Chapter IV

AKHNATON FORMULATES THE RELIGION OF ATON.

“No such grand theology had ever appeared in the world before, so
far as we know; and it is the forerunner of the later monotheist
religions.”--PETRIE: ‘The Religion of Ancient Egypt.’

1. ATON THE TRUE GOD.

Amidst the fair palaces and verdant gardens of the new city, Akhnaton, now a man of some twenty years, turned his thoughts fully to the development of his religion. It is necessary, therefore, for us to glance at the essential features of this the most enlightened doctrine of the ancient world, and in some degree to make ourselves acquainted with the creed which the king himself was evolving out of that worship of Ra-Horakhti Aton in which he had been educated.

Originally the Aton was the actual sun’s disk; but, as has been said, the god was now called “Heat-which-is-in-Aton,” and Akhnaton, concentrating his attention on this aspect of the godhead, drew the eyes of his followers towards a force far more intangible and distant than the dazzling orb to which they bowed down. Akhnaton’s conception of God, as we now begin to observe it, was as the power which created the sun, the energy which penetrated to this earth in the sun’s heat and caused all things to grow. At the present day the scientist will tell you that God is the ultimate source of life, that where natural explanation fails there God is to be found: He is, in a word, the author of energy, the primal motive-power of all known things. Akhnaton, centuries upon centuries before the birth of the scientist, defined God in just this manner. In an age when men believed, as some do still, that a deity was but an exaggerated creature of this earth, having a form built on material lines, this youthful Pharaoh proclaimed God to be the formless essence, the intelligent germ, the loving force, which permeated time and space. Let it be clearly understood that the Aton as conceived by the young Pharaoh was in no sense one of those old deities which our God ultimately replaced in Egypt. The Aton is God as we conceive Him. There is no quality attributed by the king to the Aton which we do not attribute to our God. Like a flash of blinding light in the night-time the Aton stands out for a moment amidst the black Egyptian darkness, and disappears once more,--the first signal to this world of the future religion of the West. No man whose mind is free from prejudice will fail to see a far closer resemblance to the teachings of Christ in the religion of Akhnaton than in that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The faith of the patriarchs is the lineal ancestor of the Christian faith; but the creed of Akhnaton is its isolated prototype. One might believe that Almighty God had for a moment revealed himself to Egypt, and had been more clearly, though more momentarily, interpreted there than ever He was in Syria or Palestine before the time of Christ.

2. ATON THE TENDER FATHER OF ALL CREATION.

Amon-Ra and the old gods of Egypt were, for the most part, but deified mortals, endued with monstrous, though limited, powers, and still having around them traditions of aggrandised human deeds. Others, we have seen, had their origin in natural phenomena: the wind, the Nile, the starry heavens, and the like. All were terrific or revengeful, if so they had a mind to be, and all were able to be moved by human emotions. But to Akhnaton, although he had absolutely no precedent upon which to launch his thoughts, God was the intangible and yet ever-present Father of mankind, made manifest in sunshine. The youthful high priest called upon his subjects to search for their God not in the confusion of battle or behind the smoke of human sacrifices, but amidst the flowers and the trees, amidst the wild duck and the fishes. He preached an enlightened nature-study: in some respects he was, perhaps, the first apostle of the Simple Life.

He strove to break down conventional thought, and ceaselessly he urged his people to worship “in truth,” simply, without an excess of ceremonial. While the elder gods had been apparent in natural convulsions and in the more awful incidents of life, Akhnaton’s kindly father could be seen in the little details of existence, in the growing poppies, in the soft wind which filled the sails of the ships, in the fish which leapt from the river. Like a greater than he, Akhnaton taught his disciples to address their maker as their “Father which art in Heaven.” The Aton was the joy which caused the young sheep “to dance upon their legs,” and the birds “to flutter in their marshes.” He was the god of the simple pleasures of life; and although Akhnaton himself was indeed a man of sorrows, plenteously acquainted with grief, happiness was the watchword which he gave to his followers.

