Happily, however, we are not confined within the Greek paradise. Wider
fields are open to us; our subject is not only Greek, but ancient art
and ritual. We can turn at once to the Egyptians, a people
slower-witted than the Greeks, and watch their sluggish but more
instructive operations. To one who is studying the development of the
human mind the average or even stupid child is often more illuminating
than the abnormally brilliant. Greece is often too near to us, too
advanced, too modern, to be for comparative purposes instructive.

* * * * *

Of all Egyptian, perhaps of all ancient deities, no god has lived so
long or had so wide and deep an influence as Osiris. He stands as the
prototype of the great class of resurrection-gods who die that they may
live again. His sufferings, his death, and his resurrection were enacted
year by year in a great mystery-play at Abydos. In that mystery-play was
set forth, first, what the Greeks call his _agon_, his contest with his
enemy Set; then his _pathos_, his suffering, or downfall and defeat, his
wounding, his death, and his burial; finally, his resurrection and
"recognition," his _anagnorisis_ either as himself or as his only
begotten son Horus. Now the meaning of this thrice-told tale we shall
consider later: for the moment we are concerned only with the fact that
it is set forth both in art and ritual.

At the festival of Osiris small images of the god were made of sand and
vegetable earth, his cheek bones were painted green and his face yellow.
The images were cast in a mould of pure gold, representing the god as a
mummy. After sunset on the 24th day of the month Choiak, the effigy of
Osiris was laid in a grave and the image of the previous year was
removed. The intent of all this was made transparently clear by other