Gerald Massey (1828-1907) was an English poet and writer on Spiritualism and ancient Egypt. Massey was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England to poor parents. When little more than a child, he was made to work hard in a silk factory, which he afterward deserted for the equally laborious occupation of straw plaiting.
These early years were rendered gloomy by much distress and deprivation, against which the young man strove with increasing spirit and virility, educating himself in his spare time, and gradually cultivating his innate taste for literary work. Massey's first public appearance as a writer was in connection with a journal called the Spirit of Freedom, of which he became editor, and he was only twenty-two when he published his first volume of poems, Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love (1850). In 1889, Massey published a two-volume collection of his poems called My Lyrical Life. He also published works dealing with Spiritualism, the study of Shakespeare's sonnets (1872 and 1890), and theological speculation.
Massey's poetry has a certain rough and vigorous element of sincerity and strength which easily accounts for its popularity at the time of its production. He treated the theme of Sir Richard Grenville before Tennyson thought of using it, with much force and vitality. Indeed, Tennyson's own praise of Massey's work is still its best eulogy, for the Laureate found in him a poet of fine lyrical impulse, and of a rich half-Oriental imagination. The inspiration of his poetry is a combination of his vast knowledge based on travels, research and experiences; he was a patriotic humanist to the core.
Massey was a believer in spiritual evolution; he opined that Darwin's theory of evolution was incomplete without spiritualism:
The theory contains only one half the explanation of man's origins and needs spiritualism to carry it through and complete it. For while this ascent on the physical side has been progressing through myriads of ages, the Divine descent has also been going on - man being spiritually an incarnation from the Divine as well as a human development from the animal creation. The cause of the development is spiritual. Mr. Darwin's theory does not in the least militate against ours - we think it necessitates it; he simply does not deal with our side of the subject.
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From about 1870 onwards, Massey became increasingly interested in Egyptology and the similarities that exist between ancient Egyptian mythology and the Gospel stories. He studied the extensive Egyptian records housed in the Assyrian and Egyptology section of the British Museum in London where he worked closely with the curator, Dr.
Massey was one of the first Egyptologists in modern times to suggest that with the final eclipse of the old Land of Kam (a.k.a. ancient Egypt), a brilliant light had been extinguished in world civilization. There was a small compensation in the often meteoric rise of other cultures subsequently, but the luminance of these later cultures was, Massey suggests, a paler reflection of the Nile Valley sun that had set.
Massey did in the cultural domain what modern paleontologists have done in the anthropological: pinpoint Africa as the crucible of humanity's story. Part of his genius was the ability to look truth in the face and not flinch. He was a man of protean interests and concerns - at once a poet, socialist, Shakespearean scholar, mythographer and Egyptologist.
With his earlier two series in Egyptology, Gerald Massey turned existing doctrine on its head to argue that not only had Egypt spawned human civilization, but that Egyptian mythology was the basis for Jewish and Christian beliefs. The culmination of his years at this particular intellectual pursuit, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World is Massey's crown jewel.
In this, the most philosophical (in both tone and concept) of his Egyptological works, Massey, ever the intrepid escort, leads a tour through thousands of years of sociological, cultural, and spiritual development, all the while pointing, with dazzling reason and persuasive prose, to a distant, common, Egyptian origin.
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In the first volume of Ancient Egypt, Massey was primarily concerned with elaborating how the first humans emergine in Africa created thought. What had been evident to him from the outset was that the myths, rituals and religions of ancient Egypt - or Old Kam - had preserved virtually intact a record of the psychomythic evolution of humanity.
In the second volume, Massey examines the celestial phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. He believed only by understanding this phenomenon was it possible to fathom Nile Valley history. He provides the reader with extensive detail on the interconnection of the two. The last half of the second volume is devoted to the Kamite sources of Christianity. Massey demonstrated the manner in which New Testament Christianity evolved directly out of the Osirian mysteries.
