(8) O ye, these gates, who are the gates to Osiris, ye who guard their gates, ye who herald the things of the world to Osiris every day. Osiris N. knows you—he knows your names; for he is born in Restau, where all the glory of the horizon was given him. N. receives the investiture in Pu, like the purification of Osiris. N. receives the saying in Restau, when he leads the gods on the horizon with the ministrant, the protectors of Osiris. I am one of them in their leading. N. is the glorious one, the lord of the glorious, a glorious one who performs the rites. N. celebrates the festival of the first day of the month; he is the herald in the fifteenth day of the month. O thou who revolvest. N. carries the sacred flame to the hand of Thoth in the night when he sails through the sky as victor. N. passes on in peace, he navigates in the boat of Rā. The attributes of N. are the attributes of the boat of Rā. N. has a name greater than yours, mightier than you who are on the roads of Maāt. N. hates what is corrupt. The attributes of N. are the attributes of Horus, the firstborn of Rā, who accomplishes his will. N. is not fettered, he is not driven away from the gates of Osiris. N. is perfect, the lion god, the pure one who follows Osiris Khent Amenta every day. His domains are in Sechet hotepu among those who know the sacred rites, among those who perform the sacred rites to Osiris. N. is on the side of Thoth, among those who bring offerings. Anubis ordered to the bearers of offerings, that there should be offerings to N. of his own, and that they should not be taken from him by those who are in captivity. N. has come like Horus, when he adorns the horizon of heaven N. directs the march of Rā towards the gates of the horizon; therefore the gods rejoice in the presence of N. The divine scent is upon Osiris, the god with the lock will not reach him; the keepers of the gates will not be hostile to him. N. is the one whose face is hidden inside the palace, in the sanctuary of the god, the lord of Tuat. N. has reached it after Hathor. N. gathers his hosts; he brings Maāt to Rā, he drives away the Mighty One, Apepi. N. pierces the steel firmament, and repels the raging storm; he gives life to the seamen of Rā. N. carries offerings to the place where it (the boat) is. N. causes that the boat gives him a successful voyage. N. marches, and when he reaches it, the face of N. is like the Great One, and his back like the lofty one. N. is the lord of the mighty. N. is well pleased on the horizon. N. is valiant; he strikes you down; you wakers; he makes his way to your lord, Osiris

(49) It is Osiris to whom was ordained the Leadership among the gods, upon that day when the Two Earths were united before the Inviolate god

(5) Wishing to express Sun in writing, they make a circle; and Moon, a figure like the Moon, like its proper shape. But in using the figurative style, by transposing and transferring, by changing and by transforming in many ways as suits them, they draw characters. In relating the praises of the kings in theological myths, they write in anaglyphs. Let the following stand as a specimen of the third species - the Enigmatic. For the rest of the stars, on account of their oblique course, they have figured like the bodies of serpents; but the sun, like that of a beetle, because it makes a round figure of ox-dung, and rolls it before its face. And they say that this creature lives six months under ground, and the other division of the year above ground, and emits its seed into the ball, and brings forth; and that there is not a female beetle. All then, in a word, who have spoken of divine things, both Barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and metaphors, and such like tropes. Such also are the oracles among the Greeks. And the Pythian Apollo is called Loxias. Also the maxims of those among the Greeks called wise men, in a few sayings indicate the unfolding of matter of considerable importance. Such certainly is that maxim, "Spare Time:" either because life is short, and we ought not to expend this time in vain; or, on the other hand, it bids you spare your personal expenses; so that, though you live many years, necessaries may not fail you. Similarly also the maxim "Know thyself" shows many things; both that thou art mortal, and that thou wast born a human being; and also that, in comparison with the other excellences of life, thou art of no account, because thou sayest that thou art rich or renowned; or, on the other hand, that, being rich or renowned, you are not honoured on account of your advantages alone. And it says, Know for what thou wert born, and whose image thou art; and what is thy essence, and what thy creation, and what thy relation to God, and the like. And the Spirit says by Isaiah the prophet, "I will give thee treasures, hidden, dark." Now wisdom, hard to hunt, is the treasures of God and unfailing riches. But those, taught in theology by those prophets, the poets, philosophize much by way of a hidden sense. I mean Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, and those in this fashion wise. The persuasive style of poetry is for them a veil for the many.

(8) The Osiris N is Horus: his mother Isis bringeth him forth, and Nephthys nurseth him, as they did to Horus, who repelleth the dark ones of Sutu: who, when they see the Crown fixed upon his brow, fall upon their faces

(2) These three mothers enclose a mighty mystery, most occult and most marvelous, sealed as with six rings, and from them proceed primeval Fire, Water, and Air; these are subsequently differentiated into male and female. At first existed these three mothers, and there arose three masculine powers, and hence all things have originated.

