Egyptian Syncretism Hans Bonnet's

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Egyptian Syncretism: Hans Bonnet's Contribution

Author(s): John Baines
Source: Orientalia, NOVA SERIES, Vol. 68, No. 3 (1999), pp. 199-214
Published by: GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press
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199
Egyptian Syncretism:
Hans Bonnet's Contribution1
John Baines
Introduction
Hans Bonnet's 1939 article "Zum Verständnis des Synkretismus"2 exert-

ed a seminal influence on interpretations of central Egyptian religious beliefs
and thought in the German-reading world. While his work also had some im-
pact elsewhere, notably through translations of books by Siegfried Morenz3
and Erik Hornung4 that discuss it and incorporate significant insights from it,
the article appears to have been otherwise largely unread and the issues it
raises largely unstudied, even though there has been a proliferation of work
on Egyptian syncretism, notably that initiated in a Göttingen project in the
1970s5. This lack of attention on the part of later writers is unfortunate, both
in the general sense that disciplines need to be aware of their intellectual
background and development, and specifically because of the importance of
Bonnet's analysis. I have concluded that it is worth taking the unusual step of
1 1 am grateful to a number of people for their interest in my work on Bonnet, especially Erik /
Hornung, Barbara Porter, and Christiane Zivie-Coche. My translation has been presented to sem-
inars at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris and at Harvard University. Richard Parkin-
son very kindly commented on a draft of this article. Part of the argument relates to my "Egyp-
tian Deities in Context: Multiplicity, Unity, and the Problem of Change", in B. N. Porter (ed.),
One God or Many : Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (Transactions of the Casco Bay As-
syriological Institute, 1; Chebeague ME, in press).
2 ZAS 75 (1939) 40-52.
3 Ägyptische Religion (Die Religionen der Menschheit 8; Stuttgart 1960), esp. pp.
146-8 = Egyptian Religion , trans. Ann E. Keep (London 1973), 140-42 (translation not very satis-
factory, see reviews by J. G. Griffiths, JEA 60 [1974] 281-2; D. Mueller, BiOr 32 [1975] 349-
50).
4 Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many , trans. J. Baines (Ithaca
1982) 91-9 = Der Eine und die Vielen: Altägyptische Gottesvorstellungen (Darmstadt 1971) 82-
90.
5 Published in the series Göttinger Orientforschungen IV : Ägypten (Wiesbaden 1973- ), e.g.
J. Spiegel, Die Götter von Abydos: Studien zum ägyptischen Synkretismus (vol. 1, 1973), B. Al-
tenmüller, Synkretismus in den Sargtexten (vol. 7, 1975). See also the synthesizing volume
G. Wiessner (ed.), Synkretismusforschung: Theorie und Praxis (Göttinger Orientforschungen:
Reihe Grundlagen und Ergebnisse 1; Wiesbaden 1978), especially the essays of Ulrich Berner,
which do not mention Bonnet; E Junge, "Wirklichkeit und Abbild: Zum innerägyptischen Syn-
kretismus und zur Weltsicht der Hymnen des Neuen Reiches", cites Bonnet's term Einwohnung
("inhabiting", see ahead) at p. 88 n. 3.
200 John Baines
translating a journal article tha

together with this secondary
Understanding Syncretism" (p
decode allusions and incorporat
commentary, so that it can be re
cause the article is immediately
tent here - its density of conte
fine myself to discussion.
The neglect of Bonnet's work
ical perspective can be illust
Frankfort, notably his influen
tation 6. In his opening metho
closely related to those studied
case could be due in part to th
War II, it is more likely to re
cle's significance or a rejection
be surprising, in view of the d
cle, its idiosyncratic character
cites specific references or ot
article has some of the qualiti
once theoretical and almost c
part as theoretical prolegomen
gionsgeschichte (Berlin 1952
introduction to the Reallexiko
of that work left rather little
studies in depth, even though
The article supplies some of th
though he would not have sa
6 (New York 1948). Bonnet is also not

