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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    castigatrices plunge swords into the victims, or vomit fire upon them. Apet, the hippopotamus goddess, a form of Thoeris, was pleasantly called “The nourisher of those who approach to the flames of hell.” Others of the female spirits of vengeance have heads of the lioness, and with hearts as hard ; they act under the immediate direction of Horus, the avenger, as well as the saviour. Thoeris and other female divinities devour the bodies. The devils move about with instruments of torture; bastinadoing, eutting, burning, boiling, beating, or tearing hearts and tongues out. The Garin papyrus shows some of them tormenting souls in underground cells. The forty-two judges of the dead are said to subsist on the blood of the wicked. Serpents, of course, have a deal to do there. Some, with legs, as the Caberiu, are to be seen pitching the bad ones into the fire,—women as well as men. But serpents are mainly utilized, under proper supervision, in ejecting flames from their mouths upon offenders. Horus even holds a great serpent, directing its volume of fire upon some wretched, pinioned criminals. Osiris is noticed similarly engaged. An immense serpent, in another picture, is vomiting flames upon the bodies of four de- capitated persons ; the legend over it is—“ the place of Nesr-nesr, or fire.” The roof of the Scandinavian hell was of serpents, that looked down on lakes of fire and the thirty-two rivers of mud and filth. Apes are, also, ministers of infernal vengeance. The boundaries of hell are guarded by them. Often they pre- sent themselves in the act of torturing souls. A copy of the Ritual has a picture of four apes at the corners of a lake of fire, with jets of flame near. At the last judgment apes are used to carry off the condemned to the place of torment.