Osiris, lord of the dead. His green skin symbolizes rejuvenation.

Osiris (Greek language, also Usiris; the Egyptian language name is variously transliterated Asar, Aser, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, or Ausare) is the Egyptian god of life, death, and fertility. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language most closely related to the Berber, Semitic, Somali and Beja languages Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Egypt from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity

Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found and first appears in the Pyramid Texts around 2400 BC, when his cult is already well established. The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The 24th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2400 BC to 2301 BC He was widely worshipped until the forcible suppression of paganism in the Christian era. As the Roman Republic, and later the Roman empire, expanded it came to include people from a variety of cultures and religions ^[1][2] The information we have on the myths of Osiris is derived from allusions contained in the pyramid texts, and, much later, in narrative style from the writings of Plutarch^[3] and Diodorus Siculus. The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus ( Greek: Μέστριος Πλούταρχος c ^[4]

Osiris was not only the redeemer and merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. In Egyptian mythology, Duat (or Tuat (also called Akert, Amenthes, or Neter-khertet) is the Underworld. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death — as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death if they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals. The New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in Ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and ^[5]

Osiris is the oldest son of the Earth god, Geb,^[6] and the sky goddess, Nut as well as being brother and husband of Isis, with Horus being considered his posthumously begotten son. Geb (pronunciation as such from the Greek period onwards formerly erroneously read as Seb) or Keb (in Egyptian originally Gebeb/Kebeb meaning probably In the Ennead Mythology, Nut (alternatively spelled Nuit, Newet and Neuth was the goddess of the Sky. Isis is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and is celebrated in their mythology as the ideal mother and wife patron of nature and magic friend of slaves sinners ^[6]

Osiris is later associated with the name Khenti-Amentiu, which means 'Foremost of the Westerners' a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead. Khenti-Amentiu, also Khenti-Amenti, Kenti-Amentiu and many other spellings is a divine name or title from Ancient Egyptian mythology

The name was first recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs only as ws-ir or os-ir because the Egyptian writing system omitted vowels. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract It is reconstructed to have been pronounced Us-iri (oos-ee-ree) meaning 'Throne of the Eye' and survives into the Coptic language as Ousire. Coptic or Coptic Egyptian ( MetRemenkīmi) is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt

Appearance

Osiris is usually depicted as a green-skinned (green was the color of rebirth) pharaoh wearing the Atef crown, a form of the white crown of upper Egypt with a plume of feathers to either side. Pharaoh is the title given in modern parlance to the ancient Egyptian kings of all periods Atef is the specific feathered white crown of the Egyptian Deity Osiris. This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Typically he is also depicted holding the crook and flail which signify divine authority in Egyptian pharaohs, but which were originally unique to Osiris and his own origin-gods (see below), and his feet and lower body are wrapped, as though already partly mummified.

Early mythology

When the Ennead and Ogdoad cosmogenies became merged, with the identification of Ra as Atum (Atum-Ra), gradually Anubis (Ogdoad system) was replaced by Osiris, whose cult had become more significant, Anubis was said to have given way to Osiris out of respect, and, as an underworld deity. For the neo-Platonist work by Plotinus see Enneads. For the Latin epic see Aeneid. In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad (Greek "οκτάδα" the number eight were eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Ra (pronounced Rah and sometimes as Rê, is an Ancient Egyptian sun god. Atum (alternatively spelled Tem, Temu, Tum, and Atem) is an important Deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred Anubis is the Greek name for a Jackal -headed god associated with Mummification and the afterlife in Egyptian mythology. Anubis was Set's son in some versions, but because Set became god of evil, he was subsequently identified as being Osiris' son. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Set (also spelled Seth, Sutekh or Seteh) is an ancient god who was originally the god of the Desert Abydos, which had been a strong centre of the cult of Anubis, became a centre of the cult of Osiris. Abydos ( Egyptian Abdju, 3bdw, Arabic: أبيدوس Greek Αβυδος one of the most ancient cities of