Akhnaton did not permit any graven image to be made of the Aton. The True God, said the king, had no form; and he held to this opinion throughout his life. The symbol of the religion was the sun’s disk, from which there extended numerous rays, each ray ending in a hand; but this symbol was not worshipped. To Christians, in the same way, the cross is the symbol of their creed; but the cross itself is not worshipped. Never before had man conceived a formless deity, a god who was not endowed with the five human senses. The Hebrew patriarchs believed God to be capable of walking in a garden in the cool of the evening, to have made man in his own image, to be possessed of face, form, and hinder parts. But Akhnaton, stemming with his hand the flood of tradition, boldly proclaimed God to be a life-giving, intangible essence: the _heat_ which is in the sun. He was “the living Aton,”--that is to say, the power which produced and sustained the energy and movement of the sun. Although he was so often called “the Aton,” he was more closely defined as “the Master of the Aton.”[46] The flaming glory of the sun was the most practical symbol of the godhead, and the warm rays of sunshine constituted the most obvious connection between heaven and earth; but always Akhnaton attempted to raise the eyes of the thinkers beyond this visible or understandable expression of divinity, to strain them upwards in the effort to discern that which was “behind the veil.” In lighting on a motive power more remote than the sun, and acting through the sun, the young Pharaoh may be said to have penetrated as far behind the eternal barrier as one may ever hope to penetrate this side the churchyard. But though so remote, the Aton was the tender, loving Father of all men, ever-present and ever-mindful of his creatures. There dropped not a sigh from the lips of a babe that the intangible Aton did not hear; no lamb bleated for its mother but the remote Aton hastened to soothe it. He was the loving “Father and Mother of all that He had made,” who “brought up millions by His bounty.”

The destructive qualities of the sun were never referred to, and that pitiless orb under which Egypt sweats and groans for the summer months each year had nothing in common with the gentle Father conceived by Akhnaton. The Aton was “the Lord of Love.” He was the tender nurse who “creates the man-child in woman, and soothes him that he may not weep”; whose love, to use an Egyptian phrase of exquisite tenderness, “makes the hands to faint.” His beams were “beauteous with love” as they fell upon His people and upon His city, “very rich in love.” “Thy love is great and large,” says one of Akhnaton’s psalms. “Thou fillest the two lands of Egypt with Thy love;” and another passage runs: “Thy rays encompass the lands.... Thou bindest them with Thy love.”

Surely never in the history of the world had man conceived a god who “so loved the world.” One may search the inscriptions in vain for any reference to a malignant power, to vengeance, to jealousy, or to hatred. The Hebrew psalmist said of God, “Like as a father pitieth his children, even so is the Lord merciful”; and Akhnaton, many a century before those words were written, attributed just such a nature to the Aton. The Aton was compassionate, was merciful, was gentle, was tender; He knew not anger, and there was no wrath in Him. His overflowing love reached down the paths of life from mankind to the beasts of the field and to the little flowers themselves. “All flowers blow,” says one of Akhnaton’s hymns, “and that which grows on the soil thrives at Thy dawning, O Aton. They drink their fill [of warmth] before Thy face. All cattle leap upon their feet; the birds that were in the nest fly forth with joy; their wings which were closed move quickly with praise to the living Aton.”

One stands amazed as one reads in pompous Egypt of a god who listens “when the chicken crieth in the egg-shell,” and gives him life, delighting that he should “chirp with all his might” when he is hatched forth; who finds pleasure in causing “the birds to flutter in their marshes, and the sheep to dance upon their feet.” For the first time in the history of man the real meaning of God, as we now understand it, had been comprehended; and the idea of a beneficent Creator who, though remote, spiritual, and impersonal, could love each one of His creatures, great or small, had been grasped by this young Pharaoh. God’s unspeakable goodness and loving-kindness were as clearly interpreted by Akhnaton as ever they have been by mortal man; and the wonder of it lies in this, that Akhnaton had absolutely nothing to base his theories upon. He was, so far as we know, the first man to whom God revealed Himself as the passionless, all-loving essence of unqualified goodness.

3. ATON WORSHIPPED AT SUNRISE AND SUNSET.

In order to prevent the more ignorant of his disciples from worshipping the sun itself, Akhnaton seems to have selected the sunrise and the sunset as the two hours for ceremonial adoration; for then the light, the beauty, the tenderness, of the celestial phenomenon could be appreciated, and the awful majesty of the sun was not in great prominence. Akhnaton attempted to cultivate in his followers an appreciation of the gentle hues of daybreak and of evening; and he taught them to believe that the oft-mentioned “beauties” of the Aton were only to be fully understood at these times. In the gladness of sunrise and in the hush of the sunset, the emotions are most apt to be touched and moved; for in Egypt there is always praise in the heart in the cool opalescence of the dawn, and in the red dusk there is many and many a dream.

