Chapter LIII: Part III (3)

These texts were to be recited by the soul during its journey, as a safeguard from danger and to purify it at the moment of the solemn judgment which should decide its eternal destiny. The manuscript is intended to assist the memory of the departed. Under the twelfth dynasty these texts were often engraved on the sarcophagus itself.

Thoth, the God of Wisdom, was said to have dictated the _Book of the Dead_, the greater portion of which Bunsen does not hesitate to relegate to prehistoric times.[138]

Footnote 138:

Bunsen, _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_, vol. v. p. 110.

In support of this supposition, M. Deveria notices two very ancient annotations. The first of these, at the sixty-fourth chapter, states that this portion of the _Book of the Dead_ was found at Hermopolis, written in blue, on a cube of _Baakes_, under the feet of the god, where the royal son Hardanouef found it in the time of King Menkera when making the inventory of the temple. The second annotation tells that chapter one hundred and thirty was found[139] in the pylone of the great temple in the reign of King Housapti, who was the fifth monarch of the first dynasty, and Menkera built the third pyramid. Thus, at these periods, certain parts of the _Todtenbuch_ were discovered as antiquities, the memory of which had been lost; and certainly we find on the wooden mummy-coffins of the eleventh dynasty long passages from it, proving, therefore, its composition to have been long anterior to the Shepherd Kings, and consequently long before Abraham.

Footnote 139:

_Catalogues des MSS. Egyptiens_, p. 51.

The obelisks, or inscriptions in stone, have not, however, the impersonal and theological character of the writing on the rolls. On the obelisks the name of the departed is usually inscribed side by side with the names of his family, parents or children, and his titles and occupation are there given. At the head of the monument he is represented making an offering to Osiris, his judge, or his children are there depicted offering libations before the image of their father and reciting the liturgical hymns for his soul.

It is not rare to find the dead himself asking for prayers. The funereal obelisk of Neb-oua at Boulag ends thus: “To the living; to the ancients of the earth; to the priests; to the panegyrists; to the divine fathers; to all who see this obelisk: make for me your songs, beloved of Osiris, the Eternal King. Say: May the delicious breath of life breathe in the face of Neb-oua, the first prophet of Osiris, the acknowledged just one.”[140]

Footnote 140:

_Notice des Princip. Monum._ Par M. Mariette.

Again, on the lid of a sarcophagus in the same museum (No. 978) we find a “Prayer to be said by every person who draws near to this tomb: May God give thee light,[141] and may its beams shine into thine eyes; may he breathe into thy nostrils the breath which thou must breathe to live.”

Footnote 141:

As this formula recalls the _Lux perpetua liceat eis_ of the Catholic,
so also we find on the tombs of Egypt the _Requiescat in pace_.

The personal details, which vary upon every obelisk, are accompanied by formulæ taken from the _Book of the Dead_, which recall the faith of the departed in the resurrection of the body; the rewards and punishments of a future life; the judgment, presided over by Osiris, his redeemer; and the hope of an eternity of happiness flowing from the beatific vision.

Here we have, in fact, the profession of faith of the patriarch Job, a further examination of which will show us that the analogy is carried into the minutest details. In regard to it we will first consider briefly the Egyptian doctrine about God and the Redeemer.

Although nothing was originally more simple than the theology of Egypt, yet nothing could well be more confused and perplexing than it became as the commentaries of the schools and the mythological superfetations of each temple developed in the course of time. From its earliest to its latest days Egypt believed in one God, personal, uncreated, almighty, the author and watchful preserver of the universe. How, then, it may be asked, can its exuberant polytheism be reconciled with this doctrine? In traversing the galleries filled with long ranks of the Egyptian deities—Thoth with the head of an ibis and the hawk-headed Horus being conspicuous among them—we pass along the stony piles of these antique and impenetrable monstrosities as if under the influence of a nightmare, while the words of liberated Israel echo from distant ages in our ears: “Os habent et non loquentur; oculos habent et non videbunt; manus habent et non palpabunt; pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in gutture suo.” And we ask what there can be of just and true behind the strange forms of these old-world phantoms.

The answer is contained in the fact that the Egyptians attributed to God different names and forms, according to the aspects and attributes to which they wished to give prominence, while, under each of these names and forms, God, in his inalienable infinity, remained always the same; and, as if they had anticipated our perplexities at the sight of these battalions of divinities, they have taken exceeding pains to instruct us on this point. As the Eternal, God had one name; as Creator, he had another; as Providence or Preserver, another; and as Judge and Redeemer of souls, the name of Osiris. In each sanctuary the one God of the whole country, living in a Triad which, without division of substance, expressed the phases of his threefold existence, was worshipped under a particular form and name. He had a special worship, rites, chants, and ceremonial, unknown in the neighboring temples; but the hymns and inscriptions constantly dwell on the fact that each temple and each ritual was in honor of the only God, to whom belong all temples, and to whom all prayers are addressed.[142]

Footnote 142:

An historical fact which exercised considerable influence on the
religion of Egypt, and which helps to explain the multiplicity of the
names given to the Deity, was that the whole of Egypt which Menes
united under his sceptre was divided into _nomes_, each having its
capital city; and each of these regions had its principal god,
designated by a special name, but under these different names the same
doctrine always remains of a divine unity. Thus by the side of the
political there was also a kind of divine feudality. Tum reigned at
Heliopolis, Osiris at Theni and later at Abydos, Ammon was over
Thebes, and over Memphis Phtah. Each of these gods, identical in
substance with the gods of the other nomes, easily allowed this
fundamental identity. Ammon of Thebes gave hospitality in his temple
to Min or Khem of Coptos, to Tum of Heliopolis, and to Phtah of
Memphis, who on their part received Ammon with equal readiness into
their own sanctuaries.

