The opinion of so conscientious a scholar on Plutarch’s “appropriations” is worth quoting:—“tenendum est ... Plutarchum non eum fuisse qui more compilatorum libros aliorum ad verbum exscriberet sed id egisse ut ea quæ legisset atque collegisset referret, sed ita ut modo sua intermisceret, modo nonnulla omitteret vel mutaret.”
[147] De Iside et Osiride, 353 E.
[148] De Ε apud Delphos, 393 D. Cf. De Defectu, 433 E. Ammonius is here evidently referring to a remark made (386 B) by “one of those present” to the effect that “practically all the Greeks identify Apollo with the Sun.” The words of Ammonius quoted in the text are strikingly similar in spirit to the famous verses in the “In Memoriam:”—
“O thou that after toil and storm
May’st seem to have reached a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form,
“Leave thou thy sister when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse