Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they no more recognize father and mother, their hearts have no more feeling toward their wife and children. This is the dwelling of a god named All-Dead. He calls every- body to him, and all have to submit trembling before his anger. Great and little are the same to him. Each trem- bles to pray to him, for he hears not. Nobody can praise him, for he pays no regard to those who adore him. He notices no offering that any may bring to him.” This is a striking representation of the irrevocable nature of death. This sort of amenti is more after the character of the Jewish sheol, a region of stillness and inactivity. Other accounts give the active side. There it is recognized as simply the continuation of this life after death. The temptations and trials to be there overcome are figured as serpents, fires, monsters, etc. It is in Amenti that fresh dangers have to be encountered, new triumphs to be gained. It is there where the Great Judgment, the Last Judgment, has to be faced by the wandering soul. It is in the Amenti that the final separation of good and bad is made, and heaven fixed for ever. The journey of the soul through this underworld was compared by the Egyptians to the daily course of the sun ; and, as one says, “ each point of the course of the luminous body was regarded as corresponding to the different stages of this existence.” A monument gave M. Deveria the notion that Amenti was divided into four portions. “ From each of these four regions or infernal localities,” he says, “ represented in this composition, proceeds a serpent described in a particular manner; thus, from the first, ‘ The Great God, Lord of Powers; ^ from the second, ‘ The Great God, Lord of Terror;^ from the third, ‘The Great God, Lord of Pre- eminence ; ’ from the fourth, ‘ The Great God, Lord of .’ ” The Soane sarcophagus, so accurately copied