h it is found, and the variant readings which
occur in each make it certain that the Egyptian scribes had difficulty
in understanding what they were writing. It may be said that this
version of the cosmogony is incomplete because it does not account for
the origin of any of the gods except those who belong to the cycle of
Osiris, and this objection is a valid one; but in this place we are only
concerned to shew that R[=a], the Sun-god, was evolved from the primeval
abyss of water by the agency of the god Khepera, who brought this result
about by pronouncing his own name. The great cosmic gods, such as Ptah
and Khnemu, of whom mention will be made later, are the offspring of
another set of religious views, and the cosmogony in which these play
the leading parts is entirely different. We must notice, in passing,
that the god whose words we have quoted above declares that he evolved
himself under the form, of Khepera, and that his name is Osiris, "the
primeval matter of primeval matter," and that, as a result, Osiris is
identical with Khepera in respect of his evolutions and new births. The
word rendered "evolutions" is _kheperu_, literally "rollings"; and that
rendered "primeval matter" is _paut_, the original "stuff" out of which
everything was made. In both versions we are told that men and women
came into being from the tears which fell from the "Eye" of Khepera,
that is to say from the Sun, which, the god says, "I made take to up its
place in my face, and afterwards it ruled the whole earth."

We have seen how R[=a] has become the visible type and symbol of God,
and the creator of the world and of all that is therein; we may now
consider the position which he held with, respect to the dead. As far
back as the period of the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 3700, he was regarded
as the great god of heaven, and the king of all the gods, and divine
beings, and of the beatified dead who dwelt therein. The position of the
beatified in heaven is decided by R[=a], and of all the gods there
Osiris only appears to have the power to claim protection for his
followers; the offerings which the deceased would make to R[=a] are
actually presented to him by Osiris. At one time the Egyptian's greatest
hope seems to have been that he might not only become "God, the son of
God," by adoption, but that R[=a] would become actually his father. For
in the text of Pepi I, [Footnote: Ed. Maspero, line 570.] it is said:
"Pepi is the son of R[=a] who lov