who destroyeth sin." Osiris says to them, "Ye are truth of truth;
rest in peace." And of them he says, "They were doers of truth whilst
they were upon earth, they did battle for their god, and they shall
be called to the enjoyment of the Land of the House of Life with
Truth. Their truth shall be reckoned to them in the presence of the
Great God who destroyeth sin." Then addressing them again Osiris says,
"Ye are beings of Truth, O ye Truths. Take ye your rest because of
what ye have done, becoming even as those who are in my following,
and who direct the House of Him whose Soul is holy. Ye shall live
there even as they live, and ye shall have dominion over the cool
waters of your land. I command that ye have your being to the limit [of
that land] with Truth and without sin." In these passages we have the
two conceptions of Osiris well illustrated. As the Wheat-god he would
satisfy those who wished for a purely material, agricultural heaven,
where hunger would be unknown and where the blessed would be able to
satisfy every physical desire and want daily; and as the God of Truth,
of whom the spiritually minded hoped to become the counterpart, he
would be their hope, and consolation, and the image of the Eternal God.



CHAPTER IX

A Short Description of the "Doors" or Chapters of the Book of the Dead.

All the great papyri of the Book of the Dead begin with a HYMN TO RA,
who from the period of the IVth dynasty was the "King of the Gods"
of Egypt. His cult was finally "established" under the Vth dynasty
when the king of Egypt began to call himself in official documents
and monuments "Son of the Sun," Sa Ra. This Hymn is supposed to be