Evil in Waaqeffannaa Oromo, Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic Ethiopian Religions or Satan?

A while back, I re-published (in: 'The Inexorable Radiation of Waaqeffannaa, the Oromo Religion' -
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/60798) an excellent paper written by one of Oromia’s foremost intellectuals, Mr. Getachew Chamadaa Nadhabaasaa, a theological analysis of Waaqeffannaa, the historical Oromo religion(earlier published under the original title Waaqeffannaa – Testimony of an Indigenous Religion of the African Past and Present) .

As I intended to extensively comment on that text that serves as a founding text for a new phase of Waaqeffannaa, as written religion, I encrusted numbers in the text. Four parts of the commentary have already been published ('Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic Religions and Waaqeffannaa Oromo Religion' /
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/61419 - ‘Waaqeffannaa Oromo Religion and the Unavoidable Death of Fake Ethiopia’ / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/63090 - ‘Viewpoints on Waaqeffannaa Oromo Religion, Islam and Ancient Egyptian Religion’ / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/63351 - Oromo Kushitic Continuity – Waaqeffannaa, Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic Religions / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/64351). I will continue my commentary in the present article. My present comments relate to the numerated points in Mr. Nadhabaasaa’s text (as above).

Commentary

44. This is typical of Ancient Egypt and Kushitic Ethiopia; the Ancient Kushitic royalty was not a tyrannical practice for a tyrannized realm, as disreputable Orientalists depicted it in order to consolidate their vicious theory of Hellenism, according to which the Greeks (erratically portrayed as White and as Europeans) "invented" Democracy and Civil Rights. It is all an abysmal colonial aberration; the Orientalists who first studied the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Meroe were diplomatic, academic, military, political and financial agents of France and England, the main colonial powers (the others just competed and rivaled with them – the ideological foundations of Colonialism were set by the French and the English, that’s why they mostly profited). They acted influenced by their venomous odium of the Ottoman Empire and Islam that they projected to the entire Orient, Asiatic or African. The fallacious French and English Orientalists projected therefore a falsely perceived image of the Ottoman Empire on all the Ancient Oriental Civilizations, composing the fallacy of Oriental Despotism. There is nothing more erroneous than this, as far as the Ancient History of the Orient is concerned.

Democracy existed before the Greeks, Human and Civil Rights existed before the Greeks, Philosophy existed before the Greeks, History existed before the Greeks, Theater existed before the Greeks, and Science existed before the Greeks. Not only things happened like that, but also the Greeks proved to be low level pupils of the Great Oriental high priests and scholars to whom they went and whose students they had been; suffice it that we compare Platonic theories with Ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan systematic thought, suffice it that we compare Hesiod’s Theogony with the Hittite, Assyrian and Babylonian Epics of the Creation, suffice it we compare Solon’s Laws with the Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic system of Law, and we easily conclude that wherever the Orient introduced comprehensive systems, viewpoints and approaches, the Greeks either imitated or composed a second hand, fragmentary, and insignificant compilation.

In fact, the main enemy of all the tyrannized and subjugated nations of Africa, and the main reason of all their troubles is not the local unrepresentative tyranny but the Anglo-French colonials, and even more so the false Western, colonial, dogmas and the falsified versions of History machinated by the Anglo-French Freemasonry. Among them, the Hellenism, the Orientalism, the Pan-Arabism, and the Islamism are the four curses befallen on all the nations of Africa and Asia.

If we go back to the 3rd millennium BCE, we find states with very weak structures, advanced de-centralization and scarce military interests. Weaker the state structure is, less sophisticated the bureaucracy is, slimmer are the chances for a person to become a dictator. Certainly, the socioeconomic and political environment consists in the secondary reason; the basic reason is culture, education, social behavioural system, the average mentality and the overall Weltanschauung of a nation.

