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Friday, October 29, 2010

EGYPTIAN PRAYER AND THE AFTERLIFE

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As it was in every ancient religion
(including those of the Greeks, Romans, and
Hebrews before the 8th century B.C.) polytheism
was taken for granted in ancient Egypt, for which
we have very extensive and detailed records.
During the period from about 2700 to 2200 B.C.,
for example, the Egyptian kings themselves were
worshipped as sons of the sun god. But from
2000 B.C., there is clear evidence of monotheism:
Amon was regarded as the one supreme deity,
and when one ruler addressed a spontaneous
hymn to Amon, his prayer was set down
 in hieroglyphs:
 "Creator, Maker, Giver of breath -
how manifold are your works, O sole God,
whose power no other possesses. You created
the earth according to your heart."
Egyptians also offered morning and
evening prayer to Amon.
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Along with the tendency toward monotheism,
there was a conviction about the afterlife.
The Papyrus of Ani, which can be dated to
about 1250 B.C., is a major extant portion
of the texts now collectively known as the
Egyptian Book of the Dead; it contains hymns
and invocations interred with the deceased
and intended to guide them safely to the
beyond. A typical prayer for mercy was
addressed, for example, to 
"My Shining One,
 who dwells in the Mansion of Images...
O Preeminent one...may you grant me life...
O my father, my brother, my mother -
Isis! I shall cross to the Mansion of him
who finds faces, the collector of souls...
And I will not die again in God's domain...
I give you praise, O Lord of the gods."
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Perhaps nowhere are the traditions of
prayerful acts discerned more clearly
than in this ancient conviction that life
endures beyond the grave, a conviction
to which the pyramids remain a grand and
silent witness.
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From In Silence - Why We Pray
by Donald Spotto
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