Morning Rites
How I applied the lessons learned from an interfaith service
Based on the knowledge gleaned from leading an interfaith service and what reaches people in the modern world, I have devised a liturgy from Edfu incorporating the most hallowed rites of the inner sanctuary, publicly accessible stanzas from the litany on the external pylons, and a focus on Ma’at as the fundamental offering. Here it is for your enjoyment and inspiration.
In my last post I observed lessons that I learned while leading a service for strangers inspired by ancient Egypt but accessible to people from all faith backgrounds and those of none. Namely, that participation is encouraged by short refrains, inviting discussion, and allowing voluntary individual participation with each person contributing prayers or offerings as they desire. As such, I have adjusted my concept of what ancient Egyptian ritual can and should look like today.
For one thing, nothing is off limits: as far back as the time of the New Kingdom we have found prayers from the innermost areas of the temples in private homes. Therefore the ritual opens with the initial and most important parts of the daily liturgy from the sanctuary of Edfu: namely, approaching the shrine, revealing and beholding the statue as the climactic theophany, and initial praise, per Alliot (the actions of undoing the seal and drawing back the bolt are omitted since most people may not have such fixtures, or like us use curtains to conceal the statue):
(Approach the shrine; low voice) I climb the stairs, I move towards the bark, to see Horus in the bark. My hands are pure, my feet are cleansed, all my members are sanctified. (E I 24, 16-18)
(Shake sistrum, open shrine; all prostrate themselves) You arise coming into being as you emerge from the night sky and Your rays illuminate the world! Long live the Gods who raise Your beauty: they are like Your sons in the eastern horizon! (E I 40, 16-17)
(Approach statue and remove the cloth from its head; low voice) Behold, I approach “The One Who Is Intact”, to see the glorious image of the God with my two eyes, to contemplate the statue of the divine scarab Khepri: the holy form of Horus the golden falcon. (E I 26, 4-6)
(Praise; four times) Just as I praise Your majesty with the choicest words and formulas that magnify Your prestige in Your great names, so do You come into being as in the First Time. (E I 41, 10-12; translation by David Falk)
Litanies are also a great way to explain and recite epithets of one’s God or Gods to encourage contemplation and communicate the nature of said deity. The refrains should be easy enough for any audience to memorize instantly, thus giving them an easy way to participate. The following seven stanzas come from a 31-stanza awakening hymn to Horus-Ra on the outer pylon of the temple (E VIII 15, 5 - 17, 4). Although the inner sanctuary has its own litany that was part of the morning service, this has more fundamental theological depth regarding the nature of Horus:
Refrain: Awaken in peace…
1. O falcon, ruler of the falcon gods, Horus the great God, Lord of heaven.
2. O He who is greater than the Gods, He who is high of power, more than the great Ennead.
3. O Great One in the Eastern Mountains, the glorious sun disk rising in the primordial ocean.
4. O powerful one who brings about the Nile to give life to the inhabitants of the earth.
5. O Lord of the world, He who saves this land from disaster
6. O He who created all this; the lord of the sky, the earth, the water and the mountains.
7. Your ba shining in the sky as Horus on the Two Horizons, who illuminates the two lands with His Eye, who gives birth to all human beings, and who causes the beauty of the Gods of Upper and Lower Egypt to endure. For you are Horus, who protects the divine images in their shrines, and you are Ra who appears in the light. May Your beautiful face be gracious towards your city; may you protect it from all evil.
The Edfu sanctuary has two separate vignettes where the statue is washed with water, three involving walking around it with natron, and another two for incense. However, these episodes to ensure ritual purity for the temple and statue were often compressed into just one for water and one for thurifying. For this rite we should again keep things simple, so I have provided my translations (with the usual ‘buyer beware’ caveat) of these prayers from just inside the temple’s retaining wall (E VI 3, 10-11 & E VI 192, 18-19):
(Asperge statue) I have filled the vase to purify Your house and to sanctify Your ka, together with the Ennead of Your majesty.
(Cense statue) Take to Yourself incense from the vessels going around Your majesty; its fragrance goes forth to Your house.
As explained numerous times throughout this substack, Ma’at is the fundamental concept in the ancient Egyptian religion, representing the order of the cosmos, ontological grounding, and ethical norms. Ma’at was certainly an offering in the temples, and since She was associated with food, theoretically represented the archetype not only of divinity and the ground of all being and intelligibility, but of all other offerings. “Offering Ma’at to Her Creator”, i.e. offering truth and righteousness to the origin of truth and righteousness, was listed as one of three main rituals performed in the sanctuary, with the other being “opening the face”, i.e. the prior theophany at the beginning of the ritual (E VII 15, 6-7). The third ritual, censing the processional bark, was only done when on special festivals when the icon of Horus was taken outside.
Alongside the first part of this rite, the offering of a statue or feather of Ma’at is therefore perhaps one of the most profound acts in Egyptian liturgy, or even - at least in my opinion - human religion in general. The following offering prayer comprises of both Ma’at episodes taken from the inner sanctuary’s northern wall (E I 28, 18 & E I 43, 6-8):
(Offer Ma’at, and all other offerings) Take to Yourself Ma’at, Your powerful daughter whom Your ka loves, and who satisfies Your majesty. She is the necessary food for Your throat, so that You live on Her sight: O how You breathe the sweet breath within Her! Take to Yourself Ma’at coming to You, Your ba, and the throat of Your majesty. I bring Ma’at to Your image, Your great daughter. You live through Her, You do not pass from the place where She is.
When you look at the popularity of podcasts among people of all age groups, it becomes clear that people are hungry to talk about deep subjects, or at least listen to others having said chats. A world of literate participants who are eager to contribute to their religion’s services also makes it unreasonable to simply have them watch a single priest perform their rites while they sit passively by. Therefore, the service at this point should break out into open time for personal prayers or specific offerings delivered individually, followed by a short instructional lecture and discussion about a specific topic:
Personal prayers or offerings; instruction and discussion.
Finally, the priest or officiant can conclude with the Father of Fathers prayer from the outer wall of the temple (E VII 92, 4-9), whose poetic composition and theological content makes it a nice coda for the service:
(Praise) Praise to You, Ra Who is Horus on the Two Horizons, Chief of the Gods, the great winged sun disk who illuminates all faces, whose light drives away the darkness; Father of Fathers who creates all things, after whose becoming everything will become: King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Horus, Great God, Lord of Heaven.
Refrain: May Your beautiful face be gracious to me.
Every offering service of course concludes with the food being withdrawn to be shared among the participants.
Reversion of offerings and exit.
This should be another way of approaching modern Egyptian ritual that preserves the key elements that are also relevant for us today. You can certainly add additional stanzas to the litany or prayers and specific offerings as your group is comfortable with.