THE POSITION OF THE SCARAB IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION AND THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. EGYPTIAN PHILOSOPHY. ADVANCED INTELLECTUALITY OF EGYPT SIX THOUSAND YEARS AGO. DEITIES OF LIBRARIES AND LEARNING. ANCIENT LIBRARIANS AND BOOKS. THE DIVISION OF LEARNED MEN INTO DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF STUDY. THE STATEMENTS OF GREEK WRITERS ON EGYPTIAN THOUGHT NOT TO BE DEPENDED UPON. QUOTATIONS FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD ON THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SCARABAEUS DEITY. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GREAT SPHINX. FURTHER QUOTATIONS FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, ON THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SCARAB DEITY.

As I have already said: the larger scarabs are usually found in the body of the mummy in place of the heart, which was always taken out of the corpse and placed in one of the visceral vases, that of Tuamautef. The scarab was a symbol of the re-birth, resurrection and the eternal life of the soul, pronounced pure at the psychostasia; and we know from the Book of the Dead, that at the moment of resurrection, in analogy to the beginning of terrestrial life, it was the heart that was asserted to be given to the dead so as to receive the first vitality of the second birth, it was through the heart that the mummy would revive, thence the inscribed scarab was placed in the mummy in the place formerly occupied by its heart when in terrestrial life. Sometimes the representation of a human heart was engraved on the scarabaeus. The small scarabs are not often found inside of the mummy. But frequently large stone scarabs have been found in it in the place of the heart, on which, incised in very small characters, are portions of the Book of the Dead. Those usually inscribed are, the XXXth chapter or those parts of the LXIVth, or of the XXVIIth chapters, which relate to the heart of a man. They begin usually with the formula: “My heart which comes from my mother, my heart which is necessary for my transformations,” etc. They are, following the commands in the Book of the Dead, frequently set in gold, sometimes in bronze, and sometimes are incised with the shape of the hieroglyph for the heart.

At some very remote period, so remote that we cannot even surmise its date, the scarabaeus symbol was considered as embodying not only the idea of the creator but also, the idea of the life beyond the grave in eternal futurity. Some scholars assert that the Egyptians rejected every abstraction and did not have any philosophy. This I do not and cannot believe from my investigations of their learning, but I do think, that we have not yet grasped nor understood that philosophy in its fullness, from the few remnants of it which have reached our day. The oldest texts and monuments show, a high condition of culture and thought as well as artistic feeling; the unknown deity was idealized and never represented to the eye on the monuments of early times; the Great Sphinx, itself a philosophical abstraction, was made long before the historical period; and the Book of the Dead, shows beneath its pages, a hidden religious metaphysical philosophy not yet unraveled. This was, likely, secretly taught by word of mouth as Qabbalah or Oral Tradition to the initiates, and was never put into writing. Some of these ideas we have just grasped, for instance, we now have some knowledge of the Egyptian divisions of the spiritual or immaterial part of man, of his psychology, and upon studying these divisions one can readily imagine, a secret religious philosophy accompanying those separations of the spiritual in man. We are also obtaining some knowledge, of their idea of God and of their kosmology and kosmogony.

Six thousand years ago Egypt had attained great advancement. “Its religion was established. It possessed a language and writing. Art under the IVth and Vth Dynasties had reached a height which the following Dynasties never surpassed. It had an especially complicated administration, the result of many years. The Egyptians had civil grades and religious grades, bishops as well as prefects. Registration of land surveys existed. The pharaoh had his organized court, and a large number of functionaries, powerfully and wisely arranged, gravitated around him. Literature was honored and books were composed on morals, some of which have reached our day. This was under the Ancient Empire during which existed the builders of the Pyramids." The deities of literature and of libraries already existed, they were Thoth, the Greek Hermes; Atmu, of Thebes; Ma or Maat, goddess of the harmony of the entire universe, or its law of existence, and of righteousness; Pacht, the mistress of thoughts; Safekh, goddess of books, who presided over the foundations of monuments and who was venerated at Memphis as early as the IVth Dynasty; Selk, who was also the goddess of libraries.

