Law of the Maat

The law of Maat

Maat was the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legalistic exposition of rules.

The doctrine of Maat is represented in the declarations to Rekhti-merti-f-ent-Maat and the 42 Negative Confessions listed in the Papyrus of Ani.

The following are taken from public domain translations made by E. A. Wallis Budge in the early part of the 20th century; more recent translations may differ.

42 Negative Confessions

Papyrus of Ani

1. I have not committed sin.
2. I have not committed robbery with violence.
3. I have not stolen.
4. I have not slain men and women.
5. I have not stolen grain.
6. I have not purloined offerings.
7. I have not stolen the property of the gods.
8. I have not uttered lies.
9. I have not carried away food.
10. I have not uttered curses.
11. I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men.
12. I have made none to weep.
13. I have not eaten the heart [i.e., I have not grieved uselessly, or felt remorse].
14. I have not attacked any man.
15. I am not a man of deceit.
16. I have not stolen cultivated land.
17. I have not been an eavesdropper.
18. I have slandered [no man].
19. I have not been angry without just cause.
20. I have not debauched the wife of any man.
21. I have not debauched the wife of [any] man. (repeats the previous affirmation but addressed to a different god).
22. I have not polluted myself.
23. I have terrorized none.
24. I have not transgressed [the Law].
25. I have not been wroth.
26. I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.
27. I have not blasphemed.
28. I am not a man of violence.
29. I am not a stirrer up of strife (or a disturber of the peace).
30. I have not acted (or judged) with undue haste.
31. I have not pried into matters.
32. I have not multiplied my words in speaking.
33. I have wronged none, I have done no evil.
34. I have not worked witchcraft against the King (or blasphemed against the King).
35. I have never stopped [the flow of] water.
36. I have never raised my voice (spoken arrogantly, or in anger).
37. I have not cursed (or blasphemed) God.
38. I have not acted with evil rage.
39. I have not stolen the bread of the gods.
40. I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead.
41. I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.
42. I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god.

The Ten and their difference

In the Decalogue parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer 1768. We see the Ten Commandments listed off in the Old Testament.

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What was the function, means and method of these statements on stone and how did they differ from the civil laws of Egyptian Maat at the time that Israel departed from the bondage of Egypt?

Originally the Maat written for the common man may have had a good intent. It is said that Egyptians believed their hearts would be weighed against the feather of Ma'at.

Under the corruption of the power of the corvee funded social welfare State of Egypt which had snared the people during the great famine and the degenerating effects of the free bread from the civil temples of Egypt the Maat and the people's relationship to it changed.

The Ten Commandments were unique in not only their number but in what they did and did not do.

In the Egyptian Book Of The Dead the role of Maat was to allow for the close relationship between law and religion. But the means and the method for implement them were as different as their Altars.

There was no Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite and New Babylonian law collections in ancient Egypt and they used common language defining their legal concepts in the Maat.

It was the purpose of law of Maat to achieve order, and justice through the seven principles of Truth, Justice, Harmony, Balance, Order, Propriety, and Reciprocity.

It was tied up with a religious world view and represented the rules regulating the behaviour of members of society.

The Maat was different than the Ten Commandments in that besides number 10 and 42 in the Maat the king upheld the law and maintained the maat in society as his duty. There was no king in Israel.

He was therefore expected to "rule by maat" and in order to attain maat on earth he had to make law.

The word for law and the plural form of that gyptian word was translated to include "regulations" and "statutes". It was essentially that the maat necessitated or was enforced by the king who was justified by their understanding there was a religious origin.

This allowed the king, the vizier or "prime minister" to have jurisdiction over crimes against the state. The king was the head of the judicial administration.

The "Instruction of the Vizier", Rekhmire (ca 1479-1425 BCE), read as:

"I judge both (the insignificant) and the influential. I rescue the weak man from the strong man; I deflected the fury of the evil man and subdued the greedy man in his hour ... I succoured the widow who has no husband; I established the son and heir on the seat of his father. I gave (bread to the hungry), water to the thirsty, and meat, oil and clothes to him who had nothing ... I was not at all deaf to the indigent. Indeed, I never took a bribe from anyone."

The purpose of this law in ancient Egypt was to link law and maat through Kingship as the effective power of the order by the king's authority over other. Neither Moses nor Jesus did that.

The king was seen as a source of law and therefore the ancient Egyptians regarded him as a god. His word therefore had the force of law and was the primary source of law where only he could literally be "putting maat in place of injustice" as the king's duty.

In the Ten Commandments God remained the source of law and it's Reciprocity, through the wrath of God. The people held the Proprietor rights or property.

Everyman was held responsible for attending to the !!weightier matters]] of law, which under the guidance of the precedence of Moses and a spirit of a Harmony lead conscience included "judgment, mercy, and faith" which provided , Balance and Order within society.

The Hammurabi codes which included a set of 282 laws written by Hammurabi, the king of Babylon circa 1792 BCE, that established a civil law under his courts and rule.

The Kemetian and Maat

They would undoubtedly be some of the Kem of North Africa that also followed the way of Maat.

In the beginning they might be called Kemet. According to Herodotos' Historia they would be black skin with wooly hair.

The earliest copies of what became the Maat for the Egyptians was entered in the Book of the Dead in a common language.

If the patterns of letters hold their primal meaning the first M A represents the flow of sacrifices of the people.

The ending of A T suggests they were freewill offerings.

The gods and goddesses of ancient cultures represent the characteristics, ideologies, or practices of the people in society.

The means and methods of the turtledove goddess of Sumer the provided a welfare system that brought the people together to form a cohesive society may have also changed over time leading to their own decay.

Freewill offerings must include a spirituality, a caring for others and not merely a selfish or physical reward.

We know that establishing a large organized society based on the principles of equality, mutual respect through love and virtue requires deeply held principles.

Those principles must be practiced in a way that nourishes the soul and trains the heart and mind.

Equal justice and mercy requires a judicial system inspired by the natural laws and virtuous people seeking to make their world and their neighbors world a heavenly place.

Once pride, sloth, sloth creep into the tents of society forms of legal charity become more attractive. Soon the people become accustomed to feeding on the benefits of an authoritarian civil government. Their appetite for the dainties of those former institutions of love and Altars of freewill sacrifices soon become an addiction to live on the [flesh] of others.

The care of the people for one another required for the maintenance of a free society will degenerate until only tyrants will rule and the people will go into bondage.

Ancient Kemetian cosmology from a modern view is often focused on the symbols but unmoor their meaning. These modern Kemetian use words like cosmology rather than the Logos or [[natural Law.

The practicality of tending to the weightier matters is not merely an abstract ideology.

Worship is service based on duty to God and your fellowman.

The righteous means and methods of the worshipper seeking the Kingdom of heaven was written about in biblical and keep other sacred scriptures.

It is as logical as the logos, analytical as Polybius and Plutarch, and as rational as the Law of Nature.

But if the modern Kemetian clings to the social welfare that is a snare through the covetous practices of the world they will continue to bite one another until they are devoured.

The Kemet were not and are not immune to such corruption then or now.