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Article THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES Page 1 of 11 →
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The Ancient Mysteries
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
'I . *— OsiBIS ; SeEAPIS ; ISIS ; HoKUS ; . APIS , & C , We proposed , in a recent number , to present our readers with
some account of the mysteries of the ancients . These must ever be an interesting study , especially interesting to those of antiquarian tastes , more so still to the members of a society ( whether given or not to antiquarian research ) , whose usages and customs bear , in many respects , so close a resemblance to those mysteries of our predecessors , once so sacred and inviolable , now , in
consequence of that very secrecy , so inaccessible ; and yet now , from the fact of their having passed away and being among the things that were , feirly objects of inquiry . It is our purpose , therefore , by diligent search into every possible source which can throw any light upon a subject so difficult to liandle , to present oiir readers with a sketch—it can scarcely be more- —of these once celebrated rites , as
tending not merely to increase our store of general knowledge , but perhaps to increase our respect , by contrast , for the Craft to which we belong . But first let us remark , that in our paper above alluded to , we mentioned that two learned writers had defined the ancient mysteries to be , besides the public worship of the gods of those days , a secret
or hidden worship of the gods in those places over which they specially presided—of which they were said to be the tutelary deitiesconcealed from the mass of the people , and unfolded only to the Mv > jroi 7 or initiated . Here at once we gain by the contrast . To us , in the present day , there is no secret worship ; the Great Architect of the Universe is known to and adored by all alike , and Tie who was once ignorantly worshipped , is now openly declared and
acknowledged . To return however to the subject of the mysteries . Bishop Warburton tells us that the first and original mysteries were those of Isis and Osiris in Egypt ; to these then let us first turn our attention . Osiris and Isis , two very ancient objects of adoration among the Egyptians , were according to Godfrey Higgins ( the intimate friend of the late Duke of Sussex ) , in his " Anacalypsis , " husband and wife , and also brother and sister ; they were representatives of the sun and the moon , and were represented in their turn by a bull and a cow respectively . Osiris was also known , by the names of Mithras and Serapis , and was supposed by some to be identical with
Harpocrates , the god of silence ( Sty //) . ] To was the god at whoso birth it was said that a voice was hoard to declare that tho lord of all nature sprang forth to light . Osiris was also identical with the Kilo , ( C the meaning of which latter word is " black : " heno the bull which represented Osiris was of a black colour , C Osiris corte non solum
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Ancient Mysteries
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
'I . *— OsiBIS ; SeEAPIS ; ISIS ; HoKUS ; . APIS , & C , We proposed , in a recent number , to present our readers with
some account of the mysteries of the ancients . These must ever be an interesting study , especially interesting to those of antiquarian tastes , more so still to the members of a society ( whether given or not to antiquarian research ) , whose usages and customs bear , in many respects , so close a resemblance to those mysteries of our predecessors , once so sacred and inviolable , now , in
consequence of that very secrecy , so inaccessible ; and yet now , from the fact of their having passed away and being among the things that were , feirly objects of inquiry . It is our purpose , therefore , by diligent search into every possible source which can throw any light upon a subject so difficult to liandle , to present oiir readers with a sketch—it can scarcely be more- —of these once celebrated rites , as
tending not merely to increase our store of general knowledge , but perhaps to increase our respect , by contrast , for the Craft to which we belong . But first let us remark , that in our paper above alluded to , we mentioned that two learned writers had defined the ancient mysteries to be , besides the public worship of the gods of those days , a secret
or hidden worship of the gods in those places over which they specially presided—of which they were said to be the tutelary deitiesconcealed from the mass of the people , and unfolded only to the Mv > jroi 7 or initiated . Here at once we gain by the contrast . To us , in the present day , there is no secret worship ; the Great Architect of the Universe is known to and adored by all alike , and Tie who was once ignorantly worshipped , is now openly declared and
acknowledged . To return however to the subject of the mysteries . Bishop Warburton tells us that the first and original mysteries were those of Isis and Osiris in Egypt ; to these then let us first turn our attention . Osiris and Isis , two very ancient objects of adoration among the Egyptians , were according to Godfrey Higgins ( the intimate friend of the late Duke of Sussex ) , in his " Anacalypsis , " husband and wife , and also brother and sister ; they were representatives of the sun and the moon , and were represented in their turn by a bull and a cow respectively . Osiris was also known , by the names of Mithras and Serapis , and was supposed by some to be identical with
Harpocrates , the god of silence ( Sty //) . ] To was the god at whoso birth it was said that a voice was hoard to declare that tho lord of all nature sprang forth to light . Osiris was also identical with the Kilo , ( C the meaning of which latter word is " black : " heno the bull which represented Osiris was of a black colour , C Osiris corte non solum