SON oftíie
SUN
SON OF T H E SUN A A
A
Majestic hypostyle in Luxor templa, Egypt, the site of Thebes, ancient capital of Egypt. It is here that young Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton) rebellcd against the priestliood of Amon. {Photo by Rosicrucian Camera Expedition)
The tomb of K ing Tutankhamen, son-in-law of Akhnaton. The renown attributed to this tomb is not because of the eminence oí I utankhamen, but rather because of the treasures it contained. The majority of its objects were from the magnificent city established by Pharaoh Akhnaton. {Photo by Rosicrucian Camera Expedition)
SON OF THE SUN THE LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY OF A K H N A T O N , K IN G OF E G Y P T
By
Savitri Devi
ROSICRUCIAN VOLUME
LIBRARY XXV
SUPREME G RA ND LODGE OF A.M.O.R.C., INC. Printing and Publishing Department San José, California
1956
First Edition 1946 under the title, A Son o f God T h e Philosophical Publishing House 68, G reat Russell Street, W .C .i London Second Edition 1956 under the tille, Son o f lh¿ Sun B y Suprem e G rand Lodge o f A .M .O .R .C ., Inc., Publishers A ll Rights Rcserved
(Rosicrucian publications in all lands are restrainedfrom being translated wiihout permission from the publishers.)
Second Edition 1956 P R IN T E D HAZELL
ANO
BOUND
IN E N O L A N D
WATSON AND
AYLESBURY
AND
BY
V IJ tff ly L T D . LONDON
DEDICATION
V TO
M Y H U SBAN D
“ Thou art in my heart; There is no other that knoweth Thee, Save Thy Son, Akhnaton. Thou hast made him wise in Thy designs And in Thy might A khnaton— Longer Hymn to the Sun ( Translation by Breasted)
“ T h e modern world has yet adequately to valué or even to acquaint itself with this man w ho, in an age so rem óte and undcr conditions so adverse, becam e the w o rld ’s first idealist and the w orld’s first individual.** Breasted— History o f Egypt, page 392
The Rosicrucian Library V Volume
I II III IV V
VI
VII
VIII IX X XI
XII
Rosicrucian Questions and Answers w ith Com plete H istory o f the O rder Rosicrucian Principies for the H om e and Business T h e M ystical Life o f Jesús T h e Secret Doctrines o f Jesús “ U nto T h ee I G rant . . (Secret Teachings o f Tibet) A Thousand Years o f Yesterdays (A R evelation o f Reincarnation) S elf M astery and Fate with the Cycles o f Life (A V ocation al Guide) Rosicrucian M anual M ystics at Prayer Behold the Sign M ansions o f the Soul (The Cosm ic Conception) Lem uria— T h e Lost Continent o f the Pacific
XIII
T h e T ech nique o f the M aster
X IV
T h e Sym bolic P rophecy o f the G reat Pyram id
XV XVI XV II XV III XIX XX XXI X X II X X III XXIV XXV
T h e Book o f Jasher T h e Tech nique o f the Disciple M ental Poisoning G lands— O u r Invisible G uardians A lon g C ivilization ’s T ra il (O ut o f Print) T h e W ord W ent Forth (O u t o f Print) W hat to E at— A n d W hen T h e Sanctuary o f S elf Sepher Y ezirah O f Gods and M iracles Son o f the Sun (Olher volumes will be addedfrom time lo time. Write fo r complete catalogue.)
CON TE NTS P reface
ix - x ii
I n t r o d u c t io n
i - io
PART
ONE
TH E W O R L D ’S FIRST IN D IV ID U A L i 11 iii
Fleur Séculaire
13 -18
Prince Am enhotep
I9- 38
A lone A gainst M illíons
39-66
PART
TWO
TH E R ELIG IO N OF THE DISK iv v
vi v il vm
T h e C ity o f G o d
69-105
T h e W a y o f Reason
106-139
TheWayofLove
140-169
T h e W a y o f B eauty
170-186
T h e Im plications o f the Religión o f the Disk
187-211
PART
TRUTH ix x xi xii
THREE
VERSUS SUCCESS
U nrest in C onquered L an d
215-250
T h e R ew ard o f W ar
2 51-261
T h e Price o f Perfection
262-274
A khnaton and the W orld o f T o -d a y
275-303
H ym ns o f A k h n a to n
to
th e
S u n , 30 4-313
B ib lio g r a p h y , 3 14 -3 16 In d e x, 317-322
PREFACE
events in history dom ínate b y their prominence. T h o u gh they m ay seem to em erge as sudden achievem ents or inspired ideas, in almost all instances they are the clim ax o f less sensational events w hich made them possible. T h e contributory incidents have been either forgotten or unobserved. In the history o f events, as in the history o f thought, there is a chain o f causes. Should these causes be p erpetuated? Should they be revived i f they are not extan t? T h e purpose o f this splendid work b y Savitri D evi is to help us find the answers to such questions. H ave we grow n a w ay from those experiences w hich first resulted in m an ’s spiritual aw akening? Is there nothing left but the husk o f tradition w hich fails to perm eate and arouse our m oral nature ? I f these questions are answered in the affirmative, then that accounts for the general m oral decline in a m odern civilisation (the one o f our times) w hich has m ade tremendous technological strides. T h e Eighteenth D yn asty o f E gypt includes the period from 1580 to 1350 b . c . In that interval, eleven kings reigned in succession. E ach had his b rief m om ent in history and each, b y his positive or passive acts, his wisdom or ignoranee, his achievem ents or failures, left an im print on this Em pire A ge. From the point o f view w ith w hich the author approaches this subject, the life o f A m enhotep I I I is o f interest to us. A m enhotep I I I ( 1 4 1 1 - 1 37 5 b . c .) has received the distinction o f being called the G reat Builder. Perhaps his greatest structure was the m ortuary tem ple erected on the west bank o f the N ile w here the T h eb an necrópolis is located. T h e Crossing o f the N ile from east to west was a very solemn p art o f the ancient funerary ritual. It corresponded to the apparent jo u rn ey o f R e (the sun) w ho rose in the east and sank beneath the horizon in the west. Th ence R e was thought to jo u rn ey in the nether w orld beneath the
C
e r t a i n
X
PREFACE
earth, rising again in the east. Part o f the obsequies consisted o f the placing o f the deceased on a bier w hich, in turn, was placed upon a funeral barque. This barque was then poled slow ly across the N ile to the west bank. A ccom panying were other boats on w hich w ere lam enting relatives and friends and the ritualistic mourners. O n the west b ank a solemn processional, led by the priests, wended its w ay into the hills to a tom b w hich had already been prep ared for the deceased. Therefore, the west b ank o f the Nile opposite Thebes (now Luxor) becam e a virtu al grand cem etery. T h e pharaohs built elabórate m ortuary temples in this región, w hich w ere their tombs. T h e great L u xo r T em p le, w hich m ay still be seen in E gyp t to-day, is often attributed to A m enhotep III. As a builder o f great m onuments and as one whose words were considered wise counsel, he becam e known, even in antiquity, as “ one o f the sages o f E gy p t.” His sayings were quoted for centuries b y later people w ho had even forgotten him as an individual. H e was reputed to have “ the ability to foretell the future” and to possess the divine pow er o f prognostication. D u rin g the last years o f his life, his son, A m enhotep I V , becam e associated w ith him . W ith oíd age his infirmities pressed upon him (he suífered considerably from pain) and left him little time for the affairs o f State. Y o u n g Am enhotep I V , even as coregent w ith his father, as our author, Savitri D evi, points out in detail, showed a disinclination towards conquest and political affairs. T h e m ystical aspects o f his personality asserted themselves at an early age. W ith him a new era was ushered in. This era was revolutionary and am azin gly advanced in m any ways. It even caused A m enhotep I V to change his ñam e to Akhnaton. Savitri D evi in a most adm irable w ay defends, i f they need defending, the concepts o f A khnaton and makes an excellent analysis o f his teachings in the following chapters. I cannot pass w ithout also m aking some little com m ent on these teachings. In them w e are told that A ton (the sun disk) brings forth life from the egg continually and that he is eternal and universal. T h e egg is sym bolic o f the universe as
p r e f a c e
xi
a great cell, the nucleus o f w hich was thought to be the Creative forcé o f life. A ton thus sends forth, as an em anation, the life-giving essence from the cell o f the universe w hich is transm itted to the earth and animates all substance. W e are told that A ton gives the breath o f life and that his rays bring life and vitality. “ T h o u art in the sky but thy rays are in earth .” This m ay be construed as m eaning that the Creative forcé o f life, though it is beyond earth, through the m édium o f A to n ’s rays is conveyed to the air and thence to the earth. T h e universality o f this divine life-giving pow er is w ell indicated in the p h rase: “ T h y rays in the midst o f the green sea.” T h ere is nothing that escapes the touch o f the solé G od. “ It is breath o f life in the nostrils to behold thy rays.” This has perhaps a m ystical connotation. T o behold the rays o f A ton, to think about them even, is the equivalent o f the breath o f life. W ith out these rays o f life, one has no spiritual unión with G od any m ore than he has life w ithout breath. T h ere are those who refer to A khnaton as “ Godintoxicated .” H e perceived G od in every manifestation o f nature, the limitless sky, the green sea, the swaying palms, the fish that leap in the river. He loved life. He loved nature as though it w ere a panoram a o f the great solé G od in action. H e proclaim s: “ M y eyes be satisfied d aily with b eholding him , w hen he dawns in the house o f A ton and filis it w ith his own self b y his beams, beauteous in love, and lays them upon me in satisfying life for ever and ever. . . .” T h o u gh w e think o f A khnaton as being theistic, he was perhaps m ore o f a pantheist. Th ere was to him a solé G od as a radiating source o f divine pow er but also this G od was not isolated from w hat he had created. T h e beams o f A ton, his light, caressed and lingered in all that was brought forth. T h e w ord light used by A khnaton was not to'be construed in the lim ited sense o f a physical property. It m eant love and spiritual consciousness. Thus this application o f the w ord occurred centuries before Christ. W h a t lessons are we to leam from A kh n aton ’s life, as we com plete the excellent presentation by the auth or? D id he m ake any mistakes o f a serious nature ? Should he have dis-
xii
PREFACE
regarded his political obligations and devoted him self to his Cosm ic inspiration exclusively, as he d id ? W ould it have been right for him to try to reconcile the t wo? Should a m ystic be practical or should his principal concern be for the revealed truth that comes to him C osm ically? R
Rosicrucian Park San José, California May 6, 1955
alph
M . L e w i s , F .R .C .
INTRODUCTION
o u g h l y fourteen hundred years befo re Christ, at the
R
time E gyp t was at the height o f her power, K in g l A khnaton ruled over that great country for a few years. H e was a thinker; he was an artist; he was a saint— the w orld ’s first rationalist, and the oldest Prince o f Peace. T h ro u gh the visible disk o f the Sun— A to n — he worshipped “ the E nergy w ithin the D isk” — the ultim ate R eality which men o f all creeds still seek, know ingly or unknowingly, under a thousand ñames and through a thousand paths. A n d he styled him self as the Son o f that unseen, everlasting Source o f all life. “ T h ou art in m y h eart,” he said in one o f his hym ns, “ and no one knoweth Th ee save I, T h y Son.” A n d his words, long forgotten, have com e dow n to us, recorded upon the walls o f a noblem an’s tom b— these am azing words in w hat is perhaps the earliest poem w hich can be ascribed w ith certainty to any p articular author: “ I, T h y Son. . . A khnaton is one o f the very few men who ever put forth such a bold claim . T h e aim o f this book is to show that, in doing so, he was no less justified than an y other teacher o f the truth, how ever impressive m ay appear the success o f the latter contrasted w ith his defeat; how ever widespread m ay be his fam e, contrasted w ith the total oblivion in w hich has lain the E gyptian king for the last thirty-three hundred years. A A
A
W ho is a “ son o f G o d ” ? T h ere are men who vehem ently deny the honour o f that title to any person whosoever, in consistency w ith the fundam ental idea o f a transcendent G od, above and outside the U niverse and distinct from all that is w ithin it. O thers recognise no “ Son” but the founder o f their own creed, to
2
SON OF T H E
SUN
w hom they attribute a m iraculous birth as the p roof o f a divine origin. In harm ony w ith an entirely different conception o f G od, w e believe that any m an w ho realíses to the full the true relation o f his finite individuality to the im m anent, im personal Essence o f all things can cali him self the Son o f G o d — at once hum an and divine— for the relation o f w hich he is then aw are is one o f substantial identity with that suprem e Essence. W e also believe that, properly speaking, the w ord “ G o d ” has no m eaning except to those who have realised this. Such m en are rare, alw ays and everywhere. But they alone stand to justify the existence o f the hum an species. T h e aim o f this book is to show that A khnaton was one o f those few men, and the earliest known, perhaps, am ong those whose life can be dated. A A
A
T h e failure o f his teaching to survive him as an established religión can be regarded as one o f the tragedies o f history. W e can explain it; w e can even try to redeem it. But the bitter fact remains, for nothing can undo the past. O th er great souls have had disciples to preach their message, m artyrs to bear testim ony to their greatness in torture and death, missionaries to carry their ñam e and dom ination to the limits o f the earth; they have had commentators, admirers, detractors— philosophers, poets, artists — to keep their m em ory alive century after century. But A kh n aton ’s fate was different. H e had no sooner died than the fervour o f his followers seems to have been spent out. W ithin a few years, his ñam e was anathem atised, his new city pulled dow n stone b y stone, his remains profaned and his m em ory system atically destroyed, w ithout, apparently, a single cry o f protest on the p art o f any o f those eighty thousand1 or m ore w ho had, in their zeal, left Thebes w ith him , thirteen years before. E ver since then, until a p art o f his foreign correspondence and fragments o f his hymns were 1 A rthu r W eigall: Short History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. J934), pp. 149-150.
INTRODUCTION
3
brought to light, some fifty years ago, there was not a man on earth who knew o f his existence. A n d to this very day, notwithstanding the genuine adm iration o f a learned few for his rational religión, there are hardly an y people in the w orld whose d aily life he filis w ith his presence. W hy? M en w ho are in the habit o f ju d g in g in haste will at once infer th at his teaching cannot have been as perfect as those that have becom e the nucleus o f livin g faiths. But success is not the criterion b y w hich one should decide on the valué o f a religión. In the diffusion o f any doctrine far an d w ide there are too m any factors at w ork for one to be able to ascribe its conquests to the solé am ount o f truth it contains. M oreover, it is only when that am ount o f truth appears to be o f im m ediate and tangible use that it appeals to the herd o f men sufficiently to help the p ropaga r o n o f the creed. T h e finer side o f every religión is precisely that w hich escapes the attention and leaves unm oved the sensitiveness o f its average followers. Therefore the number o f people w ho profess a certain faith, and the extent o f the geographical area in w hich it is recognised, prove nothing. T h e quality o f the nations that officially adhere to it does not stand an y better as a guarantee o f its valué. For it is man w ho makes religión; not religión th at makes man. T h ro u g h some historie accident— m igration, conquest, or the whims o f some pow erful ch ief— a sublim e teaching can becom e and rem ain the collective creed o f a p ack o f gross barbarians. T h e y w ill no doubt misunderstand it; but they will, none the less, hold sacred the w hole m ythology and sym bolism that tradition has attached to it. A n d reversely one has seen— and one sees still— cultured, progressive, rationally-trained nations adhere to childish dogmas invented or accepted b y their uncritical ancestors. T ru e, they do not fail to produce subtle theologians to interpret the nonsense in terms o f hidden wisdom. But nonsense it remains. A religión should be ju d g e d in itself, independently o f its real or apparent influence upon an y society, apart from its success or failure am ong m en. A n d its founder— w hen it has a founder— is the only m an whose life and personality one
4
SON OF T H E
SUN
should consider when speaking o f it. Judged in that m anner, from the solé standpoint o f its inner beauty, A kh n aton ’s sim ple and rational religión, o f w hich hardly anybody knows, can be com pared advantageously w ith recognised faiths professed by millions o f men. A n d its prom oter, with perhaps not more than one or two livin g disciples, can nevertheless be ranked am ong the divine souls that honoured this earth— am ong those w hom w e cali “ incarnations” or “ Sons o f G o d .” A A A W e can now try to explain w h y the worship o f A ton failed to endure as an organised collective cult. From the little th at can. be galhered o f it through the existing fragments o f A kh n ato n ’s hymns and through the history o f his life, one can assert, to say the least, that it was far in advance o f the tim e in w hich it appeared. T h e abyss that separates a man o f genius from his contem poraries does not necessarily awe them into accepting his leadership. I f it be the result o f his superiority in technical know ledge or in skill, it w ill make him pow erful— a hero, a w orker o f wonders, a giant o f w ar or o f industry, w hatever be the case. His counsels will soon be followed, and his inventions or discoveries soon adm ired and put to everincreasing application because o f the obvious advantages that they im m ediately procure. But i f it be the abyss that separates a perfect m an from the average hum an cattle, a rational m ind and an enlightened soul from the superstitious crow d o f believers; an all-loving, all-understanding heart, from the narrow ly selfish m ajority o f men, then, it only helps to render the great one lonely and powerless. T h e greater the difference between him self and his people, the lesser the im m ediate success o f the m an o f m oral, philosophical or religious genius. His words, his actions meet with no understanding; his lofty exam ple has no im itators; the creation he strives to bring forth remains a dream . T o be technically in advance o f one’s time is a source o f strength, an assurance o f w orldly achievem ents; to be m orally or philosophically ahead o f it, is not.
INTRODUCTION
5
T h e tow ering superiority o f A khnaton over his fellow-men has no parallel in the m echanical sphere. “ W ere it invented to satisfy our m odem scientifie conceptions,” his religión “ could not be logically im proved upon at the present d a y ,” writes Sir Flinders P etrie.1 C o u ld we im agine a man o f the fourteenth century b . c . in possession o f the secret o f our m odern aeroplanes, we w ould then realise w hat w ould have been the m echanical equivalent o f A khnaton’s religious revolution. T h e very idea o f it shatters us by its enorm ity. But, while our im agin ary inventor could have safely conquered the w orld w ith the help o f a single aircraft, the earliest rationalist failed to convince a m ínim um num ber o f disciples capable o f carryin g on his work. His teaching “ suitable for our own tim es,” m et little response in his. Those w ho could easily have gathered it from his lips and transm itted it to posterity in all its details, were not m oved to do so. A n d we, w ho w ould have done so, w ere not yet born. T h a t is the m ain reason w h y nothing was left o f it after the thirteen glorious years during w hich it flourished. T h ere are other reasons for its extinction. O n e o f them is that the cult o f A ton was too rational to appeal to the average people o f any tim e. A nother is that A khnaton him self was too good— and perhaps too farsighted, also— to establish it by means o f violence. T h ree elements seem to have contributed to the propaga r o n o f every widespread religión: a m ythology; m iracles; and a more or less definite doctrine concerning the hereafter. (By “ m ythology,” I m ean the true or fictitious story o f all natural or supernatural beings connected w ith the creed: men, angels, beasts, saints, demons, gods, etc.) I do not know o f a religión w hich has stood up to now the test o f time w ithout one or two, at least, o f these three elements. A nd most o f the great international creeds owe m uch to all three. But the cult o f A ton seems to have been devoid o f all three from the start. T h a t is perhaps w h y some m odem authors have called it a philosophy rather than a religión. But it did possess that stam p o f devotion that distinguishes a religión from a philosophy. It was not purely a philosophy, 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History <¡JEgypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. I I , p. 254.
6
SON OF T H E
SUN
w hatever one m ay say. It even com prised a daily ritual, with hym ns and music, incense and flowers. It was a religión, but one w hich offered its followers, at the same time, rational thought, the w arm th o f devotion, and a stately display o f sensuous beauty. But there were no m arvellous tales connected with it. T h e one theme that could have becom e the centre o f a whole literature, had the religión lasted a little longer, was the life o f its Founder. A n d that was too sim ple, too hum an, too obviously natural to impress the coarse im agination o f the commoners. A khnaton, in his love o f truth, seems to have deliberately stripped him self o f all the m ystery that had helped his fathers to appear as gods in the eyes o f their prostrate people. H e was o f unconventional manners and o f kindly approach. His divinity was not the showy privilege o f a Sun-born king, or o f a prophet, asserted b y external signs, but rather the innermost perfection o f a m an whose heart, w ill and understanding were in com plete harm ony w ith the eternal laws o f life; o f a m an w ho h ad fulfilled m an’s divine purpose as natu rally as others drift a w ay from it. H e felt therefore no need o f ascertaining it by a fastidious pom p, any more than b y strange renunciations. T h ere was no excess in him ; nothing that the vu lgar eye could Iook upon as “ striking,” nothing that popular enthusiasm could catch hold o f and m agnify. H e w rought no extraordinary deeds, as other teachers are said to have done. T h e only w onder o f w hich he spoke was the everlasting m iracle o f order and o f fertility— the rhythm o f day and night, the grow th o f a bird or o f a baby. A n d he brought with him , apparently, no new ideas about death, and put no stress upon the ones that w ere com m on in E gyp t in his time. From the beautiful prayer inlaid upon his cofíin, and probab ly composed b y himself, one infers that he believed in the eterna! liffe o f the soul. But that is all. No allusion to the nature o f that life beyond dcath, and especially not a single reference to sin, rew ard and punishm ent can be found in at least w hat has survived o f the young king’s hym ns, or in the inscriptions in the tombs o f the
INTRODUCTION
7
nobles w ho boast o f having “ hearkened to his teaching.” Not that the religión o f A ton was in an y w ay devoid o f a m oral character, as some o f its m odera ju d g e s1 have supposed— a gratuitous assumption, contradicted by the very motto o f A khnaton’s life: “ L ivin g in T ru th .” But its m orality con cerned w hat one was rather than w hat one did. It was the inherent character o f a harm onious life rather than the outcom e o f an y catalogue o f “ dos” and “ don’ts.” As all natural things are, it was foreign to the idea o f promises and threats. A n d that was a reason for it not to appeal to a num ber o f followers. M ost men do not w ant true m orality any m ore than true religión. T h e y w ant m ythologies and m iracles to w onder at, and pólice regulations to abide b y; illusions in this w orld, and punishments and rewards in eternity. In one w ord, they w ant eternity m ade small and exciting to suit the measure o f average life. T h ey do not w ant life sim ply stripped o f its shallowness and m ade divine — “ life in truth.” A n d as A khnaton had nothing else but that to offer them , his teaching left them indiñerent. It did not spread beyond a narrow circle o f courtiers. A A
A
T h e one means b y w hich he could have secured its success as an international creed was violence. T h e religión was, indeed, far in advance o f its time and o f m any future ages. A n d it lacked the elements that generally m ake a creed popular. M en w ould, no doubt, have misinterpreted it, misused it, and degraded it w ithin a few years. But it w ould have spread. Forcé o f m oney and forcé o f arms can m ake any people accept any faith, even one that does not suit them. A n d A khnaton was both the most powerful and the richest king o f his days. W e are convinced that, had he chosen to use his strength to impose his new cult upon the w orld, he w ould probab ly have largely succeeded. But he felt too deeply and he knew too m uch to sacrifice 1 J . D . S. Pendlebury: Tell-el-Amarna (Edit. 1935), pp. 15 6 -15 7. Also Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atmism, and Egyptian Monothiism, pref. X V ; also pp. 1 14 -115 .
8
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OF T H E
SUN
the spirit o f his doctrine to an íllusory trium ph. Far from using violence to propagate his religión, he did not even persecute those who tried to destroy it. As a result, it is they who enjoyed the thrill o f trium ph— for the time being. It is they w ho imposed their will upon the w orld. T h e y w anted A khnaton to be cursed, and so he w a s ; they w anted him to be forgotten, and so he w as; it was their w ill that never, never again the w orld should hear his ñam e, and for over three m illennium s the w orld did not. But his beautiful, rational teaching, how ever incom pletely know n, remains unstained by superstition, unm arred by com prom ise, unconnected w ith any o f the crimes com m itted, in course o f time, in the ñam e o f m any a successful religión ; puré, whole, as its Founder conceived it— a thing o f beauty for all ages to come. A A
A
But if there are psychological reasons for w hich A kh n aton ’s teaching h ad little chances o f becom ing one o f the widespread creeds o f the w orld, it could have rem ained, at Ieast, the religión o f an elite. It could h ave; and it most p robably w ould have, in different surroundings. O n e o f its m ain features is the diversity o f its appeal. It satisfies reason; it fulfils our highest aspirations towards the beautiful; it implies love, not o f m an alone, but o f all creatures. In the midst o f general superstition and strife, the better men could have sought in it an ideal to live up to. A pious tradition could have kept the ñam e o f A khnaton sacred to the few w ho are w orthy to know o f him. But such a tradition was never started, or at Ieast never perm itted to develop. E gypt, in the fourteenth century b . c ., was already too deeply engrossed in form alism to respond to the forgotten message o f livin g life. A n d the countries around her were either too b arbarie or too decadent to understand it. Strangled at home b y priestly fanaticism and b y pop ular indifference, the new religión was subm erged, abroad, am idst a crow d o f conflicting p ractical faiths that promised men tangible advantages in this w orld as w ell as
INTRODUCTION
9
in the next. Persecuted as an organised cult, it soon ceased to exist even as a secret worship. T o keep it alive, it w ould have needed an atmosphere o f earnestness and o f toleration, a truly religious atmosphere as it was difficult to find anywhere on earth for m any centuries, except perhaps am ong a m inority o f Hindus. W e m ay rem ark here that none o f the lofty doctrines o f antiquity w hich originated before Christianity have survived, west o f India. A n d , unexpected as this m ay seem, India m ight w ell be the only land that w ould have given the youthful worshipper o f R ad ian t E nergy a place w orthy o f him in his time, h ad she heard o f his teaching; the only land, also, who p ro b ab ly w ould have continued to venerate him to this very d ay as one o f the incarnations o f the Suprem e Soul. A A
A
T h e aim o f the present book is to tell the w orld how perfect A khnaton was. W e believe that no teaching w ould meet, better than his, the exigencies o f the critical m odem m ind. Y et, it is not our intention to try to revive it on a broad scale, as the basis o f a p ub lic cult. W e do not think it desirable to attem pt w hat its Founder him self does not seem to have aim ed at— he who, though fully conscious o f its universal valué, did not try to explain it to the m any. W ith all their pride in progress, our times are no less foolish and no less barbarie than his. W e now use electric fans, w hile in Thebes they did not; that is about all the diíference. T h e resuscitated religión o f Cosm ic Energy w ould soon offer, in the hands o f any crowd, as ludicrous a sight as that o f the great “ livin g” faiths o f to-day. W e do not wish to rob the other world-teachers o f a few millions o f insignificant adm irers in order to give a noisy follow ing to the great m an who is dear to us. W e know too w ell, through daily experience, w hat the q uality o f that follow ing w ould be. But we do wish to m ake the ñam e and teaching o f A khnaton popular am ong the best o f our contem poraries— am ong those who really represent the higher tendencies o f
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our sceptical and at the same tim e m ystical age; am ong those to w hom dogm as no longer appeal, w hom wonders no longer impress, w hom religión w ithout a background o f positive know ledge, and Science w ithout the feeling o f the seriousness o flife , leave equally unsatisfied. It is am ong such people that w e earnestly wish to revive the spirit o f him w ho, a thousand years before Sócrates and nearly nine hundred years before the B uddha, united the boldest rationalistic views to the deep intuitive certitude o f the oneness o f G od, the oneness o f Life, and the brotherhood o f all creatures. M odern scholars have already recognised his undeniable greatness. T h e earliest and most em inent o f all those specialists w ho have laboured to revive his m em ory am ong the learned, Sir W . Flinders Petrie, has p aid him a m agnificent trib u te.1 But w hat we w ant also is that A kh n aton ’s ñam e be held sacred by all those w ho, w ithout being scholars, can think in terms o f truth and feel in terms o f beauty and who are capable o f m odelling their lives on an im m ortal exam ple o f livin g perfection. M ore so, if few be likely to Uve u p to the spirit o f his teaching, let all at Ieast know that there has been such a man as he, once, long long ago. Let them rem ain superstitious, vu lgar and violent, if they w ill; but let them know that there has been a m an in whose life religión and reason w alked hand in h an d; a m an whose very being was harm ony, balance, supreme elegance, and w ho lost an em pire for the sake o f truth. Few m edítate upon the beauty o f the S u n ; y et all behold it. A b o ve m an’s unchanging m ediocrity H e shines in glory. In a sim ilar m anner, w orshipped b y a few, but fam iliar to all after thirty-three hundred years o f silence, we w ant the ñam e o f A khnaton, Son o f the Sun, you n g for ever, to live once m ore in the consciousness o f our oíd w orld. This w ill no doubt appear as a stupendous dream . T h e aim o f this book is to m ake others feel that the dream w ill becom e true the m om ent they sincerely realise its beauty. 1 In his History nf Efiypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. II, pp. 214 and 218. Also in his Tell-el-Amarna (Edit. 1894), PP- I_ 2 (§ > > )> an<í P(§102)-
4 4 93 94 95
44
Part I THE W O R L D ’S F I R S T I N D I V I D U A L
CHAPTERI
FLEUR SÉCULAIRE a k h n a t o n was born in Thebes, in about 1395 b . c . 1 /J» in a w orld already as oíd, as civilised and as sophisti1! \ .c a te d as our ow n. A n d he was the son o f the greatest m onarch o f th at w o rld ; the last offspring, in direct descent, o f a long and glorious line o f warriors over-loaded w ith the spoils o f conquest; the heir o f an em pire that stretched, in m odem words, from the Sudan to the borders o f A rm enia, and o f a culture m ore than four thousand years oíd. W hen he was a child, the famous Pyram ids o f G izeh were nearly as ancient as the R om án remains in England are today, and the first em pire-builder o f w hom we know something definite— Sargon o f A ga d e— was already as rem óte in time as N ebuch adnezzar is n o w .2 A n d beyond the glories o f w hich the oldest m onum ents bore witness, and beyond the m ighty shadows o f half-forgotten heroes and king-gods lost in the midst o f legend, a still rem oter antiquity, w ith its im m em orial art and wisdom, extended over centuries, down to the dim beginnings o f the N eolithic A ge, and further still. C rete and the ^Egean Isles had flourished for over two thousand years, and B abylon ia and E lam for several m illennium s m ore, w hile, unaw are o f each other and o f the rest o f m ankind, distant India and C h in a counted long centuries o f polished life. If, indeed, instead o f letting ourselves be over-im pressed 1 A ccordin g to Sir Flinders Petrie, w ho places his accession in 1383 B.c. (History o f Egypt, V o l. II, p. 205). L. W . K in g and H . R . H all (Egypt and Western Asia, p. 365) place his reign h a lf a century earlier, and A rthu r W eigall places it from 1375 to 1358 (Life and Times o f Akhnaton, new and revised edit., 1922, p. 1; Tutankhamen and Other Essays, p. 80). •A cco rd in g to Nabonidus. See Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), V o l. I, P- I Sir C . Leonard W oolley, how ever, believes him to be o f a m uch later period. (See Ur o f the Chaldees, A Record o f Seven Years o f Excavation (Edit. 1929), pp. 160 and 203; or Pelican Books E dit., 1937, pp. 76, 112, 142).
55
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by the few hundreds o f years that separate us from him, we stop to consider the endless length o f time that separates both A khnaton and ourselves from the mysterious origins o f civilisation, w e m ight well look upon him as a m an o f yesterday, almost as one o f our contem poraries. H e was the tenth Pharaoh o f th at glorious Eighteenth D ynasty w hich opens the period known in history as the “ N ew K in g d o m .” His ancestors, the kings o f Thebes, had freed E gypt from foreign dom ination; his great-great-grandfather had made her the head o f an em pire; his father had m ade her the abode o f unprecedented splendour. S poradic revolts in N u b ia and in Syria h ad been utterly crushed, and peace had at last succeeded the unceasing struggles o f the form er reigns. From all parts o f the immense em pire, tribute in gold and silver, in ivory and slaves and cedar w ood, poured in regularly. K in g A m enhotep the T h ird , w hom some m odem writers have righ tly called Am enhotep the M agnificent, lived a life o f pleasure in the m idst o f every kind o f luxury, with a num ber o f beautiful wives and concubines collected from every country o f the know n w orld. T h e granaries were full and the people content. Thousands o f foreign slaves— the prize o f w ar— were toiling for the welfare o f E g y p t: tilling the fields, digging or repairing canals, extracting gold from the N u bian mines, dragging dow n the N ile huge barges loaded w ith granite, building temples and palaces and keeping the highw ays in good condition. A n d the faraw ay kings o f B abylon and o f M itan n i— the P haraoh’s brothers-in-law— and the king o f the H ittites and the king o f b arbarie Assyria wrote w ith equal greedy envy, in their despatches to A m enhotep the T h ird : “ V erily, in thy land, gold is as com m on as dust.” E very refinem ent in pleasure, every treasure o f art, every subtlety o f thought, every com fort, every delicacy, every brilliancy was to be found in Thebes. N othing equalled the b eauty o f its monum ents, the pom p o f its festivities, the w ealth o f its priests who enjoyed throughout the w orld a reputation o f mysterious powers and o f hidden wisdom . Its
FLEUR
SÉCULAIRE
15
temples, o f w hich the gigantic ruins still stir the adm iration o f travellers, stood then in all their glory. T h eir half-dark halls inspired som ething o f that sacred awe that one feels in the cave-tem ples o f m edieval In d ia; and their rows o f m ighty pillars w ith lotus-shaped capitals displayed already that harm ony o f proportions, th at grace blended w ith majesty, that perfect elegance that was one day to distinguish the art o f Periclean Greece. Thebes was not m erely the metrópolis o f the greatest em pire then existing, not m erely one o f the largest and most sumptuous cities that the w orld had ever seen; it was the m asterpiece in w hich the genius o f the N ear and M iddle East h a d finally expressed itself, after h aving groped for centuries in quest o f perfection. It seemed as though nothing could be ad d ed to its beauty. It seemed, also, as though nothing could be added to its glory. A lon g w ith the w ords o fpraise to all the gods, that covered the walls and colum ns, the crowds o f worshippers that thronged the halls o f the tem ple o f K a rn ak could read in golden hieroglyphics, on a slab o f black granite, the song o f w ar and trium ph o f K in g Thotm ose the T h ird, the words o f the T h eb a n god to the m aker o f E gyp t’s greatness: “ I have come; I have granted thee to trample over the great ones of Syria; I have hurled them beneath thy sandals in their lands . . . ” It is one o f the most beautiful hymns o f victory o f all times. Its echo had run through the w orld from the Nile V a lle y to the B lack Sea and to the Persian Gulf, from the Lib yan Desert to the boundaries o f India. A n d as he beheld the solemn words, the E gyptian pilgrim was filled with national pride. W h a t song w ould ever efface the glory o f that one ? T h u s, in w ealth, in splendour and in warrior-like fame stood Thebes, the capital o f the first nation o f the earth, the seat o f divine royalty, the proud C ity o f A m on, the m ighty god. M illennium s o f culture h ad created it; the skill o f all know n lands h ad adorned it. A n d the sword o f its kings had
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spread far and w ide the glory o f its ñam e and the terror o f its local deity w hom the priests h ad bold ly identified with R a , the im m em orial Sun-god o f the Egyptians. It is then that he carne. A A
A
O n the western bank o f the N ile, upon a site w hich to this d ay retains its loveliness, was built the C h aru k palace, the residence o f the Pharaoh A m enhotep the T h ird. It was a light but beautiful structure o f brick and precious w ood, decorated w ith exquisite paintings and surrounded b y immensc gardens full o f shade and full o f peace. From the terraces o f the palace one beheld to the east, beyond the N ile and its palm -groves, w hite walls contrasted w ith dark shadows, fíat roofs o f different levels, flights o f steps, broad avenues and gardens and m onum ental g ates: all th at glory that was Thebes. In the foreground, the tow ering pylons o f the great tem ple o f A m on em erged above the outer walls o f the sacred enclosure that stretched over miles. A n d the gilded tops o f innum erable obelisks glittered in the d azzlin g light or glow ed like red-hot embers in the purple o f sunset. O n e could distinguish m any other temples dedicated to all the gods o f U pper and L ow er E gypt, temples with doors o f bronze and gates o f granite, o f w hich the hum blest w ould have been the pride o f an y other city. T o the west, the eye w andered over the vastness o f the desert. It is in that palace that A khnaton was born. His m other, Q ueen T iy , was the ch ief wife o f A m enhotep the T h ird , and one o f the ablest w om en o f all times. W hile her w eary lord, after experiencing in his long life o f pleasure the van ity o f all pursuits, had gradu ally brushed asíde the tiresome duties o f kingship, it was she w ho received the foreign ambassadors, gave orders to provincial governors and drafted the despatches th at messengers were to carry to B abylon or to the faraw ay capital o f the H ittites. It was she w ho, through a well-organised netw ork o f informers, kept an eye on the restless vassal princelings o f Syria as w ell as on
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SÉCULAIRE
17
the m ovem ents o f the unconquered tribes below the Fourth C ataract o f the N ile; she w ho saw to it that the public officers did their w ork well, and that the taxes carne in w ithout delay. Consort o f the m ightiest m onarch, and the virtual ruler o f his em pire no less than the head o f his “ house o f w om en,” she had enjoyed all through her twenty-six years o f m arried life every pleasure, every lu xu ry and every glory that a w om an can im agine in her wildest dreams. For her the gardens around the C haruk palace had been extended and adorned at great cost with an artificial lake. For her the priests o f the oldest Sun-god, R a — w hich they also called A ton, the Disk, in the sacred city o f O n , his abode— enjoyed favour at court in spite o f the secret jealousy o f the powerful priests o f A m on, for the god o f O n was T iy ’s favourite god. In pom p and pow er the queen’s years had drifted aw ay. She was fairly past thirty-five, and perhaps not far from forty, w hen at last she bore the little prince, her only son. T h e b ab e’s com ing into the w orld was greeted by the jo y o f a w hole nation. Sacrifices o f thanksgiving were offered to the gods o f E gy p t; distant vassals from N orth and South w elcom ed through their messengers the child who was one d ay to be their lord, and allied monarchs congratulated the king, his father, in friendly despatches. But the birth o f A khnaton was a greater event than anyone in his days could realise. T h e w orld was already oíd, as we have said— as oíd as it is now. M en had already invented m any arts and m any gods, and built up m any kingdoms. T h e infant w ho, in the C haruk palace, now smiled for the first tim e to the Sun, was, in a few years, to transcend the very idea o f nation, to preach the oneness and uníversality o f the Principie o f all existence, and to show men the w ay o f life in truth, w hich is also life in beauty— life divine upon earth. That he was to proclaim — less b y his words than by his deeds, less b y his deeds than b y his attitude towards things— w hich the w eary w orld had dim ly sought, age after age; w hich those who know him not are still seeking: the synthesis o f total knowledge and perfect love. His life, w hich had just begun, was to last very little
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indeed: less than three decades. Y e t, in that short span o f time, he was to be w hat neither the victories o f his fathers, ñor the wealth and wisdom o f his country, ñor the arts and glories o f all the ancient kingdoms had succeeded in produ cin g: a perfect Individual o f equal genius and sanctity— a divine M an. His m other, who had grow n-up daughters but no male child, m ay well have looked upon his birth as the fulfilm ent o f her long, active and sumptuous life. It was, in no less m anner, the culm ination o f a long evolution towards the rational and the beautiful, the ultím ate achievem ent o f the oldest cultures o f the w orld, already so fruitful in outstanding creations. Like unto the cactus-tree w hich, so they say, blooms after a hundred years into one resplendent flower th at lasts less than a d a y ,1 E gyp t had lived and dream t and toiled four thousand years— and m ankind perhaps fifty times longer— in order to produce him whose life was to rem ain in history only a flash— but a flash o f unsurpassed beauty.
1 “ Et
le grand aloés á la fleur écarlatc, Pour l’hym en ignoré qu ’a révé son amour, A y an t vécu cent ans, n ’a fleuri q u ’un seul jo u r.” José-M aria de H érédia, in "F leu r S écu laire" (Les Trof Mes).
C H A P T E R II
P R IN C E A M E N H O T E P h e r e are no historical records o f A kh n aton ’s life before he succeeded his father as king o f E gypt. W hat w e know definitely about him at an earlier date is very little. W e know, for instance, that his parents had conceived him in an advanced age, and that he was given at his birth the ñam e o f A m enhotep— his father’s ñam e— w hich means “ A m on is at rest,” or “ A m on is pleased” (the ñam e under w hich he is fam ous in history he chose him self later on). W e know that he was, as a b aby, com m itted to the care o f a w om an— the “ great royal nurse” — w ho bore, like the queen herself, the ñam e o f T iy , and was the wife o f A y, a court dignitary and a priest. W e know also that he was m arried, some time before his father’s death, to a princess called N efertiti, o f w hom it is not certain w hether she was an E gyptian o r a foreigner. T h a t is p ractically all that can be gathered from the w ritten docum ents so far brought to light, ab out the first p art o f a life so rem arkable. But i f nothing precise can be stated about th e/acíj o f those cari y years, yet, from what we kn ow o f A m enhotep the T h ird ’s “ house o f w om en” and its inmates, som ething can be inferred o f the atm osphere in w hich the royal child was brought up. A n d som ething, too, w e can expect to guess o f his first reactions to the w orld around him , in the light o f all that w e know o f his subsequent life.
A A
A
T o say that he was the son o f parents o f m ature age is already to suggest some prom inent traits o f his personality, such as eagerness, seriousness o f m ind, depth. T o add that he was not, like most babies, the casual product o f a m om ent’s fancy, but the fruit o f yearning and o f prayer no less than o f
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pleasure, not only accepted but intensely desired; to recall that his m other— herself an exceptional w om an— w ith all her pow er and glory, w ith the love o f her lord and the graceful presence o f several daughters was not h ap p y until he, a son, was born to her; that she longed for him , year after year, as for the one blessing she could dream of, is to explain, to some extent, how he was no average child, and could never grow into an average m an. Few children indeed ever were so desperately w anted— and so m uch loved— as the only son o f A m enhotep the T h ird and Q ueen T iy . T h e queen, as w e have said, was surely over thirty-five, and perhaps not far from forty at the time o f his birth— an age w hich is not young for a ,wom an in an y clim ate, and w hich, in the tropics, in the days o f E gyp t’s greatness ju st as now , was considered oíd. W e m ay try to im agine her feelings w hen she carne to know that she was once m ore to becom e a m other, long after her daughters had grow n u p ; her jo y for an event that had so long seemed unlikely, i f not impossible, and then the hopes, the dreams she h ad concerning him who was not yet born; the prayers she addressed to the most pow erful gods and goddesses, especially to her favourite deities, for the w elfare and future greatness o f her child. Those ardent hopes, those dreams, that fervour o f prayer, that constant anxious thought concentrated on him in an expectation o f glorious days to com e, were the very earliest influences upon the form ation o f A kh n ato n ’s personality— the earliest, and the most impossible to retrace, but certainly not the less pow erful, ñor the less im portant. A A
A
T h e god w hom T iy w orshipped was A to n — the Disk— the oldest Sun-god o f E gyp t. T h e seat o f his venerable cult was not Thebes, but the sacred city o f A n u or O n — “ the city o f the obelisk” — w hich the Greeks were one day to cali H eliopolis, “ the city o f the S u n .” T h e priests o f O n were less w ealth y but m ore thoroughly versed in ancient wisdom than those o f Thebes. For a generation or two they had been tryin g to m ake their deity popular in the great metrópolis,
PRIN CE
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21
and especially at court. T h e y hoped that, if they succeeded, the god w ould recover all over E gyp t the prom inent place w hich he held o f oíd. A n d they h ad succeeded to some extent. People w ere beginning to add to the ñam e o f the m ighty A m on, in votive inscriptions, that o f the eider g o d .1 A n d when he had inaugu rated the new ly-built artificial lake in the gardens around his palace, the Pharaoh had nam ed the pleasure-boat in w hich he had glided over its waters w ith T iy , his ch ief wife, Tehen-Aton, i.e. “ A ton gleam s.” 2 But the ñam e o f A ton was still that o f a secondary god am ong m any. T iy herself was far from looking upon him as the only go d w orth p raying to ; she had grow n up, like everybody else, in a w orld full o f various deities, and her father, Y u a a , was a priest o f M in, the fertility-god. Y e t she was impressed b y the great antiquity o f the cult o f the Disk. Perhaps also did she realise, w ith her sharp intelligence, that there was m uch m ore in the less popular religious traditions o f the priests o f O n than in the pious devices that the ministers o f A m on in Thebes were in the habit o f using to impress the people, and sometimes to forcé their w ill upon the kings. She p ro b ab ly disliked their increasing grip upon public affairs and, w ithout w ishing to displease them openly (for she was a w orldly-wise w om an), she dream t within her heart o f a new order o f things more in accordance w ith the earliest traditions o f the land o f E gyp t and w ith the rights o f royalty. Perhaps she had already the dim presentim ent o f a possible conflict betw een A ton and A m on, as o f a struggle o f royalty against priestcraft. W hatever m ight have been her aspirations at the m oment, there can be little doubt that they coloured her conception o f her ch ild’s greatness. T h e child w ould be a son— that was certain; the queen had too long w aited and prayed and hoped for her to be disappointed once more. But that is not a ll; he w ould be a providential child, a m an the like o f w hich are born once in m any hundreds o f years; he w ould put an 1 A stele of the two brothers, Hor and Suti, overseers of the works of Amon in Thebes. (British Museum, Stele 475.) See Sir Wallis Budge’s Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 46. ! James Haikie: The Ámarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 90. s.s.— 3
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end to the arrogance o f the priests o f A m on, restore the cult o f the o íd Sun-god o f O n on a w ide scale, reassert the meaning o f divine kingship, and surpass in pow er and glory all his forefathers. W ere these the thoughts o f Q ueen T iy while d ay after day she felt the unborn prince com e into being w ithin her b ody ? It is difficult to say. A ll one can State is that it was natural for a w om an w ith her am bitions to entertain such thoughts and that, if she did so, her hopes were to be rew arded a hundredfold— though not in the w ay she m ight have expected. A A
A
T h e youn g prince spent his early years in his father’s “ house o f w om en.” T o ju d g e by w hat we know o f his health all through his life, and also by some o f the portraits o f his boyhood, he was p robably a delicate i f not a sickly baby, perhaps also a prem ature one. T h o u gh , as we repeat, there is no inform ation to be gathered concerning the very first p art o f his life, we m ay, w ith some chances o f not m aking a m istake, im agine him , w hen four or five years oíd, as a quiet, slender boy w ith a long neck, delicate features, large dream y eyes, pretty hands like those o f a girl, and nothing o f the boisterousness o f ordinary children o f his age. T h e uncom prom ising spirit th at he showed, hard ly ten years later, as a king, leads us to believe that he already had a strong personality, and that he was conscious o f it; also that he loved truth and was incapable o f dissim ulation. This must have urged him , m ore than once, to rebel against w hatever shocked him or sim ply bored him ; to speak w hen he was not expected to, and often to take a hasty initiative in matters w hich the grown-ups preferred to reserve for themselves. It is likely that he used to put a quantity o f puzzlin g questions, as most intelligent children do— m any o f w hich, no doubt, w ere unanswerable, but others that he was him self to answer, one day, in the most eloquent m anner. It is likely, too, that he never obeyed but those w hom he really loved, and then only after asking m any “ w hys” and “ w hat fors.” In one
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w ord, i f conventional behaviour be the measure o f w hat is “ good,” then m any a w ell-intentioned pedagogue m ight have called him a “ nau gh ty ch ild .” T h a t m uch-used adjective is eq ually applied to children w ho are worse and to others who are better than their environm ent. Prince A m enhotep was o f the latter. A A
A
T h e greatest and most lasting influence to exert itself upon the royal child was surely that o f his m other. His father, who had p rem aturely grow n oíd, loved him , no doubt, w ho was his only son and heir. But he had put in him less hopes, less dreams than the queen had, for he was him self w eary, and took less interest than she did in the future, even in the present. It was several years since he had p ractically let the burden o f governm ent lie upon his able chief-wife, w hom he knew he could trust. It is probable that he also relied entirely on her for the education o f his son. As already stated, the queen was a worshipper o f the solar god o f O n , A ton— the Disk. She must have taught the child to render hom age to him at sunrise and sunset. T h e boy, who was born an artist, opened his heart to the beauty o f the Sun. It is likely that m an y times his m other’s sweet words rang in tune w ith his rapture in front o f a glow ing sky, in w hich the Disk appeared or disappeared. H e saw the fiery reflection o f the Sun upon her face, w hich it beautified, w hile she repeated to him , in a tender voice, som ething o f w hat the wise men o f O n and her ow n com m on sense had taught her about the beneficent L o rd o f the T w o Horizons. He w atched the birds fly round and round, with joyou s trills, as the Sun flooded the gardens, the N ile and the western hills with pink m orning light, and the queen told him that they were g la d because H e, the Father o f all creatures, had come back. She showed him in the ponds the water-flowers that had just opened to receive His w arm kiss. A n d he looked at them, and understood that they were alive, like him self; and he loved them, and loved the birds and the beasts and the
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m any-coloured insects, and all things that live and feel the S u n’s caress. It is true that the history o f his early years is not recorded; and even i f it were, w ould history have rem em bered to note the small facts o f d aily life, psychologically so im portant ? Y et, one can well im agine Prince A m enhotep, a delicate and sensitive child, stooping to pick up a fledgling fallen from its nest, because he felt for the fragile drop o f life, or sm oothing dow n w ith his little hands the bum ing-hot fur o f a cat lying in the sun— a sight so com m on in ancient E gypt, where those graceful felines were universally cared for— and enjoying to see how , while it purred, it kept gazing at the faraw ay Disk w ith its half-shut em erald eyes. H e loved the Sun as a living and loving G od, and, being b y nature kind to living creatures, he loved them all the m ore, in H im . His m other encouraged him in that true, spontaneous piety, so diíferent from the vain display o f bigotry she h ad so often witnessed am ong grow n-up people. A n d the Disk, o f w hich he was one d a y to evolve a personal conception m ore lofty than anything T iy could dream of, was alw ays to retain, in his subconscious m ind, the indefinable charm o f things we have loved from childhood and w hich rem am intertw ined w ith our dearest associations. T h e queen, how ever, was no monotheist, and surely no philosopher, and we think it w ould be a great mistake to attribute to her early influence the essential o f A k h n a to n ’s religious ideas. T h e y were decidedly his own. T h e only thing that one can say is that his m other was one o f the factors (and the most effective one, probably) w hich helped h im , from the very beginning, to find his w ay. T h a t she did, and no more. But that was enough. A n d besides the positive influence she exerted b y directing him to ponder over the beauty o f the Sun, she p layed also a negative part, equally im portant. She helped to create around him the psychological conditions in w hich the w hole religión o f E gypt, w ith the exception o f the ancient H eliopolitan solar cult, w ould appear to him the least lovable. She did not create the facts th at w ould have impressed him anyhow as he grew to know th e m : the dead cerem onial o f the temples o f A m on, “ as
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intellectu ally low and p rim itive,” in the words o f A rthu r W e ig a ll,1 “ as its State o f organisation was high and pompous” ; the hypocrisy o f the priests, whose piety was dw indling as their w ealth and pow er increased; the superstition o f the people, and that narrow national pride which, kindled by constant victories, had becom e m ore and m ore aggressive since the liberation o f the country from the yoke o f the Hyksos. But, w illin gly or unw illingly, she probab ly drew his attention to some o f those facts— and to m an y others— as soon as he could think. A n d even earlier still, stray remarks o f hers ab out the priests o f A m on, w hom she did not like, and about their impressive tricks, w hich she p ro b ab ly detested, must have m ade it impossible for him to feel, towards those sacred persons, the respect— not to speak o f the aw e— that generations o f princes had felt; impossible even for him, perhaps, to take their faith seriously. It is quite plausible to suppose that on more than one occasion the child, w ho was extrem ely intelligent, overheard such bitter remarks. M oreover, he was soon given preceptors who, apart from reading and w riting and the elements o f the sciences o f his age, taught him w hat he should know o f the history o f his fathers. In a country in w hich everything was calculated to impress upon a future king the consciousness o f his divine origin, every m ark o f supernatural favour shown b y the gods to his fam ily must have been stressed to the utmost. A n d Prince A m enhotep was surely told o f such m iracles as that, for instance, w hich occurred under Q ueen H atshepsut, w hen during a solemn procession the statue o f A m on suddenly stopped in front o f him w ho was to succeed the queen as Thotm ose the T h ird, and nodded to him before every body, so as to make the choice o f heaven manifest. T h e story seemed suitable enough to inspire the child w ith reverence for the T h eban god as w ell as for his illustrious great-great-grandfather, the builder o f the E gyptian em pire. W hat impression it made upon him , nobody knows. But we do know that the prince was to show a very critical m ind in early adolescence. A nd that is enough for one to hold it possible that, already as a 1 Ar t h u r Wei gal l , i n Tutankhamen and Other Essajis (ist Edi t. 1923), p. 81.
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child, he only half-believed the m arvellous tale. His next step was probab ly to ask his m other about it, in answer o f w hich she told him that the w hole scene had been staged by the priests o f A m on, w ho favoured Thotm ose the T h ird as Q ueen H atshepsut’s successor. She added, perhaps, that w hen he grew up, he w ould acquire still more glory than his great ancestor if only he succeeded in keeping those same priests in their place, for they were now becom ing a nuisance — i f not a m enace— to royal pow er. A n d she spoke em phatically, for she felt w hat she said. Prayers, ceremonies, sacrifices in honour o f the “ king o f gods” w ere, o f course, a p art and parcel o f the youn g prin ce’s official life, so as to say. As heir-apparent, he had to be present w herever his presence was considered necessary. H e was never taught that A ton was the only god ; and for some years at least it appears that he did not question the existence o f other deities. Y e t, his early devotion to the Disk must have had the natural exclusiveness o f every ardent love. Those dutiful attendances to shrines o f other gods must have seemed boring to him , to say the least, in spite o f the surrounding pom p. A n d his inborn disposition to tell the truth and to act according to his feelings— a trait o f his character so dom inant that it cannot but have distinguished him , even as a child— must have m ade him feel m orally uncom fortable every tim e he was forced to be the silent witness o f some priestly m agic on grand occasions, or to p ay a p ub lic hom age to A m on, the god w hom he seems never to have loved. It has been said that every great life is the realisation o f a ch ild ’s dream . In the case o f A khnaton, w ho was little m ore than a child w hen he began to put his ideas into action, this is obvious. But it is likely that he conceived his m ain ideas before he gave them a public expression, an d that the great tendencies w hich were to direct his astonishing career were discernible in him long before he even had ideas. T h a t is to say th at his contem pt for A m on and for most o f the national gods, and his passionate adoration o f the Sun alone, are probab ly to be traced to an incredibly early age. His w hole life being a m arvel o f precocity, there is nothing unnatural in supposing him to have been a “ heretic” from the start.
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T h e role o f his m other was not to make him such, but to encourage him to rem ain such, w ithout perhaps a clear understanding o f w hat she was doing. A A
A
O n e m ay assume that, besides his m other, the prince’s stepmothers h ad a place in his early life. W e know next to nothing about them, but we know at least that they were numerous and that they carne from various countries far and near. O n e o f the wives o f A m enhotep the T h ird was the sister o f the ruling king o f B a b y lo n ; another, nam ed G ilukhipa, was the sister o f D ushratta, the ruling king o f M itanni. A p art from her, the Pharaoh had m arried at least one other M itan nian princess— if not m ore than one— and a num ber o f wom en from all the countries o f the N ear East, especially from S yria and M esopotam ia. Alliances w ith foreign ladies o f rank were no longer uncom m on in the royal fam ily o f E gypt since Thotm ose the Fourth h ad taken M utem uya, the daughter o f A rtatam a, king o f M itan ni— D ushratta’s grandfather— as his ch ief wife. It is now established that, apart from the great w ar-god Teshub, the M itannians, whose ruling class at least seems to have been o f Ind o-A ryan race, w orshipped also M ithra, Indra, V a ru n a , and other well-known V ed ic gods. T h e rem arkable sim ilitude that exists between A kh n aton ’s conception o f the Sun and that found in certain hymns o f the R ig -V e d a has prom pted some authors to suggest that the E gyptian king m ight h ave received the essentíal o f his religious innovations from India through M itan ni. A n d the influence o f his fath er’s M itan nian wives upon him in his childhood, as w ell as that o f other M itannians, possibly, during the rest o f his life, has been stressed in support o f this view. Th ere are, how ever, as yet, no available M itan nian documents describing the V ed ic gods w hich we have m entioned. Those gods are m erely enum erated, under ñames slightly diíferent from their Sanscrit ones, as witnesses o f a treaty be tween Shubbilulium a, kin g o f the Hittites, and M attiu aza,
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son o f D ushratta, king o f M itanni. From some M itannian proper ñames, such as for instance “ S h uw ard ata,” 1 one m ay also infer the existence o f a god whose ñam e was not m uch different from that o f the V e d ic sun-god, Surya. But that is all. So m uch so that Sir E. W allis B u d ge,2 one o f the authors w ho stresses the most the sim ilarity o f A ton and Surya, backs his argum ent w ith quotations from the R ig -V ed a , not from an y M itan nian text. T h e argum ent, as a result, loses m uch o f its w eight. For the idea two different nations have o f the same deity is not necessarily the same. A n d w hether the M itannians borrow ed their Surya and their M ith ra from Ind ia, or w hether both they and the Aryans o f India bor row ed them from a com m on source, still it remains to be proved that Su rya or M ith ra represented, to the M itan nian mind, the same religious conception as that expressed in the R ig -V ed a . A n d as long as that point is not well established, it is not possible to assert that a conception o f the Sun more or less sim ilar to that in the R ig -V e d a is derived from M itan nian influences. T h e p art played in the p rince’s religious education b y the M itan nian inmates o f his father’s harem must therefore be, we think, considerably reduced.3 O f course, it is plausible to im agine the royal child com ing to know from the m outh o f his step-mothers the ñames and legends o f different gods. A n d it is possible that some o f those glimpses o f foreign religión, especially under its solar aspects, m ade a greater impression on him than others. It is also not impossible that he m ight have heard on some occasions o f a sun-god little different, at least in his superficial features, from the Surya o f the A ryans and from the god he was him self to praise one day under the ñam e o f A ton. But the point remains doubtful, for lack o f inform ation. A n d the impression the prince received must have been rather vague, anyhow . For even 1 James Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 209. 8 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 113-115. s The proper explanation o f the doubtless striking similitude between his conception of Divinity and that o f the Aryans of India, as expressed in the Rig-Veda, lies, not in the assumption of any infiuence exerted upon Akhnaton, but in the fact that he was himself partly Aryan (being the grandson of a Mitannian princess).
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i f there did exist an y notew orthy solar philosophy behind the sun-gods o f the M itannians (or o f any other nation represented in Am enhotep the T h ird ’s “ house o f w om en” ), it is doubtful w hether any o f the P haraoh’s wives or concubines w ould have been able to convey adequately the essence o f it, especially to a child. It is m uch m ore natural to im agine that the young prince, popular am ong his step-mothers (as am ong wom en in general), because o f his m ild disposition and girlish beauty, glad ly used to go to their room s; that he spent his tim e there playin g, chatting about trifling things, as children do— p artakin g o f the sweets they gave h im ; and that occasionally he listened to some outlandish tale o f gods and demons, o f heroes and hidden treasures and fairy-like queens, tales such as have alw ays been told to little boys and girls all over the w orld. K n o w in g o f the ch ild’s precocious understanding, w e are inclined to believe that he loved stories and also that he readily p u t questions to his step-mothers, and to any foreigners he w ould meet, about strange lands and customs. W e do not know i f anybody ever threw into his subconscious m ind the idea o f a foreign sun-god with some o f the attributes he was one d ay to transfer to A ton, or i f the god o f the priests o f O n , o f w hich he knew w ell, was sufficient to set him dream ing lofty religious dreams. But we m ay say, w ithout m uch risk o f being misled, that through his d aily contact w ith his step-m others Prince A m enhotep acquired one thing at least w hich was to leave upon him an indelible impression, and that was the know ledge that every land h ad a sun-god. T h a t is, no doubt, the one im portant thing he learnt, at a very tender age, from G ilukhip a and the other ladies o f the royal h arem : M itannians, Babylonians, S yrian san d Canaanites, L ibyans and N ubians, w om en from the U p p er Euphrates and from the A rab ian desert and from the sacred land o f Pun t; Cretans also, possibly, and wom en from the jEgean Isles, perhaps even from farther northern shores, who had all brought their gods w ith them. T h ere w ere not only sun-gods, it is true. E very land had also its m oon-god, and its w ar-god, and m any other gods and goddesses in great numbers, some o f w hich could more or
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less be paralleled w ith those o f E gypt. A noth er intelligent child w ould have rem arked that all the gods w ere universal, and universally m ade in the im age o f their w orshippers; and he w ould have stopped there and troubled him self no longer about the nature o f G odhead. T h e child who was one d ay to be A khnaton p ro bab ly m ade the sam e rem arks; but he did not stop there. For along w ith that keen, analytical, destructive intelligence w ith w hich he was soon to crush all m an-m ade gods, there was in him an immense pow er o f devotion w hich he h ad already directed to the one G od whose b eauty overw helm ed him — the Sun. A m o n g the hosts o f deities o f w hich he gradu ally carne to know, the Sun alone he chose to see. A n d he saw H im everyw here, for everyw here H e was present. H e was the true G od o f all nations. A n d as from the terraces o f his palace the child gazed day after d ay at the real Sun and w atched H im rise and set in incandescent splendour, strange thoughts cam e to him — thoughts that no boy o f his age, and perhaps no grow n-up m an had ever had before. T h a t Sun— the Disk, the god o f his m other was surely not a god like the others, not even like those w ho w ere supposed to represent H im . H ow could indeed those clum sy sun-gods— Sham ash o f the Babylonians, M oloch o f the Tyrians, A m on o f the Thebans, worshipped throughout E gyp t— gods with bodies like m en’s and w ith men s passions, w ho were pleased, w hen fed and flattered, and w ho got angry for trifling offences; how could such gods be really the same as H e ? Since all nations saw the Sun in heaven, w h y then did they not look up to H im directly instead o f m aking themselves graven images so unw orthy o f H im ? N o one knows w hat age he was w hen he first put such questions to himself. It m ay have been a few years before his accession to the throne— that is to say, w hen he was a mere child. C hildren do, sometimes, open new horizons o f thought for themselves. But their best intuitions are, h a lf the time, crushed b y so-called “ education.” Prince A m en hotep ’s intuition o f the oneness o f G od, w hich he grasped through the visible Sun, was too strong to be crushed. As he grew in years, he more often and m ore thoughtfully gazed at the
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sky— the very im age o f glow ing Oneness— and becam e more and m ore devoted to the life-giving Disk, the one G od w hom he loved. A n d a tim e must h ave com e when w hat had been at first, in him , a dim desire, burst forth into a determ ination that nothing could b en d ; a tim e w hen, conscious o f the pow er he was destined one d ay to exert, he resolved to use it for the glorification o f his G od. A A
A
T h e p rince’s education was confided to learned men, mostly if not entirely chosen am ong the priests. W e know nothing o f the curriculum followed in his studies, but it is plausible to im agine that the sciences the most in honour in E gypt— m athem atics and astronom y on one hand, and the history o f the past on the other— had a prom inent place in his program m e. A p a rt from his m other-tongue, he was p robab ly taught Babylonian, w hich was the international m édium o f trade and dip lom acy for centuries and the language in w hich kings wrote to one another. It is likely that he was able to speak, possibly also to read, several other Ianguages. Brought up as he was in the crowded harem o f his father, w here so m any nations and tribes were represented, it seems hard ly believable that he was not. M uch less gifted children get acquainted with foreign speeches w ith am azing facility. T h e m ethod o f teaching in E gypt, fourteen hundred years before Christ, was not m uch different from that w hich prevails to this very day in the M oham m edan schools o f the sam e country, and in the East in general; nay, from that used in Europe throughout the M iddle Ages. It consisted m ainly o f m aking the child repeat over and over again, until he knew it b y heart, all w hat it was not absolutely necessary to explain to him thoroughly, that is to say, all his curriculum save m athem atics. A n d you n g Prince A m enhotep was p rob ab ly m ade to leam in that m anner w hole scrolls o f hieroglyp h ics: sayings o f the wise men o f oíd, treatises on good behaviour and good governm ent, hym ns to different deities, in cadenced verses, summaries on the movements
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and influence o f the heavenly bodies, and lists o f battles in w hich the kings o f E gypt had routed their enemies w ith the help o f the gods. It is reasonable to suppose that the history o f w hat we cali to-day the Eighteenth D ynasty— the line o f kings o f w hich he was him self the scion— was given an im portant place in his course o f studies, and that special stress was put, in it, upon the struggle against the Hyksos (the E gyptian “ W ar o f Independence” ), and the follow ing victorious cam paigns in Syria and in N u b ia w hich had resulted in the m aking o f the E gyp tian em pire. Those happenings, w hich read like very ancient history to most o f us, were m odern, almost contem porary events to the people o f the time. T h e ruthless punitive expedition o f Am enhotep the Second against Syria was then hardly more remóte than the Russo-Japanese W ar is to-d ay; and the staggering victories o f Thotm ose the T h ird , though less recent by some thirty years or so, were as vivid as ever in everybody’s im agination. M en w ho had been children under the Conqueror were still alive. It is therefore but natural that the w hole glorious period extending from the reign o f Seqenen-R a and A ahm ose onwards should have been presented to the youn g prince as a subject o f w hich he was to be particularly proud. T h e kings o f the Tw elfth D yn asty were certainly great ones; and so were, long before them , the famous Pyram id builders o f the Fourth and Fifth D ynasties. But they already belonged to w hat was then antiquity. T h ere can be also no doubt that the prince’s preceptors thoroughly insisted upon the protection w hich A m on, the patrón god o f Thebes and o f the D ynasty, had bestowed so lavishly upon all his forefathers. For how ever popular the ancient god A to n had re-becom e at court on account o f the queen’s devotion, A m on rem ained the great god o f the land, and Prince Am enhotep was expected to be, like all his ancestors, his loyal servant— in fact, his first priest. In the light o f w hat we already know o f the royal ch ild’s tendencies, we m ay now try to picture to ourselves how he probably reacted to the education thus given him. First, the very m ethod o f teaching is likely to have m ade
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m uch o f the im parted know ledge appear to him as uninteresting. T h e wise but com m onplace m axim s and proverbs and the sacred hym ns he was p ro b ab ly m ade to repeat in p ayin g great attention to subtle rules o f cadenee and pronunciation, must h ave stirred less jo y in his heart and conveyed to him less m eaning than did the song o f a bird, the music o f a shepherd’s ilute in the distance, or a single glim pse o f blue sky. Like most children w ho are all round intelligent— and not gifted w ith m em ory alone— Prince A m enhotep had little taste for bookish knowledge devoid o f the touch o f life. H e m ay have grasped it easily; and w e have indeed no reasons to suppose he did not. But one m ay doubt i f it interested him . T h e m ain distinctive traits o f his m ind, relentless logic and poetic enthusiasm, so rem arkable in the m an, were certainly prom inent already in the child. H e must have liked all that could set in m otion his reasoning pow er or captivate his im agination. A n d, as far as we can infer, the m anner in w hich he was taught could do neither. O n the other hand, it is likely that he used to put to his preceptors m any em barrassing questions and that he m ade, now and then, remarks w hich already revealed his triple genius as a forerunner o f m odern science, as an artist and as a saint. Th ere are no means o f know ing w hat those remarks were. Possibly, as we have suggested, the prince com pared more th an once the ungainly figure o f several o f the deities he knew— o f w hich some, such as T a u rt,1 the E gyp tian hippopotamus-goddess, w ere little inspiring indeed— w ith the radiant beauty o f the real Sun-disk, w hich he adored. Possibly, w hen told that the crocodile-headed god, Sebek, was another manifestation o f R a , the Sun,2 he refused to believe it on aesthetic grounds. Possibly, too, when urged to p ay m ore attention to the m oon-god, K honsu— the son o f the great A m on— he m ay have retorted that the moon only shines b y the reflected light o f the Sun, without knowing how 1 O r Ta-urt, “ the Great One.” Sir Flinders Petric: Religious L ife in Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1924), pp. 13, 82, 185.
*
“ Sebek, the Crocodiíe-god, an ancient solar deity.” Sir Wallis Budge:
Osiris and tlie Egyptian Resurrection (Edit. 1911), Vol. I, p. 63.
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rigorously true his statement was. It w ould be too m uch to attribute such an intuition as this to any other child w ithout sound historie evidence; it is not distorting the spirit o f history to hold it possible, even likely, in a child w ho was, but a few years later, to grasp intu itively the fundam ental equivalence o f light and heat. F inally, if there be anythin g true in the b elief that the basic aversions o f an individual appear very early in life, we m ay suppose that Prince Am enhotep alw ays showed a p articular repulsión for acts o f cruelty o f any sort, including those justified b y w ar and sanctioned b y religión, that some o f his great ancestors m ight occasionally have com m itted. It seems, for instance, impossible for his gentle nature not to have shrunk as he heard o f the well-known torture o f the seven Syrian chiefs captured by A m enhotep the Second during his cam paign and hung, head downwards, in front o f that P haraoh’s galley, as it sailed trium phantly up the Nile. T h e idea o f those same m en solem nly sacrificed to A m on, and o f their bloody remains left to rot for days upon the walls o f Thebes and o f N apata, must have filled him with h ard ly less disgust. A nd w hatever be the spirit in w hich they w ere related to him , such accounts have perhaps contributed no little to infuse into him , for life, the horror o f w ar; to thw art in him every desire o f im perial expansión at such a cost; and to turn his indiíference towards the national god A m on into positive hatred. A A
A
Som e time before his accession, Prince A m enhotep, then h ard ly m ore than ten years oíd, was m arried with all the custom ary pom p to a little princess o f about eight or nine, Nefertiti. Scholars do not agree about the bride’s parentage. Sir Flinders Petrie identifies her with T adu kh ip a, daughter o f D ushratta, king o f M itan n i.1 A rth u r W eigall rejeets this view on account o f the princess’s “ typ ically E gyp tian ” features, and supposes her to be the daughter o f A y, a court 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 207.
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d ign itary,1 w hile the striking resem blance between her portraits and those o f her youn g husband has prom pted others to suggest that she was his half,® or even his full sister.3 Brother and sister m arriages were com m on in E gypt, as everyone knows. W e have no opinion to express on the subject. Y et, we find it difficult to dismiss Sir Flinders Petrie’s versión on the solé ground o f N efertiti’s looks. For, i f the princess were indeed the daughter o f D ushratta, then her m other w ould be the sister and her paternal grandm other, the paternal aunt o f A m enhotep the T h ird , w hile the prince’s paternal grand m other— the ch ief wife o f Thotm ose the Fourth— was, as we know, D ushratta’s paternal aunt. In other words, the w edded children w ould be even more closely related than ordinary first cousins are, and there w ould be nothing strange in their resem bling each other as brother and sister. H ow ever, it makes little diíference whose daughter Nefertiti actually was. T o history, she remains A kh n aton ’s beloved consort. It is curious to observe that her beauty, revealed in her famous limestone portrait-busts— the loveliest masterpieces o f E gyp tian sculpture— has m ade her far m ore w idely known than her great husband to the m odern European public at large. It is probable that the idyllic love that was to bind the prince and his consort together all through their years began long before their actual connubial Ufe. I f the features and m ore particularly the expression .of the face do reveal something o f w hat we cali the soul, then we must suppose that the two children, heir-apparent and future queen o f E gyp t, had m uch in com m on. T h e ir earliest portraits represent them both w ith the same regular, o va l face, slender neck and large, dark eyes full o f yearning; w ith already, in their gaze, a touch o f thoughtful sadness w hich is not o f their age. A delicate, alm ost feminine charm seems to have distinguished 1 Arthur Weigall: The L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 49. 2 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 76. * James Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 243. H. R . Hall: Ancient History o f the Near East (Ninth Edit. 1936), pp. 258, 299.
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A kh n ato n ’s person all his life. But it was balanced in latter days, as his portraits testify, b y a stam p o f m anly determ ination. In early youth, and especially in childhood, before his struggle w ith the surrounding w orld had actually begun, his virile qualities had not yet found their expression; the delicate charm alone was prom inent; and the new lym arried prince resembled his wife even more than he did in subsequent years. T h e two played together, sat and read or looked at pietures together, listened together to the stories that grow n-up people told them . T h e y adm ired together a lotus-bud that h ad ju st opened; they w atched a velvety butterfly on a rose, or a flight o f swallows going north with the com ing o f hot w eather. A painted bas-relief, dating perhaps a few years later, pictures the prince leaning gracefully on a sta íf while N efertiti gives him a bunch o f flowers to smell. A n indefinable sweetness pervades the w hole scene, w hich w e m ay plausibly take to be a faithful likeness o f the youn g couple’s everyday life. It is probable, too, that Prince A m enhotep soon initiated his child-wife into w hat could already be called his higher life. W hatever be her parentage, the worship o f the Sun was nothing new to the little princess. But through her d aily contact w ith the inspired child w ith w hom she was now w edded, w h at had m eant to her, until then, little m ore than a mere succession o f grow n-up people’s gestures, becam e an act o f personal love. A lth ough his ow n ideas were yet far from definite, Prince A m enhotep p ro bab ly taught her to see the Sun as he did, that is to say, as the most beautiful and the kindest o f gods; w e do not know if we should add, at this early stage o f his religious history: as the only G od worth praising. I f N efertiti be, as Sir Flinders Petrie suggests, the daughter o f the king o f M itan ni, then one m ay suppose that she told her youn g husband about M ith ra and perhaps Surya, the sun-gods o f her country, and that she described to him in a clum sy m anner, putting too m uch stress upon details, as children do, some o f the rites w ith w hich they w ere w or shipped there. It is doubtful w hether there could be in those
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details, as she presented them , anything impressive enough to be o f psychological im portance in the prince’s evolution. But he m ay have seized the opportunity to tell the little girl, pointing to the fiery D isk in heaven, that this was the only real Sun, under w hatever ñam e and in w hatever w ay one m ay praise H im in diíferent lands. A n d she possibly felt that there was truth in his childish remarks, and began to look up to him as to som ebody very wise— wiser even, per haps, than the grow n-up people. A A
A
W e have tried to emphasise that, before becom ing the Founder o f the R eligión o f the Disk, A khnaton was once a child with m any o f the weaknesses natural to his age, but, at the same time, a child in w hom the first sparks o f genius must often have burst fo rth ; a child whose com ing greatness must have appeared, at times, undoubtable. As there is hard ly any inform ation about his early years to be gathered from historical records, one has to be content w ith im agining w hat expression the m ain em otional tendencies must have taken in the prince, as a little boy, the qualities o f mind, and traits o f character w hich m ade his life and teaching, as a king, w hat w e know them to be. But one can assert w ith a high degree o f p robability that those psychological elements were already observable in him at an extrem ely early age, and that he was therefore not a child like others. It is likely that he was a serious, m editative child, full o f the vague cali o f an U nknow n that he could not yet think about, but that he could feel at times w ith strange intensity. H e had vivid, delicate sensations, and was already deeply moved b y visible beauty— even m ore so, as far as w e can infer, b y that o f land, w ater and sky, and o f livin g creatures, than b y that o f the highly artistic luxuries in the midst o f w hich he was grow ing up. H e was a sensitive and loving child, w ho w ould burst out in indignant rage at the report, not to speak o f the sight, o f an y act o f brutality com m itted, with w hatever purpose it be, on m an or beast. H e was an . .--- 4
8 8
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exceedingly logical child, w ho w ould question the very foundation o f w hatever did not seem evident to him , and w ho w ould never be content w ith such evasive answers as grow n-up people often give to children w ho discuss, in order to make them keep silent. A b o ve all, i f there be an y children who, from the day they were born, have never told a lie or acted deceitfully, he w as certainly one o f them. A n d we m ay safely believe that he renounced m any times in his childhood, for the sake o f truth, little advantages w hich seemed great ones in his eyes, as readily as he was one d ay to sacrifice an em pire to the consistency o f his life.
CHAPTER III
A LO N E A G A IN S T M IL L IO N S about 1383 b . c . 1 the prince ascended the throne o f his fathers as Am enhotep the Fourth, king o f Egypt, em peror o f all the lands extending from the borders o f the U p p er Euphrates dow n to the Fourth C ata ra ct o f the N ile— in m odern words, from the neighbourhood o f A rm enia to the heart o f the Sudan. H e was crowned not at Thebes but at H erm onthis— the “ Southern H eliopolis” — w here a brother o f Q ueen T iy was high-priest o f the S u n .8 T h e list o f his titles, as found in the earliest extensive inscription yet know n o f his reign ,8 presents an interesting com bination o f the oíd traditional style w ith expressions foretelling an entirely new order o f thought. It runs as follows:
I
n
“ Mighty Bull, Lofty of Plumes, Favourite oftheTwoGoddesses, Great in kingship at Karnak, Golden Horus, Wearer of diadems in the Southern Heliopolis, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, High-priest of Ra-Horakhti of the Two Horizons rejoicing in his horizon in his ñame ‘Shu-which-is-in-the-Disk’ ; Nefer-kheperura, Ua-en-ra; Son of R a; Amenhotep, Divine Ruler of Thebes, Great in duration, Living forever, Beloved of Amon-Ra, Lord of Heaven, Ruler of Eternity.” * In this long succession o f titles, the one o f “ H igh-priest o f R a-H orakh ti o f the T w o H orizons rejoicing in his horizon in his ñam e ‘ Shu-which-is-in-the-Disk’ ” is rem arkable. W h at ever m ay be the higher conception o f the Sun w hich the new king was soon to preach, we must rem em ber that originally his G od was the Sun-god revered in the oíd sacred city o f O n 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), VoJ. II, p. 205. According to Arthur Weigall (Life and Times o f Akhnaton, New and Revised Edit. 1922, p . 1), he ascended the throne in 1375 b . c . 8 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. n i . s The Inscriptions o f Silsileh. See Breastcd’s Ancient Records o f Egypt (Edit. 1906), Vol. II, p. 384. * Breasted: Ancient Records o f Egypt (Edit. 1906). See also Arthur Weigall’s L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edil. 2922), p. 50.
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(Heliopolis) and identified with the well-known R a . As noticed b y some authors, the Pharaoh never attem pted to conceal the identity o f his God with the antique solar d eity 1; rather he gave the im m em orial deity a new interpretation. T h e com pound ñam e w hich we have just recalled was therefore but another designation o f the god A ton. W h y was that designation specially chosen to figure in the titulary o f the new ly-crow ned Pharaoh ? W h y not sim ply the words “ H igh-priest o f A to n ” ? It m ay be that the com pound ñam e, being o f m ore current use, was considered more suitable in an official docum ent. It m ay be, also, that the king was already conscious that the real G od w hom he loved was som ething m ore subtle than the visible Su n ; the expression “ S h u ” (heat, or heat and lig h t)a “ which-is-in-the-Disk” rendered the idea o f that unknown R eality as adequately as language perm itted. O ne m ight think that such a consciousness was well-nigh impossible in a boy not yet in his ’teens. M ost writers do, in fact, insist on the king’s extrem e youth, and seem to believe that the religious views o f w hich we find the evidence in docum ents dating from this early period o f his reign, were m ostly, i f not entirely, those o f the dow ager queen and o f her entourage.3 T h a t A m enhotep the Fourth was a mere child in years, and consequently in w orldly experience, is beyond doubt. T h e letters in w hich D ushratta (or T u shratta), king o f M itan ni, asks him to refer to his m other concerning all m atters previously discussed with A m enhotep the T h ird, prove that, at least for some tim e after his accession, he still acted p ractically as a minor, under the tutelage o f Q ueen T iy .4 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. m . * Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 80. 3 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. 1&99), Vol. II, p. 211. Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), pp. 5 0 -5 1.
4 “ As to the words o f Nimmuria (Neb-maat-ra, i.e., Amenhotep the Third), thy father, which he wrote to me, T iy, the great wife of Nimmuria, the beloved, thy mother, she knows all about them. Enquire of T iy, thy mother, about all the words of thy father, which he spake to me . . .” “ All the words together which I discussed with thy father, Tiy, thy mother, knows them all; and no one else knows them. . . (Letter o f Dushratta, Amama Letters, K.28)
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It is likely th at the messages addressed to him b y foreign kings and b y vassals were first read b y her, and not handed over to him w ithout am pie comments about the intentions o f their writers, w hom she had learnt to know through and through and to tackle w ith all the shrewdness o f a diplom at. It is possible that certain changes in the dealings o f the E gyp tian court w ith foreigners, the reluctance o f the you n g king, for instance, to lavish his gold on his neighbours, in extravagant presents, as his father had done— a change o f w hich the monarchs all com plain in their letters— were p artly due to the influence o f Q ueen T iy . B ut religious and philosophical matters were quite a diíferent thing. O n that plañe, as we rem arked before, A m enhotep the Fourth, though still a child in years, probab ly showed signs o f an extraordinary pow er o f intuition and o f b o th analytical and Creative intelligence far beyond his age. W e cannot, it is true, assert on the solé ground o f a few w ords in his titulary that he had already conceived the idea o f a G od o f a m ore subtle nature than the m aterial Sun. But we can no m ore reasonably deny him the cap acity o f conceiving such an idea on the solé ground that he was not m ore than tw elve years oíd. It is quite possible that it was he him self w ho insisted on being called, in the list o f titles that was soon to rem ain officially attached to his ñam e, “ H igh-priest o f R a-H o rak h ti” (i.e., o f A ton), as other Pharaohs had been called “ H igh-priest o f A m o n .” O th er titles o f his, such as “ W earer o f diadem s in the Southern H eliopolis,” “ Son o f R a ,” etc., emphasise his cióse connection w ith the oíd Sun-cult o f O n , in w hich his religión has its roots; while his ñames “ Nefer-kheperu-ra” (Beautiful Essence o f the Sun) and “ U a-en-ra” (O n ly O n e o f the Sun), are to be found throughout his reign in all inscriptions concern inghim . O th er expressions in the titulary, how ever (such as “ F a v o u rite o f the T w o Goddesses,” “ B e lo v ed o f A m o n -R a ” ), seem to indícate that even if, to some extent, he was already conscious o f the subtle nature o f his G od and o f His superiority over other gods, the king had not yet reached the stage at w hich he was soon to look upon all special, p ard al or local— lim ited— ideas o f G odhead as absurd no less than sacrilegious.
