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Akhanyati's Theology of Light and Time

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Akhanyati's Theology of Light and Time Originalveröffentlichung in: Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, VII 4, Jerusalem 1992, S. 143-176 Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, VII4 AKHANYATI'S THEOLOGY OF LIGHT AND TIME by JAN ASSMANN 1. A NEW RELIGION 1 KING AMENOPHIS IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten or Akhanyati ('Beneficial for the Aten') and ruled Egypt for 17 years in the middle of the fourteenth century B.C.E., was the first founder of a monotheistic religion 2 in the history of mankind. There are even those — the most prominent though perhaps not the most expert among them being Sigmund Freud — 3 who postulate a direct influence by Akhanyati on biblical monotheism. There may even be a link between foundedness and monotheism. It would perhaps go too far to say that all founded religions are monotheistic, as Buddhism is not theistic at all, but one might safely postulate that they arc all anti-polytheistic. In this negative form the statement applies already — and particularly well — to the Amarna revolution. The aspect of negation, rejection and conversion with regard to the tradi­ tional, usual and as it were 'natural' ways of religious life is decisive in all founded religions. They may therefore be termed 'secondary religions', in that they always presuppose the preceeding and/or parallel existence of 1 G. Fecht (in 'Amama-Problcme', ZAS, LXXXV [I960]) has shown this form to be the probable vocalization of the royal name. For abbreviations used in the footnotes see the List of Abbreviations on p. 176. 2 For recent literature on King Akhanyati and his age see C. Aldred, Akhenaten, King of Egypt, London 1988; D.B. Redford, Akhenaten, the Heretic King, Princeton 1984; and H.A. SchlOgl, Echnaton - Tutenchamun: Fakten und Texte, Wiesbaden 1985. 3 S. Freud, Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion, Amsterdam 1939. Cf. also O. Keel (ed.), Monotheismus im Alien Israel und seiner Umwelt (Biblische Beitrdge, XIV), Freiburg 1980; and K. Rahner (ed.), Der eine Gott und der dreieine Gott: Das Gottesverstdndnis bei Christen, Juden und Muslimen, Freiburg 1983, and especially the articles by E. Homung on the Amarna religion in both of these collections. J. de Moor (in The Rise of Yahwism, Leuven 1990) seems to be the first scholar to have searched for 'the roots of Israelite monotheism', not in Amama but in the Ramesside worship of Amen- Re. [1] 143 Jan Assmann 4 'primary religions'. We have no evidence of evolutionary steps leading from primary to secondary religions. Wherever secondary religions occur, they seem always to have been established by foundational acts such as revolution and revelation. Such positive acts often have their negative complements in rejection and persecution. This characteristic feature of secondary religions accounts for the outstand­ ing interest which the Amarna religion holds for the comparative study of religions, despite its episodic nature. It anticipated many characteris­ tics of secondary religions. It was not merely anti­polytheistic but also rationalistic. In its rejection of magical practices, sacramental symbolism 5 ('idolatry') and mythological imagery, it made a decisive move towards 6 what Max Weber called the 'disenchantment of the world'. Akhanyati's revolution thus seems to point in the same direction as the monotheism and 7 rationalization which were the aim of later breakthroughs. Secondary religions are determined and defined by the difference they establish between themselves and primary religions. Their characterization thus depends on a clear recognition of the particular 'defining difference' which they establish between themselves and the primary religion. But we are in a much less favourable situation to study this defining difference in the case of Amarna than we are with later secondary religions, for the following reason: there seems to exist a necessary link between secondary religions and canonization. All founded religions base themselves on large bodies of canonized texts. Secondary religions appear, first of all, in 4 T. Sundermeier, 'Religion, Religionen', in K. MUller & T. Sundcrmeier (eds.), Lexikon missionstheologischer Grundbegrijfe, Berlin 1987, pp. 411-423; Ma'at, pp. 17 ff.,279 ff. 5 Cf. my study, 'Interpretation in Ancient Egyptian Ritual', in S. Biderman & A. Hon (eds.), Religion and Interpretation (in press). 6 M. Weber, 'Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus', Gesam- melte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie, Tubingen 1978, pp. 17-206; M.Gauchet, Le desenchantement du monde, Paris 1985. 