But in a drama of rivals contending for the throne of Egypt such a son of Osiris and Isis was quite in place. This drama in its historico-political form was dominant in ancient Egypt, as the oldest texts show, and from this circumstance we can easily explain the importance and popularity in ancient Egypt of the "Son who avenges his father".

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Harsiesis, then, seems to belong essentially to the semipolitical form of the Osiris-story. Thoth appears as an important personage in the same story. The question thus arises whether Thoth belongs to the royal drama as a necessary dramatis persona - whether his personality connects him essentially with the legend, whether, therefore, his general character may not be largely derivable from the necessities of the semi-historical development of the Osirian nature-myth. On the other hand, it is possible - and many things point that way - that Thoth has come even into the developed legend in a secondary fashion, bringing with him his peculiarities, and not deriving them, to any noticeable degree,

from his role in the legend. .

Plutarch introduces Thoth into the story of Osiris merely as the legal supporter of the son of Isis against Set. (r ) In the Pyramid texts many functions in regard to Osiris are assigned to him. One of these frequently referred to is the putting together of the scattered members of the dead Osiris. (2) The same activity is, however, also, and perhaps more naturally, ascribed to Nephthys in her quality as Seshat "the Writer", the patroness of architects. (3) Thoth will come before us later as god of script and magic, and as guardian of the dead. Hence we are probably justified in assuming that this function exercised by him of assembling and uniting the disjecta membra of the dead, belongs to him out of all connection with the Osirian story, and that it belongs to him, just as it does to Seshat, because of some quality of his own peculiar individuality.

In Pyr. 639 Thoth receives from Geb permission to put together the members of the god - which seems merely to mean that Thoth receives from the- grave or tomb (- the domain of the earth-god, Geb), the body of the king, so that he may somehow make it capable of resisting decay. There does not seem to be any certain reference to agricultural processes in the broken or divided body of the dead (1. e. the king, Osiris).

(I) Whether the lawsuit in question belongs to the story of Osiris, and is not really borrowed from the legends of Horus, is not quite clear.

(2) l'yr. 639 : 747 : 830.

(3) Pyr. 616. To this trace is an interesting parallel Berlin 1175 (111. K.) ,'0 Osiris-Thoth, Horus hath avenged thee: he hath caused Nephthys to embrace thee: she embraceth thee in her name Seshat, Lady of the builders",

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---- ---- .--. ~


When the gates of ~ ~ ~ are opened by a word of power spoken by Anubis acting as Thoth (1) we can explain this also from Thoth's known character outside the Osirian drama, for Thoth, as we shall see, is Lord of magic speech. Indeed his activity as architect of Osiris' body may, perhaps, be specially connected with his power of magic words, of wonderworking formulae. (2)

While in the Pyramid texts Thoth appears in relation to Osiris mainly in the ceremony of reuniting the limbs of the dead king (= Osiris), we find him in the religious texts of the M. and N. Kingdom chiefly as advocate of Osiris in the great trial of the dead. From this function has arisen Thoth's familiar epithet "he who made Osiris triumphant

(~l~~) against his foes". (3) The Pyramids, too, seem to refer to this activity of Thoth. According to Pyr. 1521-1523 a decree or decision making Osiris a god of heaven (as distinguished from a mere god of earth) was uttered as "a great and mighty word that proceeded from the mouth of Thoth". This "great word" is not, perhaps, the same as the speech of Thoth which made Osiris "triumphant", but it is clearly akin to it. The Pyramids do actually speak of a verdict which de-

clared Set to be ____o ~ r=:::J ("guilty?") and Osiris ~ ~ (4). Was this verdict also procured, or spoken, by Thoth?

The Pyramid trial in which Osiris is declared to be "triumphant" (or "justified") is not to be confused with the trial spoken of by Plutarch, in which Thoth prevails as Logos

(I) Pyr. 796; 17 I 3. What is the ~ ~ 1:::J of Lacau's text from the sarcophagus of ~ - ~ 0 (Text. ReI. p. 119)? Ikr is usually a name for the earth-god.

(2) Cf. Reitzenstein, Die helleuistischen .l:(ystcricllreiigiullell, p. 52 and 205 fT. for a parallel from the cult of Attis. In the later Egyptian ritual the ceremony of uniting the separated members is clearly - like many other parts of the ritual - almost entirely magical. Vid. Moret, Culte divin, p. 70 fr.

(3) Bk. or D. or M. K. c. 70 : Naville, Totb. c. I, 12-13: c. 18, 1-3 etc. cr. Totb. Nav. 183, 43-44, "Thoth .•. who made triumphant the voiceless and protected the weak".

(4) Pyr. 1556 a. Possibly the verdict or ~ i ~ ~ given to Osiris was primarily his legitimation as king of Egypt. cr. Davies and Gardiner, Amt'llt'mlzet, p. 47.

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or Reason against Set. The trial referred to by Plutarch seems to have been held before the gods of Heliopolis. The trial described in the Egyptian funerary texts, in which Osiris was pronounced "justified", seems to have been pictured by the Egyptians as a sort of exemplar death-trial, or judgment. The Bk. of the Dead puts this trial in the "Princes' House" at Heliopolis; (I) but the localisation is probably to be explained by the growing preponderance of Heliopolitan theology. It is only very vaguely that the Pyramid texts speak of a trial of Osiris and Set, (2) and they give no idea of the place where it was held. Indeed the idea of a legal conflict between Osiris and Set decided before a divine tribunal is, to say the least, unobtrusive. (3) It is not impossible that this conflict is a purely secondary detail borrowed from the HorusSet story.

That Osiris should be brought before the gods to be judged is explicable enough when one remembers that Osiris with his Abydos title "Prince of the Dead" has to serve, in all things, as exemplar of those who should follow him to the "west". This trial or judgment of Osiris is, therefore, not essentially primitive. It does not become prominent until Osiris appears clearly as god of the dead. (4) In such typical,

(I) Nav., Toto. c. I, i-Io. (:z) Pyr. 956-960: 316-318.

(3) A passage like Pyr.957, where Set is accused before a tribunal of havin~ struck down Osiris, may possibly be such a reference. But the situation in the passage is obscure.

(4) The question might be raised in general whether Osiris is ever pictured as model of the dead until he becomes lord of the dead through his

assumption of the position of rfTh 0 ~ ~ at Abydos. This would be towards the close of the O. K. For important suggestions on Osiris as king vid. Davies and Gardiner, Amenem"et p. 55. It is there put forward as a possibility (note 1) that Osiris was, in the first instance, a type of the dead king, and that it was only after the time of the O. K. that he became a god of the dead. The connecting link between the two ideas - dead king and god of the dead - would be the ever-growing custom of using the royal funerary ritual for nobles and burghers, as well as for kings. Thus, while in the O. K. the king alone was identified with Osiris, it became customary at a later time to identify all the dead with Osiris. This view is very important. It does not seem, however, to take sufficient account of the influence on the cult of Osiris of the identification of Osiris with the Abydene god of the dead, the "Prince of the Westerners". Further, no explanation is offered of the identification of the dead king with Osiris in the O. K. It is true that it is the dead king, and not the living king, who is identified

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2.f THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS.

or exemplar, trial as that to which Osiris, as first of the dead, was subjected, Set would, properly speaking, scarcely have found a place. On the other hand, a trial or legal process of such earnestness as the judgment of the dead, could not be imagined otherwise than after the fashion of the great statetribunal of Heliopolis. Thus the trial came to be located in Heliopolis, and to be conducted before the Heliopolitan godsof whom, as we shall see, Osiris himself actually was one. Then the old mythical rival of Osiris, the wicked Set, was introduced to provide the necessary role of plaintiff in a great lawsuit.

with Osiris. But does not this circumstance suggest a view like that put forward in the text, - that the "Passion" of a nature-god has been gradually transformed into a semi-historical drama in which the king of Egypt is slain by his rival brother? The slaying of the king would, of course, be the chief incident in a funerary ritual. If Osiris came to be regarded as a king of ancient Egypt, what he did and suffered would naturally become exemplaric for all kings of a later time, and then, in the fashion suggested by Gardiner, for all Egyptians. Junker in his recent remarkable work Die Onurislegende (Wien, \917) is inclined to think that some features of Osiris as a king of Egypt rather than as a god of nature may be due to such considerations as the political preponderance of the Osirian nome, Busiris, in the ancient period. The ancient local god of that nome 'ndti wears the peculiar ornament of the two ostrich feathers on his head. (Pyr. 61{ a: zzo c : 1833 d). These ostrich feathers appear then later in combination with the diadem of upper Egypt to form the ttf crown. The two ostrich feathers appear also in the nome-signs of This and Elkab, and are found also in connection with the cult-symbol of Chati, and with the insignia of Sobek and Tatenen in Memphis. All this seems, according to Junker (op. cit. p. 65), to suggest the probability that some ancient chief, whose home was Busiris, succeeded in establishing an extensive kingdom in upper Egypt in the pre-dynastic period. The ancient god of the Busiris nome, '"gti, had his worship recognised throughout the territory which became subject to the victorious chief of the 'ndti nome. Junker notes the interesting fact that the

sacred lake in ~ ~ ~: was called ~ I ~ - a further indication of the political importance of the Busiris nome in the pre-dynastic period. There can be little doubt that political influences of the most varied types worked together to bring about the great extension of Osirian cult in ancient Egypt. It was possibly a result of political movements that the cult of Osiris was established in Abydos, and that Osiris thus came to be identified with !fnti imlltiw, the Abydene god of the dead. The breaking up of the body of Osiris Junker is disposed to regard, rather as an echo of the ancient custom of dismembering the dead body of a defeated foe, and distributing the sundered limbs among the victors (d. Pyr. 1863 t[ and Pyr. 1543-50), than as a feature derived from a nature-myth (Ollurisiegende, p. 55). Junker's theory of the political expansion of the Busirian nome and, with it, of Osirian cult supposes without much show of explanation the identification of Osiris with the local god 'ndti. But this identification is itself a problem.

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THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AI'\D HORUS. 25

An eloquent advocate was just as necessary in the case as a vigorous plaintiff. Thus Thoth came to play his part in the lawsuit. But it is to be noted that, as before in regard to the reuniting of the limbs of the dead, so here also, Thoth's character fitted him for his special functions. Thoth was, as we shall see, quite apart from the trial of Osiris, connected with the dead, especially in relation to the Judgment. His peculiar eloquence, and the magical power of his words fitted him to be the advocate and general helper of the dead. Hence, in the great exemplar trial Thoth must be thought of as the advocate of the "First of the dead". Because, again, the Osirian trial was constructed popularly after the fashion of a case in the High Court of Heliopolis, Thoth's activity in the trial was inevitably conceived after the manner of a High Court Assessor, Advocate, or Scribe.

The growth of popular imagination in reference to the Trial of Osiris will have been connected by action and reaction with the innumerable representations of the judgmentscene depicted on the tombs and coffins of the Middle and the New Kingdom. Out of a saga grew the pictorial setting, and this, in turn, helped to develop the saga. The popular notion of Thoth's intervention in the trial of Osiris must have gathered not a few of its details from Egyptian funerary art.

In view of the foregoing, then, it may be said that Thoth's part in the semi-historical form of the Osirian drama ischiefly due to essential and independent features of Thoth's own character. That implies that Thoth is not in any way a creation of the Osirian myth, and that we must not take the Osirian drama as a starting point in the analysis of Thoth's personality. He seems, indeed, in many ways to be as ancient and as independent a god as Osiris himself.

We find in Egyptian sources many references to other activities of Thoth in regard to .Osiris which also seem to follow from the anciently conceived independent character of the god. Thus we learn that Thoth acted as vizier for Osiris (1)

probably when the latter was carrying on his campaign of civilising the world. Thoth appears also as Secretary or

(I) Mar., Dend, II, 33 c. Cf. Diod. Sic. I, Ii, 3: Lepsius, Totcnbuch, 145, 3 refers to a time when Thoth acted as vizier for Horus.

----------~----


Scribe of Osiris. (1) This idea is a detail borrowed from the legends of the sun-god. Thoth is the scribe of Re, and when Osiris, the great type of the Dead, comes to be identified with Re, Thoth becomes the secretary of Osiris (= the dead).

In the passage of the Book of the Dead just referred to, (2) the dead is represented as seated at the side of Osiris, in the capacity of Thoth the Scribe. There is obviously a reference here to the voyages of the sun-god in his barque. But it looks strange, at first sight, that the dead should be likened to Thoth rather than to Osiris. There is here, however, merely a confusion of religious thought, due partly to an old theory which identified the dead with the moon-god, (3) and partly to the idea that the dead becomes one of the attendants of Re in his "barque of millions". Even the Pyramid texts give to the dead king the position of Scribe in the solar barque; (4) and, at times, the official scribe of the sun-god is represented as ousted from his place to make way for the royal dead. (5)

Thoth appears, then, very prominently in. the legends of Osiris. In many legends which centred round Isis he was also prominent. (6) Most of these legends deal either with the perils of Isis during her pregnancy, or with the terrible struggles between Horus, her son, and Set.

One of these legends is that referred to by Plutarch (Is. et O. 19, 6-7), according to which Hermes (Thoth) crowned Isis with a crown of horns after she had been deposed by Horus. The Papyrus Sallier (IV, 3, 5-6) evidently refers to the same legend, when it tells how Horus cut off the head of Isis, and how Thoth then - probably by his magic formulae - set upon her shoulders the head of a cow so that she became the "First of the Kine" i. e. the goddess of Atfih. This is clearly a local legend of Atfih explaining how the divinity worshipped there was really identical with Isis.

(I) Nav., Totenbuch c. 69, I I - I c. Diod. Sic. calls him \oPOyp2P.P.IXt.':'; of Osiris. I, 16, 2. Philo of Byblos (according to Eusebius, Praep, evang. 1,924. 1014•1') spoke of Hermes (Thoth] as ypIXp.p.om:'; of Kronos.

(2) Nav., Totcnbuch, c. 69, 11-12.

(3) Cf. Pyr. 1233. (4) Pyr, 490. 491.

(5) Pyr. 954· 955·

(6) Note that Diod. Sic. I, Ii, 3 makes Hermes the friend and chief adviser of Isis during the absence of Osiris.

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There are a few scarcely intelligible Egyptian texts which seem to refer to an improper connection of Horus and Set the fruit of which would have been, if one can trust some obscure texts of the later period, the god Thoth himself. The texts in question, however, are too few, and too difficult in their isolation, to afford a basis for any view of Thoth's relationship with the gods of the Osirian cycle. (I)

There can be little doubt that the prominence of Thoth in the more developed form of the Osirian drama is largely due to the increasing popularity of Thoth himself. The more familiar he became to the religious mind of Egypt, the more striking was the role assigned to him in the most popular cult of the country - the cult of Osiris.

If it is true, as Maspero suggested, (2) that the Osirian Saga had its beginnings in the Delta, we may suppose it to be possible that the ibis-god Thoth was brought into the Saga at first partly by geographical considerations. The Ibis-nome of Lower Egypt is so near many of the chief scenes of the Osirian tragedy, that the god of that nome would pass easily into the cast of the tragedy.

The presence of Thoth in the cycle of Osirian legend is, therefore, due mainly to external reasons. When, therefore, we find the two gods Osiris and Thotli standing together, apparently in close relationship, in such ancient texts as the funerary inscriptions of the M. K., we must not suppose that the two are essentially related to each other, or that Thoth

(I) There seems to be a reference to this legend in an Edfu text Roch. II, 44 where Thoth in his name V ~ is said to have sprung from the skull of the "Enemy" (~~) wJilo ~ay be Set. See a full treatment of the pertinent texts in Erman's Beitrage ZIW iigyptischell Religion, Sitzungsber. d. k. Pro Akademie 1916, p. 1 142- 1144. Erman thinks that the more or less unintelligible texts which bear on this matter (Turin, 74; Pap. Turin 15. 5; Griffith, Hieratic Papy-ri /,'0111 Kahun and Gllrob, pl. 3, p. -I) refer to some kind of action by which conquerors expressed their contempt for those whom they had defeated. Erman refers (ibid., p. 1144) to the text in Totb. 13-1,9 dealing with Thoth which says that he is:

1,.. I n M/VV'oA 0 g~, n NVo/'oN'< 0 C) "Son of the stone, sprung from the

~ ~ <::::> A ~ ~ <::::> 0 \\ C)

two (female) stones", as possibly connected with some unknown myth .

. (1) Etudes de !vlytlr.!I, p. 10, 39 etc. Cf, A. 7..19°4, pp. 77-107. Art. oy E. Meyer on the growth of the cults in Abydos.

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owes his ancient character and importance solely or mainly to the Osirian cult.

As our study of Thoth's character proceeds it will become more and more evident how inevitably his own personal gifts fitted him to take a part in the semi-historical drama which was grafted on to the "mysteries" of the primitive nature-myth. (I) As the god of law and right Thoth would naturally become the ally of Osiris in his contest with Set, and his advocate in his trial as "First of the Dead" before the gods of Heliopolis. Thoth's other functions in regard to Osiris, - the preparation of the god's (king's) body for burial (with Anubis), the bringing together of the god's limbs, the equipping of Osiris against the perils of the world beyond the grave, the offering of the due funeral sacrifices, and the carrying out of the ritual prescribed for burial - all these activities were equally required for every case of burial of king or noble. Indeed the details of the developed Osirian legend are little more than an echo of the main features of the life and death of the Pharaohs of the Old and M. Kingdoms. Every rite performed" for the Pharaoh in historical times must have been performed also for the model Pharaoh, Osiris, in the far off past. The functions of Thoth in the legend are such as he must naturally have performed outside it. Thoth was, in all probability, a god of the dead and of sacred ritual prior to his connection with the drama of Osiris. But, though it is true that Thoth's character and functions are not due to his connection with the Osirian legend, the central cult of Egypt, with its elaborate ritual, with its literature, and pictorial representations, could not fail to give a more concrete definiteness to the deities associated with it. Some measure of moulding and influence, and much help towards popularity must, therefore, have been derived by Thoth from the Osirian cult, though in himself he is already a definite individuality

(,) It is obvious, of course, that the theory of the growth of a nature-myth into an historico-political drama in which a god of vegetation becomes a king of Egypt, is largely an assumption. Yet it is as likely to be correct as the view which regards Osiris as primitively the dead Pharaoh. In our view Osiris becomes identified with the dead king in the developed form of the nature-myth. Later still Osiris becomes identified with every Egyptian whose wealth permitted the celebration of funerary rites.

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before the Osirian nature-myth becomes a semi-human, semidivine tragedy. We shall see, in the course of this study how Thoth acquired a number of standing epithets through his association with scenes in the later forms of the Osirian legend, and we shall see from these epithets something of the manner in which Egyptian theology tended to develop.

b) Thoth in the legends of Horus.