Lack of dictatorial character, mentality and attitude did not characterize only Egypt and Kush; it was the same throughout the Asiatic part of the Middle East, the real cradle of our civilization. The Sumerians (in today’s Southern Mesopotamia / Iraq), the Elamites (in the area of today’s SW Iran), the Hatti (in today’s Central Turkey), the Hurrians (in today’s SE Turkey and Northern Syria), and the Luwians (in today’s SW Turkey), who are all the early 3rd millennium indigenous populations of the Middle East, have developed absolutely un-dictatorial cultures. At the times of Khufu and Khefren, Egyptians built huge pyramids but had no army! Even the early Semites, the Akkadians (ancestors of the Assyrians and the Babylonians) and the Canaanites (ancestors of the Phoenicians) had not developed totalitarian or militaristic cultures.

In Egypt and Kushitic Ethiopia, two factors contributed to the gradual, slow rise of the military; the raids due to desert nomadic tribes and the aggravated clash between two priesthoods (the monotheistic Heliopolitan clergy vs. the polytheistic Theban establishment). But all this happened after the collapse of the Ancient Kingdom. At the times of the Middle Kingdom, the New Empire, and during the later periods down to the Roman Era (so for a period of 2 millennia), Egypt lacked its Kushitic originality, due to various mixed marriages practiced by the Pharaonic Court and because of the gradual infiltration of many other populations.

In the first millennium, the vast empire of Kush (named Kas in Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Kushitic, Mat Kuusi in Assyrian – Babylonian, and Kush in Hebrew), which was called ‘Ethiopia’ by the Greeks and the Romans, represented better the Kushitic originality. It is not by accident that the Theban priests managed to strike an alliance with the kings (Qore) of Kush (based at Napata, today’s Karima, 750 km in the south of the present Egyptian – Sudanese border) and thus Taharqa reigned in both, Napata and Niwt (Thebes). As that dynasty ruled over part of Egypt, until they were expelled by the Assyrian emperors Assarhaddon and Assurbanipal who invaded Egypt thrice (671, 669 and 666 BCE), many centuries later, Manetho writing in Greek for the needs of the Ptolemaic Court named their dynasty ‘Ethiopian’, signifying ‘Kushitic’ (totally irrelevant to the Abyssinians who have attempted to usurp the name due to their racist political choices).

Even in later periods of Ethiopian History (which was unfolded of today’s Sudanese soil), when the capital was transferred at Meroe (today’s Bagrawiyah), the Ethiopian Meroitic state developed limited interest in the military; the Qore (kings) and the Kandaqe (queens) of Ethiopia were not totalitarian or dictatorial. Through Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman sources (as long as the Meroitic scriptures have not yet been deciphered) we know that there were nomadic attacks that the Qore had to repulse from time to time, there was Roman – Meroitic Ethiopian rivalry in the area of Triakontaschoenus (approximately between today’s Aswan and Abu Simbel in the southernmost confines of Egypt), there was inner strife between some colleges of Kushitic priests of Amun, Ra, Horus and Apademak (the Lion-headed Kushitic Ethiopian god par excellence) and the Qore (Kings), but there was never any sort of tyranny and dictatorship.

The same concerns Christian Ethiopia (which has nothing to do with Axumite Abyssinia and the stories about King Ezana of Axum) which was developed in the area of today’s Northern Sudan; none of the three Christian Ethiopian states was characterized by a militaristic or dictatorial establishment. Nobatia (with capital at Faras – currently submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser – on the point of Egyptian / Sudanese border) was more influenced by the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria, was inhabited mostly by the (Nilo-Saharan) Nubians, and introduced Coptic as state and religion language and scripture. Mekuria (with capital at Dongola Agouza, 580 km in the south of Faras) developed closer links with the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria, was inhabited by the Meroitic Ethiopians who gradually adhered to Christianity, and introduced a new writing system, Makurian, using Greek - not Coptic - alphabet. Alodia around Soba (in the area of today’s Khartoum) lasted more than the other two Ethiopian Christian states, and did not collapse to the Muslim Funj before 1600. The three Christian Ethiopian states resisted Islam for many centuries; Nobatia even controlled Upper Egypt for several centuries as the early Islamic conquest of Egypt did not advance more than Assiut in the south (ca. 350 km in the south of Cairo). To better resist Islam, Nobatia and Makuria merged in later centuries, only to collapse in the 12th – 13th centuries. Apart from resistance to the Caliphate, they did not develop other military activities and engagements.

