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Plutarch On Isis and Osiris

Advance notice

The biography of the most famous of biographers has been cited so often in numerous editions of his “Comparative Lives” that there is absolutely no point in recounting it in detail again. Briefly, it is as follows: Plutarch was born in the mid-40s of the 1st century AD. e. in the town of Chaeronea, in Boeotia, where he lived most of his life (“... I live in a small town, and so that it does not become even smaller, I willingly stay in it”). He studied in Athens with the Platonist (academician) Ammonius, visited Rome several times (for the first time - under Emperor Vespasian), had some influence at court (there is news that Emperor Trajan demanded from the governors of Achaia that they follow the instructions of Plutarch in governing the province).

In his hometown, Plutarch was elected overseer of projects and archon, and was also elected citizen of Athens. He devoted most of his time (with the exception of literary activities) to raising his sons and youth. Last years Plutarch lived his life in Delphi, serving as a priest in the temple of Apollo (it was there that the treatises presented in this publication were written). He died around 120 (last mentioned in the chronicle of Eusebius in 119 as a very old man).

Just as Gaul was divided into four parts, so the entire rich literary heritage of Plutarch (according to the Lampriev catalog - about three hundred books, about two-thirds of which were lost) - into two: “Comparative Lives” and “Moralia”. The principle of division, proposed by Plutarch’s ardent admirer and systematizer, the Byzantine monk Maximus Planudus (1260–1310), is extremely simple: everything that did not fit into the “Comparative Lives” was included in the “Moralia.” Thus, “Moralia” is a mechanical combination of more than eighty large and small works devoted to a variety of issues (I wonder how the eclectic Plutarch would react to this?!). Purely philosophical (however, the concept of “purely” is hardly applicable to the glorious forerunner of the encyclopedists - Plutarch could never, and did not want to, keep himself within the framework of any one chosen topic and, in the end, the moralist and writer of everyday life prevailed in him) the works, with rare exceptions, have not reached us, but judging by the surviving titles, they were primarily devoted to commenting and interpreting individual passages from Plato. In general, Plutarch sincerely considered himself an academician, but he was more of a “platonic” one, for it is difficult to imagine that he, a loving father and an exemplary family man, a singer of military feats, “civic” virtues and “wise” feasts, really perceived our sensory world only as pitiful the image and likeness of eidetic beauties, and the body - only as a “dungeon of the soul”. Reading the brilliant Plato, we cannot help but hear the “cold laughter of the immortals,” which cannot be said about the “Platonist” Plutarch, a thinker, albeit superficial and secondary, but very kind and humane, and therefore one of the most charming writers, and not only of antiquity .

About Isis and Osiris Translation and notes by N. N. Trukhina

1.

People who have reason should ask the gods for all kinds of good things, Clay*, but most of all we wish and pray to receive from them knowledge about themselves, as far as it is accessible to people; for neither man can accept anything greater, nor God can bestow anything more sacred than truth. Everything else that people need, God gives them in full, but reason and wisdom - a part, owning and disposing of them as his special property. For the deity is blessed not with gold and silver and not with thunder and lightning, but with the ability to comprehend and knowledge. Homer declared this more beautiful than anything he said about the gods:

“They are both of one blood and one tribe;

Zeus only Kronion was born before and knew more"**

He clearly stated that the superiority of Zeus is more sacred, because his knowledge and wisdom are older. And I believe that in that eternal life, which is destined to God, the bliss lies in the fact that his knowledge does not miss anything from what is happening, and if knowledge and comprehension of what exists were taken away, then immortality would not be life, but time.

* Delphic priestess. Plutarch’s treatise “On the Valor of Women” is dedicated to her.

** Hom II. XIII, 354. Transl. N. And Gnedich (Iliad, L, 1956).

2.

Therefore, the striving for truth, especially concerning the gods, is a craving for the divine, for it contains the study, research and perception of sacred things and is a more holy matter than any purification and service in the temple; it is no less pleasing to the goddess whom you serve, who is extremely wise and disposed towards wisdom, whose very name seems to indicate that most of all she has the ability to perceive and knowledge.

For Isis is a Greek name, as well as the name of Typhon*, who, being the enemy of Isis, rages in his ignorance and deceit and tears and destroys the sacred word**, which the goddess collects, unites and transmits to those initiated into the mysteries; and dedication, which prescribes a constantly moderate lifestyle and abstinence from many types of food and love pleasures, weakens unbridledness and love of pleasure and accustoms people to remain inflexible and severe in service, the purpose of which is to comprehend the First, Sovereign and accessible only to thought; the goddess calls to look for him, and he remains with her, next to her and in connection with her. The name of the temple, undoubtedly, proclaims the comprehension and knowledge of existence: it is called Iseion*** as a sign that we will know existence if we approach the shrines of the goddess wisely and piously.

* Plutarch is mistaken: Isis is an Egyptian name, Typhon is a Greek deity identified with Set. Plutarch derives the first name from oi6a - to know, the second - from tixpoco and tifso - to smoke, burn; to rage, to swagger.

** Here the sacred word (logos) obviously means Osiris.

*** He is looking for roots from otSa and ov (existence) in this word.

3.

Moreover, many write that Isis is the daughter of Hermes, and many - that she is the daughter of Prometheus *, because they consider the latter the inventor of wisdom and foresight, and Hermes - grammar and music. Therefore, in Hermopolis, the first of the muses is called both Isis and Justice, for she, as I have already said, is wise and reveals the divine to those who are rightly and justly called hierophores and hierostoli**. It is they who carry and hide in the soul, as in a casket, the sacred word about the gods, pure from all superstition and vanity, revealing only some parts of their teaching, sometimes shrouded in darkness and shaded, sometimes clear and bright, like those symbols that are revealed in the sacred robes. Therefore, when the dead priests of Isis are dressed in them, this is a sign that That Word abides with them and that, possessing only it and nothing more, they depart to another world. But just as a beard and wearing rags, Clay, do not make philosophers, so a linen dress and shaving of hair do not create priests of Isis. For the true servant of Isis is the one who always perceives according to the rules everything that is said about the gods and what is done in their name, exploring it with reason and reasoning about the truth contained in it.

* In the Egyptian tradition, Isis is the daughter of Hebe (Greek parallel - Cronus) or Thoth (Hermes).

** Guardians of sacred vessels and vestments.

4.

However, most people do not understand even such well-known and insignificant rules: why priests remove hair and wear linen clothes*. Some do not bother to know this at all, while others say that the priests refuse both wool and meat because they revere the sheep, shave their heads as a sign of mourning, and wear flax because of the color it gives off during flowering and which blueness is similar to the air surrounding the world. But the true reason for all this is one: it is not allowed, as Plato says, for the unclean to touch the pure**. Waste and refuse are not clean and respectable, but wool, fluff, hair and nails belonging to waste are born and grow. And it would be funny if the priests, removing their own hair during purification rites, shaving and polishing their bodies, put on and wore animal hair. One must assume that when Hesiod says:

“On a five-fingered branch in the midst of a blooming feast of immortals, there is no need to cut sushi from the green with light iron”***,

he teaches that one should approach the festival cleansed of all this, and not resort to purification and removal of excess during sacred ceremonies. As for flax, it is born from immortal soil, produces edible seed and supplies simple and clean clothing that does not burden protection; it is suitable for all seasons and is said to be the least likely to produce lice. But that's a different conversation.

* Herod.. II, 37, 81.

*** Hesiod., Opp. 742. Translation by Veresaev (Hellenic poets).

5.

The priests have such an aversion to the nature of waste that they not only refuse many types of beans, sheep and pork meat, but during cleansing rites they also remove salt from food, for which there are many reasons, but also that salt, by stimulating the appetite, makes you eat and drink more. And to consider salt unclean because, as Aristagoras asserts*, when it hardens in it, small creatures get stuck and die is stupid. They also say that Apis is given water from a special well and is not allowed near the Nile at all, and this is not because they consider the water unclean because of crocodiles, as some think: the Egyptians reverence nothing more than the Nile; but Nile water, when drunk, is believed to cause obesity and obesity. The priests do not wish this either for Apis or for themselves, but they want their bodies to comfortably and easily envelop the souls and so that the divine is not constrained and burdened by the mortal principle, which would overcome and burden it.

* Aristagoras of Miletus, historian of the 4th century. BC e., author of a work on the Nile.

6.

As for wine, of those who serve God in Heliopolis, some do not bring it into the sanctuary at all, for it is indecent to drink during the day, in front of the lord and king; others drink it, but not much. And they have many festivals when wine is forbidden, when they spend their time indulging in wisdom, learning and teaching the divine. And kings, in accordance with sacred prescriptions, drink a certain amount, as Hecataeus writes *, for they are priests. They began to drink wine from the time of Psammetichus**, but at first they did not drink it and did not make libations to them as something pleasing to the gods; on the contrary, wine is considered the blood of those who once fought with the gods; when they fell and mixed with the earth, a vine allegedly grew from them.

Therefore, drunkenness makes people mad and mad, as if they were filled with the blood of their ancestors. Eudox *** in the second book of “Descriptions of the Earth” claims that this is exactly how the priests talk about it.

* Hecataeus from Abdera, philosopher and historian, participant in the campaign of Alexander the Great. Wrote an essay about Egypt.

** First pharaoh of the XXVI Dynasty (664–610 BC). Egyptian legends and archeology refute such a late dating.

*** Eudoxus of Cnidus (about 408–355 BC) - mathematician, astronomer, geographer.

7.

Also, not all sea fish are rejected, but some of its species, for example, oxyrhynchitis - fish caught on a hook. For they revere Oxyrhynchus* and are afraid that the hook may turn out to be unclean due to the fact that the sturgeon pecked at it. And the Syenites avoid Fagr** because it is believed that he comes at the same time as the rise of the Nile and, appearing as a voluntary herald, announces the flood to joyful people. The priests abstain from all fish. On the ninth day of the first month, when all other Egyptians eat fried fish at their outer doors, the priests, having not tasted the dish, burn it at the gate, having two explanations for this; I will tell you about one of them, sacred and subtle, later: it relates to higher teaching about Osiris and Typhon; the second, clear and accessible, says that fish dishes are not necessary and simple food, and Homer is taken as a witness, in whom both the pampered Thracians and the inhabitants of Ithaca, an island people, did not use fish, just like Odysseus’s comrades for such a long time swimming and in the middle of the sea, until they fell into extreme need***. In general, the Egyptians believe that the sea emerged from the fire**** and, going beyond the boundaries of the world, is not part of it or an element, but alien waste, harmful and destructive.

* Sturgeon. Strabo, XVII, 40; Aelian., De Nat. Anim. X, 46; Clem. Alex., Protrep II, 39, 5.

** Aelian., De Nat. Anim. X, 19.

*** Horn., Od. IV, 369; XII, 332.

**** Variation: from pus. See Loeb, p. 18. Wed. Hesiod., Theog. 739: the extreme regions of darkness, as something alien to this world, are called purulent. On the other hand, the fiery nature of the sea characterizes it as the element of Set-Typhon.

8.

They do not introduce anything meaningless and fantastic, as some people think, or anything stemming from superstition into sacred rites: one is based on morality and benefit, the other is not alien to the subtleties of history and nature, such as, for example, what is associated with the onion. That Dictys, a descendant of Isis, clutching his bow, fell into the river and drowned is extremely implausible. But the priests, guarding themselves against onions, disdain them and turn away from them because they are the only ones that ripen and bloom during the waning moon. And it is unacceptable for those who fast and celebrate, since it causes thirst in the former who taste it, and makes the latter cry. They also consider the pig to be an unclean animal, for there is an idea that most often it mates during the waning moon and that those who drink its milk become covered with leprosy and skin scabs*. The story that they tell when once a year, on the full moon, they sacrifice and eat a pig, and which says that Typhon, chasing a boar under the full moon, found a wooden coffin where the remains of Osiris lay, and broke it, this Not everyone recognizes history; some consider it, like many other things, empty tales. They say about the ancients that they despised luxury, extravagance and pleasure so much that in Thebes, in the temple, there is rumored to be a stele inscribed with curses to King Minos**, who was the first to wean the Egyptians from a moderate, unselfish and simple way of life. They also say that Technakt, the father of Bokhoris***, during a campaign against the Arabs, when his convoy was late, gladly tasted the first food he came across, and then, having slept deeply on the straw, fell in love with unpretentiousness. For this reason, he allegedly cursed Minos and, with the approval of the priests, imprinted the curses on the stele.

* Herod., II, 47; Aelian., De Nat. Anim. X. 16; Tac, Hist. V, 4.

** Diod., I, 45. There is no evidence in Egyptian sources to confirm this story, but in general it is not difficult to understand why the first king of the first dynasty became a symbol of the destruction of the ancient, primitive way of life.

*** XXIV Dynasty, 730–715 BC. e.

9.

The Egyptians chose their kings from among the priests or warriors, and the military class had influence and honor due to courage, and the priests - due to wisdom. The one who advanced from the warriors immediately became a priest and became involved in wisdom, shrouded in myths and sayings that carry vague glimpses and reflections of truth; It is undoubtedly for this reason that they symbolically display sphinxes* in front of their temples as a sign that the secret wisdom is contained in their teaching about the divine. And in Sais the image of Athena, whom they call Isis, has the following inscription: “I am everything that was, and that is, and that exists, and no mortal has lifted my veil.” Also, many believe that the actual Egyptian name of Zeus is Amun (or Ammon, as we pronounce it incorrectly). Sebenite Manetho believes that this word means “hidden” or “concealment.” And Hecataeus of Abdera says that the Egyptians use this expression in conversation when they address someone, for it is an address. Therefore, when they appeal to the highest deity, which they consider identical with universality and as if invisible and hidden, when they pray for him to appear and reveal himself to them, then they pronounce “Amun”. Such is the reverence of the Egyptians for wisdom concerning divine matters.

The wisest of the Hellenes also give us evidence: Solon, Thales, Plato, Eudoxus, Pythagoras and, as some say, Lycurgus, who came to Egypt and communicated with the priests**. They say that Eudoxus studied with Xonopheus from Memphis, Solon with Sonchitus of Sais, Pythagoras with the heliopolitan Oinupheus. Especially, it seems, this latter, admirable himself and admired the priests, imitated their mysterious symbolism, clothing the teaching in allegory.

* Obviously, this refers not only to sphinxes in the form of a lion with a human head, but to images of beast-headed gods in general.

** Diod., I, 96; 98; Clem. Alex., Strom. I, 69, I

10.

Most of the Pythagorean prescriptions are no different from the so-called hieroglyphic writings, for example: do not eat food while sitting on a chariot; do not eat your bread in idleness*; do not plant a palm tree; Do not use a knife to rake out fire in the house. And I, for my part, believe that the fact that these people call the one Apollo, the two Artemis, the seven Athena, and the cube Poseidon is all similar to the rituals, images and, by Zeus, writings in Egyptian temples. For, for example, they depict the king and lord Osiris with the help of an eye and a scepter. Moreover, some interpret his name as “many-eyed”**, because “os” means “many” in Egyptian, and “iri” means “eye”. The sky, since it, being eternal, does not age, they depict with the sign of a heart with an incense burner under it***. And in Thebes, armless images of judges were exhibited, and the statue of the chief judge - with closed eyelids as a sign that justice is incorruptible and impartial **** The symbol of the warriors was a carved image of a scarab, for scarabs do not have females, but only males **** *. They give birth to their young in a substance that they roll into a ball, caring no less about the means of nutrition than about the place of birth.

* Expression that cannot be reproduced verbatim. ** Diod, I, 11

*** Wed. Horapollo, Hierogl. I, 22: a heart over a smoking incense burner - a symbol of Egypt. The discrepancy based on the insertion - they depict the sky with the sign of a cobra, and passion - with the sign of a heart with an incense burner under it. See Griffiths, p. 132.

**** Diod., I, 48. Images of this kind do exist.

***** Aelian., De Nat. Anim. X, 15; Porphyr., De Abstin. IV.9.

11.

So, Clea, when you listen to those myths in which the Egyptians talk about the gods, about their wanderings, torn to pieces and many similar passions, then you should remember what was said before, and not think that any of this happened and happened the way they talk about it.

Hermes, for example, is called a dog* not in in its own sense words, but, as Plato says**, they connect with the most cunning of the gods the vigilance of this creature, its tirelessness and wisdom, for it distinguishes between friendly and hostile according to its knowledge or ignorance of the subject. And no one thinks that the sun, like a newborn child, rises from the lotus, but this is how its rising is depicted in writing, symbolically indicating that the ignition of the sun occurs from water. Also Ochus, the most cruel and formidable of the Persian kings, who killed many and finally killed and ate Apis with his friends***, was called the sword, as he is still called in the catalog of kings; and I believe that in this way they do not designate an individual person, but compare cruelty and depravity of character to a murder weapon. So, if you listen to the stories about the gods in this way and listen to them from those who interpret the myth piously and wisely, if you always perform and observe the prescribed rites, realizing that for the gods there is no more pleasant task and no more pleasant sacrifice than a true understanding of their nature, then you will avoid superstition, which is no less evil than atheism.

* Hermes was identified with the dog-headed monkey Thoth (shared connection with wisdom) and with the jackal Anubis (shared connection with the underworld).

*** The name Ochus was borne by Darius II (423–404 BC) and Artaxerxes III (359–338 BC). Cambyses and Artaxerxes were accused of killing Apis (Aelian., Var Hist. IV, 8; Herod., III, 29).

12.

And here is the myth itself in a retelling as brief as possible, with the removal of everything unnecessary and superfluous. They say that when Helios learned that Rhea had secretly married Cronus, he cursed her, saying that she would not give birth in any month or year.

