The knowledge of truth man’s greatest blessing; to be sought of the
gods, 65. Isis the goddess of wisdom and knowledge, 66. What makes
a true priest of Isis? 67. Why do the priests of Isis shave their
heads and wear linen garments? 67. Why are those priests scrupulous
about their food? 68. Why is the bull Apis not watered from the Nile?
68. Why do the priests of the Sun abstain from wine, or drink it
sparingly? 69. Why do the priests abstain from fish and from onions?
70. They do not sacrifice the swine, 71. They conceal their wisdom
in enigmas, 72. Hence the enigmas of Pythagoras, 72. Some of the
Egyptian enigmas stated, 73. The tales related of the Egyptian gods
not to be taken literally, 73. A story about the birth of Osiris,
74. Another about the birth of Isis and other deities, 75. The great
actions of Osiris, 75. The manner of his death, 76. His wife Isis,
her lamentations, 76-78. Her search for her husband, 77. Finds the
body of Osiris, 78, 79. About Maneros, the foster-son of Isis, 79.
The body of Osiris torn in pieces by Typhon, his murderer, and the
members scattered about, 80. The members found and interred in many
places, 80. War between Typhon and Horus, the son of Osiris, 80, 81.
These stories not to be literally understood, 82. These gods were not
kings and mighty men, 83. Semiramis, Sesostris, Cyrus, Alexander,
were human beings, not deities, 85. Isis, Osiris, and Typhon, were
not divine beings, nor human, but Daemons, an intermediate genus,
86. Such also were Saturn, the giants and Titans of the Greeks, 86.
This notion is sanctioned by Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Xenocrates, and
Empedocles, 86, 87. Typhon was a malignant Daemon, 88. Isis and
Osiris were good Daemons, afterwards changed into gods, 88. Isis is
the same as Proserpine; Serapis is Pluto, 88. Osiris is identical
with Serapis and with Bacchus, 89. Osiris is also identical with the
bull Apis, 90. The Egyptians offer disrespect to Typhon, 91. They
maltreat the ass and animals and men having red hair, because his
hair was red, 91. According to some, Osiris is the Nile, and Typhon
the sea; explanation, 92. The most learned hold Osiris to be the
cause of generation, 94. Proofs that Osiris is the same as Bacchus,
95, 96. The Phallic rites, and how they originated, 96, 97. The Nile,
and every thing humid, is the efflux of Osiris, and he is thus the
cause of all things, 96, 97. The country bordering on the Nile is
the body of Isis, 98. The conspiracy of Typhon explained, 99. The
mourning of Isis, and her recovery of the body of Osiris explained,
100. Another explanation of Typhon, Osiris and Isis, the heavenly
bodies, 101. The eclipse of the moon is the death of Osiris, 104.
Worship of the dog Anubis, 77, 104. Typhon stands for the principle
or cause of evil, distress, and destruction, 105. The Magian or
Persian doctrine of two original independent forces or powers; one
the source of light or good, the other of darkness and evil, 106.
These maintain an incessant struggle, 107. The final issue will
be happy, 108. The same ideas are found among the Chaldeans and
the Greeks, 108. These ideas are found also among the Pythagoreans
and in Plato, 109. Throughout nature we find the two discordant
principles, which are represented by the names Osiris and Typhon,
109, 110. The hieroglyphics and religious rites which refer to these
principles, 110-112. Isis is the feminine and productive property of
Nature, 113. Horus, son of Isis, represents the world of mind, 114.
He has a struggle with Typhon, 114, 115. The three constituents of
the divine nature, 115. Illustrated by a triangle, 115. What Plato
says of the production of love, 116, 117. Fables are doctrinal only
in part, 117. The fable of Typhon further explained, 118. Supposed
etymology of the words Isis, Osiris, Anubis, and others, 119-121. The
sistrum, or timbrel, used at the feasts of Isis, 121. Isis and Osiris
produce whatever is orderly and beneficial; Typhon is the cause of
disorder and mischief, 122. These deities are not peculiar to Egypt;
all mankind have them, 123. We are not to rest in the letter of the
accounts given of these gods, 124. Sun, moon, earth, fire, wind,
water, are not gods, but elements wielded by the gods, and by which
the gods exhibit and manifest themselves, 124. We are to rise above
the symbol to the thing symbolized, 125. We should not confound
the true idea of God with the appearances and changes of external
nature, 126, 127. The statues of the gods are not the gods, 128. The
assumption of the forms of brute animals by the gods is not to be
believed, 129. Yet the idolatrous worship of the Egyptians had no
better foundation than this belief, 129, 130. Some reasons assigned
for brute worship, 131, 132. God is to be worshiped in Nature, not
Nature instead of God, 134. The sacred vestments of Isis and Osiris;
their nature and use, 135. Purpose for which incense and perfumes are
burnt, 136-139.