ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an episode that seems to have been borrowed from the legend of Demeter; when Isis was unable to immortalize her nurseling Triptolemus she turned him into the founder of agriculture. These hymns sung or recited at the feasts of Isis are often written in the first person: the goddess herself is speaking, and after introducing herself as Isis, she lists the domains of her now universal power. It seems, in fact, that the myth of Isis may have prepared the way for this new monotheistic religion; in Christianity to a providence promises life after death if certain purifications are carried out, and like Isis the Virgin is portrayed carrying a child, with both mothers raising their son in secret to escape a murderer. Freemasonry, as heir to the mediaeval and ancient guilds, adopted its oriental rites during the craze for things Egyptian which resulted from the work of the Egyptologist Kircher.
