And Plato calls this sort the interpreting and ministering kind, and
saith, they are in a middle place betwixt the Gods and men, and that
they carry up men’s prayers and addresses thither, and bring from
thence hither prophetic answers and distributions of good things.
Empedocles saith also that Daemons undergo severe punishments for their
evil deeds and misdemeanors:—
The force of air them to the sea pursues;
The sea again upon the land them spews;
From land to th’ sun’s unwearied beams they’re hurled,
Thence far into the realm of aether whirled,
Received by each in turn, by all abhorred;
until, being thus chastened and purified, they are again admitted to
that region and order that suits their nature.
27. Now such things and such like things as these they tell us are
here meant concerning Typhon; how he, moved with envy and spite,
perpetrated most wicked and horrible things, and putting all things
into confusion, filled both land and sea with infinite calamities
and evils, and afterwards suffered for it condign punishment. But
now the avenger of Osiris, who was both his sister and wife, having
extinguished and put an end to the rage and madness of Typhon, did not
forget the many contests and difficulties she had encountered withal,
nor her wanderings and travels to and fro, so far as to commit her many
acts both of wisdom and courage to utter oblivion and silence; but she
mixed them with their most sacred rites of initiation, and together
consecrated them as resemblances, dark hints, and imitations of her
former sufferings, both as an example and an encouragement of piety
for all men and women that should hereafter fall under the like hard
circumstances and distresses. And now both herself and Osiris being for
their virtue changed from good Daemons into Gods, as were Hercules and
Bacchus after them, they have (and not without just grounds) the honors
of both Gods and Daemons joined together, their power being indeed
everywhere great, but yet more especial and eminent in things upon and
under the earth. For Serapis they say is no other than Pluto, and Isis
the same with Proserpine; as Archemachus of Euboea informs us, as also
Heraclides of Pontus, who delivers it as his opinion that the oracle at
Canopus appertains to Pluto.
28. Besides, Ptolemaeus Soter saw in a dream the colossus of Pluto that
stood at Sinope (although he knew it not, nor had ever seen what shape
it was of) calling upon him, and bidding him to convey it speedily away
to Alexandria. And as he was ignorant and at a great loss where it
should be found, and was telling his dream to his familiars, there was
found by chance a certain fellow that had been a general rambler in
all parts (his name was Sosibius), who affirmed he had seen at Sinope
such a colossus as the king had dreamt of. He therefore sent Soteles
and Bacchus thither, who in a long time and with much difficulty, and
not without the special help of a Divine Providence, stole it away and
brought it to Alexandria. When therefore it was conveyed thither and
viewed, Timothy the expositor and Manetho the Sebennite, concluding
from the Cerberus and serpent that stood by it that it must be the
statue of Pluto, persuaded Ptolemy it could appertain to no other God
but Serapis; for he had not this name when he came from thence, but
after he was removed to Alexandria, he acquired the name of Serapis,
which is the Egyptian for Pluto. And when Heraclitus the physiologist
saith, Pluto and Bacchus are one and the same, in whose honor men are
mad and rave, we are thus led to the same doctrine. For those that will
needs have Pluto to be the body, the soul being as it were distracted
and drunken in it, do in my opinion make use of an over fine and subtle
allegory. It is therefore better to make Osiris to be the same with
Bacchus, and Serapis again with Osiris, he obtaining that appellation
since the change of his nature. For which reason Serapis is a common
God to all, as they who participate of divine matters best understand.
