Hymns to Ȧten.

The first Hymn (A) is put into the mouth of Ȧakhunȧten, and is known as the “Shorter Hymn to Ȧten.” Several copies of it have been found in the tombs at Tall al-‘Amârnah. Texts of it have been published by Bouriant, Daressy, Piehl and others, but the most correct version is that copied from the tomb of Ȧpi and published by Mr. N. de G. Davies. ¹ The second Hymn (B) is found in the tomb of Ȧi, and is known as the “Longer Hymn to Ȧten.” The text was first published by Bouriant in Mission Archéologique, tom. I, p. 2, but badly, and he revised it in his Monuments du Culte d’Atonou, I., pl. xvi. A good text with a Latin translation was published by Breasted in his De Hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide IV conceptis, Berlin, 1894, and English versions of most of it were given by him in his History of Egypt, p. 315, and in other publications. Other versions and extracts have been published by Griffith, World’s Literature, p. 5225; Wiedemann, Religion, pp. 40–42; Hall, Ancient History, p. 306; Erman, Religion, p. 64, etc. The best text yet published is that of Davies ¹ and that, with a few trivial alterations, is reproduced in the following pages. In recent years this Hymn has been extolled as a marvellously beautiful religious composition, and parts of it have been compared with some of the Hebrew Psalms. In consequence it has been regarded as an expression of sublime human aspirations, and the outcome of a firm belief in a God who was a counterpart of the Yahweh of the Hebrews and identical with God Almighty. But if we examine the Hymn, line by line, and compare it with the Hymns to Rā, Ȧmen and other gods, we find that there is hardly an idea in it which is not borrowed from the older Egyptian religious books. Ȧten is called the eternal, almighty, self-produced, living, or self-subsisting, creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them, and “one god alone.” His heat and light are the sources of all life, and only for these and the material benefits that they confer on man and beast is Ȧten praised in these hymns. There is nothing spiritual in them, nothing to appeal to man’s higher nature. The language in which they are written is simple and clear, but there is nothing remarkable about the phraseology, unless the statements are dogmatic declarations like the articles of a creed. A very interesting characteristic of the hymns to Ȧten is the writer’s insistence on the beauty and power of light, and it may be permitted to wonder if this is not due to Mitannian influence, and the penetration into Egypt of Aryan ideas concerning Mitra, Varuna, and Sûrya or Savitri, the Sun-god. Ȧten, or Horus of the Two Horizons, corresponds closely to Sûrya, the rising and setting sun, Rā to Savitri, the sun shining in full strength, “the golden-eyed, the golden-handed, and golden tongued.” “As the Vivifier and Quickener, he raises his long arms of gold in the morning, rouses all beings from their slumber, infuses energy into them, and buries them in sleep in the evening.” ¹ Sûrya, the rising and setting sun, like Ȧten, was the great source of light and heat, and therefore Lord of life itself. He is the Dyaus Pitar, the “Heaven-Father.” Ȧten, like Sûrya, was the “fountain of living Light,” ² with the all-seeing eye, whose beams revealed his presence, and “gleaming like brilliant flames” ³ went to nation after nation. Ȧten was not only the light of the sun, which seems to give new life to man and to all creation, but the giver of light and all life in general. The bringer of light and life to-day, he is the same who brought light and life on the first of days, therefore Ȧten is eternal. Light begins the day, so it was the beginning of creation; therefore Ȧten is the creator, neither made with hands nor begotten, and is the Governor of the world. The earth was fertilized by Ȧten, therefore he is the Father-Mother of all creatures. His eye saw everything and knew everything. The hymns to Ȧten suggest that Ȧmenḥetep IV and his followers conceived an image of him in their minds and worshipped him inwardly. But the abstract conception of thinking was wholly inconceivable to the average Egyptian, who only understood things in a concrete form. It was probably some conception of this kind that made the cult of Ȧten so unpopular with the Egyptians, and caused its downfall. Ȧten, like Varuna, possessed a mysterious presence, a mysterious power, and a mysterious knowledge. He made the sun to shine, the winds were his breath, he made the sea, and caused the rivers to flow. He was omniscient, and though he lived remote in the heavens he was everywhere present on earth. And a passage in the Rig-Veda would form an admirable description of him.

Light-giving Varuna! Thy piercing glance doth scan

In quick succession all this stirring active world.

And penetrateth, too, the broad ethereal space,

Measuring our days and nights and spying out all creatures. ¹