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It is likely that Q ueen T iy , though herself no fervent devotee o f A m on , inserted into the titu lary o f her son one or two typ ically orthodox expressions in order to please the powerful local priesthood. E ven i f it be so, the king does not appear to have too strongly objected, since the sentences were, in fact, inserted. M oreover, we see that at the present stage o f his history, he still bore the ñam e o f Am enhotep, and that the most distinctive o f all the titles w hich accom panied his ñam e in later days— that o f “ L ivin g in T ru th ” — w as not yet m entioned in the inscriptions. A A
A
Am enhotep the Fourtli was greeted on his accession b y the kings o f the N orth and o f the East— the rulers o f the civilised w orld outside E gypt. T h eir letters, fortunately preserved to posterity, are interesting in their diversity. T h a t o f Burnaburiash o f B abylon is friendly; that o f Shubbilulium a, king o f the H ittites, is form al, som ewhat stiff; that o f D ushratta o f M itan ni is touching in its unaffected sincerity. D ushratta had been the friend as w ell as the cousin and brother-in-law o f Am enhotep the T h ird ; it was he w ho had sent the Pharaoh the m iraculous statue o f Ishtar o f N ineveh, in the hope that the goddess w ould re-give him his health, and i f she had failed to do so, it was not his fault. E ach m onarch, how ever, considered the accession o f the new king o f E gyp t as an im portant event because E gyp t was a very pow erful coun try; also, perhaps, because they im agined that the son o f A m enhotep the T h ird — so m ighty, so am iable in his dealings w ith them, and so fabulously rich — was no ordinary prince. T h e y expected handsom e presents from him — “ m ore g o ld ,” and still “ m ore g o ld ,” for gold in his land was “ as com m on as dust.” T h ey sought his alliance, for they knew he had soldiers garrisoned along their frontiers and strongholds overlooking the roads that led to their kingdoms. But none o f them had the slightest idea o f the actual greatness o f the child to w hom they were writing. N one knew that the m ain event o f the world in w hich they
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lived was the rapid daw ning o f eternal truths in the con sciousness o f that lad o f tw elve, and that the splendour o f his kingship was nothing com pared w ith that o f his priceless individuality. N o b o d y knew it. It takes tim e to becom e aw are o f w hat is really im portant. M eanw hile, in the palace o f his fathers in Thebes, the youn g Pharaoh thought o f his G od. H e was now less free than before, being a king— and a god, in the eyes o f his people. His daily round o f duties was fixed b y rigid custom. From his stately visits to the temples and his reception o f high officials and foreign envoys dow n to the m inute details o f his prívate life, all his actions were regulated, w ith im placable exactitude, by a tim e-honoured etiquette little short o f a religious ritual. H e could neither do w hat he pleased at the time he pleased, ñor be alone w henever he wished. H e p robably appreciated all the m ore the moments allow ed to him for rest or recreation, and used them to feel the presence o f the divine in the beauty o f the visible w orld and in the silence o f his own soul. A s w e once rem arked w ith reference to the P haraoh’s childhood, that w hich is psychologically the most im portant in a m an ’s life is generally left out from recorded history, how ever detailed. O f the period extending from the coronation o f A m enhotep the Fourth to the erection o f the earliest tem ple to A ton o f w hich we know— com pleted before the sixth year, and therefore begun not later than the fourth year o f his reign— there is no w ritten inform ation. A n d were there any, still w e w ould p robably know nothing o f the actual process b y w hich the dom inant idea o f the oneness o f an im m aterial G od carne to fill the king’s consciousness; still the history o f the king’s religious life in those years imm ediately preceding his great struggle against tradition— b y far the most interesting thing— w ould necessarily have to be conjectured. T h o u gh already from his childhood he had been, to no little extent, o f a contem plative nature, susceptible o f unusual inspiration, w e m ay suppose that it was between the age o f eleven and that o f fifteen or sixteen that the em inently intelligent and intuitive youn g m onarch went through some
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p articular religious experience, after w hich the basis o f his doctrine w as fixed. T h e sudden determ ination with w hich he pursued his aims, from the erection o f A to n ’s tem ple onwards, seems to indícate that there was a change in his inner outlook; that w hat had been, up to then, at most a strong feeling, had becom e to him a truth— nay, the truth— overw helm ing his mind and heart, and most probab ly his finer senses, w ith all the pow er o f logical, m oral and physical evidence. W h at his experience actually was, nobody w ill ever know. Som e historians, on the authority o f certain remarks o f Professor Elliot Sm ith, w ho exam ined his skeleton, suggest that the youn g Pharaoh w as possibly subject to fits and hallucinations. Several truly great individuáis are said to have shared the direct know ledge o f those singular nervous states, and there m ay be some relevance in the expression o f “ divine” illness that served in form er days to desígnate them . It seems difficult, however, even for a m edical expert such as E lliot Sm ith, to assert after so m any centuries the exact nature o f those tem porary lapses out o f norm al consciousness, i f any. T h e pathological ñames given to their supposed cause— epilepsy,1 “ w ater on the b rain ,” 3 etc.— help us very little to guess w hat they meant, in fact, not to the outw ard observer, but to the particular adolescent who is said to have undergone them. Ñ or can their abnorm al character throw the slightest discredit either upon A m en hotep the Fourth or upon the teaching w hich he was led to conceive, perhaps p artly through their agency, as some alltoo-norm al creatures m ight be inclined to believe. W hatever it be, w e must rem em ber that Sun-worship had never m eant to A m enhotep the Fourth w hat it m eant to everybody else. E nraptured, from the very start, b y the beauty o f light, w hich seems to have m ade upon him an extraordinary impression all through his life, he saw in our Parent Star neither a god am ong m any other gods, ñor a physical b ody am ong m any other physical bodies, but the 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922),
P-*5Sir '\
W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (F.dit. 1923), p . 75.
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supreme source and em bodim ent o f all that appeared to him w orth adoring: beauty, pow er, heavenly m ajesty; and that sweetest com plem ent o f all these things— kindness. It is likely that he had once associated all the divine attributes o f the Sun w ith the m aterial Disk, but that very soon he had conceived a m ore subtle idea o f G odhead b y considering the “ H eat” or “ H eat-and-L ight” -(Shu)-which-isin-the-Disk. T h e god R a-H orakh ti o f the T w o H orizons o f w hich, in his titulary, he proclaim s him self the highpriest, is referred to under that p articular ñam e. W e should, it seems, suppose that the king’s third step was to identify the “ H eat w ithin the D isk” w ith the D isk itself — the invisible form o f G odhead w ith the visible; the im m aterial, or apparently such, w ith the m aterial, or apparently such. Sir W allis B u d ge1 tells us that the oíd god Tem , or A tem , the lord o f the sacred city o f O n (Heliopolis), whose suprema cy is asserted in the P yram id Texts, form ed a trinity w ith the deities Shu (heat, or heat and light) and T efn u t (the w atery elem ent). In the identification o f A ton (the Disk)— the same as A tem or T em , according to Budge— w ith “ Shuw hich-is-in-the-Aton,” w e m ay see the outcom e o f a process towards unity, perhaps already latent in the trinitarian doc trine o f the priests o f O n (as possibly in all trinitarian teachings), but brought to its full eflect in a direct consciousness o f the O n e in the com plem entary three no less than in the infinite diversity o f the m any. This explanation, w hatever be its valué, seems far m ore in accordance w ith all that is known o f religious experience than Sir W allis B udge’s own versión that A m enhotep the Fourth w orshipped all along but the m aterial Sun, and that there was “ nothing spiritual” either in his hym ns or in his religión.3 A ll religious geniuses seem to have becom e aw are, in their m edita tions, o f some indefinable Oneness, the nature o f which it is impossible to convey to those who have not lived through the m ystic State. In the case o f A m enhotep the Fourth, the 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p p . 57-581 Ibid., p. 79, also p . 112 an d follow ing.
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truth he was to set as the foundation o f his teaching (if not the experience that led him to the knowledge o f it) can be expressed to-day in scientific terms. O rigin ally, the object o f his m editations was neither a m etaphysical entity, ñor an idea, ñor a sym bol, ñor anythin g abstract, but solely the visible Sun— the Father from w hom our m aterial earth and its sister planets sprang. Therefore, any discovery concerning H im , through w hatever channel it be m ade, was, in the long run, susceptible o f being tested by the ordinary scientific means b y w hich we test all knowledge o f the m aterial world. A n d , as Sir Flinders Petrie has adm irably pointed o u t,1 the youn g P haraoh’s discovery o f the equivalence o f light and heat, and o f the Sun as source o f all pow er has been tested in recent times, and proved accurate. It is nothing else but an anticipation o f the principie o f equivalence o f all forms o f energy, w hich is the basis o f m odern science. W e m ay add that, i f such be the correct interpretation o f the king’s con ception o f the Sun, w e m ay regard his identification o f A ton (originally, the m aterial Disk) w ith R a-H orakh ti o f the T w o H orizons, rejoicing in His ñam e, “ Shu (heat, or heat and light)-w hich-is-in-the-A ton,” as an equally bold anticipation o f the fundam ental identity o f “ energy” w ith w hat appears to the senses as “ m atter” — the latest great scientific genera] isation. In other words, A m enhotep the Fourth reached, through some direct realisation o f the Essence o f all things— through an experience o f w hich we can say nothing— the ultim ate result that scientific thought was one d a y to attain, after thirty-three centuries o f patient labour. W hether such occurrences as fits or trances helped him to leap into supernorm al stages o f consciousness, or w hether he reached those stages sim ply through an unusual aptitude for concentrated m editation, it makes little difference. T h e fact that, b y solé means o f direct insight, he grasped the fundam ental truth concerning the m aterial no less than the spiritual w orld, and opened to him self the only outlook on nature and on divinity w hich can be called scientific in all times, is perhaps the most illustrative historie p ro of o f the unity o f all tru th ; the 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. i8 g g ), V ol. I I , p . 214.
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most illustrative instance, also, o f the ultim ate equivalence o f all methods w hich lead to its knowledge. A A
A
T h e P haraoh’s first im portant act o f w hich there is any record was the erection in Thebes o f a tem ple to A ton. Like all the buildings consecrated to the Disk, that tem ple was u tterly destroyed in subsequent years b y the enemies o f the king’s faith, and nothing is left o f it save a few blocks o f sandstone, detached from one another, w hich were mostly re-used in the construction o f later m onuments. It appears to have been a large building, i f w e ju d g e by the size o f the fragments o f bas-reliefs that can still be seen on some o f the blocks. (In one such fragm ent, for instance, the w idth o f the king’s leg, at the lower edge o f his kilt, is o f tw enty inches.) A n inscription— invaluable for the study o f this period o f the reign o f A m enhotep the Fourth— states that new quarries were opened at Silsileh, in the South, to provide sandstone for the construction o f this tem ple. H igh officials o f the court w ere appointcd to supervise the transport o f the stone to Thebes. W e also know from an inscription that a scribe nam ed H atay was m ade “ overseer o f the granaries in the House o f A to n .” From _the little that remains o f it, it is hardly possible to tell w hether the tem ple was built in the traditional style or w hether it resembled the temples o f T elI-el-A m am a, o f w hich w e shall speak later on. In the w riting upon the stones that belonged to the new building, as well as in the wellknow n inscription o f Silsileh, the king is referred to as A m enhotep, w hich shows that he had not yet changed his ñam e. T h e ñam e o f A to n is not surrounded by a “ cartouche,” as it is in all later inscriptions; and the expression “ L iv in g in T ru th ” — w hich recurs continually in all docu ments dated after the sixth year o f the reign— has not yet been found, and possibly had not yet then been incorporated by the king into the list o f his most usual titles. M oreover, references to several o f the gods recognised by orthodox E gyptians— such as Horus, Set, W ep w at— are to be read
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upon the fragm ents o f stone that once formed the temple walls. A p art from that, above the com m em orative inscription o f Silsileh, there was originally a figure o f the king p rayin g to A m on w hile the Sun-disk w ith rays ending in hands— the distinctive sym bol o f the new religión— shed its life-giving beams upon him. T h e im age o f the national deity has been afterwards effa ced ; but traces o f it are still visible. In the tom b o f Ram ose, in Thebes, w hich dates from about the same time apparently, there is an im age o f the goddess M a a t; and H orus o f Edfu is invoked in an inscription. A nd, in a letter addressed to the king in the fifth year o f his reign, by a royal steward nam ed A p iy , w ho lived in M em phis, Ptah and “ the gods and goddesses o f M em phis” are mentioned w ithout A p iy seeming to suspect in the least that his sovereign no longer adhered to the traditional religión— an instance all the more impressing that here, in that letter, A m enhotep the Fourth is for the first tim e referred to as “ L ivin g in T ru th ,” the m otto w hich he kept to the very end o f his reign. Finally, on the scarabs o f this period, the Pharaoh is spoken o f as “ beloved o f T h o t,” the god o f w isdom .1 From these various data, most authors have inferred that, w hen he built this first tem ple to A ton o f w hich history tells us, the king had not yet conceived his religión in its definitive form. This interpretation presupposes that the changing o f the k in g’s ñam e, the abolition o f all cults save that o f the imageless A ton, the erasure o f the ñam e and figure o f A m on and o f the plural w ord “ gods” from every stone, were all u navoidable consequences o f the new faith— a translation into action o f its essential tenets. A n d it is generally in that light that those facts are view ed. It has been w ritten that A ton was “ a jealous g o d ,” 2 as i f the Pharaoh, in w aging w ar upon the gods o f his fathers, was but im plicitly obeying some rigorous religious dictate sim ilar to the first o f the T e n 1 Arthur Weigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), P’ 74-, s Sir Flinders Petrie: Religious L ife in Ancient Egypt (Edit, 1924), p. 95. Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), pp. 168170. Tutankhamen and Other Essays (Edit. 1923), p. 82. James Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 251.
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Com m andm ents that Moses was one d ay to give his wandering Israelites in the ñam e o f their tribal deity. Perhaps a certain resem blance between one o f the king’s hym ns to the Sun and a psalm o f D avid, w ritten centuries later1; perhaps, also, some unconscious desire o f seeing in A m enhotep the Fourth the forerunner o f a religión out o f w hich Christianity was one d ay to spring, has prom pted m any m odern authors to attribute to him a monotheism o f the same nature as that o f the Jew s.2 T h e data concerning the construction o f the earliest tem ple to A ton, and the w hole o f the m onarch’s reign up to his sixth year, do not point to such a religious conception. Therefore the writers conclude that the king did not know his ow n mind before the sixth year o f his reign, or at least that his faith evolved after that period in the sense o f a m ore and more rigorous monotheism. But, to a m an with no preconceived idea w hatsoever as to w hat sort o f a god A to n should be, it does not appear at all necessary to suppose any thing o f the kind. For if, indeed, as Sir Flinders Petrie has pointed o u t,3 A ton be none other but R ad ian t E nergy deified— that is to say, an all-pervading reality o f an immanent character— there is no reason to attribute to H im the all-too-hum an desire o f being worshipped alone. O n the contrary, it w ould seem natural that o n e w h o se e sd iv in ity in th e “ H eat-which-is-in-the-Disk” (and w hich is o f the same essence as the Disk itself), far from proscribing the tim e-honoured gods o f his land, should look upon them as m an’s halting attem pts to reach the U nreacha b le ; as im perfect symbols o f the O ne true G od. It is thus that sages o f all times have looked upon the traditional deities in lands where popular polytheism prevails side by side w ith the most exalted religious realisations. A n d it seems to us most probable that Am enhotep the Fourth considered 1 Psalm 104. See Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1923), pp. 134-136; Tutankhamen and Other Essays (Edit. 1923), p. 82 ; The Glory o f the Pharaohs (Edit. 1923), p. 147; Short History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1934), p. 154. ! It has been asserted— and that by an Israelite— that Jewish Monotheism was entirely derived from the worship of Aton. See Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. See also Arthur W eigall’s Tutankhamen and Other Essays (Edit. 1923), P- 933 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. 1899), V o l. I I , p. 214.
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the gods o f his country— and o f all countries— in that very light. It m ay be that the figure o f A m on was carved out on the slab bearing the Silsileh inscription by a sculptor who “ sim ply followed the tim e-honoured custom .” 1 But, had the king found the slightest objection to its presence, he w ould certainly have had it effaced— as he did, in fact, later on. T h e thing is that he had no quarrel w ith any o f the gods, not even w ith A m on. His G o d was above them all and contained them all as H e contained all existence; H e was not against them . A t most, the king m ay have felt a little contem pt for the m an-m ade deities, on account o f their local character and o f their alleged petty interferences in hum an affairs. H e did not love them . But, at first, he tolerated them — as a puré V edantist tolerates to-day the popular gods and goddesses o f India— know ing th at most men can never rise to a higher and m ore com prehensive idea o f Godhead. It seems that he w ould easily have tolerated them to the end, had it not been for the serious opposition o f the E gyptian priests— especially o f those o f A m on— to the execution o f his legitím ate designs. T h e series o f steps he was soon to take, and the new aspect o f his religión in the eyes o f w hoever considers it from outside, can be explained as a masterful reaction to unw elcom e priestly interference rather than as signs o f a religious evolution towards a new and narrower idea o f G od. This view receives confirm ation from the fact that, even after the abolition o f the public cult o f A m on and o f the other gods, still, as we shall see, the Pharaoh m ade no attem pt to spread his ow n faith beyond a small circle o f disciples. A A
A
It is also supported b y the inscription in the tom b o f Ram ose at Thebes— an early docum ent, no doubt, for the tom b is decorated in the “ o íd ” style, and w herever the kin g’s ñam e appears, it is still A m enhotep. T h e general tone o f the inscription plainly indicates that, at the time the tom b was built, not only was the king already in possession o f a 1 B aikie: The Amama Age (E dit. 1926), p . 254.
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definite truth w hich he had received directly from G od— that is to say, w hich he had grasped in tu itiv e ly ; w hich had forced itself upon his m ind w ith all the strength o f evidence— but that he was, also, fully conscious o f being, himself, substantially identical w ith the Essence o f all life, the Sun. He addresses him self to Ram ose in the inscription, and says: “ T h e words o f R a are before thee, o f m y august Father who taught me their essence. A ll that is His . . . since H e equipped the lan d . . . in order to exalt me since the time o f the god. . . . It was know n in m y heart, opened to m y face— I understood.” A n d Ram ose answers: “ T h y m onum cnts shalJ endure like the heavens, for thy duration is th at o f A ton therein. T h e existence o f thy m onuments is like the existence o f the heavens. T h o u art the O n ly O n e o f A ton, in possession o f His designs. T h o u hast laid the m ountains; their secret cham bers. T h e terror o f thee is in the m idst o f them as the terror o f thee is in the hearts o f the p e o p le ; they hearken to thee as the people hearken.” 1 T h e oíd Sun-god R a, the divine Ancestor o f the most ancient Pharaohs, is clearly regarded here as the same as Aton. But i f w e bear in mind all that w e already know o f the religión o f Am enhotep the Fourth— his idea o f the “ H eatwhich-is-in-the-Disk” identical w ith the Disk itself, his con ception o f a thoroughly im m anent G odhead— then w e cannot b u t see m uch m ore than custom ary dynastic boasting in the king’s assertion that R a is his “ august Father,” and m uch more, also, than the polite exaggerations o f a courtier in Ram ose’s r e p ly : “ T h o u art the O n ly O ne o f A ton, etc. . . .” This docum ent, the earliest one perhaps in w hich the king and his G od are as bold ly identified as in so m any later texts, is a further p ro o f that, even in this first part o f his reign, the P haraoh’s religious views already appeared to other men as som ething decidedly new, and that they p ro bab ly were very little, i f at all, different from w hat w e know them to have been at the tim e he lived in his new cap ital and wrote his famous hymns. A A A 1 Breasted: Ancient Records o f Egypt (E d it. 1 9 0 6 ), V o l. I I , p . 389.
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T h e king’s next step was to decree that the quarter o f Thebes in w hich the new ly-built tem ple stood w ould henceforth be called “ Brightness o f A ton, the G reat O n e,” and that Thebes itself— the proud C ity o f A m on , whose patrondeity had become the god o f a w hole em pire— w ould henceforth be known as the “ City-of-the-Brightness-of-Aton.” O n e need not see in this a deliberate insult to the local god on the part o f Am enhotep the Fourth. Th ere is, at least, no evidence suggesting that such m ight have been the m onarch’s in ten tio n ; and if our interpretation o f his religious views be right, there is every reason to believe that it was not so. T h e Pharaoh did not endeavour to crush the T h eb an deity out o f existence, or even to defy it, as the worshipper o f a “jealous go d ” w ould have done. H e only wished to keep it in its place— to relegate it am ong the partial symbols o f G odhead w hich a m an who thinks and feels must sooner or later learn to transcend. H e did not suppress the cult o f A m on or o f any other g o d s; ñor, p robably, did he intend to do so at this stage o f his career. But he surely wished that the O ne invisible, intangible G od, Essence o f all things, W hom he had com e to realise through his contem plation o f the visible Sun, should be honoured above all the m inor deities, protectors o f families, cities, or even nations, whose pow er was lim ited and whose nature was apparently finite, like that o f their hum an devotees. A n d, in giving its new ñam e to the capital o f his fathers, he p aid a p ub lic hom age to the true G od o f the w hole universe, as opposed to all the m an-m ade tribal gods. It is likely that the priests o f A m on failed to understand this attitude— or perhaps did the most intelligent am ong them understand it but too well ? A s a result, they were unable to accept the change with equanim ity. T h e y and their god had been receiving such extraordinary honours in Thebes and throughout E gypt, for so m any centuries, that it was hard for them to realise that a new order was daw ning, in w hich their unchallenged dom ination w ould no longer have a m eaning, and therefore a place. A m on, w hom they had identified w ith the oíd H eliopolitan god R a — the Sun— so as to legitimise his sw ay over all E gypt, was in their eyes the actual sovereign o f the land. It was he who had rendered
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his sons, the T h eb an Pharaohs, invincible in w ar, m agnificent in peace. A n d it was the custom that they should visit every d ay his shrine, and, through the perform ance o f certain traditional rites, receive from him the breath o f life— justify, so as to say, through a daily renewed supply o f divine power, their age-old claim to d ivin ity.1 W e know not at w hat time A m enhotep the Fourth ceased to confo rm him self to this practice. But we m ay conjecture that he did so very early in his reign if, as suggested in the inscription in R am ose’s tom b, he already realised that his oneness with the Sun (and, through H im , w ith ultim ate Cosm ic Energy) was a fact, and that therefore he needed no rites to m aintain it or even to assert it. Doubtless the priests resented bitterly this break w ith im m em orial tradition. W h at they resented no less— if not m ore— was the steady decrease in the revenues o f their temples, now that the king h ad started encouraging the solé cult o f the Disk, and had w ithdraw n from them the h abitu al royal gifts, w hich were enormous. T h e y had not, how ever, been able to show their displeasure openly, as long as A m enhotep the Fourth had contented him self with honouring his G od without stressing His priority over theirs and over the other national deities. But w hen, b y the change o f the cap ital’s ñam e, he made public his intention to place his own intuitive conception o f G odhead above the established gods o f the land, their fury burst out. W e do not know how, ñor exactly when, they began to show stern opposition to the Pharaoh’s designs. T h e only record o f that opposition is a later inscription in w hich the king tells o f the priests’ wickedness. T h e inscription is m utilated, and the reference therefore vague, though veh em ent.2 In all probability, how ever, the step we just spoke o f— the renam ing o f the C ity o f A m on (N ut-Am on, or 1 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 34-35* “ For as my Father liveth . . . more evil are they (the priests) than those things which I have heard in the fourth year; more evil are they than those things which King . . . heard; more evil are they than those things which Men-kheperu-ra (Thotmose the Fourth) heard .. . in the mouth of Negroes, in the mouth of any people.” — (From a mutilated inscription on one of the boundary-stones of Tell-el-Amama.) s.s.— 5
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Thebes) as the “ City-of-the-Brightness-of-Aton” — was the signal o f a bitter conflict between the king and the ministers o f the T h eb an god. It is difficult to say w hat the priests actually did to assert w hat they considered to be their god ’s rights. D id they try to frighten the people b y foretelling calam ities w hich they ascribed beforehand to the w rath o f the d eity? D id they start spreading rum ours against the king, in order to create disaífection ? O r did they use men in their p ay to do more eífective m ischief— to try, for instance, to destroy the new lyerected tem ple o f A ton, or even to make an attem pt on the m onarch’s life? W e shall never know ; but they appear to have been cap ab le o f anything, once their fanaticism was stirred. A n d, i f we ju d g e by the extreme measures w hich the king took im m ediately in reply to their intrigues, and also b y the bitterness he still seems to feel in recalling his ex perience with them, even after having broken their power, w e m ay believe that the servants o f A m on and o f the other gods acted w ith unusual harshness towards him who, until then, had tolerated their faith and who, even afterwards, was never to seek to harm their persons. T h e outcom e o f the struggle was a change not in the king’s actual religious outlook, but in his p ractical attitude towards the national forms o f worship, and a series o f new decrees o f an uncom prom ising spirit, b y w hich all hopes o f future reconciliation were annihilated at one stroke. T h e priests o f A m on were dispossessed o f their fabulous w e a lth ; the ñam e o f A m on and the p lu ral w ord “ gods” were erased from every stone w here they were found, whether in public monuments or in private tombs. E ven the com pound proper ñames w hich contained that o f the T h eb an god were not allow ed to rem a in ; and, carryin g out his decisión to its ultím ate logical consequences, the Pharaoh did not hesitate to have the ñam e o f his ow n father erased, even from the inscriptions in his tom b, and replaced b y one o f the other ñames b y w hich he had been w ell know n: N eb-m aat-ra. A n d b y the sixth, perhaps even the end o f the fifth year o f his reign, the youn g king changed his ow n ñam e from A m enhotep— m eaning, as w e have seen : “ A m on is pleased,” or “ A m on is at rest” — to
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A kh n aton — “J o y o f the D isk,” that is to say, “J o y o f the Sun” — the ñam e under w hich he has becom e im m ortal. T h e cult o f A m on, and finally that o f the innum erable other national gods and goddesses, was abolished, and images w ere destroyed. It is these measures w hich seem to have stirred the indignation o f A kh n aton ’s m odern detractors, and prom pted them to cali him a “ fan atic,” an “ iconoclast,” and so forth. But w e believe it w ould be more in keeping with historical truth to see in them , as w e have said, a vigorous reaction against sacerdotal ínterference, a determ ined assertion o f the Ph araoh ’s rights, as a ruler, against a class o f am bitious men who, under the cover o f religión, had been grabbin g more and m ore pow er for centuries. T h e m an w ho conceived God as the all-pervading im personal Life-force— the Energy w ithin the Sun— cannot have shared the aggressive piety o f such later believers as C harlem agne or M ahm ud o f G hazni, the Idol-breaker. It is unreasonable— nay, absurd— to attribute to him a zeal o f the same nature as theirs. Ñ or can we suppose that he suddenly changed his idea o f G od b y the fifth or sixth year o f his reign, ju st after completing the first tem ple w hich he built to H im . A ll subsequent evidence— in p articular that o f the king’s adm irable hym ns to the Sun— goes to prove that he worshipped till the end o f his life that all-pervading Energy w hich he had discovered intuitively and w hich he adored already in his early adolescence. A p art from being stern efforts to free him self and his coun try from the ever-tightening grip o f the priests, these measures against the national cults o f E gypt seem, however, to indícate a phase in A k h naton ’s psychology. W e have ju st said th at his religious views rem ained the same. But his estim ation o f m an ’s cap acity to realise, w ithin the fram e o f traditional sym bolism, the T ru th that he had grasped apart from it, had changed a lot. U n til then, he had tolerated the tim e-honoured deities o f the land either because he had seen in them possible steps towards a higher R eality, or sim ply because he looked upon hum an superstition w ith the kindly smile o f m any a philosopher: that is to say, because he con-
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sidered those gods helpful to most m cn’s religious progress, or at least harmless. T h e time had now com e when he found out that they were neither. T h e trouble stirred up b y the servants o f A m on after the renam ing o f Thebes was to him both a revelation and a w arning. It suddenly thrust upon him the fact that the generous toleration w hich he had shown until then w ould find no imitators am ong the professed religious leaders o f the people. It taught him that the national gods were indeed “jealous gods,” in the sense that, as long as their priests rem ained in pow er, no truer and broader conception o f the divine could find its w ay to the hearts o f the w orshippers; that, far from leading gradually to the know ledge o f the O ne G od, they w ould continually be used to keep the people a w ay from H im — to bind them to a state o f satisfied religious routine; to kill both criticism and inspiration under the w eight o f a vain form alism ; to prevent the daw ning o f a sense o f universal valúes, b y constant stress upon local, or at the most national, concerns. It w arned him that, i f he allow ed the priests to hold their sway, his G od w ould never receive the w hole-hearted public worship due really to H im a lo n e; that His truth w ould never be m ade manifest. O ne o f the tw o had to be pushed into the b ackground: either national tradition, or universal truth. It is this dilem m a w hich seems to have forced itself upon the king’s consciousness from the tim e o f his first open conflict w ith the priests o f A m on. H ad these men let him organise, unopposed, as he pleased, the religious life o f the w hole country, around the central truth w hich he had discovered; had they adm itted that their gods were but partial aspeets o f the O n e ultim ate R eality— the H eat or Energy w ithin the Disk— or steps in quest o f it, and had they acted up to that belief, it is probable that he w ould never have gone to the extremities w hich history has recorded. But now , the only reasonable course before him was that w hich he took and followed, in fact, to its utmost im plications. It was not “ religious fanaticism ,” but a clear understanding o f the situation that prom pted him to act. T h e “ fanatics” were not he, but the priests; they w ho, b y their violent hostility to a teaching o f exceedingly broad significance (which,
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religiously speaking, should not have upset them at all), set forth the dilem m a w hich we have just recalled. T h e thoroughness w ith w hich A khnaton followed his course is one o f the early recorded instances o f that unbending determ ination th at he showed all his life, once he felt sure w hich w ay he was to act in accordance w ith truth. A A
A
In fact, it is not exactly for w hat one could cali religious reasons that the priests o f A m on and o f the other gods showed such stubborn opposition to the king’s projects. It has been said1 that “ the religious thought o f the period just preceding the reign o f A khnaton was distinctly monotheistic in its tendencies,” and that, w ith all its startling originality, the new m ovem ent was the natural outcom e o f the long unconscious evolution o f the E gyptian mind. T h e universal pow er o f the Sun is already asserted in the famous “ H ym n to A m on as he riseth as Horus o f the T w o H orizons,” inscribed upon the stele o f the tw o brothers H or and Suti, architects o f A m enhotep the T h ird . H e is called th e re: “ Solé L ord, taking captive all lands, every d a y ” — an expression h ardly different from that w hich w e find later on in A kh naton ’s hym ns, and w hich m ay w ell be m uch older than the inscription quoted. In the same inscription, the ñam e o f A to n appears as practically identical w ith that o f A m on, for the “ H ym n to A m on ” runs: “ H ail to thee, O A ton o f the day, T h o u creator o f m ortals and m aker o f their life.” 2 It has even been proved that, under Am enhotep the T h ird , a tem ple to a god bearing the full title o f “ Horus o f the T w o H orizons, rejoicing in his horizon in his ñam e ‘Shu-(heat)w hich-is-in-the-Aton-(D isk)’ ” — the title w e find in A kh naton ’s inscriptions— existed, w ith the solé difference that this god was there represented in the traditional style, w ith a falcon’s head. Both the figure and the title are to be found on one o f the blocks re-used b y K in g H orem heb in his pylon at 1 B y Blackm an; quoted by Jam es Baikie in The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 314. * Si r W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 49.
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K a r n a k ; and in the royal cartouche can be seen the ñam e o f N efer-kheperu-ra (one o f A kh n aton ’s ñames) altered from that o f A m enhotep the T h ird .1 T h e elements o f the new faith w ere therefore, to some extent, latent w ithin the oíd. W hat A khnaton did was to assert that such a conception o f divinity as that o f the “ H eat (or Energy)-w ithin-the-D isk” at once transcended and com prehended all others. A n d he possibly preferred to w or ship his G od under the older ñam e o f A to n — the Disk— so as to point out, as w e have said, the identity o f the visible Sun and o f the H eat w ithin it— ultim ately, the oneness o f the V isib le and the Invisible; o f M atter and Energy. R eligiously speaking, there was no rad ical antagonism between his pantheistic m onism (for such it seems to be) and the popular polytheism o f the priests w ith the underlying m onotheistic tendency that burst out, now and then, in its most intellectual aspects. T h e truth appears to be that the priests did not really m ind A khnaton goin g further than a n y o f the form er E gyp tian thinkers in his conception o f the divine. But they cared a good deal w hen, as a logical result o f his new lofty idea o f G odhead, he decreed that the C ity o f A m on should henceforth be called : C ity o f the Brightness o f A to n ; when, in other words, he m ade public his desire to do all he could to urge E gyp t and the em pire to look upon the cosmic G od as G od, the other city-gods, national gods, etc., being noth ing, i f not secondary aspects o f H im , to be m erged into His infinity. T h e y objected to his purely religious— and there fore individ ual— idea o f G od being given priority over their m ainly custom ary, ritualistic, and therefore national one. T h e struggle betw een the king and them w as not a struggle betw een two different religious conceptions, but perhaps the oldest recorded phase o f the still enduring age-long conflict betw een individual inspiration and collective tradition; b e tw een real religión and State relig ió n ; between the insight o f the religious genius and the vested interests o f the spiritual shepherds o f the crow d— and o f the crow d itself, one m ight add. 1 T. E ríc Peet: Cambridge Ancient History (E d it. 1924), V ol. I I , p. 205.
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Sir W allis Budge has criticised A khnaton in the most violent lan guage for not having upheld the cult o f A m on, a lready p o p u lar throughout the E gyptian em pire. “ None but one h a lf insane,” says he, “ w ould have been so blind to facts as to attem pt to overthrow A m on and his worship, round w hich the w hole o f the social life o f the country centred.” 1 Professor H . R . H all, apparently for a sim ilar reason, brings also against the enlightened Pharaoh the same accusation o f being “ h a lf insane.” 2 It is the expression used, in last resort, b y most average men, about the spiritual giants w hom they hate w ithout know ing w hy, but in fact because they are incapable o f understanding their greatness. It only shows how irredeem ably average even learned scholars can be w here religious insight is concerned. T h e authors o f the foolish statements just quoted seem to have entirely missed the m eaning o f A kh n ato n ’s efforts. I f A to n and A m on were but two E gyptian deities like any other, then indeed the exaltation o f the form er at the expense o f the latter could p er haps be interpreted as the w him o f a “ fan atic.” But if, as evidence forces one to believe, A ton be the ñame given to deified Cosm ic E nergy, while A m on , as everyone knows, is the patron-god o f Thebes, prom oted to the position o f a god o f all the em pire only through the victories o f the T h eb an D ynasty, then the w hole perspective changes, and one understands how A khnaton could not look upon the local deity as identical with the ultim ate Essence o f all existence. H e could not do so, because o f the cióse association o f A m on w ith all the lim ited interests o f nation and church— because o f his political m iracles, his p artiality in w ar, his satisfaction in m an-ordained rituals and sacrifices. H e could not m erge his own religión o f the Universe into the existing religión o fth e State; his own intuitive truth o f all times into the narrow fram ework o f custom, w hich had no m eaning to him . W h a t he w anted to do, on the contrary, was to have the true religión recognised as State religión— pushing the exist ing one into the background. A n d that seems to have been 1 Si r W a llis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 78. ! H . R . H a l l : Ancient History o f the Near E ast (N in th E d it. 1936), p. 298.
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the reason for his giving a new ñam e to the very stronghold o f the national cult, the C ity o f A m on. H e w anted to start a new tradition— more rational, more scientific, more beautiful, m ore truly religious— on the basis o f his extraordinary individual insight; to raise the State religión o f the future to his ow n le v e l; to make him self— the consciously divine M an — the spiritual head o f the nation, to w hich he w ould teach how to transcend nationhood. T h e priests o f the nation stood in his w a y ; he brushed them aside— w ithout, however, persecuting them. A A
A
T h e struggle between A khnaton and the priests was to be a deadly one precisely because it was less a conflict o f ideas than a conflict o f valúes. H ad the quarrel m erely been about the attributes o f divinity or some other such question, a com promise m ight have taken place, i f not during the king’s life, at least after him . His message, even if rejected, w ould have left some trace in history. W ith time, A m on, w hile still continuing to protect E gypt in w ar and peace, m ight have taken over some o f the more subtle qualities o f A ton. But there was no possible compromise between the valúes that the inspired Ind ividu al, A khnaton, stood for, and those represented by the priests o f the deified State. As we shall see later on, it is the practical im plications o f his teaching that were finally to estrange the Pharaoh from his people, from his age, from the average men o f all ages. In the m eantim e, his conception o f religión was, from the start, a greater barrier betw een him and his contem poraries than the lofty philosophical tenets o f his religión; his attitude towards his G od, som ething more unusual to them even than his incredibly advanced idea o f the nature o f G od. T h e priests w ould have rem ained content had he paid a lip hom age to tradition— had he, for instance, continued to accept his divinity as a Pharaoh from a d aily cerem onial contact w ith the divine patrón o f the Pharaonic State, in his tem ple. It w ould have m attered little if, while doing so, he
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w orshipped the “ H eat-w ithin-the-D isk” as the O n e supreme R eality. But he could not do so. His devotion to the Sun, deeply coloured b y an artist’s em otion i f we ju d g e it b y the fragm ents o f hym ns that have survived, must have had the character o f mystic rapture. Th ere was a sort o f mysterious understanding, a strange intim acy between the young king and the fiery Disk— som ething quite different from the official filiation o f any prince priding in his solar descent, w ith any m an-m ade Sun-god. W hether stretching out his hands in praise to the rising or setting Sun, or gazing during the m iddle o f the day into the cloudless abyss w hich H e filled w ith burning light, A khnaton was in tune— and consciously so— w ith Som ething intangible, shapeless, unnam eable, and yet undeniably real; Som ething that was, at the same time, w ithin the vibratin g waves o f existence all round him , within the deep rhythm ic life o f his body, w ithin the silence o f his soul. H e experienced his oneness w ith the Sun, and through H im , w ith all that is. This experience m ade him , infact, w hat other Pharaohs were m erely by ñam e and b y tra d itio n : the true Son o f the Sun. W h at need had he o f receiving his divinity from the patron-god o f the State, when he was conscious o f sharing b y nature the life o f the real Sun— o f being in tune with the Essence o f all things: one with It? “ T h e heat o f A ton gave him life and m aintained it in h im ,” writes Sir Wrallis B udge; “ and whilst that was in him, A ton was in him . T h e life o f A ton was his life, and his life was A to n ’s life, and therefore he was A to n .” . . . “ His spiritual arrogance m ade him believe that he was an incarnation o f A to n — that he was G o d ; not m erely a god, or one o f the gods o f E gyp t— and that his acts were divine.” 1 Budge is right, w ith the difference that there was no “ spiritual arrogance” on the p art o f A khnaton. T h e series o f beliefs— or rather the successive stages o f consciousness— w hich his detractor ascribes to him, are nothing m ore than those reached b y all men who have the privilege to go through the ultim ate religious experience— through that w hich the H indus cali “ realisation” o f the divine— and who 1 Sir W a llis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p . 82.
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are bold enough to draw to the end the conclusions that it implies. U nknow ingly (for he does not seem to have had, himself, a sim ilar experience), and also unw illingly (for he does not seem to like the young Prophet o f the D isk), Budge only proves that A khnaton was a genuine spiritual genius at the same time as an intellectual one, the greatest tribute w hich a m an— and especially a detractor— can p ay to another m an. T h e king’s contem porary enemies, apparently, did not understand him an y better than his tw entieth-century critics. D eep ly attached as they w ere to their ideology o f dynastic Sun-worship— o f royalty created, protected, and deified by the gods o f the State, through the interm ediary o f their traditional priesthoods— they could hard ly im agine w hat was going on in the m onarch’s consciousness. T h ey opposed him for the new valúes he set forth. T h e y did not even share w ith him that w hich enemies often hold in comm on: an ultim ate sim ilarity o f purpose i f not o f views. T h e people, w ho doubtless considered their Pharaoh in the same light as their fathers had done— as the son and em bodim ent on earth o f the national god A m on— must have been at a loss to make sense o f w hat appeared to them as m eaningless, sacrilegious novelties. Q ueen T iy herself, who had p robab ly played the greatest p art in the early form ation o f the king’s soul, could perhaps h ard ly recognise the distant result o f her influence (combined w ith his personal genius) in the present expression o f his faith. It is notew orthy that all the drastic steps taken by A khnaton against the cult o f A m on are posterior to the fifth year o f his reign. Even in supposing, as some authors have done, that, still as a king, he rem ained for some time virtu ally under the tutelage o f his m other, it is probable that this State o f dependence h ad already com e to an end before he prom ulgated his first religious decrees. Those decrees are not the dow ager queen’s, but decidedly and fully his. T h e king’s opposition to A m o n ’s p ub lic cult seems indeed to have becom e m ore stem as his personal p art in the governm ent becam e m ore unquestionable. W e m ay even believe that, as long as she had any say in the m atter, the dow ager queen
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tried to check rather than to prom pt her son on the path o f open conflict with the priests. She was first a queen— and a shrewd one, w ith long experience o f the w orld, and great am bitions— and then only the devotee o f a p articular deity; perhaps also, to some extent, an initiate into a particular esoteric philosophy, originated am ong the priests o f O n . But he was, first and last, a m an who had realised the truth, both in the m ystic and in the intellectual sense. H e happened to be the ruler o f the greatest em pire o f his time. But the truth he had discovered alw ays passed, and was alw ays to pass, w ith him , before the interests and “ obligations” he had inherited. A n d it is possible that this attitude o f his alienated him from his m other, in a certain measure. W e know positively that she did not follow him w hen he left Thebes for good. W e doubt i f even A kh n ato n ’s followers— and they appear to have been numerous in the beginning1— w ere able to grasp the full significance o f his message. T h e inscriptions w hich some o f the most prom inent o f them have left in their tom bs, at Tell-el-A m arn a, tend to point out that m any did not. M ost o f them seem to have jo in ed the R eligión o f the D isk for m otives either o f m aterial interest or o f personal attachm ent to the king— perhaps sometimes for both. It is possible that A khnaton saw through their minds but a c cepted their allegiance all the same, hoping, w ith the natural confidence o f youth, to m ake them sooner or later his true disciples. Y e t he had probab ly already found out how difficult it is to create higher aspirations in men w ho do not have them , and one m ay believe that he was not totally ignorant o f the enorm ity o f the task before him. H e must have realised the strength o f tradition, the inborn ap ath y o f the hum an herd (which includes men o f all classes), the frequent incom prehension even o f the best intentioned o f friends; and, at times, he must have felt desperately alone. E ach time he threw a glance across Thebes from the flat ro o f o f his p a la c e ; each time he passed through the streets in his chariot— and w e infer, from pictorial evidence, that he did so m ore usually than any other Pharaoh, even in this
1A rth u r
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early p art o f his reign— it certainly struck him how little the capital was w orthy o f its new lofty nam c: “ City-of-tlieBrightness-of- Aton T h e great tem ple o f A m on towered above all the buildings o f the immense city. It was now closed by the kin g’s orders; its splendid halls were silent; and the ñam e o f the god had been erased from every pillar, from every w all, from every statue, w hether inscribed upon granite or alabaster, or bronze, or lapis lazuli. Still, there it stood, in all its defiant grandeur. It had taken a hundred years to b u ild ; a thousand years to adorn, to enrich, to com plete. Forty generations o f kings had lavished upon it the w ealth o f the N ile, the treasures o f conquered lands, the workm anship o f the best artists from all the known w orld, and had m ade it a thing unsurpassed in m agnificence. T h e people bow cd dow n before the closed gates to the hidden deity whom they still revered and feared. T h e temple rem ained the heart o f Thebes. A n d there w ere shrines to other gods w ithin its sacred enclosure— to M ut, A m on ’s consort; to K honsu, the M oon-god, A m on ’s son; to P tah; to M in — and other temples, all over the city. Every house, in fact, was a tem ple in w hich the traditional gods and goddesses w ere honoured daily, and propitiated occasionally, w ith m agic incantations and ritual offerings. A khnaton gazed at it all in a b ird’s-eye view , and understood that Thebes w ould never be his. W hat could he do? D estroy all those temples o f the m an-m ade gods ? He could have done it if he liked. His w ord was law . A nd it was not more difficult for him — and h ard ly m ore sacrilegious, per haps, in the eyes o f m any orthodox E gyptians— to pulí down K a rn a k stone by stone than to have the ñam e o f A m on erased from his ow n father’s tom b. But the idea seems never to have occurred to him . In spite o f the hasty judgm ents passed on him b y so m any modern critics, he was not an iconoclast. H e was too m uch o f an artist ever to dream o f becom ing one. He gazed at the sober, m ajestic architecture o f A m o n ’s dw elling-place, and was impressed by its beauty. T h en he gazed at the sky— the simple blue depth, w ithout a line,
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w ithout a spot, w ithout a shade; the void, luminous, fathom less abyss; the dw clling-place o f the real Sun in front o f w hich all the splendours and uglinesses o f the earth seem eq ually to vanish into nothingness. A n d the well-known feel ing o f absorption into th at vibratin g infinity, o f oneness w ith that intangible existence that contains all existence, w ould take him over once more. I fo n ly he could have m ade people understand w hat he knew, he w ould not have needed to take steps against the traditional cults. T h e m an-m ade gods w ould have autom atically sunk into their place as mere sym bols, far below the O n e R eality. But at the sight o f the m agnificent C ity o f A m on stretched before him , with its temples, its pylons, its avenues bordered w ith great rams o f granite, he knew that he could not. These dazzling earthly glories, w ith their all-powerful collective associations, would alw ays m ean more to the people and the priests— to the herd and its shepherds— than the transparent truth, unconnected w ith national pride, hopes, or fears, w hich he had com e to realise and to reveal. A nd no m atter how brilliantly and how long he w ould preach to its thousands the message o f the O ne G o d m ade manifest in the real Sun, Thebes would never follow him. T h e men o f the cap ital— in fact, o f all the great centres o f traditional worship— represented that intellectually lazy, superficially artistic, prejudiced, irresponsible, apathetic, uninteresting crowd upon whose stupidity and for whose guidance governments and priesthoods— states and churches — are established. Perhaps, indeed, the city-gods that they m ade so m uch o f were good enough for them ; perhaps any new god they w ould start w orshipping w ould finally becom e to them a city-god hard ly any better than the oíd ones; perhaps gorgeous architectural structures o f polished gran ite and gold— the signs o f w ealth and pow er— w ould always represent the supreme acquisitions that nations take pride in, and live for, and die for. But he could not be content with im proving on those, as his fathers had. H e had raised his senses from the íascination o f sculptured curbs and painted colours and resounding form ulas, to the inner visión o f intangible waves o f heat and
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ligh t; from the spell o f the tem ple Service to the clear and joyous understanding o f the silence o f the sky. Jam es Breasted has most appropriately called him “ the first individual in hum an history.” H e was indeed the oldest his torie em bodim ent o f the outstanding Individual as opposed to the dull m ajority o f m ediocre m en; o f the Individual whose aspirations, whose experience, whose raison d’e'tre are different from anythin g the crow d can understand and accep t; o f the Ind ividu al who, in his ow n singular logic and beauty, stands alone against the background o f all times and all countries, in tune w ith absolute realities and absolute standards forever inaccessible to the many. Thebes w ould never side with him — ñor w ould any city, an y State, an y crowd with age-long collective associations. A n d yet, in his youthful desire o f success, in his inherited consciousness o f unchecked power, he wished to be a leader; to proclaim far and w ide the truth that was to him as clear as daylight, and make the cult o f intangible E nergy the official State religión o f E gyp t and o f the em pire; to spread it still further, if possible. H e needed the collaboration o f men for that great purpose. A n d i f Thebes was not the place w here the first seeds o f truth could be sow n; i f it clu ng to A m on , its patron-god, even in his dow nfall, there w ould perhaps be, somewhere down the N ile, an out-of-the-w ay spot w here a new C ity could be founded— a C ity, the capital o f a new State, w hich one day, possibly, could becom e the model o f a new w orld. H e w ould build that ideal State w ith the help o f the few w ho, i f they did not alw ays understand him to perfection, at least seemed to love him. T h e cult o f the O n e impersonal G od w ould prevail there, and the standards o f the enlightened few w ould be the official standards. T h e ñam e o f A m on and all it stood for w ould be unknown there from the start. T hus A khnaton decided to leave Thebes for good, and to build him self a new capital.
Part II THE R E L I G I O N OF THE D I S K
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IV
TH E C IT Y OF GOD the sixth year o f his reign— that is to say, w hen he was about seventeen or eighteen— A khnaton sailed dow n the N ile to a place some 190 miles from the site o f modern C airo, and he laid there the foundations o f his new capital, A khetaton— the C ity o f the H orizon o f A to n — o f w hich the ruins are know n to-day by the ñam e o f TelI-el-A m arna. H e selected, on the eastern bank o f the river, a spot where the limestone hills o f the desert suddenly recede, enclosing a beautiful crescent-shaped bay, some three miles wide and five miles long. Th ere is a little island in the m iddle o f the N ile, ju st opposite. T h e place was lovely. M oreover, it was entirely free from religious or historie associations. In the very words o f the king, it belonged “ neither to a god ñor to a goddess; neither to a prince ñor to a princess.” 1 A n d he decided to build upon that virgin soil the C ity o f his dreams. T h e C ity was to occupy p art o f a sacred territory extending on both sides o f the N ile “ from the eastern hills to the western hills,” an area m easuring roughly eight miles on seventeen. A ccording to an inscription, the king appeared in stately pom p upon a great chariot o f electrum draw n b y a span o f horses. “ H e was like A ton w hen H e rises from the eastern horizon and filis the T w o Lands w ith His love. A n d he started a goodly course to the C ity o f the H orizon o f A ton on this, the first occasion . . . to dedícate it as a m onu ment to A ton, even as his Father, R a-H orakh ti-A ton, had given com m and. A n d he caused a great sacrifice to be offered.” 2 A fter the custom ary offerings o f food and drink, gold, incensé and swect-sm elling flowers, A khnaton proceeded
I
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1 “ First foundation inscription,” quoted b y W eig all: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 84. * From the “ Second foundation inscription,” quoted by W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 88. s.s.— 6
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successivcly to the south and to the north, and halted at the limits o f the territory he wished to consécrate. A n d he swore a great oath that he w ould not extend the territory o f the C ity beyond those limits. “And His Majesty went southwards and halted on his chariot before his Father Ra-Horakhti Aton, at the (foot of the) southeastern hills, and Aton shone upon him in life and length of days, invigorating his body every day. Now this is the oath pronounced by the king: “ ‘As my Father Aton liveth and as my heart is happy in the Queen and her children . . . this is my oath of truth which it is my desire to pronounce and of which I will not say: “ It is false,” eternally, forever: “ ‘The Southern boundary-stone, which is on the eastern hills, is the boundary-stone of Akhetaton, namely the one by which I have made halt. I will not pass beyond it southwards forever and ever. Make the south-west boundary-stone opposite it on the western hills of Akhetaton exactly. The middle boundary-stone which is on the eastern hills is the boundary-stone of Akhetaton, namely that by which I have made halt on the eastern hills. I will not pass beyond it eastwards forever and ever. Make the middle boundary-stone which is to be on the western hills opposite it exactly. The northern boundary-stone which is on the eastern hills is the boundary-stone of Akhetaton, namely that by which I have made halt. I will not pass beyond it downstream (northwards) forever and ever. Make the northern boundary-stone which is to be on the western hills opposite it exactly. “ ‘And Akhetaton extends from the Southern boundary-stone as far as the northern boundary-stone measured between boundary-stone and boundary-stone on the eastern hills, (which measurement) amounts to 6 aters, § khe, and 4 cubits. Likewise, from the Southern boundary-stone to the northern boundarystone on the western hills the measurement amounts to 6 aters, i khe, 4 cubits, exactly. And the area between those boundarystones from the eastern hills to the western hills is the City of the Horizon of Aton (Akhetaton) proper. It belongs to my Father Aton; mountains, deserts, meadows, islands, high-grounds, lowgrounds, land, water, villages, embankments, men, beasts, groves, and all things which Aton my Father will bring into existence, forever and ever . . .’ ” x A khetaton was not only to be the new capital o f E gypt, but the m ain centre from w hich the cult o f A ton w ould 1 “ Second foundation inscription,” quoted by A rthu r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edition, 1922), pp. 89-90.
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radíate far and w ide— to the four ever-receding horizons, north, south, east and west— and the m odel, on a small scale, o f w hat the w orld at large w ould be i f only the spirit o f the new rational solar religión w ould p re v a il; an ideal abode o f peace, o f beauty, o f truth— the C ity o f G od. A khnaton would m ake it as splendid as he could in the short tim e it w ould take him to build it, and continué to adorn it afterwards as long as he lived. A n d he founded at least two other cities, o f lesser proportions and less sumptuous than A khetaton, but destined in his m ind to be, like it, radiating “ seats o f truth” : one in Syria, o f w hich the ñam e and exact location are unknow n1; and one in N ubia, on the eastern bank o f the Nile, somewhere near the T h ird C a ta ra ct,2 w hich he nam ed Gem A ton, like the tem ple he had first built in Thebes. This fact is sufficient to show that, at least as early as the foundation o f the C ity o f the H orizon o f A ton, in the sixth year o f his reign, A khnaton consciously endeavoured to spread the lofty cult o f Cosm ic E nergy to all his em pire, if he did not already dream o f preaching it beyond the limits o f E gyp tian civilisation. T h e dom ain o f a universal G od could lo gically adm it o f no boundaries. A n d the solemn consecration o f the territory o f A khetaton w ith all it contained and w ould ever contain from c liff to cliff, and o f at least two sim ilar holy cities, one at each end o f his dominions, m ay be taken as a ritual act sym bolising the Pharaoh’s ultím ate intention o f consecrating the w hole earth to the life-giving Sun, its Father and Sustainer. A A
A
A ccording to the inscriptions upon the boundary-stones, the dem arcation o f the territory o f A khetaton took place “ on the 1 3 A day o f the 4th m onth o f the 2nd season,” in the sixth year o f A kh n ato n ’s reign. T h e king then returned to Thebes, w here he lived until 1 A rthu r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew and Revised Edit. 192a), p. 166.
2Jam es Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 263. A rthu r W eig all: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 166.
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his new capital was inhabitable. It is how ever probable that he carne m ore than once to inspect the works that were now being carried on w ith feverish speed on the site o f the sacred C ity. A tablet states that the oath and words o f consecration pronounced b y him in the sixth year o f his reign were repeated in the eighth year “ on the 8th day o f the ist m onth o f the second season” . . . “ A n d the breadth o f A kh etaton ,” said the king, “ is from c liff to cliff; from the eastern horizon o f heaven to the western horizon o f heaven. It shall be for A ton, m y Father; its hills, its deserts, all its fowl, all its peo ple, all its cattle, all things w hich A ton produces, on w hich His rays shine, all things w hich are in A khetaton, they w ill be for m y Father, the livin g A ton, unto the tem ple o f A ton in the C ity, forever and ever. T h e y are all offered to His spirit. A n d m ay His rays be beauteous when they receive them .” 1 T h e time between the sixth and the eighth year was spent in preparations. A t the P haraoh’s com m and, hundreds o f diggers and bricklayers, masons, carpenters, painters, sculptors, craftsmen and artists o f all sorts flocked to the site o f the new capital. Stone quarries were opened in the neighbourhood, w hile Bek, “ C h ie f o f the sculptors on the great m onuments o f the kin g,” was sent to the south for red granite. M arb le and alabaster, granite o f different colours, ivory, gold and lapis lazuli, and cedar and various kinds o f precious woods were brought from U p p er E gyp t and from N ubia, from Sinai and Syria, an d even further still. T h e w hole em pire— nay, the w hole o f the know n w orld— contributed to the great w ork undertaken for the glory o f the universal G od. A n d the m iracle took place. W ithin tw o years or so, temples, palaces, villas, cottages, gardens, lakes full o f lotusflowers, avenues bordered w ith lofty palm -trees sprang forth from the barren sands. Lim ited on the east by the desert and on the west by a strip o f cultivated land, a mile w ide, along the N ile, the tow n was generally about three-quarters o f a mile (and, in some places, not m ore than eleven hundred yards) in breadth, though it stretched over a distance o f five 1 Q u o te d by A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew an d Revised E d it. 1922), p. 93.
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miles from north to south. It was, therefore, definitely smaller than Thebes. But it was lovely. It had broad streets, “ parks in w hich were kiosks, colonnaded pavilions and artificial lakes,” 1 and plen ty o f open spaces, shady groves and flowers. Its great tem ple o f A ton was a m agnificent b uilding; its lesser temples, its shrines erected to the m em ory o f the Pharaoh’s ancestors, could stand in parallel w ith any o f the most beautiful religious monum ents o f E g y p t; and the king’s new palace exceeded in splendour that o f his parents in Thebes. A n d not only were the most costly m aterials thrown lavishly into the construction o f the sacred capital, but “ the whole place was planned w ith delicate taste and supreme elegance.” 1 T h e main tem ple o f A ton and the king’s palace lay in the northern p art o f the C ity. Beautiful pleasure-gardens w ith several artificial lakes— the “ Precincts o f A to n ” — lay to the south. In the w hite cliífs o f the desert that closed the lan d scape towards the east, were soon to be hewn the tombs o f the king, royal fam ily and courtiers. W e have already alluded to the existence in architecture, sculpture, painting, and every form o f art, o f a new style o f w hich the canons, as far as we can infer, m ay have influenced the decoration even o f the earliest tem ple o f A ton, in Thebes. T h a t art, inspired and encouraged by A khnaton him self,3 found its everlasting expression in the m onuments, the w allpaintings, the statues o f A kh etaton; especially in the great tem ple o f A ton, in the decoration o f the king’s palace and o f the tombs in the eastern hills, and in the beautiful portraitbusts o f the Pharaoh and o f his queen w hich rank am ong the m asterpieces o f E gyptian sculpture. In architecture, the break from tradition was perhaps less apparent at first sight than in the other arts. T h e temples, in A khetaton, seen from outside, looked m uch like the classical E gyptian shrines o f the time. W hen, for instance, after Crossing its w alled enclosure, one beheld the im posing fa$ade o f the great tem ple o f A to n — a pillared portico behind w hich 1 A rthu r W eig all: Skort History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1934), p. 151. * A rthu r W eig all: Skort History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1934), p- 151. 1 A rthur W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised E d it. 1923), pp. 180-181.
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tow ered two huge pylons— one had p ro bab ly the impression o f entering a sacred building not m uch difFerent from those erected in honour o f the oíd gods in the C ity o f A m on. T h e same five tall flag-staves, from the tops o f w hich fluttered long crimson pennons, shot up against the deep blue sky above each pylon. T h e sam e m onum ental gatew ay form ed the entrance o f the tem ple proper. It was only after its shining doors had been flung open that the difTerence becam e evident. O n e found oneself in a broad paved courtyard flooded w ith sunshine, in the midst o f w hich stood a high altar on a flight o f steps. O n either side there was a series o f small chapéis, b righ tly decorated. T h en , a second gatew ay led into a second open court, from w hich one passed into a third, and then into a fourth one, half-filled w ith a m agnificent pillared gallery. T h e columns were tall and thick enough to give that impression o f greatness enduring for ever that one had in K arn ak , but from their midst the open p art o f the court and the b lazin g sky above could alw ays be seen. T h e rays o f the Disk fell directly upon the golden hieroglyphics in praise o f divine light and h eat; the cool airy shade m ade the outer walls appear, by contrast, m ore luminous and the coloured paintings m ore bright under the dazzling m idday Sun. From there, one passed into a fifth, a sixth, and finally a seventh court— all opened to the sky. T h e tw o last ones, surrounded by small chapéis, had, like the first, an altar in their centre. There was there nothing o f the m ystery and sacred aw e th at generally filled the temples o f the traditional gods. T h ere were no dim ly-lit lam ps hanging from gloom y ceilings; no precious images buried in the depth o f pitch-dark sanctuaries like stolen treasures in a cave. Th ere was no gradual passage from sunshine to shade, from shade to gloom , from gloom to com plete darkness— the abode o f an awe-inspiring hidden god. But a visit to the tem ple, even to the innermost altar, was but a natural transition from the allpervading radiance o f the fiery Disk, from the blazing heat o f the w orld vivified b y His beams, to the worship o f the unknown invisible Essence behind th at light, behind that heat— o f the Power, o f the Soul o f the Sun.
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A t different times o f the day, bread and wine and frankincense and beautiful flowers were offered upon the altars to that invisible G od whose only im age and sym bol— the Sun — shone far above, the same in the tem ple and outside. A n d clouds o f perfum e, and waves o f music w ent up to H im and disappeared, dissolved in the golden light o f heaven. O ne was in presence o f an entirely new cu lt; o f an entirely new spirit. Behind the great tem ple and w ithin the sam e enclosure there was a sm aller one, also faced b y a pillared portico. O n either side o f its entrance, in front o f each row o f columns, stood a statue o f the king and queen. T h ere were shrines all over the C ity, am ong w hich four at least were dedicated to the P haraoh’s ancestors— one to his father, one to his grandfather, Thotm ose the Fourth, one to his greatgrandfather, A m enhotep the S econd,1 and one to the father o f the latter, Thotm ose the T h ird . W e m ay suppose that there were m ore. F or it is difBcult to believe that A khnaton w ould have honoured those p articular ancestors o f his w ith out giving a place in his veneration to his rem óte predecessors o f the IV th and V th Dynasties, the Pyram id builders, in whose days the antique god R a , and not the usurper A m on , was the supreme god o f E gyp t and the solé patrón o f its divine kings, and whose contem porary art, as w e shall soon see, seems to have influenced m any o f the traits o f his own “ new style,” otherwise hard to account for. As tim e passed new temples w ere built. T w o , we know — one for the use o f the kin g’s m other and one for that o f his you n g sister, Princess B aketaton— were erected some tim e before the visit o f Q ueen T iy to A khetaton. Th ere were m inor shrines in diverse beauty-spots and also in the gardens that lay to the south o f the capital, shrines w ith ñames evocative o f jo y and peace. O n e stood in the small island o f “ Aton-illustrious-in-festivals,” in the m idst o f the N ile, and was called the “ H ouse-of-R ejoicing.” A nother, specially 1 “ A n official nam ed A n y held the office of Steward of the House of Am enophis II and there ¡s a representation o f A khnaton offering to A ton in ‘the House o f Thotm ose I V in the C ity o f the H orizon.’ ” A rth u r W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised E dit. 1922), p. 171. See also W ilkinson’s Modern Egypt, V o l. I I , p. 69; and D avies’ E l Amarna.
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designed for the worship o f G od in the glory o f sunset, and in w hich Q ueen N efertiti presided over the sacred rites, was called the “ H ouse-of-putting-the-Disk-to-rest.” Big or small, they were all built in the same m anner, w ith bright open courtyards and altars covered only b y the sky. T h e y were beautifully adorned w ith paintings and reliefs and statues, generally representing the royal couple (often the royal fam ily) in the act o f worship. T h e y had nothing o f the ostentatious austerity o f a presbyterian church. But there was in them no idol o f any sort to be considered as the receptacle o f G od. T h e one Sym bol o f the R eligión o f the Disk— the Sun, w ith dow nw ard rays ending in hands— appeared repeatedly in the pictures and on the reliefs. But it was there only to rem ind the worshipper that none but the unseen Pow er w ithin the Sun, the Forcé sym bolised by those “ hands,” was w orthy o f adoration, and to tell him that no form, however perfect, could ever represent It. A A
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T h e new m ovem ent in art inaugurated by A khnaton found another m asterful expression in the decoration o f the royal palace and o f the villas o f the nobles, one o f w hich— that o f N akht, the P haraoh’s “ vizier” — has been described at length b y A . W e ig a ll.1 M ost o f the palaces and villas laid bare b y excavation “ w ere built on the tw o m ain avenues o f the C ity, known as the Street o f the H igh-priest and the K in g ’s H ig h w ay.” * I f we ju d g e b y the description o f the villa o f N akht, with its colonnaded entrance, its cool interior courts, its galleries, its richly adorned rooms, those two m ain avenues and their by-streets also, nay, the w hole locality if not the w hole town, w ith series o f such buildings, must have been indeed “ a place o f surpassing b eau ty.” 8 But the P haraoh’s palace, as was natural, effaced in 1 A rthur W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p . 183, and following. 1 A rthu r W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922),
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• A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 175-
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splendour all the rest. L ike generally all the mansions o f the livin g in ancient E gypt, it was not intended to last m ore than a generation or two. T h e tom b, not the house, was the “ eternal dw elling” to endure through ages. A n d that piece o f archaic wisdom had so penetrated the sub-conscious m ind o f every E gyptian , including perhaps A kh naton himself, that they acted according to it, spontaneously. But the livin g loved the comforts o f life, and the ephem eral abode was, in all cases, as lovely as it could b e ; in A kh naton’s case, perfectly beautiful and sometimes gorgeous. His palace was a large, airy, brick structure, covering a length o f h a lf a m ile. W h at rem ains o f it is not sufficient to reconstruct in detail the plan o f its series o f halls, pillared courts, cham bers, store-rooms, etc., destined evidently to accom m odate, apart from the royal fam ily, a considerable num ber o f office-bearers o f all sorts and a host o f servants. But unearthed fragm ents o f pavem ents and w all-paintings attest that it was m agnificently decorated w ith scenes o f natural life. T h e pictures expressed in form and colour that jo y o f breathing the daylight and that constant praise rendered to the “ L ord o f L ife” b y all livin g souls, w hich are the m ain themes o f the youn g king’s famous hymns to A ton. Th ere was a pavem ent representing a field full o f high grasses and tall scarlet poppies, through w hich gam bolled a calf; another pictured w ild ducks w ad dlin g their w ay through swamps, their glossy bluish-green throats bulging out, their yellow feet stum bling in the m ud with perfect naturalness; while grey and white pigeons were seen to flit across the blue o f sky-like ceilings, light and airy like fara w ay clouds. T h ere were birds and butterflies flying in the sunshine over w atery expanses covered with pink and white lotuses. A nd fishes played hide-and-seek between the long w inding stems. W ith shades o f palé blue, gold and purple, their scales glittered as the rays o f H im on high struck them through the w ater; the birds’ wings fluttered w ith jo y , and the frisking youn g bull crushed the grass and poppies in an outburst o f overw helm ing life. T h e tender lilies opened themselves to the pleasure o f the divine touch and let the w arm th and light enter right into their golden hearts.
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N ever had E gyptian art been so true to life before, and never was it again to be so after A kh n aton ’s reign. It was more than a new technique— m ovem ent rendered, along w ith colour; expression stressed even above perfection o f form — it was a profession o f fa ith ; it was the R eligión o f the Disk m ade vivid to the senses. But o f all the halls o f the palace, the most sumptuous seems to have been that immense one— 428 feet on 234— in w hich stood 542 pillars shaped like palm -trees, w ith capitals o f massive gold. Fragm ents o f lapis lazuli and m any-coloured glazes, deep-set in the th ick curbs o f precious m etal, m arked the intervals between the leaves. T h e trunks o f the columns were thickly gilded, and costly stones adorned their pedestals as w ell as their capitals. W e must im agine the pavem ent, walls and ceiling com pletely covered w ith the most exquisite representations o f anim al and vegetable life, like those we have ju st m entioned. This was p ro bab ly the great reception hall in w hich foreign envoys and vassal princes were adm itted on State occasions, in presence o f the king and court. It is not sufficient to think o f the d azzlin g effect o f this forest o f shining pillars, either in full daylight or at the time o f sunset, w hen the curbs o f gold must have glow ed like red-hot embers, and the gorgeous capitals glistened w ith iridescent splendour. T h a t vast hall, w ith all its incredible m agnificence, formed but the setting in w hich was to appear, w orthy o f four thousand years o f solar tradition (obscured, at times, but never broken) and o f his ow n lofty religión— the culm ination o f it all— that M an , invested w ith limitless pow er and clothed in m ajesty; th at god on earth : the K in g. W e must picture him w earing his most beautiful State ornam ents: broad necklaces o f gold and lapis lazuli, heavy gold earrings and bracelets, and snake-shaped armlets, all studded w ith precious stones, and rings w here gems sparkled and where diam onds flashed light. W e must picture him w ith the tall traditional tiara resting upon his head, w ith the golden cobra, sym bol o f kingship, rolled around it; elegantly dressed in the finest o f fine w hite linen— w oven air— so
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transparent that in m an y places his smooth bronze skin showed through the regular pleats. A b o ve him , at the back o f the throne, a large golden haw k— another sym bol o f royalty— stretched out its shining wings, w hile on either side the fan-bearers lifted and low ered, w ith studied cadenee, enormous fans o f ostrich feathers fixed on long gilded poles. O n their entering the resplendent hall, the ambassadors from distant lands must h ave repeated to themselves the words that one finds over and over again in all the despatches o f foreign kings to A kh naton : “ V erily, in the land o f E gypt, gold is as com m on as dust.” A n d they could h ard ly believe their eyes. B ut w hen, follow ed b y the fan-bearers, the P haraoh slow ly w alked in, ascended the steps and seated him self upon the throne, all attention was at once focused on him . H e was in the full bloom o f youth — w ith hopes, illusions, dream s— and at the height o f his pow er. H e was lovely to look u p o n ; a touch o f fem inine grace increased his indefinable charm . H e was wise and, above all, he was in tune w ith the Essence o f all things— not m erely the king o f E gypt, the head o f the em pire, w hom they all expected to see (and w hom m any h ad seen already in the person o f Am enhotep the T h ird ), but A khnaton, the Prophet and true Son o f the Sun, w hom the w orld was to behold only once. H e passed along, before the prostrate courtiers, w ith supreme poise, and seated him self upon his throne o f glory w ith godlike sim plicity. T h e glittering o f gold and gems that surrounded him was lost in the radiance o f his ow n body, in the serene effulgence o f A to n w ithin him . His large, dark eyes were full o f infinite kindness, full o f intelligence, and full o f peace. H eavenly light poured out o f them . His w hole body was surrounded b y a halo o f invisible rays, like the b ody o f the Sun. O ne could feel them as he passed. O ne could feel them as he dom inated the w hole gathering from the height o f his throne. T h e y filled the immense h all and seem ed to stretch endlessly. A n d all those who carne w ithin his light— provided they w ere not o f the coarsest type o f m en— could never forget him . A A
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Th ere were beautiful gardens to the south o f the C ity. Cart-loads o f good b lack earth had been brought up from the banks o f the N ile and spread out in thick layers over the barren desert. Canals and artificial lakes kept it for ever moist, and beds o f flowers destined to exhale their fragrance as a perm anent offcring to the Sun, and trees both indigenous and foreign, destined to praise H im by their very loveliness, were planted there. T h e dry, yellow sands gave w ay to a paradise o f fresh perfumes, o f beauty and peace. Stumps and roots o f trees and shrubs, and w ithered remains o f water-lilies w hich once rested their large fíat leaves and open flowers upon the surface o f the lakes, have been discovered by modern excavators.1 A detailcd description o f the “ Precincts o f A ton ” (as the gardens were called), w ith their tw o great enclosures leading to each other, has been given by A rth u r W eig a ll2 and other authors.* It is useless to repeat it here. Let us only recall that there was a little tem ple built on an island within one o f the lakes; that there were summer-houses reflecting their delicately carved colonnades in tanks full o f w hite and coloured lotuses; that there w ere arbours in w hich one could sit in the shade and adm ire the p lay o f light upon the sunny surface o f the waters, or w atch a flight o f birds in the deep blue sky. T h e gardens, w here A kh naton often used to com e either to pray, either to sit and explain his T each in g to his favourite courtiers, or sim ply to be alone, were planned to convey an impression o f quiet beauty. T h eir sight was to lead the soul to praise G o d in the loveliest m anifestations o f His pow er and to fill the heart w ith love for H im . T h e w hole C ity was built in the same spirit. It was a place where the enjoym ent o f the greatest m aterial m agnificence was to be allied w ith a full sense o f the seriousness— nay, o f the sacredness— o f life ; w ith the consciousness o f the highest spiritual valúes. O n one hand, the w orld’s experience, from the earliest 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 182. * Arthur Weigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 181, and following. ‘ Baikie: The Amanta Age (Edit. 1926), p. 27g.
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days onwards, is that those two things seldom go togethcr; and time and again the one has been stressed at the expense o f the other in the course o f history. O n the other hand, it is true that m an does and alw ays did crave for both, and that any scheme o f life (especially o f collective life), in w hich one o f the two is neglected, is felt to be im p erfect; is, in fact, a recognition o f weakness, an acquiescence in the practical impossibility o f realising m an’s everlasting dream o f plenitude. A khnaton was p robab ly not ignorant o f the difficulty o f m aintaining pace w ith one’s times in the spiritual sphere. As w e have seen, he was him self the child o f an age o f splendour, the scion o f centuries o f grand m aterial achievem ents— the flow er o f E gyp t and, one m ay add, o f the w hole N ear East at the pinnacle o f civilisation. H e knew too well w hat depths o f superstition, w hat ignorance o f the very m eaning o f spiritual life w ent along w ith that w orldly w ealth and greatness. W hatever was precious in the traditional wisdom o f the Egyptians belonged to an earlier and sim pler a ge; and there are signs that seem to indicate that the young Pharaoh, to some extent, wished to revive an age-old cult— nam ely, the solar cult w hich had once thrived in the city o f O n — o f w hich the sense had been long forgotten. But, however m uch the corruption o f his brilliant times impressed him , he was too logical not to dissociate in his m ind m aterial com fort, beauty, luxury, etc., from the m oral coarseness that so often accom panies them. It was difficult to see the two sides o f life flourish sim ultaneously; but there was no reason w hy they should not do s o ; indeed, som ething told him that they should do s o ; that, as long as m an has a visible body and lives on the m aterial plañe, there is no perfection unless they do thrive harm oniously. H im self a livin g exam ple o f opposite qualities adm irably balanced, a m an in w hom , by nature, there was no excess, he w anted the w hole o f life— m aterial, social, em otional, intellectual— to be a thing o f beauty, religious life being the bloom and culm ination o f it all. H e did not believe that wisdom lay in suppressing the natural cravings for w orldly com fort and enjoym ent, but rather in satisfying them, if possible, and at the same time in purifying th em ; in livin g intensely, but w ith innocence and
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serenity; in feeling through the lovely sensuous objects o f this transient w orld— forms and colours, songs and caresses, the taste o f good w ine in a finely chiselled cup— the higher realities that these things m erely foreshadow and symbolise. H e seems to have gone a step farther. He seems to have held that the understanding o f religious truth is impossible, i f not to all individuáis, at least to an y group o f individuáis taken as a w hole, w ithout a m ínim um o f m aterial wellbeing. O n e aspect o f his C ity w hich has h ard ly ever been stressed is that, besides being “ a glimpse o f heaven,” it was, p artly at least, w hat we w ould cali to-day an industrial tow n. Thousands o f workers had gathered to build it; m any o f them rem ained after its com pletion. W ith the arrival o f the court, m ore luxuries were needed, and therefore a greater supply o f skilled labour. A p art from the usual paintings and carvings, different coloured glazes had come into fashion as an im portant elem ent o f house decoration. T h e y w ere also w idely used in the m aking o f small artistic objects. W e have seen how A khnaton encouraged the new industry b y ordering large quantities o f coloured glazes for the ornam entation o f his palace. U nd er the im pulse given b y him , glass factories sprang up here and there in A kh etaton and flourished— perhaps the most ancient centres o f production o f their kind on a broad scale. Glass vessels o f great beauty were exported to distant places in exchange for other goods. Besides that, labourers o f different crafts were em ployed to hew out o f the limestone hills to the east o f the C ity the tombs o f the nobility, and to adorn them fittin g ly ; so that, apart from the court and the officials, a large population o f hum ble folk lived w ithin the area specially consecrated to the Sun. • W e do not know about their life as m uch as w e do about that o f the upper-class people, whose dwellings w ere m ore solid and whose career, m oreover, is retraced upon the walls o f their tom b-cham bers. But w e do know that the king had built for the diggers and other workers in the hills o f the desert and in the nearby quarries, a “ m odel settlem ent” w hich has been excavated in our times. A n d it is to be presumed that he did not do less for the labourers w orking in the C ity proper.
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In the settlement near the eastern hills, says Sir Leonard W oolley, each labourer shared w ith his fam ily a small house, com prising a front room, used both as a kitchen and as a parlour, bedrooms, and a cupboard at the back. There was accom m odation for the beasts o f burden that helped the men to transport the stone they h ad dug out. “ Inside the houses, rough paintings on the m ud walls hint at the efforts o f the individual w orkm an to decórate his surroundings or to express his p iety; the charms and amulets picked up on the floor show w hich o f all the m any gods o f E gyp t were most in favour w ith w orking m en; scattered tools and implements tell o f the w ork o f each or o f his pursuits in leisure hours.” 1 These few remarks are sufficient to suggest that, with all their m onotonous sim plicity, those w orkm en’s houses o f the early fourteenth century B .c ., “ the very pattern o f m echanically devised industrial dw ellings,” 2 were far m ore agreeable to live in than those in most o f the “ coolie lines” around the mines and factories o f present-day India, w here a whole fam ily is often packed into one room, w ith walls and roof not o f cool m ud, but o f corrugated iron, unbearable during the hot w eather; far m ore agreeable to live in, also, than the slums o f industrial England in the nineteenth century a . d . T h e y represented no luxury, but a fairly good am ount o f com fort. T h e y were the dwellings o f people whose elementary needs for air, space, p rivacy and leisure were recognised.3 T h e amulets found in the labourers5 rooms, and m any a figure on the walls, show distinctly that the worship o f the im m em orial popular gods and goddesses was predom inant am ong the hum ble folk, even w ithin the sacred territory specially dedicated to the O ne L o rd o f all beings, A to n .1 T h e king, so eager to prohibit the p ub lic cult o f A m on and o f the 1 Sir C. Leonard Woolley: Digging up Ihe Past (Edit. 1937), p. 62. 2 Sir C . Leonard Woolley: Digging up the Past (Edit. 1937), p. 61. 3 It has sometimes been suggested that this “ Workmen’s Village” was in reality a penal settlement. “ It was surrounded with walls, in no way defensive, but high enough to keep people in, and there are marks of patrol roads all round it” (Pendlebury: T ell el-Amarna [Edit. 1935], p. 58). I f so, the “ recognition o f theelementary needs” of the people who lived there, is all the more remarkable. 4 Sir C. Leonard Woolley: Digging up the Past (Edit. 1937), p. 62. J. D. S. Pendlebury: T e ll el-Amama (Edit. 1935), p. 58.
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m any deities, to h ave their temples closed and the plural w ord “ gods” effaced from every inscription, seems never to have tried to bring the comm oners to abandon their traditional beliefs. O ne reason for that apparent indiíference m ay w ell be that, as we have suggested in the preceding chapter, the Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk was m uch less o f a staunch monotheist, in the narrow sense o f the w ord, than both his m odern adm irers and detractors seem to think. He certainly him self believed in one G od alone— one im personal G od, the Essence o f all existence, personified in the Father o f all life on our earth, the Sun— but he p robably did not object to other people paying hom age to deities o f a m ore finite nature, as long as they did so sincerely and in a truly religious spirit. H e had dispossessed and dismissed the priests w ho encouraged superstition in view o f their ow n w orldly ends and w ho strongly opposed his cherished plans o f making the cult o f the O ne G od the State religión o f E gypt. He h ad no quarrel either w ith the ignorant people or w ith their childish beliefs. Those beliefs, they w ould perhaps them selves outgrow w ith time, provided they could keep their hearts open to the beauty o f the sunlit w orld and their minds receptive to the evidence o f truth— -provided they could feel and think. In the m eantim e, it m attered little w hat ñames and shapes they held sacred, by custom, as long as their beliefs led them to do no harm . W e shall discuss later on the im plications o f A kh n ato n ’s fam ous m otto, “ L ivin g in T ru th ,” but we can already safely say here th at he seems always to have valued right living above anythin g else in a m an. For one to live rightly, one’s sub-conscious mind, at least— one’s deeper self— has to grasp the truth, even i f one’s conscious m ind, blinded by external infiuences, denies it. A n d in the eyes o f a lover o f truth, and o f a m an o f extraordinary intuition as A khnaton was, it was surely the deeper self that m attered. A n o th er reason w hy the Pharaoh appears never to have tried to spread his religión am ong the comm oners was per haps that he felt it useless to forcé upon them a simple yet high philosophy w hich they w ould not understand, which
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they w ere not prepared to live up to, and w hich they would soon distort. It was far m ore reasonable to increase their m aterial w ell-being, so that they m ight begin to acquire that prelim inary sense o f the beauty o f life, w ithout w hich the R eligión o f the Disk loses all m eaning; to give them a m inim um o f com fort and a m ínim um o f leisure, that they m ight learn the pleasure o f letting their eyes w ander over an open landscape, w hile relaxed. A khnaton took several o f his disciples outside the narrow circle o f the highest nobility. E very time he found an indi vidual w hom he ju d g ed w orthy to receive his message, not only did he teach him the great truths he had discovered, but he generally gave him his confidence in w orldly aífairs also, and prom oted him to a high rank in the hierarchy o f the State, as is shown in inscriptions in the tom bs o f some o f his followers, for instance: “ I was a m an o f low origin both on m y father’s and on m y m other’s side. But the king established me . . . he caused me to grow . . . b y his bounty, w hen I was a m an o f no property. H e gave me food and provisions every day, I w ho had been one that begged b read .” 1 H e was surely the last man not to appreciate that natural aristocracy o f m ind and character w hich exists, but is rare, in every stratum o f society. But in his dealings w ith the people in general, he seems to have been guided b y the conviction that a certain am ount o f m aterial com fort and o f leisure should precede any sort o f attem pt at their religious uplift. T h e model settlements he caused to be built, w ith houses containing at least three or four airy rooms each, for each fam ily, seem to have been his m ain gift to the labourers o f his age. A n d far from setting the form al adherence to his creed as a condition w ithout w hich none could enjoy the advantages he offered— as so m any m odern theoreticians w ould have done, i f they had his pow er— he let the “ masses” believe w hat they were accustom ed to, and worship w hom ever they pleased. C o n genial conditions o f life w ere in his eyes, along w ith good governm ent, their prim ary need and their foremost right. 1 Xnscription in the tomb o f M ay (Rock-tomb No. 14, at Tell-el-Amarna), quoted by Arthur W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 192a), p. 189.
.
8 8.— 7
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A n d in this— ap art from being, as in m any other ways, surprisingly “ m odern” — he was consistent w ith that ideal o f all-round perfection, spiritual and m aterial, w hich he tried to realise in his sacred C ity. A A
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A t the time o f the foundation o f his new capital, A khnaton had already recorded upon the boundary-stones his desire that his ow n tom b, that o f the queen and o f their children, that o f M nevis (the sacred bull o f O n ), that o f the high~ priest o f A to n and those o f the priests and principal dignitaries, should be du g out in the hills to the east o f the C ity .1 U p till now , some twenty-five tombs have been discovered and excavated b y modern archaeologists.2 T h eir decoration is characteristic o f the “ new style” that flourished in A kh etato n ; the inscriptions w hich accom pan y the paintings tell us a good deal about the P haraoh’s followers; and it is upon the walls o f those sepulchres that have been found w ritten the two invaluable H ym ns to A ton, composed by A khnaton himself, w hich have com e dow n to us— the m ain sources from w hich som ething definite is know n about the R eligión o f the Disk. T h e tombs were each one com posed o f several successive cham bers, hewn out o f the live rock, as it was the custom in E gypt, the innerm ost cham ber being that in w hich the m um m y was to lie. M assive pillars carved out o f a single 1 “ There shall be made for me a sepulchre in the eastem hills; my burial shall be made therein, in the muititude o f jubilees which Aton, my Father, hath ordained for me, and the burial of the queen shall be made there, in that muititude of years. And the burial of the king’s daughter shall be made there. If I die in any town of the north, south, east or west, I will be brought here, and my burial shall be made in Akhetaton. I f the great queen Nefertiti, who liveth, die in any town of the north, south, east or west, she shall be brought here and buried in Akhetaton. If the king’s daughter Meritaton die in any town of the north, south, east or west, she shall be brought here and buried in Akhetaton. And the sepulchre of Mnevis shall be made in the eastem hills and he shall be buried there. The tombs o f the high priest and o f the Divine Father and of the priests o f Aton shall be made in the eastem hills and they shall be buried therein. The tombs o f the dignitaries and others shall be made in the eastern hills and they shall be buried therein. . . Inscription on the first boundary-stone, 13Ü1 day, 4th month, 2nd season, 6th year. * Norman de Garis Davies: The Rock Tombs o f E l Amarna. Sir Flinders Petrie: Tell-el-Amama (Edit. 1894). J. D. S. Pendlebury: Tell-el-Amama (Edit. 1935). PP- 47- 56.
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block and shaped like lotus-buds sustained the h eavy roofs. Th e walls w ere adorned with exquisite paintings representing the m ain episodes o f the life o f the deceased, w ith special emphasis upon their dealings w ith the king, and the favour they had received from him . T h ere was no allusion o f any sort to Osiris or to any o f the gods w ho, according to the traditional beliefs o f the land, were supposed to preside over the n eth erw orld; none o f the age-old m agical form ulas w hich the dead m an was expected to repeat in order to protect him self against the dangers that aw aited him at different stages o f his jo u rn ey to the great beyon d; none o f the readym ade declarations o f innocence w hich he was supposed to recite, w ith a view to avoiding theconsequences o f hismisdeeds on earth. T h e m ain prayer w hich those w ho had “ hearkened to the king’s T e a ch in g ” addressed to the O ne G od was that they m ight continué to see the beauty o f the Sun— and to serve the king— in life beyond death. Som e also asked to be rem em bered on earth b y their fam ily and friends. A p art from these prayers and from occasional extracts from the king’s hymns, the inscriptions in the new sepulchres contained no reference at all to an y religious beliefs. T h ey sim ply stated the titles and gave an account o f the career o f the courtiers w ho were to be buried there, thus com pleting the inform ation suggested b y the adjoining pictures. W e have ju st quoted an extract o f w h at M a y, one o f the C ity officials, says o f him self on the walls o f his tom b. Th ere are other instances o f dignitaries w ho stress that they ow e all their elevation to the P h araoh ’s favour. Pnahesi (or Panehesi), the Ethiopian, apparently one o f A kh n aton ’s most beloved disciples, whose tom b seems to have been m ore m agnificent than that o f an y other courtier, tells us p lain ly: “ W hen I knew not the com panionship o f princes, I was m ade an intim ate o f the king.” H e also says o f his royal master that he “ m aketh princes and form eth the h um ble,” a statem ent confirm ed b y another inscription in the tom b o f H uya, stew ard o f Q ueen T iy , w hich refers to the m onarch “ selecting his officials from the ranks o f the yeom en.” 1 A ll 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 190.