Because Isis, Osiris' wife and sister, represented life in the Ennead, it was considered somewhat inappropriate for her to be the mother of a god associated with death such as Anubis, and so instead, it was usually said that Nephthys, the other of the two female children of Geb and Nut, was his mother. Isis is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and is celebrated in their mythology as the ideal mother and wife patron of nature and magic friend of slaves sinners In Egyptian mythology, Nephthys is the Greek form of an epithet (correctly spelled Nebet-het, and Nebt-het, in Transliteration from

Father of Horus

Later, when Hathor's identity (from the Ogdoad) was assimilated into that of Isis, Horus, who had been Isis' husband (in the Ogdoad), became considered her son, and thus, since Osiris was Isis' husband (in the Ennead), Osiris also became considered Horus' father. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Pronounced Hah-Thor ( Egyptian for house of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way Attempts to explain how Osiris, a god of the dead, could give rise to someone so definitely alive as Horus, lead to the development of the Legend of Osiris and Isis, which became the greatest myth in Egyptian mythology. The Legend of Osiris and Isis, concerning the Deities of Egyptian mythology Osiris, Isis, Horus and Set, became one of

The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set who wanted Osiris' throne. Isis briefly brought Osiris back to life by use of a spell that she learned from her father. This spell gave her time to become pregnant by Osiris before he again died. Isis later gave birth to Horus. As such, since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as representing new beginnings and vanquished Set. This combination, Osiris-Horus, was therefore a life-death-rebirth deity, and thus associated with the new harvest each year. The category life-death-rebirth deity also known as a "dying-and-rising" or "Resurrection" Deity is a convenient means of classifying the many divinities In Agriculture, the harvest is the process of Gathering mature crops from the fields Reaping is the cutting of Grain Afterward, Osiris became known as the Egyptian god of the dead, Isis became known as the Egyptian goddess of the children, and Horus became known as the Egyptian god of the sky.

Ptah-Seker (who resulted from the identification of Ptah as Seker), who was god of re-incarnation, thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris (rarely known as Ptah-Seker-Atum, although this was just the name, and involved Osiris rather than Atum). In Egyptian mythology, Ptah (also spelt Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead Cosmogony, which was more literally For the places in Azerbaijan see Şəkər. "Sokar" redirects here As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and subsequently be re-incarnated, as both king of the underworld, and god of reincarnation, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified.

Ram god

Since Osiris was considered dead, as god of the dead, Osiris' soul, or rather his Ba, was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially so in the Delta city of Mendes. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek The Nile Delta ( Arabic: دلتا النيل) is the delta formed in Northern Egypt ( Lower Egypt) where the Nile River spreads Mendes ( the Greek name of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in Ancient Egypt as Per - Banebdjedet ("The This aspect of Osiris was referred to as Banebdjed (also spelt Banebded or Banebdjedet, which is technically feminine) which literally means The ba of the lord of the djed, which roughly means The soul of the lord of the pillar of stability. The Djed symbol is a pillar-like ancient Egyptian symbol representing Stability. The djed, a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris, and, at the same time, as the Nile, the backbone of Egypt. The Nile, supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetation) who died only to be resurrected represented continuity and therefore stability. As Banebdjed, Osiris was given epithets such as Lord of the Sky and Life of the (sun god) Ra, since Ra, when he had become identified with Atum, was considered Osiris' ancestor, from whom his regal authority was inherited. An epithet (from Greek ἐπίθετον - epitheton, neut of ἐπίθετος - epithetos, "attributed added" is a "Sun god" redirects here For the Ramsey Lewis album see Sun Goddess (album. Ra (pronounced Rah and sometimes as Rê, is an Ancient Egyptian sun god. Atum (alternatively spelled Tem, Temu, Tum, and Atem) is an important Deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred A reign is a period of time a person serves as a Monarch or Pope. "Heir" and "Heiress" redirect here For the men and women fragrances endorsed by Paris Hilton see Heiress (fragrance.

