Brief introduction of Horus, the God of the sky in Egyptian mythology

Horus is the name of the god of the sky in ancient Egyptian mythology, which mainly refers to two gods: Horus (or the great Horus), the last of the first five gods was born, and the sons of George W. Horus, Osiris and Isis.

According to historian Jimmy Dunn, "Horus is the most important bird god". He has so many forms, and the descriptions of him in various inscriptions are quite different, so that "it is almost impossible to distinguish the' real' Horus. The floorboard of a large number of eagles "(2). Although this is of course correct, the name "Horus" is usually used to refer to old gods, the son of Isis and Osiris, who defeated his uncle Seth and restored the order of the land.

The name Horus is the Latin version of Egyptian Hor, which means "faraway man" and refers to his role as the god of the sky. Horus, the elder brother of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Neifer Titus, is known as Horus the Great in English and Havo and HarRoriz in Egyptian. The son of Osiris and Isis is called the son of Horus. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he became the Greek god Habakradi. 33 BC1. "Harpocrat" also means "Horus for children", but God is different from Egyptian Horus. Harper Crater is the Greek god of silence and secrets, and also the guardian of secrets. His statues often depict him as a child with wings and a finger on his lips.

On the other hand, Horus Jr. is a powerful god of the sky, mainly related to the sun, but also related to the moon. He is the protector of the Egyptian royal family, the wrong avenger, the defender of order and the unifier of the two places. According to his battle with Seth, Egyptian rulers often called him God of War before the war and were praised after the war. With the passage of time, he combined with the sun god Rama to form a new god-Laharacht. The sun god sailed in the sky during the day and was depicted as an Egyptian with an eagle head with a double crown and a sun disc on his head. His symbols are the Eye of Horus (one of the most famous symbols in Egypt) and the Falcon.

Horus is in charge of the sky, especially the sun.

Old Horus

Old Horus is one of the oldest Egyptian gods, and was born by the combination of Gabe (the earth) and Knot (the sky) shortly after the creation of the world. His brothers Osiris and Isis are in charge of the earth, while Horus is in charge of the sky, especially the sun. In another version of the story, Horus is Hassall's son, while in other versions, she is his wife. Sometimes, she is Horus's mother, wife and daughter. Geraldine Pinch, a scholar, pointed out that "one of the earliest known Egyptian statues is a falcon on a three-masted sailboat", which represents Horus crossing heaven on a solar barge (142). Horus is also portrayed as the creator and merciful protector.

There are many falcon gods (called bird gods) in Egyptian religion, and they are finally absorbed as the gods named Horus. Some, such as Dunaway from Upper Egypt, appeared very early in history, while others, such as Montu, became popular later. The early connection between Horus and Dunaway was questioned by scholars, but there is no doubt that he later combined with God as Horus Anubis. Dunanwei is the local god of Noam (province), the first 18 superior, and Horus is widely worshipped all over the country. It is possible that, just like Inanna's image in Mesopotamia, Horus was a local god at first, just like Dunaway, but it seems more likely to be Horus, which is the early realization of Egyptian religious development.

Egyptian scientist Richard H. Wilkinson commented: "Horus is one of the earliest gods in Egypt. Since the dynasty, his name has been confirmed, for example, it is likely that the early falcon god represented the same god in the Nalmer palette "(200). The rulers of pre-dynasty Egypt (6000-3 BC150 BC) were called "followers of Horus", which proved the earlier worship point in Egyptian history.

In his role as a distant person, he performs the same task as a distant goddess, which is a function related to Hassall (and many other female gods). Hassall began to return from Ra, bringing about transformation. The sun and the moon are considered as Horus's eyes, because he observes people all over the world day and night, but he can also approach them when he is in trouble or doubt. Imagine a falcon. It can fly far away and come back with important information. Similarly, it can quickly bring comfort to those in need.