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this goes to stress w hat w e have said above— nam ely that, though he surely did not scorn nobility o f birth w hen allied w ith m erit, A khnaton alw ays took m erit first in consideration, in his choice o f the men to w hom he w ould entrust responsible posts, and grant w ealth and honours as well as that sort o f im m ortality conferred by the gift o f a tom b built to last for ever. H ow generously he lavished riches and distinctions upon those w hom he ju d g e d w orthy o f his favour is suggested b y the paintings and inscriptions in the tombs o f Pentu, o f M ahu , o f A y, o f M erira, the high-priest o f A ton, and other dignitaries w ho are represented receiving from him large rewards in gold. “ His M ajesty has doubled me his gifts in gold and silver.” . . . “ H o w prosperous is he, m y Lord, w ho hears thy T ea ch in g o f life,” states A y, the “ M aster o f the K in g ’s horse,” who one day, after the ephem eral reign o f A kh n aton ’s two im m ediate successors, was him self to w ear the D ouble C row n. “ H e has m ultiplied me his favours like the num ber o f the sand,” says M a h u ; “ I am the head o f the officials at the head o f the p eo p le; m y L o rd has prom oted me because I have carried out his T ea ch in g and I hear his w ord without ceasing. . . Indeed, know ing as one does how readily the greater num ber o f those m en— including the most prom inent am ong them — hastened to abandon the worship o f the O n e G od and to denounce all connection w ith their inspired T each er as soon as his enemies carne back to pow er, one is tem pted to suppose that m an y professed to follow him m ainly for the tangible marks o f attachm ent that he w ould give them. H ow ever, there are inscriptions in w hich the courtiers p ay to A kh naton and his T e a ch in g a hom age that seems to com e from the depth o f their h eart; the language, at least, in w hich it is expressed, is that o f ardent devotion, such as, for instance, these words, addressed to the Sun: “Thy rays are on Thy bright image, the Ruler of Truth, who proceeded from eternity. Thou givest to him Thy duration and Thy years; Thou hearkenest to all that is in his heart, because Thou lovest him. Thou makest him like the Aton, him Thy child, the King; Thou lookest on him, for he proceeded from
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Thee. Thou hast placed him beside Thee for ever and ever, for he loves to gaze upon Thee. . . . Thou hast set him there till the swan shall turn black and the crow turn white, till the hills rise up to travel and the deeps rush into the rivers. . . . While Heaven is, he shall be.” 1 O ne really wonders how even such men as the author o f those words o f glow ing faith in him seem to have done nothing to defend the young P haraoh’s m em ory, during the terrible reaction that was one d ay to burst out against all he had stood for. A A
A
A p a rt from the inform ation they give about the life o f the king and courtiers, the paintings and reliefs in the tombs in the “ eastern hills” are, along w ith the famous portraitheads found in the studio o f several ardsts in the C ity, the most illustrative productions o f the “ new a rt” o f A khetaton. T h e conventions w hich had shackled the artist in his rendering o f the hum an figure— and especially o f royal personages— and w hich had lim ited the sources o f his inspiration, have entirely disappeared in the new school. H ere we find the Pharaoh and his queen portrayed in all the fam iliar attitudes o f prívate life— eating, drinking, chatting, sm elling flowers, playin g w ith their children, etc.— w ith a naturalness never attained in E gyptian art before the “ T ellel-A m arna period,” and never surpassed in any art. A n d that is not a ll: m ore than one o f those pictures and sculptures even present a definite exaggeration o f certain features, both o f the head and body, w hich sets them apart from nearly all the productions o f the ancient w orld, and renders them som ewhat akin to our m odern “ futurist” art in its strange aspects. O ne has only to look at some o f the reliefs representing the king him self with an unusually developed skull, a protruding chin, and hips and thighs out o f proportion with his slender body; one has only to think o f the otherwise beautiful limestone head o f one o f the princesses in the C airo m useum , whose skull is elongated to an incredible extent, to 1 Quoted by Arthur Weigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 115.
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be convinced o f the existence o f such a tendency am ong the artists o f A kh naton’s school. Som e m odern authors1 have endeavoured to present those strange features as the faithful reproduction o f an ungainly countenance, by sculptors and painters trained by the king “ living in truth” never to flatter their models, least o f all him self and his fam ily. But this view is contradicted b y the existence o f other portraits o f the king and o f the princesses— paintings, busls, and statues— in w hich none o f these deformities are to be seen. Th ere is the quartz head o f one o f the P h araoh ’s little daughters at the museum o f the Louvre, the head o f a norm al child o f exquisite delicacy. T h ere is the delightful painted relief picturing A khnaton in his early youth as he smells a bunch o f flowers that N efertiti holds out to him — one o f the best productions o f the A m arna school; a w ork w hich, according to Professor H . R . H all himself, possesses already a hellenic grace, and in w hich the king’s figure “ reminds one o f a H erm es” and “ could hard ly have been bettered b y a G reek” 2 (the greatest com plim ent a European critic can p a y to the m asterpiece o f a nonEuropean artist). T h ere is the w hole series o f portrait-busts that represent A khnaton not as a b o y, but as a m an, and that attest beyond doubt that he was lovely to look upon. A kh n aton ’s physical appearance has been discussed nearly as often as his religious ideas, and sometimes com m ented upon w ith as m uch bitterness.3 Inasm uch as a body is the reflection o f the soul that animates it— or the soul the projection o f the body— it is not superfluous to try to visualise him as he once could be seen, when he trod the painted pavem ents o f his palace. From his remains w e know that he was a m an o f m édium h eigh t; from pictorial evidence, w e know that he had a regular oval face, a straight nose, thick, 1 H. R . Hall: Ancient History o f the Near East (Ninth Edit. 1936), p. 304. Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 103. James Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 294. * H. R. Hall: Ancient History o f the Near E ast (Ninth Edit. 1936), p. 305. 3 H. R . H all: Ancient History o f the Near East (Ninth Edit. 1936), pp. 304-305. L. W. King and H. R . Hall: Egypt and Western Asia, pp. ioo, 385. Stanley Cook, in the Preface to Baikie’s Amarna Age (Edit. 1926). Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 103.
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well-designed lips; and that his jet-b la ck eyes w ere, in the words o f A rth u r W eigall, “ eloquent o f dream s.” 1 H e had a long graceful neck, well-shaped arms and legs, and beautiful hands. His body, o f w hich the top part is generally represented bare in the paintings and bas-reliefs, was neither stout ñor thin. T h e pleated cloth he w ore w rapped around the hips and tightly tied below the navel, seems to be responsible for the “ protruding p aunch ” to w hich so m any authors allude in their description o f him . H e has been depicted as having little o f a virile appearance and, at first sight at least, this rem ark is not entirely w ithout grounds. T h ere was surely an indefinable charm all about his person; a gracefulness o f deportm ent, an irresistible gentleness— som ething subtly feminine. But, at the same tim e, in those large, dark, loving eyes, whose mere glance was like a caress, one could read courage, determ ination, a m anly depth o f thought and w ill; those lips, w ith their delicate curve, alw ays ready to move into a mysterious smile, expressed the serenity o f unshakable strength. T h ere was, in the P haraoh’s countenance, a wellbalanced blending o f grace, o f forcé, and o f poise; o f voluptuousness and o f character— a livin g picture o f the harm onious plenitude o f his being. In other words, A khnaton seems to have forestalled in real life, to a very great extent, th at w ell-nigh impossible com plete hum an type— young dem i-god w ith the opposite perfections o f both m an and w om an— w hich L eonardo da V in ci was to conceive and to strive throughout his career to fix in lines and colours, three thousand years later. A n d his body, no less than his personality, bore the stam p o f that strange dual beauty. T h e paintings and sculptures that represent him , or the members o f his fam ily, w ith the exaggerated features we have referred to above, are therefore to be taken not as faithful portraits, but as characteristic instances o f a “ style.” A n d that “ style,” apart from any other considerations, contained a religious— perhaps also a political— symbolism. Its productions have no parallel in the im m ediate past, but they strangely resemble some archaic figures o f the Fourth and 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew and Revised E d it. 1922), P- 52 -
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Fifth Dynasties. A rth u r W eigall has given, side b y side w ith the copy o f one or two o f them, the reproduction o f royal heads and o f a statuette found b y Sir Flinders Petrie, the form er at A bydos, the latter a t D iospolis,1 and dating as far back as the days o f the great Pyram id builders. T h e same receding forehead, protruding chin, elongated skull; the same overstressed hips and thighs are to be rem arked in both cases, at a distance o f eighteen hundred years or more. So that, indeed, from those quaint samples o f the w ork o f the new school o f T ell-el-A m arn a there is every probability that the distinguished archaeologist is right when he states that “ A kh n aton ’s art m ight thus be said to be a kind o f renaissance— a return to the classical period o f archaic d a y s; the underlying m otive o f that return being the desire to lay emphasis upon the king’s character as a representative o f that most ancient o f all gods, R a-H orakh ti.” J H ow closely that aspect o f the new art was interw oven w ith the R eligión o f the Disk w e can only understand after trying to define w hat place the king occupied in the creed w hich he preached. It w ill suffice here to say that the frequency w ith w hich those archaic renderings o f him and o f his fam ily appear in the paintings and sculptures o f his time, suggests w hat stress he him self put upon the great antiquity o f his so-called “ n ew ” ideas. A khnaton seems to have shared with m any inspired religious leaders the conviction that, far from being an innovator, he was just the expounder o f T ru th , w hich is one and o f all times, and o f w hich the oldest civilisations had perhaps a m ore accurate glimpse than the latter ones. W hatever, in the A m arn a school, was not a deliberate attem pt at im itating the archaic models, was o f utmost grace and naturalness— true to life as never E gyptian art was again to be. W e must rem em ber that the youn g king was the soul o f the w hole m ovem ent. “ It was he who released the artists from convention and bade their hands repeat w hat their eyes saw ; and it was he who directed those eyes to the 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 64. * A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 63.
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beauties o f nature around them. H e and no other taught them to look at the w orld in the spirit o f life; to infuse into the coid stone som ething o f the ‘eífulgence w hich comes from A to n .’ 5,1 A A A In the beautiful C ity we have tried to describe— the dream 'a n d the w ork o f one m an— life was pleasant. W e have al ready seen w hat am ount o f com fort and o f freedom the hum blest dwellers in the consecrated area enjoyed, in the model settlements built for them near the field o f their labours. T h e y p rob ab ly saw very little o f the pom p o f the court and, with the exception o f those who lived in the C ity itself, they hard ly ever had the opportunity o f witnessing the passage o f a royal procession. W hether they had or not some sort o f vague know ledge o f the new creed proclaim ed by the king, we cannot tell. T h e y had perhaps heard that he worshipped the Sun alone and despised the other gods; that he was in conflict w ith the priests o f A m o n ; that he had raised several m en o f poor extraction to high positions because o f their readiness to share his faith ; that, in the eyes o f his G od, Egyptians and foreigners were the same. But, w hatever rumours m ay have reached them in their fields, their factories, or their quarries, that brought no change either in their beliefs or in their lives. As we have seen, they continued to worship in peace the age-old popular deities that they were accustom ed to. A n d the Pharaoh was, to them, w hat every one o f his predecessors had been to the past generations: a divine being, the father and defender o f his subjects, the “ good go d .” A n d to catch a glimpse o f him as he drove through the streets in his chariot, w ith his beautiful youn g queen b y his side, was a jo y that most o f them must have keenly valued. Like the bulk o f people o f all times, they cared little w hat their sovereign personally believed or did as long as they enjoyed plenty. A n d A kh n aton ’s unconventional habit o f appearing in public in all sim plicity added, no doubt, a great deal to his popularity— at least, until the 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew a n d Revised E d it. 1 9 3 3 ) , p. 181.
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disasters o f the latter p art o f his reign created serious discontent, and gave unexpected ground to renewed priestly intrigues all over the land. T h e nobles, and all those upon whom the Pharaoh had bestowed his special favour, dw elt in those elegant villas surrounded b y gardens o f w hich m odern excavation has made it possible to give the most attractive description in full details.1 T h e y w ere the bearers o f all high offices, the companions and the followers o f the king. T h e y had the untold privilege o f hearing his T each in g from his ow n lips. A n d those w ho form ed the closer circle o f his best beloved disciples could see him and talk to him freely. T h e y shared w ith him not only the pleasures and luxuries o f court life, but also hours o f thoughtful conversation and m oments o f silence and p rayer in the brilliant halls o f the palace or in the cool shade o f pillared pavilions in the gar dens, b y the side o f lakes covered w ith water-flowers. T h ey were his intim ates— his friends. I f w e ju d g e b y the w ay they speak o f him in the inscriptions upon the walls o f their tom b-cham bers, some o f them — such as M ah u , Pnahesi, R am ose— seem to have been fervently devoted to him . But as there are no records to tell us how far an y o f them stood for him against the current o f events that followed the cióse o f his short reign, it is very difficult to say w ho was sincere and w ho was but a clever flatterer. W hatever it be, A khnaton was pleased to put his confidence in them , and an atmosphere o f peace, goodw ill, and happiness appears to have existed in his im m ediate entourage. H ow ever, the R eligión o f the Disk is so dom inated by the personality o f its Founder, so profoundly coloured by his reactions to nature and to m an, that nothing w ould help us more to grasp its spirit than the knowledge o f A kh n aton ’s day-to-day life amidst the beautiful surroundings that he him self had created. It is not alw ays easy to reconstruct the life o f p ractically contem porary figures about w hom there is abundance o f undoubtable evidence. N ow and then a few unpublished letters, 1 Scc, for instance, the description of the villa of Nakht, in Arthur W eigall’s L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), pp. 183-184.
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the sudden discovery, in som ebody else’s memoirs, o f a precise reference to some action, w hich had form erly remained secret, alters entirely the picture one had o f them. T h e know ledge o f w hat a m an— be he even a great king— did and said, felt and thought, thirty-three hundred years ago, during those apparently uneventful hours that history does not care to retrace, is therefore necessarily incom plete and liable to revisión. Y e t, to the extent it is possible to acquire it, it is too precious to be overlooked. T h e m ain sources o f inform ation from w hich one can hope to know som ething o f A kh n ato n ’s daily occupations are the paintings and reliefs where he is represented over and over again, in the tombs o f his courtiers. Th ere, a great p art o f his official life is pictured inasm uch as it is connected w ith the career o f the nobles to w hom the sepulchres were destined. In M a h u ’s tom b, for instance, he is portrayed inspecting the defences o f A khetaton in com pany o f M ah u himself, and— a notew orthy detail— followed b y an unarm ed bodyguard. Elsewhere w e see him prom oting M erira to the exalted position o f high-priest o f A ton, in the midst o f great solemnity, and rew arding him for his faithfulness w ith necklaces o f gold. Sim ilar, though less stately scenes o f distribution o f rewards to officials are to be found, as we have already said, in m any tom bs, w ith the repeated assertion that the courtiers have w on the king’s favour b y their constant “ hearkening to his T each in g o f life” and b y their understanding o f it. This presupposes that A khnaton spent a fairly great am ount o f time instructing all those w hom he deem ed w orthy to become his disciples. O n the other hand, from the evidence o f the famous “ A m arna Letters,” we know that he was in correspondence w ith the neighbouring m onarchs— Burnaburiash o f Babylon, to whose son he betrothed one o f his d au gh ters; D ushratta o f M itanni, his cousin and perhaps also his brother-in -law ; Shubbilulium a, o f the H ittites; and even the distant king o f Assyria, A ssur-U ballit, then only beginning to lead his semibarbaric nation out o f obscurity. W e know that he received regular despatches from his vassals and governors o f provinces, to w hom he no less regularly sent his orders.
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Th ere is a picture that represents him com ing forth in a gorgeous palanquín, carried upon the shoulders o f eighteen men, to receive the tribute o f the em pire, during the tw elfth year o f his reign. G old and ivory, rare fruits, ostrich feathers, and precious vases, producís o f the deserts and forests o f the Far South and articles o f Syrian workm anship, are presented to him by men o f various races— the gifts o f disparate subje ct countries to their com m on Lord. From all this evidence one m ay presume that the king’s days were equally filled b y the discharge o f his official duties, w hich w ere numerous, and b y the explanation o f his T each in g to a small circle o f followers— apart, o f course, from the regular perform ance o f worship at sunrise, noon, and sunset, in the palace or in the tem ple. L ittle is know n, in its details, o f the ritual that accom panied that worship. W e can, how ever, suppose that it was m uch sim pler than that w hich prevailed in the cult o f the E gyptian gods, for here there was no im age, no representation o f the divine under any form save the Sun-disk w ith rays ending in hands w hich was a mere sym bol, not an idol. Consequently, there were none o f all the elabórate cere monies, connected with the bathing and dressing and feeding o f the god, that form ed such an essential p art o f the ritual in the temples o f E gyp t and o f all the ancient w orld, as they do still to-day in the H indú temples o f India. H ere, the services consisted o f a m inim um o f pre-ordained words, chants and gestures— those alone that w ere indispensable to transíate the kin g’s lofty intuitions o f truth into a cult. T h e altars, that stood, as we have seen, in the open, were decked with beautiful flowers; and various offerings o f food and drink, p articularly bread, wine, and fruits, w ere p laced upon them , sym bolising the idea, at once scientific and religious, that the nourishment o f the w hole creation is produced through the Sun, and belongs to H im W ho is the Soul o f the Sun and o f all the Universe. T h e king, reassuming the active priestly functions o f the Pharaohs o f oíd, w ould him self stretch out the kheper baton over the offerings and consécrate them . T h en he w ould throw handfuls o f incense into the fire, and as the coils o f scented smoke slow ly w ent up
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into the sky in praise o f H im in W hose ligh t the fíam e o f the sacrifice seemed palé, he w ould intone one o f the hym ns he had composed to the glory o f the Sun— a different one according to the season, the day, and the hour. M usicians, m ale and fem ale, am ong w hom w e know from a p ictu re1 that there was a choir o f eight blind men, p layed upon their instruments and sang during the daily services. Th ere were dancers, also, w ho through a harm ony o f sym bolical postures and m ovements suggested the d aily jo u rn ey o f the Sun, the death o f the earth at His departure, the resurrection o f all flesh at His daw ning again. T h e y danced especially on festive days, corresponding to notable positions o f the Sun in His apparent course from constellation to constellation. T h e queen and princesses took part in every solem nity, the little girls occasionally rattling the sistrum, as w e see them do in the funeral paintings o f the time. A A
A
Besides his adm inistrative duties; besides the State functions, and occasionally the State banquets over w hich he presided— like that one given in honour o f Q ueen T iy ’s visit to the new C ity, and represented upon the walls o f the tom b o f H u ya— besides even the d aily worship he ofíered publicly at the altar o f the Sun, pictorial evidence reveáis to us different episodes o f A kh n aton ’s prívate life w hich lead us to infer, about him and his creed, more than one could expect at first sight. In nearly every painting he is portrayed with his consort and often (as in the feasting scene ju st mentioned) w ith one or m ore o f his six (or seven) children. A n d the attitudes in w hich he has allowed the artists to represent him , doubtless in a spirit o f absolute fidelity to livin g life, are most eloquent in their naturalness. W e have already recalled the lovely painted relief o f the Berlín m useum in w hich the young Pharaoh is seen sm elling 1 I n the to m b o f M e rira, the high-pricst o f A to n. A r th u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New an d Revised E d it. 1922), p. 143.
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a bunch o f flowers that Nefertiti gracefully holds out to him w ith a smile. O n the walls o f the tom b o f H u ya he is pictured seated, adm iring the perform ances o f several p retty naked dancing-girls, w'hile the queen, standing b y his side, refills w ith wine his golden cup. In the tombs o f M ahu and A ahmose he is painted in his chariot, with N efertiti next to him, and actually kissing her w hile he drives. Princess M eritaton, his eldest daughter, stands in one o f those pictures in front o f her parents, and plays w ith the horses’ tails w hile the king and queen look lovingly at each other, their lips ready to unite. Even in scenes depicting State solemnities, such as the reception o f the tribute o f the em pire— scenes in w hich, one m ight think, there was little place for intim acy— A khnaton and N efertiti are represented side b y side, hand in hand, and w ith their arms around each other’s waist. A n d, contrarily to the age-old custom o f E gyp tian artists, the queen is nearly alw ays pictured on the same scale as her husband. O ne finds hardly less evidence o f their great love in the w ritten documents than in the paintings. W hatever be the inscription in w hich she is referred to, the queen is seldom nam ed w ithout some endearing epithet. She is “ the mistress o f the kin g’s happiness” ; the “ L a d y o f grace” ; “ fair o f countenance” ; “ endowed w ith favours” ; “ she at the hearing o f whose voice the Pharaoh rejoices.” A n d one o f the most current forms o f oath used b y the king on solemn occasions— the oath engraved upon the boundary-stones o f the new C ity, and quoted in the beginning o f this chapter— is : “ As m y heart is h ap p y in the queen and her children . . M a n y w ill say that expressions o f love found in official documents are not alw ays to be taken literally. But we believe that they should be taken so here, for they were written at the com m and o f one w ho, all through his career, lived up to his ideal o f integral truth w ith unfailing consisteney. H e, one o f whose first actions as a king was to have the tom b o f his father reopened and the ñam e o f A m on erased from therein, because he saw in it the sym bol o f a false religió n ; he, w ho ended b y losing an em pire rather than depart from his uncom prom ising sincerity o f purpose, can-
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not be expected, in an y case, to m ake a show o f feelings w hich he did not have. O n e has, therefore, to accept w ithout reservation the conclusión that forces itself upon one’s m ind through both pictorial and w ritten evidence— nam ely, th at A kh naton loved his consort ardently. As w e have said before, he h ad not chosen her, but had been w edded to her w hen about ten years oíd or less. T h e m arríage was, no doubt, the w ork o f Q ueen T iy ; and i f Nefertiti was, as Sir Flinders Petrie m aintains, the daughter o f D ushratta, king o f M itan ni, it was perhaps chiefly prom pted by political motives. But as it often happens in the case o f child-m arriages, the little prince and little princess soon grew tenderly attached to each other and, as years passed, they unconsciously stepped from affection to love. In the inscriptions on the boundary-stones o f A khetaton, w hich were erected between the official foundation o f the C ity and the tim e the king and court carne to settle in it— betw een the sixth year and the eighth year o f the reign— one, and sometimes tw o o f A kh naton’s daughters— M eritaton and M akitaton— are m entioned. T h e third one, A nkhsenpaton, was born, according to W eigall, just before the departure o f her parents from Thebes. T h ree others at least— N eferuaton, Neferura, and Setepenra— (and perhaps four, if W eigall and other authors are right) were born in the new capital. A ll six (or all seven) w ere N efertiti’s children. A n d there is no allusion o f an y sort to other children, or to “ secondary w ives,” in the existing docum ents concerning the royal fam ily; so that, as far as history knows, A khnaton, in contrast with most kings o f antiquity, and o f his ow n line, seems to have been contented all his life w ith the love o f one w om an, given to him to be his ch ief wife w hile still a child. N o t that he had, apparently, an y prejudice against the customs o f his times regarding m arriage, still less against p olygam y as a hum an fact. A n d it w ould be absurd to attribute to him the m entality o f a m odern European bourgeois on this m uch-debated subject o f private m orality. In this m atter, as in m any others, he seems to have been well in advance o f our times— not to speak o f m ore prudish ages.
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A n d if he possessed but one wife, as repeated evidence suggests, this was not because he had any m oral objection to polygam y, but sim ply because he loved that one w om an w ith deep, com plete, vital love. I fw e ju d g e him through the pictures his artists have left o f him , A khnaton was far from being one o f those austere thinkers who shun pleasure as an obstacle to the developm ent o f the spirit or even as a meaningless w aste o f tim e and energy. H e seems, on the contrary, to have believed in the valué o flife in its plenitude, and the paintings that represent him feasting, drinking, listening to sweet music, caressing his wife, or p layin g w ith his children, apart from their m erit as faithful renderings o f everyday realities, had possibly a definite d idactic significance. In p ractically every one o f them the lofty sym bol o f the Religión o f the Disk— the Sun w ith dow nw ard rays ending in hands— radiates over the scene depicted, so as to recall the presence o f the O n e in visible R eality in the very midst o f it, and to emphasise the beauty, the seriousness, nay, the sacredness o f all m anifestations o f life w hen experienced as they should be, in earnestness and in innocence, and considered w ith their proper m eaning. W hether they stand together in adoration before His altar, or lie in each other’s arms, the Sun em braces the young king and queen in His fiery em anation; His rays are upon them, holding the sym bol ankh— life— to their lips. For life is prayer. O ne w ho puts all his being in w hat he feels or does— as he who “ lived in truth” surely did — already grasps, through the jo yfu l awareness o f his body to beautiful, deep sensations, a super-sensuous, all-pervadin g secret order, source o f beauty, w hich he m ay not be in a position to define, but w hich gives its m eaning to the p la y o f the nerves. A n d he is able above all to acquire, through the glorious exaltation o f his senses in love, a positive, though inexpressible know ledge o f the eternal rhythm o f Life— to touch the core o f R eality. In allow ing a few scenes o f his private life to be thus exhibited to the eyes o f his followers— and o f posterity— was it A kh n aton ’s deliberate intention to teach us th at pleasure, when enjoyed in religious earnestness, transcends ítself in a
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revelation o f eternal truth ? W e shall never know. But one thing can be said for certain, and this is that the instance o f that perfect m an, on one hand so aw are o f his oneness w ith the Essence o f all things, on the other so beautifully hum an in his refined joie de vivre, is itself a teaching, a w hole philosophy. A n d in him one can see an expounder o f precisely that wisdom w hich our w orld o f to-day, tired o f obsolete lies, is striving to realise, but c a n n o t; a m an w ho lived to the full the life o f the body and o f the spirit, seriously, innocently, in harm ony w ith the universal Principie o f light, jo y , and fecundity w hich he w orshipped in the Sun. W hether we im agine him burning incense to the m ajesty o f the rising O rb, or listening to the love-songs o f the d ay in midst o f m errim ent and enjoying them w ith the detachm ent o f an artist; w hether w e think o f him entertaining his followers o f the m arvellous unity o f light and heat, thirty-three hundred years before m odern Science, or abandoning him self to the thrill o f hum an tenderness in a kiss o f his loving you n g queen, the same beauty radiates from his person. A n d it is that beauty w hich, before all, attracts us to him , and, through him , to the R eligión o f the Disk, that glorious projection o f him self in unión w ith the Cosmos. A A
A
As we have just seen, som ething o f A kh n aton ’s intim ate life, perhaps also something o f his general philosophy, can be inferred from the pictures that have survived the ruin o f his lovely C ity. O f his inner life, o f his thoughts and feelings during those moments o f blessed solitude that doubtless followed, w ith him as w ith all spiritual geniuses, hours o f intense activity, there are no records whatsoever. Th ere can not be. A n d yet one feels that nothing w ould bring one, so as to say, in closer contact w ith him , than a glance at that p articular aspect o f his unw ritten history. It is natural to believe that the two hym ns that have com e down to us— and p robab ly m any more, w hich are lost— were composed by A khnaton during the hours he was alone. It is therefore, it seems, in the general tone o f those poems, u .—8
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as w ell as in the evocation o f the atmosphere in w hich they were conceived, that one can the best hope to form an idea o f the king’s m ind w hen aw ay from the crow d o f his courtiers and even from the presence o f his wife and children— when free from the duties o f m onarchy, from the obligations o f his mission, from the pleasures o f love and fam ily life. T h e hymns in their details w ill be discussed later on as the m ain basis o f our know ledge o f the R eligión o f the Disk. But w e can already say here, in anticipation o f a more com plete study o f them , that the dom inant idea expressed in those songs is that o f the beauty o f the w hole scheme o f things as ordained b y the Sun— b y H im w ho causes the radiant days to follow the nights full o f stars and the seasons to succeed each other. T h e y also contain the belief in an all-pervading, unfailing Love, m ysteriously inseparable from the E nergy w ithin the Sun-rays; o f a L o ve that gives each speck o f life— be it the germ in the b ird ’s egg or the em bryo asleep in the depth o f a w om an’s w om b— a start on the golden road to full developm ent in health and happiness. T h e y contain the bold certitude o f the im partiality o f that im m anent love, poured out with light and heat, through the life-giving Disk, to all tribes, all nations, all races, all livin g species, indiscrim inately; the assertion o f the unity o f life and o f the brotherhood o f all creatures as a consequence o f the uni versal fatherhood o f the Sun. But rem arkably enough for one w ho w ould consider those hym ns as expressing true facts o f nature and nothing m ore, there is, in them , not the slightest allusion to the dark side o f the picture o f the w o rld ; not a hint at the millions o f cases in w hich the all-pervading love o f the Father seems to fail; in w hich the innocent speck o f life— you n g insect, bird, beast, or b a b y — is mercilessly crushed before it even had time to know the beauty o f light, o r grows up only to drag a m iserable existence; not a single w ord about those cries o f distress w hich, to an y sensitive and thoughtful person, so often seem to interrupt— for w hat purpose, no m an knows— the harm ony o f the universal chorus. N obody, w ith even a superficial know ledge o f his life, can suppose in A khnaton less sensitiveness to suífering, less love
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for creatures or less intelligence than in the average man. A nd the only w ay to explain, therefore, this total omission o f all idea o f evil from the picture o f the U niverse given in the hymns (at least in the tw o w hich we know) is to adm it that they were composed during special moments o f the kin g’s experience; during m oments when the very sight o f the world w ith its incoherent m ixture o f jo y and pain, life and death— o f the w orld at our scale— was lost to him in a state o f bliss in w hich he grasped nothing but the essence o f things, retaining o f their contradictory appearances those alone that convey the idea o f jo y and order. In other words, those poems do express true facts o f nature, but at the same tim e they reveal a plañe o f conscious ness w hich is not the ordinary plañe. T h e y suggest a picture o f the w orld as perceived b y one w ho has transcended the ordinary scale o f visión ; b y one w ho has reached the stage where he actu ally feels the inherent goodness and beauty o f the w hole p lay o f existence behind its transient failures, suffering and death— and ugliness; b y one w ho, above the apparent disorder o f phenom enal experience, greets the majesty o f everlasting laws, expressions o f harm ony, glimpses o f a R eality w hich is perfect. L eft to him self in the calm o f his sumptuous apartm ents or in the fresh solitude o f his gardens, it seems, if our inference be right, that A khnaton easily raised his soul to that stage o f consciousness characterised as bliss in the absence o f a m ore enlightening description o f it. D id he reach it system atically, as a result o f any physical and m ental discipline, or sim ply as a natural developm ent o f his extraordinary sensitiveness, or as the outcom e both o f a pow erful inborn tendency and o f wilful ap plication? It is very difficult to say; and it matters little. W h at is im portant is that, in all probability, he was fam iliar w ith the genuine experience o f super-consciousness. It was to that experience that he doubtless ow ed his astounding insight into scientific truths w hich could only be proved by the com bined intellectual labour o f thousands o f men, spread over centuries. It seems also certain that, w hatever m ight have been the P h araoh ’s deliberate eíforts and the inner discipline he underw ent, if any, he must have been
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from the start gifted w ith powers o f intuition out o f proportion to those o f the ordinary m an o f science, not to speak o f the ordinary laym an, o f any age. H e w ould have developed those powers anyhow . A nd, w ith his uncom prom ising logic as a com plem ent to insight and inspiration; w ith the absolute sincerity o f his nature and the charm o f his person, he w ould still have been, even in a totally different social status, one o f the few great men to w hom divine honours can be rendered w ithout sacrilege. As things stand, far from h aving to rise to perfection in spite o f his m aterial surroundings, he used a p art o f the inexhaustible w ealth at his com m and to create for himself, in A khetaton, the ideal abode in w hich he could pass w ithout eífort from life in truth and beauty to the contem plation o f supreme Beauty and supreme T ru th . O f his C ity in general, and more especially o f his palace with its elegantly decorated cham bers, com fortable, quiet and spotlessly clean, in w hich every detail o f architecture, every item o f furniture, every minute object was a w ork o f art; w ith its terraces overlooking rich palm -groves and flower-beds and avenues bordered w ith villas, and the great tem ple o f the Sun nearby, and the bluish line o f the distant hills beyond the sandy desert; o f his palace, we say, and o f the shady pavilions near the lakes in the “ Precincts o f A to n ,” and o f the “ Precincts o f A to n ” themselves— o f all the places in w hich A khnaton would choose in turn to spend his moments o f solitude, one could repeat the words used by the French poet to depict an im aginary land o f dream and escap e: “La, tout est ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté. . . .” 1 C iad in fine im m aculate linen in the midst o f those m ythical splendours that w e can to-day but faintly recall, the inspired you n g Pharaoh, half-reclining upon his ivory couch, let his m ind drift its natural w ay. T h rou gh a restful perspective o f well-shaped pillars, his eyes gazed at a patch o f blue sky. Subtle perfumes were íloating in the a ir; the breeze brought him the fragrant breath o f flow ers; perhaps 1 Beaudelaire:
L'Invitation au Voyage (Flcurs du Mal).
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the subdued harm ony o f a distant harp reached him now and then. T h ere was peace all around him — peace in keeping w ith the silence o f his heart and congenial to m editation. T h e tranquil beauty w hich his eyes m et w herever they looked helped him to forget every possible disturbing thought o f im perfection; to detach him self from those appearances w hich stand in the w ay o f the soul in quest o f ultim ate truth. Thus was, as far as w e can hope to picture it, the life o f the king in A khetaton, the C ity o f G od, built b y him to be an island o f peace in this w orld o f strife; to be the m odel, on a small scale, o f w hat he w ould have desired the w orld to become under the beneficent influence o f his T ea ch in g o f truth. W e have seen also som ething o f the life o f the people there. It was surely not perfect, and A khnaton knew him self that his new capital, in spite o f all his efforts, did not come up to the full expectation o f his dream . But it was his dream realised to the extent it could be during the short span o f his career, am ong average men, without the pressure o f violent proselytism, w ithout, b y the w ay , an y form o f creedal prosclytism at all am ong the commoners. It was a beautiful creation, in spite o f all unavoidable shortcomings. M a y, one o f those men w hom the Pharaoh had prom oted to a high position on account o f his faithfulness, describes it as follows in an inscription upon the walls o f the tom b prepared for him in the cliffs o f the desert: “Akhetaton, great in lovelinesa, mistress ofpleasant ceremonies, rich in possessions, with the offerings of R a in her midst. . . . At the sight of her beauty one rejoices. She is lovely. To see her is like a glimpse of heaven. . . . When Aton rises in her midst, He filis her with His rays, embracing in His light His beloved Son, son of Eternity, who carne forth from His substance and who offers the earth to Him Who placed him upon his throne, causing the earth to belong to Him Who made it. . . .” 1 1 Inscription in the tom b o f M a y (R ock T o m b 14 at Tell-el-A m arn a). See Breasted’s Ancient Records o f Egypt (Edit. 1906), V o l. I I , p. 4 12 ; also A rthur W eigall’s Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 176.
CHAPTER
V
TH E W AY OF REASON remarks Sir W allis B ud ge,1 it is true that all w e know for certain about A kh n aton ’s T ea ch in g is found only in two hym ns, one short and one long, the form er copied several times, partly or in whole, in different courtiers’ tom bs at T ell-el-A m am a, the latter found w ritten only once on the walls o f the tom b o f A y, “ fan-bearer on the right side o f the K in g , and M aster o f the K in g ’s H orse.” These two songs in praise o f the Sun are all that is left o f a p robably m uch m ore considerable religious literature, the rest h avin g entirely perished in the system atic ruin o f A khetaton and the persecution o f the R eligión o f the D isk under Tutankh am en and especially under H orem heb. But w e believe that, i f one considers the hym ns closely, and in the light o f all that the reliefs, paintings and inscriptions tell us, directly or indirectly, about the king’s personality and about his life, then one w ill find that they im ply far more than w hat Budge appears to adm it. O n e w ill find that the few enthusiastic admirers o f the R eligión o f the Disk, w hom the learned but som ewhat prejudiced w riter criticises so bitterly, have at least as sound reasons to revere A kh n a ton’s m em ory as he him self can have to minimise the young P haraoh’s im portance in the history o f thought. O f the two know n hym ns, the shorter one is universally recognised as h aving been com posed b y the kin g himself. T h e long one is regarded as the kin g’s w ork b y all authors2 except Sir W allis Budge, w ho attributes it to A y (or A i), the courtier in whose tom b it was discovered. But the authorship o f the 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), Preface, p. xv. 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. II, p. 214. A rth u r W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and R evised Edit. 1922), p . 136. H . R . H a ll: Ancient Histoty o f the N ear East (N in th E d it. 1936), p p. 306-307.
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song seems unm istakable from the text w hich precedes and expíains it. T h is text, in B udge’s ow n translation, runs as follow s: “A Hymn in praise of Her-aakhuti, the living one, exalted in the Eastern horizon in his ñame of Shu who is in the Aten, who liveth for ever and ever, the living and great Aton, he who is in the Set-Festival, the Lord of the Circle, the Lord of the Disk, the Lord of heaven, the Lord of earth, the Lord of the House of Áten in Akhut-Aten, (of) the King of the South and the North, who liveth in Truth, Lord of the Two Lands (i.e ., Egypt), Neferkheperu-ra Ua-en-ra, the son of Ra, who liveth in Truth, Lord of Crowns, Aakhun-Aten, great in the period of his life, (and of) the g rea t royal woman (or wife) whom he loveth, Lady of the Two Lands, Nefer-neferu-Aten, Nefertiti, who liveth in health and youth for ever and ever.” 1 In all this prelude there is no m ention o f A y and no suggestion o f an y possible author save “ the K in g o f the South and the N orth, w ho liveth in T ru th , etc. . . .” T h e next words are: “ he saith,” and then comes the hym n proper: “ Beautiful is T h y rising in the horizon o f heaven, O A ten, etc. . . .” I f the hym n be “ (of) the king,” as stated in th eforew o rd of the text, and if there be no mention o f any other author, there is, w e believe, no reason to suppose, as Budge does, that “ H e ,” in the expression “ He saith,” designates the courtier A y and not A khnaton himself. T h e first thing that strikes a modern m ind in those very ancient songs is the idea, expressed in them, that the Sun is the ultim ate origin to w hich can be traced all the p articular features o f our earth, be they m eteorological, biological, geographical, or ethnical. T o look upon ou r parent star as the Father o f all life was not a new thing. M en had done so from the beginning o f the w orld, and this was no doubt the conception at the root o f that most ancient and, in form er days, most widespread o f all religions: Sun-worship. But here, especially in the long hym n, there is som ething m ore. N ot only is the Sun hailed as the Source o f all life— the indispensable agent o f fertility and grow th through His heat and light— but it is H e w ho determ ines the succession o f the 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p p. 122-123.
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seasons; H e who causes both the rain to fall in the countries w here it rains, and the N ile to overflow E gyp t with its lifegiving w aters; H e w ho is at the back o f all differences o f clim a te upon the globe, and subsequently, w ho is responsible for all differences o f colour and features, o f speech and o f diet, am ong men o f various countries. W e read in the longer h ym n*: “Thou settest every person in his place. Thou providest their daily food, every man having the portion allotted to him, (thou) dost compute the duration of his life. Their tongues are different in speech, their characteristics (or forms) and likewise their skins (in colour), giving distinguishing marks to the dwellers in foreign lands. Thou makest Hapi (the Nile) in the Tuat (Underworld), Thou bringest it when Thou wishest to make mortals to live, inasmuch as Thou hast made them for Thyself, their Lord who dost support them to the uttermost, O Thou Lord of every land, Thou shinest upon them, O Aten of the day, Thou great one of majesty. Thou makest the life of all remóte lands. Thou settest a Nile in heaven which cometh down to them. It maketh a flood on the mountains, like the great green sea, it maketh to be watered their fields in their villages. How beneficent are Thy plans, O Lord of Eternity! A Nile in heaven art Thou for the dwellers in the foreign lands (or deserts) and for all the beasts of the desert that go upon their feet (or legs). Hapi (the Nile) cometh from the Tuat for the land of Egypt. Thy beams nourish every field; Thou risest (and) they live, they germinate for Thee. Thou makest the seasons to develop everything that Thou hast made. . . . ” W e must realise how novel were, in the fourteenth century ., certain conceptions w hich seem com m onplace to us; for instance, that o f the identical origin o f rain and rivers, both finally the product o f the condensation o f w ater that has been first evaporated through the action o f the S u n ; or the idea that the N ile, how ever precious it be to the E gyptians w hom it feeds, is no m ore “ divine” than other great rivers, and that far from h aving its origin in heaven, as the ancient dwellers in its V a lle y believed, it comes “ from underground,” like the hum blest stream let, its series o f m ighty cataracts being not the last degrees o f a gigantic celestial staircase, but sim ply breaks in level o f the river’s course from its distant m ountainous birthplace. b .c
1 T ranslation o f S ir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p p. 130-132.
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W e must not forget that m any o f the beliefs w hich w e now regard as “ m ythology” and treat w ith the sym pathetic smile ofgrow n-u p folk for a ch ild ’s b eliefin Father Christm as, were once held, b y the people who shared them , as seriously as other arricies o f faith— no less and sometimes more absurd, but not yet obsolete— are held, even to-day, b y our contemporaries. T o proclaim , in Eighteenth D yn asty E gyp t, that the N ile was a river like all rivers, was to issue a statement about as revolutionary (and shocking) as that o f a man who, in m edieval Europe, would have openly denied the Christian dogm a o f the Incarnation. But A khnaton, like all sincere rationalists, cared little w hat reactions his beliefs or disbeliefs could start in other people, once he was him self sure that he was in possession o f a tangible truth. W e cannot also fail to be impressed b y that other idea, so clearly put forw ard in the passage w e quoted, that the Sun, apart from being the condition and cause o f life in general, is the ultim ate regulator o f each individual life— “ setting every one in his p la ce” — and also the differentiator o f races and o f their characteristics, features, com plexión, language, etc., w hich are finally at the basis o f all national feelings am ong m en; in other words, that He is the m aker o f our globe’s history no less than o f its geography. T h e concept o f nation, being closely entangled w ith a quantity o fim m ed iate hum an interests, is one o f those w hich has been taking the longest time to be view ed objectively. In the days o f the apogee o f E gyp t w ith w hich we are here concerned, a nation was that group o f people w ho worshipped the same national gods, and especially who went to battle in the ñam e o f the same war-gods. T h e conception o f a “ G od o f all lands” in whose light all those local deities w ere but m agnified men and wom en, if they were anything at all, was novel enough. T h e scientific idea that all differences am ong groups o f men w ere the product o f m an’s physical environm ent— strictly geographical, and also econom ical— and that the physical environm ent was finally conditioned b y the clim ate, that is to say, b y the Sun, was am azingly in advance o f A kh naton’s times, and o f m any m ore recent times w ith w hich the general reader is m ore fam iliar. Far from m erely
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am ounting to the exaltation o f an y particular sun-god, even o f an y sun-god “ o f all lands” above the traditional gods to whom each nation used to bow dow n, it was the plain, rational assertion that our parent star, origin and regulator o f all life on this earth, is ultim ately responsible for m an’s collective creations— the national gods— as well as for m an’s división into racial and linguistic groups; that, in one w ord, as a brilliant tw entieth-century au th o r1 has put it, m an is, before all, “ a solar product” ju st as the other inhabitants o f the same planet. A A
A
W e have just referred to the visible Sun, the flam ing D isk in the sky— A ton in the literal sense. A n d had A khnaton worshipped nothing m ore than it, still his religión, with its most scientific view o f the earth and o f m an purely as “ solar products” w ould be som ething far in advance o f most ancient and m odern religions based upon dogm atic assumptions that bear little or no rclation to elem entary physical facts. But there is m ore in it. As w e have already seen in the p recedin g chapters, one o f the ñames o f the Sun the most w idely used b y A khnaton in the inscriptions is “ R a-H orakhti o f the T w o H orizons, rejoicing in His H orizon, in His ñam e ‘Shu-which-is-in-theD isk,’ ” or “ the livin g H orus o f the T w o H orizons, rejoicing in His H orizon in His ñam e ‘Shu-which-is-in-the-D isk’ ” — the ñam e under w hich both the hym ns that have com e dow n to us are addressed to H im . “ S h u,” as an ordinary noun, w e must transíate b y “ heat” or “ heat and ligh t,” for the w ord has these meanings.* In the Pyram id T exts, Shu is the ñam e o f a god sym bolising the heat rad iating from the b ody o f T em , or T e m -R a, the creator o f the solar Disk, in the indivisible trinity Tem -ShuT efn u t— father, son and dau gh ter; the C reator o f the Sundisk, the H eat and the M oisture; the Principie o f fcrtility, and its indispensable agents. W hatever be therefore the inter1 N o rm a n D ouglas: How about Europe? (E d it. 1930), p . 173. 1 S ir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 80.
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III
pretation w e give to the w ord, w hether w e take it as an ordinary noun or as a proper noun, w e have to adm it that “ the king deified the heat o f the Sun” — or the “ heat and light,” as Sir W allis Budge him self says— “ and worshipped it as the one eternal, Creative, fructifying and life-sustaining forcé.” 1 This permits us to assert w ith Sir Flinders Petrie that in the R eligión o f the Disk the object o f worship was “ the R adiant Energy o f the S u n,” 1 o f w hich heat and light are aspeets. A scarab o f A khnaton dating from the time w hen he had not yet changed his ñam e, and found at Sadenga, in the Sudan, after stating his royal titles, reads: “ L on g live the Beautiful G od, the great O ne o f roarings (thunders ?) . . . in the great and holy ñam e o f . . . D w eller in the Set-Festival like T a-T h u n en , the L o rd o f . . . the A ten (Disk) in heaven, stablished o f face, gracious (or pleasant) in A n u (O n ).” a T h e mention o f T a -T h u n en , one o f the deities that were to be proscribed by him at a later period is not m ore surprising than that o f H oras, W epw at, and other gods on the blocks o f stone th at belonged to the first tem ple o f A ton in Thebes. A n d the other titles in the prayer are m uch the same as those found in the longer hym n to A to n : “ D w eller in the Set-Festival, the L o rd o f the C ircle, the L ord o f the A ton (Disk), the L o rd o f H eaven . . . ” T h e title “ gracious in A n u ” (or O n , the sacred solar C ity o f oíd times) confirms our conviction that the G o d to w hom this prayer is addressed is none but the self-same A to n w hom the king already w or shipped before he rejected the ñam e o f A m enhotep. I f this be so, the words “ great O n e o f roarings” are most interesting. G iven the little we know o f the scientific conception o f A ton, they w ould point out, it seems, not to the assimilation o f A kh n aton ’s G od to an y “ indigenous Sudani T h undergod,” * as Budge believes, but to the equivalence o f the 1 Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 80. * S ir Flinders Petrie: Histoty o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. I I , p. 214. * Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 105. 4 Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 106.
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“ heat and ligh t” — Shu— w ithin the Disk, to sound in general and thunder in particular, and perhaps also to that unknown form o f energy released every tim e there is thunder, to that forcé that the king could not ñam e but o f w hich he certainly felt the existence— electricity. T h e y w ould im ply, that is to say, in his mind, the equivalence o f all forms o f energy. O n the other hand, it is true to say that “ the oíd H eliopolitan traditions made T em or T em -R a, or K h epera, the creator o f A ten (the D isk), but this view A m enhotep the Fourth rejected, and he asserted that the Disk was selfcreated and self-subsistent.” 1 This statem ent is all the more significant because it com es from a scholar w ho, far from being one o f A kh n aton ’s admirers, has never lost an opportunity to minimise the im portance o f his T each in g. H ere, the enormous gap between the R eligión o f the D isk and the oíd H eliopolitan cult, its historie ancestor, is emphasised w ithout the learned author seeming to suspect w hat a homage he is paying, indirectly, to the youn g P haraoh’s genius. For i f the object o f the latter’s adoration were purely “ the heat and ligh t,” or energy w ithin the Disk, then one fails to understand w h y he rejected the view o f the priests o f O n about a god separate from the Disk and creator o f it— a god o f w hom Shu (the heat and light) is an em anation, in the same m anner as S h u ’s fem ale counterpart, Tefnut, the goddess o f M oisture. A n d if, on the contrary, the object o f his worship w ere the m aterial D isk itself and nothing m ore, then w hy should he have called it “ Shu-which-is-in-thc-D isk” ? M oreover, w h y should he say in the short hym n: “ A t T h y rising, all hands are lifted in adoration o f T h y K a ” ? A n d , again, in the long hym n, speaking this time o f the worship o f the Sun, not b y m en, but b y birds: “ T h e feathered fowl fly about over the marshes, praising T h y K a w ith their w ings” ? In the case o f a livin g being its “ K a ” designates its double, or so u l; that invisible elem ent o f it w hich survives d e a th ; its subtle essence as opposed to its coarser visible body. T h e “ K a ” o f the Sun w ould therefore be the Su n’s soul, so 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1933), p. 80.
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as to say; the subtle principie w hich is the essence o f the Sun, and w hich w ould survive the m aterial Disk, were it one day to decay and pass aw ay— the eternal Sun, as opposed to the visible Sun. W e believe that the best w ay to account for this apparent am biguity is to adm it that A khnaton w orshipped the R ad ian t Energy o f the Sun as the Principie o f all existence on earth, but deliberately brushed aside the H eliopolitan distinction between the god, m aker o f the solar Disk, and the solar Disk itself, the distinction between Creative energy and created matter. T o him — and in this w e cannot but adm ire one o f the traits o f his far-seeing genius— there was no such distinc tion. T o him the Disk was self-created and self-sustaining, because it was, like all m atter that falls under our senses, but a visible m anifestation o f Som ething more subtle, invisible, intangible, everlasting— its “ K a ” or essence. A n d Shu, the heat and light, the energy o f the Sun, was not the em anation from the b ody o f a god different from it, but the m anifesta tion o f that O n e T h in g o f w hich the visible flam ing Disk was another manifestation. It was the D isk itself, and the Disk w a jit. V isible M atter was not the product o f E nergy, distinct from it, ñor E nergy the product o f M atter, distinct from it; ñor were any particular forms o f E nergy, such as heat and light, the producís o f any Creative pow er distinct from them by nature. But, as was to be suggested thirty-three hundred years later by the inquiries o f the m odern scientists into the structure o f the atom , M atter and E nergy were inseparable, and both everlasting; they w ere one. T o m aintain the distinctions put forw ard in olden days by the priests o f the Sun in O n — the distinction between the creator o f the Disk and the D isk itself, and also between both these and the H eat or H eat and L igh t w ithin the D isk— was to deny, or at least to hide, the secret identity o f the visible and in visible Sun, o f the visible and invisible w orld, o f Energy and M atter. T h a t identity, A khnaton had becom e aw are o f through some mysterious inner experience o f w hich history has not preserved any description, and by w hich he transcended the hum an to reach the cosmic scale o f visión. It is probable that
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he could not explain it, as the scientists o f our age do, in terms o f definite patterns o f energy. But he knew it, none the less, to be the objective truth. A n d , anticipating in a tremendous intuition the rational conclusions o f m odem research, he based his religión upon the three ideas that sum marise them, nam ely: (1) T h e essential equivalence o f all forms o f energy, including that yet to-day unanalysed (and perhaps unanalysable) form w hich is life; (2) T h e essential identity o f m atter and energy, each o f the tw o being but the subtler or the coarser aspect o f the other; (3) T h e indestructible existence, w ithout beginning, w ith out end, o f that O ne unknown T h in g , w hich is M atter to the coarser and Energy to the finer senses. A A
A
T h e “ K a ” o f the Sun, m entioned in the hym ns, must indeed be taken to m ean the soul or essence o f our parent star. A n d it seems certain that the im m ediate object to w hich the king’s followers w ere invited to offer their praise was not the m aterial D isk alone, as some critics have supposed, ñor the “ K a ” o f the Disk regarded as distinct from it, but the D isk w ith its “ K a ,” regarded as one; the Sun, b ody and soul, visible and invisible, m atter and energy; the dazzling O rb itself being, as w e have ju st rem arked, but w hat our senses can perceive, at our ordinary scale o f visión, o f the enormous store o f R ad ian t Energy that gave birth to our planet and all it contains, and continúes to keep it alive. In the hym ns, it is repeatedly stated that A ton is “ one” and “ alon e.” It is said, for instance, in the short hym n, “ T h ou T h y se lf art alone, but there are millions o f powers o f life in T h ee to m ake them (T h y creatures) liv e ,” 1 and again in the other hym n, “ O T h o u O ne G od, like unto W hom there is no other, T h ou didst create the earth according to T h y heart (or w ill), T h o u alone existing.” 8 1 T ranslation o f Sir W a llis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 121. 1 Translation of Sir Wallis Budge: Ibid., p. 129.
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It is true that the worshippers o f every great god in E gypt had from time im m em orial declared th at their god was “ one” 1 even w hile they themselves adm itted the exist ence o f different gods. W e find the expression “ one” and “ alone” in older anonym ous hym ns to A m on, to R a , to T em , and other deities, long before A khnaton. A n d it is also true that “ it was obvious that A ten, the solar Disk, was one alone and w ithout counterpart or eq u al.” 1 But i f we see, as it seems w e should, in A kh n aton ’s identification o f the solar Disk w ith its “ K a ” or essence the sign o f his b elief in the oneness o f invisible Energy and visible M atter, then the words “ one” and “ alone,” when used by him , becom e more than casual utterances. T h e y express the only know able attribute o f that suprem e entity, Substance and Pow er at the same time, w hich is at the back o f all existence; they qualify the essence o f all suns— the universal “ K a ” — not only the essence o f our Sun. F or these are the sam e. A n d whether A khnaton personally knew or not o f the existence o f other suns besides the one that rules the life o f our earth, it makes little difference. His religión bears from the start the character o f the broadest and most perm anent scientific truth, em bracing, along w ith the reality o f our solar system, that o f all existing system s; nay, o f all possible systems. For w e know to-day th at the self-same earthly varieties o f w hat w e cali m atter go to compose the visible bodies o f all distant w orlds in space. W e know that the heat and light that our Sun sends us through His beams, the “ Shu-withinthe-D isk” that A khnaton adored, is the self-same R ad ian t E nergy that bum s and shines in the remotest nebulae. For us, born after the invention o f the telescope and o f the spectroscope, the ritual worship o f our Sun, coupled w ith the m odern b elief in the essential identity o f M atter and E nergy, is a sym bolical hom age. T h ro u gh H im , the visible Disk, F ather and M oth er o f the E arth and o f our sister planets, our adoration goes to that ultim ate U nknow n, Father and M oth er o f all the w orlds that spin round and round their 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p . 79.
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respective suns, in fathomless infinity; Father and M other o f all the suns themselves that go their w ay, bound b y inflexible inner laws, at countless light-years from one another; to that ultim ate U nknow n that contains m ovem ent, and heat and light, and finally life and consciousness w ithin it: Cosm ic Energy. T o Sir W allis Budge and to m any others it m ay seem “ inconceivable” to attribute to a m an born centuries before the invention o f the telescope, anything approaching our grandiose visión o f millions o f suns and planets evolving through the unlim ited abyss o f interstellar void, in a divine dance w ithout beginning or end. But w ho can tell how far a m an ’s insight can take him , even w ithout the precise intellectual know ledge o f its objects ? W ho can tell i f A khnaton, gazin g at the glory o f his clear night sky full o f stars, did not conceive the idea that each o f those distant lights m ight w ell be a Sun, like ours, m aker o f worlds over w hich he daily rises and sets ? A n d w ho can tell how far in E gyp t astronom y had actually reached, even w ithout the help o f the telescope ? M uch o f it— like m uch o f all sciences in antiquity— was secret and has been lost. W e therefore cannot assert that, in deifying the R a d ia n t Energy o f the Sun and the D isk itself, the inspired youth did not deliberately put forw ard the w orship o f that indefinable, unknown and perhaps unknowable R eality that modern science meets both in the atom and in the systems o f starry space. But, as w e have already said, w hatever m ay have been the lim itations imposed upon his know ledge o f the physical universe b y the technical conditions o f scientific investigation in his time, it remains true that the cult w hich he evolved is that o f the only T h in g w hich modern science can hail as the ultim ate R eality— as G od, i f science is ever able to speak o f a G od. It m atters litde w hether he could or could not appreciate his own creation from the point o f view o f a modern scientist, even from that o f a laym an o f to-day w ith a sum m ary knowledge o f the conclusions o f science. A n d if, w ith Budge and others, one suggests th at this was impossible, then all one can say is that the relation o f his religión to the great facts o f physical existence, discovered millenniums after
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him, is all the m ore adm irable, and his genius all the more staggering. A A
A
T h e only materials on w hich we can base our know ledge o f the Religión o f the D isk are too scanty for us to be able to say how far its Founder was aw are o f the structure o f the physical universe as we have learnt to conceive it. It is interesting, how ever, to consider how exactly certain o f A kh naton’s m ain utterances tally w ith those conclusions o f modern thought now looked upon as definite scientific acquisitions. O ne o f the points on w hich he insists the most, in both o f the hymns w hich have survived, is the all-im portance o f the beams o f the Sun. N ot only does he say: “ T h o u sendest forth T h y beams and every land is in festival,” 1 but also: “ Breath o f life is to see T h y beam s,” 2 and also: “ T h y beams envelop (;i.e., penetrate) everyw here, all the lands w hich T h o u hast m ade” . . . “ T h o u art afar oíf, but T h y beams are upon the earth” 3; and again: “ T h e fishes in the river swim up to greet T h e e; T h y beams are w ithin the depth o f the great sea. . . T h e rays o f the Sun p lay an equally prom inent part in the sym bol o f A kh n aton ’s religión: the D isk w ith dow nw ard beams ending in hands w hich hold the looped-cross ankh, sign o f life. As we have seen, no other im age but that one was allow ed in the temples, and that was not intended to p ortray the object o f worship (which was beyond any representation w hatsoever), but to rem ind the worshippers o f the m ain truth concerning it— nam ely, that the Essence o f the Sun— the “ h eat” or “ heat and ligh t” w ithin the Disk— is not confined to the Disk itself, but is present and active, and beneficent (life-giving) w herever the rays o f the Sun reach. T h e 1 Short H ym n, Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 119.
1 Short Hym n, Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 121.
s Long H ym n, T ranslation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 124.
4
Long H ym n, Translation o f G riffith, quoted by Sir Flinders Petrie, History
o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. II, p. 216. s .s .— 9
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sym bol is found “ in every sculpture,” a fact that marks the stress that the king put upon it. A n d it is “ an utterly new type in Egypt, dístinct from all previous sculptures.” 1 H ere, and m ore so perhaps in the hym ns, we find indeed, sim ply and forcibly expressed, the assertion that the Sunrays are the Sun’s energy, everyw here present, everywhere active, and that it is through them that H e manifests H im self— a truth that m odern science has recognised and o f w hich m odern therapy is trying m ore and m ore to m ake a practical use. A n d it is, no doubt, in considering the Sun-rays, agents both o f heat and light, that A khnaton grasped intuitively the great scientific truth w hich gives the whole structure o f his T ea ch in g a solid foundation o f intellectual certitude so rarely found in m ore popular religions— nam ely, that he realised the equivalence o f heat and light and o f all forms o f energy. R igh tly has Sir Flinders Petrie w ritten in 1899: “ N o one— Sun-worshipper or philosopher— seems to have realised until w ithin this century, the truth w hich was the basis o f A kh n aton ’s worship, that the rays o f the Sun are the means o f the Su n’s action, the source o f all life, pow er and forcé in the universe. T h e abstraction o f regarding the radiant energy as all-im portant was quite disregarded until recent views o f the conservation o f forcé, o f heat as a mode o f motion, and the identity o f heat, light and electricity have m ade us fam iliar with the scientific conception w hich was the characteristic feature o f A kh naton’s new w orship.” 1 A noth er assertion w ithin the hym ns w hich tallies am azingly w ith the m odern conception o f the ultim ate reality, is the one previously noted: “ T h o u T h y se lf art alone, but there are millions o f powers o f life in T h ee, to m ake T h y creatures live.” It is the assertion: ist, that there is finally no other reality but the O ne. ( Thou art alone.) 2nd, that the O ne contains within It infinite possibilities o f life and the tendency to bring them forth into actual existence. T h a t is the only m eaning we can ascribe to 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. 1899), V ol. I I , p. 214.
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the words “ millions o f powers o f life” or “ millions o f vitalities in T h e e .” 3rd, that, consequently, “ creation” is not the m iraculous act through w hich an agent, distinct b y nature from the created things, causes them to spring out o f nothingness, b u t the gradu al manifestation into actual existence o f the diíferent possibilities, latent w ithin the O n e ; in other words, that the O n e supreme reality is im m anent in all things, and that it has been and is for ever producing all the endless variety o f the universe out o f Itself I f we regard that O ne object o f worship— that essence o f the Sun, w hich is the essence o f the solar System— as the same mysterious entity that modern science calis E nergy and places at the root o f all existence, m aterial or im m aterial, then w hat we have said o f it and o f the m eaning o f creation becomes clear. T h a t idea o f the infinity o f beings as transient products o f one fundam ental agent, Pow er and Substance, Essence o f life as w ell as o f so-called inanim ate existence; that conception o f a w orld in w hich, strictly speaking, there is no place for puré passivity, but w here the inanim ate is just life, so as to say, at the lowest stage, is indeed the one suggested b y the boldest generalisation o f our times. W e m ay cali it m etaphysical, in a w ay. But it is no airy m etaphysics; no outcom e o f puré fan cy; no dialectical invention. It fits in w ith the accum ulated experience o f men who have learnt to measure the infinitely small and the infinitely great, and to see the universe at diíferent scales o f visión. It should per haps as yet be called an hypothesis rather than a fact. But it is the hypothesis that explains the facts w hich w e know : it is the philosophical projection o f the science o f our times. A n d one can only m arvel at the intuition o f the adolescent king w ho grasped it thirty-three hundred years ago. A A
A
Th ere is still m ore to be said. In the longer hym n, A khnaton addresses the follow ing words to his G o d : “ T h ou art in m y h eart; T h ere is none who know eth T h ee excepting T h y Son, N efer-kheperu-ra U a-en-ra. T h o u hast m ade him
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wise to understand T h y plans and T h y p ow er.” 1 W hich means that, to him , the impersonal Essence o f the Sun, R adian t Energy, w hich he adores as the O n e uncreated, everlasting, ever-active Principie o f existence in general, is the self-same reality that he discovers at the root o f his consciousness— the Essence o f his own soul. A n d he adds to this utterance a still bolder and stranger one. N obody, says he, knows that O n e R eality save he himself, “ the Son o f the Sun who carne forth from His substance,” “ like unto H im w ithout ceasing,” as he no less bold ly styles him self in other passages o f the same hym n and o f the shorter one. T h e two statements are connected. T h e first, in spite o f appearances, implies the second. T h e second, detached from the first, loses its real m eaning. T h e words “ T h o u art in m y heart” can m ean sim ply “ I love T h e e .” A n d were they addressed to a personal god they could hardly mean anything m ore. T h e y can also be interpreted as: “ T h y Essence and m y essence are one; T h o u art in m e.” A n d as they are, in this hym n, addressed to an impersonal, im m anent E ntity— R ad ian t Energy— that seems to be the m ain sense to give them . T h eir other m eaning, i.e., “ I love T h e e ,” can and should be added, but only as the natural supplem ent o f the m ore im portant idea. T h e main thing, for A khnaton, appears indeed to have been to recognise, to realise, divinity in the Sun and in him self; and it was impossible, evidently, for him not to love it, once he knew it — once he had felt it. O f the process that led him to that realisation w e shall never know. H e has not described it in any existing docum ent, and it is doubtful w hether he could have described it. T h e series o f deductions b y w hich Sir W allis Budge endeavours to show us how the youn g Pharaoh carne to believe in his own divin ity2 w ould surely not have sufficed to convince A khnaton himself, w ere they not backed by some genuine experience o f universal oneness, lived from w ithin. It was to that experience that he im plicitly referred, both 1 Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 134. * Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 82. (Q uoted in C hap . I II , pp. 54-55.)
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when he said: “ T h ou art in m y h eart” and “ N o one know eth Th ee save I, T h y Son.” It is a well-know n fact that all kings o f E gypt were looked upon first as “ sons o f R a ” and later on— as the patron-god o f Thebes, A m on, gradually rose to prom inence and becam e the m ain god o f the w hole country— as “ sons o f A m o n .” A n d this was no m etaphor in the minds o f the Egyptians, ñor perhaps in the minds o f the kings themselves. It was really believed that the god used to visit each queen destined to be a Pharaoh’s m other in the form o f her hum an husband, and becom e, b y her, the actual physical father o f the future king. O n m any Pharaohs’ monuments is pictured the story o f this divine conception. For instance, on the bas-reliefs o f Q ueen H atshepsut’s tem ple at D eir-el-Bahari one can see the god Am on, in the form o f Thotm ose the First— the queen’s father— com panying w ith Q ueen Aahm ose, her m other. A n d in a bas-relief in the tem ple erected b y him in honour o f the T h eban trinity— A m on, M u t, K honsu— even A m enhotep the T h ird , A kh naton’s father— the tolerant, easy-going Pharaoh, under w hom the cult o f A ton was first encouraged — allow ed his m other, Q ueen M utem uya, to be represented com panying with A m on in the form o f Thotm ose the Fourth. Tradition was tradition. A n d who knows? He perhaps him self believed in the story o f his divine origin as all E gyp t did. But A khnaton never p u t forth any sim ilar claim . H e did, it is true, repeatedly declare him self “ Son o f the living A to n ” ; but not in the m iraculous sense his fathers had claim ed to be “ sons o f A m o n .” No bas-relief, no painting, no evidence o f any sort is to be found w hich could allow us to suppose that he regarded him self to be, physically, the son o f aught but his earthly father, A m enhotep the T h ird . T h e idea o f a m iraculous conception is, in fact, incom patible w ith that o f an impersonal G od. A n d A khnaton was too m uch o f a rationalist not to avoid that contradiction. “ Son o f the living A to n ,” i.e., “ Son o f G o d ,” he certainly did proclaim him self to be. But that was in an entirely different sense. His own divin ity was, to him , a consequence o f his unity w ith the O ne divine Pow er-Substance at the b ack o f all
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existence— an im plication o f his experience o f a State o f super-norm al consciousness in w hich he felt his subtle self identical, in nature, w ith the universal Energy w hich he adored. In other words, w e should see in this claim to divinity the expression o f the innerm ost certitude o f a selfrealised soul w ho can say o f the O n e ultim ate R e a lity : “ I am T h a t,” o f G o d : “ I am H e” ; not m erely the custom ary boast o f a king o f E gyp t about his solar descent. But the m odern critical m ind w ill ask: W h y, then, that exclusive claim to the know ledge o f G odhead? W h y the strange sentence: “ T h ere is none w ho know eth T h ee exceptin g T h y Son, N efer-kheperu-ra U a-en -ra” (Beautiful Essence o f the Sun, O n ly O ne o f the Sun)? I f the G od W hom A khnaton w orshipped w as R a d ia n t E nergy, the Principie o f all life, present even in apparently inanim ate m atter, then how could he claim for him self the m onopoly o f wisdom? A personal G od, still endowed with mysterious hum an feelings could, for some reason beyond m ortal understanding, prefer one m an to all others and reveal “ His plans and His pow ers” to him alone. But surely an im m anent G od o f the type o f “ the heat and light w ithin the D isk” could not be accused o f such partiality. T o understand the king’s statem ent we must not forget that he h ad in m ind the knowledge concerning the ultim ate O ne, not the presence o f it. From the reality o f Cosm ic E nergy at the root o f all things, it w ould be rash to infer that the know ledge, i.e., the clear consciousness o f it, is universal. T h a t clear consciousness o f the Essence o f existence w ithin the individual seems, in fact, excluded not only from apparently inanim ate m atter (from w hich individuality itself does not yet em erge), but also from the plants and from the low er and even higher anim als, including nearly all m en. E very atom o f m atter contains the divine spark. E very livin g creature is possessed w ith some dim awareness o f it. M a n y men, it m ay be, repeating w ithout experience the words o f experienced religious authorities, think themselves m ore fu lly conscious o f its presence than they really are. E xtrem ely few are able to realise that their essential identity w ith the ultim ate Principie o f all things is not a m yth, and
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that, in truth, “ they are T h a t.” T o those alone belong the knowledge o f G od and the wisdom “ to understand His plans and His pow er.” A khnaton was undoubtedly one o f them, and he was conscious o f his knowledge. But a glance at the inscriptions in the tombs o f his followers — and at their careers— will convince anyone that they did not share his enlightenm ent. O f the “ T each in g o f life,” which they praise so em phatically, they say sim ply nothing which shows that they actually grasped it. A n d m any o f them put such stress upon the rewards they received from their inspired M aster in gold and silver and official prom otion, that one gets the impression that the lust o f m aterial advantages played a definite part in their conversión to the R eligión o f the Disk. O thers, it is true, appear to look upon the king as a g o d ; but even i f they were sincere in doing so, that would be no p ro o f that they were able to follow him in the path o f know ledge. A fter all, the only test o f a true disciple lies in his actions; and w hen, a few years after A kh n aton ’s prem ature death, the priests o f A m on started persecuting his memory, then none seem to have dared— or cared— to stand openly against the tide o f events; none seem to have con sidered their king worth suffering for, once he was no longer there to distribute honours and gifts to them. T h e y preferred a quiet oíd age, with perhaps new honours, under the restored rule o f the national gods and o f their priests, to the glory o f sharing w ith their M aster the double curse o f a self-seeking gang and o f a misled nation. A t least, that is w hat seems to have been their State o f mind. For had an y serious resistance been opposed to the re-installation o f the traditional religión, we believe that T u tan kh am en ’s scribes w ould not have failed to report how thoroughly it was crushed. A n d, in absence o f any such report, we m ay doubt the fervour o f the disciples w ho survived the youn g T each er. M oreover, w e know that few o f those for w hom A khnaton had caused tombs to be du g out in the vicinity o f his own even cared to make use o f them — a tangible m ark o f indifFerence to him and to all that he stood for. From these various signs we can infer, w ith a fair am ount o f safety, that am ong the crow d o f courtiers who professed to
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have w elcom ed his rational religión, and even in the midst o f the inner circle o f those on w hom he had thought he could rely to “ carry out his T ea ch in g,” A khnaton realised m ore and more, as years passed b y, that he was all alone. H e could not help rem arking the gap w hich existed already during his lifetime between the life o f his followers and the puré doctrine o f reason, love and truth, w hich he preached to them. A nd that, no doubt, convinced him that they entirely lacked the foundation o f genuine religión w hich he possessed: the experience o f an overw helm ing truth w hich lay in them , but transcended them. No one indeed could understand “ the plans and p ow er” o f his G od— the nature o f life and its raeaning— unless one had that experience; unless one was, like himself, aware o f the oneness o f his individual essence with that o f the Sun and o f the whole universe. In the passage quoted above, the king does not use the ñam e under w hich he is now im m ortal, A khnaton, but that under w hich he was generally known in his days, at least to his foreign correspondents whose letters we possess; his nesu bat ñam e,1 N efer-kheperu-ra, w hich means “ Beautiful Essence o f the Su n .” This m ay be a mere coincidence. It m ay also be a deliberate sym bolical choice. “ Th ere is none who knoweth T h ee excepting T h y Son, N efer-kheperu-ra,” m ay well mean that one could not penetrate the nature o f the object o f the king’s worship, the solar and at the same time cosmic E nergy— and know, therefore, w hat one was worshipping— unless one was conscious o f being, one’s self, “ the beautiful essence o f the S u n ,” one with H im , as A khnaton was. Experience h ad taught him that it was not possible to transmit that consciousness; that, how ever m uch he w ould preach the existence o f the O ne Power-Substance — o f the Sun-disk, identical w ith the Energy w ithin the D isk— it w ould rem ain a meaningless m ystery to all men save those w ho had realised their ow n innermost identity 1 A Pharaoh had several ñam es: his “ Horus ñam e,” his “ N ebti ñ am e,” his “ Golden Horus ñam e,” his “ Nesu bat ñam e,” his “ Son o f R a ñam e.” S ir W allis Budge ( Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism, Edit. 1923, p. 3) gives a list o f those “ strong ñames” in the case o f T utankham en. The ñam e b y which a Pharaoh is generally known to history is his “ Son o f R a ” ñame.
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with that O n e T h ing, their natural filiation to I t; w ho had become aw are o f their being “ sons o f the Sun, like unto H im w ithout ceasing.” H e knew no m an who, b y his life, gave signs o f possessing such enlightenm ent. H e only knew for sure that he possessed it. A n d his strange words, w hich w e have just recalled, can therefore be taken to m ean, eq u ally: “ No one knows T h ee save I, the only one w ho can cali m yself T h y Son ,” and: “ No one knows T h ee save that m an w ho, as I am , is aw are o f his identity with T h ee w ithin his individual lim itations, and who thus can be called T h y S on.” T h e two interpretations are correct. T h e second is a consequence o f A kh n aton ’s conception o f im m anent divinity, felt b y him in the Sun and in himself; and also the recognition o f the im possibility to transmit the know ledge o f that ultim ate R e a lity : Cosm ic Energy. T h e first is the recognition o f his ow n unique position in the history o f the w orld w hich he knew. In his days, w ithin his surroundings, and even am ong the older religious teachers, i f any, whose fam e h ad com e dow n to him, he could see no one conscious o f the great truth w hich he had realised. He was, therefore, “ the O n ly O ne o f the Sun” ; and he adm itted it w ithout false modesty. But his very conception o f G odhead logically excluded any m iraculous personal revelation. A n d it is reasonable to adm it that, had he met an y m an having the same awareness as he o f his ultim ate oneness w ith the Principie o f all things, he w ould not have hesitated to salute in him a true “ son o f the Sun” or “ son o f G o d ” — one o f his rare equals. A A
A
W e have seen, up till now, how A kh n aton ’s T each in g, as know n through the hymns, is based upon an inner experience o f universal unity— w hich real spiritual seers seem to have shared in all times and all coun tries— and upon an intuition o f genius o f w hich the correctness, at least as far as the m aterial universe is concerned, has been proved now adays, b y ou r men o f science. T h e first gives the R eligión o f the Disk that sort o f certitude that lies in the concordance o f
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reliable testimonies. T h e second gives it the intellectual certitude that forces us to accept a scientific hypothesis, when it explains facts. This can be said to sum up the positive valué o f the T each in g from a rational point o f view. B ut the T each in g is perhaps as rem arkable for w h at is absent from it as for w hat it contains. As w e have already tried to point out in the introductory chapter o f this book, A khnaton seems to have deliberately avoided the three things o f w hich we find one or two at least linked up, throughout history, w ith every successful religión: a background o f supernatural stories— i.e., a m yth ology; m iracles, and a theory concerning the destiny o f the dead. It suffices to com pare his hym ns to the Sun w ith those w ritten previously or at about the same time, or even later, in E gyp t and elsewhere, to feel all the diíference. Hym ns like those quoted b y Sir W allis Budge from the papyrus o f A n i as “ good typical exam ples o f the songs o f praise and thanksgiving addressed to the Sun-god b y orthodox E gyptians under the X V I I I t h D yn asty” 1 need, in order to be properly understood, the study o f a w hole elabórate sym bolism. T h e association o f the ñam e o f the god T em w ith that o f H orakhti, repeated allusions to the boats Seqtet and M atet, in w hich R a sails through the sky; to N ut, the skygoddess, m other o f the Sun-god; to the L ake o f Testes that rejoices at the go d ’s passage; to Sebau, the g o d ’s enem y, “ whose arms and hands are cut o ff,” and m any other such m ythological recollections, poetic as they m ay be, only render the hym ns obscure to all save people well-versed in E gyptian religión. Those poems, like most o f the religious literature o f far more w idespread creeds in our ow n times, bear the indelible stam p o f a definite civilisation at a definite epoch. By the associations they evoke, b y the pictures they recall through the m agic o f proper ñam es and forgotten stories, it is the w hole atmosphere o f ancient E gyp t that they bring b ack to us. If, as the historian does, one seeks in them nothing else but a faithful glim pse into the past, then all the better. But i f one w ere to read them for one’s own religious 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p . 136, a n d follow ing.
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edification, the result w ould be disappointing. T h e E gyptian religión is now d ead; the proper ñames, how ever wellsounding, w ould stir no longer devotional associations in anybod y’s h eart; the hym ns, like all the rest o f the oíd cult o f w hich they were a part, are sim ply out o f date. A n d in the very time they were d aily sung in E gypt, they w ere out o f tune w ith the religious habits and the fam iliar conceptions even o f the Sun-worshippers o f other countries. A Syrian, a Babylonian, a M ykaenian, w ould have had to take the trouble to learn who was N ut and who was Sebau, and w hat were the boats Seqtet and M atet before he could follow the trend o f inspiration in a hym n to R a — -just as to-day a Buddhist has to acquaint him self with m uch history, m uch legend, and m uch philosophy alien to his own before he can enjoy to the full the beauty o f an Easter sermón in a Christian cathedral. A n y m ythology is o f a lim ited appeal, w hether in time or space. But i f w e now turn to the hym ns w hich A khnaton has left us, we can see in them p ractically nothing w hich could not be grasped in the fourteenth century b . c . b y a Syrian, by an Ind ian— nay, by a Chínese or b y a m an from the forests o f C entral Europe— as well as, or no worse than, b y an E gy p t ian ; nothing w hich is not to-day able to appeal to an y m an, w ithout his needing any preparation other than a heart open to beauty. T h e only thing that w ould require explanation is, in the shorter hym n, a reference to “ the House o f the Benben O belisk . . . in the C ity o f A khetaton, the Seat o f T ru th .” 1 W e know that the Benben O belisk was the im m em orial Symbol o f the Sun, w orshipped in O n or A nu , the H eliopolis o f the Greeks, the “ C ity o f the p illar.” A ccording to the ancient tradition reflected in the Pyram id Texts, “ the Spirit o f the Sun visited the tem ple o f the Sun from time to time, in the form o f a Bennu bird, and alighted on the Benstone in the House o f the Bennu in A n u .” 2 In recalling the Benben stone, A khnaton, it w ould seem, wished to stress how deep w ere the roots o f his exclusive cult o f the Sun in the 1 Shorter H ym n, T ranslation o f Sir W allis B udge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 1 19. 8 Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 63.
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most revcred tradition o f E gypt. T h e worship o f A ton, as we have seen, was evolved out o f that o f the god o f O n , the age-old sacred C ity o f the Sun. A n d the “ House o f the Benben O belisk” m eant sim ply the m ain tem ple o f the Sun in the king’s new capital, also a sacred C ity. But apart from that allusion there is, in the two hymns and in the prayer com posed by A khnaton and inscribed upon his coffin, and in the references to his T each in g in the courtiers’ tom bs, not a w ord w hich needs, on the part o f the readcrs, any special know ledge o f E gy p t and o f her beliefs, in order to be understood. T h e very ñam e o f the Sun w hich comes back over and over again in every text o f the time, w hether composed by the king or b y his followers, is neither R a , ñor K h ep era, ñor T em , ñor even Horus o f the T w o Horizons— a ñam e mentioned once, in the introduction to the shorter hym n— but A ton , i .í ., the D isk, a noun designating the geom etrical shape o f the visible Sun— the same in the eyes o f all the people o f the earth— and w hich can be literally translated into an y language. T h e sym bol o f G odhead was neither a hum an figure ñor an anim al with a particular history at the back o f it, ñor a disk encircled by a serpent (a com m on representation o f solar-gods in E gy p t1), but sim ply the solar-disk w ith dow nw ard rays ending in hands, bestowing life to the earth (“ ankh ,” the looped cross, w hich the hands hold out, is, as we have said, the hieroglyphic sign for “ life” ). This sym bol “ never becam e popular in the country” *; it was perhaps, like the rest o f the R eligión o f the Disk, “ too philosophical” for the Egyptians as for m any other nations. But it was a truly rational sym bol, free from any m ythological connections and clear to any intelligent person. T h e text o f the hym ns refers to no legends, to no stories, to no particular theogony or theology; only to the beauty and beneficence o f our parent star, to its light “ o f several colours,” to its universal worship b y men, beasts and the 1 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 80 and 81. ’ Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 81.
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vegetable w orld; to the m arvel o f b irth ; to the jo y o f life; to the rhythm o f d ay and night and o f the seasons, determined b y the S u n ; and to the great idea that the heat and light within the solar-disk, the “ K a ” or Soul o f the Disk, and the D isk itself, are one, and that all creatures are one as the children o f the one Sun— the one G od. W e find here nothing but conceptions that need, in order to be accepted, only com m on sense and sensitivencss to b eau ty; and in order to be understood to their full, not a theological but a rational— and also spiritual— preparation; not the know l edge o f any m ythology or even o f any hum an history, but a scientific knowledge o f the universe, coupled with a spirit o f synthesis. W e can only here, once m ore, quote Sir Flinders Petrie, to w hom the w orld owes so m uch in the w hole field o f E gyptology. “ In this h ym n ,” says he, after h aving reproduced the text o f the longer hym n, “ all trace o f polytheism and o f anthropom orphism or theriom orphism has entirely disappeared. T h e pow er o f the Sun to cause and regúlate all existence is the great subject o f praise; and careful reflection is shown in enum erating the mysteries o f the pow er o f the A ten exem plified in the anim ation o f nature, reproduction, the variety o f races, and the source o f the N ile and w atering b y rain. It w ould tax anyone in our days to recount better than this the pow er and action o f the rays o f the Sun. A n d no conception that can be com pared w ith this for scientific accu racy was reached for at least three thousand years after it.” 1 A A
A
A nother rem arkable trait o f the Religión o f the Disk is that it seems to have been com pletely devoid o f that b elief in miracles w hich holds such a place in most o f the more popular religions, both ancient and m odern; a belief, nay, w ithout w hich the fundam ental dogm as o f most great w orld-wide religions o f to-day could not be accepted b y their followers. 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. i8 g g ), V o l. I I , p. 218.
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W hen w e speak o f “ m iracles” w e m ean any events, impossible according to the laws o f nature, but o f w hich one yet adm its the occurrence, taking it to be the result o f a special intervention o f G od, or o f any other pow er, in the natural scheme o f things. It must be noted that any con ception o f im m anent G odhead— i.e., an y conception in w hich G odhead and N ature are not distinct from each other; in w hich the ultim ate Power is not “ outside” the universe, but bears to it the relation o f the soul to the body it animates— exeludes the idea o f supernatural intervention on the p art o f G od. A n d any rational view o f the w orld, w hether pantheistic, theistic or atheistic, exeludes m iracles altogether. It is therefore natural that A khnaton never ascribed to the impersonal Energy behind the D isk (and behind all things) w hich he w orshipped, the occasional tendeney or even the cap acity to break, in favour o f hum an issues or at the request o f hum an devotees, the im m ovable laws o f action and reaction o f w hich it is Itself the hidden Principie. In reading the hym ns, one has the impression that, to him , the order o f nature and the m ystery o f life were quite m arvellous enough in themselves, w ithout m an’s needing to seek, beyond them, in happenings that stagger him as unnatural (whether they really be so or not) an occasion to praise the pow er and wisdom o fth e Creator. W e have already seen that he never attributed to him self a m iraculous birth as other Pharaohs, form ally at least, were accustom ed to do. H e could not see in w hat w ay even such an event as that could be m ore divine than the everyday m ystery o f a germ , nursed by the universal Life-force w ithin the egg or within the w om b, and becom ing in course o f time a youn g bird or a child. W hether the king possessed or not the pow er o f perform ing unusual deeds, in the m anner o f m any religious teachers o f all times, w e do not know . In the praise o f him by some o f the most enthusiastic o f his followers— praise o f w hich a sam ple has been quoted in a preceding chapter— there is not the slightest hint that he did. It is, o f course, not impossible that he did. I f one is to believe a tradition persisting for
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centuries after the dow nfall o f E gypt, the technique o f developing one’s psychic powers beyond the ordinarily credible limits was not uncom m on am ong the priests o f the Nile V a lley. In it even lay, one m ay im agine, their unshakable hold over the minds o f the people. A n d there w ould be nothing unnatural in supposing that a m an w ho, up till the appointm ent o f M erira, exercised in the new cult the functions o f H igh-priest o f the Sun, was able to take interest in such an art. M oreover, w e know definitely that A khnaton had assumed the age-old title borne by the H igh-priest o f the Sun in O n : U rm a— the seer,or “ th egreat o n eo fvisio n s” 1 — w hich, if taken in the literal sense, does im ply some powers beyond the ordinary. But in the light o f the evidence now available w e should, it seems, adm it that, even if he did, to any extent, possess the cap acity o f w orking feats o f w onder, he m ade no use o f it, preferring positive know ledge and the logical and beautiful expression o f know ledge in his life and T each in g, to the easy task o f impressing ignorant crowds. It is also quite plausible that he never endeavoured to cultívate the art o f acquiring supra-norm al com m and over the physical w orld, considering it as not essentially connected w ith spiritual developm ent, and therefore as superfluous. A n d not only does the Founder o f the R eligión o f the Disk claim no m iraculous powers for himself, but there is, in the fragments concerning his creed w hich have com e dow n to us, not an allusion whatsoever to occurrences defying the laws o f nature. T h e very idea o f such seems to have been alien to the spirit o f the king’s T each in g. A A
A
Finally, A khnaton appears to have given his followers no definite doctrine about death and the fate o f the d ea d .z T h e custom o f m um m ifying dead bodies, prevalent in E gyp t 1 Arthur W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), P- 51Brcasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. m . * “ The Aten religión contained,” says Sir Wallis Budge, “ none of the beautiful ideas on the future life, with which wc are familiar from the hymns and other compositions in the Book o f the D ead” (History o f Egypt, Edit. 1902, Vol. IV , pp. 121-122). See also J. D. S. Pendlebury’s T ell el-Amama (Edit. 1935), p. 157.
