their births. I emitted from myself the gods Shu and Tefnut, and from
being One I became Three; they [Illustration: THE CREATION. The god Nu
rising out of the primeval water and bearing in his hands the boat of
R[=a], the Sun-god, who is accompanied by a number of deities. In the
upper portion of the scene is the region of the underworld which is
enclosed by the body of Osiris, on whose head stands the goddess Nut
with arms stretched out to receive the disk of the sun.] sprang from
me, and came into existence in this earth. ...Shu and Tefnut brought
forth Seb and Nut, and Nut brought forth Osiris, Horus-khent-an-maa,
Sut, Isis, and Nephthya at one birth."

The fact of the existence of two versions of this remarkable Chapter
proves that the composition is much older than the papyrus [Footnote:
About B.C. 300.] in which it is found, and the variant readings which
occur in each make it certain that the Egyptian scribes had difficulty
in understanding what they were writing. It may be said that this
version of the cosmogony is incomplete because it does not account for
the origin of any of the gods except those who belong to the cycle of
Osiris, and this objection is a valid one; but in this place we are only
concerned to shew that R[=a], the Sun-god, was evolved from the primeval
abyss of water by the agency of the god Khepera, who brought this result
about by pronouncing his own name. The great cosmic gods, such as Ptah
and Khnemu, of whom mention will be made later, are the offspring of
another set of religious views, and the cosmogony in which these play
the leading parts is entirely different. We must notice, in passing,
that the god whose words we have quoted above declares that he evolved
himself under the form, of Khepera, and that his name is Osiris, "the
primeval matter of primeval matter," and that, as a result, Osiris is
identical with Khepera in respect of his evolutions and new births. The
word rendered "evolutions" is _kheperu_, literally "rollings"; and that