“In one of the tombs at Gizeh, a great functionary of the first period of the VIth Dynasty (circa 3300 B.C.,) takes the title of: ’Governor of the House of Books.’ This simple mention incidentally occurring between two titles, more exalted, would suffice, in the absence of others, to show us the extraordinary development which had been reached in the civilization of Egypt at that time. Not only had that people a literature, but that literature was sufficiently large to fill libraries; and its importance was so great, that one of the functionaries of the court was especially attached to the care and preservation of the royal library. He had, without doubt, in his keeping with the contemporaneous works, the books written under the first Dynasties, books of the time of Mena and perhaps of kings anterior to Mena. The works in the library would be composed of religious works; chapters of the Book of the Dead, copied after authentic texts preserved in the Temples; scientific treatises on geometry, medicine and astronomy; historic books in which were preserved the sayings and doings of the ancient kings, together with the number of the years of their lives and the exact duration of their reigns; manuals of philosophy and practical morals and perhaps some romances,” etc.

The learned of that ancient people followed special lines of study and thought. There was a division of them known as the Herseshta, or Teachers of Mysteries. These were subdivided, among other divisions into: “The Mystery Teachers of Heaven,” or, the astronomers and astrologers; “The Mystery Teachers of All Lands,” or, the geographers and those who studied other peoples and countries; “The Mystery Teachers of the Depth,” likely, the possessors of a knowledge of minerals, mining, varieties of rocks, etc.; “Mystery Teachers of the Secret Word,” doubtless those interested in abstract thought, religious metaphysics and philosophy; “Mystery Teachers of the Sacred Language,” men who devoted themselves to grammar and the form of writing; “Mystery Teachers of Pharaoh, or, ’of all the commands of Pharaoh,’” wise men, likely private scribes and secretaries of the king; “Mystery Teachers who examine Words,” likely learned men who sat as judges to hear complaints, and sift the opposing statements of litigants and witnesses. The learned writers known as scribes were also divided into many branches.

We cannot accept the statements of most of the Greek authors upon this subject, for the study of the last few years of the Ancient Egyptian papyri and other remains, shows that they either did not know or they willfully misrepresented, Egyptian abstract thought; about the only works, outside of the papyri and the monuments, from which we can gather as to it with any sureness, meagre details; are the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistos; the Osiris and Isis, of Plutarch; the work ascribed to Horapollon, and the book of Iamblichus, entitled: A Treatise on the Mysteries. The Greek writers upon Ancient Egypt, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Thales, Plato, Pythagoras, Solon, and others, of less note; give but little assistance, indeed in many cases their statements are misleading. It is a question yet to be solved, as to how much of the foundations of the philosophy of Pythagoras, Plato, Solon and other Greek writers, were obtained from the learned men of Egypt or their writings.

Chapter XXX. of the Per-em-hru, or, Book of the Dead, has frequently in the papyrus copies, a picture of the soul of the dead in adoration before a scarabaeus set upright upon a support. This chapter is entitled: “Chapter of not allowing the heart of a man to have opposition made to it in the divine inferior region.” It says towards the end: “This chapter is to be said over a scarabaeus of hard stone, formed and set in gold, which should be placed in the breast of the man, after the opening of the mouth has been made and the head anointed with oil; then the following words shall be said over him in right of a magical charm: ’My heart which comes to me from my mother, my heart which is necessary to me for my transformations.’” See, Appendix A.

The whole of this chapter was frequently engraved upon the large scarabs, which were placed in the breasts of the mummies in place of the heart.

The LXIVth chapter of the Book of the Dead, is one of the oldest of the entire collection and line 34 et seq., uses the same language as to the heart, and says: “Put it on a scarabaeus of hard stone set in gold, in the breast of the mummy, having engraved on it: ’My heart is my mother,’” etc. This chapter is fuller than the other just cited.

The CLXIIIrd chapter, lines 9, 10, says: “O Amen bull-scarabaeus, master of the eyes: ‘Terrible with the pupil of the eye’ is thy name. The Osiris (here the name of the deceased was inserted,) is the emanation of thy two eyes.” That is, Amen is here invoked as the bull-symbol of generation and also as the scarabaeus, that is, as the creator who has engendered himself.

Chapter CLXV. of the same book, has as a vignette or picture: The god Khem, ithyphallic, with the body of a scarab, etc., line 11 reads: “I do all thy words. Saying (them) over the image of the god raising the arm, having the double plume upon his head, the legs separated and the body of the scarabaeus.”