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from time im m em orial, was observed under him and in his own case. H e therefore surely did not discourage it. But it is doubtful w hether he subscribed to the essential ideas about the hereafter that the Egyptians associated w ith it. It is doubtful also whether the personal views he m ay have had about the m ystery o f death were ever preached b y him as a part o f his T each in g. For though the evidence on w hich all discussion o f this subject is necessarily based is very scanty, there seem to be reasons for one to distinguish between his idea o f the survival o f the soul and that o f his followers. T h e only docum ent w hich m ay be taken to express his own views is the prayer inscribed at the foot o f his coffin, and probab ly composed by himself: “ I breathe the sweet breath w hich comes forth from T h y m outh; I behold T h y beauty every day. It is m y desire that I m ay hear T h y sweet voice, even in the N orth w ind, that m y limbs m ay be rejuvenated w ith life through love o f T h ee. G ive me T h y hands holding T h y spirit, that I m ay receive it and live b y it. C ali T h ou upon m y ñam e unto eternity, and it shall never fail.” 1 It seems, from this prayer addressed to the O ne G od, that A khnaton believed in the survival o f the individual soul after death. T h e “ I ” who speaks here is, or at least has all the appearances o f being, a personal consciousness. But it is difficult to im agine personal consciousness beyond death w ithout some sort o f survival o f the body. W e all feel that w e owe m uch o f w hat w e are to the characteristic constitution o f our various organs. I f nothing is to rem ain o f our m aterial self under an y form, then the only sort o f imm ortality we can expect, i f any at all, is the impersonal im m ortality o f that w hich is, in us, com m on to all beings; substantial everlastingness, rather than individual im m or tality. A khnaton seems to have been aw are o f this, and not to have separated the survival o f the individual from some sort o f h azy corporeality. A t least, that is w hat w e w ould im agine to be im plied in words such as: “ . . . that my limbs may be rejuvenated with life through love o f T h ee .” N o one can say w hether those very same words also im ply 1 Q u o te d by A r th u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 259.
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that the Founder o f the Religión o f the D isk shared the ageold E gyptian b elief in the resurrection o f the dead. It m ay be he did. It m ay be he did not. It m ay be that, in his eyes, the “ lim bs” that constitute, in eternity, the agent o f individualisation, were those not o f the resurrected m um m y but o f some surviving “ b o d y” more subtle than the visible one. In A kh naton’s conception, as it can be inferred from the hymns, there is, as we have seen, no clear-cut line o f dem arcation between the m aterial and the im m aterial— between the everlasting “ K a ” o f the Sun-disk and the Disk itself, and doubtless also between the im m ortal “ k a ” o f a m an— his subtler self— and that m an’s body. Th ere is no m ention o f the rising o f the dead anywhere in the solitary prayer, ju st quoted, w hich reveáis to us practically all w e know o f A kh n aton ’s ow n beliefs, or hopeful conjectures, on the subject o f death. But one or two courtiers do express, in the inscriptions in their tombs, the wish that their “ flesh m ight live upon the bones,” w hich seems to im ply the hope o f resurrection. As we have once already rem arked, one o f the most constant desires o f nearly all the king’s followers was to continué to see the Sun after death— “ to go out to see the Sun’s rays” ; “ to obtain a sight o f the beauty o f every recurring sunrise,” etc. . . . M an y also p rayed for m ore tangible happiness; for the unchanged favour o f their royal M aster in the w orld beyond the grave; for ñam e and fam e in this w orld o f the livin g; even for a share o f the consecrated food oñered at the altar o f the Sun, “ a reception o f that w hich has been offered in the tem ple” ; “ a drink offering in the tem ple o f A to n ” ; “ a lib ation ,” spilt b y the children o f the deceased “ at the entrance o f his tom b.” 1 A rth u r W eigall, in his adm iration for the inspired youn g king, has endeavoured to present him as the most outstanding precursor o f Christianity in the P agan w orld. A n d he attributes to him , precisely for that reason, ideas o f the hereafter little different from those o f an honest churchgoing Englishm an— except, o f course, for the im portant fact 1 A r th u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New an d Revised E d it. 1922), p p . 122-125. s .s .— 10
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that “ we hear nothing o f h ell” 1 in his T each in g. Those ideas, w hatever be their valué, are m uch too precise, even in their necessary vagueness, to tally w ith the very vague references in the prayer w e have m entioned, and som ewhat too Christian-like to be ascribed to the w orld’s first rationalist. M oreover, it is notew orthy that W eigall quotes, in support o f them , only extracts from the inscriptions in the courtiers’ tombs, and never the p rayer w hich he him self holds to be “ composed b y A kh naton .” 2 A n d there is a difference in tone and in spirit between that prayer and those inscrip tions. From the prayer, nothing precise about A kh n aton ’s view o f death can be pointed out, save perhaps, as we have said, that he believed in the survival o f the individual under some m uch subtler State o f corporeality (there is no m ention o f food or drink in his words) and that he considered the universal Energy within the Sun— the object o f his worship — to be the principie o f the new life, no less than o f life under the form w e know it. This seems to be the sense o f “ G ive me T h y hands, holding T h y spirit, that I may receive it and live by it.” T h e words: “ . . . that m y limbs m ay be rejuvenated w ith life through love o f Thee," m ay also im ply, along w ith the idea that consciousness is inseparable from corporeality under some form or another, that other idea that love o f the supreme R eality— ultim ately identical w ith the know ledge o f It— is the condition o f consciousness, in that life beyond death w hich A khnaton expected for himself. A p art from these conjectures, w hich the text o f the prayer suggests, we know nothing o f his personal conception o f the hereafter. O n the other hand, the hopes and wishes o f the courtiers— to rise from the d e a d ; to live and see the S u n ; to enjoy food and drink offerings m ade to H im , and libations spilt by their descendants at their intention; to be rem em bered on earth and to see and serve the king in eternity— could be, more or less, the hopes and wishes expressed by any orthodox E gyptians o f the time. T h ere is nothing new in the beliefs 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 121. * A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew an d Revised E d it. 1922), p. 248.
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that they presuppose. T h e only new thing is that all the paraphernalia o f threatening monsters and protecting gods that was generally associated w ith those same beliefs, all the awe that the dead w ould have to face in the land o f shadows, and the m agical form ulas, declarations, incantations, etc., to propitiate the hostile powers o f the netherw orld, are com pletely absent from the inscriptions in the rock tombs o f Tell-el-A m arna. “ W e look in vain for the figures o f the oíd gods o f E gypt, R a , Horus, Ptah, Osiris, Isis, A nubis, and the cycles o f the gods o f the dead and o f the T u a t (Underworld), and not a single ancient text, w hether hym n, prayer, spell, incantation, litany from the ‘Book o f the D ea d ’ in any o f its recensions, is to be found there. T o the Atenites, the tom b was a mere hiding-place for the dead body, not a model o f the T u a t, as their ancestors thought. T h eir royal leader rejected all the oíd funerary Liturgies like the ‘Book o f O p ening the M o u th ,’ and the ‘L itu rgy o f funerary ofFerings,’ and he treated w ith silent contem pt such works as the ‘Book o f the T w o W ays,’ the ‘Book o f the D w eller in the T u a t,’ and the ‘Book o f G ates.’ T h u s it w ould appear that he rejected en bloc all funerary rites and ceremonies and disapproved o f all services o f com m em oration o f the dead, w hich w ere so dear to the hearts o f all Egyptians. T h e absence o f figures o f Osiris in the tombs o f his officials, and o f all m ention o f this god in the inscriptions found in them, suggests that he disbelieved in the Last Judgm en t and in the dogm a o f rew ard for the righteous and punishm ents for evildoers. I f this w ere so, the Field o f Reeds, the Field o f the Grasshoppers, the F ield o f O fferings in the Elysian Fields, and the B lock o f Slaughter w ith the headsman Shesmu, the five pits o f the T u a t and the burning o f the wicked were all ridiculous fictions to him .” 1 From this negative evidence it can be gathered that A khnaton definitely rejected all that appeared to him as irrational in the E gyptian traditions regarding death. He surely did aw ay w ith all the m agic intertw ined w ith them, and he m ay have had, about m an’s liberty and responsibility 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p p . 94, 95.
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in general, suñicient doubts to “ disbelieve” in the Last Judgm ent and in the dogm a o f rew ard and punishm ent once and for ever. I f his courtiers om itted so m uch o f the conventional funerary sym bolism in their tombs, it is because he saw in it something meaningless, perhaps even harm ful, and forbade it. But the positive instance o f his followers’ beliefs in im m ortality does not necessarily indícate, in a parallel m anner, w hat were his personal views. N othing proves that he subscribed to all the hopes w hich they express in their inscriptions. O n the contrary, stripped as it was o f all the traditional m ythology o f the netherw orld, their idea o f life beyond death m ay w ell have been m uch nearer to the conventional E gyptian views than his. W e are inclined to believe it was, when we think o f the courtiers asking to enjoy a p art o f “ the food deposited on the altar every d a y ,” and libations and such. H ere it seems that the oíd faith in the necessity o f funeral offerings lingers in the believers in the new rational religión. It is noticeable that, in A kh n aton ’s own prayer, there is no m ention o f offerings whatsoever. T h e love he had for A ton, the O ne G od, was sufficient to “ rejuvenate his limbs with life.” From all this one m ay infer that, w hatever were his personal conjectures concerning the hereafter, A khnaton did not m ake them an article o f his T each in g, but allow ed his disciples to solve the problem o f death as they liked, provided the solutions they w ould choose were not, in his eyes, too flagrantly childish. T h e m ythology o f the netherw orld, as the Egyptians had believed in it for centuries was, no doubt, to him , a netw ork o f “ ridiculous fictions.” A n d as Sir W allis Budge adds, he actu ally gave his followers “ nothing to put in the place o f these fictions,” 1 because there was, indeed, nothing to give them . A n d as a rationalist that he was, he seems to have been m uch less definite about all he said, or hinted, regarding the possibilities o f the next w orld, than he had been in his assertions about the realities o f this; m uch less categoric, also, in his attitude towards other people’s views, w hen these concerned that great beyond o f w hich he 1 Sir W allis B udge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 95.
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had no more experience than they or any man ever had. T h e fact, for instance, that some o f his followers ask, in their tomb inscriptions, for food and drink, does not prove that he taught them anything positive about funeral offerings, ñor that, forerunning Christ w ho, “ after his resurrection asked for food,” he believed that “ m aterial food or its spiritual equivalent w ould be necessary to the soul’s welfare in the next w orld.” 1 But it does prove that he did not brand the oíd b elief in the same uncom prom ising w ay as he had condem ned that in a m ultitude o f local gods or in the cult of images. H e appears sim ply never to have pronounced him self on the problem o f the hereafter, perhaps because he deem ed that problems o f this w orld and this life should be solved first, perhaps also because he felt less sure o f the solidity o f his ovvn conjectures about death and after death— o f w hich he had no direct know ledge— than o f that o f his positive intuition o f the ultím ate E ssence: heat-and-light w ithin the Sun, and world-consciousness w ithin himself. H e cancelled, in the funeral traditions o f the Egyptians as in the rest o f their religión, all that w hich struck him as definitely meaningless or absurd. H e tolerated only such remnants o f the past as were but harmless customs— for instance, the habit o f embalm ing the dead— or age-old beliefs w hich were as difficult to disprove as to justify and w hich, therefore, m ight have contained some spark o f truth. In his T each in g, he seems neither to have asserted ñor denied the current E gyptian dogm a o f the resurrection o f the flesh. It m ay be that he associated it, in his mind, w ith the idea o f individual survival w hich w ould im ply, it seems, corporeality. But w hat corporeality after death m eant to him , is not clear to us. T h e one thing, how ever, w hich can be said, is that his uncertain attitude towards the problem o f death, and the open m ind w hich he appears to have kept w ith regard to several ancient beliefs and customs about w hich, even to-day, one cannot easily pass a decisive opinion, are perfectly consistent w ith that rigorous rationalism that w e rem arked all through his 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnalon (N ew an d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 124.
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doctrine, along w ith the inspiration that filis it. T h e y are the signs o f a truly scientific spirit. A A
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It seems right to believe, w ith Budge, that the fact that he put “ nothing in the p lace” o f the oíd fictions about the next w orld had the result o f turning the Egyptians aw ay from A khnaton and his T ea ch in g; not, as the leam ed author says, because “ being o f A frican origin, they never understood or cared for philosophical abstractions,” 1 but because they were men and, like most m en, foolish, and craved for illusions— better than nothing— in the absence o f available know ledge. W e m ay add that the omission o f any “ m ythology” and o f miracle-stories from the T ea ch in g had the same im m cdiate effect. People alw ays wished to be entertained, moved and astonished b y m arvellous tales, and m ade to believe them. A n d all the great successful religions, w hen based originally on purely philosophical principies— as Buddhism — have seen more and more m iraculous narrativos creep into their sacred literature as years passed on, and as they spread to further countries. H ad the R eligión o f the Disk not been nipped in the bud, it is probable that the same thing w ould have happened with it, in course o f time. But, i f the absence o f w hat makes a religión popular condem ned it, from the start, never to spread o f its own Ím petus; i f its Founder himself, doubtless feeling how far too rational his T each in g was for the needs o f the m ob, never tried to preach it, save to a few m en chosen am ong the first o f the land, this was not w ithout an advantage. Popular religions o f A kh n aton ’s time, that long held sw ay over nations, have died out. A n d they could not possibly be revived, now or in the future, precisely because o f the m ythology and supernatural stories and p articular views about death and funerary rites w hich overload them and hide the am ount o f truth that they did contain (as all religions do) and make them 1 Sir W allia B udgc: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 96.
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the products o f definite geographical and histórica! environments, the property o f p articular civilisations. A n d nearcr to us, in our ow n w orld, the greatest obstacle, perhaps, to the proselytism o f the w ell-know n international religions still alive, is that they too are irrem ediably linked up w ith a particular background o f history and legend, stam ped with a definite couleur lócale; also that they appear inseparable from such supernatural events as the modern m ind is no longer ready to accept. Islam cannot be preached to England or G erm any detached from the m arvellous stories that once stirred the adm iration o f the m edieval A rab tentdweller. Christianity cannot be preached to India and C hina detached from its Jewish and G reco-R om an associations; and in Europe itself— one o f its oldest fields o f expansión— R enán was already conscious that, i f anything w ould one day m ake people sceptical and indifferent towards it, it would be those very miracles that once m ade its fortune.1 But A kh naton’s T each in g, devoid o f the three things that have assured the success o f other doctrines, is also free from the germs o f decay contained in them. L ogically, it can be revived, now and in an y age to come, in an y place w here rational thinking is more than an em pty profession. T h e absence o f all m ythology makes it a religión that men o f any civilisation can accept w ithout feeling it alien to them. T h e absence o f m iracles, as well as o f any positive answer to the insoluble question o f death, makes it a religión that the critical m ind can prefer to m an y others. Its rationality, one o f the most potent causes o f its failure in E gypt, in the days o f its Founder, could therefore one day becom e the m ain source o f its appeal to the disinterested, truth-seeking intelligentsia o f all the w orld. This hope, how ever prem ature it m ight still seem, in our times, is not unjustified, considering the nature o f the T each in g and the history o f m an’s religious evolution. 1 Renán: Life o f Jesús (Translation by William G. Hutchinson), pp. 162-163.
CHAPTER
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TH E W AY OF LOVE e have seen how A kh n ato n ’s two hymns to the Sun w hich have com e down to us suggest an idea o f G odhead w hich, as Sir Flinders Petrie has so effectively pointed out, tallies with “ our modern scientific conceptions.” But that is not all. T h e impersonal G od w hom the youn g king w orshipped— the Energy o f the U niverse, m ade tangible in the pow er and glory o f our parent star— is no less inspiring to the heart o f the m ystic in search o f absolute love, than to the clear intellect o f the rationalist in search o f logical and experim ental accuracy. H e is the “ L ord o f L o ve ” no less than the L o rd o f T ru th . In the shorter hym n we find such sentences as: “ T h y love is m ighty and great. . . . T h y light o f several colours bewitcheth all faces” ; “ T h ou fillest the T w o Lands w ith T h y lo ve,” 1 etc. . . . and again, in the longer hym n, am ong others, the passage we referred to in the preceding chapter: “ T h y rays encompass all lands. . . . T h o u bindest them with T h y lo ve,” and the well-known p aragrap h : “ Thou makest offspring to take form in wom en, creating seed in m en. T h o u makest the son to live in the w om b o f his m other, causing him to be quiet, that he crieth not; T h o u art a nurse in the wom b, giving breath to vivify that w hich T h o u hast m ade. W hen he droppeth from the w om b on the day o f his birth, he openeth his m outh in the (ordinary) m anner and T h ou providest his sustenance. T h e youn g bird in the egg speaketh in the shell; T h o u giveth breath to him inside it to m ake him live. T h o u makest for him his m ature form so that he can crack the shell (being) inside the egg. H e com eth forth from the eg g; he chirpeth w ith all his m ight; when he hath com e forth from it (the egg), he w alketh on his two feet. . . . 1 Translation o f Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 117.
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O how m any are the things w hich T h o u hast m ade. . . A nd a little further on, after the passage about the N ile and the rain and the variety o f clim ates and races, follows another expression o f devout adm iration for the solicitude o f the C reator: “ H ow beneficent are T h y plans, O L ord o f E tern ity!” As A rthur W eigall says, quoting the Christian Scriptures, never in history “ had a man conceived a god who ‘so loved the w orld.5 ” 2 But there is, between the love o f A ton for the world and the love o f the personal G od o f the Gospel, all the difference that separates a link o f im personal necessity from one o f hum an attachm ent. W e must not forget the nature o f A to n — the Disk, identical to “ S h u ,” H eat-and-Light, i.e., E nergy-w ithin-theDisk— who is neither a god in the im age o f m an, ñor even an individual pow er o f an y description, but the ultím ate impersonal R eality behind all existence. T h e love o f such a G od for the millions and millions o f lives w hich H e brought forth from H im self is something diñerent from the love o f an individual parent for his offspring. T ru e, A khnaton calis his G od the “ Father-and-M other o f all which H e hath m ad e.” But if our interpretation o f A ton be the right one, then that double appellation, far from containing an y anthropom orphic idea, most probab ly symbolises the two com plem entary aspects o f the O ne ultím ate E ssen ce: the active, for ever urging new forms and new lives out o f dim latent possibilities, and the passive, the sensitive receptacle o f all those possibilities, m atrix o f actual existence; the O ne everlasting Power o f differentiation, and the everlasting and ever-diíferentiated Oneness. T h e individual parent and the offspring, how ever closely linked, are separate bodies w ith a separate consciousness. T h e “ F ather-an d-M other” o f the Universe and the U niverse itself are not. T h e latter is the visible and diversified expression o f the former invisible and indivisible O n e— the Energy w ithin the D isk and w ithin the universe, o f w hich m atter is but an aspect. T h e love o f A ton 1 Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 128-129. 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times 0 /Akhnaton (New and Rcvised Edit. 1922), p. 105.
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for the w orld is the stable unifying pow er that underlies all that is diverse and transient— all that is created. “ T h ou bindest them w ith T h y love” m ean s: “ T h rou gh their common relation to T h ee, the O n e Essence o f all things, they are one in their diversity— ‘bound to T h e e ,’ and bound together w ithin their apparent separateness.” In another versión o f the longer h ym n 1 w e read: “ T h o u art R a ; T h o u hast carried them all a w ay c a p tiv e ; T h o u bindest them by T h y love. . . T h e w ord “ cap tive” w ould seem to indícate a link o f com plete dependence o f the creatures upon the Creator. T h e y are bound to H im as to the final condition o f their existence. In that link rests the secret o f their link to one another. T h e y are one in Him, because first o f all they are one with Him, as children are one w ith a loving parent, and m uch more so. A A A But apart from this relation o f fact betw een the ultím ate E nergy and all that exists, the hym ns clearly point out to a relation o f intention. In A to n ’s love “ for all He hath m ade,” there is som ething m ore than the bond o f physical and logical unity w hich w e have tried to analyse. T h ere is not, o f course, that personal love, w hich only a god in the im age o f m an can feel for each o f his creatures; but there is some im m anent finality w hich operates, in each individual case, as i f it were the sign o f G o d ’s special individual care; a tendency to w ell-being w hich nature encourages and h elp s; an untiring goodness, an inexhaustible— and indiscrim inate — generosity, w hich strikes one at every step as underlying the whole scheme o f things. T h a t seems to be the truth expressed in A kh n aton ’s beautiful passages about the kindness o f A ton to the child and to the youn g bird, mere instances o f His solicitude for all creatures. T h e m arvel o f pre-natal existence— the patient evolution o f a cell into a full-grow n individual— is recalled, w ith all the finality inherent to it, in a few w o rd s: “ T h ou art 1 Translation o f Breasted, Development o f Religión and Thougkt in Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1912), p. 324.
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a nurse in the w om b, givin g breath to vivify that w hich Thou hast m ade. . . “ T h o u giveth breath to him (the young bird) inside the egg, to m ake him live. T h ou makest for him his m ature form so that he can crack the shell (being) inside the egg. . . .” G o d — Le., N ature, for A ton does not stand for any supernatural entity— does His best. H e “ gives breath” to every youn g livin g thing; H e equips it w ith organs m arvellously adjusted; H e helps it to grow , before its birth, and feeds it afterwards, for some time at least, that it m ay have a chance to fulfil its purpose w hich is to live, to enjoy the sunshine and to be beautiful, in the full-bloom o f health and happiness. A n d though it is not said in the hymns — that are songs o f praise to the glory o f the C reator, not codes o f hum an behaviour— one feels, from the very tone o f the kin g’s words, the m oral truth that they im ply. O ne feels that, in his eyes, it is m an’s du ty to collaborate w ith the universal Parent, the life-giving S u n ; to love all creatures and to help them to live; not m erely to do no harm to them, under w hatever pretext and for w hatever purpose it m ay be, but to see to their w elfare, to the utmost o f his cap acity. L ife— the life o f an y creature— w hich is, in itself, such a m asterpiece o f divine love, is not to be considered lightly. A n d the welfare o f anything that lives, especially o f any creature that is helpless, is to be the object o f our personal care. G o d H im self has pointed out the w ay to us by the exam ple o f His untiring solicitude. It is rem arkable that A khnaton seems to give no less importance to the youn g b ird— standing for the w hole anim al w orld— than to the hum an b aby. T h e adm iration he expresses for the loving care o f H im W ho brings the em bryo to m aturity and “ provideth its needs” is equal in both cases. A n d one has the impression that the “ H eat-and-Lightw ithin-the-D isk” — his G o d — knows nothing o f the childish p artiality o f the m an-m ade gods in favour o f the hum an species. Those gods, conceived, as some o f them m ay be, centuries after the inspired Pharaoh, appear indeed, in the light o f his, as glorified tribal deities— w hich, no doubt, some o f them originally w ere— raised by the pride o f their worshippers to the leadership o f a mere extended tribe, m an-
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kind, a species am ong m any others in the endless variety o f creation. In the h ym n from w hich we have quoted the above passage, there is another reference in w hich different countries are enum erated: “ T h o u didst create the w orld according to T h y desire, Syria, and N u bia and the land o f E gypt. . . .” Com m enting on the fact that the two tributary nations are nam ed before E gyp t, A rthu r W eigall, follow ing the pious trend o f thought that characterises his w hole book, says: “ A khnaton believed that his G o d was the Father o f all m ankind and that the Syrian and the N ubian were as m uch under His protection as the E gyptian. T h e religión o f the A ton was to be a w orld religión. This is a greater advance in ethics than m ay be at first apparent; for the A ton thus becomes the first deity w ho was not tribal or not national ever conceived b y m ortal mind. This is the C hristian’s understanding o f G od, though not the H ebrew conception o f Jehovah. This is the spirit w hich sends the missionary to the uttermost parts o f the e a rth ; and it was such an attitude o f m ind w hich now led A khnaton to build a tem ple to the Aton in Palestine, possibly at Jerusalem itself, and another far up in the S u dan.” 1 Before ascribing a definite date to the religious books o f the East, especially the Vedas (which is not possible), it is difficult to say w hether A ton was or not the first universal G od “ ever conceived b y m ortal m in d.” But if, b y his international spirit, by his b elief in a G od who was the Father o f the foreigners as w ell as o f the Egyptians, A khnaton was in advance o f the oíd H ebrew idea o f Jehovah, then surely his conception o f A ton, as free from every kind o f hum an narrowness (loving the little bird and the little child, and all life alike), puts him no less in advance o f Christianity itself— nay, in advance o f any creed w hich makes m an, and not life, the centre o f its theory o f creation and the basis o f its scale o f valúes. W e personally believe that it is precisely this entire absence, not m erely o f nationalism and o f imperialism , but also o f an y form o f anthropom orphism (both 1 A r t h u r W eig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised Edit. 1922), p. 166.
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moral and m etaphysical) w hich raises the youn g Pharaoh far above so m an y later religious teachers and sets him , decidcdly, ahead o f our present times. A A
A
T h e im personal E nergy w hich radiates as heat and light in the life-giving D isk o f the Sun— A to n — loves the w orld and all that lives upon it. In other words, N ature is indiscrim inately, im p artially kind. T h e tragedies that we witness every d ay— suffering and slaughter inflicted upon creatures, and every form o f exploitation o f man and beast— are m an’s doing, not Hers. G od has given, to every youn g individual, health and the desire to enjoy the daylight. H e intended it to live its span o f years, not to die m iserably. Even out o f destruction and death He makes life spring out again, causing tender green shoots to appear on the branches o f the m utilated trees, and new trees to grow out o f the roots o f those that were felled. T o H im , life is an end in itself. A n d at every new attem pt He makes to bring forth a livin g thing, again at its birth H e lavishes upon it His gifts o f health and beauty, possibilities o f developm ent into the perfection o f its species, promises o f happiness. Such was the essential o f A kh naton’s T each in g concerning the love o f G od. H e seems, at least from the little w e now possess o f his religious poems, to have ignored evil entirely; and perhaps he actually did so, for not only in the hymns, but also in the numerous inscriptions w hich cover the walls o f his followers’ tombs, “ the destructive qualities o f the Sun w ere never referred to,” 1 not to speak o f all the crimes against life that are allow ed to be com m itted under His face all over the earth. T h a t omission, as we have already said in a form er ch ap ter,2 cannot be explained b y supposing the king to have been blind to the existence o f suffering as a fact. T h a t w ould be absurd. T ru e, the surroundings he had created for him self were exceedingly beautiful. But he knew 1 Arthur W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 192a), p. 104. 1 In Chapter IV , p. 102.
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that the wide w orld extended far beyond them, and beyond his ow n beneficent influence. M oreover, there never was a tow n on earth where people were totally free from anger and greed, cruelty and cowardice, the sources o f the evil actions that produce suffering. A n d A kh etaton, though the “ seat o f T ru th ,” was surely no exception, for men dw elt there. A n d the young Prophet o f sunshine and jo y must have known how lim ited was his control over other p eople’s bad instincts, even at a few yards from his peaceful palace. Y et, he sang the love o f G od, in spite o f it all. He deeply felt that there was, at the birth o f every new life, equipped for happiness, the trium ph o f an inexhaustible Pow er o f love, w hich governs the universe. T h e new ly-born creature m ight not be left to enjoy the full-bloom o f life for w hich its b ody and soul were m ade. T h e possibility o f enjoying it was, nevertheless, the result o f the w hole finality o f its pre-natal developm ent, the outcom e o f a divine solicitude. H ealth and happiness were its birthright, according to the decrees o f the immense im m anent L o ve th at sustains all creation, the Soul o f the universe— G od. Seen in the light o f the young king’s super-conscious insight into the m ystery o f existence, the effects o f hum an wickedness, w ith all their horror, appeared perhaps as but surface ripples, hard ly perturbing the calm abyss o f eternal Life and infinite L ove. T h a t is possible. H ow ever it be, he did not ask the reason w hy such ripples exist, because he knew there was no answer to the question. It w ould seem that he brushed aside the problem o f evil deliberately (along with the problem o f death), as som ething w hich the hum an m ind, how ever exalted, cannot solve. A n d instead o f seeking in vain an explanation where there was none, he absorbed him self in the contem plation o f the O n e unpolluted— and unpollutable— Source o f health, life and lo v e : the Energy w ithin the Sun. A A
A
No less than the love o f G od for the w orld, manifested in the untiring beneficence o f our parent star, A khnaton has
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stressed, in the hymns, the love o f all livin g creatures for their com m on Father, whose heat and light has brought them forth and sustains them , generation after generation. A ll men love H im and bow dow n to H im , w hatever be their other professed gods. “ T h e y live when T h o u shinest upon them . . says the inspired author o f the hym ns; “ their eyes, w hen T h o u risest, tu ra their gaze upon T h ee. . . .” “ Every heart beateth high at the sight o f T h ee, for T h o u risest as their L o rd .” 1 A n d also: “ A ll m en’s hands are stretched out in praise o f T h y rising” . . . “ O L ord o f every land, T h o u shinest upon them ; O A ten o f the day, great in m ajesty,” 2 or, in the translation o f M r. GriíFith, reproduced by Sir Flinders Petrie: “ T h ou art throughout their Lord, even in their weakness, O L ord o f the land that risest for them, A ten o f the day, revered in every distant coun try.” 3 In fact, every nation in the neighbourhood o f E gyp t paid hom age to the Sun under a different ñam e. A n d how ever narrow m ight have been their conception o fth e G od o f Light, often brought down to the rank o f a local g o d ,4 and how ever debased m ight have been their forms o f worship, still it was to H im that w ent their praise. T h e y loved H im and revered H im w ithout know ing H im . A n d distant peoples and tribes o f w hich the king o f E gypt could not possibly have heard, also rendered divine honours to the same fiery Disk at His daw ning and setting. It ivas a fact that, while A khnaton’s pocms were sung to His glory “ in the hall o f the House o f the Benben O belisk and in every tem ple in A khetaton, the seat o f truth,” 6 the A rya n clans, slow ly pouring into India, w ere exalting H im in the hym ns o f the R ig -V e d a ; w ild tribes from the north o f Europe and Asia sang the beauty o f His h azy smile over endless snow1 Shorter Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tuiankhamtn, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 118.
a Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budgc, Tuiankhamtn, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 131. 3 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 216. * Breasted: Development o f Religión and Thought in Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1912), pp. 13 and following; p. 312. 6 Shorter Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 117.
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bound plains and dark forests; and at the eastern end o f the earth, the prim itive people o f Ja p an — m ore than seven hundred years before their first recorded em peror— doubtless already hailed His rising out o f the Pacific O cean . A n d still farther to the east and to the south— beyond those virgin waves that it w ould have taken months and months to cross — men o f undiscovered isles and continents praised H im , in speeches now long forgotten, w ith strange rites o f w hich we shall never know. A n d thus it was true that the w hole w orld was full o f His ñam e. From the N ile to the Andes, and from the frozen beaches over w hich He sheds His m idnight rays to the luxuriant isles that smile in His golden light, in the midst o f phosphorescent seas, it was true that “ all m en’s hands” were “ stretched out in praise o f His rising.” A khnaton probab ly did not know how big our planet is ; ñor had he an y idea o f the farthermost lands o f daw n and sunset bordering the two great oceans. Y et, w ith a sure insight o f truth, he proclaim ed his G od: “ T h o u A ton o f the day, revered in every distant la n d .” He was aw are o f the universality o f Sun-worship, that oldest and most natural religión in the w orld, o f w hich still to-day one could find concrete traces in the rites and customs and festivals o f more intricate, m ore anthropom orphic— and less rational— cults. H e was aw are also that, i f any religión could one day claim to conquer the earth and unite all enlightened m ankind, it could be none but this one. T h e worldw ide concert o f m an’s praise to the Sun, o f w hich the dim echo resounded in his heart, clumsy, childish, discordant as it was, filled him with jo y and glorious hopes. It was the first expression o f the w hole hum an race groping in quest o f the real G od. Its final expression— the religión o f integral life, in w hich reason and inspiration, know ledge and devotion w ould go hand-in-hand— could be but the worship o f the O n e Essence o f all existence, Cosm ic E nergy, manifested in the heat and light o f our parent star; the rational cult o f the Sun, w hich he had forestalled in A khetaton, his sacred C ity. A A
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Th ere is more. A ton is not the G od o f man alone. W e have seen that H e loves all creatures im p artially and treats them with equal solicitude. It is shown in the hym ns no less clearly that all creatures love and worship H im , each in the m anner o f its species. “ E very creature that T h o u hast m ade skippeth towards T h ee . . .” ; “ A ll the beasts frisk about on their feet; all the feathered fowl rise up from their nests and flap their wings w ith jo y , and circle around in praise o f the L ivin g A ten. . . -” 1 “ Beasts and cattle o f all kinds settle dow n upon the pastures” . . . “ the feathered fow l fly about over their marshes, their feathers (i.e., their wings) praising T h y ‘K a ’ . . . .” 2 “ A ll the cattle rise up on their legs; creatures that fly and insects o f all kinds spring into life w hen T h o u risest up on them . . . “ T h e fishes in the river swim up to greet T h e e .” 4 A n d it is not only quadrupeds and birds, insects and fishes that take p art in the general chorus o f jo y and praise that rises from the earth to the S u n ; “ shrubs and vegetables flourish” ' when T h o u risest upon them ; “ buds burst into flower, and the plants w hich grow on the waste lands send up shoots at T h y rising; they drink themselves drunk before T h y face.” 6 Th ere are two ideas, quite different from each other, expressed in these few quotations from the hym ns: on one hand that all creatures rejoice at the sight o f the S u n ; on the other that they all worship the Sun. T h e first is a m atter o f everyday observation that m any a sensitive soul w ould p ro bab ly have stressed in a poem to the glory o f the lifegiving D isk; a com m onplace truth w hich indeed has been emphasised in various antique songs o f unknown date and authorship, no less than in m any passages o f m odern literature, and w hich implies no special insight on the p art o f 1 Shorter Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budgc, Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 121.
* In Griffith's versión: “ Their wings adoring T hy ‘K a .’ ” * Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 126-127. 4 Longer Hymn, Translation o f Griffith. Quoted by Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 215, and following. 5 Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 126. * Shorter Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 121. s .s.— 1 1
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w hoever grasps it; an obvious fact. T h e second idea implies the belief in the unity o f all life and the brotherhood o f creatures, and provides the basis o f a w hole religious and m oral outlook. A p art from Sir Flinders Petrie, who sees in the scientific foundation o f the R eligión o f the D isk its greatest claim to our adm iration, most authors am ong those w ho appreciate A kh n ato n ’s T ea ch in g seem to do so on account o f his G od being the G od o f all nations as opposed to the hosts o f national and tribal deities w orshipped all over the ancient w orld. T h e young P haraoh’s conception o f the brotherhood o f man as a consequence o f the fatherhood o f the one Sun; his internationalism ; his kindness to all hum an beings, including rebels and traitors; his “ conscientious objection to w arfare” 1— logical outcom e o f a lofty respect for hum an life — are the traits w hich appear to strike historians such as Breasted and A rth u r W eigall, com m entators such as the R ev. J . Baikie, and, in general, all people w ho can im agine no broader standards o f love than those p ut forw ard in the Gospels. But a closer reading o f the hym ns in a totally unprejudiced spirit w ould have revealed, it seems, a feeling o f truly universal brotherhood m uch m ore com prehensive than that expressed, as far as w e know, b y an y later religious teacher, west o f Ind ia, w ith the noble exception o f a few G reeks— such as Apollonius o f T y a n a — obviously influenced by Indian masters. T h e fatherhood o f the Sun im plied, in A kh naton’s eyes, the brotherhood o f all sentient beings, hum an and non-human. T h e point deserves to be stressed. As w e have rem arked, there are tw o distinct ideas in the hym ns, w ith regard to livin g creatures. T h e jo y o f life, and the excitem ent that the appearing o f daylight produces in all beings, from m an to fish— even from m an to p lant— is one thing. T h e feeling o f it reveáis, no doubt, in the author o f the hym ns, a heart open to universal understanding and to sym pathy for all that lives. But that alone does not necessarily im ply any religious doctrine about the unity o f m an and 1 A r t h u r We igall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised Edi t. 1922), p. 200.
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bcast. In fact, saints full o f the sam e tender love for dum b creatures have honoured, in course o f time, religions according to the teachings o f w hich m an remains the special object o f G o d ’s solicitude and the measure o f all valúes; Saint Francis o f Assisi, for instance, called all creatures his “ brothers,” and long before him a follower o f the Prophet o f Islam , A b u H urairah, so tradition says, preferred to cut o ff a piece o f his m antle rather than disturb a cat that had gone to sleep upon it. H ad A khnaton only spoken o f the thrill that the rising Sun sends through all flesh; had even touching stories come dow n to us concerning his kindness to animals, yet w e w ould not be able to say, on those grounds alone, w hat was the exact place o f anim als in the R eligión o f the Disk. Such evidence w ould have borne witness to the kin g’s valué as a m an ; but it w ould have added little to our know ledge o f his T each in g. Fortunately, he said more. N ot only did he look upon the joyous demonstrations o f the anim al w orld at daybreak as marks o f love for the Sun, but he also considered them as unm istakable expressions o f adoration. Birds, said he, “ fiap their wings w ith jo y , and circle round in praise o f the livin g A ten .” A n d that also is not all. O ne holding the general views inherited from the Bible b y m odern m ankind— believing, that is to say, that there is a difference o f nature, an unbreachable gap, betw een m an and beast— w ould perhaps be inclined to concede that anim als do p a y some sort o f hom age to the m aterial Sun-disk th at shines above them, w ithout looking up to any more subtle G od, C reator and A nim ator o f the Disk itself. But A khnaton, follow ing to the end the logical im plications o f an entirely different view o f the universe, b old ly asserts, in the longer hym n, that the G od W hom beasts and birds worship is the self-same in visible, intangible Essence o f all being, manifested in the Sun, W hom m an reveres “ in every distant coun try” — the “ K a ,” or Soul o f the S u n ; the Soul o f the w orld. “ T h e feathered fowl fly about over their marshes, their wings adoring T h y ‘ K a .’ ” N ot that the young Pharaoh probab ly believed anim als to be aw are o f the nature o f that all-pervading supreme R eality
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to w hich we have referred in the preceding chapter. H e did not hold all men, also, or even the m ajority o f men, to be conscious o f w hat they really worshipped in the visible Sun. T h e sentence w e have already quoted: “ T h ou art in my heart, and there is none who knoweth T h ee save T h y Son, N efer-kheperu-ra U a-en-ra . . .” (Beautiful-essence-of-theSun, Only-one-of-the-Sun) is sufficient to show w hat an aristocratic conception he had o f w hat is, properly speaking, “ religión” — an experience o f the D ivine w ithin one’s self, w hich very few men can ever hope to obtain to the full. But ju st as he believed that men, o f w hatever country and creed, all tend to the consciousness o f the O ne Essence and worship It in the Sun, in spite o f their ignorance, so he held that beasts and birds, even insects and fishes— all living beings— dim ly tend to the same ultim ate know ledge, and already worship the same Principie o f universal life, Cosm ic Energy, w ithout being able to conceive its nature, or even to think o f it. T h e y are, like the m ajority o f men (and p robab ly to a lesser degree than the average m an, though o f course nobody knows) vagu ely aw are o f Som ething fundam ental and supreme, w hich they feel in the heat and light o f the Sun; in the m agic touch o f His life-giving beams. A n d they worship It, w ithout know ing w hat It is, w ith m ovements and noises, or movements alone, each one to the uttermost cap acity o f his individual nature and o f his p articular species. T h a t seems to have been A kh naton’s view o f the relation o f animals to G od. T h e y were, in his eyes, religious beings o f the same nature as m an ; capable o f prayer and adoration, in a vaguer m anner (for w ant o f speech) but perhaps w ith no less elem entary em otional intensity. O therwise— had he not m eant that— the w ord “ K a ” w ould have no sense in the above references. A A
A
O f plants, it is not said in the hym ns w hether or not, in their thrill at the touch o f A to n ’s golden beams, there enters any elem ent o f adoration. Y e t, if the leap o f the fish towards the surface o f the w ater is considered as an act o f “ greeting”
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the rising Sun, it seems h ard ly possible not to see in the water-lilies that “ drink themselves drunk” (of His radiance) “ before His face,” livin g creatures enjoying, at a low cr level o f consciousness, the m áxim um o f ecstatic jo y th at their nature permits. T h e kin g’s words, “ they drink themselves drunk,” seem to im ply, in their case also, a sort o f religious intoxication, a holy rapture, as the w arm sun-rays enter the open flowers and reach dow n into their hearts. In other words, far from setting up a definite line o f dem arcation betw een man and the living w orld outside man, and considering our species endowed w ith special rights by a god w ho m ade the rest o f creatures for its use; far from forestalling, that is to say, the com m on view o f later monotheistic creeds, from that o f the Jew s onwards, A khnaton looked upon all sentient beings as children o f the same Father— the S u n— and co-worshippers o f the same ultím ate G od, Cosm ic E nergy, m ade visible and tangible in the S u n ; as brothers, identical in nature, diíferent only inasm uch as the consciousness o f the supreme O ne is more or less developed in each individual. A n d ju st as all nations were united, in his eyes, b y the fact that they all revere the “ Father-andM oth er” o f life in various tongues and w ith various inadequate rites, so were all livin g species united to one another and to m an— and m an to them — b y the worship o f the O n e Cosm ic G od. For such was A ton, the G od o f all animals (and plants) as w ell as o f all m en; the G od o f all men, in fact, only because He was, prím arily and essentially, the G od o f life in general — man being only a small p art o f the endless scheme o f life. A learned historian w rote, as a criticism o f A kh n aton ’s T each in g, that the hym ns contained hard ly m ore than an assertion o f the pleasure to be alive, a “ cat-like” enjoym ent o f the S u n .1 A true follower o f the inspired Pharaoh w ould answer: “ So m uch the better” ; for the valué o f the R eligión o f the Disk lies precisely in the fact that it is perhaps the only religión fit for cats and all beasts no less than for men, and supermen. Its bold views concerning the oneness o f m atter and energy m ay well be understood only b y a few 1 H . R . H a l l : Ancienl Histoiy o f the Near East ( N in t h Edit. 1936), p. 599.
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hum an beings, even to-day. But its visible object o f worship — the Sun— is, and indeed ever w ill be, the only manifestation o f G od w hich beasts, and birds, and fishes, and plants, and all possible forms o f life can be expected to appreciate in their ow n w ay, no less than w e do in ours, and to worship, if they are to worship anything. H ow ever simple be a creed, it can be at the most extended to all m ankind— not beyond. Ñ or can an y seer, an y prophet, any deified hero receive the allegiance o f creatures other than men. Ñ or can even an y idol be worshipped b y dum b beasts. But the Sun appeals to all, inspires all, is loved and w orshipped by all, from the philosophising devotee o f intangible Energy dow n to the cat, the cock, the fish, the sun-flower. A n d the you n g Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk him self— the perfect M a n in w hom shone both intellectual and religious genius— w ould have, no doubt, seen in the m ovem ent o f the beautiful sensitive feline stretching out its velvet paws w ith pleasure as it winks at the Sun, and in the raising o f his ow n hands in praise o f H im , two parallel gestures o f worship— two expressions o f the universal love o f finite, individual life for the unknown, infinite and impersonal E nergy, Source o f all life. A A
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T h e love o f G o d for the w hole w orld and the love o f the whole w orld for G o d are thus clearly expressed in the shorter and in the longer hym n. T h e love o f creatures for one another, especially o f m an for creatures (his fellow-m en and others), is not referred to. T h e hym ns are poems in praise o f the splendour, pow er and goodness o f G od, nothing m ore; they contain but statements o f fact; and the love o f m an for his brothers o f different races and different species is not a fact, even to-day. But it is the natural feeling o f w hoever realises, as A khnaton did, that all creatures, from the superm an down to the m eanest particle o f life in the depth o f the ocean, have sprung into existence out o f the same divine Source— the Sun; that they are sustained b y the action o f the same vivifying rays and that, each one in its ow n w ay, they all adore the only G od, W hose face is the resplendent
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Disk o f our parent star. A n d in that respect, one can surely say that it is im plied in the hym ns— nay, that it is the very spirit o f A kh n aton ’s Teachin g. T h e exam ple o f the you n g P haraoh’s life, w henever available, reveáis better than an y song the p ractical im plications o f his religión. A n d there is sound evidence that, in various im portant circum stances, his action, or his restraint from action, was prom pted by nothing else but that uni versal love, natural to a true worshipper o f the Sun, w hich also pervaded his everyday life. W e have spoken o f his love for his consort and children, nearly alw ays represented at his side, in paintings and basreliefs, in the most unconventional attitudes. W e have also m entioned his generosity towards his followers, on w hom the contem porary artists portray him lavishing every possible m ark o f favour. But pleasant and instructive as they are, those scenes o f idyllic m arried happiness and o f friendly patronage should not be mistaken for instances o f universal love. T h e y no doubt show us, in A khnaton, a delicate soul, sensitive to the innocent jo ys o f fam ily life and o f friendship; they m ay ad d to the p articular ch arm he possesses even apart from his T ea ch in g ; they appeal to us especially because they m ake o f him , in our eyes, a m an like ourselves; they bestow upon him the attractiveness o f livin g life; the eternal actuality o f the feelings w hich they betray bridges the gaping g u lf o f time, and makes the Founder o f the long-forgotten Religión o f the Disk youn g and lovely for ever. But there is, after all, nothing in them w hich deserves our m oral adm iration, save perhaps the perfect frankness w ith w hich the king allow ed them to be rendered. M a n y men have loved but one w om an and have lived w ith her a peaceful dom estic life, without sharing anythin g o f A kh n aton ’s greatness. A n d all teachers are inclined to be kind to those w ho seem to show a keen interest in their message. As for the youn g Pharaoh’s affection for his little daughters, it is but natural. A n d if one infers, from the fondness he displays towards them , that he p robably liked children in general, that is also a trait w hich m any fathers w ould have in com m on w ith him — fathers who, on the other hand, seem to have little experience o f that
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all-em bracing love o f w hich w e have spoken in the above pages. M ore enlightening is the interest that the king appears to have taken in the welfare o f the labourers w ho dug out the tombs o f the gentry from the live rock, and for whom he had built the “ m odel settlem ent” excavated in m odern times in the vicinity o f the desert hills, east o f A khetaton. W e have said already a few words about that settlem ent,1 adding that sim ilar ones were possibly built nearer the C ity or even w ithin its boundaries, for the men w orking in its famous glass faetones. T h e m ain point we observed ab out it was the relative m aterial com fort and the leisure given to each w orker (who felt prom pted to decórate his rooms according to his taste, and found time to do so), and above all the fact that the place was entirely free from religious propaganda. T h a t suggests that A khnaton was sufficiently broadm inded to see to his people’s happiness w ithout expecting them, in exchange, to show in his T each in g an interest o f w hich he knew they were incapable. H e was no forerunner o f the dreamers w ho prepared the French R evolution, and he p robab ly did not believe in the dogm a o f equality am ong men any more than the w orld at large did in his days, or than sensible folk do at an y epoch. H e knew that the indi viduáis w ho dw elt in the little four-room ed houses he had built for them, on each side o f the long straight streets o f the labour-colonies, had h ard ly anything in com m on w ith him save that they were, like all creatures, h ap p y to see the d aylight and that, even in the m idst o f their intricate superstitions, they unconsciously gave praise to the O ne G od, Source o f life, health and jo y . Y e t he loved them — not w ith the busy possessive zeal o f a missionary in a hurry to bring numbers o f people to accept his doctrine, but w ith the disinterested benevolence o f a true lover o f creatures, who has no aim but the w ell-being o f those to w hom he does good, and w ho knows that most m en cannot rise above an ideal o f very concrete happiness. H e loved them sincerely and wisely, fully conscious both o f the weaknesses that separated them from him (and that called for his toleration) and o f their 1 In Chapter IV , p. 82.
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oneness with him , in spite o f all, through the com m on Father o f Life (that called for his active interest in their w elfare). A nother instance o f A kh n aton ’s im partial love for hum an beings is to be found in his attitude towards foreigners— nay, towards rebels, enemies o f his country and o f his pow er— and finally in his behaviour towards his personal enemies. W h at one could cali the youn g king’s “ internationalism ” and his “ pacifism ” are perhaps, o f all the rem arkable aspects o f his m ental outlook, the ones that appeal the most to m any m odern historians. A n d it does indeed stir an yb od y’s interest to find such traits as these (which only since yesterday are beginning to gain am ong us some popularity) developed, and that, to the extent w e shall see, in a youth o f the early fourteenth century b . c . It has been observed1 that Syria and K ush (N ubia) are nam ed before E gyp t in the reference quoted above from the longer hym n. T h e detail is significant. But quite apart from it, the tone o f the w hole passage is in striking contrast with that o f earlier E gyptian hym ns addressed to the Sun-god considered as a local g o d ,2 and especially with that o f such poems as the famous H ym n o f V icto ry composed by a priest o f A m on under Thotm ose the T h ird , both in honour o f the great god o f Thebes and o f the conqueror o f Syria, and characteristic o f the spirit o f im perial E gypt. A n d the history o f the king’s dealings w ith foreigners, both friends and foes, fully confirms the impression left b y his words. T h e presence am ong his dearest disciples o f a m an like Pnahesi (or Pa-nehsi), an E thiopian— others say a N eg ro 3— shows that he was free from any racial prejudice in his estimation o f individuáis, although he was the very last man to ignore the natural, G od-ordained separalion o f races, nay, although he considered it as an essential aspect o f that 1 A rthu r W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 164. * Breasted: Development o f Religión and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 13 -14 ; also p. 312. * Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 92.
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diversity w ithin order, w hich characterises A to n ’s creation.1 But m ore eloquent than all is the im partial view he seems to have taken o f the rights o f foreign countries. T h e loss o f the E gyptian em pire is the object o f a further chapter. W e cannot here expatiate on it in detail. But we can recall the substance o f the astounding tale w hich the wellknown T ell-el-A m arn a Letters— A kh n aton ’s correspondence w ith foreign kings, and especially with his vassals and governors in Syria and Palestine— tell the m odern reader. W hen his A siatic dom inions were seething w ith ferments o f revolt; when his loyal supporters and his officials, guardians o f the “ rights” o f E gyp t in conquered territory, were sending him desperate messages and begging for speedy help, the Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk deliberately w ithdrew from doing anything to keep Syria under his sway. W hen an A m orite princeling, A ziru , son o f A bdashirta— w hat we w ould cali to-day a Syrian “ nationalist” — had m anaged to gather the m ajority o f the Syrian chiefs around him , and was attacking the few w ho had rem ained on the side o f the im perial pow er, and forcing the E gyptian garrisons to surrender one after the other, then, far from trying to quell the rebellion, the king o f E gyp t did not stir. A n d w hen that same princeling, w hom he had sum m oned to E gypt, appeared at last before him , A khnaton, instead o f having him sum m arily dealt w ith (as an y im perial ruler w ould have done), received him kindly and sent him back as the practically independent master o f Syria. A ziru was guilty o f having had one o f the most faithful supporters o f E gyptian rule treacherously put to death. T h e Pharaoh loved the m an, by ñam e R ibaddi, w ho had in vain served him and died for him — so m uch so that he h ad even sent, once, a small detachm ent o f mercenaries to his rescue, the only soldiers ever allowed, during his reign, to cross the E gyptian border. A n d he had w ritten the m urderer a long, stern letter, expressing plainly how h ighly indignant he w as at the news 1 Thou settest every man in his place . . . Their tongues are diverse in speech, Their shape likewise, and the colour of their skins; for, as a Divider, Thou dividest the strange peoples.
(Longer Hymn.)
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o f his deed. Still, he seems to have borne no grudge and entertained no desires o f vengeance against him . H e seems indeed to have been able to enter his spirit and to understand the ultím ate m otive o f his action— the dream o f all Syria united under the rule o f A z iru ’s ow n people, the Am orites— and to have forgiven him w ithout m uch effort, as one forgives a crim e o f w hich one can penetrate the psychology entirely. Such an attitude is so unusual that it bewilders the mind o f the student o f history. In fact, the w hole story o f A kh naton’s dealings w ith his vassal States is am azing from beginning to end. It clashes with all one knows o f the established relations betw een subject people o f a n y race and at an y epoch, and their natural overlord (i.e., the em bodim ent o f the pow er that holds them b y the right o f w ar). It cannot be explained as the result either o f incapacity or o f negligence on the p art o f a king whose adm in istraron at hom e appears to have been firm, and whose sense o f responsibility is out o f question. It can on ly be regarded, as we shall stress later on, as one o f those m aterial tragedies— and m oral trium phs— that follow the application o f the noblest principies to the conduct o f the affairs o f a barbarie w orld. It shows that A khnaton was not the m an able to keep w hat Thotm ose the First and Thotm ose the T h ird had conquered. But it shows, also, that the reason w h y he could not keep it is that he was hundreds o f years in advance o f his times— and o f our times. For the principie w hich guided him , in his system atic refusal to help his loyal vassals in their struggle against the “ nationalist” elements o f Syria, seems to have been that o f the right o f the Syrians, as a people distinct from the Egyptians, to dispose o f themselves and solve their own problem s. H e saw clearly that some o f them w ere in favour o f E gyp tian d om in ation ; the m ajority, how ever, seemed to be against it. T h e best course for him — whose unprejudiced sym pathy extended equally to all m ankind— was to let them fight out the ques tion o f their future status w ithout interfering. T h e interest o f E gypt, o f his supporters, o f him self (who had all to gain from the conservation o f his em pire and o f his prestige, and all to lose b y their loss) m attered little, i f opposed to that idea o f
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the right o f all nations to live free under the same life-giving Sun, the Father o f all. A n d it is because he loved all men im partially in his universal G o d o f life and love that A khnaton believed in that right, as in som ething funda m ental. There is still more. W hile so m any people, even to-day, try to defend the m aintenance o f a status quo resulting from oíd wars o f aggression, it is, no doubt, staggering to think o f a young m an proclaim ing— and that, not in words, but by his deeds— the brotherhood o f all nations and their right to freedom, thirty-three hundred years ago. B ut one m ight argüe that A khnaton was, as his detractors cali him , a “ religious fan atic,” and th at such people h ave no feelings but for w hat touches their cherished doctrines.1 T h e final test o f his love for all men lies in his attitude towards the bitterest enemies o f his T each in g, the priests o f A m on. W e know that he closed the temples o f their g o d ; that he abolished his cult, and that the enorm ous revenues w hich his predecessors form erly lavished upon it he henceforth used for the glorification o f the O n e G od, for the embellishm ent o f A khetaton, and for diíferent works o f public utility. W e also know that he confiscated the scandalous w ealth o f the priests and did a w ay w ith their influence. But, apart from that, he caused no harm to be done to them. Sir W allis Budge, w ho seems bent on finding fault w ith all that A khnaton did, com pares him w ith the Fatim ide K h a lif A l-H akim , w ho reigned in C airo two thousand five hundred years later, and tells us that “ it w ould be rash to assume that persons w ho incurred the king’s displeasure in a serious degree were not rem oved b y the methods that have been well known at O riental courts from time im m em orial.” ' But he him self admits, after recalling A l-H akim ’s Wholesale massacres o f his enemies, that “ we have no know ledge that such atrocities were com m itted in A kh etaton ,” 3 so that the * Sir W allis Budge: (Edit. 1923), p. 106. * Sir W allis Budge: (Edit. 1923), pp. 107, ' Sir W allis Budge: (Edit. 1923), p. 107.
Tutankhamtn, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism Tuiankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism
108. Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism
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fact o f A khnaton being an “ O rien tal” king seems to be the only basis on w hich the tw entieth-century historian puts forth his dam aging assumption— a very fiimsy basis indced. James Baikie has singled out B udge’s com m ent as a characteristic exam ple o f w hat prejudice can bring a serious w riter to say, once it has got the best o f his good sense.1 W e add that, had any act o f violence taken place, at A kh n aton ’s com m and or w ith his consent, against the opponents o f his rational creed, the scribes in the p a y o f the priests o f A m on w ould surely not have failed to give us a grap h ic account o f it, once the national gods had been restored under Tutankham en. T h e absence o f an y such account suffices to lead one to believe that, beyond dispossessing them o f their excessive riches, A khnaton never harm ed the men w ho hated him the most, though he had every pow er to do so. His behaviour— in contrast w ith that o f those very same m en, w ho pursued him w ith their bitter curses even after he la y in his grave— suggests that, in his eyes, the awareness o f the universal fatherhood o f the Sun im plied a broad h um an ity; a sincere love extended, in practical life, to all m en, including one’s foes; including those who, in their ignorance, scorn the real G od in favour o f dead form ulas and spurious symbols. A A
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It im plied more. As we have said, it im plied love towards all creatures, our brothers, w hich the Sun has brought into life not for our use, but for each one o f them to ílourish in health and beauty, and to praise H im to the utmost cap acity o f its species. Even the plants are created for a higher purpose inherent to their nature— ultim ately, for the glorification o f the O ne universal Energy— not for us. It is said in the longer hym n : “ T h y beams nourish every field; T h ou risest and they live; they germ inate fo r Thee.” “ O ne w ould like to posscss m ore positive evidence o f A kh naton’s personal attitude towards animals and plants in * James Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 260. * The Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 132.
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everyday life. T h ere can be no doubt that he loved them ; a m an who w ould have looked upon them ju st as an interesting, perhaps adm irable, but yet inferior creation, deprived o f a soul o f the same nature as our ow n, w ould have been incapable o f w riting the two hym ns o f w hich the authorship is ascribed, w ith practical certainty, to the youn g Founder o f the R eligión o f the Disk. A painting in w hich he is portrayed, as usually, in the midst o f his fam ily,1 shows one o f the little princesses fondly stroking the head o f a tam e gazelle w hich her sister is holding in her arms— a scene w hich w ould suggest, to say the least, that pets were w elcom e in the palace and that the king’s children were actually brought up to love dum b creatures. Budge, m oreover, tells us that “ not only was the king no w arrior, he was not even a lover o f the chase,” 8 a statem ent w hich is confirm ed b y the fact that not a single hunting scene, not a single inscription set up in com m em oration o f a successful chase— as there are so m any, exalting the courage and skill o f other Pharaohs— has yet been discovered in the am ount o f pictorial and w ritten evidence dating from his reign. A n d, w hile w aiting for some more decisive p ro o f before giving the question a final answer, one m ay w onder if, along w ith so m any other things, traditionally looked upon as norm al or even com m endable, the action o f pursuing and killing beautiful w ild beasts and birds for the sake o f sport was not forbidden b y him who sang the jo y o f life in all nature, or at least i f he had not expressed for that sort o f am usem ent a sufficient repulsión for his courtiers to refrain from indulging in it, throughout his reign. Such a disgust on his p art w ould be fully in keeping w ith the spirit o f the R eligión o f the D isk as revealed to us in the hymns. T h e absence o f records, or the state in w hich the existing documents have reached us, makes it difficult for one to say anything more about the application to the kin g’s d aily life o f that principie o f truly universal love and brotherhood, surely im plied in w hat we know o f his religión. T h e paintings 1 In the tomb of Merira II. 2 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 92.
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that portray him eating and drinking have not com e dow n to us sufficiently w ell preserved for one to assert, w ithout his im agination p layin g a great part in the guess, w hich w ere the items o f the royal m enú. A n d im agination alw ays involves the habits and tastes o f the author who hazards the guess. T h e “ broiled bone,” 1 for instance, and the “join ts o f m eat” 3 which have been pointed out in the picture o f the banquet in honour o f Q ueen T iy , represented on the walls o f the tomb o f H u ya, can as well be anyth in g else but a “ bone” and “joints o f m eat.” In fact, it is not easy at all to decide what the artist actu ally intended them to suggest. T h e same thing can be said o f the piles o f offerings heaped upon the altar o f the Sun in m any a picture w here the king and queen are portrayed w orshipping. It is hard to m ake out w hat they represent, w ithout a great am ount o f im agina tion. N o scenes actually picturing anim al sacrifices have so far been discovered, and the m ere presence o f bulls garlanded w ith fiowers am ong the crow d that comes forth to receive the Pharaoh at the entrance o f the tem ple o f A ton, on the walls o f the tom b o f M erira, the H igh-priest, does not suffice to indícate— let alone to prove— that those creatures were destined to be slain in some solemn oblation. Ñ or can the fact that livin g victims, “ both anim al and h um an,” 3 were offered to R a in the temples built by the kings o f the Fifth D ynasty throw any light on the ritual o f the R eligión o f the Disk as regards sacrifices. A khnaton did, in m any ways, aim at a revival o f very oíd ideas concerning the Sun, and the w ell-know n connection o f his cult w ith that in the most ancient centre o f solar worship— the sacred city o f A n u , or O n — goes to support that view , no less than the strange archaisms in art that w e have pointed out, quoting A rthu r W eigall. But that does not m ean that he accepted the oíd ritual as it h ad once been in use. W e know that, m erely b y forbidding to m ake an y im age o f his G od, he suppressed a num ber o f rites that had been essential in the cult o f all the 1 James Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 283. a Arthur W eigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), pp. 154-155. * Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 62.
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oíd gods o f E gypt. W hat, cxactly, he did a w ay w ith, and w hat he kept o f the past is not known. T h e only indication o f livin g creatures offered to A ton is to be found in the first inscription com m em orating the foundation o f A khetaton. Th ere, along w ith bread, beer, wine, herbs, fruits, flowers, incense and gold, geese, etc., are m entioned am ong the items offered at the cercm ony w hich solemnised the consecration o f the C ity ’s territory. C uriously enough, in the second foundation inscription the enum eration is om itted. It is stated also— on the same boundary-tablets o f A kh e taton— that the “ hills, deserts, fowl, people, cattle, all things which A ton produced and on w hich His rays shine” are consecrated to H im by the king, the Founder o f the C ity ; th at “ they are all offered to His spirit.” 1 W ere the geese and other livin g creatures enum erated in the first inscription selected sim ply so that the anim al as well as the vegetable and m ineral w orld m ight be represented in the cerem ony, and “ offered to the spirit o f the S u n” in the same m anner as the w hole territory o f the future C ity w ith all its inhabitants ? O r were they actually destroyed according to the age-old custom ? A n d if the traditional rites o f sacrifice were observed on that solemn occasion, were they also a p art o f the daily worship o f A ton in the new capital ? O ne can answer neither o f these questions w ith absolute certainty. A rthur W eigall believes that “ the cerem onial side o f the religión does not seem to have been com plex. T h e priests, o f w hom there w ere very few, offered sacrifices consisting mostly o f vegetables, fruits and flowers, to the A ton, and at those ceremonies the king and his fam ily often officiated. T h ey sang psalms and offered prayers, and w ith m uch sweet music gave praise to the great Father o f jo y , and love.” * W hile Sir W allis Budge tells us plainly that “ w e know nothing o f the forms and ceremonies o f the A ton w orship,” * but that “ hym ns and songs and choruses must have filled 1 Quoted by A. W eigall: Life and Times of Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 93* Arthur Weigall: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 108. * Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monothtism (Edit. 1923), p. 91.
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the tem ple d aily” 1— the only thing that can be asserted about the external side o f the R eligión o f the Disk, without much risk o f being mistaken.* A A
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But even i f one supposes that, at least up to the period o f the foundation o f A khetaton— that is to say, w hile the religión o f A ton had perhaps retained more points o f resemblance with the oíd solar cult o f H eliopolis than it did later on— and, m aybe also afterwards, on certain occasions, some oblations o f living creatures were m ade, in the traditional m anner, to the Father o f Life, that w ould throw very little light on A kh naton’s personal attitude towards beasts and birds. It w ould, anyhow , in no w ay disprove the b elief in the brotherhood o f all creatures which we have attributed to him on the basis o f the hym ns he composed. Blood sacrifices, so com m on in the ancient w orld (and still in present-day In d ia, am ong the Shakta section o f the H indus), shock the m odern m an not because they im p ly a m urderous violence— worse cruelties take place to-day, everywhere, in the ñam e o f food, dress, am usem ent and scientiñc rcscarch— but because the modern man fails to put him self in the place o f those w ho once oñered them. H e cannot realise w h at they representcd to the minds o f those people; he does not understand their m eaning. W e know that m any interpretations o f sacrifice can be given, some o f which are p urcly practical, but some o f w hich also, on the contrary, involve an idea o f disintercsted gift to G o d ; a useless gift o f w hat belongs to H im already, one m ight say, but 1 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 92. * Sir Wallis Budge writes, however, in his Hislory o f Egypt (Edit. 1902), Vol. IV , p. 122: *\ . . in its courts” (i.*., in the courts of the temple of Aton) “ were altars on which incensé was burra and offerings were ¡aid, and it is possible that the idea of the altars was suggcsted to the architect Bek, the son of Men, by the altar which the great Queen Hatshepset had erected in her temple at Dér-al-Bahari. It is an interesting fact that no sacrifices o f any kind were offered up, either on the qucen’s altar or on the altars of her successors, and it must be noted that the queen says in her inscríption on her altar that she built it for her father, Ra-Harmachis, and that Ra-Harmachis was the one ancient god of the Egyptians whom Amen-hotep IV delighled to honour." »4.— t i
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still a gift w hich the worshipper offers in a spirit o f solé devotion. V iew ed in that particular light, a blood sacrifice, notwithstanding the gruesome action it supposes, is infinitely less repulsive than the eq ually or m ore cruel things that the m odern man tolerates or encourages: butchery, hunting, harpooning o f whales, and scientific experim ents at the expense o f sentient creatures. It does not stress the difference between m an and beast, ñor does it im p ly the childish and barbarie dogm a that beasts have been created fo r m an to exploit at his convenience. It does not sever the tie o f brotherhood betw een the offerer and the victim . In fact, in the early days o f history— and am ong certain Shakta sects o f H indus, still not long ago— men were chosen as victim s, and righ tly so, no less than beasts. T h e oblation o f life to the interest o f m ankind— not to G od — the standing feature o f an order in w hich religión is free from blood sacrifices w ithout society being innocent o f the blood o f beasts, is definitely a denial o f the sacred unity o f life and o f the duty o f universal love, a perm anent insult to the divine Source o f all life. W hatever m ay have been the ritual in the temples o f A khetaton, there is one fact w hich invites us to believe that A khnaton strongly stressed, in his T each in g and by his behaviour, that all livin g creatures are our brothers through the Sun, our com m on Father. This is the definite m ention, in the inscription on the first boundary-stone o f the sacred C ity, o f the solemn burial o f the bull M nevis (or M reuris) in a tom b in the eastern hills, near the king’s ow n sepulchre and those o f his nobles. “ A n d the sepulchre o f M nevis shall be m ade in the eastern hills, and he shall be buried therein.” M nevis was the sacred bull sym bolising the Sun incarnate in the eyes o f the priests o f O n . By giving him a w orthy place o f rest in the cem etery o f his new capital, the Pharaoh, no doubt, wished to point out the filiation o f his cult to that w hich was perhaps the oldest form o f Sun-worship in E gyp t, and thereby to impress in its favour a nation natu rally inclined to cling to tradition. But there surely was m ore than that in his gesture. A khnaton, w ho cared so little for success, w ould not, it seems, have done anything sim ply for the sake
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o f policy. T h ere must h ave been some deeper religious significance attach ed to the honours rendered to the oíd bull, apart from his being the holy anim al o f O n . T h e Religión o f the Disk was, after all, som ething quite distinct from the archaic cult o f the Sun in O n , though it had its roots in it. W h at was this religious significance is now here stated. But if w e bear in m ind the spirit o f the hym ns, in w hich m an, beast, bird, fish and plant are shown in turn to be the objects o f the O n e G o d ’s im partial solicitude, and, each one to the cap acity o f its nature, His worshippers, then it seems quite possible that A khnaton desired to honour the bull M nevis less as the sacred bull o f O n, traditional sym bol o f vigour and fertility, than as an individual beast standing for A n im ality in general, the m other o f H um an ity; standing for the sacred realm o f Life, o f w hich hum an reason is only a late aspect and the clear know ledge o f truth the ultim ate flower. By the special treatm ent he gave him , he m ight well have wished to rem ind his followers both o f the kindness that m an should show to all livin g beings— his brothers— and o f the respect he should feel for the great forces o f life at p la y w ithin their dum b consciousness, more frankly and more innocently than in his own. T h e inscriptions dating from the time o f the great reaction against A kh n ato n ’s w ork emphasise the decay in w hich the shrines o f the gods and their estates had fallen, during his reign, through neglect. “ T h e sanctuaries w ere overthrow n and the sacred sites had becom e thoroughfares for the peopie,” states the well-know n stele o f T utankh am en in C a iro .1 It is rem arkable that not a w ord is said about w hat happened to the sacred beasts— crocodiles, ibis, ichneum ons, cats, etc.— that form ed such a striking feature in the cult o f the local gods. A real “ religious fan atic,” enem y o f the gods and o f all that was connected w ith them , w ould p robab ly have had those animals destroyed as livin g idols. But A khnaton did nothing o f the kind, or his enemies w ould not have om itted to mention it with pious indignation. N ot on ly had 1 Q u o t e d by Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 5.
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he no quarrel w ith the living beings w hich hum an veneration had set apart as sacred, but perhaps even did he believe that, in the superstition to w hich they ow ed such unusual attention, there lay a solid kernel o f truth. W hatever m ight have been the prim itive state o f religión w ith w hich their worship was linked, in the eyes o f the m ob, they perhaps appeared, in his eyes, as reminders o f that great truth, centre o f the real religión expounded in his ow n hymns, nam ely o f the oneness o f all life and o f the brotherhood o f man and beast, united in the com m on worship o f their com m on M aker, Father and M other— “ the H eat-which-is-in-theD isk.” T h e silence o f A m o n ’s scribes on their fate during the you n g Pharaoh’s reign inclines us to believe that they did appear as such to him , and that, thanks to his orders, they lacked neither the food ñor the care that they w ere accustomed to enjoy. This instance, along w ith the general tone o f the hymns, strengthens our conviction that there was a religious meaning in the royal honours given to the Bull o f O n — the Beast o f the Sun, that stood for all the sacred animals, perhaps as the most ancient, surely as the most exalted o f them a ll; a religious m eaning w hich was none other than that w hich we have tried to m ake clear. I f that be so— if our in terp retaron , that is to say, be the right one— then one should consider A khnaton not m erely as the oldest exponent o f the rationalism o f our age, the first m an (at least west o f India) to stress the scientific basis o f true universal religión, but also as the forerunner o f a w orld far m ore beautiful and better than our ow n ; as the first prophet o f a new order in w hich not only w ould there be no distinction between one’s countrym en and foreigners (and no germs o f w ar), but in w hich the same loving kindness w ould extend alike to man and to all living creatures. In fact, we firm ly hold that, unless and until man Iearns to love his dum b brothers as himself, and to respect them, as children and worshippers o f the same Father o f all life, he w ill not be able to live at peace with his ow n species. He must deserve peace before he can enjoy it. A n d no society w hich tolerates the sham eful exploitation o f sentient
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creatures that cannot retalíate, deserves to rem ain, itself, unm olested b y its stronger, shrewder, and better-equipped hum an neighbours. If, as w e believe, and as the logical im plieations o f his religión suggest, A kh n aton ’s “ internationalism ” and “ pacifism” were but a consequence o f the broader and m ore fun dam ental principie o f the brotherhood o f livin g creatu res; if his love towards all men proceeded from a deeper love towards all life, then one must hail in him perhaps the most ancient exponent o f integral truth— at least the oldest one west o f In d ia— and, at the same time, one whose spirit the modern w orld seems still unable to understand; one from w hom the yet unborn generations w ould do well to learn the w ay o f life.
CHAPTER
V II
T H E W A Y OF B E A U T Y e have tried up till now to show, in the R eligión o f the Disk, the rare com bination o f rationalism and love w hich one seeks in vain in most revealed faiths o f later times. A n d w e have seen, in its youthful Founder, that alliance o f intellectual genius and o f saintliness, perhaps still more rarely witnessed at any epoch in the same indi vidual. A closer study o f the hym ns and o f w hatever other evidence is available will further stress that, in him , both the lofty rational thinker and the lover o f all life were expressions o f the all-round artist, and that the keynote o f that particular form o f Sun-worship w hich he evolved— on the basis o f halfforgotten memories o f an antique cult, as oíd as the w orld, and o f intuitive anticipations o f m odern thought— lay in an intense sense o f beauty. T h e hym ns are, before all, songs o f praise exalting the beauty o f the visible Sun, the splendour o f light. “ T h ou art sparkling; T h o u art beautiful and m ighty. . . . T h y light o f diverse colours bew itcheth all faces” ; “ T h ou vivifiest hearts w ith T h y beauties w hich are life,” 1 it is said in the shorter hym n. A n d in the longer hym n, com m on are the sentences in the same trend that m agnify the D isk in heaven as lovely to look upon: “ T h y rising is beautiful in the horizon o f heaven, O A ten, ordainer o f life.” 2 . . . “ T h o u fillest every land w ith T h y b eau ty,” 3 . . . “ T h o u art beautiful and great and sparkling and exalted above every lan d .” . . . “ T h ou art afar off; but T h y beams are upon the earth; T h o u art in
W
1 Shorter Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tuiankhamtn, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 117-119. * Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 123. * Longer Hymn, Translation o f Griffith, quoted by Sir Flinders Petrie, History 1rf Egypt (Edit. 1899), Yol. II, p. 215.
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their faces; they adm ire T h y goings” 1 . . . “ creatures live through T h ee, while their eyes are upon T h y b ea u ty.” A n d not only are such expressions applied to the Sun Himself, but the whole picture o f the world pulsating with life and jo y under His daily touch— men, bathed and clothed in clean garm ents, raising their hands in adoration to H im ; birds circling round w ith trills o f jo y in the clear m orning sky; beasts running and skipping about in fields flooded w ith ligh t; fishes, whose golden scales shine through the sunlit w ater as they leap up from the depth, before the rising G o d ; and the tender lilies that open themselves to His fiery kiss and “ drink themselves drunk” o f w arm th, o f light, o f im palpable effulgences, in the marshes where they bloom — that entire picture, w e say, is the inspired visión o f an artist w hich, m ore than anything else, A khnaton was. N o less than the perfection o f the O n e G od, the hym ns exalt the jo y o f life and the loveliness o f the visible w orld. Life is sweet, in fact, because there is so m uch beauty all round us. It is a pleasure to have eyes and to behold graceful forms and delicate colours— the green trees and water-reeds, the rich brown earth, the reddish-yellow desert, the blue hills in the distance and, above all, the deep, transparent, boundless, radiant sky, w ith the flam ing O r b — G o d ’s face— “ rising, shining, departing afar o ff and returning” 2; to witness the glory o f daw n and sunset. It is a pleasure to see happy fourlegged creatures stretch out their bodies in the light. It is a pleasure to see a flight o f birds sail through the calm , vibratin g infinity. It is a pleasure to listen to the noises o f life: the song o f the crickets, children’s laughter, and the music o f the w ind in the high trees. It is a pleasure to be alive, for there is beauty in the child, in the beast, in the bird, in the trees— in all that liv e s; beauty in land, w ater and sky— in all that is. T h e emphasis that the youn g Pharaoh puts on the ravishm ent o f the senses at the sight o f daylight — and o f all that daylight beautifies— is perhaps equalled only in the masterpieces o f G reek literature, centuries later;
1 Longer Hym n, Translation of Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, (Edit. 1923), p- 124. * Longer Hymn, Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 133. Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism
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it forestalls the words so often repeated b y the chorus in classical tragedies: “ It is sweet to behold the S u n.” A A
A
O n e can say o f A kh naton’s w hole life that it was an attem pt to establish on this earth, here and now, the reign o f perfection. His C ity, as we have seen previously, was to be the C ity o f G od, the model o f that ideal w orld w hich he visualised in his heart and w hich seems to us, still to-day, so far, far aw ay, so unreal, so impossible. A n d it was “ a place o f surpassing b eau ty,” 1 planned “ with delicate taste and supreme elegance.” 2 W e have already spoken3 o f its temples w ith their successive pillared courts open to the sky; o f its fair villas surrounded w ith palm -groves and flow er-beds; o f the kin g’s palace, that exceeded in splendour that in w hich A m enhotep the T h ird had spent in Thebes his luxurious days; and o f the peaceful gardens— “ Precincts o f A to n ” — that lay to the south, with their colonnaded pavilions, their verdant arbours, their artificial lakes full o f lotuses. T h e very choice o f its site, in the eastern h a lf o f a broad plain cut in two by the Nile and encircled in a double horizon o f m ountainridges, had been an act o f good taste. From the flat roofs o f A khetaton one could see the river shining, to the west, be yond groves and gardens and stretches o f green fields. A n d from the opposite b ank onwards, the plain— a narrow ribbon o f fertile earth and a w ide expanse o f desert— unrolled its changing succession o f palé or dark colours, finally lost in pink or blue mist, up to the distant hills behind w hich the Sun w ould set. T o the east, the same broad panoram a o f rich vegetation, sand and sky extended up to the chalky white cliífs, honeycom bed w ith tombs, that lim ited the horizon— the hills o f rest. A t daw n, the western mountains w ere the first to shine at the touch o f the L ord o f R ays. A n d at dusk, the cliffs in the east w ere the last to reflect the crimson after-
1 A rthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922) P- 175* A rthur Weigall: Short History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1934), p. 151. * In Chapter IV .
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glow. Thus the glory o f R a-H orakh ti o f the T w o Horizons was manifested to all the dwellers in His C ity , as d ay after day daw ned and faded a w ay over the beautiful b a y where the place was built. T h e landscape itself was a hym n and a teaching. T h e elegant architecture o f the houses and villas, o f the palace and temples— the sober outlines o f light-coloured brick against a clear sky; the harm onious perspectives o f pillared porticos and inner halls, w ith deep contrasts o f light and shadow ; the imposing profile o f the pylons with their flag-staves bearing fluttering pennons o f purp le; and the airy splendour o f the sacred courts w ith their single altar smoking under the bright sunshine, on a flight o f steps— that architecture, w e say, was in tune w ith its natural setting. And the fresh, shady gardens in the neighbourhood o f the desert seemed all the more fresh and delightful; and the reddish-yellow sands in the background all the more austere, all the more endless and barren— full o f sunshine a lo n e; full o f infinite peace. T h e C ity was not, as are so m any others, a m onum ent o f m an’s dom ination over nature, and o f his pride. It was but a beautiful detail added to the immense landscape, as a perm anent offering to the Soul o f all beings, the S u n ; a m onum ent o f worship lyin g between the silent sands, the majestic R iver and the radiant sky. A A
A
But it is not only in the emphasis he put in his hymns on the beauty o f the Sun-disk; not only in the choice o f an inspiring site and in the building o f “ as fair a city as the w orld had ever seen” 1 th at A khnaton proves him self an artist in the full sense o f the w ord. T h e arts held a large place both in his cult and in his life. As far as one can tell from the paintings and reliefs that depict him in fam iliar attitudes, his days were works o f beauty. As already said, we know h ard ly anything about the cere m onial o f the R eligión o f the D isk; but w e do know that 1 A r t h u r W eig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised Edi t. 1922), p. 176.
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music and singing— and dancing— were an essential p art o f it. It is w ritten in the shorter hym n that “ singing men and singing wom en and chorus men produce jo yfu l sounds in the H all o f the House o f the Benben O belisk, and in every tem ple o f A khetaton, the seat o f T ru th .” In a painting in the tom b o f the high-priest M erira, that represents a visit o f the king and queen to the m ain tem ple o f A ton, p robably on a festive occasion, one can see a group o f blind musicians singing to the accom panim ent o f a seven-stringed harp. A n d this is not the only pictorial evidence o f m usical instruments used in the temples to glorify the O ne G od. M oreover, from the famous stele1 in w hich Tutankh am en describes the State o f E gyp t under the “ heretic” Pharaoh, it appears that A kh naton also m aintained a large num ber o f dancers in connection w ith the Service o f A to n .2 W e know, too, that the places o f worship w hich he dedicated, be it in Thebes during the first years o f his reign, be it in his sacred C ity, w ere richly adorned w ith frescoes and bas-reliefs and statues, some fragm ents o f w hich have been found. T h e tem ple built as Q ueen T iy ’s prívate house o f worship, on the occasion o f her com ing to A khetaton, and nam ed “ Shade o f the S u n ,” contained statues o f the king himself, o f A m enhotep the T h ird , and o f the dow agerqueen, between the columns that stood on either side o f its m ain co u rt.3 T h ere were statues o f the royal couple— or perhaps o f A khnaton with one o f his daughters4— in front o f each colum n at the entrance o f the pillared portico w hich led into the sm aller tem ple o f A ton, behind the m ain one. A n d it is h igh ly probable that, in the shrines dedicated to the m em ory o f the kin g’s father and to that o f his ancestors, Thotm ose the Fourth, A m enhotep the Second, etc., statues o f those m onarchs w ere to be seen as w ell as diverse representations o f them in colour and relief. This shows that, rigorously m onotheistic as it surely was,
1 In the Cairo Museum. 8 Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 92. 3 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 158.
* A r t h u r Weig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New an d Revised Edi t. 1922), p. 174.
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the R eligión o f the D isk rem ained a religión strongly appealing to the senses; one that readily put to contribution all manner o f artistic skill, and gave occasion to the greatest display o f beauty. M en and woraen attached to the temples praised the “ L o rd and O rigin o f life” in solos and choruses, and on the harp. Sistrums were rattled and drums beaten at certain solemn moments during the ceremonies. A n d, no doubt also to the accom panim ent o f music, sacred dancers expressed, in sym bolical attitudes and harm oniously suggestive m ovem ents, the succession o f the seasons or the d aily course o f the Sun. A khnaton, so vehem ently opposed to any graven or painted representation o f G od, did not object in the least to the presence in temples ofstatues o f hum an beings w hom he wished to honour, or o f fanciful figures, semianim al, sem i-hum an, such as that rem arkable sphinx en relie/ in his own likeness, fam iliar to all students o f the T ellel-A m arna art. A n y im age o f G od, already sacrilegious in itself b y its necessary inadequacy, could tem pt the worshipper to forget the U nnam eable and Limitless, and to carry his hom age to the concrete shape. It was a lie and a danger. W hile in the portraits in colour or in stone o f people destined to be exalted, but not adored, there la y no such falsehood and no such snare. T h e Pharaoh not only tolerated them, but seems to have encouraged his sculptors to produce them , for the em bellishm ent o f the “ Houses o f A to n .” Per haps, also, did he expect to strengthen the faith o f his followers b y m aintaining them in contact w ith the long tradition o f E gyptian Sun-worship, o f w hich the upstart cult o f A m on was, in his eyes, a distortion, and his own T each in g the culm ination. T h a t worship h ad been linked, in the minds o f the people, w ith a religious reverence for the m onarch and his lin e; the fact was not one to be disdained. Be it so or otherwise, A khnaton evidently looked upon m elodious sounds and rhythm ic m ovem ents, and colours and forms pleasing to the eye, as pow erful means o f ed ification ; and he closely associated his rational cult w ith all the arts. N othing was more alien to his spirit than th at austere puritanism , enem y o f dance and music, w hich so m any
I7 6
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zealous reformers o f various creeds p u t forw ard centuries after him , apparently w ith the purpose o f turning the hearts o f the faithful aw ay from the w orld back to G od. T o him, the visible beauty o f the w orld was go d -like; the refined joys o f the senses w ere uplifting to the soul. A n d the latter-day idea o f the opposition o f “ the w o rld ” to G od w ould have seemed to him impious and absurd. W hat perhaps characterises A khnaton the best, besides his uncom prom ising truthfulness, is the atmosphere o f serene beauty in w hich he seems to have m oved in daily life. W e have sufficiently stressed the quiet splendour o f his m aterial surroundings, the place o f the arts in his leisure, and his constant contact w ith nature, not to have to insist on those points here too elaborately. Y e t we cannot help recalling the sets o f reliefs in the tomb o f H u ya w hich represent the royal fam ily and the dow ager-queen feasting, w hile two string bands p lay alternately. O ne o f the m usical groups consists o f “ four fem ale performers, the one p layin g on a harp, the second and third on a lute, and the fourth on a lyre,” while in the other can be distinguished “ a large standing lyre, about six feet in height, having eight strings and being played w ith both hands.” 1 Ñ or can we refrain from quoting A rth u r W eigall’s charm ing description o f another representation o f A khnaton in the p rivacy o f his p a la ce— a picture indeed more eloquent than those o f the banquet in honour o f Q ueen T iy and sim ilar such, for it portrays the king not on an y special occasion (on w hich an unusually lavish display o f artistic decorum and extra entertainm ents m ight be expected), but sim ply sitting w ith his consort and children— and no courtiers— on an ordinary day like any other. “ T h e royal fam ily is shown inside a beautiful pavilion, the roof o f w hich is supported b y w ooden pillars painted w ith m any colours and having capitals carved in high relief to represent w ild geese suspended by their legs and above them branches o f flowers. T h e pillars are hung w ith garlands o f flowers, and from the ceiling there droop festoons o f flowers and trailing branches o f vines. T h e ro o f o f the pavilion on the outside is 1 A r t h u r W eig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised Ed it. 1922),
pp. 156-157.
