Mortal and Immortal Elements of the Human Body

THE GODS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

The subject of gods incarnating is very familiar, if not central, to the
religion of ancient Egypt; as are the reasons surrounding their liaisons
between heaven and earth. Because the writer claims no expertise in this
arena, outside of an insatiable interest, we defer to the scholars to serve as
our guide.

"After the world had been created, the gods and men took up their abode
in it. The gods ruled on earth, one succeeding the next. This was the Golden
Age.But the human race eventually rose up in rebellion, and the gods withdrew
to the sky."[29] As Hermes Trisemegistus tells Asclepius,

A time will come when Egypt, "the temple of the cosmos," will be left
desolate. Human beings will become weary of life and will cease to regard the
universe as worthy of reverence or wonder.Religion will be felt as burdensome,
and people will "prefer darkness to light." In that time the gods will depart
from humankind, and their voices will no longer be heard.[30]

Although troubled by man's obstreperous nature,the gods were not
altogether indifferent to his perilous state. Desirous to secure their release
from the abyss, the Egyptians detail how the gods worked in concert to
orchestrate their crowning achievement: The emancipation and exaltation of the
powerless and the vulnerable.

As Silverman instructs us, "Like mortal creatures, the gods were created,
but the deities ultimately derived from a primordial being who had been
responsible for his own creation. When the gods came into being, their births
were described as extraordinary or miraculous."[31] In their religious
literature we learn that "Re, the king of the gods, was said to die
symbolically every sunset and to be reborn at the dawn of each new day."[32]
The pharaoh, God's representative on earth "was frequently described as acting
like a particular god [usually Horus], or as being 'in the likeness of' a
specific deity."[33] He was seen as a king and God's high priest.[34] From the
COFFIN TEXTS we find indication that "the divine had intended the king for
rule even BEFORE he was born."[35] The oldest corpus of Egyptian religious and
funerary literature, the PYRAMID TEXTS, tell us that "the King was fashioned
by his father Atum before the sky existed, before the earth existed, before
man existed, ... before death existed."[36] In the INTRODUCTORY HYMN TO
OSIRIS, Osiris is heralded as "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Ruler of Rulers,
who took possession of the Two Lands even in the womb of Nut."[37] One thinks
of God's disclosure to Jeremiah:

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest
forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto
the nations.[38]

The "Teacher of Righteousness" from the Qumran community,[39] claims
similar distinction. From THE THANKSGIVING HYMNS (1QH), we read his joyful
celebration:

For Thou has known me from (the time of) my father, [and hast chosen me]
from the womb. [From the belly of] my mother Thou hast dealt kindly with me,
and from the breast of her who conceived me have Thy mercies been with me.[40]

The authors of select early Christian hymns speak similarly of God's
commitment to His elite:

For I turn not my face from my own, because I know them. And before they
had existed, I recognized them; and imprinted a seal on their faces.[41]

(For as Eli told Hannah), a prophet [Samuel] had been foreordained to be
born from her.[42]

"Everything, including the divine, has an end, insofar as it dies, but is
also endless, insofar as it is reborn."[43] Death is inescapable, as Justin
Martyr observed; "A debt due by every man that is born."[44] "From the
Nineteenth Dynasty onward the sun god's 'old age' in the evening after his
long, exhausting journey through the day is part of a common formula, in which
the 'old man' [Ancient of Days?] in the evening is contrasted with the newborn
'child' in the morning."[45] During the journey through the netherworld, "the
sun god Ra (and the spirit of the dead king) passed through various
incarnations before being reborn on the eastern horizon in the morning."[46]
The sun god's "daily death and rebirth is a dominant motif and also a promise
that all the blessed dead will enter through death into a new, rejuvenated
life."[47] Philosopher and cultural historian Jeremy Naydler, expresses such
widely accepted beliefs in these terms:

Just as the sun ceases to be physically perceptible when it enters the
Dwat,[48]so do all creatures when they die. For like the sun, all creatures
lose their outwardly manifest forms when they enter the Dwat. Though the Dwat
may be conceived of as a kind of place, it is in reality less a place than a
"condition of being" that things have when they pass out of physical
existence, and before they pass back again into physical existence. So it is
where the dead go, and equally where the living come from. Just as the sun,
when it rises in the east, is in fact born from the womb of the great goddess
[Nut], so too are all creatures the children of her womb, the Dwat. All things
that come into being in the manifest world come from the Dwat. That is where
they PREEXIST, before they are born into the light of day, and that is where
they return having relinquished their physical forms.[49]

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead (chapter 17), "The creator of the world
is responsible not only for the existence of all living beings, but also for
their end, without himself being imperishable."[50]

To the Egyptians, death was nothing more than rejuvenation and
regeneration. Paradoxically, death is the means whereby the aging process is
reversed Death instills life! As the Pyramid Texts affirm, "You sleep that
you may wake; you die that you may live."[51] Professor Breasted tells us the
Egyptians gave "victorious disregard [for] the invincibility of death."[52]
However, to make regeneration possible, that which is old and atrophic must be
immersed into the "healing and dissolving powers of the primeval ocean
Nun....Those who sleep are rejuvenated in Nun ... (and) 'slough off' their
previous existence, and 'put on' another, as a snake does its skin."[53]
"Regeneration is possible only outside the ordered world of creation. In order
to be rejuvenated, that is, to reverse the course of time, one must step ...
outside time and see oneself at the beginning of the temporal world, at
creation or even in the world before creation, which knows no time. Rebirth
... is therefore a RENEWAL OF CREATION, and is achieved with the help of the
primeval gods[54] who sent the sun forth from their midst on the 'first
occasion' [first estate?[55]] at the beginning of creation."[56] According to
a late libation text, "the aging gods return to their place of origin, the
primeval world of creation.They return to the world before creation from
whence they went forth on the 'first occasion,' and from where they will
FOREVER AGAIN (GO) FORTH."[57]

