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dieted, by the language of their sacred texts. Certainly the oneness of 
nature and feeling of God with man, which is the peculiar characteristic 
of the Gospel of Christ, was foreign to Egyptian thought as applied to the 
nature of the highest Deity itself ; but when that same Deity was identified 
with His “ only-begotten son,” Horus Ra. as the protector of mankind, and 
more especially of the servants of Horus, i.e. of the Faith, then to a great 
extent human feelings and human passions were attributed to Horus also, 
and, by parity of reasoning, to Ra his father, of whose divine nature he was 
a co-partner. These apparent inconsistencies are, after all, no greater than 
those which arise from the utter impossibility of a human mind grasping the 
infinite personality, and as naturally evidence themselves, even in our own 
times, as is proved by comparing the vague conception of the Supreme Being 
as formulated in the First Article of the Church of England, with the almost 
human Deity of the hymn-writers of popular or revival theology. 
II. Shabti or Osiride Figures— These generally represented the deceased 
under the character of Osiris, and hence they all have the plicate j-shaped 
beard peculiar to that deity. In the Hay collection of Egyptian antiquities 
now at Boston, U.S.A., there w r ere two terra-cotta statuettes, each represented 
as holding a human-headed dove over the breast, with its wings expanded, 
— a very rare illustration of the doctrine of the revivification of the body by 
the return of the soul ( Ba ) to the mummy of the deceased. These objects 
were both of the period of the XIXth dynasty. 
III. Resurrection of the Dead . — Although it is evident that, as Herodotus 
asserted, the ancient Egyptians sedulously promulgated the doctrines of the 
immortality of the soul and of its final resurrection, yet it is by no means 
certain that at the earliest period of their history they believed in the resur- 
rection of the body ; at all events, that doctrine was not distinctly asserted 
in the more ancient religious books, according ro Pierret : — “ Les Egyptiens 
distinguaient 1’ame, appelee ba, de l’intelligence, qu’ils nommaient l;hou. 
Les Grecs etablissaient la rneme difference entre la fvxn ct le vovq. Le 
retour de l’ame dans le corps ramene la vie pour de nouvelles existences.” * 
But this revivification could only take place if the body of the deceased 
remained not only uncorrupted, but undefiled by evil spirits or improper 
treatment. The ba must, however, have possessed a species of corporeality, 
as it underwent, as is well known, a series of bodily duties in the Ker-netcr , 
or suffered actual physical tortures or mutilations in the Alar, if wicked. 
It was to prepare the body for this its ultimate glorification that the ascrip- 
tions in the third chapter of the Litany of Ra were uttered by the priest for 
the deceased king. Towards the Greek period of Egyptian history, probably 
at the same time as the last recension of the Ritual of the Dead was under- 
taken, viz. in the XXVIth dynasty, the always ambiguous distinction between 
a spiritual and a corporeal resurrection underwent a, new development ; and 
* Did. Arche. Egypiienne. Voyez A me. 
