Osiris

Osiris


 * Other Names:**

Wesir, Usire, Ousire, Ausar


 * Meaning of Name:**

There exists much discussion about the origin and meaning of Osiris’s name, though the most likely explanation seems to be that his name is related to the word //woser//, which means “Mighty One.”


 * Hieroglyphics:**




 * Titles:**

“Lord of the Mysteries”

“Merciful Judge of the Blessed Dead”

//Neb-Ta-Djeser// ("Lord of Sehet Aaru")

"Lord of Lords"

“Bull of the Duat”

“The Good Shepherd”

"God of Gods"

//Wennefer// ("The Eternally Good One")

“The Still-Heart”

"Lord of Power"

"The Savior"

“Lord of Eternity”

//Khenty-Imentiu// (“Foremost of the Westerners” - a reference to the Egyptian belief that the realm of the dead lay to the west in association with the setting sun, and to their custom of building cemeteries on the west bank of the Nile.)


 * Family:**

Osiris was thought to be the son of Nut and Geb, the brother of Nephthys and Set, the brother-husband of Isis, and the father of Horus, Sopdet, Khonsu, Sopedu, and Anubis (by Nephthys). Sometimes he was considered to be the son of Amun and Taweret.

One of the Ennead, and the fourth Divine Pharaoh, ruling after Geb. Perhaps, with Isis, Osiris is the best-known figure from ancient Egyptian mythology, featuring prominently in both monarchical ideology and popular religion as a god of death, resurrection, and fertility for over 2,000 years. During his peaceful reign as the ruler of the earth, Osiris was thought to have taught humankind the secret of agriculture. He had over 200 divine names. The Egyptians associated Osiris with the constellation Orion. Other symbols of Osiris were the //djed// pillar, Sekhem Specter//,// and the Two Finger Amulet.

Osiris was pictured as a bearded man, bound in mummy wrappings, wearing the Atef Crown, and holding the crook and flail. His skin was black or green as a reference to resurrection and vegetation - he was called both //Kmj Wer// (“The Great Black”) and //Wadj Wer// ("The Great Green"). Osiris was represented in statues carved from dark stone. Osiris was said to be eight cubits, six palms, and three fingers - 15 feet (4.57 meters), 3 inches (7.62 cm) - tall. He was occasionally pictured as the Buchis or Apis bull, a vulture, a ram, a crocodile, a scarab beetle, an ibis, a baboon, a ram -headed man, a falcon, a willow tree, a pig, as the Bennu bird, and as a sphinx. Osiris was sometimes identified as a great serpent of the Underworld, renewing himself by shedding his skin. He was occasionally painted in a strangely serpentine form, bent around so that his toes touched his head.

Betrayed and murdered by his jealous brother Set, Osiris was resurrected by his wife Isis, begat his reborn-self Horus, and became the god of Sehet Aaru, the afterlife. He was associated with death, rebirth, the moon, grain, and the nurturing waters of the Nile. Osiris became one of the most important of Egyptian gods because he symbolized the triumph of life over death. Like Christians seeking burial in consecrated ground by a church, wealthy Egyptians bought burial space near Osirian temples, so as to share the god’s resurrection.

The Egyptian religion didn’t emphasize eternal punishment for sin - Egypt’s savior Osiris came to save humanity not from everlasting torture, but from death. A New Kingdom prayer states that Osiris is the greatest of the gods because all Egyptians come to him in the end. The ancient Egyptians thought that when people died they became an “Osiris,” becoming one with the god after death. Egyptian scriptures said, “As truly as Osiris lives, so truly shall his follower live; as truly as Osiris is not dead he shall die no more; as truly as Osiris is not annihilated he shall not be annihilated.”

“Corn mummies” of seeded dirt (barley and Nile mud) formed in the shape of Osiris were placed in tombs to germinate in the darkness, demonstrating Osiris’s power - these mummies were called “Osiris Beds.” An entire barley plant was left in the sarcophagus of Amenophis I. A Middle Kingdom royal ritual equates Osiris with barley and Set with the donkeys who thresh the grain by trampling on it. Images on temple walls show grain growing out of the body of the dead Osiris while his soul hovers above the stalks. The ancient Egyptians were said to shed tears at the first cutting of the grain, and workers would chant a dirge, accompanied by music. The last sheaf to be cut was a moment of celebration.

