The One and the Many 8: Conclusion
Well, here we are at the end! As you'll recall, the reason I decided to read Erik Hornung's Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: the One and the Many was to find out whether, as some modern reconstructionist religions claim, the Ancient Egyptians were monotheistic. Hornung has convinced me that the ancients weren't - although as I mentioned, I've got not objections to modern worshippers taking that view.
In his conclusion, Hornung underlines the importance of their gods to the Ancient Egyptians: "The more clearly we comprehend them [the gods], the more clearly we see the human beings whom we wish to study." Our concepts of monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism only lead us away from understanding the Egyptian experience of the divine. Similarly, categorising the Egyptian gods as "sun god", "sky goddess", etc, is too narrow. (In fact, Hornung contrasts Egyptian religious thought with montheistic, dualistic Western thought: "After the shock therapy of this century I believe that society will be thoroughly sick of dogmatic ideologies and 'absolute values'.")
The gods are "always 'under construction'", like their temples. "We see them develop in history, and we see them leading a constantly changing life of their own. What a god is cannot be defined. Whatever statements we make about him, it does not exclude a mass of other statements." We can't simplify them or reduce their ambiguity: "no language has been found whose expressive richness can compare with that of the gods themselves."
The end!
In his conclusion, Hornung underlines the importance of their gods to the Ancient Egyptians: "The more clearly we comprehend them [the gods], the more clearly we see the human beings whom we wish to study." Our concepts of monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism only lead us away from understanding the Egyptian experience of the divine. Similarly, categorising the Egyptian gods as "sun god", "sky goddess", etc, is too narrow. (In fact, Hornung contrasts Egyptian religious thought with montheistic, dualistic Western thought: "After the shock therapy of this century I believe that society will be thoroughly sick of dogmatic ideologies and 'absolute values'.")
The gods are "always 'under construction'", like their temples. "We see them develop in history, and we see them leading a constantly changing life of their own. What a god is cannot be defined. Whatever statements we make about him, it does not exclude a mass of other statements." We can't simplify them or reduce their ambiguity: "no language has been found whose expressive richness can compare with that of the gods themselves."
The end!