time
of Thothmes III., we read that "a king will come from the south, Ameni
the truth-declaring by name.... He will assume the crown of Upper Egypt,
and will lift up the red crown of Lower Egypt.... The people of the age
of the Son of Man will rejoice, and establish his name for all eternity.
They will be far from evil, and the wicked will humble their mouths for
fear of him. The Asiatics will fall before his blows, and the Libyans
before his flame."

Even the conception of a son who is born of a virgin and a god is met
with in the temples of Hatshepsu at Der el-Bahari, and of Amenophis III.
at Luxor. Here Amon-Ra is said to have "gone to" the queen, "that he
might be a father through her. He made her behold him in his divine
form, so that she might bear a child at the sight of his divine beauty.
His charms penetrated her flesh, filling it with the odours of Punt."
And the god is finally made to declare to her: "Amen-hotep shall be the
name of the son that is in thy womb. He shall grow up according to the
words that proceed out of thy mouth. He shall exercise sovereignty and
righteousness in this land unto its very end. My soul is in him, and he
shall wear the twofold crown of royalty, ruling the two lands like the
sun for ever."

Religious dogmas did not weaken the firm hold the Egyptian had upon
morality. His moral code was very high. Even faith in Horus the
"Redeemer" did not suffice by itself to ensure an entrance for the dead
man into the fields of Alu, the Egyptian Paradise. His deeds were
weighed in the balance, and if they were found wanting, he was condemned
to the fiery pains of hell. Each man, after death, was called upon to
make the "Negative Confession," to prove that he had not sinned against
his fellows, that he had not oppressed or taken bribes, had not judged
wrongfully, had not injured a slave or overtasked the poor man, had not
murdered or stolen, lied or committed adultery, had not given short
weight or robbed the gods and the dead, had made none to "hunger" or
"weep." Only when all the questions of the awful judges in the
underworld had been answered satisfactorily was he allowed to pass into
the presence of Osiris and to cultivate the fields of Alu with his own
hands.

This was the last trial demanded from the justified Egyptian, and it was
a hard one for the rich and noble who had done no peasants' work in this
present life. Accordingly, small images of labourers were buried with
the dead, and