r the most part written in archaic language,
which was only imperfectly understood by the priests of later times; and
hence great scope was given to them to exercise their ingenuity as
commentators. By the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty some early chapters of
the Book of the Dead had been provided with a triple commentary.
Unfortunately the methods pursued were as little reasonable as those
adopted by the medieval Jewish Rabbis; instead of the context being
studied as a whole, with a view to the recovery of its literal sense,
each single verse was considered separately, and explained as an
allusion to some obscure myth or as embodying some mystical meaning.
Thus so far from simplifying or really elucidating the religion, these
priestly labours tended rather to confuse one legend with another and to
efface the personality of individual gods. The ease with which one god
could be identified with another is perhaps the most striking
characteristic of later Egyptian theology. There are but few of the
greater deities who were not at some time or another identified with the
solar god Re. His fusion with Horus and Etom has already been noted;
further we find an Ammon-Re, a Sobk-Re, a Khnum-Re; and Month, Onouris,
Show and Osiris are all described as possessing the attributes of the
sun. Ptah was early assimilated to the sepulchral gods Sokaris and
Osiris. Pairs of deities whose personalities are often blended or
interchanged are Hathor and Nut, Sakhmi and Pakhe, Seth and Apophis. So
too in Abydos, his later home, Osiris was identified with Khante-Amentiu
(Khentamenti, Khentamenthes), "the chief of those who are in the West,"
a name that was given to a vaguely-conceived but widely-venerated
divinity ruler of the dead. Many factors helped in the process of
assimilation. The unity of the state was largely influential in bringing
about the suppression of local differences of belief. The less important
priesthoods were glad to enhance the reputation of the deity they served
by identifying him with some more important god. And the mystical bent
of the Egyptians found satisfaction in the multiplicity of forms that
their gods could assume; among the favourite epithets which the hymns
apply to divinities are such as "mysterious of shapes," "multiple of
faces."

Monotheistic tendency.

The goal towards which these tendencies verged was monotheism; and
though this goal was only once, and then quite ephemerally, reached,
still the monot