But Hermes, in love with the goddess, became intimate with her, and then, playing checkers with the moon, played the seventeenth part of each of her cycles, added up five days from them and set them to three hundred and sixty; and to this day the Egyptians call them “inserted” and “birthdays of the gods.”* They say that on the first day Osiris was born, and at the moment of his birth a certain voice said: the ruler of all things is born. Others say that a certain Pamilus, who was drawing water in Thebes, heard a voice from the sanctuary of Zeus, ordering him to loudly proclaim that he was born great king and the benefactor is Osiris; for this he allegedly became the teacher of Osiris, whom Cronus gave him, and in his honor the Pamilia festival is celebrated, reminiscent of phallic processions**. On the second day Arueris was born, who is called Apollo, and by some also the elder Horus***. On the third day, Typhon was born, but not on time and not in the proper way: he jumped out of his mother’s side, piercing it with a blow. On the fourth day, Isis was born in the moisture; on the fifth - Nephthys, who is called the End and Aphrodite, and by some - Victory. The myth says that Osiris and Arueris came from Helios, Isis from Hermes, and Typhon and Nephthys from Cronus. Therefore, the kings considered the third of the inserted days unlucky, did not engage in public affairs at this time and did not take care of themselves until nightfall. And they say that Nephthys became the wife of Typhon, and Isis and Osiris, having fallen in love with each other, united in the darkness of the womb before birth. Some say that from this marriage Arueris descended, whom the Egyptians call the elder Horus, and the Hellenes - Apollo ****.

* Rhea and Kron correspond to Nut and Geb (earth and sky), Helios - Atum-Ra (sun). Egyptian myths know Geb as the spouse of Nut, but there are images of the entry of the solar disk into the body of Put Thoth (Hermes) - the inventor of checkers and the lunar deity .

** The origin of the name Pamila is unknown. Perhaps it appeared as a result of a distorted use of the title of priest, minister phallic cult, or is it an ancient epithet of Osiris.

*** In Egyptian texts, the elder and younger Horus Arueris (Harur) - “great Horus”, Horus of the royal cult, are not distinguished. Perhaps Plutarch confused the meanings of “great” and “elder”.

**** The identification of Horus and Apollo occurred due to the involvement of both in the solar cult.

13.

They say that, having reigned, Osiris immediately turned the Egyptians away from their meager and bestial way of life, showed them the fruits of the earth and taught them to honor the gods; and then he wandered, subjugating the whole earth and not needing weapons at all for this, for he won most people over to his side, charming them with persuasive words, combined with singing and all kinds of music. Therefore, the Greeks identified him with Dionysus*. And they say that Typhon did nothing in his absence, because Isis, possessing all the power, very diligently guarded him and watched him**, but upon the return of Osiris he began to prepare a trap for him, drawing seventy-two people into the conspiracy and having an accomplice was an Ethiopian queen named Aso***. He secretly measured the body of Osiris, built a sarcophagus to measure, beautiful and wonderfully decorated, and brought it to the feast. While this spectacle caused delight and surprise, Typhon, as if as a joke, offered to present the sarcophagus as a gift to anyone who could fit into it in size. After he had tried everything in turn and it did not suit any of the guests, Osiris entered the coffin and lay down. And as if the conspirators ran up, slammed the lid and, having nailed it from the outside, filled it with hot lead, dragged the coffin into the river and launched it into the sea near Tanis, through the mouth, which is why even now the Egyptians call it hateful and vile. They say that this happened on the seventeenth day of the month Aphira ****, when the sun crosses the constellation Scorpio, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris. Others argue that this is the period of his life, and not his reign.

* Diod., I, 17 ed. The civilizing mission of Osiris is borrowed from Dionysian myths. The most ancient Osiris is the personification of royal power and the god of the dead, later he turns into the deity of grain and fertility.

** Egyptian sources do not mention the regency of Isis.

*** Difficult to explain name. In the Meroitic inscriptions Asi - Isis Egyptian sources often talk about the allies of Typhon, but never name their number.

14.

Since the lords and satyrs who lived in the area near Khemmis were the first to know about what happened and divulge this event, even now the unexpected confusion and fear of the crowd is called panic. They say that Isis, having received the news, immediately cut off one of her locks and put on a mourning veil where the city still bears the name Copt**. Others believe that the name means “loss,” for they say “koptein” in the sense of “to lose.” They say that she wandered everywhere and did not let anyone through without asking a question; Having also met the children, she asked them about the coffin. By chance they saw it and named the mouth through which Typhon's friends pushed the ark into the sea. Therefore, the Egyptians think that children have the gift of prediction and most often look for prophecies from them when they play in sacred places and chat about whatever happens. And when Isis learned that the loving Osiris had mistakenly married her sister as herself, and saw proof of this in the lotus wreath that he left with Nephthys, she began to look for the child, for Nephthys, having given birth, immediately removed him out of fear. before Typhon; the child was found with great difficulty and with the help of dogs that led Isis; she nursed him, and he, named Anubis, became her protector and companion, and they say that he guards the gods like dogs guard people.

And then, as they say, she learned about the sarcophagus, that the sea drove it to the shore of Byblos*** and the surf carefully carried it into the heather thickets. And the heather, in a short time growing into a huge and beautiful trunk, embraced and embraced him, and hid him in itself ****.

* The lords and satyrs came here from the Dionysian mythos. See Diod., 1, 18

*** Apollod., Bibl. II, 1, 3. The story of Isis in Byblos is full of details found in Homer's hymn to Demeter. See Hymn. Dem. V.

**** Heather is a shrub, but there is a variety of tree-like heather.

15.

The king was surprised at the size of the plant and, having cut down the core containing the invisible coffin, placed the trunk as a support for the roof. They say that Isis, having learned about this from the divine spirit of rumor, appeared in Byblos, sat down by the source, humble and tearful, and did not speak to anyone, but only greeted the queen’s maids, caressed them, braided their hair and cast her hair on them. body amazing aroma. As soon as the queen saw the maids, an attraction arose in her to the stranger, her hair and body exuding incense. They sent for Isis, and when she took root, she was made the nurse of the king’s son, and they say that the name of that king was Malcander, and some call the queen Astarte, others Saosis, and others Nemanus; the Hellenes would call her Athenaide*.

* Malkander corresponds to the Phoenician Melkart, Astarte is not only a goddess, but also the mythical ruler of Phenicia - The remaining names defy explanation.

16.

Tradition says that Isis nursed the child, putting a finger in his mouth instead of a breast, and at night she burned out the mortal shell of his body with fire; she herself, turning into a swallow, hovered around the column with a plaintive cry - and so on until the queen lay in wait for her and screamed at the sight of the child on fire, thereby depriving him of immortality. Then the exposed goddess begged the pillar from under the roof; Having easily freed him, she split the heather, and then, wrapping him in linen and anointing him with myrrh, she handed him over to the king and queen; and even now the inhabitants of Byblos venerate the tree placed in the sanctuary of Isis*. And they say that she fell on the coffin and screamed so much that the king’s youngest son died immediately, and she allegedly took the eldest with her and, placing the coffin on the ship, sailed away. But since the Phaedrus River nurtured a stormy wind before dawn, it became angry and dried up the riverbed.

** In the temple of Astarte in Byblos, rites were performed in honor of Adonis, which included worship of the obelisk.

17.

And in the first deserted place, left alone with herself, she opened the sarcophagus and, falling face to face, began to kiss and cry. And when she noticed a child quietly approaching from behind and observing this, she turned around and threw a terrible and angry look at him; the boy could not bear the shock and died.

Others tell a different story, but they say that the child, as I mentioned before*, fell into the sea and that in honor of the goddess they honor him: supposedly he is the same Maneros whom the Egyptians sing at feasts**. And some say that the boy's name was Palestine or Pelusius, and that he gave the name to the city founded by the goddess. They claim that Maneros, mentioned in the songs, was the first to invent music. Still others say that this is not someone’s name, but an expression used among people who drink and feast: may all this be for happiness! And supposedly when the Egyptians want to say something similar, they always exclaim: Maneros! So, undoubtedly, the figurine of the deceased in the reliquary, which is shown to them, carried around in a circle, does not serve as a reminder of the death of Osiris, as some believe, but, by introducing an unpleasant companion several times, they convince the spectators themselves to use and enjoy the present, because everyone will soon become same.

** According to Herodotus (II, 79), Maneros is the untimely deceased son of the first Egyptian king.

18.

And they say that later, when Isis went to But to her son Horus, who was brought up there, and placed the fob far from the road, Typhon, hunting in the moonlight, came across it and, recognizing the body, tore it into fourteen pieces and scattered them. When Isis found out about this, she went in search, crossing the swamps on a papyrus boat. For this reason, crocodiles allegedly do not touch those floating in papyrus shuttles, experiencing either fear or, I swear by Zeus, reverence for the goddess. And therefore, supposedly in Egypt there are many tombs of Osiris, because Isis, while searching for it, buried each of his members. Others deny this and say that she made statues and gave them to each city instead of the body of Osiris so that Typhon, if he defeated Horus and began to look for the true tomb, would have to abandon this, since many graves would be named and shown to him .

Of all the parts of Osiris’s body, Isis did not find only the phallus, for it immediately fell into the river and lepidots, fagris and sturgeons fed on it, which they abhor more than any other fish. Isis, according to the stories, made an image of him instead and consecrated the phallus; Egyptians still hold celebrations in his honor.

19.

Then, as the legend says, Osiris, appearing to Horus from the kingdom of the dead, trained and trained him for battle, and then asked him what he considered the most beautiful thing in the world. When he answered: to avenge his father and mother, who were harmed, he again asked which animal seemed to him the most useful for one who goes to battle. Hearing “horse”* in response from Horus, he was surprised and began to inquire why it was a horse and not a lion**. Then Horus said that the lion is needed for those who need protection, and the horse is needed to cut off and destroy the fleeing enemy. Hearing this, Osiris rejoiced, for Horus was completely ready for the fight. And they say that while many were continuously going over to Horus’s side, Typhon’s concubine Tueris also appeared to him and that the snake that was pursuing her was killed by Horus’s friends; and to this day, in memory of this, they throw a rope and cut it in the middle***. As for the battle, it allegedly lasted many days, and Horus won. Isis, having received the chained Typhon, did not execute him, but untied him and released him. Horus did not have the patience to endure this: he raised his hand to his mother and tore the royal crown from her head. But Hermes crowned her with a horned helmet****.

Then Typhon accused Horus of illegitimacy, but with the protection of Hermes, Horus was recognized by the gods as the legitimate son, and Typhon was defeated in two more battles. Osiris united with Isis after death, and she gave birth to Harpocrates, who was born prematurely and had weak legs** ***.

* Variation: wolf. See Loeb, p. 46.

** No nation has used the lion as a war animal. Apparently, Plutarch was misled by the images of the pharaoh in the form of a lion: the lion is a symbol of the king in battle.

*** Tueris is the hippopotamus goddess of Tawert. Females were considered good creatures, unlike males - the animals of Set.

**** In Egyptian myth, Horus beheads his mother, after which Thoth attaches a cow's head to Isis. The Greeks sometimes identified Isis with Io.

***** In Egyptian sources, Harpocrates is Horus the child.

20.

This is approximately the main content of the myth, if we omit reprehensible stories, for example, the story of the torn Horus and the beheaded Isis *. When this is said and taught about the eternal and immortal nature, in which the deity is most recognized, as if this truly happened and happened, then, as Aeschylus says, “one must spit and cleanse the mouth.” But you don’t need to be reminded of this at all. And you yourself are indignant at those who adhere to such a lawless and barbaric doctrine of the gods. But you also know that all this is not entirely similar to the wretched tales and empty fantasies of poets and logographers, who, like spiders, weave and pull an arbitrary basis generated from themselves, but that there are echoes of stories and legends about former events. And just as mathematicians say that a rainbow is a reflection of the sun, colored by the refraction of a glance in a cloud, so our myth is an image of a certain concept that translates thought into another; This is hinted at by rituals containing mourning and thereby expressing grief, as well as by the construction of temples**, partly opening into side galleries and light, open corridors, and partly having secret dark sacristies underground, similar to the caves and sacristies of the Theban temples. No less complex is the doctrine of the tombs of Osiris, whose body, according to legend, rests in many places. They say that Diochetis is the name of the only town that owns the real body; but even in Abydos, rich and powerful Egyptians are most often buried, because they allegedly seek the honor of lying in the same land with the body of Osiris. And in Memphis they feed Apis, who represents the image of his soul; the body seems to rest there as well. And the name of the city is interpreted by some as “a haven of goodness,” others in their own way: “the tomb of Osiris.”

They also say that near Phil*** there is an island, at any other time undisturbed and forbidden for everyone: birds do not fly to it, and fish do not approach it; but at a certain time, the priests cross over to it, make funeral sacrifices and decorate the tombstone with wreaths, overshadowed by a mephida tree, which is larger than any olive tree.

* There is a legend about how Isis cut off the hands of Horus. The reason for the massacre is unknown, but it can be correlated with the story of Horus's violence against his mother. Among the reprehensible stories omitted by Plutarch is the news of Seth's amorous advances towards Horus.

** Strabo, XVII, 1, 28.

*** Diod., I, 22.

21.

But although many tombs of Osiris are called in Egypt, Eudoxus claims that the body rests in Busiris, because this city was the birthplace of Osiris: after all, the word Taphosiris does not need explanation - this name itself contains the name of the tomb of Osiris. But I am silent about the rituals of cutting wood, tearing flax and funeral libation, because a lot of hidden things are mixed in with them. And not only about these gods, but also about all the others who are not among the unborn and immortal, the priests say that they have embalmed bodies that are looked after, and the souls of the gods shine in the sky like stars, and that the constellation of Isis, which the Egyptians are called Sophis, the Greeks call the Dog, the constellation Horus - Orion, Typhon - the Bear *. They also say that all the Egyptians bring prescribed food for the tombs of revered animals, and only the Thebans give nothing, for they do not honor any god subject to death, but only the one whom they call Kneph** - the uncreated and immortal.

* Usually astral spheres The gods were distributed as follows: Ra - the sun, Horus - the sky (the moon and the sun are his eyes), Osiris - Orion, Set - Ursa Major.

** Knef is the name of the ancient Theban serpent god, whose cult merged with the cult of Amun.

22.

This is how many people tell and present the matter, but there are also those who believe that all these are memories of the great and amazing deeds and sufferings of kings and tyrants, who, for outstanding valor or power, ascribed to themselves the glory of the divine name and which then suffered from fate. These people use the slightest deviation from the story to wisely transfer the bad reputation from the gods to people; in this they are helped by the legends themselves, for the Egyptians say that Hermes was short-armed, Typhon was red, Horus was white, and Osiris was dark-skinned, as if their nature was human*. In addition, Osiris is called the commander, and Kanopus is the helmsman, the same one who, according to them, gave the name to the star**. The ship, which the Hellenes call Argo and which is the image of the ship of Osiris***, is supposedly placed with honor among the stars and is not far from the constellations Orion and Canis, which is why the Egyptians believe that the first is dedicated to Horus, and the second to Isis.

* According to Egyptian myth, Thoth intervened in the struggle between Set and Horus on the side of the latter, and Set tore off his hand, which was then reborn again. Black is the color of fertile land, white is Upper Egypt, red is Lower Egypt and the desert.

** Kanopus is the helmsman of Menelaus, who died in Egypt.

*** Some researchers suggest the Egyptian origin of the name of the constellation Argo, since the idea of ​​​​celestial courts is characteristic of the Egyptians, and not the Greeks.

23.

But I am afraid that the unmovable will move and “war will begin not only with many times” (as Simonides said) *, but also “with many tribes of men” and peoples devoted to faith in these gods: after all, people do not stop fighting with heaven to earth such great names and undermine and destroy the piety and faith invested in almost everyone from birth, and thereby open the gates to the monster of atheism** and humanize the gods, and give free rein to the tricks of Euhemer of Messene***, who himself having compiled copies of untrustworthy and counterfeit myths, he scatters unbelief throughout the entire earth, because he produced the names of all the supposed gods en masse from the names of the generals, navarkhs and kings who lived in ancient times and were imprinted in golden letters in Panhot; and these writings, as they should, were not found by any barbarian or Hellene, but only Euhemerus, who sailed to Panchoti and Triphyllia, which never existed or existed anywhere in the world.

* Bergk, III, fr. 193.

** Literally: to the lion of godlessness. Perhaps there is an allusion to the proper name. A certain Leon of Pella, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, wrote a study on the Egyptian gods in the spirit of Euhemerus.

*** Lived in Macedonia, at the court of Cassander.

24.

After all, the great deeds of Semiramis are glorified in Assyria, and Sesostris in Egypt; and among the Phrygians, brilliant and amazing deeds are still called “ma-nika”, because in ancient times among their kings there was a certain Manes, a noble and powerful man, whom some call Masdes*. Cyrus led the Persians as victors and almost to the end of the world, Alexander led the Macedonians, but they acquired the name and memory of good kings. If some, having ascended in arrogance and, as Plato says**, kindling the soul in pride with youthful ardor and foolishness, took the names of the gods and built temples, then their glory flourished for a short time, and then they, having acquired for themselves by their blasphemy and lawlessness, vain praise , “short-lived, like smoke, rise and disappear”*** and now, like criminal insolent people, they are expelled from churches and altars and have nothing but graves and monuments. Therefore, Antigonus the Elder, when a certain Hermodot proclaimed him in verse as the son of the sun and god, said: “but the slave who carries out the pots for me does not think of me like that.” And rightly the sculptor Lysippos blamed the artist Apelles for the fact that, when creating a portrait of Alexander, he gave him a lightning bolt, while Lysippos himself gave a spear, the glory of which, as a real thing and belonging to Alexander, no time will destroy.

