Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

For this task Plutarch is well equipped, not only by his wide knowledge of the philosophy and theology and science of his day, but also by the fact that he held a high office at Delphi in the service of Apollo and also in connection with the Dionysiac rites. He was almost certainly a hierophant, and no merely formal one at that.

Plutarch accordingly gives a most instructive exposition, which should enable us, if only we are content to put ourselves in his place, and condescend to think in the terms of the thought of his day, to review the ancient struggle between physical reason and formal theology which was then in full conflict — a conflict that has been renewed on a vastly extended scale for the last few centuries, and which is still being fought to a finish or honourable truce in our own day.

Our initiated philosopher is on the side neither of atheism or pure physicism, nor on that of superstition, as he understood those terms in his day ; he takes a middle ground, and seeks final refuge in the fair vision of the Logos; and that, too, in all humility, for he knows well that whatever he can say is at best but a dim reflection of the glory of the Highest, as indeed he expressly tells us when writing:

"Nor can the souls of men here on the earth, swathed as they are in bodies and enwrapped in passions, commune with God, except so far as they can reach some dun sort of a dream of Him with the perception of a mind trained in philosophy " (Ixxiii. 2).

We accordingly find Plutarch discussing the various theories of his day which professed to explain the mythological and theological enigmas of the ancients, with special reference to the Osiris myth.

He discusses the theory of Evemerus, that the gods were nothing but ancient kings and worthies, and dismisses it as no really satisfactory explanation (xxiii.).

He then proceeds to consider the theory that these things refer to the doings of daimones, — which he thinks a decided improvement on that of Evemerus (xxv.).

Thence he passes to the theories of the Physicists or natural phenomenalists (xxxii.), and of the Mathematici — that is to say, the Pythagorean speculations as to the celestial spheres, and their harmonies (xli.).

In each of these three latter theories he thinks there is some truth ; still each by itself is insufficient ; they must be combined (xlv.), and even then it is not enough.

He next considers the question of first principles, and discusses the theories of the One, the Two, and the Many ; again finding something to be said for each view, and yet adopting none of them as all-sufficient.

But of all attempted interpretations he finds the least satisfactory to be that of those who are content to limit the hermeneutics of the mystery-myths simply to the operations of ploughing and sowing. With this " vegetation god " theory he has little patience, and stigmatises its professors as that "dull crowd" (Ixv.).

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And here, perhaps, some of us may think that Plutarch is not out of date even in the twentieth century of grace, and his arguments might be recommended to the consideration of those anthropologists who are just now with such complacency running to death what Mr Andrew Lang humourously calls the "Covent Garden " theory.

Further on, dealing as he does with the puzzling question of Egyptian "animal worship," Plutarch is brought face to face with many problems of " taboo " and " totemism," and he is not without interest in what he says on these subjects (Ixxii. f.), and in the theories of utilitarianism and symbolism which he adduces (Ixxiv.).

Finally, he gives us his view of the rationale of the custom of incense-burning (Ixxix.), which should be of some concern to many in present-day Christian communities.

But the whole of this complex of custom and rites, puzzling and self-contradictory as they may appear, and the whole of the riddles and veiled enigmas of Egyptian priestly tradition, are, Plutarch believes, resolvable into transparent simplicity by a proper understanding of the true nature of man and of his relation to Divine Nature, that Wisdom who is the eternal and inseparable spouse of Divine Reason, the Logos.