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edged b y an endless line o f gleam ing cobras, p robably w rought in bronze. Inside this fair arbour stand a group o f naked girls playin g upon the harp, the lute and the lyre, and no doubt singing to th at accom panim ent the artless lovesongs o f the period. Servants are shown attending to the jars o f wine w hich stand at the side o f the enclosure. T h e king is seen leaning back upon the cushions o f an arm chair. . . . In the fingers o f his left hand he id ly dandles a few flowers, while with his right hand he lan guidly holds out a delicate bowl in order that the wine in it m ay be replenished. This is done b y the queen who is standing before him , all solicitous for his comfort. She pours the wine from a vessel, causing it to pass through a strainer before flow ing into the bowl. Th ree little princesses stand n e a rb y : one o f them laden with bouquets o f flowers, another holding out some sweetm eat upon a dish, and a third talking to her fath er.” 1 Here we have one m ore instance o f A kh n aton ’s love o f every form o f sensuous beauty. Both the loveliness o f nature and the fine arts were to him a p art and parcel o f ordinary life no less than o f the tem ple services. T h e y produced something like a rhythm ic accom panim ent to the simple gestures that we repeat every d a y ; a background on w hich the most monotonous actions took on a decorous beauty. T h e sweetsm elling freshness o f those pillars festooned w ith flowers and green leaves, the sight o f fair figures and harm onious m ove ments, the soft music, the elegant shape o f the cup as well as the taste o f the good rich wine, all com bined to raise that most ordinary act o f quenching his thirst to the level o f a higher enjoym ent involving the w hole being— a moment o f beauty. Life was to be a succession o f such moments to anyone w ho, like him, lived it in a spirit ofsincerity, o f innocence and o f understanding; to anyone, that is to say, who knew the valué o f simple things— o f a fiery reflection upon the w all, o f a sweet voice, o f a ch ild’s smile— as well as o f the so-called great ones, and w ho could constantly feel, as he did, the presence o f the divine Disk, w ith His rays stretched over the w orld, “ encom passing all lands w hich He hath 1 A rt h u r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New a n d Revised Ed it . 192a), p p. 145-146.
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m ade,” beautifying, dignifying, sanctifying the hum blest manifestations o f everyday existence. T h e things w hich, in our age o f specialised activities, m ight appear as trifles w hen connected w ith the life o f a philosopher and o f a prophet, did not seem so to him . From the pictures w e have o f him , it is visible that he brought in the care o f his person, and particularly o f his dress, an eagerness that numbers o f later saintly teachers w ould have disdained. N ot only was he scrupulously clean— as was all the aristocracy o f E gypt— but he knew w hat to w ear, and how to w ear it. T h e exquisite painted relief in the Berlín M useum , in w hich one sees him sm elling a bunch o f flowers, and the picture in the tom b o f M erira w hich shows him burning perfumes at the altar o f the S u n ,1 speak eloquently o f the suprem e elegance o f his attire. Save on very special occasions, he seems to have discarded the abundant display o f jew els custom ary to other Pharaohs, and in those tw o pictures, as in m any others, he is portrayed w earing none at all. His only ornaments are the soft pleats o f his garm ent itself— a simple w hite skirt o f fine linen, that hangs gracefully from the waist, w ith a long purple sash. A n d the garm ent seems to have no other function but to underline the natural grace o f the body. Com m enting upon the portrait in the Berlín M useum ju st referred to, Professor H . R . H all righ tly remarks that there is in it a delicacy only to be found in the best productions o f G reek sculpture.2 W e m ay add, turning our attention from that one am ong m any masterpieces o f the T ell-el-A m arn a school to the m odel w ho inspired it, that A kh n aton ’s passionate love o f tangible beauty, o f sunshine and o f h ealthy jo y , such as it is expressed both in his poems, in his cult and in his person, makes him , perhaps, the first illustrious individual em bodim ent o f that very ideal o f art and life w hich the Hellenes were to put forward, as a nation, a thousand years after him . W e can say m ore: his ideal o f integral, harm onised perfection, in w hich the physical side o f things was not
1 A rthur Weigall: P- * 43-
L ife and Times o f Akhnaton
(New and Revised Edit. 1922), •
• H . R . H a l l : Ancient History o f the h'ear East (N in th E d it . 1936), p. 305.
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to be under-estim ated— in w hich even such details as the pleats o f a drapery had their im portance— contrasts w ith the contem pt o f the b ody shown, not only b y the early Christians, but by some o f the most prom inent N eo-platonists,1 and also, strange as it m ay seem, b y the bitterest and most determ ined Champion o f H ellenic culture against grow ing C hristianity, Em peror J u liá n .’ It m ay be declared, w ithout fear o f anachronism, that how ever great they were, those men were far less “ G reek” — in the classical sense o f the w ord— than the young king o f the N ile V a lle y w ho died two hundred years before the Acheans besieged T ro y. A A
A
A lover o f sensuous beauty A khnaton was indeed, and to the utmost. B ut he did not stop there. From the happy awareness o f colour, line and m ovem ent, o f touch, o f sound, o f fragrance, he lifted himself, as w e know, to the subtler plañe o f abstract relations and finally to the realisation o f the all-pervading oneness o f the suprem e en tity: the Pow er w ithin the Sun. W e need not here expatiate on the great principies on w hich his creed was based, principies o f w hich m odern science has confirm ed the am azing a ccu racy: the ultim ate equivalence o f all forms o f energy, and the ultim ate identity o f E nergy and M atter. As most if not all ideas o f genius, these appear to have resulted from some direct insight into truth, w hich it is not possible to account for either by the data o f external experience available at the time, or by the ordinary means o f discursive reasoning. A n d w hat the hym ns tell us plainly, and w hat the pictures suggest to us o f A kh naton’s extrem e sensitiveness to beauty, makes us think o f the fundam ental connection betw een scientific enlightenment and artistic inspiration, p ut forw ard so forcefully, now adays, in autobiographical essays, b y em inent Creative scientists.3 T h e know ledge w hich the P haraoh expressed b y
1 See The L ife o f Plotimts, by his disciple Porphyry. * Gibbon: Decline and F a ll o f the Román Empire, Vol. I I (Everyman’s Library), P- 349- . 3 For instance, by H . Poincaré, Science et M ilhode (Chap. I I I , pp. 50- 3®); La Science et l ’Hypothise, p. 186.
i8o
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calling the “ L o rd o f R ays” also “ G reat O n e o f roarings” (or thunders)and byidentifying the “ H eat-and-light-within-theD isk” w ith the D isk itself, carne to him , it w ould seem, as all great ideas do to their discoverers, nam ely, through some spontaneous intuition follow ing a long period o f subconscious preparation. A n d if, in most cases, the aesthetic elem ent plays a notable p art in the discovery o f tru th ; i f a particular solution o f a m athem atical problem , or a p ar ticular explanation o f physical data, seems to draw the m ind to it b y its very sim plicity and elegance, then we can all the more safely conjecture that the you n g author o f the Hym ns and inspirer o f the T ell-el-A m arn a school o f art was urged to put forth his hypothesis o f universal oneness partly, if not solely, for the beauty o f the endless horizons it opened to his visión; for the impressive harm ony it brought into his conception o f things. H is preparation was that very quest for the perfect that appears to have possessed him all his life, the “ perfect” being, in his eyes, prim arily, that w hich w ould totally satisfy his aesthetic sense: flawless beauty. A n d the consciousness o f the unity o f all forms o f energy in the intangible Soul o f the Sun— o f the unity o f all appearances in the O ne R eality— seems to have com e to him as the sharp, direct feeling o f a perfect pattern, half-hidden by the necessary lim itations o f m aterial existence. It was the visión o f an immense orderly scheme, rem arkable b y its stately sim p licity; the product o f his own mind, no doubt, but destined, one day, to prove objective. It was, actually, the visión o f the perm anent underlying beauty o f the Universe, to w hich an all-round artist could alone have access. Thus A khnaton loved the w orld o f forms because it is beautiful, and, through it, soon grasped and loved the eternal beauty o f the unseen w orld o f essences. T h e splendour o f the D isk that rises and sets led him to the worship o f the “ K a ” o f the Disk, the supreme Essence. W hen, a thousand years later, Plato put forw ard, in im m ortal language, his famous dialectic o f love— the glorious ascensión o f the enraptured soul from beautiful forms to beautiful Ideas, everlasting prototypes o f all that appears for a w hile in the phenom enal
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p lay— he expressed nothing else but that w hich the youthful Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk h ad once realised, lived and taught. A A A N ot only does the kin g’s insight into the nature o f the physical w orld seem to spring m ainly from an innate yearning for the beautiful, but his b elief in the oneness o f life— that truth at the back o f his w hole scale o f valúes— has apparently the same origin. T h e hymns tell the beauty o f the Sun and the jo y o f all creatures at His sight. T h e works o f the T ell-el-A m arn a school— o f those artists "whom A khnaton h a d “ taugh t to look at the w orld in the spirit o f life” 1— show us w hat the beauty o f creatures m eant both to the disciples and to the M aster. T h e h ap p y scenes o f anim al and plant life, such as, for instance, those depicted on the pavem ents o f the k in g’s palace,® have m ore than a decorative valué. T h e y preach the love o f livin g beings for the sake o f that beauty w hich shines in even the m eanest am ong them. T h e y rem ind us w hat a m asterpiece o f the supreme Artist is a quadruped, or a butterfly; a p o p p y; even a blade o f grass; and they prom pt us to love the graceful innocent things w hich only wish to live and enjoy the d a y lig h t: the youn g c a lf frisking in the sunshine, the w ild geese, the fish that leap u p from the depth to greet the Sun, the spotless lilies. A t the sight o f those representations, the m odern m an recalls the passage w hich C oleridge puts in the m outh o f his “ A ncient M a rin er,” gazing at the w ater-snakes: “ O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare . . .” Those were the words o f a poet who, in the midst o f the tragically m an-ridden w orld that we know too well, found in his heart a glim pse o f eternal truth. But here, in the scattered evidence w hich enables one to rediscover the spirit 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 181.
* A r t h u r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew an d Revised Edi t. 1922), p. 178. s.s.— 13
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o f the Religión o f the Disk, w e have that same truth expressed under the inspiration o f one who endeavoured to rem odel the w orld on the basis o f it, and w ho lost an em pire for its sake. For, as we have already stressed, A kh n aton ’s conscientious objection to w ar w hich brought both the end o f E gyptian dom ination in Syria and, indirectly, the downfall o f the cult o f A ton in E gyp t, seems to have been but one aspect o f his objection to the infliction o f suffering in general. A n d in the light o f all that we know o f him through his poems, w e m ay, it seems, safely say that the m ain source o f his love for livin g beings, from m an to plant, and the m ain reason for him to wish to spare them , lay in his intense awareness o f the beauty o f life as such. H e saw in every sentient creature, patiently brought forth from an obscure germ b y the action o f divine H eat and L igh t and graced w ith all the loveliness o f its species, a w ork o f art far too precious to be destroyed or spoilt for the sake o f sport or vain glory— even for the sake o f “ national interest.” A n d that is apparently w h y w e find, during his reign, neither records o f chase ñor accounts o f battle. It w ould seem that he had little tim e for such “ grim b eau ty” as painters and poets have sometimes tried to bring out o f scenes o f horror. A n d that confirms our view that visible beauty, how ever im portant in his eyes, was not all to him . Beyond it— and through it— he sought that perm anent h arm ony betw ecn fact and thought, action and ideal, ex istence and essence; that subtler b eau ty w hich cannot be discovered from a superficial view o f things, and w hich is the essence o f goodness. A scene o f horror can only be beautiful seen in its outlines or from a distance. O n ce one stoops to exam ine the details th at go to m ake it, one finds that it implies too m uch ugliness to be described as such. N othing w hich presupposes the distortion o f living forms through pain can be styled as beautiful, for in h ealthy sentient life lies the actual m asterpiece o f universal E nergy and the supreme beauty. H ere we m ay rem ark that, for A khnaton as for the greatest artist am ong G reek philosophers, m ore than ten centuries
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after him , the Beautiful and the G ood were closely interrelated, if not identical. But instead o f saying, as Plato was to do, that “ the Beautiful is the radiance o f the G o o d ,” it seems, from the idea that we can form o f him , that the young Prophet o f the Sun w ould have said that the G ood is that w hich is consistently beautiful. Strictly speaking, it is correct to assert, w ith several m odern authors, that there is no reference to m orality in A kh n aton ’s T each in g and that, to him, that w hich is was rig h t.1 O n the other hand, it w ould be unfair to the R eligión o f the D isk not to adm it that, though it put forth no list o f com m andm ents and prohibitions, it had nevertheless a cióse connection w ith action. A n d the practical side o f it appears to have rested entirely upon an aesthetic basis. M oral valúes w ere, it seems, to A khnaton, but the highest am ong aesthetic valúes. In other words, beauty was, in his eyes, the ultím ate criterion o f m oral as w ell as o f intellectual tru th ,2 and the safest guide to the discovery o f both. A A A W e can thus characterise the R eligión o f the D isk as a religión o f beauty. W hatever it be in addition to that, springs from that fundam ental aspect o f it. In particular, its three negative features w hich we have pointed out in a previous chapter— nam ely, the absence in it o f any m ythology w hatsoever; the absence o f an y account o f supernatural happenings; and the absence o f an y explicit theory o f the next w orld, marks o f rationality to be found in very few other religions i f in any at all— seem p a rtly ascribable to a consistently “ p a ga n ” spirit. M ythological sym bolism was superfluous; the facts o f the physical w orld w ere beautiful enough to stand at the background o f any solemn cult and to inspire any sensitive soul. N ature was beautiful enough, without man craving for the supernatural. A n d this life, here and now , was beautiful enough for one to live it w ith all one’s concentrated interest, draw in g from it its d aily joys and its daily teachings, w ithout seeking to pierce the m ystery o f the
1 Breasted: Cambridge Aitcienl History (Edit. 1924), V ol. I I, p. 120. * See above, p. 170.
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great beyond. A t the most, as we have seen, w e find, in the prayer on A kh n aton ’s coffin and in the inscriptions in the tombs o f his followers, the idea o f a prolongation o f indi vidual existence in a blissful State o f subtler m ateriality in w hich one w ould still enjoy the sight o f the Sun. T h a t is all. T h e Founder o f the A to n cult could not im agine anything m ore beautiful than the resplendent face o f our parent star. T h a t was the visible expression o f the O ne G od. T o con tém plate it was paradise. T o understand the nature o f its radiance anji its relation to ourselves and to all things was to experience everlasting life. T o worship It in truth (i.e., in the proper spirit) was to attain the goal o f m an— the goal o f life. A n d through the overw helm ing appeal o f sensuous beauty, that goal was w ithin our reach, and paradise was here. It was perhaps beyond the grave also; but it was here already, on this side o f the etem al gates. For, to A khnaton, bliss seems to have been nothing else but the State in w hich the fact o f unm ixed beauty filis one’s consciousness— as when one beholds the Sun in the m anner he did. T h ere is, no doubt, as we have said, m uch more in the hym ns than a mere physical enjoym ent o f the Sun. But a thrill o f w ell-being— intensely physical indeed— at the contact o f light, o f w arm th and o f happy livin g n a tu re; a feeling o f plenitude at the sight o f the loveliness o f the visible w orld is surely there, at the root o f all subsequent idealism. T h e repeated praise o f the sweetness o f sunshine; the choice o f expressions that suggest, in the most various creatures, an exaltation o f all their being at the appearing o f the S u n ; the predom inant idea o f universal fecundity, expressed in different pictures o f appealing b eau ty; all go to confirm , in those poems, that essentially p agan jo y w hich w e have m entioned above. W e use here the w ord “ p a ga n ” in its noblest sense, suggesting thereby how m uch the inspired king stands, in our eyes, as an upholder o f that ideal o f healthy, joyfu l, sensuous perfection— and also o f clear rational thinking— towards w hich G reece and the w hole M editerranean w orld have strived, long after him , in their days o f g lo ry; how m uch he appears to us, nay, as the historie forerunner o f classical Helias, at least as w e im agine it.
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He is, w e have said, nearer to the G reek ideal, rooted in the depth o f his aesthetic nature, than m any o f those w ho have claim ed, in course o f centuries, an unflinching allegiance to Hellenism. W hat is rem arkable is that, from that very sensitiveness to beauty, he seems to have received the impulse that carried him far beyond the stage o f experience that corresponds, historically, to H ellenism ; far beyond that also, attained, in the ñam e o f C hristianity and o f modern hum anitarianism , by people only too aw are o f the lim itations o f classical pagan culture. T h e love im plied in his songs is not that unjustified interest in our species before all others, preached by most o f the creeds w hich have transcended the national and m ainly ritualistic religions o f antiquity. It springs from the consciousness o f the brotherhood o f all beings to w hom the Sun gives life and loveliness. It is the truly universal love in the light o f w hich the superstition o f the chosen species appears as puerile and barbarie as that o f the chosen n a tio n ; the love for the beast, the fish, the plant, no less than for m an, clearly put forw ard b y none o f the livin g religions o f the world save a few o f those evolved in India or derived from Indian teachings. But while, in those doctrines, such love seems based upon m etaphysical considerations or upon m oral principies, it appears to be, in the R eligión o f the Disk, the im m ediate spontaneous outeom e o f an overw helm ing sense o f the beauty o f life. I f indeed, as for A khnaton, beauty be the final measure o f all valúes, then surely m an is not the centre o f the universe and the focus o f all desirable activity; for the other children o f the life-giving G od are as lovely as he, i f not m ore, in their absolute innocence. A A
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T h u s the aesthetic attitude towards life w hich the m odern man, b adly acquainted as he generally is w ith a rem oter past, is inclined to style as “ hellenic,” ean lead a true worshipper o f beauty— as it did, in fact, lead A kh n aton — to that truly universal love w hich neither Greek ñor Christian consciousness seems to have realised, save occasionally.
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Ever since the bitter struggle betw een the em inently artistic and rational spirit o f H ellenism and em inently hum anitarian Christianity, in the early centuries o f the most w idely accepted western era, the best minds o f the W est, from the author o f the “ S trom ata” onwards, have been yearning for the synthesis w hich w ould unite the excellences o f the com plem entary wisdoms. Possibly also, in other areas o f culture, the need o f a sim ilar synthesis has been experienced betw een oíd thought-currents, each one expressing separately the everlasting ideáis o f aesthetic perfection, o f intellectual efficiency and o f kindness that knows no limits. T h e R eligión o f the Disk, w ith its joyous intoxication o f sunshine and tangible beauty, finally leading to a most rational outlook on the universe and to the love o f all forms o f life, seems to provide an answer to the age-long yearning for som ething that w ould satisfy all sides o f our nature at the same time. T h e inspiration th at filis it is perhaps o f the only sort that can lift us to heaven w ithout detaching us from this lovely and lovable earth. A n d w hatever be on e’s opinion o f him on other points, one has to adm it that we do find combined in its Founder— indissolubly blended into one blissful awareness o f dancing harm ony, in the midst o f full-bloom ing life— the best o f the ideal A thenian, m ore than a thousand years before Plato, and the best o f the ideal Indian, some nine centuries before the Buddha.
CHAPTER
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T H E IM P L IC A T IO N S OF T H E R E L IG IO N OF T H E D IS K n e o f the most frequent criticisms brought against Ithe R eligión o f the D isk b y m odern authors is that it is devoid o f the sense o f righteousness. Sir W allis Budge writes p lain ly that “ no consciousness o f sin is expressed in an y A ten text now know n, and the hymns to A ten contain no petition for spiritual enlightenm ent, understanding or w isdom .” 1 In another passage, after com paring A ton to V a ru n a as described in the R ig -V e d a , he adds: “ But V a ru n a possessed one attribute w hich, so far as w e know, is w anting in the A te n : he spied out sin, and ju d g ed the sinner.” 2 A n d J . H . Breasted, though, contrarily to Budge, he on the w hole admires the T each in g, tells us that “ our surviving sources for the A to n faith do not disclose a very spiritual conception o f the deity, ñor an y attribution to him o f ethical qualities beyond those w hich R a had long been supposed to possess. O u r sources do not show us that the king h ad perceptibly risen from a discernm ent o f the beneficence to a conception o f the righteousness in the character o f G od, ñor o f His dem and for this in the character o f m en.” 3 T h ere is h ard ly anyone but Sir Flinders Petrie and A . W eigall w ho seem fully to appreciate the “ great change” w hich marks A kh n aton ’s reign “ in ethics also,” 4 and to recognise the practical valué o f the T each in g put forw ard in the hymns, in the tom b inscriptions o f T ell-el-A m arn a, and
O
1 Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 115. * Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. r 14. * J. H . Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), V ol. II, p. 120. Sim ilar criticism ia made by J. D. S. Pendlebury in T e ll el-Amama (Edit. 1935), pp. 156-157 and p. 160. 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o jE g y p t (Edit. 1899), Vol. I I, p. 218. A rthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1932), p. 152.
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in the luminous instance o f A kh n aton ’s life as a ruler and as a m an. Y e t even W eigall, w hen com paring the R eligión o f the D isk w ith Christianity, is prom pted to S t a t e that “ this comparison must o f necessity be unfavourable to the P h araoh ’s creed, revealing, as it docs, its shortcom ings.” 1 This opinion, so entirely different from ours, springs eventually from that idea, m ore strongly expressed b y other authors, that the consciousness o f evil is lacking in the R eligión o f Aton. It is a fact that in the existing documents relating to the T each in g, there is no exhaustive list o f com m andm ents and prohibitíons, no precise rules— no rules at all— for the guidance o f the disciple’s life, such as one finds in the sacred books o f most religions. There is no mention o f a distributive Justice, and it is possible, even probable, that A khnaton disbelieved “ in the dogm a o f rewards for the righteous and punishments for the evil-doers.” * T h ere is, indeed, nowhere the slightest hint at the existence o f a positive Pow er o f evil, age-old A ntagonist o f a beneficent G o d and master o f deceit, as the Satan o f the B ib le ; nowhere the slightest awareness o f w hat later ethical religions have styled as “ sin” — i.e., the transgression o f G o d ’s orders. A kh n aton ’s G od gave no orders. H e is an “ am oral” G od. W e must rem em ber that H e is not a m an ; ñor a being superior to m an who m ade man in his likeness. H e is the im m anent Pow er within aíl things; the Source o f life— not a person; the O ne indefinable Principie th at burns in heat, shines in light, roars or sings in sound, moves through m atter as electricity; the Principie that exists at the root o f the ultim ate unity o f existence. C an such a G od be rcduced to our petty standards? C an He be “ good” or “ b ad ” at our scale?— be “ m oral” or “ im m oral” ? No im m anent G od can be. T o no G od w ho bears to the physical universe the intim ate relation w hich A k h naton’s “ Shu-w ithin-the-D isk” bears to it, can be ascribed a m oral pcrsonality. His consciousness, i f any, is not a personal one. His love for His creatures is as indiscrim inate as the
1 A rthur Weigall: p. 127.
L ife and Times o f Akhnaton
(New and Revised Edit. 1922),
‘ Sir Wallis Budge: Tuiankhamtn, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edi t. 1923), p. 95.
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w arm th o f the Sun-beam s, that radíate both over the good and over the w icked. T h e idea o f a distributive Justice is a hum an idea— not G o d ’s concern. M orality is in us; not in Him. A A A Should then a follower o f A khnaton take the easy course o f doing just w hat he pleases ? T h e Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk insisted upon “ life in truth.” “ Th ere is in his T each in g, as it is fragm entarily preserved in his hymns and in the tom b-inscriptions o f his nobles, a constant emphasis upon ‘truth ’ such as is not found before or since,” says Breasted.1 H e called him self “ A n kh-em -M aat” — “ the O ne-w ho-lives-in-Truth.” But w hat is tru th ? “ M a a t,” writes that learned scholar in hieroglyphics w hom w e have m any times quoted, Sir W allis Budge, “ means w hat is straight, true, real, law , both physical and m oral, the truth, reality, e tc .” * B y “ livin g in truth” the king, adds he, “ can hard ly have m eant ‘livin g in or by the law ,’ for he was a law to himself. But he m ay have meant that in A tenism he had found the truth or the ‘real’ thing, and that all else, in religión, was a phantom , a sham. A ten lived in maat, or in truth and reality, and the king, having the essence o f A ten in him , did the sam e.” 3 I f this interpretation o f maat be the right one, then it appears that a m an ’s behaviour should be, in A kh n aton ’s eyes, inspired b y the know ledge o f the few facts and the acceptance o f the few supreme valúes w hich form, as we have seen, the solid b ackground o f the A ton faith. These facts were the oneness o f the ultim ate essence, and the unity o f all life, its m anifold and ever-changing expression; the fatherhood o f the Sun and, through H im , o f the Power w ithin H im — Cosm ic E nergy— and the subsequent brotherhood o f all living creatures, not o f m an alone; the unity o f the visible and o f the invisible w orld, o f the physical— the m aterial— 1 J . H . B reasted : Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), V o l. I I , p. iao. * Sir W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 86. * Sir W allis B u d g e : Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 86-87.
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and o f the m ore subtle, as put forw ard in the identity o f the fiery Disk w ith the H eat and L igh t w ithin it. In other words, they were the few general truths w hich modern research is gradu ally confirm ing, and w hich w ould still satisfy, it seems, the thinking men o f the remotest ages to come. T h e R eligión was the only true religión, and “ all but it was a phantom , a sham ,” in the sense that it was not a particular creed, w ith undeniable religious appeal but, also, w ith necessary lim itations destined to becom e m ore and more apparent as centuries w ould pass; not a religión am ong m any, but the fram ework from w hich no teaching could seriously depart if it was to be absolutely universal, and to stand victoriously the test o f time. It set forth no com m andm ents; it had no catalogue o f “ dos” and “ don’ts.” Y et it could be, and was, a guide to behaviour, for the reason th at our behaviour is the outcom e o f w hat we are— that is to say, o f w hat w e know and o f w hat w e love. T h e Religión o f the D isk was based upon the intuitive know ledge o f this harm onious universe, dom inated (at our scale at least) by the Sun, our “ Father and M o th er,” and upon the love o f its beauty. He who possessed these needed no com m andm ents in order to live according to the M aster’s standards— in harm ony with the beautiful w orld, in h arm ony w ith life, with his own deeper nature; “ in tru th .” T h e visible universe obeys laws— those great cosmic laws, o f w hatever nature they be, that bring into it that majestic order o f w hich the trained hum an m ind can catch a glim pse; the laws that rule the course o f the stars and the play o f m atter. T h e invisible w orld, likewise, has its laws o f action and reaction, no less true. H e w ho wishes to “ live in truth ” should not only think o f those divine unw ritten laws “ both physical and moral," and act rationally, in small things as well as in great ones, but strive to reflect, at his scale, the beauty o f the sunlit earth and the im partial kindness o f the Pow er w ithin the Sun. H e should love all creatures as him self— as He loves them, W hose rays cause them to live. H e should do no harm to them under any p re te x t; injury to the hum blest beast or bird, on the p art o f a rational being who should know better, is an insult to the L ord o f life, a
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ig i
sacrilege. But that is not enough; he should help them to live and to be h ap p y ; to enjoy the light and heat o f the com m on Father and render praise to H im , each one in the m anner o f its species. H e can only be fully rational— in tune w ith the higher ends o f his nature— i f he be actively loving, and beneficent to all that lives, as A khnaton himself, ju d g ed by the spirit o f his beautiful hymns, appears to have been. O ne must rem ark that this faithfulness to a divine pattern, this feeling o f the beauty and im portance o f life, this active, im partial beneficence were not ordered b y the young king as befitting a true follower o f his T each in g. T h e y w ere part and parcel o f the personality o f w hoever was fit to be a disciple. A n d the T each in g was w asted upon those w ho, by nature, did not possess a sufficient sensitiveness and a sufficient intelligence to be already inclined that w ay, in their better moments at least. This is perhaps one o f the reasons w hy A khnaton seems to have actually preached his doctrine only to a very few people. B y the nature o f the worship it involved, the R eligión o f the Disk was, as w e have said, suitable to all creatures, from the superm an dow n to the sunflower. But in its practical im plications it supposed such a degree o f inborn refinem ent that, far from being applicable to all m en, it was, and p robab ly w ill alw ays rem ain, a T each in g for the elite. Its m orality, essentially aesthetic, and therefore aristocratic, was too free and too generous for the m any to understand— a reason w h y the A ton faith has so often been characterised in our times as entirely “ am oral.” T h ere appears to be some am biguity about the w ord “ m orality.” W h at com m only passes ofT as such w ould be better described as obedience to the rules o f some definite society at a definite stage o f develop m ent; to pólice regulations in the broader sense. A ccording to that popular conception, w hat one does is m ore im portant that w hat one i'j ; w hat one is only matters inasm uch as it cannot but deter mine w hat one thinks and feels, and ultim ately w hat one does, w hen left to one’s self. A n d w hat one has to do or not to do is decided b y the requirem ents o f the com m unity to w hich one belongs. In all successful religions, the list o f “ m oral” com m andm ents and prohibitions is intim ately
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linked up w ith the idea o f com m unity, o f society; and its practical stability depends upon its susceptibility o f receiving various interpretations as the conception o f society changes with time and place. Its aim is m ainly to make each one o f the faithful the w orthy m em ber o f a hum an group, or o f several broadening hum an groups— fam ily, tribe or caste, nation, race, hum anity. In the R eligión o f the Disk, there was no such conception o f gregarious obligations. It was not a religión fitting the members o f any particular group at any particular epoch; it was the T each in g suited to the fully-conscious individual, in love w ith the beauty o f the Sun and aw are, through H im , o f his personal relationship to the w hole o f living creation. T h e fully-conscious individual— o f w hich the Founder o f the religión is him self a lum inous prototype— has transcended the bondage o f all arbitrary comm unities. H e is actu ally the m em ber o f no group, save o f the totality o f sentient indi viduáis o f all races and all species. H e owes allegiance to the Father o f life alone. H e fulfils the “ duties” that other men recognise towards their narrow groups, but not for the same reasons ñor in the same spirit as th e y ; w henever those duties do not clash with the broader and more fundam ental obligation o f love towards all life, he fulfils them, in the very ñam e o f that deeper obligation. In other cases he does not look upon them as duties. T h e natural law o f his being is the only law o f his conduct. A n d his conduct is consistent w ith a norm o f inner beauty never approached b y an y groupregulations, precisely because his being has attained the elegance o f natural honesty, natural courage and natural kindness. H e can do w hat he pleases, and rem ain an exponent o f reason and o f lo v e ; nay, indeed, it is only b y acting thus, according to his own law , that he is able to rem ain s o ; for love and reason are at the root o f his being, and he is aw are o f it. Breasted says, in his com m ent on the m eaning o f “ life in tru th ,” that for A khnaton “ w hat was was right, and its propriety was evident by its very existence.” 1 Surely the learned historian does not intend to say that, to the young 1J . H . Breasted: Cambridge Ancient Hislory (Edi t. 1924), V o l. I I , p. 120.
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Pharaoh— who him self acted so differently from others in his prívate and public life— all that it was the custom to do was right, sim ply because people did i t ; still less that, in his eyes, all that a man did was right, just because it had been possible for him to do it. This w ould be absurd. T h e k in g’s life-long struggle against organised superstition, and his strange attitude in front o f the political “ realities” o f his age, prove sufficiently that he did not accept any established tradition as a criterion o f right and w rong. A nd his indignant letter to A ziru , on the m urder o f one o f his most faithful vassals, preserved to posterity in his diplom atic correspondence, shows w ell that no action becam e justified, in his eyes, on the solé ground o f being a fa it accompli. T o him , all that was, in the ordinary sense— all that had happened, or that generally used to happen— was not necessarily right. But w hat was absolutely, in the religious sense; that is to say, w hat was alw ays and everyw here; w hat was, in the estimation o f the higher consciousness, m ore subtle, m ore acute, m ore farseeing than the ordinary— the consciousness o f cosmic truth, physical and m oral— that was right, and that alone. A A
A
From the previous remarks we should, it seems, conclude that though it com prised no p articular series o f com m and ments and prohibitions as most other religions do, the A ton faith was far from being w ithout any definite m oral im plications. T h a t these concerned w hat one was to be, m ore than w hat one was to do; that they pointed out to the spirit in w hich one was to act, more than to one’s action itself, only stresses all the more their truly ethical character. For i f there be a fundam ental difference betw een genuine m orality and glorified pólice regulations, it lies no doubt in the flexibility and freedom o f m oral actions, com pared with those ruled by w ritten law or b y custom. A really m oral action— or abstention— is a work o f art in w hich the w hole personality o f the agent is involved, a creation stam ped w ith individuality. T h e action resulting from m ere obedience to precise im peratives
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is not. A n yb o d y can b lin d ly move according to wellform ulated dictates. It is not up to everyone to reflect the serene beauty o f the Father o f L ife; to radíate love— to live in truth. T h e actual saints o f all religions have consciously or unconsciously striven to do so, w hile average men h ave alw ays been impressed by the letter o f m oral injunctions rather than b y their spirit. T h e real difference between the R eligión o f the D isk and most other faiths is that, while the latter have provided strict rules o f conduct for every person w ho wishes to adhere to them, A kh n aton ’s T each in g has not. It m erely created an aesthetic atm osphere in w hich the sensitive soul could easily lift itself towards the everlastingly beautiful, that is both the true and the good. It set forth an object o f inspiration— life ; and an object o f worship— the Sun, source o f life— such as w hoever loved these w ith all his senses, w ith all his heart and all his intellect, w ould autom atically be the most virtuous o f men. But it did not go dow n into details, and tell the disciple w hat to do or not to do in every p articular circum stance o f his life. T h a t was left to his ow n ab ility for grasping m oral tru th : that is to say, finally, to a sort o f aesthetic intuition. T h e A ton faith was, as w e have already said, an aristocratic one. It ignored the average m an w ith his blunt senses, his awareness to im m ediate gains and losses, his natu rally narrow outlook. It ignored the precise, trivial, com pellingnecessities o f organised society. Those alone could be A kh n aton ’s disciples w ho needed no explicit “ dos” and “ don ’ts” in order to be truthful, courageous and k in d ; those w ho can be described as “ the saints” in opposition to the rank-and-file “ sinners” ; the elite, in opposition to the general herd o f m ediocre liars and cowards, too w eak even to be consistently bad. This brings us back to one o f our remarks in a previous chapter— nam ely, that the R eligión o f the D isk was an expression o f the very essence o f true religión in the most harm onious lan guage o f reason and beauty, rather than a p articular creed. W e can say o f its ethical side som ething sim ilar to that w hich w e have said o f its p h ilosop h y: it was, as put forw ard in the fam ous royal m otto, “ livin g in T ru th ,”
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the essence o f m oral life, independent o f m an-m ade codes o f moráis, and freed from the fear o f hell-fire no less than from that o f hum an sanctions. A khnaton gave out no com m andments, just as he proclaim ed no dogmas. T h e few w ho were able to enter the spirit o f his T each in g needed none. A n d those w ho lacked that sort o f aesthetic sense w hich alone enables one to grasp vital cosmic valúes, w ould not have been actually “ livin g in truth ” even if, with the help o f a moral code, they had been doing all that a true disciple o f the young king should do— any m ore than a man w ith no taste can becom e an artist just by follow ing all the technical rules o f an art. A A
A
I f anything can rouse in a m an that yearning to live in harm ony w ith eternal valúes that dom inate him , it is surely not the tedious observance o f duties imposed upon him , once and for all, b y law or b y custom. But it m ay be the glow ing exam ple o f a superior individual. A ll the great teachers o f the w orld— the founders o f lastingly successful religions— seem to have been far greater by the personal exam ple they have set than by the precepts they have left, how ever sub lim e these be. T h e absence o f explicit precepts, easily applicable to every circum stance o f life, was perhaps (just as the other negative features w hich w e have m entioned in a previous chapter) one o f the traits o f profound ration ality w hich prevented the A to n faith from rem aining an organised religión. W hile the exam ple o f its Founder stands for ever to inspire all those w ho believe that cerem onial alone should be organised, real religión being essentially personal— and unorganisable. T h e ethics o f the R eligión o f the D isk were based, w e said, upon cosmic valúes (not m erely social ones). O ne should add that they were based upon cosmic valúes as realised b y one exceptional m an. T h e historie figure o f A khnaton dom inated them even still m ore, perhaps, than it did the other aspeets o f the T each in g, all o f w hich are inseparable from it. T h e one d u ty w hich the disciples
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readily accepted was to im ítate him w hom they called the “ Bright Im age o f the Su n ,” the “ Son o f the L ivin g A ton, like unto H im forever.” A n d that w ould be, it seems, the only duty to propose to an y man w ho m ight wish, in the future, to revive the thirty-three-hundred-year-old religión o f love and reason, and make the young Prophet o f the Sun, once m ore, a livin g forcé in our world. B y im itating him w e m ean not servilely copying his actions, but im bibing the spirit in w hich he liv ed ; developing in on e’s self the characteristic features o f his personality: uncom prom ising truthfulness, perfect sincerity, allied to the rare courage to stick to w hat one knows to be right, even at the cost o f the highest w orldly interests; and along w ith that, loving kindness, extended to all creatures. In the tom b o f A y , one o f his nobles, one finds in an inscription the w o rd s: “ H e” (Akhnaton) “ put truth into me, and m y abom ination is to lie.” It is difficult to say, in the light o f A y ’s subsequent career, how far this assertion was genuine on his part. But it does express the ideal attitude o f a disciple o f the youn g king. A ll w rong, in A kh n aton ’s eyes, was but a lie under some form or another; a denial o f the positive law o f etem al life, w hich is lo v e ; a denial o f m an’s deeper self, w hich is in tune w ith the Cosmos, not at w ar w ith it. T h e follow er o f the R eligión o f the Disk h ad really but to seek the truth o f his deeper self, and to live up to it in full sincerity. T h e exam ple o f the M aster showed him how beautiful could be the life o f a man w ho did so. A A
A
T h e im portance o f A kh naton him self as a livin g illustration o f his T each in g cannot be overestim ated. H e was, it seems, fully conscious o f it w hen, in his hym ns, he gave to posterity such sentences as the follow ing: “ I am T h y Son, satisfying T h ee, exalting T h y ñam e. T h y strength and T h y pow er are established in m y h e a r t; T h o u art the livin g D isk ; eternity is T h in e em anation (or attribute). . . “ H e” (i.e A ton, the O ne G od) “ hath brought forth His honoured Son, U a-en-ra (the O n ly O ne o f the Sun) like His ow n form, never
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ceasing so to do. T h e Son o f R a supporteth His beauties” 1; or w hen he w rote the significant passage already quoted: “ T h ou art in m y heart. T h ere is no other who know eth T h ee except T h y Son Nefer-kheperu-ra U a-en-ra (Beautiful Essence o f the Sun, O n ly O n e o f the Sun). T h o u hast m ade him wise to understand T h y plans and T h y p ow er” *; or the following words, still m ore strange at first sight: “ E very m an who (standeth on his) feet since T h o u didst la y the founda tion o f the earth, T h o u hast raised up for T h y Son w ho carne forth from T h y body, the K in g o f the South and the N orth, L ivin g in T ru th , L o rd o f Crowns, A akh un -A ten, great in the duration o f his life (and for) the R o yal W ife, great in majesty, L ad y o f the T w o Lands, N efer-neferu-Aten N efertiti, livin g (and) young for ever and e v e n ” * These bold statements o f his relationship to G od cannot be understood in their proper sense unless one replaces them in their context, that is to say, in the w hole system o f ideas at the basis o f the R eligión o f the D isk; especially unless one connects them w ith that hard ly less bold assertion that the “ H eat-and-light-within-the-D isk” and the D isk itself— Energy and M atter— are one. This h aving been proved correct as a result o f m odern scientific speculations (correct, at least, in the m anner o f an hypothesis w hich does actu ally account for the known facts) cannot be called a “ dogm a.” Y et, religiously speaking, as w e have previously tried to explain,* it argües the substantial unity o f G od (an im personal G od, o f course) and N ature, visible and invisible; the existence o f the same unchangeable T h in g — divine Energy— at the bottom o f all things visible and invisible, m aterial and im m aterial, w hich change everlastingly. In other words, for as m uch as one is able to infer from the hym ns— his on ly surviving works— A kh n ato n ’s T each in g seems to have been founded on an im plicit i f not explicit pantheistic monism.
1 Shorter Hym n, Translation o f Sir Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, (Edit. 1923), p. 120. 1 Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 134. 3 Longer Hymn, Translation of Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 135. * In Chapter V. s.s.— 14 Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism
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As we have already endeavoured to m ake clear in a form er ch ap ter,1 the youn g king’s claim to be the Son o f G od (without his pretending, as other Pharaohs, to have been m iraculously conceived from an y particular deity) was nothing but the expression o f the total consciousness he had o f the presence o f the ultim ate Essence o f all things w ithin him ; the assertion, repeated at various epochs, by the author o f the C hand ogya U panishad and by the fully “ realised” souls o f all the w orld, that he “ was That.'” W hat w e wish to stress here is that, though he found nowhere around him anyone who possessed, like him , the know ledge o f the U nchangeable w ithin the transient, o f G odh ead w ithin nature and w ithin m an, he was aw are that this direct, sensuous, so as to say, experience o f oneness was the goal o f created life. A n d he was aw are that he himself, w ho h ad reached it, stood apart from the average m an— as far apart from him , indeed, as he from the crowd o f still less aw akened sentient beings, i f not further; apart from him , and yet linked up w ith him , as each definitely superior species is linked up w ith the less conscious ones that precede and condition its com ing into being. H e was a m an— physically conceived and born as all m en— and yet more than a m an. H e was, not m erely in ñam e but in fact, the Beautiful-Essence-of-the-Sun, since he felt that Essence, that indefinable Energy, running through his nerves; the O n lyO ne-of-the-Sun, since he alone was aw are o f the real nature o f the fiery Disk, w hile other creatures, though w orshipping It, knew It but dim ly or not at all; A kh naton— the J o y o f the Sun— since every new step towards m ore com plete consciousness brought new jo y (experience h ad taught him that), and since the Soul o f the Sun, w hich is the Soul o f the U niverse— the O n e w ithout second2— becam e fu lly con scious o f Itself w ithin him ; the Son o f G od, W ho was alone to know His Father. As the visible Disk and the invisible, intangible “ H eat and L ig h t,” the E nergy w ithin it, were one, so was he one w ith that same all-pervading R ad ian t E nergy experienced w ithin him . A n d he kn ew it. His 1 C hap ter V , pp. 1 19-120.
* “ Ekam aditiyam” in the Sanskrit Scriptures.
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nerves knew it. His b ody— an atom o f m atter finally tracing its origin to our parent star (like all m atter on earth)— was aw are o f the Pow er w ithin its depth; o f its soul, w hich is none but the Sun’s own Essence, w hich is G od. G od and created nature were one in him , A khnaton, precisely because he was not, b y a m iraculous birth, set apart from nature, but was a m an natu rally conceived and b o m and reared. T h e y were all the more one because he was, also, a m an w ho, w ith both his exceptional intellectual gifts and his clear insight into eternal truth beyond the reach o f puré intellect, lived to the full the h ap p y natural life o f all creatures. O n the other hand, he could and he did live the natural life o f the b ody and o f the m ind in perfect beauty and “ in truth,” only because he fu lly knew the higher m eaning o f i t ; because he was a “ realised soul,” a perfect Ind ividu al— a Son o f G od. A A
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N ow , perhaps, w e can venture to explain w hat appears to be the strangest o f those assertions o f A kh n aton ’s divinity, to w hich scholars h ard ly ever refer in their comm ents on his religión save, at most, like Sir W allis Budge, in a spirit o f biased criticism w hich misses the point. T h e statem ent we are thinking o f is the last one quoted in a preceding paragrap h : “ E very m an who (standeth on his) feet, since T h ou didst la y the foundation o f the earth, T h o u hast raised up for Thy Son w ho carne forth from T h y body, the K in g o f the South and the N orth, livin g in T ru th , etc. . , . and fo r the Royal Wife, great in m ajesty, L ad y o f the T w o Lands, Nefer-neferu-Aten Nefertiti, livin g and youn g for ever and ever.” 1 T aken literally, this w ould seem to indícate that A khnaton believed all men to have been born and to have lived for him self and for his consort, from the daw n o f the hum an race onwards, w hich is obviously not w h at he intended to say. But if, as we have tried to show above, the youn g Pharaoh was aw are at the same tim e o f his divin ity as a 1 Lo nger H y m n . Translation o f Sir W allis Budge, Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 135.
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fully conscious centre o f Cosm ic E nergy and o f his hum anity as one who had hum an parents; and if, in his eyes, to reach that total consciousness o f the divine w ithin one’s self was to exhaust the highest possibilities o f our species (becom ing one’s self, so as to say, the culm ination o f it), then the am azing passage appears in a new light. It has a m eaning, and a lofty one, too. It signifies that since the time, far-gone indeed, w hen G o d did “ la y the foundation o f the earth,” the whole scheme o f life has been steadily tending towards the creation o f its supreme ty p e : the God-conscious and therefore godlike hum an being— the Son o f G od. It means that every individual m an was born w ith latent possibilities o f G odhead w hich he w ould generally not feel at all, or feel more or less d im ly; w hich he w ould perhaps try to express, in art and life, but w hich the fully conscious superman alone — the cosmic Individual, G od and him self in one— was destined to carry to their utmost realisation. A n d that Individual, aw are o f his real nature and “ living in T ru th ” ; that eternal M an in whose heart were “ established” the “ strength and the p ow er” o f the living Disk, was himself, the “ K in g o f the South and the N orth, L ord o f C row ns” — A khnaton o f E gypt, son o f A m enhotep N eb-m aat-ra, a very definite figure in time and space. H e knew none w ho had, in his days or before, attained to a sim ilar consciousness o f their identity w ith the Soul o f the Sun. A n d we, w ho have heard the ñames o f several very ancient sages said to have realised G odhead w ithin themselves, know not i f they actu ally fiourished before or after him , for their lives are not dated. It m ay be that some o f them indeed preceded him in tim e. It m ay be that m any more, o f w hom nobody has heard, preceded them. It m ay be also that A khnaton was, in fact, the first m an to realise “ in his h eart,” to the full, the presence o f that same hidden E nergy w hich radiates in the Sun-disk— that he was the forerunner, in a w ay, o f a new species, superior to m an. H e is, at least, the first such one whose life can be followed step b y step, w ith historical certitude, and dated w ith an approxim ation o f but a few years. T h a t idea that he was the culm ination o f an evolution
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w hich had begun with the “ foundation o f the w orld ” was perhaps at the root o f the p ub lic honours the youn g king seems to have rendered to his ancestors. W e know that, am ong those to w hom he erected shrines in his new lyfounded sacred C ity, A khetaton, w ere the great w arriorlike Pharaohs o f his dynasty, Thotm ose the T h ird and A m enhotep the Second, the builders o f the E gyp tian em pire— staunch worshippers o f the national gods, above all o f Am on, to w hom they consecrated the spoils o f their conquests. No m an could have been m ore alien than they to the gentle king who preached the doctrine o f one nation, the earth, united in the love o f one G od, the Sun. A n d yet, they had their shrines, “ each o f w hich had its stew ard and its officials” 1 in the C ity o f the O ne G od. A rth u r W eigall tells us that it was A kh n aton ’s desire to show, in this m anner, “ the continuity o f his descent from the Pharaohs o f the eider days and to dem ónstrate his real claim to that title o f ‘Son o f the Sun,’ w hich had been held b y the sovereigns o f E gyp t ever since the Fifth D ynasty, and w hich was o f such vital im portance in the new religión.” 1 But in the light o f our comments on the true m eaning o f that title (which the Founder o f the A ton faith w ould have claim ed anyhow , because he had every right to claim it, even apart from his royal birth), it w ould seem that those temples to the m em ory o f the dead Pharaohs were erected in quite a different spirit. A n unbroken filiation to royal ancestors o f a “ solar line” two or m ore m illennium s oíd could not add m uch w eight to the claim to divinity o f one w ho had experienced, through his nerves, the presence in him o f the Soul o f the Sun. W hile, on the other hand, i f “ all m en” had gradu ally developed their possibilities only in order that he m ight finally appear, in the full-bloom o f his individual G odhead— if they had all been “ raised u p ” for him , as he says him self— then surely his ow n im m ediate forefathers were, in a still m uch more direct and effective m anner, responsible for his com ing. W hatever m ight have been the 1 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 171. * A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p p . 171-172.
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gap between them and him — between their w orld and his, between their gods and his— yet it rem ained a fact that they and not others h ad given him that b od y in the depth o f w hich was rooted his true solar consciousness (not th at o f historical or legendary connections w ith any p articular deity, but that o f vital identity w ith the R ad ian t E nergy o f the O ne Sun— the O ne G od). T h e y deserved their shrines, not for justifying any dynastic claim o f his, but sim ply for being the hum an progenitors that had given birth to him , the godlike Individual, the Sun in flesh and blood. A A
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O ne m ore point, how ever, clearly referred to in the passage quoted a few pages a b o ve1 from the L onger H ym n, seems to need explanation, and that is the place given by A khnaton him self to “ the R o ya l W ife . . . Nefer-neferu-Aten N efertiti” in the R eligión o f the Disk. Th ere can be no doubt that the person here m entioned is actu ally the P haraoh’s consort, the beautiful youn g queen whose portrait-busts in the Berlín M useum are perhaps the most w idely adm ired o f all the m asterpieces o f E gyptian sculpture. H er titles— “ great in m ajesty, L ad y o f the T w o Lands, livin g and young for ever and ever” — only confirm her identity. A n d no explanation o f an y kind can be p u t forw ard to account for this allusion to her, save that the Founder o f the A ton cult wished to say that w hich he said, i.e., th at he believed the evolution o f m an to have culm inated in him self (the only man he knew to be God-conscious) and in her. T h e question is therefore: on w h a t grounds was she, in his eyes, entitled to such an exalted position in the hierarchy o f creatures that “ every m an w ho standeth on his feet” since G od “ did lay the foundation o f the earth ,” h ad been “ raised u p ” for her, no less than for h im ? In other words, o f w hat significance was she in his T each in g, and in w hat light should she be looked upon by those w ho wish to be his followers ? 1p
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From all available w ritten and pictorial evidence it appears, as w e have already seen,1 that A khnaton and N efertiti loved each other dearly. I f the youn g king had taken no “ secondary w ives,” as had been the custom w ith his fathers, it was sim ply because, in this one queen o f his and in the children her love had given him , “ his heart was h ap p y ,” as he him self declares in so m an y inscriptions. T h e extraordinary im portance he seems here to give his consort m ay be just a p ro o f o f how deeply he felt all that he ow ed to her. From w h at one knows o f his earnest and sensitive nature, one m ay infer that he understood better than any other m an the supreme valué both o f tenderness and o f pleasure. It is difficult— and it w ould be perhaps indiscreet— to attem pt to say more. A khnaton is one o f those rare characters so adm irably balanced and beautiful that they should be felt rather than discussed. A n d average im agination, w hich dissociates the spiritual from the physical and the em otional planes instead o f com prehending them in their organic continuity, w ill probab ly alw ays rem ain unable to conceive w hat that sacred intim acy w ith his queen (faintly reflected in a few attitudes upon the bas-reliefs o f the time) actually meant to him , whose b ody and soul w ere in tune w ith each other and with the silent music o f Life. T h e youn g Pharaoh knew how profoundly the w om an who loved him and w hom he loved was one w ith him . A n d ju st as he h ad ordered her features to be represented upon the m onuments along w ith his, and on the same scale, so did he bring in her ñam e and titles, along w ith his, in the bold statem ent that he was the M an for w hom “ all m en” had been “ raised u p ” from the beginning o f the w orld. H e could not conceive o f him self apart from her. W e m ay think that he w ould have been anyhow the perfect individual w hom he was. But he p robab ly believed that, w ithout her, som ething vital w ould have been missing in his life. H e h ad needed the w arm th o f love she had given him , and all the know ledge he and she had acquired together, in their love, to becom e com plete. A n d therefore, in none o f his highest claims did he consider him self alone. He was “ he and she.” In him , the perfect 1 In Chapter IV , pp. 98-100.
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Individual reflected and expressed the godlike C ouple, for ever one, in divine unión on all planes. This is one interpretation o f the m eaning o f the place given to N efertiti in the above quotation. Th ere is another. T h e “ L a d y o f the T w o Lan ds” m ay perhaps be considered here not only as the W ife, inseparable from A khnaton him self— “ one flesh” w ith the conscious flesh o f the Sun— but also as his best disciple, the m odel and prototype o f all those who wish to follow him . A n d “ all m en,” it m ay be suggested, were “ raised u p ” for her in the sense that her approach to eternal truth, through the sim plicity o f a loving heart, corresponded to an essential stage w hich they all had to reach before being able to experience w ithin themselves the im m anent Soul o f the Sun. V e ry little, it is true, is know n o f the extent to w hich she “ understood” her lo rd ’s religión. W hen the king instituted M erira as high-priest o f the Disk, he is supposed to have addressed him as his “ servant w ho hearkeneth to the T each in g ” and with “ all the works o f w hom ” he was satisfied. A t least, those are the sentences put into his m outh in the inscription on the w alls o f M erira’s tom b. O th er courtiers sim ilarly claim to have understood the P haraoh’s “ T ea ch ing o f L ife” ; to “ hearken to his w ords,” etc. W e shall never know how far such statements, even when attributed to the king himself, expressed his actual opinion o f his nobles or were m erely boasts on the p art o f officials com peting w ith one another in loyal zeal. But from the little history tells us and permits us to guess about w hat happened in E gypt only a few years after A kh n aton ’s death, one can safely say that most o f the Pharaoh’s followers (including the high-priest M erira) w ere not the fervent disciples that they had consistently pretended to be during his lifetime. O n the other hand, w ithout the protestations o f faith in him and in his T ea ch in g w hich one reads on the walls o f their tom bs; without, indeed, an y outw ard claim , it is possible, even probable, that Nefertiti h ad im bibed more o f the spirit o f the R eligión o f the D isk than any o f them. T h a t she was the “ R o ya l W ife,” his beloved, was perhaps a reason, but could surely not have been a sufficient reason for the young king
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to have her standing at his side and officiating with him in most if not all the ceremonies in honour o f his G od, h ad she not shown an earnest attachm ent to the new faith, and h ad she not grasped the essentials o f it through the path o f devotion if not also through that o f know ledge. A n d the fact that, in spite o f her being a w om an, he com m itted to her charge the tem ple o f the Setting Sun— the “ House-of-putting-theAton-to-rest” — argües at the same tim e his utter disregard for custom and his recognition o f the queen’s genuine zeal for his T each in g. N ot enough is known o f N efertiti for one to say i f she was or not a disciple as “ intellectual” as some others m ight have been— one who could have explained the T ea ch in g rationally, or even w ritten philosophical comm ents upon it. But she certainly was one w ho accepted it w holeheartedly and put it at the centre o f her life, both because she deeply felt its beauty and because she deeply loved its inspired Promoter. D evotion had doubtless led her to the very gates o f know ledge, if not to know ledge itself. A n d, in stating that from the beginning o f the w orld “ all m en” had been “ raised u p ” for him self andfo r her, A khnaton has perhaps sim ply wished to stress how far advanced in the hum an evolution is the real D isciple— the devotee who gets a glimpse o f ultim ate truth through his (or her) absolute love for a God-conscious being and for the Sun, G o d ’s visible Face, i f not for the divine impersonal Energy that resplends, though in a different m anner, in both o f these. O f those who had attained the higher stage o f com plete consciousness o f their identity w ith the Essence o f the Sun, he knew none but himself. H e has said s o : “ T h o u art in m y heart and there is none w ho know eth T h ee save T h y Son, Nefer-kheperu-ra U a-en-ra. . . .” But he knew at least one whose sincerity and wholeheartedness contrasted with the lip-hom ages o f most o f his followers, the superficiality or actual indifference o f m any o f w hich he was probab ly beginning to becom e aw are; one who, through intense devotion, had transcended herself and was, even w ithout having his direct know ledge o f the supreme “ H eat-and-light-w ithin-the-D isk,” nearer to him and nearer to It than an y other. A n d that one was his con-
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sort— the same individual whose love had perhaps played its part in the aw akening o f his ow n deeper consciousness. It is possible that by declaring “ all m en” to have been “ raised u p ” for her as for himself, he was alluding to her devotion as typical o f a true disciple’s ; o f one, that is to say, who is on the w ay to attain the goal o f m an th at he h ad attained. It is also possible that he sim ply m eant that she was inseparable from himself, the God-conscious M an. But we believe that, still more p robably, the two interpretations can be put forth at the same time as com plem entary. T h e former m ay, in a w ay, be the consequence o f the latter in the p ar ticular case o f Q ueen N efertiti who was first A kh n aton ’s consort and then only his devout disciple. T h e latter, in turn, is not independent o f the former, in the sense that the beautiful “ L a d y o f the T w o Lands” was perhaps such a perfect wife precisely because she was her lord ’s disciple and collaborator— one w ith him on all planes, as w e have said. A n d that oneness on all planes w ith a God-conscious T each er is perhaps the highest stage w hich can be reached b y all those to w hom is not given, here and now, the direct ex perience o f G odh ead w ithin life. T h e w orld is therefore “ raised u p ” for the few w ho reach it, as well as for the fewer still w ho, like A khnaton, go further beyond. A A
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W e can now try to sum up the essential features o f the T each in g w hich w e have term ed the “ R eligión o f the D isk,” and w hich A khnaton regarded as the universal religión, and preached as such. Based upon its Founder’s intuition— w e should say, it seems, on his direct awareness— o f the equivalence o f all forms o f E nergy, o f the identity o f Energy and o f w hat appears to the senses as m atter, and o f his own substantial oneness w ith that same Energy that is at the root o f all existence, it represents, philosophically, as w e have stated, a variety o f pantheistic monism hard ly different (if different at all) from that o f the Indian seers who, some centuries later, wrote the Upanishads. It stands apart from other
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purcly speculative systems, inasm uch as it was a cult as well as a philosophy. In it, the im m anent Soul o f the Sun (and o f the Cosm os), “ H eat-and-Light w hich is in the D isk” — R adiant Energy— was the object o f a stately p ub lic worship comprising music and d an cin g1 and the singing o f hymns, along with the ritual offering o f food, drink, flowers, and incense. T h e only visible form, how ever, w hich the worshipper was allow ed to consider, apart from the resplendent Face o f our Parent star in heaven, was the im age o f the Sundisk w ith rays ending in hands, sym bolising the pow er radiating from the Sun down to the earth on w hich we live. A khnaton him self occupied a prom inent place in the religión2 as the “ Son o f the Sun” or “ Son o f G o d ,” that w ord designating not a man m iraculously conceived (the young king never put forth that irrational claim ), but the M an who, while conceived and born like all creatures, had exhausted the highest possibilities o f hum an nature b y becom ing directly conscious o f the presence o f the Soul, or Essence o f the Sun— im m anent Cosm ic Energy— w ithin his nerves. Q ueen Nefertiti, both as the W ife w ho was a p art o f himself and as the true D isciple w ho had w holeheartedly ac cepted him and his T each in g, through love, was second only to him . A n d it is probable that, had the R eligión o f the Disk survived, it w ould have centred round these two figures— • especially round its Founder, looked upon (and rightly, too, in the sense w h ich w e have m ade clear) as divine. A lon g w ith the intellectual worship o f universal Energy, it w ould have becom e the devotional cult o f the Perfect In d ividu al— the only one to deserve, by his own right, the ñam e o f “ Son o f the Su n .” A n d any im aginable attcm pt to revive it w ould, it seems, i f successful, result in the sam e; so inseparable is the T ea ch er from his T each in g. T h e philosophical conclusions w hich can be draw n from 1 Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Alenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 92. 1 “ Taken together they (the tombs of El Amama) only reveal one personality, one family, one home, one career, and one mode of worship. This is the figure, family, palace and occupations of the king, and the worship of the Sun — which also was his. . . — Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs o f E l Amama, pp. 18-19.
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the hymns (and from m inor sources1)— the equivalence o f heat, light, sound, electricity and all manifestations o f energy, and the substantial identity o f energy and m atter— have been, as w e have said, confirm ed b y the general tendency o f m odern Science to resolve m atter into atoms, atoms into centres o f pow er, and q ualitatively different kinds o f pow er into outw ard expressions o f quantitative differences (in length o f w ave, etc.). T h e y can therefore to-day be called positive know ledge, though they w ere, originally, the result o f one m an’s apparently unaccountable intuition. It is to them that Sir Flinders Petrie refers w hen he calis the R eligión o f the Disk a religión w hich could have been “ invented to satisfy our modern scientific conceptions.” 1 T h e idea o f his own oneness w ith the supreme im m anent R ea lity— solar Energy, i.e., Cosm ic E nergy— was the result o f A kh n aton ’s inner experience— an experience as compelling and, to the person w ho lived it, b y no means more “ irrational” than any sensuous apprehension o f facts, and shared b y all those w hom we cali “ realised” or “ G odconscious” souls. T h a t other all-im portant idea o f the unity o f all life and brotherhood o f all living creatures is based, at the same time, upon the general substantial pantheism o f the R eligión o f the D isk ; upon the fatherhood o f our parent star, nourisher o f all beings— a fact; and upon the response o f even the meanest o f living things to His beneficent heat and light— another fact. A kh n ato n ’s T each in g can therefore in no w ay be com p ared to an y o f those faiths based upon the supernatural revelation o f a personal G od through m iraculous happenings. It is connected w ith no m iracles, save the everyday m iracle o f birth and grow th, and that m iracle o f perfect beau ty: the life o f its Founder. It is rational in the sense that its fundam entáis express a hum an experience: that o f universal oneness (an experience reserved, indeed, to a very few individuáis, but o f w hich the im plications are confirm ed 1 Such as the scarab found at Sadenga, in which Aton is called “ great one of roarings (or thunders).” See Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), pp. 104-105. * Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 214.
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by Science), and facts o f this earth, such as the h ap p y reaction o f all creatures to the w arm th o f sunshine. But it draws its inspiration from the beauty o f the Sun and o f the natural w orld, and from the jo y o f life, m ore than from any precise theory o f the universe, how ever objective, how ever “ scientific.” A t least to the extent to w hich w e know o f it, it puts forth no definite views about death and the destiny o f the dead. T h o u gh a prayer, inscribed upon A kh n aton ’s coffin, suggests that he personally believed in the survival o f consciousness in a m uch subtler State o f corporeality, it seems as if, in his T each in g, the “ problem o f death ” as w ell as the problem o f suffering were deliberately left aside as insolvable when considered at our general hum an scale, and autom atically solved for those w ho, here and now , live “ in tru th .” E thically, the religión was o f the highest standard, im plying absolute sincerity in thought, speech and action— sincerity towards one’s self as w ell as towards others; above all, towards on e’s deeper nature— and love, not for m an alone, but for all living creatures considered as our brothers. This fact o f its being by no means m an-centred but “ lifecentred” places it, in our eyes, far above the later monotheisms that a few m odern authors— one serious archaeologist at least, A rth u r W eig all; and one famous psychoanalyst, Sigm und Freud him self— have endeavoured to put in parallel w ith it,1 or to point out as positively derived from it.1 T h e god w ho has a “ chosen p eople” and the god who is the father o f all men but not, it w ould seem, o f the rest o f creatures w hich he gave m an the right to exploit, are eq ually alien to the all-pervading “ H eat-and-Light w ithin the D isk” — im m anent Energy manifested through the Sun. A n d both are but puerile and barbarie tribal gods, com pared w ith that truly universal Father-and-M other o f all life, W hom the young Pharaoh adored. T o be truthful to the bitter end, w ith courage— w ith heroism if necessary— and to love all creatures and be kind 1 Arthur Weigall (L ife and Times o f Akhnaton, New and Revised Edit. 1922, pp. 101, 127) stresses the resemblance of the Teaching to Christianity. ! S. Freud (Aioses and Monotheism) sees in Moses an Egyptian, follower of Akhnaton, whose Teaching he tried to give to the Jews.
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to them (not only to do them no harm , but to do them positive good; to all o f them im partially, as our Father, the Sun) is therefore the sacred duty o f anyone w ho looks upon A khnaton as his M aster. A very definite line o f conduct in everyday life, and no less definite reactions to all forms o f hypocrisy, cow ardice and cru elty; the condem nation o f the revolting exploitation o f animals and m en— especially o f that o f the more helpless anim als— w hich has kept on dishonouring m ankind from before the daw n o f history, is logically im plied in the admission that w e are all brothers in the Sun; co-worshippers, at different levels o f consciousness, o f the O ne same Principie o f all Life. E qu ally im plied in it is the respect, as far as possible, o f trees and plants w hich are, also, in their own w ay, happy to thrive in the sunlight— a w hole practical philosophy in w hich the God-conscious Ind ividu al in tune with life as a w hole (and not m an as a chosen species exploiting at w ill the rest o f the living) is the centre, the purpose, the culm ination o f creation on earth. A n d this rem ains true, w hether those w ho once called themselves A kh n aton ’s disciples lived up to their faith w ith all its consequences or w hether they did not. Y et, it is correct to say that the R eligión o f the Disk seems to have com prised no explicit com m andm ents and prohibitions. It logically im plied certain actio n s; it excluded certain others. It ordered nothing; it forbade nothing. It was not a device to keep the average m an o u tofm isch ief, but a “ T ea ch ing o f life” addressed to those few w hom their rational m ind, their straightforw ard nature, and above all their sensitiveness to the beauty o f the livin g sunny w orld predisposed to receive it and w ho, h aving im bibed its spirit, w ould natu rally live up to its practical im plications. It was— it is— as we have said, in one sense the only religión for all living creatures, and in another, a religión only for the elite o f men. Sir W allis Budge tells us that “ the Atenites adored and enjo y e d the heat and light w hich their god poured upon them, and . . . sang and danced and praised his beneficence, and lived w holly in the present. A n d they w orshipped the triad
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o f life, beauty and colour. . . .” 1 This is true in a sense, but there is more to say. T h a t jo y o f life, here alluded to— and which is at the root o f the A to n worship— was not, as Sir W allis Budge seems to suppose, a superficial and sterile gaiety. It was a deep and elevating experience, an inspiration w hich led the w orshipper as near the God-conscious K in g , true Son o f the Sun— i.e., as near the perfected E nd o f hum an grow th— as the lim itations o f his individual nature perm itted him to reach. W e have ju st now spoken o f the practical im plications o f the T each in g in the disciple’s d aily life. W h at w e have yet to see o f A kh n aton ’s unusual career illustrates the application o f its principies b y its very Prom oter to a problem o f all times: the problem o f w ar; in particular, o f w ar in connection w ith one’s colonies. 1 Sir Wallis Budge: Tulankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 96.
Part I I I T R U T H V E R S U S SUCCESS
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n order to realise all the im portance o f w hat A khnaton did— or abstained from doing— w hen the h ard “ necessities” o f w ar w ere thrust upon him , one should first keep in m ind the most exalted position w hich he occupied in the world o f his days. As w e have stressed at the beginning o f this book, the E gyptian em pire was, w hen he took it over b y hereditary right, the greatest em pire existing. It could certainly not be com pared, either in extent or organisation, with w hat the Rom án em pire was one d ay to be, or w ith w hat the British empire is at present. Far from it. But still, w ith its frontiers stretched from the banks o f the U p p er Euphrates and the Am anus M ountains— the extrem e north o f M esopotam ia and the south-eastern limits o f A sia M inor— dow n to and even beyond the Fourth C ataract o f the N ile; w ith the terror o f the thirteen victorious cam paigns o f Thotm ose the T h ird , the conqueror (and o f the ruthless punitive expeditions o f his successor), fresh in every m an’s m em ory; and w ith the blessings o f local freedom coupled w ith a firm adm inistration and the security o f trade w hich it gave to the small vassal states that m ainly com posed it, it surely com m anded, in the fourteenth century b . c ., from the Black Sea to A byssinia and from the G recian m ainland to A rab ia and the Persian Gulf, m uch o f the prestige th at the British em pire enjoys to-day all over the globe. It cannot be called the oldest em pire o f the w orld: some tw enty-five centuries before,1 Sargon o f A gad e had once united under his sceptre all lands from the M editerranean to Baluchistan. But one can say, w ith Breasted, th at “ the adm inistration and organisation” o f this E gyptian em pire “ represent the earliest efforts o f a governm ent to devise an
1 According to others, at a much less earJy date; see Chap. I, p. 13.
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im perial system .” 1 W ith out perhaps being as efficient as in a modern state o f the same size, they were surely thorough enough to render the dom ination o f E gyp t p ractically unshakable for m an y hundreds o f years, provided the succeeding Pharaohs w ould not lose the active interest o f their fathers in foreign possessions, ñor give up their good oíd warrior-like traditions and hesitate to take action at the slightest signs o f disloyalty. A khnaton was now the em peror o f those vast and various countries extending over more than tw enty degrees o f latitu d e ; the distant divine Pharaoh to w hom the w ild chieftains o f the Far South— Nubians and even Negroes— no less than the princes o f the O rontes and o f the U p p er Euphrates looked up as “ the K in g , the Sun o f the lands.” H e was the most pow erful m an on earth. A n d the richest. T h e inexhaustible resources o f the Sudan and o f the faraw ay tropical forests— gold and ivory, slaves and precious woods— w ere his. Syria, a land o f “ abundant honey, wine and o il,” s o f rich flocks and harvests, o f ivory,* cedar wood, precious stones, copper, lead and silver,* was his— w ithout counting E gyp t herself, in all times “ the gran ary o f the E ast.” T axes were collected efficiently, and the tribute o f the subject princes (of w hich the am ount, though not know n to us, must have been considerable) poured in regularly, at least up to the tw elfth year o f the P haraoh’s reign. A n d i f we add to this all the w ealth already amassed before his accession as the spoil o f w ar, “ the beautiful and luxurious products” 5 o f Syrian industry wrested from the palaces o f vanquished kings and from the temples o f vanquished gods b y generations o f conquering Pharaohs; i f we add the fabulous treasures patiently accum ulated b y the priests o f A m on, and the enormous revenues o f their estates, all confiscated b y A khnaton himself, then we m ay expect, perhaps, to im agine the am ount o f gold and silver and m ercenary m an-pow er o f 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, * S. Cook: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, * S. Cook says that “ elephants were hunted at N iy,” History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 328. 4 S. Cook: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol II, * Ibid., p. 328.
p. 87. p. 328. Cambridge Ancient
p. 329.
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w hich the youn g Prophet o f the Sun could easily dispose, if he liked. It is indeed no w onder that the envious foreign kings who kept on begging for presents from him in their letters, assert so em phatically, on every occasion, that “ verily, in the land o f E gypt, gold is as com m on as dust.” W e have seen previously w hat riches A kh naton lavished upon his new capital, especially upon the great tem ple o f A ton and the other most im portant buildings. W e have m entioned the m agnificent decoration o f his own palace. A nd i f the kings o f Babylon, o f M itanni, o f Assyria, and o f the Hittites show, as they do in their letters, that they were hardly ever satisfied w ith the presents he sent them, we must not, it seems, w ith Sir W allis B u d ge,1 rush to the conclusión that he lacked the royal generosity o f his father. K n ow in g as we do that m any o f his correspondents asked for “ more gold” in order to achieve some “ new tem ple” w hich they had begun to build, w e should rather see, in the P h araoh ’s alleged “ parsim ony,” a refusal to contribute w ith his wealth to the em bellishm ent o f the shrines o f foreign local gods— false gods such as he h ad suppressed in his own country for draw ing m en’s attention a w ay from the O ne universal Sun. It was not “ parsim ony.” It was a m atter o f principies. W henever he thought it necessary (or harmless) to spend money, the Pharaoh did so w ithout hesitation, in as kingly a m anner as an y o f his predecessors. A n d even after the building o f Akhetaton, even after all the costly works w hich he undertook all over the em pire, to the glory o f the O ne G od— the foundation o f new cities as centres o f His cult, the erection o f numerous temples— he still had enormous sums at his com m and; m ore than enough to defend his A siatic dominions, if he chose to do so. A A
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As w e have said, the E gyptian em pire, especially the northern h a lf o f it, was a conglom eration o f innum erable small vassal states. E very Syrian or Canaanitish tow n o f little im portance had its “ king,” who acknow ledged him self as the 1 Si r W allis Budge: Tutankhamen, Anunism, Aienism, and Egyptian Monotheism (E d it. 1923), p. 98.
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“ servant” o f the faraw ay Pharaoh and paíd tribute to him . T h e w hole country was under the im m ediate supervisión o f a “ governor o f the northern countries” or “ vice-roy o f the N orth .” A man o f the ñam e o f Y an kh am u was then the holder o f that title. T h e coastal towns, A m ki, A rva d , Sim yra, U llaza, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, T y re , A cch o and, farther south, A shdod and Askalon (to ñam e only a few o f them ), carried on w ith E gyp t a flourishing trade. Som e, like Byblos (called G ebal or G ub ia in the tongue o f its people), h ad alw ays been more loyal to E gyp t than others. In the interior, N iy, not far from the great bend o f the Euphrates and the M itan nian border, A leppo, T u n ip (or D unip), H am ath, K adesh, Dam ascus, M egiddo, Shunem , T a a n a ch , Jerusalem , w ere the principal “ cities o f the kin g,” some o f them definitely loyal— such as T u n ip , M egiddo, Jerusalem — others m uch less so. K adesh seems to have been am ong the perm anent centres o f disturbance. T h e lim it o f E gyp tian conquests lay, as we have stated previously, somewhcre above the A m anus M ountains. T h e kingdom o f M itan ni, ruled b y an aristocracy o f p robab ly Indo-A ryan origin, bordered the em pire to the north-east. Its kings had been givin g daughters in m arriage to the Pharaohs ever since the days o f A kh n aton ’s grandfather. T h e y also often received E gyp tian royal m aidens as their wives. A n d Q ueen N efertiti, whose parentage is m uch disputed am ong scholars, m ay possibly have been, as Sir Flinders Petrie believes, a M itan nian princess (with an E gyptian m other and grandm other, w hich w ould explain her p articular features). “ Behind M itan n i,” and farther to the north-east, “ the friendly kingdom s later know n as Assyria were the lim its o f the know n w orld.” 1 T h e E gyptian possessions were lim ited to the east by the dcsert, w hich lay between them and the territory o f the K assite king o f B a b y lo n ; w hile to the north-west, beyond the Am anus M ountains, stretched the “ G reat K h e ta ” or H ittite confederation, o f w hich the distant capital, H attushash 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New an d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 198-
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(modern B ogh az-K eu i), stood not far from the present site o f A nkara. T h e H ittites were a w arrior-like set o f people, and their king, Shubbilulium a, a crafty and am bitious m onarch. It is he w ho seems to have been at the bottom o f all the troubles in Syria throughout A kh n ato n ’s reign. It is difficult to say how far the Syrian vassals o f the Pharaoh h ad already, under Am enhotep the T h ird , “ grown thoroughly habituated to the E gyptian allegiance.” 1 H ow ever m uch this m ight have been, they were not all so loyal as to rem ain d e a f to the various incitations o f S h ub b ilu lium a’s agents, eloquently depicting to them the advantages o f indepcndence and prom ising them H ittite support in order to win it. Foreign rule, after all, never was a pleasant thing; and the chieftains o f Syria and Palestine, even after having been educated in Thebes (as most o f them were) could not all have enjoyed it. As we shall see, those who did seem to have been a m inority, w hile the others, how ever ou tw ardly loyal, disliked it, apparently, as thoroughly as the native leaders o f an y subject people generally do. It happened, in this p articular case, that foreign rule was A kh n aton ’s rule— the rule, that is to say, o f the “ first prophet o f internationalism ,” 1 the only m an in his days to consider men o f all races in the same light (as children o f the same Father), and perhaps the only one, if any, capable o f understanding the grievances o f subject races i f set before him. But they did not know him. T h e y knew the distant impersonal king-god (a Pharaoh like any other) w hom they had never seen, and quite a num ber o f E gyptian officials and pro-E gyptian local dynasts— the latter, their personal rivals— o f w hom they had seen too m uch. A n d it is likcly that they w ere, also, m ore often than not, im patient to replace E gyptian dom ination by their ow n personal tyranny over the people. T h e H ittite king, on his side, was endeavouring to use them in order to bring all Syria, if possible, under H ittite dom ination. A A
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1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (E d it. 1924), V o l. I I , p . 96. * Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (E d it. 1924), V o l. I I , p p. 127-128.
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A ll that is known o f the unrest in Syria and Palestine in A kh n aton ’s time can be gathered from a collection o f some three hundred and fifty clay tablets— the famous “ Tell-elA m arn a Letters” — discovered in 1887 and 1891 on the site o f the P haraoh’s ruined capital. These tablets, covered w ith cuneiform w riting, represent w hat is left o f the diplom atic correspondence o f the young king and o f his father. W hat was exactly the situation cannot be described w ith full accu racy o f d etails; ñor can one follow its evolution step b y step, for the date o f m any o f the Letters is uncertain. M oreover, a great num ber o f the precious tablets have been completely destroyed through m ishandling. “ W hat has been preserved is therefore but a w reck o f w hat m ight have been, h ad an y person equal to the occasion placed his hand on them in tim e.” 1 It can, how ever, be stated that “ a great concerted antiE gyptian m ovem ent,” * in w hich the H ittites w ere p layin g the most im portant part, was taking place. T h e Sa-Gaz— the local enemies o f Egypt, repeatedly referred to in the letters from northern Syria— and the “ H ab iru ” — the plundering tribes o f the desert w ho jo in ed the rebellion in C an aan — w ere attacking the loyal vassals o f E gyp t from the borders o f the Euphrates (near the M itan nian frontier) dow n to the south o f Palestine. T h e y w ere fighting under the leadership o f a grow ing num ber o f chieftains o f different races, i f we ju d g e by their ñames. T h e most prom inent o f these were, in the N orth, Itakam a— “ the man o f K ad esh ” — the A m o n te A bdashirta, and, especially after the death o f the latter, his am bitious and unscrupulous son, A ziru ; and in the South, L ab a ya (or L ap aya) and his sons, along w ith T a g i, soon allied to M ilki-ili, his son-in-law. T h e m ovem ent seems to have had two principal centres: the land o f A m or, in N orthern Syria, and the Plain o f Jezreel, in Palestine. T h e chiefs who fought most w holeheartedly in the interest o f E gyp t were A b i-M ilki o f T yre, B iridiya o f M egiddo (once a centre o f resistance to the Pharaohs’ northw ard a d va n ce; now a pro-E gyptian city), and, above all, the indefatigable 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (E d it. 1899), V o l. I I , p . 259. * S. C o o k: Cambridge Ancient History (E d it. 1924), V o l. I I , p . 303.
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R ib addi, king o f G ebal (Byblos) and A b dikh ipa, the faithful governor o f Jerusalem . Th ere seem to have been m any more sincere supporters o f E gyptian rule at the tim e the troubles started. But as years passed, nearly every new letter from the theatre o f w ar announced the defection o f some new “ king” — or “ kings” — form erly loyal. Even A b i-M ilki, for long faithful to his E gyptian allegiance, finished b y join in g the Sa-Gaz— w hen tired o f w aiting in vain for the Pharaoh to help him against them. But all the vassals, including the most notoriously disloyal ones, protest o f their loyalty in their correspondence w ith E gypt. It w ould appear that the more treacherous they were, the m ore vehem ently they asserted their submission. “ T o the K in g , the Sun, m y Lord, speaks A bdashirta, the dust o f thy feet,” wrote the A m on te agitator to A khnaton. “ Beneath the feet o f the K in g m y Lord, seven times and seven times I fall. L o, I am a servant o f the K in g and his house-dog, and the w hole o f the land o f A m or guard I for the K in g, m y L o rd .” 1 A n d his son, by far the most able and determ ined enem y o f E gyp t after Shubbilulium a him self (of w hom he was the tool), wrote in the same tone, w hile begging the H ittite king to help him to shake o ff the P haraoh’s dom ination and w hile inciting Zim rida, king o f Sidon, and other local princelings to break their oíd bonds o f allegiance and become his allies. It was surely very difficult for any contem porary observer to distinguish, under the conflicting statements o f all those chieftains and governors o f cities, w ho was actually loyal and who was not. T h e E gyptian officers on the spot often m ade mistakes, as did T u rbik h a, Y an k h a m u ’s envoy, w ho unnecessarily hurt the feelings o f the P h araoh ’s true friends in Irk a ta 2; or Pakhura, whose mercenaries attacked R ib a d d i’s loyal troops, w ith w hom they should have collaborated.3 T o m arch, himself, into Syria, at the head o f an arm y, w ould not perhaps have helped A khnaton m uch in know ing the 1 Amarna Letters, K . 6o, quoted by James Baikie, The Amamo Age (Edit. 1926), p. 353. * Letter o f the Elders of Irkata, quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 360. * Letter of Ribaddi, K . 122, quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), P- 365-
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hearts o f his vassals, but it w ould have put an end to the Syrian squabbles and “ saved the situation” ; for at the mere news o f his approach, every outw ard sign o f unrest w ould doubtless have disappeared. T h e very ñam e o f E gypt, associated w ith that o f its great conquering kings, was still feared. T h e crafty oíd m onarch in H attushash w ould also have changed his policy, h ad he been under the impression th at his opponent was prepared to fight. A khnaton seems to have been well aw are o f Sh ubbilulium a’s enm ity. H e severed diplom atic relations w ith him — a fact o f w hich the H ittite, whose double gam e had thus come to an end, com plains in a letter w hich has come down to us.1 But he did not wish to fight. H e did not wish to be feared. A n d though he perhaps did realise, more than m any m odern authors seem to believe, th at nothing w ould have stem m ed the disintegration o f the E gyptian em pire but “ a vigorously aggressive p olicy,” * he did not wish to adopt such a policy. A A
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T h e troubles, w hich appear to have regularly increased all through the youn g P haraoh’s short reign, had definitely started under A m enhotep the T h ird , as proved b y the letter in w hich A ki-izzi o f K a tn a reports to that king an alliance o f the Hittites w ith several chieftains o f the U p p er Orontes w ith an aim to attack the plain o f D am ascus3 (and K a tn a , w hich was on their w a y southwards). O th er letters o f the same period report attacks on Am ki,* at the m outh o f the Orontes, and we also learn th at shortly before A kh n aton ’s accession, a small E gyptian forcé h ad been despatched to Syria under an officer nam ed A m enem apet, w ho recovered Sim yra— an im portant seaport— from the hands o f A b dashirta. But from the w hole series o f appeals for help addressed to A khnaton him self b y his loyal Syrian vassals— especially b y R ib ad d i, the author o f m ore than fifty o f the 1 Amama Letters, K . 41. * J. Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 354. 5 Letter C X II (W. 139), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 281. ‘ Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 280-281: Letters C V II (W. 132) and C X (W. 125).
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“ A m a m a Letters” — it is clear that, though the confusion had already begun to spread b y the tim e he carne to the throne, a very little help to the supporters o f E gyptian rule would have been sufficient to save the em pire— provided it were sent speedily. A t this stage o f the w ar, R ib ad d i, m enaced in his stronghold o f G ebal by A bdashirta and his sons, entreats the king to send him “ three hundred m en” so that he m ay “ be able to hold the city.” 1 In another despatch he writes: “ M a y it seem good to m y Lord, the Sun o f the lands, to give me tw enty p air o f horses.” 2 But this slight help was never sent. A bdashirta was killed in some skirmish, and the antiE gyptian m ovem ent, for a time, seemed to slacken. B ut it soon regained a greater Ímpetus than ever under the ablest o f the A m orite leader’s sons, A ziru , w ho then began, in the words o f a m odern w riter, his “ am azing gam e o f m ingled cunning and boldness against the greatest em pire o f his w orld.” 3 W ar rap idly spread all over the country, and the despatches o f the loyal vassals grew m ore and m ore disquieting. T h e Am orites, under the com m and o f A ziru and his brothers, were again ham m ering at the gates o f Sim yra. T h e y w ere now in alliance w ith A rv a d — another seaport, north o f Sim yra. A n d the faithful R ib ad d i wrote to A k h naton, his lo r d : “ As a bird in the fow ler’s snare, so is Sim yra. N ight and day the sons o f A bdashirta are against it b y land, and the men o f A rva d b y sea.” 4 W hile the elders o f Irkata, a small Coastal tow n to the south o f A rvad , w rote in a no less appealing letter, “ Let not the breath o f the king depart from us. T h e town-gates have been barred until the breath o f the king shall com e to us. M igh ty is the enm ity against us; m ighty indeed.” 6 But not a w ord o f encouragem ent carne from the distant overlord in w hom they h ad put all their hope. It was as 1 Letter K . 93, quoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 352. * Letter K . 103, quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 352. * J. Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 359. * Letter C L X V (W. 84), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. i8gg), Vol. II, p. 292. s Letter C L IX (W. 122), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. ago. Quoted by J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), pp. 360361.