29. For there is no reason we should attend to the writings of the
Phrygians, which say that one Charopos was daughter to Hercules, and
that Typhon was son to Isaeacus, son of Hercules; no more than we have
not to contemn Phylarchus, when he writes that Bacchus first brought
two bullocks out of India into Egypt, and that the name of the one was
Apis, and the other Osiris; but that Serapis is the name of him who
orders the universe, from σαίρειν, which some use for _beautifying_ and
_setting forth_. For these sentiments of Phylarchus’s are very foolish
and absurd; but theirs are much more so who affirm Serapis to be no
God at all, but only the name of the chest in which Apis lies; and that
there are at Memphis certain great gates of copper, called the gates
of oblivion and lamentation, which, being opened when they bury the
Apis, make a doleful and hideous noise; which (say they) is the reason
that, when we hear any sort of copper instrument sounding, we are
presently startled and seized with fear. But they judge more discreetly
who suppose his name to be derived from σεύεσθαι or σοῦσθαι (which
signifies _to be borne along_) and so make it to mean, that the motion
of the universe is hurried and borne along violently. But the greatest
part of the priests do say that Osiris and Apis are both of them but
one complex being, while they tell us in their sacred commentaries and
sermons that we are to look upon the Apis as the beautiful image of the
soul of Osiris. I, for my part, do believe that, if the name of Serapis
be Egyptian, it may not improperly denote joy and merriment, because
I find the Egyptians term the festival which we call merry-making
in their language _sairei_. Besides, I find Plato to be of opinion,
that Pluto is called Hades because he is the son of Αἰδώ (which is
_Modesty_) and because he is a gentle God to such as are conversant
with him. And as among the Egyptians there are a great many other names
that are also definitions of the things they express, so they call that
place whither they believe men’s souls to go after death, Amenthes,
which signifies in their language the receiver and the giver. But
whether this be one of those names that have been anciently brought
over and transplanted out of Greece into Egypt, we shall consider some
other time; but at present we must hasten to despatch the remaining
parts of the opinion here handled.
30. Osiris therefore and Isis passed from the number of good Daemons
into that of Gods; but the power of Typhon being much obscured and
weakened, and himself besides in great dejection of mind and in agony
and, as it were, at the last gasp, they therefore one while use
certain sacrifices to comfort and appease his mind, and another while
again have certain solemnities wherein they abase and affront him, both
by mishandling and abusing such men as they find to have red hair, and
by breaking the neck of an ass down a precipice (as do the Coptites),
because Typhon was red-haired and of the ass’s complexion. Moreover,
those of Busiris and Lycopolis never make any use of trumpets, because
they give a sound like that of asses. And they altogether esteem the
ass as an animal not clean but daemoniac, because of its resemblance to
Typhon; and when they make cakes at their sacrifices upon the months of
Payni and Phaophi, they impress upon them an ass bound. Also, when they
do their sacrifices to the Sun, they enjoin such as perform worship to
that God neither to wear gold nor to give fodder to an ass. It is also
most apparent that the Pythagoreans look upon Typhon as a daemoniac
power; for they say he was produced in an even proportion of numbers,
to wit, in that of fifty-six. And again, they say that the property of
the triangle appertains to Pluto, Bacchus, and Mars; of the quadrangle
to Rhea, Venus, Ceres, Vesta, and Juno; of the figure of twelve angles
to Jupiter; and of the figure of fifty-six angles to Typhon;—as Eudoxus
relates.
31. And because the Egyptians are of opinion that Typhon was born of a
red complexion, they are therefore used to devote to him such of the
neat kind as they find to be of a red color; and their observation
herein is so very nice and strict that, if they perceive the beast
to have but one hair about it that is either black or white, they
account it unfit for sacrifice. For they hold that what is fit to be
made a sacrifice must not be of a thing agreeable to the Gods, but
contrariwise, such things as contain the souls of ungodly and wicked
men transformed into their shapes. Wherefore in the more ancient times
they were wont, after they had pronounced a solemn curse upon the
head of the sacrifice, and had cut it off, to fling it into the river
Nile; but now they distribute it among strangers. Those also among the
priests that were termed Sphragistae or Sealers were wont to seal the
beast that was to be offered; and the engraving of their seal was (as
Castor tells us) a man upon his knees with his hands tied behind him,
and a knife set under his throat. They believe, moreover that the ass
suffers for being like him (as hath been already spoken of), as much
for the stupidity and sensualness of his disposition as for the redness
of his color. Wherefore, because of all the Persian monarchs they had
the greatest aversion for Ochus, as looking upon him as a villanous and
abominable person, they gave him the nickname of the ass; upon which he
replied: But this ass shall dine upon your ox. And so he slaughtered
the Apis, as Dinon relates to us in his history. As for those that tell
us that Typhon was seven days flying from the battle upon the back of
an ass, and having narrowly escaped with his life, afterwards begat two
sons called Hierosolymus and Judaeus, they are manifestly attempting,
as is shown by the very matter, to wrest into this fable the relations
of the Jews.