We must make careful distinction between Egyptian sagas dealing with the sun-god Horus and his enemy Set, and the legends of Osiris, Even Plutarch seems to know something of this necessary distinction when he speaks (1) of the birth of the "ancient" Horus (Haroeris), thus implying that this Horus is other than the son of Osiris and Isis. Just as' the primitive myth of Osiris the nature-god was enlarged as time went on, and greatly altered in motif by accretions due to popular and priestly theologising, so, in the legend of Horus and Set, an earlier and later stage can be distinguished.

The subject cannot be fully investigated here, but the distinction of the earlier form of the legend from its later developments must be briefly explained so far as it affects the position, in ancient theology, of Thoth.

In this legend, as in that of Osiris, the starting-point is to be sought in certain cosmic happenings. (2) In the primitive myth of Horus, the sun and moon on the one hand, and darkening influences on the other seem to be the chief factors. In brief, it may be said that the primitive myth deals with the conflict of the powers of light with the powers of darkness.

In' due course this myth was enlarged into a legend of struggles between antagonists - half-human, half-divine. The primitive myth can be traced somewhat more easily here than

..

(I) Is. et O. 12, G.

(2) It is assumed here that one of the oldest forms of the ancient Horus (Haroeris) is Horus the god of heaven, or god of light, the god whose two .eyes are the sun and mOOIl, {jllti lrti, "He on whose forehead arc the two eyes", The possible existence of another equally ancient form of Horus as warrior-god, who as falcon led the early tribes of Egypt to victory, and was later regarded as incarnate in the Pharaohs, need not be here discussed. The two aspects of Horus, as god of light, and as warrior-god, or god of battles, are close enough to be regarded merely as different aspects of the same divinity arising naturally from the transformation of a cosmic into a political or semi-political legend.

~-------- - - --

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in the Osirian legend. Here the contending parties are outlined with a considerable amount of distinctness, whereas the chief feature of Osi.ris is his vagueness and elusiveness.

In the older form of the legend there is question mainly of the apparent defeat of the powers of light in time of eclipse of sun or moon, during the waning of the moon, at the setting of the sun, during the advance of darkling storm-clouds. The men of primitive times had puzzled over these cosmic events, and had sought to find their causes. For the ancient Egyptians the light which shone in sun and moon was thought of as the flashing of two eyes - the eyes of heaven. The god of heaven they called Hor - thinking of heaven, perhaps, as a great face (~), with sun and moon as its two eyes. (I) When

. day passed into night, when the sudden storm burst, and, possibly, when the clouds were marshalled in the skies, the Egyptians thought of all this as the work of a power which was hostile to light. This power was regarded as evil and at some early period was identified with a local storm-god called Set. It is not possible to reconstruct all the features of the ancient legend. When we first meet it, it is no longer merely cosmic. It has been added to, and modified by priestly speculation and popular fancy, so that the primitive myth of a conflict between light and darkness has become the story of an unceasing struggle between two adversaries half-human, half-divine. Myths tend, of course, to develop in this manner. The popular mind seeks naturally to transform the divinities' of its legends into beings partly, at least, of flesh and blood, and to express cosmic events in the language of human history. Hence in the developed anthropomorphic form of the Horuslegend we find historico-political motifs which have nothing to do with the primitive saga. Interwoven with the saga are many features that recall incidents of the struggles between Upper and Lower Egypt in the pre-dynastic period. Details of all kinds have been added to the legend 'to give it <i reasonable human aspect, and thus it is somewhat difficult, at times, to determine what is purely cosmic, and what IS merely anthropomorphic in the story.

rfTh ~ ~ r-,

(I) Compare the name of the Letopolitan god ~ _,._..... cJ~

or .M~nti irti.

ti" ti lo·ti,

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It is a remarkable fact that the enemy of Horus the god of light, bears the same name as the ri val of Osiris. Set is the foe of Horus, as well as of Osiris. It is difficult to decide whether Set displays similar qualities in both legends. A fully satisfactory explanation of the origin of Set's cult, and of his connection with Osiris and Horus in the primitive period has not yet been discovered. It is possible that the similarity in name, and possibly, identity in personality of the Osirian Set with the enemy of the sun-god Horus, is largely responsible for the confusion of the Osirian legend with that of Horus. ( I) The Osirian drama has supplied many features to the legend of Horus - so many that it is often uncertain whether a particular text deals with a conflict between Osiris and Set, or with a struggle between Horus and Set. And it is equally clear, on the other hand, that features of the Horus-legend have passed over into that of Osiris. It must be left to other inquirers to disentangle fully the two sets of myths. The task of determining Thoth's role in either is complicated by the general confusion as to the borrowings of ·both.

The great importance of sun-worship in ancient Egypt may be inferred from the comparatively large number of centres of sun-cult which existed there. There was, for instance, the ancient shrine of the winged sun-disc in Edfu, where the glories of the rising sun were worshipped; then there was the primitive shrine of the sun-god at Heliopolis, and there were other centres of sun worship at Thebes and Memphis. The god of these shrines was, certainly, not Horus the son of Isis. (2) Even before the cult of Osiris began to spread

(1) Cf. Meyer, Seth-Tv-phon, p. 19. Plutarch Vs. et o. 55; 51 et pass.) describes Typhon (Set) as a destructive being. As a primeval storm-god, or god of the weather, Set could, obviously, be at once the foe of a vegetation-god and of a god of light, of Osiris and Horus. As a weather-god Set would naturally be widely worshipped in the early period. Several Egyptian terms which refer to the phenomena of storms are determined by the symbol of Set. It is clear from several passages in the Pyr. texts that Set was not regarded in the ancient .period merely as a malicious being. The detestation with which he was later regarded was due to the growth of 'legend, and, probably, in no small measure, to the growth of the legends of Osiris and Horus.

(2) Haroeris the falcon-headed war-god had a \'ery great number of cultcentres in ancient Egypt. Indeed the local deity in every district of any importance was early identified with some form of Horus, as well as with Re.

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widely in Egypt the "ancient" Horus was honoured in many a shrine of the Nile valley. There is no reason for thinking that the different sagas of the sun-god had any connection primitively with the saga of Osiris. In. the beginning Haroeris was rather the god of heaven than the sun-god: sun and moon were indeed the eyes of Horus. But so fickle is popular fancy that the god of heaven became identified at an early period with the greater eye of heaven, and his original character was almost forgotten.

The role of Thoth in the different stages of the legend seems to be intrinsic and necessary to the saga. In the very ancient form of the legend, where the chief motif is the cosmic struggle between Horus and Set, Thoth acts as friend and protector of Horus, and of his eye. To this activity of Thoth may be referred the Pyramid passages (Pyr. 594-597) which tell how the eye of Horus separated from its owner, was found by Thoth as it wandered on the further shore of the lake N!J), and was carried back to Horus on the ibis-wings of Thoth. With all this should be compared the Pyramid texts, 947, 976, 1176, 1377, 1429. (I) The eye of Horus which Thoth cares for is, to judge by the literature of the later period, the left eye - the moon. The disappearance of the moon in eclipse and in the interval before the appearance of the new moon was a cause of anxiety to the Egyptians and to other ancient

(1) Compare the strange passage Pyr. 1742, where the eye of Horus is borne on the wing of Set. Pyr. 84 speaks of the "eye of Horus which is on the forehead of Set", but the reference here is obviously to the diadem which Set through usur-

pation or momentary victory, wears, the ~ ~ ~ ~ t 0 ~ '-!, r ~ of Pyr. 979 b. In one form of the legend it is Horus himself who seeks and brings back his eye; but according to Pyr. 976 the eye of Horus is carried on the wings of Thoth "on the east side of the divine ladder". The legend of the flight of the eye and its return is obviously similar in many respects to the legends of the Destroying Eye of Re, of the angry eye which became the serpent on the diadem of the sun-god, of Onuris who fetched the divine lioness from the eastern desert,' and of Hathor of Byblos. All these legends are intricately interwovenso much so, indeed, that it is often difficult to decide to which of them a particular feature or motif primitively belongs. Thoth is certainly associated primitively with the astral legend of the moon-eye that vanished and was found again. The primitive astral myth contains no suggestion of an angry eye of Horus. Thoth's function as pacifier of the eye is connected with the more reflective legend of the Eye as Serpent on the crown of Horus (in which Sechrnet appears as the Eye in her form nsr.t, and Thoth is the shtp Ilsr.t).

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peoples. (I) To explain this disappearance, probably,the Egyptians devised the idea of a flight of the eye of Horus from its owner. The aim of the flight would be to escape the hostility of Set, and the exile of the eye would continue as long as there was a possibility that Horus might be overcome by Set. During its absence the eye was naturally under the protection of the moon-god Thoth. To Thoth also would fall the task of bringing back the eye to Horus when the season of danger was past. The place of the eye's sojourn, and the fashion of Thoth's care for it are variously described in the texts. In one prominent set of texts the eye is spoken of as having fled over a lake called NbJ (2) which is located in the eastern side of the heavens. On the shore of this lake Thoth is said to have found the eye, and to have brought it back to Horus, bearing it across the lake N1.!J on his ibiswings. In many texts, particularly those of the Ritual, it is implied that Thoth had to make a long search for the eye before he found it; in other texts it is insinuated that the eye came of itself to the moon-god, as if seeking his protection. Thoth's activity in the search for, care of, and fetching home of the eye is described in a number of technical

terms; ~~.I'., ~~~, r~~ (= probably, "restore", "hand

over"), NWVV'o ~ ~, ]. (3) The eye is sought for at two sea-

'V~ -

sons (~ f~) perhaps, the time just before the new moon,

(I) In Babylon the waning and vanishing· of the moon were attributed to evil demons. By Marduk, whom Bel commissions for the purpose, the moon-god, Sin is rescued from his foes. Cf. Combe, Sill, p. 21 f.

(2) For the position of Lake Nljl, and its position in the legends of the Eye of Horus cf. Junker, Onurislegende, pp. 79, 138. According to Junker the lake is east of Egypt. It is mentioned in the legend of the fetching of the Eye of Horus from Kns.t. During the struggles between Horus and Set, therefore, we are to think of the Eye of Horus as hiding itself away in the east.

(3) See Moret, Rituel du culte divin, pp. 82-86; cr. p. 34. Cf. also the familiar text quoted by Junker tOnuristegende, p. 138)_: I am Thoth r rB

~~n~<=> ~f~~~J\~~NWVV'o ~~~~~~

~~. Cf. Ed/II, R. I, 25.


3

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~


eclipse. These two "seasons" seem to

<=> f 0 AI\I\I\M ~ ~ 1. (I)

<=:> 0 MIVVV' ~

When the moon reappears after its waning or vanishing

it shows the traces of violent hostile attack. It is only at full moon that it appears again with full splendour on the

face of heaven. It is then ~ 1 ~~, "healthy", "perfect"; and it is Thoth who has made it sound and whole; and it is he, also, who has restored it to its owner (Horus). From the legend of a healing of the damaged eye has arisen the name

of the eye, ~ l<=> ~ (usually, ~). (2) Thoth is, therefore, swdJ wdJ.t, "He who makes whole the Eye". Further, it is Thoth who brings back the eye that had vanished: he is

Lll t ~ ~ r (Pyr. 58), "He who brings it" (the Eye) (3) - thus acquiring for himself the epithet "He who brings It". (4) When in the Pyramid-ritual the dead king brings to Horus the eye of the latter, he does so of course, as Thoth. But Thoth not merely restores the eye to Horus: he avenges it on its enemy (Pyr. 1233): but we are told nothing about the

and the time of lunar be called occasionally

(I) Vid. Moret, Rituel, p. 97 f.: Berlin P. 3055, col. 8, 9 _:_ 9, 1 says: "I am Thoth who wanders at the two seasons seeking the Eye (~) for its lord.

I come: I have found the It'dl.t; I have ha~ it over (r ~~) to its lord." See Lefebure, Le mythe Osirien, p. 87. ~ 'hl with Set-determinative is used for the raging of the Apophis, Nav., Totb, 130, 22. Moret (loc. cit.) regards MIV'o/V> M/'oNV' I as the "distress" caused to the Eye of Horus by eclipse. The ClI::l \\ "-----'I

danger of lunar eclipse was great at the beginning of the month, and at the full

moon, so that Moret believes that these seasons are the II' II IlSIl. Cf. Totb, c. 112 and 148: cf. also Pluto Is. et O. C.43-44. Nin is also used to describe the attitude of the Eye of Horus when, because of its anger with Horus, it abode far from him in anger (See Junker, Die Onurislegende, p. 136 ff.)

(2) For the wdt.t in the Pyr. texts see Pyr. 450 If.: 1642: 21 a. 55 a etc.

Junker points out (OlluI'islegellde, p. 139) that bllj:.t is used in the Pyr. as a parallel to wdt.t (Pyr. 118 b).

(3) Cf. Edfu R. I. 25 : Thoth ~ I2}J ~ ~ "who brings the il!!lt'.t

JJG!>- _~,

eye to its lord" - which is also written in the same text: ] ~ ~.

(4) ] """"". t @ ~ Pap, Leyden 347, 12, 2 - 4 (N. K.). See below, p. 73. f.

In the texts it is sometimes Horus himself who seeks his Eye. Min and Shu also seek it, at times.

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nature of the vengeance taken. When Thoth restores the left eye of Horus he sets it in its due place on the face of the

god: ~ V~~l ~ --~ 1f{v.- t ~ <::>~SE

(Edfu, R. II 16) : he, further, (I) "makes it nO (restores it to its

"i\\

owner) and causes it to shine brilliantly" (Dend. M. D. III, 19 n).

The bringing back to Horus of his Eye by Thoth has brought the latter into connection with several Egyptian legends of the Eye of Horus. It is thus that he has been associated with the legend of the angry Eye of Horus which refused to be reconciled with its lord. In this legend the angry eye becomes identified with the goddess Sechmet in her character as nsr-t and Thoth's function in her regard is sl)tp nsr-t, the pacification of the nsr.t. In somewhat similar fashion Thoth has been brought into relation with the legend of Onuris. The name of this god Ini hri.t, "He who brings the one that was far away", refers probably to the bringing to Egypt from the mountain lands of the eastern deserts of a goddess in leonine form who was forced or induced to leave her desert home by an ancient battle-god in lion or falcon form. This ancient god was Horus the warrior-god who, because he brought to Egypt the stranger goddess received the epithet Ini hri-t (Onuris) _:_ "He that fetches her that was far away". Later this Hri.t came to be _identified with the wdJ.t and Ini hri-t was explained as "He that brings the Eye that was far away". Thus the name of Onuris came to be written (as Thoth's could be, and sometimes was, written) as a deity carrying the wdtt,

ie:i. Thus, too, the identification of Thoth and Onuris became possible, with results which we shall see later. The legend

(I) Cf. Leyden V. I. ~ ~ 1 ~ """""" ~ ~ r IS predicated of Thoth. Mar. Abyd. I 37 a speaks of Thoth as ] ~: and the Abydos-Ritual speaks of him as ~ ~~ A ~ (Ch. II) : cr Naville, Goshen, Shrine of Saft

el-Henne, Thoth with ~ in his hands is described, ~ ~ .~ ~ ~.

---~~"<::::l:...O

cf. Edfu R. I 25 : Thoth "--. In some cases, of course,

~ <::>...::2>-

Thoth brings back to Horus (or Re) the right eye, or the Sun. This activity of his seems to be secondary or borrowed in the legends of the sun-god Re: it is based on his more primitive activity in connection with the moon.

3*

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of Hathor's coming to Egypt from Byblos, which underlies the story in the D'Orbiney Papyrus, is closely related in motif 10 the legend of On uris, and it also has been, to some extent, interwoven with the cosmic legend of Thoth as the bearer of the wds-t. (I)

Thoth seems to have rescued the eye of Horus, not merely from Set, but from numerous other foes. The Ritual of Abydos (ch. 36: plate 20) speaks of Thoth having rescued

. ~ ~ ~iJ11 I I .

the eye of Horus ~ 'I..-..._ • Who these enemies were

__.II c> 'I..-..._

can be gathered from the Book of the Dead, Nav., Totb. 183, 42-44. (2) _ The passage refers immediately to the deceased ( = Osiris); but it seems to contain echoes of the Horus-saga:

"I am Thoth who acquitted (or, justified) the voiceless one, who protected the weak one, and stood forth in defence of

his belongings : ~ ~ .!, r l ::::. ~ \\ ~ r ~ ~ 2 '¥

~ TflT "I have banished the darkness and removed the veil

of clouds". Plutarch tells us (Is. et O. c. 44, 9) that the Egyptians called the earth-shadow, which darkened the moon in eclipse, Typhon. Pyr. 61 seems also to ascribe eclipse of the moon to the activity Of Set: the text speaks of Set devouring a portion of the Horus-eye, which then became lea little eye of Horus". Plutarch speaks (Is. et O. c. 55) of a smiting, and blinding, and swallowing. of the eye of Horus by Typhon, ami .gives a cosmic explanation of the whole. The smiting of the eye, is, he says, a symbol of the moon's waning, and

the blinding a symbol of the moon's eclipse. (3) _

In the further development of the legend of Horus we hear of a bitter conflict between Horus and Set, and many

(I) The interweaving of the legends concerned with "the Eye of Horus that was far away"· ·is discussed in Sethe's Zur altiigyptisc!lell· Sage l'OIll SOlillellalixe (Leipzig, 1912) and Junker's Onurislegende (Wien, 1917)' See also Spiegelberg, Der· dgy ptische Mytlllls VQIII Sonnenauge (Sitzungsber. d. k. preutl, Ak. 1915).

(2) Pyr, 575·: 576: 635 speak of a repulse of the associates of Set by Thoth: but the reference in the context seems to be to: enemies of Osiris. Cf. Pyr. 1979 and 65 I. Totb. 108, 7 says that Set is compelled to disgorgewhat he had swallowed.

(3) According to Totb, 116, 3, Set swallows the eye of Horus; according to c. res, 7 he is compelled to. vomit it forth again. The Fyr. text 118 refers to the swallowing, and Pyr.39 to the vomiting forth. Pyr. 1450 refers again to the swallowing of the eye: "Pppi has not swallowed the eye: he is, therefore, not deserving of death" (i. e. is not Set-like).

