Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride. Ed. with intro J. Gwyn Griffiths. Cambridge: U of Wales P, 1970.

(excerpted by Clifford Stetner)

ON ISIS AND OSIRIS

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1. All blessings, Clea, should be sought of the gods by the 351 intelligent, and we especially pray that in our search we may receive direct from them an understanding of their own nature, as far as that is possible to men; for nothing greater is attainable by man, and nothing nobler can be granted by God, than truth.  Whereas God gives wholly to men the other things which they need, he allows them only a share in intelligence and insight, since these are qualities distinctively divine in possession and use. For the divine is not made blessed with silver and gold, nor strong with thunder and lightning, but is blessed and strong through understanding and insight.. Homer has expressed this more felicitously than anything he has said about the gods:

Both had a common race and fatherhood,

But Zeus was first-born and in knowledge greater.

(Iliad, 13. 354-5.)

Here he has shown that the sovereignty of Zeus is nobler because it takes precedence in understanding and wisdom. I believe that the happiness which marks even the eternal life which God enjoys consists in the fact that his knowledge does not lag behind events; for if one took away knowledge of what really exists, and insight, immortality would be a matter not of life but merely of the passage of time.

2. For this reason the longing for truth, particularly for truth about the gods, is a yearning after divinity, since it involves in its training and intellectual pursuit an acquirement of sacred lore which constitutes a holier task than all ceremonial purification and temple service, a task which is supremely welcome to this goddess whom you worship as one who is exceptionally wise and devoted to wisdom.

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Her name certainly seems to imply that to her more than anyone belong knowledge and understanding. For Isis is a Greek name; so is Typhon, who is hostile to the goddess and demented by ignorance and deceit; he scatters and destroys the sacred Word which the goddess collects and puts together and delivers to those undergoing initiation; the process of consecra­tion in the meantime, by means of a continuous and temperate regimen and abstinence from many foods and the pleasures of love, keeps in check the unrestrained and pleasure-seeking ele 352 ment, and accustoms one to undertake austere and difficult services in sacred rites, of which the end is the knowledge of the First and the Lord, whom only the mind can understand and whom the goddess summons one to seek as a being who is near and with her and united to her. The name of her sanctuary also clearly offers recognition and knowledge of what really exists; for it is called the Iseion to indicate that we shall know what really exists if we approach the sanctuaries of the goddess with reason and reverence.

3. Many have related that she was the daughter of Hermes, and many others that she was the daughter of Prometheus, believing the latter to be the discoverer of wisdom and forethought, and Hermes to be the discoverer of writing and of music and poetry. That is why they call the leader of the Muses in the city of Hermes at once Isis and Justice, since she is wise, as we have said, and shows the divine objects to those who are truly and justly called the Bearers of the Sacred Vessels and the Keepers of the Sacred Vestments. These are they who carry in their soul, as in a box, the sacred lore about the gods which is pure of all super­stition and vain curiosity, and they who attend to the clothes, some dark and shadowy, others bright and shining, which suggest

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concerning the conception of the gods such ideas as are made mani­fest in relation also to the sacred dress. Because of this, the adorn­ment with such garments of the deceased devotees of Isis is a sign that they have this lore with them, and that they go to the nether world possessing this and nothing else. For it is not the cultivation of a beard, Clea, and the wearing of a threadbare cloak that make a philosopher, nor does dressing in linen and all manner of shaving make an Isiac devotee; the true devotee of Isis is he who, whenever he hears the traditional view of what is displayed and done with regard. to these gods, examines and investigates rationally what truth there may be in it.

4. Most people have failed to notice this very common and small point, why it is that the priests cut off their hair and wear linen clothes; some do not bother at all to understand these practices, while others say that the priests abstain from the use of wool, as from mutton, because they hold the sheep in reverence; that they shave their heads as a mark of sorrow and that they wear linen because of the colour produced by the flax in blossom, which is like the sky-blue of the upper air that surrounds the earth. There is only one true reason for all this. 'It is not right', as Plato says (Phaedo, 67B), 'for the impure to touch the pure'; no surplus matter from food and no dung is holy or pure, and it is from surplus matter that wool, fur, hair and claws arise and grow. It would therefore be absurd for the priests, while removing their own hair by shaving and making the whole body evenly smooth, to put on and wear the hair of animals. When Hesiod says (Works and Days, 742)

Do not from the five-branched (i.e. the hand) in a rich banquet of the gods

Cut the dry from the green (i.e. the nail from the quick) with the gleaming iron

we should think he is teaching us that when taking part in a sacred feast, people should be pure beforehand and should not practise purification and removal of surplus matter during the religious

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ceremonies themselves. Flax grows from the earth, which is death­less, and yields an edible fruit, providing clothing which is at once cheap and clean; it is not oppressive with its covering, it is suitable for every season, and is the material, so they say, least likely to breed lice; but this I discuss elsewhere.

5. The priests have such a loathing for the growth of surplus matter that they not only reject most kinds of pulse and the flesh of sheep and swine because they produce much surplus fat, but also in their periods of purification they exclude salt from food, having among other reasons the fact that salt makes them more thirsty and voracious by exciting the appetite. To believe, as Aristagoras does, that salt is impure because many small creatures die in its crystallizations after being caught in them, is foolish. It is also 353 said that they water the Apis from a private well and keep him by every means away from the Nile, not because they consider the water to be defiled on account of the crocodile, as some believe (for nothing is held in such esteem by the Egyptians as the Nile); but because drinking the Nile water seems to have a fattening effect and to produce excess of flesh. They do not wish the Apis to be thus nor to be thus themselves, but they want their bodies to be compact and light around their souls and not to oppress or weigh down the divine part with a mortal element which is strong and heavy.

6. Those who serve the god in Heliopolis do not bring wine at all into the sanctuary, deeming it unbecoming that they should drink during the day, when their lord and king is looking on; the other priests drink wine, but only a little. They have many periods of purification when they do not touch it, and on these occasions they steadfastly investigate, learn and teach concerning divine matters. The kings also, since they were priests, drank the amount of wine specified by the sacred writings, as Hecataeus has related; they began to drink it at the time of Psammetichus, and

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before that they did not drink wine or pour it in libation as something acceptable to the gods, but as the blood of those who had once made war against the gods, believing that vines grew from these when they had fallen and mingled with the earth; for this reason do they believe that drunkenness drives people out of their minds and dements them, because they have been filled, as they think, with the blood of their ancestors. Eudoxus in the second book of his Description of the World says that these statements are made thus by the priests.

7. They all abstain from sea fish, not from all of them, but from certain kinds; the Oxyrhynchites, for example, abstain from fish caught with a hook. Since they revere the oxyrhynchus fish, they are afraid that one day the hook may not be clean when the oxyrhynchus is caught by it. So too the people of Syene abstain from the phagrus fish; for it seems to appear with the rising Nile and to tell the glad people of the inundation, bringing the news with its appearance. The priests, on the other hand, abstain from all fish, and on the ninth day of Thoth, when all the other Egyptians eat roast fish before their front doors, the priests do not taste the fish, but burn them before their doors. For this they have two reasons, one of which is religious and quite extraordinary—I shall return to it later—and in accord with what is inculcated as sacred doctrine concerning Osiris and Typhon. The other reason is obvious and at hand: it declares that fish is a cooked food which is neither a necessity nor a luxury; here it agrees with Homer who tells in his verse that neither did the extravagantly living Phaea­dans nor the Ithacans, who were islanders, partake of fish, nor yet did the companions of Odysseus in so long a voyage, and that by sea, not at least until they were in dire need. They believe the sea to consist entirely of fire and that it has been displaced (from the earth), being neither a part nor element (of it), but an alien excrescence at once destructive and injurious.

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8. For nothing irrational or fabulous or based on superstition, as some believe, was embodied in the religious services, but ideas which either had moral and necessary causes or were not devoid of historical or physical plausibility, such as that connected with the onion; for the story that Dictys, the nursling of Isis, fell into the river and was drowned because he failed to grasp a clump of onions, is utterly incredible; the priests indeed hold the onion also in abhorrence and disgust, observing that it is the only plant that naturally flourishes and abounds when the moon is on the wane. It is useful neither to those who fast nor to those who feast; the former object that it makes those who approach it become thirsty, the latter that it makes them cry.

In the same way they also consider the pig to be an unclean animal; for it seems to prefer to copulate when the moon is on the wane, and the bodies of those who drink its milk come out with rash and scabrous sores. When they sacrifice a pig once every year in 354 full moon and devour it, they narrate a story that Typhon, as he was pursuing a pig in full moon, found the wooden coffin in which the body of Osiris lay and tore it up; but they do not all accept this tale, believing rather that it is a misunderstanding like many other notions.

But they say that the ancient Egyptians so thoroughly rejected luxury, extravagance and soft living that they averred a stela to have been set up in Thebes in the temple with curses inscribed upon it against Meinis the King, who was the first to divert the Egyptians from the simple life without wealth and money. It is said that Tekhnactis, the father of Bockhoris, during his campaign against the Arabs, when his equipment was slow in coming, readily used the provision at hand, and then, after enjoying a deep sleep on a bed of straw, embraced the frugal life. It was on this occasion that he cursed Meinis, and when the priests praised him, he recorded the curse on a stela.

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9. Kings were chosen from among the priests or the warriors, the latter class being held in respect and honour for its bravery, the former for its wisdom. A king chosen from among the warriors instantly became a priest and shared in the philosophy that is hidden for the most part in myths and stories which show dim reflections and insights of the truth, just as they of course suggest c themselves when they place sphinxes appositely before the shrines, intimating that their teaching about the gods holds a mysterious wisdom. At Sais the seated statue of Athena, whom they consider to be Isis also, bore the following inscription: 'I am all that has been and is and will be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle.'

While the majority still believe that Amun (which we modify into Ammon) is the proper name of Zeus among the Egyptians, Manetho the Sebennyte thinks that it means 'what is concealed' and that concealment is signified by this word, whereas Hecataeus the Abderite says that the Egyptians also use this expression whenever they greet someone, the word being one of address. Hence they name the supreme god, whom they believe to be one with the universe, Amun, since they address him as one invisible and concealed, and exhort him to become manifest and clear to them. So great was the concern of the Egyptians for wisdom in religion.

10. This is attested also by the wisest of the Greeks, Solon, Thales, Plato, Eudoxus, and Pythagoras, and, as some say, by Lycurgus as well; they came to Egypt and were in touch with the priests. Eudoxus indeed is said to have had instruction from Khonouphis the Memphite, Solon from Sonkhis the Saite, and Pythagoras from Oinouphis the Heliopolitan. Pythagoras in particular, it appears, enjoying a state of mutual admiration with these people, imitated their symbolism and mysterious manner, interpersing his teaching with riddles; for many of the Pythago­rean sayings are not at all lacking in the lore of the writing which

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is called hieroglyphic, such as 'Do not eat in a chariot' and 'Do not sit on a bushel' and 'Do not plant a palm-tree' and 'Do not stir up the fire in a house with a sword'.

I believe myself that when these people call the monad Apollo, the dyad Artemis, the hebdomad Athena, and the first cube Poseidon, it is like what is established and assuredly enacted and written in the sacred rites. For they write the name of the King and Lord Osiris by means of an eye and a sceptre; some explain  the name as meaning 'many-355 eyed', since os in Egyptian means , many' and iri 'eye'; the heaven, as it is ageless through its eternity, they write with a cobra, and passion with a heart under which a censer lies. In Thebes statues of judges had been set up which were without hands, and that of the supreme judge with his eyes closed, implying that justice is at once incorruptible and inexorable. Soldiers had a scarab-beetle as their stamped badge; for the scarab-beetle is not female, but they are all males. [And they bear their young as they make their balls, preparing not so much a means of nourishment as a place of birth.]

11. Thus whenever you hear the myths told by the Egyptians about the gods, those, for instance, which tell of their wanderings, mutilations, and many other such tales, you should remember what was said above and not think that any of these things is said to have actually happened so or to have been enacted so; for they do not call Hermes' the Dog' in a literal sense, but inasmuch as the animal discriminates friend and foe by recognition and non­-recognition, as Plato says (Resp. 375E sqq.), they associate its

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qualities of guardianship, vigilance and sagacity with the most discerning of the gods. Nor do they believe that the Sun-god arises from a lotus-flower as a newborn babe, but thus they represent sunrise, symbolizing the rekindling of the sun from amid moisture. A further instance is the fact that Okhus, the very savage and fearful king of the Persians, who slew many, and in the end slaughtered also the Apis and dined on it with his friends, was called 'Sword' by them, and is still so called in the list of kings; they do not indicate his nature literally thereby, I take it, but compare the harshness and wickedness of his character with the instrument of death. If you hear the matters pertaining to the gods in this way, receiving the myth from those who interpret it reverently and philosophically, and if you perform and observe constantly the accepted rites, considering that nothing is more pleasing to the gods, whether sacrifice or ritual enactment, than the true belief about them, thus you will avoid superstition, which is no less an evil than atheism.

