Maat
by High Priest Hooded Cobra 666

The knowledge presented contains information for those who want to understand the great Goddess of Truth known as Maat. Maat was understood by the Egyptians as one of the most integral deities. Along with heavenly Aphrodite who represents Athena in the highest and most holistic general sense, Maat was also known as an aspect of that Olympian Goddess and consequently was also an aspect of the Roman deity Minerva. She was also known as the embodiment of vengeance, Nemesis. Greek authors called the Egyptian deity Aletheia (Truth). In the Goetia, she was represented as the male demon Marax, also known as Morax or Foraii. Here are some of her names:

The Maat Ritual above acquaints the initiate with the great Goddess of Truth, the great one of the Weighing of the Heart.

MAAT

Maat is the Egyptian Goddess of order¹, law, harmony, balance, and truth. She was also one of the most pivotal deities of the Egyptian pantheon and had far-reaching symbolism, evoked in every high corner of the great civilization of the Nile. She was considered a divine representative of the legal system as a whole, yet also the dispositor of the seasons, the movements of the stars, and other aspects etched into nature itself. At the heart of Egyptian law was Maat, the multifaceted term encompassing justice, truth, order, and balance. Maat was not merely an ethical ideal but a divine principle that ensured the functioning of the universe. Pharaohs were said to "do Maat" and "live by Maat", offering shows of Maat also², and the Goddess of this name appears in temple reliefs, tomb inscriptions, and legal contexts as a living symbol of all endeavors that idea encompassed.

Maat in Egyptian Autobiographies and Related Studies, Miriam Lichtheim ³

[Maat] was the principle of right order by which the Gods lived, and which men recognized as needful on earth and incumbent upon them.

According to Egyptian cosmology, the Goddess Maat existed from the beginning of time, established by the Creator God (Atum, or most often Re) to ensure the universe functioned harmoniously. She represented the natural order that kept chaos (izfet) at bay.⁴ In the Heliopolitan Ennead creation myth, Maat was implicitly present as the principle that structured the world after the primordial chaos of Nun. Maat was closely linked to the Sun God Re, and she was often described as His daughter. She accompanied Re on His solar barque as it journeyed through the sky and underworld, protecting him from the chaos serpent Apophis during the First and Second Hours alongside Khepri.⁵ Her function as a guardian of all moral order was highlighted in this role, and Ramesside depictions often show the Solar God holding the feather of His daughter. The idea was evocative of cosmic order in a more abstract way. In Egyptian eyes, Maat controlled the mechanisms of seasonal change, the movement of the stars, and the conditions of the air. New Kingdom theology cast Maat as the ordering principle that accompanied the Sun⁶ and as the First Hour, hence her tiny but essential figure on the underworld boats.

Maat was one of the most visible Goddesses in public ceremonies and starts to appear visually during Thutmose III's reign⁷, although her textual presence as the Two Goddesses in court goes as far back as the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom.⁸ Her iconography became prominent in the era following the Pharaoh Horemheb² and reached a peak in renown during the Ramesside Pharaohs, when Egypt was recovering from the impious policies of Akhenaten where the eponymous concept seems to have been abused for repressive purposes. Her image remained adaptable throughout the progression of Egyptian civilization. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the scenes in which she is depicted often occur in royal contexts, such as the Temple of Seti I and the court of Thutmose I. New Kingdom iconography using her symbolism to reinforce order is blatant and clearly intentional, because the Ramesside Pharaohs even started to incorporate their names as concepts tied to Maat itself.² Ramesses III's extension of his Temple at Karnak showcases the Goddess in many front-facing scenes in the First Court. Furthermore, the tombs of Merneptah, Seti I, Tausret, Ramesses III, Ramesses IV, Ramesses VI, Ramesses VII, Ramesses IX, and Shoshenq III feature her iconography.⁹

A subtle aspect of Maat was the relative passivity and reverence of the Goddess in regard to the order she presided over. Although Maat was represented in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony, this was not represented as an aggressive role as a condemner for the most part, but as the embodiment of all eyes of the law rendering fair testimony. She was also often depicted linking the Gods or the Pharaoh with the recipient of a ritual.² In the Amduat and Book of Gates painted on royal tomb walls, a small standing or seated Maat rides at the prow or walks before Re's boat⁵, guaranteeing cosmic order even in the night voyage.

