[364] 368 D.
[365] 369 C. It is clear from a careful examination of the text that Plutarch gives only a critical examination of this theory: he does not adopt it as his own, as has frequently been asserted.
[366] 369 D. “It is impossible,” argued these ancient thinkers, “that moral life and death, that good and evil, can flow from a single source. It is impossible that a Holy God can have been the author of evil. Evil, then, must be referred to some other origin: it must have had an author of its own.”—“Some Elements of Religion,” by Canon Liddon (Lecture iv. sect. i.).
[367] 370 E.
[368] 371 A.
[369] See especially the quotations from Plato in 370 F, and the application of Platonic terms in the interpretation of the Isiac and Osirian myth in 372 E, F, 373 and 374. Hesiod, too, is made to agree with this Platonic explanation of the Egyptian legend (374 C), and the Platonic notion of matter is strained to allow of its being identified with Isis (372 E, 374 F). In 367 C, a parallelism is pointed out between Stoic theology and an interpretation of the myth; and in 367 E the death of Osiris on the 17th of the month is used to illustrate, if not to explain, the Pythagorean ἀφοσίωσις of that number.
As regards the identification of particular deities in this tract, reference may be made to 364 E, F and 365 A, B, where Dionysus is identified with Osiris; and to 365 F, where Mnaseas of Patara is mentioned with approval as associating with Epaphus, not only Dionysus, but Serapis and Osiris also. Anticleides is also referred to as asserting that Isis was the daughter of Prometheus and the wife of Dionysus. In 372 D, Osiris is identified with the Sun under the name of Sirius, and Isis with the Moon, in 375, a fanciful philology is called in to aid a further identification of Greek and Egyptian deities; but not much importance is attached to similarities derived in this way. In the next sentence Isis is stated to have been identified with Athene by the Egyptians; and the general principle of identity is boldly stated in 377 C:—“It is quite legitimate to regard these gods as common possessions and not the exclusive property of the Egyptians—Isis and the deities that go in her train are universally known and worshipped. The names, indeed, of certain of them have been borrowed from the Egyptians, not so long ago; but their divinity has been known and recognized for ages.”
[370] 378 A.
[371] There is a strain of mysticism in the De Osiride which is alien from the cheerful common sense which usually marks Plutarch; a remark which also applies to the De Facie quæ apparet in Orbe Lunæ. But the same strain appears in others of his authentic tracts, though mostly operating through the medium of Platonic dreams and myths, e.g. the story of Thespesius in the Sera Num. Vindic., and that of Timarchus in the De Dæmonio Socratis. Besides, one would not ceteris paribus deny the authenticity of Browning’s “Childe Roland” because he had written “The Guardian Angel,” or that of “The Antiquary” because Scott was also the author of “The Monastery.” The tract was probably composed after that return from Alexandria to which Plutarch so charmingly alludes in Sympos., 678 C. Moreover, the very nature of the subject, and the priestly character of the lady to whom it was addressed, as well as the mysterious nature of the goddess whose ministrant she was, are all parts of a natural inducement to mysticism. We must admit that Plutarch here participates in that spirit of mysticism which, always inherent in Platonism, was kept in check by his acutely practical bent, to be revived and exaggerated to the destruction of practical ethics in the dreams and abstractions of the Neo-Platonists.
[372] A very slight acquaintance with Plutarch’s writings will serve to dispose of the charge of Atheism brought against him by Zimmerman, the professor of Theology in the Gymnasium of Zurich:—Credo equidem Plutarchum inter eos fuisse qui cum Cicerone crediderint eos qui dant philosophiæ operam non arbitrari Deos esse.—It is true that Zimmerman supports his case by quoting the pseudo-Plutarchean De Placitis (Idem de providentia non minus male loquitur quam ipsi Epicurei), and seems himself afraid to accept the conclusion of his own demonstrations:—Atheum eum fuisse non credo, sed quomodo asserere potuerit Superstitione Atheismum tolerabiliorem esse, simul tamen eos, quos atheos fuisse minime probare potuit, Superstitioni autem inimicissimos, omnem malorum mundum intulisse, consociare nequeo.—But the learned author is too intent on exculpating Noster Euhemerus from Plutarch’s “injustice” to have justice to spare for Plutarch himself.—(J. J. Zimmerman, Epistola ad Nonnen). Gréard quotes other authors of this charge against Plutarch (p. 269).—We cannot allow this opportunity to pass of protesting against the attitude of those who assumed, even in the Nineteenth Century, that it was a sign either of moral depravity, or mental incapacity, in Plutarch not to have been a believer in the Christian faith. Even Archbishop Trench, who admits, concerning such writers as our author, that “many were by them enabled to live their lives after a far higher and nobler fashion than else they would have attained” cannot rid himself of the notion that had Plutarch actively opposed Christianity he would have committed an offence which our generosity might have pardoned, though our justice must recognize that it needed pardon. “Plutarch himself may be entirely acquitted of any conscious attempt to fight against that truth which was higher than any which he had” (p. 13).—“I have already mentioned that, through no fault of his own, he stood removed from all the immediate influences of the Christian Church” (p. 89). But suppose the facts to have been just the opposite of those indicated in the words we have italicized, it would involve the loss of all sense of historical perspective to draw the conclusion which would clearly have been drawn by Trench himself. The use of similar language by Prof. Mahaffy has already been noted. (Pref. p. xii.) The position assumed by writers who maintain this view, is one quite inappropriate for historical discussion, and its natural expression, if it must be expressed at all, is through the medium of such poetical aspirations as that breathed in the epigram of John, the Metropolitan of Euchaita:—