The ancient Egyptian religion, even 2,000 years past its last original expression, remains a deeply studied enigma in the fields of Egyptology, philosophy and theology. At once with its contradictory abundance of divine expression, changing philosophies, and constant revisions, one might wonder if the phrase "ancient Egyptian religion" even refers to one religion at all. It is almost as if rather than being one singular expression of faith, the Egyptian religion is an aggregate of different faiths nurtured consecutively by one fairly static culture over a virtually incomprehensible expanse of human time.

The nature of ancient Egyptian religion, particularly as expressed through its understanding of the divine, has been debated since even before modern scholars could read ancient texts to support their theories. Arguments concerning the number, nature and necessity of ancient Egyptian "God" or "gods" proliferate in scholarly and popular literature, fueled by agendas alternately praising or damning the ancients for being either similar or dissimilar to past religions contemporary with ancient Egypt or more modern religions.

In order to understand any religion, it is necessary to understand what that religion purports to honor. In the case of ancient Egypt, currently, whether through lack of research or willingness to understand, we do not seem to be able to agree what that is. Today I will share with you some of the modern theories on ancient Egyptian religion, particularly those around the conception of divinity, and then compare these against what the ancients actually believed, as expressed in their own words. A discussion of agenda as it informs an understanding of religious subjects will also be made, as in the case of ancient Egyptian theology it has an important role, particularly in the light of modern discourse.

It may be impossible to answer perfectly the question of what the ancients believed, because we are not they, and to a certain extent we cannot partake of their worldview. However distant we are, however, I firmly believe that the legacy of ancient Egyptian religious texts can provide a glimpse into its theology.

Early Egyptologists, many of them Christians interested in proving or disproving the history of the Biblical literature of their religious heritage, seem to have had a number of opinions about ancient Egyptian religion, what it meant and what its true worth to the modern scholar or theologian might be. These theories seemed to fall into two camps: the first, that Egyptians were "primitive black savages" who engaged in totemism and decadent paganism, truly living up to their Exodus reputation; and the second, that while the Egyptian masses engaged in pagan excess, a few learned men, "initiates" as it were, were privy to a special secret "true" religion teaching abstract principles not unlike those of Christianity. Perhaps the most uncharitable description of ancient Egyptian religion, embracing both judgments, comes from Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, in From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt: "...the religious beliefs of the Egyptian hold from the time when the Egyptian savage filled earth, air, sea and sky with hostile evil spirits and lived in terror of the Evil Eye, and relied upon every branch of magic for help and deliverance from them, to the moment when the Egyptian nation hailed as their One God Amen-Ra of Thebes, lord of the thrones of the world."

Some scholars theorized a move to these assumed "initiatory mysteries" during the reign of Akhenaten and his so-called "monotheism"; others found in the Wesir cult with its dying yet living god a parallel with Christ and a possible precursor to their own faith. Both these approaches deny the worth of Egyptian religion within its own idiom or to its own people, and insist that it may only be worthy in comparison to later, ostensibly better religious beliefs. Neither approach allows an understanding of what ancient Egyptians believed about the Divine; rather, they simply pass a value judgement -- either dismissing Egyptian religion out of hand or wanting to make it the legendary source of the perfect best faith of their own agenda.

Religions can be very generally typed through their number and nature of divine beings, though there are religions defying such interpretation: either as monotheism, the doctrine or belief in only one god, or as polytheism, the doctrine of, or belief in, a plurality of gods. Ancient Egyptian religion has been, and continues to be, alternately defined as a monotheism or a polytheism, depending on the scholar, his or her agenda, and sometimes the time period of Egyptian history being treated.

To a certain extent, ancient Egyptian religion seems capable of meeting either definition, and hence defining it in modern terms is difficult if not impossible, because to a Western-trained mind, X can never equal Y, and the idea of a monotheistic polytheism or vice versa is absurd. Yet, in order to derive any worth from the study of ancient Egyptian religion, we must view it through its own definition. We must also acknowledge that whatever our personal beliefs, the ancient Egyptian did believe in, and derived spiritual worth from, his religion.

We must heed the words of Siegfried Morenz, else be closed into value judgment forever: "For my part, I do not believe in the Egyptian gods, but never for a moment have I forgotten that to the Egyptians, as to any believer, their gods were real." The benefit in truly understanding this religion is in a fuller understanding of other facets of Egyptian life, for the religious worldview of the ancient Egyptian, as in the case of most spiritual systems past or present, informed his entire worldview.

Copyright © 2001, H.H. Tamara Siuda (AUS)
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