insidious lies of history come... If we have concocted history, faked biography, spurious gospel accounts,
rivaling factions (all professing uniqueness), massacred nations, looted lands, immolated martyrs,
condemned free-thinkers, tortured rebels, and an indoctrinated mass of people unaware of the sick
theological lies they, and their forefathers, have been ingesting, we should know, at least, from what vile
spring they emanate. We must endeavor to expose this corruption while inquiring into its strange origins. We must also waste no time arming ourselves with knowledge to fend off the insidious affects of
this inhuman leviathan which grows ever more powerful from our ignorance and compliance. The story of the Roman Church is quite different and not a pleasant one to dwell upon. She made her
advance through the medium of intrigue, war, fire and sword, persecution, torture, confiscations, and
death, the exemplification of force and intolerance. By such means she gained control and increase in
power and the Irish Church missionaries were gradually forced to withdraw from the continent. It was
only by such forcible means that she could make gains against the Irish Church whose representatives
surpassed hers in every field of peaceful endeavor...in learning, the sciences, philosophy and spiritual culture - Conor MacDari (The Bible: An Irish Book) The centralization of Papal power culminated under Pope Innocent IV, who held the Papal reins from
1243 until 1254. Innocent IV, attempted to turn the Papacy into the world's highest political authority by
proclaiming that the Pope was the "Vicar" (earthly representative) of the Creator to whom every human
creature is subjected. It was under Innocent IV that the Inquisition was made an official institution of the
Roman Catholic Church - William Bramley (Gods of Eden) ...there exists…another class of adepts belonging to a brotherhood also and mightier than any other they
have to be ranked with the adepts of the Black Art. These are our Roman Catholic “Fathers” and clergy…
A hundred times more learned in secret symbology and the old religion than our Orientalists will ever
be... There are more profoundly learned Kabalists in Rome and throughout Europe and America than is
generally suspected... Thus are the “Brotherhoods” of “Black” adepts more powerful and dangerous…
than any host of Eastern Occultists - Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (The Secret Doctrine, vol 3) The Roman Catholic Church is, as we have been asserting, theoffshoot and continuation of the ancient Egyptian Solar Cult of Aton. Its Popes are styled not on the person of Jesus (which is patently obvious), but on Akhenaton, the first minister for the god of light. The god venerated by Catholicism is not the volcano god Jehovah, but Aton, or Adon, thesun god of the broken kings of old, cast out of their country which they brought to the brink of ruin. The Vatican, and
the Church it has erected, is founded on the same Solar Theocracy as was common on the banks of the
Nile; as that conveyed in secret at Heliopolis, Giza, Amarna, Avaris and Alexandria. One of the main titles
of a Pope is suggestively: Servus Servorum Dei - "Servant of the Servants of God." This organization has spent a great deal of time and money hiring apologists and "historians" to ensure
that people do not find out about these facts. This organization's adversaries were not, and are not, so-
called Jews or barbarian hordes, but free and intelligent men who use their wits to uncover and expose
the roots of their sick, anti-human brand of religion, and who seek to release themselves from its ruthless
power. The fear that lurks within the hearts of its echelon is directed at those whistle-blowers and
renegades from within its own body, whose repulsion at what they see, and do, finally compels them to scream bloody murder. Their fears extend to this and to the idea that the world's men and women may
finally wake up and escape the dire webs of delusion and evil that have been spun about their brains. The word Vaticanmeans "Place of Divination" or "Place of Sorcery." Along
with its Royalist allies, this Atonist ... front
has subjugated the world. The Vatican is on
7 hills and so is Jerusalem where the Vatican
is to be moved to shortly. Israelis are in
favor of the Pope's plans. America it is the prototype for the New
World Order "all nationalities with all their
religions living together side be side
peacefully. "Capitol Hill" is a clone of the
Vatican being much older. The US Presidents
are mere lieutenants of the Vatican elite and of the Royal Dynasties of Europe. President
Reagan was a Knight of Malta as were and
are many others.. It should never be forgotten that the power of the priest rests solely on the credence of the people. The
people cry out for a savior, for certainty of heaven, for an exemption from the terrors of hell. Hence