Massey pioneered the effort the connect Old Kamite thought to its origin in Africa's antiquity. His conclusions, which are constantly being verified, showed that Kamite thought was the direct progenitor to the philosophy, metaphysics, religion and science that eventually shaped Western cvilization.
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In regard to Ancient Egypt, Massey first published The Book of the Beginnings, followed by The Natural Genesis. Like Godfrey Higgins a half-century earlier, Massey believed that Western religions had Egyptian roots.
Massey wrote,
The human mind has long suffered an eclipse and been darkened and dwarfed in the shadow of ideas the real meaning of which has been lost to moderns. Myths and allegories whose significance was once unfolded in the Mysteries have been adopted in ignorance and reissued as real truths directly and divinely vouchsafed to humanity for the first and only time! The early religions had their myths interpreted. We have ours misinterpreted.
One of the more important aspects of Massey's writings were his assertions that there were parallels between Jesus and the Egyptian god Horus. Massey, for example, argued that: both Horus and Jesus were born of virgins on 25 December, raised men from the dead (Massey speculates that the biblical Lazarus, raised from the dead by Jesus, has a parallel in El-Asar-Us, a title of Osiris), died by crucifixion and were resurrected three days later.
These assertions have influenced various later writers such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and Dorothy M. Murdock.
Massey stated that:
Christian ignorance notwithstanding, the Gnostic Jesus is the Egyptian Horus who was continued by the various sects of gnostics under both the names of Horus and of Jesus. In the gnostic iconography of the Roman Catacombs child-Horus reappears as the mummy-babe who wears the solar disc.
Ancient Egypt was deeply rooted in symbolism and mythology. Light and fire, closely linked to the Sun God Ra, were considered sources of life and well-being, while darkness represented danger and death. Dreams offered glimpses into the future, revealing an unknown world inhabited by shadows. Eyes, the most vital organs, allowed perception of reality, immortalized in the myth of the Eye of Horus, where one eye symbolized moonlight dispersing darkness, and the other, sunshine creating life. Blindness, whether congenital or caused by disease, was seen as divine punishment, plunging individuals into uncertainty and darkness. To protect eyes, people used drops and ointments, warding off insects and demons believed to cause eye infections. Egyptian eye doctors carried kits with green chrysocolla and black kohl makeup, valued for their prophylactic properties, personifying Osiris' humours or body fluids.
August 20, 2023Massey, who wrote this book in 1907, was convinced that all religions and mythologies have a common origin. Based on this assumption, he thought it perfectly reasonable to compare vaguely similar concepts and words from cultures across the world-in the course of the book, he refers to cultures as far-flung as Scandinavia, South Africa, China, British Columbia, New Guinea, and Hawaii. Then, having effectively invented a new myth by conflating separate ones from different parts of the globe, he makes declarations about that myth's "true" nature. He also works under an assumption that is widespread among fringe interpreters of history: that if words have a similar sound and a similar meaning, then they are related, no matter how far separated they may be in time and space.
To give Massey some credit, he believed that Egyptian mythology contained deep, symbolic truths at a time when professional Egyptologists like Adolf Erman were contemptuously dismissing mythology as nonsense. But Massey's interpretations of myth are often badly misinformed. He says a lot of mythology is based on the zodiacal constellations, in an Egyptian astronomical tradition that goes back 10,000 years. Never mind that nobody can tell what Egyptian astronomy was like before writing was invented 5,000 years ago, or that the zodiac, a Babylonian invention, was only introduced to Egypt by the Greeks in the fourth century BC. Based on this jumble of half-truths and speculation, Massey argues that biblical stories are literalized versions of Egyptian myths.