12. The story is related as follows in as brief a way as possible, omitting the utterly useless and superfluous features. They say that when Rhea secretly had intercourse with Cronus, Helius came to know about it and set on her a curse that she should not give birth in any month or year. Then Hermes, falling in love with the goddess, became intimate with her, and then played draughts against the Moon. He won the seventieth part of each of her illuminations, and having put together five days out of the whole of his gains, he added them to the three hundred and sixty; these five the Egyptians now call the epagomenal days and on them they celebrate the gods' birthdays.

For they say that on the first day Osiris was born and that as he was delivered a voice cried out that the Lord of All was coming to the light of day. Some say that one Pamyle, who was fetching water at Thebes, heard a voice from the temple of Zeus instructing her to cry out loudly that the great king and benefactor, Osiris, had been born; and that because of this she brought up Osiris,

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Cronus having entrusted him to her, and that the festival of the Pamylia, which is like the Phallephoria, is celebrated in her honour. On the second day, it is said, Aroueris was born, whom some call Apollo and the elder Horus; and on the third Typhon was born, not in the right time or place, but bursting through with a blow, he leapt from his mother's side. On the fourth day Isis was born, near very moist places, and on the fifth Nephthys, whom they also call Teleute (End) and Aphrodite, and some Nike (Victory). They say that Osiris and Aroueris were the offspring of Helius, Isis of Hermes, and Typhon and Nephthys of Cronus. For this reason kings used to regard the third of the epagomenal 356 days as unlucky and on it they did no public business nor did they attend to their own persons until night. They say that Nephthys married Typhon, and that Isis and Osiris, being in love with each other even before they were born, were united in the darkness of the womb. Some aver that Aroueris was the fruit of this union and that he is called the elder Horus by the Egyptians, and Apollo by the Greeks.

13. It is said that Osiris, when he was king, at once freed the Egyptians from their primitive and brutish manner of life; he showed them how to grow crops, established laws for them, and taught them to worship gods. Later he civilized the whole world as he traversed through it, having very little need of arms, but winning over most of the peoples by beguiling them with per­suasive speech together with all manner of song and poetry. That is why the Greeks thought he was the same as Dionysus.

When he was away Typhon conspired in no way against him since Isis was well on guard and kept careful watch, but on his return he devised a plot against him, making seventy-two men his fellow-conspirators and having as helper a queen who had come

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from Ethiopia, whom they name Aso. Typhon secretly measured the body of Osiris and got made to the corresponding size a beautiful chest which was exquisitely decorated. This he brought to the banqueting-hall, and when the guests showed pleasure and

admiration at the sight of it, Typhon promised playfully that whoever would lie down in it and show that he fitted it, should have the chest as a gift. They all tried one by one, and since no one fitted into it, Osiris went in and lay down. Then the conspirators ran and slammed the lid on, and after securing it with bolts from the outside and also with molten lead poured on, they took it out to the river and let it go to the sea by way of the Tanitic mouth, which the Egyptians still call, because of this, hateful and abominable. They say that all these events occurred on the seventeenth day of the month of Athyr, when the sun passes through the scorpion, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris. But some state that this was the period of his life rather than of his reign.

14. The first to hear of the misfortune and to spread the news of its occurrence were the Pans and Satyrs who live near Khemmis, and because of this, the sudden disturbance and excitement of a crowd is still referred to as 'panic'. When Isis heard of it she cut off there and then one of her locks and put on a mourning garment; accordingly the city is called Coptos to this day. Others think that the name indicates deprivation; for they use koptein to mean 'to deprive', and they suggest that Isis, when she was wandering everywhere in a state of distress, passed by no one without accosting him, and even when she met children, she asked them about the chest. Some of these had happened to see it and they

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named the river-mouth through which Typhon's friends had pushed the box to the sea. For this reason the Egyptians believe that children have the power of divination, and they take omens especially from children's shouts as they play near the temples and say whatever occurs to them.

When Isis found that Osiris had loved and been intimate with her sister while mistaking her for herself, and saw a proof of this in the garland of melilot which he had left with Nephthys, she searched for the child (for Nephthys had exposed it instantly upon giving birth to it, in fear of Typhon); and when Isis found it with the help of dogs which had led her on with difficulty and pain, it was reared and became her guard and attendant, being called Anubis. He is said to keep watch over the gods as dogs do over men.

5. They say that she learned as a result of this that the chest had been cast up by 357 the sea in the land of Byblos and that the surf had brought it gently to rest in a heath-tree. Having shot up in a short time into a most lovely and tall young tree, the heath enfolded the chest and grew around it, hiding it within itself. Admiring the size of the tree, the king cut off the part of the trunk which encom­passed the coffin, which was not visible, and used it as a pillar to support the roof. They say that Isis heard of this through the divine breath of rumour and came to Byblos, where she sat down near a fountain, dejected and tearful. She spoke to no one except the queen's maids, whom she greeted and welcomed, plaiting their hair and breathing upon their skin a wonderful fragrance which emanated from herself. when the queen saw her maids she was struck with longing for the stranger's hair and for her skin, which breathed ambrosia; and so Isis was sent for and became friendly with the queen and was made nurse of her child. The king's name, they say, was Malcathros; some say that the queen's

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name was Astarte, others Saosis, and others Neinanous, whom the Greeks would call Athenais.

16. They say that Isis nursed the child, putting her finger in its mouth instead of her breast, but that in the night she burned the mortal parts of its body, while she herself became a swallow, flying around the pillar and making lament until the queen, who had been watching her, gave a shriek when she saw her child on fire, and so deprived it of immortality. The goddess then revealed herself and demanded the pillar under the roof. She took it from beneath with the utmost ease and proceeded to cut away the heath-tree. This she then covered with linen and poured sweet oil on it, after which she gave it into the keeping of the king and queen; to this day the people of Byblos venerate the wood, which is in the temple of Isis. The goddess then fell upon the coffin and gave such a loud wail that the younger of the king's sons died; the elder son she took with her, and placing the coffin in a boat, she set sail. When the river phaedrus produced a somewhat rough wind towards dawn, in a fit of anger she dried up the stream.

17. As soon as she happened on a deserted spot, there in solitude she opened the chest and pressing her face to that of Osiris, she embraced him and began to cry. She then noticed that the boy had approached silently from behind and had observed her, whereupon she turned round and full of anger gave him a terrible look. The boy was unable to bear the fright, and dropped dead. Some say that it did not happen so, but, as we said before (ch. 8), that he fell into the sea and is honoured because of the goddess, being the same person as the Maneros of whom the Egyptians sing in their banquets. Some say the boy was called [Palaestinus or] Pelousius and that the city founded by the goddess (Pelusium) was named after him; also that the Maneros of whom they sing was the discoverer of music and poetry. Others again say that it is not the name of a man at all, but an expression such

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as comes naturally to men as they drink and make merry: 'The best of luck to this and that!' For this sentiment, signified by the word Maneros, is expressed by the Egyptians on all festive occasions. For instance, there is the image of a dead man which is carried round in a chest and shown them: this is not, as some assume, a memorial of the suffering of Osiris, but they say that thus they exhort their inebriated companions to use the present and enjoy it, since everyone will very soon be like the image seen; this is why they bring it into the feast.

18. Having journeyed to her son Horus who was being brought up in Buto, Isis put the box aside, and Typhon, when he was hunting by night in the moonlight, came upon it. He recog­nized the body, and having cut it into fourteen parts, he scattered them. When 358 she heard of this, Isis searched for them in a papyrus boat, sailing through the marshes. That is why people who sail in papyrus skiffs are not harmed by crocodiles, which show either fear or veneration because of the goddess. From this circumstance arises the fact that many tombs of Osiris are said to exist in Egypt, for the goddess, as she came upon each part, held a burial cere­mony. Some deny this, saying that she fashioned images and distributed them to each city as though she was giving the whole body, so that he (Osiris) might be honoured by more people and that Typhon, if he overcame Horus, when he sought for the true tomb, might be baffled in his search because many tombs would be mentioned and shown. The only part of Osiris which Isis did not find was his male member; for no sooner was it thrown into the river than the lepidotus, phagrus and oxyrhynchus ate of it, fish which they most of all abhor. In its place Isis fashioned a likeness of it and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even today hold festival.

19. Afterwards Osiris came to Horus, it is said, from the underworld, and equipped and trained him for battle. Then he questioned him as to what he considered to be the finest action,

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and Horus said, 'To succour one’s father and mother when they have suffered wrong'. Osiris asked him again what he considered to be the most useful animal for those going out to battle. when Horus replied, 'The horse', he was surprised and he queried why

he did not name the lion rather than the horse. Horus answered that the lion was helpful to some one in need of aid, but that the horse routed the fugitive and so destroyed completely the force of the enemy. Osiris was pleased on hearing this, thinking that Horus had adequately prepared himself. When many were coming over, as they say, to the side of Horus, there came also Thoueris, Typhon's concubine; and a snake which pursued her was cut in pieces by Horus, for which reason they now throw out a piece of rope in public and cut it up. The battle then lasted for many days and Horus won. When Isis came across Typhon tied in bonds, she did not kill him, but freed him and let him go. Horus did not take this at all calmly, but laying hands on his mother he ripped off the crown from her head. Hermes however put on her instead a cow-headed helmet. When Typhon brought a charge of illegitimacy against Horus, Hermes helped Horus, and the latter was judged by the gods to be legitimate. Typhon was defeated in two other battles, and Isis, having had sexual union with Osiris after his death, bore Harpocrates, prematurely delivered and weak in his lower limbs.

20. The foregoing are pretty well the main points of the myth with the exception of the most outrageous episodes, such as those concerning the dismemberment of Horus and the decapitation of Isis. For if they believe and say these things about the blessed and incorruptible nature through which we mainly form our idea of the divine, as though they were really enacted and actually happened, there is no need to tell you that

One needs must spit and purify the mouth

as Aeschylus has it. For you are yourself annoyed with people

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who hold such extreme and barbarous views about the gods. You know yourself that these tales do not at all resemble the flimsy stories and hollow figments such as poets and prose-writers weave and spread out before us, like spiders creating from them­selves, as first principles which are quite unfounded; but rather that they contain narrations of trouble and suffering. Just as the scientists tell us that the rainbow is an image of the sun made brilliant by the reflection of its appearance into a cloud, so the present myth is the image of a reality which turns the mind back to other thoughts. This is suggested by 359 the sacrifices with their sad and gloomy appearance, and by the lay-out of the temples which on the one hand open out into wings and into airy and salubrious colonnades, and on the other contain secret, dark and subter­ranean robing-rooms in the manner of coffin-chambers and sacred precincts; and not least by the belief concerning the temples of Osiris, his body being said to lie buried in many places; for they say that the small town Thinis is so named because it alone contains the real Osiris, and that the wealthy and powerful among the Egyptians are buried mostly in Abydos, deeming it an honour to be buried near the body of Osiris. They. say that the Apis, who is the image of the soul of Osiris, is reared in Memphis, where also his body lies; some interpret the city's name as 'the haven of the good', others as 'the tomb of Osiris'. The island near Philae, it is said, is usually untrodden and unapproached by any man, and not even birds come down on it nor do fish come near it; but at one appointed time the priests cross over and

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sacrifice there to the dead god, laying garlands: on the tomb. This is shaded by a methis-plant loftier than any olive-tree.

21. Eudoxus states that while many tombs of Osiris are said to exist in Egypt, his body lies in Busiris. For this was the birthplace of Osiris. But Taphosiris, according to him, needs no defence, since the name itself means 'the tomb of Osiris'. I pass over the cutting of wood, the rending of linen, and the pouring of libations because much mystery-lore is involved. The priests say that the bodies not only of these gods, but also of such others as are neither unbegotten nor incorruptible, lie in their keeping after death and are venerated, but that their souls shine as stars in the heaven; the soul of Isis, they say, is called the Dog-star by the Greeks and Sothis by the Egyptians, that of Horus, Orion and that of Typhon, the Bear. Towards the burial of the animals honoured the other Egyptians are said to contribute agreed amounts, but the in­habitants of the Thebaid alone do not, since they believe in no mortal god, but only in him whom they call Kneph, who is unbegotten and immortal.

