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246
SIXTH LECTURE.
SOME ANCIENT AND EXTINCT FAITHS.
I propose this evening to look into certain ancient faiths. As is now well known, the ancient Babylonians celebrated a sort of mystic rite that was centred round the god Tammuz who was dead and rose again from the dead, through the labours of Innini, his weeping mother, and, finally, also his bride. The Semitic legend of the descent of Istar who descended into Hades to rescue the young god Tammuz, is another myth of the same type. So is the Egyptian cult of Osiris in connection with which certain forms of ritual were gone through annually in secret and were known as mys. teries." The following account of this ancient cult is given in the ERE. (vol. iv. p. 243):
"The details of his myth do not concern us; but briefly, the doctrine of the Egyptian religion taught that Osiris, a beneficent god and king, after being slain by the treachery of Set, his malevolent antithesis, was restored to life again, justified before the gods against the accusations of Set, and made God and Judge in the under world. Already by the time of the 5th dynasty the idea had been concieved that the story of Osiris was repeated in the case of each Pharaoh, and the conception gradually filtered down until it was held that every man who was possessed of the necessary knowledge might after death become an Osiris, be restored to life, be justified before the gods, and enter into ever-lasting blessedness. Prao
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