Ba does not, however, quite mean soul in the western sense, and also has to do with power, reputation, force of character, especially in the case of a god. Since the ba was associated with power, and also happened to be a word for ram in Egyptian, Banebdjed was depicted as a ram, or as Ram-headed. Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language most closely related to the Berber, Semitic, Somali and Beja languages A living, sacred ram, was even kept at Mendes and worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and upon death, the rams were mummified and buried in a ram-specific necropolis. A necropolis (plural necropoleis or necropoles) is a large Cemetery or burial place (from Greek nekropolis "city of the dead"

As regards the association of Osiris with the ram, the god's traditional crook and flail are of course the instruments of the shepherd, which has suggested to some scholars also an Osiris' origin in herding tribes of the upper Nile. The crook and flail were originally symbols of the minor agricultural deity Anedijti, and passed to Osiris later. From Osiris they eventually passed to Egyptian kings in general as symbols of divine authority. [7]

In Mendes, they had considered Hatmehit, a local fish-goddess, as the most important god/goddess, and so when the cult of Osiris became more significant, Banebdjed was identified in Mendes as deriving his authority from being married to Hatmehit. In Egyptian mythology, Hatmehit, or Hatmehyt (reconstructed to have been pronounced *Hāwit-Maḥūyat in Egyptian) was a Fish - Goddess Henotheism ( Greek heis theos "one god" is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a Single god while accepting Later, when Horus became identified as the child of Osiris (in this form Horus is known as Harpocrates in Greek and Har-pa-khered in Egyptian), Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus' father, as Banebdjed is an aspect of Osiris. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly

In occult writings, Banebdjed is often called the goat of Mendes, and identified with Baphomet; the fact that Banebdjed was a ram (sheep), not a goat, is apparently overlooked. The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus (clandestine hidden secret referring to "knowledge of the hidden" Baphomet is a name of unestablished origin It first appeared in trial transcripts during the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 1300s

Mythology

A shaven-headed priest of Osiris holding a canopic vase of Osiris with the hems of his robe. Ptolemaic Egypt. Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra 1st century CE.

The cult of Osiris had a particularly strong interest towards the concept of immortality. Plutarch recounts one version of the myth surrounding the cult in which Set (Osiris's brother) fooled Osiris into getting into a box, which he then shut, had sealed with lead and threw into the Nile (sarcoughaguses were based on the box in this myth). In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Set (also spelled Seth, Sutekh or Seteh) is an ancient god who was originally the god of the Desert Osiris's wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. Isis is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and is celebrated in their mythology as the ideal mother and wife patron of nature and magic friend of slaves sinners She managed to remove the coffin and open it, but Osiris was already dead. She used a spell she had learned from her father and brought him back to life so he could impregnate her. After they finished, he died again, so she hid his body in the desert. Months later, she gave birth to Horus. While she was off raising him, Set had been out hunting one night and he came across the body of Osiris. Enraged, he tore the body into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout the land. Isis gathered up all the parts of the body, less the phallus which was eaten by a fish thereafter considered taboo by the Egyptians, and bandaged them together for a proper burial. The gods were impressed by the devotion of Isis and thus restored Osiris to life in the form of a different kind of existence as the god of the underworld. Because of his death and resurrection, Osiris is associated with the flooding and retreating of the Nile and thus with the crops along the Nile valley.

Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris is described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts of civilization, including agriculture. Osiris is murdered by his evil brother Set, whom Diodorus associates with the evil Typhon ("Typhonian Beast") of Greek mythology. Typhon divides the body into twenty six pieces which he distributes amongst his fellow conspirators in order to implicate them in the murder. Isis and Horus avenge the death of Osiris and slay Typhon. Isis recovers all the parts of Osiris body, less the phallus, and secretly buries them. She made replicas of them and distributed them to several locations which then became centres of Osiris worship. ^[7][8]

The tale of Osiris losing his manhood to fish (becoming fish like) is cognate with the story the Greek shepherd god Pan becoming fish like from the waist down in the same river Nile after being attacked by Typhon (see Capricornus). Pan ( Greek, Genitive) is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks of mountain wilds hunting and rustic music paein means to pasture In Greek mythology, Typhon ( Ancient Greek:, Tuphōn) also Typheus / Typhoeus ( Tuphōeus) Typhaon ( Capricornus ( Latin for "horned (male Goat " or "goat horn " is one of the Constellations of the Zodiac. This attack was part of a generational feud in which both Zeus and Dionysus were dismembered by Typhon, in a similar manner as Osiris was by Set in Egypt. Zeus (zjuːs in Greek: nominative: Zeús /zdeús/ genitive: Diós; Modern Greek /'zefs/ in Greek mythology In Classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos (in Greek, Διόνυσος or Διώνυσος; associated with Roman

