Shabaki Stone

Main article: History of Ancient Egypt

A happy occasion preserved us fragments of one ancient monument of Egyptian theology. Pharaoh Shabak, who ruled in the period around 705-690 BC. e., ordered to draw a text on the stone. Later, this stone was used as a mill millstone, as a result of which part of the hieroglyphic lines died. In this form, the monument was transported from Alexandria to the British Museum in 1805.

Thanks to the efforts of Egyptologists, this difficult text has become clear.

Glorifying Pt as the creator of the universe and the gods through the divine word

The concept of the "Monument of Memphis Theology" is undoubtedly an artificial theological construction of the Memphis priesthood, created for glory and authority for the sake of the capital god - the god Pt. According to this concept, the god Pta is the supreme all-encompassing deity, the creator of the universe and the gods.

Memphis theologians did not preach monotheism at all - the presence of the supreme god Pt did not exclude the existence of other deities. And the god Pta was their creator, the creator of everything that exists. As a demiurge, he was distinguished by a special method of creativity - the abstract-philosophical, creative instrument of the Memphis demiurge was a divine word. The heart, the "seat of thought," gave rise to creative thought, and it was realized outward, translating into objective reality only after the divine plan was uttered by divine lips.

Belief in the omnipotence of the word in magic

Egyptian magic (as well as the magic of many other countries and peoples) is characterized by a belief in the omnipotence of the word. If a person with magical power could conjure and subjugate natural elements, then the magical possibilities of the supreme god, in this case the god Pt, were naturally unlimited.

The "philosophical" teaching of the Memphis priests about the creative power of the word of the god Pt has as its basis the belief of the Egyptians in the omnipotence of the word, characteristic of their ideas about magic. The idea contained in the "Monument to Memphis Theology" is elevated to the highest level, a widespread belief in the power of the magical word. In other words, the god Pta, creating other gods and peace, acted according to one of the basic principles of magic. In principle, the demiurge god of each settlement could act similarly. Memphis priests were not innovators in this regard, as it is customary to think: their god Pta was endowed with a "creative word," according to the religious worldview of the Egyptians, in which magic played a very, very significant role.

It is significant that the "Monument of Memphis Theology" contains completely obvious traces of the influence of Heliopolis. And this is not surprising: after all, Heliopolis was located next door to Memphis and could not help but influence the much later theogony and cosmogony of Memphis. It is possible that the doctrine of the creative power of the word, set forth in the "Monument of Memphis Theology," is inspired by the views of Heliopolis. But you can't prove it.

Subsequent teachings about the "logos" or "word" as an instrument of God's work among Greeks and Christians

So, the creative word of the deity is the source of being, the source of everything that exists on earth. That is why Brested came to the conclusion that already in ancient times the Egyptians knew how to think about distracted topics and that the concepts denoted by the Greek word "logos" (it was assumed that it was brought to Egypt in late times) arose and developed in Egypt, and then already fell beyond its borders.

To this remark, M.A. Korostovtsev added ^[1]. The doctrine of "logos," that is, about "word" or "speech" as an instrument of creativity and revelation, is contained in the Alexandrian philosopher of the І century BC. e. Philo, whose works had a serious impact on the formation of early Christianity. Recall that the Gospel of John (І, 1 - І, 3) begins with the following words: "At the beginning there was a word, and the word was with god, and the word was with god. It was at the beginning of God. Everything through him began to be that it began to be. "

The doctrine of the "logos" can be found in Greek thinkers and in the times preceding Philo: in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics. But Philo's teaching of the "logos" is starkly different from that of his predecessors. The doctrine of the "logos" as the creative power of the deity, Philo's understanding of the "logos" coincide with the understanding of the divine "word" in the "Monument of Memphis Theology." Philo lived and worked in Egypt, in Alexandria, in the world center of Hellenism, where the ideas of the West and the East collided, and was undoubtedly familiar with Egyptian views on the nature of the word. But as in Egypt, in Memphis, in ancient times, similar ideas could arise and develop on their own, which, it would seem, have nothing to do with Egypt? But this is only at first glance.

The doctrine of the power of the word in the "Monument of Memphis Theology" has purely Egyptian roots, which were mentioned above, and it is completely unnecessary to look for them outside Egypt. Maspero thus ends his brilliant study on the "Monument of Memphis Theology": "According to our author, all creative action must come from the heart and from the language - pronounced to itself, considered, and then expressed outward, in words. A firm belief has been expressed in the power of this "inner word" and the need for language to repeat or explain what is formulated in the heart and expressed in words. In other words, a sound dressed in a word has the highest power. Things and creatures named to themselves exist only in potency: for them to exist in reality, they must be pronounced, their names should be called. Nothing exists without first having its name spoken loudly. "

For more on the influence of Egyptian ideas on Judaism and Christianity, see Judaism and Christianity.

Initiations, doubts of scientists and dating

The general title, carved in two horizontal rows at the top of the stone, precedes the text. The first line begins with the so-called five-time royal title of king:

• "Living Gore, which thrives in two lands;
• Two Mistresses who thrive in two lands;
• King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Neferkare;
• Son of Ra: [Shabaka], beloved of Ptah-south-from-His-wall, who lives like Ra forever. "

The term "south of his wall" is an epithet of Ptach, probably referring to the sacred wall that surrounded his territory in the temple.

