A Short History of the WorldWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
A Short History of the World
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
World history
As Egypt developed from city states into one united kingdom there was
much of this theocrasia. The chief god so to speak was Osiris, a
sacrificial harvest god of whom Pharaoh was supposed to be the earthly
incarnation. Osiris was represented as repeatedly dying and rising
again; he was not only the seed and the harvest but also by a natural
extension of thought the means of human immortality. Among his symbols
was the wide-winged scarabeus beetle which buries its eggs to rise
again, and also the effulgent sun which sets to rise. Later on he was
to be identified with Apis, the sacred bull. Associated with him was
the goddess Isis. Isis was also Hathor, a cow-goddess, and the
crescent moon and the Star of the sea. Osiris dies and she bears a
child, Horus, who is also a hawk-god and the dawn, and who grows to
become Osiris again. The effigies of Isis represent her as bearing the
infant Horus in her arms and standing on the crescent moon. These are
not logical relationships, but they were devised by the human mind
before the development of hard and systematic thinking and they have a
dream-like coherence. Beneath this triple group there are other and
darker Egyptian gods, bad gods, the dog-headed Anubis, black night and
the like, devourers, tempters, enemies of god and man.
MITHRAS SACRIFICING A BULL, ROMAN
MITHRAS SACRIFICING A BULL, ROMAN
_(In the British Museum)_
Every religious system does in the course of time fit itself to the
shape of the human soul, and there can be no doubt that out of these
illogical and even uncouth symbols, Egyptian people were able to
fashion for themselves ways of genuine devotion and consolation. The
desire for immortality was very strong in the Egyptian mind, and the
religious life of Egypt turned on that desire. The Egyptian religion
was an immortality religion as no other religion had ever been. As
Egypt went down under foreign conquerors and the Egyptian gods ceased
to have any satisfactory political significance, this craving for a
life of compensations here-after, intensified.
ISIS AND HORUS
ISIS AND HORUS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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