32. And so much for the allegories and secret meanings which this head
affords us. And now we begin at another head, which is the account of
those who seem to offer at something more philosophical; and of these
we will first consider the more simple and plain sort. And they are
those that tell us that, as the Greeks are used to allegorize Kronos
(or Saturn) into chronos (_time_), and Hera (or Juno) into aer (_air_)
and also to resolve the generation of Vulcan into the change of air
into fire, so also among the Egyptians, Osiris is the river Nile, who
accompanies with Isis, which is the earth; and Typhon is the sea, into
which the Nile falling is thereby destroyed and scattered, excepting
only that part of it which the earth receives and drinks up, by
means whereof she becomes prolific. There is also a kind of a sacred
lamentation used to Saturn, wherein they bemoan him “who was born in
the left side of the world, and died in the right.” For the Egyptians
believe the eastern part to be the world’s face, and the northern its
right hand, and the southern its left. And therefore the river Nile,
holding its course from the southern parts towards the northern, may
justly be said to have its birth in the left side and its death in the
right; for which reason, the priests account the sea abominable, and
call salt Typhon’s foam. And it is one of the things they look upon as
unlawful and prohibited to them, to use salt at their tables. And they
use not to salute any pilots, because they have to do with the sea. And
this is not the least reason of their so great aversedness to fish.
They also make the picture of a fish to denote hatred. And therefore at
the temple of Minerva at Sais there was carved in the porch an infant
and an old man, and after them a hawk, and then a fish, and after all a
hippopotamus, which, in a symbolical manner, contained this sentence:
O! ye that are born and that die, God hateth impudence. From whence it
is plain, that by a child and an old man they express our being born
and our dying; by a hawk, God; by a fish, hatred (by reason of the sea,
as hath been before spoken); and by a river-horse, impudence, because
(as they say) he killeth his sire and forceth his dam. That also which
the Pythagoreans are used to say, that the sea is the tear of Saturn,
may seem to hint out to us that it is not pure nor congenial with our
race.
33. These then are the things that may be uttered without doors and in
public, they containing nothing but matters of common cognizance. But
now the most learned and reserved of the priests do not term the Nile
only Osiris, and the sea Typhon; but in general, the whole principle
and faculty of rendering moist they call Osiris, as believing it to be
the cause of generation and the very substance of the seminal moisture.
And on the other hand, whatever is a-dust, fiery, or any way drying and
repugnant to wet, they call Typhon. And therefore, because they believe
he was of a red and sallow color when he was born, they do not greatly
care to meet with men of such looks nor willingly converse with them.
On the other side again they report that Osiris, when he was born, was
of a black complexion, because that all water renders earth, clothes,
and clouds black, when mixed with them; and the moisture also that is
in young persons makes their hair black; but grayness, like a sort of
paleness, comes up through over much draught upon such as are now past
their vigor and begin to decline in years. In like manner, the spring
time is gay, fecund, and very agreeable; but the autumn, through defect
of moisture, is both destructive to plants and sickly to men. Moreover
the ox called Mnevis, which is kept at Heliopolis (and is sacred to
Osiris, and judged by some to be the sire of Apis), is of a coal-black
color, and is honored in the second place after Apis. To which we may
add, that they call Egypt (which is one of the blackest soils in the
world) as they do the black part of the eye, Chemia. They also liken it
to the heart, by reason of its great warmth and moisture, and because
it is mostly enclosed by and removed towards the left (that is, the
southern) part of the earth, as the heart is with respect to a man’s
body.
