Egypt in its biblical relations and moral aspect

Preface

. Nile travellers, generally, are little attracted by the religious aspect of Egypt; and thus it is that, in most books of travel, but little attention is paid to the re ligious uses of Egyptology. Many will regret this ; since it is from hence, at least historically, that the country derives one of its greatest charms. This, mainly, is my reason for offering the present work to the public ; and I do so with the hope that, to those for whom it is intended, it may be found not uninteresting or uninstructive. As a traveller, I could not be unmindful of the physical and social conditions of the country through which I was passing ; though here, rather than go into much nicety of detail, I have thought it best to give my own impressions of the scenes which fell under my notice. Still, writing as a religious traveller, it has been my chief object to note those points in the Life

PREFACE.

. IV and History of Ancient Egypt, which serve to illustrate its connection with the Religion and Book of God. Herein, I have had occasion to touch upon its Chrono logy, Mythology, Ritual, and Civilization ; not, indeed, for the purpose of a scientific investigation, but simply with a view to the practical vindication of the Bible or the general elucidation of Christian truth. My best thanks are due to those numerous Authors, from whom I have derived assistance and support ; and I desire to express my obligations most cordially. I cannot help noting the names of Wilkinson and Hengs tenberg, to whom I am particularly indebted. J. F. J. Heath House, Boughton. CONTENTS. Chapter I. ALEXANDRIA. PAGE First View of Egypt — The Antiquities of Alexandria— The Ptolemies and their Rule — Serapis and the destruction of Idolatry 1 Chapter II.

OLD EGYPT. Heptarchy — Mythology — Religion and Worship of the Old Egyptians — Science, Art, Literature 12 Chapter III. CAIRO AND MEHEMET ALI. Egyptian Railway — The Delta — A Nile Steam Eoat — Ancient Sais — Grand Cairo — Napoleon of the East — His Rise and Fall 25 Chapter IV. HELIOPOLIS AND THE PRIESTS. Whence the Priestly Function — Oneness of the Patriarchal and Mosaic Economies — Heliopolis — The Sacerdotal connection of Religion and Science — Moses the Expounder of a New Idea . 45 Chapter V. UP THE NILE TO MLNIEH. Nile-Boat and Crew— The Nile Valley— The Climate of Egypt and England — A Nile Storm— The East Wind and the Locusts — Moses and the Chamsin CONTENTS. VI Chapter VI. MOSES AND THE MONUMENTS. PAGE Preliminary Statement — Undesigned Coincidences, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses — General Application . . . .75 Chapter VII.

FROM MINIEH TO THEBES. Minieh — Civil Policy of the Pasha — Arab Boatmen — Incidents — Crocodiles — Luxor and General Egyptian Architecture . .92 Chapter VIII. HIEROGLYPHICS. Origin and Development of Egyptian Phonetics — History and Progress of Hieroglyphic Discovery 108 Chapter IX. FROM THEBES TO ASSOUAN. Esneh and the Egyptian Cotton Trade — Mourning and Feasting — The Mosaic Diet-Regime — Assouan — Arab Cemetery and Egyptian Quarries 121 Chapter X. PHILÆ AND OSIRIS. Philæ and Temple — History and Functions of Osiris— Osiris and Christianity — The Anthropomorphisms of Ancient Religious Art; — The Historical Basis of Christianity .... 133 Chapter XI. OMBO AND EDFOU. Arab Music — Crocodile Temple— Moral and Intellectual Contrast of Nations — Christianity and War — Gebel Silsilis — Edfou Temple — Carrier Pigeons 145 Chapter XII.

EL KAB AND ESNEH. Ruins of El Kab — Tombs and their Lessons — Sepulchral Biography — Heaven and Hell — Esneh Temple — Mosaic and Egyptian Cosmogonies CONTENTS. VII 204 Chapter XIII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY. PAGE Chronology an Afterthought in the Life of Nations— Gods and Demigods— The Old Monarchy— Manethonic Dynasties— The Hyksos — Manetho and the Monuments — Chronology and Astronomy — Application 171 Chapter XIV. CARNAC AND LUXOR. Ancient Thebes— Carnac Temple— Representation of the Siege of Jerusalem — Bible Names on the Monuments — The Adytum at Luxor — The First Sanctuary — The Cherubim and the Tree ofLife 188 Chapter XV. GOURNOU AND MEDINET-HABOU. Tombs of Gournou — The Memnonium — Sculptures — Mummies — Origin of the Art of Embalming — The Brickmakers — The Social Similarities of Different Nations — The RBO aud the Anakim — Monachism — Gnosticism and Christianity Chapter XVI.