From the early dynasty (3 150 BC to 26 13 BC), Horus was in contact with the Egyptian king (although later rulers were in contact with George W. Horus). Historian Margaret Benson wrote: "The earliest symbol of the king, Sereh, depicts an eagle (or eagle) perched on a perch. Therefore, love for Horus spread all over Egypt, but in different places, the form, tradition and ritual gods of commemorating Horus have changed greatly "(1 16). This change brought many different nicknames and roles to this god, and eventually led him to become the child of Osiris and Isis from an old Horus.

Horus Jr. and Osiris Myth

It is sometimes mentioned that young Horus is related to old gods, but it soon eclipses him and shows many of his characteristics. By the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BC), old Horus had been completely replaced by young Horus. The Ptolemaic statue of Horus shows that he was a little boy with his finger on his lips, which may represent that he had to keep quiet when he was a child to avoid the time set by his uncle. When he was young, he "represented the commitment of the gods to take care of the suffering human beings", because he was a child himself and knew the feeling of vulnerability and being surrounded by danger (Pinch, 147). It is this form of Horus that will become the Plutarch of Hippocrates, known as "the second son of Isis", and later became popular in the Roman world. The worship of Isis is the most popular mysterious worship in Rome, which has a great influence on the development of Christianity, while Habbocradi is the son of God depicted with his mother in ancient Roman art.

Horus's story comes from the myth of Osiris, which is one of the most popular myths in ancient Egypt, and triggered the worship of Isis. The story begins shortly after Osiris and Isis ruled the paradise they created. When men and women were born from ATEM's tears, they were uncivilized and savage. Osiris taught them culture, religious worship ceremony and agricultural art. Because of Isis's gift to everyone, men and women were equal at that time. There is plenty of food and no unmet needs.

Osiris's brother Seth began to envy him. When Seth found out that his wife Nefertis had become Isis and seduced Osiris, this jealousy turned into hatred. However, Seth was not angry with Nefertis, but focused his revenge on his brother "the beautiful man". His temptation is too great for Nefertis to resist. Seth lured Osiris to lie in the coffin he made according to his brother's exact specifications. As soon as Osiris came in, Seth closed the lid and threw the box into the Nile.

The coffin drifted along the river and finally stopped on a tamarisk tree on the bank of Byblos. The king and queen appreciated its beauty and fragrance and cut it down as a pillar in the court. In this case, Seth usurped the rule of Osiris and ruled the land with Nefertis. He ignored the gifts left by Osiris and Isis, and the land suffered from drought and famine. Isis knew that she had to bring Osiris back from Seth's exile and go out to look for him. She finally found Biblus in his stump, asked the king and queen for it and took it back to Egypt.

Osiris died, but Isis knew she could bring him back to life. She asked her sister Nefertis to protect her body and protect her body from Seth when she went to collect medicine. At the same time, Seth heard that his brother was back and was looking for him outside. He found Nefertis and tricked her into telling him where the body was hidden. Then he cut Osiris into pieces, scattered all parts of his body on land and entered the Nile. When Isis came back, she was horrified to find that her husband's body was gone. Nefertis tells her how she was cheated and what Seth did to Osiris.

The two sisters then went to look for the corpse and reassembled Osiris. His * * * was eaten by fish, so he is incomplete, but Isis can still bring him back to life. Isis used her magic and potions, and in some versions of the story, Nafidis also helped. Osiris was resurrected, but he could no longer rule the living because he was no longer complete; He will have to descend to the underworld and rule there as the king of death. However, before he left, Isis turned himself into a kite (a falcon) and flew around his body, sucking his seeds into his body and getting pregnant with Horus. Osiris went to the underworld, and Isis hid in the Egyptian Delta to protect himself and his son from Seth.

Horus and Isis.

Isis endured an unusually long delivery time and gave birth to Horus alone in the swamp of the Delta. She hid herself and her son in the bushes to avoid Seth and his demons, and only went out for food at night, accompanied by bodyguards of seven scorpions given to her by the goddess Sekate. While Isis is away, Serkate (and in some versions of the story, Denise) is watching Horus. Isis, Selkert and Ness raised and educated Horus in exile until he grew up and was strong enough to challenge his uncle's father's kingdom.