The rising sun or Horus, in whose arms it was asserted, the dead arose into the upper life, was represented by the scarabaeus under the name of Khepra, Khepera, or Khepri, this name among its other meanings signifying: “The itself transforming,” and this is hieroglyphically written by the use of the scarabaeus. The body of Khepera as a deity is surmounted in some of the representations, by a scarab in place of a human head.

In chapter XXIV. of the Book of the Dead, we read: “Khepra transforms itself, (or, gives itself a form to itself,) on high, from the thigh of its mother.” This is more fully developed in a papyrus in the Louvre which reads: “The majesty of this great god attains that reign (the twelfth division of the subterranean world, responding to the twelfth hour of the night,) which is the end of absolute darkness. The birth of this great god, when it became Khepra, took place in that region It went out from the inferior region. It joined the boat mad. It raised itself above the thighs of Nut.”

“O Khepra who created itself on high, from the thigh of its mother, i.e., Nu, or Nut."

Nut was the goddess personifying the vault of heaven, the sky, and the space, in which the sun was supposed to have been born. The scarab it must be remembered was in the Egyptian thought, an androgyne.

In a papyrus now in Turin, Italy, we may read: “I am Khepera, the morning; Ra, the midday; Tum, the evening.” It is said of Khepra as of Horus, that it produced the Ma, i.e., the law or harmony which uphold the universe, and it is merged with a form of Horus, under the name of: “Harmakhis-Khepra who gives itself its form.” One of the parts played by Khepra in Ancient Egyptian thought, is condensed in that figure which we find on the top of some of the Osirian naos’s or arks, the scarab in the middle of the disk emerging from the horizon.

The perpetuity of the transformations or the power to become, whenever it pleased, the form it desired; was everywhere recalled to the mind of the people of Ancient Egypt, by the symbolic figure of the scarab, the hieroglyph of the words: To become, to be, to be existing, as also creator, an amulet of power above all others. “Khepra in its bark is Har-em-Khu (or, Harmakhis) himself,” The latter is the sun re-born every day at sunrise in the East under the name of Horus, it is: “Horus in the horizon,” the conqueror of darkness. The scarab as Tum-Ra-Khepra is the, “illuminator of the double earth at its going out of the under-world, great god, and master of the Ma:” that is, of the Harmony and Law, whereby the universe came into being and exists.

The similarity attached to the idea in the symbolism of the sphinx, causes the close student of Egyptology to see, that the scarab and the sphinx represent similar ideas. The Great Sphinx of Gizeh near the Great Pyramids, is an image of Ra-Harmakhis or, “Horus in the two horizons,” (the rising and the setting sun;) one of the names of the sphinx is seshep (i.e., to make the light.) The sphinx is said to be, an emblem of energy and force united to intellect, it is one of the very earliest of the Ancient Egyptian emblems, that of Gizeh was old and needing repairs when the Pyramids were being built; (circa 3733 B.C.) That abstraction does not appear to me, to be beyond the philosophy of the archaic Egyptians. The head of the Great Sphinx signified the Khu, or intellectual part of the soul, in their psychology; and the lion-shaped body, signified force, vitality or energy, the life principle or Ka.

The promise of the resurrection of the soul was symbolized, by the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, old at the beginning of the Ancient Empire; by the Phoenix, and by the Scarab, the antiquity of the symbolism of which no Egyptologist has yet fathomed. We have it set forth in writing on the inscriptions of the earliest Dynasties.

On a stele found between the paws of the Great Sphinx of Gizeh is: “The majesty of this beautiful god speaks by its own mouth, as a father speaks to his child, saying: Look to me, let thine eye rest on me, my son Thutmes! I, thy father, Harmakhu-Khepra-Ra-Tum, I give thee the kingdom.” This monarch was Thutmes IVth (1533 B.C.)

In the interior of the pyramid of Mer-en-Ra (or Mirinri Ist,) 3200 B.C., was inscribed on the walls: “And they installing this Mihtimsaouf Mirini upon their thrones at the head of the divine Nine, mistress of Ra, it who has its dwelling fixed, because they cause that Mihtimsaouf Mirini may be as Ra, in its name of the Scarabaeus, and thou hast entered as to thyself as Ra,” etc.

“Salutation to thee Tumu, salutation to thee, Scarabaeus-god, who art thyself; thou who liftest up, in that holding thy name of lifter up (’from the earth,’ ‘the stairway,’ or ‘stairs,’) and who art (Khopiru) in this, holding the name of the Scarabaeus-god (Khopiru)! Salutation to thee Eye of Horus, whom it has furnished with its two creating hands (Tumui,)” etc.

