ber of the Ennead unaltered. But since these deities had
been turned into triads they could no longer be primarily regarded as
simple units, to be combined with the elements of some one or other of
the Enneads without preliminary arrangement. The two companions whom
each had chosen had to be adopted also, and the single Thot, or single
Atumu, replaced by the three patrons of the nome, thus changing the
traditional nine into eleven. Happily, the constitution of the triad
lent itself to all these adaptations. We have seen that the father
and the son became one and the same personage, whenever it was thought
desirable. We also know that one of the two parents always so far
predominated as almost to efface the other. Sometimes it was the goddess
who disappeared behind her husband; sometimes it was the god whose
existence merely served to account for the offspring of the goddess, and
whose only title to his position consisted in the fact that he was her
husband. Two personages thus closely connected were not long in blending
into one, and were soon defined as being two faces, the masculine and
feminine aspects of a single being. On the one hand, the father was one
with the son, and on the other he was one with the mother. Hence the
mother was one with the son as with the father, and the three gods of
the triad were resolved into one god in three persons.

[Illustration: 215.jpg THE THEBAN ENNEAD]

1 This Ennead consists of fourteen members--Montu,
duplicating Atumu; the four usual couples; then Horus, the
son of Isis and Osiris, together with his associate deities,
Hathor, Tanu, and Anit.

Thanks to this subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was
nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the
three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted
to the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of
Amon-Maut-Khonsu, Shu, Tafnuit, Sibu, Nuit, Osiris, Isis, Sit, and
Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct as the
typical Ennead itself. In such Enneads Isis is duplicated by goddesses
of like nature, such as Hathor, Selkit, Taninit, and yet remains but
one, while Osiris brings in his son Horus, who gathers about himself
all such gods as play the part of divine son in other triads. The
theologians had various methods of procedure for keeping the number of
persons in an Ennead at nine, no matter how many they might choose to
em