The Book of the Dead | Page 8

were cut off by the
headsman of Osiris, who was called Shesmu, and their bodies
dismembered and destroyed in pits of fire. There was no eternal
punishment for men, for the wicked were annihilated quickly and
completely; but inasmuch as Osiris sat in judgment and doomed the
wicked to destruction daily, the infliction of punishment never ceased.

CHAPTER VII
The Judgment of Osiris.
The oldest religious texts suggest that the Egyptians always associated

the Last Judgment with the weighing of the heart in a pair of scales,
and in the illustrated papyri of the Book of the Dead great prominence
is always given to the vignettes in which this weighing is being carried
out. The heart, ab, was taken as the symbol of all the emotions, desires,
and passions, both good and evil, and out of it proceeded the issues of
life. It was intimately connected with the ka, i.e., the double or
personality of a man, and several short spells in the Book PER-T EM
HRU were composed to ensure its preservation (Chapters
XXVI-XXXB*). The great Chapter of the Judgment of Osiris, the
CXXVth, is divided into three parts, which are sometimes (as in the
Papyrus of Ani) prefaced by a Hymn to Osiris. The first part contains
the following, which was said by the deceased when he entered the Hall
of Maati, in which Osiris sat in judgment:
"Homage to thee, O Great God, Lord of Maati, [6] I have come to thee,
O my Lord, that I may behold thy beneficence. I know thee, and I know
thy name, and the names of the Forty-Two who live with thee in the
Hall of Maati, who keep ward over sinners, and feed upon their blood
on the day of estimating characters before Un-Nefer [7] ... Behold, I
have come to thee, and I have brought maat (i.e., truth, integrity) to
thee. I have destroyed sin for thee. I have not sinned against men. I
have not oppressed [my] kinsfolk. I have done no wrong in the place of
truth. I have not known worthless folk. I have not wrought evil. I have
not defrauded the oppressed one of his goods. I have not done the
things that the gods abominate. I have not vilified a servant to his
master. I have not caused pain. I have not let any man hunger. I have
made no one to weep. I have not committed murder. I have not
commanded any to commit murder for me. I have inflicted pain on no
man. I have not defrauded the temples of their oblations. I have not
purloined the cakes of the gods. I have not stolen the offerings to the
spirits (i.e., the dead). I have not committed fornication. I have not
polluted myself in the holy places of the god of my city. I have not
diminished from the bushel. I did not take from or add to the
acre-measure. I did not encroach on the fields [of others]. I have not
added to the weights of the scales. I have not misread the pointer of the
scales. I have not taken milk from the mouths of children. I have not
driven cattle from their pastures. I have not snared the birds of the gods.

I have not caught fish with fish of their kind. I have not stopped water
[when it should flow]. I have not cut the dam of a canal. I have not
extinguished a fire when it should burn. I have not altered the times of
the chosen meat offerings. I have not turned away the cattle [intended
for] offerings. I have not repulsed the god at his appearances. I am pure.
I am pure. I am pure. I am pure...."
In the second part of Chapter CXXV Osiris is seen seated at one end of
the Hall of Maati accompanied by the two goddesses of Law and Truth,
and the Forty-Two gods who are there to assist him. Each of the
Forty-Two gods represents one of the nomes of Egypt and has a
symbolic name. When the deceased had repeated the magical names of
the doors of the Hall, he entered it and saw these gods arranged in two
rows, twenty-one on each side of the Hall. At the end, near Osiris, were
the Great Scales, under the charge of Anpu (Anubis), and the monster
Amemit, the Eater of the Dead, i.e., of the hearts of the wicked who
were condemned in the Judgment of Osiris. The deceased advanced
along the Hall and, addressing each of the Forty-Two gods by his name,
declared that he had not committed a certain sin, thus:
"O Usekh-nemmit, comer forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.
"O Fenti, comer forth from Khemenu, I have not robbed.
"O Neha-hau, comer forth