Priestcraft can neither do without hell nor purgatory. Take away both, or either, and its power is gone -
M. F. Cusack (The Black Pope: A History of the Jesuits) A religion which sedulously opposes its own improvement can do nothing essential toward improving
anything else... On the contrary, it must check the growth of everything it touches with its palsied hands -
Kersey Graves (The Bible of Bibles) Its First Vile Breath The Christian Church has left a legacy, a world view, that permeates every aspect of Western society,
both secular and religious. It is a legacy that fosters sexism, racism, the intolerance of difference, and the
desecration of the natural environment… Christianity has helped to create a society in which people are
alienated not only from each other but also from the divine - Helen Ellerbe (The Dark Side of Christian
History) It was at Rome that early Christian pilgrims would gather; at the place where their Saint Peter was said to
have been martyred and interred. Of course, there is not a shred of proof to support the proposition that
a man called Peter either visited Rome to spread Christ's message or that he was subsequently crucified
there by enemies. That was all concoction and remains unsubstantiated to this day. It was, however, the
barrage of visitors to Peter's final resting place that profited the churches and Christian colleges which
soon became established in the area. Before one inquires as to whether there is an ounce of physical proof for a Jesus or a Paul, one can inquire into the evidence for the rise of Rome over the shrine of a
martyr who also most probably never existed. Upon a few insignificant archaeologically suspect bones,
found beneath the Basilica of St. Peter, stands the mighty and eternal Church of Rome. The wealthiest people in the world were among those who wished to absorb the heady and holy
atmosphere created for their edification. And they were most welcome. This is what the self-appointed
Bishops and clergy of Rome had been hoping for. It was their contributions of gold and silver that bought
the bricks. The spires of Vatican City rose not due to god but to tourism. Emperor Valentinian III was just
one of the many dignitaries who ensured the success of Rome through his generous contributions of land
and money. And when such as he were offered remission for their earthly sins for a price (known as the “Sale of Indulgences”), the contributions came in thick and fast from all over the world. This kind of
circus side-show brought in untold prosperity from the guilt-ridden of every corner of the globe. It was
soon supplemented by an even more shameless trade in “holy” relics. Once it became known that the relics of St. Peter, when combined with the spiritual power of his
successors, could remit sins, it was natural that most of the Christians throughout Christendom longed to
go to the tomb and this partake of Peter's and the pope's spiritual treasures. The latter invariably
involved earthly treasures of money, silver and gold, or deeds of real estate - Avro Manhattan (Vatican
Billions) Significantly, it was not Jews who were flocking into Rome to gawk. They were not the ones sustaining
this insidious exploitation. It was primarily Anglo-Saxons, those recently converted from paganism who
were primarily involved. Some Anglo-Saxon kings abdicated their thrones in order to live the remainder
of their lives at the tomb of St. Peter, their ticket to salvation. ... thanks mostly to the cult of the Blessed Peter, Roman Catholicism, which had collected vast amounts
of temporal wealth prior to Pepin, now crowned her earthly possessions with additional territorial
dominions - Avro Manhattan ... only 300 years after Constantine. Roman Catholicism had already turned herself into one of the
largest land owners of the West - Avro Manhattan The Donation of Constantine About a generation after the Papacy had divorced itself from the empire, a certain papal official,
Christophorous by name, completed a task of forgery which neatly transferred the temporal crown from
the emperor to the pope - E. R. Chamberlin (Bad Popes) In his excellent book detailing the rise to power of the Vatican, controversial scholar Avro Manhattan
writes of the fraudulence of popes and of their manipulation of kings to expand their territories and
appropriate colossal wealth in the name of their patron Saint Peter - the "Rock," - man's "Turnkey" to
heaven, who had appointed Popes to officiate in his name, as he had done for the Christ. Manhattan
draws our attention specifically to the forgery known as the "Donation of Constantine," the document
that, once added to the Church's despicable "Canon Law," ratified and secured the reputation and status, both terrestrially and spiritually, of the Roman Church. The Donation of Constantine…is a forged Roman imperial edict devised probably between 750 and 850.
