., pl. 40. Numismatic evidence
exhibits a similar readiness on the part of local Syrian
cults to adopt the veneer of Hellenistic civilization while
retaining in great measure their own individuality; see
Hill, "Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman Age", in
_Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. V (1912).

The Elephantine papyri have shown that the early Jews of the Diaspora,
though untrammeled by the orthodoxy of Jerusalem, maintained the purity
of their local cult in the face of considerable difficulties. Hence the
gravestones of their Aramaean contemporaries, which have been found in
Egypt, can only be cited to illustrate the temptations to which they
were exposed.(1) Such was the memorial erected by Abseli to the memory
of his parents, Abba and Ahatbu, in the fourth year of Xerxes, 481
B.C.(2) They had evidently adopted the religion of Osiris, and were
buried at Saqqarah in accordance with the Egyptian rites. The upper
scene engraved upon the stele represents Abba and his wife in the
presence of Osiris, who is attended by Isis and Nephthys; and in the
lower panel is the funeral scene, in which all the mourners with
one exception are Asiatics. Certain details of the rites that are
represented, and mistakes in the hieroglyphic version of the text, prove
that the work is Aramaean throughout.(3)

(1) It may be admitted that the Greek platonized cult of
Isis and Osiris had its origin in the fusion of Greeks and
Egyptians which took place in Ptolemaic times (cf. Scott-
Moncrieff, _Paganism and Christianity in Egypt_, p. 33 f.).
But we may assume that already in the Persian period the
Osiris cult had begun to acquire a tinge of mysticism,
which, though it did not affect the mechanical reproduction
of the native texts, appealed to the Oriental mind as well
as to certain elements in Greek religion. Persian influence
probably prepared the way for the Platonic exegesis of the
Osiris and Isis legends which we find in Plutarch; and the
latter may have been in great measure a development, and
not, as is often assumed, a complete misunderstanding of the
later Egyptian cult.

(2) _C.I.S._, II. i, tab. XI, No. 122.

(3) A very similar monument is the Carpentras Stele
(_C.I.S._, II., i, tab. XIII, No. 141), commemorating Taba,
daughter of Tahapi, an Aramaean lady who was also a convert
to Osiris. It i