164 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia[178] over the tombs; let him receive offerings at the cemetery in the
presence of (Osiris) Un-nefer (the Good Being); let him be as
one of those favourites who follow thee; let his soul abide where
it will in the necropolis of his city, he whose voice is true before
the great Ennead.”^147
In the judgment-hall of Osiris we find the first expression of
the doctrine which was echoed so many ages later by the Hebrew
prophets, that what the gods require is mercy and righteousness
rather than orthodoxy of belief. And the righteousness and mercy
are far-reaching. The faith that is to save the follower of Osiris
is a faith that has led him to feed the hungry, to give drink to the
thirsty, to clothe the naked, to abstain from injuring his neighbour
in word or thought, much less in deed, and to be truthful in both
act and speech. Even the slave is not forgotten; to have done
anything which has caused him to be ill-treated by his master, is
sufficient to exclude the offender from the delights of paradise.
Man's duty towards his fellow-man is put on a higher footing
even than his duty towards the gods, for it comes first in the list
of righteous actions required from him. It is not until the dead
man has proved that he has acted with justice and mercy towards
his fellows, that he is allowed to pass on to prove that he has
performed his duty towards the gods.
And the Osirian confession of faith was not a mere
conventional formulary, without influence on the life and conduct
of those who professed it. There are already allusions to it in the
Pyramid texts, and in the tombs of a later period the deceased
rests his claim to be remembered upon the good deeds he had
done while on earth. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked,
and to deal justly, are duties which are constantly recognised in
[179] them.“I loved my father,”says Baba at El-Kab,“I honoured my
mother.... When a famine arose, lasting many years, I distributed
corn to the needy.”The Egyptian sepulchres contain few records
(^147) Maspero,Dawn of Civilisation, p. 191.