Ra
From Fire from Strange Altars by J. N. Fradenburgh, 1891.
From: Unknown To: 1891 C.E.
Location: Egypt
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Fire from Strange Altars by J. N. Fradenburgh, 1891.
A little east of the Nile, and not far from the spot where Memphis was afterward built, stood a city of great renown, called Pa-ra, or "the City of the Sun"—literally translated by the Greeks as Heliopolis, but known both among Egyptians and Hebrews as An or On, a word which seems to signify "pillar," or "stone," and possibly given on account of some obelisk, or, more likely, some sacred stone hidden in the innermost sanctuary. The wife of Joseph—Asnet or Asnath, "Isis-Neith"—belonged to this city.
Here was the most learned priesthood of all Egypt, and On was the very center of letters and culture. Here the king was crowned, as also at Memphis, and received a special title, "sovereign lord of On." The religious cult was ancient and venerable and prevailed at a later period throughout all Egypt.
Ra, the god of the sun by day, was the chief deity of this sacred city. Attributes are ascribed to this divinity which can belong only to the supreme god—" the lord of truth, the maker of men, the creator of beasts, the lord of existence, the maker of fruitful trees and herbs, the maker everlasting, the lord of eternity, the lord of wisdom, the lord of mercy, the one maker of existences, the one along of many hands, and the sovereign of life and health and strength."
The god says, in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead: "I am Tum, a being that is alone." Tum is the concealed god, who, before the creation, existed alone. At On this concealed god had a temple of wondrous magnificence. It was resplendent with gold and all precious stones, rich in gifts of mightiest monarchs, and attended by more than ten thousand sacred slaves. Ra exists of himself, and comes to view out of this concealment and darkness.
He is symbolically represented by the scarabæus, or beetle, the emblem of change and transformation. Another emblem is ''Ra in the egg"—the world-egg which is familiar in many mythologies. Ra traverses the heavens undisturbed, and finishes his course; but in the west, the land of Amenti, the kingdom of the dead, in which is the abode of the great deity whose name is known only to himself—perhaps this deity is but the spirit of Ra—he must battle with the dark powers.
"The sun-god, after his setting, has now become a soul; and as, in his glory in the heavens, in his glittering body, he was represented as a sparrow-hawk, so in his concealment as a soul in the realm of the dead he is represented by the Bennu-bird, the heron, which, as a bird of passage, is a symbol of immortality and of return to life."
As the self-begetting god, who constantly renews himself, Ra is identified with Chem, who was worshiped at Chemmis, or Panopolis, and at Thebes, and to some extent throughout Egypt. Chem was so inexcusably vile, indecent, and corrupting in his grossness as to render his representation or description impossible. He symbolized the male generative power of nature, and in the inscription of Darius is called: "The god Khem, raising his tall plumes; king of the gods, lifting the hand; lord of the crown, powerful by it; all fear emanates from the fear of him; the Kamutf, who resides in the fields, horned in all his beauty, engendering the depths." As supreme god, the ruler of all things made and unmade, he bears the strange title "father of his own father."
Tum is the god of the setting sun, as Harmachis is the god of the rising sun, or "Horos on the horizon," whose emblem was the sphinx, which symbolized the "power of enlightened and disciplined reason."
When Ra triumphs over the powers of darkness, and comes forth from the conflict strengthened and purified, he is crowned, and exclaims: “It is I who have received the double crown with delight; it is I on whom the burden has been laid of ruling over the gods in the day when the world is set in order by the lord of the universe."