B I B A N-M E L O 0 K . Egyptian and Greek View of Death — The Valley of Biban- Melook — Royal Tombs — Joseph's Dinner to his Brethren — Egyptian Notion of Immortality — Greek Scepticism — The Dogma of Transmigration — Moral Responsibility — Moses and the Future State 222 Chapter XVII. THE TWO RITUALS AND THE RATIONALE. The Idea and Design of Ritualism — Similarity and Difference — Nature and Ground of Similarity — Symbols and Ideas — Spirit of the Mosaic Religion — The Apostles and the Greek Language — Man's Discipline determined by the Necessities of his condition CONTENTS. Chapter XVIII. DENDERAH AND SIOUT. PAGE Egyptian Potteries — Birds — Denderah and Chronology — Is Chronology of the Matter of Revelation — Theogony of the Egyptians — Complications of Polytheism — Idolatry more or less Anthropopathetic — Difference between Eastern and Western Monachism 258 Chapter XIX.

MEMPHIS AND SACHARA. The Approach to Memphis — Menes and Ramses — Image Worship —The " Golden Calf"— The Memphis Lake of the Dead- Egyptian and Mosaic Code of Morality — The Ethical Analogies between Heathenism and Christianity .... 274 Chapter XX. CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. Return to Cairo — Mourning Women — Veils — The Koran and Modern Restrictions — Mosques and Moslem Worship — Dervishes and Jugglers — Pyramids and Pyramid Builders . . 292

Appendix

. NOTE A. Lepsius' Discovery op the Nile Watermarks . . .30 NOTE B. TnE Egyptian Account of The Exodus . . . .310 NOTE C. The Exodus Papyri 313 NOTE D. Ritualistic Analogies E G Y P T,

Chapter I. Alexandria

First View of Egypt — The Antiquities of Alexandria — The Ptolemies and their Rule — Serapis and the Destruction of Idolatry. It was on a Sunday evening that we descried something on our right, just on the horizon's verge. We looked at it through our glasses, scarcely knowing whether or not it was a land-mist that loomed before us in the dim twilight. Night came, and a faint glimmer ing light revealed to us the modern Pharos on the Alexandrine coast. The harbour could not be entered after dusk, on account of the rocks and the shallow water, and we lay to for the night, waiting for a pilot. He came early next morning — a picturesque-looking Arab in turban and fez, with blue tunic and red slippers, who conducted us safely to port. My first view of Egypt was not very prepossessing. There was no verdure or bloom as might have been expected, but a gray, flat, sandy coast stretched for miles to the west — poor, barren, and parched.

There were some windmills on our right, which grind the EGYPT, Pasha's corn; and, as we neared the shore, we heard them creaking away in the sand and dust. It was strange to see these European structures out here. Art is long ; there is a great way from a quern to a wind mill : but Mehemet Ali soon scanned the distance. I believe this was wholly his doing, whose policy, as far as possible, was to give to the town an European aspect and character. This place, strictly speaking, is not Egypt, though situated on the edge of the Delta. The Nile never came here, except by canal ; and where the Nile is not, there Egypt is not. Alexandria is, in fact, a sort of cross between Europe and Africa: the donkeys, camels, bazaars, mosques, are African; the hotels, shops, windmills, warehouses, are European.

We rode to the French hotel in company with our good countryman, Mr. , who had been apprised of our coming and kindly met us on board, and showed us, during our stay at Alexandria, every politeness and attention. Our first visit was to the Pasha's residence. This place was originally built for Mehemet Ali, and is a fair specimen of European art. There is an unpre tending little garden in front, and on each side of the lawn are some orange-trees laden with fruit. There are but few flowers. The Orientals generally have little taste for them ; they could never get up a good "Flower Show" — what they like is shrubbery and shade. I was somewhat disappointed in the exterior of the house : the interior is better. I walked through most of the principal rooms, including the library with its bookless shelves ; some of them looked imposing, with their divans, couches, tables, gilded ceilings, and floors of rich mosaic.

