69 
fche Bull, or husband ofliis mother.* Here again, there seem to 
have been two originally distinct conceptions of divinity blended 
into one. According to the theology of Upper Egypt more 
especially, Kliem was the deity of reproduction, primarily of 
human, but also secondarily of auimal and vegetable life, and 
in that aspect he had a form analogous to that of the Priapus of 
the Greeks, but his religious rites were at no time similarly as 
obscene. Khem was always represented as standing upright, 
and with his right arm upraised, near to which was the sacred 
flagellum or thrashing instrument; his left hand was close to 
his body, which was tightly swathed in a thick, almost mummied 
dress; he wore the two upright plumes of Amen Ra upon his 
head, and a rich enamelled collar, or uskh, around his neck. 
Pie was supposed to represent the principle of life, which 
lay dormant in the body of the deceased, submitting indeed 
to rest but not to death ; and hence in the Ritual , f the 
deceased is made to exclaim, “ When my soul is reunited to 
my body, I shall prevail against my bandages, and I shall have 
the freedom of my arm bestowed upon me.” In other words, 
the connection of Khem with the human body was symbolical 
of the divine life, only half arrested by the bonds of death, and 
of the energic powers of Nature, held in temporary bondage 
by the frost of winter and the darkness of night. J These 
things being so, it was a natural sequence to the Egyptian mind 
to blend Horus, the spirit of deity and the soul of nature, with 
Khem, the source of reproduction and the soul of life, the title 
of husband of his mother, applied to both deities alike, since 
each was, in one aspect, a child of the visible heaven, 
Horus of Isis, and Khem of Nu; and the identification of 
Khneph, the soul of the creating power of the Divine Being, 
was also a perfectly congruent circumstance since the inter- 
blending of characters and genealogies in the Egyptian 
Pantheon was so great as to enable almost any deity, however 
distinct, to associate himself with or take the place of, and be 
honoured with the epithets, worship, and sacrifices of another. 
Finally, I must notice a series of exceedingly common magical 
stelffi, which are now called Cippi of Horus, and in which the 
various characters of the multiform deity are more or less 
distinctly represented. These sacred objects, which are found 
in all museums, are generally wrought in serpentine, and they 
* In the early period, when the Ritual was written, though the lion was 
known, the bull was the largest animal with which the Egyptians were 
familiar ; hence they used it as a superlative epithet applied to the deities 
and great men. “ f Cap. cxlvi. 
J See Pierret, Did. (V Archeologie Egypt ienne, art. Khem. 