* Sesostris is a generalized image of the Senusrets of the Middle Kingdom. Manes is the mythical king of the Lydians (according to Plutarch - the Phrygians). Herod., I 94; IV 45.

**Inaccurate quote from Legg. 716a.

*** Quote from Empedocles (490–430 BC).

25*.

However, the best judgment is made by those who write that the story of Typhon, Osiris and Isis concerns the sufferings not of gods or people, but of the great demons, about whom Plato**, Pythagoras***, Xenocrates**** and Chrysippus**** *, following the ancient interpreters of the divine, they say that they were stronger than people and far surpassed our nature in power, but did not possess the divine nature in a pure and unalloyed form; on the contrary, since their nature is involved in the nature of the soul and the sensations of the body and perceives pleasure and pain, they are disturbed by all the misfortunes that occur during such transitions - some more, others less. Just like among demons, like among people, there is a difference between virtue and vice. The exploits of giants and titans, glorified by the Hellenes, and certain lawless acts of Cronos******, and Typhon's resistance to Apollo, and the wanderings of Dionysus*******, and the wanderings of Demeter are no different from the stories of Osiris and Typhon and from others myths that everyone can hear enough of. The same can be said about what is hidden in sacred mysteries and rites and is kept from the eyes and ears of the crowd.

* The demonology of this chapter is clearly of Greek origin. The creator of developed demonology is considered to be Xenocrates, a student of Plato and head of the Academy from 319 to 314 BC. e. The Stoics paid great attention to the doctrine of demons. A hierarchy was created: gods - demons - heroes - people.

*** Diog Laert. VIII, 32

**** Xenocrates of Chalcedon (399–314 BC).

***** Third head of the Stoic school (c. 280–207 BC).

****** Castration of Uranus.

******* There are a number of discrepancies: φυγαι - flight (Hom., II. VI, 135), φθοροι - (the story of Pentheus?), φθογγοι - lamentation, φθονοι - hatred. See Loeb, p. 154.

26.

We also read in Homer how he each time refers to noble people differently: “god-like,” and “god-like,” and “wise gods,” and uses the comparison with demons equally for both worthy and bad people:

“Come closer, like a demon: why do you bring such fear to the Argives?”*

“But the fourth time he still flew like a demon...”**

"Daemon! Elder Priam and Priam’s children, what evil have they done before you, that you are constantly burning to destroy the City of Ilion, the splendid abode of mortals”***

Thus, the nature and nature of demons are heterogeneous and unequal. Therefore, Plato**** attributes the right side and odd numbers to the Olympian gods, and everything opposite to the demons. Xenocrates believes that unlucky days and those sad festivals that prescribe scourging, weeping, fasting, reproach and foul language are not held in honor of the gods or in honor of good demons, but that in the surrounding space there are huge and evil, capricious and gloomy beings who rejoice in such things and, having received them, do not interfere with anything. And Hesiod***** calls good and noble demons “sacred,” “protectors of people,” and “bringing wealth,” and “having royal honors.” Plato ****** calls this family prophets and mediators between gods and people and says that they carry the prayers and requests of people to heaven, and from there bring prophecies and good gifts down.

Empedocles ******* says that demons undergo punishment if they have done something wrong or made a mistake:

“The fury of the ether drives them into the sea.

The sea spews out onto the firmament,

The earth is in the heat of the unquenchable sun.

And it - into an ethereal whirlwind.

One accepts from the other.

But they hate everyone"

And so on until, having suffered punishment and been purified, they take place and order in accordance with their nature.

* II. XIII, 810.

** II. V, 438; XVI, 705; XX, 447 Hereinafter - trans. N.I. Gnedich.

****Legg. 717b.

***** Opp., 122, 126.

****** Symp 202e.

******* Vors. I, No. 21, B 115.

27.

Such and similar stories are told about Typhon: how, out of envy and hatred, he committed terrible deeds and, having brought everything in the world into disorder, filled the whole earth and sea with evil* and then suffered punishment. And the avenger, sister and wife of Osiris, having curbed and destroyed the rage and rage of Typhon, did not neglect the struggles and battles that fell to her lot, did not consign her wanderings and many deeds of wisdom and courage to oblivion and default, but added images and allegories to the most sacred mysteries and memorials of the sufferings she once endured and dedicated them as an example of piety and at the same time for the sake of consolation to men and women who endure similar misfortunes. Both she and Osiris were transformed from good demons into gods for their valor, like Hercules and Dionysus later, and it is not without reason that they accept the honors equally due to gods and demons, and have power everywhere, but most of all - above and below the earth.

* IN Egyptian mythology Seth was far from being the embodiment of world evil; His main roles are the deity of darkness, storm and desert (heat).

28.

They say that Sarapis is none other than Pluto, and Isis is Persephone*, as Archemachus of Euboea** claims, while the Pontian Heraclides*** believes that the oracle in Canopus belongs to Pluto.

And Ptolemy Soter dreamed of the colossus of Pluto in Sinope, although the king did not know him and had never seen what his appearance was; and the colossus ordered to deliver him as quickly as possible to Alexandria ****. Knowing nothing about him and wondering where he could be, the king described the vision to his friends, and there was one traveler, Sosibius, who stated that he saw in Sinope exactly the same colossus that the king had seen. And so the king sent Sotelius and Dionysius on their way, who, having spent a lot of time, with difficulty and not without divine assistance, stole and took away the statue. When it was delivered and put on display, the comrades of the exegete Timothy and Manetho of Sebenitus decided that it was a statue of Pluto, judging by Cerberus and the snake; They convince Ptolemy that it does not belong to any other god except Sarapis. So, under this name the statue did not come from where it was, but, being placed in Alexandria, received the Egyptian name of Pluto - Sarapis. And, of course, the saying of the philosopher Heraclitus*****: “Hades and Dionysus are one and the same, for whom they go mad and celebrate Lineaus” - inclines to the same opinion. And those who believe that the body is called Hades, because the soul in it is as if drunk and insane, resort to pitiful allegories. It is more correct to identify Osiris with Dionysus, and Sarapis with that Osiris who received this name when he changed his nature. Therefore, Sarapis is involved with all people, as those who are associated with temple service know about Osiris.

* Isis is identified with Persephone as the wife of Osiris-Pluto.

** III century BC e.

**** Ptolemy Soter (305–283 BC) is credited with establishing the state cult of Sarapis. It is not clear why Sarapis turns out to be associated with the Black Sea Sinope. It should be noted that sinopion is an epithet of Memphis. Tas, Hist. IV, 83.

***** Heraclitus of Ephesus, circa 530–470 BC Vors. I No. 12 B 15.

29.

On the other hand, you should not pay attention to the writings of the Phrygians, which say that Sarapis was the son of Haropes, the daughter of Hercules, and Typhon was the son of Aeacus and the grandson of Hercules *. Philarchus** is also worthy of contempt, writing that Dionysus was the first to bring two bulls from India to Egypt, and one of them was called Apis, and the other was Osiris. Sarapis is supposedly the name of the one who organizes everything, coming from “sairein” - a word that others interpret as “to decorate” and “to organize.” Everything that Philarchus says is nonsense, but even greater nonsense is that of those who say that Sarapis is not a god, but the sarcophagus of Apis called by this name, and that there are certain copper gates in Memphis, called the gates of Oblivion and Lamentation***. They open every time Apis is buried, emitting a painful and sharp sound. Therefore, supposedly, when any brass thing sounds, we are overcome with excitement. More moderate are those who claim that the name comes from “sebestai” and “sustai” and in one way or another denotes the movement of all things. Most of the priests say that Apis and Osiris are one, teaching and instructing us that we must consider Apis as the incarnate image of the soul of Osiris. For my part, I believe that if the name Sarapis is Egyptian, then it means “joy” and “fun,” and I am based on the fact that the Egyptians call joyful holidays sairs. And Plato**** says that Hades got his name as a beneficent and hospitable god towards those who come to him.

In addition, the Egyptians have many other names that are titles; Thus, they call the underworld, into which, in their opinion, souls go after death, Ament, and the name means: “taker and giver”*****. Later we will consider whether this is not one of the names that originated and was transferred from Hellas******; Now let's move on to the next parts of the teaching that occupies us.

*Various readings. Sarapis was the son of Hercules, Isis was his daughter, and Typhon was the son of Alcaeus, the son of Hercules. Loeb, p. 70.

** Historian of the 3rd century. BC.

*** Diod., I 96; Paus., I 18, 4.

**** Cratyl 404b.

***** Ament is an epithet meaning “Lord of the West”

****** See chap. 60.

30.

So, Osiris and Isis turned into gods from good demons, and the power of Typhon, broken and weakened, but still rebelling in agony, was appeased and pacified by all kinds of sacrifices. And, on the contrary, at certain times, on holidays, the Egyptians, mockingly, humiliate and insult red-haired people, and the inhabitants of Copts, for example, knock down a donkey, because Typhon was red and that is the color of a donkey. The Busirites and Lycopolitans do not use the trumpet at all, because it brays like a donkey. And in general, it is believed that, due to its resemblance to Typhon, the donkey is an animal of evil and witchcraft, and the Egyptians, preparing sacrificial cakes for the holiday in the months of Pawnee and Phaofi, sculpt an image of a tied donkey on them *. And when performing rituals in honor of the sun, they instruct the celebrants not to wear gold things on their bodies and not to give food to the donkey. It is quite obvious that the Pythagoreans also consider Typhon a demonic force; they say that his birth corresponds to a number of this kind - fifty-six. Again, Eudoxus writes that the triangle corresponds to Hades, Dionysus and Ares, the quadrangle to Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter and Hera, the dodecagon to Zeus, and the fifty-hexagon to Typhon.

The Egyptians, believing that Typhon was red, also sacrifice red bulls, and they inspect them so carefully that if they find even one white or black hair, they consider the animal unfit**:

* Seth's animals: crocodile, hippopotamus, wild boar, donkey. In Greek papyri, Seth was often depicted as a man with the head of a donkey.

** Diod., I, 88; Herod., II, 38.

31.

A correctly selected victim should not be loved by the gods, but hated by them, since she accepted the souls of wicked and unrighteous people who moved into other bodies *. Therefore, the Egyptians called a curse on the victim’s head and, having slaughtered it, used to throw it into the river, but now they give it to foreigners**. The bull intended for sacrifice is branded by priests called sphragists, and the seal, as Castor testifies, has a carved image of a man kneeling; his hands are tied behind his back and a sword is put to his throat. And what falls, as mentioned above, to the lot of the donkey, the Egyptians explain by its similarity to Typhon in stupidity and stubbornness no less than by its similarity in color. Therefore, hating Okh most of all the Persian kings, as a criminal and bloodthirsty man, they called him a donkey. And he, exclaiming: “Do not doubt, this donkey will eat your bull,” he stabbed Apis; This is how Deinon**** testifies to this. Those who say that after the battle Typhon fled for seven days on a donkey, escaped and became the father of Jerusalem and Judea, they clearly and clearly draw the Jewish tradition into the myth.

* This idea is obviously based on the Egyptian myth about the transmigration of Seth and his allies into the bodies of animals.

** Herod., II, 39.

32.

These are the thoughts these stories suggest. But let us approach the matter differently and turn our attention first to those who seem to be saying something more philosophical. These include those who teach that, just as the Hellenes personify time in Krona, air in Hera, and the transformation of air into fire in the birth of Hephaestus, so among the Egyptians the Nile is Osiris**, combined with earth - Isis, and Typhon - the sea into which the Nile, flowing, disappears and dissipates, except for the part that the earth receives and absorbs, becoming fertile through it. And there is a cult song of lament sung in honor of the Nile; it mourns those born on the left side and those killed on the right side, for the Egyptians believe that the east is the face of the world, that in the north is the right side, in the south is the left. And since the Nile carries water from the south and is absorbed by the sea in the north, they rightly say that it is born on the left side and dies on the right. Therefore the priests abhor the sea and call salt the foam of Typhon; and among other prohibitions they are ordered not to place salt on the table. Also, they do not talk to the helmsmen, because they are connected with the sea and live off it. Not least for this reason, they despise fish and depict hatred in the form of a fish. For in Sais, in the vestibule of the temple of Athena, are carved: a child, an old man, then a falcon, then a fish, behind all - a hippopotamus. This symbol meant: O, those who are born and those who die, God hates shamelessness***; a child is a symbol of birth, an old man - death, by a falcon they mean God, by a fish, as I said, hatred because of its involvement in the sea, by a hippopotamus - shamelessness, for they say about him that, having killed his father, he is forcibly married with Mother. And, it seems, the Pythagoreans’ statement that the sea is Crohn’s tear hints at its unclean and alien nature, but it’s better to talk about this well-known story elsewhere.

* Cic, De Nat. Dcor. II. 25 (64).

** See chap. 40: Horus was also identified with the Nile. Osiris is associated with every source of fertility, including the Nile (Hapi) and grain (Neper).

*** Lacuna. The text of the saying is inserted by Clem. Alex.. SIrom. V, 41, 4.

33.

The wisest of the priests not only call the Nile Osiris, and the sea Typhon, but in general give the name Osiris to every moist principle and energy, considering them the cause of birth and the substance of the seed. Typhon they call everything dry, fiery, giving off water and generally hostile to moisture. Believing that Typhon's body was red and yellow, they are not very willing to meet and do not enjoy communicating with people who have a similar appearance. About Osiris, on the contrary, their legends say that he was dark, because water makes everything dark with what it mixes: earth, clothes, clouds; and the moisture contained in the bodies of young men gives rise to dark hair color, and gray hair or, as it were, colorlessness appears in aging people due to dryness. Also, spring is abundant, fertile and beneficial, while late autumn, deprived of moisture, is hostile to plants and harmful to animals. The bull, which is nursed in Heliopolis and called Mnevis * (it is dedicated to Osiris, and some consider it the father of Apis), is all black; and he has honors second only to those of Apis. And Egypt, located on the very black soil**, is called, like the pupil of the eye, Hemia and is compared to the heart, for it is warm and moist and is adjacent to the southern lands of the universe, surrounded by them, like the human heart - by the left side of the body.

* Diod., I, 21, Strabo, XVII, I, 22; Aetian, De Nat. Anim XI, 11

**Herod. II, 12.

34.

They also say that the sun and moon travel not by cart, but by ship*, hinting that their origin and saturation come from water. And there is an opinion that Homer, like Thales, believed that the birth of all things began in water, having learned about this from the Egyptians**. And they think that Ocean is Osiris***, and Tythys is Isis, because she feeds and nurtures all living things.

In addition, the Hellenes call the release of semen "apusia", and copulation - "sinusia", the word "son" (giyos) is derived from "gidor" (water) and "gisai" (it is raining). And Dionysus, as the lord of wet nature, they call “gyes” (sending rain); and he is none other than Osiris. And Hellanicus probably heard the priests call Osiris Gisiris, because that is what he constantly calls the god, of course, in view of his nature and the ritual of his discovery ****.

*Clem. Alex., Strom. V, 41, 2.

** II. XIV, 201; Thales of Miletus - the first Greek philosopher(end of the 7th - beginning of the 6th century BC). Vors. I, no. 1.

*** The ocean, unlike the sea, is a stream of fresh water.

**** See chap. 39.

35.

And who knows better than you, Klea, that Osiris and Dionysus are one? This is how it should be: after all, it is you who lead the inspired priestesses at Delphi, destined by your father and mother for the mysteries of Osiris. If evidence must be presented for the sake of others, then we will leave everything hidden outside the narrative, but the open actions of the priests during the burial of Apis, when his body is carried on a raft, are in no way inferior to Bacchanalian rejoicing: for they put on deer skins, and carry thyrsus, and publish screams and makes movements like those possessed by Dionysian ecstasy. Therefore, many Hellenes make images of Dionysus in the form of a bull. And during prayer, Eleatic women call on God to “come to them with the foot of a bull.” Among the Argives, Dionysus is called the son of a bull; he is called out of the water with the sounds of trumpets, throwing a ram into the depths for the Gatekeeper; and they hide the pipes in the thyrsus, as Socrates tells in his books “On the Sacred”*. Also, the legends about the Titans and the nightly celebrations in honor of Dionysus correspond to the stories about the torn apart, resurrection and rebirth of Osiris. It's the same with tombs. The Egyptians, as I have said, show the tombs of Osiris everywhere, and the Delphians believe that the remains of Dionysus are kept with them, behind the oracle; and the “pure”** make a secret sacrifice in the sanctuary of Apollo, when the inspired priestesses awaken Lycnitus***.

And that the Greeks consider Dionysus the ruler and creator not only of wine, but of all wet nature, here it is enough for us to have as a witness Pindar ****, who said:

“Let joyful Dionysus, the clear brilliance of maturity, increase the food of the trees.”

Therefore, those who worship Osiris are forbidden to cut down a garden tree and fill up water sources.

* Socrates the Argive, III or II century. BC e.

** Priests in Delphi.

*** Λικνον - a basket of first fruits, offered to Dionysus, but also the wicker cradle of Dionysus-Zagreus, who, according to Orphic myth, was torn to pieces by the titans. According to one version of the myth, Zeus gave the remains of Zagreus to Apollo and he buried them in Delphi.

**** Bergk. I, fr. 153.

36.

