Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The rite might have been instituted in consequence of a far earlier feud and league even that traditionally recorded in the Mythic age of Erechtheus and Eumolpus, but could not entirely put an end to the struggles of Eleusis for independence, or prevent the outbreak of occasional jealousy and dissension. Kneph, the Agatho demon, or Good Spirit of Egypt, had his symbol in the serpent.
Byron, in his "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte," alludes to the story of Milo: "He who of old would rend the oak Deemed not of the rebound; Chained by the trunk he vainly broke, Alone, how looked he round!" The Egyptians acknowledged as the highest deity Amun, afterwards called Zeus, or Jupiter Ammon. Amun manifested himself in his word or will, which created Kneph and Athor, of different sexes.
Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two fundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy of the people into as many divinities.
It is no longer the God of whom no man knew either the form or the substance: it is Kneph at Esneh, Hathor at Durderah, Horus, king of the divine dynasty at Edfoo." These words are M. Maspero's. The Greek and Latin poets and philosophers, as they made some very slight acquaintance with Egyptian worship, give Greek or Latin names to the divinities worshipped.
This name appears in the Greek and Latin writers as Zeus Ammon and Jupiter Ammon. When Amun manifests himself by his word, will or spirit, he is known as Nu, Num, Noub, Nef, Neph, or Kneph, and this word Kneph through the form Cnuphis is, perhaps, the Anubis of the Greek and Latin authors. That word has not been found earlier than the time of Augustus.
The representation of the god Amun or Amun-ra, which superseded the triune Deity, Kneph, Sate, and Anouk at Thebes, and from which in Assyria doubtless proceeded the trinity, Amun, Bel-Nimrod, and Hea, is supposed to be identical with the Greek Zeus, which means the sun. This God is represented by a female figure seated on a throne.
Several large towns were passed as they journeyed upward. Hermonthis, standing on the western bank, by which they were traveling, was the first passed. Then came Esneh, with grand temples dedicated to Kneph and Neith, and standing where the Nile Valley opens to a width of five miles.
Directly below this conception of the Deity is a triad representing less exalted attributes, or lower degrees of wisdom, under the appellations of Sate, Kneph, and the child Anouk; and thus downward, through the varying spheres of celestial light and life involved in their theogony are observed the divine creative energies represented under the figures of Mother, Father, and the Life proceeding therefrom, until, finally, when the earth is reached, Isis, Osiris, and Horus appear as the representation of the creative forces in human beings, and therefore as the embodiment of the divine in the human.
"The serpent remained in the memory and affections of most early people as wisdom, life, goodness, and the source of knowledge and science, under various names such as Toth, Hermes, Themis, the Kneph or Sophia of Egyptians and Gnostics, and Set, Shet, or Shem of the Jews." The Serpent Goddess, although embracing evil as well as good, was still the "Giver of Life" and the "Teacher of Mankind."
In other cases Christian ornaments were added to the old walls, as in the rock temple of Kneph, opposite to Abu Simbel, where the figure of the Saviour with a glory round his head has been painted on the ceiling. The Christians, in order to remove from before their eyes the memorials of the old superstition, covered up the sculpture on the walls with mud from the Nile and white plaster.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking