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.

    84/474 (page 70)
    certainly comes itself to life again. But he is much struck with the evidence that “ sometimes it is the deceased him- self who works his own resurrection.” As Osiris raised himself, so must his servants raise themselves. Again, he writes : “ The life of man was assimilated by the Egyptians to the march of the sun over our heads, and his death to the setting of that orb, which disappears at the western horizon of the heavens, to return on the morrow victorious over darkness. The terrestrial existence was considered as a solar day, and death, the issue of that day, was an image of the course of the sun in the lower hemisphere. The Egyptian descended into the tomb to become an Osirian (nocturnal sun) and to resuscitate as Horus (rising sun).” He derives this knowledge from the Ritual. But he tells us that “ Birch thinks these chapters of the Book of the Dead describe rather the assimilation of the human soul to the cosmical soul, and its absorption in it.” The striking likeness established between the Osirian dead and the god Osiris, leads Pierret to observe, respecting the powers of the departed ; “ This pious soul can, at its choice, unite itself to its khou (body-soul), raise itself to heaven into the disk of the moon in imitation of the soul of Osiris, shine definitely among the fixed stars, shine in the bosom of Nut in Orion, and be the servant of Horus among the moving stars (planets).” The 92nd chapter of the Ritual speaks of opening the tomb to the shade. As an Egyptologist explains : “ In order that the soul may give itself up in the Hall of Judg- ment, it must first open to itself the gate of the tomb.” Another chapter relates to the “ Day of the Birth of the Osiris” (departed). The resurrection is expressively de- noted by a bird coming to the corpse, with the cross of life in one hand, and the sail of movement in the other.