Horus

“ Horus openeth: the Great, the Mighty, who divideth the earths, the Great One who resteth in the Mountain of the West, and brighteneth up the Tuat with his glories and the Souls in their hidden abode, by shining into their sepulchres. ”

“ After these things Horus, son of Ra, and Horus, son of Isis, each took the form of a mighty man, with the face and body of a hawk, and each wore the Red and White Crowns, and each carried a spear and chain. In these forms the two gods slew the remnant of the enemies. ”

“ Thereupon Horus sought the aid of the god Thoth, the master of all magic, by whose aid he changed himself into a great sun-disk, with resplendent wings outstretched on either side. Straight to the sun he flew, and from the heavens he looked so fiercely upon his enemies and Ra's, that they neither heard nor saw aright. Each man judged his neighbour to be a stranger, and a cry went up that the foe were upon them. ”

“ I am Horus, thy son, who gives birth to his father. Horus opens thy eyes that they may see, thy lips that they may Speak, thy ears that they may hear; he strengthens thy legs that they may walk and thy arms that they may work! ”

“ Horus is bitten, O Ra. Thy son is bitten, [O Osiris] . Horus is bitten, the flesh and blood of the Heir, the Lord of the diadems (?) of the kingdoms of Shu. Horus is bitten, the Boy of the marsh city of Ateh, the Child in the House of the Prince. The beautiful Child of gold is bitten, the Babe hath suffered pain and is not. [FN#238] Horus is bitten, he the son of Un-Nefer, who was born of Auh-mu (?) . Horus is bitten, he in whom there was nothing abominable, the son, the youth among the gods. ”

“ Horus is protected 230 in his own body, and the spells which his mother Isis hath woven protect him. Horus is protected by the names of his father [Osiris] in his forms in the nomes; [FN#252] and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. Horus is protected by the weeping of his mother, and by the cries of grief of his brethren; and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. Horus is protected by his own name and heart, and the gods go round about him to make his funeral bed; and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. ”

“ Horus stands by and beholds their torments, for these are the enemies of Osiris and of Ra, doers of evil upon the earth and blasphemers of the gods. No help can come to them, no escape is possible; doomed are they by their own actions to the sword and fire. ”

“ The Horus who is always associated with Set is “Horus the Great,” or “Horus the Elder,” the Haroeris of the Greeks, but the Horus mentioned in the Liturgy in connection with “Followers” is “Horus, the son of Isis.” ”

“ Thou joinest thyself unto the Eye of Horus, and thou hidest thyself within its secret place; it destroyeth for thee all the convulsions of thy face, it maketh thee strong with life, and thou livest. It bindeth its protecting amulets behind thy members. Thou sailest forth over heaven, and thou makest the earth to be stablished ”

“ Sit rebels against the wrong of which he is the victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises and treacherously slays his brother, drives Isis into temporary banishment among her marshes, and reigns over the kingdom of Osiris as well as over his own. But his triumph is short-lived. Horus, having grown up, takes arms against him, defeats him in many encounters, and banishes him in his turn. The creation of the world had brought the destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to face: the history of the world is but the story of their rivalries and warfare. ”

“ Our lord cometh to his temple; our arms shall protect him behind his temple.
Our lord cometh in peace to his place: when thou art established in thy temple, fear thou not!
Lo! praised twice over is our lord, with acclamation, because God is great.
Come thou in peace and truth; go thou forth under Ra, masterful among the gods, approved one!
Come in Peace, thou looked-for child!
Come thou with thy attributes as a child: the evil one has fallen; Horus is as a prince.
He is great toward thee; he is not exalted above thee in his circuit. ”

“ Then Nefert turned to a large group of the girls, who were sorting plants, and said: “Do you, children, know the origin of all these wholesome, healing herbs? The good Horus went out to fight against Seth, the murderer of his father, and the horrible enemy wounded Horus in the eye in the struggle; but the son of Osiris conquered, for good always conquers evil. But when Isis saw the bad wound, she pressed her son’s head to her bosom, and her heart was as sad as that of any poor human mother that holds her suffering child in her arms. ”