45. A very important part of Mr. Getachew Chamadaa Nadhabaasaa’s theological analysis of Waaqeffannaa evolves around the notion of Evil. In fact, there cannot be theological treatise without a reference to the notion of ‘Evil’ as perceived and described by the religion that the treatise attempts to scrutinize.

I understand Mr. Nadhabaasaa’s need to make an immediate juxtaposition with Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In this regard, many ancient religions, not only the Ancient Egyptian and the Kushitic Ethiopian religions, can be categorized along with Waaqeffannaa, and be described as "diametrically opposed" to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The difference is colossal.

For the Ancient Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians, but also the Sumerians, the Elamites, the Assyrians – Babylonians, the Canaanites, the Aramaeans, the Phoenicians, the Yemenites, the Persians, the Hatti, the Luwians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Thracians, the Macedonians, the Illyrians, the Greeks and the Romans, there was no other power to dare challenge the God’s Supreme Authority. Even within the context of (Zoroaster) Zardosht’s religion (which is particularly misrepresented by modern Western scholarship), Ahriman is not a force able to challenge Ahura Mazda. The same happens also among the Ancient Hebrews; Satan was not a matter of greater concern for them. All the ancient peoples, either practicing a monotheistic religion or adopting a polytheistic faith, believed in the existence of negative demons, and conceived the force of evil in various ways. Their role, character and nature was very preoccupying indeed; but we cannot find – in any ancient holy text – the idea of a fierce and ceaseless fight between the Good and the Evil (God and Satan), usually narrated as performed by proxies, prophets, messiahs, antichrists, false prophets, and all the realm of their co-fighters and subordinates.

The Hours in the Nether World were, according to the Ancient Egyptian Holy ‘Book of the Hours’, critical spaces of time whereby the souls were exposed to terrible threats from the part of identified or non identified demons and other forces. But this did not make the Ancient Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians believe that Human History is compulsorily interwoven with an incessant fight between two forces, God and Satan, which for the purpose of fight select proxies among the humans. For an Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic Ethiopian, this concept and approach would minimize, ridicule, and even desecrate the Supreme Ra, viewed as incommensurably higher than the level of the – however accepted as existent – forces of negativity or ‘evil’.

The only exception among all the peoples of the Antiquity is made by the Ancient Hittites, an Indo-European people who settled around Caesarea of Cappadocia (Kayseri in today’s Central Turkey), only to later rise in power in Hattushas, the capital of the Hatti Kingdom. The real name of the Hittites is Nesa, and Nasili (written in either Cuneiform or Hieroglyphic) is the most ancient Indo-European language documented today, because Hittite (Nasili) has been deciphered. The Nesa ruled and expanded the Hatti kingdom in the name of Hatti; that’s why the modern academic term ‘Hittite’ is conventional, created because of the need of modern scholars to show that the same, Hatti, state was ruled by another people. The Hittite Apocalyptic Epic Ullikummi consists in the original and archetypal text narrating the historical dimensions’ ultimate battle between an Elect of God, Tasmisu, and Ullikummi, an absolutely evil and monstrous being which rises from the sea – like the ‘anti-christ’ of the Book of Revelation.

In fact, the entire story of a fight between a Messiah (identified within Christian context with Jesus) and an Anti-Christ is alien even for the Ancient Hebrews; the modern "explanation" given by all sorts of untrustworthy and irrelevant ‘televangelists’ is that God did not reveal the truth to them because …. they did not need it in their time! This is a truly evil thought, and helps only identify today who the real Satanists are. This perverted and perfidious "explanation" reveals an incredible immorality and a typically Western sick mentality full of egotism. If this is the pseudo-god of the Evangelicals, one can immediately realize that they call Satan "God".

As a matter of fact, the entire story of the Christian Book of the Revelation reproduces the archetypal pattern (and numerous secondary attributes, narratives and concepts) of the Hittite Apocalyptic Epic ‘Ullikummi’. There is no divine inspiration, just human tradition transferred from generation to generation down to the times of the Late Antiquity, when the Book of the Revelation was compiled by some Anatolian priests well aware of the Ullikummi esoteristic tradition.