Seti I making Ma'at offering

Maat, along with Thoth and Seshat, was appointed as one of the head deities of scribes (sesh) in Egypt.¹⁰ In day-to-day matters, Egypt was governed by legalistic customs and scribes were pivotal. The minor aspects of law, beyond the capital law and the law of the Pharaoh, were not identical to modern legal systems. Disputes on a local level would be adjusted in arbitration based on the circumstances of the individuals involved. Higher courts, with central or capital law codes overseen by the Vizier, could be appealed to if the judgment of these minor arbitrations was not satisfactory to the plaintiff. The law was meticulously transcribed in Egyptian bureaucracy long before the scribes of China and the early modern societies of Europe began to do so. Thousands of legal documents survive, many from the village of Deir el-Medina, where workmen kept detailed contracts and trial records; the Wilbour Papyrus¹¹, which inventories land and tax obligations; the Abbott and Amherst Papyri, detailing tomb robbery investigations; alongside manifold marriage, divorce, and adoption documents from the Late Period and Ptolemaic era.

Scribes also ensured abuses of power did not occur and became important intermediaries between classes who had communication with the central courts of justice. In a sense, the scribe and the written word became the 'glue' between the different classes of Egypt. The equation of the Goddess of justice with the legal system was to such a degree that the highest secular judge of Egypt was the Vizier, named formally as the Priest of Maat. Judges would also be adorned with the ostrich feather. The judge of the High Court was the Pharaoh himself who also swore to uphold Maat but delegated the responsibility.¹² In his Library of History (Book I), Diodorus Siculus offered an elaborate description of Egyptian judicial practices as they existed in the Roman period. He wrote that before a court session began, the chief judge would put on a golden chain from which hung a small figure made of precious stone, called Truth. The trials would commence only once the judge donned this emblem of the Goddess, signifying that justice was only to be administered in the presence of Maat's power.

Chapter 75, Book 1, The Library of History, Diodorus Siculus¹²

ἐφόρει δ᾿ οὗτος περὶ τὸν τράχηλον ἐκ χρυσῆς ἁλύσεως ἠρτημένον ζῴδιον τῶν πολυτελῶν λίθων, ὃ προσηγόρευον Ἀλήθειαν. τῶν δ᾿ ἀμφισβητήσεων ἤρχοντο ἐπειδὰν τὴν τῆς Ἀληθείας εἰκόνα ὁ ἀρχιδικαστὴς πρόσθοιτο. τῶν δὲ πάντων νόμων ἐν βιβλίοις ὀκτὼ γεγραμμένων…

ἀμφοτέρων δὲ τῶν ἀντιδίκων τὰ γεγραμμένα δὶς τοῖς δικασταῖς δόντων, τὸ τηνικαῦτ᾿ ἔδει τοὺς μὲν τριάκοντα τὰς γνώμας ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἀποφαίνεσθαι, τὸν ἀρχιδικαστὴν δὲ τὸ ζῴδιον τῆς Ἀληθείας προστίθεσθαι τῇ ἑτέρᾳ τῶν ἀμφισβητήσεων.

The [chief justice] regularly wore suspended from his neck by a golden chain a small image made of precious stones, which they called Truth (Ma'at); the hearings of the pleas commenced whenever the chief justice put on the image of Truth. The entire body of the laws was written down in eight volumes which lay before the judges…

And when both litigants had given written statements to the judges in duplicate, it was then required that the Thirty declare their opinions among themselves, and that the chief judge add the image of Truth to one of the two sides of the dispute.

The primary temple of Maat was located in Karnak, with one of the primary temples dedicated to her by Amenhotep III at the Precinct of Montu.¹³ There is textual but relatively unsupported archeological evidence that other temples to her existed at Memphis and Deir el-Medina, the latter housing one shared with her by Hathor. Rutherford indicates it is known the Pharaoh Ramessses IX congregated the nobility in the complex at Karnak to discuss the seriousness of grave robberies, which indicates that Maat's sacred presincts were used for convocations about serious issues and crimes. Another temple complex that prominently features Maat is where she is shown with endless scenes evoking the eponymous concept at Dendera, and this is where she is engaged in a complex thematic interplay with Hathor.¹⁴ She is also represented highly thematically in the Temple of Khnum at Esna where her sacred concepts are invoked strongly. Like many Egyptian Gods who became increasingly prevalent during the New Kingdom, the evidence at these temples shows the worship of Maat benefited from Ptolemaic and Roman patronage.²

Symbolism

Maat is typically depicted as an idealized young woman wearing a single ostrich feather affixed to a headband.¹⁵ Tomb portrayals show her with the feather in hand when acting as an emissary of justice. Other Goddesses such as Isis or Nephthys could also be depicted holding the feather. One of the major symbolisms of the feather concerns astral projection and the levity of the Middle Chakra, along with the lightness of the soul after departing the physical body. The Goddess is one of the major rulers of this part of the soul; its powers are barely understood.

Hieroglyphica, Horapollo¹⁶

The feather is evocative of the lightness and grace of Truth. As it is so light, it can be pushed anywhere and everywhere. It also points towards the pelican feather of Thoth. Knowledge is one of the many arms of Truth. Both Maat and Shu were symbolized by the feather alone, and the name for it in Egyptian was shut. The man rendering justice to all was represented by the ostrich feather; because that bird, unlike others, has all its feathers equal.

Much like in the English language, where a curious convergence of the word for "light" emerged in both weight and the property of light, the two ideas also shared an overlapping symbolism in Egyptian mystery. Maat was seen as a Goddess of the prism of light who representatively dispelled all darkness and ignorance.

Ostrich Egg and its Symbolic Meaning in the Ancient Egyptian Monastery Churches, Dr. Sara El Sayed Kitat¹⁷

Being a symbol of resurrection, ostrich eggs were discovered in ancient Egyptian and Nubian tombs as a kind of funerary offering. It was believed that ostrich eggshells provided food for the deceased and thus symbolized resurrection and eternal life—a belief that continued to be found in Muslims' graves.

Often, she is portrayed with two wings, in a similar manner to Isis. Scenes of the Pharaoh offering a small statuette of Maat to other Gods are extremely common, proliferating in sacral imagery up until the end of the Roman period.² This type of symbolism was suggestive of the ruler of Egypt demonstrating that he kept Truth and the maintenance of the Laws alive in his realm. Maat is often equated with Tefnut in aspect, who represents the creative principle in the fashioning of the world. She is depicted in this guise as the brother of Shu, a God closely related to Maat and Anubis. She is symbolically rendered as the wife of Thoth, although this is not true of the Goddess herself.

Maat as Concept

Maat as a concept was considered the mover of Egyptian civilization, and the reason for civilization to exist in the Egyptian texts was to promote a continually refined and evolving world of Maat that would propel individuals towards the Divine, compared with the brutality of lower nature and the primitive sections of humanity who allow for far less of such a thing.¹⁸ Accordingly, the mechanism of Maat embodied increasing alignment with the Gods for those chosen to do so.

The Weighing of the Heart ceremony was the centerpiece of Maat's role in Egyptian understanding. In the Ritual, the heart (ib) of the individual being judged was placed on one pan of a scale, with the feather of Maat occupying the other. Osiris was typically depicted as the ultimate arbiter of the process. Typical Gods involved in assessing the process were Maat herself, Anubis, and Thoth, but also Seshat, Meshqenet, and others. If the heart was heavier than the feather, it was thrown to the devouring beast Ammit. Maat was often represented in a dual role, and the chamber of the Heart Weighing was often called "the Chamber of the Two Goddesses." The reasons for this become more obvious when examining how Maat was viewed in Hellenic civilization. She was also accompanied by 42 Judges and lesser deities.¹⁹

One aspect of Maat as the feather and the law exemplified the lightness of an unadulterated soul versus the dirt, sins, and moral transgressions of a less favorable individual. The heaviness of the heart was bound up in testimony of certain truths relating to these areas of life, which the Gods could always hear. The dual pathway of the ceremony was similar to Greek mores of the afterlife, like Tartarus and the Elysian Fields. Abominable acts, unfathomable ignorance, self-rotting excesses, and evil-mindedness could make the heart heavy beyond redemption. A pathway of pure destruction without utilizing the principle of creation was the easiest method to end up in the maw of Ammit. In this is reflected Maat's close association with Isis, particularly the virtue of Balance. Egyptian texts and instructional manuals associated with the Goddess repeatedly warn from the earliest point against using fear and excessive violence to control other believers.²⁰ This is explicitly cited as an abuse of Maat, which will render those put under such a regimen as ignorant, only believing out of fear and not out of true will. The spread of fear and ignorance without due cause was another major transgression against Maat.

In an occult sense, on the Zevist path with enough spiritual cleansing, the initiate's soul becomes more and more light. Energy begins to hit the Crown when the Chakras are opened, and it flows unobstructed. The feeling of being pinned, tied, and weighed down dissipates altogether, and total ease of operating magic becomes attainable. The feeling of lightness is symbolic of being able to traverse everything with ease, and it can be considered the opposite of being bound to brute materialism, hence the divine symbolism:

The Tarot and Spiritual Transformation, High Priestess Maxine Dietrich²¹

One who has mastered and transformed his/her soul will be, at will, as light as a feather.