“ Then he came to Isis and told her that no harm could possibly have happened to Horus, for he was under the protection of the Boat of Ra; but his words failed to comfort Isis, and though she acknowledged the greatness of his designs, she complained that they savoured of delay. "What is the good," she asks, "of all thy spells, and incantations, and magical formulae, and the great command of maa-kheru, if Horus is to perish by the poison of a scorpion, and to lie here in the arms of Death? Evil, evil is his destiny, for it hath entailed the deepest misery for him and death." ”

“ Anhûri-Shû of Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos; Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wâdy Tumilât; and finally Harhûdîti at Edfû. Râ, the solar disk, was enthroned at Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and resembled Horus quite as much as Râ. Whether under the name of Horus or of Anhûri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant luminary, its solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that of the Sun. ”

“ Horus bright of plumage, the beauteous sparrow-hawk of electrum that hath protected Egypt with his wing, making a shade for men, fortress of strength and of victory; he who came forth terrible from the womb to take to himself his strength, to extend his borders, to whose body color was given of the strength of Mentu [4] ; the god Horus and the god Set. There was exultation in heaven on the day of his birth; the gods said, 'We have begotten him;' the goddesses said, 'He came forth from us to rule the kingdom of Ra;' Amen spake, 'I am he who hath made him, whereby I have set Truth in her place ”

“ Most of the important doctrines explained to Horus by his divine mother are in perfect harmony with the corresponding teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism, as will be seen from the following explanations. Horus represents the regenerated spirit of man, and it is to him that the Cosmic Virgin unveils herself and reveals the mysteries of human existence.
In tracing the evolution of the physical man Isis commences by giving an account of the origin of the spiritual monad. ”

“ Furthermore, he would give Horus power to repulse any attacks which might be made upon him by beings in the heights above, or fiends in the depths below, and would ensure his succession to the Throne of the Two Lands, i.e., Egypt. ”

“ Then the associates of Set came together and took counsel, and took upon themselves the likeness of crocodiles and hippopotamuses, for these great beasts can live under water and no human weapon can pierce their hides. They came up the river, the water swirling behind them, and rushed upon the Boat of Ra to overturn it. But Horus had gathered together his band of armourers and weapon-smiths, and they had prepared arrows and spears of metal, smelted and welded, hammered and shaped, with magical words and spells chanted over them. ”

“ Horus promptly cut off the heads of Set and his fiends in the presence of Rā and Isis, and he dragged Set by his feet through the country with his spear sticking in his head and neck. After this Isis appointed Horus of Beḥuṭet to be the protecting deity of her son Horus. The fight between the Sun-god and Set was a very favourite subject with Egyptian writers, and there are many forms of it. Thus there is the fight between Ḥeru-ur and Set, the fight between Rā and Set, the fight between Ḥeru-Beḥuṭet and Set, the fight between Osiris and Set, and the fight between Horus, son of Isis, and Set. ”

“ Horus was the hawk-god of Upper Egypt, especially of Edfu and Hierakonpolis. Though originally an independent god, and even keeping apart as Hor-ur, 'Horus the elder,' throughout later times, yet he was early mingled with the Osiris myth, probably as the ejector of Set who was also the enemy of Osiris. He is sometimes entirely in hawk form; more usually with a hawk's head, and in later times he appears as the infant son of Isis entirely human in form. ”

“ Thine arm is to thee, Horus, great is thy strength to slaughter the enemies of thy father. Thy two thighs [FN#228] are to thee, Horus. Receive thou the rank and dignity of thy father Osiris. Ptah hath balanced for thee thy mouth on the day of thy birth. Thy heart (or, breast) is to thee, Horus, and the Disk maketh thy protection. Thine eye is to thee, Horus; thy right eye is like Shu, and thy left eye like Tefnut, who are the children of Ra. Thy belly is to thee, Horus, and the Children are the gods who are therein, and they shall not receive the essence (or, fluid) of the scorpion. ”

