The Egyptian God Seth as a Trickster

Abstract

In Radin, Jung and Kerenyi's well-known book about Trickster, reference is made a study on divine deceiver by Dutch scholar Kristensen. In this study Kristensen treats especially Babylonian god Ea and Greek god Hermes. In passing, he also calls Egyptian god Seth a divine deceiver. Therefore, it might be thought that I am now elaborating certain suggestions Kristensen published in Dutch in 1928 and earlier. This is not so, however, since strictly speaking trickster and divine deceiver are not altogether identical. The divine deceiver as described by Kristensen is an inscrutable deity, whose words and actions are so ambiguous that man cannot help misunderstanding him. The trickster, indeed, is not a devil either. Yet he is not an innocent joker. He does not simply raise a laugh absurd things he does are killingly funny. The trickster takes no account of order or meaning. As Kerenyi says, he is the enemy of boundaries and the of disorder' Now I cannot enter into a phenomenology of trickster here. Obviously, of a spirit of disorder can only show up against an established background of order. As we know, manifold religious and cultural systems of mankind do not always give same reply as what constitutes order of existence. For Egypt, we might consider key word be maat, ethical and cosmic order. It is notable that Egyptian word khenenu, signifying opposite of maat that is confusion, is determined in hieroglyphic writing with animal of god Seth. In Seth, God of Confusion, I have listed 24 words that are determined with Seth-animal. They all refer negative aspects of reality in cosmic, social or personal life such as storm, tumult, illness, things that do not accord with maat. In quite a recent publication, G. Posener, Revue d'Egyptologie 18 (1966) 54 I found that also a word meaning to deceive may be determined with Seth-animal.