The Civilization Of Ancient Egypt by Johnson Paul

Author:Johnson, Paul [Johnson, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780062046123
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2012-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

A papyrus showing the teachings of the writer Ani.

A dual faith demanded an atmosphere of tolerance, and the extraordinary diversity of Egyptian religion in the second millennium BC makes it clear that such tolerance usually existed. That was what made the Akhenaten affair so exceptional, as well as shocking. His sun-disc religion must have begun as an abstract, philosophizing cult, of a highly sophisticated and literate kind. It was the cult of his family but there is evidence it was practised privately outside royal circles, though only among the upper-classes. By trying to turn it into the State religion, and still more by suppressing the traditional observances, Akhenaten abandoned the policy of religious tolerance which was very old indeed – probably as old as the unity of the kingdom, which it had helped to make possible. Moreover, what was tolerable as a private cult among the rich became heresy as an official creed; nor was it popular. Outside the royal circle it was plainly unloved even among the bulk of the aristocracy, who did not follow the king to Amarna. Those who did were new men on the make or Theban ‘Vicars of Bray’. The Aten cult had the supposed merit of simplicity but there is no evidence that most Egyptians regarded simplicity as a virtue in religious matters; quite the contrary. Even at Amarna, excavation of the poorer quarters shows that the illiterate section of the population did not adopt Atenism as their religion, or rather that they continued to worship the old deities in private. After Akhenaten’s death or fall, a religious reaction of an intolerant kind was inevitable; hence Horemheb’s savage decree and his cartouche-smashing. Thus in a short space of time Egypt experienced religious persecutions both against and on behalf of the official creed, a hateful and uncharacteristic business. But gradually tolerance and diversity re-established themselves, and private wisdom cults and popular superstitions again became the warp and woof of Egyptian religious life, beneath the official surface.

It is through wisdom cults, and through the writings attributed to Ptah-hotep, Hordedef, Kagemni, Amenemope, Kheti, Ani and the Ptolemaic Insinger Papyrus, that we derive our knowledge of Egyptian ethics. Their approach was in marked contrast to that of the Hebrews, who on the basis of the laws handed down by Yahweh, and the essence of the scriptures, as interpreted by generations of legal scholars, casuists and rabbis, constructed an elaborate code of conduct which enabled a man to go through life in the certainty of doing no wrong provided he was knowledgeable and obedient enough. The Egyptians likewise accepted that knowledge was the key to goodness. But what a man had to know and understand was not the letter but the spirit – their approach was much closer to St Paul and the early Christians than to the Jews. However, unlike the Christians, they made no distinction between what was legal and what was moral, or between God and Caesar. Indeed, their Caesar was God. All revolved round maat.

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