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details of the struggle have been handed down - though usually in a fragmentary, and often in an unintelligible, fashion. Horus and Set are now no longer cosmic forces, but leaders of armies, and rival kings; Horus is no longer a solar god, or a god of heaven merely: he is the son of Osiris, and the nephew of Set. The struggle is waged, not for the rule of heaven, but for the possession of Egypt. In one description of the struggle Set tears out the eye of Horus, and Horus rends away the virilia of Set. Thoth intervenes between the combatants, and receives a wound in the arm while doing so. He succeeds, however, in bringing the struggle to an end. He heals the wounds received by Horus, Set and himself in the conflict. All this is often spoken of in Egyptian texts. Pyr.535 represents the dead Pharaoh as bringing back to Horus his eye, to Set his testicles, and to Thoth his arm. With this should be compared Bouk oj the Dead (Nav.) c. 102, 7. 8. Book (if the Dead 17, 30-32 gives many details of the struggle. (I)

The Ritual of Abydos (Mar. Ab. I, pl. 37 b) describes Thoth's activities after the close of the struggle thus:

r~= ~~~~ r~= r~h.~ \))~

It is obviously difficult to explain the tearing out of the eye, and the rending away of the testicles in a purely cosmic fashion. These and other details of the conflict seem to be products of popular anthropomorphic fancy. Thoth's healing of the wounds of the combatants, and of himself (as the story says, by the application of his spittle, Pyr. 2055), is clearly a

(I) There were current, it would seem, many versions of the legend dealing with the struggle. According to Berlin, Pap. 3055, col. 3, 8-9, Set blinded the eye of Horus by poking his finger into it. We hear also of a disease which befel the eye of Horus at sight of Set in the form of a swine. With this is to be connected the representation of a swine pursued by an ape (= Thoth) in Description de I'l~g)'pte. Antiquites, tom. II, plate 35, 2. It was as a swine that Set, in this version of the legend, had swallowed the eye of Horus. With this we may compare Plutarch's statement (Is. et 0., c. 8), that the Egyptians offered a swine in sacrifice once a year at full moon (cf. Aelian, De natura allimaliu"" X, 16). cr. also Herodotus II, 47, who says that the Egyptians were wont to sacrifice swine to Dionysos and Selene. cr. Baudissin, Adonis ulld Esmun, P- 149 f. For swine pursued by ape, see lIIaspero, hlldes de M,Yth. II, p. 175: Lefebure, Le mythe Osirien, P.43-59 (esp. p. 52). The swine-hunt is often represented - for instance - in the Tomb or Seti I. Cf. Baudissin, op. cit., p. 149.

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secondary feature of the narrative, derived from the popular view of Thoth as magician, and, therefore, physician.

Thoth's chief activity in the struggle is mediation ·or reconciliation. It is noteworthy that this work of conciliation is mostly described in forensic fashion, as a sort of judging or arbitrating. Thus arose the description of Thoth which is so common: "He it is who judged the rivals and reconciled the

brothers". In the Pyr. texts Thoth appears often as ~ 't

~~ 0 ~ \:il "he who judged the combatants" (cf. Pyr. 306). (I) The dead king becomes one with Thoth in the ~ ~ ~

c "" "':it""n

while he actes as judge or arbitrator ~ -n- "" .:! 0 \ \ "between

the combatants" (Pyr. 289 c). This activity of judge or umpire between Horus and Set has won for Thoth his familiar epithet V If,. c::::::::> 8 @ ~ ~ (2) or more fully, V c::::::::> 8 @ ~ ~

"" x~ I R\\ttit;;!i I R\\ t;;!itti

r ~ III With this function of Thoth we may connect the Pyr. texts which assign to the dead king the office of judge of the "two brothers". Thus Pyr. 712 says of the deceased

~ 't 'I..-....! ~~ w ; and in Pyr. 1750 he is judge or arbitrator

of the "two great gods" 11=~~. In Pyr. 1963 we hear

of one who ~ '0" i~~ ~ x[}.C ~~~ "judges the two

brothers and separates the two contending gods". The VII

of Pyr. 273 seems to be intended for Thoth. (3) .0

(I) Cf. for ~ 0 ~ 't Pyr. 229: 281): 304.

(2) Cf. Book of Dead, Nav. 169, 20: Edfu R. I. 297 etc., etc. The Delta Hermopolis is c-:J ~ V 8 ~ 8. What is the reference in Vatican 16,

I ~c::::::::>RoR

~ ~ ~ 01 TI? Lefebure (Le my the Osiriell, p. 120 f.) suggests that

V c::::::::> ~ [ \\ ~ ~ J1 refers to Thoth's role as moon-god. When heaven and earth are mingled in one common darkness the moon-god, Thoth, comes, and separates them by his light which distinguishes things from each other. He refers to chs. 123 and 139 of Totb, as a support for this view.

(3) Cf. also, in connection with the "combatants" and their reconciliation,

the Pyr. texts 126. 229. 311. 1899. 1913. 712. cr. reference to V 0 ~~, Pyr. 1724. The ~ 't ~ of Pyr. 126 need not be Thoth (see Cairo 20520 M. K.)

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In the Book oj the Dead Thoth appears again as "judge of the rivals", and as the one who restrains or brings to a

close the conflict (~= o~~). In ch. 123,1-- 3, we read:

~ "'( __.D ~ ~ 'i' ~ R ~ '0 ~, "I have made their

struggle to cease: I have caused their complaint to end." (I) That the "Rivals" are Horus and Set appears here from the determinatives, and it is the usual theory of Egyptian theologians. It is likely that the struggle which Thoth thus undertook to bring to a close, was regarded as a political conflict for the supremacy of Egypt. (2) It is likely that we have here ideas which are present also in the Osirian legend. But the Horus of these texts is not Harsiesis, but "Haroeris"; and the inheritance for which he does battle is not that of Osiris, but that of Geb. The political aspect of the Horus-Set conflict is suggested by a number of ancient texts which speak

of the "struggle" (!Innw) as ending in ~ ~ e (Hermopolis Magna, Eshmunein). This would mean that the war between the "rivals" was finally brought to a close in Thoth's nome in Middle Egypt. The most important of the texts in question

is Pyr. 229 - r S;.. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~, and with it should be compared, Pyr. 31 I and 315. (3) Are we to infer that Her-

. .

and Book of Dead, Nav. 178, 11 -13). From Pyr. 1011 and 1379 it would

seem to follow that the ~ V 0 ~ may sometimes be ~ = ~.

(I) Cf. Book of Dead, c·75, 5-7.

(2) Jequier thinks (Sphinx, XVII, fasc. V) that the legends of Osiris-Set and of Horus-Set are to be explained partly totemistically, and partly, geographically or politically: the legends, he conjectures, reflect ancient tribal conflicts: "Une des tribus (Osiris) ecrasee 11 un moment donne est secourue par une tribu venant d'ailleurs (Horus), qui reprend 11 son compte ses traditions, et finit par reduirc en une certaine mesure Ie clan ennemi (Set) apres quai survient un compromis qui divise Ie pays en deux zones d'influence, run des deux peuples ne devant arriver que peu 11 peu 11 la suprematie absolue tout en laissant 11 son adversaire la satisfaction morale de la separation politique du pays en deux parties." The political division of Egypt between Horus and Set is clearly indicated in such a Pyr. text as 204, where Set is lib II sm< - a position held later by Horus of Kus,

(3) A distorted parallel to Pyr. 229 exists in a Brit. Mus. Stela-text (190) belonging to the late period:

n 1,.__ ~ @ ~ e """""" III czz; ~ 0 e ~ n """"""j.

I' .J:3" ~ """""" ~ """""" ~ <=> I' A

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mopolis Magna played a great part in the predynastic struggles of North and South? The positions of Thoth's city and nome was such that they could, if necessary, take a decisive part

in the early battles. It is, however, possible that the ~ ~ ~ of the Pyr. texts referred to may be, in reality, ~~~,

{} Q

the northern Hermopolis of Pyr. 19I. If it is, the texts which

put the close of the l!ll1lW between Horus and Set contain merely an unintelligible mythological allusion. But it is more

reasonable to suppose that there is question of ~ ~ 1~ (Pyr. 190), and that something more than mere mythology is here conveyed.

It would almost seem as if the word I1nnw which appears in Pyr. 229, was used as a terminus technicus for the conflict between Horus and Set (cf. Book of the Dead, 42, 17-19). The Book of the Dead gives an interesting passage in eh. 182, 19-21, in this reference:

"I am Thoth" ~~-~'i ~~ ~~-~ "i~~\\

~J1J1~~~~:7I§~ ~~~~ ~5~ ~

rV]f ill fWV'M ~ ~ _,_JI n _,_JI MAAM ~ Q'C7 ~ ~~

1 1 1 -~ ~ ~{} Jrl 1 1 I'Y~m Q ~QJrI 1 1(1)

(sic)

"I have made Horus happy: I have appeased the 'Rivals' in the hour of their 'trouble'. I come: I have washed away the blood-stains. I have appeased the 'Rivals': I have put away

every evil thing."

Schneider (Kultur Wid Denken del' alten Agypter, p. 389) thinks that the Pyr. texts 163, 173, 175 suggest the existence of an early alliance between Thoth's nome and Set. He would explain the passages in which Thoth appears as judge or arbitrator between the rivals, by postulating an activity of the r g th nome as arbitrator in the pre-dynastic conflicts (cf. ibid., p_ 420). If determinatives were of great importance, as they are not, in the Ptolemaic texts, we might take the Edfu

<::>":>

script V @ ":> as referring to a function of Thoth in delimiting the territories

of Horus and Set.

(I) Cf. Totb. 113,2- 3. I am Thoth: ~ ~ \ ~ ~ ~ ); ~

~~t@~~~~:::~ ~~_,_JI,7,~}rI~~

n~Q ~lnfWV'M ~ J ~~:I'I 1 I'

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THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS. 4 I