Not only the Nile, but all moisture in general is called the outflow of Osiris; and in honor of God a vessel of water is always carried at the front of the sacred procession. With the help of the sign of the reed, the Egyptians depict the king and the southern limits of the world, and the reed symbolizes the hydration and fertilization of all things and in nature seems similar to the reproductive organ. Celebrating Pamilia, a festival, as I said, phallic, they put in front and carry everywhere a statue, the phallus of which is increased three times *, for God is the beginning, and every beginning, thanks to its fertility, increases what comes from it; we are accustomed to saying “three” instead of “many”, as, for example, “thrice happy” and “I would willingly allow myself to be entangled in a triple net”**, unless, I swear by Zeus, the number three did not express its true meaning among the ancients: after all, moist nature, being the beginning and container of birth, first gave birth to three bodies - earth, air and fire. And the legend that became part of the myth about how Typhon threw the phallus of Osiris into the river and how Isis did not find it, but, having made and created a similar image, ordered it to be honored and worn in phallic processions, this legend came here because it teaches that the creative and productive power of God from the very beginning included wet matter and through moisture was united with that which was created to participate in generation.

The Egyptians also have a legend about how Apopis***, the brother of Helios, went to war with Zeus and how Osiris, who became his ally and together with him victoriously ended the war, was adopted by Zeus and named him Dionysus. It can be pointed out that the fabulous in this legend is connected with the truth concerning nature. For the Egyptians call the wind **** Zeus, to which everything dry and fiery is hostile, and this is not the sun, but something akin to the sun. Moisture, destroying excess dryness, nurtures and intensifies evaporation, through which the wind becomes saturated and strengthens.

* Herod, II, 48. The phallic element was never alien to the cult of Osiris, but acquired great importance only from the Hellenistic era under the influence of the cult of Dionysus.

** Hom., Od. V, 306; VI. 154; VIII, 340.

*** Apopis is a serpent, the deity of darkness.

****Diode. I, 12

37.

In addition, the Hellenes dedicated ivy to Dionysus, and among the Egyptians, according to rumors, it is called heposiris, and this name is said to mean “the shoot of Osiris.” Further, Ariston*, who wrote “The Athenian Colonization,” came across a letter from a certain Alexarchus, which tells that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Isis and that the Egyptians called him not Osiris, but Arsaf (with the letter “a”), which is the name translated like "courage". Hermey** also asserts the same thing in the first book of his essay “On the Egyptians”: he declares that “Osiris” can be interpreted as “mighty.” I'm not even talking about Mnasia***, who identifies Dionysus, Osiris and Sarapis with Epaphus. I’m not even talking about Anticlidis ****, who claims that Isis is the daughter of Prometheus and that she was the wife of Dionysus. Those special holidays and rituals that I have described contain a more obvious truth than the words of witnesses.

* Peripatetic philosopher, contemporary of Strabo. In addition to the work mentioned above, I wrote a study about the Nile.

** It is not clear which Hermeus is meant. Most likely a native of Hermopolis (2nd century BC).

*** A native of Lycian Patara, a student of Eratosthenes, the author of a number of works on antiquarian geographical topics.

**** Athenian historian of the era of the Diadochi.

38.

The brightest star is called Isis by the Egyptians because it causes the flood. They also revere the lion and decorate the doors of temples with lion mouths, because the Nile overflows its banks “when the sun first meets the lion.”* And just as they call the Nile the outflow of Osiris, so they take the earth to be the body of Isis, but not all of it, but only that to which the Nile rises, combining with it and fertilizing it. Through this intercourse they give birth to Horus. And Horus is a proportionate mixture of air and spring, which stores and nourishes everything around; and they say that Horus was nursed by Latona in the swamps surrounding But: after all, moist and wet earth raises evaporations that destroy and weaken sterility and dryness. The outermost outskirts of the earth, which border on the sea, are called Nephthys. Therefore, Nephthys is called the end and they say that she is the wife of Typhon. And when the swollen and overflowing Nile reaches the outskirts, this is called the intercourse of Osiris and Nephthys, which is evidenced by the emerging plants; and among them there is a lotus, about which the myth tells that it, falling out of the wreath and remaining in place, became for Typhon evidence of an insult to his marriage. That is why Isis gave birth to Horus nobly, and Nephthys Anubis illegitimately. Moreover, in the catalog of kings they write that Nephthys, having become the wife of Typhon, was at first barren. If they say this not about a woman, but about a goddess, then they mean the earth, non-fertile and barren due to the lack of moisture.

* Horapollo, Hierogl. I. 24.

39.

Also, the evil intent and tyranny of Typhon meant the predominance of that dryness that defeated and dispelled the moisture that generated and nourished the Nile. And by his assistant, the Ethiopian queen, is meant the southern winds from Ethiopia; for when they defeat the Etesians*, who drive the clouds into Ethiopia, and when they do not allow the rains that fill the Nile to pour out, then Typhon, pursuing Osiris, flares up and, at that time, completely overpowering the Nile, which in itself is humble due to its scarcity and flows shallowly between high banks, pushes it out to sea.

Apparently, the so-called position of Osiris in the grave means nothing more than the drying up and loss of water. Therefore they say that in the month of Aphira** Osiris dies: after all, when the Etesia subsides, the Nile becomes completely shallow and the earth is exposed; then, as the night lengthens, the darkness thickens, the power of light is defeated and exhausted, and the priests perform gloomy rituals and, as a sign of grief for the goddess, display a gilded cow, shrouded in black linen (they consider the cow to be a likeness of Isis and the earth); and this continues for four consecutive days, beginning on the seventeenth day of the month. And there are four reasons for mourning: firstly, the Nile subsides and disappears, secondly, the northern winds are completely defeated, and the southern ones have taken over, thirdly, the day becomes shorter than the night; finally, the earth is exposed and the vegetation disappears, losing its foliage at this time. On the nineteenth night the processions descend to the sea; The priests and stolists*** carry a sacred chest, which has a golden ark inside, into which they scoop and pour fresh water. And the cry of those around him rises that Osiris has been found. Then fertile soil is brought to the water and, after mixing it with expensive incense and incense, a month-shaped figure is sculpted. They dress and decorate it, showing that they consider these gods to be the substance of water and earth.

* Northern winds (Diod., I, 39; III, 3).

** November.

*** Guardians of the vestments.

40.

When Isis again resurrected Osiris and raised Horus, who became stronger thanks to vapors, fog and clouds, Typhon was defeated, but not destroyed. So the goddess, mistress of the earth, did not allow the nature opposite to moisture to be completely destroyed, but weakened and freed it, wanting the mixture to be preserved, since perfect order is impossible in the event of the extinction and disappearance of the fiery principle.

And even if they talk about this in an inappropriate way, one should not neglect the story of how Typhon once seized the inheritance of Osiris: after all, Egypt was a sea. Therefore, many shells are still discovered in mines and mountains; and all the springs and all the wells (and there are many of them) have bitter and salty water, as if the old remains of an ancient sea had accumulated here. But in due time, Horus defeated Typhon, that is, after heavy rainfall, the Nile, displacing the sea, revived and recreated the valley with sediment. This can be evidenced by observation: we even now see how the river carries new silt and moves the earth against the gradually receding sea, and it falls from the bottom growing due to sediment. The island of Pharos, which Homer knew to be a day's march from Egypt, is now part of the country, not because it has grown larger and closer to the land, but because the sea lying between them has been displaced by a river, which molds and grows the land. . But similar ideas are also present in the Stoics’ reasoning about the gods; and they say that Dionysus is a creative and nourishing spirit, Hercules is violent and destructive, Ammon is perceptive; that Demeter and Kore are everything related to the earth and fruits, and Poseidon - to the sea**.

*Hom., Od IV,356; strabo xii,2, 4; xvii, i,6.

** Cic, De Nat Deor I, 15; II, 28; Diog. Laert., VII, 147

41.

However, confusing astronomical reasons with natural causes, they also believe that the solar world is called Typhon, and the lunar world is called Osiris. They say that the moon, having life-giving light and generating moisture, is favorable for the reproduction of animals and for the flowering of plants, and the sun with its immoderate and cruel fire burns and dries up everything growing and blooming, makes most of the earth uninhabitable with its heat and often defeats the moon . Therefore, the Egyptians always call Typhon “Set,” which means “commanding” and “destroying.” The myth tells that Hercules, having settled on the sun, wanders with him, and Hermes with the moon**.

And the manifestations of the moon are like the manifestation of intelligence and perfect wisdom, and the actions of the sun are like blows made by violence and power. The Stoics also say that the sun rises from the sea and is nourished by it, and for the moon the water of springs and lakes sends sweet and gentle vapors.

* Product of late development of the myth.

** Hermes is identified with the lunar deity Thoth. The connection of Hercules with the sun is found in the myth of the bulls of Geryon.

42.

Egyptian legends claim that the death of Osiris occurred on the seventeenth day of the month, when the end of the full moon becomes especially obvious. Therefore, the Pythagoreans call such a day an obstacle and generally avoid this number. For seventeen, invading between sixteen and eighteen - the numbers forming a square and a rectangle, which of all flat figures alone have a perimeter equal to the area they occupy, encloses and separates them from each other and destroys the epogdonic relation, itself dividing into unequal parts *. As for counting the years, some say that Osiris lived, while others say that he reigned for 28 years. For such is the cycle of the moon and in so many days it completes its circle. And from the wood that is cut down at the so-called graves of Osiris, a sickle-shaped sarcophagus is made, because the moon, approaching the sun, disappears and turns into a month. And the fourteen pieces into which Osiris was torn to pieces indicate the days when the luminary dies from the full moon to the new moon. The day on which it first appears, emerging from the rays of the sun and passing the sun, is called “infinite good”: for Osiris is beneficent, and his name means many things, and not least of all it denotes effective and beneficial power. Also, the second name of Osiris, Omphis, according to Hermeias**, in exact translation means “benefactor.”

* The classical square was imagined to consist of 16 parts (4x4), the rectangle - of 18 (6x3) Epogdonic - containing the whole and 1/8th of its part (16 + (1/8 * 16) = 18).

** Aelian encounters the sacred bull Onuphis De Nat Anim XII, 11.

43.

It is believed that the floods of the Nile also contain some indications of the periods of the moon. The largest of them at Elephantine rises to twenty-eight cubits, and this is the number of measures and days of each monthly cycle; the smallest among Mendes and Xois has six cubits in honor of the crescent; the middle one at Memphis, when correct, is fourteen cubits in sign of the full moon. It is also believed that Apis is the animated image of Osiris and that he is conceived when the life-giving light of the moon descends on the angry cow and penetrates it*. Therefore, many of the properties of Apis resemble the characteristics of the moon, and the bright places around it are covered with dark spots**. Further, on the new moon of the month of Phamenoth, the Egyptians celebrate a holiday, which they call the ascension of Osiris to the moon and which is the beginning of spring. Thus placing the energy of Osiris on the moon***, they say that Isis, being the feminine principle for him, remains with him as a wife. Therefore, they call the moon the mother of the world and believe that she has both a male and a female nature, that she conceives and becomes pregnant from the sun, but in turn emits life-giving elements into the air, inseminating it ****. For the destructive power of Typhon does not always prevail; it is often defeated and bound by the energy of fruitfulness, and then again freed and fights with Horus. The latter is the earthly order, not entirely alien to either death or birth.

* Aelian.. De Nat. Anim. XI, 10.

** Comparison with moon spots? The original Egyptian Apis wore a solar disk between its horns. M. A. Korostovtsev. Religion of Ancient Egypt, M., 1976. For the suit of Apis, see Strabo, XVII, I, 31.

*** In the story about the ascent of Osiris to the moon, this god clearly plays the role of the sun and husband, which Plutarch does not notice.

**** In Egyptian mythology, the bisexuality of the gods is weakly and rarely traced; according to the original Egyptian ideas, the moon has a male gender.

44.

Some interpret the myth as an allegory about eclipses. For a lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon takes a position opposite the sun and because of this falls into the shadow of the earth, as in the stories of Osiris - into the coffin. Then, in turn, the moon covers and darkens the sun on the thirtieth day of the month, but does not destroy it completely, just as Isis does not destroy Typhon. And when Nephthys gave birth to Anubis, Isis accepted him as her child; for Nephthys is what is underground and invisible, and Isis is what is above the earth and visible. The circle in contact with them and called the horizon, common to both, is called Anubis and is depicted in the form of a dog, because the dog has equal vision both day and night*. The Egyptians believe that Anubis has the same power that the Hellenes have Hecate, who is simultaneously one of the underworld and Olympian deities**. Some believe that Anubis is Kron, because he gives birth to everything from himself and conceives (kyuo) in himself, for which he allegedly received the nickname of a dog (kyuon). Thus, the worshipers of Anubis have a certain secret knowledge, and in ancient times the dog received the greatest honors; when Cambyses killed and threw away Apis***, not a single animal came up and tasted the body except the dog - and then it ceased to be the first and most revered above all other animals. There are also those who call Typhon the shadow of the earth, in which, in their opinion, the moon slipped into it is eclipsed.

So, there is reason to say that each individually asserts incorrectly, but all together - correctly. For neither dryness, nor wind, nor sea, nor darkness, but everything that nature has that is harmful and destructive can be considered a part of Typhon. And one should not look for the beginning of all things in inanimate bodies, like Democritus and Epicurus or like the Stoics **** - in the creator of qualityless matter, one Reason and one Providence, which embraces everything and rules over everything. For it is impossible for any evil to arise where God is the cause of everything, and good where God has not created anything.

* The interpretation given here of Isis, Nephthys and Anubis has no analogies. True, in some temples there are images of Anubis rolling the lunar disk.

** Hecate belongs to the Olympian host in the form of Selene, but the connection with the celestial sphere of the necropolis god Anubis is unclear.

*** Herod., Ill., 29; Aelian., De Nat. Anim. X, 28.

****Diog. Laert., VII, 134.45.

45.

According to Heraclitus*, “in world harmony, tension alternates with relaxation, like a lyre and a bow,” and Euripides**:

“Good and evil cannot exist separately, But there must be some kind of mixture in order for it to be beautiful.”

And that's why it's ancient performance passed from theologians and lawyers to poets and philosophers, not having a creator of its origin, but possessing a firm and unshakable persuasiveness and spreading not only through story and tradition, but also through mysteries and sacrificial rites everywhere - both among the Greeks and barbarians: not itself Universality oscillates on its own, outside of reason, law and government, not one Mind rules it and directs it as if with a rudder or an imperious bit, but since nature contains a lot in itself, and in a mixture of good and evil, or, as it is better and simpler to say, has nothing unmixed in this world, then do not think that one the owner, distributing phenomena like drink from two barrels, fraudulently mixes them for us; on the contrary: from two opposite principles and from two hostile forces, one of which leads us to the right and along the right road, and the other turns back and leads us to the side, a complex life and world arose, if not the whole, then this one, earthly and sublunary, heterogeneous , motley and subject to all kinds of changes. And if nothing arises without a cause, and good could not contain within itself the cause of evil, then nature must have a special beginning and a special source for both good and evil.

* Vors. I, No. 12, B51.

46.

This is the opinion of the majority the wisest people. And some believe that there are two gods, creating good and evil and similar to rival artisans, while others call the good one a god and the other a demon, such as the magician Zoroaster, who, as they say, lived five thousand years before the Trojan War.

He calls one deity Horomadzos, the other Ahrimanius* and points out that of all the sensible things the first is most like light, and the second like darkness and ignorance, while Mithras occupies the middle between both. Therefore the Persians call Mithras a mediator. Zoroaster also taught that votive and thanksgiving sacrifices should be offered to the first deity, and propitiatory and grim sacrifices to the second. Therefore, they invoke Hades and Darkness** by grinding in a mortar a certain herb called omomi; then, mixing it with the blood of a slaughtered wolf, they take it to a place that does not know the sun, and throw it there: they believe that some plants belong to a good god, and others to an evil demon. Also among animals, dogs, for example, birds and forest hedgehogs, in their opinion, are the property of a good deity, and water mice are the property of an evil one. Therefore, the person who kills them in large numbers is glorified as lucky.

* That is, Ormuzd and Ahriman Diog Laert, Prol. 2.

** Diog Laert, Pro). 8. Hades is identical to Ahriman.

47.

However, they also tell a lot of fabulous things about the gods, for example, the following: Goromadz, who came from the purest light, and Arimanius, who came from darkness, are waging war with each other. And Goromadz created six gods: the first - the god of Good Thought, the second - Truth, the third - Justice and the rest - Wisdom, Wealth and the Creator of good pleasures. Arimanius created an equal number of rivals. Then Goromadz, having increased threefold, moved away from the sun as far as the sun is from the earth, and decorated the sky with stars. He placed one star, Sirius, in front of the others as a guard and sentinel. Having then created twenty-four more gods, he placed them in an egg. Gods equal in number, descended from Ahrimanius, penetrated the egg, as a result of which good was mixed with evil. But the time appointed by fate is coming when Arimanius, who caused the pestilence and famine, will be rightly destroyed forever and will disappear, and the earth will become level and smooth, and there will be one life and one state for all people, blessed and speaking the same language.

And Theopompus*, from the words of the magicians, claims that for three thousand years in turn one god wins, and the other is defeated, then for three thousand years they fight and fight, and one destroys the creations of the other; but in the end Hades will disappear, and people\ will become happy, without needing food and without building a canopy. And God, who arranged all this, will retire and rest for a certain period of time, which for him, as for God, is not long, but moderate, as for a sleeping person. This is the content of the legendary stories of magicians.

* Theopompus of Chios (born about 378 BC) - student of Isocrates, historian; his main works are “ Greek history" and "The Story of Philip."

48.