fort et al., The Intellectual Adventure
Philosophy : The Intellectual Adventur
Bonnet may also be compared for their
presented the more powerful and nov
Bonnet's views anticipate later ideas on
7 The article could have originated in
next note).
8 The dedication implies (p. x) that he had presented it in person to Georg SteindorfF, who
left Germany in 1939, when Bonnet may have nearly finished assembling the work (which in-
cludes a few contributions by other scholars, all perhaps written in the 1920s and 1930s). The
manuscript was finalized during World War II, at the end of which Bonnet, who was opposed to
the Nazi regime, was in a remote area of Silesia (see R. Anthes, "Grusswort an Hans Bonnet",
ZAS 94 [1967] vi); he would have had great difficulty publishing such a large book between 1945
and 1950. I have been unable to identify any relatives of Bonnet who might verify such semi-
biographical questions. For a very brief appreciation, see Elmar Edel, "Hans Bonnet, 22. Februar
1887 - 27. Oktober 1972", ZAS 100 (1973) vi.
Egyptian Syncretism: Hans Bonnet's Contribution 201
"On Understanding Syncretism" remains of very great interest, for its

remarkably rich and wide-ranging argument, for its position in the history
of studies of Egyptian religion, and for issues of method that it raises. Al-
though Bonnet formulated his treatment in terms of Egyptian religion, the
argument has wider implications for the study of styles of religious, and
especially polytheistic, thought and may be valuable to those who work on
other religious traditions9. Some of his discussion also addresses questions
of method explicitly, as in his insistence on what has come to be called
the rule of "interpretive charity", which is elaborated at the beginning of
the section on evaluation.
The article's near-complete lack of references to sources will have
limited its utility for readers when it first appeared; in one sense this is
less the case now, because the secondary literature that might be cited
would now be different. The article carries to an extreme the relative spar-
tanness of the Reallexikon in citation10. In both cases this style of presenta-
tion was evidently motivated in part by considerations of space and cost,
but the article's form may also have been influenced by the desire to con-
centrate on exposition and argument rather than on particular examples.
Nothing like so penetrating and wide-ranging a treatment could have been
accommodated if references had been included. As Morenz noted", the ab-
sence of citations does not signify a lack of familiarity with the material.
On the contrary, Bonnet clearly had examples in mind throughout; his text
inspires confidence through his manifest command of the material in gen-
eral and of specific evidence for detailed points. That does not apply to the
more speculative passages, but these have some of the character of syn-
thesizing theory, where examples would not be relevant.
After two generations, some of Bonnet's positions and turns of phrase
naturally appear dated - as when he spoke of bands and tribes with their
fetishes - but none of the elements in question is central to his argument.
On one point, whether fusions of deities could cross boundaries of sex,
there is still no consensus12. In the case of interpretations of the Amarna
period, his discussion has been submerged by the flood of later writing,
from which his picture differs greatly, yet the essence of his reading is
close to that of recent authors (see n. 33 here). The principal difficulties in
9 A related discussion of modes of religious thought forms a substantial part of the article
"Götterglaube" in his Reallexikon (pp. 237-46).
10 See Reallexikon ix-x.
11 Ägyptische Religion 146 n. 8 = Egyptian Religion 315 n. 8.
12 For examples and discussions, see Bonnet, Reallexikon 237; Hornung, Conceptions oj
God 97 n. 118; W. Schenkel, "Götterverschmelzung", in W. Helck and W. Westendorf (eds.),
Lexikon der Ägyptologie II (Wiesbaden 1977) 725 n. 30, who disputes some of the examples pro-
posed by Hornung.
202 John Baines
his article, however, are in hi

analysis that is hardly practise
low). Here the gulf between h
essarily very great. In practice
the predilections of the perso
uative. Moreover, scholars oft
mena they study or for their
beyond the particular cultures
criteria that Bonnet's approach
While Bonnet's article is ro
also at the forefront of them.
peripheral to its main focus t
later among other writers, m
point are the understanding th
passes all of the divine at th
Bonnet formulated similarly t
of an anonymous "god" in inst
of the divine as well as incorpo
perience of a particular deity,
context and person to person
clusion of such insights shou
contribution as a whole.
Bonnet's focus and premises
Bonnet took as his point of departure the problem of how to analyze