(10) And Simmias of Rhodes: "Parent of the Ignetes and the Telchines briny Zaps was born." And kqwn is the earth kekxmenh spread forth to bigness. And Plectron, according to some, is the sky (polos), according to others, it is the air, which strikes and moves to nature and increase, and which fills all things. But these have not read Cleanthes the philosopher, who expressly calls Plectron the sun; for darting his beams in the east, as if striking the world, he leads the light to its harmonious course. And from the sun it signifies also the rest of the stars, the Sphinx is not the comprehension of the universe, and the revolution of the world, according to the poet Aratus; but perhaps it is the spiritual tone which pervades and holds together the universe. But it is better to regard it as the ether, which holds together and presses all things; as also Empedocles says: "But come now, first will I speak of the Sun, the first principle of all things, From which all, that we look upon, has sprung, Both earth, and billowy deep, and humid air; Titan and Ether too, which binds all things around."

(8) —O Amon the bull, the scarab, the lord of the two eyes whose name is: he with the terrible pupil. Osiris N. is the image of thy two eyes, Sharosharo is the name of one, Shapuarika is the name of the other one. He is Shaka Amon, Shaka Nasarohaut; Tmu who illuminates the two earths is his true name. Come to Osiris N. , he belongs to the land of Truth, do not leave him alone. He is of the land which is not seen again

(2) Horus exalteth his father Osiris in every place; associating Isis the Great with her sister Nephthys

(36) The Osiris N ; he saith when he adoreth Râ, the Horus of the Two Horizons, when setting in the Land of Life

(3) But among these great Masters of Ancient Egypt there once dwelt one of whom Masters hailed as "The Master of Masters." This man, if "man" indeed he was, dwelt in Egypt in the earliest days. He was known as Hermes Trismegistus. He was the father of the Occult Wisdom; the founder of Astrology; the discoverer of Alchemy. The details of his life story are lost to history, owing to the lapse of the years, though several of the ancient countries disputed with each other in their claims to the honor of having furnished his birthplace--and this thousands of years ago. The date of his sojourn in Egypt, in that his last incarnation on this planet, is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt--long before the days of Moses. The best authorities regard him as a contemporary of Abraham, and some of the Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystic knowledge from Hermes himself.

(9) And Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, too, bore an illustrious son, Dionysus, the joy-inspiring, when she mingled with him in love." Cadmus, the father of Semele, came to Thebes in the time of Lynceus, and was the inventor of the Greek letters. Triopas was a contemporary of Isis, in the seventh generation from Inachus. And Isis, who is the same as Io, is so called, it is said, from her going (ienai) roaming over the whole earth. Her, Istrus, in his work on the migration of the Egyptians, calls the daughter of Prometheus. Prometheus lived in the time of Triopas, in the seventh generation after Moses. So that Moses appears to have flourished even before the birth of men, according to the chronology of the Greeks. Leon, who treated of the Egyptian divinities, says that Isis by the Greeks was called Ceres, who lived in the time of Lynceus, in the eleventh generation after Moses. And Apis the king of Argos built Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of the Arcadica. And Aristeas the Argive says that he was named Serapis, and that it is he that the Egyptians worship.

Then when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness cursed her companions, she was angry. And when she came out of the first heaven with every power, she chased the rulers from their heavens, and she cast them down to the sinful world, that they might dwell there as evil demons upon the earth. She sent the bird that was in paradise so that, until the consummation of the age, it might spend the thousand years in the rulers’ world: a vital living being with soul, called the phoenix, which kills itself and reanimates itself for a witness to their judgment, because they dealt unjustly with Adam and his race. There are three human beings and their descendants in the world until the consummation of the age: the spiritual and the psychical and the earthly. This is like the three kinds of phoenixes of paradise: the first is immortal; the second attains one thousand years; as for the third, it is written in the Holy Book that it is consumed. Likewise three baptisms exist: the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness for the angels, so too the water serpents in Egypt have become a witness to those who go down for the baptism of a true person. The two bulls in Egypt, insofar as they indicate the sun and the moon as a mystery, exist for a witness to Sabaoth, that Sophia of the world has been exalted above the sun and the moon, from the day when she created them and sealed her heaven until the consummation of the age. And the worm that is brought forth from the phoenix is also a human being. It is written of it, “The just will sprout like the phoenix.” The phoenix first appears alive, and dies, and rises again, as a sign of what appears at the consummation of the age. These great signs appeared only in Egypt, not in other lands, signifying that it is like the paradise of god.

(3) The Osiris N arriveth at his own time: and by means of his lines is brought to the light of day