The Chaldeans claim that of the planets that they call patron gods, two bring good, two bring evil, and three are average, possessing both qualities. And the myths of the Hellenes are one way or another known to everyone. They attribute the good part to Olympian Zeus, the bad part to Hades, and say that Harmony originated from Aphrodite and Ares. Of the two, he is stern and stubborn, she is meek and caring. Let us note that philosophers also agree with this. For example, Heraclitus* directly calls war “father, king and ruler of all” and says that Homer, when he prays: “Oh, let the enmity perish from gods and mortals”** - “does not notice that he is cursing the source of all things , for this source is in struggle and opposition”; He also says that “The sun will not cross set limits, otherwise he will be overtaken by the Lissas - the servants of Justice.”***. On the contrary, Empedocles calls the good principle “friendship” and “love” and often “tender harmony,” while the bad principle is called “pernicious discord” and “bloody struggle.”

And the Pythagoreans defined the principle of good through many names: singularity, completeness, constancy, straightness, oddity, quadrangularity, equality, right side, light; the principle of evil through the concepts: binary, limitless, mobility, curvature, evenness, versatility, inequality, left side, darkness; they consider all these to be the principles underlying nature. Anaxagoras calls reason and the infinite, Aristotle calls form and privation, and Plato, often obscuring and hiding this, calls one of the opposite principles identity, and the other difference****. But in the “Laws”*****, already more mature, he says not allegorically or symbolically, but in precise expressions, that the world is moved not by one soul, but perhaps by many and at least no less, than two; of them, one is beneficial, and the other is the opposite of it and does everything opposite. In the middle, he leaves room for a third nature, not devoid of reason and independent movement, as some believe, but connected with both principles, always striving for the best and yearning for it, and yearning for it, as our further presentation will explain, in which the teaching of the Egyptians about the gods comes closest to this philosophy.

* Vors. I, No. 12, B53.

** I. XVIII, 107.

*** Lissa (Λυσσαι) is one of many possible interpolations.

**** Anaxagoras (500–428 BC): νουζ και απειρον Aristotle spoke about form and matter - see Metaph. VII Plato - see Tim.

*****Legg. 896e.

49.

So, the origin and structure of the world are complex due to opposing and at the same time unequal forces: superiority remains with the best. But the evil principle cannot perish completely, since it is inherent in a significant part of the body and a significant part of the soul of the Universal and constantly wages a stubborn struggle with a better force. Therefore, in spiritual nature, Osiris, the lord and ruler of all that is most noble, is thought and reason *, and on earth, in the winds, waters, in the sky and on the stars, everything healthy, arranged and ordered by dates, combinations and periods is the outflow and likeness of Osiris . Typhon within the soul is everything stormy, titanic, unreasonable and fickle, and in the material part - mortal, harmful, exciting and associated with disordered timing, violation of proportions, darkening of the sun and lunar eclipses; all this is like the raids and rebellion of Typhon. And this is evidenced by the name Set, by which Typhon is called, for it means “that which destroys” and “that which commits violence,” and also often “coup” and, again, “leap.”

Some say that Bebo was one of Typhon's friends, and Manetho** writes that Typhon himself is called Bebo; the meaning of this name is “delay” and “interference,” because the power of Typhon interferes with phenomena that follow the proper path and are drawn towards the correct goal.

* Ο νουζ, ο λογοζ.

** Manetho, the Egyptian high priest and writer of the time of the first two Ptolemies, is best known as the author of the Greek-language history of Egypt; he also owns a number of other works; Plutarch apparently used his tactate "Sacred Books".

50.

For these reasons, of the domestic animals, the roughest is dedicated to Typhon - the donkey, and of the wild - the most untamed - the crocodile * and the hippopotamus. We have already explained everything about the donkey. In Hermopolis they show an image of Typhon in the form of a hippopotamus, on which sits a falcon fighting a snake. In the image of a hippopotamus Typhon is represented, and in the image of a falcon - power and authority, which Typhon achieves by violence, often in vain, shaking with anger and shaking everything around. Therefore, when making holiday sacrifices on the seventh day of the month Tubi, which is called the day of the exodus of Isis from Phenicia**, the Egyptians stick an image of a bound hippopotamus on the bread. And in Allonopolis there is a custom for everyone, without exception, to eat crocodiles***.

One day they catch as many of them as they can, and then kill them, throw them against the sanctuary and tell that Typhon escaped from Horus by turning into a crocodile, and that all bad and harmful animals, plants and phenomena arise as the deeds, parts and movements of Typhon .

* Crocodile Sebek in Egyptian myths is a contradictory image: in some he is a beneficent force, in others his role is negative.

** In the Roman era, the “sea” Isis was widely revered: Isis Pelagia et Pharia.

*** Herod., II, 69; Aeltan.. De Nat. Anim. X, 2; Strabo, XVII, 1

51.

Again they represent Osiris with an eye and a scepter, the first of which signifies foresight, and the second power; also Homer*, calling the ruler and king of all things “Zeus the lord and mentor,” through the word “lord,” it seems, expresses his power, and through “mentor,” his favor and wisdom. And Osiris is often depicted as a falcon, for he is distinguished by his strength of sight and speed of flight and is by nature such that he supports himself with a small amount of food. They also say that he, flying over the unburied dead, throws earth into their eyes**. When he goes down to the river to drink, he puts one feather upright; Having drunk, he lowers it again. From this it becomes clear that he escaped the crocodile and remained unharmed; and if he had grabbed it, the feather would have remained sticking out, just as he had placed it***. And everywhere they show humanoid images of Osiris with his phallus raised as a sign of his productive and nutritional power****. And his statues are dressed in fiery covers, because they consider the sun to be a body of good energy and, as it were, a visible expression of a supersensible essence*****. Therefore, he is worthy of contempt who attributes the solar globe to Typhon, with whom nothing bright, nothing salutary, no order, birth and movement, possessing regularity and meaning, but which is inherent in everything opposite, is associated. And the drought, which destroys many animals and plants, must be considered not the work of the sun, but of the winds and waters, which untimely mix on the earth and in the air every time the dominion of a disorderly and unbridled force, creating injustice, suppresses the evaporation.

** Aelian., De Nat. Anim. II, 42; Porphyr., De Abstin. IV, 9, 45.

*** That is the feather would pierce the crocodile.

**** The phallic element in the culture of Osiris intensified in the Hellenistic era under the influence of the cult of Dionysus.

***** The term voητοζ, used by Plutarch here and further, is recognized to express the idea of ​​a beginning inaccessible to sensory sensation and revealed only to human thought. In the translation, the epithet “ideal” suggests itself most of all, but its use would be too bold in bringing in a later, fully developed idea of ​​the antipode material world.

52.

In the sacred hymns of Osiris, the priests invoke him as hidden in the arms of the sun, and on the thirteenth day of the month Epiphi, when the moon and sun are on the same line, they celebrate the birthday of the eyes of Horus, because not only the moon, but also the sun is considered the eye and light of Horus . On the eighth day of the end of the month of Faofi, after the autumnal equinox, they celebrate the birth of the staff of the sun, showing that the luminary seems to need support and support, because it begins to lack warmth and light, bending and moving away from us at all angles. In addition, during the winter solstice, a cow is circled around the temple* seven times; the detour is called "the quest of Osiris" because the goddess thirsts for winter water. And they go so many times because the transition from the winter solstice to the summer solstice takes place in seven months. And they say that Horus, the son of Isis, is the first to offer sacrifices to the sun, when the fourth day of the month comes; This is how it is written in the book “On the Birthday of Horus.” And every day the Egyptians burn incense to the sun in three ways: gum at sunrise, myrrh at noon and the so-called kufi at sunset; what meaning each of these incense has, I will tell later. They think that with the help of all this they offer prayers to the sun and serve it. What is the need, however, to pile up such opinions in a multitude? The fact is that there are people who directly claim that Osiris is the sun and that the Hellenes call him Sirius**, even if the addition of the article among the Egyptians makes the name dubious. They prove that Isis is nothing more than the moon. Therefore, her images with horns are similar to the lunar crescent, and the black covers symbolize eclipses and blackouts, in which she, yearning for the sun, follows him. Therefore the moon is called to love affairs, and Eudoxus says that Isis commands love. These stories have at least some credibility, but you shouldn’t even listen to those who turn Typhon into the sun. However, let us return again to our own story.

* Variation: temple of the sun. Griffiths, p. 201; Loeb, p. 126.

** Diod., I, 11 Sirius here is not the name of a star, but an epithet of the sun, scorching.

53.

So, Isis is the feminine principle of nature, and she contains within herself every generation, which is why Plato * praises her as a “nurse” and as “all-encompassing”, and the majority - as “many names” due to the fact that she takes on all sorts of forms and shapes , changing at the will of an intelligent principle. She has an innate love for the First and Most Powerful, which is identical with good, and longs for it and strives for it. But she avoids and does not accept the share of evil; being the soil and material for both, she, by her own impulse, always inclines towards the best, gives him offspring from herself, allows herself to be inseminated by the outflow and likeness, and rejoices in this, and is happy that she conceives and is filled with creations. In matter, the creation is the image of the essence, and the emerging is the likeness of the existing.

*Tim. 49a; 51a; 52b; 53a. Plato speaks of the maternal principle without calling it Isis.

54.

Therefore, the myths, without contradicting the essence, tell that the soul of Osiris is eternal and immortal, that the flesh is repeatedly torn and hidden by Typhon, and that Isis, while wandering, finds and folds the body again: for the existing, supersensible and good are stronger than destruction and change. His images are imprinted by the sensual and physical principle, taking from him ideas, forms and similarities, which, like a seal on wax, do not remain forever; they are taken over by a disorderly and disorderly force, which has come here from the higher spheres and is waging war with Horus, whom Isis gave birth to as a sensual likeness of the immaterial world. Therefore they say that he was brought to trial by Typhon for illegitimacy as one who is not pure and unalloyed like his father, a self-sufficient Reason, unmixed and unchanged, but has a nature corrupted by corporeality. Horus overcomes and wins thanks to Hermes, that is, the word that testifies and shows that nature creates the world, changing through the supersensible principle. And the birth of Apollo from Osiris and Isis, while these gods were still in the womb of Rhea, is a symbol of the fact that before the world became visible and matter was completed by the help of reason, nature tested itself and brought into the world the first imperfect generation. Therefore they say that this god was born in the dark as a cripple and they call him the elder Horus. He was not the world, but only the image and reflection of the future world.

55.

Horus himself is complete and perfect; and he did not destroy Typhon completely, but deprived him of enterprise and strength. Therefore, in Copta, the statue of Horus is said to hold the phallus of Typhon in one hand. Also, according to myth, Hermes tore out the veins from Typhon to use them for strings; Thus they teach that reason, in arranging the Universality, made it harmonious from inharmonious parts and did not destroy it, but only crippled the destructive force. Therefore, she, sluggish and weakened in our world, mixes and unites with every stormy and changeable element and is the creator of shakes and tremors on the earth, drought and bad winds in the air, as well as thunder and lightning. This force infects the waters and winds with pestilence, runs up to the moon and goes berserk, often darkening and destroying its light, so that the Egyptians think and say that at such and such a moment Typhon struck Horus in the eye, at such and such a moment he knocked it out and devoured it. , and then - again gave it to the sun. By blow they mean the monthly waning of the moon, and by injury they mean an eclipse, which is cured by the sun sending light to the moon when it emerges from the earth's shadow.

56.

So, the powerful and divine nature consists of three principles: the supersensible, the material, and that which comes from them and which the Hellenes call the cosmos. Plato usually calls the supersensible the idea, the model and the father, and the material the mother and nurse, as well as the container and soil of birth; the same thing that comes from both - offspring and generation. And, apparently, the Egyptians compare the nature of the Universality with the most beautiful of triangles, so that Plato in the Republic * seems to have taken advantage of it in composing a symbolic designation for marriage. This triangle has a leg of three parts, a base of four and a hypotenuse of five, and its strength** is equal to the strength of the other two sides. Thus, the leg can be considered masculine, the base feminine, and the hypotenuse the offspring of both. Osiris can also be considered the beginning, Isis the container, and Horus the outcome. Moreover, “three” is the first odd and perfect number; "four" is a square whose sides are even twos; “five” is partly like the father, partly like the mother, being made up of three and two. And the Universality (panta) received its name from five (pente), and instead of “counting” they say “five”. Five forms a number square equal to the number Egyptian letters and the number of years lived by Apis***. As for Horus, it is usually called Min, which means “visible,” for the cosmos is sensual and visible. And Isis is sometimes called Mut, as well as Afiri and Mephier. Their first name means “mother,” the second means “earthly receptacle of Horus,” as in Plato it means “nurse” and “soil of birth.” The third name is composed of “fullness” and “good”****: for the matter of the world is full and it is connected with the good, the pure, and the ordered.

* Resp. 546b-c.

** Square.

*** There was a legend that twenty-five-year-old Apis were drowned, but it is refuted by archeology.

**** The etymology of Mut is correct; Aphiri - Greek transcription of the name Hathor; the most acceptable explanation of Mephier is the “great stream”, that is, the heavenly waters, personified in the image of a cow - Hathor, the goddess of the primordial water element.

57.

It may seem that in the same way Hesiod, making Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love primary, does not mean other principles, but these same ones; if we talk about names, then, changing them, we will one way or another call the Earth Isis, Love - Osiris, and Tartarus - Typhon; Chaos, it seems, is placed below by the poet as the soil and space of Universality. These circumstances, one way or another, evoke Plato’s myth, which in the Symposium Socrates talks about the birth of Eros*. He tells how Penia, wanting a child, lay down next to the sleeping Porus and, having conceived from him, gave birth to Eros**, who has a mixed and heterogeneous nature, because he was born from a noble, wise and independent father in everything, but from a helpless mother, poor, clinging to others out of need and begging from them. And Por is none other than the first beloved, desired, perfect and independent. He called singing matter, which does not have good in itself, but is filled with it and always strives for it, and takes its share. The cosmos, or Horus, born from them is neither eternal, nor immutable, nor immortal, but, constantly being reborn, it moves and remains young and indestructible thanks to periods and changes of phenomena.

** Porus - “wealth”, Penia - “poverty”, Eros - “love”

58.

So, myths should be used not just as stories, but what is useful should be selected from each, guided by similarities. Therefore, when we talk about matter, we should not, carried away by the teachings of some philosophers*, posit in it some kind of soulless body, and without quality, and inert, and useless in itself. After all, we call oil the matter of the world**, and gold the matter of the statue, and they are not at all devoid of qualitative certainty.

And the very consciousness and soul of man, as the raw material of knowledge and valor, we leave to reason so that it decorates and organizes them. And some prove that the mind is the receptacle of ideas and the material for the imprint of the supersensible principle***. And others think that a woman’s seed is neither energy nor a beginning, but the matter and food of generation. And this is how those who adhere to such ideas should judge the goddess: she is constantly involved in the first god and is combined with him out of love for the beauty and good that surrounds him, and is not alien to him, but, as we say, lawful and righteous a husband loves rightfully and a decent woman who has a husband nevertheless passionately desires him, so she always clings to him and asks him, and is filled with the most important and purest parts of him.

*Diog. Laert, VII, 134: referring to the Stoics

** Miro - fragrant oil; It should not be confused with myrrh (or myrrh), an aromatic resin.

* Arist.. De Anima, 429a 20 ff.

59.

And they believe that when Typhon makes an invasion and reaches the extreme limits, she falls into despondency, and they say that she raises a cry, seeks out and dresses the remains and shreds of Osiris, and takes the damaged parts into herself and hides them in order to again reveal and emit from oneself as a product. Thus, the thoughts, images and outflows of God, which are in the sky and stars, remain unchanged, and what is scattered in changing nature - in the earth, sea, animals and plants, what is torn to pieces, destroyed and buried - often reappears and shines in generation. Therefore, the myth says that Nephthys cohabits with Typhon, but that Osiris secretly became intimate with her. After all, the destructive force primarily controls the extreme limits of matter, which are called Nephthys, or the End. But fruitful and protective power is given to it only by a weak and frail seed; Typhon destroys it, in addition to the one that Isis selects, preserves, feeds and nurtures.

60.

In short, this god* is very good, and Plato and Aristotle believe so. The fruitful and protective part of nature moves towards him and towards existence, and the disastrous and destructive part moves away from him and towards non-existence. Therefore, the name “Isis” is derived from the concepts of “moving intelligently” (es-tai) and “being attracted,” for she is an animated and meaningful movement.

This name is not barbaric, but just as the general name of all gods (theos) comes from the words “visible” (theatos) and “moving” (theon)**, so we, like the Egyptians, call this goddess Isis in honor of knowledge and movement. Therefore Plato says*** that the ancients expressed the concept of essence (ousia) by calling it isia. In the same way, according to him, they interpreted thought (noesis) and consciousness (phronesis) ****, which are, as it were, the movement and movement of the mind, striving and attracted; and they saw unity, goodness and valor in everything that is eternally flowing and attracted. In exactly the same way, they condemned evil with opposite names: everything that fetters and binds nature, everything that delays and interferes with aspiration and movement, they call vice (kakia), poverty (aporia), cowardice (deilia), torment (ania) * ****.

** Plato, Crat., 397d.

**** Looks for the root “is” in these words

***** Looks for 2 roots in words, one of which is “ia”, “movement”. It turns out: evil - bad movement, scarcity - lack of movement, cowardice - fear of movement, torment - lack of movement.

61.

