354 
worship lasted down to the era of the XXVIth Dynasty in Egypt, 
or say some three thousand years, so powerful was the hold 
they had gained on the popular imagination ? 
Osiris and Isis. 
Osiris w T as considered to have reigned on the earth, and, by 
the benefits which he conferred, to have become the type of all 
that is good. He was thought to have been murdered by Set, 
who becomes the type of evil. Set, after having killed Osiris, 
dispersed the members of his body amongst the cities of Egypt. 
Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris, reunited these scattered 
members, and by her incantations, assisted by Nepthys, restored 
them to life. Osiris, thus resuscitated, is called Horus, and 
Isis is consequently considered the mother of Horus. 
Osiris, according to the Egyptians, was thus associated with 
the death of the good. The good man was united with Osiris 
after his death. The great visible benefactor to the world is 
the sun, and the bright manifestation of Divine glory was, in 
their view, associated with this luminarv. But the sun dies every 
night (or at least disappears), and hence goes to reign in Hades as 
Osiris. The sun, however, rises again, and comes forth as Horus, 
triumphant over all the powers of darkness. Horus is thus 
the type of the good, in resurrection power, and Horus, reappear- 
ing on the eastern horizon, is the visible symbol to man of the 
certainty of the resurrection of the just. Hormachis, or, in 
other words, the Sphinx, may thus calmly look down on all the 
vicissitudes of this present life, and await the triumph of the 
just in resurrection. 
The good man, when falling asleep in death, was assimilated 
to the setting sun, and as the sun was renewed under the care 
of the mother goddess, Hathor ,— the celestial space, — who, as 
Noub* (the “ golden” one) animated the mountain of the 
west, in which the sun rested. So the hall of the Tomb, in 
which the sarcophagus reposed, was equally called Noub. 
The embalmed body rested as amidst the glories of a golden 
sunset until the morning of the resurrection. 
At least so they believed, little thinking of the profane hands 
that should be laid upon their poor remains. But that they 
did so think we have the express testimony of the Book of the 
Dead, probably the oldest book in the world. Of this there 
exist quite a large number of copies more or less imperfect. It 
is scattered amid all the collections and in all the museums of 
* “ Noub ” is also “ gold ” in Coptic (Clmbas, Etudes, p. 17), 