What struck me most was the look out from the balcony, which gave me a full view of ALEXANDRIA. 3 the crescent-shaped bay, the harbour, and the Isle of Pharos, of which Strabo wrote and Homer sang — now joined to the mainland by a causeway : it was such a sight as once delighted the eye of Alexander. On our return from this place we paused to look at one of the schools of Mehemet Ali, which afforded us a curious specimen of Egyptian training. The esta blishment belonged to an old mosque, as is the case generally in the East. It reminded us of the Beth- Midrash of the Jerusalem temple, where the students, like the pupils here, sat on the floor while the teachers occupied raised seats ; and hence it is that Paul de scribes himself as having been " brought up at the feet of Gamaliel." But there was a wretched air about these boys — poor, sickly-looking, and almost ragless little urchins; and it was a melancholy sight to see them sitting cross-legged and barefooted on the floor, reading lessons from the Koran and writing their letters on tablets of wood.

These wooden boards, however, are significant as reminding us of a similar mode of writing in use among the Israelites, as well as the later Jews.* We are told that in India children are often seen writing their lessons on the bare ground with their fingers, the pavement being previously strewn with sand ; and sometimes this method is practised in our English schools there. Thus the prophet Jeremiah speaks of " writing in the earth ; " and we know, too, that our Saviour once " wrote on the ground." f Another day we set out for Pompey's Pillar. We rode up to it through an Arab cemetery on the slope of a sandy hill. I have seldom seen a more wild, sad, desolate-looking spot. I stopped my donkey, * Numb. xvii. 2; Ezek. xxxvii. 16. f Jer. xvii. 13; John viii. 8. 1—2 EGYPT. looked round at the broken, crumbling graves, and almost pitied the poor dead : there they lay year after year exposed to the ravages of men and dogs.

The tombs are rude and simple — just a hole dug in the sand, in which lies the coffinless corpse covered by a few plain stones. There was an aloe stuck in the middle of the uppermost slab; which must be symbolical, though I am not quite sure of the meaning. The Arabs are very partial to the aloe, and believe it to be the most powerful of charms, and they may put it on the graves of their friends thinking it has the singular faculty of keeping off goblins and ghouls — there being really no limit to Mahomedan superstition.* On the top of the hill is the well-known pillar, reigning alone over this empire of death ; it is a simple shaft of red granite, of elegant workmanship and in excellent preservation, with a Corinthian capital. f There has been a good deal of writing about this old column.

The Arabs call it " Awmood Issaweer " — the Pillar ot Colonnades ; and hence De Sacy, following Abdalattif and some of the earlier Arabian writers, regards it as a remnant of the famous Serapeum, where, in addition to the temple built by the first Ptolemy in honour of Serapis, a considerable part of the Alexandrine library lay — the part, indeed, that was afterwards destroyed by that incendiary, Caliph Omar. Here, too, according to Abda lattif, was the Portico where Aristotle taught, and his disciples after him, and the Academy which Alexander erected when he built the city. Now, if this conjecture * See Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol. i. 351. f According to Wilkinson, the "total length of the column is 98 feet 9 inches ; the shaft is 73 feet, the circumference 29 feet 8 inches, and the diameter at the top of the capital 16 feet 6 inches."

ALEXANDRIA. 5 of De Sacy were true, this monument would be one of the most interesting of Egyptian relics. But there is more reason to believe that Ptolemy never had anything to do with it, nor indeed Pompey — at least the great Pompey, Cæsar's rival ; it belongs, rather, to the age of Diocletian, and, according to Salt and Wilkinson's reading of the inscription, was raised by Publius, a Roman prefect, in honour of that emperor. The two obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles lie to the north-east, and to the traveller, on his first land ing in Alexandria, are interesting relics of Egyptian art. They are pure Pharaonic monuments, and one cannot help being struck with their weather-beaten and time-worn faces. They have had a long life of it, having been hewn out at first by the old Egyptians from the granite quarries of Assouan, and then floated down the Nile to Heliopolis, where they were set up in front of one of its ancient temples.

