Egyptian solar religion in the New Kingdom : Re, Amun and the crisis of polytheism

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. Front Cover Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom Copyright Page Contents Preface Introduction 1. The Mysteries of the Sun Cult 1. Preliminary Considerations 2. Knowing 3. Acting 2. The Iconography of the Solar Journey. 1. "Icon" and "Constellation" 2. The icons of the solar journey reflected by the traditional Solar Phases Hymn 2.1 Preliminary observations on the category of the Solar Phases Hymn 2.2 Phases of the Sun 2.2.1 Morning 2.2.2 Midday 2.2.3 Evening and Night. 2.3 Conclusion 3. The Phenomenology of the Solar Journey 1. Historical aspects: the discarded image 2. Theological aspects 2.1 Aloneness and Uniqueness 2.2 Remoteness and Hiddenness 2.3 Remoteness and Nearness 2.4 Omnipresence of the Light: God-Filled World 2.5 Life (Creatio Continua) 2.6 The Mystery of Participation 3. Stylistic Aspects: The Transformation of the Solar Phases Hymn 3.1 Morning 3.2 Midday 3.3 Night 4. Amun Theology of the Early Period: Eulogies from tombs: Hatshepsut to Amenophis II 1. Eulogistic extensions of the Offering Formula 1.1 Type A: extensions of the name Amun-Re 1.2 Type B: extensions of the divine name Re-Harakhty 2. Hymns 3. P. Cairo 58038 (Boulaq17) = AHG no. 87 4. Summary 5. Ba: Hiddenness and Oneness. Theban Amun-Re Theology in the Ramesside Period I 1. Preliminary observations 2. Oneness and Hiddenness 2.1 Oneness 2.2 Hiddenness 3. Transcendence and Hidden Unity 3.1 Transcendence and Personification (according to P. Leiden J 350 IV,12-21) 3.2 "Ba" 3.2.1 Instances where "ba" and "personification" appear together 3.2.2 Instances where "ba", hiddenness", "holiness",and "greatness" appear together 3.2.3 "Ba" and the life god personified in the elements 3.2.4 Ba and the All-One 3.3 One and All 3.3.1 Ramesside texts 3.3.2 Late Period texts (selection) 3.3.3 The meaning of the formula 6. Cosmic God and Saviour. Theban Amun-Re Theologyin the Ramesside Period II 1. Creation 1.1 Creation theology as "natural philosophy" 1.1.1 Heliopolis 1.1.2 Memphis 1.1.3 Amarna 1.1.4 Khnum 1.2 The transformation of the primeval god: the "imperial triad" as stages in cosmogony 1.3 Narrative creation hymns from Thebes 1.3.1 The Tura Hymn 1.3.2 The Hibis Hymn p1.32 ( =ÄHG 129) 1.4 The theme of creatIon in Ramesside tomb hymns 1.5 Excursus: The Role of Thinking, Speaking and Writing in the Memphite Theology 1.6 The three-tier world and the triune god 2. Life 2.1 The concept of the life god 2.2 The topoi of the life-giving elements and the emergence of the Ramesside idea of the world-god 2.2.1 Examples 2.2.2 Origin and development 7. Judge and Saviour: The God of the Individual 1. The problem of Personal Piety 2. Life 2.1 Not as cosmic element but as individual blessing 2.2 The concept of the heart and of individual divine governance 2.3 Theology of will: life and time in the hands of god 3. Saviour and Helper of the Oppressed 4. Judge 5. "Division of power" and "representation" Bibliography Index Sources The golden age of Egyptian solar hymns - the three centuries from c. 1500 to 1200 BC which have provided many hundreds of examples of them - is a unique phenomenon. No other period of Egyptian history, indeed no other culture, has produced such an abundance of poetry in praise of the sun god. There are among them an astonishing abundance of hymns that have an individual character and represent the textual expression of the spiritual-religious movement. The spiritual movement that is embedded in and expressed by them is the struggle to articulate a concept of the unity of the divine - the One God. The uniqueness or oneness of god is the central theological problem of the New Kingdom. The Amarna period is striking proof of the historical explosiveness of this problem. It is less well known that the problem was by no means solved with the failure of Amarna religion. There was a continuing attempt to articulate concepts of the unity of god and to harness this conception with the ultimately indispensable reality of polytheism in Egyptian religion during these centuries. The crisis of polytheism is primarily concerned with the conception of god, with questions of unity and plurality that are pushed - long before the rise of monotheistic religions in the proper sense - to the extremes of radical and revolutionary monotheism. The problem confronts us in the texts themselves; it is explicit, central and cannot be ignored. It is the dominant theme of the theological discourse which establishes the contours of Egyptian cosmology at the same time as determining the nature of the divine. The confusion in which Egyptian theology usually appears in the texts produces a degree of complexity that precludes comprehensive understanding of it. In this volume - a revised and expanded version of the original German text - solar religion and the sun hymns of the New Kingdom are studied in the greatest possible detail, with five different traditions distinguished and analysed. As the work demonstrates, the sun hymns of the tomb inscriptions, which reveal the theological process of solar religion in all its dimensions, provide a means of accessperhaps unique and certainly the first of its kind - to understanding a highly significant period and aspect of Egyptian religion. Revised and expanded, this volume deals with the religious traditions of ancient Egypt, which have come down to us in a state which is both extremely fragmentary and complex. New material - especially hymns collected in Theban tombs - now allows a much more precise allocation of religious texts and ideas in terms of time, place and social context. Within the field of solar religion, no less than five different traditions have to be distinguished: 1) the liturgical traditions of the royal solar cult, which for their secrecy and exclusivity are labelled the'mysteries'of the sun cult; 2) the traditional mythology of the solar course expressed in hymns and pictorial representations; 3) the revolutionary process culminating in the Amarna period, which discards the mythic images and gives a monotheistic construction of the solar course, a process which starts before Akhenaten's revolution; 4) the theology of Amun-Re, the God of Thebes, before the Amarna Period, a theology of primacy where one god acts as chief of a pantheon; and 5) the quite different theology of this same Amun-Re after Amarna, a theology which answers the monotheistic experience by developing a kind of pantheism - the concept of the hidden god - who is both cosmic god and personal saviour. Revised and expanded, this volume deals with the religious traditions of ancient Egypt, which have come down to us in a state which is both extremely fragmentary and complex. New material - especially hymns collected in Theban tombs - now allows a much more precise allocation of religious texts and ideas in terms of time, place and social context. Within the field of solar religion, no less than five different traditions have to be 1) the liturgical traditions of the royal solar cult, which for their secrecy and exclusivity are labelled the mysteries of the sun cult; 2) the traditional mythology of the solar course expressed in hymns and pictorial representations; 3) the revolutionary process culminating in the Amarna period, which discards the mythic images and gives a monotheistic construction of the solar course, a process which starts before Akhenaten's revolution; 4) the theology of Amun-Re, the God of Thebes, before the Amarna Period, a theology of primacy where one god acts as chief of a pantheon; and 5) the quite different theology of this same Amun-Re after Amarna, a theology which answers the monotheistic experience by developing a kind of pantheism - the concept of the hidden god - who is both cosmic god and personal saviour.