Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/256

 liquor, let us allow him to declare that the earth is mother of the gods, if he only forbear in earnest to stain his mind with foul religion." Man had formerly been led to associate the earth and sun and sky with the notion of infinite power behind those phenomena; he now retraced his steps and recognized in the universe nothing but the mere phenomena. The heathen Plutarch and the Christian Origen equally give evidence of this atheistical interpretation put upon the myths of Osiris and Isis. Plutarch protests against the habit of explaining away the very nature of the gods by resolving it, as it were, into mere blasts of wind, or streams of rivers, and the like, such as making Dionysos to be wine and Hephaistos fire. We might suppose that Plutarch is simply alluding to Greek speculation, but it is certain that the Egyptian texts of the late period are in the habit of substituting the name of a god for a physical object, such as Seb for the earth, Shu for the air, and so on. Origen, as a Christian apologist, sees no advantage to be gained by his adversaries in giving an allegorical interpretation to Osiris and Isis, "for they will nevertheless teach us to offer divine worship to cold water and the earth, which is subject to men and all the animal creation."

The transformation of the Egyptian religion is nowhere more apparent than in the view of the life beyond the grave which is exhibited on a tablet which has already been referred to, that of the wife of