city-god, whereas Re is the name of
the hawk -headed Sun -God of On.
Magic and
ceremonial, amulets and formulas, dominated
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
33
the service of these gods, as they did the
daily
life of the
Egyptians.
Some of these differences may easily derive
from the contrast in principle between a strict
monotheism and an unlimited polytheism. Others
are
obviously consequences of a difference in
intellectual level; one
religion is very near to the
primitive, the other has soared to the heights of
sublime abstraction. Perhaps it is these two
characteristics that
occasionally give one the
impression that the contrast between the Mosaic
and the Egyptian religion is one intended and
purposely accentuated: for example, when the
one religion severely condemns any kind of
magic or sorcery which flourishes so abundantly
in the other
; or when the insatiable zest of the
Egyptian for making images of his gods in clay,
stone and metal, to which our museums owe so
much, is contrasted with the way in which the
making of the image of any living or visionary
being is bluntly forbidden.
There is yet another difference between the
two religions, which the explanations we have
attempted do not touch. No other people of
antiquity has done so much to deny death, has
made such careful provision for an after-life; in
accordance with this the death -god Osiris, the
ruler of that other world, was the mosj;
popular
and indisputable of all Egyptian gods.^The early
Jewish religion, on the other hand, had entirely
34 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
relinquished immortality; the possibility of an
existence after death was never mentioned in
any
place. And this is all the more remarkable since
later
experience has shown that the belief in a
life
beyond can very well be reconciled with a
monotheistic
religion.
We had hoped the suggestion that Moses was
an
Egyptian would prove enlightening and
stimulating in many different respects. But our
first deduction from this
suggestion that the new
religion he gave the Jews was his own, the
Egyptian one has foundered on the difference,
nay the striking contrast, between the two
religions.
II
A strange fact in the history of the Egyptian
religion, which was recognized and appraised
relatively late, opens up another point of view.
It is still
possible that the religion Moses gave to
his
Jewish people was yet his own, an Egyptian
religion though not the Egyptian one.
In the
glorious Eighteenth Dynasty, when
Egypt became for the first time a world power,
a
young Pharaoh ascended the throne about
1
375 B.C., who first called himself Amenhotep (IV)
like his father, but later on
changed his name
and not only his name. This king undertook
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
35
to force
upon his subjects a new religion, one
contrary to their ancient traditions and to all
their familiar habitsXIt was a strict
monotheisn*,
the first
attempt of its kind in the history of the
world as far as we know and
religious intoler-
ance, which was foreign to antiquity before this
and for long after, was inevitably born with the
belief in one God. But
Amenhotep's reign lasted
only for seventeen years; very soon after his
death in
1358 the new religion was swept away
and the memory of the heretic king proscribed.
From the ruins of his new capital which he had
built and dedicated to his God, and from the
inscriptions in the rock tombs belonging to it, we
derive the little knowledge we
possess of him.
Everything we can learn about this remarkable,
indeed
unique, person is worthy of the greatest
interest. 1
Everything new must have its roots in what was
before. The
origin of Egyptian monotheism can
be traced back a fair distance with some cer-
tainty.
1
In the School of the Priests in the Sun
Temple at On (Heliopolis) tendencies had for
some time been at work developing the idea of an
universal God and
stressing His ethical aspects.
Maat, the Goddess of truth, order and justice,
was a daughter of the Sun God Re. Already
1
Breasted called him " The first individual in human history."
2
The account I give here follows closely J. H. Breasted's History
of Egypt, 1906, and The Dawn of Conscience, 1936, and the corre-
sponding sections in the Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II.
36 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
under Amenhotep III, the father and predecessor
of the reformer, the worship of the Sun God was
in the ascendant,
probably in opposition to the
worship of Amon of Thebes, who had become
over
prominent. An ancient name of the Sun-
God Aton or Atum was rediscovered, and in this
Aton religion the young king found a movement
he had no need to create, but one which he could
join.