The Egyptians knew that the Deity is an unfathomable mystery and can have no name. “His name,” say the texts, “is mysterious as his being.” Considered from this point of view, he is called _The Hidden One_—Ammon, whose image is enveloped in an impenetrable veil. In his uncreated essence God is invisible, but he has revealed himself in his acts, expressive of his wisdom, power, and goodness, and each of these attributes presents an accessible side, by which the mind can take hold of the incomprehensible, see the invisible, and name the nameless One. Having in himself all powers and every form of greatness, his names and forms are without number, and the texts, as in the Hymn to Ammon, expressly designate him as _The Many-Named_—the _Multitude by the Names_.[143]

Footnote 143:

“The habit of reuniting in one worship the different forms of the
Divinity continually led to their fusion into one personality. Sevek,
of Fayom, associated with Ra, became Sevek-Ra; Phtah was fused with
Sokari under the name of Phtah-Sokari, and Osiris, being afterwards
joined to these, made Phtah-Sokar-Osiris. All the divine types were
reciprocally interpenetrated and absorbed into the supreme deity. The
names and forms of God were indefinitely multiplied, but God,
never.”—G. Maspero, _Hist. Anc._, ch. i. p. 29.

The true name of God appears to have been, with the Egyptians as with the Hebrews, the greatest of mysteries. Probably it was not allowed to be written; in any case, as in the papyrus Harris, its utterance was forbidden. “I am He who makes trial of the warriors, he whose name is known to none. His name must be kept in silence on the borders of the river: whoso shall utter it, he shall be consumed. His name must be silent upon earth.”

We find this in the hymn to Ammon,[144] and the remainder of this text leads us further into the doctrine of a Trinity which Egyptian theology had preserved amidst other primeval traditions.

Footnote 144:

See papyri in the museum of Boulag.

“Creator of the pastures whereon the cattle feed, and of the plants
which nourish man; he who provides for the fishes of the sea and the
birds of heaven, who gives the breath of life to the germ yet hidden
in the egg, who feeds the flying insect and the creeping thing, who
provides the stores of the mouse in his retreat and of the birds in
the forest[145]—homage to thee, the author of all, who alone art,
... who watchest over men when they repose, and seekest the good of
thy creatures; God, Ammon, the preserver of all; Tum and Armachis
worship thee in their words, and say, Homage to thee, because of thy
immanence in us; prostration before thy face, because thou producest
us; ... the gods bow before thy majesty, and exalt the soul of him
by whom they were produced, happy in the immanence of their
generator,” etc.

Footnote 145:

Conf. Job xxxviii. 39-41.

It will be perceived that Tum and Armachis appear to form, with Ammon, a triad, of which the persons are distinct without being separate, each person being represented as reposing in one divine substance, of which each is an aspect, of which each expresses an attribute, and of whose indivisible essence each forms a part.[146]

Footnote 146:

At Heliopolis the divinity appears under three forms: Atoum, the
Inaccessible God; Choper, the Creator (the scarabæus God); and Ra, the
Manifestation of God—the visible sun. It was not until later that we
find a feminine divinity.

It is not to be supposed, however, that this lofty and abstract conception was appreciated by the multitude, with whom, on the contrary, the numerous names and forms of their deity degenerated into a monstrous polytheism, and who, in spite of the reiterated affirmations of the hymns and inscriptions, crowded their altars with fantastic idols.

But for the depositaries of the sacred doctrine there was but one God, living in the midst of the divine triads, uncreated, and the principle of life. He was also the principle of truth: “Hold nothing as truth but the Eternal and the Just.... Man is only the appearance; and the appearance is the supreme lie.... What is the First Truth? He who is one and alone, the Lord of Truth and Father of the gods.”

The explanation to this formula is to be found in the other text which supposes the Word to be the principle of the divine persons:

Hermes Trismegistes, commenting upon the above, says: “He who made the world made it not with his hands, but with his word.” And again:

“The luminous Word (_Verbum_), which emanates from the Intelligence,
is the Son of God.... The Intelligence of life and light engendered,
by the Word, another creative Intelligence, the god of fire and
fluids, who in turn formed seven ministers, enveloping in their
circles the sensible world, and governing it by what is called
destiny. This spirit is necessary to all; he gives life to all,
sustains all. He flows from the holy source, and unceasingly comes
to the aid of the spirits and of all things living.”[147]

Footnote 147:

We seem to have here a vague idea of the Holy Spirit, with his Seven
Gifts, which are resplendent in the world of nature as well as in the
world of grace.

This spirit, Tum, or Tum Cheper (creator), is described in the texts as “Master of understanding, ... giving to all things their motion: when he wrought in the abyss of the waters,[148] then was produced the gladsomeness of the light. The gods rejoiced at its beauty.”

Footnote 148:

“And the spirit of God moved over the waters” (Gen. i. 2). “And God
saw the light that it was good” (Gen. i. 4).

The Author of the universe is also worshipped as the principle of Goodness under the name of Oun Nofrè—the Good Being; and the inscriptions reiterate the appellation:

“His love is in the south: his graces in the north: all hearts are transported with his beauty.... When he traverses the heavens in his bark, and travels in peace through celestial space, his rowers are in gladness.”[149]

Footnote 149:

Hymn to Ammon-Ra.