Its precise purpose is not entirely certain, but it was clearly a defense of papal interests, perhaps against
the claims of either the Byzantine Empire, or the Frankish king Charlemagne, who had assumed the
former imperial dignity in the West and with it the title "Emperor of the Romans"…the Donation grants
Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St Peter, the dominion over the city of Rome, Italy,
and the entire Western Roman Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople...This document was used by medieval
popes to bolster their claims for territorial and secular power in Italy. It was widely accepted, though the
Emperor Otto III denounced the document as a forgery - (Online Encyclopedia Wikipedia.org) Not content with the Papal States and the new regions acquired, the popes now wanted even more...They
set themselves to expand even further their ownership of additional territories. They concluded that the
newly born Papal States, although of considerable size, were too small for the pope, the representative of
the Blessed Peter. These territories had to be extended to match Peter's spiritual imperium. Something
incontrovertible by which the popes would be unequivocally granted the ownership of whole kingdoms
and empires had, therefore, become a necessity. At this point this most spectacular of all forgeries makes its official appearance: the Donation of Constantine. Purporting to have been written by the Emperor
Constantine himself, it emerged from nowhere. The document with one master stroke put the popes
above kings, emperors and nations, made them legal heirs to the territory of the Roman Empire, which it
granted to them lock, stock and barrel, and gave to St. Peter...all lands to the West and beyond, indeed,
all the lands of the planet - (Vatican Billions) The Emperor Constantine lived between 208 to 337 AD. After his vision he went on to issue the Edict of
Milan, in 313 AD, which legalized Christianity throughout the Empire. Shortly, thereafter, it became the
fastest spreading religion. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity is still shrouded in mystery and led to
the most famous forgery in European history, that which became known as the Donation of Constantine.
This document purports to be a signed document by Constantine and its principal feature is to grant the
bishop of Rome - the Pope - temporal authority over the city of Rome and the entire Roman Empire. Although there are many glaring factual errors in the text of the document, which by themselves shows
the document to be a forgery, the Donation of Constantine was accepted as genuine until the 15th
Century, and was used by the Catholic Church to claim political power in not only the Roman Empire but
also, ultimately, in all nominally Christian lands. Eventually, the Donation of Constantine was rejected as
false - but by then the Church had established itself in almost all of Europe, its power founded on a
forgery - Arthur Kemp (March of the Titans) No monarch ruling today and no government under the monarch or instituted in their name would enjoy
their position if the Church, empowered by the Donation of Constantine, had not given them permission
to rule in the first place…the Donation of Constantine is a complete and utter fraud. The Church was
never given any temporal powers at all, let alone the right to found dynasties, crown kings or instituted
governments. The Donation of Constantine was a lie from beginning to end and has been known to be a
fake since Lorenzo Valla applied the methods of historical criticism during the Renaissance - Prince Nicholas de Vere von Drakenberg (The Thousand-Year Elven Holocaust)
The rights and privileges which this masterly forgery brought to this cabal of bishops in Rome was to see
them rise to the heights that they enjoy to this day. The "Donation of Constantine" emphatically insisted
that the Church of Rome had global reign and had complete power in both secular and ecclesiastical life.
There was to be no distinction. Within the nine proclamations of political and sacerdotal authority, there
were two that gave to the Church legal sovereignty. From the documents acceptance, the clergy, bishops, cardinals and popes were to be regarded legally as above state law. Their judge was god, not man. The Chair of Peter shall have supreme authority over all churches in the world...It shall be judge in all
that concerns the service of God and the Christian faith... - (Donation of Constantine, excerpts) The result was that the Roman Church obtained important privileges, among them immunity from the
operation of secular law, which put her out of reach of the jurisdiction of all secular tribunals...thanks to
a series of fabrications, forgeries, and distortions, carried out through several centuries and of which the
Donation of Constantine was the most spectacular, the popes not only obtained a vantage ground of
incalculable value from which to extend their spiritual and temporal power, but rendered themselves
practically independent of all secular authority. Even more, they saw to it that the statutes of emperors and kings, no less than the civil law of nations, be undermined, greatly weakened and indeed obliterated
by their newly acquired omnipotence - Avro Manhattan The clergy were also exempt from taxation: In the 319 AD Constantine decided that the clergy was to be
free from all taxes, and soon after, in 355 AD, they were also placed above the law and could not be
brought to a state court to face any kind of trial. After the scheming Gregory VII, Pope Urban II took over and under the pretext of "saving" Christ's tomb
in the east, he sought to appropriate the lands and holdings of several other Christian churches and
outposts, namely, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. To this end, he gathered together
a vast "holy" army and initiated an acquisitive and murderous craze which became known as the "First
Crusade." It was the first of seven, and the only one which succeeded. In 1099, the "Crusaders" of god
overran Jerusalem and established the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Hysterical men, women and children participated, in the name of Christ and the Church. Cursed be the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood - Pope Gregory VII (from The Decline