There are many different versions of the story about the battle between Horus and Saite, but the most famous one can be traced back to the 20th dynasty (BC 1090- 1077). The battle between Horus and Seth described their contest as a legal trial. Enid, the court of nine powerful gods. In this version of the story, Horus accuses Seth-he is one of nine people-of illegally seizing the throne from Osiris, who is also one of the nine judges.

The court was asked to decide between Horus and Seth. Most gods chose Horus, but the supreme god Ra claimed that Horus was too young and inexperienced, and Seth had better sovereignty. Horus and Seth must compete in a series of battles to prove who is most capable of ruling. In the course of these battles, Horus lost an eye, Seth was * * * (or at least seriously injured), but Horus won every time.

These struggles lasted for more than 80 years, and Barbara continued to deny Horus the right to inherit the throne. At the same time, this land suffered under the rule of Seth, and Isis was eager to do something to help her son and her people. She turned herself into a beautiful young woman, sitting in front of Seth's palace. She began to cry. When Seth came out to see her, he asked her why she was sad. She told him how an evil man, her husband's own brother, killed him and seized his land, and further sought the life of her only son, and exiled her to swamps and bushes, where only scorpions were her companions.

Seth was angry with her story and announced that the man should be punished. He vowed to find this man himself, drive him out of this land, and let the woman and her children return to where they belong. Then Isis took off his disguise and appeared to serve other gods. Seth condemned himself by his own decree, and Dora agreed with other gods that Horus should be king. Seth was then exiled to the desert outside the Egyptian border, and Horus succeeded to his father's throne, and his mother and Menstrual Nefertis became spouses.

In another version of the story, the trial lasted for 80 years, until the depressed gods turned to Ness, the goddess of wisdom, who was the mediator of the dispute and ruled Horus. She suggested that Seth should rule the desert and Horus should rule the fertile Nile Valley. As a consolation, she suggested that Saite should also get two foreign goddesses as spouses-Ahnert, the warrior goddess from Syria, and Ashtar, the queen of Phoenicia. This version of the story explains how Seth is connected with people in foreign countries and desert areas.

Horus and the king

After conquering the establishment and restoration of order, Horus was later called Helu-Sema-Tavi, Horus and Uniter. He restored his parents' policies, revitalized the land and ruled wisely. It is for this reason that from the first dynasty, the Egyptian king allied himself with Horus and chose "the name of Horus" to rule when he was crowned. Osiris was the first Egyptian king to establish order and then enter the underworld, while Horus was the king who restored order and restored Egypt from chaos to harmony after being overthrown by Seth.

Therefore, the Egyptian king was consistent with Horus before his death and with Osiris after his death. During their reign, they were the physical incarnations of Horus protected by Isis (the sixth king of the second dynasty, King Perrybson, was obviously different from this custom, and he made an alliance with Seth). After the Battle of Cadiz in 1274 BC, Ramses II mentioned the famous words of protecting Isis and Horus in his poem The Five-pointed Star, as did many other Egyptian kings and pharaohs. Wilkinson wrote:

Horus is directly related to Egyptian kingship in his falcon form and as the son of Isis. Since the earliest dynasty, the king's name has been written on a rectangular device called serekh, which depicts the Horus Falcon perched on the stylized palace wall, which seems to indicate that the king is the mediator between heaven and earth, and if he is not a god, he is the king in the palace. The monarch's "Name of Horus" was later given other titles, including the name "Golden Horus", in which a sacred falcon was depicted on the hieroglyphic gold symbol. (20 1)

As the king of Egypt is a "big house" to protect his people, all Egyptian citizens are protected by Horus. He was worshipped in various forms in many different places. Wilkinson pointed out that "in many temples in Egypt, Horus was worshipped together with other gods, and the important places he worshipped were known from one end of Egypt to the other" (203). His importance as a defender of the unity and order of the two places makes him a representative of the concept of balance that Egyptians attach great importance to.