“ The lips of Horus grew livid. With clenched hand he flung to the ground the edict by which the tongues of prisoners taken into captivity were not to be torn out, and there remained only . . . the decree for the liberation of Berenice.
"A hundred. . ."
Amid the deathly stillness could be heard the clatter of sandals. Into the hall the high priest's deputy came running. Horus stretched forth his hand.
"A miracle," cried the newcomer. "Mighty Rameses has regained his health . . . he has risen up alertly from bis couch and at sunrise he desires to ride forth for lions. . . ”

“ On the gem are engraved the three symbols by which the Trinity—Osiris, Isis, and Horus; Father: Mother, and Child, the antetype of Humanity—became known and worshipped. The holy man divined that the boy was the incarnation of Horus sent thus to earth to teach men the way of knowledge, which is the only righteousness, since those who know all cannot sin. Where his house stood was built the first Temple of the Divine Trinity, and of this Horus became High Priest. He crowned the King in the land, and hung this gem round his neck as the symbol of his kingship and the approval of the gods. ”

“ Horus was bitten (i.e., stung) in Sekhet-An, to the north of Hetep- hemt, whilst his mother Isis was in the celestial houses making a libation for her brother Osiris. And Horus sent forth his cry into the horizon, and it was heard by those who were in . . . . . . Thereupon the keepers of the doors who were in the [temple of] the holy Acacia Tree started up at the voice of Horus. And one sent forth a cry of lamentation, and Heaven gave the order that Horus was to be healed. And [the gods] took counsel [together] concerning the life [of Horus, saying,] "O goddess Pai (?) ”

“ When we come 150 to read the story which Naville brings before us, it looks as though the greatest antiquity must be conceded to it from the fact that the god Horus—the rising sun—is accompanied by the Hor-shesu, the followers or worshippers of Horus. These people are almost prehistoric, even in Egyptian history. De Rougé says of them, as I have previously pointed out, C'est le type de l'antiquité la plus reculée. They represent, possibly, the old sun-worshippers at a time when as yet there was no temple of the sun. ”

“ He is Horus, the powerful bull, son of truth, the king, sun creator of the world, who hath been established on the throne of Seb by his father, the god Toum, who hath given him the dignity of Thoré, in magnifying his name among the inhabitants of On and of the whole world, the son of the sun, Thothmes, giving life like the sun for ever. ”

“ Horus is a solar deity, and represented the rising sun, or the sun in the horizon. Horus is here represented by a hawk, surmounted by the double crown of Egypt called PSCHENT. The hawk flew higher than any other bird of Egypt, and therefore became the usual emblem of any solar deity, just as the eagle, from its lofty soaring, is an emblem of sublimity, and therefore an emblem of [Pg 70] St. John. The double crown named PSCHENT is composed of a conical hat called HET, the crown and emblem of Upper Egypt, and the TESHER, or red crown, the emblem of Lower Egypt. ”

“ The myth of Horus striking off the head of his mother Isis and replacing it by a cow's head, points to the Horus worshippers uniting Hathor with Isis. Statuettes of Hathor are not common; the head was used for an architectural capital and in the form of the sistrum, a rattle which was employed in her worship.
Maat was the goddess of truth. She is always of human form, and shown as seated holding the ankh, emblem of life, in her hands. She was never worshipped, and had no temples or shrines, but was represented as being offered by the kings {61} to the gods. ”

“ Horus hath sprung from the essence of his divine father and from his decay. He hath become the Governor of Egypt. The gods shall work for him, and they shall toil for him for million of years. He shall make millions of years to live through his Eye, the only one of its lord, Nebertcher. ”

“ Between the deity who is human and the deity who is bestial no true reconciliation is possible.
We must therefore trace the deification of the Pharaoh back to Asia, and the Asiatic element in the Egyptian population. The Pharaonic conquerors of the valley of the Nile were those “followers of Horus” who worshipped their leader as a god. It was a god in human form who had led them to victory, and Horus accordingly continued to be represented as a man, even though the symbolism of the hieroglyphs united with the creed of the prehistoric races of Egypt in giving him the head of a hawk. ”