Part 26

68. CIL, II, 3386 = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 442; cf. 4423.

69. Apul., XI, 24; cf. Lafaye, pp. 118 ff. Porphyry (De Abstin., IV, 6) dwells at length on this contemplative character of the Egyptian devotion: The priests [Greek: apedosan holon ton bion tei ton theon theoriai kai theasei].

70. In the Pharaonic ritual the closing ceremony seems to have taken place during the morning, but in the Occident the sacred images were exposed for contemplation, and the {237} ancient Egyptian service must, therefore, have been divided into two ceremonies.

71. Herodotus, II, 37.

72. Cf. Maspero, Rev. critique, 1905, II, p. 361 ff.

73. Apul., Metam., XI, 7 ff.--This festival seems to have persisted at Catana in the worship of Saint Agatha; cf. Analecta Bollandiana, XXV, 1906, p. 509.

74. Similar masquerades are found in a number of pagan cults (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 315), and from very early times they were seen in Egypt; see von Bissing, loc. cit., n. 58, p. 228.

75. The pausarii are mentioned in the inscriptions; cf. Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4353, 4445.

76. Schaefer, Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos unter Sesostris III, Leipsic, 1904; cf. Capart, Rev. hist, relig., LI, 1905, p. 229, and Wiedemann, Melanges Nicole, pp. 574 ff. Junker, "Die Stundenwachen in den Osirismysterien" (Denkschrift Akad. Wien, LIV) 1910.

77. In the Abydos mysteries, the god Thoth set out in a boat to seek the body of Osiris. Elsewhere it was Isis who sailed out in quest of it. We do not know whether this scene was played at Rome; but it certainly was played at Gallipoli where make-believe fishermen handled the nets in a make-believe Nile; cf. P. Foucart, Rech. sur les myst. d'Eleusis (Mem. Acad. Inscr., XXXV), p. 37.

78. Cheremon in Porphyry, Epist. ad Aneb., 31:

Cf. Iamblichus, De myster., VI, 5-7.--On the "mysteries" of Isis in Egypt, cf. Foucart, loc. cit., p. 19 f.; De Jong, De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, Leyden, 1900, pp. 79 f., and Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909.

79. Cf. supra.--De Jong, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 1574.

80. La Cite antique, I, ch. II, end.

81. Cf. Erman, op. cit., pp. 96-97.

82. Sufficient proof is contained in the bas-reliefs cited above (n. 20), where apotheosized death assumes the shape of {238} Serapis. Compare Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2098: [Greek: Eupsuchi meta tou Oseiridos]. This material conception of immortality could be easily reconciled with the old Italian ideas, which had persisted in a dormant state in the minds of the people, see Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte, III^6, p. 758.

83. Reitzenstein, Archiv fuer Religionswiss., VII, 1904, 406 ff. These are perhaps the most striking pages written on the meaning of the ceremony; it is an [Greek: apathanatismos]. Cf. also Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzaehlungen, p. 116.

84. Apul., Metam., 23.--De Jong, the latest commentator on this passage, seems inclined to take it as a mere ecstatic vision, but the vision was certainly caused by a dramatic scene in the course of which hell and heaven were shown in the dark.--The Egyptians represented them even on the stage; see Suetonius, Calig., 8: "Parabatur et in mortem spectaculum quo argumenta inferorum per Aegyptios et Aethiopas explicarentur."

85. Apul., Met., XI, 6 end.

86. Ibid., c. 24: "Inexplicabili voluptate < aspectu > divini simulacri perfruebar."

87. Plut., De Isid., 78, p. 383 A:

88. Cf., supra, n. 22.

89. We find similar wishes on the Egyptian monuments, frequently at least since the Middle Empire. "Donnez-moi de l'eau courante a boire.... Mettez-moi la face au vent du nord sur le bord de l'eau et que sa fraicheur calme mon coeur" (Maspero, Etudes egyptiennes, I, 1881, p. 189). "Oh, si j'avais de l'eau courante a boire et si mon visage etait tourne vers le vent du nord" (Naville,op. cit., p. 174). On a funerary stele in the Brussels museum (Capart, Guide, 1905, p. 71) is inscribed, "Que les dieux accordent de boire l'eau des sources, de respirer les doux vents du nord."--The very material origin of this wish appears in the funeral texts, where the soul is shown crossing the desert, threatened with hunger and thirst, and obtaining refreshment by the aid of the gods (Maspero, Etudes de mythol. et d'archeol. egypt., 1883, I, pp. {239} 366 ff.).--On a tablet at Petilia (see supra, n. 22), the soul of the deceased is required to drink the fresh water ([Greek: psuchron hudor]) flowing from the lake of Memory in order to reign with the heroes. There is nothing to prevent our admitting with Foucart ("Myst. d'Eleusis," Mem. Acad. des Inscr., XXXV, 2, p. 67), that the Egyptian ideas may have permeated the Orphic worship of southern Italy after the fourth or third century, since they are found expressed a hundred years earlier at Carpentras (infra, n. 90).

