536 

NATURE 
[APRIL 21, 1923 

The Sun-Cult in Ancient Egypt.* 
By Aviwarp M. Brackman, D.Litt. 
LUE, 
T has often been maintained that the Aton-cult 
instituted by Okhnatén (AmenGphis IV.) displays 
non-Egyptian features and is in a large measure the 
product of foreign influences. I hope, however, clearly 
to show here that in the main it is the outcome of certain 
tendencies of the old solar religion discussed in the 
previous article — tendencies which had begun to 
manifest themselves so far back as the Old Kingdom, 
which came increasingly into evidence during the 
Middle Kingdom and the eighteenth dynasty, and 
finally found in the teaching of King Okhnatodn a some- 
what particularised expression. 
It was pointed out in the first article that the sun- 
god, owing to the political and religious importance 
of Heliopolis, became at a very early date the State-god 
of Egypt, and that the priests of a number of the local 
gods, in order to enhance their prestige, identified them 
with the sun-god, the goddesses who were associated 
with these gods being identified with Hathor, the sun- 
god’s consort. There was also, it must be noted, a 
distinct tendency to identify the various divinities 
with one another, thus considerably reducing their 
number as separate entities in the Pantheon. All this, 
combined with the prevailing uniformity in the structure 
and equipment of the temples, the temple liturgy, and 
the organisation of the priesthood—a uniformity due to 
the predominant influence of Heliopolis—fostered the 
growth of monotheistic or, anyhow, henotheistic ideas. 
During the Middle Kingdom, when a Theban line 
of kings ruled over a united Egypt, Amin, the local 
god of Thebes, was identified with the sun-god, being 
henceforth known as Amunré’. As a result of the 
imperial expansion of Egypt under the Theban emperors 
of the eighteenth dynasty, the sun-god, originally the 
national god of Egypt and the prototype of the Egyptian 
Pharaoh, became in the person of Amunré“ a world- 
god and a world-ruler. Thus the victorious Tethmésis 
III. says of Amunré* that “he seeth the whole world 
hourly.” A hymn in praise of the sun-god, written in 
the reign of Amendphis III., the father of Okhnatén, 
speaks of the sun-god as “‘ the sole lord taking captive 
all lands every day, as one beholding them that walk 
therein.” The once merely national god has thus 
become a deity who exercises universal sway and 
possesses universal vision. 
But the god of this hymn is not only the all-powerful, 
all-seeing ruler: he is also the beneficent protector and 
sustainer of mankind—“ the valiant herdsman who 
drives his cattle, their refuge and the giver of their 
sustenance.” It will be remembered, of course, that 
the sun-god appeared already in the literature of the 
seventh to eighth dynasties in the guise of “the shepherd 
(or herdsman) of all men.” This same hymn further 
emphasises the sun-god’s beneficent nature in calling 
him ‘“‘a mother, profitable to gods and men.” As is 
so frequently maintained in the religious literature of 
the Imperial Age, this hymn also asserts that the sun- 
god is the source of all, including his own, being. 
1 Continued from p. 502. 
NO. 2790, VOL, 111] 

“Thou art the craftsman shaping thine own limbs ; 
fashioner without being fashioned,” 
From this and other compositions it can be seen 
that the religious thought of the period just preceding 
the reign of Okhnatén was distinctly monotheistic in 
its tendency. It was only necessary to advance this 
tendency a step or two further to arrive at actual 
monotheism. This is what Okhnatén did when he 
asserted definitely once and for all that the sun-god 
was not only the supreme and universal god, but also the 
only God—an assertion that had never been definitely 
enunciated by the theologians who had preceded him, 
but had only been sporadically and somewhat vaguely 
hinted at by them. 
The universality of Okhnaton’s god is clearly set 
forth in the famous hymn, which so closely resembles 
the ro4th Psalm, and of which the king claims, probably 
with right, to be the author. The sun-god is represented 
as the All-Father, the source of all life. He it is who 
has created the different nations and assigned them their 
divers complexions and languages. He has also pro- 
vided for their sustenance, making the Nile to well up 
out of the nether world to water the land of Egypt, 
but setting a Nile in the sky for other peoples, whence 
it comes down as rain. ‘‘ Thou didst make the distant 
sky in order to rise therein, in order to behold all that 
thou hast made. . . . All men see thee before them, 
for thou art Aton of the day aloft.” 
There has been a certain amount of controversy as 
to whether Okhnat6n was actually himself responsible 
for the establishment of this monotheistic sun-cult. 
As has been stated at the beginning of this paper, some 
scholars incline to the view that the Aton-cult is 
distinctly of foreign origin and that its being established 
as the State-religion was due to the influence of Tyi, 
herself a foreigner, by ‘whom her son Okhnatén was 
completely dominated. Others, again, have maintained 
that the establishment of this cult was due to the 
successful intrigues of the Heliopolitan priests, who, 
attaining the ascendancy over a weak king, temporarily 
regained the religious hegemony of Egypt. 
Those who take the view that the religious revolution 
was the work of Tyi and foreign influences, or of an 
intriguing priesthood, find the main support for their 
respective theories in the fact that the body, supposed 
to be that of Okhnatén, is that of a man who could 
not have been more than 25 to 26 years old when he 
died, while the skull shows distinct signs of hydro- 
cephaly, indicating that the person in question was 
weak intellectually. As Okhnaton is known to have 
reigned for more than sixteen full years, he can, if this 
is his body, have been only ten or eleven years old 
when he came to the throne and the religious revolution 
began, and only sixteen or seventeen when he definitely 
broke with the priests of Amin, changed his name 
from Amenhotpe to Okhnatén, and deserted Thebes 
and founded his new capital at El-Amarna. Yet 
before this change in name and residence two of his — 
daughters, as a relief distinctly shows, were old enough 
to accompany him when he officiated at the temple 
liturgy, and, moreover, before the aforesaid change 