We present a few verses from "The Litany of Ra:"
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the master of the hidden spheres who causes the principles to arise, who dwells in darkness, who is born as the all-surrounding universe.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the beetle that folds his wings, that rests in the empyrean, that is born as his own son.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the soul that speaks, that rests upon her high place, that creates the hidden intellects which are developed in her.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the spirit that walks, that destroys its enemies, that sends pain to the rebels.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who descends into the spheres of Ament, his form is that of Tum.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme powder, he whose body is so large that it hides his shape, his form is that of Shu.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who leads Ra into his members, his form is that of Tefnut.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the two vipers that bear their two feathers, their form is that of the impure one.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the timid one who sheds tears, his form is that of the afflicted.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who is more courageous than those who surround him, who sends fire into the place of destruction, his form is that of the burning one.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who makes the roads in the empyrean, and who opens pathways in the sarcophagus, his form is that of the god who makes the roads.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who sends forth the stars and who makes the night light, in the sphere of the hidden essences, his form is that of the shining one.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the high spirit who hunts his enemies, who sends fire upon the rebels, his form is that of Kaba.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, he who sends the flames into his furnaces, he who cuts off the head of those who are in the infernal regions, his form is that of the god of the furnace.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the master of souls, who is in his obelisk, the chief of the confined gods, his form is that of the master of souls.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the double luminary, the double obelisk, the great god who raises his two eyes, his form is that of the double luminary.
Homage to thee, Ra! Supreme power, the master of the light, who reveals hidden things, the spirit who speaks to the gods in their spheres, his form is that of the master of the light.
The soul of Ra shines in his shape, his body rests amid the invocations which are addressed to him; he enters into the interior of his white disk, he lights the empyrean with his rays, he creates it, he makes the souls remain in their bodies; they praise him from the height of their pedestal. He receives the acclamations of all the gods who open the doors, the hidden essences who prepare the way for Ra's soul, and who allow the king of souls access to the fields.
Chepni, the beetle-god, was one of the forms of Ra. He is a god both beneficent and dreaded; for he is the righteous god, and is connected with Ma, the goddess of righteousness.
The myths of Ra are closely related with those of Osiris, and the two worships stand side by side in harmonious concord.
We quote part of a hymn from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of the Dead:
Hail, thou who art come as Turn, and who hast been the creator of the gods!
Hail, thou who art come as soul of the holy souls in Amenti!
Hail, supreme among the gods, who by thy beauties dost illumine the kingdom of the dead!
Hail, thou who comest in radiance and travelest in thy disk!
Hail, greatest of all the gods, bearing rule in the highest, reigning in the nethermost heaven!
Hail, thou who dost penetrate within the nethermost heaven, and hast command of all the gates!
Hail, among the gods, weigher of words in the kingdom of the dead!
Hail! thou art in thine abode creator of the nethermost heaven by thy virtue!
Hail, renowned and glorified god! Thy enemies fall upon their scaffold!
Hail! thou hast slain the guilty, thou hast destroyed Apap (the serpent of darkness)!
Shu and Tefnut are the two lion-gods who light Turn as he comes out from his place in the heavenly ocean. Shu is addressed: "Thou who hast not thy second among the gods, who brings forth the wind by the fire of his mouth, and who lights up the two worlds by his brightness."
There is a representation of the dogs, which symbolize the winds, swiftly following Shu. He was originally the symbol of cosmic heat and light, and is the world-egg in which Ra is to be found. "He is the lord who came forth alone from the heavenly sea, Nun, over which, in the beginning, the quickening breath of the deity passed. As the principle of creation, he is uncreated; with the beginning of his existence the sun began to exist. He is the life-giver, and, like all the gods that are to be taken as representing the first cause, has the marvelous designation bestowed on him of young-old, an expression by which the Egyptians sought to indicate eternal youth." As the god of the atmosphere, he is depicted as supporting upon his uplifted arms the vault of heaven, which is in the form of a woman bending forward and standing on hands and feet. Rn, the sun-god, is represented as traveling along the back of the goddess of heaven.
When Shu became identified with the sun, it was as the dread scorching; sun, and he was closely related with Set. His form was that of a male cat.
Tefnut, his wife, also depicted in Egyptian art as a lioness or as a cat, was the great cosmic ocean, or the foam of the primordial cosmic waters. When Shu was the raging sun, his spouse was symbolized by the puffed-up adder of deadly sting. Sometimes she is pictured as a lioness vomiting flames.
These are the principal gods of the circle of Ra, and of the sacred city of On. The myth of Ra and his conflict with Apap, the demon of darkness, ever renewed and ever scoring a victory for the god of light, while it represents the physical struggle, also points to the moral warfare waged between good and evil, the triumph of the good, and the hope of immortality by the resurrection of the dead.
Fradenburgh, J. N. Fire from Strange Altars. Cranston & Stowe, 1891.
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