in the several local worships one and the same doctrine re-appears under different names and symbols. But he does not venture to assert that at any time within the historical period the worship of one God was anywhere practised to the exclusion of a plurality of gods. He only infers from the course of history that, as polytheism was constantly on the increase, the monotheistic doctrines must have preceded it. Another conclusion, however, is suggested by the Egyptian texts to which he refers. The polytheistic and the so-called monotheistic doctrines constantly appear together in one context; not only in the sacred writings handed down by tradition, and subjected to interpolations and corruptions of every kind, but even more frequently in literary compositions of a private nature, where no one would dream of suspecting interpolation. Throughout the whole range of Egyptian literature, no facts appear to be more certainly proved than these: (1) that the doctrine of one God and that of many gods were taught by the same men; (2) that no inconsistency between the two doctrines was thought of. Nothing, of course, can be more absurd if the Egyptians attached the same meaning to the word God that we do. But there may perhaps be a sense of the word which admits of its use for many as well as for one. We cannot do better at starting than endeavour to ascertain what the Egyptians really meant when they used the word nutar, which we translate "god."

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Evidence as to the Meaning of the word Nutar.

At first sight, the Egyptian language is less likely to throw light upon the subject than might be expected if it really belonged to the same stage of speech as either the Indo-European or the Semitic languages. In these languages almost every word is closely allied to several others connected together by derivation from a common root, and the primitive notion conveyed by the word in question can be illustrated by the signification of the kindred words and their root. Generally speaking, however, in Egyptian every word is isolated. There is no distinction between word, stem and root. The same Egyptian word may sometimes have different significations; but this, as a rule, only means that the one notion which is expressed by a word in Egyptian has no single word corresponding to it in English, French or German. It seldom happens that we can advance a step beyond such a fact as that the word nutar is rightly translated "god." I am glad, however, to be able to affirm with certainty that in this particular case we can accurately determine the primitive notion attached to the word. None of the explanations hitherto given of it can be considered satisfactory. That which I am about to propose will, I believe, be generally accepted by scholars, because it is arrived at as the result of a special study of all the published passages in which the word occurs. Such a

study, as far as I am aware, has not yet been made, but if made by any other person it must necessarily lead to the same result.

The old Egyptian word nutar had already in the popular pronunciation suffered from phonetic decay, and lost its final consonant as early as the nineteenth dynasty, as we see by the inscriptions in the royal tombs at Bibān-el-molūk,' and it appears in Coptic under the forms nuti, nute. It is remarkable that the translators of the Bible into Coptic, who generally abstained from the use of old Egyptian words connected with religion, and used Greek words instead, nevertheless adopted this one as expressive of their notion of God.

There is another word, nutra, very frequently used either as verb or adjective, which is closely allied to nutar. The sense of "renovation" was first attached to it by M. E. de Rougé, on the strength of its final sign, which he considered as a determinative of signification. But this conjecture, which has been very generally accepted, is really without any solid foundation; the sign in question is here expressive of nothing more than the sound tra, and it will be found to all

1 Zeitschr. f. Aegypt. Spr. 1874, p. 105, and M. Maspero's article. in the Mélanges d'Archéologie, 1874, p. 140. The orthography of these popular forms is philologically of the highest importance. The form nuntar I reserved for a future study; M. Maspero published it with the rest, but no one appears to have noticed it.

words so ending, whatever be their meaning; as hetra, whether signifying "join," "horse," or "tribute;" petra, "behold;" tra, "season." Another more obvious sense, "sacred," "divine," may be justified by the Greek text of the tablet of Canopus, where nutra is translated iepòs, as applied to the sacred animals. But this meaning, though a certain one, occurs but seldom in the Egyptian texts, and when it so occurs is, after all, only a derived meaning, as is in fact the case with the Greek iepòs, the first sense of which is "strong," "vigorous." The notion expressed by nutar as a noun, and nutra as an adjective and verb, must be sought in the Coptic nomti, which in the translation of the Bible corresponds to the Greek words dúvapus, ioxis, ioxvpòs, ioxvpów, "power," "force," "strong," "fortify," "protect.”2

The reason why the identification of the old form. nutar with the more recent nomti as well as nuti has

1 'Iɛpós corresponds to the Sanskrit ish-ira-s, vigorous, from ish, juice, strength. See Curtius, Zeitschr. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, III. 154, and his "Griechische Etymologie," p. 372. Plutarch (Mor. 981 D) mentions this original physical sense of the word as maintained by certain persons, and the dorov ispor, sacrum," is given as an example. Iɛpà vóros, also called μɛyáλn, is another striking instance. In the Homeric poems, this physical sense gives the true force to such expressions as Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίε θρον, ἱερὴν πόλιν Ηετίωνος, ἱερῷ ἔνι δίφρῳ, ἱερὸν μένος ̓Αλκινόοιο, ἱερὴ ΐς Τηλεμάχοιο.

2 The Alexandrians invented the barbarous word duraμów, which can always be used as a translation of the verb nutra.

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hitherto escaped observation is, that the connecting link nuntar has either been unknown to scholars or In nuntar, a process as well disregarded by them. known to Egyptian as to Indo-European scholars has taken place. The vowel of the first syllable has been strengthened by the addition of a nasal consonant. The old Egyptian word heket (beer) has by this process become henke in the Thebaic, and hemki in the Memphitic dialect.

The following examples will illustrate the usage of the word.

Large stones are often said to be nutru. This does not mean that they grow or that they are divine, but In one of those paraphrases that they are mighty. which are so common on the walls of Dendera, the unequivocal word uru, "great, mighty," is substituted A crypt

Sauit nutrit is a

for nutru.
is aat nutrit, a "strong-hold."

strong wall."
Three of the chambers

1 The change of n into m before t, as though the latter were preceded by a labial consonant, is not usual, but it is not without a parallel in other languages. Cf. xрíμπтw from root xp, the Latin tempto and the Lithuanian temptyva, both the latter from root ta, The observations of Curtius, "Gr. Et.," pp. 46 and nasalized tan. 481, on the m in yapair and the Lithuanian gim-ti, appear to me to justify the form tempto, which Corssen rejects, though it occurs in the best manuscripts as well as inscriptions.

So in the royal titles of the 2 Mariette, Dendera, I. pl. 67. eighteenth dynasty, nutra sutemit of Tehutimes II. corresponds to the wah sutenit of Tehutimes III. and to the simpler ur sutenit of Chut en Aten.