The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

152 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

Osiris (As-ar) is the Asari of ancient Babylonia, who was called
Merodach by the Semites, and whose ordinary title is“the god
who does good to man.”The name of Asari is written with
two ideographs, one of which denotes“a place”and the other
“an eye,”and the forms of the two ideographs, as well as their
meanings, are identical with those of the hieroglyphic characters
which represent Osiris. Such a threefold agreement cannot be
accidental: both the name and the mode of writing it must
have come from Babylonia. And what makes the agreement
the stronger is the fact that the ideographs have nothing to do
with the signification of the name itself; they express simply
its pronunciation. In the Sumerian of early Babylonia the name
signified“the mighty one.”^140
Asari was the sun-god of Eridu, the ancient seaport of
Babylonia on the Persian Gulf. He was the son of Ea, the
chief god of the city, of whose will and wisdom he was the
interpreter. It was he who communicated to men the lessons in
[165] culture and the art of healing, which Ea was willing they should
learn. Just as Osiris spent his life in doing good, according to
the Egyptian legend, so Asari was he“who does good to man.”
He was ever on the watch to help his worshippers, to convey to
them the magic formulas which could ward off sickness or evil,
and, as it is often expressed, to“raise the dead to life.”
In this last expression we have the key to the part played by
Osiris. Osiris died, and was buried, like Asari or Merodach,
whose temple at Babylon was also his tomb; but it was that
he might rise again in the morning with renewed strength and
brilliancy. And through the spells he had received from his
father all those who trusted in him, and shared in his death and

(^140) The origin of the name of Osiris had been forgotten by the Egyptians long
before the age of the Pyramid texts, where we find (Unas229) the grammatical
goddess User-t invented to explain Osiris, as if the latter were the adjective
user,“strong”! M. Grébaut long ago expressed his belief that Osiris was of
foreign origin (Recueil de Travaux, i. p. 120).