VII. 1. As to sea-fish, all [Egyptians] abstain gener-

ally (not from all [fish] but) from some; — as, for example, those of the Oxyrhynchus nome from those caught with a hook, for as they venerate the sharp- snouted fish,^ they fear that the hook ^ is not pure when "sharp-snout" is caught by it ; ^ while those of the Syene nome [abstain from] the *' devourer," ' for that it seems that it appears together with the rising of the Nile, and that it shows their® growth to those in joy, seen as a self-sent messenger.
^ Or ''de-ranged'' — wapa^x^yas. Paraplez is the first of the daimonian rulers in The Books of the Saviour {PiitiB Sophia, 367).
* 8c. the vine's.
» Or " with the blood of ita forefathers."
* Or OrbU. Eudoxus flourished about the middle of the 4th century B.C. ; he was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, and a great astronomer, obtaining his knowledge of the art from the priests of Isis.
* tAt H^pvyx»'' — perhaps the pike.
' ikyKiffrpop—^im, of lkyK»Sy meaning a " bend " of any kind. Perhaps it may be intended as a play on the ankh tie or " noose of life," the well-known Egyptian symbol, generally called the eruzamata.
7 If we read a&r^ for a^^ it would suggest a mystic meaning, namely, " faUs into his own snare."
* faypov — Vulg., sea-bream ; but Hesychius spells it ^ymp»s, connecting it with 0a7«7r, to devour.
•Or "his" (the Nile's); but the "self -sent messenger" (mirdyy§\»s) seems to demand " their," and so suggests a mystical sense.
270 THRICE-OREATEST HERMSS
2. Their prieets, apon the other hand, abstain bom all ; and [even] on the ninth of the first month.^ when every one of the rest of the Egyptians eats a broiled fish before his front door,* the priests do not tsste it^ but bum their fishes to ashes before the doors [of the Temple].'
3. And they have two reasons [for this]» of which I will later on take up the sacred and extraordinary [oos^ according with the facts religiously deduced conoeming Osiris and Typhon. The evident, the one that's close at hand, in showing forth the fish as a not necessary and a not unsuperfluous cooked food, bears witness unto Homer, who makes neither the Phsesdans of luxurious lives, nor yet the Ithakesian Island men, use fish, nor yet Odysseus's Companions^ in so great a Voyage and on the Sea before they came to the last Strait/
4. And generally [the priests] think that the sea's from fire and is beyond the boundaries — nor part nor element [of earth], but of another kind, a superflui^ cor-rupted and cor-rupting.
1 Copt Thotb— coTT. roughly with September.
* wp^ r^f «^\c/0v $6pms — ^that in, the outside door into the «lA4b or court of the house. Cf, the title of the Trismegistic treatiM given bj Zoeimus — " The Inner Door." There may, perhapi^ be some mystical connection.
> Cf. Luke xziy. 42 : '* And they gave Him a pieoe of broiled fish." This was o/K^r His " resurrection." Also ^. Talmud Bakt **Sanhedrin," 103a : '* That thou shalt not have a son or diadpte who bums his food publicly, like Jeschu ha-Notsri " (D. /. L^ 189).
* Compare the Companions of Horns in the Solar Boat
^ I fancy there must be some under-meaning here, and so I have put the key-words in capitals.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 271
The Onion and Pig Taboos