22. Since many such episodes are related and represented, some believe that they were the deeds of kings and tyrants who added to their fame the dignity of divinity because of outstanding virtue or power and then submitted to fate (in death), their deeds and experiences being yet remembered as marvellous and mighty.

This belief involves a very slick evasion of the true explanation, as it quite cleverly transfers everything from the gods to men; and it derives the following support from the stories related. For the Egyptians relate that Hermes had deformed arms, that Typhon was of ruddy complexion, that Horus was fair and Osiris dark-­skinned, as though they were by nature men. Further they call Osiris a general and Canobus a steersman, after whom they say the star was named. They add that the vessel which the Greeks call the -Argo is the image of the vessel of Osiris and that, adorned with stars, it voyages not far from Orion and the Dog-star; the

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former of these the Egyptians hold sacred to Horus, the latter to Isis.

23. I am afraid, however, that this is moving the immovable, and, as Simonides says, 'fighting against not only the long span of time, but also the many races of men' and the peoples who are inspired by veneration of these gods. Thus we should come near to transferring such names from heaven to earth and to the removal and destruction of the reverent faith which is imbued in almost everyone from their very birth. We should thus make the way wide open for the godless Leon, who reduces the divine to the human 360 level, and present a wonderfully free forum to the quackeries of Euhemerus the Messenian. He is the man who, after himself drawing up versions of an untrustworthy and indeed non­existent mythology, disseminates all manner of atheism through­out the world, in that he degrades all the hitherto accepted gods to the uniform level of the names of generals, admirals and kings who are alleged to have lived long ago and to have had their names inscribed in gold letters at Panchon. Yet no barbarian and no Greek either has come across them, only Euhemerus himself, who sailed, it appears, to the Panchoans and the Triphyllians, people who have lived nowhere and are non-existent.

24. Nevertheless the great deeds of Semiramis are hymned among the Assyrians and those of Sesostris in Egypt; and the Phrygians even today describe brilliant and marvellous achieve­ments as Manic because Manes, whom some call Masnes, one of their ancient kings, was a good and powerful man among them. Cyrus led the Persians, and Alexander the Macedonians, almost to the ends of the earth in conquest, and yet they have but the name and memory of good kings. 'If certain men, elated with arrogance,' as Plato says (Laws, 716A), 'and inflamed mentally with youthful folly and pride' accepted divine names and the building of temples

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to them, this reputation blossomed for only a short time. Then, after incurring also the charge of vanity and ostentation together with impiety and lawlessness,

Transient, they rose like smoke in air and flew away.

And now, torn away from their temples and altars like runaways caught in the act, they own nothing more than their memorials and tombs. That is why the old man Antigonus said, when a certain Hermodotus addressed him in a poem as 'son of Helius' and 'god', 'My chamber-pot-carrier doesn't see these qualities in me!' Lysippus the sculptor properly upbraided Apelles the painter because in his picture of Alexander he put a flash of lightning in his hand, while he himself had put only a spear there, the fame of which no time can take away, since it is a fame that is Alexander's truly and distinctively.

25. Better, therefore, is the view of those who take the stories about Typhon, Osiris and Isis to be the experiences neither of gods nor of men2. but of great daemons. These are said by Plato, Pythagoras, Xenocrates and. Chrysippus, following the early theologians, to be stronger than men and in power to surpass greatly our nature, although they do not possess the divine element in a pure and unadulterated form, but joined in one with the nature of the soul and the perception of the body. This perception is susceptible to pleasure and pain and to whatever experiences are inherent in changes, experiences which disturb some people more than others; for daemons, like men, vary in virtue and vice. The deeds of the Giants and the Titans, sung by the Greeks, certain lawless acts of Cronus, Python's struggles with Apollo, the jealousies of Dionysus and the wanderings of Demeter are fully on a par with the stories about Osiris and Typhon and the other myths which all can freely hear told. But those aspects also

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which are preserved by being clothed in mystic rites, although they are not divulged by initiates or seen by people at large, have a similar meaning.

26. We also hear Homer constantly calling the pre-eminently good 'godlike', 'equal to the gods' and 'possessing prudence from the gods', but when he uses the designation formed from daemons (' daemonic'), he applies it to good and bad alike (as, for instance)             361

Daemonic one, come near; why dost thou fear

The Argives thus?       (ll. 13. 810f.)

and again

­The fourth time when he rushed on, daemon-like (ll. 5. 438; 16. 705; 20. 447)

and (again)

Daemonic one, why are such evils wrought

By Priam and his sons against thee, so

That thou unceasingly dost strive to wreck

Ilion, the fair-built city?        (ll. 4. 31 ff.)

since daemons have a mixed and inconsistent nature and disposi­tion. Thus Plato (Laws, 717 A-B) ascribes to the Olympian gods the right side and the odd numbers, and the opposite of these he assigns to the daemons; and Xenocrates believes that unlucky days and such festivals as involve scourgings or lamenta­tions or fastings or blasphemies or foul language belong to the honouring neither of gods nor of good daemons, but that there are great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in such things, and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse. The noble and good daemons again are called by Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 123ff.) 'holy daemons', 'guardians of men', and

Givers of wealth, who hold this royal role. (Op. et Dies, 126)

Plato (Symp. 202E) calls this species one which interprets and serves, being intermediary between gods and men, since it sends up thither the prayers and requests of men and bears from there to us revelations and gifts of blessings.

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Empedocles says that the daemons also pay the penalty for their mistakes and failings:

The ether's might pursues them to the sea,

The sea spews them to land, and land drives them

To rays of the tireless sun, and he in turn

Hurls them to whirls of ether; one power takes

Them from another; hate they arouse in all,

until, thus punished and purified, they assume again the place and order assigned to them by nature.

27. They say that these and similar things are told of Typhon, how through envy and spite he wrought terrible deeds and, producing confusion everywhere, filled the whole earth and sea with evils, but then paid the penalty. The sister and wife of Osiris, however, as his helper quenched and stopped Typhon's mad frenzy, nor did she allow the contests and struggles which she had undertaken, her wanderings and her many deeds of wisdom and bravery, to be engulfed in oblivion and silence, but into the most sacred rites she infused images, suggestions and representations of her experiences at that time, and so she con­secrated at once a pattern of piety and an encouragement to men and women overtaken by similar misfortunes. She herself and Osiris were transformed through their virtue from good daemons into gods, just as later Heracles and Dionysus were, and so they receive the honours, not unsuitably fused, pertaining to both gods and daemons, having power everywhere, but especially in the domains above and below the earth. For they say that Sarapis is none other than Pluto and Isis none other than Persephassa, as Archemachus the Euboean has said, and Heracleides of Pontus, believing the oracle in Canobus to be that of Pluto.

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28. Ptolemy Soter saw in a dream the colossus of Pluto in Sinope though he had previously neither known nor seen what its form was like; and it ordered him to transport it as quickly as possible. Since he did not know, and was quite at a loss to find out, where it had been set up, when he explained the vision to his friends, a much-travelled man by the name of Sosibius was found, who said that he had seen in Sinope a colossus of the type which the king thought he had seen. The king therefore despatched Soteles and Dionysius, who after a long time and with difficulty, but not without the aid of divine providence, stole it from there. and took it away. When the colossus had been    362 transported and examined, Timotheus the interpreter and Manetho the Sebennyte concluded that it was an image of Pluto, inferring this from the Cerberus-dog and the serpent; and they convinced Ptolemy that it represented no other god than Sarapis; for it did not come from there bearing this name, but only after being transported to Alexandria did it acquire the name Sarapis, which is the Egyptian appellation of Pluto. When Heracleitus the physicist says, 'Hades and Dionysus are one and the same, in whose honour they rave and hold the feast of the wine-press', people connect it with this view. For those who claim that the body is called Hades since the soul becomes beside itself, as it were, and intoxicated within it, are allegorizing too subtly. It is better to equate Osiris with Dionysus, and Sarapis with Osiris, since the latter acquired this name when he changed his nature. For this reason Sarapis is common to all, and this is true also of Osiris, as the initiates know.

29. For it is not worth paying attention to the Phrygian writings in which it is said that Sarapis was born of Charopo, the daughter of Heracles, and Typhon of Aeacus his son. Nor should we hesitate to scorn Phylarchus when he writes that Dionysus was the first to bring two bulls to Egypt from India, of which

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one was called Apis and the other Osiris. Sarapis is the name of him who orders the universe, being derived from sairein 'to sweep', which some explain as 'to beautify' or 'to order'. Thus these statements of Phylarchus are absurd, and still more absurd are the dicta of those who say that Sarapis is not a god, but that the coffin of Apis (soros Apidos) is so called and that certain bronze gates in Memphis, called the Gates of Lethe and Cocytus, whenever they bury the Apis, open with a heavy and harsh grating sound; because of this, they say, we lay hands on anything bronze that makes a clang. More reasonable is the belief of those who say that the concerted movement of the universe is named (Sarapis) from 'to hurry and scurry' (seuesthai and sousthai). Most of the priests say that Osiris and Apis have been interwoven into the same being, teaching us by way of explana­tion that we ought to regard the Apis as the corporate image of the soul of Osiris. For my part I believe that if the name Sarapis is indeed Egyptian, it denotes joy and gladness (charmosyne), taking my clue from the fact that the Egyptians call the Char­mosyna, the festival of gladness, Sairei. For Plato (Cratyl. 404B) says that Hades has been called by his associates a knowledgeable and friendly god. Among the Egyptians many other names also are meaningful; for instance, they call the place under the earth, to which they believe souls go after death, Amenthes, a name meaning 'he who takes and gives'. Whether this also is one of the names which came from Greece long ago and was transferred back, we shall examine later. Now let us deal further with the questions still remaining on our hands.

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30. Osiris and Isis thus changed from good daemons into gods. The weakened and shattered power of Typhon, which still gasps and struggles, is appeased and mollified by them partly by sacrifices, while at other times again they humiliate and insult it in certain festivals, jeering at men of ruddy complexion and throwing an ass down a precipice, as the people of Coptos do, because Typhon had a ruddy complexion and was asinine in form. The people of Busiris and Lycopolis do not use trumpets at all because they make a noise like an ass; and they believe the ass to be in general not a pure, but a daemonic beast because of its likeness to Typhon, and when they make round cakes in the festivals of the months of Payni and Phaophi, as an insult they stamp on them an image of a tied ass. In the sacrifice to Helius they instruct those who venerate the god neither to wear golden objects on the body nor to give food to an ass. The    363 Pythagoreans also clearly believe Typhon to be a daemonic power, for they say he was born on an even measure, the 56th; further, they say that the nature of the triangle belongs to Hades, Dionysus and Ares, that of the quadrilateral to Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hestia and Hera, and that of the dodecagon to Zeus, while that of the 56-sided polygon is said to belong to Typhon, as Eudoxus has reported.

31. Believing as they do that Typhon was of red complexion, the Egyptians sacrifice red cattle, and so meticulously do they conduct their examination of them that, even if an ox has only one black or light hair, they deem it ineligible for sacrifice; for to them a fit sacrifice is not something dear to the gods, but on the contrary it consists of whatever incarnation has befallen the souls of impious and unjust men who have been changed into other bodies. For this reason, after invoking. curses on the head of the victim and cutting it off, they. formerly used to throw it into the

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river, while now they sell it to strangers. The ox intended for sacrifice was marked by the priests called Sealers, whose seal, as Castor reports, had an engraving of a man down on his knees with his hands tied behind his back and a sword plunged into his throat. They consider the ass to be credited with the resemblance (to Typhon), as has been said, because of its stupidity and lust no less than because of the colour of its skin. Thus in their special hatred of Okhus among Persian kings, as one accursed and polluted, they called him The Ass; and he said, 'This Ass forsooth will feast on your Ox', and he sacrificed the Apis, as Deinon has reported. Those who say that after the battle (with Horus) Typhon fled on an ass for seven days and on being saved became the father of Hierosolymus and Judaeus, are clearly dragging Jewish material into the story, as the names indicate.