They were brought to Alexandria by the Romans, who had a great fancy for the Egyptian obelisks, many of which they transported to the banks of the Tiber. Here they adorned the Cæsarion — a temple of Cæsar. The temple itself has vanished, and these only now remain as memorials of its former greatness and lasting ruin. One of the obelisks is still standing ; the other lies prostrate in the sand. In a good-humoured moment, Mehemet Ali made a gift of the latter to this country, and once it was thought to have it removed to Eng land ; but the matter was afterwards given up in despair. From this spot there is a pleasing view of the ruins of the ancient Pharos, the lighthouse erected by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and dedicated to the " saviour gods for EGYPT the benefit of those who pass the sea!" It was sur mounted with a vast mirror of polished metal, so brilliant as to reflect the image of distant vessels before they became visible to the naked eye; and at night this plate was lighted up with burning lamps, which served to direct the course of ships as well as to show the entrance into the harbour.

There is nothing in Alexandria now to remind one of its former glory and magnificence. What if we could have viewed it with the eyes of a Diodorus or a Strabo, and mingled with the crowds in its busy streets, and seen its theatres, temples, palaces, and halls ! What if we could have visited its schools of learning, its marts of commerce, and saloons of luxury ! There were the Circus, the baths of Cleopatra, and the cisterns of Nile-water ; the Panium with its spiral staircase ; the Portico where Aristotle lectured, and the Museum with its library that outrivalled those of Thebes and Memphis ; the docks that sheltered Alexander's fleet, and the lighthouse that cheered the ancient mariners. One would have been glad if the Destrojer had left us some relics of these, but they are all gone ; the necropolis alone remains and a few mouldering bones, so that the ancient city of Alexandria lives now only in the catacombs of its departed dead.

Alexander was the second conqueror of Egypt, and a very different man was he from Cambyses. The Per sian invaders were generally bad rulers ; their influence seldom lasted long : they were, in fact, persecutors. When Xerxes invaded Greece, he destroyed the tem ples, and built " fire-chapels " in their stead ; and Cambyses, when he became master of Egypt,' was a mere iconoclast who broke down the temples, rifled the ALEXANDRIA. 7 tombs of the kings, and trampled upon everything pure and sacred; and all this mainly because the people were not of his way of thinking in matters of religion. Alexander, on the other hand, was not only a great warrior, but a wise and true patriot. In early youth he was a pupil of Aristotle, and, by his prudence and daring, he soon proved himself worthy of his illustrious tutor.

He found easy work of it with the Egyptians. When he reached Pelusium, the people hailed him as their deliverer ; neither did he abuse the confidence which had thus been put in him. In his civil policy he showed a wisdom, intelligence, forbearance, and a love of liberty which had always been an ornament of the Greek character, and which is always a sure key to man's sympathies and heart. He sought to establish his kingdom on a true constitutional basis. He restored the temples, honoured the gods of the country, and gave to the priests and the people generally full freedom of thought and worship. He invited other nations to come and settle in his new capital, to whom he granted the free exercise of their religious rites and usages ; and as to civic rights, he told them that they were entitled to these equally with his own countrymen.

Some of the Ptolemies, too, were wise, liberal, and large-minded men. Under their rule Alexandria be came the emporium of the world. They conferred signal honours upon their Jewish subjects, and coun tenanced in the spirit of true devotion their national religion. Ptolemy Philadelphus gave them a Greek version of their Hebrew Scriptures ; his successor, Euergetes, on his return from a war in Syria, went to the temple at Jerusalem, and offered sacrifices to the God of the Jews; and Philometor granted them a EGYPT. temple and a priesthood in Egypt after the model of those in their own country, together with a tract of land for the maintenance of their ritual and worship.* They were great patrons of learning too. Their schools were temples of Science and Fame, and their library boasted of the collected literature of the East.

Of course there was no printing then, and writing was by no means common : what marvels of literature and art must those seven hundred thousand manuscripts have been at this age of the world ! It was an ill-natured remark of Seneca to say that it was all got up for display. No ; one's heart swells with admiration and enthusiasm as one thinks of the rolls of papyri that graced the shelves of the Ptolemies. And what if we had them all now ? We should then be in possession of the literature of the early Pharaohs, and the history of Egypt would not have been what it now is — a labyrinth of darkness and doubt. What if the Destroyer had stayed his hand? We should then have known something about the mysteries of the priesthood; some of us in our child hood would have been learning to parse hieroglyphics just as we used to do Greek and Latin, and reading, perhaps, from an old papyauis some Egyptian account of Joseph, or what the Pharaohs thought of Moses and the " land of Goshen " and the " marvellous things in the field of Zoan."