Phrases such as the following may be gleaned from Akhnaton’s hymns: “Thy rising is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, O living Aton, who dispensest life; shining from the eastern horizon of heaven, Thou fillest Egypt with Thy beauty.” “Thy setting is beautiful, O living Aton, ... who guidest ... all countries that they may make laudations at Thy dawning and at Thy setting.” “When the Aton rises all the land is in joy; His rays produce eyes for all that He has created; and men say, ‘It is life to see Him, there is death in not seeing Him.’” “When Thou settest alive,[47] O Aton, West and East give praise to thee.” “Thou settest behind the western horizon; Thou settest in life and gladness, and every eye rejoices though they are in darkness after Thou settest.” “When Thou hast risen they live; when Thou settest they die.”

The ceremonial side of the religion does not seem to have been complex. The priests, of whom there were very few, offered sacrifices, consisting mostly of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, to the Aton, and at these ceremonies the king and his family often officiated. They then sang psalms and offered prayers, and, with much sweet music, gave praise to the great Father of joy and love. The Aton, however, was not thought to delight in these ceremonies as He did in more natural thanksgivings. Why should God be praised in set phrases and studied poses when all the fair world was shouting for the joy of Him? The young calf frisking through the poppy-covered meadows, the birds singing upon the trees, the clouds racing across the sky, were the true worshippers of God.

One of the recently discovered sayings of Christ closely parallels Akhnaton’s utterances. “Ye ask,” it runs, “who are those that draw us to the kingdom if the kingdom is in heaven? The fowls of the air, and all the beasts that are under the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the kingdom is within you.” The contemplation of nature was more to Akhnaton than many ceremonies, and his thoughts were more easily drawn upwards by the rustle of the leaves than by the shaking of the systrum.

4. THE GOODNESS OF ATON.

In the gardens of the City of the Horizon Akhnaton was surrounded on all sides by the joyous beauties of nature. Here the birds sang merrily in the laden trees, here the cool north wind rustled through the leaves, setting them dancing upon their stems, here the many-coloured blossoms nodded to their reflections in the still lakes; and, as he watched the sunlight playing with the blue shadows, his heart seemed to fill to repletion with gratitude to God. “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!” was his constant cry. “The whole land is in joy and holiday because of Thee. They shout to the height of heaven, they receive joy and gladness when they see Thee.” How “fair of form” was the formless Aton, how “radiant of colour”! “All that Thou hast made,” said the king, “leaps before Thee.” “Thou makest the beauty of form through Thyself alone.” “Eyes have life at sight of Thy beauty; hearts have health when the Aton shines.”

As the psalmist sang, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” so Akhnaton, in the fulness of his heart, cried, “There is no poverty for him who hath set Thee in his heart; such an one cannot say, ‘O, that I had.’” “When Thou bringest life to men’s hearts by Thy beauty, there is indeed life.” The Aton “gave health to the eyes by His rays,” and, “bright, great, gleaming, high above all the earth,” he was “the cause of plenty,”--the very “food and fatness of Egypt.” To David, several centuries later, God seemed to be “a strong tower of defence”; and, thinking along the same lines, Akhnaton called the Aton his “wall of brass of a million cubits.” The Aton was “the witness of that which pertains to eternity,” and to those whose thoughts had strayed he was “the remembrancer of eternity.” He was the “Lord of Fate,” the “Lord of Fortune,” the “Master of that which is ordained,” the “Origin of Fate,” the “Chance which gives Life”; and in so describing him Akhnaton reached a philosophical position which even to-day is quite unassailable.

Unlike Jehovah, who was described as “great above all other gods,” the Aton was conceived as being without rivals; and Akhnaton now never mentions the word “gods.” “The living Aton beside whom there is no other,” is one of the common phrases; and of Him again it is written, “Thou art alone, but infinite vitalities are in Thee by means of which to give life to Thy creatures.”

