Egyptian religious poetry

INTRODUCTION 43

Creator of all things, is realized. Any natural phenomenon which caused, or was supposed to cause, fertility was thus an aspect of Osiris, hence he is the Moon and the Nile. As the god of the farmyard he is the Bull, the Apis, who was called the Incarnate Soul of Osiris. As the god of the fields, he is the seed sown in the ground, which rises again in the corn, and is cut down and “ killed” ; and as the ultimate source of all life can be traced back to what springs out of the earth, he becomes the Creator, the Lord of all, the Universal Lord, the Lord of the Universe.

His most important aspect was his incarnation in a human body, that body being the body of the Pharaoh. Every Pharaoh that sat upon the throne of Egypt was the incarnation of the God of Fertility, in him reigned the Creator spirit of God, and it was to him that the whole nation turned to bring a good Nile and increase the food supply. It was not for nothing that the Pharaoh of the Bible was disturbed by the prophetic dream of the fat and lean kine, for as the God of Fertility he, and he alone, was responsible for keeping his people free from famine.

There is, however, another aspect of Osiris besides that of the Creator and Giver of food, which is seen at certain seasons of the year and at certain festivals. Life was taken out of the ground in the form of crops, therefore the life-giving power must be returned to the ground or famine would result. That power dwelt in a human body, the body of the King, and was subject to all the infirmities of humanity—sickness, old age, death; the power had to be removed while the body was still young and vigorous, in the full tide of manhood. The problem was how to remove it and transfer it to another and younger body, and a ceremony was evolved to ensure the safe transfer.

As the belief in the indwelling Spirit of God can be found in all parts of the world and in every period from the Bronze Age