Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith. 165
of war and battles; of deeds of kindness and righteous dealing
there is frequent mention.^148
Of the fate of the wicked, of those whose hearts were
overweighed in the balance and who failed to pass the tribunal
of Osiris, we know but little. Typhon, in the form of a hideous
hippopotamus, stood behind Thoth in a corner of the hall, ready
to devour their entrails. In the Book of the Other World, of
which I shall have to speak in another lecture, the tortures of the
lost are depicted quite in medieval style. We see them plunged
in water or burned in the fire, enclosed in vaulted chambers
filled with burning charcoal, with their heads struck from their
necks or their bodies devoured by serpents. But the Book of
the Other World is the ritual of a religious system which was
originally distinct from the Osirian, and it is probable that most
Egyptians expected the final annihilation of the wicked rather
than their continued existence in an eternal hell. The divine
elements in man, which could not die, were equally incapable
of committing sin, and consequently would return to the God
who gave them, when the human individuality to which they had
been joined was punished for its offences in the flesh. The soul
could remain united only to that individuality which had been [180]
purified from all its earthly stains, and had become as the god
Osiris himself. The individuality which was condemned in the
judgment of Osiris perished eternally, and in the mind of the
Egyptian the individuality and the individual were one and the
same.
(^148) So on a stela translated by Professor Maspero (Recueil de Travaux, iv. p.
128) the deceased says:“Never has one said of me, What is that he hath done?
I have not injured, I have not committed evil; none has suffered through my
fault, the lie has never entered into me since I was born, but I have always
done that which was true in the sight of the lord of the two worlds. I have been
united in heart to the god; I have walked in the good paths of justice, love, and
all the virtues. Ah, let my soul live ... for behold I am come to this land, O
souls, to be with you in the tomb, I am become one of you who detest sin.”