“O beautiful Neb-Ka! I have not profaned the meat of the gods.... I have not taken off the wrappings of the mummies.... I have not taken away milk from the mouth of the infant.
“O thou whose eyes are like a sword! I have committed no fraud in the abode of justice.”
Each title given to Osiris alludes to some mystery or teaching in the Egyptian theology.
[152]. Music amongst the ancients was, far more than it is with us, an agreeable pastime. Socrates declares that philosophy is nothing but a sublime music: ὡς φιλοσοφίας μεν οὔσης μεγίστης μουσικῆς. In the third book of his Republic Plato goes much further, and affirms that the musician alone is truly a philosopher: ὄτι μόνος μουσικός ὁ φιλόσοφος. The chanted poems and traditions were for ages the depositaries of the laws, ritual and history of a nation.
[153]. It has hitherto been difficult to discover the circumstances of the death of Osiris, or the primitive tradition of his sufferings, about which several legends have successively prevailed. The one given by Plutarch cannot be of great antiquity. In the Isle of Philæ, which, if we may so express it, had a special devotion to Osiris, the history of his life is given in a series of bas-reliefs in a small sanctuary on the west of the great temple, his death and resurrection forming the principal subjects.
There is a splendid passage relating to this god in Plutarch, ch. lxxix., Treatise on Osiris and Isis.
[154]. Most nations of antiquity have known the traditional mystery of a god suffering, dying, and rising again. The worship of Adonis, long prevalent among the Syrian races, penetrated, under the name of Thammuz, even into the sanctuary of Israel (Ezek. viii. 14). Macrobius speaks of it also among the Assyrians, and of the lamentations of Proserpine; and the same belief is to be found in the long poems of India. It is also probable that the Moabite worship of Beelphegor was analogous to that of Osiris, Adonis, and Thammuz (see Numb. xxv. 2). Women are here, as in Egypt, at Byblos, and Athens, especially charged with his worship.
[155]. In the papyrus Neb-Qed we find as follows: “Words, on entering the Hall of Double Justice to see the face of the gods, spoken by the Osiris Neb-Qed. He said: Hail to thee, great God, Lord of justice! I come into thy presence to behold thy beauties ... on the day of the giving account of words before the Good Being. I place myself in your presence, my lords; I bring you the truth.”
[156]. Cf. Job xxix. 12-17, and xxxi. 16-22.
[157]. M. Deveria has given a summary of this book, in his Notice des Manuscrits du Musée du Louvre.