OSIRIDE (OSIRIS; Egyptian Wéjr; Greek "Οσίρις). — A deity of primary importance in the Egyptian pantheon, revealing multiple and complex aspects. Originally
orthodoxy. O.’s personal, though not exclusive, collaboration in the drafting of the Nicene Creed seems undeniable. He was also president of the Council of Sardica (343), and the canons and a letter to Pope Julius I concerning the Nicene Creed are due to him.
O. also intervened in other serious affairs. The Donatists attributed to him the severe imperial decisions of 316, on the occasion of the schism against Bishop Caecilian. The Emperor’s law of 18 April 321, facilitating the manumission of slaves in the Churches, is addressed to O. (Cod. Theod., 4, 7): a clear indication of the role he played in this matter.
For a long time O. resisted the pressures of Constantius (355), who wished to make him repudiate the Nicene faith and condemn St Athanasius. His vigorous response (356) earned him exile to Sirmium at the hands of the Emperor; and there, by then a centenarian, worn out by hardships and exile amid violence of every kind, he was finally forced to sign the second formula of Sirmium. He soon retracted it himself at the hour of death, since it had been imposed by violence; thus St Athanasius attests: « In his testament he protested against the violence used and launched his anathemas against the Arian heresy, ordering that no one should follow it ». The Greek Church venerates him as a saint on 27 August.
His entire life was sacrificed to action. Nevertheless, although brief, he left several writings, true literary jewels. St Isidore of Seville attributes to him a letter to his sister, De laude virginitatis, in a serene style, and a treatise De interpretatione vestium sacerdotalium quae sunt in Veteri Testamento, whose ingenuity and insight he praises; but nothing of these works has survived. St Athanasius, on the other hand, transmitted in his Historia Arianorum, 44, the letter to Constantius, an authoritative monument to the great bishop’s fortitude and, at the same time, a decisive canon of the Church’s jurisdiction and immunity before every abuse.
was almost certainly an ancient deified king whose cult replaced that of the local god of Busiris, a city in the Delta. The tradition of O.’s violent death gave rise to two of his most characteristic aspects: one as a deity of the dead, the other as an agrarian deity.
The former is connected with the well-known legend (v. HÓRO; ISIDE) of his treacherous murder by his brother Seth and of his subsequent resurrection in the underworld, where he reigns eternally over the dead, presiding over the judgment of their souls (v. LIBRO DEI MORTI). From the Middle Kingdom until the end of Pharaonic civilization, O.’s primacy over all the other deities of the underworld is consistently documented by the funerary texts. O. was invoked by the epithet Wun-nfr (Greek Ὀννόωρις) = « the Beautiful Being » par excellence, that is, eternally incorrupt; another frequent appellation of his was « Lord of the West », that is, of the underworld, which the sun illuminated every night by following a route opposite to its daytime course. Possession of a tomb or cenotaph, or at least of a stele in the great necropolis of Abydos, the ancient sacred city of O., where a reliquary containing his head was preserved, constituted a guarantee and pledge of a happy afterlife. In the same city, the « mysteries of O. » were celebrated annually, intended to commemorate his death and resurrection.
O.’s aspect as an agrarian deity is likewise connected with an episode in the legend, since the presence of O.’s corpse in the Nile was associated with the beneficent annual inundation. Thus O., « the new water of the Nile », causes the periodic renewal of vegetative life. Significant in this regard is the rite by which barley was made to sprout from an image of molded earth representing O. The character of a cosmic and celestial deity is the product of the speculations of the Heliopolitan theologians, who were compelled to introduce O. into their universal system because of the god’s ever-growing popularity. At times O. appears identified with the moon, since the phases of the lunar cycle were associated with the god’s murder by Seth and with his subsequent rebirth.
Iconographically, O. is represented in mummiform, tightly wrapped in bandages, sometimes stylized as a proper garment, leaving only the hands and head free: an evident allusion to the embalming of the corpse carried out by Anubis. The other attributes—the tall tiara flanked by two ostrich feathers, scepter, and flagellum—are connected with O.’s royalty. His flesh is green, a symbol of eternal youth.
At Busiris, O.’s emblem consisted of a kind of pillar (gd), of uncertain derivation.