3.  That among the persons who compose the godhead, one, though a god,
   could yet suffer pain and be put to death.

   4.  That a god or man, or a being half god and half a man once lived on
   earth, born of an earthly mother but without an earthly father.

The gods of Egypt generally appear in triads, and sometimes as three gods in one.  The triad of Thebes was Amun-Ra, Athor, and Chonso,—­or father, mother, and son.  In Nubia it was Pthah, Amun-Ra, and Horus-Ra.  At Philae it was Osiris, Isis, and Horus.  Other groups were Isis, Nephthys, and Horus; Isis, Nephthys, and Osiris; Osiris, Athor, and Ra.  In later times Horus became the supreme being, and appears united with Ra and Osiris in one figure, holding the two sceptres of Osiris, and having the hawk’s head of Horus and the sun of Ra.  Eusebius says of this god that he declared himself to be Apollo, Lord, and Bacchus.  A porcelain idol worn as a charm combines Pthah the Supreme God of Nature, with Horus the Son-God, and Kneph the Spirit-God.  The body is that of Pthah, God of Nature, with the hawk’s wings of Horus, and the ram’s head of Kneph.  It is curious that Isis the mother, with Horus the child in her arms, as the merciful gods who would save their worshippers from the vengeance of Osiris the stern judge, became as popular a worship in Egypt in the time of Augustus, as that of the Virgin and Child is in Italy to-day.  Juvenal says that the painters of Rome almost lived by painting the goddess Isis, the Madonna of Egypt, which had been imported into Italy, and which was very popular there.

In the trial of the soul before Osiris, as represented on tablets and papyri, are seen the images of gods interceding as mediators and offering sacrifices on its behalf.  There are four of these mediatorial gods, and there is a tablet in the British Museum in which the deceased is shown as placing the gods themselves on the altar as his sin-offering, and pleading their merits.[199]

The death of Osiris, the supreme god of all Egypt, was a central fact in this mythology.  He was killed by Typhon, the Egyptian Satan, and after the fragments of his body had been collected by “the sad Isis,” he returned to life as king of the dead and their judge.[200]

In connection with these facts it is deserving of notice that the doctrine of the trinity and that of the atonement began to take shape in the hands of the Christian theologians of Egypt.  The Trinity and its symbols were already familiar to the Egyptian mind.  Plutarch says that the Egyptians worshipped Osiris, Isis, and Horus under the form of a triangle.  He adds that they considered everything perfect to have three parts, and that therefore their good god made himself threefold, while their god of evil remained single.  Egypt, which had exercised so powerful an influence on the old religion of Rome, was destined also greatly to influence Christianity.  Alexandria was the head-quarters of learning and profound religious