32. These matters, then, give rise to such suppositions. Let us first examine the most lucid of those who claim to have something more philosophical to say from another standpoint. These are the people who say that, just as the Greeks explain Cronus allegori­cally as time (chronos), Hera as the air (aera), and the birth of Hephaestus as the change of air into fire, so among the Egyptians Osiris is the Nile uniting with Isis as the earth, while Typhon is the sea into which the Nile falls and so disappears and is dispersed, save for that part which the earth takes up and receives, becoming fertile through it. A sacred lament has arisen about the Nile, and it bewails him who is created in the regions of the left and who is destroyed in those of the right. For the Egyptians believe that the east is the face of the world, that the north is the right, and the south the left; and so the Nile, flowing from the south and being devoured by the sea in the north, is said with reason to have its

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origin on the left and its end on the right. For this reason the priests hold the sea in abomination and call salt 'the spit of Typhon'; and among the things forbidden to them is to put salt on the table. They will not greet pilots because they use the sea and make a living from it; and for this reason especially do they reject fish, and they write the word 'hate' with the sign of a fish. In Sais, at any rate, on the pylon in front of Athena's temple there had been engraved a child, an old man, and after this a falcon, and then a fish, and behind them all a hippopotamus. It meant sym­bolically, 'O you who are coming into being and you who are passing away, <God hates shamelessness'. For the child is a symbol of birth>, the old man <of death>; with a falcon they denote a god, with a fish hatred, as we have said, because of the sea, and with a hippopotamus shamelessness; for it is said to violate its mother after killing its father. The saying of the Pythagoreans, that the sea is a tear of Cronus, would seem to suggest the      364 sea's, impure and alien element. Let this, then, be said openly since it is common knowledge.

33. The wiser of the priests not only call the Nile Osiris and the sea Typhon, but apply the name Osiris simply to the general principle and power of moisture, regarding it as the cause of generation and the essence of seed, while the name Typhon is applied to the whole dry and fiery and generally scorching element which is hostile to moisture; believing, for this reason, that he was of red and sallow complexion, they do not gladly encounter or willingly associate with men of this appearance. They relate in their myths that Osiris, on the other hand, was of dark complexion, because water, when mixed with anything—earth, clothes and clouds—darkens it, and the moisture present in the young makes their hair dark, while greyness, like a kind of paleness, occurs as a

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result of dryness in those who have passed their bloom. Spring is fresh, fertile and mild, while autumn, through its lack of moisture, is hostile to plants and baneful to animals. Further, the bull which is reared in Heliopolis and which they call Mnevis (deeming it sacred to Osiris, whereas some hold it to be also the father of the Apis) is black and is second only to the Apis in honour. Again, they call Egypt, since it is mostly black, Khemia, like the black part of the eye, and they liken it to a heart; for it is warm and moist and is mostly enclosed and bounded by the southern parts of the inhabited world, just as the heart is by the left side of a man.

34. They say that Helius (the Sun) and Selene (the Moon) move around their orbits using as vehicles not chariots but boats, thus suggesting that they were nurtured and born from moisture. They believe also that Homer as well as Thales had relied on Egyptian knowledge when he stated that water was the first principle and origin of everything (ll. 14. 201); for they explain Oceanus as Osiris and Tethys as Isis, since she it is who nurses (tithenoumenen) and nourishes everything together. For the Greeks call the emission of seed apousia and sexual union synousia; they call a son hyios from hydor (water) and hysai (to rain), and Dionysus Hyes as being the lord of moist nature, since he is none other than Osiris. And indeed Hellanicus seems to have heard Osiris pronounced Hysiris by the priests; he names the god thus consistently, probably in accordance with his nature and the rite of his discovery.

35. That he (Osiris) is the same as Dionysus, who ought to know better than you, Clea, since you are at once a leader of the Thyiades at Delphi and have been consecrated in the Osirian rites by your father and mother? If one needs to adduce evidence for the sake of others, let us leave the secret rites unmentioned; but

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as for what the priests openly do in the burial of the Apis when they transport its carcass on a raft, this in no way falls short of Bacchic revelry, for they wear fawn-skins and carry thyrsus-rods and produce shouts and movements as do the ecstatic celebrants of the Dionysiac rites. For this reason many of the Greeks make bull-shaped images of Dionysus, and the women of Elis urge in their prayers 'that the god may come with his foot of a bull' to them, while among the Argives Dionysus bears the name 'born of a bull', and they summon him with trumpets from the water after throwing a lamb into the deep for the Gate-keeper, but they cover the trumpets with thyrsus-rods as Socrates has said in his work Concerning the Holy Ones. Further, the saga of the Titans and the Night-festivals agree with the episodes of dis­memberment, return to life, and rebirth, related of Osiris. There is also a similar tradition about their tombs. For the Egyptians, as we have said (358A, 359A), point to graves of Osiris in many 365 places, and the Delphians believe that the remains of Dionysus lie with them near the oracle, while the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the temple of Apollo, whenever the Thyiades wake the god of the sacred basket. That the Greeks regard Dionysus as the lord and originator not only of wine but also of all moist nature, is sufficiently attested by Pindar when he says

May gladsome Dionysus renew the world of trees,

The sacred light of autumn!

That is why worshippers of Osiris are also forbidden to destroy a cultivated tree and to stop up a well of water.

36. They call not only the Nile but all moisture generally the efflux of Osiris, and in honour of the god the water-pitcher always leads the procession of the sacred ceremonies. They write the words for 'king' and 'the southern region of the world' by means of a rush; and the rush is interpreted as the irrigation and impreg­nation of all things and in form seems to be like the generative

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member. Those who celebrate the festival of the Pamylia, which, as we have said (355 E), is phallic, display and carry around an image that has a triple male member; for the god is the origin, and every origin multiplies what comes from itself by means of the procreative element. We are accustomed to express 'many times' also by 'three times', just as we say 'thrice blest' (Od. 6. c 154-5) and 'bonds three times as many, that is, innumerable' (Od. 8. 340), unless indeed the triple idea is intended literally by the ancients; for the moist principle, being the origin and source of everything, made from itself the first three materials, earth, air and fire. Further, the story which is added to the myth tells how Typhon threw the male member of Osiris into the river and how Isis failed to find it, but after producing and preparing an identical image instructed that it should be honoured and carried in phallic processions; and this virtually teaches that the procreative and seminal aspect of the god from the very beginning used moisture as its material and through moisture was fused with the elements that naturally take part in generation. The Egyptians have another tale, how Apopis, being the brother of Helius (the Sun­god), warred against Zeus and how Zeus, having Osiris as an ally in his struggle and having with his aid laid low his enemy, made him (Osiris) his son and called him Dionysus. It can be shown that the mythical aspect of this tale is connected with a physical truth. For the Egyptians give the name Zeus to the wind, to which the dry and fiery element is hostile; this element is not the sun, but has a certain affinity with the sun, and the moisture, quenching the excess of the scorching heat, increases and strengthens the exhalations by which the wind is nourished and flourishes.

37. Further, ivy is consecrated by the Greeks to Dionysus and is said to be named khenosiris by the Egyptians, a word which denotes, so they say, 'the plant of Osiris'.

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Ariston, moreover, who wrote The Foreign Settlements of the Athenians, came across a letter of Alexarchus in which Dionysus is said to be the son of Zeus and Isis and to be called not Osiris but Arsaphes, the name denoting manliness. Hermaeus also ex­presses this opinion in the first book of his (Festiyals) of the Egyptians; for he says that Osiris, interpreted, means mighty. I pass over Mnaseas who associates Dionysus, Osiris and Sarapis with Epaphus, and I also pass over Anticleides, who says that Isis was the daughter of Prometheus and cohabited with Dionysus; for the relationships already mentioned in connexion with festivals and sacrifices carry the more compelling testimony of eye-witnesses.

38. Of the stars, they consider Sirius belongs to Isis because it brings water (i.e. the inundation), and they also honour the Lion (the constellation) and adorn the doors of 366 temples with lions' jaws, since the Nile overflows

when first the sun comes near to the Lion.

                                    (Aratus, Phaen. 151)

Just as they view the Nile as the efflux of Osiris, thus they hold the earth to be the body of Isis, and they do not mean the whole earth, but as much as the Nile goes over, fructifying it and uniting with it; and from this union they make Horus be procreated. Horus is the maturing (hora) and mingling of the surrounding air, a process which preserves and nurtures everything; and they say that he was nurtured by Leto in the marshes around Buto. For the watery and drenched earth especially fosters the exhalations which quench and alleviate scorching heat and drought. They give the name Nephthys to the ends of the earth and the regions fringing on mountains and bordering on the sea. For this reason they also call her Teleute (End) and say that she cohabits with Typhon.

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Whenever the Nile in overflowing and increasing approaches the outlying regions beyond, they call this the union of Osiris with Nephthys, which is revealed by the sprouting plants. Among these is the melilot which, according to the myth, fell down and was left behind, and so became an indication to Typhon of the wrong done to his marriage. Thus Isis bore Horus legitimately, but Nephthys bore Anubis illicitly. In the genealogies of the kings, however, they record that Nephthys, when she married Typhon, was at first barren. If they mean this in relation to the goddess rather than the wife, they symbolize the utterly unproductive and unfruitful condition of the earth caused by her barrenness.

39. The treacherous planning and the sovereignty of Typhon was the power of drought which overcomes and disperses the moisture that both generates the Nile and causes its increase; and his collaborator, the queen of the Ethiopians, symbolizes southern breezes from Ethiopia; for whenever these overcome the etesian winds which drive the clouds towards Ethiopia and thus prevent the rains which are about to swell the Nile from being shed, Typhon is now restraining and scorching; then, having gained complete supremacy, he forces the Nile, which has now through weakness contracted inwards with a low and shallow flow, into the sea. For the so-called shutting up of Osiris in the coffin seems to symbolize nothing other than the concealment and disap­pearance of water. For this reason they say that Osiris disappeared in the month of Athyr, when the etesian winds stop and the Nile utterly recedes, while the land is bared and with the lengthening of the night darkness increases and the power of light is diminished and subdued; then the priests, amid other sad ceremonies, envelop a gilded cow with a black linen garment and show it as a mark of mourning on the part of the goddess (for they consider the cow to be an image of Isis and of the earth) during four consecutive days from the seventeenth of the month.

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The things mourned for are four: first, the dwindling and receding of the Nile; secondly, the cessation of the north winds through the complete domination of the south winds; thirdly, the day's getting shorter than the night; and above all the denudation of the earth together with the stripping of the plants which at this time lose their leaves. On the night of the nineteenth day they go down to the sea, and the stolists and priests take out the sacred box which has inside a golden casket. Into this they pour some drinking water which they have brought with them, and the people present shout, 'Osiris has been found!' Then they mingle fertile earth with water and having mixed precious spices and incense with them, they fashion a crescent-shaped image, and this they clothe and adorn, indicating that they regard these gods as the principle of earth and water.

40. When Isis had recovered Osiris and had nurtured Horus, who was becoming      367 strong through exhalations, mists and clouds, Typhon was indeed overcome, but not destroyed; for the goddess who rules the earth did not allow the substance which is opposed to moisture to be completely destroyed, but she was lenient and let it go free, wishing the fusion to remain; for the world would not be complete if the fiery element were to cease and disappear. If they do not say this implausibly, neither could one reject entirely the tradition that Typhon once ruled the domain of Osiris, since Egypt was then a sea. For this reason many shells can be found up to this day in the quarries and the mountains; and all the springs and wells, of which there are many, contain salty and bitter water as though a stale vestige of the former sea had collected here. Horus in time overcame Typhon, and this

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means that there occurred a timely fall of rain and that the Nile, having driven out the sea, revealed the plain and filled it with its deposits. This is attested by observation, for we see even today that as the river brings up new alluvium and has pushed the land forward, little by little the waves retreat backwards, and the sea flows away because the lowest stratum is raised by means of the deposits. We also see that Pharos, which Homer (Od. 4. 354ff.) knew to be a day's journey from Egypt, is now a part of it, but that it is not pharos that has moved nearer or approached inwards, but the sea in between that has been driven back by the river which has been reshaping and nourishing the mainland. But this is similar to the theological doctrines of the Stoics; for in their view too the spirit which procreates and nourishes is Dionysus, that which overpowers and divides is Heracles, that which receives is Ammon, that which permeates the earth and the crops is Demeter and Kore, and that which permeates the sea is Posei­don.

41. Those who combine with these physical ideas certain mathematical conceptions drawn from astronomy consider Typhon to be the solar, and Osiris the lunar world; for the moon, in their view, through its procreative and moisture-making light, is favourable both to the reproduction of animals and to the sprouting of plants, while the sun, with a concentrated and hard fire, warms and withers things that grow and bloom, making the greater part of the earth wholly uninhabitable on account of heat, and in many places dominating even the moon. For this reason the Egyptians call Typhon Seth, which denotes 'oppressive and compulsive', and they tell a tale that Heracles, making his seat in the sun, goes round with it, and that Hermes does the same with the moon; for the affairs of the moon are like the works of reason and wisdom, while those of the sun are like blows inflicted with might and main. The Stoics say that the sun is kindled and

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nourished from the sea, whereas the moon has a sweet and soft exhalation sent up to it by the waters of springs and marshes.