and comprehend Egyptian thought. That thought is religious in the instance
he chose, but the issues he confronted can be related more widely to the
debate on "mentalities"14 and to the interpretation of modes of thought
across different cultures - issues that continue to engage philosophers and
social scientists, among others15. As Bonnet observed, some earlier work,
notably - and perhaps exceptionally for its author - Kurt Sethe's Amun
und die acht Urgötter von Hermopolis16, had taken Egyptian thought and
13 Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt 236. For criticism of the approach, see o. 210 here.
14 See, for example, G. E. R. Lloyd, Demystifying Mentalities (Themes in the Social Sci-
ences; Cambridge etc. 1990).
15 For discussion and references, see e.g. J. Baines, "Interpretations of Religion: Logic, Dis-
course, Rationality", GM 76 (1984) 25-54; summary of Egyptological research in this area:
K. Koch, Das Wesen altägyptischer Religion im Spiegel ägyptologischer Forschung (Berichte aus
den Sitzungen der Joachim Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 7:1; Göttingen 1989).
16 Subtitled Eine Untersuchung über Ursprung und Wesen des ägyptischen Götterkönigs
(APAW, phil.-hist. Klasse 1929:4).
its rationality seriously and had sought to comprehend it on its own terms,
but those studies were the exceptions. The approach of such writers as
Adolf Erman17 was strongly patronizing and the scholarship of the time
was generally evolutionary; Egyptian thought was seen as less "advanced"
than more recent, Western thought, toward which it was at most a staging
point.
Here one needs to separate treatments of religious thought from those
of thought in general. Bonnet finally took an evolutionary and theological
stance in his approach to religion, seeing Egyptian development as tending,
ultimately without direct success, toward the goal of monotheism, and by
implication of Christianity. Nonetheless, he did not see the thought which
produced Egyptian religious syncretism as "primitive", and warned expli-
citly against using ethnographic parallels of the kind which would now be
seen as implying that complex civilizations like Egypt could be compared
directly with "relict" societies in the modern world. This methodological
stance has lost none of its significance, although it should not be taken as
implying that the thought of non-complex societies is less "complex" than
any other. While Bonnet did not pursue connections between religious
thought and society except in a few passages near the end, his insistence
that older is not necessarily less complex or sophisticated states a vital
principle that has often been neglected. He perhaps formulated his reserva-
tions about comparative method over-strongly, but his essential point re-
tains its significance, while he himself cited comparativist works and allud-
ed to comparative evidence. His reservations appear to have been more
about the proper application of method than about the procedure itself8.
The specifically cognitive thrust of Bonnet's approach is exemplified
both in his initial example of the ka - a paragraph that offers more in-
sight than some whole studies - and in his extended discussion of syn-
cretism. In terms of theory, his cognitive orientation emerges in the char-
acterization of the problem at hand as whether Egyptian modes of thinking
have "truth content ( Wahrheitsgehalt )", and if - as he believed - they do
have it, what that content might be. He suggested that the truth content
could not be narrowly circumscribed, presenting an associative, almost po-
etic view of how Egyptian concepts were organized (to use a formulation
that would not have been his). Some might see his interpretation as exces-
sively subjective, but more rigid approaches, both within Egyptology and
17 Die Religion der Ägypter : Ihr Werden und Vergehen in vier Jahrtausenden (Berlin and
Leipzig 1934). Compare the comment of H. Kees, Der Götterglaube im alten Ägypten (Leipzig
1941, 2 Berlin 1956) v.
18 For a fuller argument, see B. G. Trigger, Early Civilizations : Ancient Egypt in Context
(Cairo 1993).
204 John Baines
elsewhere, have on occasion

formal criteria to materials f
cause complex religious idea
forms19. In this respect, Bon
mislead: his interest was in s
ally rationality in the materia
"truth". Here, "rationality" i
though Bonnet's term has t
"content" as well as "truth": f
"about" something and was
Bonnet did not mention syn
uity. Presumably he saw his t
ligions the term "syncretism
cults often between different
in very large societies20. He
process within a single socie
specific phenomenon. Althou
cused upon the fusion of nam
also in groupings of three o
more general phenomenon of
and a particular procedure. S
demonstrated that this form
tain attestations of the most
Amon-Re', which date to t
seems not to be enough mate
cases or for similar pairings
fused names such as Re'-Atum
19 Compare the comment of J. P. A