We are told that the "reigning king addresses the gods as his 'fathers'
and the goddesses as his 'mothers'; only after his death may he greet them as
his 'siblings.' Over and above all of them there is a primeval universal
'father of the gods,' who created all living beings. (Before creation we find
this god) in the primeval ocean (where he arose) in order to accomplish the
work of creation and set in motion the origin of the world."[58]

Abraham confided that it was his express desire to be a "father of many
nations, a prince of peace." As such, with time he "became a rightful heir, a
High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers." For it was
"conferred upon me from the fathers; it came down from the fathers ... from
the beginning ... (from) the first man, who is Adam, or first father, through
the fathers unto me."[59]

The Egyptians knew "the world would come to an end only to be reborn, in
an eternal cycle, a rhythm resembling a vast cosmic breathing."[60] From the
Royal Canon[61] "the gods who ... reigned on earth belonged essentially to
what is known as the Ennead of heliopolis, the family line of Atum, the
creator-god."[62] "Each of the gods succeeded 'his father' and devoted himself
to defending and improving existing laws... Succession from father to son was
a rule that admitted of no exceptions other than the usurpation of Seth... At
the beginning of the world, the Primeval Ocean, Nun[63] created 'His Majesty,'
that is, the sovereign sun...Atum [Adam?]. (It was he who) was the first to
exercise this royal office ... 'the office of Atum.'"[64]

"Every king was his predecessor's son, whatever the actual blood ties
between them might have been. Every royal death was a disaster, and every new
monarch a SAVIOR who restored cosmic order."[65]

A subject of great delicacy, but integral to the Egyptian religion, was
how the gods consorted with mortal women a Royal Theogamy. It was usually
the wife of Pharaoh or the wife of a high priest who was the beneficiary of
divine affection. In no way were such sexual liaisons promiscuous or
salacious, but reserved for the express purpose of reestablishing a divine
blood line.

According to the divine birth legend of Ramses II, "Having decided that
he would personally sire the next king of Egypt, the supreme god Amun appeared
one night in the queen's bedchamber IN THE GUISE OF THE KING...Quickly
approaching her bed, Amun revealed his true form, and the union was
consummated."[66] Professor Jan Assmann provides this additional detail:

[Amun] commands Khnum, the god who creates individuals and models humans
on his potter's wheel, to fashion the child in his (i.e., Amun's) image.Khnum,
along with Heqet, the goddess of childbirth, fashions the child. Thoth is sent
to the queen to announce her pregnancy to her. Khnum and Heqet personally lead
the expectant mother to the bed where she will give birth. A number of helpful
deities and protective genies stand beside her as she gives birth. The deity
of the "birthing brick" and personal destiny pronounces a blessing on the
newborn child. The child is to be raised by the deities: Amun immediately sets
it on his lap and recognizes his offspring, divine nurses suckle the child,
and deities bestow blessings on it. As the child grows, it is circumcised,
purified, and presented to the assembled deities of the land as the new
king.[67]

Among others, Breasted informs us that "The legend was so persistent that
even Alexander the Great deferred to the tradition, and made the long journey
to the Oasis of Amon in the western desert, that he might be recognized as the
bodily son of the Egyptian Sun-god; and the folk-tale preserved in
Pseudo-Callisthenes gave the legend currency as a popular romance, which
survived until a few centuries ago in Europe."[68] Widely accepted was the
belief that Pharaoh was the physical offspring of a copulating sun-god "with
an earthly mother."[69]

During a separate era, "wishing to put an end to the line of pharaohs of
the Fourth-Dynasty, Re coupled with the wife of one of the priests. Three
children, destined to found the Fifth-Dynasty, were born of this union."[70]
Engraved on the walls of certain temples are found scenes describing the
"royal conception and birth." Specifically, "pictorial versions of the god's
mystical marriage with the earthly queen, pharaoh's wife." On a wall at the
temple of Luxor is found an ideogram of Amun-Re, who had "intervened ... to
beget a descendant and representative on earth."[71] Other authors describe
this same engraving as the "procreation and birth of the king....The images
and the text (demonstrate such with respectful modesty), yet dwell frankly
upon the act of sexual union."[72] The god approaches the queen and allows her
to see "him in his divine form." At the birth of the divine offspring, "(the
child) was given a name that prefigured the royal destiny that had been
promised him, and was given the kind of care that his status as a newborn baby
and future sovereign called for."[73]

As legend reveals, Osiris was brought back to life to make possible his
sexual congress with Isis. Isis rejoiced at what had been achieved, and
proudly announced to the Lord, "I am Isis, the most dynamic and the noblest of
the gods. There truly is a god in my womb, and he is the seed of Osiris."[74]
The similarities between the conception of Horus and the conception of Isaac,
the divine gift promised Abram and Sarai, are only too obvious, as this writer
will attempt to demonstrate.[75] Even in the literature from the early
Christian church are found such controversial themes. From a second-century
pseudepigraphal document, the following is recorded:

And God said to his only begotten Son, "Go, take the soul of my beloved
Sedrach, and put it in Paradise." The only begotten Son said to Sedrach, "Give
me that which OUR Father deposited in the womb of your mother in your holy
dwelling place since you were born." [To which] Sedrach said, "I will not give
you my soul."[76]