Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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3. And when Nephthys conceives Anubis, Isis adopts him. For Nephthys is that which is below the earth and non-manifest, while Isis [is] that which is above the earth and manifest.
4. And the circle just touching them and called " Horizon," as being common to both of them, has been called Anubis, and is likened to a dog for its characteristic; for the dog has the use of its sight both by day and nightalike.
5. And Anubis seems to possess this power among Egyptians — just as Hecate with Greeks — being at one and the same time chthonian and olympian.1
6. Some, however, think that Anubis is Kronos;2 wherefore as he breeds all things out of himself and conceives (KIXDV) [all] in himself, he got the name of Dog (KVMV).
7. There is, then, for the worshippers of Anubis some [mystery] or other that may not be spoken of.3
8. In olden times, indeed, the dog enjoyed the highest honours in Egypt; but seeing that when Cambyses 4 slew the Apis and cast it out, no [animal] approached or touched its carcase but only the dog, he [thus] lost the [distinction of] being first and most honoured of the rest of the animals.
9. There are some, however, who call the shadow of the earth into which they think the Moon falls and is eclipsed, Typhon.
1 That is, infernal and celestial. 2 In the sense of Time.
3 This seems to suggest that Plutarch, though he faithfully records what "people say," by no means wishes his readers to believe them. 4 But see xi. 4 and xxxi. 4.
THE THEORY OF THE DUALISTS
XLV. 1. From [all of] which it seems not unreasonable to conclude that no simple [explanation] by itself gives the right meaning, but that they all collectively do so.
2. For neither drought nor wind nor sea nor darkness is the essential of Typhon, but the whole hurtful and destructive [element] which is in nature.
3. For we must neither place the principles of the whole in soulless bodies, as [do] Democritus and Epicurus, nor yet assume one Reason (Logos) [only] and one Providence that prevails over and masters all things as demiurge [or artificer] of quality-less matter, as [do] the Stoics.
4. For it is impossible either that anything at all of no worth should exist where God is cause of all, or of worth where [He is cause] of nothing.
5. For " reciprocal " [is] cosmos' " harmony, as that of lyre or bow," according to Heracleitus,1 and according to Euripides:
There could not be apart good things and bad,
But there's a blend of both so as to make things fair.2
6. Wherefore this exceedingly ancient doctrine also comes down from the theologers and law-givers to poets and philosophers — [a doctrine] that has its origin set down to no man's name, and yet possessed of credit, strong and not so easy to efface, surviving in many places not in words or voices 3 only, but also in [secret]
perfectionings and [public] offerings, both non-Greek and Greek [ones] — that neither does the universe mindless and reason-less and guidance-less float in "That which acts of its own will," nor is there one Reason [only] that rules and guides, as though with rudder as it were and bits obedient to the reins ; but that [the universe] is many things and these a blend of evil things and good.
1 Mullach, i. 319 ; Fairbanks (45), p. 37. The whole logos of Heracleitus runs : " They know not how differing agrees with itself, — back-flying (iraxivTovos) harmony as though of lyre or bow." That is, as a stretched string flies back again to its original position. 2 Nauck, p. 294.
3 That is, presumably, " in logoi and voices from heaven."
7. Or, rather, seeing that Nature produces nothing, generally speaking, unmixed down here, it is not that from two jars a single mixer, like a tavern-keeper, pouring things out like drinks, mixes them up for us, but that from two opposite principles and two antagonistic powers — the one leading [things] to the right and on the straight [road], the other upsetting and undoing [them] — both life has been made mixed, and cosmos (if not the whole, at anyrate this [cosmos] which surrounds the earth and comes after the Moon) irregular and variable, and susceptible of changes of every kind.
8. For if nothing has been naturally brought into existence without a cause, and Good cannot furnish cause of Bad, the nature of Bad as well as Good must have a genesis and principle peculiar to itself.