of the Roman Church, by Malachi Martin) Back home the nobles had mortgaged their estates to finance their part in the crusade. Since usury was a
capital crime to Christians, the Church used the infidel Jews to do what they could not do - lend the
needed money at usury - Richard Kelley Hoskins (In the Beginning) Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded...Others were shot with
arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with
flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the
corpses of men and horses...It was a just and marvelous judgment of God, that this place should be filled
with the blood of unbelievers - Raymond of Aguilers (from Holy Horrors, by James A. Haught) By the end of his (Innocent II's) reign...the Vatican had become the temporal ruler of Naples, of the
islands of Sicily and Sardinia, of almost all the States of the Iberian peninsula such as Castile, Leon,
Aragon, and Portugal, all of the Scandinavian lands, of the Kingdom of Hungary, of the Slav State of
Bohemia, of Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Poland...He also became the true de facto and de jure
sovereign of England - Avro Manhattan The Donation of Constantine's forged clauses were interpreted to give Rome dominion over every island
of the world. It was this edict that allowed Ireland to fall legally into the hands of Pope Hadrian IV (also
known as Adrian IV) in the twelfth century. Using the ambitious English king Henry II (who coveted
Ireland as a means of gaining dominion over France) the Pope seized the ancient land of Ireland which
had a Christian church of its own and which did not acknowledge the authority of Rome. Adrian IV during his reign issued a papal bull, Laudabiliter, granting dominion over Ireland to the
English monarch, Henry II. The bull made Ireland a feudal possession of the King of England under the
nominal overlordship of the papacy. The title the English King was to hold over Ireland was "Lord of
Ireland". The pope had the right to grant sovereignty over islands in Europe to different monarchs
because of a document called the Donation of Constantine - (Online Encyclopedia Wikipedia.org) It is not doubted, and you know it, that Ireland and all those islands which have received the faith, belong
to the Church in Rome; if you wish to enter that Island, to drive vice out of it, to cause law to be obeyed
and St. Peter’s Pence to be paid by every house, it will please us to assign it to you - Pope Adrian IV
(Letter of permission to English king Henry II, for the invasion of Ireland) ...there are three letters from Alexander III...being transcribed into the Black Book of the Exchequer. In
them, the pope expresses his warm approval of Henry's conquest of Ireland, calling his expedition a
missionary enterprise, praising him as a champion of the Church, and particularly of St. Peter and of his
rights, which rights St. Peter had passed onto the popes. Especially significant is the fact that the rights
claimed by the popes under the Donation of Constantine, over all islands, are here asserted...Hadrian
had declared that Ireland and all the islands belonged to the special jurisdiction of St. Peter...When in 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered America, his finding...opened up to Spain and Portugal
tremendous vistas of territorial, economic and political expansion...The Donation of Constantine,
therefore, was fraught with incalculable consequences, not only for Italy, France, Germany, England,
Ireland and practically the whole of Europe, but also for the Americans and for the Near and Middle East
- Avro Manhattan The utter ignorance and credulity of the people during these ages was the key factor in the rise of the
monster of corruption that still preys over the world to this very day. This monstrosity used the
Donation and other forgeries to cement its vast holdings and power, to reward favorites and benefactors,
and to crush rivals. One may lament, when they study history, the dark ages and the periods of death,
decay and superstition that once existed. One may also acknowledge that these times did come into
existence of their own accord. They were not a natural phenomena. They were bought, paid for, and delivered upon humanity. Witches did not immolate themselves and great oracles did not demolish
themselves. Civilizations and nations did not terminate of their own accord, and men of wisdom did not
incarcerate themselves in dungeons nor hang, draw and quarter themselves in city squares. No! These
heinous atrocities, perpetrated by sadists such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Friar Tomas de Torquemada,
assisted the Church of Rome to remove those men and women who dared to stand up against their
oppressive dominance throughout their land. The campaign to ruthlessly condemn so-called "heretics," (especially wealthy ones) and the establishment of the famous "Inquisition" occurred for this
exact purpose. Kings bowed to the great power of Rome not merely from awe and allegiance, but from
fear. They knew what their fate would eventually be had they decided to contradict or obstruct the way of
the Church. They knew they were open to excommunication for not persecuting the "heretics" (Pelagians,
Donatists, Cathars, Manicheans, Fraticelli, etc,) that were reported to them. That man's fear of the Pope
and of Rome was synonymous with fear of god, was just one more cunning and brilliant stroke in the artifice of this house of lies and corruption whose power extends to the minds of men as well as to their
laws. The possessions of heretics are to be confiscated. In the Church's territories they are to go to the
Church's treasury...In 1228, Blache of Castille ordered that any person who had been excommunicated
"shall be forced to seek absolution by the seizure of all this property - The Corpus Juris (the official law
book of the Papacy) The Inquisition would claim all the money and property of alleged heretics...Unlike Roman law that
reserved a portion of property for the convicted's nearest heirs, canon and Inquisitional law left nothing.
