Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, was a sun-god with many shapes, some perhaps local, but most of which typified the various stages of the sun's journey—its rising, its midday strength, its evening decline. He was the eternal enemy of Set, the night-god, a deity of darkness with whom he waged constant combat. From being a god of night and darkness pure and simple, Set came to be regarded as a deity of evil, and was placed in dualistic opposition to Horus, Ra, or Osiris, who thus symbolize moral good, the emblem of which is light.
ISIS
Among the most important Egyptian goddesses is Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, probably, like her husband, connected with the corn-plant, although there are also indications that she is a wind-goddess. She is the great corn-mother of Egypt, perhaps only because of her connexion with Osiris, and she has the wings of a wind deity, restoring Osiris to life by fanning him with them. She is a great traveller, and unceasingly moans and sobs. At times she shrieks so loudly as to frighten children to death. She typifies not only the dreaded blast, but the revivifying power of the spring wind wailing and sobbing over the grave of the sleeping grain.
Nephthys, her sister, is the female counterpart of Set and the personification of darkness. As such she is also a funerary goddess.
BABYLONIAN MYTH
As with Egyptian religion, the faith of the Babylonians and Assyrians varied with dynasties, for it depended upon the rise to power of a certain city or province, whose god then became temporarily supreme. Thus we find Merodach regarded as the chief god in Babylonia, while farther north in Assyria Asshur held sway, and Merodach had a fairly long line of predecessors whose powers and dignities he had taken over. Indeed, we find that he actually appropriated their myths. For example, in the creation myth cited in our chapter on cosmogony, Merodach is the hero-god who succeeded in slaying Tiawath, the monster of the abyss; but in an older version of the story her slayer is the god En-lil, whose place Merodach usurped later. Round the figure of Merodach, alluded to as the Bel, the Babylonian title for the highest divinity, are grouped the other deities in descending degrees of importance, for, as in the worldly State, the king of the gods was surrounded by officials of diverse rank.
MERODACH
Merodach, chief god of Babylon, possessed a solar significance; but it may be improper to connect him in any manner with the sun in its seasonal stages. He is, in fact, more the lord of light than of the sun in any special aspect. Although there is evidence that he was regarded as the spring sun, this was probably a secondary or derived conception of him, like that which made him a god of battle.
EA
Ea was the Babylonian Neptune. He was figured as half man, half fish, and was a great culture-hero and the lord of wisdom, probably because of the depths whence he emanated, symbolic of the profundity of knowledge. He came every day to the city of Eridu to instruct its inhabitants in the arts of life, and he was the inventor of writing, geometry, and law.