Okay, here is the explanation for my view's on this subject:
The passages from the papyrus of Ani prove the exalted idea which the Egyptians held of the Supreme Being, they do not supply us w/any of the titles and epithets which they applied to him, for these we must have recourse to the fine hyms & religious meditations from which form so important a part of the "Book of the Dead."
But before we quote from them, mention must be made of the neteru, i.e., the beings of existences which is someway partake of the nature or character of God, & are usually called "gods." The early notions that came in contact w/the Egyptians usually misunderstood the nature of these beings, & several modern Western writers have done the same. When we examine these 'gods' closely, they are found to be nothing more nor less than forms, or maisfestations, or phases, or attributes, of one god, that god being Ra the Sun-God, who, it must be remembered, was the type of symbol of God. Nevertheless, the worship of the neteru by the Egyptians has been made the base of the charge of "gross idolatry" which has been brought against them, and they have been represented by some as being on the low intellectual level of savage tribes.
It is certain that from the earliest times one of the greatest tendencies of the Egyptian religion was towards
monothesism, and this tendency maybe observed in all important texts down to the latest period; it is also certain that a kind of polytheism existed in Egypt side by side w/montheism from very early times. Whether monotheism or polytheism be the order, it is useless in our present state of knowledge to attempt to enquire. The religion of Egypt was at the beginning polytheistic, but developed in two opposite direction's. In one direction gods were mutilplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptians drew nearer and nearer to montheism. Three main elements maybe recongnized in the Egyptian religion: 1) a solor monotheism, that is to say one god, the creator of the universe who manifests his power especially in the sun and its operation, 2) a cult of the regenerating power of nature which expresses itself in the adoration of thyphallic gods, of fertile goddesses, & of a series of animals and various dieties of vegetating 3) a perception of an anthropomorphic divinity, the life of whom in this world & in the world beyond this was typical of the ideal life of man - this last divinity being, of coarse, Osiris. But here again, it is an unfortunate fact that all the texts which we possess are, in respect of the period of the origin of the Egyptian religion, comparativiely late, and therefore in them we find these three elements mixed together, along w/a number of foreign matters, in such a way as to make it impossible to discover which of them is the oldest. No better example can be given of the loose way in which different ideas about a god and God are mingled in the same text than the "Negative Confession" in the hunred and 25th chapter of the Book of the dead.
THe epithets which the Egyptian applied to their gods also bear valuable testimoney concerning the ideas which they held about God. The 'gods' are only forms, manifestations, and phases of Ra, the Sun-God and it is evident from the Nature of the spirits that they were only applied to the gods because they represented some quality or attribute which they would have applied to God had it been their custom to address him.
We now have to consider the visible emblem, and the type of symbol of God, namely the Sun-God Ra who was worshipped in Egypt in prehistoric times. According to the writings of the Egyptians, there was a time when neither heaven nor earth existed, and when nothing had been except the boundless primeval water, which was, however, shrouded w/thick darkness. In this condition the primeval water remained for a considerable time, notwithstanding that it contained w/in it the germs of the things which afterwards came into exitence in the world and the world itself. At length the spirit of the primeval water felt the desire for creative activity, and having uttered the word, the word sprang straightway in to being in the form which had already been depicted in the minid of the spirit before he spake the word which resulted in it's creation. The next act of creation was the formation of a germ, or egg, from which sprang Ra, the Sun-God w/in whose shining form was embodied the almighty power of the divine spirit.
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