Osiris also has a name composed of the words “holy” (osios) and “sacred” (hieros) *, for he is the common rational principle** of those in heaven and in the underworld; Moreover, the ancients had a custom of calling the first holy, and the second sacred. And the one who explains celestial phenomena, Anubis, who is the law of the upper sphere, is sometimes called Hermanubis; by one name it is connected with what is above, by another - with what is below. Therefore, both a white rooster and a motley rooster are sacrificed to him: they believe that the higher one is pure and light, and the lower one is mixed and motley. And one should not be surprised that these names are reshaped in the Greek way; for countless other words, which went into exile with the people who migrated from Hellas, still survive and live as foreigners among foreign peoples, and he who calls them glotts falsely accuses the poetry that uses some of them of barbarism. They also write that in the so-called Books of Hermes about sacred names it is said that the energy associated with the rotation of the sun is called Horus by the Egyptians, and Apollo by the Hellenes; the energy associated with the wind is called Osiris by some, Sarapis by others, and Sophis in Egyptian by others. And Sophis means “pregnant” (kiesis) or “to be pregnant” (kiane). Therefore, due to an error in the words in Greek, the Dog (Kion) is the name of the constellation that is considered the destiny of Isis. So, the last thing to do is to quarrel over names; however, I would rather yield to the Egyptians the name of Sarapis than of Osiris, for the first is foreign, the second Greek, and I believe that both belong to the same god and the same energy.

* Highlights the roots “os” and “ir”

** λογοζ, κοινοζ.

62.

The ideas of the Egyptians are consistent with all this; for they often call Isis by the name of Athena, which has the following meaning: “I myself came,” which serves as an indication of spontaneous movement. Typhon, as was said, is called Seth, Bebon and Smu, and with these names they want to designate some kind of violent and constraining obstacle, or contradiction, or revolution. Moreover, as Manetho writes, the magnet is called the bones of Horus, and the iron is called the bones of Typhon, for it is often, as it were, carried away and attracted by the magnet, but often it is reflected and thrown in the opposite direction. In the same way, the saving, good and reasonable movement of the world, through persuasion, converts, attracts and softens the stubborn movement of Typhon, and then, bringing it closer to itself, again repels and drowns in infinity *. And Eudoxus also says that the Egyptians in the myth of Zeus say that he had fused legs and could not walk and lived in the desert out of shame; and that Isis, having split and divided these parts of his body, gave him a light gait. By all this the myth means that the thought or mind of God, which itself was invisible and unknown, was revealed through movement.

* Variation: in poverty (Loeb, p. 148).

63.

The sistrum is also a symbol of the fact that everything that exists is necessarily shaken and never stops rotating; on the contrary, everything that has fallen asleep and extinguished seems to be pushed aside and awakens. They say that with the help of the sistrums Typhon is repelled and repelled, and by this they make it clear that while destruction binds and suppresses nature, birth again liberates and resurrects it through movement. In addition, the upper part of the sistrum is circular, and the arc covers the four objects being shaken; after all, the part of the world that is subject to birth and death is encompassed by the lunar sphere and everything in it moves and changes through the four elements: fire, earth, water and air. On the arc of the sistrum, on top, they carve a cat with a human face, and below, under the one that shakes, in one place - the face of Isis, in another - the face of Nephthys *, denoting birth and death with their faces, because they are the movement and movement of the elements. And by cat we mean the moon because of the diversity, night wanderings and fertility of the animal. They say that he gives birth to one child, then two, three, four and five; and so he adds one at a time to seven, and always gives birth to twenty-eight, and this is the number lunar days. However, this is perhaps too fantastic. And it seems that the pupils in the cat’s eyes fill and dilate during the full moon, and when the luminary wanes, they become thinner and go blind. The human features of the cat symbolize a meaningful and reasonable beginning in the alternations of the moon.

* Egyptian sistras usually depicted the face of Hatchor and the head of the cat goddess Bastet.

64.

In short, it is wrong to consider water, sun, earth or sky to be Osiris or Isis; on the other hand, if we attribute to Typhon not fire, drought or the sea, but in general everything that is immoderate and disordered due to excess or deficiency, and everything that is established, good and useful will be honored and respected as the work of Isis and as an image, reflection and thought Osiris, then we will not go wrong. We also interrupt Eudoxus when he expresses disbelief and wonders why Demeter is not concerned with love affairs and Isis is, and why Dionysus can neither cause the Nile to flood nor rule over the dead. For by simple reasoning I conclude that these gods command every share of good, and everything good and beautiful in nature arose through them, Osiris giving the beginning, and Isis receiving and distributing them.

65.

In the same way, we will oppose the numerous ignoramuses who are pleased to correlate the legends about such great gods either with seasonal climate changes, or with plowing, sowing time and the birth of fruits. They say that Osiris is buried when the sown grain disappears into the ground, and that he resurrects and appears again when growth begins. Therefore they say that Isis, having learned that she had conceived, put on the amulet on the sixth day of the month Phaofi, and that by the winter solstice she gave birth to the premature and underdeveloped Harpocrates among the early flowers and shoots. Therefore, the firstfruits of sprouted lentils are brought to him, and his birthday is celebrated after the spring equinox. Anyone who listens to such things takes pleasure and believes, hastily finding an explanation in what is accessible and familiar to him.

66.

And, on the contrary, there is nothing terrible if, firstly, the Egyptians sacredly observe the common (for all people) gods and do not make them their property, do not extend their names only to the Nile and to the land that the Nile irrigates, and do not call them the only divine creation is a swamp or a lotus and does not take away the great gods from other peoples who have neither the Nile, nor But, nor Memphis. Isis and the gods associated with her are known and recognized by all people, and if they recently learned to call some by Egyptian names, then the power of each is known and honored from the very beginning. Secondly, and more importantly, they are very concerned and afraid, lest they should quietly destroy and disperse the divine principle in the wind, river, seed, harvest, condition of the earth and the change of seasons, as those who identify Dionysus with wine do, and Hephaestus - with fire. Cleanthes also says somewhere* that Persephone is a breath that rises from the loaves and dies. And a certain poet wrote about the reapers: when the strong cut the body of Demeter. These people are no different from those who consider the sail, anchor and rope to be the helmsman, the thread and shuttle to be the weaver, and the cup, honey mixture or barley drink to be the healer. Thus they give rise to a terrible and godless doctrine, transferring the names of gods to insensitive and soulless nature and things that are inevitably destroyed by people who need them and use them. But it is impossible to imagine that such phenomena were gods.

* Cleanthes (331–233 BC) - head of the Stoics after Zeno.

67.

For the deity is not devoid of thought and soul and is not subordinate to people. We have recognized as gods those who bestow and deliver for our use everything eternal and durable, and we do not distinguish different gods among different peoples, neither barbarian and Hellenic, nor southern and northern. But just as the sun, moon, sky, earth and sea are common to all and are only called different people in different ways, so for the one, all-creating Reason, and for the one, all-disposing Providence*, and for the beneficial, universally widespread forces, different peoples have different honors and names. And they make unsafe use of sacred symbols, some vague, others clearer, directing speculation towards the divine. For some, losing their way, slip into superstition, while others, avoiding superstition like a quagmire, again unexpectedly slide, as if into an abyss, into atheism.

* Λογοζ, προνοια.

68.

Therefore, in such matters, you must first of all take on as mentors philosophical doctrine and reflect godly on all that is said and done. And as Theodore* says that his words, which he gave with his right hand, were accepted by some of the listeners with his left, so let us not be mistaken, understanding differently what the laws have perfectly established regarding sacrifices and holidays. And that everything can be reduced to reason can be gleaned from the Egyptians themselves.

On the nineteenth day of the first month they hold a festival in honor of Hermes, eat honey and figs and exclaim: “sweet is the truth.” And the amulet of Isis, which, according to myth, she put on herself, is interpreted as a “truthful voice”**. Also, Harpocrates should be considered not a deformed child god and not some kind of bean deity, but the protector and exponent of the early, imperfect and unformed teaching of people about the gods. And in the month of Mesorah they bring him beans and say: “The tongue is happiness, the tongue is a deity.” They say that of all the Egyptian plants, Perseus is most often sacrificed to the goddess, because its fruit looks like a heart and its leaf looks like a tongue. And of all that a person possesses from birth, there is nothing more divine than the word, especially the word about the gods, and nothing has greater value for happiness. Therefore, we advise the one who comes here to the oracle*** to think piously and speak decently. But the majority of people act ridiculously, who in processions and at festivals proclaim goodness through their mouths, and then speak and think badly about the gods themselves.

*Born ca. 340 BC e., student and follower of the founder of the Cyrene school, Aristippus. A number of his ethical and atheistic statements secured his reputation as a pluralist.

*** Apparently, we are talking about the Delphic sanctuary.

69.

But how should one treat gloomy, joyless and sorrowful festivals and sacrifices, if it is not appropriate to either neglect the institutions or confuse the doctrine of the gods with absurd suspicions? And among the Greeks, at almost the same time, many things are done similar to what the Egyptians do during sacred services*.

Thus, in Athens, on the festival of Thesmophoria, women fast while sitting on the ground, and the Boeotians move the sanctuaries of the Sorrowful** and call this holiday painful, because Demeter is in sadness because of the departure of Kore. The season of the Pleiades coincides with the month of sowing, which the Egyptians call Athyr, the Athenians Pianepsion, and the Boeotians Damatria. And Theopompus writes that the inhabitants of the West consider and call winter Cronus, summer Aphrodite, and spring Persephone, and they think that everything came from Cronus and Aphrodite***. The Phrygians, believing that God sleeps in winter and wakes up in spring, either put him to sleep, or awaken him with bacchanalian service. And the Paphlagonians claim that in winter the god is bound and locked, and in the spring he is shaken and freed.

* Variation: in the temples of Isis. Hopfher, b. 42; Loeb, p. 160.

** It is possible that this epithet means “Achaean” (goddess).

*** The West is Sicily and Italy. In Crona, obviously, you need to see Saturn; Aphrodite was more often identified with summer than with summer.

70.

Also, certain times of the year raise the suspicion that sadness comes from the hiding of grains, which the ancients considered not gods, but gifts of the gods, great and necessary in order not to live wildly and bestially. At that time, when they saw that the fruits on the trees were spoiling and completely disappearing, they sowed grain with difficulty and meagerly, raking the earth with their hands and spreading it again, and they put the seed in the ground, not knowing whether it would be accepted and reach maturity, and They did many things like those who bury and mourn. Again, just as we say about the buyer of Plato’s books that he is buying Plato, and about the one who recites the works of Menander, we say that he plays Menander, so they did not shy away from calling their gifts and creations by the names of gods, honoring and exalting them for usefulness. Then, perceiving this ignorantly and without understanding, transferring the transformation of grain onto the gods and not only naming, but also considering the appearance and disappearance of necessary food as the birth and death of the gods, they were filled with stupid, criminal and muddy teachings, although the absurdity of this nonsense struck them in the eyes.

And rightly Xenophanes of Colophon * insists that the Egyptians, if they consider the fruits to be gods, should not mourn them, and if they mourn, then they should not consider them gods: isn’t it funny that the one who mourns at the same time begs them to appear again and ripen for him so that they will die again and be mourned.

* Philosopher of the 6th century. BC e.

71.

However, this is not the case. After all, they mourn the fruits, and pray to the gods, the root cause and donors, so that they create and grow a new harvest to replace the lost one. Therefore, philosophers say beautifully that those who have not learned to hear words correctly show themselves poorly in action. Thus, some of the Hellenes, not learning or getting used to calling copper, painted and stone images statues and signs of honor to the gods, then dared to say that Athena was skinned by Lahar, the golden-haired Apollo was shaved by Dionysius, and Zeus the Capitoline burned and died during the Allied War *; In this way, they imperceptibly plant and smuggle through bad ideas arising from words. All this was no less experienced by the Egyptians because of the honors given to animals. In this case, the Greeks correctly both say and think that the dove is Aphrodite’s favorite living creature, the snake is Athena’s, the raven is Apollo’s, and the dog is Artemis’s, as Euripides said:

“You will become a dog - the idol of the luminous Hecate.”

Most of the Egyptians, caring for and pleasing these animals as gods, did not just fill their sacred rites with funny and amusing things - this is even the least evil of stupidity; but a terrible teaching arises, plunging the weak and innocent into genuine superstition, and among the more witty and daring degenerates into wild, god-denying judgments. Therefore, it would not be amiss to say a reasonable word about this.

* In 300 BC. e. Lacharus, who led the defense of Athens against Demetrius Poliorcetes, used the gilded robe of the statue of Athena for military purposes (Paus., G, 25, 7; Athen., IX. 405F). For the same reason, the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius the Elder “shaved” Apollo (Aelian., Var Hist. I, 20). The Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus burned twice before the time of Plutarch: in 83 BC. e. under Sulla and in 69 AD. e. with Vitellin (Tac, Hist. III, 72).

72.

The idea that the gods inhabited such animals out of fear of Typhon, as if hiding in the bodies of ibises, dogs and falcons, outdid every fable and fairy tale*. It is also unreliable that the resurrection of the surviving souls of the dead occurs as a transmigration only into these beings. Of those who want to refer to state affairs, some say that Osiris, in his great campaign, divided the army into many parts, which in Greek are called detachments and columns, and gave everyone signs in the form of animals, each of which became sacred and revered for the kind of person to whom they were assigned; others say that later kings, in order to intimidate the enemy, appeared wearing gold and silver animal masks; still others write that one formidable and cunning king, seeing that the Egyptians are frivolous by nature and extremely prone to change and innovation, and that when they are like-minded and act together, their strength is invincible and indomitable due to their numbers, he showed them and sowed among them the ineradicable superstition as a basis for eternal discord. Since he ordered different tribes to honor and respect different creatures, and animals treated each other with hostility and hostility and by their nature sought to devour each other, people constantly defended each of their own, could hardly bear it if animals were offended and, imperceptibly involved in their enmity, quarreled among themselves. And to this day among the Egyptians only the Lycopolitans eat sheep in imitation of the wolf, which they consider to be a god. Oxy-rhynchites, to this day, catch a dog, slaughter it and eat it as a sacrificial animal, because the Kinopolitians eat sturgeon**. For this reason they went to war, caused harm to each other, and were later curbed and reconciled by the Romans.

* According to Egyptian tradition, Seth and his supporters turned into animals. Ancient authors report on the migration of good gods. See Th Hopfner, Fontes Historiae Religionis Aegypticae. Bonnae, 1922, part 1, page 81, part II, page 151

** The names of the cities come from the words “wolf”, “sturgeon” and “dog”.

73.

But since many claim that the soul of Typhon himself moved into these creatures, then perhaps the myth symbolically shows that everything unreasonable and wild in nature is part of the bad demon, and in order to appease and appease him, they care and take care of these animals. And if a long and severe drought occurs, causing, among other things, either a destructive pestilence, or other unexpected and terrible disasters, then the priests, in darkness, silence and silence, bring out some of the revered animals and first threaten them and intimidate them, and if the disaster continues, they slaughter and They sacrifice them as if this were a punishment for a demon or, in other words, a great atoning sacrifice in a great misfortune. And in the city of Ilithyia, as Manetho writes, they burned alive people who were called Typhon and, winnowing their ashes, scattered and destroyed them. And this was done openly and at a certain time: on dog days. Sacrifices of revered animals are performed in secret, at an unspecified time, from time to time and hidden from the crowd, with the exception of funeral ceremonies, when the corpses of some animals are exposed and buried together, in the presence of everyone, considering that in turn they cause damage and harm to that what Typhon loves. For it seems that only Alis and a few other animals are dedicated to Osiris, while most of the creatures are dedicated to Typhon. If this explanation is correct, then I think that it answers questions regarding those living creatures that are recognized by everyone and which receive well-known honors; these are the ibis, the falcon, the dog-headed monkey, Apis himself and Mendes: this is what the goat is called in the city of Mendes.

* That is, in revered animals.

74.

There still remain usefulness and allegory; Some customs have one or the other basis, while most have both. It is obvious that the ox, the sheep and the pharaoh's mouse began to be revered because of the need for them and their usefulness (thus, the inhabitants of Lemnos honor the lark, which finds and breaks the eggs of locusts. And the Thessalians honor storks, because when the earth gives birth to many snakes, storks appear destroy them all. Therefore, they passed a law that anyone who kills a stork goes into exile); they also revered the asp, weasel and scarab, since they saw in them some weak semblance of divine power, like the reflection of the sun in drops. Until now, many people think and say that a caress conceives through the ear, and gives birth through the mouth, and that this is similar to the birth of a word; It is also said that scarabs have no females, and that all the males emit seed into a substance knocked into balls, which they roll, pushing them back, just as the sun apparently turns the sky backwards, moving itself from west to east. The asp is compared to a star* because he does not age and moves easily and dexterously without the help of his limbs.

* Variation: with lightning. Loeb, p. 172. Asp is apparently a cobra, the star is Sirius.

75.

In the same way, the crocodile enjoys honor, which is not without a convincing reason - after all, it is called the likeness of God because it alone does not have a tongue, and the divine word does not need sound and,

“moving along a silent path, he justly rules the affairs of mortals”*.

And they say that of the inhabitants of the water, only one of his eyes is covered by a delicate and transparent film descending from his forehead, so that he sees while being invisible, and this property is inherent in the First God. And where the female crocodile lays her eggs, there she marks the limit of the Nile flood.

