DECEMBER 24, 1903] 
A GREAT RELIGION.} 
ila any proof were needed of the value of the com- 
parative method in historic research, it is afforded 
by these handsome volumes. The science of com- 
parative philology produced that of comparative 
mythology, and the establishing of a system of 
analytical study of myths and folklore, which ex- 
tracted meaning from the meaningless, and turned the 
mere fable into precious fragments of historic record. 
The study of myth and folklore revealed certain 
laws that were common to most systems by which the 
growth and development of a religion could be studied. 
First, it established the fact that a religion, be it the 
most elementary beliefs of a savage people or the 
fully developed creed of dynastic Egypt or Chaldea, 
or the sacerdotal system of the Hebrews, was 
essentially the product of the human mind—religion 
becomes, therefore, a branch of anthropology, and re- 
quires to be studied by the methods of that important 
science. 
No religion of the ancient world so much demands 
to be studied by the anthropological method as that 
of Egypt. Its antiquity far exceeds that of all other 
nations, for many of its component elements belong 
to the prehistoric age. Viewed as a whole, it is a 
perfect conglomeration of strange and contradictory 
elements. Grossly savage beliefs of animal worship 
and cannibalism are found side by side with the most 
simple monotheism, and magic and demonology with 
an elaborate system of eschatology which in the latest 
times exercised a powerful influence on that of 
Christianity. Not only was the student faced with 
this confusion of elements, but there was another 
serious difficulty to encounter. Unlike the great 
Aryan or Semitic religions, the Egyptian religion 
possessed no canonical books like the Vedas or 
Avesta or the Hebrew scriptures. The Egyptians were 
not a literary people; there was a scribe caste, powerful 
through its priestly and official associations, but 
essentially a caste. Unlile the Babylonians, they had 
no national epic poems, no exegetical literature. 
The only work which in any degree could be con- 
sidered as the sacred book of the Egyptians was the 
“ Book of the Dead,” a mosaic of material of various 
ages and sources. The student, therefore, who would 
solve the riddle of the Sphinx and reduce chaos to 
system and order, must be a bold man, and prepared 
to face much labour and study. Great scholars had 
already laboured in the field. Dr. Heinrich Brugsch, 
in his work “ Religion und Mythologie, der Alten 
4Bgypter,’’? had attempted to set forth the chief 
features of this wonderful religion; he had, however, 
been hampered by his material. The fine editions of 
the ‘Book of the Dead,’’ such as the Ani and Nu 
papyri of the Theban age, were unpublished, and he 
had recourse chiefly to late material of the Ptolemaic 
age, a time when the Egyptians themselves knew 
little of their own religion. Moreover, Brugsch 
approached the subject from a classical, Aryan, and 
philosophical point, a method totally unsuitable for a 
religion with an African vocabulary. As Dr. Budge 
justly remarks, ‘‘ No African language is suitable for 
giving expression to theological and philosophical 
speculations, and even an Egyptian priest of the 
highest intellectual attainments would have been un- 
able to render a treatise of Aristotle into language 
which his brother priests without teaching could 
understand.”” M. Maspero was the next savant who 
essayed the task, and he had older material, and was 
the first to apply the anthropological method. He 
1 “The Gods of the Egyptians: Studies in Egyptian Mythology.” By 
A = : y 
E. A. W. Budge, Litt D., D.Litt., &c., Keeper of the Department of 
Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum. 2 vols. Pp. xvii+s25 and 
vili+431; with 98 coloured plates and 13r illustrations. (London: 
Methuen and Co., 1904.) Price 32. 3s. net. 
NO. 1782, VOL. 69| 
NATORE 
7s) 
recognised the savage cults in animal worship and 
magic, and in the pyramid texts of the sixth dynasty. 
The astonishing progress of discovery in Egypt 
during recent years has given an enormous retro- 
spective enlargement to our knowledge of human life 
in the Nile Valley. Not only is the historic age known 
with an astonishing degree of detail to its very 
threshold, but our knowledge now extends far into the 
dark regions of the prehistoric. 
From the graves on the edge of the Lybian plateau 
we gather not only the records of the life on earth of 
these people, but also the evidence of their simple creed 
and hopes of a life hereafter. Here, then, we must 
look for the beginnings of the religion of Egypt and 
the birth of the gods. It is now possible to ascertain 
the conditions of the environment in which the first 
elements of Egyptian religion grew up. 
At the commencement of his work Dr. Budge deals 
with one of the greatest difficulties of the Egyptian 
religion—the problem of animal worship. At the 
time of man’s first advent into north-east Africa and 
the Lybian plateau, the Nile valley presented a very 
different appearance from that of to-day. Banked by 
the Arabian and Lybian hills, the latter wooded and 
swarming with animals, and with great swamps and 
marshes full of Amphibia and serpents, &c., it was 
very different from the Egypt of historic times. Man 
found himself compelled to struggle for existence, not 
only with human foes, but also with a host of hostile 
animals. The fear of these produced a worship of 
them; we have a similar cult in Chaldea in the animal 
demons, lions, leopards, serpents, scorpions, &c. Man, 
however, soon demonstrated his superiority to the 
brute creation; some he killed in self-defence, some 
he domesticated or rendered serviceable to himself. 
The Egyptian of these prehistoric times was a 
cannibal; proof of this is shown by the long and valu- 
able passage describing King Unas hunting, killing 
and eating the gods. Dr. Budge clearly shows the 
argument on which cannibalism was based. By eat- 
ing the hearts and livers of men or gods the king 
acquired their powers; so also with animals. How 
early the Egyptian attained to the idea of some 
immortal element in man we cannot say, but we can 
see from the burials of the Neolithic age that it was 
fully developed then. This developed the belief in the 
god-man or god-king who lived and died and became 
immortal. He had as Unas the powers of man and 
of animals, and thus man worship and animal worship 
were fused by placing the animals’ heads on human 
bodies, as the Babylonians placed human heads on 
animal bodies. The belief in the god-man—the 
anthropomorphic cult became the indigenous creed of 
Egypt—in the form of the worship of Osiris, and Dr. 
Budge’s arguments for its north-east African origin 
are most convincing. Whatever other forms of re- 
ligion were developed in Egypt or introduced from 
without, it remained the faith of the people, and con- 
tinued so until the god-man Osiris became absorbed 
into the man Jesus Christ. It was the golden thread 
which ran through the tangled skein of religious life 
in Egypt for many thousands of years. In elucidating 
this fact, Dr. Budge has, as it were, established a 
base line for his study of all the other varied elements 
in this complex creed. These most important other 
elements are fully dealt with, but space will only allow 
us to deal with two, the Ra cult of Heliopolis and the 
worship of Horus the Hawk, ‘sky god’”’ and “his 
blacksmith followers ’’ with its centre at Edfu. 
The solar cult of Ra-Tem of Heliopolis shows many 
traces of affinity with the solar cults of Asia, and this 
may be accounted for by the position of Heliopolis, 
but there is a preponderance of native elements. By 
many it has long been regarded as the religion of 