However, one aspect of Maat that is poorly understood is a specific set of meanings relating to self-progression and apotheosis (making oneself a God). These meanings have been marred, as many Egyptologists cross-referenced the Weighing of the Heart with passages referencing similar symbolism in the Bible—distorted there to have a distinctly vulgar and lowbrow meaning. Maat is also equated with the butchered and blinkered understanding of karma from modern Hinduism, Buddhism, and the New Age movements.

The heart was not just indicative of its weight in relation to sins, but of the integrity of the organ in expressing proper selfhood and keeping the soul alive enough to desire proper incarnation. In modern culture, such a concept can be conveyed succinctly in stock phrases such as "following one's heart." An individual whose whims are completely controlled by others, whose entire journey through life consists of cowardice in the face of malignancy, and who furthermore imperils the course of law altogether by doing nothing, could also be deemed an individual mired in izfet and apt to be devoured by Ammit—irrespective of how we may view this now.

Instructive texts associated with the Goddess, such as The Eloquent Peasant²², demonstrated the correct way to act and not to allow insult or injustice to go unnoticed. Proper redress was seen as an important individual initiative.A totally passive individual could be compared to a microcosm of a civilization that has gone seriously wrong and has become lawless by not using the arms of nature to protect what is valuable. Each person had a duty to uphold Maat, not only by attempting to refrain from doing injustice, but also by not submitting to it without challenge. >Here is a very important distinction to make between Egyptian religion and the endless martyrology of Christianity and other slave faiths.

Christianity preaches endless passivity and damnation. The botched and the natural losers in life always made for the perfect Christian; the foremost representatives of our contemporary civilizations also compulsively preach self-appointed victimhood as the highest ideal, while the use of justice to protect the truly innocent is "nailed to the wall," creating a situation in which genuine grievances can be mixed up with resentment and pettiness to the point that many people are pulled apart by opposing forces. Chaos has resulted in defiance of Maat.

Instruction of Pharaoh Amenemhat I²³

When you lie down, guard your own heart, for no man has adherents on the day of woe.

Insinger Papyrus, from Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context, Miriam Lichtheim²⁴

Do not let yourself be called ‘idiot’ because of silence when it is time to speak.

There is one who lives on little so as to save, yet he becomes poor.

Yet this did not refer only to this sort of individual, but even to those who lived charmed and pleasant lives full of distractions - such as a llfe lived harming no one else, yet doing nothing for the Gods, nor for themselves in terms of spiritual evolution, leading to stagnation of the soul. Even a pleasurable, happy life constituted a sort of erroneous existence if not subjected to philosophical and practical testing of life’s margins. Most importantly, beyond the deluded and evil individuals of the enemy, this also applies to the deviated ascetics of Hinduism, Taoism, and other religions that teach disengagement with life, pursuing only total adherence to slave-like spirituality with no mover to spur on development. The Gods themselves have smacked down the very few who managed to reach advanced levels while preaching total hatred of life. Egypt emphatically did not take the life-hating approach to spiritual development; the Black Land was a civilization of life to be lived in all its facets.

In this is also a code relating to the Middle Chakra, plus the two signs of Venus and associated mundane Houses, particularly the 7th House. To allow just “anyone” in is to have the heart wrung by dozens of grasping and lustful hands; yet to allow nobody in is to fill the heart with regret and leave it to rot. Both hearts if beset with excess and deprivation could be devoured by Ammit or thrown to the Lake of the Fire.

Insinger Papyrus, from Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context, M. Lichtheim²⁴

The great God named Thoth has set a balance in order to make right measure on Earth by it.

He placed the heart hidden in the flesh for the right measure of its owner.

If a wise man is not balanced, his wisdom does not avail.

One does not discover the heart of a wise man if one has not tested him in a matter.

If one does not do right by themselves, one's heart has not been rendered light. How could it be light when the one with such a heart is a free-falling and heavy anvil through life? The truth is that making the heart fly involves the hard labor of activating aspects of the developing self, developing a true sense of true personhood. There are no easy shortcuts for such a process. Part of this emphasis on self-development to uphold the principle of Truth is why Maat has the ruling planet of Mars which may seem unusual to those familiar with Astrology. The Gods directed me to passages of Thus Spake Zarathustra on this subject:

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche²⁵

Creating—that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's alleviation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, and much transformation.

Yes, much bitter dying must there be in your life, you creators! Thus are you advocates and justifiers of all perishableness.

For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure the pangs of the child-bearer.

In the above quote is also the code for Maat’s symbolism of the Three of Cups, a card which she shares with the litigant of the Heart Weighing, Anubis.

