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plains bitterly of the persistent annoyance caused to him by his deceased wife.1

Possession.

The most terrific form, however, of annoyance is that caused by what we commonly call possession. We are accustomed to hear of possession by evil spirits only, but this is because from a Christian point of view possession by spirits is necessarily incompatible with the goodness of the spirits; but the Greek daíμwv was not necessarily an evil spirit, nor was the Egyptian chut. There is an interesting inscription now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the translation of which was first given by Dr. Birch.2 It records the possession by a spirit of the princess of Bechten, an Asiatic country which has not yet been satisfactorily identified. She was connected by marriage with the court of Egypt. Her sister had been married to one of the kings of the twentieth dynasty. She had fallen ill, and an Egyptian practitioner who, at her father's request, had been summoned to see her,

] "L'époux se plaint des mauvais procédés de l'épouse défunte dont à ce qu'il parait la mort ne l'a pas suffisamment debarassé." M. Chabas, in his Introduction to the Papyri of Leyden, p. 71. [The letter has been translated by M. Maspero, Journal Asiatique, 1880, p. 371.]

2 The inscription has been repeatedly translated. [Dr. Erman has recently demonstrated the lateness of its date and its unhistorical character. But its value as a witness of the religious belief is not affected by this.]

declared that she was possessed by a spirit (chut) with which he was himself unable to cope. The image of the god Chonsu,1 one of the divine triad of Thebes, was solemnly sent in his ark, accompanied by a talisman of the same god under a different title, for the purpose of exorcising the princess, and the spirit yielded at once to the superior divinity of such a god, who, speaking through his prophet, ordered that a sacrifice should be offered to propitiate the spirit. The inscription assures us that during the time that the god and the spirit were in presence of each other, the king of Bechten and all his army were in a state of excessive terror. The result, however, was so satisfactory, that he kept the Theban god by him for upwards of three years, and would probably never have allowed him to return, had he not been terrified by a dream; in consequence of which the god was sent back to Egypt with presents of great value.

Dreams.

The belief in dreams, as revelations from a world quite as real as that which we see about us whilst waking, was shared by the ancient Egyptians. The great tablet which is buried in the sand before the

1 Chonsu is the moon, and one of his attributes is hesb āhā, the reckoner of time. [Etymologically, his name signifies "the hunter," and is applicable to the sun as well as to the moon; and I am inclined to the belief that Chonsu was originally a name of the sun. Some texts identify him with Ames, the ithyphallic Horus.]

great Sphinx at Gizeh, records a dream in which the god appeared to Tehutimes IV. whilst yet a prince, spoke to him as a father to a son, and promised him the kingdom, the white and the red crown, with the throne of Seb, and the earth in its length and breadth. This promise was made on the condition that Tehutimes should clear away the sand which then as now encumbered the mighty image of the god. King Mer-enPtah II. was encouraged by the god Ptah in a dream, and directed in his warfare against the northern invaders of Egypt.

One of the many valuable tablets found by Mariette Bey at Gebel Barkal is well known under the name of Stèle du Songe. It belongs to the Ethiopian period, and records an event which happened in the first year of a king (Nut) of the seventh century before Christ. "His Majesty had a dream in the night. He saw two serpents, one at his right hand and the other at his left. And when he awoke he found them not. Then he said, 'Let these things be explained to me at once.' And they explained them, saying, 'The land of the South is thine, and thou shalt seize the land of the North, and the two crowns shall be set upon thy head. The earth is given to thee in all its length and its breadth."" The tablet proceeds to describe the accomplishment of the dream, and the king's gratitude as testified by his splendid donations.

I have already quoted the Ptolemaic tablet which

speaks of the fulfilment of a dream in which the god I-em-hotep promised a son to Pasherenptah.

Oaths.

The Egyptians invoked their deceased fathers and the gods in attestation of the truth of their assertions. Oaths were resorted to in legal investigations. The primitive sense of the word arqu, which signifies to swear, is "bind." To "clear one's-self by an oath," is a recognized form of speech,1 and it was no empty form, for the presence of the gods was strongly impressed upon the Egyptian mind. Even when the original meaning of a myth had not been entirely lost, the god was no longer identified with the physical phenomenon, but was supposed to be a living personal power connected with it. The absence of the sun was compatible with the presence of the sun-god Rā.

Presence of the Gods.

The presence of the gods is everywhere taken for granted, but the calendar of lucky and unlucky days contained in the Fourth Sallier papyrus, and translated by M. Chabas, supplies a large amount of evidence as to the popular belief in the immediate intervention of the gods in human affairs. The days of the year are marked as lucky or unlucky according as they com

1 See Brugsch, Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 73.

memorate events in the legendary history of the war between the powers of Light and those of Darkness. But there are incessant cautions about leaving the house or looking at certain objects on days when certain gods are visiting the earth. Whatever was seen on some days was sure to be of prosperous omen; on other days, the sight of a flame or of a rat, the touch of a woman or the getting into a boat, might prove fatal. "Do not go out of thine house at eventide," on the 15th Paophi; "the serpent that comes forth at even, whoever sees him, his eye is injured on the spot." On the 23rd of the month Choiak, a man is blinded if the eyes of certain deities fall upon him. On the 28th day of the same month it is unsafe to eat fish, because on this day the gods of Tattu assume the form of a fish. On the 11th Tybi, “Approach not any flame on this day; Ra is there for the purpose of destroying the wicked." On the 9th Pharmuti, "Do not go out by night; Ra is coming forth on his way to Haï-ren-sen." On the 24th Pharmuti, "Do not pronounce the name of Set aloud." The superstition of the Evil Eye naturally arose from a doctrine which led to such prescriptions. The Egyptian proper names bear distinct witness to the existence of this superstition.

Angels.

Our word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, which is the literal rendering of the Hebrew malāch, a

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