Before crossing the threshold of the Great Hall, the deceased addressed the solar god Ra:
- Glory to you, great god, Lord of the Two Truths! I have come to you, oh my lord! I was brought so that I could behold your perfection. I know you, I know your name, I know the names of the forty-two gods who are with you in the Hall of the Two Truths, who live as guardians of sinners, who drink the blood on this day of testing [of people] in the presence of Ushefer.
“He whose beloved twins are the Two Eyes, the Lord of the Two Truths” is your name. I came to see you, I brought you Two Truths, I removed my sins for your sake.
The Great Ennead, the gods who headed the Afterlife Judgment under the leadership of Ra, and the Lesser Ennead, the gods of cities and nomes, listened to the deceased. The Great Ennead, in addition to Ra, included Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Nephthys, Isis, Horus, Hathor, Hu (Will) and Sia (Intelligence). The heads of all judges were decorated with the feather of Truth - the feather of Maat.
Having made his speech, the deceased began the “Confession of Denial”:
- I did not commit injustice against people. I did not oppress my neighbors. <-..> I did not rob the poor. I did not do anything that was not pleasing to the gods. I did not incite the servant against his master. I did not poison <...>.
Having listed forty-two crimes and sworn to the gods that he was not guilty of any of them, the deceased exclaimed:
- I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, my purity is the purity of the Great Benu, who is in Neninnesut. <...> They will not harm me in the Great Hall of Two Truths, for I know the names of the gods who are there with you.
After the “Confession of Denial,” the deceased addressed the Little Ennead, calling each of the forty-two gods by name and again assuring them of his innocence in the crimes. Then the gods began interrogating the deceased: “Who are you?” Say your name. - I am the lower shoot of papyrus. The one who is in his Olive. - That's my name. -Where did you come from? <...> - I arrived from the city that lies north of Oliva.
When the interrogation ended, Meshent, the “guardian angel” of Shai, the goddess of good fate Renenut and the soul of Ba of the late Egyptian appeared before the face of Ra-Horakhte and the Ennead. They testified to the character of the deceased and told the gods what good and bad deeds he had committed in life.
Isis, Nephthys, Selket and Nut defended the deceased before the judges. After this, the gods began to weigh the heart on the Scales of Truth: they placed the heart on one bowl, and the feather of the goddess Maat on the other. If the arrow of the scales deviated, the deceased was considered a sinner, and the Great Ennead pronounced a guilty verdict on him, after which the heart was given to be devoured by the terrible goddess Am(ma)t - “The Devourer,” a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, lion paws and the mane and mouth of a crocodile. If the scales remained in balance, the deceased was recognized as acquitted.
Why the sinful heart should have been lighter (or heavier) than the feather of Maat is, strictly speaking, unknown, there are only hypotheses. For example, a number of Egyptologists are of the opinion (shared by the author) that the Libra served as a kind of “lie detector” for the afterlife judges: the weighing of the heart was carried out not after the “Confession of Denial” and the second acquittal speech, but simultaneously with them - throughout the entire interrogation, the heart rested on the scales, and if the deceased was guilty of any of the crimes, then as soon as he began to swear to the contrary, the arrow immediately deviated.
It seems to the author that the ancient Egyptian mythical action of weighing the heart symbolically expresses the spiritual meaning of confession as such, a meaning that is apparently the same in all religions, regardless of differences in the external attributes of the confessional rite.
It has long been noted that a person, having committed an act contrary to morality, involuntarily (this process is unconscious) seeks, and therefore finds, an excuse, the essence of which usually boils down to the fact that the act was forced by circumstances, and not committed by free will. When talking about such an act or remembering it, a person feels the need to provide justifications. his reasons; if he does not have such an opportunity, he is immediately overcome by a certain internal anxiety, inconvenience. Fiction has described many times how in such a situation one wants to “look away”, “change the topic of conversation”, etc. The ritual of confession does not allow any kind of justification - only “let your word be: “yes, yes”, “no, no”; and anything beyond this is from the evil one.” Thus, a person who has convinced himself of his own sinlessness (or, in relation to Christianity, of the sincerity of his repentance for sin), declaring his sinlessness (repentance) out loud and being deprived of the opportunity to add anything, will immediately feel this most internal inconvenience - “the heart will expose the lie,” and the Libra arrow will deviate.
The Ennead announced the acquittal, and the god Thoth wrote it down. After this the deceased was told:
- So, come in. Cross the threshold of the Chamber of Two Truths, for you know us.
The deceased kissed the threshold, called it (the threshold) by name, pronounced aloud the names of the guards and finally entered the Great Hall, where the ruler of the dead Osiris sat on the path, surrounded by other gods and goddesses: Isis, Maat, Nephthys and the sons of Horus.
The arrival of the deceased was announced by the divine scribe Thoth:
“Come in,” he said. - Why did you come?
