354 
hast cut in pieces the scorner, and strangled the 
(Thou art the good peace of the souls of the dead .) Oh . 
Creator, Father of the gods, incorruptible! With this 
magnificent apostrophe concludes the first part o 
15. In the second section of the book are traced the journeys 
and migrations of the soul in the lower region or Hades to 
prepare it for which a long and complicated creed is intro- 
duced, forming the sixteenth chapter, or « the Egyptian faith 
This section is accompanied, as indeed is every chapter, with 
a large vignette, representing the most sacred symbols of Hhe 
mystic religion ; and the text contains a description of the=e 
figures, with their mystical explanation. At first these are suf- 
ficiently clear, but, as they advance, a higher and more obscure 
region is reached; and, as it not unfrequently happens m 
theological works, the explanation ends by being more obscure 
than the symbols intended to be explained. T J 118 , a " s ® 8 “ 
great measure from the rubrics added on to the text at a late 
date, probably in the nineteenth dynasty ; and also to the 
esoteric, or magical invocations, which (by the same principle 
as the secreta in the Roman Missal) were ordered to be sa.d 
privately by the embalmer on behalf of the deceased, and. y 
the soul itself before the Hadean deities. In process of time 
these glosses and rubrics became confused with the Ritual, 
and by the ignorance of the Egyptian scribes who had lost &e 
knowledge of the sacred language they copied.f The contus 
is thus rendered now almost inextricable. To make this appa- 
rent, a few sentences from the chapter shall here follow The 
soul speaks, as before, sometimes m the third person, .or eHe 
in the character of each of the principal divimtes, by hypostatic 
union The rubrics are here italicised, and the glosses P™ted 
in capitals. “ I am the great God creating himself. It iswa.ee 
or Nn WHO IS THE eather of the gods. Let him explain it. 
am yesfcenlay 8 [pre-existent eternity]. I know the morning 
ffuture eternity 1. Let him explain it. Yesterday is Osie , 
The ta, 
deriders of the universal lord. Soul of the Sun is his • 
Begotten by Himself is his name ! Let him explain it . I 
soul in two halves. Let him explain it. I he boun in 
«o« o, ™ .™.e» 
He (the soul) is conceived by Isis, engenders y P^ 
Isis corrects his crimes, Nepthys cuts away his tailing . 
* Lenormant’s rendering, 
f As the modern Brahmin has 
that of the Vedic Sanscrit. 
