Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/208

 there shall be given to him bread and beer, and flesh upon the tables of Rā; he will work in the fields of Aarru, and there shall be given to him the wheat and barley which are there, for he shall flourish as though he were upon earth." Another rubric says: "If this chapter be recited over him, he will go forth over the earth, and he will pass through every kind of fire, no evil thing being able to hurt him."

The power of the book of Tehuti (that is, of the Book of the Dead), it is said in one place, is the cause of the triumph of Osiris over his ghostly enemies. And in very many places the Osiris bases his claims on the simple feet of knowing the names of the gods whom he addresses, or of the localities in the divine world which he inhabits.

The superstitious repetition of names (many of which perhaps never had any meaning at all) is particularly conspicuous in numerous documents much more recent than the Book of the Dead; from the time, in fact, of the eighteenth dynasty down to Christian times. But the last chapters of the Turin copy of the Book of the Dead, which, though really no portion of it, are probably very ancient, already indulge in this gross superstition. "Iruka is thy name, Markata is thy name, Ruta is thy name, Nasakaba is thy name, Tanasatanasa is thy name, Sharusatakata is thy name."