ABSTRACT
In the foregoing chapters we have seen that Egyptians saw men’s thoughts and actions on earth as subject to the will of the gods and that they lived out their allotted span of years as homines religiosi. We have only mentioned in passing such questions as how they thought the world began and would end. We learned, for example, that in hymns God was praised as creator and preserver, and that as lord of fate he held sway over life and death (see pp. 72 ff., 80). We may now turn to the two marginal areas of earthly existence, birth and death, beginning with the former.
