EGYPT.

We know more about the religion of the early Egyptians than about any other
ancient religion. Its development can be traced back three or four thousand
years; we can read its sacred texts, mythical narratives, hymns, rituals,
and the Book of the Dead in the original, and we can ascertain its various
ideas as to the nature of the divine powers and of future life. A great
number of monuments have preserved for our inspection the pictures of
divinities and representations of liturgic scenes, while numerous
inscriptions and papyri enlighten us in regard to the sacerdotal
organization of the principal temples. It would seem that the enormous
quantity of documents of all kinds that have been deciphered in the course
of nearly an entire century should have dispelled every uncertainty about
the creed of ancient Egypt, and should have furnished exact information
with regard to the sources and original character of the worship which the
Greeks and the Romans borrowed from the subjects of the Ptolemies.

And yet, this is not the case. While of the four great Oriental religions
which were transplanted into the Occident, the religion of Isis and Serapis
is the one whose relation to the ancient belief of the mother country we
can establish with greatest accuracy, we {74} know very little of its first
form and of its nature before the imperial period, when it was held in high
esteem.

One fact, however, appears to be certain. The Egyptian worship that spread
over the Greco-Roman world came from the Serapeum founded at Alexandria by
Ptolemy Soter, somewhat in the manner of Judaism that emanated from the
temple of Jerusalem. But the earliest history of that famous sanctuary is
surrounded by such a thick growth of pious legends, that the most sagacious
investigators have lost their way in it. Was Serapis of native origin, or
was he imported from Sinope or Seleucia, or even from Babylon? Each of
these opinions has found supporters very recently. Is his name derived from
that of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis, or from that of the Chaldean deity
Sar-Apsi? _Grammatici certant_.[1]

Whichever solution we may adopt, one fact remains, namely, that Serapis and
Osiris were either immediately identified or else were identical from the
beginning. The divinity whose worship was started at Alexandria by Ptolemy
was the god that ruled the dead and shared his immortality with them. He
was fundamentally an Egyptian god, and the most popular of t