Unlike Jehovah again, who was not infrequently thought to be a wrathful god, surrounded by clouds and darkness, and speaking through the roar of the thunders, the Aton was the “Lord of Peace,” who could not tolerate battle and strife. Akhnaton was so opposed to war that he persistently refused to offer an armed resistance to the subsequent revolts which occurred in his Asiatic dominions. The Aton was a deity to whose tender heart human bloodshed made no appeal. In an age of martial glory, when the sword and buckler, the plumed helmet and the shirt of mail, glittered in every street and upon every highway, Akhnaton set himself in opposition to all heroics, and saw God without melodrama.

Above all things the Aton loved truth. Frankness, sincerity, straightforwardness, honesty, and veracity were qualities not always to be found in the heart of an Egyptian; and Akhnaton, in antagonism to the sins of hypocrisy and deception which he saw around him, always spoke of himself as “living in truth.” “I have set truth in my inward parts,” says one of his followers, “and falsehood is my loathing; for I know that the King rejoiceth in truth.”

5. AKHNATON THE “SON OF GOD” BY TRADITIONAL RIGHT.

It may be understood how the boy longed for truth in all things when one remembers the thousand exaggerated conventions of Egyptian life at this time. Court etiquette had developed to a degree which rendered life to the Pharaoh an endless round of unnatural poses of mind and body. In the preaching of his doctrine of truth and simplicity Akhnaton did not fail to call upon his subjects to regard their Pharaoh not as a celestial god, as had been the custom, but as a man, though, of course, one of divine origin. It was usual for the Pharaoh to keep aloof from his people: Akhnaton was to be found in their midst. The court demanded that their lord should drive in solitary state through the city: Akhnaton stood in his chariot with his wife and children, and allowed the artist to represent him joking therein with his little daughter. In portraying the Pharaoh the artist was expected to draw him in some conventional attitude of dignity: Akhnaton insisted upon being shown in all manner of natural attitudes--now leaning languidly upon a staff, now nursing his children, and now eating his dinner. Thus again one sees his objection to heroics, and his love of naturalness.

But while he strove for truth and sincerity in this manner he did not attempt to remove from his mind the belief in which he had been brought up, that as Pharaoh of Egypt he was himself partly divine. Not only was he by reason of his religion the representative, and hence, in a manner of speech, the “son” of God, but by right of royal descent he was the “son of the Sun.” The names of the Pharaohs were always surrounded by an oval band, known as a cartouche, which was the distinguishing mark of a royal name. Akhnaton wrote the name of the Aton within such an oval, thus indicating that the Pharaoh’s royal rights were also held by, and therefore derived from, God Himself. There was thus, as Christ later taught His disciples to believe, a kingdom of heaven over which God presided; and although impersonal, intangible, and incomprehensible, the Aton was the very “King of kings, the only ruler of princes.” Amon-Ra and other of the old deities had been called at various times “King of the gods.” Akhnaton, however, applied to Aton the words “King and God.”

Akhnaton is spoken of as “the unique one of Ra, whose beauties Aton created,” and as “the beloved son of Aton,” whom “Aton bare.” Addressing the Aton, his courtiers were wont to say, “Thy rays are on Thy bright image, the Ruler of Truth (_i.e._, the King), who proceeded from eternity. Thou givest to him Thy duration and Thy years; Thou hearkenest to all that is in his heart, because Thou lovest him. Thou makest him like the Aton, him Thy child, the King.” “Thou lookest on him, for he proceeded[48] from Thee.” “Thou hast placed him beside Thee for ever and ever, for he loves to gaze upon Thee.... Thou hast set him there till the swan shall turn black and the crow turn white, till the hills rise up to travel and the deeps rush into the rivers.” “While heaven is, he shall be.” Some of the Pharaohs had called themselves “the beautiful child of Amon”; and Akhnaton, borrowing this phrase, was sometimes spoken of as “the beautiful child of the Aton.”[49]

