Of all the peoples of Antiquity, the Egyptians are probably those who are best known for their myriads of gods. Yet a deeper look into their religion reveals that this is just misinterpretation on our part. How did this misunderstanding arise?
The Egyptian applied the word Nutjer, "god", to a wide range of celestial creatures -- as a matter of fact, to all of them, from the humblest nature-spirit to the One God. Imagine if Christians grouped God, the Angels and all the saints (and even the Devil) under the term "god". It would be most confusing for researchers from outside, who would quickly come to the conclusion that Christians worship all of the above, including the great enemy of their God. Fortunately, all the languages spoken by Christians are rich enough to sort out and establish a difference between these different beings. For some reason, the Egyptian language isn't. Perhaps the Egyptians had no need for such a distinction, as they knew very well what they were talking about and they did not face the problem of having to teach it to other peoples. The result is that when we translate from Egyptian texts, we have to use the word "god" everywhere without knowing exactly what they meant.
One thing is certain: their conception was that of a One God from whom all emanated. The idea appears repeatedly in religious texts, and in their continual rivalry for supremacy, the priests of important deities like R‰ and Atum claimed that "their" god was the face of this One God. He was in truth as important yet hidden as He is to most modern faiths. What then of the other deities? According to the Book of the Dead, they were personifications of the names of R‰ . That did not prevent them from being worshipped and venerated, nor even to have distinct personalities. Yet the Egyptian deities are unlike any other pantheon I know of, in that they are very far from being set in stone. Their personality is nothing like the human character laid into their gods by peoples like the Greeks. They are paradoxical and fluid, and absorb contradictions with ease -- their paternity is less relevant, and their attributes adjustable at will. This is another reflection of their nature which is unlike true polytheistic religions.
It should be noted though that this now-obvious information was likely not as obvious to the entire Egyptian population. Much of the above facts were part of religious mysteries and not revealed to the layman. Therefore it is highly probable that the further away from important cities, the more the official religion melted into a local, older, more nature-based religion involving the worship of nature spirits under their own name or that of the more reknown pharaonic deities.
Notice also that many deities come by pairs: Nu and Nut, Râ and Rât... These are usually very old gods and goddesses. The ending -t is feminine, and you can obtain a goddess from any god by adding a -t to his name. This the Egyptians did! Every god has his paredra (his female counterpart), and vice-versa: every deity has a mirror image from the opposite sex, even if it was of so little importance that it was forgotten with time. At least two are even hermaphrodite. The dual nature of their One God, who unites the essences of both male and female, was not unknown to them, even if their understanding preferred this divine characteristic to manifest as two separate and complementary beings.
| Article © Joumana Medlej |