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though their distressed appeals did not reach him , in his sacred C ity, or as though they were incapable o f touching his heart. W ar in Syria continued raging. R ib ad d i, in a pressing message, announced that Zim rida o f Sidon, Y ap a-ad d u , and other dynasts had join ed the rebels, and he begged for troops,1 for “ only Sim yra and Irk a ta ” were left to him , and he h ad to defend them . “ Let troops be sent w ith Y an kh am u ,” 2 he repeats, in another despatch. In another he complains that he cannot send ships to Zalukh i and U garit (right in the north o f Syria) because o f A ziru , and tells the king that the Hittites are plundering the lieges o f G e b a l.8 In another, he explains how acute the food problem has grown in G ebal itself4; in yet another, he informs A khnaton that “ the sons o f A bdash irta” hold U lla za, A rd ata, Y ik h liya, A m b i and Shigata, and asks again for succour, that he m ight still rescue Sim yra from the besieging Am orites. I f Sim yra surrenders, he fears the fate that is likely to befall h im .s A t about the same tim e, am ong m any other íncreasingly pathetic calis for help, was despatched to A khnaton from “ the citizens o f T u n ip ” in north-east Syria, w hat is surely one o f the most m oving official documents o f all times. It shows w hat memories the great w arrior-like Pharaohs had left in Syria. It shows, also, to w hat pitch o f disappointm ent, verging on despair, the apparent indifference o f the ruling king had brought the loyal section o f the Syrian people, especially in the rem oter parts o f the em pire, w here impending danger threatened them on all sides. “ W ho could form erly have plundered T u n ip w ithout being plundered by M en -kh ep er-ra?” (Thotm ose the T h ird ), runs the letter; “ T h e gods o f E gyp t dw ell in T u n ip . M a y the king our lord ask his oíd men (if it be not so). But now we no longer belong to E gy p t.” “ . . . A ziru has captured people in the land o f 1 Letter C L V III (W. 78), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt V ol. II, p. 28g. * Letter C L V 1 (W. 87), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt Vol. II, p. 289. * Letter C L II (W. 104), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt Vol. II, p. 289. 4 Letter C L X I, Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. p. 290. * Letter C L X II (W. 86), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt Vol. II, p. 291.
(Edit. i8gg), (Edit. 1899), (Edit. i8gg), i8gg), Vol. II, (Edit. i8gg),
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K h atat. A ziru w ill treat T u n ip as he has treated N iy ; and if we m ourn, then the king o f E gyp t w ill also have to m ourn. A nd when A ziru enters Sim yra, he w ill do to us as he pleases, and the king w ill have to lam ent. A n d now, T u n ip , th y city, weeps, and her tears are flow ing and there is no help for us. For tw enty years we have been sending to our L ord, the king o f E gypt, but there has not come to us a w ord from our L ord— not one.” 1 But again no troops were sent. T h e Pharaoh answered R ib ad d i’s letters, but only to tell him to “ defend himself,” as it is obvious from the Syrian prin ce’s reply: “ W h y has the king, m y lord, w ritten to me saying ‘D efend yourself, and you surely w ill be defended’ ? A gainst w hom shall I defend m yself? I f the king w ould defend his servants, then would I be d elivered : but if the king does not defend me, then who w ill defend me ? I f the king sends men from E gyp t and from M elukhkha, and horses . . . right speedily, then I shall be delivered so that I m ay serve m y lord the king. A t present, I have nothing at all w herew ith to obtain horses. Everything has been given to Y arim u ta to keep life in m e.” 1 This last sentence is evidently an allusion to the precarious food situation w hich the prince o f G ebal was fa c in g ; he had had to deprive him self and his people o f all other commodities that he m ight b uy grain from the stores o f Y a r i m uta, north o f G e b a l.3 T h e tone o f the letter shows R ib a d d i’s bewilderm ent at A k h naton’s attitude, w hich he fails to understand. T h e next event— w hich Sir Flinders Petrie calis a “ landm ark” in the history o f the loss o f the E gyptian em pire— was the fall o f Sim yra. Its helpless defender w rote to the king: “ Sim yra, thy fortress, is now in the pow er o f the SaG a z T h e town was com pletely destroyed b y A ziru and his allies. T yre fell shortly after S im yra.5 A b i-M ilki, its king, 1 Letter C L X X (W. 41), quoted by Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 292-293; quoted also by A . Weigall, L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 205. 1 Letter K . 112, quoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), pp. 363-364. ’ Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 291. * Letter C L X X II (W. 56), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 293. 5 Sir Flinders Petrie: History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 294.
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had been describing his plight in every letter he sent to E gypt. But nothing had come o f his efForts to attract the P haraoh’s attention upon the situation in Syria. In the end, he had let things take their course. R ib ad d i was now fighting alone against hopeless odds, for a king who seemed d e a f to his cries for help and yet who could easily have supported him , had he wished to do so. It appears that, for once at least, after the loss o f Sim yra, A khnaton took p ity on his faithful servant. A small forcé o f Sutu (A rab m ercenaries) was sent from E gyp t to R ib ad d i ’s rescue. But that isolated help proved a disaster. For Pakhura, the officer in com m and o f the reinforcements, mistaking friend for foe— or perhaps secretly w on over to A ziru and the rebels— attacked the “ Shirdan u” troops upon w hom R ib ad d i was relying for his defence, and m ade a great slaughter o f th em .1 T h e people o f G ebal im m ediately threw all the responsibility for this misdeed upon R ib ad d i himself, whose position in the city soon becam e untenable. “ Since that tim e,” says he, in one o f his messages to the Pharaoh, “ the city has been exasperated against m e; and truly the city says: ‘A crim e such has not been com m itted from eternity, has been com m itted against us.’ ” * A lread y his own brother was at the head o f the anti-E gyptian faction, and his wife and his w hole household (as he tells the king in another letter) were bringing pressure upon him to sever his allegiance to E gyp t and “jo in the sons o f A b d ash irta.” 3 A t one time we see that he was forced to leave Byblos, and that he found its gates closed against h im .4 H e m anaged, how ever, to re-enter it, seriously fearing he w ould be driven out 1 Letter C C (W. 77), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. i8gg), Vol. II, p. 297. J. Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 365. a Letter K . 122, quoted by J . Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 365. 3 Letter C C V III (W. 71), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 2gg. Letter C C X V I (W. 96), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 299-300. Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 213. J. Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 365. 4 Letter C C X V I (W. 96), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. i8gg), Vol. II, p. 300. J. Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 366.
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for the second tim e i f his messengers again returned from E gypt w ithout help. His last pathetic letters, despatched from the midst o f a starving city over w hich he was d aily losing control, are w orth quoting in extenso. In this sum m ary review o f the Syrian unrest, w e shall at least give one or two extracts from them . In one message, R ib ad d i com pares his present plight as a faithful vassal o f E gyp t w ith w hat his position w ould have been in the days w hen the Pharaohs’ power was feared in conquered lan d : “ O n c e ,” says he, “ at the sight o f an E gyptian, the kings o f C an aan fled from be fore him , but now the sons o f A bdashirta despise the people o f E gyp t and threaten me w ith their bloody w eapons.” 1 His position h ad even been m uch stronger in the beginning o f the A m orite rebellion: “ W hen A bdash irta form erly carne out against me, I was m ighty, and behold, now m y people are scattered and I am small. . . A n d letter after letter brings us alw ays that sam e entreating appeal to A khnaton to intervene vigorously and save his A siatic dom inions: “ Let not m y L o rd the K in g neglect the aífair o f these d o g s!” ; and alw ays that same unfailing loyalty, firm to the bitter end ; that loyalty that found its expression even w hile A ziru and his m en w ere battering at the w alls o f G ebal. “ So long as I am in the city, I guard it for m y L ord, and m y heart is right towards m y L ord the king, so that I w ill not betray the city to the sons o f A bdashirta. For to this end has m y brother stirred up the city, that it m ay be delivered up to the sons o f A bdashirta. 0 let not my Lord, the king neglect the city! For in it there is a very great quantity o f silver and gold, and in the temples o f its gods there is a great am ount o f property o f all sorts.” 3 A n d finally, the last words o f a gallan t soldier keeping his master inform ed, to the end, about a situation henceforth hopeless: “ T h e enem y do not depart from the gates o f G e b a l.” '* M eanw hile, R ib a d d i’s son, w ho h ad been sent to E gyp t to beg for help, w aited over three months before he could obtain an audience from the king. 1 Quoted from Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, 305-306. a Quoted from Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 306. 8 Letter K . 137, quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 366. * Quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 366.
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G ebal was stormed, as so m any other cities had been. R ib ad d i fell alive into A z iru ’s hands, and the rebel leader gave him over to his colleagues, the A m orite princes, to be p u t to death, probab ly not w ithout torture. W ith him disappeared the sincerest Champion o f E gyp tian rule in North Syria. T h e news o f the fall o f G ebal must have been a blow to all those who felt for the greatness o f E gypt. For not only did the city contain “ a great quantity o f gold and silver,” but it had m aintained an unbroken connection w ith E gyp t for long centuries. M ontet’s excavations in 19 2 1 brought to light on its site the remains o f an E gyptian tem ple dating b ack to the tim e o f K in g Unas, o f the Fifth D ynasty— one thousand five hundred years before the conquests o f Thotm ose the T h ird . A nother tem ple had been built there during the T w elfth D ynasty, and the local god and goddess— the “ L ord and L a d y o f G e b a l” — had been identified w ith R a and H athor. So that R ib ad d i was righ t w hen he wrote to his overlord in A khetaton: “ L et the king search the records o f the house o f his fathers and see i f the man w ho is in G eb al is not a true servant o f the kin g.” 1 But A khnaton seems to have been m ore grieved for the death o f the faithful vassal who h ad struggled and suíFered for his sake w ith the bitter feeling o f being abandoned, than for the loss o f all his possessions. H e h ad p robab ly been for long aw are o f A z iru ’s duplicity, and one w ould think that he only h a lf accepted the clever excuses w hich the rebel leader put forth each time he was askcd an explanation o f his behaviour. H e had com m anded him to rebuild Sim yra.* H e had sum m oned him to E gypt to give an account o f all the fighting in w hich he had been involved— perhaps also to answer the accusations brought against him b y A b i-M ilki, R ib ad d i and others. H e h ad sent K h an i, a special envoy,® to see w hat he was doing, and possibly to bring him back w ith him to A khetaton. T h e A m orite had alw ays very care1 Quoted by J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 349. 2 Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1923), p. 211. J . Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 369. * J. Baikie: The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 370.
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fully avoided the issue, now begging for a d ela y,1 now running a w ay from his headquarters in order not to meet the king’s messenger.1 A n d A khnaton had taken no step against him. He did not insist on knowing more about his intrigues. He p robably held A ziru to be an am bitious princeling, impatient to aggrandise his territory— like most dynasts, w hen they could do so. But he does not appear to have ju d g e d him capable o f having a helpless prisoner done to death in coid blood. T h e news o f that deed carne to him as a painful revelation. A n d the long letter he wrote to his treacherous vassal on th at occasion shows a sad am azem ent in front o f the darkest side o f hum anity suddenly thrust before him by hard facts. “ Dost thou not w rite to the king th y L o rd : ‘I am thy servant like all the former princes w ho were in G eb a l’ ? Y et hast thou com m itted this crim e? . . .” s T h en comes the story o f how R ib ad d i was handed over b y A ziru to the Am orite confederates; and A khnaton continúes: “ Didst thou not know the hatred o f those men for him ? I f thou art indeed a servant o f the king, w h y hast not thou arranged for his sending to the king thy L o rd ? ” * T o send R ib ad d i to E gyp t, so that his accusing voice m ight be heard there, was the last thing w hich the traitor could have been expected to do. But A khnaton was too good even to suspect such an am ount o f deceit and cruelty as that o f his unw orthy vassal. A A
A
A lrea d y before the fall o f Byblos— perhaps even before the fall o f Sim yra— troubles h ad broken out in Palestine w here 1 Letters K . 160 and K . 164, quoted by J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 369. Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 211. 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), p. 124. Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times ó f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 212. J. Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 370. 1 Letter K . 162, of Akhnaton to Aziru, quoted by Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), pp. 370-371. * Letter K . 162, of Akhnaton to Aziru, quoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 371. >.s.— 16
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L a b a y a (or L ap aya) and his sons, and T a g i, had greatly succeedcd in bringing the w andering desert tribes— the H abiru — to assist them in a general uprising against E gyptian dom ination. From the beginning, the letters o f the few loyal dynasts to the Pharaoh had been— like those o f A ki-izzi o f K a tn a , o f A b i-M ilki o f T y re , and o f the faithful R ib ad d i, in Syria— repeated w arnings against increasing danger. “ V e rily ,” had w ritten, for instance, Biridiya o f M egiddo, “ I guard M egiddo, the city o f the king, m y Lord, d ay and night. Mighty is the enmity o f the people o f the Sa-Gaz in the land: therefore, let the king m y L ord have regard to his lan d .” 1 Y ash d ata o f T a a n a ch , another loyal chief, soon forced to fly for his life and seek refuge at M egiddo, had also w ritten from there in the same tone. But just as in the case o f Syria, no help seems to have been sent. L ab a ya , captured b y the supporters o f E gyp t, but allow ed to escape by Z u rata o f A ccho, a dynast w ho was playin g a double gam e, was finally killed at G ina (the E n-G an nim o f the B ible). But his sons, like the sons o f A bdashirta in N orth Syria, led the anti-E gyptian m ovem ent after his death. T h ey did all they could to stir up the other local chieftains, using threats w here persuasión failed. “ Th u s have the two sons o f L ab a ya spoken unto m e,” w rote one o f these, nam ed A ddu karrad u, to the king o f E gypt. “ ‘Show hostility to the people o f G in a,’ said they, ‘because they have slain our father. A n d i f thou dost not show hostility, w e shall be thine enem ies’ ; B ut,” added he speedily, “ I answered them : ‘T h e G od o f the king m y L o rd forbid that I should show hostility towards the folk o f G ina, the servants o f the king m y L o rd .’ ” 2 But all were not as firm in their loyalty, and from the Plain o f Jezreel, w here it had probab ly begun, the disaífection and civil strife spread, on both sides o f the Jordán , and soon reached as far south as G ezer. W e get from all sides reports o f aggression upon towns w hich still retain their allegiance to E gypt, and news o f robbery along the trade-routes, on the p art o f the H abiru. In one o f his letters, Burnaburiash, king 1 Letter K . 243, q uoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (E d it. 1926), p . 377. J Letter K . 250, quoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (E d it. 1926), p . 379.
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o f Babylon, com plains to A khnaton about the plunder o fo n e of his caravans in E gyptian territory, w ith loss o f life, and asks for com pensations.1 T h e aggressor was none other but Shutatna, the son o f that Zu rata o f A cch o, w ho, in collaboration w ith one Shum addu (Sham u-addu), also a vassal o f Egypt, had helped L a b a y a to escape. O n the other hand, A ddu-dani (of G ath ?) writes that “ Beia, the son o f G u la ti,” has “ plundered the city and laid a h eavy ransom upon its captives” ’ ; D an gatak ala,3 another local dynast, a queen nam ed N in u r,4w ho styles herself as the Pharaoh’s handm aid, and several others, w rite entreating despatches, asking Akhnaton for help against the H abiru. T im e passed, and no help carne. Finally, Jerusalem itself was threatened. T h e governor o f that city, A bdikhipa, seems to have been in Palestine w hat R ib ad d i was in S yria: a w holehearted supporter o f E gyp tian rule, taking the P haraoh’s interests as though they were his own. H e had at first allied him self w ith Shuw ardata o f K eilah , Z u rata o f A ccho, M ilki-ili, and other dynasts and appealed, along w ith them , to Y an kh am u to intervene against the increasing rebellion. But soon those men w hom he had trusted proved false, and the situation changed entirely. T h e governor o f Jerusalem wrote to A khnaton telling him that M ilki-ili was siding w ith his father-in-law, T a g i— one o f the chiefs heading the rebellion, and that he had attacked h im .s In a subsequent message he announced that, “ through the intrigues o f M ilki-ili and the sons o f L a b a y a ,” G ezer, Askalon, and Lachish had becom e hostile to E g y p t; that the royal m ail had been robbed in the fields o f A ijalon — only fourteen miles from Jerusalem — and that, i f no troops cam e speedily, nothing w ould be left o f the 1 Letter C X X I V (W. i i ) , Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 285. S. Cook: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 313. s Letter K . 292 (W. 239); Letter C C L X in Sir Flinders Petrie’s History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 308-309. 3 Letter C C L X III (W. 216), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 309. A. W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 210. * Letters C C L X V (W. 173), C C X L V I (W. 174), Sir Flinders Petrie, History ° f Egypt (Edit- i899). Vol. II, p. 309. 6 Letter C C X X X I I (W. 186), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. ■899), Vol. II, p. 303; also Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, P- 315-
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king’s lands.1 W e learn from another correspondent that Lachish had seized M ukhrashti, its eastern neigh bou r,2 and again from A b dikh ipa, that M ilki-ili and Sh uw ardata had “ hired men o f G azri (G ezer), G inti (G ath ), and K ilti (K eilah ), and seized the land o f R u buti (R a b b a h )” ; that “ men o f K ilti” (K eilah) h ad taken “ B it-N inib, a city o f the king” in the territory o f Jerusalem , and that if no troops were sent the whole lan d w ould fall to the H a b iru .8 In the m eantim e, S h uw ardata protested o f his innocence — “ L et the king ask,” wrote he, “ if I have ever taken a m an, or an ox, or an ass from him ” 1— and even accused A b d ikh ip a o f disloyalty.5 T a g i, the rebel leader, w ho, like A ziru in S yria, never lost an opportunity o f reasserting his allegiance to E gyp t, even m anaged to obtain a personal interview from the king. As in Syria, the E gyptian officers on the spot seem either to have lacked insight or to have been, perhaps, them selves, o f doubtful loyalty to A khnaton. T h ey often favoured the disloyal local dynasts, and it is perhaps on the report o f some o f them that A b dikh ipa did not obtain from the Pharaoh as ready a hearing as the double-faced T a g i. He com plained bitterly o f this in his letters. “ By the life o f the king m y L o rd ,” w rote he, “ because I spoke thus to the officer o f the king m y L o r d : ‘ W h y dost thou love the H abiru and hate the regents?’ therefore I am slandered before the king m y Lord. Because I s a y : ‘T h e lands o f the king m y L ord are being lost,’ therefore I am slandered before the king m y L o rd .” » A s tim e passed, things fared worse and worse for E gypt. T h e territory north o f Jerusalem was now lost as well as the hill country to the west o f the city and the entire sea-coast. “ N o w ,” w rote A b dikh ipa, “ the H abiru occup y the cities. * Letter C C L I V (W. 180), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 307. * Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 315. 1 Letter C C L V I (W. 183), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 307. Also Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 315. 4 Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, pp. 315-316. * Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 315. Letter C C L I (W. 165), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 306. * Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 315. Letter K , 286, quoted by Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), pp. 379-380.
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Not one prince rem ains; all are ruin ed .” 1 N o longer able to defend him self against the rebel chiefs, let alone to guarantee the safety o f the trade-routes w ithout the P haraoh’s help, he stuck how ever to his post, as long as he possibly could: “ T h e king has set his ñam e upon the land o f Jerusalem , for ever,” wrote he in one o f his despatches, “ therefore I cannot forsake the land o f Jerusalem .” 3 T h e same insistence upon the em ergency o f the situation and the necessity o f im m ediate action is repeatedly found in all the faithful governor’s letters, to the end. “ T h e w hole land o f the king m y L ord is going to ruin; send Y an kh am u to care for the k in g’s lan d ,” or “ I f no troops com e this year, all the lands o f the king m y L o rd w ill be lost.” Such sentences reappear as a leit-motif in nearly all the despatches from Jerusalem . M oreover, A bdikh ipa, w ho seems to have been personally acquainted w ith A kh n ato n ’s cuneiform scribe, often added to his messages a “ post-scriptum ” addressed to him . A n d the post-scriptum was the sam e as the message itself— a despera te w arn in g: “ T o the scribe o f the king m y L ord, thus speaks th y servant, A b d ikh ip a: Bring clearly before the king m y L o rd these w o rd s: ‘A ll the lands o f the king m y L o rd are going to ruin.’ ” a But no help was sent. Finally, Palestine seems to have becom e too unsafe for any man openly loyal to E gyp t to rem ain there. “ Turbatsu was slain at the gate o f Z ilu ,” writes A b d ikh ip a; “ and Y a p tiaddi” — another supporter o f the P haraoh’s rule— “ was also slain at the gate o f Zilu. Send troops to Jerusalem or all w ill be lost.” A n d he a d d s : “ I f there are no troops this year, let the king m y L ord send an officer to fetch me and m y brothers, that w e m ay die (in E gypt) w ith the king m y L o rd .” * There is no evidence that any step was taken b y the king o f E gypt, at the last moment, in order to recover even a p art o f his lost territories, or at least to save Jerusalem , w hich 1 Letter C X X X IV (W. 181), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 303-304. 1 Quoted by J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 383. * Letter K . 286, quoted by J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 381. * Letter C C X X X I V (W. 181), Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (Edit. i 89 9 )> Vol. II, pp. 303-304. Letter K . 288, quoted by J. Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 381.
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appears to have been his last im portant stronghold in Asia. From the boundaries o f A sia M inor and N orthern M esopotam ia down to the Sinai Desert, E gyptian dom ination now becam e a thing o f the p a st; a thing, nay, that was never to be again — for though w arrior-like Pharaohs w ere soon to enter again into C an aan and resume the oíd northw ard m arch at the head o f their armies, they w ere to recover and retain but a small portion o f the provinces w hich A kh naton had allow ed “ to go to ruin.” A A
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In the preceding pages w e have tried to give, from the Amarna Letters, a rough sketch o f the m ain developm ents in Syria and Palestine under A khnaton. W e purposely avoided all comments so th at the reader m ight get a faithful picture o f the unrest and nothing more. B ut that picture itself is not com plete unless one visualises w hat horrible realities often lay under the few b rief sentences that have com e dow n to us in those thirty-three-hundred-year-old official despatches from the P haraoh’s correspondents. T h e details given in a few letters are sufficient to help one’s im agination. For instance, in his com plaint m entioned above about the plundering o f one o f his caravans, K in g Burnaburiash informs A kh naton that, ap art from several m erchants h aving been killed b y the robbers, “ Shum adda has kept one o f the Babylonians w ith his feet cut o íf; Shutatna has taken another as his slave. . . .” 1 Reports such as this show that m an was no better in the fourteenth century b . c . than he is to-day. A n d if, to the gratuitous atrocities com m itted by chieftains in no w ay different from ordinary cut-throats and by the ferocious tribesm en w ho w ere in their p ay, w e add the w ell-know n brutalities inherent to w arfare— and especially to civil w arfare— in all times, w e shall begin to form some idea o f the true story told b y the Amarna Letters. W e shall realise that behind the m ention o f a single w ord, the casual reference to 1 Letter C X X I V (W . n ) , Sir Flinders Petrie, History o f Egypt (E d it. i8g g ), V o l. I I , p. 285.
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a new place to w hich w ar h ad spread, la y the fact o f villages reduced to ashes in the midst o f devastated fields and vineyards. W e shall feel that every enum eration o f a few towns “ fallen to the Sa-Gaz” — every line that is, for most m odern readers, but a list o f picturesque ñames— covers all the horrors o f a series o f sieges: furious assaults repelled at the point o f the sw ord; b u m in g missiles setting on fire w hole clusters o f the poorer houses; starvation— the slow death o f hundreds o f men and beasts (we have a hint o f w hat it was in the desperate letters o f A b i-M ilk i o f T y re and o f R ib ad d i o f G e b a l); then, w ild m en, half-soldiers, half-brigands, m addened b y the lust o f violence, rushing through the breaches in crum bling w alls; pillage, m urder, outrage; children and youn g maidens torn from their frantic m others; whole populations driven a w ay and sold in the slavemarkets o f Syria— a natural consequence o f ancient w arfare w hich w e tend to forget. A n d that is not all. W e must picture to ourselves, fleeing in terror before the Sa-Gaz and the H abiru, the endless lines o f E gyptian, Syrian and C an aanite refugees w ho h ad lost all they possessed; m en, wom en and children, pouring into E gypt across the Sinai Desert, b y hundreds and b y thousands, ragged and dirty, exhausted, sick, half-starved— some o f them half-insane— w ith recent scenes o f rape, slaughter and torture still vivid before their eyes; the people o f w hom an E gyptian officer in charge o f them sa id : “ T h ey have been destroyed and their towns laid waste, and fire has been thrown (into their grain). . . . T h eir countries are starving; they live like goats o f the m ountains.” 1 A ll this could easily have been avoided. A few w archariots and a few hundreds o f mercenaries sent in time w ould have sufficed; and A khnaton had at his disposal, as we have seen, the m an-pow er and resources o f the greatest em pire then existing. M oreover, he seems to have know n the danger that was threatening his dom inions; he knew it, perhaps not to the extent the m odern historian knows it (with the account o f the afterm ath o f the rebellion open before him ), but he knew it enough to feel the necessity o f taking 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (E d it. 1924), V o l. I I , p. 125.
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some im m ediate measures i f he did not wish to see “ the w hole lan d ” lost to him . W e have recalled that he was suspicious about A z iru ’s b ehaviour; th at he sum m oned him to E gyp t and even sent a special messenger to inquire o f his dealings— a messenger w hom the intriguing A m orite did all he could not to meet. In the letter w hich he wrote to his faithless vassal, the Pharaoh reproached him for having eaten a covenant m eal w ith the “ man o f K ad esh ” — Itakam a— w ho was an enem y o f E gypt, and for having allied him self to h im .1 This proves that he knew all about Ita k a m a ’s collaboration w ith the H ittites. H e was p ro bab ly m ore aw are o f the situation than a few modern writers seem to believe. A n d he w anted peace: “ K n o w th ou,” w rote he to A ziru , “ that the king desireth not that the w hole land o f C an aan should be in turm oil.” 3A n d he was fully conscious o f his ow n pow er to enforce i t : “ I am very w ell,” wrote he again, “ I, the Sun in the h eavens; and m y chariots and soldiers are exceedingly num erous; and from U p p er E gypt, even unto L ow er E gypt, and from the place where the Sun riseth even unto the place w here He setteth, the w hole country is in good cause and content.” 3 A n d yet he did not send help to the faithful vassals who only begged for the privilege o f kceping the em pire whole in his ñam e. A A A It is easy to im agine the bew ilderm ent o f the messengers from Syria and Palestine w hen they found no response to their cries for m ilitary aid in the new capital o f E gyp t; no reaction to their indignant tales o f aggression, save perhaps, in the young kin g’s large dark eyes, a depth o f sadness that they w ere utterly unable to understand— instead o f the expccted anger and lust for reven ge; no preparation for w ar, in answer to their desperate w arnings. It is easy to put on e’s self in the place o f R ib a d d i’s son, running all the w ay from beleaguered G ebal w ith the one 1 Akhnaton’s Letter to Aziru (already quoted). 1 Akhnaton’s Letter to Aziru (already quoted). a Akhnaton’s Letter to Aziru, quoted by A. VVeigall, Life and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 196.
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fear that he m ight reach E gyp t too late, only to find him self w aiting over three months for A khnaton to grant him an audience; and then, once in the sacred presence o f that m ighty m onarch in w hom he had put all hopes, recalling before him the horrors o f the siege o f G ebal only to get from him, for all answer, the assurance that he felt for the sufferings o f his people but that he did not wish to keep by forcé a land in w hich so m any princes seemed to be opposed to his rule! T h e you n g m an p ro bab ly realised that the king was thoroughly sincere; that the sym pathy he expressed was not a mere lip-sym pathy. H e had seen his face darken w ith imm easurable sorrow all the tim e he had spoken to him . He had perhaps even seen a tear roll dow n his palé cheek. No, this was no hard-hearted king w ho did not care w hat happened to those who were struggling for him far aw ay. A n d we can im agine the son o f R ib ad d i slow ly w alking dow n the steps o f the palace w ith one question troubling his m ind: “ T hen, w h y no help for us? W h y ? W h y ? ” T h e bearer o f the p athetic letter from the elders o f T u n ip had in vain tortured his brains in search o f an answer to the same question. T h e bearers o f all the despatches addressed to A khnaton by the few vassal princes and governors o f cities who rem ained loyal to him — o f all those despatches that “ even now move the reader” 1— had done the same. A nyone can im agine their feelings. Thirty-three hundred years later, modern authors w ere to condem n A kh n aton ’s “ supineness and ap ath y” 2 in the ñam e o f their sym pathy for the loyal people o f Syria and C an aan. “ A ll the letters tell the same story o f successful revolt on the part o f the subjects o f E gypt, and the capture and plundering and burning o f towns and villages b y the K h ab iri, and the robbery o f caravans on all the trade routes,” writes Sir W allis Budge. “ A n d whilst all this was going on, the king o f Egypt rem ained unm oved and only occupied him self with the cult o f his go d .” 3 It is easier to condem n a m an— and 1 Arthur W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 192a), p. 209. * J. Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 375. ' Sir Wallis Budge: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism (Edit. 1923), p. 102.
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especially such a m an, far in advance o f his ow n times and o f ours— than to try to analyse his motives. A A
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Just as w e can realise the distress o f the Syrian envoys when retum ing hom e w ithout an y promises o f help, so we can also picture to ourselves w hat the crafty A ziru p robably felt w hen, after crushing all his opponents, he at last decided th at he could now go to E gypt and see the king, w ho had sum m oned him there years before. H e sailed up the N ile in gau d y apparel, expecting, no doubt, to impress the Egyptians. But he was him self dazzled at the sight o f the C ity o f the H orizon o f A ton, and still more so at that o f A kh n aton ’s splendid palace. A n d though the secret supporters he had at the E gyptian court— a noblem an nam ed T u tu , to w hom he had been w riting regularly, and others, too— h ad told him that he h ad nothing to fear from his o verlo rd ; though they had spoken to him o f the strange new G od in W hose eyes the friends and the enemies o f E gyp t w ere equal, yet he could hard ly believe the P haraoh’s leniency. W ith such w ealth at his disposal, he, A ziru , son o f A bdashirta, w ould have hired soldiers from all countries and built an em pire for himself, thought he, as he gazed in am azem ent at the m agnificent temples o f A khetaton, or as he w alked through the glittering audience hall o f the palace, w ith its over five hundred columns o f gold and lapis lazuli. A n d this m onarch had done nothing even to keep the lands his fathers had co n q u ered ! W h a t sort o f a king was he ? A w eakling, afraid to fight, or a fool w hom the A m orite’s clever lies h ad deceived ? T h e Pharaohs o f oíd w ould have sacrificed such a fellow as himself, A ziru , their enem y, to the battle-god A m on, w ith their ow n axe. A ziru knew it well. B ut the present king treated him kindly. H e reproached him , it is true, w ith the m urder o f R ib ad d i and o f several other loyal princes. But he did not punish him for it. A n d the A m orite, m erely recognising the suzerainty o f E gyp t as a m atter o f courtesy, w ent back to Syria as the ruler o f a p ractically independent State— quite content w ith himself. His plans had
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succeeded— so he believed. H e h ad all along deceived that impossible dream er w ho now held the throne o f the conquerors o f Syria. A t Ieast, he thought he had. H e w as incapable o f feeling w hat an am ount o f suffering there was in A khnaton’s words w hen he h ad recalled R ib a d d i’s capture, betrayal, and death. H e still less realised w hat conceptions o f international justice, far beyond his age and m an y ages to come, lay behínd the king’s attítude towards him self as the head o f the A m orite rebellion— the “ Syrian nationalist,” as we w ould say to-day. H e saw A kh n aton ; he spoke to him ; yet he rem ained as alien to him and as ignorant o f him as ever: an exalted savage, in presence o f “ the first m an in whose heart was no trace o f barbarism .” 1 W e can also, to a very great extent, im agine the comments o f the victim s o f the Syrian w ar, the hungry, ragged, tired men who poured into E gyp t b y thousands across the border o f C an aan and the Sinai Desert. T h e king, thought they, was the cause o f their plight. H e h ad abandoned them . H e was now doing his best to relieve them , feeding them, housing them, clothing them , m aking the best possible arrangem ents to com fort the sick and bury the dead, to the utm ost cap acity o f his officers. But could he give them b ack w hat the Sa-Gaz and the H abiru h ad burnt and destroyed P— and their dear ones w ho had been killed ?— and all that their homes had m eant to th em ? W h y had he not sent troops to protect them , w hen it was still tim e ? T h e agents o f the priests o f A m on and o f the other national gods— the enemies o f the king— w ould go and tell them “ w h y .” T h e y w ere m an y; they h ad never ceased being a t work in E g y p t; and possibly they h ad p layed a p art in the Syrian rebellion itself, stirring up the vassals against their overlord. T h e king, they told these distressed people, w as an apostate, a “ heretic,” an enem y o f all the gods. H ow could one expect him not to be an enem y o f men also ? T h e w rath o f A m on and o f all the gods was upon E gyp t and her people because o f him . A m on had m ade E gyp t great. H e h ad guided the armies o f her kings to victory. H e w ould have helped 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: Life and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 251.
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them for ever to m aintain peace and order in a flourishing em pire. But the present Pharaoh h ad raised his hand against the “ king o f gods.” H e had sought to destroy him . A n d now A m on was taking his revenge upon him and upon the nation that still tolerated him . A n d the unfortunate folk believed w hat they were told, for they feared the priests and feared the gods o f E gypt. A n d so they grew to hate the best o f kings, w ho loved them. As for the priests o f A m on themselves, they so loathed A kh naton’s rule that they w elcom ed anythin g that w ould put an end to it. O u tw ard ly full o f patriotic grief at the news o f E g y p t’s disasters, they rejoiced in their hearts, counting the days o f him w hom they already called “ that crim inal.” E very new blow to the P haraoh’s prestige prepared the day w hen they w ould again seize pow er and dom inate both the king and the country m ore strongly than ever. F inally, w e can im agine the gradual disaífection o f the courtiers— even o f m any o f those who, at first, h ad enthusiastically “ hearkened to the king’s T ea ch in g ” — when they saw w here the principies o f the R eligión o f the Disk w ere leadin g the country. M ore and m ore A khnaton must have discerned that the hom ages p aid in his presence to his G o d w ere considered b y num bers o f those who rendered them as m erely a p art o f the court etiquette. H e must have realised, as time passed, and as things w ent worse in Syria, that he was m ore and m ore alone— out o f touch w ith his people, out o f touch w ith his nobles, out o f touch w ith his age, w ith the tradition o f his country, w ith the tradition o f the w o rld ; w ith the present and the past; perhaps out o f touch w ith the future, too, for ever; a m an w ithout roots in an y soil, w ithout a hold over an y other m en; an isolated Individual, in tune, it was true, with the everlasting Soul o f the Sun, but w ithout a place anyw here in the hum an w orld. A tim e p ro bab ly carne w hen nobody loved him apart from his devoted queen and a handful o f faithful friends. A n d even those were too far below him to understand him to the end. T h eir love was soothing. But still he was alone. H e had alw ays been alone, as one w ho lived on the plañe o f eternal truth in the midst o f adm irers and enemies who all lived in
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relative truth, if not in falsehood— in time. H e only realised it, perhaps, to a greater extent than ever, now that his truth o f all times and all lands— the brotherhood o f livin g creatures, and therefore o f m en— carne into open clash with the b elief o f his a g e : the necessity o f defending an em pire on the existence o f w hich was based his ow n w orld-suprem acy as king o f E gypt. L et us exam ine, in the light o f w hat w e know o f the Religión o f the Disk, that conflict between the God-conscious, eternal In d ividu al— above country and above tim e1— that A khnaton was, and the average m an, carryin g even into the most exalted status the prejudices o f his environm ent, that his contem poraries w anted him to be. W e shall perhaps then understand w h at motives more pow erful than self-interest, and more pow erful than pity, gave the young Pharaoh the strange courage to set aside the heart-rending letters o f his loyal vassals (even those o f R ib ad d i, o f A b d ik h ip a ; even that o f the elders o f T u n ip ), and w atch his em pire go to pieces w ithout interfering. It m ay appear less easy to picture to one’s self his reactions to the Syrian events than those o f either his vassals (loyal or disloyal), his courtiers, his enemies, or his lesser subjects. But to try to do so is essential, for only thus can we hope to understand the valué o f A kh n ato n ’s exam ple, and the everlasting actuality o f his forgotten T each in g. Breasted, sp e a k in g o f A z ir u ’s being granted a year’s delay, when the king could easily have insisted on his appearing before him at once, says that this “ shows the astonishing leniency o f A khnaton, in a m anner w hich w ould indícate that he was opposed to measures o f forcé such as his fathers had em ployed.” 3 T h ere can be no doubt that there was, at the root o f the Pharaoh’s behaviour towards the men seeking to w reck his em pire (or opposing his reforms in Egypt) a spontaneous 1 The real key to Akhnaton’s strange “ pacifism” lies precisely in the fact that he was a man “ above Tim e” who endeavoured to impose his lofty ideáis upon this Dark Age (both his and ours) without taking into account the fa c t that violenci is the law o f any revolution within Time, specially in the Dark Age. (The K ali Yuga, o f the Híndus.) ' Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol. II, p. 124.
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propensity to kindness. A khnaton was the last man to be harsh, even to his declared enemies. H e realised too w ell w hat suflering m eant to inflict it or have it inflicted, under any pretext, upon m an or beast— even upon a traitor as a punishm ent; and violence— let alone cruelty— was altogether out o f keeping w ith his tender, sensitive nature. But that w ould not be enough to explain his apparent ap ath y throughout the Syrian unrest. T h e appeals from Irkata, from Sim yra and from T u n ip , from Byblos and from Jerusalem for im m ediate succour, w ere sufficiently distressing, sufficiently pathetic to move the most callous overlord to prom pt action. T h e sufferings o f his faithful supporters must have been at least as painful to A khnaton as those o f the discontented cities that w elcom ed the rule o f the A m orites (and finally that o f the Hittites) in place o f his. His attitude was not dictated by mere sentiment. H ad it been so, it is probable that, in spite o f his reluctance for bloodshed, he w ould have thrown in all his m ight on the side o f the helpless vassals who begged for his “ strong h an d” to deliver them. T o answer the cry: “ T u n ip , thy city, weeps . . he perhaps w ould have gone to Syria himself. But it was not a m atter o f feelings alone. It was a question o f principies. “ M arshalling the m aterial available for the study o f this period o f history,” writes A rth u r W eigall, “ one can interpret the events in S yria in only one w a y : A khnaton definitely refused to do battle, believing that a resort to arms was an offence to G od. W hether fortune or misfortune, gain or loss, was to be his lot, he w ould hold to his principies, and would not return to the oíd gods o f battle.” 1 A very im portant question arises— a question w hich, as far as we know, has not yet been put forw ard b y an y o f the writers w ho exalt or condem n A kh n aton ’s “ pacifism ” — and that is w hether or not the youn g Founder o f the R eligión o f the Disk w ould have resorted to arms in order to defend E gyp t herself, in the eventuality o f foreign aggression. No answer can be given, for in his days E gyp t was not attacked. Still the point rem ains; and it is an interesting point. H ad 1 A rth u r W e ig a ll: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (N ew a n d Revised E d it. 1922), p . 202.
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the enemies w ho stood before him been, not the Am orites, the H abiru, the Sa-Gaz— the natives o f S yria and Palestine fighting to chase out o f their own country its E gyptian overlords and their local supporters— but people from a foreign land rushing across the desert to seize and lay w aste his lovely N ile V a lle y ; to destroy the splendid C ity w hich he him self h ad built to be the centre o f a w orld-religion o f beauty, the question (even i f history can suggest no reply to it) can at least be p u t : w ould then A khnaton have stood back and w atch ed the disaster w ithout trying to prevent it? W ould he have tried to prevent it b y means other than a resort to arm ed forcé? A n d i f those means failed, or were unthinkable (as in the case o f an inroad o f barbarie hordes that forcé alone can stop) w ould he, then, have fought w ith that self-same indom itable courage that he actually exercised in order to rem ain inactive ? H e undoubtedly believed in a religión o f universal love which, even i f superficially practised by governm ents as w ell as by individuáis, w ould m ake intem ation al relations friendly. D id he believe, how ever, that in a w orld in w hich aggression is an im pending possibility, a nation should alw ays be, even in peace-tim e, prepared for w ar, with up-to-date arm am ents in sufficient q u an tity? O ne w ould think so, from the few sentences o f his letter w hich we have quoted a b o ve.1 But he never used that pow er to defend his dominions, to keep conquered land under his sw ay. A gain, w ould he have done so to protect his native soil ? W e leave the reader to think o f these questions to w hich, in the present State o f our know ledge, no definite answer can be given on a sound historie basis. T h e point we wished to stress in raising them is that the im m ediate problem to w hich A khnaton, by his non-intervention in the Syrian unrest, gave the boldest p ractical solution ever put forth, is not that o f w ar accepted for the defence o f one’s ow n country, but that o f w ar w aged to defend one’s foreign possessions— to keep one’s colonies and vassal States under control. A n d the solution provided b y him for the first and, it w ou ld also seem, for the last time in history, consisted o f nothing less 1 Sec p. 225.
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than to w atch the struggle o f the conquered coun try’s nationalists (as w e w ould cali them to-day) against the local supporters o f foreign rule, w ithout interfering; to allow the “ disloyal” elements to becom e the masters in their own land, if they really com m anded a sufficient follow ing; to let the princes and people o f a restless em pire fight out their own conflicts, solve their ow n problem s, and create their ow n history. Furtherm ore, it consisted o f nothing less than to allow even foreign powers to take the upper hand in the affairs o f the disaífected land, if such was the consequence o f the p olicy o fits successful leaders. In th e particular case under study, the one actually to benefit from A ziru ’s m achinations against his E gyptian overlord was ultim ately neither A ziru him self ñor his people— the Am orites— ñor any Syrian im patient o f foreign dom ination, but Shubbilulium a, king o f the Hittites. A n d H ittite rule was to prove far m ore exacting, far m ore ruthless, far more unbearable than the Egyptian. Y e t A khnaton contented him self w ith severing diplom atic relations w ith Sh ubbilu lium a; at least, Shubbiluliu m a’s w ritten grievances w ould tend to prove that he did so. But he did nothing to prevent the advance o f the H ittite troops and their unión w ith the forces o f the local antiE gyptian princes. He did nothing either to help his loyal vassals, or to help the m ovem ent for independence, o f w hich he probab ly foresaw the gloom y afterm ath. H e acted— or better, abstained from acting— as though the land conquered by his fathers were not his. In other words, from the time he understood that a num ber o f Syrian and C anaanite local dynasts did not w ant his rule, he ceased to consider him self as their overlord. H e styled him self as such, it is true, in the letters that he sent even to such disloyal princes as A ziru . But that was because A ziru and all the others, how ever w ild ly anti-E gyptian, m aintained a pretence o f loyalty in their official correspondence with him . In fact, he never treated them or endeavoured even to treat them as an overlord desiring to stress his rights w ould have done. A A
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O ne must not im agine that A kh n aton ’s position as an absolute “ non-im perialist” at the head o f an em pire was an easy or a pleasant one. H e suffered, in order to m aintain it, and to leave the w orld the unique exam ple w hich he left, even in w hat appeared to be an all-round failure. T h e m odern comm entators o f his history seem to forget this fact, when they hasten to tax him w ith “ supineness and ap ath y .” H e suffered; and no m an having a heart can rem ain unm oved at the idea o f the superhum an courage w ith w hich he stood to the end, in the midst o f increasing disaster and hatred, firm in the truth w hich he had realised. It is true that, far from experiencing the greed o f a conqueror, he was alien to that p articular pride w hich m any great rulers seem to have draw n from the tranquil possession o f other people’s territory. Even his ow n territory he regarded first as “ his F ather’s” — as the dom ain o f the Sun, where m an and beast w ere to thrive in love and happiness; not as the property o f an y earthly m onarch. “ Hills, deserts, em bankm ents, high-lands, low-lands, islands, villages, men, beasts . . . all things w hich the A ton produces, and on w hich His rays shine, they shall be for the Father, the livin g A ton . . .” h ad he said in one o f the boundary-inscriptions when he had laid the foundations o f his sacred C ity — the m odel o f a w orld governed b y his spirit. A n d one m ay believe, from his attitude towards his dom inions, that he regarded them, too, from the beginning, not as his personal property, ñor as an annexe o f E gypt, but as lands o f the Sun— as were, in his eyes, all lands on earth; as countries that existed, not for a few Egyptians to draw profit out o f them, but for them themselves to flourish and be happy, w ith all the creatures that the O ne Sun o f the w hole w orld nourished upon their surface. T o believe in the “ rights” o f one nation over others w ould have been to him (from all we know o f his religión) a return to the idolatrous worship o f local gods. H e did not, he could not, regret the loss o f Syria and Palestine in themselves. But he could not lightly brush aside his feelings for his subjects w ho struggled and suffered there, in the midst o f the turm oil o f civil w ar, supporters o f E gyp t against the supporters o f A m o r or o f the H ittites. His vivid im agination, o f s.s.— 1 7
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w hich w e have a proof in his poems, must have brought before his eyes, so as to say, all the horror o f the battles and sieges w hich the messengers described to him w ith the eloquence o f despair. A n d he knew he could put a stop to th at horror, and bring back peace and norm al life to Syria w henever he liked, w ith one single order. O n ly that order w ould have im plied that the loyal vassals fighting for him had m ore the right to rule Syria than the disloyal ones, fighting for themselves (or, unknow ingly, for the king o f the H ittites); that Syria was his, because his fathers h ad con quered it, before being, like all the w orld, the free land o f H im W ho m ade it and fed it— the Sun’s. Such an order he could not give. T h e universal fathcrhood o f the Sun m eant, to him , the universal brotherhood o f nations no less than o f individuáis. T o him there could not be two standards o f behaviour: one for individual men and the other for States. O ne nation could not overrule another, unless the people o f that other w ere happy to rem ain under its dom ination. O ne m an— even he; nay, especially he, the conscious Son o f the Sun— could not assert his suzerainty over others against their w ill as clearly expressed as w as the w ill o f the Syrian and C anaanite princes in their long-stretched anti-E gyptian agitation. Such overlordship bred hatred, even as conquest itself bred hatred. It was an expression o f separateness; a denial o f the w o rld ’s unity. H e, A khnaton, Son o f the Sun, and one w ith the O n e Father o f all life, could not go against the law o f love w hich was the great law o f life, revealed to him from within. O n the other hand, he could not abdicate— run aw ay from the pressing em pire problem s. H e could not say: “ I have not conquered the em pire; it is no concern o f m ine.” T h e facts were th ere; he had to face them, i f his lofty religión was to be o f any m eaning in the living, struggling w orld. By rem aining in constant and painful touch w ith the realities o f a widespread colonial revolt— the consequence o f conquest, that is to say o f greed, that ultím ate source o f all wars— and yet b y refusing to keep his em pire b y fo rcé ; b y retaining to the end a non-im perialistic attitude, he had to dem ónstrate that the law o f love and freedom , in w hich he believed,
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should be and can be the basis o f international relations. H e had to rem ain d e a f to the cries o f distress o f those w ho loved him and w anted his rule, in order to allow all the princes o f Syria to have their say and p lay their part in the afFairs o f the land o f their fathers, and to put, once for all, an end to the situation w hich h ad led to the anti-E gyptian unrest— to the injustice and hatred resulting from the E gyp tian con quest. In order to be true to the Sun, his Father, W ho m ade all lands and favours none, he had to take the course w hich he took. But it was not a pleasant course— far from it. A khnaton stood a lo o f from the w ar that was ragin g throughout his A siatic dom inions; he did not rem ain unm oved. O n the contrary, one cannot but believe that the desperate letters he received from his faithful servants were to him “ as so m any sword-thrusts,” and “ one m ay picture him praying passionately for strength to set them aside.” 1 H e g la d ly sacrificed the riches o f Syria to the central idea o f his religión and to the consistency o f his life. H e accepted the loss o f the cities w hich, like Byblos, contained “ a quantity o f gold and silver and a great am ount o f property o f all sorts.” 1 It was less easy for him to forsake, even in the ñam e o f the same high principies, the men w ho were dying for the cause o f im perial E gyp t on the ram parts o f those cities, w ith the love o f his ñam e in their hearts. Those alone who can realise the depth o f his love— and th ey are not m any— can hope to realise som ething o f that “ very A g o n y ” 3 w hich he suñered w hen reading the lam entable despatch from the people o f T u n ip , or R ib a d d i’s last messages from the midst o f a starving city. A n d w hat added to his suffering was, no doubt, the fact that it was impossible for him to m ake anyone under stand the m otives o f his ap parently strange attitude. N obody, not even those w ho professed to be his followers, could, it seems, m ake out w h y his devotion to A ton, the O n e Sun, the O ne G od, should clash with his im perial “ duties.” For 1 Arthur W eigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 192a), p. 209. 2 Letter K . 137, quoted above. s Arthur Weigall: L ife and Times o f Akhnaton (New and Revised Edit. 1922), p. 207.
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they could not realise w hat the O ne Sun m eant to him . T h e y thought that he who had built in Syria a town destined to be, like A khetaton itself, a rad iating centre o f the new faith, w ould natu rally do anything in his pow er to keep Syria under control, that he m ight w in it over entirely to his G od. T h e y could not realise that A kh n aton ’s im personal G od, the Energy w ithin the Disk, was not one to w hom worshippers can be brought by a show o f fo rcé ; that know ledge, genuine religious experience, the vivid consciousness o f universal unity and universal order were at the basis o f his cult, and that the hatred generated by conquest and kept alive in the conquered people b y measures o f violence, was utterly uncongenial to the creation o f those conditions. T h e farsighted logic o f his attitude was alien to them . Even his beloved queen, Nefertiti, could probab ly not follow him. She ju st accepted w hat he did, out o f personal devotion to him , w ithout ju d g in g him , and kept her confidence in his mission, till the end, because she loved him . A n d if his closest friends and disciples could not transcend w ith him the deep-rooted im perialism o f their time (and o f m an y a tim e to com e), how was he to justify his attitude in the eyes o f the men w ho w ere fighting for him in faraw ay Syria, most o f w hom still clung (as their letters show) to the national gods that he h ad abolished? H ow was he to tell the messenger w ho brought him the distressed letter from T u n ip , why he was sending him back w ithout a promise o f help ? H ow was he to explain to R ib a d d i’s son why he could send no troops to his father or to anyone ? (T h at is perhaps the reason w h y he kept the youn g m an w aiting three months and a h a lf before deciding to speak to him.) Still, he him self could not help seeing both sides o f the conflict. H e felt sym pathy for his faithful vassals; he could not help feeling sym pathy also for the “ unfaithful” ones, w ho were seeking to overthrow his rule, as his fathers had once overthrow n the rule o f the foreign Hyksos kings in Egypt. H e could not help know ing that, at the root o f all the trouble, la y the hatred that conquest alw ays generates in a conquered people. T h e O ne Father— the Sun— h ad m ade allnations “ distinct
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in speech and in the colour o f their skin,” and H e poured His life-giving rays over all o f them. A ll w ere to live, happy and beautiful, and at peace. Conquest, the fruit o f greed, was, like all forms o f outrage, conceivable only to those who did not love the O n e Sun enough to love all His creatures im partially. A n d he, the Son o f the universal Father— he who felt His divine Energy vibratin g through his ow n nerves — could not lend him self to the holding dow n o f a restless conquered land. H e could not prolong a State o f things w hich ignorance, self-pride, and greed had once created. H e was to have nothing to do w ith “ im perial duties” that were in contradiction w ith the principie o f im partial love. It was not for him , who lived in T ru th , to defend an order based upon falsehood. A A
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A khnaton died prem aturely. A n d it is possible that the g rief he felt for those w hom he appeared to be abandoning hastened his death. “ W ith h im ,” writes Breasted, passed aw ay “ such a spirit as the w orld had never seen before,” 1 and w e a d d : such as was never to reappear since. Eleven hundred years after him , In d ia’s great em peror Asoka was one d a y to renounce w ar in the ñam e o f the B uddha’s message o f universal love. But the question did not arise for him to retain or to lose for its sake the lands he had inherited from his fathers. H e was allow ed to die leaving his vast dominions prosperous and whole. A khnaton seems to be the one king in history who, for the sake o f a philosophy w hich logically excluded the support o f any form o f aggression, actually lost a great em pire. T h e tragic circum stances w hich we have tried to recall and, on the other hand, the tremendous m ight and w ealth that the youn g Pharaoh could have used to defend his im perial rights, m ake his sacrifice all the m ore rem arkable. A n d his message o f love as a basis o f international relations, in the place o f the tim e-honoured law o f violen ce; his refusal to subscribe to conquest as a fa it accompli o f w hich the 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edi t. 1924), Vol . I I , p. 137.
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advantages to the conquering nation should be m aintained anyhow — an attitude too m odern for most rulers o f men in our times— are all the m ore impressive precisely because they were proclaim ed, not from a dem agogue’s platform b y a handful o f hungry m ob-agitators, but from a throne, b y the hereditary ow ner o f the greatest em pire o f his d a y s; by an absolute m onarch, fully conscious o f his immense w ealth and pow er; by an em peror, w hom his subjects were taught by tradition to look upon as divine— w ithout their realising how truly godlike he actually was.
CHAPTER
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T H E REW AR D OF W AR t is clear from the evidence o f the Amarna Letters that, had he consented to use violence, A khnaton could easily have stem m ed the tide o f events and saved the E gyptian em pire, thus giving a different direction to the w hole political evolution o f the N ear East for m any centuries. Several m odern writers have criticised him for not having done so, some indeed w ith as m uch bitter vehem ence as though they saw in his “ pacifism ” a dangerous exam ple to the present-day owners o f foreign empires. But none seem to have noticed that, apart from all political considerations, the very history o f civilisation in the N ear East— and subsequently in the W est— w ould p robab ly have been m uch altered had the young Pharaoh cared to quell rebellion in his Syrian dom in ión in the fourteenth century b . c . H ow ever useless it m ay appear to ponder over possibilities w hich have never m aterialised, yet w e m ay be excused for doing so if the sheer visión o f such possibilities helps us to realise more com pletely the true m e a n in g o fa n extraordinary man, and to interpret his decisions w ith a keener knowledge o f their rem óte consequences.
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So let us suppose for a m om ent that, unlike himself, A khnaton h ad yielded to the supplications o f his few loyal vassals and sent them tim ely help against the A m orite chieftains and their supporters. L et us even suppose that he had m arched in person into Syria, w ith archers and chariots and all the awe-inspiring apparel o f w ar, as any o f his fathers w ould have done. It is h igh ly probable— p ractically certain— that in such a case the “ sons o f A bdash irta” w ould have been utterly
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defeated from the start, and the Syrian rebellion nipped in the bud. In spite o f long years o f peace, E gyp t was still a first-rate m ilitary pow er and, m oreover, the aid that was needed to re-assert her prestige was, in the beginning, extrem ely slight. (Let us rem em ber R ib a d d i’s letter to A khnaton, before his position in Byblos becam e tra g ic : “ M a y it seem good to the king m y L o rd to send me but three hundred soldiers and tw enty p air o f horses, and I will hold the city. . . .” ) T h e youthful Founder o f the R eligión o f the D isk w ould have retum ed in trium ph to his capital, and the new C ity o f the H orizon o f A ton w ould have gazed upon one o f those impressive displays o f w arrior-like pom p such as Thebes had witnessed in form er days. A n d the bitterness and resentm ent caused by the erasure o f the ñam e o f A m on from every stone and b y the king’s other decrees, and by his w hole struggle against the national gods, w ould have been forgotten in a cry o f victo ry; and E gyp t w ould p robab ly have accepted the rational worship o f A ton, the O ne and O n ly G od, w ithout further murmurs. N ot that the people or even the nobles w ould have understood it, or felt its beauty, any better than they actually did. But they w ould have accepted it, as the expression o f the sweet w ill o f a popular king. T h e fact that, in spite o f his revolutionary decrees, not a single rising is reported against his governm ent in E gyp t during all his reign, proves that A khnaton was pop ular enough am ong his subjects, although o f course hated by the priests. T h e only thing the Egyptians could not bring themselves to do for his sake was to renounce their traditional objects o f worship in favour o f a higher one. T h e only forcé that could have— and p robab ly w ould h ave— led them to forsake even their beloved gods, at the com m and o f him w hom they still regarded as a god incarnate, was the prestige o f victory added to that o f royalty. T h e orders o f a m onarch who has brought an em pire to ruin, even if he be o f divine descent, do not indeed carry the sam e w eight as those o f a trium phant king. T h ere is, in arm ed success, a m agic that com m ands respect, w hatever be the personal views o f the lu cky w arrior. O ne has seen in
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modern times, nay, in our own days, men inferior b y far to A khnaton in genius and in character succeed in stam ping their w ill upon a reluctant nation, ju st because they had, first, led that nation to victory upon the battlefield. A n d we believe that nothing w ould have reconciled the unw illing Egyptians to the new order installed by their inspired ruler as the know ledge that he had saved them and their em pire from im m inent danger. A n d i f it be true, as some have suggested, that shadow y elements o f treason lurked at the very court o f A kh etaton ,1 then nothing w ould have confounded the hopes o f the kin g’s enemies at hom e so m uch as the sight o f their Syrian accom plice, the crafty A ziru , led in chains through the streets o f the capital, w ith some hundreds o f other captives o f rank. T h e m ore w e think o f the situation created in E gyp t by A kh n aton ’s zeal for truth, the more w e are convinced that brillíant m ilitary achievem ents beyond the Sinai Desert were the one and only means for him to secure the lasting success o f his reforms at home. A A
A
T h e enduring success o f A kh n aton ’s religión in E gypt w ould have m eant more than a change o f cult. It w ould have m eant new standards in art and in b eh avio u r; sincerity o f thought, freedom o f expression, a critical, disinterested, truth-loving attitude in all walks o f life; in one w ord, a new life. W hat is left o f the A m arna sculpture and painting shows us the beginning o f an am azing return to personal inspiration in art, to naturalness, to freedom. W ith the failure o f the R eligión o f the Disk, the artistic m ovem ent linked w ith it was stifled to death at its very outset. W hat it w ould have been, h ad it lived, is difficult to say. But one m ay im agine, from its earliest creations, w hich are w ell known to us, that it w ould have anticipated ideáis o f beauty that we now cali “ m odern,” puttin g far greater stress upon expression than upon lines, 1J . Baikie: The Amarna Age (Edit. 1926), p. 362.
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and striving to reveal the inner nature, the “ m eaning,” so as to say, o f things, rather than their exact or em bellished physical likeness. W e can som ewhat picture to ourselves the subsequent developm ent o f E gyp t h ad her art, henceforth, been inspired b y the A m arn a standards, had her religión rem ained that w hich A khnaton preached, and had there appeared, from tim e to time, especially am ong her ruling classes, true disciples o f the O ne-w ho-lived-in-T ruth, who w ould have m odelled their lives upon his; had, in one w ord, her whole civilisation retained, even to a faint degree, the double m ark o f rationalism and o f universal kindness and the essentially aesthetic outlook on life th at characterised her o nly truly divine king. T h en, even m aking the indispensable allowances for hum an wickedness and stupidity, the country, m erely b y seeking to w alk in the trail o f such a m an as A khnaton, w ould have put itself far ahead o f all the neighbouring nations. It w ould have been a m odern country in the midst o f the A ncient W orld— but a m odern country retaining all that was lovely in ancient life; a m odern country w ithout the horrors that our w orld o f to-day has brought into existence b y the im port o f greater technical efficiency combined with less reason, less inspiration, and less love. A A
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But E gyp t was not alone concerned. She occupied in the w orld, then, the position o f a great pow er. H er gods, like those o f all leading nations, w ere w orshipped beyond her boundaries. It is possible, even probable, that the cult o f A ton had not reached, in A kh n ato n ’s days, the limits o f the E gyptian dominions. T h e elders o f T u n ip do not seem to have heard o f it, otherwise how could they w rite to the king that “ the gods o f E gyp t” dw ell in their city ? B ut there is little doubt that, had it once been able to establish itself firm ly in the N ile V a lle y , the R eligión o f the D isk w ould have spread throughout the em pire and even to allied coun tries; to all lands w here the pow er o f the Pharaoh was dreaded and his ñam e held in reverence. From N ap ata to
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Carchem ish, over a stretch o f tw enty degrees o f latitude, the ñam e o f A ton, the G od above all gods, w ould have become fam iliar to people o f the most various races; to the sturdy m ountaineers o f the regions bordering A ssyria ; to the subtle, mystic, pleasure-loving people o f S yria; to the fair N ortherners o f A ryan descent w ho ruled the land o f M itan ni, as well as to the dusky N ubians and Ethiopians, and to the Negroes o f the farthest South. H ow little those m yriads o f men w ould have grasped o f the true spirit o f A kh n aton ’s T each in g it is useless to say. But even a p artial and altogether outw ard know ledge o f it w ould have sufficed to impress upon them the idea o f the excellence o f a natural worship, o f cosmic significance, over their thousand and one m an-m ade cults o f local scope. It w ould have sufficed, also, to inspire all those w ho were susceptible o f some refinem ent w ith the feeling o f the beauty o f the w orld and o f the unity o f all life. A n d possibly E gypt and the adjoining countries w ould have rem ained, to this day, faithful to the cult o f the O ne G od manifested in the Sun. It seems indeed doubtful w hether an y later m onotheistic creed w ould have found adherents am ong thinking people already acquainted for centuries w ith A kh n ato n ’s T each in g. A A
A
A n d that is not all. T h e worship o f A ton, had it rem ained the State-religion o f E gyp t— o f a victorious E gypt, mistress o f her em pire— w ould h ave undoubtedly influenced the w hole evolution o f W estern thought and culture. Even in her decline, after every sort o f originality had been killed in her priest-ridden people, E gypt, w hich had sunk to the level o f a third-rate nation, still exerted a lasting influence upon G reece. W hat w ould that iníluence have been, had E gyp t rem ained pow erful a few centuries longer, and had the simple and rational Sun-worship preached by A kh naton continued to hold sw ay over her, instead o f the m ore and m ore form al, the more and m ore fossilised cult o f her prim itive gods? A glance at these possibilities w ill be
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enough to show w hat A khnaton could perhaps have done, had he but consented to utter a w ord in favour o f w ar. As w e have already m any times rem arked, the w hole o f the youn g kin g’s T ea ch in g is characterised b y an unusual rationality, allied to an overw helm ing sense o f beauty. It is probable that, in the days o f its Founder— two hundred years before the T ro jan W ar— no account o f it reached the shores o f G reece. A n d had, by chance, some exiled E gyptian ever carried it there, w e do not know w hat impression it w ould have left upon the people o f Tiryn s and M ykaenae. But had the scientific-m inded leaders o f G recian thought com e in contact w ith the T each in g some centuries later, at the tim e G reece was ready to enter the m aturity o f her classical age, then, w e believe, the history o f W estern civilisation w ould have been diíferent. T h e sceptical A thenian m ind, while continuing to p ay a custom ary allegiance to “ the gods o f the c ity ,” w ould have w elcom ed that rational creed that put stress upon nothing w hich is outside the reach o f m an’s experience; that related no incredible deeds, no childish fables. T h e few who aspired to something m ore than intellectual certitude w ould have recognised the truth in a T each in g that im plied the oneness and sacredness o f life. A n d the Greeks at large w ould have felt in A kh n aton ’s worship— and in his hym ns, and in the story o f his life, also— a thing o f beauty unsurpassed even in their own land o f light and harm ony. A n d slow ly the tim e w ould have com e for a great change in the consciousness o f the ancient w orld; the time w hen, tired o f conflicting philosophies as w ell as o f rites and mysteries o f w hich they had forgotten the sense, the Greeks w ould have begun to aspire to Som ething unknown w hich they could neither define ñor inven t; the tim e when, in one w ord, the need o f a broader and kinder outlook even than th at o f the best Athenians w ould have begun to be felt throughout the Hellenised w orld. T h en, instead o f turning her eyes to an y new creed, perhaps G reece w ould have sim ply drifted from the worship o f her m any gods to that o f the O n ly O n e revealed to m en and to all creatures through the flam ing D isk o f the Sun. A n d w ithout sacrificing any-
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thing o f her passionatc love o f life and visible beauty, w ith out also forcing herself to accept an y dogm as “ beyond reason” or “ above reason” — or against reason— perhaps she w ould have m ade the fourteen-hundred-year-old R eligión o f the Disk the creed o f her people for all times to come. T h ere w ould have been no conflict between an “ oíd” and a “ new ” order, but m erely a gradual absorption o f the popular religions o f G reece and R om e into the decorous sim plicity o f a m ore rational, more spiritual, and more ancient one, already held in regard b y the elite o f the Greekspeaking East. A n d slow ly but steadily, along w ith the culture and learning o f the M editerranean, the antique worship o f A ton w ould have spread over barbarie Europe, replacing the popular cults o f the N orth after those o f Asia M inor, Greece and Italy. O n the borders o f the D anube and o f the R hine, on the m isty shores o f the Baltic and o f the N orth Sea, temples containing no im age but the Sun D isk w ith rays ending in hands w ould have been erected in honour o f the O n e G od— Cosm ic Energy. A n d one day, the Spanish caravelles w ould have carried the lofty sym bol across the A tlan tic, and the Religión o f the Disk w ould have becom e the religión o f the W est. A A
A
W ould the W est, then, have been an y better than it is? P robab ly not. Since w ith all the overw helm ing loveliness o f his living personality A khnaton could not, in his days, im prove hum an nature, it is doubtful w hether his surviving T each in g— som ewhat distorted, as m ight be expected, by clum sy interpreters— w ould have been able to accom plish that m iracle. M ost p robably the same passions w ould have disturbed the peace o f the w orld. But they w ould not have been fanned b y religious fanaticism , and that alone w ould have m ade an enormous difference. T h e opposition o f the different national polytheisms to the universal worship o f such a G od as the Sun w ould never, it seems, have taken the form o f such a
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ferocious conflict as witnessed in the first centuries o f the Christian era between the same oíd national cults and the Gospel preached by Paul o f Tarsus. T h e adoration o f light is a thing so natural— and, in its crude forms, so universally spread— that it w ould have been easy to convince both philosophers and barbarians o f its excellence. T h e Em peror Julián w ould have been the first one to encourage a creed more rational and no less aesthetic than those o f his G reek masters. A n d the W estern w orld w ould never have known such atrocities as the ghastly m urder o f H yp atia or the massmassacre o f the Saxons. Th ere w ould not have been any equivalent o f the Crusades, or o f the wars o f the A rabs for the conversión o f Infidels, or o f the H oly Inquisition. G reed and cruelty w ould have rem ained, but in order to gratify such base passions it w ould hard ly have been possible to exploit a religión free from puerile hopes no less than from superstitious fears, and whose Founder had never m ade a duty o f proselytism. N o doubt, one day, the new ly-discovered hemisphere w ould have been overrun b y the same merciless adventurers in search o f gold ; and the same battles w ould have raged in M éxico, in G uatem ala and in Perú, around the last bastions o f A m erican independence. But they w ould have been battles frankly fought for the possession o f earthly goods, not for the trium ph o f the Faith, not for the salvation o f souls, not “ for the greatest glory o f G o d .” T h e interview o f Pizarro and A tahu allpa w ould have been different. In the G od o f the Inca, “ W ho lives for ever in the sky,” the Spanish conqueror w ould have recognised his ow n G od. A n d both he and the Peruvian king would have felt that, w hatever be their behaviour towards each other, they— and their people— had in comm on something vital. A n d, w hile subjugated b y a superior science o f arms, the fortúnate people o f the N ew W orld w ould have learnt to link w hat was the best in their own traditions with a purer and more rational worship o f the Sun. A n d that is not all. It seems probable that, had it becom e and rem ained the religión o f Europe and A m erica (and A ustralia), the R e-
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ligion o f the Disk w ould have largely contributed to bridge the gap between East and W est and to hasten the d a y o f universal understanding. H ow ever diíferent m ay appear the pre-em inently dynastic Sun-cult o f modern Jap an from the essentially universal, non-political cult o f A ton, the fact remains that it is still Sun-worship. A n d a disciple o f A khnaton w ould not feel him self out o f place amidst a group o f pilgrim s devoutly greeting, from the top o f one o f J a p a n ’s sacred mountains, the rising in glory o f the O ne eternal “ L ord and O rigin o f life.” A n d, as for the Hindus, their highest conception o f Sun-worship (expressed in the G ayatri M antra, that every true Brahm in recites at daw n, his folded hands liftcd in praise to the rising Sun) is p ractically identical w ith that upheld b y A khnaton. It is the adoration, not o f the m aterial Disk, but o f the Energy w ithin the Disk. A n d i f there be a country in w hich the E gyptian king’s T ea ch in g still gives, to the very few who know o f it, the impression o f something entirely fam iliar, that country is surely India. N ow let us for a while try to im agine w hat the relations o f Europe with the East w ould have been— nay, w hat the relations o f India and the Far East w ould have been w ith the people o f W est A sia— h ad the tim ely success o f the R eligión o f the Disk rendered the expansión o f an y later monotheism unnecessary and therefore impossible. T h e oppositions that lie at the bottom o f the great conflicts o f the M iddle A ges— opposition o f Christian B yzantium to Zoroastrian Persia; o f Christian Europe to the grow ing pow er o f Islam ; o f Islam , both to Christian Europe and to the older cultures o f Persia and India— w ould never have existed, and the history o f the M iddle Ages w ould have been entirely different. L ater on, European m erchants and adventurers m ight w ell have aim ed at political and econom ic dom ination over the technically less developed nations o f A sia; but the idea o f cultural dom ination, brought about through religious proselytism, w ould have occurred to nobody. A t most, the people o f Persia, o f India and o f further Asia m ight have learnt to look upon the Foundcr o f the W estern Sun-worship as an equal o f their ow n greatest teachers, and his ñam e,
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already revered from A byssinia to Iceland and from Perú to the A rab ian Desert, w ould have becom e fam iliar to the limits o f the earth. A n d the people o f Europe and A m erica w ould have considered w ith friendly sym pathy foreign religions o f a naturalistic, non-dogm atic character, i f not alw ays sim ilar to their own, at least less different from it than they appear now to be. In spite o f the sam e colonial wars, prom pted b y the same lust for riches and pow er, there w ould have been m ore understanding, m ore cultural unity— or, in a w ay, less opposition— between East and W est. A n d the w orld to-day w ould have been, if not more peaceful, at least better prepared to realise its fundam ental unity w ithin everlasting diversity. O n the w hole, it w ould have been, it seems, a better world. A A
A
This retrospective visión o f centuries o f w ould-be history is staggering. Y e t we believe it is not the projection o f a puré fancy. T h a t gigantic dream o f ours was, thirty-three hundred years ago, a livin g possibility. T h a t m ore rational, more harm onised, more beautiful w orld, united under the sym bol o f the Sun-disk w ith rays ending in hands could have, and p ro bab ly would have becom e the reality o f to-day, had then the one m an w ith a clear visión o f the truth used his w ealth and pow er to keep the em pire o f his fathers, and to forcé his w ill upon his people and upon men at large. T h a t better w orld— and that far-shed g lo r y ; that praise o f men from ocean to ocean and from pole to pole, for ever— was the possible rew ard o f a short and successful punitive expedition against a handful o f agitators. Less than th at; it was the rew ard o f an order to H orem heb, or to any other o f his generáis, to m arch into Syria, w ithout the king even taking the trouble o f going there him self; the remóte consequence o f a mere word. But, for the reasons w e have seen— and perhaps for others, too— that w ord was never uttered. W hile the distressed letters from his loyal vassals carne
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pouring in from Syriaj A khnaton quietly continued to greet the rising and setting Sun as though, to him , nothing else counted. H e read the pathetic messages one after the other— in w hat spirit and w ith w hat reactions he alone knew. A n d he spoke not. H e refused to set in m otion the long seríes o f events that w ould have given him , perhaps, in course o f time, uncontested spiritual dom ination over the W estern W orld.
s.s.— 18
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T H E P R IC E OF P E R F E C T IO N here
can be little d o u b t th at, as tim e passed on, an d
as hard facts forced themselves upon him, A khnaton becam e m ore and m ore aw are o f the difficulty o f the task he h ad chosen. T h e strongly organised opposition o f the priests that he never succeeded in breakin g,1 and above all the indifference w hich he detected, under a show o f courteous sym pathy or even o f praise, in the greater num ber o f those upon w hom he had relied, taught him that there was nothing to expect from persuasión. A n d it seems impossible for him not to have understood, w ith his keen intelligence, that the only w ay to lasting religious dom ination left to him was that o f im m ediate violence. T h e com m on people o f E gyp t— like the com m on people o f all countries in all times— were to be led like a flock o f sheep. T h e y w ould listen to the priests as long as there were priests to be listened to. A khnaton knew it. T h e one and only w ay to put an end to the infiuence o f A m on ’s servants upon the ignorant folk was to have them exterm inated. But, as we have already seen, the king did nothing o f the kind. H e was content to confíscate the scandalous w ealth o f the priests; and he let their persons go uninjured. A s for the educated and well-to-do Egyptians, w ho knew w hat the greatness o f E gyp t and her em pire m eant to them in riches and prestige, their perm anent adherence to the new T e a c h ing depended largely upon its valué as a national creed. Th ere are reasons to believe that even such a m an as M erira, the H igh-priest o f A ton, on w hom the king had founded great hopes, failed to stand by his M aster when he realised that the Religión o f the Disk was costing E gyp t her empire. A khnaton knew that also. A n d a time must have com e w hen he beheld, with desperate lucidity, the choice set before him : 1 Breasted: Cambridge Ancient History (Edit. 1924), Vol . I I , p. 126.
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either to w age w ar upon A ziru and his allies, to re-asscrt the right o f E gyp t to be the leading nation, and to w in for him self, in return, the trium ph o f the cult o f A to n ; or else, to continué follow ing the path he had taken, and to end in disaster, in anathem a, and finally in oblivion. A A
A
T h e religious success that the Pharaoh could contém plate as the rew ard o f a compromise w ould surely seem small to us, com pared w ith that staggering dom ination o f m ore than h a lf the globe that we have tried to describe in the preceding chapter. It was, how ever, no less impressing to him who considered its possibility. T o A khnaton, the country that contained the unknown sources o f the N ile, and the mysterious lands that lay beyond the palé o f H atti, o f barbarie Assyria and o f distant Elam , m ay have seemed to be the limits o f the earth. But know ing, as he certainly did, w hat a forcé E gyp t represented in the midst o f the surrounding nations, he must have clearly realised that, i f successful at home, his religión w ould have spread even to the farthermost regions that he could im agine. A n d the trium ph w hich he thus anticipated must have appeared to him as universal. It was the trium ph o f reason, the trium ph o f truth; the beginning o f a kindlier and m ore beautiful w orld. It was the fulfilm ent o f his lifelong struggle, w hich h ad so far seemed fruitless; the m agnificent rew ard that w ould outw eigh for all times to com e the bitterness o f the few years in w hich he had stood alone, m isunderstood o r hated— it was his trium ph. I f w e recall the foundation o f A khetaton, the new capital o f E gypt, in the midst o f solemn festivities, it cannot but strike us that, once at least in his short career, A khnaton had desired success. A n inscription, carved out on one o f the boundary-stones o f the C ity , and relating to the king’s burial, refleets his joyou s hopes. “ A n d there shall be m ade for m e a sepulchre in the Eastern hills,” runs the w riting; “ m y burial shall be m ade there in the m ultitude o f jubilees that A ton, m y F ather, hath ordained for me, and the burial
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o f the queen shall be m ade there in that m ultitude o f years.” O bviously, he then visualised the life that spread before him, as a long succession o f radiant years in w hich the truth that he felt so deeply w ould trium ph through him. H e had the self-confidence o f youth , the unhesitating optim ism o f intense desire allied to boundless pow er. It was his w ill to change the face o f things; he had no doubt that he w ould do so. A n d he was too hum an not to feel the thrill o f com ing glory. A n d now, that glory was at hand, if he so wished. T h e words inscribed upon stone at his com m and, ten years before, could still be true. A t the cost o f a slight compromise — so slight that nobody w ould ever find it out— his ñam e, otherwise destined to be cursed and to perish, could still be honoured “ in a m ultitude o f ju b ilees,” not during his lifetim e (his health was ruined, and he knew his end was near), but during the countless centuries the w orld had yet to live. I f he so wished, the future o f m ankind could still be brightened b y his light, and m arked w ith his sign. T h e few sincere disciples he still retained at court— w ith p ro bab ly the adm irable exception o f his consort— were im patient to hear him utter the w ord that im plied com promise and success; to hear him give the order to save the em pire. W h y then did A khnaton rem ain silent? A A
A
Surely the young Pharaoh did not thrust aside the responsibilities o f his position out o f sheer carelessness, as some o f his m alevolent m odern detractors have tried to insinúate. T o suppose such a thing w ould be to ignore the unquestionable seriousness o f his w hole life. As w e have said, there seems to have been, at the back o f A kh n aton ’s attitude towards the Syrian events, an innate repulsión for bloodshed. T h e idea o f w ar, like that o f persecution, was repugnant to his sensitive nature. T h e brutalities inherent to any punitive expedition seemed to him too irredeem ably u gly even to be tolerated as a necessary evil.
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But it w ould not be doing full justice to his m em ory to look upon the king o f E gyp t as the Bronze A g e equivalent o f our modern pacifists. A khnaton was neither a Christian ñor a dem ocrat. His religión was, as we have seen, before all, an aesthetic one. His m orality sprang from his all-pervading sense o f beauty. His conscientious objection to w ar was not the product o f any narrow, uncritical love confined to the hum an species, but the logical consequence o f his serene understanding o f universal harm ony. H e desired to see the behaviour o f intelligent beings (and especially his own) reflect, as far as possible, the beautiful inner order o f the Cosmos. A n d he hated all forms o f cruelty— the worst conceivable expressions o f m oral ugliness. A n d the instance o f history w ould tend to point out that, am ong these, there were some that shocked him m ore than w ar did. For it m ay be rem em bered that, in his new C ity consecrated to A ton, he built shrines to the m em ory o f his ancestors, A m enhotep the Second and Thotm ose the T h ird , who were am ong the foremost warriors o f the ancient w orld, and that he did, at least once— after the fall o f Sim yra— allow an E gyptian officer to go to R ib a d d i’s rescue, w ith a small forcé o f mercenaries. A n d, a little later, in the long indignant letter w hich he addressed to A ziru after R ib a d d i’s tragic death, he threatened his treacherous vassal in words that show clearly enough that he was perfectly conscious o f his rights as an im perial sovereign and that, w hatever his distaste for violence, he was the last m an to consider it sinful to chastise a scoundrel and reaffirm the dictates o f justice. “ I f thou, for an y cause, wishest to do evil,” says he to the A m orite, “ or i f thou even settest words o f evil in thy heart, then w ilt thou die, together w ith thy fam ily, b y the axe o f the king thy L o rd .” 1 O n the other hand, in glow ing contrast w ith the annals o f other Pharaohs and o f kings o f various countries, before and after him , there has not yet been found, am ong all the docum ents o f A kh n ato n ’s reign, a single record o f chase, as w e rem arked in a previous chapter. A n d it m ay be inferred 1 Letter K . 162, quot ed by J . Baikie, The Amarna Age (Edi t . 1926), pp. 371-372.
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that he condem ned that cruel sport far more uncom prom isingly than he did the more gallant fighting o f m an against m an— an assumption w hich fits in w ell w ith all that we know o f the king through his hymns. W e therefore think it w ould be a mistake to suppose that the solé cause o f his inaction in the Syrian affair was A kh n aton ’s b elief in a creed condem ning w ar indiscrim inately. H ad it been so, such a consistent m an as he was w ould never have allowed Pakhura to go north w ith his soldiers; ñor w ould he, in the only letter o f his w hich w e possess, have spoken as a m onarch instead o f speaking as a preacher. It is m uch m ore probable that A kh n ato n ’s attitude to w ar was a negative o n e ; an attitude o f non-interest, rather than one o f system atic opposition. T h e Founder o f the R eligión o f the Disk seems to have seen both sides o f the problem o f violence. A ll atrocities disgusted him , w hatever were the “ higher m otives” that urged men to com m it them. A n d he was aw are— as the most intelligent am ong our m odern “ conscientious objectors” — that w ar leads no w here in the long run. H e saw things, not from a national point o f view , not even from a hum an point o f view , but from that o f Cosm ic reality. A n d therefore it m attered little to him whether E gyp t had an em pire or not. H e was not prepared to encourage the brutalities w hich he repudiated in his heart, ju st for the sake o f securing for his people the undisturbed possession o f S yria’s resources. It was his concern for R ib ad d i, w hom he personally loved, not the lust for territorial greatness, that urged him once to permit help to be sent to him , and another tim e to w rite to his m urderer w ith the sternness o f a ju d g e. But he knew all the tim e that the horrors o f w ar were u navoidable as long as m an did not change his heart. A n d his life-long struggle against superstition, greed and deceit had m ade him aw are that such a change is not easy, perhaps even not possible on a broad scale— a thing w hich our modern pacifists too often forget. H e knew that, w ith all the pow er inherited from generations o f king-gods, he could do nothing to stop the fighting going on w ithin his realm . T h e only reasonable course left to him was indeed to keep him self aloof from it,
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serene and alone as he had alw ays been. A n d that is precisely w hat he did. A A
A
But w hat astonishes the m odern m an perhaps m ore than A khnaton’s total absence o f “ im perialism ” is his apparent indifference to the success o f his religión, w hich largely depended, as he knew, upon his own prestige as a “ strong” m onarch, in the w orldly sense. I f he so loved his faithful servant, R ib ad d i, as to allow, at least once, some troops to be sent to his rescue (and that, in spite o f his personal dis taste for w ar) then, how did he not consider it w orth while despatching more substantial help to all his loyal vassals, including R ib ad d i, and, i f necessary, m arching into Syria himself, i f not to defend the interests o f E gyp t, at least to secure, through the glam our o f victory, the adherence o f E gyp t to his T e a ch in g? T h e only answer is that he probab ly cared less for the success o f his T each in g than for its purity. A n d he knew that success and purity seldom go together. H e was not overimpressed b y num bers, as lesser men often are. H e knew their futility in the long run. W h at he w anted was that those who w ould “ hearken to his T e a ch in g ” should m ould their lives upon it— “ liue in truth,” as he did. A n d experience had m ade him aw are that very few were able to do so. W hen, followed b y m ore than eighty thousand p eop le,1 he had left Thebes and laid the foundations o f his new capital, he m ay have for a time rejoiced at the idea o f his T ea ch in g spreading to the limits o f his dom inions and beyond. I f not, one could h ard ly explain w h y he took the trouble o f founding at least two other centres o f rational Sunworship, one at each end o f his vast em pire. But at the time the Syrian rebellion had reached its clim ax, A kh naton had probab ly becom e conscious o f the uselessness o f all efforts to m ake his religión a success am ong m en, if it was to rem ain as beautiful and as rational as he had conceived it. He knew that, in spite o f all the care he had taken to m ake it accessible 1 Ar t h u r Wei gal l : Skort History o f Ancient Egypt (Edit. 1934), pp. 149-150.