Horus, the son of Osiris

Passion and resurrection

Plutarch and others have noted that the sacrifices to Osiris were “gloomy, solemn, and mournful. . . ” (Isis and Osiris, 69) and that the great mystery festival, celebrated in two phases, began at Abydos on the 17th of Athyr^[9] (November 13) commemorating the death of the god, which is also the same day that grain was planted in the ground. Abydos ( Egyptian Abdju, 3bdw, Arabic: أبيدوس Greek Αβυδος one of the most ancient cities of Events 1002 - English king Ethelred orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St “The death of the grain and the death of the god were one and the same: the cereal was identified with the god who came from heaven; he was the bread by which man lives. The resurrection of the God symbolized the rebirth of the grain. ” (Larson 17) The annual festival involved the construction of “Osiris Beds” formed in shape of Osiris, filled with soil and sown with seed. ^[10] The germinating seed symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. An almost pristine example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter. ^[11]

The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search of his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set. This was all presented by skilled actors as a literary history, and was the main method of recruiting cult membership. According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who “beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders. Julius Firmicus Maternus was a Christian Latin writer and notable Astrologer, who lived in the reign of Constantine I and his successors . . . When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined. . . they turn from mourning to rejoicing. ” (De Errore Profanorum).

Some scholars have suggested possible connections or parallels of Osiris's resurrection story with those found in other religions. According to Anthony Aveni, The Russell B. Colgate Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology at Colgate University, Osiris

was done in by a conspiratorial brother who nailed him alive in a lead-lined cross and tossed into the Nile. Isis spent her life searching for Osiris, but once again her brother-in-law managed to recover the coffin and, for good measure, dismembered his brother's corpse and scattered it about the land. Undeterred, the faithful spouse collected all the body parts (minus the penis, which has been devoured by fish, thus necessitating a wax replacement) and reassembled them by constructing the first mummy. She dedicated one part each to the lands over which he had spread his teachings. Out of pity the jilted sun god revived Osiris, but confined him to rule over the dead in the underworld. Thus his worshippers acquire the promise of everlasting and bountiful life once they pass beyond the grave through the mummification process. Minus the mummy, doesn't this resurrection story have a familiar ring?^[12]

I-Kher-Nefert stele

Much of the extant information about the Passion of Osiris can be found on a stele at Abydos erected in the 12th Dynasty by I-Kher-Nefert (also Ikhernefert), possibly a priest of Osiris or other official during the reign of Senwosret III (Pharaoh Sesostris, about 1875 BC). A stele (from Greek:, stēlē, ˈstiːli plural stelae,, stēlai, ˈstiːlaɪ also found Latinised singular stela

The Passion Plays were held in the last month of the inundation (the annual Nile flood), coinciding with Spring, and held at Abydos/Abedjou which was the traditional place where the body of Osiris/Wesir drifted ashore after having been drowned in the Nile. A Passion play is a Dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Christ: the trial, suffering and Death ^[13] The part of the myth recounting the chopping up of the body into 14 pieces by Set is not recorded until later by Plutarch. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus ( Greek: Μέστριος Πλούταρχος c Some elements of the ceremony were held in the temple, while others involved public participation in a form of theatre. The Stela of I-Kher-Nefert recounts the programme of events of the public elements over the five days of the Festival:

• The First Day, The Procession of Wepwawet: A mock battle is enacted during which the enemies of Osiris are defeated. In late Egyptian mythology, Wepwawet ( Hieroglyphic WP-W3WT; also rendered Upuaut, Wep-wawet, Wepawet, and Ophois A procession is led by the god Wepwawet ("opener of the way").
• The Second Day, The Great Procession of Osiris: The body of Osiris is taken from his temple to his tomb. The boat he is transported in, the "Neshmet" bark, has to be defended against his enemies. The Neshmet bark was a boat belonging to the god Nun in which the ancient Egyptian god Osiris was transported on the river Nile during the Osiris festival
• The Third Day, Osiris is Mourned and the Enemies of the Land are Destroyed.
• The Fourth Day, Night Vigil: Prayers and recitations are made and funeral rites performed.
• The Fifth Day, Osiris is Reborn: Osiris is reborn at dawn and crowned with the crown of Ma'at. Maat or Mayet, thought to have been pronounced as *Muʔʕat (Muh-aht was the Ancient Egyptian concept of Truth, balance order— Law A statue of Osiris is brought to the temple. ^[13]