There is an equally clear instance of this technical use of !Jnnw in Pyr. 1040:

~~~~ ~D~~~~rt~~[1~ ~~ <::> ~-:--~

"When the 'Combatants' were not yet, and the dread because of the eye of Horus had not yet arisen."

llmiJV seems to mean here the struggling combatants themselves, rather than their struggle. Yet, the special reference of the word is clear enough. A closely similar Pyramid text is Pyr. 1463 :

(You were born) ~ ~~ <::> ~ D~ O~ 0 ~ Jr'

"When there was as yet no 'Conflict': when the eye of Horus was not as yet torn out (?) nor the testicles of Set wrenched away."

There are several instances of this use of hnnw in the Pyramid texts. (I) In view of what was said above about the cosmic nucleus of the Horus-legend it is interesting to note that J!nmv can also mean "storm" (cf. Pyr. 304). There are several passages in which it occurs in this sense with the determinative of Set. Thus in the Turin Papyrus (23 f.) Thoth appears as he who -

~'J3C16 ~'Jl ~ ~~ ~\ I~ @rul~(2) ~~~~~~tj:~\ I

There seems to be fairly definite reference to atmospheric phenomena in this text, and it is likely that something of the primitive Horus-Set legend here shimmers through. Set is here, apparently, the god of storm-clouds. We find

(I) Cf. Pyr. "89: 306: 304: ,320. How explain the place name'\J)J~, \)D~ L. D. III, 8e (XVllth Dyn.)?

(2) Read ~~, as in Edfu R. I. 343.

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h.nnw used also for the trouble which is connected with the third epagomenal day, the birth day of Set. (I) In the Pap. Sallier IV, 13, 5 ~:::;: ~ 1 appears as a name for S~t. (2)

""""",,0 @~

It seems impossible, then, to evade the conclusion that

the term !J.nnw is connected peculiarly with the story of- the struggle between Horus and Set. The word has at times, at least, the meaning "storm", and is then brought into the closest relation with the person of Set. This hangs well together with the suggestion already made that Set is, perhaps, primitively a weather-god, or storm-god. The passage Book of the Dead 39, 14-15 gathers together a number of important features of Set thus:

~~'hl~

~ \J)1MN\M ~ ~ 1 ~ Ll n}:J ~ M/VW'. ~ c2J NV'NV' 0 CJ c:::=::> ~ \) M/VW'. 0 Jr' ~I I I <=:> ~ ~ ~ M 0 lr 00 CJ ~

Thus the technical term !J.nnw, - which brings together Thoth, Horus, and Set, and is associated with a struggle that ended

in Thoth's city ~}~, and suggests, at the same time, the phenomena of storm-clouds which were the foes of the sun-god, - helps to connect the various stages of the Horuslegend as it grows from cosmic myth to historical drama.

In the texts in which Thoth appears as "Judge of the Rivals, who reconciled the gods", he is represented as standing neutral between Horus and Set. But there are many texts in which Thoth can be seen to have abandoned his neutrality, and to have attached himself to Horus. In texts of this kind Set appears as a purely malicious being whose planning and actions are directed constantly against the well-being of Horus. tn this stage of the legend the struggles of Set and Horus appear to be partly those of rivals on the battlefield, and partly those of opponents in a lawsuit. Set is not now so much the enemy of light, as the adversary of the All Good.

(I) Leyden I, 346,2, II. 12 ~ 01\ l~. ~@~III

(2) Again ibid. IV 3,4-5. l!nnw appears determined with the Set symbol

~ also in Pap. Prisse, 6, 5: Ebers 56,6. For l!mllv = "rebel", cf. Leyden I, 346,8.

For other terms connected with the struggle between Horus and Set see Junker, Onurislegende, p. 136 f.

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He has become more and more like the Set of the Osirian story, the enemy of the ~ !:::. (I) In proportion as Set became less popular in the religion of the people, he tended to become, in the same proportion, the symbol of evil. Similarly Haroeris, the ancient light-god, tends to become merged in Harsiesis, so that it is often difficult to decide whether the Horus whom Thoth supports is the Horus "who avenges his father", or the ancient god Hr wr. It is only, indeed, in passages in which Set appears as a criminal in regard to the eye of Horus, that we can be sure that we have to do with the Set of the ancient legend of Horus. It is interesting to note how the two legends - that of Osiris, and that of HorusSet - are, at times, in the same context interwoven, and yet held apart. In the myth of Horus which Naville has published the struggles of "Horus of the Horizon" (= the ancient battlegod of Edfu), and those of Harsiesis against Set are narrated as if they were aspects of a single campaign. The battles described in this Ptolemaic text contain many echoes of predynastic wars of South and North, and the Thoth of these texts is represented consistently as the friend of Horus, and not as a mediator between Horus and Set. The descriptions of Set and his companions, the leagued enemies of Horus of the Horizon, throughout the myth, suggest frequently those enemies of Re which are symbolised by the Apophis-serpent. The whole text furnishes a remarkable instance of the interweaving of legends in Egyptian speculation, and of the absence of all sharp distinctions in Egyptian thought.

Plutarch tells of a great lawsuit between Horus and Set which was conducted in presence of the gods. (2) The Horus

. in the case is the son of Isis. In Plutarch's story Thoth is the eloquent advocate who wins the case for Horus, the Logos whose reasoning cannot be withstood. (3) It is not easy

to see how Thoth's titles "t"'. "t 1 ~~ \\ and "t TI Jl ~

are reconcilable with this view. There is another confusion in Plutarch's story. He makes the lawsuit deal with the problem whether Harsiesis is the legitimate son, and rightful heir,

(I) Cf. Pyr. 580: 581: 587.

(z) Cf. the Pyr. texts 770: 958.

(3) Plutarch, Is. et 0., c. 54, 3-4: 19,8.

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of Osiris. Yet the Egyptian texts seem rather to speak of a lawsuit about the due apportioning of Egypt between Horus and Set. (I) The point of legitimacy is not raised, and the texts in question are partly, at least, echoes of the early wars. The calendar of the Papyrus Saltier (IV, 9, 5-6) tells us that the result of the lawsuit in question was, that to Horus was assigned all Egypt, and to Set the desert; Thoth, as the scribe of the gods, published the sentence. (2) It is probable, however, that the divine verdict was thought of differently in the earliest period. In the older tradition Set must have been assigned a portion of Egypt itself. In an ancient version of the legend it was Geb, and not Thoth, who reconciled Horus and Set. Egypt was indeed the "inheritance of Geb", for he was Lord of its soil, and to him, therefore, belonged the first right to assign the land of Egypt to various rulers. That Geb made the division of Egypt between Horus and Set is implied in the Shabaka text. (3) Weare told in this ancient text that Geb, having brought to a close the strife between the rivals, gives the South to Set and the North to Horus.

He says to them: V == "I have judged (or sundered) you", which would seem Nl.t; ~ly that Geb was, at one time, the "t ~ \\ Ji~. (4) Whether, however, Geb or Thoth is the original Wp rl;.wi, this title seems to be mainly reserved to Thoth from the beginnings of the New Kingdom. Maspero is inclined to think (5) that the title had a Delta origin, and that it belonged properly to the Northern, or Delta- Thoth. The

(I) Pyr. 1242 refers to a lawsuit between Horus and Set concerning an injury done to the left eye of Horus (i. e. the moon, as above).

(2) Cf. the Hymn to Osiris. Bibl, Nat. 20, plate 27, pub. by Legrain. In Book of the Dead, 96, 3 f., in a reference possibly to some such lawsuit, it.is said that Thoth reconciled Set "by the 1l!J.I!. of the 'kn, by the blood of the venerable ones of Geb", The passage with its unintelligibility suggests how small a fragment of Egyptian myths and legends has survived.

Amon gets the title V &s:::=:> 8 @ ~ ~ ~ ~ n e c-=J -=-~ C>

o x~ I R\\~~~~JITc> 'V _,_Jl~~

in the Hymn to Amon, Cairo, 8, 5. (3) p. 925 f.

(4) In Pyr. 957 Geb seems to act as judge in a lawsuit between Osiris and Set.

(5) La Myth. eg., p.379.

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THOTH IN THE LEGENOS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS. 45

name of Thoth's city, the capital of the Ibis-nome, in the Delta is c-::J ~ V 8 @~. In Philae, in a procession of nor-

. I ~ c=:::> R +:i V

them divinities, the 15th is "Thoth, the great god, c=:::>

8 [ @99 i -- *." The chief priest of Thoth in the ibis~nome R \\ I II d!::::, III V 8 8 t.S.

was also called c=:::> RR ~. (I) Maspero's conjecture thus finds

support in Egyptian texts. Yet, it is the fact that the title in question was given to Thoth not merely in the north, but throughout Egypt. If the epithet were really of Delta origin, it would probably be somehow connected with the Osirian legend, and not, as ·we have conjectured, with the developed form of the Horus-Set saga. If, however, as seems likely, the epithet wp rly.wi is practically identical with wp flnnw, it may be still regarded as arising from the legend of Horus and Set. It could, of course, easily have become connected secondarily with the name of Thoth's Delta home.

Though the ancient tradition regarded Horus and Set

as the "Rivals" (~~: ~ ~), there are a few ancient texts which are at variance with this tradition: Pyr. 163 speaks of Thoth and Set as the hostile brothers, and blames them for their evil deeds, and their ·refusal to repent of them. Pyr. 173 and 175 threaten the same two divinities with heavy penalties. It is possible that we have here traces of an ancient legend which made Thoth and Set a pair of malignant deities, leagued in a conspiracy of evil against Horus, (2) One may have here echoes of an alliance of Thoth's nome with Set against the political power of Horus.

A remarkable Pyr. text (128) identifies" Thoth and Re (i. e. moon and sun) with the Rhwi, and tells how Set (here, apparently, still a venerable deity) escaped from their hostility. In the text the dead is said to have escaped certain un-

pleasant things II ~ ~~ c=:::> ~ ~ II "as Set withheld himself from the tnt (poison?) of the Rhwi", who are further described 1 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ (\V ho traverse the heavens). . Then

(I) Edfu R. I., 333. Note in Edfu, R. I., 334, that VII: is apparenlly

a name for the Mendes nome. .

(2) Schneider, Kultur und Denken, p. 389, regards these Pyr. texts as pointing to a political combination of Set with Thoth.

•

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follows the important gloss of the ancient commentator: o o~ [::4 "Re, that is, and Thoth". (I) We have a parallel to this ancient text in a Cairo text of the M. K.

«D~ A [""""'"

(Cairo 20520): (2) there the gloss reads ~ -

. 0 III __..D~

obviously a slight misreading. Sun and moon are here the

Rl)wi. Since Re is, like Horus, a sun- god we might just as well have here Horus and Thoth as the rhwi. (3)

In an Edfu text (4) Thoth is called V<=> R: 8, where the determinatives point to sun and moon. But Thoth could not be a "judge" of himself, and we need not concern ourselves greatly with Ptolemaic determinatives. (5)

There are not wanting in ancient Egyptian literature passages which represent Set as a beneficent and friendly deity. He is not always the enemy of Horus. This is true, for instance, in Pyr. 473, and in those ancient texts in which he cooperates with Horus for the benefit of Osiris. As god of Ombos Set is often as kind, and as helpful as any other deity. (6) He often appears as a friend of Horus. (7) It is obvious, then, that the three divinities Horus, Set and Thoth do not appear always in three distinct roles in ancient Egyptian theology. Their characters are not always self-consistent, and, in the ancient legends they are represented as variously as the backgrounds of those legends required.

As theology developed, and political situations changed, Set came to be, less and less, the mere god of Ombos, and, more and more, the symbol of evil. He is gradually excluded from the ritual, and ritual honours and functions which had been his are gradually handed over to Thoth. Thus, for instance, in the coronation-ceremonies of ancient Egypt Set played an important part as representative of one great di-

(I) Cf. Mission, 14, p.63, for parallel.

(2) The same text is found in an incorrect form Book of the Dead Ii 8,

15-17.

(3) For Re = Horus, cr. Pyr. 956. (4) Edfu R. I. 297.

(5) What is the meaning of the text, Urgotterlied EI-Chargeh (Roeder, U'b.) I. 24, 25: "Horus, whom the Rhwi and the Sisters raise"! Are the Rhwi here Thoth and Anubis - Horus being identified with Osiris?

(6) cr. Pyr, 370.

(7) Vid, Pyr, 141. Cf. Pyr. 1612: 1613.

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vision of Egypt. When, through political and religious change, Set became "Lord of the desert" he naturally fell out of the ritual of coronation. His place was taken by Thoth. In 50 lists of divinities collected by Schenke (Amon-Ra, p. 124-127) Thoth appears eleven times, Set eighteen times. When we look closer at these lists we find that Set has been forced out of his place seven times by Thoth, twice by Anubis, and eight times by Horus. In the primitive forms of these lists Thoth would, then, have appeared only four times, and Set would have appeared thirty five times. Schenke thinks that the exclusion of Set began in the XVIIIth Dynasty. Doubtless, political reasons had much to do with it. Set's unpopularity seems to be connected somehow with the occupation of Northern Egypt by the Hyksos; and the great number of Thoth-names to be found among the rulers of the XVIIIth Dynasty, suggests that the cult of Thoth was important in the movement which shook off the domination of the Hyksos. Horus and Set, the gods of the "Two Lands" which made up Egypt, were necessarily the chief figures in the early ritual of coronation. When Set was excluded, his place was naturally taken by the constant companion of Horus (= Sun-god), the moon-god Thoth, the Lorn of sacred ceremonial.

We may here bring together briefly the results of our inquiry into the position of Thoth in the legends of Osiris and Horus.

1. Thoth has no place in the primitive saga of the vegetation-god, Osiris.

2. In the developed, anthropomorphic, form of that saga Thoth is an important dramatis persona. His place in the drama is due partly to his own primitive character, and, partly, to the proximity of Thoth's shrine in the Delta to the home of the Osirian legend. The main features of Thoth's character in the legend seem to be largely individual and peculiar to him out of all relation with the Osirian religion. But there' is no need to deny that the activity of Thoth in the Osirian drama may have helped to define his character more clearly for the people, and to extend his worship throughout Egypt.

3. In the older form of the legend of Horus and Set Thoth plays an essential part as guardian of the ~ 1 0 ~.

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4-8 THOTH IN THE LEGENDS OF OSIRIS AND HORUS.

This office naturally belonged to him as a primitive moongod. A deity protective of light was a necessary figure in the ancient sun-saga of Egypt.

4. In its developed form the Horus-legend has become entangled with the Osirian story. Thoth here appears either as arbitrator between two political rivals, Horus and Set, or as the active partisan and ally of one of the two. The texts which represent Thoth as an ally of Horus seem to be strongly influenced by the saga of Re and the Apophis. Features from the legend of Osiris and Set are also here present. The position of Thoth is further described in this developed and complex form of the legend of Horus as that of a judge in a suit between Horus and Set (as in the Pyramid texts), or as that of an advocate defending Horus in the case (so Plutarch), or as that of a wise friend of the contending parties who seeks to reconcile them. Here, as in the older form of the Horus-legend, Thoth still appears at times as an astral deity: and sometimes he seems to represent a political power, allied .. at one time with Horus, and at another, with Set, in the pre-dynastic battles of Egypt. (I)

(I) The position of Thoth in the various legends that centre round the Ere of Horus is described and explained in a manner differing greatly from that' of the text in Junker's remarkable book, Die Ouurislegende (Wien, 1917)' The text was already written when that work reached the present writer. Much, however, of the new material that Junker's work supplies has been examined for the purposes of this essay, Junker's work is so original in its method, and valuable in its results that it is sure to become an indispensable reference-book for every student,

_._- .--~-.--- .. -~--

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Chapter III.

Thoth and the Enneads of Heliopolis.

The theology of the Pyramid texts is largely the product of a fusion of local cults with the theology of Osiris. Of those local cults the most important is that of the ancient solar shrine, Heliopolis. In the theology of Heliopolis itself we can trace clearly the inweaving of the Osirian saga with the local worship of Re-Atum. This inweaving appears most obviously, perhaps, in the Heliopolitan lists of the great gods, and, especially, in the list which is known as the Great Ennead of Heliopolis. In this listOsiris himself appears as a member of the family of the Heliopolitan sun-god, and Isis and Set appear with him in the same group. Further, we find that incidents of the Osirian drama have come to be localised in Heliopolis. This is true, for instance, of the great trial in which Osiris is declared victorious by the gods. (I) In Heliopolis the court is held: and it is the Heliopolitan gods who declare Osiris "triumphant". At times it would seem as if Osiris had become a sun-god at Heliopolis, just

as he became nTh c> f ~ in Abydos. In the Pyramid texts the dead king, conceived as Osiris, is often represented in the guise of Osiris. It is to be noted that Haroeris has no place in the ancient Heliopolitan Ennead. (2) He was himself a sungod, and did not need a place in the Ennead of a foreign solar shrine: In being he was really identical with Re-Atum.

(I) As suggested above, this trial is a late development of the Osirian story. For apparent references in the Pyramid texts to the trial see Pyr. 956-960, and d. Pyr. 316-318 and Pyr. 1521-1523.

(2) Plutarch puts the birth of the "ancient Horus" before that of the gods of the Os irian cycle. Horus was a heaven-god prior to becoming a sungod. Whether the ancient war-god in falcon shape was primitively a heaven-god or sun-god is not certain: he also was called Horus. Possibly there is here the identification of a local war-god with the heaven-god or sun-god.

Thoth. the Hermes of Egypt. 4

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50 THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELIOPOLlS.

We have now to consider the relation of Thoth to the Heliopolitan deities.

Many attempts have been made to discover the primitive nucleus of the Heliopolitan Ennead. Schenke (I) regards that nucleus as consisting of the sun-god with Shu, Tefenet, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Horus. Assuming that we have in Heliopolis an Ennead resulting from a combination of Osirian and Heliopolitan theologies, the Ennead would be:

Sun-god

Shu Tefenet

Geb Nut

Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys.

Horus would have here no place - except, of course, in so far as he might be identical with the sun-god himself. Thoth is not included in the list. (2) His appearance in the "Little Ennead" of Heliopolis is of no great importance except as illustrating the supplementing tendencies of Egyptian theology. The deities who appear in the Ennead (apart from Re-Atum) do not appear there as local deities. They have been quite removed from the surroundings of their local cults. Osiris is here no longer the god of Dedu or Abydos; Set is no longer the local deity of Ombos. On the other hand, the ancient deities who are not included in the Great Ennead are more tenacious of their local individuality at the time when the Great Ennead was first devised. This is particularly true of Thoth. He retains his connection with a particular local shrine much longer than the Osirian gods of the older Ennead.

It is possible, and perhaps likely, that the Enneadic grouping was not a primitive feature of Heliopolitan theology. It has been maintained recently by Capart (3) that the grouping of deities in primitive Heliopolis was ogdoadic. He bases his view on the Pyramid text 317, and endeavours to show that the primitive grouping in Heliopolis was one of four

(I) Amoll-Ra, p. 123 f.

(2) Was Thoth a figure in Osirian drama before the assimilation of Osirian cult with that of Heliopolis ? It is interesting to note that Pyramid lists of the gods which begin with Osiris and Set do not, as a rule, include Thoth. Thoth goes more naturally with 1;b- WI'. See Pyr. 826 and 832.

(3) Recueil 33, p. 64 f.

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THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELIOPOLIS. 51

male deities over against four female divinities. Pyr. 317 suggests, according to Capart, this grouping:'

T efen T efenet

Nu Nut

Osiris Re

Isis Nephthys.

Above the eight, but in a transcendence which excluded him from being grouped with them, stood the local god, Atum. We know that an arrangement of this kind existed in Thoth's city Ijmnw, the "City of the Eight"; and Capart suspects that the Heliopolitan Ogdoad was formed under the influence of the ancient Eight of Ijmriw.( I) If this view of Capart were to be accepted, then not merely Horus, Anubis, and Thoth, but Shu, Set, and Geb would be excluded from the most ancient Heliopolitan grouping of gods. Capart has, further, endeavoured to show how his postulated Ogdoad has developed into the Ennead of the Pyramid texts. His theory is ingenious. Re was identified, in the course of time, with Atum, and in the place of Re thus vacated was put Set (- another solar god, according to Capart). The god of heaven, Nu, was next replaced by the earth-god Geb. Shu, as the son of Re, must follow Re immediately: thus he takes the place of Tefen. The resulting Ennead would be:

Re (= Atum) Shu (instead of Tefen) Geb (instead of Nu) Osiris

Set (instead of Re)

Tefenet. Nut.

Isis. Nephthys.

The transcendence of Atum having disappeared by his identifi~~tion with Re, the Ogdoad necessarily became an Ennead. (2)

