appears to indicate a transposition of the doctrine of identification with Osiris. In this way we can explain the persistence in the Christian formulary of expressions, like requies aeterna, corresponding to the most primitive pagan conceptions of the life of the dead, who were not to be disturbed in their graves.—A name for the grave, which appears frequently in Latin epitaphs, viz., domus aeterna (or aeternalis) is undoubtedly also of Egyptian importation. In Egypt, "la tombe est la maison du mort, sa maison d'étérnite, comme disent les textes" (Capart, Guide du musée de Bruxelles, 1905, p. 32). The Greeks were struck by this expression which appears in innumerable instances. Diodorus of Sicily (I, 51, § 2) was aware that the Egyptians
τοὺς τῶν τετελευτηκότων τάφους ἀϊδίους οἴκους προσαγορεύουσιν, ὡς ἐν Ἅιδου διατελούντων τὸν ἄπειρον αἰῶνα (cf. I, 93, § 1, εἰς τὴν αἰώνιον οἴκησιν).—
It is probable that this appellation of the tomb passed from Egypt into Palestine and Syria. It appears already in Ecclesiastes, xii. 7 (beth ’olam = "house of eternity"), and it is found in Syrian epigraphy (for instance in inscriptions of the third century (Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 123), also in the epigraphy of Palmyra. (Chabot, Journal asiatique, 1900, p. 266, No. 47)).—Possibly the hope for consolation, Εὐψύχει, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος, frequently found engraved upon tombs even in Latin countries was also derived from the Egyptian religion, but this is more doubtful. Εὐψύχει is found in the epitaphs of initiates in the Alexandrian mysteries. Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 1488, 1782 (Εὐψυχεῖ κυρία καὶ δοίη σοι ὁ Ὄσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ), 2098 (cf. supra, n. [90]). Possibly the twofold meaning of
εὔψυχος which stands both for animosus and frigidus (see Dieterich, Nekyia, loc. cit.) has been played upon. But on the other hand, the idea contained in the formula "Be cheerful, nobody is immortal," also inspired the "Song of the Harpist," a canonical hymn that was sung in Egypt on the day of the funeral. It invited the listener to "make his heart glad" before the sadness of inevitable death (Maspero, Etudes égyptiennes, I, 1881, pp. 171 ff.; cf. Naville, op. cit., p. 171).
V. SYRIA.
Bibliography: The Syrian religions have been studied with especial attention to their relation with Judaism: Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1876. The same author has published veritable monographs on certain divinities (Astarte, Baal, Sonne, etc.) in the Realencyclopädie für prot. Theol., of Herzog-Hauck, 3d ed.—Bäthgen, Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin, 1888.—W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 2d. ed., London, 1894.—Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions sémitiques, 2d ed., Paris, 1905. The results of the excavations in Palestine, which are important in regard to the funeral customs and the oldest idolatry, have been summarized by Father Hugues Vincent, Canaan d'après l'exploration récente, 1907.—On the propagation of the Syrian religions in the Occident, see Réville, op. cit., pp. 70 et passim; Wissowa, Religion der Römer, pp. 299 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., pp. 1582 f.—Important observations will be found in Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archéologie orientale, 8 vols., 1888, and in Dussaud, Notes de mythologie syrienne, Paris, 1903. We have published a series of articles on particular divinities in the Realencyclopädie of Pauly-Wissowa (Baal, Balsamem, Dea Syria, Dolichenus, Gad, etc.). Other monographs are cited below.
[1]. Lucian, Lucius, 53 ff.; Apul., Metam., VIII, 24 ff. The description by these authors has recently been confirmed by the discovery of an inscription at Kefr-Hauar in Syria: a slave of the Syrian goddess "sent by her mistress (κυρία)," boasts of having brought back "seventy sacks" from each of her trips (Fossey, Bull. corr. hell., XXI, 1897, p. 60; on the
meaning of πήρα, "sack," see Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 1908, p. 73).
[2]. Cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. Astrologie, col. 1816.
[3]. Cato, De agric., V, 4.