Pope Innocent III had explained that God punished children for the sins of their parents. So unless
children had come forth spontaneously to denounce their parents, they were left penniless. Inquisitors
even accused the dead of heresy, sometimes as much as seventy years after their death. They exhumed an
burned the alleged heretic's bones and then confiscated all property from the heirs - Helen Ellerbe (The Dark Side of Christian History) Furthermore, it is the ignorance and credulity of the world's masses that perpetuate the life of the
monster. It is this ignorance, born from inner guilt and impressionability, that must end if we are to see
an end to the bestial edifice of Vatican City, which now literally owns the world of men, and which
controls every facet of life on planet earth. Yet, all we see in the world around us is complicity and folly,
stupidity and false allegiance, crimes perpetrated in the name of god, and failure of the system to bring
justice to those who sponsor and commit the worst crimes against humanity. The executive within the Church had, and still have, a vested interest in maintaining ignorance and conflict. Their very existence
depends upon it. Suppression and Control The Church burned enormous amounts of literature. In 391 Christians burned down one of the world's
greatest libraries in Alexandria, said to have housed 700,000 rolls. All the books of the Gnostic Basilides,
Porphyry's 36 volumes, papyrus rolls of 27 schools of the Mysteries, and 270,000 ancient documents
gathered by Ptolemy Philadelphus were burned. Ancient academies of learning were closed. Education
for anyone outside of the Church came to an end - Helen Ellerbe (The Dark Side of Christian History) The abysmal living standards of the so-called "Dark Ages" were brought into being intentionally. They
were created at the behest of the sorcerers of Rome. The wealth of the world was slowly siphoned off,
and learning was forbidden to everyone except the clergy. Bibles were chained to altars so that no one
but the priest could refer to them, and Church Fathers even found themselves persecuted for challenging
the status quo. The third century Church Father, philosopher and author Origin found himself
excommunicated for merely theorizing that man, as well as the Church, had a role in his own salvation. The Church knew that its own dominance was threatened by thinking men. Therefore, it not only
incinerated the works of earlier nations, such as the Irish, but made sure that the world would be kept in
ignorance. The educated, the literate, and the keepers of texts would be themselves, the Church of Rome.
Those persons flaunting ecclesiastical edict and seeking to educate themselves, or own taboo books, were
considered heretics and would be made examples of. They would often suffer imprisonment, torture and
execution. Gregory the great...condemned education for all but the clergy as folly and wickedness. He forbade
laymen to read even the Bible. He had the library of the Palatine Apollo burned "lest its secular literature
distract the faithful from contemplation of heaven - Helen Ellerbe (The Dark Side of Christian History) After Christians had spent years destroying books and libraries, St. John Chrysostom, the pre-eminent
Greek Father of the Church, proudly declared, "Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the
ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth - ibid Technology disappeared as the Church became the most cohesive power in Western society. The
extensive aqueducts and plumbing systems vanished. Orthodox Christians taught that all aspects of the
flesh should be reviled and therefore discouraged washing as much as possible. Disease became
commonplace as sanitation and hygiene deteriorated. For hundreds of years, towns and villages were
decimated by epidemics. Roman central heating were also abandoned - ibid Another key tactic of the Pope and his bishops, ensuring control over the human mind, was the
insinuation that the sexual instincts of men were not of god but the devil. The bishops knew that the man
divided is the man submissive and controlled. At the beginning of Christianity there was no such taboo
against sexuality, but by the time of Augustine of Hippo the body was seen as an encumbrance keeping
man from pure meditations and direct contact with god. The body and its needs dragged man to worldly
life and to sin. As Saint Jerome preached: Regard everything as poison which bears within it the seed of sensual pleasure Follow our Lord's example, and hate your body; if you love it, strive to lose it; says Holy Scripture, in
order to save it; if you wish to make peace with it; always go armed, always wage war against it; treat it
like a slave, or soon your yourself shall be its unhappy slave - (Words of an Augustinian Priest to the King
of Poland. From Delumeau's Sin and Fear) Sex as an act that empowers the individual threatens a religion intent upon controlling society. As
Clement said, "lust is not easy to restrain, being devoid of fear..." - Helen Ellerbe (The Dark Side of
Christian History) We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused
but to achieve the public good and put fear into others - Francisco Pena (Inquisitor, 1578) Yes, the man in fear, who considers himself a dire sinner against god for following his own body's
instincts is doomed to a life of masochism and self-hatred. He repudiates his own body, regards himself
as recalcitrant, and accepts instruction from on high that his soul, the only part of him that matters,
might be saved from perdition[?].
The mythology of the Aten,
the radiant disk of the sun, is not only unique in Egyptian history, but is also one of the most complex and controversial aspects of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian term for the disk of the sun was Aten, which is first evidenced during the Middle Kingdom, though of course solar worship begins much earlier in Egyptian history. It should be noted however that this term initially could be applied to any disk, including even the surface of a mirror or the moon. The term was used in the Coffin Texts to denote the sun disk, but in the 'Story of Sinuhe' dating from the Middle Kingdom, the word is used with the determinative for god (Papyrus Berlin 10499). In that story, Amenemhat I is described as soaring into the sky and uniting with Aten his creator. Text written during the New Kingdom's 18th Dynasty frequently use the term to mean "throne" or "place" of the sun god. The word Aten was written using the hieroglyphic sign for "god" because the Egyptians tended to personify certain expressions. Eventually, the Aten was conceived as a direct manifestation of the sun god. Though the Aten became particularly important during the New Kingdom reigns of Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotep III, mostly sole credit for the actual origin of the deity Aten must be credited to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). Even at the beginning of the New Kingdom, it's founder, Ahmose, is flattered on a stela by being likened to "Aten when he shines". His successor, Amenhotep I, becomes in death "united with Aten, coalescing with the one from whom he had come". Tuthmosis I was portrayed in his temple at Tombos in Nubia wearing the sun disk and followed by the hieroglyphic sign for 'god'. Hatshepsut used the term on her standing obelisk in the temple of Karnak to denote the astronomical concept of the disk, though it was actually during the reign of Amenhotep II that the earliest iconography of Aten appears on a monument at Giza as a winged sun disk (though this was a manifestation of Re) with outstretched arms grasping the cartouche of the pharaoh. Later, Tuthmosis IV issues a commemorative scarab on which the Aten functions as a god of war (a role usually reserved for Amun) protecting the pharaoh. Amenhotep III seems to have actively encouraged the worship of Aten, stressing solar worship in many of his extensive building works. In fact, one of that king's epithets was Tjekhen-Aten, or 'radiance of Aten', a term which was also used in several other contexts during his reign. During the reign of Amenhotep III, there is evidence for a priesthood of Aten at Heliopolis, which was the traditional center for the worship of the sun god Re, and he also incorporated references to the Aten in the names he gave to his palace at Malkata (known as 'splendor of Aten'), a division of his army and even to a pleasure boat called 'Aten glitters'. Also, several officials of his reign bore titles connecting them with the Aten cult, such as Hatiay, who was 'scribe of the two granaries of the Temple of Aten in Memphis. and a certain Ramose (not the vizier) who was 'steward of the mansion of the Aten'. The latter was even depicted with his wife going to view the sun disk. Prior to Amenhotep IV, the sun disk could be a symbol in which major gods appear and so we find such phrases as "Atum who is in his disk ('aten'). However, from there it is only a small leap for the disk itself to become a god. It was Amenhotep IV who first initiated the appearance of the true god, Aten, by formulating a didactic name for him. Hence, in the early years of Amenhotep IV's reign, the sun god Re-Horakhty, traditionally depicted with a hawk's head, became identical to Aten, who was now worshipped as a god, rather than as an object associated with the sun god. Hence, prior to Akhenaten, we speak of The Aten, while afterwards it is the god Aten. Initially, Aten's relationship with other gods was very complex and it should even be mentioned that some Egyptologists have suggested that Amenhotep IV may have equated Aten to his own father, Amenhotep III. Others have suggested that, rather than true monotheism, the cult of Aten was a form of henotheism, in which one god was effectively elevated above many others, though this certainly does not seem to be the case later during the Amarna period. To honor his new god, Amenhotep IV constructed an enormous temple east of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak during the third year of his reign. The temple included pillared courts with striking colossal statues of the king and at least three sanctuaries, one of which was called the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben'). This emphasized the relationship between Aten and the sun cult of Heliopolis. The Benben symbolized the primeval mound on which the sun god emerged from Nun to create the universe. One section of the temple appears to have been the domain of