The card depicts three enrobed women lifting three cups to the sky in celebration, surrounded by abundant plants. This card typically conveys conclusions involving friendships, associations, and celebrations that can push an individual to the next level of their development. It tells individuals to be mindful of such festivities and not to allow themselves to be overwhelmed, but also not to turn away from them. In the Three of Cups' visual symbolism from the Rider-Waite deck is an occult code for the three granthis, or knots of the soul, flowing unobstructed to allow the flowing of energy through the Chakras—an area of Maat’s powers that are touched upon above. This is one of the reasons the card was also known as "Relief" (Soumisement) from Etteilla’s day.

It is not shocking that Maat’s symbolic Major Arcana card is upright Justice. The scales and the sword are held by an enrobed, crowned woman sitting on a throne between two pillars. The blood-red color of her robes and the curtain between the pillars are representative of the ruling planet of Maat. Her gaze is total and serene. The upright Justice card shows that all actions have consequences, and if wrongness has been perpetrated, either you or someone else who has done you wrong will be held to account. In a more nondescript way, it is typically concerned with a matter where speaking the truth is a necessity or where the truth is revealed. The Justice card sometimes indicates that the fairest decision will be made.

Justice can also appear in a general fashion to the querent to describe certain activations and challenges of their life mission. The scales and the sword indicate that you could be in a process of assessment or testing to reach the next level. It can also signify being made to choose between two pressing matters that could have consequences regardless of your intent. Sometimes, Justice can simply appear to remind the querent not to be overly demanding if they have done little to warrant it.

Athena

In Hellenic myth, Maat also forms part of the powers of Athena and enacts many of the powers behind the great Olympian relating to truth in order, a role she shares with the highest Aphrodite whose functions are Athena's higher levels. The name of Athena means 'truth' and much like Maat, the concept was taken rather literally, particularly in forming the civic identity of the Athenian people in their various government and legal systems. Her presence in Greek life on the lower levels, such as in various marble fragments and stelai found across the Hellenistic world, show her crowning the honorand of a great work, institution and contest in a way that was visible and permanent to the Greeks and Romans.²⁶ This was part of the symbolic language of truth; in this role, Maat is also a patroness of history, the valid recording of data for future generations to witness.

²⁶

Aspects of Athena's mythology mirror the role of the Egyptian deity clearly. An example is the trial of Orestes before the Areopagus, most notably shown in the play Eumenides by Aeschylus²⁷, where Athena founds a court for homicide after Orestes after a spate of madness is questioned for the homicide of his mother, Clymenestra, and hounded by the Erinyes. She summons citizen-jurors and oversees the legal procedure in clinical detail, voting herself for Orestes' acquittal and the presiding jury come to a tie, leading to the system she established acquitting him. After this, Orestes founds an altar to Athena Areia and the furious Erinyes become the Eumenides, supportive deities of counsel. The Semnai Theai (Eumenides-Erinyes) were associated with the Areopagus and the Athenian state. In the plays of Euripides, Athena is represented as a polis-minded Goddess whose commitment to maintenance of the divine order is shown in her actions. She averts sacrilege, creates elements of legitimacy and attempts to convert all strains of chaos into an enforceable civic order, such as when she appears in the Ion²⁸ to confirm the story of Creusa and to absolve Apollo, leading to the founding of the Ionian people and the Athenian state. These representations of Athena deal with the abstract concept of truth in civilization.

Certain sacred presincts dedicated to Athena also showed evidence of her association with passed heroes in the realm of the dead, such as the precinct of her old temple, later located in the Erechtheum of Erechtheus.²⁹ Here, her statue of Athena Polia was rather rustic, being made out of olive wood as a xoanon, and the cult of the very ancient temple was notoriously simple and tied to vegetation as a matter of growth in comparison to the grand structures of Athena Parthenos. Nonetheless, the shrine and everything in it was considered one of the holiest of Athens, and the bucolic image of Athena Polia bestowed Athens with its protection. During the Plynteria when the temple was left without the sacred image due to it being carried to the sea, Athenian workers refused to do anything.³⁰

Minerva

In Rome, Minerva, one of the major Goddesses of Rome since the beginning represented in the all-important Capitoline Triad, had more elements of being representative of the machinery behind the state than her polis-representing counterpart in Greece. She was tied to the maintenance of the imperial order in a subtle way and less to the polis, a convention that is shown during the reigns of the emperors Domitian and Nerva who more directly represented Minerva as a guarantor of stately order, a role typically occupied by Jupiter and Mars. Whether this shows an Egyptian influence or is a product of Maat's own unique progression of identity within the Roman sphere is unknown. In literary contexts, according to the enemy writer Augustine, Marcus Terentius Varro considered her to be the plan of the universe.³¹

While Minerva was associated in mainland Europe and the other parts of the empire with craftsmen, various artifacts from Roman Britain in particular are taken by historians to be dedications to her from the scribes of that island; an example is the completion of a vow inscribed on rocks from Roman Britain ³², another from a military clerk (librarius) called Titus Tertinius.³³ These examples are indicative of a kind of cult of scribes, particularly in military contexts, perhaps relating to an identity of Minerva locally or among the soldiers posted to remotest parts of the empire.

