XXXI. 1. And, as Egyptians believe that lyphonwn

bom red-skinned,^ they oflfer in sacrifice even the fed ones of the oxen [only] after making the acmtiny so cIobs, that if [the beast] has even a single hair black or whits, they consider it ought not to be ofifored ; for if it were sacrificed, it would not be an acceptable offering to the gods, but the contrary, [as are] all thoee animals which have seized on the souls of impure and onrigfateous men in the course of their transformation into bodies other [than human].
2. Wherefore after uttering imfnrecationa on the heed of the victim,' and cutting off its head, they used to cast it into the river in olden days, but nowadays they give it to strangers.
3. But as to the one that is to be sacrificed, those of the priests who are called Sealers, set a mark apon it— the seal (as Eastor * relates) having the impreosion of a man forced down on one knee with his hands drawn round behind him, and a sword sticking in his throat^
4. And they think that the ass also has the distinction of its resemblance [to Typhon], as has been said, owing to its aversion to being taught and to its wantonnesSi no less than on account of its skin.*
5. For which cause also since they especially detested
statements regarding Pythagorean doctrine ; cf. vL, luL, Izii The Typhonic figure might be generated by ''sevening" the interior angles of a regular octagon and producing the radii to the eireiUB- ference of the cireomscribed circle, or by "sighting'' the inteiior angles of a regular heptagon. 1 Or " fire-coloured."
* Compare the Ritual of AzIUel (the scape-goatX one of the two goats set apart on the Great Day of Atonement among the Jews (Lev. xvi. 8 if.).
s 6}, also Plut, JEiia Etmana^ z. Castor was a Greek hiitoiJBB who was a contemporary of Cicero and Julius Cesar.
* The ox was, therefore, the vicarious atonement of the man.
* It was a red ass, then, which symbolised the TV^phome power.
THE MT8TBRIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 307
Ochus^ of [all] the Persian kings as being blood-polluted and abominable, they gave him the nickname of ** Ass."
But he, with the retort: "This Ass, however, will make a fine feast off jour Ox " — slaughtered the Apis, as Deinon has told us.'
6. Those, however, who say that Typhon's flight from the fight on an ass lasted seven days, and that after reaching a place of safety he begat sons — Hierosolymus and Judseus — are instantly convicted of dragging Judaic matters into the myth.^
The Thbory of the Physicists