In his capacity as Pharaoh and “son of God,” Akhnaton demanded and received a very considerable amount of ceremonial homage; but he never blinded himself to the fact that he was primarily but a simple man. He most sincerely wished that his private life should be a worthy example to his subjects, and he earnestly desired that it should be observed in all its naturalness and simplicity. He did his utmost to elevate the position of women and the sanctity of the family by displaying to the world the ideal conditions of his own married life. He made a point of caressing his wife in public, putting his arm around her neck in the sight of all men. As we have seen, one of his forms of oath was, “As my heart is happy in the Queen and her children....” He spoke of his wife always as “Mistress of his happiness, ... at hearing whose voice the King rejoices.” “Lady of grace” was she, “great of love” and “fair of face.” Every wish that she expressed, declared Akhnaton, was executed by him. Even on the most ceremonious occasions the queen sat beside her husband and held his hand, while their children frolicked around them; for such things pleased that gentle father more than the savour of burnt-offerings. It is seldom that the Pharaoh is represented in the reliefs without his family; and, in opposition to all tradition, the queen is shown upon the same scale of size and importance as that of her husband. Akhnaton’s devotion to his children is very marked, and he taught his disciples to believe that God was the father, the mother, the nurse, and the friend of the young. Thus, though “son of God,” Akhnaton preached the beauty of the human family, and laid stress on the sanctity of marriage and parenthood.

6. THE CONNECTIONS OF THE ATON WORSHIP WITH OLDER RELIGIONS.

In developing his religion Akhnaton must have come into almost daily conflict with the priesthoods of the old gods of Egypt; and even the Heliopolitan Ra-Horakhti, from which his own faith had been evolved, now fell far short of his ideals. He does not seem, however, to have yet imposed the worship of the Aton upon the provinces, nor to have persecuted the various priesthoods. He hoped, no doubt, that he would be able to persuade the whole country to his views as soon as those views were thoroughly matured; and, secure in his new city, he was free to purge his religion of its faults before declaring all other creeds illegal.

It is probable that the sacred bull, Mnevis, was banished from his ceremonies at an early date, for no tombs seem to have been made for these holy creatures, and they are not referred to after the sixth year of the king’s reign. The priests of Heliopolis would now have hardly recognised their doctrines in the exalted faith of the Aton, though here and there some point of close contact might have been observed. One may also detect slight resemblances to the Adonis religions of Syria, from whence the Aton had originally come. Mention has already been made of the worship of Adonis. So widespread was that deity’s power that it very naturally affected many other religions. In the Biblical Psalms one finds several echoes of this old pagan worship, as for example in the lines from Psalm xix., which read:--

The heavens declare the glory of God....
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And he rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
There is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

Here one surely must recognise the youthful Adonis, the bridegroom of Venus. And similarly in the Heliopolitan worship, at the commencement of Akhnaton’s reign, the sun, Ra, is referred to in the following terms: “Thou art beautiful and youthful as Aton before thy mother Hathor [Venus].”

In Akhnaton’s religion one may still catch a fleeting glimpse of Adonis. One of the king’s courtiers, named May, held the office of “Overseer of the House for sending Aton to rest.”[50] Akhnaton’s queen is mentioned in the tomb of Ay under the peculiar title of “She who sends the Aton to rest with a sweet voice, and with her two beautiful hands bearing two systrums.” This “house” was, no doubt, the temple at which the vesper prayers to the Aton were said at sunset, and from the above title of the queen it would seem that she had particular charge of these evening ceremonies. One cannot contemplate the fact that it was a woman who officiated at a ceremony which consisted of a lament[51] for the death of the sun without seeing in it some connection, however faint, with the story of Venus and Adonis. The lament of Venus for the death of Adonis--_i.e._, the setting of the sun--was one of the fundamental ceremonies of the Mediterranean religions. Here again was a connection with an older religion for Akhnaton to consider and perhaps to purge away; and one may suppose that all such derivatives from earlier faiths were gradually eliminated as the young king developed his creed. Soon not a scrap of superstition remained in the religion; and one may credit this Pharaoh of three thousand years ago with as great a freedom from the trammels of traditional superstition as that of the advanced thinker of to-day.

7. THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH.

“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun,” says Holy Writ in words which might have fallen from the lips of Akhnaton; “but though a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many.” As Akhnaton had completely revolutionised the beliefs of the Egyptians as to the nature of God, so he altered and purged their theories regarding the existence of the soul after death. According to the old beliefs, as we have seen, the soul of a man had to pass through awful places up to the judgment throne of Osiris, where he was weighed in the balances. If he was found wanting he was devoured by a ferocious monster, but if the scales turned in his favour he was accepted into the Elysian fields. So many were the spirits, bogies, and demigods which he was likely to meet before the goal was reached that he had to know by heart a tedious string of formulæ, the correct repetition of which, and the correct making of the related magic, alone ensured his safe passage.