“I came so that they would announce me,” answered the deceased. - What state are you in? - I am cleansed of sins. <...> - Who should I tell about you? - Tell about me to the One whose arch is made of fire, whose walls are made of living snakes and whose floor is a stream of water. - Tell me, who is it? - asked Thoth. - This is Osiris.
“Truly, truly [to him] they will say [your name],” He exclaimed.
Since the era of the Old Kingdom, there has been another idea - that the Afterlife Court is headed by Ra. This idea lasted until the Ptolemaic period, but was much less popular.
At this point, the Judgment ended, and the Egyptian went to the place of eternal bliss - to the Fields of Iala, where he was accompanied by the “guardian angel” Shai. The path to the afterlife “paradise” was blocked by a gate, the last obstacle on the path of the deceased. They also had to be conjured:
- Give me the way. I know [you]. I know the name of [your] guardian god. The name of the gate: "Lord of fear, whose walls are high <...>. Lords of destruction, uttering words that curb the destroyers, who save from destruction the one who comes." Your gatekeeper's name: "He who [instills] terror."
In the Fields of Ialu, “Fields of Reeds,” the same life awaited the deceased as he had led on earth, only it was happier and better. The deceased knew no shortage of anything. The seven Hathor, Neperi, Nepit, Selket and other deities provided him with food, made his afterlife fields fertile, bearing a rich harvest, and his cattle fat and fertile. So that the deceased could enjoy his rest and would not have to work the fields and graze the cattle himself, ushabti were placed in the tomb - wooden or clay figurines of people: scribes, porters, reapers, etc. Ushabti - “respondent”. The sixth chapter of the “Book of the Dead” talks about “how to make the ushabti work”: when in the Fields of Ialu the gods call the deceased to work, calling him by name, the ushabti man must come forward and respond: “Here I am!”, after which he will unquestioningly go where the gods command and will do what they order. Rich Egyptians usually had a ushabti placed in their coffins - one for each day of the year; for the poor, the ushabti was replaced by a papyrus scroll with a list of 360 such workers. In the Fields of Ialu, with the help of magic spells, the little men named in the list were embodied in ushabti and worked for their master.
M.A. Korostovtsev writes about the funeral cult in Ancient Egypt: “The cult was based on the idea that the deceased after burial continues a life similar to the earthly one, that is, needs housing, food, drinks, etc., therefore the funeral cult primarily consisted of providing the deceased with the necessary benefits of life. During the Old Kingdom, the pharaoh granted his nobles a tomb during their lifetime. Those who did not received such an award, they built a tomb for themselves at their own expense. In the initial period of the Old Kingdom, the deceased who lived in the tomb was presented with offerings either at his own expense or at the expense of the crown. To provide material support for the cult of the dead, special plots of land were allocated for “feeding” the deceased, and the persons who performed the functions of “feeding” were called “hem-Ka” - “slaves of Ka”. unprofitable, and in fact, gifts in favor of the deceased were replaced by magical fiction. In the mastabas of dignitaries of the Middle Kingdom, texts were found inviting visitors to the necropolis to refrain from violating ritual purity and to actively help the deceased with spells and prayers. In general, the content of these “appeals to the living”, which have come down to us from the time of the V and VI dynasties, boils down to the following points: 1) a visitor to the necropolis. has no right to approach the tomb if he is not ritually clean - if he ate, for example, forbidden food; 2) the visitor should not ritually desecrate the tomb - otherwise the threats of the deceased were addressed to him; 3) the visitor should not damage the building of the tomb, so as not to incur the wrath of the deceased; 4) the visitor was exhorted to read the text of the sacrificial prayer in favor of the deceased; replaced a material offering.
Appeals are addressed either to the relatives of the deceased, or to persons who more or less accidentally ended up in the necropolis, or, finally, to special-purpose persons called upon to observe the cult of the dead. The admonition addressed to “the living who are [still] on earth” was accompanied by encouragement or threats from the deceased: the deceased promised the living intercession before the divine powers in case of a favorable attitude towards him and a threat to “sue” him before the “great god” or even “break his neck” otherwise, as well as a threat to bring misfortune on him on earth. Thus, the deceased in relation to the living was perceived not as a passive, neutral being, but as a being capable of causing harm to the living or, conversely, being useful to them.
Particular attention is paid in these texts to sacrificial prayer in favor of the deceased, which replaced material offerings: the so-called formula “hetep di nesu” - “a gift given by the king.” The prayer was addressed to the gods so that the gods would provide the deceased with what was listed in it. There was even something like a more or less standard “menu” for the dead - a list of food and other offerings: bread, beer, bulls, poultry, different types of clothing, etc. Most often, the prayer was addressed to the god of the Kingdom of the Dead Osiris and the god Anubis. The funeral sacrificial prayer in the interests of the deceased was pronounced on behalf of the king - a demigod and unlimited ruler of the material resources of all temples. The pharaoh's offerings, as a being close to the gods, were pleasing to the gods and therefore effective. Thus, magical fiction saved the Egyptians for many centuries from the unbearable material costs of the cult of the dead."
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru