ptuous magnificence of
these celebrations made a deep impression on the common people who loved
public entertainments.

But of all the celebrations connected with the worship of Isis the most
stirring and the most suggestive {98} was the commemoration of the "Finding
of Osiris" (_Inventio_, [Greek: Heuresis]). Its antecedents date back to
remote antiquity. Since the time of the twelfth dynasty, and probably much
earlier, there had been held at Abydos and elsewhere a sacred performance
similar to the mysteries of our Middle Ages, in which the events of
Osiris's passion and resurrection were reproduced. We are in possession of
the ritual of those performances.[76] Issuing from the temple, the god fell
under Set's blows; around his body funeral lamentations were simulated, and
he was buried according to the rites; then Set was vanquished by Horus, and
Osiris, restored to life, reentered his temple triumphant over death.

The same myth was represented in almost the same manner at Rome at the
beginning of each November.[77] While the priests and the believers moaned
and lamented, Isis in great distress sought the divine body of Osiris,
whose limbs had been scattered by Typhon. Then, after the corpse had been
found, rehabilitated and revived, there was a long outburst of joy, an
exuberant jubilation that rang through the temples and the streets so
loudly that it annoyed the passers-by.

This mingled despair and enthusiasm acted as strongly upon the feelings of
the believers as did the spring-holiday ceremony in the Phrygian religion,
and it acted through the same means. Moreover, there was an esoteric
meaning attached to it that none but the pious elect understood. Besides
the public ceremonies there was a secret worship to which one was admitted
only after a gradual initiation. The hero of Apuleius had to submit to the
ordeal three times in order to obtain the whole revelation. In Egypt the
{99} clergy communicated certain rites and interpretations only upon a
promise not to reveal them. In fact this was the case in the worship of
Isis at Abydos and elsewhere.[78] When the Ptolemies regulated the Greek
ritual of their new religion, it assumed the form of the mysteries spread
over the Hellenic world and became very like those of Eleusis. The hand of
the Eumolpid Timotheus is noticeable in this connection.[79]

But while the ceremonial of the initiations and even the production of the
liturgic drama were thus adapted to the