Akhnaton flung all these formulæ into the fire. Djins, bogies, spirits, monsters, demigods, demons, and Osiris himself with all his court, were swept into the blaze and reduced to ashes. Akhnaton believed that when a man died his soul continued to exist as a kind of astral, immaterial ghost, sometimes resting in the dreamy halls of heaven, and sometimes visiting, in shadowy form, the haunts of the earthly life. By some of the inscriptions one is led to suppose that, as in the fourth article of the Christian faith, so in the teachings of Akhnaton, the body was thought to take again after death its “flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature.” But just as there is some doubt and some vagueness in the mind of Christian thinkers as to the meaning of this article, so in Akhnaton’s doctrine there was some uncertainty as to whether the body was entirely spiritual or in a manner material in its hazy existence in the Hills of the West. The disembodied soul still craved the pleasures of earthly life and shunned its sorrows; still felt hunger and thirst and enjoyed a draught of water or a meal of solid food; still warmed itself in the sunshine or sought coolness in the shadows.

We hear nothing of hell; for Akhnaton, in the tenderness of his heart, could not bring himself to believe that God would allow suffering in any of His creatures, however sinful. The inscriptions seem rather to indicate that there was no future life for the wicked,--that they were annihilated; though in almost every man one may suppose that there was enough good to recommend him to the mercy of a God so loving as the Aton.

The first great wish of the deceased was that he might each day leave the dim underworld in order to see the light of the sun upon earth. This had been the prayer of the Egyptians from time immemorial, and to suit the religion of the Aton its wording alone was changed. The disciple of Akhnaton asked to be allowed “to go out from the underworld in the morning to see Aton as he rises.” He prayed insistently, passionately, in varied language, that his spirit might “go forth to see the sun’s rays,” that his “two eyes might be opened to see the sun,” that there might be “no failure to see it,” that the “vision of the sun’s fair face might never be lost to him,” that he “might obtain a sight of the beauty of each recurring sunrise,” and that “the sun’s rays might spread over his body.” Sometimes it is the Aton whom the soul thus craves to see; sometimes it is Ra, the sun; but always it seems to be the actual light and warmth of the sunshine which is so passionately desired. The abstract conditions of the future life could but be interpreted in terms of human experience; and in contemplating that cold, desolate mystery of death, Akhnaton could find no better means of banishing the gloom than by praying for a continuance of the blessed light of the day. And the man who prayed that his soul might see the sunshine but asked that he might still know the joy of the presence of God, for God was the light of the world.

His second wish was that he might retain the favour of the king and queen after death, and that his soul might serve their souls in the palaces of the dead. He asks for “readiness in the presence of the King” to do his bidding; he prays that he may be admitted into the palace, “entering it in favour and leaving it in love”; that he may “attend the King every day”; and that he may “receive honour in the presence of the King.”

For his mental contentment in the underworld he earnestly desired that “his name might be remembered and established on earth,” that there might be “a happy memory of him in the King’s palace,” and “a continuance of his name in the mouths of the courtiers,” where he hoped that it “might be welcome.” “May my name thrive in the tomb-chapel,” he says. “May my name not be to seek in my mansion. May it be celebrated for ever.” So, too, at the present day the words _In Memoriam_ are goodly words; and that a man’s memory may be kept green is a thing very generally desired.

8. THE MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL.

In order that the soul might have its link with earth, the worshipper of the Aton prayed that his mummy might remain “firm” and uncorrupted, that the “flesh might live upon the bones,” and that his limbs might remain “knit together.” The Egyptians of other days believed that the body itself would live again at the resurrection, this being the reason why they attempted so carefully to preserve it; and Akhnaton does not appear to have altered this conception of the nature of the material body. So, too, in the Christian faith it is thought that at the last day the graves will give up their dead.

