Part 8 (2/2)

”My hair is the hair of Nu.

”My face is the face of the Disk.

”My eyes are the eyes of Hathor.

”My ears are the ears of Ap-uat.

”My nose is the nose of Khenti-Khas.

”My lips are the lips of Anpu.

”My teeth are the teeth of Serqet.

”My neck is the neck of the divine G.o.ddess Isis.

”My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu.

”My fore-arms are the fore-arms of Neith, the Lady of Sas.

”My backbone is the backbone of Suti.

”My phallus is the phallus of Osiris.

”My reins are the reins of the Lords of Kher-[=a]ba.

”My chest is the chest of the Mighty one of terror.

”My belly and back are the belly and back of Sekhet.

”My b.u.t.tocks are the b.u.t.tocks of the Eye of Horus.

”My hips and legs are the hips and legs of Nut.

”My feet are the feet of Ptah.

”My fingers and my leg-bones are the fingers and leg-bones of the Living G.o.ds.” [Footnote: The idea of the deification of the human members was current already in the VIth dynasty. See _Recueil de Travaux_, tom. viii, pp. 87, 88.]

And immediately after this the deceased says:

”There is no member of my body which is not the member of a G.o.d. The G.o.d Thoth s.h.i.+eldeth my body altogether, and I am R[=a] day by day.”

Thus we see by what means the Egyptians believed that mortal man could be raised from the dead, and attain unto life everlasting. The resurrection was the object with which every prayer was said and every ceremony performed, and every text, and every amulet, and every formula, of each and every period, was intended to enable the mortal to put on immortality and to live eternally in a transformed glorified body. If this fact be borne in mind many apparent difficulties will disappear before the readers in this perusal of Egyptian texts, and the religion of the Egyptians will be seen to possess a consistence of aim and a steadiness of principle which, to some, it at first appears to lack.

THE END.

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