Nemesis

The strongest identification of Maat is in Nemesis, the punishing and chthonic aspect of violating Maat. The reference to the Dual Goddess in many Greek and Roman contexts is a direct relation to Egyptian themes; it is constantly impressed that Nemesis is part of a duo, and sometimes she is referred to in the plural as Nemeseis. Historians have long struggled³⁴ to understand which other Goddess is being referenced, leading them to ask: "which Nemesis is the other?" To answer this question, historians have equated her twin with particular Goddesses in areas of symbolic overlap and proximity. The truth is that this is a dualistic role of occult meaning relating back to Athena, yet the visual allusion of the dyad also draws on the relationship of Nemesis (Maat) to Aphrodite and Hera, whose punishing powers of the Nemesis overlap with hers. To some extent, historians are correct to equate the dyad with the other symbolic deity Themis, since they shared a temple, and her association with Tyche and Dike is notable. One of the two forms of Maat within the Chamber of the Heart does represent, to some extent, a darker aspect of destruction in pursuit of the law. What Nemesis dealt with in a Greek context was also retribution, indignation and restorative justice. Her punishments could be terrifying; the attempt of Ixion to violate Hera was repaid by him being placed upon the perpetually burning, turning wheel. She could bring the most evil of individuals to Tartarus with haste.³⁶ The Rhamnousian deme of Athens was known to be of her lineage, while particular oral traditions among them named her as the mother of Helen, contributing symbolically to the events of the Iliad. Nemesis is often simply called Rhamnousia.³⁵

Nemesis is not purely a punishing deity.³⁵ Many of the references to her in Greek plays and literature revolve around the idea of preventing hubris, suppressing excessive pride and the desire to do criminal acts, but in these references comes an awareness of her contribution to fulfiling and maintaining the cosmic order. She is invoked in conversation generally not to throw vengeance on random individuals or to wish to consign them to Hell as Christianity and Islam impart so lovingly with their angels, but to convey a spirit of deliberation and thought intertwined with the power of pure reason, lest the potential offender fall victim to their own particular karma (for more on this, view this sermon of High Priest Hooded Cobra³⁷), and above all to encourage self-awareness, because her punishment is actually often blatantly in the present and simply beyond the awareness of a limited human mind experiencing it, not always in the future. Nemesisean symbolism did not just relate to direct acts of hubris warranting prompt punishment, but the punishment reflected in states of decay and unawareness lasting decades or lifetimes, which is part of why she was represented with a wheel symbolic of the ultimate need to escape karma through advancement. Nonetheless, the contrast of her friendlier functions towards holy people and the masses outside the temple were marked, just like Ares:

Orphic Hymn 61³⁸

Nemesis, I call on you, goddess, greatest queen, all-seeing, who look upon the life of mortals’many races. Eternal, all-holy, alone rejoicing in the righteous, you change your much-varying ever-shifting word, you whom all mortals fear, placing your yoke upon their necks. For you care about all men’s thoughts, nor does the soul which is over-proud in words (ψυχὴ ὑπερϕρονέουσα λόγων), without discretion, escape you. You see all and hear all, and all do you arbitrate. In you reside the judgements (δίκαι) of mortals, highest deity. Come, blessed one, pure one, always helpful to initiates. Grant them to have good understanding, putting an end to hateful, unhallowed, altogether arrogant and fickle thoughts (πανεχθεῖς γνώμας οὐχ ὁσιας, πανυπέρϕρονας, ἀλλοπροσάλλας).

AP, 12.193, Epigram, Strato of Sardis³⁹

You don’t take any notice of what the Nemeseis of Smyrna tell you, Artemidoros: “Nothing beyond measure.” But, always playing a part, you talk so arrogantly and savagely and as is not even becoming in a comic actor. You will remember this, haughty boy; you too will love and play the part of the “Locked-Out Lady”.

