OSIRIS, in Mythology, one of the gods of ancient Egypt, and by many believed to have been the Sun, or at least the mind actuating that luminary.

The Egyptians derived all things from two principles; one active, and the other passive. Their active principle, according to Jablonski, was an infinite and eternal Spirit; and their passive principle was Night. This spirit they considered sometimes as a male, sometimes as a female divinity, and occasionally they attributed to it both sexes; but it does not appear to have been the object of their worship. The earliest objects of Pagan adoration were the sun, moon, and planets; and that the philosophers and priests of ancient Egypt worshipped the Sun by the name of Osiris, may be proved by numberless testimonies from the most authentic records of antiquity. Diogenes Laertius affirms, that they held the Sun and Moon as divinities, and that they called the latter Isis; and Macrobius says expressly, “Nec in occulto est, neque aliud esse Osirin quam Solem, nec Isim aliud esse quam Terram.” The same writer informs us, that in the hieroglyphical writings of ancient Egypt, “Osiris was represented by a sceptre and an eye,” to denote that this god was the Sun looking down from heaven on all things upon earth. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions the symbol of Osiris is an eye surmounting a chair or throne.

It must not, however, be concealed, that some of the ancients, and a few of the most learned of the moderns, have contended, that by Osiris the Egyptians understood the Nile or spirit of the Nile, whilst others have confounded him with the Grecian Bacchus. Scaliger and Selden have adopted the former of these opinions, and Servius on Virgil has given countenance to the latter. But that they are all mistaken has been proved by Jablonski in such a manner as to enforce the fullest conviction. « When the Egyptians,” says he, “in their sacred books, sometimes gave the name of Osiris to the Nile and its wonderful increase during the heat of summer, they meant nothing more than to attribute to their god Osiris the gift which fertilizes their country.” This they would the more readily have done, because they believed the Nile to have its source in heaven. Hence Eusebius tells us, O∙>ιyς εστιν ó Νί/λο;, ον iξ ουξανου καταφεξεσάαι οιoνται, Osiris is the Nile, because they think it is sent down from heaven. In one sense Osiris might be Bacchus, because the original Bacchus was himself the Sun; but that the Egyptian god could not be worshipped as the inventor of wine is undeniable, iζ as Jablonski labours to prove, the primitive religion of that country inculcated upon its votaries that wine was the gift, not of a benevolent god, but of an evil genius, the enemy of the human race. In support of this opinion he quotes from Plutarch a passage, whence it appears, that, before the era of Psammetichus, the Egyptians neither drank wine themselves, nor offered it in libations to the gods; because they believed that the first vine which sprung from the earth was impregnated by the blood of those giants who perished in the war with the gods. It is indeed true, that the Greeks, who borrowed their religion as well as the first principles of their science from Egypt, attributed to Bacchus many of the actions of Osiris; but it is likewise true, that they ascribed to him other attributes, which the Egyptian god could not possess, consistently with the established superstitions of that country. Salmasius, however, attempts to prove, from the import of the name, that the Osiris of Egypt must have been the Bacchus of Greece, ^∑ηζ, or ∑∕g∕, he says, signifies a son in the Egyptian language; and hence he concludes that the god was called Osiris by the Egyptians, for the same reason that by the Greeks he was called Kουξος, and by the Romans Liber. But this seems to be all a mistake. Siris forms a part of many Egyptian proper names, as Bu∙siris, Thermo∙siris, Tapo∙siris, and the like, and is by some derived from the Hebrew word Sar, Sur, or Sir, which signifies a prince, potentate, or grandee. As the name of the god was in Egypt not Osiris, but Isiris, or Ysiris, it was probably composed of Sir or Siris, and the Hebrew prefix I or ish, denoting strength; so that the whole word would signify the strong or mighty prince. And if so, we cannot doubt, as Diodorus Siculus, Eusebius, Sextus Empiricus, and others affirm, that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun by the name of Osiris, but that by this name they meant the power or governing mind of the Sun, as the Greeks and Romans seem to have done by their Phoebus and Apollo.

But although-the original Osiris was undoubtedly the Sun, or the intelligence actuating the Sun, yet there is reason to believe that there was a secondary Osiris, who at a very early period reigned in Egypt, and was deified after his death, for the benefits which he had rendered to his country. This is indeed so generally admitted, that amongst the learned great controversies have arisen respecting the time when he flourished, and whether he was the civilizer of rude barbarians or the victorious sovereign of a polished nation. Newton, it is well known, has adopted the latter opinion, and with much plausibility endeavoured to prove that Osiris was the same with Sesostris or Sesak; but it must be confessed that his conclusion is contrary to all the most authentic records of antiquity, and that it would be easy, by the same mode of arguing, to give a show of identity to two persons universally known to have flourished in very distant ages. The annals of Egypt, as may be seen in the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, and others, who copied from them, expressly asserted the distinct personality of Osiris and Sesostris, and placed them in eras very distant from each other. If any credit be due to the historians just named, Osiris was the founder of the Egyptian monarchy; and, as was customary in those days, the same personage, having either received the name of the Sun, or communicated his own to that luminary, was after his death deified for the benefits which he had rendered to his country; and, being at first worshipped only as a demigod, was in process of time advanced to full divinity, and confounded with his heavenly godfather. The Greeks, who, although original in nothing, were always prompted by their vanity to hold themselves out as the first of the nations, claimed this Osiris as their own, and pretended that he was the son of Jupiter and Niobe. According to them, he reigned over the Argives; but afterwards, having delivered his kingdom to his brother Aigialeus, took a voyage into Egypt, of which he made himself master, and there married Io or Isis. He established many good laws in.
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that country, and both Osiris and Isis were after their deaths worshipped as gods. But that this is a ridiculous fiction needs no proof; because every one knows that good laws were established in Egypt long before the Argives had any king, or indeed existed either as a tribe or a nation.