The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

NOTES EGYPT. 239
366 fif.). On a tablet at Petilia (see supra, n. 22), the soul
of the deceased is required to drink the fresh water (^XP^"
uSwp) flowing from the lake of Memory in order to reign with
the heroes. There is nothing to prevent our admitting with
Foucart ("Myst. d Eleusis," Mem. Acad. des Inscr., XXXV, 2,
p. 67), that the Egyptian ideas may have permeated the Orphic
worship of southern Italy after the fourth or third century,
since they are found expressed a hundred years earlier at
Carpentras (infra, n. 90).
90. Ao/tf ooi 6 "Ooipis TO ipv^pov vdup, at Rome: Kaibel, Inscr. g~r.
XIV, 1488, 1705, 1782, 1842; cf. 658 and C7Z, VI, 3, 20616. Zo<
6k Oaeipidof ayvbv vdup Elcnf xapioaiTo, Rev. archeol.^ 1887, p. 199,
cf. 201. ^fvxy ^Lipuatj ^vxpbv v6up fieradog , CIG, 6267=Kaibel, 1890.
It is particularly interesting to note that almost the same wish
appears on the Aramaic stele of Carpentras (C. /. Sent., II,
141 ) , which dates back to the fourth or fifth century B. C. :
"Blessed be thou, take water from in front of Osiris." A
passage in the book of Enoch manifestly inspired by Egyp
tian conceptions, mentions the "spring of water," the "spring
of life," in the realm of the dead (Enoch, xxii. 2, 9. Cf. Mar
tin, Le livre d Henoch, 1906, p. 58, n. i, and Bousset, Relig.
dcs Judcntums, 1903, p 271). From Judaism the expression
has passed into Christianity. Cf. Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 6.
91. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has
frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see La-
faye, op. cit., p. 96, n. i ; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 391 ; Kraus,
Realencycl. der christl. Alt., s. v. "Ref rigerium" ; and espe
cially Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, Rev. des
etudes anc., 1905, p. 32; Audollent, Melanges Louis Havet,
1909, p. 575. The refrigerii sedes, which the Catholic Church
petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears
in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not be
lieve in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along
the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are
in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope
the soul will rest * " roiru x^ oe & r^V eu>s
P<?, a"cu/a (G. Le-
febvre, Inscr. gr. chret. d Eg., No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p.
xxx ; cf. Dumont, Melanges, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The
detail is not without significance because it furnishes a valu-