Nefertiti, Amenhotep IV's principal wife and in one scene, she is pictured together with two daughters, but excluding her husband, worshipping below the sun disk. Artistically, this temple at Karnak was even decorated in a novel "expressionistic" style that broke with previous tradition and would soon influence the representation of all figures. Perhaps nowhere is this artistic style more evident then in the tomb Amenhotep IV's vizier, Ramose. Most of the tomb's decoration consists of fine low reliefs carved during the last years of Amenhotep III reign in a congenital Theban style, but on the rear wall of the pillared tomb is a mixture of traditional design and the startling developments in art made by Akhenaten. This new artistic style was to usher in to Egypt considerable religious upheaval. Amenhotep IV, who would change his name to Akhenaten to reflect Aten's importance, first replaced the state god Amun with his newly interpreted god. The hawk-headed figure of Re-Horakhty-Aten was then abandoned in favor of the iconography of the solar disk, which was now depicted as an orb with a uraeus at its base emitting rays that ended in human hands either left open or holding ankh signs that gave "life" to the nose of both the king and the Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti. It should however be noted that this iconography actually predates Amenhotep IV with some examples from the reign of Amenhotep II, though now it became the sole manner in which Aten was depicted. Left: Akhenaten in an exaggerated form; Right: Nefertiti in a form less attractive then her Berlin Bust Both are receiving "life" from the Aten Aten was now considered the sole, ruling deity and thus received a royal titulary, inscribed like royal names in two oval cartouches. As such, Aten now celebrated its own royal jubilees (Sed-festivals). Thus, the ideology of kingship and the realm of religious cult were blurred. The Aten's didactic name became "the living One, Re-Harakhty who rejoices on the horizon, in his name (identity) which is Illumination ('Shu, god of the space between earth and sky and of the light that fills that space') which is from the solar orb." This designation changes everything theologically in Egypt. The traditions Egyptians had adopted since the earliest times no longer applied. According to Akhenaten, Re and the sun gods Khepri, Horakhty and Atum could no longer be accepted as manifestations of the sun. The concept of the new god was not so much the sun disk, but rather the life giving illumination of the sun. To make this distinction, his name would be more correctly pronounced, "Yati(n)". Aten was now the king of kings, needing no goddess as a companion and having no enemies who could threaten him. In effect, this worship of Aten was not a sudden innovation on the part of one king, but the climax of a religious quest among Egyptians for a benign god limitless in power and manifest in all countries and natural phenomena. After Aten ascended to the top of the pantheon, most of the old gods retained their positions at first, though that would soon change as well. Gods of the dead such as Osiris and Soker were several of the first to vanish from the Egyptian religious front. In fact, step by step, Amenhotep IV perused his new found religious reformation in what Egyptologists have more and more seen as a rational plan. In year six of his reign, Amenhotep IV became weary of Thebes and the old powerful Amun priesthood, and thus founded a new capital city in the desert valley area we now call el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten) somewhat north of the old capital in Middle Egypt. Amenhotep IV mentions on two stelae that the priests were saying more evil things about him than they did about his father and grandfather, so from this we learn that there must have been a conflict that dated back at least to the reign of Tuthmosis IV. Luckily for the king, however, the priesthood was apparently not strong enough to curb a pharaoh's inclinations at this point in time. There, in his new capital of Akhetaten ('horizon of Aten'), Aten could be worshipped without any consideration of other deities. Thus he built both a Great Aten temple in the city as well as a smaller royal temple that could have likely also been his mortuary temple. Both were unique, having a novel architectural plan emphasizing open access to the sun rather than the traditional darkness of Egyptian shrines. Outside of Akhetaten, there appears to have also been temples dedicated to Aten at Memphis, at Sesebi in Nubia, and perhaps elsewhere during at least part of Akhenaten's reign. Around the time Akhetaten was founded, Amenhotep IV changed his own royal titulary to reflect the Aten's reign, but perhaps more remarkably, he actually changed his own birth name from Amenhotep, which may be translated as "Amun is content", to Akhenaten, meaning "he who is beneficial to the Aten" or "illuminated manifestation of Aten". Afterwards, the king