Lecture I. Introduction. 15
The Song of the Harper is not the only fragment of the
sceptical literature of Egypt which we possess. At a far later date,
a treatise was written in which, under the thinly-veiled form of
a fable the dogmas of the national faith were controverted and
overthrown. It takes the form of a dialogue between an Ethiopian
cat—the representative of all that was orthodox and respectable
in Egyptian society—and a jackal, who is made the mouthpiece
of heretical unbelief.^2 But it is clear that the sympathies of the
author are with the sceptic rather than with the believer; and it is
the cat and not the jackal who is worsted in argument. In this first
controversy between authority and reason, authority thus comes
off second best, and just as Epicurus has a predecessor in the
author of the Song of the Harper, so Voltaire has a predecessor
in the author of the dialogue.
Here, again, it is obvious that if only these two specimens of
Egyptian theological literature had been preserved, we should
have carried away with us a very erroneous idea of ancient
Egyptian belief—or unbelief. Who could have imagined that the
Egyptians were a people who had elaborated a minutely-detailed
description of the world beyond the grave, and who believed [014]
more intensely perhaps than any other people has done either
before or since in a future life? Who could have supposed that
their religion inculcated a belief not only in the immortality of
the soul or spirit, but in the resurrection of the body as well; and
that they painted the fields of the blessed to which they looked
forward after death as a happier and a sunnier Egypt, a land of
light and gladness, of feasting and joy? We cannot judge what
Egyptian religion was like merely from the writings of some of
its literary men, or build upon them elaborate theories as to what
priest and layman believed. In dealing with the fragments of
Egyptian literature, we must ever bear in mind that they represent,
not the ideas of the mass of the people, but the conceptions of
(^2) Révillout in theRevue égyptologique, i. 4, ii. 3.