tian Creation Accounts (Yale Egyptol
Egyptian cosmology and cosmogony
of medieval philosophy from a Rom
also P. Derchain, "Théologie et littéra
History and Forms (PÄ 10; Leiden et
20 See e.g. H. Versnel, Ter Unus : I
(Studies in Greek and Roman Religi
de France, Chaire d'Histoire des syn
21 "Amun-Re: Eme Sondierung zu St
ter", SAK 1 (1974) 275-88; see also his
25, at 724 n. 1. Schenkel cites E. Otto
culum 14 (1963) 270, on difficulties wi
that its use across traditions is very v
Modells zur Synkretismusforschung"
addressing specific material less than
22 B. Begelsbacher-Fischer, Unters
der Privatgräber der IV. und V. Dyn
ical interpretation is therefore that deities - gods more than goddess-

es23 - could be grouped in this way in any developed period of Egyptian
civilization. Whether in Egypt the practice of fusing divine names originat-
ed with the fusion of the country's regions in the formation of the state
cannot be known. But since it endured for three millennia, until the end of
Egyptian civilization, its origins are not likely to illuminate altogether later
developments very much. In terms of method, Bonnet's concentration on
known phenomena of the dynastic period was wise.
The most distinctive element in Bonnet's discussion is his proposal
that name combinations constitute an "inhabiting ( Einwohnung )" of one
deity by another, and that such inhabitings are never fixed or permanent.
"Inhabiting" is an interpretive metaphor that is paralleled only on the
fringe of the ancient terminology24. Bonnet observed that no pairing of
names excluded the possibilities either of different pairings of the same
names or of a name's appearing singly. In that respect, the grouping of
names might seem like a crucial syntactic element in a "language" of reli-
gious meaning, and hence appear almost abstract.
The metaphor of inhabiting is very valuable in drawing attention to
the impermanence and changeability of pairings and groupings of names,
but some of these combinations endured for millennia - while not exclud-
ing other combinations or the absence of combination - so that instability
should not be overstressed. Moreover, the deities whose names were paired
were objects of belief and worship and cannot be reduced to a "language-
game", as such phenomena have often been termed more recently. The im-
plicit tension between variability and belief relates further to the fact that
the Egyptians formulated their religious thought (a more neutral term than
"theology") directly in terms of major foci of belief - the gods and their
relations with the cosmos and with one another - while remaining able to
distance themselves from simple acceptance of the religious status quo and
to see new realities and possibilities in the divine world25. Bonnet moved
on to discuss this flexibility, arguing that syncretism contributed vitally to
were not common in the period she covers. Schenkel, "Götterverschmelzung", Lexikon der Ägyp-
tologie II 722 with nn. 11-12, cites Old Kingdom cases of Re '-Atum and Ptah-Sokar, to which he
gives a basically political reading; see further M. Sandman Holmberg, The God Ptah (Lund
1946) 126-8, who also considered Old Kingdom occurrences of Re'-Harakhte.
23 The treatment of divine names often differs between the genders; see J. Baines, "'Great-
est God' or Category of Gods?", GM 67 (1983) 13-28.
24 Compare Hornung, Conceptions of God 93-6 with references, on the temporary fusion of
Re and Osiris in the New Kingdom Litany of Re, where each god is said to "rest in" the other. A
case such as this might well have stimulated Bonneťs coining of the term.
25 The formulation "major foci" is deliberately vague because beliefs of other types, relating
to features like the general makeup of the cosmos or other agencies such as the dead, are also
fundamental to the shape of Egyptian religion.
206 John Baines
maintaining a conception of
manifestations, or spheres
Such must be the case, but th
also given by the fact that it
of explicit, nonspecific marke
dynastic period26. The Egypt
even if the range of meaning
The strategy of eval
More than a third of Bonne