Wheat and clay rituals

Contrasting with the public "theatrical" ceremonies sourced from the I-Kher-Nefert stele, more esoteric ceremonies were performed inside the temples by priests witnessed only by initiates. Plutarch mentions that two days after the beginning of the festival “the priests bring forth sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water. . . and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected). Then they knead some fertile soil with the water. . . and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water. ” (Isis and Osiris, 39). Yet even he was obscure, for he also wrote, “I pass over the cutting of the wood” opting to not describe it since he considered it most sacred (Ibid. 21).

In the Osirian temple at Denderah, an inscription (translated by Budge, Chapter XV, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection) describes in detail the making of wheat paste models of each dismembered piece of Osiris to be sent out to the town where each piece was discovered by Isis. Dendera ( Arabic: دندرة also spelled Denderah/Dandarah) is a little town in Egypt on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 km south from At the temple of Mendes, figures of Osiris are made from wheat and paste placed in a trough on the day of the murder, then water added for several days, when finally the mixture was kneaded into a mold of Osiris and taken to the temple and buried (the sacred grain for these cakes only grown in the temple fields). Molds are made from wood of a red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, cakes of divine bread made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god, the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead (XVII). On the first day of the Festival of Ploughing, where the goddess Isis appears in her shrine where she is stripped naked, Paste made from the grain is placed in her bed and moistened with water, representing the fecund earth. All of these sacred rituals were climaxed by the eating of sacramental god, the eucharist by which the celebrants were transformed, in their persuasion, into replicas of their god-man (Larson 20).

Osirian sacrament

Since the ancient Nilotics believed that humans were whatever they eat, this sacrament was, by extension, able to make them celestial and immortal. Nilotic people or Nilotes, in its contemporary usage refers to some Ethnic groups mainly in Southern Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and northern The doctrine of the eucharist ultimately has its roots in prehistoric (symbolic) cannibalism, whose practitioners believed that the virtues and powers of the eaten would thus be absorbed by the eater. This phenomenon has been described throughout the world.

One of the oldest of the Pyramid Texts is the Unas^[14] from the 6th Dynasty (circa 2500 BC). The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. Unas (also Wenis, Oenas, Unis, or Ounas) was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, and one of the rulers of the Old Kingdom It shows that the original ideology of Egypt commingled with Osirian concepts. Although ultimately given a high place in heaven by order of Osiris, Unas is at first an enemy of the gods and his ancestors, whom he hunts, lassoes, kills, cooks, and eats so that their powers may become his own. This was written at a time when the eating of parents and gods was a laudable ceremony, and this emphasizes how hard it must have been to stamp out the older order of cannibalism. “He eats men, he feeds on the gods. . . he cooks them in his fiery cauldrons. He eats their words of power, he swallows their spirits. . . . He eats the wisdom of every god, his period of life is eternity. . . . Their soul is in his body, their spirits are within him. ” A parallel passage is found in the Pyramid Text of Pepi II, who is said to have “seizeth those who are a follower of Set. Pepi II (reigned c 2278 BC–c 2184 BC was a Pharaoh of the Sixth dynasty in Egypt's Old Kingdom. . . he breaketh their heads, he cutteth off their haunches, he teareth out their intestines, he diggeth out their hearts, he drinketh copiously of their blood!” (line 531, ff). Although crude, this was a core concept, the conviction that one could receive immortality by eating the flesh and blood of a god who had died became a dominating obsession in the ancient world. Although the cult of Osiris forbade cannibalism, it did not outlaw dismemberment and eating of enemies, and practiced the ritual rending and eating of the sacred bull, symbolizing Osiris. Appearances of the Bull (also known as Taurus) in Mythology and worship are widespread in the ancient world