The spiritual body retained the form and the individuality of the material body, and therefore, in a somewhat vague manner, it was thought that the needs of the soul would not be very dissimilar from those of the body upon earth. Christ, after His resurrection, asked for food; and the feasts of Paradise are more than allegory to many a Christian. Likewise the follower of Akhnaton believed that material food, or its spiritual equivalent, would be necessary to the soul’s welfare in the next world. “May I be called by my name,” says he, “and come at the summons, in order to feed upon the good things provided upon the temple altar.” It would seem that through fidelity to the Aton creed he might have the privilege of partaking of the offerings made at the great ceremonies in the temple; for, after these sacrifices had been offered, the food, probably, was distributed to the priests and to those attached to the tombs, who represented the interests of the dead. Thus the deceased prays that he may enjoy “a reception of that which has been offered in the temple”; “a reception of offerings of the King’s giving in every shrine”; “a drink-offering in the temple of Aton”; “food deposited on the altar every day”; and “everything that is offered in the sanctuary of Aton in the City of the Horizon of Aton.” He further asks that “wine may be poured out” for him, and that “the children of his house may spill a libation for him at the entrance of his tomb.”

While life lasted God was very apparent to those who sought Him. Wherever the sun shone, wherever the great pulse of the earth beat beneath one, wherever the river flowed or the garden bloomed, there was God to be found; for God was happiness, was beauty, was love. But when the cold mists of death had enveloped a man, when there was no longer any spring-time nor any opening of the blossoms, how should there be contentment any more? From the depths of his heart Akhnaton urged his followers to pray God that He might provide this happiness, though it could only be voiced in very human words. It was not “sweet perfume” nor “the smell of incense” that the soul required; but how else could the pleasure of light-heartedness be worded? They prayed that their “limbs might be provided with pleasure every day.” In the stagnant air of the tomb they craved for the touch of the “sweet breeze,” for “the breath of the pleasant airs of the north wind.” They hoped in shadowy form to be able to visit the beloved scenes of their lifetime. “May I raise myself up and forget languor,” prays one. “May I leave and enter my mansion,” says another. “May my soul not be shut off from that which it desires. May I walk as I will in the grove that I have made upon earth. May I drink the water at the edge of my lake every day without ceasing.” “May water be poured out from my cistern,” cries a third; “may I receive fruit from my trees.” Incessantly each man implores God to grant that he may cool his parched lips with water. “A draught of water at the banks of the river,” is his desire; “a draught of water at the swirl of the stream.” While he smells “the scent of the wind” blowing amidst the petals of “a bouquet of Aton,” and while there runs “a brook of water” by his side, he need not know the horror of death. And thus, by receiving “everything good and sweet,” he may hope for “health and prosperity” in the hills and the valleys of the West; for a “happy life, provided with pleasure and joy,” for “amusement, merriment, and delight,” and for a “daily rejoicing” throughout eternity.

It may be argued that this material conception of the life after death is not equal in purity of tone to the faith of the Aton. But is it, then, less lofty to believe in a heaven in which there is joy and laughter, a scent of flowers, and a breath of north wind, than in one where the streets are paved with gold, and where there are many mansions? By no religion in the world is Christianity so closely approached as by the faith of Akhnaton; and if the Pharaoh’s doctrines as to immortality are not altogether convincing, neither are the Christian doctrines, as they are now interpreted, altogether without fault. In the above pages it has been necessary always to compare Akhnaton’s creed with Christianity, since there is so much common to the two religions; but it should be remembered that this comparison must of necessity be unfavourable to the Pharaoh’s doctrine, revealing as it does its shortcomings. Let the reader remember that Akhnaton lived some thirteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, at an age when the world was steeped in superstition and sunk in the fogs of idolatry. Bearing this in mind, he will not fail to see in that tenderly loving Father whom the boy-Pharaoh worshipped an early revelation of the God to whom we of the present day bow down; and once more he will find how true are the words--

“God fulfils Himself in many ways.”

Since writing the above, another point in Akhnaton’s teaching has become apparent, from the scenes, recently discovered by the present writer, in the tomb of Rames. There is a scene often represented upon the walls of tombs of Dynasty XVIII. which seems to represent human sacrifice. The figure of a man is seen dragged to the tomb upon a sledge, and Sir Gaston Maspero has pointed out that this can hardly be anything else than such a sacrifice. This scene was shown on one of the walls of the tomb of Rames, and evidently dated from a period previous to Akhnaton’s revolution. When, however, the young king had formulated his religion of love he could not tolerate a barbaric and cruel ceremony of this kind. We thus find that the entire scene is here obliterated, almost certainly by the king’s agents. The objection to human sacrifice is closely in accord with his objection to human suffering as recorded on page 175.