Political conditions in
Egypt had about that
time
begun to exert a lasting influence on
Egyptian religion. Through the victorious sword
of the
great conqueror Thothmes III Egypt had
become a world power. Nubia in the south,
Palestine, Syria and a part of Mesopotamia in
the north had been added to the
Empire. This
imperialism was reflected in religion as Universal-
ity and Monotheism. Since Pharaoh's solicitude
now extended beyond Egypt to Nubia and Syria,
Deity itself had to give up its national limitation
and the new God of the Egyptians had to become
like Pharaoh the
unique and unlimited sovereign
of the world known to the
Egyptians. Besides,
it was natural that as the frontiers extended
Egypt should become accessible to foreign
influences ; some of the
king's wives were Asiatic
princesses,
1
and
possibly even direct encourage-
ment of monotheism had penetrated from
Syria.
1
Perhaps even Amenhotep's beloved spouse Nofertete.
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
37
Amenhotep never denied his accession to the
Sun Cult of On. In the two hymns to Aton, which
have been preserved to us through the
inscriptions
in the rock tombs and were
probably composed
by him, he praises the sun as the creator and
preserver of all living beings in and outside
Egypt with a fervour such as recurs many
centuries after
only in the psalms in honour of
the
Jewish god Jahve. But he did not stop at this
astonishing anticipation of scientific knowledge
concerning the effect of sunlight. There is no
doubt that he went further: that he
worshipped
the sun not as a material
object, but as a symbol
of a Divine Being whose
energy was manifested
in his
rays.
1
But we do scant justice to the king if we see in
him only the adherent and protector of an Aton
religion which had already existed before him.
His
activity was much more energetic. He added
the
something new that turned into monotheism
the doctrine of an universal
god
: the
quality of
exclusiveness. In one of his
hymns it is stated in
1
Breasted, History of Egypt, p. 360: " But however evident the Heliopolitan origin of the new state religion might be, it was not merely sun-worship; the word Aton was employed in the place
of the old word for
'
god
'
(nuter), and the god is clearly dis-
tinguished from the material sun." " It is evident that what the king was deifying was the force by which the Sun made itself
felt on earth "
(Dawn of Conscience, p. 279). Erman's opinion of a
formula in honour of the god is similar : A. Erman (Die JEgyptische Religion, 1905). " There are
. . . words which are meant to
express in an abstract form the fact that not the star itself was
worshipped, but the Being that manifested itself in it."
38 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
so
many words: " Oh, Thou only God! There
is no other God than Thou.
55
1
And we must not
forget that to appraise the new doctrine it is not
enough to know its positive content only; nearly
as
important is its negative side, the knowledge of
what it repudiates. It would be a mistake, too,
to
suppose that the new religion sprang to life
ready and fully equipped like Athene out of
Zeus
5
forehead.
Everything rather goes to show
that
during Amenhotep's reign it was strength-
ened so as to attain greater clarity, consistency,
harshness and intolerance.
Probably this develop-
ment took
place under the influence of the violent
opposition among the priests of Amon that raised
its head
against the reforms of the king. In the
sixth
year of Amenhotep's reign this enmity had
grown to such an extent that the king changed
his
name, of which the now proscribed name of
the
god Amon was a part. Instead of Amenhotep
he called himself Ikhnaton.
2
But not only from
his name did he eliminate that of the hated
God,
but also from all
inscriptions and even where he
found it in his father's name
Amenhotep III.
Soon after his
change of name Ikhnaton left
Thebes, which was under Amon's rule, and built
a new
capital lower down the river which he
1
Idem, History of Egypt, p. 374.
2
I follow Breasted's
(American) spelling in this name (the
accepted English spelling is Akhenaten). The king's new name
means approximately the same as his former one : God is satisfied.
Compare our Godfrey and the German Gotthold.
