Legends of the Gods, The History of Isis and Osiris 9
Legends of the Gods
The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations
by E. A. Wallis Budge
London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trner & Co. Ltd.
[1912]
THE HISTORY OF ISIS AND OSIRIS
WITH EXPLANATIONS OF THE SAME, COLLECTED BY PLUTARCH, AND SUPPLEMENTED BY
HIS OWN VIEWS
FIFTH EXPLANATION OF THE STORY
XLIV
The philosophers say that the story is nothing but an enigmatical description
of the phenomena of Eclipses.
XLV
Plutarch discusses the five explanations which he has described, and begins
to state his own views about them. It must be concluded, he says, that none of
these explanations taken by itself contains the true explanation of the foregoing
history, though all of them together do.
Typhon means every phase of Nature which is hurtful and destructive, not only
drought, darkness, the sea, It is impossible that any one cause, be it bad or
even good, should be the common principle of all things. There must be two opposite
and quite different and distinct Principles.
XLVI
Plutarch compares this view with the Magian belief in Ormazd and Ahriman, the
former springing from light, and the latter from darkness.
XLVII
Ormazd made six good gods, and Ahriman six of a quite contrary nature. Ormazd
increased his own bulk three times, and adorned the heaven with stars, making
the Sun to be the guard of the other stars. He then created twenty-four other
gods, and placed them in an egg, and Ahriman also created twenty-four gods; the
latter bored a hole in the shell of the egg and effected an entrance into it,
and thus good and evil became mixed together.
XLVIII
Plutarch quotes Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, and Plato in support of
his hypothesis of the Two Principles, and refers to Plato's Third Principle.
XLIX
Osiris represents the good qualities of the universal Soul, and Typhon the
bad; Bebo 1 is a malignant being like Typhon, with whom
Manetho identifies him.
L
The ass, crocodile, and hippopotamus are all associated with Typhon; in the
form of a crocodile Typhon escaped from Horus. 2
The cakes offered on the seventh day of the month Tybi have a hippopotamus
stamped on them.
LI
Osiris symbolizes wisdom and power, and Typhon all that is malignant and bad.
The remaining sections contain a long series of fanciful statements by Plutarch
concerning the religion and manners and customs of the Egyptians, of which the
Egyptian texts now available give no proofs.
Footnotes
1 In Egyptian, BEBI, or BABA, or BABAI, he was the first-born
Son of Osiris.
2 See the Legend of Heru-Behutet,