Again, in the wisdom of his secret counsels, God is described as holding in reserve all that may happen in the future. “He is that which is, and that which is not,” says the _Todtenbuch_; “for that which is, is in my hand, and that which is not is in my heart.”

It has been necessary to dwell at some length on the Egyptian doctrines respecting the nature of God and his relation to the world before approaching another feature of exceeding interest in their theology—namely, _the history and office of the Redeemer_.

This mighty Liberator, the first hope of whom was given by God to our first parents, appears under various forms in the traditions of all the peoples of a distant antiquity, and among these traditions the most ancient and the most pure is certainly that of Osiris, whose noble and beneficent attributes raise him above all the divinities of other nations, represented as coming to bring succor to man. The Doctors of the church were themselves struck with admiration before this august figure, and did not hesitate to identify the name of Osiris with that of our Lord Jesus Christ,[150] being convinced that the belief respecting him was but an echo of the primitive revelation. It would indeed be difficult to explain otherwise its correspondence to the Messianic prophecies given later to the chosen people, or the analogies of the Osirian teaching with the accomplishment, in the life of our Lord, of the hopes which, during long centuries, it kept alive in the countless generations of Egypt.

Footnote 150:

This fact, which appeared inexplicable temerity on the part of
Tertullian, is justified by what has of late years been
discovered from original documents, which correct the classical
misrepresentations of Egyptian theology.

The special attribute of Osiris is _goodness_; it is he who is _Oun-Nofre_ the Good Being _par excellence_; it is he who, with Tum (or Phtah) and Thoth, partakes of the divine essence, and is called, like Ammon, _Neb-oua—the Lord alone_.

In the papyrus 3292 in the Hall of Tombs in the Louvre is the following passage: “Hail to thee, Osiris, ... the great eldest Son of Ra, Father of fathers,... King of immeasurable time and lord of eternity.... None knows his name; innumerable are his names in the cities and the nomes.[151]... Hail to thee, ... the one who didst rise from the dead. He is the lord of life, and we live by his creations; none can live without his will.” The second aspect of the life of Osiris is his sojourn upon earth in human form, his death, and passage into the land of the departed. Plutarch tells us that Osiris, lord of time, made himself man and reigned on earth, giving his people wise and holy laws; that he taught them agriculture and reverence to the gods, going through all the country to instruct his subjects, whose attention he won and whose manners he softened by the penetrating charm of his words and by music.[152]

Footnote 151:

It is of these innumerable names that the Egyptians formed their long
litanies, which are, as it were, the type of those of the Catholic
Church. M. Ancessi mentions having heard at Cairo some wandering
musicians chanting under his window an old legend in the simple rhythm
in which the melodic phrase, incessantly repeated, has a close
resemblance to the Catholic litanies.

The following is a comparatively small portion of the papyrus of
Neb-Qed, where the departed, arrived in the hall of Supreme Justice,
enumerates the faults which he has avoided, proclaiming, at the same
time, some of the titles of Osiris:

“O thou who marchest, [_who art_] _come forth from An_! I am without
fault.

“O consumer of shadows! _come forth from the double retreat_; I have
not slain any man.

“O purity of the face! _come forth from Rastou_; I have committed no
fraud on the measures of corn.

“O Two Lions! _come forth from heaven_; I have committed no fraud in
the dwelling of justice.

“O Flame! _come forth in turning backwards_; I have told no lie.

“O Rampart! _come forth from the mysterious abode_; I have done
nothing worthy of condemnation.

“O thou that vivifiest the flame! _come forth from Hat-Phtah_; my
heart has had no evil intentions.

“O thou that turnest back the head (etc)!... I have been no detractor.

“O mystery of the leg! _come forth from the night_; I have not given
way to anger.

“O light of the senses! _come forth from the mysterious region_; I
have had no intercourse with a married woman.

“O blood! _come forth from the chamber of the lotus_; I have not been
depraved.

“O thou who perpetually renewest that which is! _issued from Khem_; I
have not been violent....

“O thou who hidest words!... I have not been prodigal of words.

“O Nofre-Toum in Ha-Phtah-Ka. I have not committed abomination.

“O thou who art unchanging! _issued from Dadou_; I have done no
outrage against the gods.

“O thou who sendest forth the heavenly river! come forth out of Saïs;
I have not made the slave to be maltreated by his master.

“O thou who vivifiest intelligent beings! I have not defrauded the
loaves in the temple.

“O beautiful Neb-Ka! I have not profaned the meat of the gods.... I
have not taken off the wrappings of the mummies.... I have not taken
away milk from the mouth of the infant.

“O thou whose eyes are like a sword! I have committed no fraud in the
abode of justice.”

Each title given to Osiris alludes to some mystery or teaching in the
Egyptian theology.

Footnote 152:

Music amongst the ancients was, far more than it is with us, an
agreeable pastime. Socrates declares that philosophy is nothing but a
sublime music: ὡς φιλοσοφίας μεν οὔσης μεγίστης μουσικῆς. In the third
book of his _Republic_ Plato goes much further, and affirms that the
musician alone is truly a philosopher: ὄτι μόνος μουσικός ὁ φιλόσοφος.
The chanted poems and traditions were for ages the depositaries of the
laws, ritual and history of a nation.