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
39
called Akhetaton
(Horizon of Aton). Its ruins
are now called Tell-el-Amarna. 1
The persecution by the king was directed fore-
most against Amon, but not
against him alone.
Everywhere in the Empire the temples were
closed, the services forbidden, and the ecclesias-
tical
property seized. Indeed, the king's zeal
went so far as to cause an
inquiry to be made into
the
inscriptions of old monuments in order to
efface the word " God " whenever it was used
in the
plural.
2
It is not to be wondered at that
these orders
produced a reaction of fanatical
vengeance among the suppressed priests and the
discontented
people, a reaction which was able
to find a free outlet after the
king's death. The
Aton religion had not
appealed to the people;
it had
probably been limited to a small circle
round Ikhnaton's
person. His end is wrapped in
mystery. We learn of a few short-lived, shadowy
successors of his own
family. Already his son-in-
law Tutankhaton was forced to return to Thebes
and to substitute Amon in his name for the god
Aton. Then there followed a
period of anarchy,
until the
general Haremhab succeeded in 1350
in
restoring order. The glorious Eighteenth
Dynasty was extinguished; at the same time their
1
This is where in
1887 the correspondence of the Egyptian
kings with their friends and vassals in Asia was found, a cor-
respondence which proved so important for our knowledge of
history.
2
Idem, History of Egypt, p. 363.
40 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
conquests in Nubia and Asia were lost. In this
sad interregnum
Egypt's old religions had
been reinstated. The Aton religion was at
an end, Ikhnaton's capital lay destroyed and
plundered, and his memory was scorned as that
of a felon.
It will serve a certain
purpose if we now note
several
negative characteristics of the Aton
religion. In the first place, all myth, magic and
sorcery are excluded from it.
1
Then there is the way in which the Sun God is
represented: no longer as in earlier times by a
small
pyramid and a falcon, but and this is
almost rational
by a round disc from which
emanate rays terminating in human hands. In
spite of all the love for art in the Amarna period,
not one
personal representation of the Sun God
Aton has been found, and, we may say with
confidence, ever will be found.
2
Finally, there is a complete silence about
the death
god Osiris and the realm of the
dead. Neither
hymns nor inscriptions on graves
1
Weigall (The Life and Times of Akhnaton, 1923, p. 121) says that
Ikhnaton would not recognize a hell
against the terrors of which
one had to guard by innumerable
magic spells. " Akhnaton flung
all these formulas into the fire.
Djins, bogies, spirits, monsters,
demigods and Osiris himself with all his court, were swept into
the blaze and reduced to ashes."
8
A. Weigall, I.e., p.
103, " Akhnaton did not permit any
graven image to be made of the Aton. The true God, said the
king, had no form; and he held to this opinion throughout his
life."
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
41
know anything of what was
perhaps nearest
to the
Egyptian's heart. The contrast with the
popular religion cannot be expressed more
vividly.
1
Ill
We venture now to draw the following con-
clusion: if Moses was an
Egyptian and if he
transmitted to the
Jews his own religion then it
was that of Ikhnaton, the Aton religion.
We compared earlier the Jewish religion with
the
religion of the Egyptian people and noted
how different they were from each other. Now
we shall compare the Jewish with the Aton
religion and should expect to find that they were
originally identical. We know that this is no easy
task. Of the Aton
religion we do not perhaps
know enough, thanks to the revengeful spirit of
the Amon
priests. The Mosaic religion we know
only in its final form as it was fixed by Jewish
priests in the time after the Exile about 800 years
later. If, in
spite of this unpromising material,
we should find some indications fitting in with
our
supposition then we may indeed value them
highly.
1
Erman, /.., p. 90: " Of Osiris and his realm no more was to
be heard." Breasted, Dawn of Conscience, p. 291: "Osiris is completely ignored. He is never mentioned in any record of
Ikhnaton or in any of the tombs at Amarna."