42. The Egyptians relate that the death of Osiris occurred on the seventeenth (of the month), when the full moon is most obviously waning. Therefore the Pythagoreans call this day the 'Barricading' and they entirely abominate this number. For the number seventeen, intervening between the square number sixteen and the rectangular number eighteen, two numbers which alone of plane numbers have their perimeters equal to the areas enclosed by them, bars, discretes and separates them from one another, being divided into unequal parts in the ratio of nine to eight. The number of twenty-eight years is said by some to have been the extent of the life of Osiris, by others of his reign; for 368 such is the number of the moon's illuminations and in so many days does it revolve through its own cycle. When they cut the wood in the so-called burials of Osiris, they prepare a crescent-shaped chest because the moon, whenever it approaches the sun, becomes crescent-shaped and suffers eclipse. The dismemberment of Osiris into fourteen parts is interpreted in relation to the days in which the planet wanes after the full moon until a new moon occurs. They call the day on which it first appears after escaping the sunlight and overtaking the sun, 'unfinished Blessing'. For Osiris is beneficent, and his name means many things, not least the power which is active and beneficent, as they say. Omphis, the other name of the god, is said by Hermaeus to denote, when interpreted, 'benefactor'.

43. They believe that the risings of the Nile have some relation to the moon's  illuminations. For the largest rising, near Elephantine, reaches twenty-eight cubits, which is the number of

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the illuminations and measures of time in each of the moon's monthly orbits; the shortest rising, near Mendes and Xois, is seven cubits, corresponding to the half-moon, while the mean rising, near Memphis, when it is normal, is fourteen cubits, corresponding to full moon. They believe that the Apis is the animate image of Osiris, and that it is engendered whenever a creative light shoots out from the moon and contacts a cow in its sexual heat. This is why many features of the Apis are like the phases of the moon, the bright parts being shaded off into dark. Further, on the first day of the month of phamenoth they hold a festival, which they call' The Entry of Osiris into the Moon', for it is the beginning of spring. Thus they locate the power of Osiris in the moon and say that Isis, as the creative principle, has inter­course with him. For this reason they also call the moon (Selene) the mother of the world and they believe her nature to be both male and female since she is filled and made pregnant by the sun, while she herself in turn projects and disseminates procreative elements in the air. For Typhonic destructiveness does not always prevail, but often it is subdued by the creative principle, and after being chained it is freed again and fights against Horus, who is the terrestrial world and entirely immune to both destructiveness and the creative principle.

44. Some regard the myth as a reflection of events relating to eclipses; for there is an eclipse of the full moon when the sun assumes a position opposite her and when the moon falls into the shadow of the earth, just as they say Osiris did into the coffin. The moon herself in turn obscures the sun on the thirtieth of the month and removes it from sight, yet does not completely obliterate it, no more than Isis did Typhon. When Nephthys gave birth to Anubis, Isis brought the child up as her own. For

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Nephthys is what is below the earth and invisible, while Isis is what is above the earth and manifest; and the circle which touches both of these and is called the horizon, being common to both, has been given the name Anubis and in form is represented like a dog; for a dog sees equally well by night and day. Anubis seems to have the same sort of significance among the Egyptians as Hecate has among the Greeks, for he is chthonic and Olympian at the same time. To some Anubis seems to be Cronus; hence he gives birth to everything from himself and conceives (kyon) everything within himself, thus gaining the name of dog (kyon). Those who. worship Anubis have, therefore, a certain mystic belief, and the dog once enjoyed the highest honours in Egypt. When Cambyses destroyed and threw away the Apis bull, no animal approached or tasted of the body save only a dog, and then it lost its primacy and position of highest honour among animals. There are some who give the name Typhon to the shadow of the earth, into which they believe the moon falls and so suffers eclipse.

45. In view of this it is not unreasonable to say that individually these theorists are     369 wrong, but that collectively they are right. For it is not drought or wind or sea or darkness that is a part of Typhon, but everything harmful and destructive in nature. We must neither place the origins of the universe in inanimate bodies, as Democritus and Epicurus do, nor yet postulate one reason and one providence, dominating and ruling everything, as the creator of characterless matter, as the Stoics do; for it is impossible, where God is responsible for everything, for anything evil to come into being, or for anything good to come where God is responsible for nothing. Thus, according to Heracleitus, 'the concord of the cosmos is caused by opposite tensions, just like that of a lyre and a bow'; and according to Euripides

The good and bad could not appear apart,

A certain mingling brings a goodly poise.

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There has, therefore, come down from theologians and lawgivers to both poets and philosophers this ancient belief which is of anonymous origin, but is given strong and tenacious credence, and has been widely transmitted to barbarians and Greeks not only in sayings and reports but also in rites and offering-festivals, namely that the universe is not kept on high of itself without mind and reason and guidance, nor is it only one reason that rules and directs it in the manner of rudders or curbing reins, but that many powers do so who are a mixture of evil and good. Rather, since nature, to be plain, contains nothing that is unmixed, it is not one steward that dispenses our affairs for us, as though mixing drinks from two jars in a hotel. Life and the cosmos, on the contrary—if not the whole of the cosmos, at least the earthly one next to the moon, which is heterogeneous, many-hued and subject to all changes—are compounded of two opposite principles and of two antithetic powers, one of which leads by a straight path to the right, while the other reverses and bends back. For if nothing comes into being without a cause, and if good could not provide the cause of evil, then nature must contain in itself the creation and origin of evil as well as good.

46. This is the view of the majority and of the wisest; for some believe that there are two gods who are rivals, as it were, in art, the one being the creator of good, the other of evil; others call the better of these a god and his rival a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the Magian, who lived, so they record, five thousand years before the Siege of Troy. He used to call the one Horomazes and the other Areimanius, and showed also that the former was especially akin, among objects of perception, to light, and the latter, on the contrary, to darkness and ignorance, while in between the two was (Mithres) Mithras; and this is why the Persians call Mithres the Mediator. He also taught that votive- and thank-offerings should be made to Horomazes, but gloomy offerings to Areimanius, and those intended to avert evil. For they pound a certain herb called omomi in a mortar, invoking Hades

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and darkness, and then after mixing with it the blood of a slain wolf, they take it out to a sunless spot and throw it away. They believe that among plants too, some belong to the good god and others to the evil daemon, and that among animals some, such as

dogs, birds and land hedgehogs, belong to the good god, whereas water-rats belong to the bad deity, and for this reason they regard as happy whoever kills a great number of them.

47. But they (the Persians) also relate many mythical details about the gods, and the following are instances. Horomazes is born from the purest light and Areimanius from darkness, and they are at war with one another. The former (Horomazes) created six gods, the first being god of good will, the second god  of truth, the third god of good 370 order, and the others gods of wisdom and wealth, the sixth being the creator of pleasure in beautiful things. The other (Areimanius) created an equal number as rivals to these. Then Horomazes, having magnified himself to three times his size, removed himself as far from the sun as the sun is distant from the earth, and adorned the heaven with stars; and one star, Sirius, he established above all others as a guardian and watcher. Twenty-four other gods were created by him and put into an egg. Those who were created from Areimanius were of equal number, and they pierced through the egg. . . and so it comes about that good and evil are mixed. There will come the destined time when Areimanius, the bringer of plague and famine, must needs be utterly destroyed and obliterated by these. The earth shall be flat and level and one way of life and one government shall arise of all men, who shall be happy and speak the same language. Theopompus says that, according to the Magians, for three thousand years alternately the one god will dominate the other and be dominated, and that for another three thousand years they will fight and make war, until one smashes up the domain of the other. In the end Hades shall perish and men shall be happy; neither shall they need sustenance nor shall they cast a shadow, while the god who will have brought this about shall have quiet and shall rest, not for a long while

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indeed for a god, but for such time as would be reasonable for a man who falls asleep. Such is the mythology of the Magians.

48. The Chaldaeans aver that of the planets, which they call the gods presiding at birth, two are beneficent and two maleficent, the other three being intermediary and sharing both natures. The theology of the Greeks is presumably clear to all in that they assign the good lot to Olympian Zeus and the dreaded part to Hades, while they relate that Harmonia was born of Aphrodite and Ares, of whom the latter is unfriendly and quarrelsome and the former kindly and protective. Consider how the philosophers agree  with this. For Heracleitus bluntly calls war 'the father and king and lord of all', and when Homer (ll.18.107) prays 'that strife may finish among gods and men', according to Heracleitus 'he is unconsciously cursing the origin of all things, for they have their origin in strife and opposition'; nor will the sun pass over his proper boundaries, according to Heracleitus, otherwise the tongues (of the Furies), the helpers of Dike (Justice), will find him out. Empedocles calls the beneficent power 'Friendliness' and 'Friendship', and he often also calls it 'Sweet Harmony', whereas the evil power he calls 'Destructive Strife' and 'Bloody Discord'. The Pythagoreans use many names to describe them, designating the good power as the One, the Limited, the Enduring, the Direct, the Odd-numbered, the Square, the Equal, the Right, the Bright; and the evil power they term the Dyad, the Unlimited, the Moving, the Curved, the Even-numbered, the Oblong, the Unequal, the Left, the Dark, believing that these principles lie at the root of creation. Anaxagoras posits Mind and the Unlimited, Aristotle Form and Negation, while Plato, often in a veiled and

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hidden manner, calls the first of the opposed principles the Same, and the second the Other (Tim. 35 A). But in the Laws (896Dff.), being now older, he states, not figuratively or symbolically, but in so many words, that the cosmos is moved not by one soul, but probably by more, and at least by no fewer than two. Of these he states that one is beneficent and the other is opposed to it and is the creator of opposed qualities. He leaves room for a certain third nature also to exist between them, one which is neither inanimate, nor without reason nor unable to move of itself, as some think, but which depends on the other two, and constantly desires and longs for and pursues what is better. This will    371 be shown in the remaining part of the treatise, where we shall relate the theology of the Egyptians especially to this philosophy.

49. For the creation and constitution of this cosmos is com­pounded of powers that are opposed, but not equally strong, since supremacy belongs to the better of them. Yet to destroy the evil power completely is impossible, for it is closely inbred into the body and into the soul of the universe, and goes on fighting constantly and desperately against the better power. In the soul, then, Osiris, the leader and lord of all the best beings, is the mind and reason; in the earth, the winds, the waters, the heaven and the stars, it is the efflux of Osiris and his manifest image that comprise the ordered, established and salutary basis for the seasons, the temperatures of the air, and its rotation; and Typhon is the element of the soul which is passionate, akin to the Titans, without reason, and brutish, and the element of the cor­poreal which is subject to death, disease and confusion through bad seasons, imperfect coalescence of air, eclipses of the sun, and disappearances of the moon, which are in the manner of sallies and rebellions by Typhon; and this is implied by the name Seth, by which they call Typhon; for it denotes the overpowering and

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violent, it denotes frequent return and overleaping. Some say that Bebon was one of the companions of Typhon, but Manetho says that Typhon himself is also called Bebon. The name indicates restraint or hindrance, because the power of Typhon resists the deeds which proceed in good order and pursue a worthy end.

50. For this reason they assign to him the most stupid of the domesticated animals—the ass—and of the wild animals the most bestial—the crocodile and the hippopotamus. About the ass we have explained already (362 F); and in Hermopolis they show an image of Typhon as a hippopotamus upon which has alighted a falcon fighting with a snake; by the hippopotamus they represent Typhon and by the falcon power and sovereignty, which Typhon acquires by force so that he is often aroused again, being disturbed by evil and causing disturbance himself. For this reason, when they sacrifice on the seventh of the month of Tybi, which they call the arrival of Isis from Phoenicia, they stamp on round sacrificial cakes the figure of a tied-up hippopotamus. In Apollonopolis it is customary for everyone throughout the town to eat of a crocodile; and on one day, after hunting as many as they can and killing them, they throw them out right opposite the temple; and they say (in explanation) that when Typhon was running away from Horus, he changed into a crocodile, regarding all evil and harmful animals, plants and experiences as deeds, qualities and movements of Typhon.

51. Osiris then again they write with an eye and a sceptre, of which the one denotes foresight and the other power, just as Homer (ll. 8. 22), in calling him who rules and reigns over all , ‘Zeus, Highest and Counsellor', seems to be indicating in 'Highest' his might, and in 'Counsellor' his sound judgement and insight. They also write this god often with a falcon; for it excels in its strength of vision and swiftness of flight and has the quality of sustaining itself with very little food.

