Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith. 153
entombment, were also“raised to life.”Both in Egypt and in
Babylonia he was the god of the resurrection, whether that took
place in this visible world or in the heavenly paradise, which was
a purified reflection of the earth.
In Babylonia, Asari or Merodach was the champion of light
and order, who conquered the dragon of chaos and her anarchic
forces, and put the demons of darkness to flight. In Egypt that part
was taken by Horus. But both Anher and Osiris were merely local
forms—local names, if the phrase should be preferred—of Horus
and the mummified hawk. Anher is sometimes represented, like
Horus, with the spear in his hand, overthrowing the wicked; but
his figure was eclipsed by that of Osiris, who had come to be
regarded as the benefactor of mankind, and to whom men prayed
in sickness and death. A god of the dead, however, could not
be a conqueror; it was he, and not his foe, who had died, and
consequently the victories gained by Horus could not be ascribed
to him. But the difficulty was not insoluble; Horus became his
son, who was at the same time his father, and the old struggle [166]
between Horus and Set was transferred to the Osirian cult.
It is significant, however, that in the recently-recovered
monuments of the Thinite dynasties Set is still the twin-brother
of Horus. He still represents the north, until lately the antagonist
of the south; and a king whose remains have been found at
Nekhen and Abydos, and who calls himself“the uniter of the
two sceptres”of Egypt, still sets the Horus-hawk and the animal
of Set above his name.
Set, as I have already said, is the Sutu or Bedâwi. He was
adored elsewhere than in Egypt; the Moabites called themselves
his children (Num. xxiv. 17), and in the cuneiform texts Sutu-sar
(“Sutu the king”) and Nabu-rabê (“Nebo the great”) are described
as twins.^141 But in Egypt he represented the population which had
been conquered by the Pharaonic Egyptians or continued to live
(^141) Nebo or Nabium (Nabu),“the prophet,”was the interpreter of the will of
Merodach, just as Merodach was the interpreter of the will of Ea.