42 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
There would be a short way of proving our
thesis that the Mosaic
religion is nothing else
but that of Aton, namely, by a confession of
faith, a proclamation. But I am afraid I should
be told that such a road is
impracticable. The
Jewish creed, as is well known, says: " Schema
Jisroel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echod." If the
similarity of the name of the Egyptian Aton (or
Atum) to the Hebrew word Adonai and the
Syrian divine name Adonis is not a mere accident,
but is the result of a
primaeval unity in language
and meaning, then one could translate the
Jewish formula: Hear, oh Israel, our god Aton
(Adonai) is the only God. I am, alas, entirely
unqualified to answer this question and have
been able to find very little about it in the
literature concerned, 1 but
probably we had
better not make
things so simple. Moreover, we
shall have to come back to the
problems of the
divine name.
The points of similarity as well as those of
difference in the two
religions are easily discerned,
but do not
enlighten us much. Both are forms of
a strict monotheism, and we shall be inclined to
reduce to this basic character what is similar in
both of them.
'Jewish monotheism is in some
1
Only a few passages in Weigall, I.e., pp. 12, 19: " The god
Atum, who described Re as the setting sun, was perhaps of the
same origin as Aton, generally venerated in Northern Syria. A
foreign Queen, as well as her suite, might therefore have been
attracted to
Heliopolis rather than to Thebes."
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
43
points even more uncompromising than the
Egyptian, for example, when it forbids all visual
representation of its God. The most essential
difference
apart from the name of their God
is that the
Jewish religion entirely relinquishes
the
worship of the sun, to which the Egyptian one
still adhered. When
comparing the Jewish with
the
Egyptian folk religion we received the
impression that, besides the contrast in principle,
there was in the difference between the two
religions an element of purposive contradiction.
This
impression appears justified when in our
comparison we replace the Jewish religion by that
of Aton, which Ikhnaton as we know
developed
in deliberate
antagonism to the popular religion.
We were astonished and rightly so that the
Jewish religion did not speak of anything beyond
the
grave, for such a doctrine is reconcilable with
the strictest monotheism. This astonishment
disappears if we go back from the Jewish religion
to the Aton religion and surmise that this feature
was taken over from the latter, since for Ikhnaton
it was a
necessity in fighting the popular religion
where the death god Osiris played perhaps a
greater part than any god of the upper regions.
The agreement of the Jewish religion with that of
Aton in this important point is the first strong
argument in favour of our thesis. We shall see
that it is not the
only one.
Moses gave the Jews not only a new religion;
44 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM
it is
equally certain that he introduced the custom
of circumcision. This has a decisive
importance
for our
problem and it has hardly ever been
weighed. The Biblical account, it is true, often
contradicts it. On the one hand, it dates the
custom back to the time of the
patriarchs as a
sign of the covenant concluded between God and
Abraham. On the other hand, the text mentions
in a
specially obscure passage that God was
wroth with Moses because he had
neglected this
holy usage and proposed to slay him as a punish-
ment; Moses' wife, aMidianite, saved her husband
from the wrath of God
by speedily performing
the
operation. These are distortions, however,
which should not lead us astray; we shall
explore
their motives
presently. The fact remains that
the
question concerning the origin of circumcision
has
only one answer: it comes from Egypt.
Herodotus, " the Father of History,
55
tells us that
the custom of circumcision had
long been
practised in Egypt, and his statement has been
confirmed by the examination of mummies and
even
by drawings on the walls of graves. No
other
people of the Eastern Mediterranean has
as far as we know followed this
custom; we can
assume with certainty that the Semites, Baby-
lonians and Sumerians were not circumcised.
Biblical
history itself says as much of the inhabi-
tants of
Canaan; it is presupposed in the story
of the adventure between
Jacob
5
s
daughter and
IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN
45
the Prince of Shechem. 1 The
possibility that the
Jews in Egypt adopted the usage of circumcision
in
any other way than in connection with the
religion Moses gave them may be rejected as
quite untenable. Now let us bear in mind that