This sequence of five epithets, an accepted standard since the Middle Kingdom, seeks to personify certain aspects of royal power: the first three emphasize the divine manifestation of the king, while the last two refer to the division and unification of Egypt and include the throne name and birth name of the king. The king's name, Gore, is important here as it emphasizes that the king is the incarnation of the falcon-headed god Gore, an important deity and patron saint of Egyptian kings.

After the above statement, the inscription continues on the second line with the introduction:

"This text was re-rewritten by His Majesty in the House of his father Ptah-to-the-south-of-his-wall, for His Majesty discovered that this work of ancestors was foretold by worms, so that it could not be understood from beginning to end. His Majesty rewrote it so that it would be better than before, so that his name would be immortalized, and his monument in the House of his father Ptah-to-the-south-from-his-wall preserved for centuries, as a work performed by Son Ra [Shabaka] for his father Ptah-Tatenen to live forever. "

Thus, according to this story, the composition was copied onto stone from an older, dilapidated "work of ancestors" in order to preserve and perpetuate it - and it was the statement in the introduction that raised questions for scientists for a long time. What to do about it? Is it trustworthy? If so, how ancient was the source? Was it really a direct copy of the earlier original, or was it only partly based on an earlier source? Were multiple sources involved? When "copying," were literary jewelry not added to make it, as the text indicates, "better than it was before"? Up to this point, which parts were genuine and which were Shabaki creations - can this even be determined? Or was it all just an attempt to archaize a new composition that served Shabaki's interests in reuniting Egypt and establishing himself as king? In this respect, was it a complete falsification of Shabaki and/or his scribes, or simply an innovative reworking of an earlier source (or sources) in a sort of classicist vein? Needless to say, all these questions attest to the complexity of scientific research concerning the dating of the text and its intended source (s).

Brested, the first researcher of the text, was cautious in his initial, "quick draft" of some of these responses, first stating that the text's content at least referred to the 18th Dynasty, with "strong directions... to the fact that the inscription dates from the beginning of the New Kingdom or earlier. " However, over time, softening his judgments, he came to the conclusion that the text refers to the "era of the pyramids" or contains "the oldest thoughts of people who reached us in writing."

After Brested's pioneering work Adolf Ehrman, Kurt Zete (the two influenced Brested's later views) and Herman Juncker dated the text to the period of the Old Kingdom. Largely based on the archaic nature of the text - both linguistically (for example, its language resembles the texts of the pyramids of the Ancient Kingdom) and politically (for example, its references to the importance of Memphis as the first royal city).

Many subsequent scholars also considered the text ancient: Henri Frankfort argued that his ideas should have been "part of the great movement at the dawn of history," John Wilson was confident of early dating based on "linguistic, philological and geopolitical data," and Miriam Lichtheim agreed that it was a "work of the Ancient Kingdom."

However, in 1973 opinion changed thanks to an important study by Friedrich Jung, who argued that the text is a work of the 25th Dynasty - perhaps based on materials from the New Kingdom - as an attempt to archaize a new work in a fresh and creative way. Subsequent research has advanced a theory about such a possibility based on the merger in the text of the gods Ptah and Ta-Tenen and the description of their roles based on the earlier original (or originals) of the Ramessid period of the New Kingdom (1295-1069 BC).

Later, Egyptologist James Allen, in his study of Egyptian creation stories, drew attention to the fact that the text has several internal features that suggest that it was not completely fabricated without any basis in earlier sources. (for example, it shares similarities in format and structure with some Middle Kingdom texts [2055-1650 BC], and its descriptions of the god Ptah and his creative role are similar to some passages from sarcophagus texts). Ultimately, however, Allen seems to agree with the dating of the text to the New Kingdom period relating to the Ramessids, since it was during this period that Ptah's creative role (similar to that described in the Shabaki text) was "most fully developed."

However, an opponent of this recent trend is Eric Iversen, who agrees with Juncker's original dating of the Old Kingdom period, arguing that the text still gives the impression that "it is ancient, with a limited number of predominantly orthographic innovations, not late, with an abundance of archaisms."

Determining the exact origin of the stone's text is likely to forever be a mystery to scientists. According to Joshua ^[2], the intertextual connection of the inscription with earlier literary works, although intriguing, is not enough to confidently claim involvement in any alleged primary source (sources). Yet certainly some ideas engraved on the stone, "at least the core of which [is] ancient," were not complete fictions, for if it were, the theological/political component of the stone would have been completely missed by the people and probably not of interest to Shabaki.

Could at least some archaic passages then come from earlier materials, or did their ideas go back to much older times and were re-written for the Shabaki stone? Of course, ideas are difficult to date, if at all possible. With confidence, we can only say that the entire composition as a whole (i.e. its preserved form) belongs to the 25th dynasty; everything else is speculation. Yet, as Iversen wisely observes, such debates may be somewhat inconsequential in terms of hermeneutics, as the text "deals exclusively with authentic Egyptian concepts and representations, most of which can be traced elsewhere to the earliest periods of Egyptian history, and so the date of this particular version is irrelevant to their interpretation." At least, if the inscription is indeed a completely new creation, which has no basis in the "spoiled" original, then this certainly testifies to the brilliant use by the author (s) of archaic formulations, spelling, grammar and format.

Notes