But the Saracen came with fire and rapine, and spoiled the world of its richest treasure. Certainly, the flames that consumed Cæsar's fleet de- * See Isa. xix. 18, 19. With regard to Energetes offering sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple, it may be mentioned that there is a similar instance related of Alexander the Great at the time of his conquest of Palestine; and here, too, Augustus is said to have given orders to sacrifice for him daily a burnt-offering, consisting of two lambs and an ox. Josephus, Antiq. xi. 8; De Bell. Jud. ii. 17. ALEXANDRIA. 9 stroyed a good portion of the library. The fire, spreading towards the houses, caught at last a corner of the Museum, and burnt down that part of the building with its four hundred thousand volumes. There was no help for this, and we bow to it as to an inexo rable fate, though truly a "fiery trial."

Cleopatra partly repaired this loss by the addition to the Sera peum of the Pergamos Collection. Omar is the man whose name will be execrable to the end of time. When Alexandria fell into the hands of this ruthless invader, John the Grammarian sent a message to the king, begging of him to spare the library ; to which the caliph sent the following reply, and never before did the horns of a dilemma do such mischief: " If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be de stroyed ;" therefore, let them be burned. Thus perished the Library of the Ptolemies.* In the history of Alexandria, a great day was that which witnessed the destruction of the Serapeum — the temple of Serapis. Serapis was the last god of the Egyptian Pantheon, and the demolition of his temple and * Wilson tells us that " Dabshelim, king of India, had so numerous a library that one hundred Brahmins were hardly sufficient to keep it in order, and it required one hundred dromedaries to convey it from one place to another.

Being unable to read them all, he proposed to the Brahmins to make the most useful extracts. They set to this work, and in twenty years formed these extracts into an encyclopedia of twelve thuusand volumes, which thirty camels could carry with ease, and presented to the king. Great was their surprise on being informed by him it was impossible to read such a load. They then reduced their extracts to fifteen, and afterwards to ten, then to four, afterwards to two dromedaries, and ultimately there remained only as many books as would load a single mule." — Wilson's Travels, vol. i. p. 45. EGYPT. religion formed a new and important era in the history of Egypt— the era of the final overthrow of the ancient idolatry. Paganism, driven from the country generally, gathered up here all its struggling energies, and here in its last stronghold it seemed unassailable.

It appeared that some of the Christians suffered considerably from the surrounding superstition; and during the celebra tion of the rites paid to Serapis at the annual inun dations of the Nile, they even joined the votaries of the Egygtian god. Such enormities were not to be tolerated ; and it was mainly with a view to put an end to this evil that the Emperor Theodosius sent orders to Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, to destroy his temple. The good bishop was proud of the business, and he set about it with most fanatical zeal. The Christians shouted for joy ; they ran to the temple, broke open the gates of brass, and forced their way through almost insuperable barriers as far as the sanctuary. There they saw the figure of Serapis him self — a huge monster with the head of a dog, a lion, and a wolf, and with the body of a serpent branching out into three tails ; there he sat half filling the sanc tuaryr, and in his left hand he held a sceptre, like the Roman Jupiter.

Scared at the sight of this horrid image, the Christians dared not touch it. If any one attacked the god, it was said that he would at once smite the earth with his sceptre, and shatter it to pieces. However, one soldier rushed forward brandish ing his battle-axe in the air, and, mad with desperation, struck the god with his weapon. The earth never shook ; but a piece of metal which formed part of the idol fell on the granite pavement, and the whole temple resounded with the noise. Then there was another ALEXANDRIA. blow, and again another, and the god fell, like Dagon, to the ground, and his dissevered limbs were dragged ignominiously through the public streets; his temple, too, was razed to the earth, and from the ruins a church was erected in honour of the Christian Martyrs. EGYPT,

Chapter II. Old Egypt

Heptarchy — Mythology — Religion — Art, Science, and Literature. There is reason to think that the kingdom of Egypt was at first a heptarchy. This appears not only from Manetho's seven dynasties, but also from the seven tribes that Moses assigns to the family of Mizraim.* . It is scarcely to be expected that we should now be able to identify the names of those several tribes, or indeed their geographical position. It is, however, satisfactory to know that this can be done in regard to some of them. There is, for example, the " Naphtuhim," or the original settlers about Memphis. Their capital was Na-Ptah (the dwelling of Ptah), contracted by the Hebrew prophets into Noph.f There is, too, the " Pe lishtim," or the inhabitants of the sea-coast. They are called on the monuments Pulsa-Ta, and were a people dwelling to the north-east of the Delta.J There is, besides, another class of Bible names sometimes found on the monuments of Egypt.