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to the most intelligent o f his courtiers, he had no true disciple, except perhaps his loving consort. A n d there is a note o f pessimism in the well-known verse o f the hym n to A to n : “ Th ere is none who knoweth Thee, save T h y Son, N efer-kheperu-ra U a-en-ra. . . It expresses, no doubt, as we have said before, the certitude that G od, or the Suprem e R eality, has no m eaning but for the individual soul w ho feels itself identical w ith H im , in its essence. But it m ay eq ually w ell be taken as A kh n aton ’s sad admission, after years o f fruitless eíforts, that truth o f the nature o f that w hich he possessed is uncom m unicable, and that those w ho abide in it shall always rem ain alone. In that case, w hat was the valué o f w orldly success? O f ñam e ? O f fame ? Even o f the recognised spiritual leadership o f h a lf the globe or more ? It was as nothing. A khnaton knew that b y keeping his em pire w hole he could soon propagate his religión as far as the remotest countries he could think of. But he could also foresee that the cult that w ould perhaps, one day, unite those distant lands in the glorification o f his ñam e w ould no longer be the religión o f Life in truth as he had conceived it, and taught it, and lived it— puré, rational, unstained b y fear or cruelty, daily draw ing its inspiration from the jo y o f the rising Sun. No. It w ould perhaps be som ething better than w hat men had called “ religión” until then; it w ould perhaps even be som ething better than w hat the m ajority o f m ankind w ould ever accept, in the future, as a guide to a higher life. But it w ould never be, on a broad se ale, that glorious worship he had dream t o f in his days o f youthful hopes— the true R eligión o f the Disk. It was certainly no use silencing his personal disgust for bloodshed, and com prom ising w ith his principies, m erely to m agnify, in space and time, the disappointing trium ph he had alread y experienced durin g his short career. I f the elite o f E gyp t h ad not really accepted his T each in g, w hat w ould the em pire at large and the nations beyond the em pire m ake o f it, even i f one d ay they could be brought to p ay an outw ard hom age to it ? W hat w ould most men o f the future ages m ake o f it, w hen in their hearts they p robab ly w ould not feel its
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truth; when they w ould not understand it, not love it, not w ant it? A khnaton saw clearly that his religious leadership, when extended to millions, w ould am ount to nothing but the gradual reinstalm ent o f superstition, under the cover o f his ñam e— the degradation o f his dearest dream s. A n d he refused to give his sanction to it. W e have seen already that he had never tried to spread his lofty cult am ong the commoners o f E gypt, know ing that it w ould doubtless have been w asted upon them . A n d one m ay safely believe that, even i f he could have im agined, as w e do now , the possibility o f the R eligión o f the D isk becom ing one d ay the official faith o f such faraw ay continents as A m erica and A ustralia, at the cost o f a compromise that could seem trifling, he still w ould not have stirred his little finger to prom ote such a success. T h e disappointm ent o f trium ph on a small scale and for a few b rief years was enough. A A
A
W e should say more. A compromise w ith w hat appeared to him as u gly or irrational was, in A kh n aton ’s estimation, nothing but a lie in disguise, and could therefore never be overlooked as a trifle. T h e young Pharaoh understood more vivid ly than any m an the jo y o f all creatures to live and see the beauty o f the Sun. I f he could do nothing to stop the bloodshed in Syria, at least he w ould do nothing to encourage it. (Perhaps even the threat he form ulated in his letter to A ziru was but a verbal intim idation, destined to make the A m orite give up his treacherous intrigues.) As w e have already rem arked, A khnaton does not seem to have shared the contem pt affected b y some o f our contem poraries for all conquerors. But he knew how different the im plications o f his own T each in g w ere from those o f the creed o f his ancestors, w ho worshipped national gods. For them, to glory in their conquests had been natural. But fo r him, to be responsible for a w ar w ould have been to lie to himself. A n d neither the repeated w arnings o f his governors that his em pire was going to ruin i f he did not intervene speedily, ñor the tears o f the men o f faraw ay T u n ip , w ho
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still blessed his ñam e in their distress, ñor the m ore lofty consideration that victory w ould extend far and w ide the sw ay o f his religión o f love and reason, could move him to subscribe to such a lie. A khnaton was not one o f those who ju stify the use o f a n y effective means provided they forw ard a “ higher end.” In his eyes, the mere fact o f introducing falsehood into his ow n life w ould have killed for ever the spirit o f the Religión o f the Disk. It was better to sacrifice, then and there, its chances o f w orldly dom ination. In consequence, no answer cam e to the cali o f the loyal vassals o f E gyp t in Syria and G anaan. A n d, in the words o f A bdikhipa, governor o f Jerusalem , “ all the lands o f the kin g” were actually lost. A A
A
From the m om ent A khnaton refused to bend his uncom prom ising logic to the exigencies o f ordinary colonial policy, the fate o f his beautiful Sun-worship, at least as a State-religion, was sealed. N o later compromise could henceforth be introduced, b y subtle casuistry, to m ake it “ fit in ” w ith the accepted conceptions o f national grandeur, or with the accepted opinion that any course o f action is good w hich leads to the attainm ent o f a “ higher g o al.” T h e Founder o f the Religión o f the D isk— unlike that o f m ore than one other religión— had once and for all barred the possibility o f such convenient adjustments, b y the bold exam ple o f his ow n solution o f the problem o f religión and State. H e had made it clear that, to him , there was no higher goal than that o f “ life in tru th ,” w hich is another w ord for individual perfection. It is to the ideal o f individual perfection that he sacrificed both his existing em pire and his possible spiritual dom ination over a still m uch greater area o f the globe. T h ere are portraits o f him w hich show us a thin, sickly face, w ith deep wrinkles each side o f the m outh, and bones ju ttin g ou t: the face o f a young m an w orn out b y sorrow and possibly also b y some w asting disease. These portraits bear little resemblance to those o f his early youth, except for the
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unbending determ ination that can be read in the kin g’s features. G iven every allowance for the exaggerations and distortions that seem to have been p a rt o f the “ style” o f several artists o f the court, there can be no doubt that they reveal to us something o f the appearance o f their royal m odel at some stage o f his life, p robably at the last stage. Ifs o , they help us to some extent to visualise, so as to say, A kh n aton ’s heroic stand to the bitter end. H e was still very young— at an age w hen most great men have not yet begun to do the w ork for w hich they are b o rn ; but he was a physical wreck, and conscious that his end was draw ing nigh. H e had no son to succeed h im ; no disciple capable o f continuing his work. H e had m arried his eldest daughter, the heiress to the kingdom , aged tw elve, to a young m an o f royal blood, Sm enkhkara, w ho was devoted to him and to his cause, and w hom he was soon to associate to the throne. O u t o f reverence and gratitude, Sm enkhkara had taken, in official documents, the title o f “ beloved o f A khnaton.” But the king knew that, w ith all his good intentions, that prince w ould not for long be able to postpone the fierce reaction that was to break out. H e knew that the dispossessed priests o f A m on w ere gathering m ore and more strength as news o f national disaster rapidly spread throughout E gypt. H e knew that, in the very near future, the R eligión o f the Disk w ould be swept out o f the land, perhaps never to be revived again anyw here in an y age. H e knew that the uncom m unicable truth he h ad cherished all his life w ould never again be m ade to inspire the conduct o f a State. A n d he h ad no grounds to im agine that the scientific principies that underlay his T ea ch in g — and that he had grasped intuitively— w ould receive, in three thousand three hundred years to come, an illum inating dem onstration, and becom e the basis o f w hat is to us m odern Science. To him it must have seemed as i f his w hole mission h ad been a com plete failure. Y e t he knew th at his T each in g was true, and th at truth cannot be destroyed. His ñam e m ight be forgotten, but the fundam entáis o f the religión o f order and love w hich he had discovered w ithin the Sun and w ithin him self w ould endure
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for ever. Sooner or later, the hum an m ind w ould have to rediscover them. A n d i f one d ay some accident should bring his T each in g to light again, then, at least, it w ould be unm arred b y any p ractical compromise. A n d the most enlightened and the best o f men w ould be able to love it w ithout reservation. O ne day, perhaps, in m any, m any years to come, a few am ong the wise, truthful, and strong w ould revere him precisely for his refusal to tam per w ith truth. T h e unknown devotion o f one o f those few w ould be enough to outw eigh the loss o f an em pire, the failure o f a life o f struggle, and m illennium s o f oblivion. A n d even if those one or two obscure disciples were never to be born; i f the T each in g for the sake o f w hich he had lost everything were never to bear fruit, even in the heart o f a single m a n ; i f the w orld to com e w ould alw ays listen to the priests o f its national gods and never to him , the Priest o f the universal Sun— the O n e real G o d — i f he, A khnaton, w ere to rem ain for ever a useless dream er, not even dangerous enough to provoke the w rath o f more than a few fanatics, then w hat o f it all ? T h e Sun w ould nevertheless continué to follow, d ay after day, His glorious course, and it w ould still be true that “ breath o f life is to see His beam s.” L igh t and heat, and the spark that produces life, w ould still be the manifestations o f the O ne E nergy— the Soul o f the Sun; rhythm w ould still rem ain the principie o f the U niverse, w hether m an cared to know it or not. A kh n aton ’s T ea ch in g w ould still be true, and his life a thing o f beauty for ever. H ad the king o f E gypt, in a m om ent o f weakness, sacrificed the logic o f his being to the lure o f success, the future o f m ankind w ould perhaps have been, as w e have seen, less gloom y, on the w hole, than it actually was. But A k h n a to n ’s personal history— an in destructible fact in the infinity o f time, w hether rem em bered or not— w ould not have been that flash o f beauty w hich it is. T h e w orld w ould have been poorer o f one perfect Individual. A n d that was enough to m ake an y loss worth while. His contem porary E gyptians— even m any o f those w ho professed to be his disciples— seem to have preferred his em pire
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to himself. But w e prefer him to all the em pires o f the earth. A n d provided they be sufficiently sensitive to the real valué o f m an, w hich lies in the individual, the men o f ages to com e will feel as w e do. A A A A khnaton died in the tw enty-ninth year o f his age w hich was the eighteenth year o f his reign. W e know nothing o f his last days or o f the circum stances o f his death. W e can only try to im agine them. W e can think o f him gradu ally thrusting aside the burden o f governm ent after the elevation o f Sm enkhkara to the rank o f co-regent, and livin g in retirem ent in his summer-house, in the midst o f the beautiful gardens that lay to the south o f his C ity . Nefertiti, w ho was to survive him , w aited upon him till the end. From his sickbed, A khnaton gazed at the deep blue sky— light and peace — and his heart was h ap p y. W e like to im agine his dying in beauty, as he had lived, in a last effort to lift his enfeebled hands in praise to the rising Sun.1 A A
A
His lofty religión was swept out o f E gypt. A fter the ephem eral reign o f Sm enkhkara, the priests o f A m on regained great pow er. A kh n ato n ’s second daughter, M akitaton, had died while yet a child, during her fath er’s lifetime. T h e priests now forced his third daughter to change her ñam e from Ankhsenpaton to Ankhsenpam on and to m arry an insignificant young noble, T u tankh aton, re1 Profane history does not disclose whether Akhnaton had a natural death, or a violent one at the hands of the Amon priesthood. Rosicrucian (A M O R C ) tradition, however, does relate the incident of his transition. W e quote in part from the archives of the Order in this regard: “ . . . The untimely departure of . . . Beloved Past Master Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton) whose transition occurred on July 24, 1350, b .c . (based on the current calendar) . . . on the memorable day of his transition he forsook all earthly things and found jo y in the Holy Sanctum adjoining his bed chamber in his palace. Here in the midst of meditation he was inspired to evoke the law of. . . . Raising both his hands in meditation to . . . he pronounced the lost word. Then as peace and quietness came to his hungry soul, he knelt in prayer. . . . In this position he finally vowed his obligations to God and to all his fellow men who preceded him for the knowledge they had given to the world, and then raised both arms to the Cosmic that it might reach down and raise him to heights sublime.”
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nam ed T u tankh am en, w hom they placed upon the throne and used as a puppet. In the ñam e o f T u tankh am en, the local gods were definitely restored. T h e court returned to Thebes. . . . A kh n aton ’s C ity was pulled dow n stone b y stone, and ruined so com pletely that men forgot where it had once stood. His body, torn from the tom b in the Eastern hills w here he had desired it to rest, was reburied in the V a lle y o f the Tom bs o f the K ings, near Thebes. His ñam e was eífaced from the m onum ents, from his own coffin— even from the ribbons o f gold foil that encircled his m um m y, so that his soul, henceforth anonym ous and deprived o f the custom ary prayers and offerings, m ight w ander for ever in hunger and agony. In the pride o f their recent trium ph, the priests com posed the exultant h ym n o f hate now preserved upon an ostrakon in the British M useum : “Thou findest him who transgresses against thee; Woe to him who assails thee! Thy city endures, but he who assailed thee falls. The sun of him who knows thee not goes down, O A m on! But as for him who knows thee, he shines. The abode of him who assailed thee is in darkness; but the rest of the earth is in light. Whoever puts thee in his heart, O Amon, Lo, his sun dawns.” 1 A n d the w orld was once m ore, ap parently at least, as though A khnaton had never been born. 1 “ . . . Little more than a howl of savage joy at the downfall o f Akhenaten and all his works.” — J. Baikie, The Amama Age (Edit. 1926), p. 398.
C H A P T E R XII
A K H N A T O N A N D T H E W O R LD OF T O -D A Y T utankham en began for the W estern W orld an era o f spiritual regression w hich is lasting still. Sincere and serious as it is, this opinion o f ours m ay at first sight appear as a mere paradox. But it is not so. W hatever one m ay think o f A kh n aton ’s T each in g, one has to concede at least three points concerning it. First, the Religión o f the D isk was a universal religión, as opposed to the form er local or national religions o f the ancient w orld. T h e supreme R ea lity round w hich it was centred— cali it the Soul o f the Sun, the Energy w ithin the Disk, or give it any other ñam e— was not only Som ething w orthy o f the adoration o f all m en, but also Som ething actu ally worshipped, know ingly or unknow ingly, b y all creatures, including plants. A n d all creatures, brought forth and sustained by the O ne Source o f life— the Sun— w ere one in H im . N ever in the w orld west o f India h ad the idea o f universal G odhead been so em ph atically stressed, and the brotherhood o f all livin g beings m ore deeply felt. A n d never were those truths to be stressed again m ore b old ly in the future. Secondly, it was a ration al and natural religión1— not a dogm atic one. It was neither a creed ñor a code o f hum an laws. It did not pretend to reveal the U nknow able, or to regúlate in details the behaviour o f m an, or to offer means to escape the visible world and its links. It sim ply invited us to draw our religious inspiration from the beauty o f things as
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1 “ Its strength” (of Akhnaton’s religión) “ Iay in its nearness to obvious truth obvious blcssings. It compromised happily bctween crude material idolatry and a mysticism which had no connection with life. Its deity was so supcrmundane that no taint of earth or materialism clung to it, and yet so visibly the C reative and regula ti ve Power o f all that is mundane that its worship was in touch with the most insistent realities. . . . It achicved a happy success in a direction where most of them (i.e., the great religious systems) have signally failed— a basis in reality instead of speculation, and a natural rather than induced piety.” — Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs o f E l Amama, p. 47. and
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they a r e : to worship life, in feeling and in d e e d ; or, to put it as an outstanding nineteenth-century thinker1 has done, to be “ true to the earth.” Based as it was, not upon any m ythology, ñor any metaphysics, but upon a broad intuition o f scientific truth, its appeal w ould have increased w ith the progress o f accurate know ledge— instead o f decreasing, like that o f m any a better-known religión. F inally— and this was perhaps its most original feature— it was, from the very start, a T ea ch in g that cxalted individual perfection (life in truth) as the supreme goal, and at the same time a State-religion. N ot only the religión o f a State, but a religión for the State— for an y and every State— no less than for the individual. It was a T each in g in w hich (if w e m ay ju d g e by the exam ple o f its Founder) the same idea o f “ truth” that was to inspire personal behaviour through and through was also to determ ine the attitude o f a m onarch towards the friends and foes o f his realm , to guide his decisions regarding peace and w ar; in one w ord, to dom í nate international relations. It im plied, not the separation o f prívate and p u b lic life, but their identity— their subjection to the same rational and aesthetic principies; their com m on source o f inspiration; their com m on goal. Such was the message o f A khnaton, the only great religious T each er, west o f Ind ia, who was at the same tim e a king; and perhaps the only undoubtedly historie originator o f a religión on ea rth ,2 who, being a king, did not renounce kingship but tried to tackle the problem s o f State— particularly the problem o f w ar— in the light o f religious truth. A A
A
T h e thirteen years o f A kh n aton ’s personal rule were but a m inute in history. But that m inute marks a level o f perfection
1 Nietzschc. * Many will rightly remark that the deified Indian hero, Krishna, was a king, and that be not only put forth the doctrine of warríor-like action performed in a spirit of complete detachment (as expressed in the BhagavadGita), but applied it himself to politics, throughout the Kurukshetra War. However, such an enormous amount of legend now surrounds the person o f Krishna, that it is practically impossible to assign him a place in history— to ja y nothing of giving him even an approximatc dale.
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hardly ever approached in subsequent years (save perhaps in India, during the latter p art o f the reign o f A soka, or under H arshavardhana, or again, after m an y centuries, in the latter p art o f the reign o f A kbar). From the far-gone days o f T utankham en dow n to the time in w hich we live, the history o f the W estern w orld— that is to say, roughly, o f the w orld west o f In d ia— presents an ever-broadening gap betw een the recognised religions and rational thought; a more and more com plete divorce, also, between the same recognised religions and life, especially public life. W hen, under the pressure o f his masters, the priests o f A m on, T u tankh aton, renam ed T u tankham on, signed the decree reinstalling the national gods o f E gyp t in their former glory, he opened an era o f intellectual conflict and m oral unrest w hich has not yet to-day com e to an end. Before A khnaton, the w orld— the W estern w orld at least— had worshipped national gods, and had been satisfied. A fter him, it continued to worship national gods, but was no longer fu lly content w ith them. For a m inute, a new light had shone; great truths— the universality o f the suprem e Essence; the oneness o f all life; the unity o f religious and rational thought— had becn proclaim ed in words, in song and in deeds, b y one o f those men who appear once in his tory. T h e man had bcen cursed, and it was henceforth a crim e even to utter his ñam e. H e was soon forgotten. But there was no w ay to suppress the fact that he had come. T h e oíd order o f blissful ignorance was gone for ever. A gainst its w ill, the w orld dim ly rem em bered the light that the priests had sought to put ou t; and age after age, inspired men o f various lands set out in search o f the lost treasure; some cau ght a glim pse o f it, but none were able to regain it in its integrity. T h e W estern w orld is still seeking it— in vain. A A
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T o m ake our thought clear to all, let us follow the evolution o f the W est from the overthrow o f A kh n aton ’s w ork to the present day. B y “ W est” we m ean E urope, Europeanised s.s.— 19
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A m erica (and A ustralia), and the countries that stand a t the background o f European civilisation— that is to say, G reece and a great p art o f the M iddle East. W ith the earliest “ physiologoi” o f Ionia— eight hundred years after A kh naton— rational thought m ade its second appearance in the W est. A n d this time it did not w ither aw ay after the death o f one m an, b u t found its m outhpieces in m any. Generations o f thinkers whose am bition was intellectual know ledge— the logical deduction o f ideas and the rational explanation o f facts— succeeded one another. A m on g them were such m en as Pythagoras and Plato, w ho united the light o f m ystic insight to the clear know ledge o f m athem atics, and w ho transcended the narrow religious conceptions o f their times. But the G reek w orld could never transcend them ; and Sócrates died “ for not believing in the gods in w hom the city believed” — the national gods— though there had been no m ore faithful citizen than he. Those gods, adorned as they were w ith all the graces that H ellenic im agination could give them , w ere jealous and revengeful in their w ay. T h e y w ould have been ou t o f date (and harmless) had men accepted, a thousand years before, the worship o f the O ne Essence o f all things, w ith all it im plied. But they h ad not; and the conflict between the better individuáis and the religión o f the State h ad begun. R ation al thought was left to thrive; but not so the broad religious outlook that was linked w ith it. T h eoretically— intellectually— an y universal G od (First Principie, suprem e Id e a o f Goodness, or w hatever it be) w as acceptable. But the conception o f Som ething to be loved more than the State and w orshipped before the national gods was alien to G reece, to R om e, and in general to all the city-m inded people o f the M editerranean. Seen from our m odern angle o f visión, there was a strange disparity between the high intellectual stand ard o f the Hellenes o f classical times— those creators o f scientific reasoning— and their all-too-hum an local gods, in no w ay different from those o f the other nations o f the N ear East. Th ere appears, also, to have been in their outlook a certain lack o f tenderness. O ne can find, it is true, in the G reek
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tragedies, m agnificent passages exalting such feelings as filial piety or fraternal love. But the other love— that between man and w om an— they seem to have conceived as little more than a m ainly physical affair, a “ sickness,” as Phaedra says in E urípides’ Hippolytus. A n d their relation to livin g nature, outside m an, seems to have been confined to an aesthetic interest. Bulls being led to the sacrifice and horses carrying their youthful cavaliers in the P anathenaic procession are adm irab ly sculptured on the frieze o f the Parthenon. But apart from some really touching verses in H om er (such as those w hich refer to Ulysses’ faithful oíd dog, who recognises him after tw enty years’ absence) there is h ard ly an instance, in classical G reek literature, in w hich a friendly feeling for animals is expressed— not to speak o f attributing to them yearnings akin to ours. C hristianity is the next great w ave in the history o f W estern consciousness. A n d one can hard ly conceive a sharper contrast than that w hich exists between the clear H ellenic genius and the spirit o f the creed destined to overrun Helias, Europe, and finally A m erica and A ustralia. It was originally — as preached b y P aul o f Tarsus, the Apostle o f the Gentiles — an irrational and unaesthetic creed, fed on m iracles, bent on asceticism, strongly stressing the pow er o f evil, asham ed o f the body and afraid o f life. B ut its G od was a universal G od and a G od o f love. N ot as universal, it is true, as m ight have been expected from a suprem e Being proposed to the adoration o f a rationally-trained p e o p le ; ñor as im partially loving as a follow er o f the long-forgotten R eligión o f the D isk w ould have im agined his G od to be. It was a G od w ho, in fact, never shook o íf entirely some o f the crude attributes w hich he possesscd w hen w orshipped by the Jews as their tribal d e ity ; a G od w ho, o f all livin g creatures, gave man alone an im m ortal soul, infinitely precious in his eyes, for he loved man in the same childishly partial w ay as oíd Jehovah loved the Jew ish n a tio n ; a dem ocratic G o d w ho hated the well-to-do, the high-born, and also those w ho p u t their confidence in hum an intellect instead o f subm itting to the authority o f his G ospel; w ho hid his truth “ from the wise and the learned, but revealed it to the ch ildren.”
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Still, w ith all its shortcom ings, the mere fact o f C hristian ity’s being a creed to be preached “ to all nations,” in the ñam e o f a G od w ho was the Father o f all m en, was an immense advantage over the older pop ular religions. T h e elem ent o f love and m ercy that the new worship undoubtedly contained — how ever poor it m ight be, com pared, for instance, to that truly universal love preached in India by Buddhism and Jainism — was sufficient to bring it, in one w ay at least, nearer to the lost religious ideal o f the W est even than the different philosophies o f the Hellenes (if w e except from them Pythagorism and N eo-Pythagorism ). A n d it h ad over them all— and over the antique T each in g o f A khnaton him self— the practical advantage o f appealing both to the intellectually uncritical, to the em otionally unbalanced, and to the socially oppressed or neglected— to barbarians, to wom en, to slaves— that is to say, to the m ajority o f m ankind. T h a t advantage, com bined w ith the genuine appeal o f a gospel o f love and w ith the im perial patronage o f Constantine, determ ined its final trium ph. From the shores o f the Eastern M editerranean, it slow ly but steadily spread, as one knows, to the w hole o f Europe and to all lands that European civilisation has conquered. But the W estern w orld could not definitely forget centuries o f rational thought. Ñ or could it renounce for ever that avow ed ideal o f visible beauty, o f strength, o f cleanliness— o f h ealthy earthly life— that had been connected w ith the various religions o f the ancients. As far as it was possible— and m any m ore things are possible than one can im agine— it soon re-installed G reek m etaphysics and polytheism under a new form in the very midst o f C hristianity. A n d Iater on, the G reek love o f song and pleasure, and the deification o f the hum an body, in the plástic arts as w ell as in life, prevailed in the spiritual capital o f Christendom and throughout most Christian countries. T h e W estern m an gradu ally carne to realise w h at an am ount o f inconsistency there was in that m ixture o f H ellenic and H ebrew thought (and remnants o f popular myths, m uch older than G reece and Moses) w hich composed his traditional religión. H e then grew increasingly sceptical, and C hristianity rem ained for him
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little m ore than a poetic but obsolete m ythology, in some w ays less attractive than that o f G reece and R om e. T h e tardy reaction o f the bold critical spirit o f classical H elias against judeo-scholastic authority h ad com e; and m odern Free T h o u gh t— the trium ph o f E uclid over M oses— had m ade its w ay. A A
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E ight hundred years before the Renaissance, and twelve hundred years before D arw in, a very diíferent, but eq ually im portant reaction had taken place in the eastern and most ancient portion o f the W estern w orld. A n d that had given birth to Islam , w hich one could roughly describe, we believe, w ithout any serious m isinterpretation, as Christianity stripped o f its acquired Pagan elements— especially o f its G reek elements— and brought back to the rigorous p u rity o f Sem itic monotheism . T h e fact that Islam appeared and thrived long before the rebirth o f critical thought (and o f classical taste) in Europe, and that its w hole political history seems to run quite apart from that o f most E uropean countries, must not deceive us. I f w e consider the W estern w orld as a w hole (Europe and its background), and not only the small portion o f it w hich one generally has in m ind w hen speaking o f “ the W est,” then we have to include in it the countries o f the Bible— Syria, E gyp t, A rab ia, Ira q — no less than G reece; for they are the geographical and cultural background o f Christianity, the religión o f E urope for centuries. A n d if this be so, we have, in this outsketch o f the history o f culture, to take account o f Islam as one o f the most im portant religious upheavals o f the West, how ever paradoxical this coupling o f words m ay seem. Like Free T h o u gh t— its latter E uropean p arallel— Islam (at least, as we understand it; w e m ay be mistaken) was a broad m ovem ent brought about by the in cap acity o f C hrist ianity to fu lly satisfy the exigencies o f the hum an m ind. But the weaknesses o f the Christian faith that the two reactions were destined to make up for were not the same ones. Free T h o u gh t was essentially an intellectual reaction against the
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dogm atism o f the Christian C hurch and the puerility o f the stories (of w hatever origin) that go to m ake up the Christian m ythology. Its grow th was natu rally slow, for m an takes time to question the valué o f his cherished beliefs on intellectual grounds. O n ly in the nineteenth century did it begin to aífect the bulk o f the people, and still to-day its influence remains confined to those countries in w hich elem entary scientific education is granted to m any indi viduáis. Islam , on the contrary, was a definitely religious m ovem ent— a w ild outcry against every form o f polytheism under w hatever disguise; a reassertion o f the continuity o f revealed monotheism through A b rah am , Moses, and Jesús o f N azareth ; a reaffirm ation o f the brotherhood o f all men, that basic truth taught already b y Christ to the Jew s, but less and less rem em bered b y the Christians. It appeared more rapidly and more suddenly, for the evils against w hich it rose were m ore shocking to the simple sincere m an in search o f the O ne G od, and therefore easier to detect than logical fallacies or historical inaccuracies— even than physical impossibilities. I t was easier— not perhaps, recently, for us, but then, for a m an o f strong beliefs, fed on Jew ish tradition— to detect idolatry under every form o f im age-worship than to feel, for instance, how ridiculous is such a tale as that o f Joshua causing the Sun to stand still. A A
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But the two reactions— the early m edieval and the modern, the religious and the intellectual, the one o f Sem itic origin and the other started b y thinkers mostly o f A rya n blood and speech— failed to give the w orld west o f India the feeling that a goal h ad been reached. T h e y failed even to give it, for more than a century or two, the impression that it was on its w ay to reach a State o f intellectual and em otional equilibrium preferable to that attained in a relatively recent past. T ru e, for m any generations, the Islam ic portion o f w hat w e have b ro ad ly called “ the W est” seems to have enjoyed, through all the vicissitudes o f its political history, the m ental
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peace that a few definite, simple, overw helining religious convictions bring to people in whose life religión holds the first place. T ru e, the problem o f religión and State— that the Free-thinkers o f Europe never had the opportunity (or the power) to tackle in a practical m anner— was for a short time solved, to some extent, under the early K halifs. But rationalism, strengthened by the fact o f m odern Science, even when it has not altogether shaken the basis o f their faith, seems to be influencing m ore and more m any an educated M uslim o f the present d ay in a sense sim ilar to that in w hich it influenced so m any Christians, from the sixteenth century onwards. T h e result o f that infiuence upon the most liberal o f the contem porary Turks, Persians, Egyptians, and even some o f the M uslim s o f India, is obvious. O n the other hand, the solution o f the problem o f religión and State as put forw ard by the K halifs, in the early days o f Islam , is too closely linked with a p articular religious faith to be extended, at the present day, to all countries. It rests upon a som ewhat strictly theocratic conception o f the State, and upon a rigid line o f dem arcation between all men who have accepted the revelation o f the Prophet— the faithful— and the others. A nd, righ tly o r w rongly, the m odern w orld seems evolving in the sense o f the separation o f the State from religious questions o f purely dogm atic interest. A A
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N ow , i f we turn to the latter reaction against the shortcomings o f Christianity— nam ely, Free T h o u gh t— we find that it has left the people w ho have m atured under its infiuence in a State o f m oral unrest far greater than that o f those M ussulm ans w hom their inherited m edieval outlook on life no longer satisfies. T h anks to the undeniable infiuence o f Free T h ou gh t, the conclusions o f intellectual investigation are not to-day subordinate to Christian theology as they once were. W hen a scientific hypothesis concerning the texture o f atoms or the origin o f m an is put forw ard, it matters little w hether it tallies or not with the narrative o f the Genesis. E ven good
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Christians are ready to accept it, provided it explains facts. M oral questions, too, have been nearly com pletely freed from the overshadow ing idea o f a supernatural im perative. R ig h t behaviour is valued because it is thought to be right— no longer because it is the behaviour ordained by G od. But that is about all the difference between the m odern “ rationalist” outlook and the Christian outlook before the Renaissance. T h eoretically, it m ay seem considerable. In life, it is h ard ly felt. Im portant as it is, the fact that, in the field o f puré know ledge, thought is now independent from clerical or scriptural authority, plays little p art in the form ation o f the spirit o f our times. Thoughts, opinions, intellectual conclusions are, indeed, constructive only to the extent they determ ine our reactions in the field o f behaviour. A n d there we fail to see how the oíd authorities have ceased to hold their sway. E xcept for sexual m orality— in regard to w hich the modern m an has becom e more and m ore lenient because it suits his fancy, but has not yet, how ever, outdone the m agnificent toleration o f m any a cardinal o f the sixteenth century— the behaviour styled as “ righ t” is precisely that w hich is in accordance w ith Christian standards; that w hich approaches the charitable, dem ocratic, and som ewhat narrow ideal o f the C hristian G ospel; that w hich obeys the C om m an dm ent: “ L o ve thy neighbour as thyself.” T h e builders o f the Parthenon had not gone even as far as that, it is true. But m odern rationalism has never gone further than that. It m ay have, to some extent, taught the presentd ay W esterner to think in terms o f Cosm ic Realities. But it has not yet taught him tofeel in terms o f cosmic valúes. It has denounced Christian m etaphysics as obsolete; but it still clings to the no less obsolete m an-centred conception o f right and w rong. It no longer m aintains that m an alone has an im m ortal soul, and it has forsaken the naive idea that the w orld and all it contains w as purposely created fo r m an. But it seems to see no harm in m an ’s exploiting, destroying, or even torturing for his own ends the beautiful innocent creatures, animals and plants, nourished b y the sam e sunshine as him self in the w om b o f the sam e m other earth. For all p ractical purposes, it seems to consider them no m ore
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w orthy o f attention than i f they w ere, indeed, created for him — b y that very G o d w ho caused the fig-tree in the Gospel to w ither in order to teach a lesson to C hrist’s disciples, and who allow ed the evil spirits to enter the G adarene swine in order to relieve a hum an being from their grip. T h ere are, o f course, free-thinkers w ho have personally gone beyond the limits o f Christian love and em braced all life in their sym pathy. M a n y a broad-hearted M oham m edan saint, also (such as A bu-H u rairah , the “ Father-of-cats” ), has shared the same conception o f truly universal brotherhood. But these individual cases cannot blind us to the fact that neither o f the tw o great movem ents that sprang up, so as to say, to supersede Christianity, has actually em phasised that fundam ental truth o f the u nity o f all life (w ith its practical im plications) w hich the Christian Scriptures had om itted to express. T h ere are, no doubt, rem arkable Christians— for instance, Saint Francis o f Assisi— w ho have grasped that truth and lived up to it. Still, in the omission o f the Gospel to put the slightest stress upon it lies, in our eyes at least, the m ain weakness o f C hristian ity com pared w ith the great livin g religions o f the East— Vedantism , Buddhism , Jainism — and also, nearer its birthplace, w ith the lost R eligión o f the Disk. T h e on ly tw o large-scale attem pts ever m ade west o f India to restore to men the consciousness o f that all-im portant truth were Pythagorism (and, later on, Neo-Pythagorism ) in A n tiq u ity, and now adays Theosophy — both m ovements that owe m uch to direct or indirect Indian influence. T h e interest shown for the latter b y m any o f our educated contem poraries points o u t how m uch ordinary Free T h o u gh t— a scientific conception o f the w orld, plus a m erely Christian-like ideal o f love and ch arity— is insufficient to meet the m oral needs o f the most sensitive am ong us. A A
A
T h ere is m ore to say. M odern Free T h ou gh t has completely dissociated, in the minds o f most educated people, the id ea o f positive know ledge— o f Science— from th at o f
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worship. N ot that a m an o f Science cannot be, at the same time, a m an o f faith— he often is— but he considers the tw o dom ains as separate from each other. T h eir objects, he thinks, cannot be interchanged an y m ore than their aims. O ne does not know G od as one knows the data o f sensuous experience or the logical conclusions o f an induction; and how ever m uch one m ay adm ire the suprem ely beautiful picture o f visible reality that m odern Science gives us, one cannot w orship the objects o f scientific investigation— the forms o f energy, the ninety-two elements, or such. A nd the tragedy is that, once a rational picture o f the w orld has imposed itself upon our m ind, the usual objects o f faith appear m ore and more as poetic fictions, as hidden allegories, or as deified m oral entities. W e do not w ant to do aw ay w ith them altogether; yet w e cannot help regretting the absence, in them, o f that character o f intellectual certitude that makes us cling so strongly to Science. W e feel m ore and m ore that m oral certitude is not enough to justify our w holehearted adoration o f an y supreme P rin cip ie; in other words, that religión w ithout a solid scientific background is insufficient. O n the other hand, there are moments when we regret the lost cap acity o f enjoying the blessings o f faith w ith the sim plicity o f a child— w ithout the slightest m ental reservation, w ithout strain, w ithout thought. W e w onder, at times, i f the men w ho built the G othic cathedrals w ere not, after all, happier and better men than our contem poraries; i f the tremendous inspiration they drew from childish legends was not w orth all our barren “ ration al” beliefs. W e w ould like to experience, in the exaltation o f the “ realities” w hich we valué, the same religious fervour w hich they used to feel in the worship o f a G od who w as perhaps an illusion. But that seems impossible. M en have tried it and failed. T h e cult o f the Goddess Reason put forw ard by the dreamers o f the French R evolution, and the cu lt o f H um an ity, w hich Auguste C om te wished to popularise, could never m ake the W estern m an forget the long-loved sweetness o f his Christian festivals, interw oven w ith all the associations o f childhood. H o w could one even think o f replacing the tradition o f
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Christmas and Easter by such d ry stuff as th a t? Science, w ithout the advantages o f religión, is no m ore able to satisfy us than religión w ithout a basis o f scientific certitude. Prom inent as some o f them m ay be, the men w ho now adays remam contení with Free T h o u gh t are alread y out o f date. T h e tw entieth century is grow ing m ore and m ore aw are o f its cravin g for some all-em bracing truth, intellectual and spiritual, in the light o f w hich the revelations o f experience and faith, the dictates o f reason and o f intuition— o f science and religión— w ould find their place as partial aspects o f a harm oniously organic w hole. T h e evolution that one can follow in the outlook o f such a m an as Aldous H u xley is most rem arkable as a sign o f the times. A A
A
A lon g with the divorce o f religión from science, we must note the divorce o f religión from prívate and public life. As Aldous H uxley tim ely points out in one o f his recent books,1 the saints proposed to our veneration as paragons o f godliness are rarely intellectual geniuses; and the intellectual geniuses — scientists, philosophers, statesmen— and the artists, poets, writers w ho h ave won an immorta] ñam e are h ard ly ever equally rem arkable as em bodim ents o f the virtues w hich religión teaches us to valué. So m uch so that we have ceased to expect extraordinary intelligence in a saint, or extraordinary goodness in a genius according to the w orld, and least o f all in a political genius. For nowhere is the separation o f religión from life more prom inent (and m ore shocking) than in the dom ain o f international relations. T h e m uch-quoted injunction o f Christ to “ render unto C aesar that w hich is C aesar’s and unto G od that w hich is G o d ’s” illustrates— as it is generally interpreted— a división o f duties w hich has survived the belief in dogm atic C hristian ity. W hether he be a Christian or a Free T h in k er— or a M ussulm an, in one o f the m odern Islam ic States that have undergone the influence o f European ideas— the W estern m an, as a m an, is guided, in life, b y certain principies differ-
1
In Ends and Means (Chapter on Education).
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ent from , and sometimes in contradiction w ith those that lie at the basis o f his outlook as a citizen. Caesar and G od are m ore often than not in conflict w ith each other. A n d when this happens— w hen there is no w a y o f serving both— then the W estern m an generally serves C aesar first, and offers G o d , in com pensation, some scraps o f p rívate piety. But more and m ore numerous are grow ing those w ho denounce this d u ality o f ideáis as a sinister product o f deceitful casuistry. In the ancient w orld, as lon g as religión was a national concern, and connected w ith practices rather than with beliefs, its actual separation from life was impossible. In one w ay, that m ay seem better than w hat we see now . A n d the bold ideologists w ho, in recent years, in Europe, have endeavoured to w ipe out altogether the spirit i f not the ñam e o f Christianity and to raise the N ation— based on the p re cise physiological idea o f race— as the object o f m an’s u ltí m ate devotion, those ideologists, w e say, m ay seem wiser and more honest than their h um anitarian antagonists. I f religión indeed, does not, as it is, respond an y longer to the needs o f life, it is better to change it. It is far better to openly brush aside two thousand years o f errors (if errors they be) and to come back to the national gods o f oíd, and to be true to them to the bitter end, than to keep on rendering divine honours to the M an w ho said: “ L ove thy neighb our,” and to w age a w ar o f exterm ination upon men o f rival nations w hom one has not even the excuse o f considerin g as “ infidels” o r “ heretics.” T h ere is no hypocrisy in the votaries o f the religión o f R ace, as in those o f the religión o f man. T h e only weakness one could point out in their creed— i f the latter be artificially separated from the R eligión o f Life, o f w hich it is, fundam entally, and remains, in the minds o f its best exponents, the true expression— is that it has been transcended, and that therefore it is difficult to go back to it, even i f one wishes to. T h e religión o f m an itself has been transcended long before its birth. T h e truth is that both are too narrow, too passionately one-sided, too ignorant o f great realities that surpass their scope, to satisfy any longer men w ho think ration ally and who feel the beauty
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and the seriousness o f life, unless they be integrated into the R eligión o f Life. T o frankly acknow ledge a m oral ideal still narrow er than that o f Christianity or h um anitarian Free T h o u gh t w ill not ultim ately serve the purpose o f filling the gap betw een life and religión. T h e higher aspirations o f the spirit cannot entirely be suppressed. T h e gap w ill soon reappear— this time between the religión o f race, nation or class, and the life o f the better individuáis; a sad result. T h a t gap will always exist, under some form or another, as long as a religión o f integral truth, transcending man, and o f truly universal love is not acknow ledged, in theory and in practice, by individuáis and groups o f individuáis. M oreover, the m ystic o f race (or o f nation, or o f any entity w ith a narrow er denotation than that o f “ m an” ) is, nay, under its narrowest and least enlightened aspect, unassailable, unless and until the ideology o f m an, inherited by Free T h o u gh t from Christianity, is once and for ever pushed into the background in favour o f an ideology o f life. For if, indeed, one is to believe that livin g N ature, w ith all its loveliness, is m ade for m an to use for his profit, then w hy should not one adm it, w ith equal consistency, that the bulk o f m ankind is m ade for the few superior races, classes or even individuáis to exploit at w ill ? U ltim ately, one has to go to the lim it, and acknow ledge cosmic valúes as the essence o f religión, i f religión is to have any universal m eaning at all. A n d i f it is to be som ething more than an individual id e a l; i f it is no longer to rem ain separated from the life o f States; if truth, in one w ord, is ever to govern international relations as well as personal dealings, then one has to strive to put pow er into the hands o f an intellectual and moral elite— to com e b ack to P lato ’s idea o f wise men m anaging public affairs, makers o f laws and rulers o f men, uncontested guides o f reverentially obedient nations. A A A W e have ju st seen how , in the w orld west o f India, one great thought-current has succeeded another from the days
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o f T utankh am en onwards, w ithout defining the relation o f religión to Science and to politics; w ithout giving birth to a creed that all o f us, including the most rational-m inded and the kindest, could look up to and adm ire w ithout reservation; w ithout suggesting to us an ideal approach to such questions as that o f im perialism and w ar by the exam ple o f any exalted “ precedent.” A n d there is, at the same time, all through the history o f that vast area, an underlying yearning for such a perfect creed as w ould fulfil all the aspirations o f its successive cultures— a yearning for rationality in religión, for love extended to all livin g things, and for a conception o f international relations based on the same principies as those w hich should guide individual behaviour. Expressed more or less em phatically in the lives o f the best individuáis o f each epoch, that cravin g for an all-round perfection has never found its m outhpiece in an y o f the great historie thought-currents o f the W est themselves. E ach o f the successive waves o f consciousness that w e cali H ellenic thought, Christianity, Islam , and m odern Free T h ou gh t, has put stress upon one or another point— on logical reasoning and on beauty; on the love o f m an ; on the oneness o f G o d ; on scientific certitude— striving to realise one side o f an ideal T each in g w hich none o f them could conceive in its whole. O ne or two schools o f H ellenic philosophy, such as Pythagorism and N eo-Pythagorism , strongly infiuenced b y the East, have p robab ly come nearer to that lost ideal o f total truth than a n y other expression o f W estern thought. W hat w e know o f the life and teachings o f A pollonius o f T y a n a — that “ god am ong m en,” as a m odern au th o r1 has called him — is sufficient to support this statem ent. But it is doubtful w hether the doctrine o f his sect, or that o f any other rem arkable G reek school, could be revived to-day in its integrity. N o doctrine w h ich is too precise concerning ques tions about w hich know ledge is not definite can be “ a possession for ever.” A n d the Pythagorean theory o f num bers, for instance, m ay not appear as satisfactory to the 1 Mario Meunier: Abollonius de Tyane, ou le séiour d ’un dieu barmi les hommes, París, 1936.
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modern m ind as it did to the disciples o f oíd. For, i f it has not been disproved, as the cosm ogony o f the Stoics or so m any other p articular theories linked w ith ancient philosophies— i f it even be irrevocable in some o f its aspects, as the m athem atical side o f P lato’s philosophy is said to be by some w riters1— it has at least been surpassed ín an everbroadening m athem atical outlook, and cannot, therefore, be considered to-day as sufficient. A p a rt from that, there is one point w hich none o f the great doctrines o f the past three thousand years have touched, and that is the question o f the application o f their own principies to the practical life o f nations, and to Inter national relations. T h e reason for this is probab ly that, w ith the one exception o f A khnaton, none o f the initiators o f new thought in the W est were kings, like some o f the most popular Indian teachers; none even ministers o f S t a t e , like Confucius. Plato himself, for w hom the best governm ent is that in w hich the ruler is a lover o f wisdom, h ad personally no voice in the direction o f A thenian policy. A A
A
L et us now look back to A kh naton’s T each in g, o f w hich we have recalled the m ain features at the beginning o f this chapter. T h e m ore we exam ine it, in the light o f thirty-three hundred years o f history, the m ore we are convinced that it is the perfect religión in search o f w hich the W estern w orld is still groping w ithout being able to re-im agine it. It has, over w hatever other creed has been invented, west o f India, as an answer to the higher aspirations o f m an, the advantage o f being simple and com plete. It is perhaps indeed the simplest am ong the lofty teachings o f the w hole w o rld ; a fram ework, suggesting an attitude towards the possible prohlems o f individual and public life, rather than a system ofFering solutions o f those problems once and for all. It is not only free from all m ythology, from all metaphysics, from affirmations o f any sort about things that are not known for certain, but it has hard ly an y tenets. T o cali it a creed is
1 D. Néroman:
La Lefon de Platón
(Niclaus Edit., Paris, 1943).
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nearly a misuse o f the w ord. It comprises no “ theory,” even about the w orld o f facts. It is not a doctrine concerning Science— w hich could grow out o f date. Y e t, it is based upon a bold scientific intuition w hich has not only been proved correct, but is broad enough to contain and sura up, after so m any centuries, the essential o f m an’s positive know ledge o f the universe, and w hich thus confers upon the w hole o f it the perm anent strength o f intellectual certitude. It has no catalogue o f im peratives, and makes no mention o f right and w rong. Y e t, the fervent love expressed in A kh n aton ’s hym ns implies the noblest behaviour towards all living things— even towards one’s enemies— and historie events have shown th at the im plication was not an em pty one. Finally, the fact that the prom oter o f the T ea ch in g was the ruler o f a first-rate m ilitary pow er, w ith foreign possessions and vassal States— colonies and protectorates, as w e w ould cali them now adays— and that he put the spirit o f his religión in action on an international scale, is o f great im portance. For the time has com e when the w orld feels that religión cannot rem ain foreign to burning questions o f international interest such as that o f w ar. N o teaching w hich ignores those questions can therefore really appeal to m odern consciousness. I f G o d and Gaesar are in conflict w ith each other— as w e see they so often are— then they cannot both claim our allegiance. I f w e do not deify the N ation and sacrifice G od, renouncing all valúes beyond the national ones, then we must consider the problem o f w ar and conquest in the light o f the highest religious valúes and, if necessary, sacrifice the interest o f the N ation. No great W estern teacher has done so, save A khnaton. None could do so, for none had the pow er to m ake peace and w ar. A n d the few am ong our m odern pacifists who boast o f doing so now , put forw ard their claims from an arm chair, for none o f them has an y say in the decisions o f his coun try’s governm ent. If, b y taking the unusual course w h ich he did, A khnaton lost an em pire, he at least left the w orld an exam ple for ever w hich was worth its while. In all sim plicity, w ithout theorising on right and w rong, he showed us in w hat direction is to be sought the solution o f the w ar problem , i f one does not
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w ant to sacrifice truth (that is to say, God) to the State. Sir Flinders Petrie was already aw are o f the undying valué o f the Religión o f the Disk w hen he wrote in his History o f Egypt, at the daw n o f the present centu ry: “ I f this were a new religión invented to satisfy our m odern scientific conceptions, we could not find a flaw in the correctness o f his (i.e., A kh n aton ’s) view o f the energy o f the solar system. . . .” “ H e (Akhnaton) had certainly bounded forw ard in his views and sym bolism to a position w hich w e cannot logically im prove upon at the present day. N ot a rag o f superstition or falsity can be found clinging to this new worship, evolved out o f the oíd A ton o f H eliopolis, the solé Lord o f the U niverse.” 1 Petrie puts special stress upon the scientific accu racy o f the T ea ch in g and upon its rational valué. W e add that the truly universal love it implies is equalled only in the religions originated in or borrow ed from India. So m uch so that— putting together the kindred seers o f the East, sons o f one same civilisation, and taking them as a w hole— the great idea o f the unity o f all life and brotherhood o f all creatures seems to have had tw o parallel exponents in antiquity, and the world tw o everlasting teachers: India and A khnaton. A A
A
Th ere is still more to say. Since the discovery o f Eastern thought by the Europeans, in the eighteenth century— that second Renaissance, less dazzling, but no less i f not m ore im portant than the sixteenth century one— the w orld has been increasingly craving for something in w hich the East and W est could m eet and feel themselves one in spite o f all their differences. W e are livin g now in a period o f transition between an oíd and a new spiritual order, bearing to the w orld o f yesterday a relation som ewhat sim ilar to that o f the H ellenistic period to classical an tiquity; an epoch in w hich, for the second time, the East and the W est— India and Greece, to take the tw o countries that have had the greatest influence 1 Sir Flinders Petrie: History of Egypt (Edit. 1899), V o l. I I , p. 214. s.s.— 20
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upon the culture o f m an as a sym bol o f the two halves o f m ankind— have come in contact w ith each other, and are trying to know and understand each other and to create together, i f they can (this tim e on a w orld-wide scale), a w ork o f truth and beauty unparalleled in the history o f their separate achievem ents. T h e y feel the need o f a com m on faith that w ould becom e the basis o f their future collaboration, the foundation o f a really universal fratem ityofsouls, and perhaps also, one d a y (if men grow less foolish, andless numerous, too), o f a w orld-w ide com m onw ealth o f free nations, at peace w ith one another. None o f the living creeds professed west o f In d ia to-day is sufficiently com prehensive for a thoughtful H indú to look upon it as fit to be ranked w ith his ow n religión or w ith any o f those that sprang from it. None can m atch Buddhism and Jainism in the preaching o f universal kindness; none can m atch V edantism in the conception o f divine R eality. T h a t is p robably w h y there are people who suggest to reverse the out-dated activities o f the Christian and other missionaries, and to preach to the W est the m ain general tenets o f Indian religión. A n d it is to be noted that, contrarily to the crowds o f ignorant Easterners converted to the religions o f the W est, m ostly for purely social reasons, the few EuroA m ericans who have adhered to Eastern creeds are m ainly m en abo ve the average, w ho have done so for religious or m oral reasons alone. Still, we believe that the attem pt, successful as it m ay be in individual cases, and infinitely more justified than that o f the W estern missionaries, cannot easily be generalised. T h e faith o f the w orld cannot be any p articular faith linked up w ith a definite tradition, a given theology (or given m etaphysics) to be found in a m ore or less elabórate literature o f sacred texts and learned com m entaries. Races differ in their genius. I f any creed is to unite them all to some extent, that must be an extrem ely broad one, w ith w hich none o f m an’s deeper aspirations w ill clash, and w hich will need, on the p art o f each individual, no difficult adaptation to a trend o f thought alien to his own. T h e religions o f India, apart from the intricate meta-
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physical speculations intertw ined w ith them (and w hich it is difficult to detach from them w ithout altering them profoundly) seem to have in com m on a m ore or less m arked tendency to ascetic renunciation. It w ould, o f course, be easy to find texts in w hich the im portance o f life and action in the w orld is stressed to the utmost. But the ultím ate goal remains to transcend in d ivid u ality; to drow n personal consciousness in the realisation o f an unnam eable Infinite, beyond all im aginable thought or even feeling. I f not ascetic life, at least an ascetic outlook on life, an awareness o f the transience and therefore o f the inanity o f the visible w orld, is com m ended at every stage o f m an’s evolution. A n d it is this, perhaps, above all, th at makes it so difficult for most Westerners to grasp the essence o f Indian religión. T h ey understand the H indú (or Buddhist) point o f view , intelle ctu ally ; they cannot really make it theirs, for their ou t look on life and on the visible w orld is quite different. T h e y m ay, for instance, accept the doctrine o f reincarnation— that basic b elief o f the East. But they w ill find it hard, in general, to desire not to be reborn as individuáis. It is per haps only in the higher stages o f mystic experience th at the tw o ideáis o f salvation in eternal life and o f “ deliverance” from all individual existence meet and m erge into each other. But that experience is beyond most people’s reach. W e therefore think that it is difficult to m ake the East— nam ely, the spiritual sons o f In d ia — and the W est— the spiritual sons o f W est A sia and G reece— m eet on purely Eastern religious grounds. T h e com m on faith in w hich the two can w alk hand in hand is to be sought elsewhere. W h y not try to revive the forsaken R eligión o f the D isk am ong the elite o f all countries, and make it the basis o f the new spiritual order uniting East and W est ? I f one takes “ the W est” in the broad sense that w e have given to that w ord, then A kh n aton ’s T ea ch in g seems, as we have stated above, the one product o f the W estern m ind that can stand in parallel w ith the great teachings o f Ind ia, both for its lofty conception o f the Energy-w ithin-the-D isk— h ard ly different from the central idea o f the Gayairi mantra o f the H indus— and for the love o f all living creatures w hich it implies.
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Far from looking upon it as anythin g alien to her own religious genius, India could therefore see in it another p roof o f that essential oneness in m an ’s highest inspiration, w hich she has never ceased to proclaim through the m outh o f her greatest sons; som ething so akin, indeed, to her ow n oldest recorded contribution to religious thought that some authors1 have hastily supposed it to be a result o f IndoA ryan influences upon its Promoter. O n the other hand, it differs from the great Eastem teachings o f w orld-wide scope precisely in that it is not a teaching o f renunciation. It emphasises the jo y o f life, the sweetness o f sunshine to all beings, the loveliness o f the visible w orld. A n d the only few lines through w hich w e can hope to form an idea o f its Founder’s own conception o f the hereafter express a joyous confidence in the com ing o f a new individual life, presupposing even, perhaps, some sort o f subtle corporeality. In this attitude o f his to personal existence and to the beautiful w orld o f forms and colours w hich he transcends w ithout ceasing to feel their infinite valué, A khnaton remains a child o f the W est, w hom the W est can understand. It seems difficult indeed to find a historie figure uniting, to the same degree as he, the com plem entary qualities o f w hat w e m ay cali the two poles o f hum an p erfection : uncom prom ising logic, and boundless love; rationality, and the intuition o f the divin e; the sm iling serenity o f G reek wisdom, and the fiery earnestness o f the East; the love o f glorious life in flesh and blood and, at the same time, the tranquil indifference o f the saint to every form o f w orldly success. No man deserves m ore than he the double hom age o f the tw o great sections o f m an kin d : the undivided adm iration o f the W est; the respect o f the East. A n d the one pow erful country o f the w orld in w hich dynastic Sun-worship is still to-day the State-religion— Ja p an — could hard ly fail to recognise the supreme beauty o f a nature-loving, Sun-centred T each in g, preached by a king o f one o f the oldest solar dynasties o f the past. A m ong the W estern cults, oíd and new, the R eligión o f the D isk 1 Sir Wallis Budgc: Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egypltan Monothtism (Edit. 1923), pp. 113, and following.
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m íght perhaps be the one w hich, i f only better know n, w ould appeal to the heart o f that proud nation, stirring in it, beyond and above its age-long devotion to sym bols o f national G odhead, a holy fervour towards the truly universal Sun, G od o f all life. A A A In Jan u ary, 1907, a skeleton— all that rem ained o f the w orld ’s first rationalist and oldest Prince o f Peace— was discovered b y A rthur W eigall and A yrton in a tom b in the royal necrópolis near the ruins o f Thebes. A t the foot o f the coffin was inscribed the prayer, previously quoted, most probab ly composed b y the dead king himself, in praise o f the O ne G od for the sake o f W hom he had lost everyth in g.1 O n the top o f the coffin were the ñam e and titles o f the P h ara o h : “ The bcautiful Prince, the Chosen-one of the Sun, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Living in Truth, Lord of the Two Lands, Akhnaton, the beautiful Child of the living Aton, whose ñame shall live for ever and ever.” T h e ñam e had been erased, but the titles were sufficient to reconstruct the inscription in its whole. T h e tom b had once been that o f A kh n ato n ’s m other; and the body o f the young Pharaoh had been brought there from A khetaton, after the desertion o f the sacred C ity by the E gyp tian court, under T utankham en, and laid next to the remains o f the deceased queen. But soon after, the priests o f A m on, restored to pow er, had found it proper to rem ove Q ueen T iy ’s m um m y to another p lace; and A kh n aton ’s body, w rapped in its double sheets o f puré gold, had been left alone in the sepulchre. C entury after century it had rem ained there, forgotten. A n d as the priests had not cared to seal the entrance o f the lonely cham ber properly, the 1 " I breathe the swect breath that comes forth from T h y m outh; I behold T h y beauty every day. It is m y dcsire that I m ay hear T h y swect voice, even in the N orth wind, that m y limbs m ay be rejuvenated with life, through love o f T h ee. G ive me T h y hands holding T h y spirit, that I m ay receive it and live by it. C ali T h o u upon m y ñam e unto etem ity, and it shall never fail.” (Q uoted in C hap ter V , p. 13a.)
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dampness o f the air had penetrated it and had slow ly caused the em balm ed flesh to decay. So that, after three thousand and three hundred years, w hen hum an eyes once more beheld the youn g king w ho had sung the glory o f life, nothing was left o f his m ortal form but dry bones. T h e discovery was a subject o f discussion am ong scholars for some time. A p art from that, it rem ained unnoticed. A fter exam ining the skeleton, Professor Elliot Sm ith declared that the Pharaoh could not have been m ore than tw enty-eight or twenty-nine w hen he died. A learned G erm án scholar, Professor Sethe, supposing him to have been older, doubted that the bones w ere actu ally his. A great deal was w ritten about the m atter, until it was practically proved that they w ere.1 A rth u r W eigall, a few years later, published his beautiful book, The Life and Times o f Akhnaton, in w hich he asserts him self as a genuine adm irer o f the Pharaoh and o f his Teachin g. But no such interest as was roused, in 1922, b y L ord C arnarvon’s discovery o f the tom b o f Tutankham en, was stirred am ong the public at large. Th ere were no articles w ritten for la y people in the Sunday editions o f the daily papers about the most perfect m an w hom the W estern w orld had produced; no rom án tic history for popular consum ption carne forth overnight; no lectures were given in literary and sem i-literary circles; no tea-table talk took place around the P haraoh’s ñam e. For little h ad been found o f those treasures w hich impress the im agination o f crow ds: no jew els (save a beautiful golden vulture, w ith wings outstretched ); no gem s; no gilded fu rn itu re; nothing but the skeleton o f a god-like m an w ho h ad died, rejected and cursed, thirty-three hundred years before. Y e t that m an was the one the w orld h ad been unconsciously seeking all the time, through centuries o f m oral unrest, disillusionm ent and failure.^ A A
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1 J . D . S. Pendlebury {Tcll el-Amanta, E d it. 1935, pp. 31-32) still m aintains, however, that A khnaton’s m um m y was p robably destroyed by his enemies, and that the remains found by A rthu r W eigall in 1907 were therefore not his.
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Confident in their suddenly re-acquired pow er, and m addened b y the jo y o f revenge, the priests o f A m on had decided to w ipe out every trace o f A kh n aton ’s m em ory for ever. T h e temples o f the various gods w ere restored and their cult reinstalled in all its former splendour. A n d a curse was proclaim ed throughout the land against him w ho had dared to forsake the traditional path and preach the W a y o f the O ne G od. L et us rem em ber the hour o f his defeat. L et us think o f the solemn Service in the great tem ple o f A m on, reopened to the national cu lt; let us picture to ourselves the huge affiuence o f pilgrim s from all parts o f the em pire, assembled there to see the oíd order begin a g a in ; to hear, as before, the oíd prayers and the oíd songs in honour o f the god o f Thebes — o f the god o f E gyp t— w ho h ad made E gyp t great, and who w ould have helped her to rem ain so, had it not been for the “ apostate” king, w ho had risen against h im ; let us im agine the smoke and fragrance o f incense, the music o f the holy instruments am plified through the successive halls o fg ra n ite ; the fíame o f the sacrifice, reflected upon the dusky faces, and upon the golden hieroglyphics shining in the darkness in praise o f A m on, king o f gods. A n d in the midst o f all this, echoing from hall to hall, telling the w orld o f that d ay and the w orld to com e that the “ crim inal o f A khetaton” had been vanquished, and that E gyp t was herself once m ore, the song o f trium ph and o f h a te : “ Woe to him who assails thee! Thy city endures, but he who assailed thee falls.” the song o f the victorious crow d led by its cunning shepherds — o f the N ation, o f all nations; o f the average m an, w alking in the footprints o f his fathers— over the dead body o f H im W ho, being one w ith the Sun, w alked in His own lig h t; o f the divine In d iv id u a l: “The abode of him who assailed thee is in darkness, but the rest of the earth is in light. . . .” In that crow d from all parts o f the em pire, there were men w ho had known K in g A khnaton in the days o f his g lo r y ; men
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who had received from him gifts in gold and silver, and to w hom he had spoken kind words, and on w hom he had relied, believing them to be faithful. B ut not one o f them stirred as he heard the frenzied hym n o f hate. T h e priests o f A m on had w hat they w anted. T h e w orld ob eyed them — not H im . A n d it has continued obeyin g them ever since, cherishing its m anifold superstitions and p ayin g hom age to its tribal gods. T o the present day, no m an has yet raised his voice and openly challenged their trium ph in the ñam e o f the C h ild o f L ig h t w hom they persecuted beyond death. But there is one thing that the priests could not do, and that was to keep the w orld from groping in search o f the dream — or the reality— for w hich he h ad lived. T h e y could not stop the evolution o f the spirit, ñor put an end to the quest o f truth. W hile A kh n aton ’s m em ory was rap idly being effaced, the quasi-universality o f Sun-worship was a fact. H ow ever w anting were the different conceptions o f the Sun held in different countries, still it was to the fiery D isk that all men rendered praise, in some w ay or the other, justifying the words o f the inspired king. A n d no forcé on earth could keep that unanim ity from m eaning w hat it did. A n d as time passed, the better men o f the W estern world began to feel the lim itations o f their m an-m ade religions; to crave for a faith that should be founded solely upon the facts o f existence; a faith that should include the w hole scheme o f life, and not m an alone, w ithin its scope; a faith that should also find its practical application in questions o f international interest (m ainly in the question o f conquest and war) no less than in the prívate behaviour o f individuáis; and at the same time, a faith that should be simple, extrem ely sim ple— the w orld is tired o f intricate m etaphysics, o f sterile m ental p lay centred around ideas that correspond to nothing im por tant in livin g life. In other words, as one im perfect creed after another rose and thrived, and d ecayed in its turn, leaving behind it disillusionm ent and doubt and m oral sickness, the better men have been unknow ingly seeking for the lost truth preached by K in g A khnaton. D eprived o f ñam e and fam e and o f the love o f men, the
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royal youth lay in the desecrated tom b in w hich his enemies had put his body, w hile centuries rolled on. A n d no one knew that the light that the best ones were still seeking was his light. T h e discovery o f his bones was no m ore noticed than any other archaeological discovery. In all appearance, his persecutors still held their sway. O n ly they could not silence the yearning o f W estern consciousness for a truly rational religión in tune with life, uniting the scicntific spirit to all-em bracing love. Ñ or could they suppress the need o f the w hole w orld for a perm anent understanding o f East and W est, on the basis o f an extrem ely simple faith in w hich the two could recognise the expression o f their com plem entary ideáis. T h e discovery o f A kh n aton ’s remains, thirty-seven years ago, was h ard ly spoken of, save in very restricted scholarly circles. But times were already beginning to ripen for the recognition o f his T each in g as the Gospel o f a new and better w orld— for his long-delayed trium ph. Sir Flinders Petrie had proclaim ed the eternal actuality o f the R eligión o f the D isk in the early eighteen-nineties. Less than ten years later,1 one o f the greatest artists o f the m odern W est, the G reek poet, Kostis Palam as, referring to the unending conflict betw een the Pagan and the Christian spirit— the conflict at the centre o f European culture— had w ritten: "G agO y ’ fiéga, x a l da ócóoexE xa %¿Q<-a oag, ’ E dvixol x a l r a k ik a io i, ávoixxofiáxei;, noxiofiévoi ró fioxávi rfjg xa (pavxáofiaxa Oá dfjxe aá cpavxáafiaxa x a l d3 djihiiOEXE xa x¿Qia, o n ' Saa f o w r á xqaxr¡OExe x i ’ éastg ! . . 1 T h e poem was composed, as the author him self says ¡n his preface, between 1899 and igo6. 1 “ A day will com e when you will wallt hand in hand, Pagans and Christians, with your eyes open, nourished with the herb o f Life. Fantasiej w ill appear to you as fantasies, and you w ill stretch out your hands, so that, o f all that is vital, you , too, m ight hold something. . .
(From The Tuielve Discoursts o f the Gypsy— 'O J ü j óexáXoyo; rou /V rou 2nd Edition, Athens, ig a i, p. 84.)
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H e did not suggest w hat p articular T each in g could supersede the conflicting wisdoms, and make them appear as “ fantasies,” as “ illusions” to their followers. A n d w e do not know if he was at all acquainted w ith A kh n aton ’s religión. But his verses are none the less prophetic. T h e y express the increasing awareness o f the W estern w orld that the time has com e for the trium ph o f some true faith o f life w hich w ill give it, in one whole, all that the A thenian m iracle— the m iracle o f reason and beauty— and the equally beautiful “ folly o f the Cross” — the m iracle o f love as the W est knows it— have given it separately, and still more. W e believe that no faith could respond to this expectation better than A kh n aton ’s worship o f Cosm ic E nergy, Essence o f Life, through the beautiful Disk o fo u r Parent Star in w hich It radiates as light and heat. A fter killing the R eligión o f the Disk and thrusting their country back into the path that was to lead it to slow decay, the priests o f E gyp t believed that A khnaton and his T e a c h ing were dead for ever. T h e y were sure no m an w ould ever rise in favour o f him w hom they h ad condem ned, and they departed content from the great tem ple w here his doom had been solemnised. A n d w e have seen that, for three thousand three hundred years, their unholy verdict held good. O ne can think o f no other historie instance o f hatred being successful for such a long time. But the hour has com e for the age-old injustice to end. It is the duty o f the m odern m an to challenge the ju d gm en t o f the priests o f the outdated local deity, and to undo w hat they have d o n e ; to answer their hym n o f hate, and to proclaim the glory o f the most lovable o f m e n ; to teach the children that are grow ing up to hold his ñam e sacred, to look up to him as to their own beloved K in g and, above all, to live in accordance w ith his T each in g o f life. M a y we consider th at d u ty also as a privilege— perhaps the greatest privilege o f our troubled times— and m ay w e feel proud to accom plish it w ithout failure. A n d then, even as the Sun reappears in the East after a long night, A khnaton, His H igh-priest and Son, “ w ho carne forth from His substance,” shall rise again from the dust o f dead history, in
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youth and beauty, and live in the consciousness o f our times and o f all times to com e, and rule the hearts and lives o f the elite o f the w orld, “ till the swan shall turn black and the crow turn w hite, till the hills rise up to travel and the deeps rush into the rivers.” Calcutta, May 1942— New Delhi, 2\th January, 1945.
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T h y a p p e a rin g is b e a u tifu l in th e h o rizo n o f h e a v e n , T h e L iv in g A te n 1, the b e g in n in g o f l if e ; T h o u risest in th e h o rizo n o f th e east, T h o u fillest e v e ry la n d w ith th y b e a u ty . T h o u a r t v e r y b e a u tifu l, b r illia n t a n d e x a lte d a b o v e e a rth , T h y b e a m s cn com p ass a ll lan d s w h ic h th ou h a st m a d e . T h o u a r t th e su n , th o u settest th eir b o u n d s, T h o u b in d est th em w ith th y lo ve . T h o u a rt a fa r o ff, b u t th y beam s a re u p o n th e la n d ; T h o u a rt on h ig h , b u t th e d a y passes w ith th y g o in g . T h o u restest in th e w estern h o rizo n o f h e a v e n , A n d th e la n d is in d arkn ess like th e d e a d . T h e y lie in th eir houscs, th eir h e a d s a re c o v e re d , T h e ir b r e a th is sh u t u p , a n d e y e sees n o t to e y e ; T h e ir th in gs a re ta k e n , eve n fro m u n d e r th eir h e a d s, a n d th e y kn o w it n ot. E v e r y lio n c o m e th fo rth fro m his d e n , A n d a ll th e serp en ts th en b ite ; T h e n ig h t sh in es w ith its ligh ts, T h e la n d lies in sile n c e ; F o r h e w h o m a d e th em is in his h o rizo n . T h e la n d b rig h te n s, for th ou risest in the h o rizo n , S h in in g as th e A te n in th e d a y ; T h e d arkn ess flees, fo r th ou g iv e st th y b eam s, B o th la n d s a re r e jo ic in g e v e ry d a y . M e n a w a k e a n d sta n d u p o n th eir feet, F o r th o u liftest th em u p ; T h e y b a th e th eir lim b s, th e y c lo th e th em selves, T h e y lift th eir h a n d s in a d o r a tio n o f th y risin g, T h r o u g h o u t th e la n d th e y d o th eir la b o u rs.
1 The ñame o f the Solar Disk is written Aten by some authors, such as Sir Flinders Petrie, Sir YVallis Budgc, Griffiih, etc., and Alón by others, such as A. Weigall and J. Breasted. All through this book we have written Alón.
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T h e c a ttle a ll rest in th eir pastu res, W h e re g r o w th e trees a n d h e rb s; T h e b irds fly in th eir h a u n ts, T h e ir w in g s a d o r in g th y ka, A ll th e flocks le a p u p o n th eir feet, T h e sm a ll b ird s liv e w h e n th o u risest u p o n th em . T h e ships g o fo rth b o th n o rth a n d so u th , F o r e v e ry w a y op en s a t th y risin g. T h e fishes in th e riv e r sw im u p to g r e e t th ee, T h y b eam s a re w ith in th e d e p th o f th e g r e a t sea. T h o u cre a te st c o n ce p tio n i r w o m e n , m a k in g th e issue o f m a n k in d ; T h o u m a k est the son to liv e in th e b o d y o f his m o th er, T h o u q u ie te st h im th a t h e sh o u ld n o t m o u rn , N u rs in g h im in th e b o d y , g iv in g th e sp irit th a t a ll his g r o w th m a y liv e . W h e n h e c o m e th fo rth o n th e d a y o f his b irth , T h o u o p e n e st his m o u th to sp e a k , th o u d o est w h a t h e needs. T h e sm all b ird in th e e g g , so u n d in g w ith in th e sh ell, T h o u g iv e st to it b rea th w ith in th e e g g , T o g iv e life to th a t w h ic h th o u m akest. I t g a th ers its e lf to b r e a k fo rth fro m th e e g g , I t c o m e th fro m th e e g g , a n d c h irp s w ith a ll its m ig h t, I t ru n n e th o n its feet, w h e n it has c o m e forth . H o w m a n y a re the th in gs w h ic h th o u hast m a d e ! T h o u c re a te st th e la n d b y th y w ill, th o u a lo n e, W ith p eo p les, herds a n d flocks, E v e r y th in g on th e fa c e o f th e e a r th th a t w a lk e th o n its feet, E v e r y th in g in th e a ir th a t flieth w ilh its w in gs. In th e hills fro m S y r ia to K u s h , a n d th e p la in o f E g y p t, T h o u g iv e st to e v e ry on e his p la c e , th ou fram est th eir Iives, T o e v e ry on e his b e lo n g in g s, re c k o n in g his le n g th o f d a y s ; T h e ir to n gu es a re d iv e rse in th eir sp eech , T h e ir n atu re s in th e c o lo u r o f th eir skin. A s a d iv id e r th o u d iv id e st th e stra n g e p eop les. W h e n th o u h a st m a d e th e N ile b e n ca th th e earth , T h o u b rin g est it a c c o r d in g to th y w ill to m a k e th e p e o p le to liv e : E v e n as th ou hast fo rm ed th em u n to thysclf, T h o u a rt th ro u g h o u t th eir lo rd , e v e n in th eir w eakn ess. O lo rd o f th e la n d th a t risest for th em .
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A te n o f th e d a y , re v e re d b y e v e r y d is ta n t la n d , th o u m a k e st th eir life, T h o u p la ce st a N ile in h e a v e n th a t it m a y ra in u p o n th em , T h a t it m a y m a k e w a te rs u p o n th e h ills lik e the g r e a t sea, W a tc r in g th eir ficlds a m o n g st th eir cities. H o w e x c e lle n t a re th y w a y s! O L o rd o f e te rn ity , th e N ile in H e a v e n is fo r th e stra n g e p e o p le , A n d a ll w ild beasts th a t g o u p o n th e ir feet. T h e N ile th a t c o m e th fro m b c lo w th e e a r th is fo r th e la n d o f E g y p t, T h a t it m a y n ou rish e v e ry field. T h o u sh in est a n d th e y liv e b y thee. T h o u m a k est th e seasons o f th e y e a r to c re a te a ll th y w o rk s; T h e w in te r m a k in g th em c o o l, th e su m m er g iv in g w a rm th . T h o u m a k est the fa r - o ff h e a v e n , th a t th o u m a y est rise in it, T h a t th o u m a y est see a ll th a t th o u m a d e st w h e n th o u w a st a lo n e. R is in g in th y form s as the liv in g A te n , S h in in g a fa r o f f a n d re tu rn in g , T h e v illa g e s, the cities, a n d th e tribes, o n th e ro a d a n d th e riv e r, A ll eyes see th ee b e fo re th em , T h o u a rt th e A te n o f th e d a y o v e r a ll th e la n d . T h o u a r t in m y h e a r t, th e re is n o n e w h o k n o w e th th ee, c x c e p tin g th y son N c fe r . k h e p e ru . ra . u a . en . r a ; T h o u cau sest th at h e sh o u ld h a v e u n d e rsta n d in g , in th y w a y s a n d in th y m ig h t. T h e la n d is in th y h a n d , e v e n as th ou h a st m a d e th e m ; T h o u shinest a n d th e y liv e , a n d w h e n th o u settest th e y d ie ; F o r b y th ee th e p e o p le liv e , th ey look on th y e x c e lle n c ie s u n til th y se ttin g ; T h e y la y d o w n a ll th eir la b o u rs w h e n th o u settest in the w est, A n d w h e n th ou risest, th ey g r o w . . . . S in c e th e d a y th a t th o u la id e st th e fo u n d a tio n s o f th e e a r th , T h o u raisest th em u p for th y son w h o carn e forth fro m th y su b sta n ce , T h e k in g o f E g y p t, liv in g in T r u t h , lo rd o f b o th la n d s, N e fe r . k h e p e ru . ra . u a . en . ra , S o n o f th e su n , liv in g in T r u t h , A k h e n a te n , g r e a t in his d u r a tio n ; A n d th e g r e a t ro y a l w ife , his b e lo v e d , la d y o f b o th land s, N e fe r . n eferu . A te n N e fe rt . iti, liv in g a n d ñ o u rish in g fo r e ve r e te rn a lly .
Translated by Griffith, quoted by Sir Flinders Petrie in A H istory o f E gypt (Edit. 1899), Vol. II, pp. 215-218.
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A H y m n o f P raise to th e liv in g H o ru s o f th e T w o H o riz o n s , w h o re jo ic e th in the h o rizo n in his ñ a m e o f “ S h u , w h o -is -in -th e -A te n ” D isk ), th e G iv e r o f L ife fo r e v e r a n d e v e r, b y th e K in g w h o liv e th in T r u t h , th e L o rd o f th e T w o L a n d s , N e f e r - k h e p e r u - R a U a - e n - R a , S o n o f R a , w h o liv e th in T r u t h , L o r d o f the C ro w n s, A a k h u n a t e n , g r e a t in the d u ra tio n o f his life, G iv e r o f L ife for e v e r a n d e v e r. (H e saith ) T h o u risest glo rio u sly , O th ou L iv in g A te n , L o r d o f E te r n ity ! T h o u a rt sp a rk lin g (or c o ru sc a tin g ), b e a u tifu l, (an d ) m ig h ty . T h y lo v e is m ig h ty a n d g r e a t . . . th y lig h t, o f d iverse c o lo u rs, le a d e th c a p tiv o (or, b c w itch e th ) a ll faces. T h y skin sh in cth b r ig h tly to m a k e a ll h e a rts to liv e . T h o u fillest th e T w o L a n d s w ith th y lo v e , O th ou g o d , w h o d id (st) b u ild (th y)self. M a k e r o f e v e r y la n d , C r e a to r o f w h a tso e v e r th ere is u p o n it, ( viz .) m e n a n d w o m e n , c a ttle , beasts o f e v e r y k in d , a n d trees o f e v e r y k in d th a t g r o w on th e la n d . T h e y liv e w h e n th o u sh in est u p o n th em . T h o u a r t th e m o th e r (an d ) fa th e r o f w h a t th o u h a st m a d e ; th eir eyes, w h e n th o u risest, tu rn th eir g a z e u p o n th ee. T h y rays a t d a w n lig h t u p the w h o le e a rth . E v e r y h e a rt b e a te th h ig h a t th e sigh t o f th ee , (for) th o u risest as th eir L o rd . T h o u settest in th e w e stern h o rizo n o f h e a v e n , th e y lie d o w n in th e sa m e w a y as those w h o a re d e a d . T h e ir h e a d s a re w r a p p e d u p in c lo th , th eir n ostrils a re b lo c k ed , u n til th y risin g ta k e th p la c e a t d a w n in th e eastern h o rizo n o f h e a v e n . T h e ir h a n d s th en a re lifte d u p in a d o r a tio n o f th y K a ; th o u v ivifiest h ea rts w ith th y b e a u ties (or, b e n efic en t a cts ), w h ic h a re life. T h o u sen d est fo rth th y b ea m s, (an d ) e v e r y la n d is in festiv a l. S in g in g m e n , sin g in g w o m e n (an d ) ch o ru s m en m a k e jo y f u l noises in th e H a ll o f th e H o u se o f th e B e n b e n O b e lis k , (an d ) in e v e ry te m p le in (the c ity o f) A a k h u t-A tc n , th e S e a t o f T r u t h , w h e r e w ith th y h e a rt is satisfíed. W ith in it a re d e d ic a te d offerin g s o f rich fo o d (? ) . T h y son is sa n ctifie d (or, c e r e m o n ia lly p u ré ) to p e rfo rm th e th in gs w h ic h th o u w ille st, O th o u A te n , w h e n h e sh o w eth h im se lf in th e a p p o in te d processions. E v e r y c re a tu re th a t th o u hast m a d e sk ip p e th to w a rd s th ee, th y h o n o u re d son (re jo ice th ), his h e a rt is g la d , O th o u L iv in g A te n , w h o (ap p earest) in h e a v e n e v e ry d a y . H e h a th b r o u g h t fo rth his h o n o u re d son , U a - e n - r a , like his o w n fo rm , n e v e r ce a sin g so to d o . T h e son o f R a su p p o rte th his b e a u ties (o r b e n efic en t a cts). N e f e r - k h e p e r u - r a U a - e n - r a (saith) I a m th y son, sa tisfy in g th ee, e x a ltin g th y ñ am e. T h y stre n g th (an d) th y p o w e r a re e stab lish ed in m y h e a rt. T h o u a r t th e L iv in g D isk , e te rn ity is th in e e m a n a tio n (or, a ttr ib u te ). T h o u h a st m a d e th e h e a ve n s to b e re m ó te so th a t th ou m ig h te st sh in e th ere in a n d g a z e u p o n e v e ry th in g th a t th ou h a st m a d e . T h o u th y s e lfa r t A lo n e , b u t th ere a re m illio n s
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o f (po w ers o f) life in th ee to m a k e th em (i.e., th y creatu res) liv e . B re a th o f life is it to (their) n ostrils to see th y b eam s. B u d s b u rst in to flo w e r (an d) th e p la n ts w h ic h g r o w on th e w a ste la n d s sen d u p shoots a t th y risin g ; th e y d rin k th em selves d r u n k before th y fa c e. A ll th e beasts frisk a b o u t on th eir fe e t; a ll th e fe a th ered fo w l rise u p fro m th eir nests a n d fla p th eir w in g s w ith j o y , a n d c irc le ro u n d in p ra ise o f th e L iv in g A te n . . . .