The Christian Book of the Revelation became the reason of devastating misreading of other books of the Christian Canon, and even worse, of extensive projection of the newly re-arranged concepts within the Old Testament context. The issue expanded within Judaism, a religion clearly different than that of the Ancient Hebrews; by this we do not imply that Judaism is opposed to the Ancient Hebrew Religion, but just ‘other’. This would be any religion which would adopt more holy books than another; in fact, the Ancient Hebrew religion crossed different phases, and certainly the Hebrews of the times of Jacob were a small tribe with a rudimentary monotheistic faith; the Deuteronomion comes much later to set up detailed prescriptions of worshipping and living for a sizeable tribe. When we are at the times of the Chronicles and the Prophets, let’s say around the 8th century BCE, we have to do with the monotheistic religion of a state (or two: Israel and Judah).

At the times of Late Antiquity, the Jews were dispersed (even before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, 70 CE) throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East and in several parts of the Arsacid Parthian Empire of Iran. They were thus exposed to various influences and temptations. Flavius Josephus reports the existence of four different schools of Judaic faith; the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes and the Zealots. The first were cosmopolitan Jews, mainly established in Alexandria and the Mediterranean, and they attempted to diffuse the values of the Ancient Hebrew religion by systematizing it as a philosophical system (Philo of Alexandria being the most pro-eminent intellectual and philosopher among them). The Pharisees were practicing a meaningless traditionalism (much like the Islamic extremists of today), sticking to the letter of the Law, and forgetting its spirit and essence. They were despised by all the rest, but were in control of the tiny state administration in Jerusalem. The Essenes were esoterists who isolated themselves in desert communities and underwent a vast esoteristic syncretism, incorporating Egyptian, Chaldaean and Persian esoteristic practices and concepts of monotheistic nature. The Zealots were Essenes turned revolutionaries. Of all these four groups, only the Pharisees survived after the destruction of Jerusalem, as the Essenes were exterminated because of the increased Roman military presence in Judea (turned Syria Palestinia), and the Sadducees faced a fierce, early, anti-Semitism practiced by Greeks and Romans in Alexandria.

The elimination of the Sadducees was key to the rise of Christianity; among Jews, the Pharisees in their effort to record and interpret everything, ended up with a new huge religious opus, the Talmud, which was written in the span of many centuries. To this, Zohar was added in even later times. As it can be automatically understood, the Torah, the Talmud and the Zohar constitute the holy books for today’s Jews, but the Talmud and the Zohar would have never been accepted by the Ancient Hebrews (at least in their entirety). This makes of the Ancient Hebrew religion and Judaism two different religious systems. It is within Talmudic Judaism that we attest a stronger presence of references to Satan and more elaborate thoughts about the Messiah(s) and his (eventual) opponent.

Islam contains equally sizeable references to Satan, and reassesses the beliefs to a final battle between the Messiah (Mahdi) and his opponent, making of Jesus a Prophet siding with Mahdi at the end of time (al Yom al Ahar). The subject preoccupied great number of Christians, Jews and Muslims for many hundreds of years, and even it contributed to early Christians’ call of Prophet Muhammad as the Anti-Christ, but it has no foundations in the Kushitic thought.

One should not consider the issue of absolutely Hittite impact; what created the God – Satan duality and dualism within Christianity, Judaism and Islam is the vast phenomenon of religious syncretism of the Late Antiquity that we call conventionally Gnosis or Gnosticisms. It is within some of these philosophical systems that duality was conceptualized within absolute terms; the concept was later reassessed within Manichaeism and late Sassanid Persian religions, notably Gayomardism and Mazdakism (preached by the great philosopher Mazdak). As Manichaeism permeated both Christianity and Islam, it is not strange that a second wave of dualism spread throughout these two adjacent worlds that both are in fact far more Manichaean than they have ever imagined.