developments in syncretism
sue this question in place of
of syncretism or of ancient
uation is now very unfashion
tors' perspective and becaus
ancient beliefs, something tha
ers tend to avoid even thou
There is the further danger
to which syncretism would b
ly more significant developm
sition of Bonnet, who was a
the development of religion
the One God29.
There are thus obvious objections to the strategy of this part of the
article. While I believe the section to be less successful and significant
than the core discussion, it is worth asking how usefully it contributes to
the whole and to approaches to Egyptian religion.
The evaluation is set off from clearly the rest of the presentation. This
allows one to distinguish between the implicit and in intention value-free
discussion of matters relating to Egyptian religious thought in the main
part (characterized by the term "truth content"), which is necessary to any
analysis, and the explicit, value-laden argument which follows. Paradox-
26 See e.g. Hornung, Conceptions of God 33-9, 100-07; J. Baines, "On the Symbolic Con-
text of the Principal Hieroglyph for 'God'", in: U. Verhoeven - E. Graefe (ed.), Religion und
Philosophie im alten Ägypten: Festgabe fur Philippe Derchain (OLA 39: Leuven 1991) 29-46.
27 1 discuss these issues in the essay cited in n. 1 here.
28 A point also made, for example, by Morenz (Ägyptische Religion , ix = Egyptian Religion ,
xv), who like Bonnet was not a methodological agnostic.
29 Compare Edel, ZAS 100 (1973) vi.
ically, the more neutral main part almost has the character of apologetics,
since it seeks to comprehend Egyptian thought in a positive way, whereas
the last, evaluative part is more detached. Such a - negative - evaluative
approach is commonly applied to the later periods of Egyptian history30,
with the implication that those periods were less "successful" and in-
tellectually rich than earlier ones, and Bonnet's approach partakes in this
trend. He used evaluation to study why developments ran in a particular
direction, and thus to illuminate the role of syncretism in later times. His
evaluation in thus a heuristic rather than qualitative device, although he
made his own preferences apparent.
It would be wrong to overstress difficulties with the "apologetic"
character of the main part of his article, because any method that is adopt-
ed with the aim of penetrating the material effectively must begin from a
position of cautious "interpretative charity" and assume that the object of
study is coherent and capable of being comprehended, provided that
enough evidence is accessible. Here, Bonnet's approach, which makes this
strategy explicit, greatly transcends the unease with religious phenomena
that is evident in the work of Adolf Erman or the methodological reduc-
tionism of Kurt Sethe and Hermann Kees, who tended to see religious is-
sues as reflections of other matters, partly in preference to analysis in the
terms in which the ancient sources present them31.
Bonnet can, however, be criticized for his fixed view of what forms
constitute the highest manifestations of religion, which for him were more
or less abstract conceptions of deity and the idea that the deity is single.
Such an emphasis, which again has an apologetic character, is found in the
writings on religion of many Egyptologists who seek to evaluate the phe-
30 One might compare Jan Assmann's view that the central Egyptian concept of ma' at
ceased to be effective by the end of the second millennium bce; see e.g. his Ma' at: Gerechtigkeit
und Unsterblichkeit im alten Ägypten (Munich 1990) 267-72. Such a position raises as many
questions as it solves, because Egyptian society survived for more than a millennium after that
date, and one will need to ask what held it together if its traditional raison d'être had dis-
appeared, and/or who had been encompassed by that raison d'être. Assmann offers only limited
answers here.
31 For the general context, see J. Baines, "Restricted Knowledge, Hierarchy, and Decorum:
Modern Perceptions and Ancient Institutions", JARCE 27 (1990) 1-6. For Sethe and Kees, the
summaries of arguments in J. Vandier, La religion égyptienne (Mana: Introduction à l'Histoire
des Religions 1; 2nd ed., Paris 1949), sections entitled "état des questions", and A. H. Gardiner,
"Horus the Behdetite", JEA 30 (1944) 23-33, remain accessible routes into issues exemplified in
"political" readings of evidence for religion of early times. See also K. Sethe, Urgeschichte und
älteste Religion der Ägypter (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 18:4; Leipzig
1930); H. Kees, "Kultlegende und Urgeschichte", Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissen-
schaften zu Göttingen, phil.-hist. Klasse no. 3 (1930) 345-62. Among these writers, Kees's views
stand the test of time best in some ways, because he emphasized that interpretations of religious
phenomena should not automatically be sought in remote prehistory, effectively explaining the
known in terms of the unknown. But as I indicate at the end of this article, his approach was ulti-
mately reductive.
208 John Baines
nomenon positively32. Whil

