Suten-henen
(Heracleopolis Magna) crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of the
god Shu were not as yet created when he was upon the staircase of him
that dwelleth in Khemennu (Hermopolis Magna)." From these statements we
learn that Temu and R[=a] were one and the same god, and that he was the
first offspring of the god Nu, the primeval watery mass out of which all
the gods came into being. The text continues: "I am the great god Nu who
gave birth to himself, and who made his names to come into being and to
form the company of the gods. But who is this? It is R[=a], the creator
of the names of his members which came into being in the form of the
gods who are in the train of R[=a]." And again: "I am he who is not
driven back among the gods. But who is this? It is Tem, the dweller in
his disk, or as others say, it is R[=a] in his rising in the eastern
horizon of heaven." Thus we learn further that Nu was self-produced, and
that the gods are simply the names of his limbs; but then R[=a] is Nu,
and the gods who are in his train or following are merely
personifications of the names of his own members. He who cannot be
driven back among the gods is either Temu or R[=a], and so we find that
Nu, Temu, and R[=a] are one and the same god. The priests of Heliopolis
in setting Temu at the head of their company of the gods thus gave
R[=a], and Nu also, a place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in
making their own local god chief of the company, but at the same time
they provided the older gods with positions of importance. In this way
worshippers of R[=a], who had regarded their god as the oldest of the
gods, would have little cause to complain of the introduction of Temu
into the company of the gods, and the local vanity of Heliopolis would
be gratified.

But besides the nine gods who were supposed to form the "great company"
of gods of the city of Heliopolis, there was a second group of nine gods
called the "little company" of the gods, and yet a third group of nine
gods, which formed the least company. Now although the _paut_ or company
of nine gods might be expected to contain nine always, this was not the
case, and the number nine thus applied is sometimes misleading. There
are several passages extant in texts in which the gods of a _paut_ are
enumerated, but the total number is sometimes ten and sometimes eleven.
This fact is easily explained when we remember that the Egyptians
deified the various forms or aspects o