90. [Greek: Doie soi ho Osiris to psuchron hudor], at Rome: Kaibel, Inscr. gr. XIV. 1488, 1705, 1782, 1842; cf. 658 and CIL, VI, 3, 20616.--[Greek: Soi de Oseiridos hagnon hudor Eisis charisaito], Rev. archeol., 1887, p. 199, cf. 201.--[Greek: Psuchei dipsosei psuchron hudor metados], CIG, 6267 = Kaibel, 1890. It is particularly interesting to note that almost the same wish appears on the Aramaic stele of Carpentras (C. I. Sem., II, 141), which dates back to the fourth or fifth century B. C.: "Blessed be thou, take water from in front of Osiris."--A passage in the book of Enoch manifestly inspired by Egyptian conceptions, mentions the "spring of water," the "spring of life," in the realm of the dead (Enoch, xxii. 2, 9. Cf. Martin, Le livre d'Henoch, 1906, p. 58, n. 1, and Bousset, Relig. des Judentums, 1903, p 271). From Judaism the expression has passed into Christianity. Cf. Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 6.

91. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see Lafaye, op. cit., p. 96, n. 1; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 391; Kraus, Realencycl. der christl. Alt., s. v. "Refrigerium"; and especially Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, Rev. des etudes anc., 1905, p. 32; Audollent, Melanges Louis Havet, 1909, p. 575.--The refrigerii sedes, which the Catholic Church petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not believe in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope the soul will rest [Greek: en topoi chloeroi, en topoi anapsuxeos] (G. Lefebvre, Inscr. gr. chret. d'Eg., No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p. xxx; cf. Dumont, Melanges, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The detail is not without significance because it furnishes a {240} valuable indication as to the Egyptian origin of prayer for the dead; this is unknown to Graeco-Roman paganism which prayed to the deified dead but never for the dead as such. The Church took this custom from the Synagogue, but the Jews themselves seem to have taken it from the Egyptians during the Hellenistic period, undoubtedly in the course of the second century (S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, I, p. 325), just as they were indebted to the Egyptians for the idea of the "spring of life" (supra, n. 90). The formula in the Christian inscriptions cited,

appears to indicate a transposition of the doctrine of identification with Osiris. In this way we can explain the persistence in the Christian formulary of expressions, like requies aeterna, corresponding to the most primitive pagan conceptions of the life of the dead, who were not to be disturbed in their graves.--A name for the grave, which appears frequently in Latin epitaphs, viz., domus aeterna (or aeternalis) is undoubtedly also of Egyptian importation. In Egypt, "la tombe est la maison du mort, sa maison d'eternite, comme disent les textes" (Capart, Guide du musee de Bruxelles, 1905, p. 32). The Greeks were struck by this expression which appears in innumerable instances. Diodorus of Sicily (I, 51, Sec. 2) was aware that the Egyptians

It is probable that this appellation of the tomb passed from Egypt into Palestine and Syria. It appears already in Ecclesiastes, xii. 7 (beth 'olam = "house of eternity"), and it is found in Syrian epigraphy (for instance in inscriptions of the third century (Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 123), also in the epigraphy of Palmyra. (Chabot, Journal asiatique, 1900, p. 266, No. 47)).--Possibly the hope for consolation, [Greek: Eupsuchei, oudeis athanatos], frequently found engraved upon tombs even in Latin countries was also derived from the Egyptian religion, but this is more doubtful. [Greek: Eupsuchei] is found in the epitaphs of initiates in the Alexandrian mysteries. Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 1488, 1782 ([Greek: Eupsuchei kuria kai doie soi ho Osiris to psuchron hudor]), 2098 (cf. supra, n. 90). Possibly the twofold meaning of {241} [Greek: eupsuchos] which stands both for animosus and frigidus (see Dieterich, Nekyia, loc. cit.) has been played upon. But on the other hand, the idea contained in the formula "Be cheerful, nobody is immortal," also inspired the "Song of the Harpist," a canonical hymn that was sung in Egypt on the day of the funeral. It invited the listener to "make his heart glad" before the sadness of inevitable death (Maspero, Etudes egyptiennes, I, 1881, pp. 171 ff.; cf. Naville, op. cit., p. 171).

V. SYRIA.