The first Egy-ptians had, doubtless, heard of Noah and his wondrous history ; * Gen. x. 13, 14. t Isa. xix. 13; Jer. ii. 16; Ezek. xxx. 13, 16. X Papers on the Rephaim, by Miss F. Corbeaux, read before the Syro-Egyptian Society.— Journ. Sac. Lit. New Series, vol. i. 160, 161. but they made a god of him ; hence Nu, Null, Neph — the creative spirit of their mythology. On the temples he is represented standing in a boat, with " the asp spreading itself over him as a canopy." In the god Khem, the Egyptian impersonation of power, we have Ham the son of Noah and the father of the Mizraimite race. The name was afterwards changed into Amn or Amun. There can be no doubt, from these and other instances which might be mentioned, that some of the religious names of Egypt were borrowed ones. A few of them we can make sure of even now, and recognize in them names which have been sacred and familiar to us from our childhood ; and, however they may have been prostituted by the Egyptians themselves, it is in teresting and important to meet with them even among the gods and heroes of their early Theogony.

This may afford us some clue to the right under standing of Egyptian mythology, which mainly origi nated in an attempt to allegorize, or rather to perpetuate by means of allegorical representation, certain scenes and characters of Holy Writ ; this, too, being in accordance with, and indeed tending to cultivate, that super stitious love of the marvellous, which has ever distin guished the infancy of nations. Whatever knowledge existed among the children of Noah, respecting the primeval history of the world and man, was enjoyed as well by their descendants ; and when the family of Mizraim settled down in Egypt, having perhaps wan dered thither from the plain of Shinar, they would, of course, take this knowledge along with them, and it would extend, traditionally at least, to their posterity.

Mankind had not yet forgotten the wondrous details of the early history of the human race. Chaos and the EGYPT. forming elements, man with his divine origin and disas trous fall, Eden with its glory and shame, the tree ot life with its clustering fruit, the tempting serpent, the guardian cherubim, the revolving flame, the expulsion from Paradise with its damning curse, the first sacrifice with its blood-sealed promise of deliverance and hope — such were some of the tales of mingled joy and woe that had come echoing down the vista of centuries, and which the patriarch Noah poured into the ears of the infant world that lay cradled at Iris feet. But the " confusion of tongues " brought with it a confusion of ideas. Young Egypt soon abandoned the faith of her fathers ; and now, after the lapse of but a few centuries, here she is sitting on the banks of her sunny Nile, working myths and sagas for her future Pharaohs.

In the terrible apostasy which ensued, and which, like an all-withering blast, already threatened the extinction of whatever was original and divine, the memory of these important transactions was to a considerable extent lost. The patriarchs who were the divinely-inspired repo sitories of this knowledge, as well as the divinely appointed organs of its transmission, were now no more; and with them these sacred reminiscences, as to their primitive integrity and design, became well nigh extinct. They possessed at least no historic cer tainty : men did not think of them as so many distinct and grand realities or clear and well-attested facts ; and they did not believe in them with a full and realizing faith. It was here mythology began to weave its won drous web — its curious network of myths and legends.

Its crude forms contained certain germs of truth, and these in the luxuriant soil of Oriental imagination "Tew rank" and wild. The human mind ran riot — revelled amid its own vagaries. Originally, this is just what Egyptian mythology was. It was the child of Super stition — of Superstition at the grave of a dead world, calling up those images of the past, and transforming God's creatures into ghosts and heroes, and other untold monsters of song and fable. We have a pleasing instance of this in the legend of Typho, the Evil Spirit, who was symbolized by the great serpent, or the emblem of sin. The last victory of Osiris — the incarnation of the divine goodness — over Typho is one of the most touching scenes depicted on the monuments. It is a hard struggle, but Osiris pre vails at last, and the serpent, pierced by the spear of Horus, is cast into the fires of Amenti.