Nemesis with Tyche

Her temple complexes were called Nemeseaions, and they were erected and restored for particular reasons. A famous cult in the Hellenistic world existed to her at Smyrna. It is known Alexander erected several during his conquests, and her temple at Alexandria was dated prior to the Roman conquest, as a papyrus from Memphis attests.³⁴ One example of how her worship could be restructured in response to shifting circumstances was in Alexandria after the chaos of a Hebrew revolt in the city with endless bloodshed during the Kitos War, after which the emperor Trajan rebuilt the complex rather pointedly to proclaim victory over the rebels.³⁴ Another convention originating in Hellenistic Egypt, but becoming a more prevalent imagery during the during the Trajanic age, is the image of Nemesis trampling a prone figure, likely relating to crushing of that kind of anti-theist inquity.

In Rome, a state inclined to war, Nemesis came to be associated with the Roman machinery of state on a bellicose footing. Thanks to Julius Caesar at least nominally making her his patron deity to allegorically insist that Pompey had started the civil war rupturing the Republic, the Roman emperors had a temenos of Nemesis referenced on coins. Pliny the Elder mentions that a statue of Nemesis existed on the foundational Capitoline Hill.⁴⁰ A massive amount of cameos and coins featuring her proliferated during the Late Republic and early imperial period.³⁴ Nemesis was considered a patroness of theaters and other grounds of entertainment in a Roman context. She increasingly became associated with the funerary games and the gladiatorial games with the expansion of the Roman state, likely in regard to contests held between those who betrayed Rome³⁴, but this was an aspect that was treated with some ambivalence and horror from Greeks, not being found in their own traditions of the agon (although the only inscription from a Priest of Nemesis in a theatrical and arena context does exist in Roman-period Athens, a place where gladiatorial and bloody combat was seemingly totally banned, which is rather telling). In this context, Nemesis was associated with training of the body and soul, but this contention in the arena often took on vulgar and impious associations that the High Priest of Apollo Plutarch unilaterally condemned.⁴¹

Nemesis is depicted in statuary as an austere diadem-wearing woman of equilibrium with a measuring rod, bridle or outstretched palm, which are subtle symbols of her intent to measure humanity's commitment to divine laws. The bridle was said to be a yoke put on humanity until they advanced. She is also frequently depicted near a wheel emblazoned with a gryphon, a continual theme in her recovered symbolic language, relating often to correctives in erotic discipline.⁴²³⁴ She is not represented as a warrior like Athena or Dike; her posture and set of symbols are subtle ones like those of Maat. In vases, she is often represented with Tyche (Fate) as a duo. On coinage from the Classical period onwards but intensifying with the Roman imperial period, she is shown with wings, a measuring rod and a branch. The gryphon with the wheel often serves as her shorthand, and sometimes she is shown in a dualistic manner with the Goddess of Peace, Pax. The coin of Geta⁴³ shows her link to Maat as she wields a pair of scales.

Gryphon coin, Marcus Aurelius era

Coin of Philip II of Rome

Nemesis with wand and serpent

Enemy context and Goetia

It is also known that the interloper Akhenaten distorted the concept of Maat to punish his enemies² and to formulate a slave ideology. This is why Horemheb and his successors doled out extreme penalties for distortion of the concept, and the cult of Maat as something accountable and truthful took hold in Egypt.

Numerous Hebrew conventions existed to rip off the idea of the scales from an early point, such as the Midrash literature like the Kohelet Rabbah. Jewish literature links the judgment of Maat with Rosh haShanah. The Zohar describes the “Chamber of Merit,” guarded by angels charged with “the scales of justice,” with merits pulling to the right pan, sinners to the left, and presided over by ‘Mozniya’—a badly-formulated energetic thieving. The chief of the Hebrew scales also has two lights in emulation of Maat.³⁴ This passage indirectly also mentions the presence of Re, Thoth, and Maat on the “evil side,” who “seduce the world” and judge those who “come to be defiled.” Such mechanisms attempt to prevent the Hebrew religionists from being judged in the same way as the “filth” of the earth—the non-Hebrew peoples called the 'sitra archa'.⁴⁴ Then with the advent of Christianity, explicit references to Maat by name virtually disappear from surviving texts, as direct worship of the Goddess ended. Later with the emergence of early Christianity, an intriguing number of Coptic writings adapt or echo themes that were prominent in Maat’s cult, especially concerning the afterlife judgment, which also parallels the emerging concept in rabbinical literature.

One of the most illustrative is the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul (part of the Nag Hammadi library, 4th century CE)⁴⁵, where the apostle Paul experiences a visionary ascent and, at one stage, encounters a weighing of souls. In this text, souls of the dead are weighed on scales by a divine figure to determine their righteousness—a clear parallel to the ancient “weighing of the heart” before Maat, placed in a Christian Gnostic framework. Another example is found in a later Coptic saint’s legend, The Story of Butrus the Ascetic, preserved in an Arabic-Coptic synaxarium (medieval era). In this story, the miserly Butrus has a dream of his personal judgment, resembling the Hebrew fear of “the other side”:

The Story of Butrus the Ascetic, Jacobite Arab Synaxarium⁴⁶

Butrus saw a pair of scales set up, and a throng of ugly black beings carrying his sins and injustices to put in the left pan of the scales, and a host of shining angels placing any good deeds in the right pan.

