ISIS. An Egyptian deity. The goddess Isis was sister and wife of Osiris (q.v.), sister of Set (q.v.) and Nephthys (q.v.), and mother of Horns (q.v.). In the Osiris myth (q.v.) Isis is the devoted wife who watched over her husband and tried to protect him against the plots of his enemy Set. " She was his safeguard and warded off enemies, for she was subtle, with an excellent tongue, her word did not fail, and she was admirable in command." When at length Set succeeded and caused the dead body of Osiris to dig appear, Isis sought it with out wearying. When she found it, Anubis (q.v.), com missioned by the god Ra (q.v.). put the members together, and Isis breathed into the body new life for a second, but not earthly, existence. After a time Isis gave birth to a son Horns (q.v.). When Horns grew up he fought against Set and prevailed. In the Greek period Isis assumed a compound form among the people and became Isis-Hathor-Aphrodite. In Alexandria she became patroness of mariners. This character was, no doubt, as J. G. Frazer suggests, assigned to her by the sea-faring Greeks. Frazer also thinks that the epithet of Stella Maris as applied to the Virgin Mary as the guardian of tempest-tossed sailors was suggested by the similar wor ship of Isis. The original significance of the goddess
Isis is difficult to determine. Frazer gives reasons for thinking that Osiris was the corn-god and Isis the corn goddess. She is spoken of in inscriptions as " creatress of the green crop " and " mistress of bread." The Greeks identified her with Demeter, the Romans with Ceres. In later times the conception of Isis was refined and spiritualized. She became the model of a tender mother and true wife. She resembles the Madonna. " Indeed her stately ritual, with its shaven and tonsured priests, its matins and vespers, its tinkling music, its baptism and aspersion's of holy water, its solemn processions, its jewelled images of the Mother of God, presented many points of similarity to the pomps and ceremonies of Catholicism " (Frazer). The figure of Isis and the infant Horns has sometimes been mis taken for that of the Madonna and child. The animal sacred to Isis was the cow. Hence she is represented as wearing horns, or even as having the bead of a cow. See A. Wiedemann; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 190E; Adolf Erman, Handbook; Naville, The Old Egyptian Faith, 1909; Reinach, O.