46. Similarly with Waaqeffannaa, the Ancient Egyptian and Kushitic Ethiopian religions do not have an equivalent of Satan. Seth is the expression of negativity, a formidable adversary of Horus, according to the Heliopolitan theology which was diffused throughout Egypt or Kush, but Seth is not conceptualized as a rival to Supreme Ra. It would be necessary to expand on the subject.

Seth (named Sutekh or Suty) was viewed as an aspect of the divine in Egypt’s earliest times. Although in later times, all afflictions were considered to be ensuing from his deeds, Seth was originally thought to be a follower of Ra, an aspect of the divine that did not cause discord. In narrations that purportedly shed light on spaces of time before the Creation, Seth was portrayed as the one who defended the Solar Barque, Ra’s Vehicle, against Apep (Apophis). The subject was in later periods contextualized within the present world and then Seth was described as the permanent defender of the Solar Barque each night as it was narrated as traveling through the underworld. In fact, Seth was viewed as the only Egyptian deity who could kill the serpent Apep (Apophis) - Ra's most dangerous enemy - each night as it threatened to swallow the Barque. In the Book of the Dead, Seth is presented as boasting for his victory in following terms: "As for me, I am Set, the strongest of the Divine Company. Every day I slay the enemy of Ra when I stand at the helm of the Barque of Millions of Years, which no other god dare do". At a certain point, following Set’s bragging, Ra drives Seth away from the Barque for his insolence, and proceeds on course without this ‘master’ of storms.

Following this consideration that dates back from the times of the Old Kingdom in the middle of the 3rd millennium, literature was produced to depict Seth as a god of chaos, confusion, storms, wind, the desert and foreign lands. This suited the needs of the Memphitic polytheistic school of Ancient Egypt. In the Heliopolitan monotheistic system, Seth was portrayed as the perpetrator of the Crime (against Osiris) and as
a contender to the throne of Osiris and therefore rival to Horus. Although Seth was originally worshiped, we never found a temple dedicated to him.

As consequence of his negative portrait within the context of the Heliopolitan theology, and following the extensive narrations of his defeat at the hands of Horus and his subsequent exile in the desert, Seth ended up as a god of the desert, symbolizing the destructive heat of the afternoon sun, and infertility. The hieroglyph for Seth was thence used in words such as 'turmoil', 'confusion', 'illness', 'storm' and 'rage'. Strange events such as eclipses, thunderstorms and earthquakes were also attributed to him. In the Pyramid Texts, Spell 356, we read: "Horus has seized Seth, he has put him beneath you so that he can lift you up. He will groan beneath you as an earthquake".

It is likely that the cult of Horus overtook the cult of Seth in ancient times, and started to remove his positive sides to give the god Horus more status. The two gods, Horus the Elder and Horus the son of Osiris and Isis were confused, so Seth changed from being an equal to his brother, Horus the Elder, to the enemy of Isis's son. It was only after the Hyksos took Seth as their main god, and after the Egyptians got rid of the foreigners, that he stopped symbolizing Lower Egypt and his name was erased and his statues destroyed.

According to interpretations of the Heliopolitan theology, the fight between Seth and Horus could continue forever, being thus a symbol of the eternal recapitulation of all things human and divine. They were believed to continue their battle until the end of time itself, when chaos would overrun Maat and the waters of the primordial Nun would swallow up again the universe.

According to narrations emanating from the Heliopolitan priesthood, Seth was the third of the five children of Nut, thought to have been born in the Nubt (modern Naqada) area. Instead of being born in the normal manner, as his siblings were born, he tore himself violently from his mother's womb. In the Pyramid Texts we read: "You whom the pregnant goddess brought forth when you clove the night in twain - You are invested with the form of Seth, who broke out in violence".

The dramatic narration of Seth’s Crime against Osiris (portrayed as husband and brother of Isis) has been preserved in many varied versions, as every priesthood attempted always to shape the narrative according to their teaching and preaching. A most generic presentation has it as follows:

Jealous of his older brother Osiris - either because of the birth of his sister-wife's son, Anubis, or because of Osiris' rule over Egypt - Seth made a plan to murder his childless brother and take the throne. He made a great feast, supposedly in honor of Osiris, and with 72 accomplices ready, he tricked Osiris into laying down in a coffer - whoever fitted into the richly ornamented chest would win it - and considering that he'd measured it to fit his brother exactly, Osiris fit perfectly... and Seth's accomplices nailed down the lid and threw it into the Nile.

