# Books on Egypt and Chaldaea/Collection 7/Volume 25/First Ceremony

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The First Ceremony.
The Sem priest pouring water from a libation vase into a libation bowl held by a ministrant.
in which salt or soda had been dissolved, and poured it into a bowl which was held in the hands of an assistant. He next walked round the statue four times, sprinkling the salted water on it on all sides, or perhaps washing portions of it, and meanwhile the Kher ḥeb said four times:-- ​"O Osiris, everything which is hateful in Unȧs hath been carried away for thee; for that which was uttered in his name of evil hath Thoth come, and he hath carried it away to Osiris. I have brought that which was spoken in the name of Unȧs of evil, and have placed it in the palm of thy hand. The Sa shall not be separated from thee, and thou shalt not be separated from it."
​his younger brother Bata into a vessel of water; when the heart had absorbed all the water it came to life. Water not only washed away sin, but gave new birth and life to the dead.
The Gnostics, who preserved many ancient Egyptian beliefs, attached great importance to the use of water ceremonially, and, according to Irenaeus (Haeres, 1, 2, § 5), they threw oil and water over the heads of the dying to make them invisible to the powers of darkness. The ancient Egyptians certainly dissolved salt, or soda in some form, in their “holy water,” and it is probable that they pronounced some formula over it before sprinkling it upon the dead. The sprinkling of the dead was the first and most important of burial ceremonies among the Egyptians for thousands of years, and it is probable that it was adopted, under the name of baptism of the dead, by many sections of the Christian Church. For centuries certain Christians actually baptized the dead, and they continued to do so in spite of the prohibitions of many Councils.
The exact meaning which is to be attached to the word ṭu or “evil” is not quite clear; it was certainly connected with the words of Unȧs, but whatever it was this “evil ” was carried to Osiris by Thoth. Here we see Thoth acting as a sort of advocate for Unȧs with Osiris, and playing his part as the “lord of divine words,” and author of holy books, with which we are familiar from the texts of the Theban Recension of the ​Book of the Dead. In the Judgment it was he who “weighed words,” and who weighed the heart of the dead man in the Great Balance, and reported the result to Osiris. It is the “words” of Unȧs which are in question here, and in Egypt both gods and men judged a man by his “words.” The sprinkling of the water caused Thoth to carry the words of evil uttered by Unȧs, and place them in the hand of the god.
​At the end of the first formula quoted above come the words, “The Sa shall not be separated from thee,
in the gods, and which for want of a better name we may call the “fluid of life.” Its source was the Sun-god, by whatever name he is called, Horus or Rā, and
the arms of the statue round him, and by laying one of its hands on the nape of his neck as he knelt before it. ​When the statue had exhausted the store of the power which was in it, it was able to obtain a fresh supply from the Other World. The object of making passes before the statue of the dead, or his mummy, was to give a place in the fore-front of the company of the Khu, or “Spirits,” in the Other World. This is certain from a passage in the text of Pepi I., wherein it is said, “The passes by which he obtaineth the fluid of life having been made over him by [Rā] and Horus, he is at the head of the Khu” (l. 695).
* ↑ Maspero renders it by Mauvais.
* ↑ Line 562, Sazerain de la verta devine. Maspero.
* ↑ Le Rituel du Culie divin journalier Paris, 1902, p. 99.
* ↑ Contes Populaires, p. 165.