s, with
Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may see in the myth an early example of
that religious syncretism which is so characteristic of later Egyptian
belief.

(1) See _Archaeologia_, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published
a new edition of the whole papyrus in _Egyptian Hieratic
Papyri in the British Museum_ (1910), and the two versions
of the Creation myth are given together in his _Gods of the
Egyptians_, Vol. I (1904), Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more
recently in his _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, "Legends of
the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An account of the papyrus is
included in the Introduction to "Legends of the Gods", pp.
xiii ff.

(2) In _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288
ff., Dr. Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian
pairs of primaeval deities with the very similar couples of
the Babylonian myth.

The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew
cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to
the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general
character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find
when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian
Creation narrative.(1) The application of the Ankh, the Egyptian sign
for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being is no true parallel
to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath of life in the
earlier Hebrew Version,(2) except in the sense that each process was
suggested by our common human anatomy. We should naturally expect to
find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of Creation as the work
of a potter with his clay, for that figure appears in most ancient
mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the conception as a metaphor
or parable,(3) and it also underlies their earlier picture of man's
creation. I have not touched on the grosser Egyptian conceptions
concerning the origin of the universe, which we may probably connect
with African ideas; but those I have referred to will serve to
demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that presents a detailed
resemblance of the Hebrew tradition.

(1) For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples,
of a vague theory that would trace all created things to a
watery origin, see Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_, p. 180.

(2) Gen. ii. 7 (J).

(3) Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; an