Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/134

 The Reign of Law.

M. de Rougé, in the extract which I have read from his Lecture, quotes the Egyptian expression, "the Only Being, living in truth," "le seul Etre, vivant en vérité." But the original words, ānχ em maāt, mean very much more than "living in truth." A more grammatically exact translation would be, "who lives by truth," or "whose existence depends upon truth;" but "truth" is not the exact meaning of maāt. When speaking of the moral code recognized by the Egyptians, I used the word "Right" as including both Truth and Justice. But it now becomes necessary to define the term more precisely.

Maāt as a noun signifies a perfectly straight and inflexible rule. It is evidently, I believe, derived from the root mā, "to stretch out," or "hold out straight before one," "protendere," as in the act of presenting an offering, mā hotep. "I have stretched out (mā-na) my hand, as the master of the crown," says the Osiris in the Book of the Dead. "Tehuti has extended to her (mā-nes) his hand," is said in one of the texts at Dendera. With this notion of stretching out are