Osiris

Osiris is the Egyptian god of the dead, of resurrection, and of the fertile life of the Nile. A just king who taught humankind agriculture and law, he was murdered by his jealous brother Set, who sealed him in a chest and later cut his body into pieces. His wife Isis recovered the parts and revived him long enough to conceive their son Horus; thereafter Osiris reigned as lord and judge of the underworld, where every soul came before him to have its deeds weighed.

His death and restoration made him the great Egyptian symbol of life triumphant over death, and the hope of every initiate to share his renewal. Plutarch interpreted Osiris in Platonic fashion as the rational, formative principle — the logos or intelligible order — that informs the world, is scattered and obscured in matter, yet is forever gathered and made whole again, an image of the eternal amid the flux of becoming.