The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARto give itto any person whose body would exactlyfit it. Osiris was tempted to try the experiment;but he no sooner laid down in the chest than thelid was closed and nailed down and the chest throwninto the river Nile. The chest containing the bodyof Osiris was, after being for a long time tossedabout by the waves, finally cast up at Byblos,* inMnenicia, and leftat the foot of a tamarisk* tree.Isis, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of hershe at length discovered the spot whence ithusband, set out on a journey, and traversed theearth in search of the body. After many adventures,had been thrown up by the waves, and returnedwith it in triumph to Egypt. It was then proclaimed,with the most extravagant demonstrationsof joy, that Osiris was risen from the dead andhad become a god. Such, with slight variationsof details by different writers, are the general outlinesof the Osiris legend.Itwas represented in the public drama of initiation,by the image of a dead man being borne inan ark or coffin, by a procession of initiates; andthis enclosure in the coffin or interment of the bodywas called the aphanism, or disappearance, and thelamentations for him formed the first part, or Mysteriesof Isis. On the third day after the interment,the priests and initiates carried the coffin, in whichwas also a golden vessel, down to the river Nile.Into the vessel they poured water from the river;and then, with a cry of "We have found him, letus rejoice," they declared that the dead Osiris, whohad descended into Hades, had returned fromthence, and was restored again to life; and therejoicings which ensued constituted the second part,8