7 Because of its profoundly rationalistic character, James P. Allen denies the religious character of the Amarna movement altogether, preferring to speak 'of an intellectual movement, not a religion'. According to Allen, we are dealing with a 'natural philosophy', such as founds an understanding of the universe, but not a religion, such as founds one's relationship to the universe ('The Natural Philosophy of Akhenaten', in W.K. Simpson [ed.], Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt [Yale Egyptological Studies, III], New Haven 1989, pp. 89-101). But this seems to imply a restricted notion of religion which is anachronistic with regard to ancient Egypt. Intellectual movements do appear in the form of religious movements, and a religion always establishes not only a relationship to, but also an understanding of the universe. Before the Greeks, we cannot speak of a distinction between 'philosophy' and 'religion'. That is why Akhanyati could not tolerate traditional religion alongside his new 'philosophy', but had to eradicate the old in order to introduce the new. 144 [2] Akhanyati's Theology of Light and Time the verbal space, in the form of textual articulation and scriptural tradition, as a specific kind of collective memory based on richly-structured textual architectures, inherited and kept alive by means of elaborate techniques and institutions of interpretation. Secondary religions live in and by textual 8 memory, which they must build up and cultivate. But the Amarna religion, due to its episodic character, did not have time to build up such a memory. It died out with its first generation and fell into complete oblivion. Its discovery is a feat of archaeology, not of memory. We are thus reduced to a handful of hymns — actually only two hymns on which all the others depend — addressed to the new god and almost certainly composed by the 9 king himself. They are conventionally called 'the Great Hymn' and the 10 'Shorter Hymn'. Our classification of the Amarna religion as a 'secondary religion' does not rest solely on these few texts. The defining difference between the old and the new, 'tradition' and 'truth', was established not so much by verbal as by practical means. These, indeed, were drastic enough. The traditional cults and feasts were discontinued, the temples closed, and the names and images of the gods destroyed — above all the name of Amun, which was erased 11 wherever Akhanyati's militia could find it; the capital was transferred, a new style was introduced into language and representational art, and so on. These radical measures of persecution and innovation demonstrate beyond any doubt that the Amarna movement viewed itself as a new religion, absolutely incompatible with any continuation of traditional forms of religious life. In the extant texts, the difference between the old and the new is more difficult to grasp. There is no attempt at explicit refutation of traditional concepts. This would have required mentioning them, and even that would 8 Cf. A. & J. Assmann (eds.), Kanon und Zensur, Munich 1987. 9 The French epigrapher Urbain Bouriant was the first scholar to publish an edition of the Great Hymn, in Mission Archiologique FranQaise au Caire, I, Cairo 1884, pp. 2-5, and in U. Bouriant, G. Legrain & G. Jequier, Monuments du culte d'Atonou, I, Cairo 1903, pi. xvi and p. 30. The authoritative edition is by N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El-Amarna, VI, London 1908, pis. xxvii and xli, and pp. 29-31. Among the first translators and commentators on the text was James H. Breasted, in De Hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide TV conceplis, Berlin 1894. For a recent English translation see AEL, II, pp. 96-100. Sandman's edition is based on that of Davies. 10 N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El-Amarna, IV, London 1906, pis. xxxii and xxxiii and pp. 26-29; AEL, II, pp. 90-92. 11 As far south as Kawa, Soleb and Faras in Nubia; cf. R. Hari, 'La religion amamienne et la tradition polyth&ste', in Studien zur Sprache und Religion Agyptens, GOttingen 1984, pp. 1039-1055; and R. Saad, 'Les martelages de la xviii.e dynastic dans le temple d' Amon-R6 a Karnak', unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Lyon 1972 (not seen). [3] 145 Jan Assmann have been deemed insupportable. The very term 'gods', let aione the names 12 of specific gods, does not appear in Amarna texts. Even a phrase like 13 'there is no god besides the sun disk' is inadmissible. The difference is thus marked only by negative means, by not mentioning, intentionally avoiding or replacing what traditional religion would have had to say on the same topic, and it can be elucidated only by negative reasoning. This requires a detailed knowledge of the traditional religion and its forms of expression: the more precisely we know what to expect, the more definite will be our recognition of what is absent. New insight into the essence of the Amarna religion thus is to be gained not so much from excavations at Amarna, which until now have failed to unearth any new textual material, but from a better understanding of the pre-existing tradition. My own approach is based on more than 20 years of collecting and 14 analyzing traditional solar hymns, most of them previously unknown.
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