In Islam, the primary term for the “scales” used to weigh human deeds on the Day of Resurrection is al-Mizan, which was blatantly ripped off from Egyptian religion and not even veiled, unlike in Judaism or Christianity. This is explicitly mentioned several times in the Ǫur’an:

Ǫur’an 21:47

وَنَضَعُ ٱلْمَوَازِينَ ٱلْقِسْطَ لِيَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ فَلَا تُظْلَمُ نَفْسٌ شَيْـًٔا ۖ وَإِن كَانَ مِثْقَالَ حَبَّةٍۢ مِّنْ خَرْدَلٍ أَتَيْنَا بِهَا ۗ وَكَفَىٰ بِنَا حَٰسِبِينَ

We will set up scales of justice for the Day of Resurrection, so that no soul will be dealt with unjustly in the least. And if there should be even the weight of a mustard seed, We shall bring it forth. We take excellent account.

Ǫur’an 55:7–9

وَٱلسَّمَآءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ ٱلْمِيزَانَ أَلَّا تَطْغَوْا۟ فِى ٱلْمِيزَانِ ﴿٨﴾ وَأَقِيمُوا۟ ٱلْوَزْنَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ وَلَا تُخْسِرُوا۟ ٱلْمِيزَانَ

And the heaven he raised, and he set the balance (al-mizan), that you may not transgress within the balance. And establish weight in justice, and do not defraud the balance.

Muslim commentators were also strongly aware of Maat among the pagan Goddesses. They wrote:

al-Khitat, Al-Maqrizi⁴⁷

They (the ancient judges of Egypt) used to wear, hung around their necks, a small golden figure of a woman holding a pair of scales and a feather, so that all who saw her would know that she weighed their deeds in Truth.

The 9th-century historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam, in his Conquest of Egypt, recounts a possibly apocryphal tale: when the Caliph Umar was given the Pharaoh’s treasure, among it was found an idol or engraving of a woman with a sword in one hand and scales in the other, which Umar’s advisors interpreted as a representation of Justice.

Boethius, a late Roman author and Christian apologist, wrote a work named The Consolation,⁴⁸ which drew on certain themes explaining the nature of order and attempted to hybridize Platonic themes with the Catholic Church that he served. This work represented an imaginary dialogue where Philosophy, personified as a woman (known as Lady Wisdom), argues that despite the apparent inequality of the world, there is a higher power and everything else is secondary to that divine Providence.

Consolation of Boethius, 15th century school

It was typical to represent Lady Wisdom in medieval stylistic conventions as possessing two feathers or wings, taken from the stories of Boethius. Unfortunately, the popularity of this work triggered many of the major attempts by Christianity to co-opt Hellenic virtue and wisdom. Through enemy demonology in medieval Europe, meanwhile, Maat was recast as the demon named Morax, alternatively named Foraii or Marax, appearing to the conjurer as a bull who occasionally takes on the face of a man when giving advice to the wise:

Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Johann Weyer⁴⁹

Morax, alias Foraii, a great earle and a president, he is seene like a bull, and if he take unto him a man’s face, he maketh men wonderfull cunning in astronomie, in all the liberall sciences: he giveth good familiars and wise, knowing the power and vertue of hearbs and stones which are pretious, and ruleth thirtie six legions.

Liberal sciences also represent a sort of code relating to Maat’s functions. Firstly, all liberal arts represent a desire for universal understanding predicated on the universal order. In medieval Europe, study of such matters signified the status of a free man who was expected to understand the virtues and codes of the society he lived in—hence the term liberalis, meaning “expected of a free man." Seven liberal arts—music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, grammar, and logic—existed, reflecting the primacy of the number seven as the vehicle of karma and its central tie to Maat herself. These arts, particularly the trivium of scribes, were central to the study of law. While Maat remained demonized in grimoires or referenced blithely as the “Lady Wisdom” in medieval conventions, such arts were accredited to belong to the so-called "virgin Mary":

Mariale in Evangelium, Albert of Cologne⁵⁰

It is written, “Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars” (Proverbs 9:1). This house is the Blessed Virgin; the seven pillars are the seven liberal arts.

The code of knowing astronomy by itself relates to the seasonal properties of Maat. The divine Sigil of Maat is shown here: