Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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6. Though indeed every day they offer incense to the Sun in three kinds — resin at his rising, myrrh at mid-heaven, and what is called " kuphi " at his setting ; the reason for each of which I will explain later on.1 And with all these they think to make the Sun propitious to them and to do him service.
7. But what need is there to collect many such indications ? For there are those who say point-blank that Osiris is Sun and is called Sirius by Greeks — though with Egyptians the addition of the article has caused the name to be mistaken 2 — and who declare Isis to be no other than Moon ; whence also [they say] that the horned ones of her statues are representations of her crescent, while by the black-robed ones are signified the occultations and overshadowings in which she follows Sun longing after him.
8. Accordingly they invoke Moon for affairs of love ; and Eudoxus 3 says that Isis decides love-affairs.
1 Gf. Ixxix., Ixxx.
2 That is o fftipios=S<rtpis — an absurd contention, of course, though flattering to Greek vanity.
3 Of. vi., x., xxx., Ixii., Ixiv.
9. And these [explanations] have in a modified way some share of plausibility; whereas it is not worth while even listening to those who make the Sun Typhon.
10. But let us ourselves again take up the proper reason (logos).
The PROPER REASON ACCORDING TO PLUTARCH
LIIL 1. For Isis is the feminine [principle] of Nature and that which is capable of receiving the whole of genesis ; in virtue of which she has been called " Nurse " and " All-receiving " by Plato,1 and, by the multitude, " She of ten - thousand names," through her being transformed by Eeason (Logos) and receiving all forms and ideas [or shapes].
2. And she hath an innate love of the First and Most Holy of all things (which is identical with the Good), and longs after and pursues it. But she flees from and repels the domain of the Bad, and though she is the field and matter of them both, yet doth she ever incline to the Better of herself, and offers [herself] for him to beget and sow into herself emanations and likenesses, with which she joys and delights that she is pregnant and big with their generations.
3. For Generation is image of Essence in Matter and
Becoming copy of Being.
LIV. 1. Hence not unreasonably do they say in the myth that [while] the Soul of Osiris is eternal and indestructible, Typhon often tears his Body in pieces and makes it disappear, and that Isis seeks it wandering and puts it together again.
2. For the Eeal and Conceivable-by-the-mind-alone and Good is superior to destruction and change; but the images which the sensible and corporeal imitates from it, and the reasons (logoi) and forms and likenesses which it receives, just as seal-impressions in wax, do not last for ever, but are seized upon by the disorderly and turbulent [elements], expelled hither from the field above, and fighting against the Horus whom Isis brings forth as the sensible image of that cosmos which mind alone can conceive.
1 Timreus, 51 A.
3. Wherefore also [Horus] is said to have a charge of bastardy brought against him by Typhon — of not being pure and unalloyed like his sire, Eeason (Logos), itself by itself, unmixed and impassible, but bastardized with matter on account of the corporeal [element].1
4. Nevertheless, Horus gets the best of it and wins, through Hermes — that is, the Eeason (Logos) 2 — bearing witness and showing that Nature reflects the [true] Cosmos by changing her forms according to That-whichmind-alone-can-conceive.3
5. For the genesis of Apollo 4 from Isis and Osiris 5 that took place while the Gods were still in the womb of Ehea, is an enigmatical way of stating that before this [sensible] cosmos became manifest, and Matter was perfected by Eeason (Logos), Nature, proving herself imperfect, of herself brought forth her first birth.
6. Wherefore also they say that that God was lame 6 in the dark, and call him Elder Horus ; for he was not cosmos, but a sort of image and phantasm of the world which was to be.7
1 Of. G. H., x. (xi.) 10 ; Lack, iv. 6 (Frag. v.).
2 This shows that in one tradition Hermes and Osiris were identified.
3 Cf. xix. 4. * Sc. Horus.