As an example, Massey connects the Egyptian story of the Destruction of Mankind, in which fields are inundated with red-dyed beer (an allusion to the Nile flood, not the covering of all the earth with water) with Plato's story of Atlantis to prove that the Egyptians had a primordial flood myth like the biblical one. He connects it with the Aztec myth of Aztlan and the seven-chambered cave the Aztecs emerged from, and then says that because the Destruction of Mankind involves seven gods plus Ra, and Noah's Ark carried seven people plus Noah, the story of Noah's flood comes from the story of the Destruction of Mankind. Elsewhere, he relates the Tuatha De Danann, gods from Irish mythology who were said to have migrated to Ireland in the primordial past, with the Egyptian underworld, or Tuat (nowadays transcribed as Duat or Dat). And then, as nearly as I can understand it, he argues that the myth that the Tuatha De Danann migrated to Ireland and the story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt are both based on the mythological movement of Egyptian gods out of the underworld, which itself is a piece of astronomical symbolism.
Of course, when people nowadays pay attention to this book, it's often because of the claim that Jesus is based on the Egyptian god Horus. Compared with what's gone earlier in the book, that allegation almost looks sober and rational. There are broad parallels in the miraculous birth, after all, or in the general theme of a king who will fix a world gone wrong-just as there are with many other hero myths across the Mediterranean. It's in the details where Massey's arguments break down. In his eyes, the cross is the djed pillar, King Herod (who we absolutely know was a real person) is the underworld "herrut" monster, and any set of seven things can be conflated with any other set of seven things.
To be clear, I think the current crop of Jesus scholars are too quick to reject claims that the basics of Christianity were drawn from any religion other than Judaism. But it is partly the exaggerated claims of people like Massey that caused scholars to develop that allergic reaction. If I were to buy a book about polytheistic influence on the Christian conception of Jesus, it would be Iesus Deus or something like it, something that carefully weighs the likelihood that similarities are the result of a direct influence. As for the rest of the book?
Christian theologian W. Gasque reports that those who responded were unanimous in dismissing the proposed etymologies for Jesus and Christ, and one unspecified Egyptologist referred to Alvin Boyd Kuhn's comparison as "fringe nonsense." His primary targets were Tom Harpur, Alvin Boyd Kuhn and the Christ myth theory, and only indirectly Massey. Ten out of twenty responded, but most were not named.
According to Gasque, Massey's work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt or similar reference works of modern Egyptology.
However, Harpur's response to Gasque quotes leading contemporary Egyptologist Erik Hornung that there are parallels between Christianity and ancient Egypt, as do the writings of biblical expert Thomas L. Theologian Stanley E. Porter has pointed out that Massey's analogies include a number of errors.
For example, Massey stated that 25 December as the date of birth of Jesus was selected based on the birth of Horus, but the New Testament does not include any reference to the date or season of the birth of Jesus. The earliest known source recognizing 25 December as the date of birth of Jesus is by Hippolytus of Rome, written around the beginning of the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox. Hippolytus placed the equinox on 25 March and then added 9 months to get 25 December, thus establishing the date for festivals.
The Roman Chronography of 354 then included an early reference to the celebration of a Nativity feast in December, as of the fourth century. Porter states that Massey's serious historical errors often render his works nonsensical.
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Summary of Massey's Claims and Counterarguments
The following table summarizes some of Massey's key claims and the counterarguments presented by theologians and Egyptologists:
| Massey's Claim | Counterarguments |
|---|---|
| Jesus and Horus were both born of virgins on December 25th. | The New Testament does not specify the date of Jesus' birth. The December 25th date was established later by Hippolytus of Rome. |
| Both Horus and Jesus raised men from the dead. | Massey's comparisons are speculative and lack direct evidence. |
| Christianity evolved directly out of Osirian mysteries. | Modern Egyptology does not consider Massey's work significant. His theories are often based on misinterpretations and historical errors. |
Despite the criticisms, Massey's work remains influential among those seeking alternative perspectives on the origins of Western religions. His ideas continue to spark debate and inspire further exploration of the connections between ancient Egyptian mythology and contemporary belief systems.
Dendera Zodiac, a Greco-Roman Egyptian bas-relief from the Hathor temple at Dendera, depicting astrological signs.
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