Post by Malcolm on Jul 7, 2013 23:29:49 GMT -5
I was researching some theories of Ralph Ellis which led me to 'The Legend of the Destruction of Mankind' and then got diverted into Budge's book on Egyptian Magic. This is all on touregypt pages and for anyone wanting to learn more about the biblical Egyptian connection I recommend copying from these pages beginning with touregypt.net/egyptmagic1.htm into a Word file, then reading and studying at leisure.
These extracts will give some idea:
"In the first volume of this series an attempt was made to set before the reader a statement of the ideas and beliefs which the ancient Egyptians held in respect of God, the "gods," the Judgment, the Resurrection, and Immortality; in short, to sketch in brief outline much of what was beautiful, and noble, and sublime in their religion. The facts of this statement were derived wholly from native religious works, the latest of which is some thousands of years old, and the earliest of which may be said to possess an antiquity of between six and seven thousand years; the extracts quoted in support of the deductions set forth in it were intended to enable the reader to judge for himself as to the general accuracy of the conclusions there given.
Many writers on the Egyptian religion have somewhat blinked the fact that it had two sides; on the one it closely resembles in many respects the Christian religion of to-day, and on the other the religion of many of the sects which flourished in the first three or four centuries of our era, and which may be said to have held beliefs which were part Christian and part non-Christian.
In its non-Christian aspect it represents a collection of ideas and superstitions which belong to a savage or semi-savage state of existence, and which maintained their hold in a degree upon the minds of the Egyptians long after they had advanced to a high state of civilization. We may think that such ideas and beliefs are both childish and foolish, but there is no possible reason for doubting that they were very real things to those who held them, and whether they are childish or foolish or both they certainly passed into the religion of the people of Egypt, wherein they grew and flourished, and were, at least many of them, adopted by the Egyptian converts to Christianity, or Copts.
It has been said above that the name or the emblem or the picture of a god or demon could become an amulet with power to protect him that wore it, and that such power lasted as long as the substance of which it was made lasted, if the name, or emblem, or picture was not erased from it. But the Egyptians went a step further than this, and they believed that it was possible to transmit to the figure of any man, or woman, or animal or living creature, the soul of the being which it represented, and its qualities and attributes.
The statue of a god in a temple contained the spirit of the god which it represented, and from time immemorial the people of Egypt believed that every statue and every figure possessed an indwelling spirit.
When the Christianized Egyptians made their attacks on the "idols of the heathen" they proved that they possessed this belief, for they always endeavoured to throw down the statues of the gods of the Greeks and Romans, knowing that if they were once shattered the spirits which dwelt in them would have no place wherein to dwell, and would thereby be rendered homeless and powerless.
It will be remembered that it is stated in the Apocryphal Gospels that when the Virgin Mary and her Son arrived in Egypt there "was a movement and quaking throughout all the land, and all the idols fell down from their pedestals and were broken in pieces." Then all the priests and nobles went to a certain priest with whom "a devil used to speak from out of the idol," and they asked him the meaning of these things; and when he had explained to them that the footstep of the son of the "secret and hidden god" had fallen upon the land of Egypt, they accepted his counsel and made a figure of this god."
These extracts will give some idea:
"In the first volume of this series an attempt was made to set before the reader a statement of the ideas and beliefs which the ancient Egyptians held in respect of God, the "gods," the Judgment, the Resurrection, and Immortality; in short, to sketch in brief outline much of what was beautiful, and noble, and sublime in their religion. The facts of this statement were derived wholly from native religious works, the latest of which is some thousands of years old, and the earliest of which may be said to possess an antiquity of between six and seven thousand years; the extracts quoted in support of the deductions set forth in it were intended to enable the reader to judge for himself as to the general accuracy of the conclusions there given.
Many writers on the Egyptian religion have somewhat blinked the fact that it had two sides; on the one it closely resembles in many respects the Christian religion of to-day, and on the other the religion of many of the sects which flourished in the first three or four centuries of our era, and which may be said to have held beliefs which were part Christian and part non-Christian.
In its non-Christian aspect it represents a collection of ideas and superstitions which belong to a savage or semi-savage state of existence, and which maintained their hold in a degree upon the minds of the Egyptians long after they had advanced to a high state of civilization. We may think that such ideas and beliefs are both childish and foolish, but there is no possible reason for doubting that they were very real things to those who held them, and whether they are childish or foolish or both they certainly passed into the religion of the people of Egypt, wherein they grew and flourished, and were, at least many of them, adopted by the Egyptian converts to Christianity, or Copts.
It has been said above that the name or the emblem or the picture of a god or demon could become an amulet with power to protect him that wore it, and that such power lasted as long as the substance of which it was made lasted, if the name, or emblem, or picture was not erased from it. But the Egyptians went a step further than this, and they believed that it was possible to transmit to the figure of any man, or woman, or animal or living creature, the soul of the being which it represented, and its qualities and attributes.
The statue of a god in a temple contained the spirit of the god which it represented, and from time immemorial the people of Egypt believed that every statue and every figure possessed an indwelling spirit.
When the Christianized Egyptians made their attacks on the "idols of the heathen" they proved that they possessed this belief, for they always endeavoured to throw down the statues of the gods of the Greeks and Romans, knowing that if they were once shattered the spirits which dwelt in them would have no place wherein to dwell, and would thereby be rendered homeless and powerless.
It will be remembered that it is stated in the Apocryphal Gospels that when the Virgin Mary and her Son arrived in Egypt there "was a movement and quaking throughout all the land, and all the idols fell down from their pedestals and were broken in pieces." Then all the priests and nobles went to a certain priest with whom "a devil used to speak from out of the idol," and they asked him the meaning of these things; and when he had explained to them that the footstep of the son of the "secret and hidden god" had fallen upon the land of Egypt, they accepted his counsel and made a figure of this god."