6 Ancient Egyptian Religion. 



nant, aud in clue time gave birth to a son, Horus, who was destined 

 to wage war against Set. This seems to have been intended to 

 explain the continuance of good and evil on the earth, and Horus 

 henceforth occupies a prominent place in the Egyptian mythology. 

 Osiris before his death was Ka, the sun of the day, but after his 

 death he became the sun of the night, and appeared no more upon 

 earth in his own person, but in that of his son Horus, who was the 

 sun at sunrise, the dispeller of darkness, aud the giver of light and 

 life to the world. The death of Osiris appears to have been con- 

 sidered as a sacrifice for sin, and it was the only sacrifice of this 

 kind in the Egyptian religion. All the others were sacrifices of 

 thanksgiving, in which they offered to the gods flowers, fruits, 

 meat, and drink, the Egyptians believing that spiritual beings 

 lived on the spiritual essences of material things. Osiris, Isis, and 

 Horus were universally worshipped as a Triad, and there were 

 other Triads that were more or less local in their cultus. They 

 had also a moral code, in which the virtues of piety, sobriety, 

 gentleness, chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence 

 toward the needy, deference to superiors, and respect for property 

 were enjoined. Maspero believes that in the earliest periods the 

 relio-ion of the Egyptians was comparatively pure and spiritual, 

 but in its later developments became grossly material, a kind of 

 nature worship. By degrees animals were introduced as symbols 

 of divine attributes, but in course of time the animals themselves 

 became the real objects of worship, and each of them was wor- 

 shipped as a separate deity. According to the language of 

 Paul, they became vain in their imaginations, and changed the 

 glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto 

 corruptible man, and to birds and beasts and creeping things, and 

 worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator. 



The belief of the ancient Egyptians with regard to human 

 nature bore a resemblance to that which many modern 

 speculators have held, that it was tripartite, consisting of body, 

 soul and spirit. They held that man was composed of three 

 parts — 1, Sahoo, the fleshy, substantial body ; 2, Ka, the double, 

 which was the exact counterpart of the first, only it was spiritual, 

 and could not be seen— an intelligence which permeated the whole 

 body and guided its different physical functions; and 3, Ba, 

 sio-nifying force, the spiritual part of our nature, which fits it for 

 union with God. When the Sahoo— the body — died, the Ka and 