(576) 1500 To say: Osiris was placed upon his side by his brother Set; 1500 he who is in Ndi.t stirs; his head is raised up by R`; 1500 his abomination is to sleep; he hates to be tired; 1501 N. rots not; he stinks not; 1501 N. is not bound (bewitched) by your wrath, O gods. 1502 Awake thou in peace; 1502 Osiris awakes in peace; he who is in Ndi.t awakes in peace. 1503 His head is lifted up by R`; his odour is [as] that of the 'I.twt.t-serpent. 1503 The head of N. also is lifted up by R`; the odour of N. is as that of 'I.t-wt.t-serpent. 1504 He rots not; he stinks not, 1504 N. is not bound (bewitched) by your wrath, O gods. 1505 N. is thy seed, Osiris, the pointed, 1505 in his name of "Horus in the great green"; "Horus chief of spirits." 1506 N. rots not; he stinks not; 1506 he is not bound (bewitched) by your wrath, O gods. 1507 N. goes forth from his house, adorned like Horus, bedecked like Thot; 1507 the mother of N. is thy Heliopolitan, O god; the father of N. is a Heliopolitan; 1507 N. himself is thy Heliopolitan, O god. 1508 N. is conceived by R`; he is born of R`. 1508 N. is thy seed, O R`, the pointed, 1508 in his name of "Horus, chief of spirits, star which ferries over the "great green." 1509 N. rots not; he stinks not; 1509 he is not bound (bewitched) by your wrath, O gods. 1510 N. is one of those four gods, born of Geb, 1510 who travelled over the South, who travelled over the land of [the North], 1510 who leaned upon their dm-sceptres, 1511 anointed with the best ointment, clothed in [purple], 1511 living on figs, drinking wine. 1512 a. N. anoints himself with that with which you anoint yourselves; 1512 N. clothes himself with that with which you clothe yourselves; 1512 N. lives on that on which you live; 1512 N. drinks that of which you [drink]. 1513 N. is safe with you, he lives on that on which you live. 1513 May you give him of those possessions which your father Geb gave you, 1513 (so that) because of which none of you may hunger, because of which none of you may rot. 1514 Lay hold of the arm of N. for life before the sweet-smelling ones, 1514 unite the bones of N., assemble his limbs, 1514 that N. may sit upon his throne. 1515 He rots not; he stinks not; 1515 N. is not bound (bewitched) by your wrath, O gods. 1516 N. is come to thee, mother of N.; he is come to Nut. 150 Make the sky mount for N.; place the stars upside down for him. 1516 Let his odour be like the odour of thy son, who is come forth from thee; 1516 let the odour of N. be like that of Osiris, thy son, who is come forth from thee. 1517 Nun, lift up the arm of N. towards the sky, that he may support himself (on) the earth which he has given to thee, 151 7 that he may ascend, that he may rise to the sky, 1517 that he may do service of a courtier to R`. 1518 Horus chief of the spirits, who is before the sweet-smelling ones, 1518 awake thou in peace, as R` awakes, in peace; 1518 awake in peace, as Mdi awakes in peace. 1519. Let him put the writing of N. in his register before the sweetsmelling ones. 37. THE RESURRECTION OF OSIRIS WITH WHOM THE GODS ARE SATISFIED,

(5) Again, I say, by Zaratûst were begotten three sons and three daughters; one son was Isadvâstar, one Aûrvatad-nar, and one Khûrshêd-kîhar; as Isadvâstar was chief of the priests he became the Môbad of Môbads, and passed away in the hundredth year of the religion; Aûrvatad-nar was an agriculturist, and the chief of the enclosure formed by Yim, which is below the earth; Khûrshêd-kîhar was a warrior, commander of the army of Pêshyôtanû, son of Vistâsp, and dwells in Kangdez; and of the three daughters the name of one was Frên, of one Srît, and of one Pôrukîst.

(5) Here is the Cycle of the gods, and the Kite of Osiris

(19) O chief of the hours, in front of Rā, make way for N. that he may arrive into the circle of Osiris, the living lord of the two earths, who lives eternally

(4) Hermes, which is the name of my forebear, whose home is in a place called after him, doth aid and guard all mortal [men] who come to him from every side. As for Osiris’ [spouse]; how many are the blessings that we know Isis bestows when she’s propitious; how many does she injure when she’s wrath! For that the terrene and the cosmic Gods are easily enraged, in that they are created and composed of the two natures.

(8) Wherefore the wisest of the Egyptian priests decided that the temple of Athene should be hypaethral, just as the Hebrews constructed the temple without an image. And some, in worshipping God, make a representation of heaven containing the stars; and so worship, although Scripture says, "Let of Eurysus the Pythagorean, which is as follows, who in his book On Fortune, having said that the "Creator, on making man, took Himself as an exemplar," added, "And the body is like the other things, as being made of the same material, and fashioned by the best workman, who wrought it, taking Himself as the archetype." And, in fine, Pythagoras and his followers, with Plato also, and most of the other philosophers, were best acquainted with the Lawgiver, as may be concluded from their doctrine. And by a happy utterance of divination, not without divine help, concurring in certain prophetic declarations, and, seizing the truth in portions and aspects, in terms not obscure, and not going beyond the explanation of the things, they honoured it on as pertaining the appearance of relation with the truth. Whence the Hellenic philosophy is like the torch of wick which men kindle, artificially stealing the light from the sun. But on the proclamation of the Word all that holy light shone forth. Then in houses by night the stolen light is useful; but by day the fire blazes, and all the night is illuminated by such a sun of intellectual light.

(2) There are, then, [certain] Gods who are the principals of all the species. Of Heaven,—or of whatsoe’er it be that is embraced within the term,—the essence-chief is Zeus; for ’tis through Heaven that Zeus gives life to all. Sun’s essence-chief is light; for the good gift of light is poured on us through the Sun’s disk.