proceeded to emphasize Aten's singular nature above all other gods through excessively preferential treatment. Ultimately, he suppressed all other deities. However, it is interesting that Akhenaten retained in his new titulary all references to the sun god Re. In his prenomen there is 'Neferkheprure' (Beautiful are the manifestations of Re) and 'Waenre' (Sole one of Re). George Hart in his Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddess tells us that Aten was: "..really the god Re absorbed under the iconography of the sun disk. The eminence of Aten is a renewal of the kingship of Re as it had been during its apogee over a thousand years earlier under the monarchs of the 5th Dynasty." However, it is really doubtful that such a simple statement can be made, for in reality, Aten took on many characteristics alien to Re. Re did not function in a vacuum of gods and goddesses. Yet there remained cloudy associations with Re even as Akhenaten moved into his new capital. There, accommodations were made for the burial of a Mnevisl, which was the sacred bull of Re. Furthermore, the king's last two daughters were named Nefernefrure and Setepenre, both incorporating Re into their names. But indeed, Akhenaten's new creed could be summed up by the formula, "There is no god but Aten, and Akhenaten is his prophet". The hymn known as the "Sun Hymn of Akhetaten" offers some theological insight into this newly evolved god. We find this hymn, which may have been composed by the king himself, in the tomb of the courtier Ay, who later succeeded King Tutankhamun. Scholars have noted a similarity between the hymn and Biblical Psalm 104, although the distinct parallels between the two are usually interpreted simply as indications of the common literary heritage of Egypt and Israel. Inscribed in thirteen long lines, the essential part of the poem is a hymn of praise for Aten as the creator and preserver of the world. Within it, there are no allusions to traditional mythical concepts, since the names of other gods are absent. In this hymn, no longer are night and death the realm of gods such as Osiris and various other deities, as in traditional Egyptian religion, but are rather briefly dealt with as the absence of Aten. Hence, it should be noted that, unlike other supreme gods of Egypt, Aten did not always absorb the attributes of other gods. His nature was entirely different. The hymn abounds with descriptions of nature and with the position of the king in the new religion. Irregardless of the existence of a priesthood devoted to Aten, only to Akhenaten had the god revealed itself, and only the king could know the demands and commandments of Aten, a god who remained distant and incomprehensible to the general populace. In fact, the priesthood may not have served so much Aten as they did Akhenaten. The high priest of the Aten was actually called the priest of Akhenaten, indicating not only the elevated position of the king in this theology, but also the effective barrier that he formed between even his priests and the god Aten. However, while the hymn seems to provide exclusive rights to the Aten only to the king, his family appears to have been included within this inner circle. The new myths of the religion were filled with the ruler's family history and it is not surprising that the faithful of the Amarna period prayed in front of private cult stelae that depicted the royal "holy" family. Yet, Aten was not a god of the people during the reign of Akhenaten. Far from it, in fact, considering that Egyptian religion had become more democratized around the god, Osiris. Aten had to be forced on the Egyptian people, and outside of Akhetaten (and really even there) and the official state religion, Aten never replaced all the traditional Egyptian gods. In effect, among the common Egyptians, if anything, the situation created a religious vacuum which was unstable from the beginning. And while it is clear that the elite of Akhetaten certainly paid respect to Aten, there is no real evidence for personal individual worship of the god on the part of the ordinary Egyptians whose only access to the god was through the medium of the king. On the contrary, at even the workers village in eastern Amarna, there has been unearthed numerous amulets of traditional gods, as well as some small private chapels probably dedicated to ancestor worship but showing no traces of the official religion. Around the ninth year of of Akhenaten's reign, the name of the god Aten was once more changed. Now, all mention of Horakhty and Shu disappeared. Horakhty was replaced by the phrase, "Ruler of the Horizon". No longer was the hawk form of the god acceptable and this image was definitively replaced with new iconography and a purer form of monotheism was introduced. Now, Aten became "the Living One, Sun, Ruler of the Horizon, who rejoices on the horizon in his name, which is Sunlight, which comes from the disk".
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