For they cannot lay in water, they are afraid to lay far from water, but they predict the future so accurately that when they bring and warm eggs, they take advantage of the rise of the river and keep them dry and unwetted. They lay sixty eggs, hatch them for the same number of days, and the longest-lived crocodiles live for the same number of years, and this number is the first for those who study the celestial bodies. As for animals that are revered for two reasons, the dog was mentioned above. The ibis, which kills deadly reptiles, was the first to teach people how to use medical cleansing, for they saw how it washes and empties itself. And the strictest priests, undergoing purification, take purifying water from where the ibis drank, because if the water is harmful or bewitched, he does not drink it and does not even approach it. The distance between the legs and the gap between the legs and the beak form an equilateral triangle, and the patterned mixture of its black and white feathers resembles a moon. And one need not be surprised that the Egyptians are committed to such weak simulacrums. After all, the Greeks also use many similar symbols for stucco and painted images of gods. For example, in Crete there was a statue of Zeus that did not have ears: for it is not fitting for the ruler and ruler of all things to hear anything. Near the statue of Athena, Phidias placed a snake, and near the statue of Aphrodite in Elis, a tortoise, because virgins need protection, and married women homeliness and silence have become common. The trident of Poseidon symbolizes the third part of the earth, which is owned by the sea, which ranks after the sky and air; and from this came the names of Amphitrite and the Tritons. The Pythagoreans also decorate numbers and figures with the names of the gods. They call the equilateral triangle Athena, born from the head and thrice born**, because it is divided by three perpendiculars drawn from the three angles.

The One is called Apollo because it denies multiplicity and because of the simplicity of the individual; two - discord and insolence, and three - justice: since the infliction of injustice and the enduring of it stems from lack and excess, then justice, thanks to balance, appears in the middle; and the so-called quaternary, the number thirty-six, was, as is generally known, the greatest oath and was called the cosmos, because it was formed from the combination of the first four and four odd numbers***.

* Eurip., Troades 887 cl.

** Athena-Tritogenea Perhaps the epithet comes from the birthplace of Athena - the Libyan river Triton; in general, it is impossible to find a single completely satisfactory explanation for it.

*** 1 + 2+3 + 4+5 + 6 + 7 + 8 = 36

76.

So, if the most famous philosophers, who saw the reflection of the deity in soulless and incorporeal elements, thought that nothing should be neglected and nothing should be left without attention, then I believe that individuals clothed in a nature capable of perception, having a soul, feeling and character, are all the more worthy of love; and they are not worshiped, but through them - the deity, because they are his clearest and natural mirror and because in them we must recognize the creations and creations of the God who arranges everything *. And in general, the soulless should not be valued above the animate, and the insensitive - above the capable of perception, one should not - even if someone were to unite all the gold and all the emeralds together. The deity does not dwell in color, form, or smoothness, for that which does not and by its nature cannot participate in life has a fate more inglorious than that of the dead. Nature, which lives, sees, has in itself the source of movement and knowledge of its own and others, has absorbed the outflow and a share of beauty from the Thinker, “by whom everything is controlled,” as Heraclitus said. Therefore, it is no worse to liken the deity to these living creatures than to copper and stone products, which are subject to damage and change and are naturally devoid of any feeling and reason. This is what I most approve of what they say about revered animals.

* Variation of readings: so the soul also needs to see the instrument of God who arranges everything.

77.

As for Isis’s clothing, it is of a variegated color, for, belonging to matter, its energy becomes everything and contains everything: light and darkness, day and night, fire and water, life and death, beginning and end. The robe of Osiris does not accept shadow and variegation and is one pure likeness of light, for the beginning is unalloyed, and the primary and supersensible is not mixed with anything. Therefore, having once put on this dress, the priests then take it off and keep it invisible and inviolable. And they often use the veils of Isis, because the sensual and accessible, when used, presents many opportunities to reveal and contemplate oneself, changing differently each time. On the contrary, knowledge of the supersensible, pure and simple*, shining through the soul like lightning, allows you to touch and see yourself only once. Therefore, Plato and Aristotle** call all this the mystical part of philosophy, because, having passed through the complex and heterogeneous with the help of reason, people ascend to this primary, simple and immaterial principle and, having truly touched the pure truth contained in it, believe that they have, finally, with all wisdom.

* Variation: and sacred. Griffiths, p. 242.

** Plato, Symp. 210a sll. In the works of Aristotle that have survived to this day, such a statement does not appear.

78.

And this is what the current priests carefully hint at, serving the truth and hiding it: this god * rules and reigns over the dead, and he is none other than the one who is called by the Hellenes Pluto or Hades; and since this truth is incomprehensible, it leads to the confusion of many people, who suspect that in fact the holy and sacred Osiris dwells in the earth and under the earth, where the bodies of those who are believed to have met their end are hidden. On the contrary, this god is very far from the earth and remains untouched, unsullied and pure from any essence involved in destruction and death. And for human souls who put on bodies and passions in this world, there is participation in God only as an image of a foggy dream, which can be touched by knowledge with the help of philosophy. When the souls are liberated and move into the invisible, unseen, imperturbable and immaculate abode, then this god becomes their ruler and king, because of him they seem to be attached to the unspeakable and inexpressible beauty for people, contemplate it and insatiably strive for it. And, as the ancient legend says, Isis, having fallen in love with beauty, eternally gravitating towards it and staying with it, fills our world with everything beautiful and good that has to do with birth. This is the explanation of all this most consistent with the divine nature.

79.

And if, as I promised, it is also necessary to talk about daily incense, then someone might first think about this, that people always surround with great care customs related to health; especially religious rites, cleansing and a strict lifestyle, care for health is inherent no less than piety. For the Egyptians do not consider it worthy to serve with sick and internally damaged bodies or souls that are pure, completely unharmed and undefiled. In fact, the air that we use and with which we come into contact most of all does not always have the same composition and condition, but at night it thickens and compresses the body and with it plunges the soul, as if heavy and foggy, into despondency and worry. ; therefore, having risen from sleep, they immediately kindle the gum, healing and purifying the air through its rarefaction, and again ignite the extinguished natural spirit of the body, because the aroma of gum has something powerful and stimulating. Again, when they see that the midday sun forcefully carries away abundant and heavy vapors from the earth and mixes them with the air, then they burn myrrh, for the heat disperses and disperses the turbidity and dust that has thickened in the atmosphere. Apparently, for the same reasons, doctors provide assistance in case of an epidemic by lighting a large fire and purifying the air. It is best cleaned by burning fragrant wood, such as cypress, juniper and pine. They say that in Athens, during a great epidemic, the doctor Akron became famous, who ordered fires to be lit near the sick: he helped a considerable number of people. And Aristotle* claims that the fragrant breath of fragrant plants, flowers and meadows brings no less health than pleasure, because with warmth and tenderness it gradually softens the naturally cold and insensitive brain. And if the Egyptians call myrrh “bal,” and the translation of this word means, first of all, “expulsion of excess,” then this perhaps gives some confirmation to our opinion about the reason for its use.

* In the surviving works of Aristotle, the arguments in Part are closest to this fragment. Anim. 2, 7.

80.

And a mixture of kufi* is formed from sixteen components: from honey, wine, raisins, keeper, gum, myrrh, prickly gorse, sesel, sea onion, mountain resin, reed, sorrel; in addition, from both types of juniper berries (of which one is called large and the other smaller), from cardamom and calamus. They don’t combine in the right way, but when perfumers mix it all, sacred letters are read to them. Least of all can it be said that the number itself contributes to success, although it seems very worthy of praise, for it is the square of a square and the only one of all numbers containing a square has a perimeter equal to the area. But the fact is that most of the components of the composition contain aromatic energy and emit sweet and healthy scents and vapors, from which the air is transformed, and the body, moving slowly and easily among the blows, acquires a composition that is conducive to sleep; and all the sorrows and stresses of the day's worries, without the help of wine, the aroma dissolves like knots and weakens. It polishes, like a mirror, the organ that perceives dreams and fantasies, and clarifies it no less than the sounds of the lyre, to which the Pythagoreans resorted before going to bed, conjuring and calming the passionate and unreasonable beginning of the soul. Scented plants often restore lost sensitivity; often, on the contrary, they dull and weaken it again when their vapors gently spread over the body. Therefore, some doctors say that sleep occurs when the fumes from food, moving easily through the insides and coming into contact with them, produce a kind of tickling. Kufi is used both as a drink and as an ointment; They think that when they drink it, it, being a softening agent, cleanses the insides. In addition, resin comes from the sun, and myrrh comes from plants that exude resin in sunlight. Of the herbs that make up kufi, there are those that love the night more, like those that by nature gain strength from cold winds, shade, dew and moisture. And while the light of day is single and simple - after all, Pindar said that the sun is visible “in the desert ether”** - the night air is a dilution and mixture of many types of light and energy, as if seeds had fallen from all the stars in one place. So, it is quite fair that incense, simple and originating from the sun, is burned during the day, and something else, as something mixed and qualitatively heterogeneous, is burned at night***.

* The kufi recipe was apparently borrowed by Plutarch from Manetho.

*** It is unknown whether the text of the treatise is torn off or ends with this chapter.

Advance notice

About Isis and Osiris. Translation and notes by N. N. Trukhina

The legend known as Osiris and Isis probably arose during the period of the Old Kingdom (3rd millennium BC). Various versions of it are contained in magical inscriptions on the walls of pyramids and sarcophagi. Its most complete presentation was made at the beginning of our era by the Greek writer Plutarch.

Osiris - god of Egypt

The ancient Egyptians noted that the image of Osiris is quite complex. One of the Egyptian hymns dedicated to Osiris says: “Your nature is darker than that of other gods.”

The god Osiris was the son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. He became the first king of Egypt. Osiris taught the ancient Egyptians to cultivate the land, bake bread, make wine, extract ore from the ground, build cities, cure diseases, play musical instruments, etc. read

Osiris and Set

One day, Osiris's evil brother, Set, decided to destroy him. Secretly, he measured the height of Osiris and ordered a box to be made according to his measurements with beautiful decoration. Then he invited Osiris to his feast. The guests at the feast were Seth's accomplices. By his order, they began to admire the box, and Seth said that he would give it to someone who was the same size as him. Everyone took turns getting into the box, but it didn’t fit anyone. When Osiris's turn came and he lay down in a box made to his measurements, Seth slammed the lid and locked the lock, and his accomplices threw the box into the Nile. read

Goddess Isis and Queen Astarte

Osiris's wife was his sister Isis, they fell in love with each other in their mother's womb. In ancient Egypt, marriage between blood relatives was not uncommon, and the Egyptians revered Isis as the embodiment of a faithful wife.

Having learned about the death of her husband, Isis went in search of his body to in a dignified manner bury. The waves carried the box with the body of Osiris to the shore near the city of Byblos. A mighty tree grew above him, hiding the box inside its trunk. The local king ordered the tree to be cut down and made into a column for his palace.

Isis reached the city of Byblos, removed the body of Osiris from the column and took it by boat to the Nile Delta. There, in solitude, among the swamps, she began to mourn her husband. Anna Akhmatova translated Isis’s lament for Osiris:

"...Darkness is around us, although Ra is in the heavens, The sky has mixed with the earth, a shadow has fallen on the ground. My heart is burning from evil separation. My heart is burning because you have fenced yourself off from me with a wall..." There is an Egyptian belief that The Nile floods because it is overflowing with the tears of Isis. read

God Horus - miraculous birth

At night, when Isis fell asleep, the evil Seth went out to hunt moonlight, and on the shore I saw the body of my brother. Set cut Osiris's body into fourteen pieces and scattered it throughout the world. Poor Isis went again in search of her husband's body. People and animals helped her in her travels: crocodiles did not harm her when she swam through the swamps. The Egyptians believed that in memory of the great goddess, crocodiles would never touch anyone who sails on a boat made of papyrus.

In one version of the myth, Isis buried the found parts of the body of Osiris in different places. This explains the fact that there were several tombs of Osiris in Egypt. In another, she gathered his body together and said: “Oh, bright Osiris! Your bones are collected, your body is collected, your heart is given to your body!”

The god Anubis embalmed the body of Osiris and made the world's first mummy. Since then, the Egyptians had a custom of mummifying the dead.

Osiris and Isis found themselves together again, and miraculously Isis conceived a son, Horus, from the deceased Osiris. Having matured, Horus avenged his father, defeated Set and became king of Egypt. Osiris became the ruler of the underworld and the heavenly judge. In addition, he was considered the god of vegetation and the forces of nature.

In the temples of Osiris, a wooden frame was installed, repeating the contours of his body, and covered with fertile soil and grain. In the spring, the “body of Osiris” sprouted with young shoots.

The role of Osiris as the ruler of the underworld is difficult to understand. The Egyptians believed that everyone who died was not just likened to Osiris, but, as it were, turned into him. The myth of Osiris and Isis is one of the most interesting in Egyptian mythology. read

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Isis, Osiris, Horus

Historian D. Reder wrote: “The cult of Isis influenced Christian dogma and art. The image of the Mother of God with a baby in her arms goes back to the image of Isis with the baby Horus. Figurines of Isis were preserved as relics in some medieval churches (in Saint-Germain, Cologne)."

Many years ago, when I met D. Raeder or when I read his works, the fact of the transformation of ideas about the great goddess into neighboring countries The Mediterranean slipped past my attention. It never even occurred to me to think about the birth of the bright image of the Virgin Mary in connection with the mythological fate of Isis.

It had to happen that I learned from the greatest goddess herself one of her names: Isis!

The goddess herself pronounces it more loudly: Isis.

I have no doubt that D. Raeder is right. The legend of the Virgin Mary owes its genesis to Egyptian sources. But the Egyptian sources themselves are difficult to understand and study. I probably would not have been able to reunite Isis and the Virgin Mary in my mind so quickly, although the above-mentioned historian spoke on this issue even in a two-volume mythological dictionary. Still, this seemed to me one of the hypotheses. And only herself beautiful goddess confirmed it. And I suddenly discovered with amazement that Isis was both the goddess of water and the goddess of navigation in approximately the same aspect as Aphrodite.

She was also the goddess of the wind, giving birth to winds. But how!.. She had wings. And if very often she was represented in the form of a bird (falcon), then there were also images of her in the form of a winged woman, a bird woman.

Isis is a symbol of femininity, she is the goddess of fertility. All these signs lead to ancient times, to the distant Cro-Magnon era with the Mother Goddess, a winged bird woman. These same signs help us to unite in our consciousness Anahita, the Swan Goddess and Bagbarta with the sister and wife of Osiris.

Only the most ancient sources of faith help us understand that the horns of the heavenly cow, with which Isis was depicted, mean power over the sky, and these horns have the same properties as the horns of Aphrodite, which remained in the memory of the ancients, as well as the horn of Rozhanna.

Her heavenly image combines the attributes and characteristics of the great Cro-Magnon goddess: horns, wings. Slavic women wore headdresses with rag horns. And in full accordance with their purpose, another one is discovered characteristic Egyptian goddess: she patronized women in labor, facilitated childbirth and determined the fate of newborn kings.

Isis was depicted holding a child in her arms. His name is Horus.

He is the son of a married couple - Isis and Osiris. The myths talk about the struggle that the goddess waged with Set, the killer of Osiris. The great goddess herself pronounces the name of Osiris loudly: Osiris. Horus was also Seth's opponent.

Over centuries and millennia of veneration of Isis, the image of a faithful wife and loving mother has developed - it served as the basis biblical story. A sure sign of this remains in the very name of the Virgin Mary. Ta Meri - this is what the ancient Egyptians themselves called Egypt. Maria is a name consonant with the name of the ancient land.

Sometimes I ask historians I know who consider themselves Jews: how did the ritual of circumcision arise? Most often they answer that this is dedication, custom, etc. But still? Silence - and I have to retell the father of history, Herodotus, who clearly reports that this is the custom of the Egyptians.

For me, this serves as further confirmation of the naturalness and continuity of beliefs that reflect the same reality.

Heliopolis - City of the Sun. This is what the Greeks called one of the main religious centers of Egypt, which played this role for three millennia. The great nine gods of Heliopolis included Osiris, Isis, as well as Nephthys and Set. I will name the others: these are Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut. Atum was identified in Heliopolis with the sun god Ra. Here are the explanations: Shu - Air, Tefnut - Moisture, Geb - Earth, Nut - Sky.

Little remains of Heliopolis. Its stones were used in the construction of Cairo; even earlier, after the Persian invasion, many obelisks, according to Strabo, were thrown to the ground, disfigured by the fire of fires; some of them, better preserved than others, were taken by the Romans to Alexandria.

But what was preserved in the reconstruction is amazing. A large cross, visible from afar, was often placed on the stone pillars of this amazing city. It is similar to a much later Christian symbol. There are only not very reliable legends about the purpose of this ancient pillar with a cross (it was called Iunu). Iunu remained the symbol of the city until the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e., when a new form arose - an obelisk with a pointed top.

Osiris and Isis, all the great nine gods, were worshiped here.

And yet it cannot be said that Isis left Heliopolis. Egyptologists do not have such data at their disposal either. Isis, as we now know, is much older than Heliopolis. She is a contemporary of the Cro-Magnons. She came to Egyptian Heliopolis from the heavenly city. This heavenly city is located, according to her in my own words, in the direction of the Sun. City in celestial space. I admit that Heliopolis was created like the earthly Asgard according to the heavenly standard. But I still have too little data.

Osiris (Osiris) is the eldest son of the earth god Geb, heir to the great-grandfather of Ra-Sun, grandfather of Shu. The fourth god and at the same time the king of people. The pharaohs began to become like him. They were called by his name. He is the ruler of the earthly depths, then he is given as a symbol of heavenly power, the solar disk shining above his head.

He gave the Egyptians the art of healing, cities, the ability to process metal ores, prepare wine and beer, plant vineyards, sow cereals, and bake bread. Cannibalism had also occurred before him. Once he was the king of Egypt, in the full sense of the word he made man a man, taught him everything for many centuries to come. This is the truth of heaven and earth.