Even according to the myths, however, righteousness does not long prosper upon earth. The Principle of Evil, enraged against him, compassed his painful death when his life upon earth had attained twenty-eight years[153]—often represented by twenty-eight lotus-flowers in the inscriptions, and fixed by the traditional age of the Apis.

Footnote 153:

It has hitherto been difficult to discover the circumstances of the
death of Osiris, or the primitive tradition of his sufferings, about
which several legends have successively prevailed. The one given by
Plutarch cannot be of great antiquity. In the Isle of Philæ, which, if
we may so express it, had a special _devotion_ to Osiris, the history
of his life is given in a series of bas-reliefs in a small sanctuary
on the west of the great temple, his death and resurrection forming
the principal subjects.

There is a splendid passage relating to this god in Plutarch, ch.
lxxix., _Treatise on Osiris and Isis_.

But for Osiris, as for the true Saviour, the hour of death is the hour of victory. He rises again, and reigns henceforth, king of an eternal kingdom.

The priests and faithful of Osiris could not endure the attempts made by travellers and philosophers to find a resemblance between this pure and lofty divinity to any of their own disreputable gods, or to fix in the depths of the earth and the abode of the dead the dwelling-place of him who had “no kind of communication with substances subject to corruption and death.” No other god had in Egypt so many temples and worshippers as this the favorite deity of the country, since, besides its own local divinity, each of the nomes worshipped Osiris and Isis, and thus the “Protector of souls” was, from the Mediterranean to the cataracts, the god of all the Egyptians.

The anniversary of the death of Osiris[154] was every year observed with lamentations throughout the land, until the hour of his resurrection, which was hailed with joy, festivities, and triumph; this people, always so anxious and interested about the future beyond the tomb, having for the “Lord of the life to come” the most deep and tender devotion. For, of all the phases of his worship, that which occupied the largest place and exercised the profoundest influence on the religious life of this great nation is connected with the office of Osiris in regard to each separate soul. All the funereal inscriptions dwell upon this. Osiris was not only their saviour but their judge. In the paintings and sculptures, and the vignettes of the ritual, he is usually represented enthroned in the Hall of the divine Justice, where, enveloped, all but the face and hands, in the shroud which had enfolded him in the tomb, and holding in his right hand the hyk, or pastoral staff (not unlike an episcopal crosier), and in the left a double-thonged scourge, he awaits the soul of the departed. At his feet are the divine balances, wherein will be weighed the heart of the dead. At the threshold of the hall Maat, the symbol of justice and truth, receives the soul and presents it to the Judge.

Footnote 154:

Most nations of antiquity have known the traditional mystery of a god
suffering, dying, and rising again. The worship of Adonis, long
prevalent among the Syrian races, penetrated, under the name of
Thammuz, even into the sanctuary of Israel (Ezek. viii. 14). Macrobius
speaks of it also among the Assyrians, and of the lamentations of
Proserpine; and the same belief is to be found in the long poems of
India. It is also probable that the Moabite worship of Beelphegor was
analogous to that of Osiris, Adonis, and Thammuz (see Numb. xxv. 2).
Women are here, as in Egypt, at Byblos, and Athens, especially charged
with his worship.

The soul’s first words on being brought into the presence of its God were: “I am the Osiris [such a one],” giving his earthly name.[155]

Footnote 155:

In the papyrus Neb-Qed we find as follows: “Words, on entering the
Hall of Double Justice to see the face of the gods, spoken by the
Osiris Neb-Qed. He said: Hail to thee, great God, Lord of justice! I
come into thy presence to behold thy beauties ... _on the day of the
giving account of words_ before the Good Being. I place myself in your
presence, my lords; I bring you the truth.”

This assimilation of the faithful worshipper with his divine type is one of the most elevated and touching characteristics of the Egyptian doctrine; nor does anything analogous to it exist in any other religion of antiquity—it is only in Christianity that we find it again. In the same way that the Christian is a living member of Christ, sharing in his life, rights, and merits, bearing his name, taking refuge behind the person of his Saviour, so does the worshipper of Osiris become a living member of his liberator, and another Osiris; and at the hour of death the soul calls for aid from him who had also passed its dark portal and come forth again victoriously.

Nothing is more touching than the prayers addressed by these suppliant souls to their protector; thus we read, in a papyrus of the Louvre: “Amensaouef the departed says to Osiris: Receive in peace this Osiris, Amensaouef justified.... Open to him thy gates, that I may enter there when my heart shall desire: may the guardians of thy pylones not fight against me, and may I not be thrust back by thy guards, that I may see God in his beauty; that I may serve him in the place where he dwells.”

To obtain a right to these favors, the soul, as in the litany already quoted from the Book of the Dead, recalled its innocent life; in the _Book of the Breathings_ the dead continues his justification by enumerating his good works: “O gods who dwell in the lower hemisphere! listen to the voice of the Osiris [such a one]; he is come before you. There is in him no fault; no testimony arises against him.... He gave bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty; he gave clothes to the naked;[156] he offered peace-offerings to the gods and oblations to the _manes_.”

Footnote 156:

Cf. Job xxix. 12-17, and xxxi. 16-22.

According to the result declared by the unerring balances, judgment was given, and the name of the righteous written down by Thoth in the Book of Life. The just had right to enter into the “Mysterious Retreat,” the place of eternal bliss, to eat the fruit of the tree of life, _Astu_, and rest in its shadow; to drink the waters of the river of life, to sit down at the heavenly feast with Osiris, and to find the fulness of happiness in the contemplation of the face of God. The impious were driven to endless punishment in the fiery gulfs of _Amma_, while “intermediate souls” were purified, by an expiation proportioned to their faults, in the Lake of Fire.

