Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

HANS GOEDICKE: Anthropological Problems - Gynecological Questions

Let us turn next to the ancient Egyptians. It is an important realization that for them "man'' was not a divine creation. The closest one might get to this notion is in the "Instruction for King Merikare' (E. 131-138)," written probably at the very beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty: "Well tended is mankind - god's cattle: He made sky and earth for their sake, He subdued the watery abyss, He made breath so that their noses live. They are his images, which came from his body, He shines in the sky for their sake, He made for them plants and cattle, Fowl and fish to feed them, He slew his foes, reducing his children, When they thought of making rebellion. " Just as a herd is not the product of the shepherd, man is seen as the concern of the divine, but not his making. This idea is especially well formulated in Coffin Texts Spell 1130, written about 1980 B.C., approximately the same time as the literary composition quoted above. "Words spoken by Him-whose-names are hidden, the all-Lord, as he speaks before those who silence the storm, in the sailing of the court:* "Hail in peace! I repeat to you the good deeds, which my own heart did on account of me within the serpent-coil, in order to silence strife. I did four good deeds within the portal of lightland: "1 made the four winds, that every man might breathe during his time. This is one of the deeds. "I made the great inundation, that the humble might benefit by it like the great. This is one of the deeds. "I made every man like his fellow; and I did not command that they do wrong. It is their hearts that disobey what I have said. This is one of the deeds. - M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. I, Berkeley - Los Angeles - London 1973, p. 106; cf. also J. F. Quack, Studien zur Lehre fúr Merikare, GÖF IV/23, Wiesbaden 1992, pp. 79-81. 1 The setting for the divine pronouncement is the netherworld, which is passed through during the night to appear the next morning to sail again across the sky. It is the place where those who have their earthly circle completed are expected to wait for joining the divine.