Note 366 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

H. Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Ägypter, Leipzig, 1885, p. 335. The sacred bull Apis, which the Egyptians regarded as an image of the soul of Osiris, a god often identified with the moon, was supposed to be born of a virgin cow impregnated by a divine influence emanating from the moon (Plutarch, Quæstiones conviviales, viii, 1, 3; idem, De Iside et Osiride, 43). On the discovery of an Apis the Egyptians kept a holiday (Herodotus, iii, 28).