The most curious document, after the _Todtenbuch_, which Egypt has bequeathed to us on the subject is the long MS. entitled _The Book of that which takes place in the Lower Hemisphere_.[157] The author there describes, as if he himself had visited them, all the various localities of these regions of darkness. In it we advance, with Osiris and his dead, along the gloomy paths which frequently remind us of the wanderings of Dante. The way is divided into twelve “Hours” with their corresponding stations, and is peopled with mysterious phantoms and mythological forms, who sometimes stop the travellers and at others favor their progress. It is said at the seventh hour: “Who knows this, the panther devours him not.”[158] The name of this hour is, “He who repulses the reptile, who wounds the serpent Ha-her.”[159]

Footnote 157:

M. Deveria has given a summary of this book, in his _Notice des
Manuscrits du Musée du Louvre_.

Footnote 158:

It is also a panther that Dante encounters at the entrance of the
forest which is the commencement of the mysterious realm of Death. The
Egyptian texts mention also the lion, of which the Catholic liturgy
retains the remembrance in the Offertory for the Mass for the Dead:
_Domine Jesu Christe, libera animas defunctorum ... de ore leonis, ne
absorbeat eas Tartarus._

Footnote 159:

Each hour of this night has a name, according to the mystery
accomplished in it. The eighth hour is characterized by the defeat of
the great serpent, cast into the abyss. One of his names is _Apep_—_he
who lifts the head_, the _proud one_, represented by a serpent pierced
with arrows.

The most detailed description of the Egyptian hell is given in the third register of the eleventh hour. There we are shown seven goddesses standing, each armed with a sword;[160] the flames which spring from their mouths fall into seven gulfs, wherein condemned souls, hieroglyphic symbols of spirits, heads cut off, etc., are confusedly mingled amidst the fire. Each gulf is designated in retrograde characters by the word _Had_, reminding one of the Greek Hades; and each goddess has a name which indicates her powers and functions. It was this hell that was called also _the second death_—an expression preserved by tradition to the days of Christianity, and repeated by St. John in the Apocalypse, in which we find almost all the ancient formulæ of the religious beliefs of primitive times.

Footnote 160:

“In that day, fear ye before the sword; the vengeance of the sword is
burning; that ye may know that there is a judgment” (Job xix. 29).

We have now briefly to consider Osiris under the aspect of _the Risen One_. When, like the sun overcoming the shades of night, he rises from the dead, he is called Horus; and although the texts insist upon the absolute identity of the divine personality who manifests himself under these two aspects, Horus nevertheless, in the mythological form of the doctrine, is called his son—the Avenger of his father Osiris.

This formula, “I am Horus, the Avenger of his father,” occurs repeatedly throughout the _Todtenbuch_; the Avenger being the God himself awakening from the tomb under a new form, and taking possession of the second life that knows death no more; that which happened to Osiris being repeated in each departed soul, of whom he was the type and the Saviour.

Later on Egyptian mythology furnished Osiris with assistants for this combat with death. The _Book of the Lower Hemisphere_ represents, at the tenth hour of the journey through the lands beyond the tomb, and at the moment when the trial is about to end, four gods, each bearing a bow and arrows, with the legend: “These with their bows and arrows, going before the great God, open to him the eastern horizon of heaven. This great God says: Choose out your arrows, draw your bows; wound for me mine enemies who are in darkness at the gate of the horizon.”[161] This combat is renewed for each soul, and the avenging God invariably intervenes with his attendant spirits. M. Ancessi considers that we have here an unexpected and natural commentary upon the words of Job, “_I know that my Avenger liveth_,” and proceeds to examine the sense of the word _goel_, or avenger, of the Hebrew text.

Footnote 161:

Cat. of Egypt. MSS., _Book of the Lower Hemisphere_, p. 15.

In the social order of the wandering tribes a traditional law regulated that, in case of murder, it rested with the family of the victim to take vengeance on the murderer. It was for the son to avenge his father, or, in default of a son, the nearest relative, who thus became the _goel_ of the slain. It is easy to imagine the terrible effects of this fatal law, which still prolongs itself through centuries, and sometimes does not end before a whole tribe has been cut off.

But besides the earthly avenger, there was another—God himself, who intervened at the hour of death to adjudge the punishment of the wicked and take in hand the cause of the departed. Such is, in fact, the character of the mysterious protector whose aid is claimed by Job when he exclaims, “I know that my _Goel_ is living”; he can count upon him, as in his tribe he counts upon the never-failing avenger of the cause of the oppressed.[162]

Footnote 162:

Osiris surrounded his children with so much solicitude that he is
represented as even sending his attendants to visit their sepulchres.
We find, for instance, the following in papyrus 3283 of the Louvre:
“Said by Osiris to the gods of his suite: Go, then, and see this
dwelling of the departed, that it may be thus constructed; hasten it
for the moment of his heavenly birth with you; respect him; salute
him, for he is honorable.” It is curious to find so early the _dies
natalis_ of our martyrologies.

We need only allude to the frequency with which, in all poetical and imaginative nations, a metaphor becomes a myth, to perceive the facility with which the idea of the resurrection of Osiris became the birth of Horus in the cradle of his father’s tomb. Thus there was a violent death; there was a son; the next step naturally transforms Horus into the avenger.

