Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 25

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[25] ¹Better, therefore, is the judgement of those who hold that the stories about Typhon, Osiris, and Isis, are records of experiences of neither gods nor men, but of demigods, whom Plato² and Pythagoras³ and Xenocrates⁴ and Chrysippus,⁵ following the lead of early writers on sacred subjects, allege to have been stronger than men and, in their might, greatly surpassing our nature, yet not possessing the divine quality unmixed and uncontaminated, but with a share also in the nature of the soul and in the perceptive faculties of the body, and with a susceptibility to pleasure and pain and to whatsoever other experience is incident to these mutations, and is the source of much disquiet in some and of less in others. For in demigods, as in men, there are divers degrees of virtue and of vice. The exploits of the Giants and Titans celebrated among the Greeks, the lawless deeds of a Cronus,⁶ the stubborn resistance of Python against Apollo, the flights of Dionysus,⁷ and the wanderings of Demeter, do not fall at all short of the exploits of Osiris and Typhon and other exploits which anyone may hear freely repeated in traditional story. So, too, all the things which are kept always away from the ears and eyes of the multitude by being concealed behind mystic rites and ceremonies have a similar explanation.

De Iside et Osiride. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Isis and Osiris (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ Ἴσιδος και Ὀσίριδος Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol II. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1889.) — 25 focus

[25] βέλτιον οὖν οἱ τὰ περὶ τὸν Τυφῶνα καὶ Ὄσιριν καὶ Ἶσιν ἱστορούμενα μήτε θεῶν παθήματα μήτʼ ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ δαιμόνων μεγάλων εἶναι νομίζοντες, 360e οὓς¹ καὶ Πλάτων καὶ Πυθαγόρας καὶ Ξενοκράτης καὶ Χρύσιππος, ἑπόμενοι τοῖς πάλαι θεολόγοις, 10 ἐρρωμενεστέρους μὲν ἀνθρώπων γεγονέναι λέγουσι καὶ πολὺ² τῇ δυνάμει τὴν φύσιν ὑπερφέροντας ἡμῶν, τὸ δὲ θεῖον οὐκ ἀμιγὲς οὐδʼ ἄκρατον ἔχοντας, ἀλλὰ καὶ ψυχῆς φύσει καὶ σώματος αἰσθήσει³⁴ συνειληχός, ἡδονὴν δεχόμενον⁵ καὶ πόνον, καὶ ὅσα ταύταις ἐγγενόμενα 15 ταῖς μεταβολαῖς πάθη τοὺς μὲν μᾶλλον τοὺς δʼ ἧττον ἐπιταράττει. γίγνονται γὰρ ὡς ἐν ἀνθρώποις, καὶ δαίμοσιν, ἀρετῆς διαφοραὶ καὶ κακίας. 360f τὰ γὰρ Γιγαντικὰ καὶ Τιτανικὰ παρʼ Ἕλλησιν ᾀδόμενα καὶ Κρόνου⁶ τινὲς ἄθεσμοι πράξεις καὶ Πύθωνος 20 ἀντιτάξεις πρὸς Ἀπόλλωνα, φυγαί⁷ τε Διονύσου καὶ πλάναι, Δήμητρος οὐδὲν ἀπολείπουσι τῶν Ὀσιριακῶν καὶ Τυφωνικῶν, ἄλλων θʼ ὧν πᾶσιν⁸ ἔξεστιν ἀνέδην μυθολογουμένων ἀκούειν· ὅσα τε μυστικοῖς ἱεροῖς περικαλυπτόμενα⁹ καὶ τελεταῖς ἄρρητα διασῴζεται καὶ ἀθέατα πρὸς τοὺς πολλούς, ὅμοιον ἔχει λόγον.

Translations (1)

Of Isis and Osiris, or of the Ancient Religion and Philosophy of Egypt. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. IV. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 25 focus

[25] Therefore they maintain the wiser opinion, who hold that the things here storied of Typhon, Osiris, and Isis were not the events of Gods, nor yet of men, but of certain grand Daemons, whom Plato, Pythagoras, Xenocrates, and Chrysippus (following herein the opinion of the most ancient theologists) affirm to be of greater strength than men, and to transcend our nature by much in power, but not to have a divine part pure and unmixed, but such as participates of both the soul’s nature and the body’s sensation, capable of receiving both pleasure and pain, and all the passions that attend these mutations, which disorder some of them more and others of them less. For there are divers degrees both of virtue and vice, as among men, so also among Daemons. For what they sing about among the Greeks, concerning the Giants and the Titans, and of certain horrible actions of Saturn, as also of Python’s combats with Apollo, of the flights of Bacchus, and the ramblings of Ceres, come nothing short of the relations about Osiris and Typhon and others such, which everybody may lawfully and freely hear as they are told in the mythology. The like may be also said of those things that, being veiled over in the mystic rites and sacred ceremonies of initiation, are therefore kept private from the sight and hearing of the common sort.

Notes on the current edition

Isis and Osiris

1. In connexion with chapters 25 and 26 one may well compare 418 d - 419 a and 421 c-e, infra, and Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iv. 21 - v. 5.

2. Cf. 361 c, infra.

3. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32.

4. Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 2. 29.

5. Cf. Moralia, 277 a, 419 a, and 1051 c-d; and von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1103 (p. 320).

6. The vengeance which he wreaked on his father Uranus.

7. Homer, Il. vi. 135 ff. If φθόροι is read ( destructions wrought by Dionysus) there would be also a reference to the death of Pentheus as portrayed in the Bacchae of Euripides. Cf. also Moralia, 996 c.

Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 25

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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