uld save their worshippers from the vengeance of Osiris the stern
judge, became as popular a worship in Egypt in the time of Augustus, as
that of the Virgin and Child is in Italy to-day. Juvenal says that the
painters of Rome almost lived by painting the goddess Isis, the Madonna of
Egypt, which had been imported into Italy, and which was very popular
there.

In the trial of the soul before Osiris, as represented on tablets and
papyri, are seen the images of gods interceding as mediators and offering
sacrifices on its behalf. There are four of these mediatorial gods, and
there is a tablet in the British Museum in which the deceased is shown as
placing the gods themselves on the altar as his sin-offering, and pleading
their merits.[199]

The death of Osiris, the supreme god of all Egypt, was a central fact in
this mythology. He was killed by Typhon, the Egyptian Satan, and after
the fragments of his body had been collected by "the sad Isis," he
returned to life as king of the dead and their judge.[200]

In connection with these facts it is deserving of notice that the doctrine
of the trinity and that of the atonement began to take shape in the hands
of the Christian theologians of Egypt. The Trinity and its symbols were
already familiar to the Egyptian mind. Plutarch says that the Egyptians
worshipped Osiris, Isis, and Horus under the form of a triangle. He adds
that they considered everything perfect to have three parts, and that
therefore their good god made himself threefold, while their god of evil
remained single. Egypt, which had exercised so powerful an influence on
the old religion of Rome, was destined also greatly to influence
Christianity. Alexandria was the head-quarters of learning and profound
religious speculations in the first centuries. Clemens, Origen, Dionysius,
Athanasius, were eminent teachers in that school. Its doctrines were[201]
that God had revealed himself to all nations by his Logos, or Word.
Christianity is its highest revelation. The common Christian lives by
faith, but the more advanced believer has gnosis, or philosophic insight
of Christianity as the eternal law of the soul. This doctrine soon
substituted speculation in place of the simplicity of early Christianity.
The influence of Alexandrian thought was increased by the high culture
which prevailed there, and by the book-trade of this Egyptian city. All
the oldest manuscripts of the Bible now extant were transcribed by
Alexandrian pe