Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/245

 several hymns belonging to this short-lived phase of religion have escaped destruction. One of them says:

"The whole land of Egypt and all people repeat all thy names at thy rising, to magnify thy rising in like manner as thy setting. Thou, O God, who in truth art the living one, standest before the Two Eyes. Thou art he which createst what never was, which formest everything, which art in all things: we also have come into being through the word of thy mouth."

Another says: "Thou living God! there is none other beside thee! Thou givest health to the eyes by thy beams. Creator of all beings. Thou goest up on the eastern horizon of heaven to dispense life to all that thou hast created: to man, to four-footed beasts, birds, and all manner of creeping things on the earth where they live. &hellip; Grant to thy son who loves thee, life in truth &hellip; that he may live united with thee in eternity."

The language of these hymns and prayers is exactly similar to that of ordinary Egyptian orthodoxy, and there is nothing heterodox in the symbol itself; the heresy consisted in refusing worship to all the other gods.

Pantheism.

But the magnificent predicates of the one and only God, however recognized by Egyptian orthodoxy, never in fact led to actual Monotheism. They stopped short