Although this sacramental concept only originated once in history, it spread throughout the Mediterranean area and became the dynamic force in every mystery cult. It was only by this sacerdotal means that the corruptible deceased could be clothed in incorruption and this idea appears again and again in infinite variety. The scribe Nebseni implores: “And there in the celestial mansions of heaven which my divine father Tem hath established, let my hands lay hold upon the wheat and the barley which shall be given unto me therein in abundant measure” (Ibid. LXXII). Nu corroborates that this is the eucharist by saying: “I am established, and the divine Sekhet-hetep is before me, I have eaten therein, I have become a spirit therein, I have abundance therein. ” (Ibid. LXXVII) Again Nu states: “I am the divine soul of Ra. . . which is god. . . I am the divine food which is not corrupted” (Ibid. LXXXV). The ancientness of the concept is again reaffirmed in the Pyramid Text of Teta (2600 BC) where the Osiris Teta “receivest thy bread which decayeth not, and thy beer which perisheth not” In the Text of Pepi I we read: “All the gods give thee their flesh and their blood. Pepi I Meryre (reigned 2332 &ndash 2283 BC was the third king of the Sixth dynasty of Egypt. . . . Thou shalt not die. ” In the Text of Pepi II the aspirant prays for “thy bread of eternity, and thy beer of everlastingness” (Line 390).

Osiris-Dionysus

By the Hellenic era, Greek awareness of Osiris had grown, and attempts had been made to merge Greek philosophy, such as Platonism, and the cult of Osiris (especially the myth of his resurrection), resulting in a new mystery religion. Platonism is the Philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it Mystery Religions, Sacred Mysteries or simply Mysteries, were "religious cults of the Graeco-Roman Gradually, this became more popular, and was exported to other parts of the Greek sphere of influence. A sphere of influence ( SOI) is an area or region over which an organization or state exerts some kind of indirect cultural economic military or political domination However, these mystery religions valued the change in wisdom, personality, and knowledge of fundamental truth, rather than the exact details of the acknowledged myths on which their teachings were superimposed. Thus in each region that it was exported to, the myth was changed to be about a similar local god, resulting in a series of gods, who had originally been quite distinct, but who were now syncretisms with Osiris. These gods became known as Osiris-Dionysus. The term Osiris-Dionysus is used by some historians of religion to refer to a group of deities worshipped around the Mediterranean in the centuries prior to the emergence

Serapis

Eventually, in Egypt, the Hellenic pharaohs decided to produce a deity that would be acceptable to both the local Egyptian population, and the influx of Hellenic visitors, to bring the two groups together, rather than allow a source of rebellion to grow. Pharaoh is the title given in modern parlance to the ancient Egyptian kings of all periods Thus Osiris was identified explicitly with Apis, really an aspect of Ptah, who had already been identified as Osiris by this point, and a syncretism of the two was created, known as Serapis, and depicted as a standard Greek god. In Egyptian mythology, Ptah (also spelt Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead Cosmogony, which was more literally Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs often while melding practices of various schools of thought Serapis (Latin spelling or Sarapis in Greek was a syncretic Hellenistic - Egyptian god in Antiquity.

Destruction

Osiris-worship continued up until the 6th century AD on the island of Philae in Upper Nile. The Theodosian decree (in about 380 AD) to destroy all pagan temples and force worshippers to accept Christianity was ignored there. Flavius Theodosius (January 11 347 – January 17 395 also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great ( Greek: Θεοδόσιος Α΄ However, Justinian dispatched a General Narses to Philae, who destroyed the Osirian temples and sanctuaries, threw the priests into prison, and carted the sacred images off to Constantinople. However, by that time, the soteriology of Osiris had assumed various forms which had long spread far and wide in the ancient world. Soteriology is the branch of theology that deals with Salvation.

See also

• Aaru
• Egyptian soul

Notes

References

• Martin A. Larson, The Story of Christian Origins (1977, 711 pp. Martin A Larson ( March 2, 1897 &ndash January 15, 1994) was an American populist freethinker and a writer specializing in theological history ISBN 0883310902 ).

External links

• The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity