184 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babyloniabook was copied, in one of the murky regions of the other world
instead of in the solar bark. They had been followers of Osiris
and not of Ra, and there was accordingly no place for them in
the boat of the sun-god.
Osiris is thus subordinated to the sun. The god of the dead
is not allowed to rule even in his own domains. Such light and
life as are graciously permitted to him come from the passing
of the solar bark once in each twenty-four hours. He has lost
the bright and happy fields of Alu, he has had to quit even the
judgment-hall where he decided the lot of man. Osiris and his
creed are deposed to make way for another god with another and
a lower form of doctrine.
The fact was so patent, that a second solar apocalypse was
written in order to smooth it away. This was the Book of the
Gates or of Hades, a copy of which is also inscribed in the tomb
of Seti. It differs only in details from the Book Am Duat; the main
outlines of the latter, with the passage of the solar bark through
the twelve hours or regions of the night, remain unaltered. But
the details vary considerably. The gates which shut the hours off
one from the other become fortified pylons, guarded by serpents
breathing fire. The Hades of Sokaris is suppressed, and the
judgment-hall of Osiris is introduced between the fifth and sixth
hours. The object of the judgment, however, seems merely the
punishment of the enemies of the god, who are tied to stakes and
finally burned or otherwise put to death in the eighth hour. Among
them appears Set in the form of a swine, who is driven out of the
hall of judgment by a cynocephalous ape. As for the righteous,
[201] they are still allowed to cultivate the fields of the kingdom of
Osiris; but it is a kingdom which is plunged in darkness except
during the brief space of time when the bark of the sun-god floats
through it. Osiris, nevertheless, is acknowledged as lord of the
world of the dead, in contradistinction to the Book Am Duat,
which assigns him only a portion of it; and when the sun-god
emerges into the world of light at the end of the twelfth hour,