Osiris

Mythology

Osiris was the just first king of Egypt who taught humanity agriculture, sacred laws and right life. He had as wife and sister Isis, with whom he reigned together. His evil brother Seth (god of chaos and the desert) became fiercely envious of Osiris's success and prosperity. Seth organised a treacherous trap: at a banquet, presented a beautiful coffin and promised it as gift to whoever fitted exactly inside. When Osiris (whose body had been measured by Seth's spies) entered, Seth and 72 conspirators sealed the coffin and threw it into the Nile.

Osiris drowned in the coffin that drifted down to Phoenicia. Isis, with persistent love and magical power, found and recovered the coffin. But Seth, learning of the recovery, tore the body of Osiris into 14 pieces (or 42 according to other versions) and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis, again, traversed the entire country searching for the pieces; recovered all except the genitals (devoured by a fish in the Nile). She magically reconstructed the body, briefly resurrected Osiris to conceive their son Horus, and then Osiris descended to be eternal lord of the underworld: judge of the souls of the deceased in the famous weighing of the heart.

Symbolism and influence

Iconography: Osiris standing or seated, with body wrapped as mummy (referring to his death and resurrection), green skin (colour of the renewing vegetation of the Nile after death — "Osiris" is also identified with the agricultural cycle: the seed dies under the ground and is reborn as new plant), "atef" crown (white crown with two ostrich feathers and red discs), shepherd's crook and flail in his hands (royal sceptres, also agricultural tools — symbol of his protection of his "human flock").

The Osirian myth is one of the most influential mythological structures of antiquity. Profound parallels with: 1) Christ (just king, betrayed by close one, dies for the sake of his "people", resurrects; symbolic Christ-Osiris connections were noted by Christian Gnostics and modern Western occultists, especially in 19th century esotericism). 2) Other resurrected gods of the Mediterranean Hellenistic world (Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysus). The Osirian theology was so powerful that during the Hellenistic-Roman period, the cult of Osiris-Isis spread throughout the Mediterranean as one of the most popular religions before Christianity definitively replaced it.

Symbolism: 1) Just death and necessary resurrection — what is integrally good can be destroyed, but the deeply just is reborn. 2) Persistent feminine power — Isis is who actually does the work of resurrection through her sustained love. 3) Continuity of life beyond death — Osiris in the underworld is not "dead" but rather operates in another dimension; the well-prepared deceased meet him in a justified after-death ritual. 4) Agricultural fertility as direct metaphor of spiritual resurrection. The myth still resonates today in deep psychological-spiritual work.