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A H ym n o f praise o f H er-aakhuti, the livin g one, exalted in the Eastern H orizon in his ñam e o f Shu-w ho-is-in-the-A ten, w ho liveth for ever and ever, the livin g and great A ten , he w ho is in the Set-Festival, the L ord o f the C ircle, the Lord o f the Disk, the L ord o f heaven , the L ord o f earth, the L ord o f the House o f the A ten in A ak h u t-A ten , (of) the K in g o f the South and the N orth, w ho liveth in T ru th , L o rd o f the T w o Lands {i.e., E gyp t), N e f e r - k h e p e r u - r a U a -e n -r a , the son o f R a , w ho liveth in T ru th , L ord o f C row ns, A a k h u n - A t e n , grea t in the period o f his life (and of) the great royal w om an (or wife) w hom he loveth, L a d y o f the T w o Lands, N e fe r - N e f e r u - A t e n N e f e r t i t i , w ho liveth in health and youth for ever and ever. H e s a ith : T h y risin g (is) b e a u tifu l in th e h o rizo n o f h e a v e n , O A te n , o r d a in e r o f life. T h o u d o st sh o o t u p in th e h o riz o n o f th e E a st, th o u fillest e v e ry la n d w ith th y b e n eficen ce. T h o u a r t b e a u tifu l a n d g r e a t a n d sp a rk lin g , a n d e x a lte d a b o v e e v e ry la n d . T h y a rro w s [i.e., ra ys) e n v e lo p {i.e., p e n e tra te ) e v e ry w h e re a ll th e la n d s w h ic h th o u h a st m a d e . T h o u a r t as R a . T h o u b rin g est (th em ) a c c o r d in g to th eir n u m b e r, th o u su b d u est th em for th y b e lo v e d son. T h o u th y s e lf a rt a fa r o ff, b u t th y b eam s a re u p o n th e e a r th ; th o u a r t in th eir faces, th e y (ad m ire) th y g o in g s. T h o u settest in th e h o rizo n o f the w est, th e e a r th is in d a rkn ess, in the fo rm o f d e a th . M e n lie d o w n in a b o o th w r a p p e d u p in clo th s, on e eye ca n n o t see its fe llo w . I f a ll th eir possessions, w h ic h a re u n d e r th eir h ea d s, b e c a rrie d a w a y , th e y p e rc e iv e it not. E v e r y lio n e m e rg e th fro m his la ir, a ll th e c re e p in g th in gs b ite , d a r k ness (is) a w a r m re tre a t. T h e la n d is in sile n c e . H e w h o m a d e th e m h a th set in his h o rizo n . T h e e a r th b e c o m e th lig h t, th o u sh oo test u p in th e h o rizo n , sh in in g in th e A te n in th e d a y , th o u sca tterest th e darkn ess. T h o u sen d est o u t th in e a rro w s (i.e., ra y s ) , th e T w o L a n d s m a k e fe s tiv a l, (m en ) w a k e u p , sta n d u p o n th eir fee t, it is th o u w h o raisest th em u p . ( T h e y ) w a sh th eir m e m b ers, th e y ta ke (th e ir a p p a re l), a n d a r r a y th em selves th ere in , th eir h a n d s a re (stretch ed o u t) in p ra ise a t th y risin g, th ro u g h o u t th e la n d th e y d o th eir w orks. B easts a n d c a ttle o f a ll kin ds se td e d o w n u p o n th e p a stu res, sh ru b s a n d v e g e ta b le s flou rish , th e fe a th e re d fo w l fly a b o u t o v e r th eir m arshes,
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th eir fea th ers p ra isin g th y K a . A ll th e c a ttle rise u p on th eir legs, cre atures th a t fly a n d in sects o f a ll kin d s sp rin g in to life w h e n th o u risest u p on th em . T h e bo ats d r o p d o w n a n d sail u p the riv e r, lik e w ise e v e r y ro a d o p en eth (or sh o w e th itself) a t th y risin g, th e fish in th e riv e r sw im to w a rd s th y fa c e , th y b eam s a re in th e d e p th s o f th e G r e a t G r e e n (i.e., th e M e d ite rr a n e a n a n d R e d S eas). T h o u m a k est o ffsp rin g to ta k e fo rm in w o m e n , c r e a tin g seed in m e n . T h o u m a k est th e son to liv e in th e w o m b o f his m o th er, m a k in g h im to be q u ie t th a t h e c rie th not; th o u a r t a n u rse in th e w o m b , g iv in g b r e a th to v iv ify th a t w h ic h h e h a th m a d e . (W h en ) h e d r o p p e th fro m th e w o m b . . . o n th e d a y o f his b ir th (he) o p e n e th his m o u th in th e (o rd in a ry ) m a n n e r, th o u p ro vid est his su sten an ce. T h e y o u n g b ir d in th e e g g sp e a k e th in th e sh e ll, th o u g iv e st b r e a th to h im in sid e it to m a k e h im to liv e . T h o u m a k e st fo r h im his m a tu re form so th a t h e c a n c ra c k th e sh ell (b e in g ) in sid e th e e g g . H e c o m e th forth fro m th e e g g , h e c h irp e th w ith a ll his m ig h t, w h e n h e h a th co m e fo rth fro m it (th e eg g ) h e w a lk e th o n his tw o feet. O h o w m a n y a re th e th in gs w h ic h th ou h a st m a d e ! T h e y a re h id d e n fro m th e fa c e , O th o u O n e G o d , lik e w h o m th ere is n o o th e r. T h o u d id st c re a te th e e a r th b y th y h e a rt (or w ill) , th o u a lo n e e xistin g, m en a n d w o m e n , c a ttle , beasts o f e v e r y k in d th a t a re u p o n th e e a rth , a n d th a t m o v e u p o n fe e t (or le g s), a ll th e cre atu re s th a t a re in the sk y a n d th a t fly w ith th eir w in gs, (an d ) th e deserts o f S y r ia a n d K e sh (N u b ia ) a n d th e L a n d o f E g y p t. T h o u settest e v e ry p erson in his p la c e . T h o u p ro v id est th eir d a ily food , e v e ry m a n h a v in g th e p o rtio n a llo tte d to h im , (th o u ) do st c o m p u te the d u ra tio n o f his life. T h e ir to n gu es a re d iffe re n t in sp e e ch , th eir c h a ra c te ristics (or form s) a n d lik e w ise th eir skins (in c o lo u r), g iv in g d istin g u ish in g m ark s to th e d w elle rs in foreign land s. T h o u m a k est H a p i (the N ile ) in th e T u a t ( U n d e r w o r ld ) , th o u b rin g est it w h e n th o u w ishest to m a k e m o rta ls to liv e , in a sm u ch as th o u hast m a d e th e m fo r th yself, th eir L o r d w h o do st su p p o rt th em to th e u tterm ost, O th o u L o r d o f e v e ry la n d , th o u sh in est u p o n th e m , O A t e n o f th e d a y , th o u g r e a t on e o f m a jesty . T h o u m a k est th e life o f a ll re m ó te la n d s. T h o u settest a N ile in h e a v e n , w h ic h c o m e th d o w n to th em . I t m a k e th a flo o d on th e m o u n ta in s lik e the G r e a t G re e n S e a , it m a k e th to b e w a te re d th e ir field s in th eir v illa g e s . H o w b e n e fic e n t a re th y p la n s, O L o r d o f E t e r n it y ! A N ile in h e a v e n a rt th ou fo r th e d w e lle rs in th e fo re ig n la n d s (o r d eserts), a n d for a ll th e beasts o f th e d esert th a t g o u p o n fee t (or legs). H a p i (the N ile ) c o m e th fro m th e T u a t for th e la n d o f E g y p t. T h y b e a m s n o u rish e v e r y fie ld ; th o u risest u p (an d) th ey liv e , th e y g e rm in a te fo r thee. T h o u m a k e st th e S easons to d e v e lo p e v e r y th in g th a t th o u h a st m a d e : T h e season o f P e r t (i.e ., N o v e m b e r 16 to M a r c h 16) so th a t th e y m a y refresh th em selves, a n d th e season H e h (i.e ., M a r c h 16 to N o v e m b e r 16)
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in o r d e r to taste th ee . T h o u h a st m a d e th e h e a v e n w h ic h is re m ó te th at th o u m a y est sh in e th ere in a n d lo o k u p o n e v e ry th in g th a t th o u h a st m a d e . T h y b e in g is o n e , th o u sh in est (or, sh oo test u p ) a m o n g th y c re a tu re s as th e L i v i n g A t e n , risin g, sh in in g , d e p a rtin g a fa r o ff, re tu rn in g . T h o u hast m a d e m illio n s o f cre atio n s (or, e vo lu tio n s) fro m th y on e self, (viz.) tow n s a n d cities, v illa g e s, field s, ro ad s a n d rivers. E v e r y e y e (i.e., a ll m en ) b e h o ld e th th ee c o n fro n tin g it. T h o u a r t th e A te n o f th e d a y a t its ze n ith . A t th y d e p a rtu re th in e e y e . . . th o u d id st c re a te th eir faces so th a t th o u m ig h te st n o t see . . . O n e th o u d id st m a k e . . . T h o u a r t in m y h e a rt. T h e r e is n o o th e r w h o k n o w e th th ee e x c e p t th y son N e fe r -k h e p e ru -R a U a - e n - R a . T h o u h a st m a d e h im w is e to u n d e rsta n d th y p la n s (an d ) th y p o w er. T h e e a rth carn e in to b e in g b y th y h a n d , e v e n as th o u hast c re a te d th em (i.e., m e n ). T h o u risest, th e y liv e ; th o u settest, th e y d ie . A s for th ee, th ere is d u ra tio n o f life in th y m em b ers, life is in th ee. (A ll) ey es (g a ze u p o n ) th y b e a u ties u n til th ou settest, (w h en ) a ll la b o u rs a re re lin q u ish ed . T h o u settest in th e W e st, th o u risest, m a k in g to flou rish . . . for th e K in g . E v e r y m a n w h o (sta n d eth o n his) foot, sin ce th o u d id st la y th e fo u n d a tio n o f th e e a rth , th o u h a st ra ise d u p fo r th y son w h o c a m e fo rth fro m th y b o d y , th e K in g o f th e S o u th a n d th e N o r th , L iv in g in T r u t h , L o r d o f C ro w n s, A a k h u n - A te n , g r e a t in th e d u ra tio n o f his life (an d for) th e R o y a l W ife , g r e a t o f M a je s ty , L a d y o f th e T w o L a n d s , N e fe r-n e fe ru -A te n N e fe rtiti, liv in g (an d ) y o u n g fo r e v e r a n d eve r. T r a n s la te d b y S ir E . W a llis B u d g e , in Tutankhamen, Amenism, Atenism, and Egyptian Monotheism. L o n d o n , 1923, p p . 1 1 6 - 1 3 5 .
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T h y d a w n in g is b e a u tifu l in th e h o rizo n o f th e sky, O liv in g A to n , B e g in n in g o f lif e ! W h e n th o u risest in th e E a ste rn h o rizo n , T h o u fillest e v e ry la n d w ith th y b e a u ty . T h o u a r t b e a u tifu l, g r e a t, g litte rin g , h ig h a b o v e e v e ry la n d , T h y ra y s, th e y e n co m p ass th e la n d s, e v e n a ll th a t th o u h a st m a d e . T h o u a r t R e , a n d th o u c a rrie st th em a ll a w a y c a p tiv e ; T h o u b in d est th em b y th y lo ve . T h o u g h th o u a r t fa r a w a y , th y ra ys a re u p o n e a r t h ; T h o u g h th o u a r t o n h ig h , th y fo o tp rin ts a re th e d a y . W h e n th o u settest in th e w e stern h o rizo n o f th e sky, T h e e a r th is in darkn ess lik e th e d e a d ; T h e y slee p in th eir ch a m b e rs, T h e ir h ead s a re w r a p p e d u p , T h e ir nostrils a re sto p p ed , A n d n o n e seeth th e o th e r, W h ile a ll th eir th in g s a re stolen
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W h ic h a re u n d e r th eir h ea d s, A n d th ey k n o w it not. E v e r y Iion c o m e th fo rth fro m his d e n , A ll serp en ts, th e y stin g. D ark n e ss . . . T h e w o rld is in silen ce, H e th a t m a d e th em resteth in his h o rizo n . B rig h t is th e e a r th w h e n th ou risest in th e h o rizo n . W h e n th ou sh in est as A to n b y d a y T h o u d riv e st a w a y th e darkn ess. W h e n th o u sen d est fo rth th y rays, T h e T w o L a n d s (E g y p t) a re in d a ily festiv ity , A w a k e a n d s ta n d in g u p o n th eir feet W h e n th o u h a st ra ised th em u p . T h e ir lim b s b a th e d , th e y ta ke th eir c lo th in g , T h e ir a rm s u p lifte d in a d o r a tio n to th y d a w n in g . (T h e n ) in a ll th e w o rld th e y d o th eir w o rk . A ll c a ttle rest u p o n th e ir p a stu ra g e , T h e trees a n d th e p la n ts flou rish , T h e b ird s flu tte r in th eir m arshes, T h e ir w in g s u p lifte d in a d o r a tio n to thee. A ll th e sh eep d a n c e u p o n th eir feet, A ll w in g e d th in gs fly, T h e y liv e w h e n th ou hast sh on e u p o n th em . T h e b a rq u e s sa il u p -stre am a n d d o w n -stre a m a lik e. E v e r y h ig h w a y is op en b e c a u se th o u d a w n e st. T h e fish in th e riv e r le a p u p b e fo re th ee. T h y ra y s a r e in th e m id st o f th e g r e a t g ree n sea. C r e a to r o f th e g e rm in w o m a n , M a k e r o f seed in m a n , G iv in g life to th e son in th e b o d y o f his m o th er, S o o th in g h im th a t h e m a y n o t w e e p , N u rse (even ) in th e w o m b , G iv e r o f b r e a th to a n im a te e v e ry on e th a t h e m a k e th ! W h e n h e c o m e th fo rth fro m th e b o d y . . . o n th e d a y o f his b irth , T h o u op en est his m o u th in sp eech , T h o u su p p lie st his necessities. W h e n th e fle d g lin g in th e e g g ch irp s in th e sh ell, T h o u g iv e st h im b re a th th ere in to p re serv e h im a liv e . W h e n th o u hast b r o u g h t h im to geth er T o (the p o in t o f) b u rstin g it in th e e g g , H e c o m e th fo rth fro m th e e g g T o c h irp w ith a ll his m ig h t.
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THE
SUN
H e g o e th a b o u t u p o n his tw o feet W h e n h e h a th c o m e fo rth th erefro m . H o w m a n ifo ld a re th y w o r k s ! T h e y a re h id d e n fro m b e fo re (us), O solé G o d , w h o se p o w ers n o o th e r possesseth. T h o u d id st c re a te th e e a rth a c c o r d in g to th y h e a rt W h ile th o u w a st a lo n e : M e n , a ll c a ttle la rg e a n d sm a ll, A l l th a t a re u p o n th e e a rth , T h a t g o a b o u t u p o n th eir fe e t; (A ll) th a t a re on h ig h , T h a t fly w ith th eir w in gs. T h e fo reign co u n trie s, S y r ia a n d K u s h , T h e la n d o f E g y p t ; T h o u settest e v e ry m a n in to his p la c e , T h o u su p p liest th eir n ecessities. E v e r y on e h as his possessions, A n d his d a y s a re re ck o n ed . T h e ir to n gu es a re d iv e rse in sp eech , T h e ir form s likew ise a n d th eir skins a re d istin gu ish ed . (F or) th o u m a k e st d iffe re n t th e stran gers. T h o u m a k est th e N ile in th e N e th e r W o rld , T h o u b rin g est it as th o u desirest, T o p re serv e a liv e th e p e o p le . F o r th o u h a st m a d e th em fo r th yself, T h e lo rd o f th em a ll, restin g a m o n g th e m ; T h o u lo rd o f e v e ry la n d , w h o risest fo r th em , T h o u S u n o f d a y , g r e a t in m a jesty . A ll th e d is ta n t co u n tries, T h o u m a k est (also) th eir life, T h o u h a st set a N ile in th e s k y ; W h e n it fa lle th for th em , I t m a k e th w a v e s u p o n th e m o u n ta in s, L ik e th e g r e a t g ree n sea, W a te r in g th e fields in th eir tow n s. H o w e x c e lle n t a re th y design s, O lo rd o f e te rn ity ! T h e r e is a N ile in th e sk y fo r th e stra n g ers A n d for th e c a ttle o f e v e r y c o u n try th a t g o u p o n th eir feet. (B u t) th e N ile , it c o m e th fro m th e N e th e r W o r ld fo r E g y p t. T h y ra ys n ou rish e v e r y g a r d e n ; W h e n th o u risest th e y liv e, T h e y g r o w b y th ee. T h o u m a k est th e seasons
HYMNS
OF
AKHNATON
TO
THE
SUN
313
In o r d e r to c re a te a ll th y w o rk : W in te r to b r in g th em coolness, A n d h e a t th a t th e y m a y taste th ee. T h o u d id st m a k e th e d ista n t sk y to rise th ere in , In o rd e r to b e h o ld a ll th a t th o u h a st m a d e , T h o u a lo n e , sh in in g in th y fo rm as liv in g A to n , D a w n in g , g litte rin g , g o in g a fa r a n d re tu rn in g . T h o u m a k est m illio n s o f form s T h r o u g h th y s e lf a lo n e ; C itie s, to w n s, a n d trib es, h ig h w a y s a n d rivers. A ll eyes see th ee b e fo re th em , F o r th o u a r t A to n o f th e d a y o v e r th e e a rth . T h o u a r t in m y h e a rt, T h e r e is n o o th e r th a t k n o w e th th ee S a v e th y son I k h n a to n 1. T h o u h a st m a d e h im wise In th y design s a n d in th y m ig h t. T h e w o rld is in th y h a n d , E v e n as th o u h a st m a d e th em . W h e n th ou h a st risen th e y Iive, W h e n th o u settest, th e y d i e ; F o r th o u a r t le n g th o f life o f th yself, M e n liv e th ro u g h th ee, W h ile (their) eyes a re u p o n th y b e a u ty U n til th o u settest. A ll la b o u r is p u t a w a y W h e n th o u settest in th e w est. T h o u d id st e stab lish th e w o rld , A n d ra ise th em u p for th y son, W h o carn e fo rth fro m th y lim b s, T h e K i n g o f U p p e r a n d L o w e r E g y p t, L iv in g in T r u t h , L o r d o f th e T w o L a n d s , N e fe r -k h e p ru -R e , W a n - R c (Ik h n a to n ), S o n o f R e , liv in g in T r u t h , lo rd o f d ia d em s, Ik h n a to n , w h ose life is lo n g ; (A n d for) th e c h ie f ro y a l w ife , his b e lo v e d , M istress o f th e T w o L a n d s , N e fe r-n e fru -A to n , N o fretete L iv in g a n d flo u rish in g fo r e v e r a n d eve r.
1
T r a n s la te d b y J . H . B re aste d , in Devclopment o f Religión and Thought in Ancient Egypt, C h ic a g o , 19 12 , p p . 3 2 4 -3 2 8 .
The K ing’s ñame is given different spellings by different Egyptologists. Sir Flinders Petrie writes it Akhenaten; Sir Wallis Budgc, Aakhun-Aten; J. H. Breasted, Ikhnaton; and Arthur Weigall, Akhnaton, the spelling which we have adopted in this book.
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Egypt and West Asia in the light o recent discooeries. L o n d o n , 1907. M a s p e r o , G a s tó n
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Apollonius de Tyane. P a ris, 1936. M o r e t , A le x a n d re .
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The N ile and Egyptian Civilisation. L o n d o n , 192 7. N éro m an , D .
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1910 . E b e l i n g , E r ic h
Das Verbum der El-Amame Briefe. (B e itrá g e z u r A ss y rio lo g ie u n d v e r g le ic h e n d e r sem itisch en S p ra c h w issen sch a ft), 1910. G r i f f i t h , F ra n c is L le w e lly n C h a p te rs in S ir F lin d e rs P e tr ie ’s Tell-el- Amama, 1894. (See P e trie.) A k h n a to n ’s L o n g e r H y m n to th e S u n ; T r a n s la tio n in S ir F lin d e rs P e tr ie ’s History o f
EgyPl> V o l.
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K in g , L eo n a rd H. R.
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(See
P e trie.) H a l l , H a r r y R e g in a ld
History o f Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria. L o n d o n , 1906.
The Ancient History o f the Near East, from the earliest times to the Bntlle o f Salamis. L o n d o n , n in th e d it., 1936.
P e t r i e , S ir F lin d ers
W illia m
M a tth e w
Catalogue o f Antiquities from Tellel-Amama, Upper Egypt, e x c a v a te d b y ---------- , e x h ib ite d in L o n d o n , 1893.
Ten Tears o f Digging in Egypt, 1 8 8 1 -1 8 9 1 . 2 n d re v ise d ed ition . L o n d o n , 1893.
Tell-el-Amama (w ith c h a p te rs b y Professor S a y c e , F . L l. G r if fith , a n d F . C . J . S p u rr e ll). 42 p la te s. L o n d o n , 1894. A History o f Egypt, V o l. I I . ( X V I Ith a n d X V I I I th D y n asties.) L o n d o n , 1899.
Religión and Conscience in Ancient Egypt. 2n d e d itio n . L o n d o n , 1920.
Syria and Egypt from the Tell-elAmarna Letters. L o n d o n , 1922.
SON
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Religious Life in Ancient Egypt. L o n d o n , 1924.
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Architeclure.
London,
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Heliopolis, Kafr Ammar Shurafa. L o n d o n , 19 15 .
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S a y c e , A r c h ib a ld H e n r y C h a p te rs in S ir F lin d e rs P e tr ie ’s Tell-el-Amarna. (S ee P e trie.) The Religión o f Ancient Egypt. 2nd e d itio n . E d in b u r g h , 19 13 .
S mith , Sir G rafton Elliot A N o te on th e estim a tio n o f the a g e a tta in e d b y th e p erson w h ose sk eleto n w as fo u n d in th e to m b o f Q u e e n T i y . (See D a v ie s, T . , The Tomb o f
Queen Tiy.) The Royal Mummies. (S e rv ice des a n tiq u ité s d e l ’E g y p te . C a t a lo g u e g é n é ra l des a n tiq u ités d u M u s é e d u C a ir e . V o l. 59. E d . 19 12 .)
Sm ith, Sir G . E lliot, and D a w s o n , W arren R . Egyptian Mummies. London, 1924.
THE
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son H a llo c k . 2 vols. T o ro n to
1939
T e l l - e l - A m a r n a T a f e l n . E d ite d b y J . A . K n u d tz o n . L e ip z ig ,
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« * T e ll- e l-A m a r n a — T h e C it y o f A k h e n a t e n . A c c o u n ts o f E x c a v a tio n s a t T e ll- e l-A m a r n a b y v a rio u s a u th o rs. L o n d o n , 1923. (E gyp t E x p lo ra tio n S o c ie ty , M e m o ir 38 -4 0 .) V ille r s -S tu a r t
The Funeral Tent o f an Egyptian Queen. L o n d o n , 1882. W e i g a l l , A r th u r
The Treasury o f Ancient Egypt. London, ig n .
Life and Times o f Akhnaton. N e w a n d R e v is e d e d itio n , L o n d o n , 1922. The Glory o f the Pharaohs. L o n d o n , 1923.
Tutankhamen and Other Essays. L o n d o n , 1923.
Ancient Egypt. L o n d o n , 1928. A Short History o f Ancient Egypt. L o n d o n , 1934. W in c k le r , H u go
Die Thontafeln von Tell-elAmarna. B e rlin , 1896. (S ee Tell-el-Amama Letters.)
T e ll- e l-A m a r n a L e tte rs. A tra n slite ra tio n o f th e te x t w ith E n g lish tran slatio n b y H u g o W in c k le r, L o n d o n , 1896.
W ilk in s o n , S ir J . G .
T e l l - e l - A m a r n a T a b l e t s in the B ritish M u s e u m , w ith a u to ty p e facsím iles (ed ited b y D r. C . B e zo ld in 1892). In tro d u ctio n a n d su m m a ry b y C . B e zo ld a n d E . W a llis B u d g e.
W o o l l e y , S ir C h a rle s L e o n a rd The City o f Akhenaten. (E x c a v a tion s o f 1921 a n d 1922 a t E l A m arn eh b y T . E . P eet and S ir C . L . W o o lle y ) . L o n d o n ,
T e ll- e l - A m a r n a T a b le t s . T ra n sla te d b y C . R . C o n d e r. L o n d o n , 1894. T e l l - e l - A m a r n a T a b l e t s . E d ite d b y S a m u e l A . B. M e r c e r , w ith th e assistan ce o f F r a n k H u d -
Manners and Customs o f Ancient Egypt. L o n d o n , 1878.
1923. Ur o f the Chaldees. A re c o rd o f se v en y e a rs o f e x c a v a tio n s . London (P e lic a n B o o k s),
1935-
Digging
up the Past. L o n d o n (P e lica n B o o k s), 193 7.
INDEX Aahmose, K in g , 32; Q ueen, 121; tom b o f the courtier, 98 Abdashirta, 158, 220-223, 226-227, 230, 238 A bdikhipa, 221, 231-233, 241, 270 A bi-M ilki o fT y r e , 220-221, 225-226, 228-229, 235 A braham , 282 A bu-H urairah, 151, 285 Abydos, 92 Abyssinia, 215, 260 Aecho, 218, 230-231 Acheans, 179 Addu-dani, 231 Addukarradu, 230 Agade, Sargon of, 13, 215 Aijalon, 231 A kbar, 277 Akhetaton, foundation of, 69; boundary inscriptions and dimensions of, 7 0 -7 1; beauty of, 72 -73 ; gardens in, 80; temples in, 73 -76 ; K in g ’s palace in, 76-78 ; villas o f the nobles in, 76; glass factories in, 82; labourers’ settlement near, 83; tombs o f the courtiers near, 86-89; destruction of, 274 Akhnaton, birth of, 13; earliest influences upon, 20-22; childhood of, *9i 23—24; step-mothers of, 27-28; education of, 31 sqq.; m arriage of, 34-37; accession of, 3g; titles of, 39-42; early religious realisations of, 4 3-45; erection o f the first temple by, 47; idea o f im m anent G odhead as put forth by, 49-50, 12 1 -12 3 ; m eaning o f the ñam e of, 55; struggle of, against the priesthood o f A m on, 52-53 sqq.; philosophical position of, 60-62, 113 sqq., 120 sq q.; departure of, from Thebes, 66; foundation o f A kheta ton by, 69; palace of, 76-78 ; occupations of, 9 5 -9 7; physical appearance of, 89-92, 97 sqq.; rational character o f the religión of, 106 sqq., 208-209; love o f all living creatures preached by, 150 sqq., 161-162, 167-168 ; love of, for his people, 156; “ internationalism ” of, 157; beauty, an essential element in the religión of, 170 sq q.; moral
attitude of, 187 sqq., 2og sqq.; place of, in the cult o f the Sun, 199 sqq., 207; noninterference of, in the Syrian rebellion, 241, 243 sqq., 262 sqq.; death of, 273-274; persecution o f the memory of, 274, 299; character o f the religión of, 275-276; excellence o f the religión of, com pared with other creeds or philosophies, 5 -6 , 185, 194-196, 277-278, 292-293; the religión of, as a possible link between East and W est, 293 sqq.; discovery o f the body of, 297-298 Aki-izzi, 222, 230 A leppo, 218 Al-H akim , 160 Am anus M ountains, 215, 218 A m a m a Letters, 40, 95, 158, 220, 234, 251, 260-261 A m b i, 224 Am enem apet, 222 Am enhotep the Second, 34, 75, 174, 201, 265 Am enhotep the T h ird , 14, 16, 20, 27, 29, 35 , 4 2>57 >79 . 12'» 1 7 2 ,1 7 4 .2 1 9 Am enhotep the Fourth, 39-53; see
Akhnaton A m erica, 258, 260, 278, 279 A m ki, 218, 222 Am on, the patrón god o f Thebes, 15; wealth and infiuence o f the priesthood of, 21-22, 25, 26, 52; A khn a ton’s struggle against the priesthood of, 50-51 sqq., 57, 60, 62-63; character o f the opposition between A to n and, 57-5 8 ; erasure o f the ñam e of, 54; supprcssion o f the public cult of, 54-5 5; revenge o f the priests of, 273-274, 299; hypocrisy o f the priests of, 239-240 A m or, Amorites, 158, 220, 223, 228, 229, 238, 243-244, 245 Ancestors, shrines to A khnaton’s, 75, 201-202, 265 Andes, 148 Anim áis, worship o f the Sun by all, 150 sqq.; A khnaton’s attitude to sacred, 166 -167; A khn aton ’s love towards all, 161-162, 167-168, 181; A ton the G od o f all, 153-154 A nkara, 2 ig
318
Ankhsenpam on,
INDEX 273;
see Ankhsen-
paton Ankhsenpaton, gg, 273 A n u, 20, 1 1 1, 127, 163 A nubis, 135 A p iy, 48 Apollonius o f T y an a, 150, 290 A rabia, 215; Arabian desert, 260 A rd ata, 224 A rm enia, 13, 39 A rt, ncw, o f T ell-el-A m arna, 73-76, 88-8g, g i- g 3 A rtatam a, K in g o f M itanni, 27 A rvad , 218, 223 A ryan , 27-28, 147, 255, 296 Asceticism, absence of, in Akhnaton’s philosophy, 81-82, 100-101, 175— 178, 203-204 Ashdod, 218 A sia M inor, 215, 234, 257 A siatic dominions o f Egypt, 13, 3g, 2 i5 - 2 ig Askalon, 218, 231 Asoka, 249, 277 Assur-U ballit, 95 Assyría, 14, g s, 217, 263 A tahualpa, 258 A tcm , 45; see Tem A thcnian, 186, 256, 302 A tlan tic, 257 A ton, m caning o f the word, 1, 2324, 58, 127-128 ; first temple to, 47; T hcbes rcnam ed City-of-thcBrightness-of-, 52, 53-5 4 ; great tem ple of, 73 -74; other temples to, 7 5 -7 6 ; the ritual in the cult of, 75, 96-97, 164, 17 3 -17 4 ; place o f music and dancing in the cult of, 97. 164, 17 3 -17 5 ; offerings to, 163164; impersonal character of, 4 9 50, 113 -1 1 4 , 1 1 7 -1 1 9 A ustralia, 258, 278, 279 A y , 19, 34 . 88, 106-107 A yrton , 297 A ziru , 15&-159. «93 . 22° . 223 sqq., 232, 236, 238-239, 241, 244, 2G5 Babylon, Babytonia, 13, 14, 27, 29, 95 Baketaton, 75 Baltic, 257 Baluchistan, 215 Beia, 231 Beirut, 218 Bek, 72, 165 (footnote) Benben Obclisk, 127-128 , 147, 174 Bennu, 127 Biridiya, 220, 230 Bit-N inib, 232 B oghaz-K eui, 219
Book o f th eD e a d , 131 (footnote), 135 Buddha, io , 186, 249 Buddhism, 138, 280, 285 Bum aburiash I I, K in g o f Babylon, 42, 95. 230, 234 Byblos, 218, 226, 242, 247 Byzantium , 259 C an aan , 220, 227, 234, 236, 237, 239 Carchem ish, 255 C han dogya U panishad, 198 Charlem agne, 55 C haru k Palace, 16, 17 C hin a, 13, 139 Christianity, authors w ho see in Akhnaton a forerunner of, 49, 133; spirit o f A khn aton ’s religión dif ferent from that of, 129-130, 133<34 . 137. ‘ 39 . 1 5 0 -1 5 '. 185-186, 291 sqq., 301-302; opposition between H ellenic wisdom and, 186, 279; advantages of, com pared with the national cults o f W estern antiquity, 280; weakness of, com pared with the religions o f India, 285 Coleridge, 181 Com te, Auguste, 286 Confucius, 291 Constantine, 280 C rcte, 13 Damascus, 218, 222 D angatakala, 231 D anube, 257 D arw in, 281 D avid, 49 D cath, A khn aton ’s attitude to, 1 3 1 138; Rosicrucian versión of, 273 (footnote) D eir-el-Bahari, 121 Diospolis, 92 D unip, see Tunip D ushratta, K in g o f M itanni, 27, 28, 34 . 35 . 40 . 4 2. 95 . 99 Edfu, 48 Elam , 13, 263 Electricity, equivalence o f heat, light, and, 111 sqq. Elliot Sm ith, 44, 298 Em pire, extent o f the E gyptian, 13, 39 . 2 15 ; loss o f the Egyptian, 220 sqq. Energy, equivalence o f m atter and, 58, 113 -116 En-Gannim , 230 England, 13, 139
INDEX
Ethics o f the R eligión o f the Disk, sqq-. i8 7 sqq., 209-102 Ethiopian, 87, 157, 255 Euclid, 281 Euphrates, 29, 39, 215, 216, 218, 220 Eurípides, 279 Europa, 260, 277, 279 Experience, A khn aton ’s religious, 44, 120-122 Francis o f Assisi, Saint, 151, 285 Free T hough t, 281, 283 sq q.; shortcomings of, 285-286, 289 Funeral rites under Akhnaton, 131 — 132 G ath , 231, 232 G ayatri m antra, 259, 295 G azri, 232 G eb al, 218, 221, 223 sqq. G erm an y, 139 G ezer, 230, 231, 232 G ilukhipa, 27, 29 G ina, 230 G inti, 232 G izeh, Pyram ids of, 13 God-consciousness, 1-2 , 45-46, 6 0 -61, 12 1-12 5 , 196-200 G reece, 15, 255, 256, 257, 278 G uatem ala, 258 G u bia, see Gebal G ulati, 231 H abiru, 220, 230-233, 235, 239, 243 H am ath, 218 H arshavardhana, 277 H atay, 47 H athor, 228 Hatshcpsut, Q ueen, 25-26, 121 H atti, 263 H attushash, 218, 222 Heliopolis, 20, 24, 39-40, 41, 45, 113, 127, 165 Hellenism, 178 -179, 185-186, 2 7 7279, 280-281 Hermes, 90 Hermonthis, 39 Hindus, g, 96, 165, 259, 294, 295 Hippopotamus-goddcss, 33 H ittitcs, 16, 95, 217, 218, 219, 222, 236, 242, 244, 245, 246 Hom er, 279 H or, 21 (footnote), 57 H orem heb, 57, 106, 260 H orizon, C ity o f the, see Akhetaton Horus, 47, 48, i n , 135 H uxley, Aldous, 287 H u ya, tomb of, 87, 97, 163 Hyksos, 32, 248
3 !9
Hymns to A ton, 304-313; to A m on, 274, 299; to A to n com pared with those to other gods, 126-128 H ypatia, 258 Iceland, 260 Ikhnaton, see Akhnaton India, 9, 13, 27, 96, 147, 150, 259, 295 . 296 Indra, 27 Ionia, 278 Iraq , 281 Irkata (or Irqata), 221, 223, 224, 242 Ishtar, 42 Isis, 135 Islam, 139, 151, 259, 281-283 Itakam a, 220, 236 Italy, 257 Jainism , 280, 285 Japan, 148, 259, 296 Jehovah, 144, 279 Jerusalem , 144, 218, 221, 231-233, 242 Jesús o f N azareth, 282 Jewish thought, spirit o f A khn aton ’s religión contrasted w ith, 48-49, 144, 209 Jezreel, 220, 230 Jordán, 230 Joshua, 282 Judgm ent, A khn aton ’s disbelief in the last, 135 Julián, Emperor, 179, 258 K a o f the Sun, 11 2 -1 1 3 , 129, 133, 149, 180 K adesh, 218, 236 K arn ak, 15, 58, 64 Kassite K in gs o f Babylon, 218 K a tn a, 222, 230 K eila h , 231 K h ab iri, 237; see Habiru Khalifs, 283 K h an i, 228 K h a ta l, 225 K h ep cra, 128 K h eta, 218 Khonsu, 64, 121 K ilti, 232 K u sh , 157 L ab aya, 220, 230-231 Labourers’ sctilem ent near A kheta ton, 82-83 Lachish, 231-232 L ap aya, set Labaya Leonardo da V in ci, 91
320
INDÍ.X
M aat, 48, 189 M ahm ud o f G hazni, 55 M ahu, tom b of, 88, 94-95, 98 M ai, see May M akitaton, 99 M atct boat, 126 -127 M atter, cquivalence o f energy and, 58, 1 13 -116 M attiu aza, 27 M ay , 85 (footnote), 87, 105 M egiddo, 218, 230 M elukhkha, 225 M em phis, 48 M en, 165 (footnote) M en-kheper-ra, 224; see Thotmose the
Third M en-khepcru-ra, see Thotmose the
Fourth M erira, tomb of, 88, 97 (footnote), 163, 174, 178; appointm cnt of, as H igh-priest of the Sun, 95, 131, 204; disaffection of, 26a M erira II, tom b of, 162 (footnote) M eritaton, 86 (footnote), 98 M esopotam ia, 215, 234 M éxico, 258 M ilki-ili, 220, 231-232 M in, 21, 64 M iracles, absence of, in the religión o f Akhnaton, 5 -6 , 129-131 M itanni, 14, 27, 28, 29, 36, 40, 42, 95, 217, 218, 220 M ithra, 27, 36 M nevis, 86, 166-168 M oloch, 30 M onotheism , 49, 281, 282 M ontet, 228 Moses, 49, 280, 281, 282 M ukhrashti, 232 M ut, 64, 121 M utem uya, 27, 121 M ykaenae, 256 M ythology, absence of, in Akhnaton’s religión, 5 -6 , 126-129 N akht, 76, 94 (footnote) N ap ata, 34, 254 Neb-m aat-ra, 40 (footnote), 54, 200;
see Amenhotep the Third N ebuchadnezzcr, 13 Nefer-kbeperu-ra, 39, 41, 119, 122, ■24. '9 7 , 268 N efertiti, Q ueen , A khnaton’s marriage to, 19, 3 4 -37; parentage of, 34-35, 218; pictures of, 90, 97-98, 1 7 6 -17 7 ; Akhnaton’s love for, 3 5 36, 97-99, 100; officiating at the altar o f the Sun, 76, 204-205; place of, ¡n the R eligión o f the Disk,
202-206, 207; confidence of, in Akhnaton, 248 Neferuaton, 99 Neferura, 99 Negrees, 157, 216, 255 Neo-Platonists, 179 Neo-Pythagorism , 280, 285, 290-291 N ile, Akhnaton’s rational view o f the origin o f the, 108-109 N ineveh, 42 N inur, 231 N iy, 216 (footnote), 218, 225 N ubia, 14, 29, 32, 71, 72, 255 N ut, the sky-goddess, 126 Offcrings to A ton, 75, 163-164 O n , 17, 20, 21-22, 23, 45, 63, 81, 86, 127-128, 163, 166-168 O rontes, 216, 222 Osiris, 87, 135 Pacifism, Akhnaton’s, 222 sqq.; imm ediate consequences o f A khn a ton’s, 234 sqq.; naturc o f A khn a ton’s, 240 sqq., 264 sq q.; basis o f A khnaton’s, 169, 247-248; A khn a ton’s, com pared with m odern, 264 sq q .; remóte consequences o f A khn aton ’s, 251-261 Pagan spirit o f Akhnaton’s religión, 1 74- , 75 > i 7& - ' 79 , 184-185 Pakhura, 221, 226, 266 Palamas (Kostis), 301 Palestino, unrest in, 220, 229-234, 242 Panehesi, see Pnahesi Panlheism , 208 Parthenon, 279 Paul o f Tarsus, 258, 279 Pentu, 88 Persia, 259 Perú, 258, 260 Phaedra, 279 Pizarro, 258 Plato, 180, 183, 186, 291 Pnahesi, 87, 94, 157 Ptah, 48, 64, 135 Punt, 2g Pyram ids, 13, 32, 92; Pyram id Texts, 45 . n o , 127 Pythagorism , 280, 285, 290-291 R a . 5 1, 52> ” 5, 126-128, 135, 163 R abb ah , 232 R a-H orakhti, 39, 45-46, 92 R am osc, tom b of, 48, 5 0 -5 1, 53, 94 Rationalism , 5-7 , 106 sqq., 125 sqq., 129 sqq.
321
INDEX Renaissancc, 281, 284 Renunciation, A khnaton’s religión not a religión of, 296 R hine, 257 R ibaddi, 158, 221, 222 sqq., 229, 235236, 238-239, 241, 247, 248, 265 R ig -V ed a , 27, 28, 147 Rom e, 257, 281 Rosicrucian O rder ( A M O R C ), tradition regarding death o f Akhnaton, 273 (footnote) R u bu ti, 232 Sadenga, scarab of, 111, 208 (footnote) Sa-G az, 220, 221, 225, 230, 235, 239 . 243 Sargon o f A gade, 13, 215 Saxons, 258 Science, concordance o f Akhnaton's conception o f the world with the conclusions o f modern, 45-46, 10 9-114, 116 -119 Scbau, 126 Sebek, the crocodile-god, 33 Seqenen-Ra, 32 Seqtet boat, 126, 127 Set, 47; festival of, 107, 111 Setepenra, 99 Sethe, 298 Shade-of-the-Sun, temple nam ed, 174 Shakta, 165-166 Shamash, 30 Sham u-addu, 231; see Shumadda Shcsmu, 135 Shigata, 224 Shirdanu, 226 Shu, 39, 40, 44, 45; philosophical interpretation of, 45, 46, 112 -1 1 4 ; m eaning o f the word, 110 -111 Shubbilulium a, K in g o f the Hittitcs, 27. 42, 95 . * ' 9 > 221, 222, 244 Shum adda, 231, 234 Shunem , 218 Shutatna, 231, 234 Shuw ardata, 28, 232 Sidon, 218, 221 Silsileh, 39 (footnote), 47, 48, 50 Sim yra, 218, 223-229, 242 Sin, absencc o f the idea of, in A khnaton's religión, 187 sqq., 193»95
Sinai, 72, 235, 253 Sm enkhkara, 271, 273 Sócrates, 10, 278 State, opposition o f A khnaton’s religión lo the ------ religión of E gypt, 58-62; A khnaton’s religión was to be a ------ religión, 276, 292
Strom ata, 186 Sudan, 13, 39, m , 144, 216 Surya, 28, 36 Suti, 21 (footnote), 57 Sutu mercenaríes, 226 Syria, 14, 16, 27, 32, 7 1,7 2 , 158-160, 182, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221-229, 230» 237 . 238-244. 245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 269 T aan ach , 218, 230 T ad ukh ipa, 34 T a g i, 220, 230, 232 T a-T h u n en , 111 T a u rt, 33 T efn ut, 45, 110, 112 T ell-el-A m arna, 47, 63, 69, 89, 175, 180; see Akhetaton T em , 45, 110, l i a , 128 T em -R a , n o , 112 T eshub, 27 Testes, Lake of, 126 T hebes, splendour of, 14 sq q .; A khn a ton born at, 13; renam ing of, 52, 53; Akhnaton decides to leave, 6466, 71-72 Theosophy, 285 T h o t, 48 Thotm ose the First, 121, 159 Thotm ose the T h ird , 15, 25, 26, 32, 75. 157. *59. 201, 215, 224, 228, 265 Thotm ose the Fourth, 27, 35, 75, 121, 174 Tiryns, 256 T iy , Q ueen, 16, 19-22, 39-42. 6 2 63. 75 . 87, 97 . 99 . 163. >74 . >76 T iy , the “ G reat R o yal N urse,” 19 T ro y , 179 T u m p , 218, 224, 825, 241, 242, 247, 248 T urbatsu, 233 T urb ikha, 221 T ushratta, see Dushratta Tutankham en, 106, 123, 161, 167, ■74 . 274. 275. 277 . 290, 297, 298 Tutankhaton, 273, 277; see Tutank
hamen T u tu , 238 T y re , 218, 220 U a-en-ra, 39, 41, 119, 122, 196, 197, 268 U garit, 224 U lla za, 218, 224 Ulysses, 279 U nas, K in g, 228 U rin a, 131
322
INDEX
Valúes, conflict between Akhnaton and the priests o f A m on was a con flict of, 6o sqq.; ------ pu t forth in the religión o f Akhnaton, 208 sqq. V aru n a, 27, 187 Vcdantism , 50, 285 Vedas, 144 V ed ic goda, 27 W cpw at, 47, 111 W est, definition o f the, 277; successive thought-currcnts o f the, 277-29 1; Akhnaton a child o f the, 2g6
Yankh am u, 218, 221, 224, 231, 233 Y a pa-ad du, 224 Y apti-add i, 233 Y arim u ta, 225 Y ash data, 230 Y ikh liya, 224 Y u a a , 21 Zalukhi, 224 Z ilu , 233 Zim rida, 221, 224 Zoroastrian, 259 Z u rata, 230, 231
EXPLANATORY
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V olum e I
R O S IC R U C IA N Q U E S T IO N S A N D A N S W E R S W IT H C O M P L E T E H IS T O R Y O F T H E O R D E R
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T
his
v o lu m e co n ta in s th e first c o m p le te , a u th e n tic h isto ry o f th e
R o s ic ru c ia n O r d e r fro m a n c ie n t tim es to th e p re sen t d a y . T h e h isto ry is d iv id e d in to tw o sectio n s, d e a lin g w ith th e tr a d itio n a l facts a n d th e estab lish ed h isto ric a l fa cts, a n d is re p le te w ith in te re stin g stories o f ro m a n c e , m y s te ry , a n d a llu r ín g ín cid en ts. T h is b o o k is a v a lu a b le on e sin ce it is a co n sta n t re feren ce a n d gu id e b o ok . Q u estio n s th a t arise in y o u r m in d re g a rd in g m a n y m y s tic a l a n d o c c u lt su b jects a re a n sw e re d in this v o lu m e . F o r m a n y cen tu rie s th e stra n g e , m ysterio u s reco rd s o f th e R o sic ru c ia n s w e re closed a g a in s t a n y eyes b u t th ose o f th e h ig h in itia tes. E v e n ed ito rs o f g r e a t e n c y c lo p e d ia s w e re u n a b le to se c u re th e stra n g e , fa scin a tin g facts o f th e R o s ic r u c ia n a ctiv itie s in a ll p a rts o f th e w o rld . N o w th e w h o le sto ry is o u tlin e d a n d it re a d s lik e a sto ry fro m th e la n d o f th e “ A r a b ia n N ig h ts .” T h is b o o k a u th e n tic a lly an sw ers h u n d re d s o f q u estio n s d e a lin g w ith th e h isto ry , w o rk , te a ch in g s, b en eñ ts, a n d p u rp o ses o f th e R o s ic ru c ia n fra te rn ity . I t is p rin te d on fin e p a p e r , b o u n d in silk c lo th , a n d sta m p ed in g o ld . P rice , p o sta g e p re p a id , ?2.8 5 (20$. 6d. ste rlin g ).
V o lu m e I I R O S IC R U C IA N
P R IN C IP L E S F O R T H E H O M E A N D B U S IN E S S
B y H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T h is v o lu m e co n ta in s su ch p rin c ip ie s o f p r a c tic a l R o s ic ru c ia n te a c h in gs as a re a p p lic a b le to th e so lu tio n o f e v e r y d a y p ro b le m s o f life in business a n d in th e a ffa irs o f th e h o m e . I t deais e x h a u stiv e ly w ith th e p re v e n tio n o f íll-h e a lth , th e c u rin g o f m a n y o f th e c o m m o n a ilm e n ts,
a n d th e a tta in m e n t o f p e a c e a n d h ap p in ess, as w e ll as th e b u ild in g u p o f th e a ffairs o f life th a t d e a l w ith fín a n c ia l con d itio n s. T h e b o o k is filled w ith h u n d re d s o f p r a c tic a l p o in ts d e a lin g e s p e c ia lly w ith the p ro b le m s o f th e a v e ra g e bu sincss o r p erso n in business e m p lo y . I t p o in ts o u t th e w r o n g a n d rig h t w a y for th e use o f m e ta p h y s ic a l a n d m y stic a l p rin c ip ie s in a ttr a c tin g business, in cr e a sin g o n e ’s in co m e , p ro m o tin g business p ro p o sitio n s, s ta rtin g a n d b r in g in g in to r e a liz a tio n n e w p la n s a n d id e á is, a n d th e a tta in m e n t o f th e h igh e st a m b itio n s in life.
Rosicrucian Principies fo r the Home and Business is n o t th e o re tic a l b u t s tric tly p ra c tic a l. I t is n o w in its n in th e d itio n , h a v in g h a d a w id e c irc u la tio n a n d u n iv e rsa l en d o rse m e n t n o t o n ly a m o n g m e m b ers o f th e o r g a n iz a tio n , w h o h a v e v o lu n ta r ily s ta te d th a t th e y h a v e g r e a tly im p ro v e d th eir lives th ro u g h th e a p p lic a tio n o f its su ggestio n s, b u t a m o n g th ou sa n d s o f person s o u tsid e o f th e o r g a n iz a tio n . I t has a lso b e e n end o rsed b y business o r g a n iz a tio n s a n d business a u th o ritie s. T h e b o o k is o f s ta n d a rd size, w e ll p rin te d , b o u n d in silk c lo th , a n d sta m p e d in g o ld . P rice , p o sta g e p re p a id , $ 2 .7 5 ( i g í . 9 d. ste rlin g ).
V o lu m e I I I T H E M Y S T IC A L L IF E O F JE SU S
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T h i s is th e b o o k th a t th ou san d s h a v e b e e n w a itin g fo r— th e re a l Jesú s
re v e a le d a t la s t ! I t w as in p re p a ra tio n for a n u m b e r o f y e a rs a n d re q u ire d a v isit to P a le stin e a n d E g y p t to secu re a v e r ific a tio n o f th e stra n g e facts c o n ta in e d in th e a n c ie n t R o s ic ru c ia n a n d Essene record s. I t is a fu ll a c c o u n t o f th e b ir th , y o u th , e a r ly m a n h o o d , a n d la te r p erio d s o f Jesú s’ life, c o n ta in in g th e sto ry o f H is a ctiv itie s in th e tim es n o t m e n tio n e d in th e G o sp e l a cc o u n ts. T h e facts r e la tin g to th e im m a c u la te c o n ce p tio n , th e b irth , c ru c ifix ió n , re su rrectío n , a n d ascen sión w ill a sto u n d a n d in sp ire y o u . T h e b o o k co n ta in s m a n y m y s tic a l sy m b o ls, fu lly e x p la in e d , o r ig in a l p h o to g ra p h s , a n d a n u n u su a l p o r tra it o f Jesús. T h is v o lu m e co n ta in s o v e r th re e h u n d re d p a g e s w ith sev en te e n la rg e c h a p te rs, b e a u tifu lly p rin te d , b o u n d in silk, a n d sta m p e d in g o ld . H e re is a b o o k th a t w ill in sp ire, in stru ct, a n d g u id e e v e ry stu d e n t o f m y sticism a n d re ligió n . I t is o n e o f th e m o st-ta lk e d -a b o u t books e v e r w r itte n on th e su b je c t. R e a d it a n d b e p re p a re d for th e discu ssion o f it th a t y o u w ill h e a r a m o n g m e n a n d w o m e n o f le a rn in g . S en t b y m a il, p o stp a id , fo r $ 2 .75 ( i g í . gd. ste rlin g ). s.s.— 22
V o lu m e
IV
T H E S E C R E T D O C T R IN E S O F JE SU S
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . D o e s th e B ib le a c tu a lly c o n ta in th e u n a d u lte ra te d w o rd s o f Jesú s th e C h r is t? D o y o u k n o w th a t fro m 325 a .d . u n til 1870 a .d ., tw e n ty e cc le siastica l o r c h u rc h c o u n c il m e e tin g s w e re h e ld , in w h ic h man a lo n e d e c id e d u p o n th e c o n te x t o f th e B ib le ? S elf-a p p o in te d ju d g e s in th e fou r L a te r a n C o u n c ils e x p u rg a te d a n d c h a n g e d th e sa c re d w ritin g s to p le ase th em selves. T h e G r e a t M a s te r ’s personal d o ctrin e s, o f th e u tm o st, v ita l im p o rta n ce to e v e ry m a n a n d w o m a n , w e re b u rie d in u n e x p la in e d p assagcs a n d p a ra b le s. The Secret Doctrines o f Jesús, b y D r. H . S p e n ce r L e w is , e m in en t a u th o r o f The Mystical Life o f Jesús, for the first tim e reveáis th ese hidden trulhs. S ta r tlin g , fa s c in a tin g , this b o o k sh o u ld b e in e v e r y th in k e r’s h a n d s. I t is b e a u tifu lly b o u n d , illu stra te d , o f la rg e size, a n d th e p ric e , in c lu d in g p o sta g e , is o n ly
$ 2 .75
(19J.
9 d. sterlin g)
p er copy.
V o lu m e V “ U N TO TH EE I G RAN T . .
By S r i R a m a t h e r i o T h i s is on e o f th e ra re st O r ie n ta l m y s te ry books k n o w n . I t is tran sla te d b y sp e c ia l p erm issio n o f th e G r a n d L a m a a n d D iscip le s o f the S a c re d C o lle g e in th e G r a n d T e m p le in T ib e t.
H e re is a b o o k th a t w a s w ritte n tw o th o u sa n d y e a rs a g o , b u t w as h id d e n in m a n u scrip t fo rm fro m th e eyes o f th e w o rld a n d g iv e n o n ly to th e in itia tes o f th e tem p les in T ib e t to stu d y p riv a te ly . O u t o f th e m y s te ry o f the p a st com es this a n tiq u e b o o k c o n ta in in g th e rarest w ritin g s a n d te a ch in g s k n o w n to m a n w it h th e e x c e p tio n o f th e B ib le. H u n d re d s o f books h a v e b e e n w ritte n a b o u t th e te a ch in g s a n d p ra ctice s o f th e Masters o f the Far East a n d th e a d e p ts o f T ib e t, b u t n on e o f th em has e v e r c o n ta in e d th e secret te a ch in g s fo u n d in th is b o o k . T h e b o o k is d iv id e d in to m a n y p arts, e a c h p a rt c o n ta in in g a la rg e n u m b e r o f sections o r divisio n s a n d ch a p ters. T h e b o o k d e a is w ith m a n ’s p assion s, desires, w eakn esses, sins, stren gth s, fo rtitu d es, a m b itio n s, a n d h opes. A ll a re tre a te d in d e ta il w ith illu m in a tin g sim p licity . T h e b o o k is b e a u tifu lly p rin te d a n d b o u n d w ith s tiff c o v e r , a n d co n ta in s a lso th e stra n g e m y stic sto ry o f th e e x p e d itio n in to T ib e t to secu re this m a rv ello u s m a n u scrip t. P rice, p e r c o p y , p o sta g e p re p a id , o n ly $ 1.7 5 (1 is. 6d. ste rlin g ).
V o L U M E
VI
A TH O U SAN D YEARS OF YESTER D A YS
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R .C ., P h .D . H e r e is a b o o k th a t w ill te ll y o u a b o u t th e re a l facts o f reincarnation. I t is a sto ry o f th e so u l, a n d e x p la in s in d e ta il h o w th e so ul enters th e b o d y a n d h o w it lc a v e s it, w h e re it go es, a n d w h e n it com es b a c k to e a r th a g a in , a n d w h y . T h e story is n o t ju s t a p ie c e o f fictio n , b u t a revelation o f the mystic laws a n d p rin c ip ies k n o w n to th e M a s te rs o f th e F a r E a st a n d th e O r ie n t for m a n y cen tu rie s, a n d n ev e r p u t in to b o o k fo rm as a sto ry b e fo re th is b o o k w as p rin te d . T h a t is w h y th e bo ok h as b e e n tra n sla te d in to so m a n y fo re ig n la n g u a g e s a n d en d orsed b y th e m ystics a n d a d e p ts o f In d ia , P ersia, E g y p t, a n d T ib e t. Fascinating— Alluring— Instructive T h o s e w h o h a v e re a d this b o o k sa y th a t th e y w e re u n a b le to le a v e it w ith o u t fin ish in g it a t on e sittin g. T h e sto ry re v eá is th e m y s tic p rin c ip ies ta u g h t b y th e R o sic ru cia n s in re g a rd to re in c a rn a tio n as w e ll as th e s p iritu a l la w s o f th e soul a n d th e in ca rn a tio n s o f the soul. It is w e ll p rin te d , b o u n d w ith a c lo th c o v e r, a n d w o r th y o f a p la c e in a n y o n e ’s lib r a r y . P rice , p e r c o p y , p o sta g e p re p a id , o n ly $ 1 .7 5 (i2.r. 6 d. ste rlin g ).
V
olum e
V II
S E L F M A S T E R Y A N D F A T E W IT H T H E C Y C L E S O F L IF E
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T h i s b o o k is e n tire ly d iffe re n t fro m a n y o th e r b o o k e v e r issued in
A m e ric a , d e a lin g w ith th e secret p e rio d s in th e life o f e a c h m a n a n d w o m a n w h e re in th e C o s m ic forces a ffc c t o u r d a ily affairs. T h e b o o k rev eá is h o w w e m a y ta k e a d v a n ta g e o f c erta in p e rio d s to b r in g success, h a p p in ess, h e a lth , a n d p ro sp e rity in to o u r liv es, a n d it likew ise p o in ts o u t th ose p e rio d s w h ic h a re n ot fa v o ra b le for m a n y o f the th in gs w e tr y to a cc o m p lish . I t d o cs n o t d e a l w ith a str o lo g y o r a n y system o f fo rtu n e te llin g , b u t presents a system lo n g used b y th e M a s te r M y stic s in O r ie n ta l la n d s a n d w h ic h is s tric tly scie n tific a n d d e m o n stra b le . O n e re a d in g o f th e b o o k w ith its ch a rts a n d ta b les w ill e n a b le th e re a d e r to see th e cou rse o f his life a t a g la n ce . I t h elp s e v e ry o n e to e lim in a te “ c h a n c e ” a n d “ lu c k ,” to east a sid e “ fa te ” a n d re p la c e these w ith self-m astery. H e re is a b o o k y o u w ill use w e e k ly to g u id e y o u r a ffairs th ro u g h o u t th e years. T h e r e is n o m a g ic in its system , b u t it op en s a v ista o f th e eyeles o f th e life o f e a c h b e in g in a re m a rk a b le m a n n e r. W e ll p rin te d , b o u n d in silk c lo th , a n d sta m p ed in g o ld to m a tc h o th e r vo lu m e s o f th e R o sic ru c ia n L ib r a r y . P rice , p o sta g e p re p a id , $2.60 ( i 8 í. gd. ste rlin g).
V o lu m e V I I I R O S IC R U C IA N M A N U A L
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T h is p r a c tic a l b o o k co n ta in s n o t o n ly e xtra cts fro m th e C o n stitu tio n o f the R o sic ru c ia n O r d e r , b u t a c o m p le te o u tlin e a n d e x p la n a tio n o f th e custom s, h a b its, a n d te rm in o lo g y o f th e R o sicru cia n s, w ith d ia g ra m s a n d e x p la n a tio n s o f th e 'sy m b o ls used in th e tea ch in g s, a n o u tlin e o f th e su bje c ts ta u g h t, a d ic tio n a ry o f term s, a c o m p le te p re sen ta tio n o f the p rin cip ies o f C o sm ic C on scio usn ess, a n d so m e b io g r a p h ic a l sketch es. T h e r e a re a b o sp e c ia l a rticles on th e G r e a t W h ite L o d g e a n d its e xisten ce, h o w to a tta in p sy c h ic illu m in a tio n , th e R o sic ru c ia n C o d e o f L ife w ith th irty la w s a n d re g u latio n s, a n d a n u m b c r o f p o rtra its o f p ro m in e n t m ystics, in c lu d in g M a s te r K . H ., th e Illu strio u s. T h e te c h n ica l m a tte r in th e te x t a n d in th e 100 o r m o re d ia g ra m s m akes this b o o k a re a l e n c y c lo p e d ia o f R o sic ru c ia n e x p la n a tio n s. P rice, p o sta g e p r e p a id , $2-85 (20J. 6 i . ste rlin g ).
V o lu m e I X M Y S T IC S A T P R A Y E R
Compiled by M a n y C i h l a r Austrian Philosopher and Mystic T h e first c o m p ila tio n o f th e fam o u s p ra y e r s o f th e re n o w n e d m ystics a n d a d e p ts o f a ll ages. T h e b o o k , Mystics at Prayer, e x p la in s in sim p le la n g u a g e th e reason fo r p r a y e r , h o w to p r a y , a n d th e C o s m ic la w s in v o lv e d . Y o u c o m e to le a m th e re a l e ffic a c y o f p r a y e r a n d its fu ll b e a u ty d a w n s u p o n y o u . W h a te v e r y o u r re lig io u s b eliefs, this b o o k m akes y o u r p ra y e rs th e a p p lic a tio n n o t o f w o rd s, b u t o f h e lp fu l, d iv in e p rin c ip ies. Y o u w ill le a m th e in fin ite p o w e r o f p r a y e r . P r a y e r is m a n ’s r ig h tíu l h e r ita g e . I t is th e d ir e c t m e a n s o f m a n ’s c o m m u n io n w ith th e in fin ite fo rc é o f d iv in ity .
Mystics at Prayer is w e ll b o u n d , p rin te d on a r t p a p e r in tw o colo rs, p a g e s, sen t a n y w h e re , p o s tp a id , 5 1 .5 5 ( i i í . 3 d.
w ith d e c k le -e d g e d ste rlin g ).
V o lu m e X B E H O L D T H E S IG N
By R a l p h M . L e w is , F .R .C . W h a t w e re th e Sacred Traditions sa id to h a v e b een re v e a le d to M o ses— a n d n e v e r sp o k e n b y th e a n c ie n t H e b r e w s ? W h a t w e re th e forces o f n a tu re d isco ve re d b y th e E g y p tia n p rie sth o o d a n d e m b o d ie d in stra n g e
sy m b o ls— sym b o ls w h ic h b e c a m e th e e v e rliv in g k n o w le d g e w h ic h b u ilt K in g S o lo m o n ’s T e m p le , a n d w h ic h fo u n d th eir w a y in to the secret te a ch in g s o f e v e ry c e n tu ry ? R e g a rd le ss o f th e c h a n g in g consciousness o f m a n , c e rta in signs a n d d e v ice s h a v e im m o rta liz e d for a ll a ges th e tru th s w h ic h m a k e m e n free. L e a r n th e m e a n in g o f th e A n c h o r a n d A r k , th e S e v e n -P o in te d S ta r, a n c ie n t E g y p tia n h ie ro g ly p h s, a n d many other age-old secret symbols. H e re is a b o o k th a t also e xp la in s th e o rig in o f th e v a rio u s form s o f th e cross, th e m e a n in g s o f w h ic h a re ofte n m isu n d ersto o d . I t fu rth e r poin ts o u t th e m y stic a l b e g in n in g s o f th e secret signs u sed b y m a n y fra te rn a l o rd ers to d a y . T h is b o o k o f sy m b o lism is fu lly illustrated, sim p ly a n d in te re stin g ly w ritte n . W e ll b o u n d a n d p rin te d . P rice , p o sta g e p re p a id , 1 1.45 ( IO í-
sterlin g).
V o lu m e X I M A N S IO N S O F T H E S O U L T h e C o s m ic C o n c e p tio n
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . R e i n c a r n a t i o n ! T h e w o r ld ’s m o st d isp u te d d o ctrin e . T h e b e lie f in
re in c a rn a tio n has h a d m illio n s o f in te llig e n t, le a rn e d , a n d to le ra n t fo llo w ers th ro u g h o u t th e ages. R in g in g th ro u g h th e m in d s a n d hearts o f stu d en ts, m ystics, a n d th in k ers h a v e a lw a y s b een th e w o r d s : “ W h y A re W e H e r e ? ” R e in c a r n a tio n has b e e n c ritic iz e d b y som e as c o n flic tin g w ith sa c re d lite ra tu re a n d as b e in g w ith o u t v e rific a tio n . T h is book re v eá is, h o w e v e r, in a n in te llig e n t m a n n e r th e m a n y fa c ts to su p p o rt re in c a rn a tio n . Q u o ta tio n s fro m e m in en t a u th o ritie s, a n d fro m B ib lic a l a n d S a c re d w o rk s su b sta n tia te re in ca rn a tio n . T h is v o lu m e P R O V E S re in c a rn a tio n . I t p la ce s it h ig h a b o v e m e re sp e c u la tio n . T h is b o o k is w ith o u t e x a g g e r a tio n th e m o st c o m p le te , in sp irin g , e n lig h te n in g bo ok e v e r w r itte n o n this su b je c t. I t is n o t a fictio n sto ry b u t a step -b y-step re v e la tio n o f p ro fo u n d m y s tic a l la w s. L o o k a t some o f these th o u g h tp ro v o k in g , in trig u in g s u b je c ts :
The Cosmic Conception; The Personality o f the Soul; Does Personality Survive Transition?; Heredity and Inheritance; Karma and Personal Evolution; Religious and Biblical Viewpoints; Christian References; Between Incarnations; Souls o f Animáis and the “ Unbom” ; Recollections o f the Past. T h e b o o k co n ta in s o v e r th re e h u n d re d p a ges, b e a u tifu lly p rin te d , n e a tly b o u n d , sta m p ed in g o ld ; it w ill be a v a lu a b le asset to y o u r lib r a r y . E c o n o m ic a lly p ric e d a t o n ly $2.85 (2Oí. 6 d. sterlin g) p e r c o p y , p o sta g e p re p a id .
V o lu m e
X II
L E M U R IA — T H E L O S T C O N T IN E N T O F T H E P A C IF IC
By W is h a r S. C e r v e B e n e a t i i th e ro llin g , restless seas lie th e m ysteries o f fo rg o tten c iv iliza tio n s . S w e p t b y th e tid es, h a lf b u rie d in th e san d s, w o rn a w a y b y te rrific p ressu re, a re th e rem n a n ts o f a c u ltu re litü e k n o w n to o u r a g e o f to d a y . W h e r e th e m ig h ty P a c ific n o w rolls in a ra a je stic sw e e p o f
th o u sa n d s o f m iles, th ere w a s o n c e a v a st c o n tin e n t. T h is la n d w a s k n o w n as L e m u r ia , a n d its p e o p le as L e m u ria n s. W e p rid e ou rselves u p o n th e in ve n tio n s, c o n ve n ien ces, a n d d e v elo p m en ts o f to d a y . W e c a li th em m o d e rn , b u t th ese a n c ie n t a n d lo n g fo rg o tte n p e o p le e x c e lle d us. T h in g s w e sp e a k o f as fu tu re possib ilities, th e y k n e w as e v e r y d a y rea lities. S cie n ce has g r a d u a lly p ie c e d to g e th e r th e e vid e n c e s o f this lo st ra ce , a n d in this b o o k y o u w ill fin d th e m ost a m a z in g , e n th r a llin g c h a p te rs y o u h a v e e v e r re a d . H o w these p e o p le carn e to b e sw ep t fro m th e fa c e o f th e e a rth , e x c e p t for su rv ivo rs w h o h a v e liv in g d e sce n d an ts to d a y , is e x p la in e d . Illu stra tio n s a n d e x p la n a tio n s o f th eir m y stic sy m b o ls, m a p s o f th e co n tin e n t, a n d m a n y a n c ie n t truths a n d la w s a re c o n ta in e d in this u n u su a l bo ok. I f y o u a re a lo v e r o f m y s te ry , o f th e u n k n o w n , th e w e ir d — re a d this b o ok . R e m e m b e r , h o w e v e r, this b o o k is not fiction, b u t b a se d on facts, th e re su lt o f e x ten sive re sea rch . D o es c iv iliz a tio n re a ch a c e rta in h e ig h t a n d th en re tr o g r a d e ? A r e th e c u ltu re a n d p ro gress o f m a n k in d in cycles, re a c h in g c e r ta in p e ak s, a n d th en re tu rn in g to sta rt o v e r a g a in ? T h e s e q u estio n s a n d m a n y m o re a re a n sw e re d in this in trig u in g v o lu m e . R e a d o f th e liv in g d e sce n d an ts o f these p e o p le , w h o se e x p a n siv e n a tio n n o w lies a t th e b o tto m o f th e P a c ific . In th e m in d s o f these d e sce n d an ts is th e k n o w le d g e o f th e p rin c ip ie s w h ic h in b y g o n e cen tu rie s m a d e th eir foreb e a rs b u ild e rs o f an a sto u n d in g c iv iliza tio n . T h e b o o k , Lemuria— the Lost Continent o f the Pacific, is b e a u tifu lly b o u n d , w e ll p rin te d , a n d co n ta in s m a n y illu stratio n s. I t is e c o n o m ic a lly p ric e d a t $2.50 (18 s. ste rlin g ), p o s tp a id .
V o lu m e X I I I T H E T E C H N IQ U E O F T H E M A ST E R T h e W a y o f C o s m ic P r e p a ra tio n
By R a y m u n d A n d r e a , F . R . C . A c u i d e to in n e r u n fo ld m e n t! T h e n ew est a n d sim plest e x p la n a tio n fo r a tta in in g th e State o f C o s m ic C on sciousness. T o those w h o h a v e felt
th e th ro b o f a v ita l p o w e r w ith in , a n d w h o se in n e r visió n has a t tim es g lim p se d in fin ite p e a c e a n d happ in ess, this b o o k is o ffered . I t c o n ve rts th e in ta n g ib le w h isp ers o f se lf in to fo rce fu l a ctio n s th a t b r in g re a l jo y s a n d a cc o m p lish m e n ts in life. I t is a m asterfu l w o rk on p sy c h ic u n fo ld m en t. I t is w e ll b o u n d in clo th . S ec u re this treasu re for y o u rself. E c o n o m ic a lly p ric e d , p o sta g e p re p a id , a t $2.25 ( i6 í. 3 d. ste rlin g).
V o lu m e X I V T H E S Y M B O L IC P R O P H E C Y O F T H E G R E A T P Y R A M ID
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T h e w o r ld ’s g rea te st m y s te ry a n d first w o n d e r is th e G r e a t P y ra m id . I t stan ds as a m o n u m e n t to th e le a r n in g a n d a ch ie v e m e n ts o f th e ancients. F o r c en tu rie s its secrets w e re clo seted in sto n e — n o w th e y sta n d re v e a le d . N e v e r b e fo re in a b o o k p ric e d w ith in th e re a c h o f e v e r y re a d e r h a v e th e h isto ry , v a s t w isd o m , a n d p ro p h e c ie s o f th e G r e a t P y r a m id b e e n giv e n . Y o u w ill b e a m a z e d a t th e P y r a m id ’s scie n tific co n stru c tio n a n d a t the trem en d o u s k n o w le d g e o f its m ysterio u s b u ild ers. W h o b u ilt th e G r e a t P y r a m id ? W h y w e re its b u ild ers in sp ired to re v e a l to p o ste rity th e even ts o f th e fu tu re ? W h a t is th e p a th th a t the G r e a t P y r a m id in d ic a te s lies b e fo re m a n k in d ? W ith in th e p a g e s o f this e n lig h te n in g b o o k th e re a re th e a n sw ers to m a n y e n th r a llin g questions. I t p ro p h e sie d th e W o r ld W a rs a n d th e g r e a t e co n o m ic u p h e a v a l. L e a rn w h a t it p resages fo r th e fu tu re . Y o u m u st n o t d e p riv e y o u rs e lf o f this bo ok. T h e b o o k is w e ll b o u n d w ith a c lo th c o v er, a n d con ta in s a ll n ecessary ch a rts a n d illu stratio n s. P r ic e o n ly $2.50 ( i8 j. ste rlin g ), w ith p o sta g e p a id .
V o lu m e X V T H E B O O K O F JA SH E R T h e S a c re d B o o k W ith h e ld B y w h a t rig h t has m a n b e e n d e n ie d th e w o rd s o f th e p ro p h e ts ? W h o d a re d e x p u n g e fro m th e H o ly B ib le o n e o f its in sp ired m essages? F o r cen tu rie s m a n h as la b o r e d u n d e r th e illu sio n th a t th ere h a v e b een p re serve d fo r h im th e co lle cte d books o f th e g r e a t te a ch ers a n d disciples — y e t on e has b e e n w ith h e ld — The Book ofjasher.
W ith in th e h a llo w e d p a g e s o f th e g r e a t B ib le its e lf a re referen ces to this lost b o o k w h ic h h a v e p u z z le d th e d e v o u t a n d stu d en ts fo r cen tu ries. A s i f b y D iv in e d e c re e , th e B ib le a p p e a rs to c r y o u t to m a n k in d th a t its s a n c tity has b e e n v io la te d , its tru th v e ile d , fo r w e fin d these tw o p assages e x c la im in g : “ Is n o t this w ritte n in th e B o o k o f J a s h e r ? ” — J o sh u a 1 0 :1 3 ; “ B e h o ld , it is w ritte n in th e B ook o f J a s h e r” — 2 S a m . 1 :18 . A lc u in d isco ve re d this g r e a t b o o k o f th e B ib le w ritte n b y J a sh e r. H e tra n sla te d it fro m th e H e b r e w in 800 a .d . L a te r it w a s su p pressed a n d th en re d isc o v e red in 1829, a n d o n ce a g a in su pp ressed. B u t n o w w e b r in g to y o u a n a c tu a l p h o to g ra p h ic re p ro d u c tio n o f this m a g n ific e n t w o rk , p a g e for p a g e , lin e for lin e , u n e x p u rg a te d . T h is e n lig h te n in g w o rk , b o u n d in o r ig in a l sty le, is p ric e d a t o n ly I 2 .7 5 (1 g j. g d. sterlin g) p e r c o p y , p o sta g e p a id .
V o lu m e X V I T H E T E C H N IQ U E O F T H E D IS C IP L E
By R a y m u n d A n d r e a , F .R .C . The Technique o f the Disciple is a b o o k c o n ta in in g a m o d e rn d e scrip tio n o f the a n c ie n t e so teric p a th to s p iritu a l illu m in a tio n , tro d b y th e m asters a n d a v a ta r s o f y o r e . I t h a s lo n g b e e n sa id th a t C h r is t le ft, as a g r e a t h c rita g e to m e m b ers o f H is secret c o u n c il, a p rív a te m e th o d fo r g u id a n c e in life , w h ic h m e th o d h a s b een p re serve d u n til to d a y in th e secret, o c c u lt, m y s te ry schools. R a y m u n d A n d r e a , th e a u th o r, re v eá is th e m e th o d fo r a tta in in g a g r e a te r life ta u g h t in these m y s te ry sch ools, w h ic h p e rh a p s p a ra lle ls th e se cre t in stru ctio n s o f C h r is t to m e m b ers o f H is c o u n c il. T h e b o o k is in fo rm a tiv e , in sp irin g , a n d sp le n d id ly w ritte n . I t is h a n d so m e ly b o u n d w ith a c o v e r o f silk c lo th sta m p e d in g o ld . P o sta g e p re p a id . P r ice d a t $2.35 ( i 6j .
3d.
sterlin g) p e r c o p y .
V o lu m e X V I I M E N T A L P O IS O N IN G T h o u g h ts T h a t E n s la v e M in d s
By H . S p e n c e r L e w is , F . R . C . , P h .D . T o r t u r e d souls. H u m a n b e in gs, w h o se se lf-co n fid en ce a n d p e a c e o f m in d h a v e b e e n to rn to sh reds b y in v isib le d a rts— th e e v il th o u g h ts o f
others. C a n e n v y , h a te , a n d je a lo u s y be p ro je c te d th ro u g h sp a c e fro m th e m in d o f a n o th e r ? D o p oison ed th ou gh ts lik e m ysterio u s ra y s re a ch th ro u g h th e e th e re a l re a lm to c la im in n o ce n t v ictim s ? W ill w ish es a n d c o m m a n d s b o rn in h a te g a th e r m o m e n tu m a n d lik e a n a v a la n c h e d e sce n d u p o n a h elp less m a n or w o m a n in a series o f ca la m itie s ? M u s t h u m a n ity re m a in a t th e m e rc y o f evil in flu en ces c re a te d in th e m in d s o f th e v icio u s ? M illio n s e a c h y e a r a re m e n ta lly p o iso n e d — a re y o u safe fro m this sc o u rg e ? Mental Poisoning is th e title o f a b o o k w ritte n b y D r. H . S p e n c e r L e w is , w h ic h fearlessly discloses this p sych o lo g ica i p ro b le m . I t is se n sa tio n a l in its re v ela tio n s. R e a d it a n d b e p re p a re d . T h is n e a tly b o u n d , w e ll-p r in te d b o o k w ill b e sent to y o u for th e n o m in a l p r ic e o f o n ly I 1 .9 5 (14Í. ste rlin g ). I t has b een e co n o m ic a lly p r o d u c e d so it c a n b e in th e h a n d s o f th ou sa n d s b ecau se o f the b e n efit it w ill a ffo rd read ers. O r d e r y o u rs to d a y . P r ic e in clu d e s p o sta ge .
V o lu m e X V I I I GLAND S— O U R
IN V IS IB L E G U A R D IA N S
By M . W . K a p p , M .D . Y o u n ee d n ot co n tin u é to b e b o u n d b y th ose g la n d u la r c h a ra c te ristics o f y o u r life w h ic h d o n o t p le a se y o u . T h e s e in flu en ces, th ro u g h th e fin d in g s o f scie n ce a n d th e m y stic a l p rin c ip ie s o f n a tu re , m a y b e ad ju sted . T h e first e ssen tial is th a t o f th e o íd a d a g e : “ K n o w Y o u r s e lf.” H a v e re v e a le d th e facts a b o u t th e e n d o c rin e g la n d s — k n o w w h e r e th ey a re lo ca te d in y o u r b o d y a n d w h a t m e n ta l a n d p h y s ic a l fu n ctio n s th e y co n trol. T h e co n tro l o f th e g la n d s c a n m e a n th e c o n tro l o f y o u r life. T h e se facts, sc ie n tific a lly c o rre c t, w ith th eir m y s tic a l in te rp re ta tio n , a re for th e first tim e p re sen te d in sim p le , n o n te c h n ic a l la n g u a g e , in a bo ok w h ic h e v e ry o n e c a n e n jo y a n d p ro fit b y re a d in g . M y stics a n d m e ta p h y sicia n s h a v e lo n g re c o g n ize d th a t c erta in in fluen ces a n d p ow ers o f a C o s m ic n a tu re c o u ld b e ta p p e d ; th a t a D iv in e e n e rg y c o u ld be d ra w n u p o n , w h ic h aflfects o u r C reative a b ility , o u r p e rs o n a lity , a n d o u r p h y s ic a l w e lfa re . F o r cen tu ries th e re has been sp e c u la tio n as to w h a t a r e a o r w h a t o rg a n s o f th e b o d y c o n ta in this m é d iu m — this c o n ta c t b e tw e e n th e D iv in e a n d th e p h y sica l. N o w it is k n o w n th a t c erta in o f th e g la n d s a re g o v e rn o rs w h ic h sp eed u p o r slow d o w n th e in flu x o f C o s m ic e n e rg y in to th e b o d y . W h a t this process o f D iv in e a lc h e m y is a n d h o w it w o rks is fa s c in a tin g ly e x p la in e d in this b o o k o f sta rtlin g facts. D r. M . W . K a p p , th e a u th o r, d u rin g his lifetim e , w a s h e ld in h igh esteem b y th e m e d ic a l fra te r n ity , d esp ite th e fa c t th a t h e also expressed a d e e p in sig h t in to th e m y stica l law s o f life a n d th eir in flu e n ce on the p h y s ic a l fu n ctio n in g o f th e b o d y .
I N T R O D U C T IO N B Y H. SP E N C E R L E W IS , F .R .C ., Ph.D. D r. H . S p e n c e r L e w is — first I m p e ra to r o f th e R o sic ru c ia n O r d e r ( A M O R C ) , o f N o rth a n d S o u th A m e r ic a , for its p resen t c y c le o f a c tiv ity , a n d a u th o r o f m a n y w o rk s on m y sticism , p h ilo s o p h y , a n d m e ta p h y s ics— w r o te an im p o rta n t in tro d u ctio n to this b o o k , in w h ic h h e h ig h ly p ra ised it a n d its a u th o r. T h e b o o k is w e ll b o u n d w ith a c lo th c o v e r ; p ric e d o n ly $1.80 (13J. sterlin g) w ith p o sta g e p a id .
V o lu m e X X I W HAT TO
E A T — AND W HEN
By S t a n l e y K . C l a r k , M .D ., C . M . , F .R .C . “ M in d o v e r m a tt e r " is n o t a trite p h rase . Y o u r m o od s, y o u r te m p e ra m e n t, y o u r v e r y thoughts c a n a n d do a ffc c t d ig estió n . A r e y o u o v e rw c ig h t — o r u n d e r w e ig h t? A p p e a ra n c e s , e v e n th e scales, a re n o t a lw a y s relia b le . Y o u r a g e , y o u r sex , th e k in d o f w o rk y o u d o — a ll these factors d e te rm in e w h e th e r y o u r w e ig h t is co rre c t o r w r o n g for you. D o y o u k n o w th a t som e p e o p le su fle r fro m fo o d a llc r g y ? L e a rn these in te re stin g facts, a n d h o w y o u r d ig estió n m a y b e a ffe c te d e v e n h o u rs a fte r y o u h a v e c a te n . T h e a u th o r o f this b o ok, D r. S ta n le y K . C la r k , w as for se v era l y e ars s t a f f p h y s ic ia n a t th e H e n r y F o r d H o sp ita l in D e tro it. H e is a n o ted ga stro e n te ro lo g ist (sp ecia list in sto m a c h a n d in te stin a l d isord ers). H e brin g s y o u his w e a lth o f k n o w le d g e in this field , plus his a d d itio n a l fin d in g s fro m his stu d y o f th e effeets o f th e mind u p o n d ig estió n .
What to Eat— and When is c o m p a c t, free fro m u n n e ce ssary te c h n ica l te rm in o lo g y . In c lu d es c o m p le te h a n d y in d e x , food chart, a n d sample mentís. I t is n o t a o n e -tim e -re a d in g b o ok. Y o u w ill often re fer to it th ro u g h o u t th e y e a rs. W e ll p rin te d , stro n g ly b o u n d . P rice , p o s tp a id to y o u , $2.00 (14-r. 6 d. ste rlin g ).
V o lu m e X X I I T H E S A N C T U A R Y O F SELF
By R a l p h M . L e w is , F .R .C . W h a t c o u ld b e m o re essen tial th a n th e d is c o v e ry a n d a n a ly sis o f self, th e c o m p o site o f th a t con sciou sn ess w h ic h co n stitu tes o n e ’s w h o le b e in g ? T h is b o o k o fs o u n d lo g ic presen ts r e v e a lin g ly a n d in e n tire ty the fo u r p hases o f h u m a n liv in g : T h e M y steries, T h e T e c h n iq u e , T h e P itfalls, a n d A tta in m e n t. D o y o u n o t, a t tim es, e n te rta in th e qu estio n as to w h e th e r y o u a re liv in g y o u r life to y o u r best a d v a n ta g e ? Y o u m a y find a n a n sw e r in so m e o f th e 23 c h a p te rs, p re sen te d u n d e r h e a d in g s su ch a s: C a u s a lity
and K a rm a , T h e L o st W o rd , D c a th — T h e L a w of C h a n ge , L o v e and D esire, N a tu re o f D re a m s, P r c d ic tio n , M a s tc rs h ip a n d P erfectio n . C o n s id e r “ L o v e a n d D e sire .” In m u c h o f a n c ie n t a n d m o d e rn lite ra tu re , as w e ll as in the m a n y a n d v a rio u s p re a ch m e n ts o f th e p resen td a y w o rld , L O V E is p ro c la im c d as th e so lu tio n to a ll h u m a n c o n flict. D o y o u u n d e rsta n d tr u ly th e m e a n in g o f absoluto love? D o y o u kn o w th a t th ere a re v a rio u s loves a n d th a t so m e o f th e so -called loves a re d a n g e ro u s d r iv e s? W ritte n a u th o r ita tiv c ly b y R a lp h M . L e w is , I m p e ra to r o f th e R o si c ru c ia n O r d e r ( A M O R C ) , th e in te rn a tio n a l ju r isd ic tio n o f N o rth , C e n t r a l,a n d S o u th A m e ric a , B ritish C o m m o n w e a lth a n d E m p ir e ,F r a n c e , S w itz c rla n d , S w ed e n , a n d A fr ic a , this v o lu m e o f o v e r 350 p ages, c a re fu lly in d e x e d , is o f p a r tic u la r v a lu é as a te x t for te a ch ers a n d stu d en ts o f m e ta p h y sics, in c lu d in g p h ilo s o p h y a n d p s y c h o lo g y . W e ll-b o u n d a n d a ttr a c tiv e , i t i s p u rp o s e ly e c o n o m ic a lly p ric e d a t $2.85 (fios. 6 d. ste rlin g ), p o stp a id , m a k in g it a v a ila b le to a ll sin cere seekers.
V o lu m e X X I I I
SE P H E R Y E Z IR A H — A B O O K O N C R E A T I O N O r T h e J e w is h M e ta p h y sic s o f R e m ó te A n tiq u ity D r . I s id o r K a l i s c h , T r a n s la to r A m o n o th e list o f th e h u n d re d best b o oks in th e w o rld , o n e m ig h t e a sily in c lu d e this sim p le v o lu m e , r e v e a lin g th e g rea te st a u th e n tic stu d y
o f the secret K a b a la . F o r th ose a v e rse to fa n ta stic cla im s, this book is tr u ly comprehensible— fo r th e w ise s tu d e n t w h o does n o t c a re for m a g ic a l m u m b o -ju m b o , it is dynamic. T h e p h a n ta sies o f those b a fflin g sp e cu la tio n s o f oth er w riters b cco m e u n im p o rta n t w h e n th e p r a c tic a l s tu d e n t o f m y sticism re v eren tly th u m b s th ro u g h th ese p a g e s a n d c a tc h e s th e terse a n d c h a lle n g in g statem en ts. T h e w o o lg a th e rin g o f m a n y so -c a lled a u th o rs o f o ccu ltism is b r o u g h t to n o th in g b y this sim p le v o lu m e w h ic h m akes a p a tte rn for hon est m y stica l c o m m o n sense. T h e Sepher Tezirah is o n e o f th e m a n y books p u b lish e d b y A M O R C . It has 61 p a g e s w ith b o th H e b r e w a n d E n g lish tex is, p h o to lith o g r a p h c d fro m th e 18 77 o r ig in a l e d itio n . F o r a n y o n e in terested in th e best-— also, co n sid ered b y som e th e m o st a n c ie n t— in H e b r e w m y stic a l th o u g h t, this bo ok w ill be a refresh in g d isco v e ry . S tu d en ts o f th e K a b a la a n d rea d ers o f m y sticism w ill re c o g n ize in it o n e o f th e tw o g re a te st so u rce b o o k s for a ll o c c u lt th in k in g . T h e carefu l re a d e r w ill b e a ttr a c te d to th re e c h a ra cte ristic s o f this ed itio n o f th e Sepher Tezirah: (1) A c le a r E n g lish tra n sla tio n o f a m o st a n c ie n t w o rk , alm o st una v a ila b le u p to th e presen t.
(2) A sim p le exp o sé o f fu n d a m e n ta l asp ects o f th e a n c ie n t K a b a la w ith o u t su p erstitio u s in te rp re ta tio n s. (3) A n in ex p e n siv e a n d c o n v e n ie n t tra n sla tio n o f th e w o r ld ’s old est p h ilo s o p h ic a l w r itin g in H e b re w . A tt r a c tiv e a n d c o n v e n ie n t, p a p e r -b o u n d e d itio n . P r ic e : $ 1.2 5 (9 s. ste rlin g ), p o stp a id .
V o lu m e X X I V O F G O D S A N D M IR A C L E S W o n d ro u s T a le s o f th e A n c ie n t E g y p tia n s
By
U lr ic h S te in d o r ff C a r r in g to n
O v e r fifty c en tu ries a g o in th e la n d o f th e N ile , m a n g a in e d his first
in sig h t in to sp iritu a l v alú es— lo n g b e fo re a n y o f th e liv in g religio n s or g r e a t p h ilo so p h ies b e g a n , these tru th s w e re in co rp o ra te d in sim p le tales. F ath e rs re la te d th em to th eir sons. S age s to ld th eir disciples. I n these stories y o u a re n o t re a d in g a m o d e rn h isto ria n ’s versió n o f a n c ie n t tim es. N o o n e speaks for these sages. T h e y sp e a k fo r th em selves — y o u w ill re a d w o rd s w ritte n 2000 y e a rs b e fo re C h rist! A s y o u re a d , th e g r e a t tru th s b e tw ee n th e lines c o n ce rn in g th e sim p le c h a ra cte rs a n d in cid en ts w ill sta n d re v e a le d . T h e y a re as e ffe c tiv e to d a y as w h e n th ey w e re first in scrib ed in ston e o r w ritte n u p o n p a p y r u s scrolls b y the scribes. H e re w e h a v e a u th e n tic w o rks tra n sla te d b y w o rld -re co g n ize d E g y p to lo g ists a n d co m p ile d in a m ost in te re stin g a n d th o ro u g h m a n n e r b y a m a n w h ose life p re p a re d h im fo r this a cco m p lish m e n t. U lr ic h S te in d o r ff C a r rin g to n ,
a u th o r o f this w o rk , is th e son o f th e la te
D r. G e o rg e S te in d o rff, w o rld -fa m o u s E g y p to lo g is t, a n d fo rm er con su lta n t fo r th e R o sic ru c ia n M u se u m . •
T h is b o o k is d e sign ed fo r y o u r re a d in g p le a s u re . B e a u tifu lly b o u n d a n d p rin te d , w ith a u th e n tic illu stratio n s. P o stp a id , o n ly $2.60 ( i8 j. 9 d. ste rlin g ).
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R O S IC R U C IA N S U P P L Y B U R E A U R osicrucian P a r k , S a n J osé , C a l if o r n ia , U .S .A . 25 G
a r r ic k
S t ., L o n d o n , W .C .2