Horus worship

Horus worshipped in the same way as other Egyptian gods: a temple was built as the residence of the gods, and his statue was placed in the inner hall, and only the high priest was allowed to serve him. The clergy in Horus are always male because they are associated with Horus and want to protect their "mother" Isis. The following priests take care of this temple complex, which, like other temples, was built to reflect the afterlife of the reed field. The reflection pool of the temple is Lily Lake (also known as Flower Lake), and the sacred ferryman Graaf Hefu ("He-Who-Behind Him") crosses the soul of the righteous dead. The temple is the palace of the afterlife and the residence of the gods. The courtyard is decorated with flowers, which is his garden.

Egyptians will come to the yard to ask for help or accept alms, donations or explain their dreams. They will also go to temples to seek advice, explain omens, medical assistance, marriage counseling and protection from evil spirits or ghosts. As Wilkinson pointed out above, there are too many places to worship Horus, but the main worship center is Khem in the Delta, where Horus hid when he was a child, and where Pe and Horus lost their eyes. In Battle Sets and Bedet in Upper Egypt (both in the Delta), he was worshipped in Edford and Konobus with Hassall and their son Hasselblad Putus. Edfu presided over the annual coronation ceremony of the Holy Falcon. "Among them, a real falcon was chosen as the king of Egypt representing God. Abu Simbel is often worn by people, seeking his protection through statues, inscriptions and amulets.

Horus' four sons

This protection runs through life and death. Horus connects with the afterlife through four sons who protect the vital organs of the deceased. These four gods represent the four basic orientations of the compass, and each orientation is presided over and protected by a goddess. The four sons of Horus are:

Duamutev, the god of jackals who protects the stomach, represents the East and is protected by Ness.

Habib is the baboon god who protects the lungs, representing the north and protected by Naftis.

Imseti, a humanoid god who protects the liver, represents the south and is protected by Isis.

Qebehsenuef- the eagle god who protects the intestines, represents the west and is protected by Selkert.

These organs are kept in a canopy jar, and sometimes the head of the protector serves as the handle of the lid. The most famous example of porcelain jar protection comes from the alabaster tombs carved by Tutankhamun in Isis, Knight, Kiss on the Teeth and Serkate. All four patrons are depicted as mummies, and they have different wolves, baboons, humans and eagle heads. These are regarded as the embodiment of Horus, and Horus is a friend of the deceased. Horus was summoned at the funeral to protect and guide those who left and the living who stayed.

The argument between Horus and Jesus.

As mentioned earlier, when the myth of Osiris was popular, the Egyptian worship of Horus was very old, which raised the worship of Osiris, Isis and Horus to the national level. The worship of Isis became so popular that the worship of this goddess spread to Greece through trade and then to Rome, where it became the biggest challenge to New Christianity in the 3rd to 5th centuries. Horus traveled with Horus as her son and influenced the Christian portraits of the Virgin Mary and the son of Christ.

There is no doubt that the worship of Isis influenced early Christianity through the concept that "the God who came back from the dead brought life to people, and he gained eternal life by dedicating himself to that God, and the image of the virgin and the son". Even the red color and characteristics of the Christian devil. However, this does not mean that Christianity is just a repackaged Isis cult, nor does it mean that Horus is the prototype of the resurrected Christ.

However, Tom Hapl's pagan Christ)(2004) put forward this view and triggered the so-called battle between Horus and Jesus, who was also called the son of God. Hapl claimed that Christianity was completely invented from Egyptian mythology, and that Jesus Christ was only Horus's re-imagination. To support his statement, Hapl quoted "experts" in this field, such as Godfrey Higgins, Gerald Messi and Alvin Boyd Kuhn, all of whom were writers in the 20th century and in 18 and 19, and none of them were biblical scholars or Egyptian scholars. Higgins is a British magistrate. He believes that all religions come from the lost city of Atlantis. Messi, a self-proclaimed Egyptian archaeologist and an English evocator, studied the existing inscriptions in the British Museum. Kuhn is a self-published writer, and his main focus is to publicize his Christian myth theory, which is basically just a rewrite of the work done by Higgins and Messi.

