[86]. Ibid., c. 24: "Inexplicabili voluptate < aspectu > divini simulacri perfruebar."
[87]. Plut., De Isid., 78, p. 383 A:
Ὡς ἂν ἐξηρτημέναις (ταῖς ψυχαῖς) ἀπ' αύτοῦ (τοῦ Ὀσίριδος) καὶ θεωμέναις ἀπλήστως καὶ ποθούσαις τὸ μὴ φατὸν μηδὲ ῥητὸν ἀνθρώποις κάλλος.
[89]. We find similar wishes on the Egyptian monuments, frequently at least since the Middle Empire. "Donnez-moi de l'eau courante à boire.... Mettez-moi la face au vent du nord sur le bord de l'eau et que sa fraîcheur calme mon cœur" (Maspero, Etudes égyptiennes, I, 1881, p. 189). "Oh, si j'avais de l'eau courante à boire et si mon visage était tourné vers le vent du nord" (Naville,op. cit., p. 174). On a funerary stele in the Brussels museum (Capart, Guide, 1905, p. 71) is inscribed, "Que les dieux accordent de boire l'eau des sources, de respirer les doux vents du nord."—The very material origin of this wish appears in the funeral texts, where the soul is shown crossing the desert, threatened with hunger and thirst, and obtaining refreshment by the aid of the gods (Maspero, Etudes de mythol. et d'archéol. égypt., 1883, I, pp.
366 ff.).—On a tablet at Petilia (see supra, n. [22]), the soul of the deceased is required to drink the fresh water (ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ) flowing from the lake of Memory in order to reign with the heroes. There is nothing to prevent our admitting with Foucart ("Myst. d'Eleusis," Mém. Acad. des Inscr., XXXV, 2, p. 67), that the Egyptian ideas may have permeated the Orphic worship of southern Italy after the fourth or third century, since they are found expressed a hundred years earlier at Carpentras (infra, n. [90]).
[90]. Δοίη σοι ὁ Ὄσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ, at Rome: Kaibel, Inscr. gr. XIV. 1488, 1705, 1782, 1842; cf. 658 and CIL, VI, 3, 20616.—Σοὶ δὲ Ὀσείριδος ἁγνὸν ὕδωρ Εἶσις χαρίσαιτο, Rev. archéol., 1887, p. 199, cf. 201.—Ψυχῇ διψώσῃ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ μετάδος, CIG, 6267 = Kaibel, 1890. It is particularly interesting to note that almost the same wish appears on the Aramaic stele of Carpentras (C. I. Sem., II, 141), which dates back to the fourth or fifth century B. C.: "Blessed be thou, take water from in front of Osiris."—A passage in the book of Enoch manifestly inspired by Egyptian conceptions, mentions the "spring of water," the "spring of life," in the realm of the dead (Enoch, xxii. 2, 9. Cf. Martin, Le livre d'Hénoch, 1906, p. 58, n. 1, and Bousset, Relig. des Judentums, 1903, p 271). From Judaism the expression has passed into Christianity. Cf. Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 6.
[91]. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see Lafaye, op. cit., p. 96, n. 1; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 391; Kraus, Realencycl. der christl. Alt., s. v. "Refrigerium"; and especially Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, Rev. des études anc., 1905, p. 32; Audollent, Mélanges Louis Havet, 1909, p. 575.—The refrigerii sedes, which the Catholic Church petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not believe in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope the soul will rest ἐν τόπῳ χλοερῷ, ἐν τόπῳ ἀναψύξεως (G. Lefebvre, Inscr. gr. chrét. d'Eg., No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p. xxx; cf. Dumont, Mélanges, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The detail is not without significance because it furnishes a
valuable indication as to the Egyptian origin of prayer for the dead; this is unknown to Graeco-Roman paganism which prayed to the deified dead but never for the dead as such. The Church took this custom from the Synagogue, but the Jews themselves seem to have taken it from the Egyptians during the Hellenistic period, undoubtedly in the course of the second century (S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, I, p. 325), just as they were indebted to the Egyptians for the idea of the "spring of life" (supra, n. [90]). The formula in the Christian inscriptions cited,
ἀνάπαυσον τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν κόλποις Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακώβ,