XIX. 1. Thereafter Osiris, coming to Horus out of

explanation. They cannot be all rimplj irresponsible on dits. It IB, perhape, not without significance that the *' chest" is first of all drifted to the Papyrus country, and that the harit of Isis should be made of papyrus. It seems almoet as if it symbolised gome "Tehicle" that was safe from the ''crocodile" of the deep. In other words, the skifib are not paper boats and the crocodiles not alligators.
1 "And Egypt they iay is the body"— to quote a refrain from Hippolytus concerning the " Gnostics."
' Presumably of the fourteen sacred ones.
* Anthropologically, " taboo."
^ What these *' fourteen parts" of Osiris may be is beyond the sphere of dogmatism. I would suggest that there may be along one Ihie some connection with those seeds of life which have lately been called '* permanent atoms" ; and along another line, that of the birth of the Christ-consciousness, there may be a series of powers derived from past incarnations.
▼ou I. 19
290 THRICE-GREATEST HKRMIBB
the Invisible,^ worked through him and trainad him for the fight
2. He then put this teat question to him: 'Whil does he consider fairest ? " And when he said : " Help- ing father and mother in ill plight^" — he aakiad i second : " What animal does he think moat uefal to those who go out to fight ? **
3. And when Horus said '^ Horse,** he manrelkd at him, and was quite punled whj he did not say " Lion " rather than " Horse." «
4 Accordingly Horus said: '"lion* is a needfol thing to one requiring help, but ' Horse ' [can] scatter ia pieces the foe in flight and consume him utterlj.** '
Thus healing, Osiris rejoiced that Horus was fidy prepared.
5. And it is said that as manj were changing onr to the side of Horus, Th^eris/ I^phon's concalniieb came too; and that a certain serpent porsuing after her was cut in pieces by those round Horua.* And to-day on this account they cast down a amall rope and cut it in pieces for all to see.*
6. The fight lasted for many days, and Honia woa. Nevertheless, when Isis received Typhon in bonds, shB did not make away with him. Far from it; she unbound him and let him ga
1 Hades.
' The *' Horse'' may symbolise purified pssaon, and * Lion "ft certain receptive power of the mind.
> The white ** Horse " was presumably opposed to the red '^Am* of Typhon, as the purified vehicle of the soul contrasted with the impure. *' Lion ** was one of the grades in the Mithriac Myaterisi ; it was a sun-animal.
* Eg. Ta-urt (Budge, op. eit., p. 193).
^ That is, by the Companions of Horns (or Diseiples ci the Christ}— a frequent scene in the vignettes of the Book d the Dead.
* That is, in the public mystery processiona
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 291
7. Horus, however, did not bear this temperately; but, laying hands on his mother, he drew off the crown from her head. Whereupon Hermes^ crowned her with a head-dress of cow-horns.
8. And [they say] that also when Typhon got the chance of bringing a bastardy suit against Horus, and Hermes was counsel for the defence, Horus was judged legitimate by the Gods.^
And that [afterwards] Typhon was fought under in two other fights.
9. And that Isis brought forth from her union with Osiris after his death' Harpocrates* — who missed the month and was weak in his limbs from below upwards.^
The Under-heanino a Beflexion of a Certain Season