Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/99

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84
LECTURE III.

this relationship. A deity was said to be Lord of Abydos, mistress of Senem, presiding in Thebes, inhabiting Hermopolis; sometimes a particle was interposed between the name of the god and that of the town, as "Anubis from Sechem," "Neith of Sais;" sometimes one or more epithets were added, as "the mighty," "the beneficent," "the august;" sometimes the name of an animal which was the recognized symbol of the god, a bull, a ram or a lion. Special titles were given to divinities according to the place in which they were worshipped: Osiris, for instance, was called che "the child," at Thebes; he was ura, "the great one," at Heliopolis; ati, "the sovereign," at Memphis. It happened frequently that in the same town one god was worshipped under different aspects, or as proceeding from different localities, and treated as though there were different divine persons of the same name. Chonsu in Thebes, under the name nefer-hotep, is entreated to lend his miraculous power to Chonsu in Thebes under the name ari secher. We read of Set the god of Senu, Set of Uau, Set of Un and Set of Meru. Other forms of Set are well known, but those I have cited are brought together in one inscription as children of the god Tmu. I find invocations in a very early inscription addressed to the Anubis of six different localities. Apis is the son of Ptah, of Tmu, of Osiris and of Sokari. Are all these fathers of Apis one person? Horus is the son of the goddess Isis,