(I) There seems to have been variety of opinion in Egypt as to the first pair of emanations from the sun-god. They could be Shu-Tefenet ; Tefen-Tefenet, Hu-Sia, or Hike-Sia, or Heart-Tongue (= Thoth-Horus), Cf. PSBA, vol. 38, p, 92 f. In the fusion of theologies this variety afterwards led to strange identifications. Some of these will be discussed later. The possibility that Shu, in certain aspects, might be somehow identified with Bu, I;Iike, and Thoth would easily lead to the passing of influences to and fro between Heliopolis and Umunu, Note that in the "grosser" theories the first two emanations are male and female: in the more "intellectual" theories the two first emanations might be male (or sexless).

(2) Capart's theory rouses grave misgivings. How could Osiris and Isis be taken into an Ogdoad without Set? The colligation of Re and Nephthys (as "Lord 4*

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52 THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLIS.

The contrary view, that the Ogdoad of Hermopolis is due to the influence of Heliopolis, and that the Ennead is primitive in the latter shrine, is older and more popular. Maspero has collected the evidence for it. (I ) We are interested in the general question only in so far as it affects Thoth's position among the ancient gods. In the general obscurity of the problem one thing is clear - that Thoth does not stand in the ancient groupings of gods in any family relationship to the gods of Heliopolis. This supports the view already put forward that Thoth is not primitively connected with the Osirian legend. Yet, on the other hand, Thoth's relations with the Heliopolitan Great Ennead are close and that, even in very ancient texts. His relations with the chief god of Heliopolis - Re-Atum - are, as we shall see, especially intimate. 1t may be that the inclusion of Thoth in the Lesser Ennead, and his close connection with the gods of the Greater Ennead other than Re-Atum, are somehow conditioned by his assumption as a persona into the more developed form of the Osirian drama.

The Book of the Dead has made us familiar with the idea of a trial of Osiris held before the gods of Heliopolis. (2) The same trial seems to be referred to in the Pyramid texts, (3) and every student of Egyptian theology knows how the idea of this trial dominates the entire religious speculation of Egypt. The precise points at issue in the trial cannot be ascertained.

In the result Osiris was declared ~~, and was made one of the divine judges. He even became the president of the court. There is, obviously, much confusion of thought here. Possibly the whole story of the trial was elaborated to show that Osiris, as Prince, or Greatest, of the Dead, was subjected to the trial after death which every mortal must endure; in all directions Osiris should serve as the model of all men. Every man of Egypt besought for himself from the gods the verdict which Osiris had obtained. In the trial of Osiris some

of the Temple" and "Lady of the Temple") is very hypothetical. Instead of building up a new theory on Pyr. 317, it would be much more reasonable to suppose that Tefen in that text is simply an epithet of Shu, the son of Re.

(I) Rec., vol. 24, p. 169 f. La myth. eg., P.244. (2) Nav., Totb., c. 1,7-10.

(3) Pyr. 1521-1523.

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THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLIS. 53

charge was made against him by Set. Against this charge, apparently, Osiris was brilliantly defended by Thoth, so that the latter received for himself the title "He who made Osiris victorious against his foes."

We find Thoth active in still another great lawsuit pleaded before the Ennead in Heliopolis. The parties are here Horus and Set, and the trial is held in the Hall of the Two Ma'ets, (I) It is to this lawsuit, probably, that Plutarch refers when he speaks of the successful pleading of the advocate Hermes (Thoth) on behalf of Horus against Set. The details of the divine lawsuits in which Thoth was engaged were thought out after the model of the high courts in Egypt. It has thus come about that several of Thoth's most frequently recurring epithets are connected with features of legal practice in Ancient Egypt. It will help, not merely to explain the development of Thoth's cult, but also to illustrate the methods of Egyptian speculation in religion, to indicate here some of the titles which were devised for Thoth because of his work in defence of Osiris and Horus before the Ennead of Heliopolis.

a) In the lawsuits in presence of the gods Thoth apparently acted as secretary of the court, and recorder of its verdict. This is implied in his familiar title f[l (? "NVV'oA e 9 <>-= ,

logfJ 0 111 I 0

i. e. "Verdict-recorder for the Great Ennead". (2) Other titles

betraying the same legal origin are "Verdict-recorder for the Lord of eternity", (3) "Verdict-recorder of the Lord of Ma'et." (4) "Writer of Ma'et" is a constantly recurring epithet of Thoth in the Book of the Dead. (5) In the texts of the

(I) Cf. Pyr. 770: cf. Pyr. 317. Pyr.957 refers to a decision spoken by Geb in the l;lt sr in a trial in which Set was accused of having stricken down Osiris. In Pyr. 1556 there is reference to the verdict in this, or another similar trial: Set is

__..II ~ c:=:::J ~}~. From this trial and verdict Thoth derived the epithet sIIlJ' lJrlV Osiris (r lJ,jtilVj).

(2) Karnak, L.D.II1, 175c.: Turin no. 173; Edfu R. I. 297.

l3) SsJ IIlJ'.t II lib 11M, Turin 912. Cf. the Bk. of Dd. of M. K. ch. 17 (Missioll I, 170) where the dead describes himself as "Scribe of the Lord of All" (i. e. as Thoth, whose place he takes).

(4) Cat. du Musee du Caire: Daressy, Cercueils, Pl. XV.

(5) Cf. Totb. Nav. 182,2. In Pyr. 1520-1521 he appears also as moon and as lib 11I1'.t. In Pyr. 1522/3 Thoth is the herald who announces the decision of the gods in regard to Osiris: the gods of heaven and earth, of south and north,

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54 THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLIS.

Graeco-Roman period he is very often referred to as "Verdict-recorder (or, 'Writer of Ma<et') for the Ennead" (ssJ mr-t n psg.t). (I)

(b) A somewhat similar title of Thoth is V (? MMM e 9. (2)

~ c> III I

Thoth puts the verdicts or decrees of the Ennead in writing:

of east and west rejoice, ~ I ~ ~ 0 ~ -= ~ n C--=:J ~ <::>

~ n I 0 J( NVVVV'o <::>..,.........JJ ~ ~ <::> ~ I

iWW'A 4 iWW'A ~. He not merely writes down the decision or verdict but he

publishes it to heaven and earth.

With ;zb mJ'.t cf. the title given to Thoth in Edfu R. I. 56 ~ iWW'A c:::::J.

11) c» C)

In Philae (Phot. 995) Tiberius presents mJ'.t to Thoth, and in the text he says:

"Receive mJ'.t so as to gladden your heart, for she is the food of Your Majesty ever." MJ'.t in the same place is spoken of as the food which Thoth's k; loves, and

Thoth is described as lib mJ'.t htp hr ml'.t: ~ U 9 ~ 0 <::> <§? c:::::=~ ,

. . l~l@..,.........JJ I I '""Y

"his abomination is to be unfair (a partisan)". Thoth's character of judicial fairness

is most likely a development from his role in the Osirian trial, and then from his role in the judgment-scene generally.

(I) Cf. Edfu, R. I. 297 etc., etc. In the text I have taken sst mts.t as "Verdict-recorder". This sense is not certain. But it does seem clear in the titles quoted in the text that ma'et means more than "truth": the word seems to have a forensic sense, something like 'If';, which itself stands close to P'1~. Ma'et can be done as well as spoken. Ma'et, in the sense of "just" (to l)[xonov), is an appropriate name for a fair verdict. Ma'et appears often as goddess of justice and hence the officials of Ancient Egypt often bear the title "priest of ma'et", The higher law-officers advertised their loyalty to ma'et by wearing an image or amulet of the goddess (cf. Cairo Wb. no. 73 where an official speaks of wearing on his breast a figure of ma'et], \Ve may assume that, for the Egyptians, as for ourselves, that which is legally prescribed is, at least in theory, the just and fair. Hence to carry out what is legally prescribed is to accomplish ma'et, to fulfil all the ritual laws in the divine cult would be a particularly perfect performance of rna'et, As including what is prescribed for cult ma'et would correspond to ritus iritus sacrificiorum, ritus sacrificii : cf. P:nt '!1?r) = what is of precept, and to 6.GILo. (particularly if determined by 6E'O; or !epa.). Ma'et can also include what is truthful in word or expression, since men can claim true speech from their fellows. Since the forensic reference is sufficiently clear in ma'et, it is natural .that the great court in Heliopolis should stand under the patronage' of the two ma'ets (cf. Pyr.317). Possibly the two rna'ets symbolise the union of N. and S. Egypt under a single Supreme Court. It is possible, however, too, that the dual in the case merely symbolises the ideal fairness of the justice administered in Heliopolis. In this sense of intensified fairness the dual is used as a singular in the votive in-

scription ~f Abydos ::!p..,.........JJ (? (? Jl ~ ~ iWW'A ~ C> "thy justice

C> \\~~1J .A _<::>~

hath reached unto heaven" (line 61/62).

(2) Cf. Thebes, Tomb of Userhat, Sethe 13, ) 7: Tomb of Imn.m.ib Champ.

Not. descr, 851. Book of Dead c. 30 (Ani. 3).

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THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLlS. 55

but he is more than a mere recorder: he gives judgment with the court: ~ ~ T J1 ~ ~ """""" 8 9 (Luxor: Court of Ram-

Jr'__..JI{[A]1J 0 III 01111

ses II, Sethe 2, 105) - he gives his judgment along with the

Ennead. This activity has given him some special names in

the Graeco-Rornan period: .~ ~ m (Mar., Dend. II, 74 a), 't ~1 (Mar., Dend. II, 62 b). (I)

(c) Through his activity in the court of the Ennead Thoth became the scribe of the Ennead, in general. Thus, probably, is to be explained his title in Anastasi V, 9, 2 - "the letter-writer of the Ennead (2) 141 ~ til 1..& DO 0 ~

~m~i. ~ ~Iog~ __..JI I

It is to be noted that all these titles belong to the period of the New Kingdom, and to later times. As the details of the legendary trials of Osiris and Horus belong to the early period, it is likely that the legal epithets of Thoth which arose out of his connection with those trials, were drawn from the traditional legal procedure of Ancient Egypt. We find, in fact, in the texts of the Old and Middle Kingdoms abundance of legal titles analogous to those of Thoth, ascribed to important personages in the State.

We have seen that the court in which the trial of Osiris was held, and in which also, probably, the case between Horus and Set was tried, was the Great Hall of Heliopolis - probably the Supreme Court of Ancient Egypt. In the texts of the Old Kingdom the Supreme Court is called the l)JdJ·t wr.t, (3) and the court in which Osiris was tried is called by the same name in the Book of the Dead (Totb. 18, 3). This shows how the general idea of the Osirian trial is dominated, from the beginning, by the thought of actual legal procedure in ancient Egypt. When we examine the titles of ancient

(I) This title may be connected, of course, with Thoth's functions as arbitrator between Horus and Set.

(2) Cf. the title in a Theban tomb (Gardiner, Topographical Catalogue,

tfijDO <=> ~

P- 18) """""" ~C_? = "royal scribe of the despatches of the Lord

o~C:::>:;:::: ., ........

of the 2 Lands". Thoth is similarly the despatch-writer of the Ennead. Cf. Karnak, A text of Ramses I V, Set he, 22, 31-34 where Thoth is represented as appearing

c:::::= ~ r tj ~ t ~ ~ 7 "in the Hall bearing the royal document".

(3) Cairo 61,65,66 etc.

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56 THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLlS.

dignitaries, we find among them not a few which stand in the closest relation to those above identified as forensic titles

of Thoth. Such title are ~ ~ c:::::::> fij ~ fij ~ G}: (Cairo,

61, 65, 66, 181, 377, Statue of O. K.). ~ fij ~ ~ fij ~ ~ ~ ~ (Cairo, 181, O. K.). The ws~.t ~J.t, the Hall of the ..",Oo{ <:>

.Supreme Court at Heliopolis, often appears in titles of the

Old and Middle Kingdoms. In Mar., Mastabas D. 19, E a man appears as a "priest of Ma(et", and "leader of the Hall". Thoth is not leader, or president of the "Great Hall", but he is the "Scribe of Ma' et in the Hall", he is the chief scribe or recorder (the lJrp ssJ) in the Great Hall, and "Scribe of Ma'et for the Ennead". Thoth is looked on as an official of the Ennead in the same way as an ancient Egyptian dignitary would have been an official of the Pharaoh. (I)

Very probably, then, the great trial of Osiris, and the details connected with it, were modelled largely on the legal customs of ancient Egypt. Even in the later periods of Egyptian religion we find this method of constructing the divine on the analogy of every day civil life in Egypt still steadily at work. We can see this from such epithets of Thoth as

~ <::::>: ~ given to him in the Graeco-Roman period (Edfu R. II, 73; 80). Thus also we explain other late epithets of our god: '11 ~ ~ fR (Philae, Photo 854), '11 ~ 1 (Mar., Dend. III, 55 b; Edfu R. II, 73 etc.). SJb sblJti is, as is well known, a familiar legal title in the O. K. (2)

Through the pictorial representations of the J udgmentscene - which scene is, of course, closely connected with the Osirian .legend, - Thoth has come to be associated with the weighing of the heart. Thus he has received the title n 0'09 (cf. Totb. c. 30, Ani 3). The title is very frequent in ~ \\ I I

the Ptolemaic period. It is often written with the ibis-deter-

(1) Cf. for instance the titles of a man of the XIX th Dyn. recorded in Louvre III 36, Inv. 3132: he is ss! mtr.t m PI' mJ'.t, and ssJ s't ,. bw Ill' Iliswt. A dignitary at Gizeh (L. D. II, 34, g) is sib sb!J.ti and IVr dwJ PI' mllvti.

(2) SJb ib!J.ti is a well-known legal title in the O. K. Cf. Catal. gell. des antiq. eg., vol. LIII, no. 46. Again cf. no. 61 (ibid.): here the man is stb imi "J ssJ lJ,rp ssJ m IVSlJ,.t 'Lt : again, no. 65 where we read the titles lJ,'1' ssJ, stb lmi I'J ss! m dldJ.t wr.t.

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THOTH AND THE ENNEADS OF HELlO POLIS. 57

minative q g ~ (L. D. IV, 76 e. Diim., Baugeschichte, 43) appearing thus as a name of the god. (I) In the scenes of the Judgment Thoth appears in two chief roles: on the one hand, as ibis-headed god who weighs the heart of the dead, and, on the other, as ape seated on the tongue of the balance.

In this second role Thoth is described as'~ ~ 1 ~ 4 ~ (Edfu R. II, 3 I) "He that sits on the balance". (2) This position of Thoth, as ape on the tongue of the balance, fully

explains his epithet : I{) ~: that epithet is on the same level

as ~~? @.

(I) Cf. Mar. Dend, Ill, 81 e, 61 a : II, 13 b : 71 b: Dum., Histor. Inschr. II, 57 a. (2) Cf. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Sarkophagus Saal I, no. XX. See also Lacau, Text rei. Recueil, no. 34, p. 180.

Edfu' R. II. 31 calls the Pharaoh "the copy of Istn (= Thoth), ~ ~ e ~ who knoweth (rlJ.) the balance". Pap. Rhind I, 7 b. 9 calls Thoth "Lord ~ the Scales". : ~ MNV'oA ~ ~ appears as a title of dignity, L. D. III 26, I c.

Tomb of * ~~ \\ ~ 0 ~,Thebes. Anubis, from his activity in the judgmentscene, was called ~ ~\ ~ ~ ~ $ (Catal. du J/lIsee du Caire. Daressy, Cercueils, p, 129). Since Anubis weighs the heart of Osiris along with Thoth, he is called in the Pyr. texts n 0 I{) (Pyr. 1523, cf. Pyr, 1287). Thus, as we have

~~III

already said, it is obvious that the Judgment-scene was pictorially represented at a

very early period. From all this it appears how unacceptable is Loret's explanation of Thoth's epithet tlJ.. He says iBulletin de I' Institut fr, d'arch, or., \'01. 3, p. 18) :

"Tho~pres avoir lite tout simplement c Ie dieu en forme d'ibis ~ i\: ~ (de i ~ »- = €T€U)I, TI~I, grue) est devenu Ie dieu de la justesse et de la rectitude, par suite d'un rapprochement de son nom avec celui du tiJ Ii plomb de la balance, Q ~ d'ou I'orthographe Q ~ '(<:> du nom de l'ibis." As a matter

~ ~ JY

of fact Q ~ ~ has nothing to do with "ibis"; it is merely an epithet of Thoth

@ -~

as ape that sits on the balance. Tb», not t!J. is "ibis". For the ape of the ba·

lance cf. Harris, I, 45, II, 12: "I made for thee a balance: Thoth sits thereon

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~ r ~ ~ - as great and venerable ape."

Cf. also the Kuban Stele, 14-15, and Leu Totb. Xlll (Spiegelberg, Demotische Studien). In Lexa's text the demotic gives as the name of one of the porters "opener of hearts" (cf. Nav., Totb., 125, 42-44), while the corresponding hieratic text has the "tlJ. of Ma'et". These two epithets belong to Thoth, and the apparent want of agreement of the hieratic and demotic here is easily explained in view of what has been said above.

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Chapter IV.

Thoth and Re in the Solar barque.

Thoth, as has been shown, stands with other ancient deities, such as Ptah, Min, IJr wr, Neit Anubis etc., outside the primitive Ennead of Heliopolis. Yet it cannot be denied that there are very close relationships expressed, even in very early texts, between Thoth and the Heliopolitan sun-god.

In the Book of the Dead of the N. K. period Thoth often appears as secretary of Re (or of Osiris, thought of as sun-god); and he constantly appears with the sun-god in the solar barque (I) - generally accompanied by Ma(et. Thoth is therefore a companion of the chief god of Egypt, when the latter goes on his administrative journeys. It is not unlikely that the Pyramid texts which speak of a "Scribe of the divine book at the right of Re" refer to the presence and function of Thoth in the solar barque. The Pap. Harris, I, 6-8, refers to the "writings of IJrnnw the accountant of ReHorus of the horizon". Thoth is also spoken of as "Re's scribe of Ma'et" (Thebes, Tomb of ~ """""" ~ JI L. D. Text Ill, 299)

JJ~@ \\ 11

= he that records the judgments of Re. We find Thoth per-

forming a similar function for the sun-god Atum. Thus in the Votive inscription of Abydos: "Atum decreed unto thee his own length of life: Thoth wrote it (i. e. the decree) down, beside the Lord of All (i. e. Re-Atum)".

According to Pyr. 955 the Scribe of Re is dismissed in order to make way for the dead king: and Pyr. 1146 makes

(I) Cf. Nav., Totb., c. 69, I 1- I:!: Turin Pap. (P. and R.) 136 etc. In the funerary texts of the M. K. there is a formula by which the dead may become a scribe of Re (Lacau, Text rel. Rec. XXXI (1909), p. 10. 1J). When the dead becomes, at the same time, scribe of Osiris, the identity of Osiris and Re is implied. Note the strange N. K. passage Leyden I, 346, z, [[ -12 in which Set is spoken of as being in the prow of Re's ship.

THOTH AND RE IN THE SOLAR BARQUE. 59

the dead Pharaoh the "Scribe of the divine book". (I) Probably the "Scribe of Re" in Pyr. 955 is identical with the "Scribe of the divine book" in Pyr. 1146; and the general sense is that the Pharaoh becomes identified with Thoth as moon-god, and assistant of Re. (2) This is implied also in Pyr. 490-491, according to which the dead king becomes the f)I)Ji in the prow of Re's ship who seals the decrees of Re, sends out Re's messengers, and does in general as he is ordered to do.

Pyr. 267-268 transforms the king into "Sia (the bearer of the divine book) at the right hand of Re". (3) It may, probably, be assumed that the bearer of the divine book is one with the scribe of that book. But who is Sia? In the Book of the Dead (Nav., Totb., c. 174, 18. 19 [A f]) the dead speaks thus: "I am he who declares what is in the heart of the Great one on the feast of the ins-garment: (4) I am Sia at the right hand of Re who makes snk the heart of him who stands before the tph-t of Nu." Sia ris here again at the right of Re, and his functions in regard to Re are, probably, concerned with, or determined by, the "divine book". The meaning of snk is not clear, but the whole passage recalls Pyramid texts like 962 and 963, where Thoth beheads the king's enemies, and cuts out their hearts (cf. Pyr. 1999). In the late periods there is no doubt about the identity of Sia and Thoth - Sia being freely used in the Greek period as a name of Thoth. Further, the "Scribe of the divine book" is also clearly

(I) Cf. the prayer Totb. 94, 1-4 (Nav.) for ink-bottle and palette for the dead. The dead is to be equipped as a scribe.

\2) The title "Scribe of the divine book" was a title of the chief Cher Iieb in the O. K. Cf. Sethe, Imhotep, p. 17: Erman, lVestcar I, 21. Cf. also Davies, Del' el-Gebrawi II, pI. XIII, XXVIII etc. We know that the "Scribes of the divine book" were wont to recite the sacred formulae of the ritual, like the Cher heb. In Brugsch, Drei Festkalender, Plate VII, 7-9. 14-15. 19 it is the "Scribe of the divine book" who recites the "Praises" (the Dua = one of a series of ritual books).

Cf. the O. K. title A 1 ~ ~ 0 ~ ~ ~ (L. D. II, 97 a, IV th Dyn.).

(3) Students of the History of Religions will remember the Stoic (and the earlier Orphic-Pythagorean) idea of the moon as the abode of the blessed dead.

(4) A lib illS is referred to Totb. c. 99, 4 (Nav.). Nb.t ins is an epithet of Sechmet, Isis, and Hathor in the Greek period. Nb illS means bearer of the; illS garment: it was some kind of garment worn (by the priests) on certain feasts. - Cf. Pyr, 268 where the same text as in Totb. 174, 18-19 occurs.

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60 THOTH AND RE IN THE SOLAR BARQ.UE.

identified in late texts with Thoth. Pap. Salt, 825 VII, 2-4 enumerates the officials of the Per "onkh (= Library): among them is the "Scribe of the divine book" and a gloss in the text adds: "he is Thoth". Since we find that in many Pyramid texts (I) the dead is identified with Thoth, and since the identity of Sia and Thoth in the later periods makes probable their identity also in the early texts, we need scarcely hesitate to take the scribe whom the dead displaces in Pyr. 955 as Thoth.

