Of Isis and Osiris, or of the Ancient Religion and Philosophy of Egypt. (31-35)

And because the Egyptians are of opinion that Typhon was born of a red complexion, they are therefore used to devote to him such of the neat kind as they find to be of a red color; and their observation herein is so very nice and strict that, if they perceive the beast to have but one hair about it that is either black or white, they account it unfit for sacrifice. For they hold that what is fit to be made a sacrifice must not be of a thing agreeable to the Gods, but contrariwise, such things as contain the souls of ungodly and wicked men transformed into their shapes. Wherefore in the more ancient times they were

wont, after they had pronounced a solemn curse upon the head of the sacrifice, and had cut it off, to fling it into the river Nile; but now they distribute it among strangers. Those also among the priests that were termed Sphragistae or Sealers were wont to seal the beast that was to be offered; and the engraving of their seal was (as Castor tells us) a man upon his knees with his hands tied behind him, and a knife set under his throat. They believe, moreover, that the ass suffers for being like him (as hath been already spoken of), as much for the stupidity and sensualness of his disposition as for the redness of his color. Wherefore, because of all the Persian monarchs they had the greatest aversion for Ochus, as looking upon him as a villanous and abominable person, they gave him the nickname of the ass; upon which he replied: But this ass shall dine upon your ox. And so he slaughtered the Apis, as Dinon relates to us in his history. As for those that tell us that Typhon was seven days flying from the battle upon the back of an ass, and having narrowly escaped with his life, afterwards begat two sons called Hierosolymus and Judaeus, they are manifestly attempting, as is shown by the very matter, to wrest into this fable the relations of the Jews.

And so much for the allegories and secret meanings which this head affords us. And now we begin at another head, which is the account of those who seem to offer at something more philosophical; and of these we will first consider the more simple and plain sort. And they are those that tell us that, as the Greeks are used to allegorize Kronos (or Saturn) into chronos (time), and Hera (or Juno) into aer (air) and also to resolve the generation of Vulcan into the change of air into fire, so also among the Egyptians, Osiris is the river Nile, who accompanies with Isis, which is the earth; and Typhon is the sea, into which the Nile falling is thereby destroyed and scattered, excepting

only that part of it which the earth receives and drinks up, by means whereof she becomes prolific. There is also a kind of a sacred lamentation used to Saturn, wherein they bemoan him who was born in the left side of the world, and died in the right. For the Egyptians believe the eastern part to be the world’s face, and the northern its right hand, and the southern its left. And therefore the river Nile, holding its course from the southern parts towards the northern, may justly be said to have its birth in the left side and its death in the right; for which reason, the priests account the sea abominable, and call salt Typhon’s foam. And it is one of the things they look upon as unlawful and prohibited to them, to use salt at their tables. And they use not to salute any pilots, because they have to do with the sea. And this is not the least reason of their so great aversedness to fish. They also make the picture of a fish to denote hatred. And therefore at the temple of Minerva at Sais there was carved in the porch an infant and an old man, and after them a hawk, and then a fish, and after all a hippopotamus, which, in a symbolical manner, contained this sentence: O! ye that are born and that die, God hateth impudence. From whence it is plain, that by a child and an old man they express our being born and our dying; by a hawk, God; by a fish, hatred (by reason of the sea, as hath been before spoken); and by a river-horse, impudence, because (as they say) he killeth his sire and forceth his dam. That also which the Pythagoreans are used to say, that the sea is the tear of Saturn, may seem to hint out to us that it is not pure nor congenial with our race.

These then are the things that may be uttered without doors and in public, they containing nothing but matters of common cognizance. But now the most learned and reserved of the priests do not term the Nile only Osiris, and the sea Typhon; but in general, the whole principle

and faculty of rendering moist they call Osiris, as believing it to be the cause of generation and the very substance of the seminal moisture. And on the other hand, whatever is a-dust, fiery, or any way drying and repugnant to wet, they call Typhon. And therefore, because they believe he was of a red and sallow color when he was born, they do not greatly care to meet with men of such looks nor willingly converse with them. On the other side again they report that Osiris, when he was born, was of a black complexion, because that all water renders earth, clothes, and clouds black, when mixed with them; and the moisture also that is in young persons makes their hair black; but grayness, like a sort of paleness, comes up through over much draught upon such as are now past their vigor and begin to decline in years. In like manner, the spring time is gay, fecund, and very agreeable; but the autumn, through defect of moisture, is both destructive to plants and sickly to men. Moreover the ox called Mnevis, which is kept at Heliopolis (and is sacred to Osiris, and judged by some to be the sire of Apis), is of a coal-black color, and is honored in the second place after Apis. To which we may add, that they call Egypt (which is one of the blackest soils in the world) as they do the black part of the eye, Chemia. They also liken it to the heart, by reason of its great warmth and moisture, and because it is mostly enclosed by and removed towards the left (that is, the southern) part of the earth, as the heart is with respect to a man’s body.

They believe also that the sun and moon do not go in chariots, but sail about the world perpetually in certain boats; hinting hereby at their feeding upon and springing first out of moisture. They are likewise of the opinion that Homer (as well as Thales) had been instructed by the Egyptians, which made him affirm water to be the spring and first original of all things; for that Oceanus

is the same with Osiris, and Tethys with Isis, so named from τίτθη, a nurse, because she is the mother and nurse of all things. For the Grecians call the emission of the genital humor ἀπουσία, and carnal knowledge συνουσία: they also call a son υἱοός, from ὕδωρ, water, and ὗσαι, to wet; and likewise Bacchus ὕης, the wetter, they looking upon him as the lord of the humid nature, he being no other than Osiris. For Hellanicus hath set him down Hysiris, affirming that he heard him so pronounced by the priests; for so he hath written the name of this God all along in his history, and that, in my opinion, not without good reason, derived as well from his nature as his invention.