CHAP. XII. MANirESTATION OF OSIRIS. 189 



makes all things in a perfect manner, not decep- 

 tively, but artificially, together with tvuth^ he is 

 called Pthah; but the Greeks denominate him He- 

 phaestus, considering him merely as a physical or ar- 

 tificial agent," and not looking upon him, as tiiey 

 ought, in an abstract or metaphysical light. But 

 the discloser of truth and goodness on earth was 

 Osiris ; and it is remarkable that, in this character 

 of the manifestation of the Deity, he was said to 

 be " full of goodness (grace) and truth," and after 

 having performed his duties on earth, and fallen a 

 sacrifice to the machinations of (Typho) the evil 

 one, to have assumed the office in a future state 

 of judge of mankind. 



At Philse, where Osiris was particularly wor- 

 shipped, and which was one of the places where 

 they supposed him to have been buried, his mys- 

 terious history is curiously illustrated * in the 

 sculptures of a small retired chamber, lying nearly 

 over the western adytum of the temple. His 

 death and removal from this w^orld are there de- 

 scribed ; the number of twenty-eight lotust plants 

 points out the period of years he was thought 

 to have lived on earth ; and his passage from this 

 life to a future state is indicated by the usual at- 

 tendance of the Deities, and genii, who presided 

 over the funeral rites of ordinary mortals, t He is 

 then represented witli the feathered cap, which he 



* A copy of these sculptures is given in the plates of the K. S. of 

 Literature, p. GG, 67, G8, and G9. 



f I had made an error in the number in my former drawing. 



X Conf. Pint, de Is. s. 35., "the rising again of Osiris, and his new 

 life." 