As a symbol of transformation and undying life, grain itself was thought to have magical properties. One of the steps of mummification involved rubbing the body with barley and emmer wheat, so that the deceased could live again. Osiris was also associated with grapes, which must be crushed and destroyed in order to make wine. Wine was sometimes called the “Blood of Osiris.”

In the worship of Osiris, living an exemplary life was more important than wealth in ensuring an individual's access to eternity. Sehet Aaru was no longer limited to royalty - good actions and a righteous life made immortality accessible even to the humblest worshiper. All men were thought to "become" an Osiris - to become one with the god after death (women were associated with Isis or Hathor instead.) The faces of coffins belonging to men often bore the false beard of Osiris. The faithful claimed on their tombs that "I have become a divine being by the side of Osiris, I am brought forth by him, I renew my youth." Amulets of Osiris, made of gold, bronze, faience, glass, or silver, were buried with the dead.

During the Festival of the Resurrection of Osiris, bread was baked in the shape of the god and distributed to worshipers. Similar to Christians eating the Body of Christ in the form of bread, the sacred ritual climaxed by the eating of sacramental god, the Eucharist by which the celebrants were transformed, in their persuasion, into replicas of their god-man. Since the ancients believed that humans were whatever they eat, this sacrament was, by extension, able to make them celestial and immortal. The doctrine of the Devoured Host ultimately has its roots in prehistoric cannibalism, whose practitioners believed that the virtues and powers of the eaten would thus be absorbed by the eater. This phenomenon has been described throughout the world.

In the records of both Herodotus and Plutarch we find that there was a festival held each year in Egypt celebrating the Passion and resurrection of Osiris. According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century B.C.E., Osiris worshipers would “beat their breasts and gash their shoulders. . . When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined. . . they turn from mourning to rejoicing.” The poet Lucan claimed that yielding to such feelings of sorrow rendered the divine merely human: “Osiris, by your mourning proved a man.” The passion of a dying and resurrected god, so deeply stirring the hearts of the Egyptians and afterwards of Christians, was found to be utterly irrational by one who had been steeped in the traditional philosophy of the Greeks.

Contrasting with the public “theatrical” ceremonies sourced from the I-Kher-Nefert stele, more esoteric ceremonies were performed inside the temples by priests, witnessed only by initiates. Plutarch mentions that two days after the beginning of the festival “the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water. . . and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected). Then they knead some fertile soil with the water. . . and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they clothe and adorn, this indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water.” Yet even he was obscure, for he also wrote, “I pass over the cutting of the wood” opting to not describe it since he considered it most sacred.

When Set murdered Osiris, he tore the body into fourteen pieces, and Isis had to search for and gather them all. The goddess found all of the pieces except for the phallus, which had been eaten by Set in the form of a fish or crocodile. Isis fashioned a new phallus made of gold, put the pieces of her husband together, and raised him from the dead. As Christian churches used to be founded on spurious relics of apostles and saints, so Egyptian temples were founded on places where Isis discovered each part of Osiris' body. In the Osirian temple at Denderah, an inscription describes in detail the making of wheat paste models of each dismembered piece of Osiris to be sent out to the town where each piece was discovered by Isis.

At the temple of Mendes, figures of Osiris are made from wheat and paste were placed in a trough on the day Osiris was killed, then water added for several days, when finally the mixture was kneaded into a mold of Osiris and taken to the temple and buried. Osiris was thought to have been killed at the age of twenty-eight years, or after reigning as king of Egypt for twenty-eight years.

Wallis Budge remarks that the Egyptians believed in "the resurrection of the body in a changed and glorified form, which would live for all eternity in the company of the souls of the righteous in a kingdom ruled by a being who was of divine origin, but who had lived upon the earth, and had suffered a cruel death at the hands of his enemies, and had become God and king of the world which is beyond the grave. Although they believed in all these things and proclaimed their belief with almost passionate earnestness, they seem never to have freed themselves from a hankering after amulets and talismans, and magical names, and words of power, and seem to have trusted in these to save their souls and bodies, both living and dead, with something of the same confidence which they placed in the death a resurrection of Osiris. A matter of surprise is that they seen to see nothing incongruous in such a mixture of magic and religion." It is a matter for even more surprise that a scholar of Budge's stature failed to see exactly the same mixture of magic and religion in Christianity; for indeed he could have been talking about Christians as well as Egyptians. To this day, Christians display the same hankering after crucifixes and metals, incantations, holy names and other formula, saints' relics, holy water, and images.


 * Feast and Holy Days:**

July 14th (Birthday of Osiris) July 19th (Opet Festival: the Marriage of Isis and Osiris)

August 17th (Rituals in the Temple of Osiris)

September 2nd (Feast of Osiris)

September 16th (Festival of Osiris)

September 28th (Osiris Goes Forth)

October 3rd (Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys for Osiris)

November 12 (Isis Seeks the Body of Osiris)

November 13th (Isis Grieves the Loss of Osiris)

November 14 (Isis Rejoices as She Finds Osiris)

November 15th (Feast in the House of Osiris)

October 27th (Feast of Osiris) January 20th (Festival of Jubilation for Osiris)

February 11th (Feast of Osiris)

February 13th (The Doorways of the Horizon Are Opened: Feast of Osiris)

March 15th (Offerings to Osiris)

April 14th (Celebrations in the House of Osiris)

May 2nd (Osiris Goes Forth From His Mountain)

May 17 (Holy Day of Osiris)


 * Quotes fro****m the Book of the Dead and other sources:**

Hymns of Osiris


 * Egyptian Names Honoring This Deity:**

Petosiris


 * Outside** **of Egypt:**

During the 1st century B.C.E., the worship of “ Osiris-Dionysus ” was established in all parts of the Roman Empire. His popularity endured until the latest phases of Egyptian history; reliefs still exist of Roman emperors, conquerors of Egypt, dressed in the traditional garb of the pharaohs, making offerings to Osiris in his temples. Osiris worship finally ended with the forcible suppression of Paganism in the Christian era.

Osiris worship continued up until the 6th century C.E. on the island of Philae in the Upper Nile. The Theodosian decree (in about 380 C.E.) to destroy all pagan temples and force worshipers to accept Christianity was ignored there. However, Justinian dispatched a General Narses to Philae, who destroyed the Osirian temples and sanctuaries, threw the priests into prison, and carted the sacred images off to Constantinople. Thus ended Osiris worship.

Strong similarities can be drawn between Osiris and Jesus; both were betrayed, killed, mourned, and resurrected. Both are ritually “eaten” by their followers in the form of bread. One of the titles of Osiris was the “Good Shepherd” – the Egyptian people referred to themselves as the “Cattle of Osiris,” similar to Christians calling themselves the “Lambs of Christ.” Followers of Osiris were blessed with the waters of the Nile, the “cold water of Osiris,” like Christians being baptized. Osiris was called the Savior, who resurrected his followers after death. Worshipers prayed to be allowed to live in the "green pastures" and "still waters" of Sehet Aaru, the land of the Afterlife in which Osiris ruled.

The Carpocratians, one of the Gnostic Christian sects, maintain that Jesus was an initiate of the Osirian Mysteries and received six years of training from the priests in the Temple of Isis. Jean Houston notes that one of the main dramatic lines from Osirian mystery plays was the familiar-sounding phrase “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believeth in me shall have eternal life.” Stories about Osiris turn up in Christian legends - Jesus' healing of a nobleman's daughter was based on a tale of an Osirian priest who cured a princess. Osiris was even canonized as a Catholic saint, Saint Onupjris.

A version of the Osiris myth exists in nearly every culture: the just king murdered by his cruel brother, only to be avenged by the prince who follows in his father’s footsteps. The dead king is rewarded for his upright ways and gains great reward in the next life. We find its echoes in nearby civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans, in the Middle East, in Japan and China, in Christianity, and even in Shakespeare, where the avenging prince is named Hamlet.

There are interesting parallels between Osiris and the Norse god Baldar. Both end up in the underworld through treachery, and both are killed by their brothers. Both are kept there by "legal loopholes" in the laws of the gods - Osiris remains in the underworld because Ma’at dictates that the dead, even dead gods, may not return to the land of the living - the same decree that the goddess Hel gives Baldar.