The myth speaks of his envious brother Seth. This younger brother, but would really like to replace the elder on the throne and is tirelessly looking for a way to do this. Here Osiris returns with victory from Asia after a long and difficult campaign. A feast is arranged at his command. Seventy-two accomplices to the murder bring in, at a sign from Set, a luxuriously decorated and decorated casket (large box). Seth proclaims; This is a gift for someone who needs it. But he is silent about something else: the chest was made according to the measurements taken from Osiris!

And Osiris lies down in the box. Seth's assistants slammed the lid and immediately filled it with lead, prepared in advance. The box containing the wisest of the kings of Egypt was thrown into the deep Nile. A mighty bush of heather delayed and stopped the box, which became a sarcophagus, when the current brought it closer to the shore. The most faithful of wives, the queen and goddess Isis, found her husband dead, but managed to extract his life force through magic and conceived a son from the dead Osiris...

The body of Osiris was buried. Isis leaves, her wanderings end in the lower reaches of the Nile, among impenetrable swamps and thickets. There she gave birth to Horus and raised him. When Horus grew up, his fight with Set ended in victory. Isis and Horus revived Osiris. For the Egyptians, he began to personify nature, now dying and now reborn. He is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld. The dead cannot escape His judgment. The righteous go to the fields of paradise, where they live forever. The god of the dead Anubis became his companion and assistant. (The god of the earthly depths is a hypostasis of Osiris; later he was depicted with a solar disk on his head.) His fame and cult spread to the western part of Asia and Europe. He was also worshiped in the Northern Black Sea region, that is, where Lebedia and the Swan goddess arose. We now know her other names. So on this, our land, faithful Isis and the great Osiris united again. This is no longer a myth, but history.

Even before our era, the cults of Osiris, Isis, and their son Horus-Harpocrates penetrated north of the Black Sea. In the first centuries of the era, numerous images of these two gods and the great goddess were widespread here. The cult of Serapis, introduced by the Ptolemies, which united the worship of Osiris and Zeus, merged into the general mainstream of the ever-increasing influence of the ancient Egyptian gods among the tribes that later became part of the Slavic-Russian community. Here, in the Black Sea region, the cradle of the great Rus people, temples to the Egyptian gods and the great goddess Isis were built. Evidence of this has been preserved in the ruins of Olbia.

In ancient Chersonesus (Arusinia), where the spark of Russian Christianity would later flare up, lamps with the image of Serapis were made, dating back to the same time.

Serapis in long clothes stands on the altar. In his left hand is a scepter, right hand blesses. He wears a tunic with sleeves that fits his body. On the sides on separate altars there is the sacred cobra of Osiris, the sacred cobra of Isis.

Images of Isis from Olbia, Chersonesus, and the city of Bosporus testify: they knew or assumed that the name Aphrodite also refers to the great goddess. Among the finds is the image of Isis feeding Horus, a syncretic image of Isis-Aphrodite. A bust of Isis with a crown was found in Gorgippia. An ankh holds the sign of life in his hand from a series of the same finds. Time - II century AD e. Aphrodite with Horus from Panticapaeum, Harpocrates-Horus with a swan or goose, Isis holding Horus in her arms, Serapis-Osiris, repeated many times in the cities of the Northern Black Sea region, inhabited by the descendants of Greek and Asia Minor settlers and Scythians, the amazing mounds of the Bosporus, repeating in many ways the ancient ones the pyramids of the Egyptians - all this has passed through millennia and continues now. Ongoing!

According to the incomprehensible laws of heavenly magic, life triumphs over death many times, and again and again an amazed person occasionally sees Isis with little Horus in her arms.

Such is the life of the gods.

...The mythological fate of the greatest and noblest of the gods, Osiris, resembles the fate of Hamlet the father. The insidious and cruel Claudius only embodies the same plan of Seth in a different way. But no one managed to repeat the feat of the most beautiful of women! Isis is unattainable in her loyalty and miraculous power.

Like the brave young god Horus, Hamlet the son enters into an unequal struggle with the crowned uncle Claudius and with all of Elsinore. And he wins. His death only emphasizes the significance of this victory, crowns it, raises it to the level of the divine, the exceptional.

But only the brave Horus, who won a long struggle and brought his father back to life after incredible dramatic collisions, belongs completely to the world of the gods. It is not for nothing that his name is translated as “height”, “sky”, and he was often depicted in the form of a winged Sun or Falcon. Our luminary with outstretched wings became its symbol for all times. These wings are the heavenly protection of earthly rulers.

As soon as we pronounce the names of the Egyptian gods, we are presented with primordial antiquity, not noted in any of the written sources. In fact, perhaps everything is even more mysterious. Most often, it is not known when people recognized this or that god. In the host of gods of the Ra-Sun, Thoth, the god of wisdom and calculation, occupies a worthy place. He is the ruler of the Moon, oversees the astral cycle and the harmony of the world. His books of magic contained information about which we have very vague ideas. The scribes considered him their patron.

The trial of the dead takes place under the supervision of Osiris, and Thoth and Anubis are present. Trismegistus - that’s what the ancient Greeks called Thoth, Thrice very great - this is the translation of this name. The Greeks identified him with Hermes. It is he who leads every deceased person to the kingdom of the dead.

He takes the side of Osiris and stops the fight between Set and Horus. In one of her conversations with Jeanne, Isis called him the god of knowledge and light, who gave the alphabet and laws.

The patron saint of the dead, Anubis, together with Isis, searches for the body of Osiris and protects it. He is certainly among the gods associated with the mysteries of Osiris. According to Isis, he was one of the three to whom the secret of immortality was revealed (Osiris, Isis, Anubis). Egyptian mythology is very complex and confusing. Over time, some gods transfer their functions to others, while they themselves seem to be resurrected in a new quality and image. They spoke of a thousand gods Ancient Egypt. Their pedigree is remembered and known only by themselves. I see in this diversity a reflection of the fact that one and the same deity could appear under different names.

It remains for me to explain an important circumstance based on the same Egyptian sources, the antiquity of which, while inferior to man-made evidence - Cro-Magnon masterpieces, is, on the other hand, ahead of Mediterranean and, in particular, biblical legends.

The holy spirit came upon the Virgin Mary, and thus the eternal child, the son of God, was born. The name Christ is revered by all believers. It received the power of renewed reality. In another source of God's existence, endowed with the same power of reality, Isis also conceived from the spirit, from the holy spirit. So great and miraculous is the love of the heavenly couple that the spirit of the deceased Osiris became the father of Horus. I will once again name all the members of the divine family in the pronunciation of the great goddess: Osiris, Isis, Horus. Development of this ancient history does not exclude similar repetitions and variations. After all, the gods are immortal. Immortal love, immortal improvement.

One day Jeanne asked if all the relatives of the great goddess were alive. She answered: yes, we are all alive.

Having entered the new Age of Aquarius, leaving behind the Age of Pisces, humanity is joining the renewed divine reality. The first stage of transfiguration is the appearance and conversations of the Mother of God with people. The second is her descent to Earth in the form of an abbess, her instructions, her care. That's what she says herself. I am not allowed to judge what will happen next.

The great beautiful goddess does not break her connection with the Earth. She took and continues to take a very active part in the events. Humanity owes its formation, development, and destiny to it. I am clearly aware with what attention, with what delicacy and persistence, she helps lost and, unfortunately, incapable of thinking humanity. And if the gods, and above all the great goddess, could not, because of this inability to think, communicate and notify mortal gods about the life of gods, then now, in new era Aquarius, a person will be given a lot. I would like to add: a lot will be asked.

I remember the evening at the House of Journalists, when Zhanna and I left some boring event to which I dared to invite her. In the bar, in the semi-darkness, over a cup of coffee, we talked about the beautiful goddess, and, as always, every word remained in my memory.

A lamp in the form of a white ball is suspended above the ceiling. Its diameter exceeds half a meter. Zhanna looked at him closely several times. I asked why.

I remember that morning when the Mother of God showed me the one on whom permission to answer your questions depended.

Well, I overdid it then... you said on her behalf: let these questions of mine be written down. And I wrote a whole cosmogonic poem in questions.

That's not why I remembered. I saw him. You understand - him! His face, the light, bright, bright. And he was in a ball of light. I distinguished this ball as clearly as this extraordinary lamp.

I also looked closely at this ball-lamp. It has a slightly oval shape. Something drew his gaze to him. I tried to imagine this meeting... with him.

You’ll probably have a headache from the bright light,” Zhanna said.

If I'm not ready to see him. So?

Yes. She later said that I saw him too early.

I would be glad to see him even in such a case... tell her.

I thought then about the fate of the great gods, as emotional as the Cro-Magnons, like modern people, tired, as the beautiful goddess sometimes gets tired, sometimes horrified, according to Jeanne, by the actions of people.

Sometimes they feel bad... because of what people do!

“I understand,” I answered her, although it is impossible to understand this immediately, just as it is impossible to immediately understand that she saw the great Osiris.

The Mother of God was wearing a yellow golden fur cape. Showed up late, around six in the morning. She seemed tired, even exhausted.

You're so late... probably tired? - Zhanna asked.

You wanted to see me - so you came.

I rewrote his questions and words, what interests him. I'll read it to you now...

The Mother of God listened to all this, then put her free hand to her cape, to her temple; This is what a person does when he grabs his head. She said:

But he already knows a lot of this!

After a pause:

No, I know everything and will help him.

Tell me, what do you think is one, one?

She drew a black circle in the air with her hand and placed a dot inside.

I don’t understand... tell me, how old are you?

Yes many.

Is the boy's grandfather alive?

Yes, we are all alive.

As she left, she repeated like a refrain, it sounded like a weakening echo:

Xena, Xena, Xena...

It could also sound like “zeno.” Zhanna didn't remember exactly.

This time she left, or rather disappeared, without facing Jeanne, without turning sideways, as sometimes happened, but she swayed slightly left and right, and Jeanne seemed to notice that the barely visible fabric of the canopy or curtain had been drawn. Then she disappeared.

She was feeling hot that morning. Then Zhanna began to shiver. She took a hot shower, but the hot water even seemed cool.

Our Lady appeared four days later.

Tell him to take care of his health for three weeks, especially at the beginning of each week! Let him not take part in big affairs. He will get a call from another unit about this - he will understand.

From another city?

He will understand!

You promised to answer his questions!

“I have not yet received permission for this,” said the great goddess.

Who gives permission? Can you show it?

An image appeared of a middle-aged man, brown hair, a beard, and a regular oval face. A blinding light came from him. Jeanne had a headache all day.

Four days later Zhanna asked:

Who did you show me, who is it?

This is my Odin,” answered the Mother of God.

I still have a headache.

You wanted to see him early.

What about the questions he asked?

We decide, let him wait. They will call him. Let him not take on big things. Everything he started will be fulfilled in March. Why are you not following him well?

What's the matter, I don't understand?

He does not carry a wooden cross in his pocket. He wears the cross on the left, your image (photo card) on the right. Tell him. Then two rays will form, they will support his heart on both sides. We must take care of his health!

Fine. But it seems like I have nothing to do with it... but it’s hard for me, there’s no money, there’s nothing. Like me?

Everything will be fine. You are smart and beautiful.

On March 18, 1991, the great goddess appeared in a light circle, similar to a light ball - Jeanne saw such a ball when God appeared, but it was brighter.

Who are you? - Zhanna asked.

Mother of the world,” answered the goddess. - Tell him to fast the last week of Lent before Easter, this is necessary to cleanse his soul.

And most importantly for me! At parting, she rounded her lips and said:

Lv. - Pause. - Earth!

This was one of the important words which I asked about.

Why are you gloomy today? - Zhanna asked.

She was silent. It was as if I hadn’t heard the question.

I knew that Ur was earth. For some reason Zhanna asked about this again.

Ur, Ur, Ur! - the goddess repeated.

What does the name of the Mother of the World sound like?

Are you all immortal?

We have arrived at a state of immortality.

Who came to this state?

Isis, Osiris, Anubis.

I quoted my diary entries. It was then, in March, that I learned the name of Isis. Our Lady - Isis. I myself could not guess this name of the great goddess.

The main god of the Aesir is Odin. He was called a goddess. This can be understood as a desire to speak briefly and clearly, without yet mentioning Osiris’s own name. It was assumed that my fascination with Asgard would allow me to independently understand what name was being discussed.

From the author's book

Isis, Osiris, Horus and Set In ancient texts, Isis and Osiris are the children of Nut, the wife of Ra, who ruled the Earth. Nut had two more children, Seth and Nephthys. Set and Osiris were brothers and vied for their father's throne, and after Ra left Earth and returned to Heaven, Osiris and Set entered

Let's begin.

Osiris, in Egyptian mythology, the god of the productive forces of nature, lord of the underworld, judge in kingdom of the dead. Osiris was the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, brother and husband of Isis. He taught the Egyptians agriculture, viticulture and winemaking, mining and processing of copper and gold ore, the art of medicine, the construction of cities, and established the cult of the gods.
Osiris was usually depicted as a man with green skin, sitting among trees, or with a vine entwining his figure. It was believed that, like the entire plant world, Osiris dies annually and is reborn to new life, but the fertilizing life force in him remains even in the dead. Myth:
Set, his brother, the evil god of the desert, decided to destroy Osiris and made a sarcophagus according to the measurements of his older brother. Having arranged a feast, he invited Osiris and announced that the sarcophagus would be presented to the one who fit the bill. When Osiris lay down in the sarcophagus, the conspirators slammed the lid, filled it with lead and threw it into the waters of the Nile. (Picking up a sarcophagus during life was normal at that time.)
The faithful wife of Osiris, Isis, found her husband’s body, miraculously extracted the life force hidden in him and conceived a son named Horus from the dead Osiris. When Horus grew up, he took revenge on Set. Horus gave his magic Eye, torn out by Set at the beginning of the battle, to his dead father to swallow. Osiris came to life, but did not want to return to earth, and, leaving the throne to Horus, began to reign and administer justice in the afterlife. Seth, in Egyptian mythology, the god of the desert, that is, “foreign countries,” the personification of the evil principle, the brother and killer of Osiris. During the era of the Old Kingdom, Set was revered as a warrior god, assistant to Ra and patron of the pharaohs.
As the personification of war, drought, death, Seth also embodied the evil principle - as the deity of the merciless desert, the god of foreigners: he cut down sacred trees, ate the sacred cat of the goddess Bast, etc.
The sacred animals of Seth were considered to be the pig (“disgust for the gods”), antelope, giraffe, and the main one was the donkey. The Egyptians imagined him as a man with a thin, long body and a donkey's head. Some myths attributed to Seth the salvation of Ra from the serpent Apophis - Seth pierced the giant Apophis, personifying darkness and evil, with a harpoon. Myth:
Set, jealous of his brother Osiris, killed him, threw his body into the Nile and legally took his throne. But the son of Osiris, Horus, who had been hiding for many years, wanted to take revenge on Set and take his throne. Horus and Set fought for eighty years. During one of the battles, Seth tore out Horus's eye, which then became the great amulet of the Udjat; Horus castrated Seth, depriving him of most of his essence. Horus or Horus, Horus (“height”, “sky”), in Egyptian mythology the god of the sky and the sun in the guise of a falcon, a man with the head of a falcon or a winged sun, the son of the fertility goddess Isis and Osiris, the god of productive forces. Its symbol is a solar disk with outstretched wings. Initially, the falcon god was revered as a predatory god of the hunt, with his claws digging into his prey. Myth:
Isis conceived Horus from the dead Osiris, who was treacherously killed by the formidable desert god Set, his brother. Retiring deep into the swampy Nile Delta, Isis gave birth to and raised a son, who, having matured, in a dispute with Set, sought recognition of himself as the sole heir of Osiris.
In the battle with Set, the killer of his father, Horus is first defeated - Set tore out his eye, the wonderful Eye, but then Horus defeated Set and deprived him of his masculinity. As a sign of submission, he placed the sandal of Osiris on Seth's head. Horus allowed his wonderful Eye to be swallowed by his father, and he came to life. The resurrected Osiris handed over his throne in Egypt to Horus, and he himself became the king of the underworld. Isis or Isis, in Egyptian mythology, the goddess of fertility, water and wind, a symbol of femininity and marital fidelity, the goddess of navigation. Isis helped Osiris to civilize Egypt and taught women to reap, spin and weave, cure diseases and established the institution of marriage. When Osiris went to wander the world, Isis replaced him and wisely ruled the country. Myth:
Hearing about the death of Osiris at the hands of the god of evil Set, Isis was dismayed. She cut her hair, put on mourning clothes and began searching for his body. The children told Isis that they had seen a box containing the body of Osiris floating down the Nile. The water carried him under a tree that grew on the shore near Byblos, which began to grow rapidly and soon the coffin was completely hidden in its trunk.
Upon learning of this, the king of Byblos ordered the tree to be cut down and brought to the palace, where it was used as a support for the roof in the form of a column. Isis, having guessed everything, rushed to Byblos. She dressed poorly and sat down by a well in the center of the city. When the queen's maids came to the well, Isis braided their hair and wrapped it in such a fragrance that the queen soon sent for her and took her son as a teacher. Every night Isis placed the royal child in the fire of immortality, and she herself, turning into a swallow, flew around the column with her husband’s body. Seeing her son in the flames, the queen uttered such a piercing cry that the child lost his immortality, and Isis revealed herself and asked to give her the column. Having received the body of her husband, Isis hid him in a swamp. However, Seth found the body and cut it into fourteen pieces, which he scattered throughout the country. With the help of the gods, Isis found all the pieces except the penis, which had been swallowed by the fish.
According to one version, Isis collected the body and revived Osiris to life using her healing powers, and conceived from him the god of the sky and sun, Horus. Isis was so popular in Egypt that over time she acquired the characteristics of other goddesses. She was revered as the patroness of women in labor, determining the fate of newborn kings.

Virgo