DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43363#0247
ISIS and OSIRIS. 29
when the Egyptians themselves tell us, that Hermes
had one hand shorter than another, that typho was os
a red, Or us of a fair, and Ofiris of a black complexion;
does not this evince, that they were of the human spe-
cies, and subjed to the same accidents as all other men
are ? nay they go farther, and even assign the particu-
lar office or employment, which each of them was en-
gaged in whilst alive 5 thus they tell us that Ofiris was
a General, that Canobus, (from whom the dar took its
name) was a Pilot-—and that the ship which the
greeks call Hr go, being made in imitation of that os
Ofiris., was, in honour of him, turned into a condella-
tion and placed nearOnwz and theZhg·, the former, as
the Egyptians suppose, sacred to Orus> the latter to Isis.
23. But I am much afraid, that to give into this
explication os the dory, will be to move things which
ought not to be moved ; and not only, as Simonides
exprelses it, iC to declare war with all antiquity”, but
likewise with whole families and nations, fully possessed
as they are of the divinity of these beings — It will be
no less than diipossessing these great names of their hea-
ven and bringing them down to the earth; it will be
to ffiake and loo sen a worship and faith, that has been
firmly settled in almoil all mankind even from their
infancy : It will be to open a wide door for atheism
to enter in at, and to encourage the attempts of those
who would humanize the divine nature ; and particu-
larly will it give a manifeil sandion, and authority to
the impollutes of Euhemerus the Meff'enian ; who from
mere imagination, and without the lead appearance os
truth to support it, has invented a new mythology of
lib
when the Egyptians themselves tell us, that Hermes
had one hand shorter than another, that typho was os
a red, Or us of a fair, and Ofiris of a black complexion;
does not this evince, that they were of the human spe-
cies, and subjed to the same accidents as all other men
are ? nay they go farther, and even assign the particu-
lar office or employment, which each of them was en-
gaged in whilst alive 5 thus they tell us that Ofiris was
a General, that Canobus, (from whom the dar took its
name) was a Pilot-—and that the ship which the
greeks call Hr go, being made in imitation of that os
Ofiris., was, in honour of him, turned into a condella-
tion and placed nearOnwz and theZhg·, the former, as
the Egyptians suppose, sacred to Orus> the latter to Isis.
23. But I am much afraid, that to give into this
explication os the dory, will be to move things which
ought not to be moved ; and not only, as Simonides
exprelses it, iC to declare war with all antiquity”, but
likewise with whole families and nations, fully possessed
as they are of the divinity of these beings — It will be
no less than diipossessing these great names of their hea-
ven and bringing them down to the earth; it will be
to ffiake and loo sen a worship and faith, that has been
firmly settled in almoil all mankind even from their
infancy : It will be to open a wide door for atheism
to enter in at, and to encourage the attempts of those
who would humanize the divine nature ; and particu-
larly will it give a manifeil sandion, and authority to
the impollutes of Euhemerus the Meff'enian ; who from
mere imagination, and without the lead appearance os
truth to support it, has invented a new mythology of
lib