censured unduly, since it ari
best light. It may nonetheless
tion of inappropriate categori
avoid it entirely. It is strikin
ceptions of deity from the N
ly congruent with that of Ja
the time when ideas became
reaction to the simplifying a
Both these methodologically
plex, in part seemingly goal-
remote supreme being who
the highest ancient achievem
longer-term development wh
been visible to the ancient
standing in ancient terms.
The congruence between th
some well-established Wester
of their approach. Bonnet als
ble comments on later times.
marized as asserting that in
generality of conceptions of
Bonnet said, the proliferation
tably in animal worship, did
from the religion of the cen
magical texts. Apart from th
Sethe's Amun und die acht
Bonnet evoked at the beginn
on the Roman period Isis te
Bonnet - shows that the tend
reach a peak in the treatmen
32 Prominent, for example, in wor

motheismus : Ägyptische Formen ein
geschichte (SHAW, phil.-hist. Klasse
See Moses the Egyptian : The Mem
and London 1997) passim, with refer
specifically.
34 See especially J. Assmann, "Primat und Transzendenz: Struktur und Genese der ägyp-
tischen Vorstellung eines 'Höchsten Wesens'", in Aspekte der spätägyptischen Religion , ed.
W. Westendorf (Göttinger Orientforschungen 4: Ägypten 9; 1979) 38-40.
35 His mastery of Late and Graeco-Roman Period material is evident in the Reallexikon.
36 Lessons from the Upper Egyptian Temple of el-Qal'a", in S. Quirke ed., The Egyptian
Temple: New Discoveries and Recent Research (London 1997) 171-6.
marginal place37. How such developments are interpreted is, however, an-
other matter.
While the vitality of the el-Qalřa treatment seems clear to some, oth-
ers will interpret it as showing a loss of specificity, and hence an atrophy-
ing of religion into scholasticism, in the century or two before its final de-
cline; at the other pole of the religious spectrum, such a reading could fit
with the general paucity of Roman period evidence for large-scale animal
cults38. Here Bonnet might better have evoked native Egyptian sources
rather than referring to Celsus as cited in Origen, since the latter' s testimo-
ny is inevitably indirect and is bound to have reflected Hellenistic at least
as much as native Egyptian views. The latter were still active in many
parts of the country in the early centuries ce and are to some extent acces-
sible to study. A detailed argument about late antiquity and - to take one
example - the persistence of the Buchis cult at Armant during this peri-
od39, is beyond the scope of Bonnet's treatment and still more of the pres-
ent comments. These issues are actively debated by such scholars as Roger
Bagnali and David Frankfurter40. At this point it is more relevant to return
to conceptions of deity themselves. Despite the sophistication of the argu-
ments of Bonnet and of other scholars, there is a difficulty in seeing a
fluid conception of deity as distinctively sustaining "higher" conceptions
of the sort that interest them most. A possible interpretation of the im-
plications of name combinations is that while they may allow fluidity, they
also focus attention on identities as encapsulated in names, whether these
are combined or not, and hence relate more strongly to the great im-
portance of the name in Egyptian thought than to the retention of an over-
arching conception of deity41. There may thus be a tension between the di-
lution of identity in favour of an overarching concept on the one hand, and
the focus on variable and specific identities on the other.
Here, a more economical interpretation, which is also likely to have
more cross-cultural validity, is that the classification of many beings as de-
ities (or as other kinds of supernatural beings) is what sustains an abstract
37 Some work on Graeco-Roman period temples tends more to reformulate the ancient data
than to offer coherent interpretations; see e.g. S. Cauville, Essai sur la théologie du temple ď Ho-
rus à Edfou (BdE 102; Cairo 1987).
38 See D. Kessler, "Tierkult", LA VI (1987) 571-88; id., Die heiligen Tiere und der König I:
Beiträge zu Organisation, Kult und Theologie der spätzeitlichen Tierfriedhöfe (ÄAT 16; Wies-
baden 1988). The book collects the material valuably, but I am not convinced by Kessler' s inter-
pretation that the evidence relates primarily to the cult of the king.
39 See J.-C. Grenier, "La stèle funéraire du dernier taureau Bouchis (Caire JE 31901 = Stele
Bucheum 20) Ermant - 4 novembre 340", BIFAO 83 (1983) 197-208.
40 Bagnali, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993); Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt :
Assimilation and Resistance (Princeton 1998).
41 See e.g. P. Vermis, "Name", Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV (1982) 320-26.
210 John Baines
conception. The only necessary

