42 
impossible now to separate them, and to allot to each its distinct 
position and appropriate references. Certain, however, it is, 
that very early in Egyptian mythology the dead Osiris became 
to be regarded as the type of all souls and things in whose 
bodies the power of re-creation yet remained, and the wicked- 
Typlion as the symbol of all evil, spiritual and physical ; and that 
consequently the war with him and his confederates carried 
on by Horus Nets assumed the character of a mystical con- 
test between the spiritual powers of good and evil, and also, by 
a parity of reasoning, between the temporary death of the sun- 
god Ra by the eclipse of night, and the certain resurrection of 
the same deity in his form of Horus, the rising sun ; thus again 
reuniting the ideas of antagonism between virtue and vice with 
the physical opposition of light and darkness; and it is, there- 
fore, to the testimony of the Ritual of the Dead and the Litany 
of Horus to the offices of Horus, as the spiritual avenger of his 
father Osiris, still himself remaining an allied deity, that I call 
your attention now. 
The chief texts in which the historical doctrines of the 
Avcngemeut of Horus are contained are, I. The Ritual of the 
Dead; II. The Texts on the Temples of Edfu* and Philse ; 
III. The other texts called the Litany of Horus; and, IY. 
The Litany called the Assistances of Horus to his Father 
Osiris. Reserving the references in the Ritual for a later con- 
sideration, the sentences being so involved with ideas which I 
shall have to consider further on, I will first present you with 
some illustrations of the doctrine of the Avengement, derived 
from the temple texts, as published by M. Naville, of Geneva, f 
On the whole, or nearly the whole, of the walls of the Ptole- 
maic temple of Horus at Edfu, are represented the life and 
actions of Horus, or as he is there called Ilarhut, under two chief 
divisions, — the first comprising what may be called the historical 
part of the myth, namely the reign of Osiris, and the war with 
and subsequent defeat of Typhon, under the forms respectively of 
a Hippopotamus, a Crocodile, a Serpent, and an Asiatic orHvkshos 
* Edfu. The modem name for the city and name of Apollinopolis, called 
by the Egyptians Teshor. The most ancient name of this town was Teb. 
The great temple of Edfu is one of the most stately and best preserved, 
Karnak and Tentyra excepted, in Upper Egypt. It was dedicated to the 
god Horus, and was built on the same plan as that of Tentyra, by 
Nekhtarhebi II. (?) of the XXXth dynasty. The interior walls are covered 
with a series of mythical inscriptions relative to the legend of Horus, applied 
to Ptolemy Euergetes II., and a series of dialogues between the divinity 
Horus and the royal founder. A great number of towns and other geogra- 
phical sites are mentioned in the Hieroglyphics, together with the usual 
inflated lists of donations to the temple and its priests, 
t Naville, Textes rcJnt if. < an My the d’ Horus, pi. i. p. !>. 
