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Osiris
(Eg.)
The greatest God of Egypt, the Son of Seb (Saturn), celestial fire, and of Neith, primordial matter and infinite space. This shows him as the self‐existent and self‐created god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other “ First Causes”. For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. He was born at Mount Sinai, the Nyssa of the O. T. (See‐ Exodus xvii. 15), and buried at Abydos, after being killed by Typhon at the early age of twenty‐eight, according to the allegory. According to Euripides he is the same as Zeus and Dionysos or Dio‐Nysos “the god of Nysa”, for Osiris is said by him to have been brought up in Nysa, in Arabia “the Happy”. Query: how much did the latter tradition influence, or have anything in common with, the statement in the Bible, that “Moses built an altar and called the name Jehovah Nissi”, or Kabbalistically—“Dio‐ Iao‐Nyssi”? (See Isis Unveiled Vol. II. p. 165.) The four chief aspects of Osiris were—Osiris‐Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris‐Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris‐Lunus, the “ Lunar” or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris‐Typhon, Daїmonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual Ego— the divine and the human, the cosmico‐spiritual and the terrestrial. Of the many supreme gods, this Egyptian conception is the most suggestive and the grandest, as it embraces the whole range of physical and metaphysical thought. As a solar deity he had twelve minor gods under him—the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Though his name is the “Ineffable”, his forty‐two attributes bore each one of his names, and his seven dual aspects completed the forty‐ nine, or 7 X 7; the former symbolized by the fourteen members of his body, or twice seven. Thus the god is blended in man, and the man is deified into a god. He was addressed as Osiris‐Eloh. Mr. Dunbar T. Heath speaks of a Phœnician inscription which, when read, yielded the following tumular inscription in honour of the mummy: “Blessed be Ta‐Bai, daughter of Ta‐Hapi, priest of Osiris‐Eloh. She did nothing against anyone in anger. She spoke no falsehood against any one. Justified before Osiris, blessed be thou from before Osiris! Peace be to thee.” And then he adds the following remarks: “The author of this inscription ought, I suppose, to be called a heathen, as justification before Osiris is the object of his religious aspirations. We find, however, that he gives to Osiris the appellation Eloh. Eloh is the name used by the Ten Tribes of Israel for the Elohim of Two Tribes. Jehovah‐Eloh (Gen. iii. 21.) in the version used by Ephraim corresponds to Jehovah Elohim in that used by Judah and ourselves. This being so, the question is sure to be asked, and ought to be humbly answered—What was the meaning meant to be conveyed by the two phrases respectively, Osiris‐Eloh and Jehovah‐Eloh? For my part I can imagine but one answer, viz., that Osiris was the national God of Egypt, Jehovah that of Israel, and that Eloh is equivalent to Deus, Gott or Dieu”. As to his human development, he is, as the author of the Egyptian Belief has it . . . “One of the Saviours or Deliverers of Humanity . . . . As such he is born in the world. He came as a benefactor, to relieve man of trouble . . . . In his efforts to do good he encounters evil . . . and he is temporarily overcome. He is killed . . Osiris is buried. His tomb was the object of pilgrimage for thousands of years. But he did not rest in his grave. At the end of three days, or forty, he rose again and ascended to Heaven. This is the story of his Humanity” (Egypt. Belief). And Mariette Bey, speaking of the Sixth Dynasty, tells us that “the name of Osiris . . commences to be more used. The formula of Justified is met with”: and adds that “it proves that this name (of the Justified or Makheru was not given to the dead only”. But it also proves that the legend of Christ was found ready in almost all its details thousands of years before the Christian era, and that the Church fathers had no greater difficulty than to simply apply it to a new personage (TG).
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Shortly: The greatest God of Egypt, the Son of Seb (Saturn), celestial fire, and of Neith, primordial matter ...