How often is it the case that a word of apparent unimportance, having found its way into a dogmatic explanation, ends by entirely disfiguring its sense, like a graft left by an unknown hand in the bark of a tree, and which produces a complete change in its fruit![163] Thus, as time goes on, we find grouped around Osiris, Horus the Avenger, who is called his son, Isis and Nephtys, who are his sisters, forty terrible assessors who surround his tribunal and aid him as judge, besides a multitude of details which compromise and disfigure the ancient doctrine; while the text of Job preserves the mysterious germ of the Osirian doctrine in its simplicity and grandeur, and then applies it in prophetic allusion to the death and resurrection of Messias the Redeemer.

Footnote 163:

“How often would the Catholic faith have hopelessly foundered amidst
the innovations which the heretics and sectaries of all times have
attempted to foist upon her, had not an infallible authority watched
over her and secured her integrity! I know nothing more convincing as
to the necessity of this doctrinal magistracy than the incessant
variation of the religions of antiquity. From a distance, and at first
sight, they seem to have changed the least; whereas, on the contrary,
their history has been nothing but a gradual and perpetual change, the
laws of which it may not be impossible some time to discover.”—_Le
Rédempteur et la Vie Future._

An additional probability that the words of Job contain an allusion to this doctrine is to be found in the remarkable identity of the remaining portion of this text with the formula of the Egyptian papyri. After his affirmation of faith in a living Redeemer Job immediately adds, with the theologians of Egypt: “In my flesh I shall see God, whom I, I shall see for myself; mine eyes shall see him, and not [those of] another.”

The passages in the _Todtenbuch_ and funereal inscriptions are numberless in which we find it said of the departed:

Again: “I come to thee, Lord of gods and men; I come to contemplate thy beauties.” “I behold the great God in the interior of his tabernacle; in this day of the judgment of souls.”

The resemblance is so striking between the Hebrew and Egyptian texts that comment is needless; nevertheless, we would guard against the supposition that the ideas uttered by the patriarch were borrowed from Egyptian theology; for, besides that in the words of Job there is the absence of any myth or secondary personage whatever, it appears certain that these doctrines, preserved in greater purity in their primitive form among the Semitic races, may be traced back to the time of the separation of the families of Sem and Cham, whom they respectively accompanied into their distant wanderings as their most precious heritage; but whilst the scribes and doctors of Egypt gradually enveloped them in an exuberant mythology, the pastoral tribes of Sem preserved them in the simplicity of the first ages.

And yet all these doctrines, which are proved to be the heritage of humanity, would have been lost and buried with the Egyptian dead had it not been for the intervention of Christ. In vain for three centuries did the loftiest intelligences of Greece weary themselves in studies whose result was to prove that man was incapable of forming true notions of God, the soul, and our destinies from the chaos of systems which enveloped the original revelation when our Lord brought to the human race the realization of its venerable traditions and the faith of its earliest days.

Let it not be objected that the doctrines of the Redeemer were more ancient than his advent and known to man before he taught them upon earth; for man having always had the same duties to fulfil in regard to his future destiny, of necessity God did not leave him in ignorance of them from the time of his origin; and when, later on, they were forgotten, and the whole world lay in darkness, then arose the Light of which a faint reflection in the firmament had long heralded the approach, though clouded most before the dawn.

MILLICENT.

I.

About two years ago we were sitting in our sunny _salon_ in the Avenue Gabrielle, my mother and I, she reading, I at my harp, when Tomlins, our English maid, opened the door, her face all alight with suppressed laughter.

“Well, Tomlins?” said my mother.

“Please, ma’am, it were _such_ a joke!” said Tomlins. “I was a-comin’ past the porter’s lodge when I 'eard a gentleman trying that 'ard to explain himself, and he 'adn’t 'alf a dozen words o’ French, he 'adn’t; and the _concierge_ he could make neither 'ead nor tail of what he was wanting to say; and it _was_ that funny I couldn’t for the life of me but burst out a-laughin’!”

“That was a shame! You should have gone to the gentleman’s assistance, instead of laughing at him,” said my mother reprovingly; “he would have done so had he seen you in a difficulty.”

“I think he was Hamerican, ma’am,” said Tomlins, in a tone which clearly indicated that she thought this fact an extenuating circumstance of her misbehavior.

“That makes no difference,” said my mother; “you know enough of French, such as it is, to have been useful to him, and you should have come forward. But how do you know he was an American?”

“He wore a white 'at, ma’am, and that’s what Henglish gentlemen don’t use to, leastways not this time of year. He be the family that has took the flat down-stairs for the winter.”

“Oh! he is a neighbor, then!” remarked my mother; and, turning to me, she added: “Perhaps I ought to go down and see if we can be of any use to them?”

“Indeed, mamma,” I replied hastily, “you will do nothing of the sort! We have had enough of American acquaintances. These are most likely enormously rich people, whose neighborhood, if we knew them, would be nothing but a bore.”

“We have known some very rich ones who were exceedingly pleasant,” urged my mother.

“Yes, and that is why I have registered a vow never to know another—not if I can help it, at least,” I replied. “Just as you have grown to care for them they sail away across the Atlantic, and you never see them again! No, please, let us have nothing to do with these people down-stairs! They may be perfectly charming, and, if they are, all the more reason for keeping clear of them.”

“This is all very selfish and not at all like you,” persisted my mother. “These people are at our door, strangers, and at the mercy of the _concierge_, who will fleece them and worry them till they are driven wild; it is a real act of charity to come to their rescue. I will send Tomlins down with my card.”