Chapter XVII., line 75, of the Book of the Dead, reads: “O Khepra in its boat! the society of the gods is its body, in other words, it is Eternity.”

Chapter XXIV., lines 1, 2, say: “I am Khepra who gives to itself a form on high, from the thigh of its mother, making a wolf-dog, for those who are in the celestial abyss, and the phoenix, for those who are among the divine chiefs.” That is, as Harmakhis.

Chapter XV., lines 3, 4, read: “Salutation to thee, Harmakhis-Khepra who to itself gives a form to itself! Splendid is thy rising in the horizon, illuminating the double earth with thy rays.” The same chapter, line 47, reads: “Khepra, father of the gods! He (the defunct) has never any more injury to fear, thanks to that deliverance.”

Chapter CXXXIV., line 2, says: “Homage to Khepra in its boat who every day overthrows Apap.” Comp., chapter CXXX., line 21, XLI., line 2. Apap was the evil serpent, the executioner of the gods, that is, the principal evil one; and Khepra, the scarabaeus deity, overthrows the principal evil one, every day, according to this text.

“The Osiris (name of the defunct was inserted in this blank,) is considered as a lord of eternity, he is considered as Khepra, he is lord of the diadem, he is in the eye of the sun,” etc., says chapter XLII., lines 12, 13 et seq.

And in chapter XVII., which is one of the oldest chapters of the Per-em-hru, lines 76, 77, 78, is; “O Khepra in thy boat! (i.e., as Harmakhis) the body of the gods is even thy body, or so to say, it is Eternity. Save Osiris from those watching judges (i.e., Isis and Nephthys,) to whom the master of spells has entrusted, at his pleasure, the watching of his enemies whom the executioner will strike and from whose observation none escape. Let me not fall under their sword; let me not go into their place of torture; let me not remain supplicating in their abodes; let me not come into their place for execution; let me not sit down in their boilers; let me not do those things which are done by those whom the gods detest,” etc.

Further according to the Book of the Dead, the soul of the dead man, says: “I fly among those of the divine essence, I become in it, Khepra ... I am that, which is in the bosom of the gods.” (Chapter LXXXIII., lines 1, 2.)

Another text reads: “O it who establishes the mysteries which are in me, produce the transformations as Khepra, going out of the condition of the disk so as to give light (or, to enlighten.)” Chapter LXIV., line 16. (Comp. also chapter XCIII.)

Another text says: “I give vigor to the murdering sword which is in the hand of Khepra against the rebels.” (Chapter XCV., line 3.)

Khepra is also called, Tum-Khepra. (Chapter CXLI., line 6.)

Reaching the eternal abode, the soul, says: “I am intact, intact as my father Osiris-Khepra, of whom the image is, the man whose body is not decomposed.” (Chapter CLIV., lines 1, 2.)

On articles of furniture, on toys, on the coffins of mummies, on papyri and linen and other monuments, the scarabaeus appears and sets off in a strong light, the Egyptian belief in the resurrection and re-birth of the pious dead. The very idea of the transformation is shown, by the hieroglyph of the scarab for the word Kheper, i.e., to be, to become, to raise up. One of the most urgent prayers to be found in many places, in the Book of the Dead as made by the deceased, is, that he may go out of the under-world to the higher regions of light, and have power to “go forth as a living soul, to take all the forms which may please him.” Chabas says as to this: “We know that such was the principal beatitude of the elect in the Egyptian heaven; it allowed the faculty of transformation into all the universe under the form wished for.” The god Khepra with folding wings symbolized these metamorphoses.

It figures continually in the sepulchral paintings on the walls of the hypogea of Thebes, and it announces the second birth of the soul to the future eternal life. Some figures have the scarab over the head, sometimes in place of the head. In the Great Temple at Edfu a scarab has been found portrayed with two heads, one of a ram, the symbol of Amen, or Ammon; the hidden or mysterious highest deity of the priesthood especially of Thebes; the other of a hawk, the symbol of Horus, holding in its claws a symbol of the universe. It may symbolize by this form, the rising sun and the coming of the Spring sun of the vernal equinox in the zodiacal sign of the ram, but more likely has a much deeper religious meaning. Represented with the head and legs of a man the scarab was an emblem of Ptah.