A Szuda és az egyiptomi vallás

The Souda encyclopaedia brought into being around 1000 A.D. is a product of Byzantine humanism. This epoch is proud of its knowledge of classical antiquity, it wants to harmonize it with its own knowledge, and not make it forgotten. It equally wants to look upon the notions of ancient Egyptian religion in a correct way, and give a correct idea of them. In the encyclopaedia three variants of forwarding the Egyptian substance of myths can be detected. The fi rst consists in regarding gods as former monarchs. It enlists the gods under the names of the Greek gods identifi ed with them, and considers them as early monarchs of Egypt. This does not cause any diffi culty as also Egyptian tradition is convinced of its fi rst monarchs being creative gods. This in itself is not a new discovery. Earlier World chronicles described the histories of ancient peoples in a similar way; moreover it is exactly the texts of the former that Souda includes in the encyclopaedia. – The second variant mentions Egyptian gods by their own names, and describes them as being of godly character. You cannot feel any aversion in the encyclopaedia, apart sometimes from the euhemistic view, according to which a god was, in reality, an ancient monarch in whose honour a temple was erected after his death. – The third group of knowledge must, however, be a product of the new way of thinking. The editors of Souda preserve the neo-Platonist philosophers of the 5th century by including Damascus’ work. These philosophers fi ght, by means of the saint synchretism, for the preservation of the ancient religion in Egypt. The considerate description of the philosophers defending pagan cults against Christianism allows the emotional atmosphere of the epoch to unfold. The editor/editors of the encyclopaedia does/do not want to keep secret or make disappear the substance of knowledge and the way of thinking of ancient epochs. They want to preserve them and to build them into the substance of present knowledge in a way similar to the one, by which they try to connect, with each other, the traditions of diff erent peoples.