I gave up the contest. I knew that, when there was an act of kindness to be done, it was no use trying to oppose my mother, especially on such selfish grounds as my present ones. The card was sent accordingly with a message, and about ten minutes later up came the whole tribe—Dr. Segrave, Mrs. Segrave, and Miss Sybil Segrave. They were simply beside themselves with gratitude. Their delight on discovering that there was a deliverer at hand, under the same roof with them, was quite affecting. How they ever found the courage to come and face the situation at all, with such a lively horror of its consequences, was a matter of great surprise to us. Miss Segrave spoke French fluently, but this accomplishment apparently was reserved solely for ornamental purposes; her disconsolate parents had evidently not thought of pressing it into such vulgar service as parleying with the _concierge_ and the cook—two domestic enemies before whom they had already learned to shake in their shoes.

There was something about the three that smote my heart at once. There was a freshness, a frankness, a spontaneous trustfulness that it was difficult to resist. I made a stand for it, nevertheless, and was as coldly unresponsive to their exuberant warmth of manner as was consistent with politeness. The doctor, however, took me by storm, and in one minute and a half I had capitulated.

He was only doctor by courtesy; he had taken every degree that could be taken, but he had only practised as an amateur, being, as my prophetic soul had warned me, “enormously rich.” He was about fifty-five years of age, tall, slim, dark, but he had a quizzical expression of face, a twinkle in his eye, and a spring in his manner that made you forget he was not a boy.

Mrs. Segrave was a complete contrast to him. Middle-sized, stout, and unfashionable in appearance, she had the gentleness and the kindliness of half a dozen mothers rolled up into one; her voice was low, her manner simple almost to homeliness, but full of that easy self-possession that stamped her at once as a lady—a most winning woman.

Sybil—O Sybil! How shall I describe her? She was not a beauty, and yet she made the effect of being one. There was a brilliancy about her that is indescribable; it lighted up the room the moment she entered. Pull her to pieces, and she was nothing; take her as a whole, and she dazzled you. Her features were irregular, her complexion was nothing particular, but there was a sparkle, a glow, a grace about her altogether that were more striking than the loveliest coloring or the most perfect symmetry. I can see her now as she appeared to me that first day, standing on her high heels, a little behind the doctor and Mrs. Segrave, her black eyes glancing right and left like flashes of lightning, her scarlet feather, set like a flame in her black velvet hat, illuminating her olive skin, and her gold-brown silk dress glistening like a separate patch of sunshine in the sunlit room. A most picturesque creature she looked. I longed to hear her speak. No one was kept long waiting for this in Sybil’s presence.

“This is the very kindest thing I ever heard of!” said Mrs. Segrave, holding out her fat little hand to my mother.

“You have saved a family man from suicide, my dear madam!” said the doctor in the heartiest tone.

“Father!” protested Sybil, “there you are making _such_ a character for us! Mrs. Wallace will set us down as a family of mad Americans. I assure you, Mrs. Wallace, we are all perfectly in our right minds, and _very_ grateful to you.”

This sortie broke the ice into splinters. We all laughed, shook hands, and sat down, and the doctor began forthwith to pour out his troubles. Their name was legion. He had not been twenty-four hours in the house, and the _concierge_ had already driven him to the verge of insanity.

“If I could speak to the rascal, I’d be a match for him, and soon make him know I would stand no nonsense,” he went on to explain. “But that’s where he has me on the hip, as Shakspere says; he keeps jabbering on, and I can’t answer the fellow. I know what he’s driving at, I know he’s robbing me; but what aggravates me most is that he thinks he’s fooling me.”

My mother poured all the oil she could on these angry waters, and in ten minutes I could see that she and the doctor were sworn friends.

Sybil listened so far to the conversation with an air of amused interest, just as I was doing; then abruptly turning from it, as if she had had enough of the subject, “You are a musician, I see,” she said—my harp and piano stood open ready for action. “I am perfectly devoted to music! I will come up and play duets with you, if you let me?” I said I should be delighted.

“But I like talking ten thousand times better than music,” she went on. “Music is a way of expressing one’s self with another instrument than one’s tongue; but one tires of it after a while. One never tires of talking; _I_ never do.”

I could readily believe this, but assented as to a general proposition.

“Do you read a great deal?” she continued. “I don’t. I find life is too absorbing, too full; one has no time left for reading. Have you? Human beings are the books I enjoy most. I am so _intensely_ interested in my fellow-creatures! I like to study them, to turn them inside out, to analyze their characters, to exchange views with them. I do so enjoy discussing life. Don’t you?”

This time she did “pause for a reply,” and I was able to make one. It was not very satisfactory.

“No, really! You don’t care for discussing life! Well, I _am_ surprised at that. Dangerous! What a funny idea! But if it were, that would only make it ten times more interesting to me; there is such an excitement in danger! If I had been a man I should have been passionately devoted to tiger-hunting. Now, life is a kind of tiger-hunt, when one comes to think of it; one can always get some excitement out of it—watching other people at the hunt, I mean. Don’t you think so? People take such different views of life. Good gracious! one would never get to the end of one’s friends’ views, if one began, even on one particular subject. Take love and marriage, for instance; what _can_ be more intensely interesting than to discuss marriage with a person who holds views _diametrically_ opposite to one’s own?”