The idea of the "divine book" seems to have been borrowed from the methods of government administration in Egypt. Just as the Pharaoh received reports from his ministers and various officials, and just as the details of all administrative work in Egypt were carefully recorded, so must the king of the world, the sun-god, have official reports, and official records. (2) Thoth, as the friend, and trustworthy minister and scribe of Re, kept for him the great book of government (the "divine book") in which every detail of Re's empire, and its administration would be carefully noted. (3) The book would not be primarily a "Doomsbook", or "Book of fate", but only an institution belonging to the practical side of Re's world-government. The presence of Thoth and Ma'et together in the solar barque is symbolical, probably, of the methods of Re's government. Ma'et denotes the justice and fairness of Re's rule; and Thoth symbolises its businesslike and efficient character. (4)

(I) Cf. 13o: 535: 7°9: 1233: 1237: 1305 :15°7: 1725: 2150.

(2) Note the title of Thoth in Harris, I, 6-8 ij ~ 0 of Re - accountant of Re,

(3) Breasted (Rei. and thought, p. 17) notes how easily the qualities of the earthly kingship of Pharaoh were transferred to Re.

(4) For Thoth and Maet in the solar barque sec Nav., Totb. c. 130,24-26, and often elsewhere. In the Greek period Thoth's presence in the solar barque is looked upon mainly as intended for the protection of Re against his enemies. With this function of Thoth is connected his title "Great in magic in the barque of millions" (Totb. 182,8). The title suggests the power of Thoth's magic as against the Apophis, and other foes of the sun-god. The Book of the Apophis (Brit. Mus. 10188, 25, 15: 31,20) says that it is by this hike (magic) that Thoth defeats the Apophis-dragon, Cf. Horus-Myth (Naville), PI. VJII. In the tomb of Rameses, Thebes

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THOTH AND RE IN THE SOLAR BARQUE. 61

It may be that Thoth's confidential position as minister and chief scribe in the government of Re, is due partly to the naive sentiment that the moon is a representative of Re, a sort of locum tenens for the sun-god. Thus the two great astral deities would naturally, between them, rule the worldWe shall see. in the following chapters how the idea of their common government of the universe led to certain interesting developments in the theological speculation of Egypt.

Ma'et is called un? JJ Q j ~ MNVV\ ~ = = {) in the barque of millions".

~ 0 1] I\MMI\' __ 0

Piehl, Inscr. J, 99·~. This seems to imply that Thoth wore a figure of Ma'et as

amulet in the solar barque. Cf. what was said above about the legal officials of the O. K.

•

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Chapter V.

Thoth as luriar ecleity.

Plutarch represents Hermes as winning, in a game of chess, a certain amount of light, or a certain number of short periods of light, from Selene, the moon-goddess. The light or light-periods which Hermes (Thoth) thus won, he put together to form supernumary or epagomenal days of the Egyptian year. The story brings Thoth into close connection with the moon, and is probably a genuine echo of the Egyptian speculation which regarded Thoth as primarily a lunar god.

In Egyptian texts Thoth's relationship with the moon appears to be of two kinds. In a great number of texts he is represented as being practically one with the astral body - with the moon itself. In a great many other texts he appears, not as the moon itself, but as the guardian, or protector, of the moon. In our discussion of the legend of Horus and Set we have met sev~ral instances of this second kind of relationship of Thoth with the moon. It will be convenient here to examine in the first place the texts in which Thoth is treated as one with the luminary that rules the night.

a) Thoth as identical with the moon.

The later texts are quite clear as to the lunar character of Thoth, and we can work back from the clearer texts to the less obvious and suggestive texts of the older periods.

Every student of Egyptian is familiar with the constantly recurring representation of an ape bearing on his head a lunar crescent. (I) The ape is Thoth, and the crescent identifies him with the moon. The crescent-bearing ape is found

(I) Cf. Naville, Goschen 5,1: Thebes, Tomb of ~ ~ ~ r=w Abschrift Sethe 17, 105 etc etc.

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THOTH AS LUNAR DEITY. 63

in every kind of text in periods 'subsequent to the N. K. He is often adressed as "Lunar-Thoth". Thus, for instance, in the Turin Pap. (P. and R. 25, 3 f.) :

Hail 0 Lunar-Thoth who enlighten est the Duat in the necro-

polis!

Hail to thee Lunar- Thoth, thou self-engendered, the unknown!

Renewal of south and vigour are besought at times for the king, so that he may become like Moon-Thoth. Thus Seshat says to Seth os I: "Thou shalt renew thy youth; thou shalt flourish again like Iooh-Thoth when he is a child" (Mar. Ab. I, 51 a, 32-33: cf. Mar. Ab. 11,7).

We find that in the temples of Iooh there was usually a special cult of Thoth. To this a passage in the Book of the Dead (Nav., Totb., c. 80, 8) refers: "I have made provision for Thoth in the house of Iooh." The identity between Thoth and the moon which is here implied is, at times, much more clearly expressed in the Book of the Dead. In ch. 131, 1-2 (Lepsius) the dead describes himself as "Re that shines in night", and the context makes it clear that the sun of the night is no other than Thoth. The idea that the dead becomes Thoth, or the moon, is often expressed. The deceased "traverses the heaven [like Re], and speeds through it like Thoth" (Nav., Totb., c. 178, 20, according to A a). The same is said of the dead king in the Pyramid text 130:

~ J= (N.) ~.b0

~ ~ (N.) ~ R ~ (1)

_ F==;J c::=::>

The dead Pharaoh becomes one with the sun-god Re by day, and with the moon-god Thoth by night. The verb which describes the movement of Thoth as moon underlies the

(I) Cf. the Chons-text in Edfu (R. I. 26,)) ~ ::-..-;~ c::=::> 1 Ll 0 a c:

I I cu::J \\ IC

c:::::=. c::=::> c::::)I ~ NWVV\ ~ 1. The texts vary between ~ and CII n. In

I\N\IVV\ ~ /o.N\NV\ ,. _.........,_ I\NV\I\I\ II

Pyr, 920 the dead king is called ± ~ 1 and ~ oVa ~ ~ ,. In the immediately preceding text he is identified whh the sun-god. Possibly the wlli and wpi here symbolise Thoth as moon-god. Thoth's chief cult-centre was Willi', and one of his chief positions was that of wp Illrll'i or lI'P snwi.

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THOTH AS LUNAR DEITY.

familiar name ofthe Theban moon-god, Chons- "the wanderer" (the "" of the Hebrews).

- .. ,

There are extant a great number of votive stelae dedi-

cated in the N. K. to ~ y ~ ~ 1.2I. ~'(I) "Moon-Thoth". On one of these (Hanover no. 20) Thoth is represented as moon between two astral deities, with the legend:

-- 0 <:>

MAMA ,," '", MAMA * * * """"""

~ ~

"Thanksgiving to Lunar-Thoth : veneration to the stars of heaven" - a clear recognition of Thoth's astral character. With this compare the inscription on the Turin stela no. 157: (2)

over a lunar barque is the text: ~ I ~ ~ (3) : 1::::: "'=7

(sic)

~+ml. Under the barque we read: r: <:>~ MAMA ~ ~~o

7;=; """""" ~ 'r ~ ~ "Praising of Shu (= Sun-god), veneration of Iooh-Thoth". The rubric Brit. Mus. 933: "When Thoth and the stars are invisible" points to the same astral character of the god. A text from Karnak of the Arnosis period (Wb., no. II; Urk, IV, 20) conveys the same conception:

"Honour him like Re", * ~ l ~! + ~ ~ ~ ~ __.D [~ - "Re-

vere him like 1001)-Thoth''.

The Graeco-Roman period furnishes abundant evidence for the identification of Thoth and 1001). In innumerable ritual and other scenes of the period the ibis-god (and often the ape-god) is shown wearing the lunar crescent; and the texts of the period freely identify, or confuse, the two divinities. Thoth is described, for instance, in Kasr-el-Agouz (4)

as "Thoth in Hermonthis ill ¥ 9 ~ n ffi c::= ~~, moon resplendent in the heavens". In Dendereh (5) we find the com-

(I) cr. Brit. Mus. 807. (2) Rec. 11,168 IV.

(3) Mistake for ~_

(4) Mallet, Kasl' el-Agouz, p. 82. ~ ffi ought to be n ffi·

(5) Brugsch, Tiles. I, 37,27. "Bull of the heavens" is a well-known epithet of the moon. Osiris is called the "bull who is renewed each day in heaven" (Pierret,

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posite title ..::2> ~ 019 II ~~ "MNV\ ~ "Osiris-Moon-Thoth, bull of the heavens". The same composite name, a symbol of far-reaching identifications in theology, appears also in Philae, At an offering of the "Healthy Eye" to Min, the words are spoken: "Receive the Eye, that thou mayest go forth

therein in thy name] 0 191 ~ I Osiris-Iooh-Thoth, that tho~ mayest illumine the Two Lands, and make full. the Eye on the 15 th [of the month]."

The Ptolemaic texts abound in epithets of Thoth considered as one with Iooh, In Dendereh (I) the king is called

"Son of him that increaseth iri size", where l LI ~ ~ i Q. from the parallels obviously is Thoth.

One of the most familiar lunar epithets of Thoth which

is as old as the N. K., (2) is "Lord of heaven", '<::7. Other lunar epithets given to Thoth in the later periods~e ! r, "the Beautiful one of the night" (Metropol. Museum, New York 12,182, 2); i~~ "the brightly shining" (cf. Pyr. 420;

Mar., Delld. II, S~); (3) ~ ~ !~ the "Silver Sun" (Mar., D~nd. IV, 82). (4) Of the same lunar origin are Thoth's epithets

Etudes, p. 29: Cf. Mar., Dend. IV, plate 74). Thoth is also called "Bull of Ma'et" (Mar., Ab. I, 27). In Edfu (R. I. 56) Chons is described as kJ ps "that make pregnant the females" (thought of as moon-god). For the idea of the moon as a "mighty bull" in Babylonian theology, see Frank, Studien %111' baby], Religion, p, 242. On an ape- statue in Berlin (9941) Thoth is called kJ III h.t rJ.t - "bull in the Temple". Thoth is also called "Bull of the West" (Pap. Rhind). For Tl.oth

as ~c:::= * , see A. Z. 33 (1895, p. 125) Hvmn to Thoth (Brit, Mus. 2293

* * .

statue of time of Amenhotep 11). For Osiris as "Bull of the Westerners" see Pap.

Brit. Mus. 10188, 3, 23 ..

(I) Mar., Dend. III 74 b. Another Dendereh moon-epithet of Thoth is

l~1~9~'

(2) Cf. Naville, Del' eloBa/wi II, S4 = Urk. IV, 232.

. (3) Cf. the reference to ~ ~ iF [1J 0 0 in Pyr, 1449. For sun and

moon as t 1: 3, see Edfu R. I, 60. 59. 136. F===;j

( .. ) A Chons text in Edfu reads.(Chons) II ~~On 0 ~.~

~'Y' . 0 MMlV'I~~

In I ~~. In the Book of the Dead 131, 1-2 (Lepsius), Re who "shines

at night" ~ 0 ~ ~ ~ T is obviously Thoth, the ~ 0 \\ ::: ~.


5

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66


<::::7 f~, "Lord of time" (Brugsch, 11,es .. IV, 759\ and I fff "Ruler of years" (ibid.); ~ 0 "Reckoner of time" (Karnak,

Bab el-Abd, Sethe); c;j f ~ (I) (Philae): a the "Reckoner" (Edfu R. I, 25. Cf. Nav., 10tb. 100, 10). A very ancient lunar epithet of Thoth is "Chief of heaven", ~ ~ 0 0 (Pyr. 2150).

~

It is evident now that in -the New Kingdom, and sub-

sequent periods, Thoth was commonly regarded as identical with the moon (iOO~I) itself. How far this identification was made in the M. K. and earlier periods it is difficult to ascertain. Certain hints ofThoth's lunar. character seem to be conveyed in the texts of El-Bersheh. In Hatnub the epithet of our god "Bull of Ma'et" is fairly frequent, and one cannot help comparing this title with the lunar epithet of Thoth in the later periods "Bull of the heavens". (2) The identification of Thoth with the moon in the 1\1. K. can be readily assumed, if it can be shown, that this identification was made already in the O. K. There are indications in O. K. texts which, though they do not, perhaps, make certain that identification, point to it, at all events, more or less clearly.

We have already discussed the Pyramid passages which speak of Sia, the bearer, and, probably, the scribe, of the divine book at the right hand of Re. It is very likely that Sia is here, as elsewhere often, identical with Thoth. The "right hand of Re" would be the natural position of honour for the second of the great astral deities, and it is reasonable, therefore, perhaps, to assume that Sia is one with the moon, as well as with Thoth. We saw above that the text of the Book of the Dead (Nav., 178, 20) which describes Thoth as the moon that traverses the sky, is directly paralleled in Pyr. 130.

In Pyr. 126, we have a ritual text which was, apparently, widely used in Ancient Egypt: "WPIl' awakes: Thoth is high". A somewhat similar text in Pyr. 1520 seems to explain the phrase "Thoth is high" in a lunar sense.

(I) Cf. Thoth's epithet in Philae <::::7 ~ @ ~ 0 (Phot. 101 I).

(2) Cf. the epithet of Nannar in Babylon: buru ikdu .<a karni kabbaru = "powerful young bull with mighty horns" (Perry. Hymnen lllld Gebete all Sill. no. I) I. 20); see note p. (i.J, (5).

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-- ----------- ....... ~


"Osiris shines forth: purified is the .~!J1II: high is the

Lord of Ma(et at every year's-beginning,"

The "Lord of Ma 'et" can scarcely be other than the Bull of Ma'et; and the reference to time-delimitation accentuates the lunar reference. (I ) We find a parallel text again in the M. K. (Cairo 20520), and in the Book of the Dead (Nav. 178, I~). If Thoth is thus identified with the moon in a widely used ritual text of the O. K., his identification with the moon-god must be regarded as one of the oldest features of Egyptian theology.

The Pyr. text 130, already referred to, is the clearest ancient statement of Thoth's identity with iooh , the moon:

If Re is the sun, Thoth must be the moon. The remarkable text Pyr. 128 points in the same direction:

The "wayfarers of heaven" are Re and Thoth as sun and moon (cf. Cairo, 20520). (2)

If it must be admitted that the Pyramid texts sometimes clearly indicate the identity of the moon with Thoth, it may be shown that certain obscure Pyramid allusions become more intelligible when looked at in the light of that identity. In Pyr. 329-332 a number of beings are warned against the failure to recognise the blessed dead. 'They are Re, Thoth, Hr spd, and KJ pt. Re is, of course, the sun: KJ pt is Saturn :

Hr spd is almost certainly an astral being of some kind. Thoth will then be here simply the moon: and we have then in this passage a list of heavenly bodies. (3) We have the same equa-

( I) Cf. Prisse, ,1IOIi. Cg_l·pt., pI. 3 ( for another echo of Pyr. 126.

(2) The whole context Pyr, 128-130 takes He and Thoth as sun and moon. They are to take with them the Pharaoh so that he may live on that on which these gods live, so that he may rest where they rest, that he may be strong with that with which they are strong, and sail in that in which they sail (i. 1'. the barque of Re, which carries Re and Thoth), The passage Pyr. 128 appears in a very corrupt text in Totb. 178, 15-17 (Nav.). The gloss in the Cairo text (20520)

" ~ ./\ ~ MIVVV<

reads ~.

o III ___.jI~

(3) Pyr. 956, 709 seem also to identify Thoth and the moon.

5'"

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68


tion of Thoth with 1001) in Pyr. 1153 b, where Thoth and Horus with the other gods are called the children of ] o~, i, e. Heaven.

Just as Thoth is the "Bull of Ma'et" (Hat nub II, 7 etc.), and the "Bull of heaven" (I) (Brugsch, Thes. 1,37), so is he the "Strong one of the gods" (Pyr. 1237 c). (2) The epithet "chief of Nut" (Pyr. 2150C) seems also to be a lunar epithet of Thoth - referring perhaps to the brilliancy and power of the luminary that ruled the skies of night. (3)

b) Thoth as protector of the moon.

Thoth, as a lunar deity, is not always identical with the moon. The theology of ancient Egypt is not a logical and self-consistent system. It frequently combines contradictory qualities in the same divinity. It is, therefore, not strange to find that, while in one set of texts Thoth is identified with the moon that traverses the skies, in another set he is represented merely as the guardian, the specially protecting deity, of the moon. (4) Here we are reminded of the Pyramid texts already discussed, in which Thoth brings back to Horus the eye of the latter. W e have seen that those passages may be taken, in general, as dealing with the various perils, such as eclipse, darkness, storm etc., with which the luminaries of heaven, and particularly the moon, are frequently threatened, and with the rescue from such perils of the moon, and the other luminaries, through the power of Thoth. In all such passages Thoth appears rather as the guardian of, than as one with, the moon.

It is well known that in ancient Egypt the sun and moon were regarded as the eyes of the god whose face is heaven. Thus, in the Papyrus Ns-Chons, II, J, it is said of the eyes of Amon:

(I) In an XYlIIth Dyn. text Brit. Mus., no. 2293 Thoth is called "the Bull among the stars". nd. p. 65 slIpl·a. Note.

(2) Pyr. 129 c speaks of the strength of Thoth.

(3) Is the title "Father of evening" Totb. 85, 14-15, to be referred to Thoth?

In Pyr, 823 the moon is called )l'1·.t M'I,1l' as eye of Nut: the epithet is one of Thoth's epithets also, as will be seen below, and possibly this Pyr. text really expresses the identity of Thoth with the moon,

(4) Plutarch was familiar with this conception, Vid. Is. et O. 41, 4-5.

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69

This idea is very familiar in the Ptolemaic texts. Thus in Dendereh (Mar., Dend. II, 31 b): "On the r yth day of the month

! ~ ~ s=: n II @ II 0 @ 0 I 0 ~ 0 u 0

\lO~@~1 -

~ ~ U \\ fI\ I czz: 0 ~

the right eye is full and the left eye is ip, and their rays unite." This making ip of the left eye, and the union of the rays from both eyes are thus referred to in another Dendereh text (Brugsch, Thes. I, 54): "Osiris enters into the left eye on the IS th." This entrance of Osiris (here perhaps = sun-god) into the left eye (i. e. union of the rays from both eyes) is again referred to in Dendereh thus:

"IDOl}. comes to his place - the left eye equipped with its beauty: Osiris unites himself with his left eye" (Brugsch, Thes. I, 30). (2)

The idea that sun and moon are the eyes of heaven is implied in the ritual text Berlin P. 3055. col. 2, 3-4 when it speaks of "the Bull that shines in his two eyes". The Bull is here Horus of the rising sun, who. like the moon-god, is a bull or mighty one among the gods. Horus is the gm~l,~ (bird) "who brilliantly shines in his two eyes" (Edfu R. I, 366). (3) That the moon, ·then, in certain aspects was regarded

(I) Cf. Totb . Xav. 151 a, 5- G \A a). Leyden, I. 350. Hymn to Amon. That the moon is called the left eye in the O. K. appears from Pyr.1231. On thc sun and moon as the eyes of heaven see Junker, Onurislegcnde, p. 135 etc.

(2) Cf. Plut. Is. et O. 43, 5. At the new moon of the month Phamenoth is celebrated the feast of "Entrance" (S:'~OI~';), because on that day, at the beginning of spring, Osiris enters the moon. The union of the right eye with the left means the reflection of the SUIl'S light by the full moon. Cf. for this idea Mar. Dcnd. II 31 b. Herodotus says (II, -til that swine were offered in sacrifice in Egypt to the moon-god at the time of full moon. This is, perhaps. an echo of the legend which spoke of Set as having swallowed the left eye of Horus while he was in the form of a swine. The swine would thus be offered to the moon-god as its defeated enemy. Cf. Totb., c. 112 - for a sacrifice of swine in connection with a calamity that threatened the moon on the 15 th of the month I. viz. eclipse /.

(3) cr, Edfu R. I, 412• Horus is ~ n ~ L :::rf: ~ ~ czz; o 0 5f.t;~. Cf. the Horus Myth., XXII, I, where it is said of Horus: <::>\\1 I 1

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rather as the left eye of the god of heaven than as an independant deity is thus obvious. This is expressed poetically in a text of Philae (Phot. 997) :

The mysterious Ba came forth from the ocean, while earth was still wrapped in darkness

o _0 ~~III~n ;__;

o \) W e 1'1 @~ ~ 0 0 1,0 " .....

~=~I~~tj~·

Properly speaking sun and moon are the eyes of Heaven, not of the sun-god, and it is only one of the many inconsistencies of Egyptian thought when they are spoken of as the eyes of Horus of the horizon, or of any other sun-god (as, for instance, Ptah in Berlin P. 3048, col. 6,6-8).

Considered merely as the eyes of Heaven, sun and moon were to the Egyptian of divine substance, but they were not gods. Hence they might require the help or care of some

personal deity. .

The two eyes of heaven are often called wdJ.t, ._ a term which expresses the perfection of their bright splendour. But, in the majority of texts, and practically in all the texts of the Graeco-Roman period, wdt-t is the name of the left eye, the moon. (I) After the days of waning, disappearance, reappearance, and re-growth, the moon could well be described as the JJld~·t - the healthy, or sound, eye. After the perils of eclipse, the moon would come forth again perfect and brilliant, - "healthy" as before. The right eye of heaven, though it disappeared each evening in the west, showed itself again every morning in the splendours of the dawn. Its eclipse was rarer. It was exposed to fewer perils, and to lesser change,

no 0 ~ 0 0

I '~ I '0 czx: ~. Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia I, z I • Solem Jovis oculum

appellat antiquitas. A text of Denderch (Brugsch, Tiles. J, 30) referring to a barque containing the lI',fl.t preceded by Thoth, says: 91 ~ : <=> ] n I? t ~ n:: czz; ! ! ~: a barque containing Osiris follows, The accompanying text runs Osiris lI'n IIf" ,,~, MNW\ .0. ~ XI 0 Q n ~ 0 NVVVV> :: c:::::=. f I~.

~~loCJ Q. 'Il\~ ... 6,

(I) Cf. BRUGSCH, Tiles. 1. '~4. 35. 36. 37 etc., etc.

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than the left eye. And hence to the left eye, rather than to the right, was given the name wdJ.t.

In the incidents of the Horus-Set legend we have seen Thoth playing the role of defender of light against darkness. In this role, as we have seen, Thoth brings back to Horus the eye of the latter, which had been injured by Set. Most of the Pyramid texts which refer to this function of Thoth, speak of the eye brought back as the left eye of Horus, i. e., the moon. There are, however, a number of ancient texts in which a rescue of the right eye of Horus by Thoth, is spoken of. (I) These texts belong to the circle of thought which has produced the numerous legends of the sun-god. The 17 th chapter of the Book of the Dead is the most familiar collection of such legends. In those of them in which Thoth appears, he acts; very naturally, as friend and protector of the powers of light against their foes. The right eye is not always represented as being brought back by Thoth to Horus: it seems often to return of itself and Thoth's function towards it is a some what' unintelligible one of soothing it when it finds a rival established in its place, and, finally, resetting it on the face of Horus. (2)

(I) Cf. in particular the Book of the Dead of the \1.' K. ch. 17. Lcpslus Alteste Texte 31, 28-2,),