34. They believe also that the sun and moon do not go in chariots,
but sail about the world perpetually in certain boats; hinting hereby
at their feeding upon and springing first out of moisture. They are
likewise of the opinion that Homer (as well as Thales) had been
instructed by the Egyptians, which made him affirm water to be the
spring and first original of all things; for that Oceanus is the same
with Osiris, and Tethys with Isis, so named from τίτθη, _a nurse_,
because she is the mother and nurse of all things. For the Grecians
call the emission of the genital humor ἀπουσία, and carnal knowledge
συνουσία: they also call a son υἱός, from ὕδωρ, _water_, and ὗσαι, _to
wet_; and likewise Bacchus ὕης, _the wetter_, they looking upon him
as the lord of the humid nature, he being no other than Osiris. For
Hellanicus hath set him down Hysiris, affirming that he heard him so
pronounced by the priests; for so he hath written the name of this God
all along in his history, and that, in my opinion, not without good
reason, derived as well from his nature as his invention.
35. And that therefore he is one and the same with Bacchus, who should
better know than yourself, Dame Clea, who are not only president of
the Delphic prophetesses, but have been also, in right of both your
parents, devoted to the Osiriac rites? And if, for the sake of others,
we shall think ourselves obliged to lay down testimonies for the proof
of our present assertion, we shall notwithstanding remit those secrets
that must not be revealed to their proper place. But now the things
which the priests do publicly at the interment of the Apis, when they
carry his body on a raft to be buried, do nothing differ from the
procession of Bacchus. For they hang about them the skins of hinds, and
carry branches in their hands, and use the same kind of shoutings and
gesticulations that the ecstatics do at the inspired dances of Bacchus.
For which reason also many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos
Tauromorphos (or Bacchus in the form of a bull). And the Elean women,
in their ordinary form of prayer, beseech the God to come to them with
his ox’s foot. The Argives also have a Bacchus named Bougenes (or
_ox-gotten_); and they call him up out of the waters by sounding of
trumpets, flinging a young lamb into the abyss for him that keeps the
door there; and these trumpets they hide within their thyrsi (or green
boughs), as Socrates, in his Treatise of Rituals, relates. Likewise
the tales about the Titans, and what they call the Mystic Night,
have a strange agreement with what they tell us of the discerptions,
resurrections, and regenerations of Osiris; as also what relates to
their sepulchres. For not only the Egyptians (as hath been already
spoken) do show in many several places the chests in which Osiris lies;
but the Delphians also believe that the relics of Bacchus are laid up
with them just by the oracle-place; and the Hosii (or holy men) perform
a secret sacrifice within the temple of Apollo, when the Thyiades rouse
the God of the fan (as they call him). Now that the Greeks do not
esteem Bacchus as the lord and president of wine only, but also of the
whole humid nature, Pindar alone is a sufficient witness, when he saith,
May joyous Bacchus send increase of fruit,
The chaste autumnal light, to all my trees.
For which cause it is forbidden to such as worship Osiris, either to
destroy a fruit-tree or to stop up a well.
36. And they call not only the Nile, but in general every humid, the
efflux of Osiris. And a pitcher of water goes always first in their
sacred processions, in honor of the God. And they make the figure of
a fig-leaf both for the king and the southern climate, which fig-leaf
is interpreted to mean the watering and fructifying of the universe,
for it seems to bear some resemblance in its make to the virilities of
a man. Moreover, when they keep the feast of the Pamylia, which is a
Phallic or Priapeian one (as was said before), they expose to view and
carry about a certain image of a man with a threefold privity; for this
God is a first origin, and every first origin doth by its fecundity
multiply what proceeds from it. And we are commonly used instead of
“many times” to say “thrice,” as “thrice happy,” and,