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It is said to fly above unburied corpses and to throw earth on their eyes; and whenever it alights on the river to drink, it keeps an upright wing; after drinking it bends it again. By this it shows that it is safe and has escaped the crocodile; for if it is seized, the wing remains fixed upright as it stood at first.

Furthermore they everywhere show an anthropomorphic statue of Osiris with erect phallus because of his procreative and nourishing nature. They adorn his statues with flame-coloured clothes, regarding the sun as the body of the power of good and as 372 the visible light of a substance which can only be spiritually felt. For this reason just ridicule attaches to those who assign the ball of the sun to Typhon, who has nothing radiant or protective about him, nor has he order or creation or the movement which has measure and reason, but rather the opposite; and fiery heat, which destroys many plants and animals, should not be put down as an activity of the sun, but of the winds and waters which are unseasonably mingled in earth and air whenever the might of the disordered and boundless power becomes excessive and quenches the exhalations.

52. In the sacred hymns of Osiris they call on him who is hidden in the arms of the sun, and on the thirtieth day of the month of Epiphi they celebrate the birth of the eyes of Horus, when the moon and the sun are in a straight line, since they believe that not only the moon, but also the sun is the eye and light of Horus. On the twenty-third day of Phaophi they celebrate the birthday of the staff of the sun after the autumnal equinox, denoting its need of assistance and strengthening after it has become weak in heat and light, moving in a bent and slanting course away from us. Further, at the time of the winter solstice they lead the cow seven times around the temple of the sun, and

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the circumvention is called the Search for Osiris, because the goddess in winter longs for water; and they go around seven times because the sun completes its passage from the winter to the summer solstice in the seventh month. Sacrifice to the sun is also said to have been made on the fourth day of the month by Horus son of Isis before all others, as is written in the book called the Birthday-Celebrations of Horus. Moreover they offer incense three times a day to the sun, resin at sunrise, myrrh at noon, and the substance called cyphi at sunset; the significance of each I shall explain later. In all these ways do they believe they win the favour of the sun and serve him. What need is there to multiply examples? For there are those who say bluntly that Osiris is the sun and that he is called Seirios by the Greeks, even if among the Egyptians the prefixing of the article has caused the name to be obscured (O-Seirios = Osiris); and they affirm that Isis is none other than the moon. Thus they explain those of her statues that bear horns to be imitations of the crescent moon, while those with black clothes are deemed to indicate the concealments and ob­fuscations in which she longingly pursues the sun. For this reason they also summon the moon for help in love affairs, and Eudoxus says that Isis is arbiter in matters of sexual love. This view has indeed a certain cogency, but those who equate Typhon and the sun are not worth attention. Let us revert, however, to our proper theme.

53. Thus Isis is the female principle in nature and that which receives all procreation, and so she is called by Plato (Tim. 49A, 51A) the Nurse and the All-receiving, while most people call her the Myriad-named because she is transformed by reason and receives all corporeal and spiritual forms. Imbued in her she has a love of the foremost and most sovereign thing of all, which is the same as the Good, and this she longs for and pursues.

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The lot which lies with evil she shuns and rejects; for both she is indeed a possible sphere and material, but she leans ever of herself to what is better, offering herself to it for reproduction and for the fructifying in herself of effiuxes and likenesses. In these she rejoices and she is glad when she is pregnant with them and teems with procreations. For procreation in matter is an image of being, and what comes into being is an imitation of what is.

54. It is not therefore without reason that they relate in their myth that the soul of     373 Osiris  is eternal and indestructible, but that his body is frequently dismembered and destroyed by Typhon, whereupon Isis in her wanderings searches for it and puts it together again. For what is and is spiritually intelligible and is good prevails over destruction and change; but the images which the perceptible and corporeal nature fashions from it, and the ideas, forms and likenesses which this nature assumes, are like figures stamped on wax in that they do not endure for ever. They are seized by the element of disorder and confusion which is driven here from the region above and fights against Horus, whom Isis brings forth as an image of what is spiritually intelligible, since he is the perceptible world. This is why he is said to be charged with illegitimacy by Typhon as one who is neither pure nor genuine like his father, who is himself and in himself the unmixed and dispassionate Reason (Logos), but is made spurious by matter through the corporeal element. He (Horus) overcomes and wins the day since Hermes, that is, Reason (Logos), is a witness for him and points out that nature produces the world after being remodelled in accordance with what is spiritually intelligible. For the procreation of Apollo by Isis and Osiris, which occurred when the gods were still in the womb of Rhea, suggests symboli­cally that before this world became manifest and was completed by Reason (Logos), matter, being shown by its nature to be incapable of itself, brought forth the first creation. For this reason they declare that god to have been born maimed in the darkness and they call him the elder Horus; for he was not the world, but only a picture and a vision of the world to come.

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55. This Horus is himself determinate and complete; he has not destroyed Typhon completely, but only removed his activity and strength. This is why they say that the statue of Horus in Coptos holds the genitals of Typhon in one hand and they relate that Hermes, having ripped out the sinews of Typhon, used them. as lyre-strings, claiming that this denotes that reason regulated the universe and made it harmonious out of discordant parts; and it did not wipe out the destructive element, they aver, but maimed its power. This element is therefore weak and inactive here, being intermingled and interwoven with the affective and changeable parts, and so it is the maker of earthquakes and vibrations on land, of droughts and stormy winds in the air, and also of lightning-­storms and thunder. It bewitches with plagues both waters and winds, and climbs rearing up as far as the moon, whose light it often blurs and blackens. Thus the Egyptians believe and say that Typhon has now smitten the eye of Horus, and now has snatched it out and devoured it, and then has given it back again to the Sun (Helius). The blow they explain symbolically as referring to the monthly waning of the moon, and the wounding as referring to the eclipse, which the sun remedies by instantly shining back upon the moon when it has escaped the shadow of the earth.

56. The better and more divine nature consists of three elements—what is spiritually intelligible, the material, and the element derived from these, which the Greeks call the cosmos. Plato (Tim. 50C-D) is wont to call what is spiritually intelligible the form and the pattern and the father; and the material he calls the mother, the nurse, and the seat and place of creation, while the fruit of both he calls the offspring and creation. One might suppose that the Egyptians liken the nature of the universe especially to this supremely beautiful of the triangles which Plato also in the Republic (546 B) seems to have used in devising his

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wedding figure. That triangle has a vertical of three units of length, a base of four, and a hypotenuse of five, which is equal, when squared, to the squares of the other two sides. The vertical should thus be likened to the male, the base to the female, and the         374 hypotenuse to their offspring; and one should similarly view Osiris as the origin, Isis as the receptive element, and Horus as the perfected achievement. The number three is the first and perfect odd number; four is the square of the even number two; five is analogous partly to the father and partly to the mother, being made up of a triad and dyad. Panta (all) is cognate with pente (five), and they say 'to reckon by fives' for 'to count'. The number five forms a square of itself, which is the same number as the Egyptians have of letters and as the Apis had of years to live. They are wont to give Horus the name Min as well, and this means 'that which is seen'; for the cosmos is perceptible and visible. Isis is sometimes named Mouth and sometimes Athyri and Methyer. The first name means 'mother', the second 'the cosmic house of Horus', or as Plato also says (Tim. 52D-53A), 'the place and receptacle of creation'; the third is a compound of 'full' and 'good' ; for the material of the cosmos is full, and associates with the good, the pure and the ordered.

57. Perhaps Hesiod (Theog. II6ff.) would also seem to reduce all the primal principles of the universe to Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Eros, thus assuming no different origins from these, if indeed, with some transference of the names, we assign the name of Earth to Isis, that of Eros to Osiris, and that of Tartarus to Typhon; for he appears to locate Chaos below as the spatial basis of the universe. These matters remind one somehow of Plato's myth,

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which Socrates related in the Symposium (203 B ff.) concerning the creation of Eros, saying that Poverty, desiring children, lay beside Wealth as he was sleeping, and when she was pregnant by him gave birth to Eros, who was mixed by nature and extremely variable, for he had a father who was good, wise and self-sufficient in everything, but a mother who was shiftless, hard up, and because of need always hankering after some one else and coaxing him. For wealth is none other than the primal lover, the desired one, the perfect and the self-sufficient; Poverty, however, Plato called the material, which was of itself lacking in the Good, but which is impregnated by it and constantly desires and shares it. The world, or Horus, which issues from these, is neither eternal nor dispassionate nor indestructible, but being constantly reborn he tries, amid the changes and cycles of emotions, to remain always young and never likely to be destroyed.

58. We must not treat the myths as wholly factual accounts, but take what is fitting in each episode according to the principle of likeness (to truth). Thus when we say 'the material', we should not be carried away by the ideas of some philosophers and think of a kind of inanimate and characterless body which is idle and intrinsically without energy; for we call oil the material of oint­ment, and gold that of a statue, yet they are both not bereft of all character; the very soul and thought of man we allow the reason to adorn and order as the material of understanding and excellence, and some have declared the mind to be the abode of the forms and a sort of mould of things spiritually felt. Some also view the seed of woman to be neither power nor a primal principle, but the material and sustenance of creation; those who so believe should think of this goddess in such a way, as always having a part in the highest god and having union with him through love of his good

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and fine qualities and not opposing him; but just as we say that a good wife who has 375 a husband and has intercourse with him, yet longs for him, so we may say that she (the goddess) always hankers after Osiris and coaxes him and is impregnated with the most authoritative and pure qualities.

59. But where Typhon breaks in and grasps the outermost region, here Isis appears to be melancholy and is said to mourn and to search for certain remnants and scattered parts of Osiris and to adorn them, receiving the destroyed pieces and hiding them; with these she reveals again what is coming into being and produces it from herself. For the ideas in heaven and stars, and the forms and effluxes of the god remain unchanged, while the things that are scattered in objects liable to be affected, in earth, sea, plants and animals, are dissipated, destroyed and buried, but often shine out again and reappear in (new) creations. This is why the myth says that Typhon cohabits with Nephthys, but that Osiris secretly has relations with her; for the outermost parts of matter, which they call Nephthys and Teleute (End), are controlled mostly by the destructive power, but the fertilizing and saving power transmits to them a weak and feeble seed which is des­troyed by Typhon save for what Isis takes up and preserves, nourishing and holding it together.

60. In general this god (Osiris) is the better, as both Plato and Aristotle conjecture. The fertilizing and saving aspect of nature inclines towards him and towards being, while the annihilating and destructive aspect inclines away from him and towards the negation of being. For this reason do they name Isis thus, fron. ­iesthai, 'to hasten' with understanding (epistémés) and 'to move'

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(pheresthai), since she is soulful and intelligent movement. For the name is not un-Greek, but just as all gods (theoi) have a common name derived from 'what is seen' (theaton) and' what rushes' (theón), so this goddess, because of her understanding (epistémé) and movement (kinésis), is called Isis by us, and Isis by the Egyptians. Thus Plato (Cratyl. 401 C) also says that the ancients clarified ousia (essence) by calling it isia; thus one assigns thought and insight, in that it is the impetus and movement of a mind which is striving and hastening, and also intelligence and the good in general, as well as virtue, to those things that flow easily and rush, just as again the evil, which hinders, binds, and checks nature, preventing its striving and moving, is abused by the opposite names when people call it evil or ill-going (kak-ia), helplessness or lack of going (apor-ia), cowardice or fear of going (deil-ia), and trouble or not going (an-ia).

61. The name Osiris is compounded of the words hosios (holy) and hieros (sacred); for he is an idea common to the things in heaven and in Hades, of which the former used to be called sacred by the ancients and the latter holy. But he who brings to light matters pertaining to the heavens and is the primal cause of those which move above is Anubis, who is sometimes called Hermanu­bis as well, since he belongs partly to the world above and partly to the underworld. Therefore they sacrifice to him now a white cockerel and now a saffron-coloured one, believing that the world above is pure and clear, while that below is adulterated and varied. Nor should one wonder at the refashioning of the words into Greek, for a host of other words came out of Greece with those who emigrated, and still remain as guests among strangers. When poetry summons some of them to its use, it is attacked as resorting to an outlandish style by those who call such words foreign. In the so-called Books of Hermes they relate that it is written

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concerning the sacred names that the power placed in charge of the sun's course is Horus, and that the Greeks call it Apollo; that the power in charge of the wind is called by some Osiris, by others Sarapis; <and that the power in charge of the earth is called Sirius by some), and by others, in Egyptian, Sothis. It (Sothis) means pregnancy (kyesis) or to 376 be pregnant (kyein); and so, with a modification of the word, the star which they regard as peculiar to Isis is called dog (kyón) in Greek. We should indulge very little in rivalry, then, with regard to the names; indeed I should prefer to yield that of Sarapis to the Egyptians than that of Osiris, for I believe that the former is foreign and the latter is Greek, but that both belong to one god and one power.

