se over the "garden" and the barley was allowed
to grow up. It was the symbol of the resurrection of the god after his
burial, "for the growth of the garden is the growth of the divine
substance."

The death and resurrection of the gods, and _pari passu_ of the life and
fruits of the earth, was thus set forth in ritual, but--and this is our
immediate point--it was also set forth in definite, unmistakable art. In
the great temple of Isis at Philae there is a chamber dedicated to
Osiris. Here is represented the dead Osiris. Out of his body spring ears
of corn, and a priest waters the growing stalk from a pitcher. The
inscription to the picture reads: _This is the form of him whom one may
not name, Osiris of the mysteries, who springs from the returning
waters._ It is but another presentation of the ritual of the month
Choiak, in which effigies of the god made of earth and corn were buried.
When these effigies were taken up it would be found that the corn had
sprouted actually from the body of the god, and this sprouting of the
grain would, as Dr. Frazer says, be "hailed as an omen, or rather as the
cause of the growth of the crops."[1]

Even more vividly is the resurrection set forth in the bas-reliefs that
accompany the great Osiris inscription at Denderah. Here the god is
represented at first as a mummy swathed and lying flat on his bier. Bit
by bit he is seen raising himself up in a series of gymnastically
impossible positions, till at last he rises from a bowl--perhaps his
"garden"--all but erect, between the outspread wings of Isis, while
before him a male figure holds the _crux ansata_, the "cross with a
handle," the Egyptian symbol of life. In ritual, the thing desired,
_i.e._ the resurrection, is acted, in art it is represented.

No one will refuse to these bas-reliefs the title of art. In Egypt,
then, we have clearly an instance--only one out of many--where art and
ritual go hand in hand. Countless bas-reliefs that decorate Egyptian
tombs and temples are but ritual practices translated into stone. This,
as we shall later see, is an important step in our argument. Ancient art
and ritual are not only closely connected, not only do they mutually
explain and illustrate each other, but, as we shall presently find, they
actually arise out of a common human impulse.

* * * * *

The god who died and rose again is not of course confined to Egypt; he
is world-wide. When Ezekiel (viii. 14