only one deity and that of deit
beings. That, however, is a weak
egories of supernatural beings,
the "supernatural" is by no me
God of monotheisms, which is
ities in polytheisms, may not a
may require other transformat
For the Egyptian case Erik Ho
bution by emphasizing the ratio
deities and by thinking through
the status of any one deity. At
of a viable interpretation that
sonal experience: Western scho
tive polytheism and do not app
ological detachment they ten
would suggest that the argume
of scholars with a less nuance
tied to an implicit monotheistic
tential to turn to one deity in
presence and character of one
completely obscured43. There i
posit an overarching or entirel
concept of deity itself supplies
Egyptian case includes notions
combinability. The question sti
practices of syncretism - to be
for other religious traditions -
ity of deities and/or the abstrac
inate over individual deities. M
as groupings of deities44 or the
country, is schematic and may
cretism. Such an observation
which of these aspects might h
nomena like the use of constan
content are not unique to Egyp
42 Conceptions of God.
43 1 develop this argument in the essay
44 See e.g. Kees, Götterglaube 148-71;
In one respect, Bonnet's focus on evaluation constitutes an indirect

approach to social issues: one can ask both what syncretism contributed to
the trajectory of Egyptian religious thought and how developments in reli-
gious thought related to their setting in society. Since the society was very
unequal and the vast majority of its members did not leave recoverable
evidence about their religious beliefs, we must concentrate on the elite.
The nearest we can get to mass religion is probably the large-scale animal
cults, and the evidence for these is very uninformative about the specific
beliefs of those who donated animal mummies and other offerings. A
scholar's evaluation is in part an attempt to replicate the development of
ideas among the religious elite, and is risky because we have no real ac-
cess to discussion in that forum, even to the extent that we do for the New
Kingdom through solar hymns and the Amarna episode45. The evaluative
approach contributes more to highlighting social division than to a compre-
hension of what kept Egyptian religion together. Nonetheless, the basic
insight of Bonnet, that the inherent flexibility of polytheism is further en-
hanced by beliefs relating to the fluidity of persons, including those mani-
fested in name combinations, will contribute to any interpretation of the re-
ligion's survival, to which a measure of flexibility was surely essential.
The social setting
In "On Understanding Syncretism" and in the Reallexikon, Bonnet's

principal interest was in religious thought and phenomenology rather than
in the sociology of religion, so that he explored the implications and inter-
nal consistency of syncretistic understandings more than their possible so-
cial or political background. Here he worked in a different direction from
Kurt Sethe and Hermann Kees who, despite their interest in religious
thought, tended to see religion as being driven to a great extent by politics.
Bonnet's singling out of Sethe's Amun und die acht Urgötter in his first
paragraph is significant here, because this was the latter' s principal work
that contributed strongly and enduringly to the interpretation of religious
thought rather than to other aspects.
Bonnet's article cites "the priests" once at the start of the section on
evaluation, but in an essentially intellectual spirit as the manipulators of
religious procedures. Those manipulations would presumably have been
performed for a public, but Bonnet left the nature of that public unstated.
The phenomena he discussed do, however, raise issues of social context
45 See n. 33.
212 John Baines
and purpose. The methodolog