62. With these details the Egyptian usages also agree. For they often give Isis the name Athena, which has some such meaning as this: I came from myself, which indicates self-impelled movement. Typhon, as we have already said (367D; 371 B-C) is called Seth, Bebon and Smu, names that try to express some violent and hindering restraint or  opposition or turning back. They still call the loadstone (magnetic oxide of iron) 'the bone of Horus', and iron 'the bone of Typhon', as Manetho records; for just as iron is often like a substance which is drawn towards the stone and follows it, yet often is turned away and impelled in the opposite direction, so the saving, beneficent and reasonable movement of the world turns and attracts, assuaging by persuasion that hardness and Typhonic quality; then,' rising up, it (the Typhonic hardness) returns into itself and sinks into its unlimited state. Further, Eudoxus says about Zeus, that the Egyptians relate in their myths how his limbs grew stuck together so that he could not walk and passed the time in solitude; and Isis, having cut

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and separated these parts of his body, provided him with easy movement. Through these details also the myth symbolizes the fact that the god's mind and reason dwell of themselves unseen and unperceived, and (only) through movement come forth into creative activity.

63. The sistrum (seistron) also indicates that the things which exist should be shaken (seiesthai dei) and should never stop moving, but should be awaked and disturbed, as it were, when they are sleepy and sluggish. For they say that with the sistrum they repel and ward off Typhon, meaning that when decay confines and restricts nature, the power of creation sets her free and restores her by means of movement. The top of the sistrum is rounded and the curve embraces the four objects that are shaken. For the part of the world that is created and decays is embraced by the globe of the moon, and everything in it is moved and changed through the four elements, fire, earth, water and air. On the top of the sistrum's curve they engrave the figure of a cat with a human face, and below, under the rods that are shaken, the face of Isis on one side and that of Nephthys on the other. With the faces they symbolize creation and death (for these are the changes and movements of the elements); and with the cat they symbolize the moon because of the changeableness, nocturnal activity and sexual fertility of the animal. For it is said to give birth to one kitten, then two and three and four and five, and thus it produces one more all the time up to seven, so that it gives birth to twenty-eight in all, which is also the number of the moon's illuminations. This is perhaps merely mythical; but the pupils of a cat's eyes seem to fill and widen in full moon, and to grow smaller and contract in the waning phases of the star. By the human face of the cat is indicated the intellectual and rational element in the changes which concern the moon.

64. To sum up, it is not right to regard Osiris or Isis as water or sun or earth or heaven, nor to regard Typhon again as fire or

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drought or sea, but we should not be wrong if we simply ascribed to Typhon whatever in these things is without measure and order through excess or deficiency, while venerating and honouring the well-ordered, the good and the useful as the work of Isis and as   377 the image, the imitation and reason (logos) of Osiris. But we shall also put a stop to Eudoxus when he is sceptical and perplexed as to how Isis, and not Demeter, controls the sphere of sexual love, and how Dionysus cannot make the Nile rise nor rule the dead. For in one general sense we hold that these gods have been put in charge of the whole domain of good and that the sum total of the fair and good in nature exists because of them, in that the god grants the primal germs while the goddess receives and distributes them.

65. Thus we shall attack the many boring people who find pleasure in associating the activities of these gods with the seasonal changes of the atmosphere or with the growth, sowing and ploughing of crops, and who say that Osiris is being buried when the corn is sown and hidden in the earth, and that he lives again and reappears when it begins to sprout. For this reason it is said that Isis, when she was aware of her being pregnant, put on a protective amulet on the sixth day of Phaophi, and at the winter solstice gave birth to Harpocrates, imperfect and prematurely born, amid plants that burgeoned and sprouted before their season (and so they bring to him as offering the first-fruits of growing  lentils); and they are said to celebrate the days of her confinement after the spring equinox. When they hear these details the people put their love and trust in them, choosing from this source the most credible account on the basis of what is well-­known and familiar.

66. There is nothing wrong with this if in the first place they preserve the gods as our common heritage and do not make them the peculiar property of the Egyptians. Nor should they compre­hend under these names merely the Nile and only the land which

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the Nile waters, nor speak of marshes and lotus-flowers as the only work of the gods. By so doing they would take these great gods from the rest of mankind, who have no Nile or Buto or Memphis. But Isis and the gods related to her belong to all men and are known to them; even though they have not long since learnt to call some of them by their Egyptian names, they have understood and honoured the power of each god from the begin­ning. A second point is more important: one should take the greatest heed and care not unconsciously to reduce and resolve the divine to terms of winds, fluxes, sowings, ploughings, terrestrial occurrences and seasonal changes, like those who explain Dionysus as wine and Hephaestus as flame. Persephone is called somewhere by Cleanthes 'the wind that rushes through the crops and dies away'; and a certain poet says about reapers

What time the young cut up Demeter's limbs.

Such people differ in no way from those who regard sails, ropes and anchor as the steersman, and warp and woof as the weaver, and a pouring-cup or honey-drink or barley-gruel as the doctor; but they are spreading dreadful and atheistic teachings in that they transfer the names of the gods to imperceptible and inanimate objects and to natural products and phenomena that are of­ necessity destroyed by men who need and use them. For it is impossible to believe that these things are themselves gods.

67. For God is not something without mind or soul, nor is he subservient to men. Consequently we have regarded as gods the beings who use the products of nature and bestow them upon us, providing us with them constantly and sufficiently; nor do we regard the gods as different among different peoples nor as barbarian and Greek and as southern and northern. But just as the sun, moon, heaven, earth and sea are common to all, though they are given various names by the varying peoples, so it is with the

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one reason (logos) which orders these things and the one providence which has charge of them, and the assistant powers which are assigned to everything: they   378 are given different honours and modes of address among different peoples according to custom, and they use hallowed symbols, some of which are obscure and others clearer, directing the thought towards the divine, though not without danger. For some, erring completely, have slipped into superstition, and others, shunning it like a marsh, have un­wittingly fallen in turn over the precipice of atheism.

68. Therefore in these matters above all we should take as a guide into the mysteries the understanding which philosophy gives, and reflect devoutly on everything said and enacted. Theodorus said that when he proffered his teachings with the right hand, some of his hearers received them with the left. Let us not make the similar mistake of putting a different construction on what established custom has rightly ordered concerning the sacrifices and festivals. For one may assume even from those rites themselves that they are all to be referred to a rational purpose. On the nineteenth, for instance, of the first month they keep a festival to Hermes and eat honey and figs, saying the while, ‘Sweet is truth'. Again, the amulet of Isis, which the myth states that she wore, is interpreted 'the voice is true' ( or, 'the true voice '). Harpocrates should not be regarded simply as an imperfect and weakly god nor as one connected with pulse, but as the patron and teacher of the rational insight concerning the gods which is still young, imperfect and inarticulate among men. For this reason does he hold his finger fixed on his mouth, as a symbol of reserve and silence; and in the month of Mesore when they bring offerings of pulse, they say, 'The tongue is fortune, the tongue is destiny'. of the plants found in Egypt they say that the persea is especially sacred to the goddess (Isis) because its fruit is like a heart and its leaf like a tongue. For of the qualities which man naturally possesses, none is more divine than reason [n1 logos, including a reference here to the meaning 'word, speech'.],  especially

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that which concerns the gods; nor does he possess a greater driving-force towards happiness. That is why we exhort him who comes down to the oracle here (in Delphi) to think devoutly and speak reverently. The majority, however, act absurdly when they publicly demand reverent speech in the processions and festivals, and then both speak and think the most abominable things about the gods themselves.

69. How then should one treat the gloomy, mirthless and sorrowful offering-festivals, if it is not right to ignore established rites nor yet to confuse the doctrines about the gods and to disturb them with unseemly suspicion? The Greeks also enact, round about the same time, many ceremonies that are similar to those performed by the Egyptians in their sacred rites. For the women at Athens fast in the Thesmophoria, sitting on the ground, and the. Boeotians move the halls of Achaea, calling that festival one of grief because Demeter bewails the descent of Kore to the underworld. This month is indeed, at the time of the (setting of the) Pleiades, the season for sowing; the Egyptians call it Athyr, the Athenians Pyanepsion, and the Boeotians Damatrius. Theopompus records that those who live in the west view the winter as Cronus and give it this name, while summer they name Aphrodite and spring Persephone; and they believe that everything has been created from the union of Cronus and Aphrodite. The Phrygians believe that the god sleeps in winter and is awake in summer, and with Bacchic frenzy they celebrate in the one season his being lulled to sleep and in the other his being aroused. The Paphlagonians declare that he is fettered and imprisoned during the winter, but that in the spring he moves and is freed again.

70. The season also gives a suggestion that the gloom of these rites arises from the concealment of the (seed of the) crops, which the ancients did not regard as gods, but as necessary and great gifts of the gods, to further the avoidance of wild and bestial living. At this time men saw the fruits entirely disappearing from                                         379

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the trees and failing, while others they planted themselves, though scantily and unskilfully, scraping the earth away with their hands and throwing it on again. They put the seed away with no certainty that it would be brought to fruition and reach full growth, and thus they did much that resembled burial and mourning ceremonies. Then just as we say that one who buys the books of Plato is buying Plato and that one who presents the plays of Menander is acting Menander, thus they did not hesitate to give to the gifts and deeds of the gods, which they honoured and venerated for their usefulness, the names of the gods them­selves. Their successors, however, comprehended this imperfectly, and ignorantly transferred to the gods the events relating to the crops, in that they not only hailed the appearance and vanishing of the necessities of life as the birth and fall of the gods, but also believed all this, stuffing their minds full of ridiculous, wild and confused beliefs, although the absurdity of the fallacy was plain for them to see. Xenophanes of Colophon therefore rightly requested the Egyptians, if they believed in the gods, not to bewail them, and if they bewailed them, not to believe they were gods; because it is absurd that people should pray amid lamentations for the fruits of the earth to appear again and ripen for them, so that they may be consumed and bewailed again.

71. This, however, is not so, but they bewail the crops and pray to the gods who produce and give them, to create new crops again and make them grow in place of those which are being destroyed; hence that is an excellent saying of the philosophers, that those who do not learn to understand the words properly, fail to use the objects also. In the same way there are Greeks who have not learnt or accustomed themselves to designate works of bronze and stone and paintings as images made in honour of the gods, but call the objects themselves gods; then they dare to say that Lachares undressed Athena and that Dionysius gave a close haircut to Apollo of the golden locks, and that Capitoline Zeus

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was burnt and destroyed in the civil war. They are not aware, in saying this, that they are dragging in and accepting pernicious doctrines in the wake of the names.

Not least have the Egyptians experienced this with regard to the animals honoured by them. For the Greeks use the correct expressions in these matters, and regard the dove as the sacred animal of Aphrodite, the serpent of Athena, the raven of Apollo, and the dog of Artemis, as Euripides says

A dog shalt thou become, an image of bright Hecate.

But most of the Egyptians venerate the animals themselves and treat them as gods, and thus not only have they involved the sacred rites in laughter and scorn—this is the smallest evil resulting from their folly—but a baneful belief becomes estab­lished which hurls the weak and innocent into stark superstition, and with the stronger and bolder minds falls into godless and crude arguments. It is not therefore inappropriate to recount also in this connexion the proper beliefs.

72. The story that the gods changed into these animals in fear of Typhon, as though hiding themselves in the bodies of ibises, dogs and hawks, surpasses all childish marvels and fairy-tales; and the idea that the souls of the dead who survive achieve rebirth in these animals only is equally incredible. Among those who wish to give a political explanation are those who say that Osiris in his great expedition divided his force into many parts (the Greeks call them companies and contingents) and gave them all animal­shaped standards, each one of which became sacred and precious to the whole clan of people thus associated. Others say that the later kings, in order      380 to frighten their enemies, appeared in battle wearing gold and silver animal-masks. Still others relate that one

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of the cunning and evil kings, having ascertained that the Egyp­tians were light-hearted by nature and easily prone to change and revolution, and that they had a force which by dint of sheer numbers was invincible and hard to check, if only they agreed and co-operated among themselves, implanted in them, through the introduction of superstition, a perpetual cause of ceaseless dispute. For he ordered different people to honour and venerate different animals which were bitterly and violently opposed to one another and conditioned by nature to take one another as sustenance. Since each group defended its own animals and was angry if they were injured, they were thus unconsciously induced into the enmities of the animals and fought with each other in the same way. For of all the Egyptians, even today, the Lycopolitans alone eat sheep, since the wolf, whom they regard as a god, also does so. In our time the Oxyrhynchites, when the Cynopolitans ate the oxyrhynchus fish, seized a dog and after offering it in sacrifice, devoured it as sacrificial meat; as a result they went to war and treated each other maliciously until they were later punished and separated by the Romans.