When Isis found out about this, she went on a search through the world to find her husband. As Isis brought the coffin back, Seth attacked the coffer, tore it open and cut up his brother's corpse, spreading body parts throughout the land of Egypt. Isis and her sister, Set's wife, Nephthys (who had left him to join her sister) went on a quest to restore Osiris. They succeeded enough so that Isis conceived Osiris' son and eventually bore the child Horus in the Delta region where he was thought to have grown up. At a later time, Horus had reached manhood, and thereupon did battle with Seth, prevailed, and Seth was exiled in the desert.

Despite his bad reputation, Seth was still a divine being - an equal of Horus, no less - who could be invoked by his followers or warded off by those who were afraid of him. Yet without chaos and confusion there would be no order; without the heavy, thunderous storms there would be no good weather; without the desert and foreign lands, there would be no Egypt. Seth was a counterbalance to the 'good' side of the Egyptian universe, helping to keep everything in balance, which makes very clear the chaotic difference between the Egyptian and Kushitic Ethiopian Seth and the Judaic, Christian and Islamic Satan.

Despite his wicked side, Seth was still a divine figure in Egypt and Kushitic Ethiopia, and was worshiped - and feared - as such. His image changed through time, due to politics, yet he was still a powerful god, the only one who could slay Ra's worst enemy. To the Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians, he was the god who 'ate' the moon each month - the black boar who swallowed its light - and the god who created earthquakes and heavy, thunderous rain storms. He was a friend of the dead, helping them to ascend to heaven on his ladder, and the crowner of pharaohs and leader of warriors.

Ramesses II, as did his father Seti I, both had red hair and so aligned themselves with Seth, the god of chaos. Both were famous warrior pharaohs, using Seth’s violent nature to help with their war efforts. In his campaign against the Hittites, Ramesses II split his army into four divisions and named them after four gods. One was for Amun (the main god of the Theban polytheistic priesthood), one for Ra, one for Ptah (the main god of the Memphitic polytheistic priesthood) and one for Seth. Thus, for the first time in the Egyptian History, the polytheistic priesthood enjoyed an overwhelming control over the army, as only Ra was supported by a monotheistic priesthood, whereas Amun and Ptah were creations of various polytheistic colleges of priests.

In Ramesses’ mortuary temple at Thebes, also known as Ramesseum, we read the following, in the Account of the Battle of Qadesh (in today’s Syria);

"Thereupon the forces of the foe from Khatti (Hittites) surrounded the followers of his majesty who were by his side. When his majesty caught sight of them he rose quickly, enraged at them like his father Mont. Taking up weapons and donning his armor he was like Seth in the moment of his power. He mounted 'Victory-in-Thebes,' his great horse, and started out quickly alone by himself. His majesty was mighty, his heart stout. one could not stand before him.

All his ground was ablaze with fire; he burned all the countries with his blast. His eyes were savage as he beheld them; his power flared like fire against them. He heeded not the foreign multitude; he regarded them as chaff. His majesty charged into the force of the foe from Khatti and the many countries with him. His majesty was like Seth, great-of-strength, like Sekhmet in the moment of her rage. His majesty slew the entire force of the foe from Khatti, together with his great chiefs and all his brothers, as well as all the chiefs of all the countries that had come with him, their infantry and their charioteers falling on their faces one upon the other. His majesty slaughtered them in their places; they sprawled before his horses; and his majesty was alone, none other with him".

Within popular cults of the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, Seth was also believed to have white skin and red hair, and the Ancient Egyptians and Kushitic Ethiopians compared his hair to the pelt of a donkey. Due to his association with red (dshr), red animals and even people with red hair were thought to be his followers. These animals were sometimes sacrificed, while the link between Seth and red-heads - usually foreigners – made of him the mythical ruler of foreign lands. Seth’s vilification started in rather later periods, mostly in the 1st millennium BCE.

