| A study demonstrates that the ancient thinker is using
"heart" as his only means of expressing the idea of
"mind," as he vaguely conceived it. From Ptah then
proceeded "the power of mind and tongue" which is the
controlling power in "all gods, all men, all animals, and all
reptiles, which live, thinking and commanding that which he wills."
After further demonstrating that the members of Atum, especially his
mouth which spake words of power, were made up of the ennead of Ptah,
and thus of Ptah himself, our thinker passes on to explain his
conception of the function of "heart (mind) and tongue."
"When the eyes see, the ears hear, and the nose breathes, they
transmit to the heat. It is he (the heart) who brings forth every
issue, and it is the tongue which repeats the thought of the
heart. He fashioned all gods, even Atum and his ennead.
Every divine word came into existence by the thought of the heart and
the commandment of the tongue. It was he who made the kas and
[created] the qualities; who made all food, all offerings, by this word;
who made that which is loved and that which is hated. . . .
Assuming the existence of Ptah in the beginning, the Memphite
theologian sees all things as first existing in the thought of the
god. The world first conceived in his "heart," then
assumed objective reality by the utterance of his
"tongue." The utterance of the thought in the form of a
divine fiat brought forth the world. We are reminded of the words
in Genesis, as the Creator spoke, "And God said." Is
there not here the primeval germ of the later Alexandrian doctrine of
the "Logos"?
Source: Development
of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt by James H. Breasted - pp.
44-47. |
