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Beacon Lights of History, Volume 02 - Jewish Heroes and Prophets by John Lord
page 52 of 308 (16%)
consort of Osiris, who with him presided at the judgment of the dead,
was scarcely less venerated. Set, or Typhon, the brother of Osiris, was
the personification of evil. Between Osiris and Set, therefore, was
perpetual antagonism. This belief, divested of names and titles and
technicalities and fables, seems to have resembled, in this respect, the
religion of the Persians,--the eternal conflict between good and evil.
The esoteric doctrines of the priests initiated into the higher
mysteries probably were the primeval truths, too abstract for the
ignorant and sensual people to comprehend, and which were represented to
them in visible forms that appealed to their senses, and which they
worshipped with degrading rites.

The oldest of all the rites of the ancient pagans was in the form of
sacrifice, to propitiate the deity. Abraham and Jacob offered
sacrifices, but without degrading ceremonies, and both abhorred the
representation of the deity in the form of animals; but there was
scarcely an animal or reptile in Egypt that the people did not hold
sacred, in fear or reverence. Moral evil was represented by the serpent,
showing that something was retained, though in a distorted form, of the
primitive revelation. The most celebrated forms of animal worship were
the bulls at Memphis, sacred to Osiris, or, as some think, to the sun;
the cat to Phtha, and the beetle to Re. The origin of these
superstitions cannot be traced; they are shrouded in impenetrable
mystery. All that we know is that they existed from the remotest period
of which we have cognizance, long before the pyramids were built.

In spite, however, of the despotism of the kings, the privileges of the
priests, and the degrading superstitions of the people, which introduced
the most revolting form of religious worship ever seen on earth, there
was in Egypt a high civilization in comparison with that of other
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