73. By saying that Typhon's own soul was assigned to these animals, the myth would appear to indicate symbolically that every irrational and bestial nature participates in the evil daemon, and it is to appease and assuage him that they respect and honour these animals. If a great and severe drought arises which brings with it in large measure either pernicious diseases or unexpected and strange misfortunes, then the priests lead aside, in conditions of darkness, silence and secrecy, certain of the animals honoured; and at first they threaten and frighten them; and if the drought continues, they consecrate and slay them, intending this as a sort of punishment of the daemon or otherwise as a great expiation for the greatest misfortunes.

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Indeed in Eileithyiaspolis they used to burn men alive, as Manetho has recorded, calling them Ty­phonians, and they used to remove and scatter their ashes with winnowing-fans. But this was done openly and at a fixed time, in the dog-days. As for the secret consecrations of the animals honoured, which occur at irregular times and relate to casual events, the majority know nothing of them, except when they enact burial ceremonies and display some of the other animals, and in the presence of all bury them together, believing that thus they cause vexation to Typhon in turn and lessen his pleasure. The Apis seems, in company with a few other animals, to be sacred to Osiris; but they allot most animals to the former (Typhon). If this statement is true, I think it indicates the desired explanation concerning the animals which are recognized and are recipients of general honour, such as the ibis, hawk, and cynocephalus; the Apis himself too (and Mendes); for they give this name to the buck in Mendes.

74. There remain the useful and symbolical qualities, one of which is found in some animals, and both in many. Thus it is clear that they have honoured the cow, the sheep and the ichneumon because of their usefulness and advantage, just as the Lemnians honour crested larks which find the eggs of locusts and crush them, and the Thessalians honour storks because, when the earth produced many snakes, the storks appeared and destroyed them all. (This is why they also passed a law condemning to exile whoever kills a stork.) The cobra, however, and the weasel and the scarab-beetle they honoured because they saw in them certain faint images of the power of the gods, like the image of the sun in rain-drops. For many still believe and say that the weasel becomes         381 pregnant through the ear and gives birth by way of the mouth, and so is a portrayal of the creation of speech.

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Beetles, they say, are a species without females, and being all males, they emit their seed into material made in balls, which they roll as they push them backwards, just as the sun appears to turn the sky around in the opposite direction when it is moving itself from west to east. The cobra, on the other hand, since it does not grow old and moves with ease though it has no limbs; they have also compared to the star of moisture.

75. Not even the crocodile has received honour without a convincing cause: it is said to be the only tongueless creature and thus a likeness of God. For the divine reason does not need a voice, and

passing on a noiseless path,

Guides mortal things aright;  (Eur. Tro. 887-8)

and they say that the crocodile, alone of creatures that live in the water, has covering its eyes a smooth, transparent membrane which comes down from its forehead, so that it sees without being seen to do so, which is also true of the highest God. Whatever spot the female lays her eggs, people know to be the highest mark of the Nile's inundation. For since they are unable to lay their eggs in the wet, and are afraid to do so far away, they have such an accurate presentiment of the future that in laying their eggs they make use of the rise of the river, but in sitting on them keep them dry and unmoistened. They lay sixty eggs and hatch them in so many days, and those who live longest live for this number of years, which is the primary measure for those concerned with heavenly phenomena.

Now as for the animals honoured for both reasons, we have spoken above (355 B, 368 F) about the dog; the ibis, which kills the deadly reptiles, was the first to teach the use of medical aperients to those who saw it thus being purged and purified by itself; and the most scrupulous of the priests, when they purify

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themselves, draw holy water from where the ibis has drunk, for it will not drink diseased or poisoned water, nor even approach it. By the disposition of its feet in relation to one another and to its beak, it forms an equilateral triangle, and through the variation and mingling of the black wings near the white shows the form of a half-moon. Nor should it be a matter for surprise that the Egyptians were so fond of subtle comparisons; for the Greeks also in both painted and sculptured representations of the gods made use of many such likenesses; for instance, there was in Crete a statue of Zeus with no ears, since it was fitting that the ruler and lord of all should listen to no one. Pheidias set a serpent near the statue of Athena, and a tortoise near that of Aphrodite in Elis, implying that girls need to be guarded, but that domesticity and silence are seemly in married women. The trident of Poseidon is a symbol of the third (trires) region which the sea holds, being assigned this position after the heaven and the air; that is why Amphitrite and the Tritons were so named.

The Pythagoreans have even endowed numbers and geo­metrical figures with appellations of gods. For they used to call the equilateral triangle Athena born from the forehead (of Zeus) and Tritogeneia (born from the three), since it is divided by three perpendiculars drawn from the three angles. The number one they call Apollo because of its denial of plurality and because of the simplicity of the monad; two was called Strife and Daring, and three Justice; for whereas doing and suffering wrong arises from deficiency and excess, justice, in virtue of its equality, comes in between. The so-called tetraktys, namely thirty-six, was the greatest oath, as is well          382 known, and was called the Cosmos; it was made up by the sum of the first four even and uneven numbers.

76. If therefore the most celebrated of the philosophers en­visaged an obscure image of the divine even in inanimate and

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incorporeal objects and thought that none of them should be neglected or scorned, still more, in my view, should we love the distinctive qualities found in natures that have perception and soul, susceptibility and character; nor should we honour these (animals), but rather the divine through them, as being very clear mirrors which nature provides; <for these animals> should be regarded as <clearly> the instrument or art of the God who

orders everything, and in general nothing inanimate should be held to be superior to the animate and nothing imperceptive to be superior to the perceptive, not even if one amassed together all the gold and emeralds in the world. For it is not in colours nor in forms nor in a smooth finish that the divine is present, but what­ever has had no share in life and cannot by nature share in it, is worse off than the dead. The nature, on the other hand, which lives and sees, which has its principle of movement from itself and knows what belongs to it and what does not, has imbibed an efflux of beauty and derives its lot from the intelligent being 'by whom the universe is guided' according to Heracleitus. In view of this the divine is represented no less faithfully in these (animals) than in bronze and stone works of art, which equally take on gradations of colour and tincture, but are by nature devoid of all perception and intelligence. Concerning the animals honoured, then, I approve especially of these views.

77. The robes of Isis are variegated in colour (for her essential power concerns the material, which becomes everything and receives everything—light and darkness, day and night, fire and water, life and death, beginning and end; the robe of Osiris, how­ever, has nothing dark or variegated about it, but is of one simple colour, the colour of light; for the origin of things is unadul­terated and the primal element which is spiritually intelligible is unmixed. For this reason they put on this dress only once and

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then take it off, preserving it unseen and untouched, whereas they use the Isiac robes many times. For the things which are per­ceptible and near at hand are in use and afford many revelations and glimpses of themselves as they are variously interchanged at various times. But the understanding of what is spiritually intelligible and pure and holy, having shone through the soul like lightning, affords only one chance to touch and to behold it. For this reason both Plato (Symp. 210A) and Aristotle call this branch of philosophy that concerned with the highest mysteries, in that those who have passed beyond these conjectural, confused and widely varied matters spring up by force of reason to that primal, simple and immaterial element; and having directly grasped the pure truth attached to it, they believe that they hold the ultimate end of philosophy in the manner of a mystic revela­tion.

78. There is a doctrine which modern priests hint at to satisfy their conscience, but only in veiled terms and with caution: namely that this god (Osiris) rules and reigns over the dead, being none other than he whom the Greeks call Hades and Pluto. The truth of this statement is misunderstood and confuses the masses, who suppose that the sacred and holy one, who is in truth Osiris, lives in the earth and under the earth, where are concealed the bodies of those who appear to have reached their goal. He is actually very far removed from the earth, being undefiled, unspotted, and uncorrupted by any being which is subject to decay and death. The souls of men here, hedged in as they are by the body and its emotions, have no association with the god save for the dim vision of his presence which they achieve by the understanding gained through philosophy; but whenever they are freed and pass over to the formless, invisible, dispassionate and holy kingdom, then is this god their leader and king, for depending on him, they behold 383  insatiably and desire the beauty which is, to men, ineffable and unutterable. This beauty, as the ancient story shows, Isis ever loves, and she pursues it and unites with it, filling this

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world with all the beautiful and good qualities which have a part in creation. Such is the interpretation of these matters which is most becoming to the gods.

79. If I need speak also of the daily burnings of incense, as I promised (372 C), it should be first noted that the men (of Egypt) take the greatest care about habits conducive to health. Especially in their religious rites, purifications and rules of dietetic regimen, the hygienic consideration is present no less than that of this holiness itself. For they did not think it was right to worship the pure and wholly inviolate and unspotted nature with either bodies or souls that are festering and diseased. Now since the air which we constantly use and live in does not always have the same composition and temper, but by night grows dense and oppresses the body and induces the soul to a state of gloom and anxiety as though it becomes clouded over and heavy, when they get up they instantly worship by burning incense of resin. Thus they purify the air with the secretion and revive the spirit which is inbred with the body and which has become enervated, the smell of resin having something violent and disturbing about it. Again at noon, when they perceive that the sun draws up by force from the earth a very large and heavy exhalation and mingles it with the air, they burn incense of myrrh; for its heat loosens and disintegrates the turbid and muddy mass which gathers in the atmosphere. In fact doctors believe that it is helpful, in treating pestilential conditions, to make a big fire in order to rarefy the air; this is done more effectively if fragrant wood is burnt, such as that of the cypress, juniper and pine. Certainly Acron the doctor is said to have gained fame at Athens during the great plague by ordering a fire to be kindled near the sick; for he thus benefited not a few. Aristotle says that the fragrant breaths of perfumes, flowers and meadows are no less conducive to health than to pleasure, in that they spread softly with warmth and mildness through the brain which

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is by nature cold and congealed. If they also call myrrh sal among the Egyptians, and this word is most often explained as meaning 'the scattering abroad of silly talk', this fact provides some con­firmation of the account we have given of the reason involved.

80. Cyphi is a mixture compounded of sixteen parts: honey, wine, raisins, the round cyperus, resin, myrrh, camel's thorn and hartwort, then mastich, asphalt, rush and monk's rhubarb, and in addition to these the two junipers (which they call the greater and the lesser), cardamum and sweet flag. They are not put together haphazardly, but whenever the unguent-makers are mixing these ingredients, sacred writings are read out to them. It can by no means, however, be maintained that the number helps towards this end, even if it certainly seems to be the square of a square and alone of the numbers forming a square to have its circumference exactly equal to its area, extending itself accordingly. But as most of the ingredients have aromatic powers, they emit a sweet breath and a beneficent exhalation by which the air is changed, while the body, being moved by the whiff softly and gently, acquires a temper that seductively brings on sleep, so that without drunkenness it relaxes and loosens the chain-like sorrows and tensions of daily cares. It (this exhalation) polishes and purifies like a mirror the faculty which is imaginative and receptive to dreams, just like the notes of the lyre which the Pythagoreans used       384 before sleep, to charm and heal the emotive and irrational part of the soul. For odours often recall the power of perception when it is failing, while often they obscure and calm it, since the exhalations penetrate through the body by reason of their smooth

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softness. In a similar way some doctors say that sleep comes about whenever the exhalation from nourishment, as though gliding softly around the intestines and touching them, produces a sort of tickling. They use cyphi both as a drink and as a purge. For when drunk it seems to purify the inner parts, as one would expect from its emollient quality. Apart from this, resin is a product of the sun, and so is myrrh, since plants ooze them out at the heat of noon. But of the ingredients of cyphi, some take pleasure more in the night, such as all those which are nourished by cool breezes, shadows, dew and moisture; for the light of day is single and simple, and Pindar (Ol. 1. 6) says that the sun is seen 'through the lonely ether', whereas the night air is a coalescence and fusion of many illuminations and powers which flow down like seeds to one centre from all the stars. It is proper, therefore, that by day they should burn as incense those substances (resin and myrrh), since they are simple and derive their origin from the sun, whereas when night falls they should burn these substances (cyphi), because they are mixed and diverse in their qualities.