Hapl described these "experts" as if they had discovered something miraculous and unheard of, but in fact, their observation was often an inaccurate rereading of early works (such as the works of epiktetos and Marcus Aurelius), or they put forward crazy speculative theories, as if these theories were brilliant insights. Before the apostle Paul began to become an evangelical, the theme of God's resurrection from the dead had existed for thousands of years. In 42-62 AD, the concept of eternal life was also established through personal dedication to God. Hapl's book asks many very serious questions to any reader who is familiar with the Bible, Christianity and Egyptian mythology and history, but his most serious offence is to claim that there are "amazing similarities" between Horus and Jesus.

For anyone who knows the stories of these two characters, this statement is obviously wrong, but it has become the most famous statement in this book. Unfortunately, many readers who don't know the original work regard Hapl's ideas as legitimate academic research, but this is not the case. To give a few examples, Hapl asserted that both Horus and Jesus were born in caves-this is wrong, Horus was born in the delta swamp, and Jesus was born in the stable; Both births were announced by angels-this is also wrong, because there is no concept of angels and messengers of God in Egyptian beliefs; Horus and Jesus were both baptized-this is wrong, the Egyptians were not baptized; Both Horus and Jesus were tempted in the wilderness-wrong, Horus fought Seth in many different areas, including the arid desert, and the gospel story clearly shows that Jesus was tempted in the desert or wilderness; Horus and Jesus were visited by three wise men-wrong, Horus was never visited by a wise man, which damaged Hapl's "scholarship". The Bible does not mention the "three wise men", only who brought three kinds of gifts to the "wise men"; Horus and Jesus both raised the dead-this is wrong. Horus has nothing to do with raising Osiris or anyone else.

In addition, Egypt's religious beliefs will reject any concept of the resurrection of the dead on earth. Even after the death of the great god and the first king Osiris, he was not allowed to return to his position on the earth; He found his place among the dead. The Egyptians' understanding of earthly life is that it is only part of a longer and eternal journey, and no one will welcome people who have left the afterlife. Besides, no Egyptian wants to do this; The afterlife of the Egyptians is a mirror image of a person's life on the earth, unless it has no disappointment, loss and death. Anyone who stays on the earth will be found again in the reeds, whether it is a deceased relative, a pet or a favorite tree in the yard.

Redeemer of Horus.

Due to poor academic level and dependence on unreliable sources, all Hapl's further claims are equally untenable. Neither Horus nor Jesus benefited from his rough creation of their lives. The concept of Horus as the savior has matured in Egypt, but this does not necessarily mean that this concept is unique to him, nor does it mean that there is no other "savior" between the popularity of Horus and the development of Christianity. Horus is the savior of health and mankind on earth; Not those souls that need to be saved from sin and eternal punishment. Child Horus is one of the so-called "children gods" in ancient Egypt. He appeared in the form of being called a savior, but he was the savior of the world's suffering, not eternal suffering. Geraldine Pinch wrote:

He appeared on the stone tablet in the late New Kingdom, dressed as a prince, and conquered dangerous animals with bows or machetes. This is the pioneer of the magical stone tablet called "Sips". On these streets, naked children in Horus trample on crocodiles and squeeze life out of other dangerous creatures such as snakes, lions and antelopes. When the Greeks saw these objects, they thought that Horus Kidd/Habakradi was little Hercules, who strangled two snakes that attacked him in the cradle. ( 147)

Horus also guarded the dead through his four sons, who were friends of the dead, but mainly the God of the living. He is a distant god, who can be approached when needed, a reliable friend, a caring brother, a protector and a guide to get through the danger of life. To this day, he enjoys these qualities and characteristics like other gods in cultures all over the world, but for Egyptians, he is completely unique because he is their own; Just like the gods of any faith everywhere, it has always been like this.