reign of Menkaura (the
Mycerinus of classical writers), a king of the fourth dynasty. It is
certain, however, that the Egyptians possessed a Book of the Dead which
was used for kings and royal personages, at least, early under the first
dynasty, and that, in a form more or less complete, it was in use down
to the time of the coming of Christianity into Egypt. The tombs of the
officials of the third and fourth dynasties prove that the Book of
Opening the Mouth and the Liturgy of Funerary Offerings (see pp. 13-18)
were in use when they were made, and this being so it follows as a
matter of course that at this period the Egyptians believed in the
resurrection of the dead and in their immortality, that the religion of
Osiris was generally accepted, that the efficacy of funerary offerings
was unquestioned by the religious, and that men died believing that
those who were righteous on earth would be rewarded in heaven, and that
the evil-doer would be punished. The Pyramid Texts also prove that a
Book of the Dead divided into chapters was in existence when they were
written, for they mention the "Chapter of those who come forth (_i.e._
appear in heaven)," and the "Chapter of those who rise up" (Pepi I, l.
463), and the "Chapter of the _betu_ incense," and the "Chapter of the
natron incense" (Pepi I, 469). Whether these Chapters formed parts of
the Pyramid Texts, or whether both they and the Pyramid Texts belonged
to the Book of the Dead cannot be said, but it seems clear that the four
Chapters mentioned above formed part of a work belonging to a Book of
the Dead that was older than the Pyramid Texts. This Book of the Dead
was no doubt based upon the beliefs of the followers of the religion of
Osiris, which began in the Delta and spread southwards into Upper Egypt.
Its doctrines must have differed in many important particulars from
those of the worshippers of the Sun-god of Heliopolis, whose priests
preached the existence of a heaven of a solar character, and taught
their followers to believe in the Sun-god Ra, and not in Temu, the
ancient native god of Heliopolis, and not in the divine man Osiris. The
exposition of the Heliopolitan creed is found in the Pyramid Texts,
which also contain the proofs that before the close of the sixth dynasty
the cult of Osiris had vanquished the cult of Ra, and that the religion
of Osiris had triumphed.

[Footnote 1: _i.e._ before Menes became king of both Upper and Lower
Egypt.]

Certain of t