Note 214 — Chapter II · THE ALEXANDRIAN DIVINITIES

Ælius Aristides (in Serapid. p. 88) refuses to discuss this; but Athenagoras (see note 5 p. 63, supra) says that when the members of the body of Osiris were found, they were presented to Isis with the remark that they were the fruits of the vine Dionysus and that Semele was the vine itself. But see p. 65, infra. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. LXXIX. says that “the priests of these days,” meaning, as is evident from the context, the priests of the Alexandrian divinities, “try to conceal” the fact that Osiris rules over the dead. The old religion of Egypt never did; but perhaps this, too, was part of the secret teaching of the Alexandrian Mysteries.