ing his discussion of evaluati
ously", remains as fundamen
specifically cognitive ones.
evoked above hardly took thi
that the elite, who generated
tain a discourse that must ha
entire society.
There is only sparse and scattered evidence for personal religion that
would relate to this centrality of belief and commitment, and here Bonnet's
incorporation of and interest in the personal dimension is sociological as
well as cognitive and psychological. Without the personal dimension,
whether directly attested or posited hypothetically, the sociological is not
fully meaningful. Complex questions surround the elite's reticence in dis-
playing personal religious life publicly in all but a few periods, but it is
problematic to posit a belief in deities that is not anchored in personal ex-
perience as well as institutional forms, because it would have no clearly
identifiable social locus, especially in view of the esoteric character and
inaccessible location of much temple religion. Here, Bonnet's approach, al-
though not explicitly focused on social forms, is more apt than the argu-
ment that the dearth of evidence for personal religion relating to deities
constitutes evidence for a dearth of the phenomenon46.
Thus, the polarity that I have suggested is characteristic of Bonnet's
approach, between the higher reaches of religious thought and personal ex-
perience, can be seen as reflecting two ways of seeing religious issues.
Many aspects of religious thought can be common to all the actors in a so-
ciety, and his discussion of the ka is a good instance of such a case. His
evocation of "the priests", however, implies a specialized group character-
istic of the late New Kingdom and first millennium and appropriate for the
elaborate speculations of the Leiden Hymn to Amun or of many magical
texts. Those groups participated strongly in social and political affairs, but
were also institutionally and economically protected. Here, a hypothesis of
socially conditioned diversity fits well with the material. Evidence for ear-
lier periods is much sparser and those are the ones for which such writers
as Sethe and Kees put forward "political" models (similar "euhemeristic"
46 See e.g. J. Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom : Re, Amun and the
Crisis of Polytheism , trans. A. Alcock (London 1995) 1 n. 1, 190-91, with references. E. Blu-
menthal (to whom I am most grateful for showing me her essay in advance of publication) argues
that the Tale of Sinuhe attests such conceptions explicitly from the Middle Kingdom: "Sinuhes
persönliche Frömmigkeit", in I. Shirun-Grumach ed., Jerusalem Studies in Egyptology (ÄAT 40;
Wiesbaden 1998) 213-31.
readings of literary texts have also been common)47. Essentially, the politi-
cal reading reduces interpretation to a lowest common denominator be-
tween modern interpreter and ancient society. This is not to say that poli-
tics, social competition, and display do not play a part in religious change,
but that such change requires positive engagement on the part of those
who initiate it: if religion is reduced to the political, it ceases to have ex-
planatory power even for political affairs. Bonnet too used implicit models
that were partly political, notably in his brief evocation of early stages of
syncretism, but he assumed throughout that the religious matters involved
were serious issues of belief and not mere pretexts.
One should thus take as a point of departure that the combination of
names of deities which Bonnet discussed under the heading of syncretism
was a fully considered expression of belief and commitment. He analysed
syncretistic combinations subtly and persuasively as forming part of a pow-
erful and flexible religious discourse. His discussion under the heading of
evaluation, which is more problematic than the rest of his article in terms
of approach, is also full of insight and has the methodological advantage
of stating its premises explicitly.
Conclusion
Hans Bonnet's "On Understanding Syncretism" addresses issues that

are central to the study of polytheism and continue to be of vital interest.
A great deal of what he said in a very compact compass is as relevant now
as when it was published, and yet it has been largely neglected. The article
would be worth bringing back to the attention of scholars in ancient reli-
gions for the significance and quality of its argument alone. Moreover,
Bonnet more than some writers struck a judicious balance between actors'
and analysts' perspectives, while also presenting his argument in ways that
stimulate reflection on issues of the social setting of religion; these pre-
occupations of current research can derive illumination from his work. Be-
cause Bonnet's manner of writing is far from today's convention - in a
shift that reflects interestingly on the development of scholarship over two
generations - it may be a little difficult at first to engage with his ap-
proach. I hope that the present translation of his major article and the ac-
47 The "religious politics" of the Theban domain of the late New Kingdom and later are a
separate issue here; there too the material is best approached on the assumption that the actors
believed in what they were doing and were not indulging in pure power plays.
Orientalia - 24
214 John Baines
companying article by myself

thought and can point to som
opened up, as well as indicatin
recent research.
The Oriental Institute

Pusey Lane
Oxford 0X1 2LE (England)

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Egyptian Syncretism: Hans Bonnet's Contribution

Hans Bonnet's 1939 article "Zum Verständnis des Synkretismus"2 exert-

translating a journal article tha

6 (New York 1948). Bonnet is also not

"On Understanding Syncretism" remains of very great interest, for its

his article, however, are in hi

Bonnet's focus and premises

Bonnet took as his point of departure the problem of how to analyze

elsewhere, have on occasion

19 Compare the comment of J. P. A

ical interpretation is therefore that deities - gods more than goddess-

The strategy of eval

More than a third of Bonne

nomenon positively32. Whil

32 Prominent, for example, in wor

conception. The only necessary

In one respect, Bonnet's focus on evaluation constitutes an indirect

The social setting

In "On Understanding Syncretism" and in the Reallexikon, Bonnet's

and purpose. The methodolog

Hans Bonnet's "On Understanding Syncretism" addresses issues that

companying article by myself

The Oriental Institute

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Egyptian Syncretism Hans Bonnet's

Egyptian Syncretism Hans Bonnet's