A very particular aspect of Seth’s was his sexual peculiarity, a topic that we still cannot plainly understand. Seth was thought to have rather odd sexual habits, and this may be another reason for which the Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians believed that all abnormalities were linked to Seth. In lands where fatherhood makes the man, Seth's lack of children, related to the tale where Horus tore off his testicles (while Set tore out Horus' eye) would have been a reason why he was looked down on. His favorite food was the lettuce (which secreted a white, milky substance that the Egyptians linked to semen and was sacred to the fertility god Min), but even with this aphrodisiac, he was still thought to have been infertile.

Seth’s odd bisexuality (he was married and given concubines to appease him, yet he also assaulted Horus sexually starting with the come-on line "How lovely your backside is!") and his pursuit of Isis were reasons why Seth could never have been a ruler of Egypt instead of Osiris, despite originally being a lord of Upper Egypt. In the Jumilhac Papyrus we read that "when Seth saw Isis there, he transformed himself into a bull to be able to pursue her, but she made herself unrecognizable by taking the form of a bitch with a knife on her tail. Then she began to run away from him and Seth was unable to catch up with her. Then, he ejaculated on the ground, and she said, "It's disgusting to have ejaculated, you bull!". But his sperm grew in the desert and became the plants called bedded-kau".

Despite his parity with Horus (in the Old and Middle Kingdoms there are depictions of the two gods together either leading the prisoners of the pharaoh or binding the plants of Upper and Lower Egypt together), Seth’s portrait already reveals part of the problem. He was depicted as a man with the head of a 'Seth animal' (identified by the Ancient Greeks with Typhon), or as a full 'Seth animal'. The problem is that this animal is unrecognizable as a particular animal today. In the Ptolemaic times, Seth was also identified with other animals, such as the hippopotamus, the pig and the donkey, which were often abhorred by the Egyptians. These animals were sacred to him. Seth's followers took the form of these animals, as well as crocodiles, scorpions, turtles and other 'evil' or dangerous creatures. Some fish were sacred to Seth too - the Nile carp, the Oxyrynchus or the Phagrus fish - because they were thought to have eaten the Osiris’ penis (what the Greeks called in later periods ‘semeion’) after Set chopped him to pieces.

The 'Seth animal' has long, squared ears and a long, down-turned snout, a canine-like body with an erect forked tail. It may have been a composite animal that was part aardvark (the aardvark that the ancient Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians would have seen was the nocturnal Orycteropus aethiopicus which was between 1.2-1.8 meters long and almost 1 meter tall, and was generally a reddish color because of the thin hair, allowing the skin to show through), part canine (perhaps the salawa, a desert dwelling creature) or even a camel or an okapi. The sign for his name, from the Middle Kingdom hieratic onwards, tended to replace the sign for 'donkey' and 'giraffe', so he was possibly linked to the giraffe, as well.

Despite all this, Seth was never as dreadful a figure as the Judaic, Christian and Islamic Satan. Neither his Ancient Greek counterpart, Typhon, can possibly be equated with Satan. If we take into consideration that Seth was believed to have fought against Apep (Apophis), and that Apophis was at times paralleled with the Ancient Serpent of the Book of the Revelation, we get a more complete vision of the fact that Satan did not truly ‘exist’ as a real concern for the Ancient Egyptians and the Kushitic Ethiopians.

Apophis was never worshipped, and as it happened with Seth there was never a temple dedicated to him. Apep was believed to command an army of demons that plagued mankind. Only by putting faith in the gods of light could people defeat the demons. Every year, a ritual called the "Banishing of Apep" would be held by the priests of Ra. They would take an effigy of Apep and in the center of the temple they would pray that all the wickedness in the world would go into the effigy. Then they would trample the effigy, crush it, beat it with sticks, pour mud on it, and eventually burn and destroy it. In this way, the power of Apep would be curtailed for another year. It may resemble some Islamic practice during Hajj but this was all, and there was no further thought for or concern with Apep.

We will continue our commentary in a forthcoming article.

Note
Picture: Seth defending the Holy Barque of Ra against primordial Apep (Apophis)