(2) Cf. Xav, Totb. 167, 3-;. See for the whole problem of the 17 th eh.

Grapow's study, Das Ii. Kapitel des dg. Totenbuches. Berlin Diss. J') 12.

Many points of Thoth's work for the right e~'e of Horus are reflected in the legend of the Nubian Hathor. Cf. Junker's essay: AIIS:II~ der Hathor-Tefnut

, aus Nubien (Appendix to the Abhdlgn. del' Berl, Akad. 1,)11), and Sethe's valuable criticism of this work, and statement of the .ancient legends - ZIII' altag, Sage V()III SQllllcII<1l1ge . das ill del' Fremde 11'.11' (Leipzig, 191:). The whole problem has recently been reexamined by Junker in his study, Die t Inurislesiendr (Wien, 1917). In this work Junker shows convincingly that the eye with which Thoth is primarily concerned is the left eye of Horus (the moon). Apparent connection of Thoth with the right eye of Horus (the sun) is due to the interweaving of legends whose motifs are similar. Junker has cleared up many points which Grapow's study had left unexplained. He has also been able to take into account, and use for the further exposition and confirmation of his views Spiegelberg's recent publication of the Leyden Papyrus I, 384. Junker's Onurislcgende is the fullest and most convincing treatment of any problem of Egyptian religion that has hitherto appeared, The present study was practically complete before the Onurislcgendc reached the author, and as pressure of other work prevented the writer from making full use of the new points of view put forward by Junker, he desires to emphasize the indispensability of the Onurislegcndc for students of Egyptian religion ill general,

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72

THOTH AS LUNAR DEITY,

When Thoth brings back to its owner the left eye, or moon, he does not bring it back as a raging serpent (like the solar eye), but as a "healthy", or "convalescent" eye.

Egyptian literature delights to recur to the relations of Thoth towards the left eye of heaven. With constant repetition it tells how Thoth sought out the eye, and finding it ailing, probably, as a result of violence inflicted by Set, healed it, and then, on the day of full moon, delivered it up to it's owner in the fulness of its splendour. (I) Through his healing of the eye Thoth acquired his title "Physician of the eye of Horus" (Pap, Hearst, XIV, 5-7). We are told that the eye was cured by the application of Thoth's spittle (Book of Dead 17, 33: 167, 3), - a detail of the legend derived, obviously, from the naive "medicine" of the people. It is possible that Thoth's position in the later period as patron of physicians may be due to the legend of his healing of the moon-eye; but it is equally possible that this activity of Thoth in the legend may itself be due to the general popular conception of the god,

Many of Thoth's familiar epithets are derived from his protective relation to the moon. He it is "who seeks the ",dN-eye for its lord" (Berlin. P. 3055, col. 8, 9): and he it is also "who makes full the eye": he is, further, the "ba that fills the Eye" (Champollion, Trauaux sur Ie rituel funeraire, L~ 157)· From this latter function,!trises his name ~ ~ ~ ~ 'Sfl (Philae: Birth-House, Photo 978); determined by

and for those in particular who would wish to supplement the information supplied by the present study on Thoth and the deities with whom he is most often associated. The angry eye which is at length pacified by Thoth, and set on the forehead of Horus is apparently the serpent of the Egyptian diadem. The angry eye which is pacified and restored to its own original place is a motif that belongs to the Nubian legend of Hathor (Tefenet), to the legend of Onuris who brought the goddess-lioness from the eastern desert to Egypt, and to the legend oCflle beautiful goddess, Hathor of Byblos, the heroine of the Papyrus d'Orbiney, Thoth's function of bringing back the moon-eye to Horus has brought him into connection with these other legends and also with the legend of Hathor as destroying Eye of the sun -god.

(I) Thoth is spoken of also as having avenged the Eye of Horus. So, Pyr, 1233.

His treatment of the enemies of the Eye is perhaps described in Pyr, SiS: 635 (cf. 1336). The enemies are Set and imiJv ~t-f. The legends of the Eye of Horus are, of course, interwoven with those of Osiris, and also with the ritual of royal obsequies. Cf Abydos Ritual XXXYl, PI,20,


the ibis-headed god. (I) Thoth it is "who makes the eye ip (equipped?) with all that blongs to it" (Edfu, R. I 274 etc.) He is the one too "who brings back the Eye". The text of

Pyr. 58, ~ III '+ ~ ~ r seems to refer to this last-mentioned function of Thoth. We have seen already that the bringing home on the wings of the ibis-god of the left eye of Horus across Lake NbJ is frequently referred to in the ancient ritual of the Pyramids. Egyptian ritual generally teems with reference to that same incident of the legends of Horus. Thus, for instance, in a Leyden stela-text of the N. K. (Leyden,

VI, I) Thoth is he ~ ~ 1 ~ IIIWW\ 'C7 Jl r "who gives the Eye to its lord". Similarly, Thoth is he "who brings the Eye" ] ~ (Mar., Ab. I, 37, a). The same is implied in the Edfu ritual (Edfu, R. I, 25): I break the seal: I bring the Eye to its lord: I am Thoth ] '('I IIIWW\ ~ who bring the Eye to its lord"; and again (EdfuR. II,-;'6): Thoth comes ~ V >t.:,._

~l~-~~~'+~<:::>~~ "he brings the

Eye: he places it on the forehead of its creator".

This function of carrying or bearing the Eye is expressed in the ritual scenes in which Thoth is depicted as bearing in his hands an eye. It is here we must seek the origin of Thoth's

title ] 'VWV'oA t~. The title may be a shortened form of the

. Pyramid phrase U l ~ ~ p. The epithet appears in a

~. passage of the Leyden Papyrus (34-7, 12,2-4-): "IJu is in my

mouth: Sia is in my heart: praise me and honour me: ~ ~ . 0 .,,& Ii{ ""'./'AA 1 @ ~ ~ ;,:~. Behold, I am ' Ini sw, y~

I I 1~£lJJJ '+ ~<:::>W_I I I

chief." (2) The collocation with IJu and Sia makes it highly

probable that the "Ini SIP of this passage is Thoth. If ini SIP is not to be understood as an abbreviation of ini SJV hr.s, the .~w might be explained as due to the carelessness of a scribe who wished to write a feminine, but actually set down a masculine pronoun. However, it might be possible to explain the SIP as due to the fact that the Eye is here regarded, not as

(I) ~ ~ is the feast of the 15 th day of the month, i. c. full moon. ~

(2) For illi SIP compare Totb. 110, Introduction 20 (according to A a).

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74

'ruo rn AS LUNAR DEITY.

an eye, but rather as the astral body that the eye symbolises. Ptolemaic texts have no difficulty in referring ,~JV to U'dJ.t (cf. Edfu R. II, 16, supra: etc.), probably for the reason that

wdJ·t is equivalent to IOO~I. (I) Thoth's title] MNW'< '+@ supplies an explanation of the fantastic script for the word "king" ~ (Brugsch, Thes. V, 921 : Benedite, Philae, p. 145: for N. K. vid. Rec. 16, p. 54 Chamber of Mut in Temple of Rams. II). (2) The sign is the ape-god Thoth carrying the Eye, i. c. Thoth

as ] ,+~, and the word which is thus cryptically written is

+ ~, which is to be read here at least it would seem as in SIP (rather than ni,~lPt).

Thoth is, then, on the one hand, the moon-god himself, and, on the other, the protector of the moon. Which of these conceptions is the more primitive? In the oldest texts both points of view are found. Both were indeed, perhaps, equally natural. The worship of moon-god was inevitable in ancient Egypt, and the identification of the moon-god with a local divinity, such as Thoth may have been, was quite parallel with what happened in the case of the sun-god. This identification, however, had the very natural result that while, on the one hand Thoth was regarded as completely one with the moon-god in heaven, his reality as a local deity living in a well-known Egyptian centre would not be forgotten. Hence the need of detaching him from the moon, so far, at least, as to make him the guardian and protector of the Sacred Eye of Horus. Logically the second point of view is corrective of the first: but which, in fact, was first in time we do not know.

(I) Sethe is inclined to explain .I'll' as an incorrect script for si, Vid, A. Z., 191 I, p. 24 f. Das ,,'OI't [iir K(mig ill Obel·dg'I'ptell. Sethe believes (ibid.) that the

ritual phrase Thoth U '+ ~ ~ r in Pyr, 58 prons that the use of ill .I'll' as a name for the bearer of the eye of Horus is exceedingly ancient,

(:!) This puzzle-script reminds one inevitably of the form in which Onuris'

name sometimes appears, ~1 ~ or 11. See Junker, Die Onurislegende (Wien, 19 I 7), p. 6. Onuris = . Ini hri.t, "he who brings the One that was far away" :

The ",ri.t is the eye of the sun-god, so that there is a direct connection between illi .'11' and Onuris. The writing of the name Onuris with the ape is probably due to associations with the legends of Thoth and the wdt.t referred to ill the text.

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75

This is not the place to discuss fully the cult of the moon-god in ancient Egypt. It may be said, however, that we have sufficient evidence to show that the moon had a formal worship of its own in the Old Kingdom. It is reasonable to assume that the worship of the moon, like solar worship, was universal in Egypt in the earliest period. It may be also assumed that, as the sun-god came to be identified with a

. number. of local deities, - appearing thus, as Atum, Ptah, Horus, Amon etc., - without losing his own individuality as the sun-god, Re, so also the moon-god was identified with deities of local shrines at a very early period without losing his own special character of moon-god, IO()~I. One such deity was the ibis-god of the 1·5 tho Delta nome. Another was the ancient god Chonsu of Thebes. Both the Ibis-god and Chons appear as lunar deities in the M. K., -~ though they have then as yet no other features in common. In the oldest texts Chons is simply the moon - the "Wanderer", as his name implies. (I) Thoth, on the other hand, though certainly a lunar deity in the older period, is also, even then, much more than merely a moon-god. His character, even in the earliest period, shows considerable complexity. The easiest explanation of the fact of Thoth's double relation to the moon is to assume that we have in his case an ancient identification of the moon-god with a local deity of pronounced individuality.

(I) It is interesting to note that Chons of Thebes in the earliest period appears always in human form, while Thoth, in the same period, is always either ibis or ape.

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Chapter VI.

The symbols of Thoth.

The most familiar symbols of Thoth are the ibis and the ape. Sometimes the god appears simply as an ibis or as an' ape: sometimes as an ibis-headed, or an ape-headed man. It is difficult to decide whether his ibis-symbolism or his apecharacter is the more primitive. The evidence seems to point to the predominance of the ibis symbolism in the earliest period. This symbolism fits in best with the Pyramid ritual which makes the ibis-god carry the Eye of Horus, or the soul of Pharaoh over the seas of heaven. The ape-symbolism seems of itself, to have had less to do with the lunar and funerary functions of Thoth - for the ape was connected in some way, with the rising sun, and had nothing to do in

. Egypt with the role of a psychopompos. (I) The presence of an ape on the balance in the Judgment-Scene is a secondary feature. In the later periods, it is true, Thoth is often represented as a moon-god in his ape-form. But these is no trace of this kind of representation prior to the N. K. The lunar ape of the late period is, of course, a product of the identification of the ibis-god, already regarded as a moon-god, with the ape-god. It may be that the ape-symbolism gives expression to fundamental features of Thoth's character which have no relation to his role as moon-god. (2')

(I) We need not take too seriously what Horapollo says about the uneasiness and sadness of male and female apes during the time of moon's invisibility. Horapollo tells us (c. 15) that the rising of the moon was represented symbolically in Egypt by an ape raising his "hands" towards heaven. Note, however, the presence of the kfdnw and the bnti apes in the (It sbkt : Dum. Hist. III. 11, 5i d.

(2) One is tempted to think that Thoth's first association whith the ape-form was brought about in !fill 111111, where the sacred apes were spoken of in the Hermopolitan legend of the birth of the sun-god in !Jill II 11'. Later, the popular fancy which attributed peculiar knowledge and astuteness to the apes will have tended to invest the ibis-headed god of wisdom with the ape-symbolism. Hut this is little more than mere conjecture. It is to be noted that, though the ape-god is often represented as presiding, as it were, over the work of scribes, he is not usually shown as equipped with writing materials, or as himself engaged in writing.

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THE SYMBOLS OF THOTH.

77

Even if it were possible to decide whether Thoth was more primitively ibis or ape, it would still be necessary to explain how he came to be represented in these forms. In the Pyramid texts, and in all texts of the O. K., Thoth appears as an ibis. We find, however, in the O. K. period statuettes and other representations of dog-headed apes which may, possibly, symbolise Thoth. (I) If we knew the precise origin

and meaning of the name ~ :' we should, perhaps, be able to decide whether ibis or ape is the more primitive as symbol of Thoth, and we might then also be able to say why Thoth was thought of under a particular form. If the name Thoth meant. as has been conjectured, "the god of ibis-form", (2) we should infer, that the ibis was the more ancient and characteristic symbol. It might then also, perhaps, be inferred that the primitive god of the 15th Delta nome was an: ibis, and that a sort of crude animal worship anciently prevailed there. But if, as was conjectured above, lleQlIti is simply = "the one from [)eQlIl", the doubt must remain whether the ibis-symbol stands for a sound-value, or indicates the actual "physical" appearance of the god. In the midst of such uncertainty it is idle to set up theories of a totemistic worship of Thoth ill the Delta of the prehistoric period. Neither can we say with certainty that the symbolism of the ape is secondary in regard to the nature and cult of Thoth. (3)

(1) See Petrie, Researches ill Sinai, p. 123, pl. 127; Ab)'dos II, pI. 9.

Cf. Benedite, Scribe et babouin (Paris, 1911), p. 22 If. Benedite maintains that the Hermopolitan ape-god does not begin to appear in art before the Thinite period. He doubts, however, whether the early ape· figures of Hieraconpolis and Abydos are really symbols of the god Thoth: The dog-headed apes of the 3 rd Dynasty tombs at Medurn and in the rnastabas of the Memphite period are not, according to Benedite, representations of the ape-god, Thoth, but rather representations of an animal which, because it was not native to Egypt, and had to be fetched from a great distance, had become a sort of exotic plaything for the members of Pharaoh's household, and for the high nobility of the early period. Benedite is inclined to think that the splendid statue of an ape shown on p. 2e) of his work, which is assigned by an inscription to the age of Snofru, really belongs to that period, and is one of the earliest representations of the sacred ape of Thoth (ibid. p. 29 f. For Bencdite's view as to the exact meaning of the ape-symbolism of Thoth see pp. 20 f.).

(2) See BRUGSCH. Rei. II. ,\lyth, pp. 439 ft.

(3) On the ape-symbolism of Thoth should be consulted Theodor Hopfner, Del' Tierkult del' altcn Agyptel' (Wien, 1913), pp. 26-31. Hopfner has there

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If it is to be assumed, as has been suggested, that a local deity of the IS th nome of the Delta, who was pictured as an ibis, was subsequently identified with the moon-god, we can discover various grounds for the identification of an ibis-god with the moon-god. Erman (Rei., p. 10) ascribes the transformation of the moon into an ibis to popular fancy which noticed the resemblance of the curved beak of the ibis to the sickle-crescent of the moon. In the later periods of Egyptian speculation all kind of explanations of current religious symbols were devised. One of these finds an echo in Plutarch when he says (Is. et O. 75, 8) that the mixture of white and black in the plumage of the ibis remends one of the waning moon. (I) It may be, too, that the Egyptians saw in the dignified flight and pose of the ibis, something of the majesty of the moon as it fared across the skies, or looked down silently on men. In Haremheb's hymn (Turin) we read: "His

whole attitude is like the gait of the Ibis-god (A 7 ILl J ~), and he rejoices over Ma' et ~ ~ ~ ~ f!i (like the "one with the nose" [or, beak]). (2)

We find in the Book of the Heavenly Cow (very late period) elaborate attempts to explain the various symbols of Thoth based mainly on the theory of the creative efficiency of divine speech. The ibis-symbol is thus accounted for (71 f.) :

Re says to Thoth: "I will cause thee to send (ILl ~ j ~) those who are greater than thee: thereupon there came into

brought together the chief references to the ape· form of Thoth which are found in Greek and Latin authors.

(I) Aelian, De natura allima/illlll. Il, c. 38, has a similar statement. Cf. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischcn Mystericnreiigionen, p. 94. R. quotes Aelian hist. an. X, 29, as equating the ibis with Hermes because the black of its wings corresponds to the J..oyo; zvo,:iOz-ro;, and the white to the A_ ltpo,?6p'y.o;. The explanations of ibiscult put forward by the non-Egyptian ancients are carefully reproduced in Hopfner, Tierkult, 118 -119. The ibis of Thoth is the so-called "white Ibis" (Ibis religiosa) : it was familiar throughout the whole of Egypt. Thousands of ibis-mummies have survived from ancient Egypt. For the "white" and "black" cf. Philae, Photo 1420:

<=> 0to ] 0

Tiberius presenting II'd!.t is described: c::J <=> •

• ___.II 0 0 ~ _

Nav, tu«, 12;. (Confession) pl. CXXXIV 3. _ £) ~ ~ ~ ~ A

-~-


79

being the Ibis of Thoth" (ru~j \\ ~O~MMM~)' (1) And as the ibis of Thoth was called t~1I as well as lib that special ibis-form is similarly accounted for in the same text. The text is obscure in detail but the general sense is clear: Re says:

n ~..s. ll:, <=>:5 ~ ~ \> 'C:A ~ 'C:A <=> ~ ~ MMM

~J(~<:::> 0 MMMr........-lI 0 I 0 I

~~:~~I~J1!:::~~~~~~!~~J1~

fa 0 "\\ ~ MMM ~ O~ MMM ~. (2)

<=:::> ANNoA ~ E Jf ~

This same quaint text of the Heavenly Cow attempts in analogous fashion to explain the origin of the ape (i. e. the

ape-form) of Thoth. (3) Re says to Thoth (73, 74): ~ ~ ~

ll:, ~ <:::> __.Jl _.J t 00::::::::71 ~ ___.lI __.Jl li

<:::> ___.lI A 'C:A 00::::::::7 ~ ~

<::::> 0 MN'oM 'I'/'NV'. 00::::::::7 <:::> MMM MIWV'

O~MMM~

Thus the animal symbols of Thoth are due to the creative efficacy of Re's words. In the same context of this Hathor-legend .the lunar character of Thoth is similarly ac-

counted for. Re says to Thoth: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ <:::> ~ ~ ~

~ ~ 'C:A ~ czz; ! ~ 'C:A czz: i\ 0 ~ ffi ! 'C:A ~ ~ __.Jl ~

(1) Cf. Dumichen, Histor. Inschr .. II, 5i d (Dendereh). He sends his heart (i. e. Thoth) to Nubia to pacify Tefenet (= Hathor) "in this his name lib (ibis),'.

<::::> (c) Cf. the Ed~t (Mamrnisi, p. 154): The king, the heir of tll'@

T' 0 n <:::> r;t__ - the word rlis, which may = ibis, is here connected

" ~i~ c .'2" "

with "a, 10 know. t 1 l \Ii "the knower of the Two Lands" = Thoth.

(3) The nMIJ\eooyT of the magical Papyrus of Paris. The ape of Thoth is the )(·JVO)(E?~O" the dog-headed ape «()'lIocepllalus hamadryass, The ape of Thoth is not to be confounded with the monkeys which were kept as pets in the houses

of the Egyptians (x~~Ot, 'l':', !!__ 'Y:/i, ll:, ~ ~ ~), and often buried with their dead owners. At times however the ordinary house-monkeys were treated as if they shared somehow in the sacredness of the ape of Thoth, In the Demotic text of the legend of the Eye of lIorus (Leyden Pap. I, 384) Thoth appears as pI .~'" II lI'n.f kwf "the little jackal-ape", i. e. the dog-headed ape. The sacred animal of Thoth is also called in the same text simply pI kwf (Spiegelberg, DcI' cig .• 1Iythus vo'" S0I111ellauKe. Berliner Akad, Sitzgber. 1915. p.8i8ft'.).

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80


'-"" ~ 0 ~ I\NV<M ~~ "I will cause thee to embrace the two heavens with thy beauty, and thy rays. Thereupon sprang into being the moon of Thoth". Thus Thoth's connection with the moon would be due to a chance utterance which fell from the lips of Re. All this, however, is more interesting as an illustration of Egyptian belief in the power of divine speech, than as an account of the genuine theological origins of Thoth's symbols of worship, and of his lunar character. (I)

(I) The ape-symbolism sometimes appears combined with the ibis-symbolism in a manner which, at first sight, is very disconcerting. Thus, for instance, in the Judgment-scene we sometimes see the ape-god seated on the weighing scales and the ibis-god recording the result of the weighing. Again,' in Mission 11, 4. partie, plate 39 we see represented an ape seated and holding in his hand an ibis. Set; also ibid., plate 49. Thus the remark of Benedire, Scribe et Babouin, p. 20, regarding the two symbols of Thoth: "II est certain .... que tout en se rapportant a une seule divinite, ces deux formes n'arriverent jamais a se confondre", is not absolutely correct. Cf. Hopfner, Tiel~klllt, p. 26-:7 - reference to a representation in the temple of Seth os I at Biban-el-Muluk of Thoth as ape-headed man holding in his hand an ibis. Cf. also Mission 11, plates 39 and 49, for representation of ape holding ibis in his right hand. See also Dumichen, Grabpalast at'S Patuamenap, 3. Abtlng., Taf. XI\', In the 6th hour of the Great Amduat is shown an ape-

headed god holding an ibis who is called ~ ril ~ * a . Cf, also

~~ c-:J

Turayetf's work on Thoth, plate VII.

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Chapter VII.

Thoth as the representative of Re.

The text quoted at the close of the last section gives expression to a familiar Egyptian idea - the idea, namely, that the moon is a representative of, or substitute for, the sun.

The idea is usually expressed by calling Thoth ~: Jl ~ Jl. Re says to Thoth in the Book of the Heavenly Cow (74) :

