Chapter 5 (part 1)

THE LEGEND OF OSIRIS. The main features of the Egyptian religion constant. The chief features of the Egyptian religion remained unchanged from the Vth and VIth dynasties down to the period when the Egyptians embraced Christianity, after the preaching of St. Mark the Apostle in Alexandria, A.D. 69, so firmly had the early beliefs taken possession of the Egyptian mind; and the Christians in Egypt, or Copts as they are commonly called, the racial descendants of the ancient Egyptians, seem never to have succeeded in divesting themselves of the superstitious and weird mythological conceptions which they inherited from their heathen ancestors. It is not necessary here to repeat the proofs, of this fact which M. Amélineau has brought together, or to adduce evidence from the lives of the saints, martyrs and ascetics; but it is of interest to note in passing that the translators of the New Testament into Coptic rendered the Greek {Greek a!'dhs } by ###, amenti , the name which the ancient Egyptians gave to the abode of man after death, and that the Copts peopled it with beings whose prototypes are found on the ancient monuments. Persistence of the legend of Osiris and the belief in the resurrection. The chief gods mentioned in the pyramid texts are identical with those whose names are given on tomb, coffin and papyrus in the latest dynasties; and if the names of the great cosmic gods, such as Ptah and Khnemu, are of rare occurrence, it should be remembered that the gods of the dead must naturally occupy the chief place in this literature which concerns the dead. Furthermore, we find that the doctrine of eternal life and of the resurrection of a glorified or transformed body, based upon the ancient story of the resurrection of Osiris after a cruel death and horrible mutilation, inflicted by the powers of evil, was the same in all periods, and that the legends of the most ancient times were accepted without material alteration or addition in the texts of the later dynasties. [1. Le Christianisme chez les anciens Coptes , in Revue des Religions , t, xiv., Paris, 1886, PP, 308-45 2. I.e., ###. 3. See St. Matthew xi., 23; Acts ii., 27, etc.] Plutarch's version of the legend. The story of Osiris is nowhere found in a connected form in Egyptian literature, but everywhere, and in texts of all periods, the life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Osiris are accepted as facts universally admitted. Greek writers have preserved in their works traditions concerning this god, and to Plutarch in particular we owe an important version of the legend as current in his day. It is clear that in some points he errs, but this was excusable in dealing with a series of traditions already some four thousand years old. According to this writer the goddess Rhea [Nut], the wife of Helios [Ra], was beloved by Kronos [Seb]. When Helios discovered the intrigue, he cursed his wife and declared that she should not be delivered of her child in any month or in any year. Then the god Hermes, who also loved Rhea, played at tables with Selene and won from her the seventieth part of each day of the year, which, added together, made five whole days. These he joined to the three hundred and sixty days of which the year then consisted. Upon the first of these five days was Osiris brought forth; and at the moment of his birth a voice was heard to proclaim that the lord of creation was born.