Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [44]
To the Roman world, Isis was alluring, holding out the promise of magical secrets and even immortality. Married to one god and mother of another one, she contained all of the female creative power associated with great goddesses.
It was against that backdrop of fading interest in the old gods of Rome and growing fascination with attractive new gods, such as Isis and Osiris, that Christianity also began to take root in Rome. To many religious historians, that searching mood in ancient Rome, combined with myths of dying and rising gods, may have opened the way for Christianity. Early in the twentieth century, scholar Jane Harrison wrote: “Of all Egyptians, perhaps of all ancient deities, no god has lived so long or had so wide and deep an influence as Osiris. He stands as the prototype of the great class of resurrection gods who die that they may live again.”
The story raises another troubling question. The marriage of Isis and Osiris, like most other divine relationships in Egyptian mythology, was clearly incestuous. That was not unique to Egypt, as many myths feature such family couplings. There is a practical explanation for this, which is that if you are a god and there is nobody else around, sleeping with your sister is the only option. Did that mean incest was condoned in Egypt? In Egyptian history, it was clear that the ruling families condoned inter-marriage and incestuous marriages. Again, it was a practical matter, a means to keep power within the family. That raises the question: Did the pharaohs do it because the gods did? Or was it the other way around? That is, were myths of incestuous gods devised to justify incest? There is considerable scholarly disagreement over whether incest was widespread among average Egyptians. While other myths, including those of the Greeks, commonly feature incestuous doings, taboos against incestuous marriages developed in most societies. Under biblical law, most forms of incest were forbidden and were capital offenses, and by 295 CE they were forbidden in Rome as well—which is intriguing, since some of Rome’s emperors were notorious for their incestuous couplings.
MYTHIC VOICES
The elaborate burial rituals of the Egyptians required that the deceased be properly prepared for the challenges of the journey to the afterlife. To ease the way and guarantee immortality, the Egyptians developed a rich tradition of instructions, incantations, and spells. As time went by, any Egyptian who could afford one was able to purchase one of these collections that have come to be called The Book of the Dead. Like any set of ritual prayers in Judaism or Christianity, they were designed to ensure that the correct words were spoken at the entrance to eternity. Among these the central was “Negative Confession,” which the deceased used to testify that he had lived a life free of forty-two specific sins, one for each of the gods sitting in judgment.
Hail to you, great god, Lord of Justice! I have come to you, my lord, that you may bring me so that I may see your beauty, for I know you and I know your name, and I know the names of the forty-two gods of those who are with you in this Hall of Justice, who live on those who cherish evil and who gulp down their blood on that day of reckoning of characters…. Behold I have come to you. I have brought you truth, I have repelled falsehood against men, I have not impoverished my associates, I have done no wrong in the Place of Truth, I have not learnt that which is not, I have done no evil, I have not daily made labour in excess of what was due to be done for me, my name has not reached the office of those who control slaves, I have not deprived the orphan of his property, I have not done what the gods detest,…I have not caused pain, I have not made hungry, I have made no man weep, I have not killed, I have not commanded to kill, I have not made suffering for anyone….
I am pure, pure, pure, pure! My purity is the purity of the great phoenix….
—Spell 125, “The Negative Confession,” The Egyptian Book of the Dead
O my heart which I