She rattled on in this way for half an hour: it was very amusing. I felt very tame beside her, and I fancied she must have found me insufferably dull and unsympathetic. I found out afterwards that I was mistaken in this; her estimate had been very flattering. On reflection it need not have surprised me; there is nothing a great talker likes so much as a good listener.

We all parted most cordially, with mutual congratulations on the chance that had brought us together.

“I feel as bold as a lion,” said the doctor as he shook hands with my mother. “I am ready to brave an army of _concierges_.”

“Oh! keep the peace; keep friends with him at any cost. If you make him your enemy, he will worry your life out,” was her parting injunction.

“Well,” she said, when the door had closed on our new acquaintances, “what do you think of them?”

“I think them perfectly odious!” I replied.

“My dear Lilly!”

“Yes. They are just the kind of people we are sure to get fond of, to make a friendship with, and then away they will fly, and we shall never hear or see them for the rest of our lives.”

“You are determined to make a tragedy out of it, so I will not contradict you,” said my mother. “Meantime, I shall enjoy the pleasant neighborhood, and trust to its not ending so badly. They are here for six months certain, and if they like it, and the countess likes to renew their lease, they may remain for six months more. They intend to make themselves very comfortable, meantime, and to receive a good deal.”

“Humph! They will be sending us invitations to their entertainments, I suppose,” I said.

“That is very likely.”

“They will have their share in their thanks, as far as I am concerned,” I said; and I sat down to my harp again. “I have no fancy to go and figure as a housemaid amongst their magnificent American toilettes.”

“I am vain enough to flatter myself that my child would look like a gentlewoman, whatever her surroundings might be,” observed my mother quietly, “and that she does not depend on dress for her individuality.”

What else could I do but jump up and kiss her for this speech, and declare myself ready to go and sport my white muslin and pink ribbons in the midst of all the latest wonders of Worth & Company?

It was not many days before I had an opportunity of putting this heroic resolve into execution.

You may laugh; but it was heroic. I realized this distinctly, even before the supreme crisis of the eventful evening came. Sybil herself came up with the card of invitation.

“Mamma was putting it into an envelope to send it by Pierre,” she said; “but I said that was the veriest nonsense, and that I would take it myself. Of course you are disengaged? You _must_ be disengaged!”

“Unfortunately, we are,” I replied.

“Why, Lilly Wallace, what _do_ you mean!” screamed Sybil.

“Just this: that I am a trifle proud, and just vain enough not to care to look a guy wherever I go, and that I am pretty sure to look that at your house on the 22d. You will all be dressed to kill, as you say—rigged out in the very newest fashions by the most expensive dressmakers in Paris—and I shall have to appear like a school-girl in plain white muslin. I never wear anything else; mamma can’t afford it. I shall have a new one, and she will give me a handsome sash and fresh flowers; but that is all. She will appear herself in plain black velvet, without either old point or diamonds. If you think we will make too hideous a blot on your splendor, say so honestly, and we will spare you the disgrace.”

“Lilly, you are the very oddest girl I ever came across in the whole course of my life!” protested Sybil. “Why, how _can_ you talk so? You will look perfectly lovely in your sheer white muslin. I only wish we Americans were not such fools as to spend all our money on our backs as we do; I can tell you most of us hate it and think it awfully hard to have to do it. But we can’t help it; we should get so laughed at if we went to a ball in white muslin that we should _die_ of shame.”

“Well, that’s a pleasant lookout for me!” I remarked.

“Oh! it’s quite a different thing with you,” Sybil declared, and with a warmth I felt was sincere; indeed, I felt she was sincere all through. “You are English, and we know perfectly well you have a different standard in those things.”

“And my mother?” I said. “What sort of effect is she likely to produce in her plain black velvet?”

“She will look like a queen—that’s all; you know she will, Lilly.”

I did know it; I had known it as long as I could remember. I had been brought up by my mother in a black velvet dress, and believed, nay, knew, that she looked as beautiful and queenlike in it as if its soft and sombre simplicity had been embroidered in gems and beflowered by all the Worths in Christendom.

I confess, nevertheless—and I do so with shame—that I felt mortified at her having to present herself in this splendid gathering of Transatlantic rank and fashion in the attire which had borne her triumphantly through many a stately Parisian crowd. I was really dazzled by the splendor of the dresses when we stood in the midst of them. There was no distinguishing the young from the old, the maid from the matron; silks, satins, laces, jewels glistened indiscriminately on all. There was a great deal of beauty amongst the women—there is sure to be in an American assembly; but the richness of their dresses surpassed anything I ever beheld. In a French _salon_ you may expect to meet a great deal of elegance—some dresses that stand out from the common level of taste and becomingness by their more brilliant hues and elaborate trimmings; but here all were brilliant, all were elaborate, all were magnificent. I really did feel an anachronism as I stood there in my innocent, fluttering muslin, while these superb, many-colored birds-of-paradise floated and rustled all round me, sweeping the dark carpet with miles of silk, and satin, and velvet, and lace of every hue in the rainbow. It was like being shut up in a kaleidoscope; the pattern shifted, flashing into new forms before my eyes at every turn, until I felt fairly bewildered by the moving glory. What kind of conversation could go on under external conditions like these? How were people, women at any rate, to collect their thoughts to converse on any possible subject except the one that was under their eyes, brought before them in such victorious, fascinating guise? If they were not talking of dress, their own dress, their friend’s dress, dress in general or in particular, they were most assuredly thinking of it. And small blame to them. I know I, for one, could think of nothing else.