~~~C:= ~n~] ~J1t~~o~<::~~: Jl~.

"Thou shalt be in my place as my .IOClIl1l tenens: thou shalt be called Thoth, the "Substitute for Re". While the sun is traversing the Duat during the night, the moon is to take his place in heaven. The legend of Re's commission to Thoth is told, of course, in this late text, merely, to explain the familiar epithet of Thoth "'Uti of Re". This notion of Thoth we meet in many places. The Book of the Dead (Lepsius, c. x3I, 1-2) speaks of the dead as "this Re that shines in the night" (i. e. the dead is identified with Thoth, the locum tenens of Re). In the same book (Naville, c. 169, 20 accord. to Pb.) Thoth is

styled f ~: ~ """"'" ~ ~~. ,,) Isti of Re" as epithet of Thoth is common in the N. K. (1) There is no instance of its use in the texts of the M. K. In the O. K. the Pyramid texts speak of the dead Pharaoh as "Uti of Re" (Pyr. 1107 : 14.64), and, since in other Pyramid passages the Pharaoh appears as Thoth, it is just possible that we have here an indication of the use of "lsti of Re" as epithet of Thoth in the O.K.

The idea that the moon is a representative of the sun appears in a somewhat naturalistic form in a few texts. Thus, for instance, in the Book of the Dead (c. 130, 17), Osiris (i. e.

~I) Cf, Leyden V, I: Turin 220.f etc. etc, Thoth, the Hermes of Egypt.

6

~~----~.

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82 THOTH AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF RE.

the dead) thought of as Re - ~ ~ ~ f1 """""" ~ ~ has

l\~ I~ ~~

made brilliant the face of Thoth; i. e. the light of the moon

is but a reftexion of that of the sun.

We have already considered a number of texts in which Thoth is represented as a companion of Re in the solar barque, and as sharing with the sun-god in the responsibilities of world-rule. The idea of the mutual relations of Thoth and Re implied in those texts, appears, however, to be quite different from that suggested by the Thoth's epithet "isti of Re". Yet in both is implied the closeness of the relation in which the two divinities stood to each other for the Egyptian mind. In the day-time Thoth journeyed with Re in the solar barque: in the night-time he travelled alone in the lunar barque as substitute for, or representative of, the sun. When the two luminaries appeared at the same time in the sky Thoth's light was but a weak reflection of the glory of Re. Thus all apparent difficulties were solved.

The Egyptian did not feel any sense of incongruity in legarding the same divinity as, at once, the lunar disc in the sky, an ibis-god or ape-god on earth, a guardian of the "Eye of Horus", a companion of Re in the "Barque of millions", and a minister and counsellor of Re in the government of the world. The tendency of Egyptian theology seems to have been rather to assign to each divinity all possible qualities and functions, than to conceive its gods as clear-cut individualities.

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Chapter VIII.

The special functions of Thoth as lunar divinity.

The general aspects of Thoth's role as moon-god have been already considered. It now remains to show in some detail how the notion of Thoth's lunar being worked out in concrete details.

The ancient Egyptians were an agricultural people. They were interested, therefore, in setting up an exa.ct calendar. The moon would naturally play a chief part in fixing the details of the calendar. The easily observed regularity of the moon's phases furnished a better basis for marking off periods of time than the variations of solar phenomena. Hence at a very early period in Egypt, as elsewhere, the moon was taken as the chief measurer of time. This importance of the moon is expressed very clearly in the later Egyptian texts: it is obvious enough also in the earlier texts. The Great Oasis text (Brugsch, 16, 33-34) states the time-delimiting work of the moon very clearly. Of it is said that it is:

9 Jl C=.T T ~ 'ill T ~ * * * ~ !

Vx~{g~Afo

o 0 <:::::> I I I * I I I III

, 'Moon in the night, ruler of the stars, who distinguishes seasons, months and years: (I) he cometh ever-living, rising and setting."

In the same text (1. 30 ff.) the left eye of the sun-god is said "to distinguish seasons, months, and years" (2) It is the

(I) Of Genesis I, 14. 16.

(2) Cf. the Babylonian idea of Sin - muaddu time m·M II satti - "who determines days, months, and years. Perry, Hymncn IIl1d Gebete all Sill, no. 6, I. 3. 6*

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R4 SPECIAL FCNCTIONS OF THOTH AS LUNAR DIVINITY:

sun that marks off day from night, but it is the moon that determines months, and seasons, and years. For the agriculturist, then, the moon was a more valuable time-measurer than the sun.

But, as we have seen, Thoth is IOOD, the moon. He is, therefore, the chief time-measurer. Many of his epithets ex-

press this position. He is <:::::::7 f~, lord of time (Brugsch, 17zes. IV, 759): (I) <:::::::7 ~ @ ~ 0 lord of old age (Philae, Photo IOII): ~{{f, reckoner of years (Edfu R. 1.297,27):

~ r ~ a f ~ reckoner of time (Brugsch, ri»: IV, p. 757 ; Mar., Dend. II, 43): (2) 0, the Reckoner (Edfu R. 1. 259):

T {f f ruler of years (Brugsch, Tlzes. IV, 759): ~ j ~ -;,

determiner of time (Edfu R.1. 27.291): Hl~, the scribe of

log 0

time (Edfu R.1. 522): --- +0 ~ n9, the divider of time

\\ I I - ~ - f:f"-

(Edfu R. II. 27· 31; Mar., Dend. II, 73 c): ~ 0 ~ i i ~ ,

he that increaseth time, and multiplieth years (Edfu R. I. 77). (3) In this last-quoted Edfu text (E. R. 1. 27) many lunar activities of Thoth are brought together. He it is, according to this text, "who divides seasons, months, and years, who increaseth time and multiplieth years, who maketh record of kingship for the Ruler of the Two Lands. Thousands are at his disposal: tens of thousands in his right hand".

The most prominent function of Thoth as measurer of time in the royal annals of Egypt is his determination of the regnal years of the Pharaohs. This function is symbolised by the notched palm-branch which Thoth carries in the ceremonies of coronation. (4) It is a function which is first definitely brought before us in the New Kingdom. In the temple of Rameses II at Abydos (Mar., Ab. II, 2, c) Thoth is re-

(1) Cf. <:::::::7 ~ Edfu R. I. 197. o

(z] A frequent epithet of the moon-god Chons: in Greek XE'3!POtt, vid, A. Z.,

411, li3.

(3) As the "increaser of time and multiplier of years" Thoth was popularly invoked to grant length of days. Cf. Pap. Leyden I, 361) (Letters of XIX th Dyn.). (4) See Karnak, L. D. III, 124 d.

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SPECIAL FUNCTIONS OF THOTH AS LUNAR DIVINITY. 85

presented as holding the roll and stylus: behind him stands the god ...:2> who carries the apparatus for writing, ahd a sort of ink-bottle (V): Thoth says: "1 write for thee years without number, and hundreds of thousands of Heb sed feasts". Again in the Temple of Chons built by Rameses III at Karnak (Sethe 4, 25) we find Thoth in his role as "Scribe of Ma'et of the Ennead", saying to the Pharaoh: "I write for thee a mighty kingdom; I give thee life unending as king of the Two Lands, and everlasting life in years of peace." Sometimes Thoth records the promised years of reign by making notches in the palm-branch: sometimes he inscribes the heb sed feasts on the iM tree. (I) Thoth is often assisted in this function of determining the years of royal reign by the goddess Seshat. (2)

But Thoth does not merely determine beforehand the length of Pharaonic reigns; he is "a reckoner of time for gods and men" generally. (3) Thus he becomes a god of fate foredetermining for each individual the duration of his life. The number of a man's years Thoth determines at a man's birth - or, as it is said, "on the meskhenet", In the time of Ptolemy IV Thoth in Edfu appears as: (4) the lord of Ijmnw, the scribe of Ma'et for the Ennead, who determines time, who commands the !Jib (i. c. fixes the length of life, fate) on the meskhenet (= stone or brick on which parturition took place). (5) Thoth is obviously looked on in this connection as a god of fate. (6)

(I) Vid, L. D. III, 11'1 and 110 d. Cf. the Hymn to Amon in the Temple of Rameses III Karnak. It is interesting to note that the god Hike ({lkJ) appears also at times like Thoth with the notched palm-branch. See Dendereh, L. D. IV, 58 a. (2) Cf. L. D. III, 120 d. For the Graeco-Rornan period ef. Edfu, R. I, 112,291. (3) Edfu R. I, 111. 1<)j: Cf.l'hilae Photo )010, where Thoth "engraves the

annals for the son of Osiris".

(4) Edeu R.I, 2j: lO~\;]~' ~m,:_~.

(5) Cf. also Rhind Papyrus I, 4 b )0; a 10: 5 b I ; a 2: II, 3 b c ; a 2. (ti) cr. Luxor, Court of Amenophis III (Mission XV, )0, 3) when the king

is thus described: "Wise as Thoth on whose mouth is the breath of life, behind whom Meskhenet (here thought of as goddess) stands". For Thoth .with four M~skhenets see Mar., Dcnd, II, 40 C. In the Rhind Pap. I, 1 b 7; a,8 Thoth inscribes the day of death on the meskheuet, In a text of Philae (Phot. 1010) Thoth's func-

tion is )1(( \;]. @ ~ <f2 ~J ?t1 e 0 ~ _ "raises up his (the Pharaoh's) fate

~ (f,:n. I I III c=::::J

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86 SPECIAL FUNCTIONS OF THOTH AS LUNAR DIVINITY.

The god who can predetermine length of life and reign must himself be raised above all limitations of time. Hence it is not strange to find Thoth described as one that looks into the future, and perceives it like the present. In the Book

of the Dead, c. 182, 10 f. (Naville) it is said of Thoth - ~ * ~ IIiJt ~ ~ -®- fWWoI\ ~ ~ ('who announceth the ~ow and gazes on the future". In Deir el-Bahri (Nav. II, 47) Thoth appears also as one that knows the future. (I) Past present and future must be all the same for the "Lord of time" and the "king of eternity" (Totb. Nav. c. I, 3-5), for him "who guideth heaven, earth, and the nether world, and maketh life for men" (Totb. Nav. c. 182, 10- 1 I A f).

Thoth determines, not merely the bare schernatism of existence: he not merely predetermines the length of men's lives, but he also fills in beforehand the details of each individual career. With this role of his is connected his determining of the "Annals" of the kings. (2) As he determines the "Annals" (gnwt) of the kings, so does he also for the Ennead. (3) Thus, as in other cases, so here, from an ordinary court-official, there has been formed a god. As the Pharaoh had his annalist, so must the Ennead also have its chronicler. But as Thoth is not a mere annalist depending on actual experience, but

on his meskhcnet", Similarly, in Babylonian thought, Sin, the moon-god, is lIalm sarruti nadin hani .~a simti ,lila lime I'II(,-"ti isimmll, "who calleth to kingship, who giveth the sceptre, who deterrnineth fate unto distant days". Further Sin is pm'is PIII'IISSC .<amc II irsitim sa kibitsu malllnan 1.1 iinakkaru, "who maketh decision for heaven and earth, whose decree no one changeth" (Perry, Hymncn 1111.1 Gcbetc all Sill, no. I, cf. Jastrow, p. 437: cr. further, Perry, op. cit .• no. 2, p. 12 f.). Isis appears at times as mistress of fate (so DUm., Kal. I., p. 54): so also does Harbor (I.. D. Text II, 209): Nephthys appears as "Meskhenet, the mistress of fate" (~Iar., Dend. 11, 4.1). In the Ramesseum (Quibell X, 4: XIX th Dyn.} Ptah is called

"=7 LI!l~ ~~. The technical term for determining the fate of an individual is {1l11 sJi (11' m8~11.t .~<i, the god of fate appears in the Coptic forms n601 and "1'01 and in Greek personal names such as :!:Ev·fOtt;. .':;<i is the Aguthodaimon of later times (= Thoth i). J,l.'b = .. /<i in the texts quoted.

(I) Amon makes inquiry from Thoth about the future mother of Makerc, (2) Cf .. Karnak, L. D. Ill, 15: Mar. Ab., I, 34 b: Brugsch, Thcs. lv, 735:

Edfu R. I. 77.

(3) Brugsch, Thes. IV, 759 (Dendereh): Cf .• lfamlllisi, pp. 21, 131, 140. Thoth ussignes the years of rule to the sacred falcon in Philae (I'id. Junker, Bcricht Strabos ii/lcr dell hciligcn Falkcn 1'011 Philac, p. 40 in WZK~I, 20.

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SPECIAL FUNCTIONS' OF THOTH AS L L:NAR DIVINITY. 87

the "Lord of time", his role of annalist for the Ennead is merely his function as god of fate. When the Egyptian wished to think of Thoth as god of fate, he thought of him, on the analogy of the Pharaoh's court, as an official of the Ennead. recording the decrees which the gods issued beforehand for the life of each individual. This idea gives a still more concrete meaning to Thoth's already familiar title; "Scribe of MaCet for the Ennead".

Thoth appears. as has been said, at the coronationceremonies predetermining by notches on the palm-branch the number of the Pharaoh's regnal years. It is but an enlargement of this function of his when he is said to determine the titles of the Pharaoh. We read of "the day on which the Great Name (i. c. the sum of the titles) of the Pharaoh was determined, the Name which Thoth made while Re was by his side". (1) To determine the "Great N'ame" was a very proper work of the god of fate: and it was but natural that Thoth should have associated with him in that work one or more of the great gods of Ancient Egypt.

. (I) Karnak Memorial of Rams IV, Lcgrain's copy.

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Chapter IX.

Thoth as founder of social order and of sacred ritual.

We have already examined some of the most obvious lunar functions of Thoth. A great many other activities are ascribed to him which may also - but not with equal certainty, - belong to him as moon-god. Among these may be suitably considered here his activities in the organisation of various departments of civil and religious life.

In a country in which, as in Egypt, the daily life of the people was largely ordered by reference to the phases of the moon, it was more or less inevitable that the moon-god should come to be looked on as the ordering principle of civil and religious life. The easily noted regularity of the moon's phases gave the moon a necessary predominance in fixing the date of the chief feasts in the temples, and of the chief events of the Egyptian civil year. This will have given a special importance to the early and general spread of moon-cult throughout Egypt; and with the growth of lunar cult must have gone on equally the growth of the cult of the moon-god Thoth. It is not strange, then, to find that Thoth is described, at an early period, as the founder of the cult carried on in the temples - as the originator of divine sacrificial worship, and as the author of all order in the State. Though, however, these important aspects of Thoth's activity may be largely due to his role as moon-god, it would be a mistake to infer that Thoth was for the Egyptian wholly or essentially a lunar divinity. The gods of Egypt can seldom, indeed, be described in a single formula. It is possible that Thoth's association with the origin of civil and religious institutions is due only by accident, or secondarily, to his lunar character.

Plutarch recognises (Is. et 0., c. 55) that Hermes (= Thoth) is the source of cosmic order. Hermes cut out the sinews of Typhon (= Set), and from them made the chords whence are

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