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Footnotes. Concerning Isis and Osiris. Address to Klea concerning Gnosis and the search for truth 1. Concerning Isis and Osiris
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Footnotes
259: 1 I use the texts of Parthey, Plutarch: Ü ber Isis und Osiris (Berlin, 1850), and of Bernardakis, Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia (“Bibliotheca Teubneriana”; Leipzig, 1889), ii. 471 ff.
259: 2 See King (C. W. ), Plutarch’s Morals: Theosophical Essays (London, 1889), pp. 1-71. S. Squire’s Plutarch’s Treatise of Isis and Osiris (Cambridge, 1744) I have not read, and few can procure a copy nowadays.
260: 1 Granger (F. ), “The Poemander of Hermes Trismegistus, ” Jour. Theol Stud., vol. v. No. 19, p. 399.
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CONCERNING ISIS AND OSIRIS
ADDRESS TO KLEA CONCERNING GNOSIS AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH 1
I. 1. 2 While all who have mind, O Klea, should ask for all their blessings from the Gods—let us, by pursuing after them, pray to obtain from them those [blessings] of gnosis 3 concerning them, as far as ’tis within the reach of men; in that there’s nothing greater for a man to get, nor more majestic for a God to give, than Truth.
2. Of other things their God gives men what they require, whereas of mind and wisdom He gives a share 4 to them—since He [Himself] possesses these and uses [them].
For the Divine is neither blest through silver and through gold, nor strong through thunderings and lightnings, but [blest and strong] by gnosis and by wisdom.
3. And thus most finely of all things which he hath said about the Gods—sounding aloud:
Yea have they both a common source and one [fair] native land;
But Zeus came into being first and he knew more—
hath Homer made pronouncement of the primacy of Zeus as more majestic, in that in gnosis and in wisdom it 5 is older.
4. Nay, I believe that the good fortune of æ onian life—the which the God hath gotten for his lot—is
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that by reason of His gnosis the things in genesis should not entirely die; for when the knowing of existing things and being wise is taken from it, freedom from death is Time—not Life.
Footnotes
261: 1 I have added some sub-headings as an indication of contents.
261: 2 I have numbered the paragraphs for greater convenience of reference.
261: 3 ἐ π ι σ τ ή μ η ς.
261: 4 A play on δ ί δ ω σ ι ν and μ ε τ α -δ ί δ ω σ ι ν.
261: 5 Sc. the primacy.
THE ART OF KNOWING AND OF DIVINISING
II. 1. Wherefore the longing for the Godly state is a desire for Truth, and specially the [truth] about the Gods, in so much as it doth embrace reception of the sacred [things]—instruction and research; 1 a work more holy than is all and every purging rite and temple-service, and not least pleasing to that Goddess whom thou servest, in that she is particularly wise and wisdom-loving, seeing her very name doth seem to indicate that knowing and that gnosis 2 is more suitable to her than any other title.
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2. For that “Isis” is Greek, 3 and [so is] “Typhō n”—in that he’s foe unto the Goddess, and is “puffed up” 4 through [his] unknowing and deceit, and tears the Holy Reason (Logos) into pieces and makes away with it; the which the Goddess gathers up again and recomposes, and transmits to those perfected in the art of divinising, 5—which by the means of a continually sober life
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and by [their] abstinence from many foods and sexual indulgences, tempers intemperate pleasure-love, and doth accustom [them] to undergo, without being broken down, the rigorous tasks of service in the sacred [rites], the end of which is gnosis of the First and Lordly One, the One whom mind alone can know, 1 for whom the Goddess calls on [them] to seek, though He is by her side and one with her.
3. Nay more, the very appellation of the holy [place] doth plainly promise gnosis, that is eidē sis, of That-which-is; for it is named Iseion, as though “of them who shall know” 2 That-which-is, if that with reason (logos) and with purity 3 we enter in the holy [places] of the Goddess.
Footnotes
262: 1 τ ὴ ν μ ά θ η σ ι ν . . . κ α ὶ ζ ή τ η σ ι ν. Mathesis was the technical Pythagorean term for gnosis.
262: 2 τ ὸ ε ἰ δ -έ ν α ι κ α ὶ τ ὴ ν ἐ π -ι σ -τ ή μ η ν —word-plays on ἶ σ ι ς.
262: 3 Cf. lx. 2. The Egyptian of Isis is Ȧ st.
262: 4 τ ε τ υ φ ω μ έ ν ο ς —a play on τ υ φ ώ ν —lit., “wrapped in smoke (τ ῦ φ ο ς ), ” and because one so wrapped in smoke or clouds has his intelligence darkened, hence “puffed up with conceit, ” crazy and demented. Typhō n is the dark or hidden side of the Father.
262: 5 θ ε ι ώ σ ε ω ς (not in L. and S. or Soph. ); it presumably comes from the stem of θ ε ι ό ω, which means: (i. ) to smoke with sulphur and so purify; (ii. ) to make divine (θ ε ῖ ο ς ), and so transmute into godship. The sentence may thus also mean “those initiated into the sulphur rite”—a not impossible rendering when we remember the Alchemical literature which had its source in Chemia-Egypt. It will also permit us to connect brimstone with Typhō n—hoofs and all!
263: 1 Or the Intelligible—ν ο η τ ο ῦ.
263: 2 ε ἰ ς -ο μ έ ν ω ν τ ὸ ὄ ν —a play on ἰ σ -ε ῖ -ο ν —fut. of √ ϝ ι δ (vid) from which comes also ε ἴ δ η σ ι ς above. This may also mean “seeing” as well as “knowing, ” and thus may refer to the Epopteia or Mystery of Sight, and not the preliminary Mystery of Hearing (Muē sis).
263: 3 ὁ σ ί ω ς —another play on ἶ σ ι ς; cf. lx. 3.
THE TRUE INITIATES OF ISIS
III. 1. Yet many have set down that she is Hermes’ daughter, and many [that she is] Prometheus’s, —I holding the latter as discoverer of wisdom and foreknowledge, and Hermes of the art of letters and the Muses’ art.
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2. Wherefore, in Hermes-city, they call the foremost of the Muses Isis, as well as Righteousness, 4 in that she’s
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wise, 1 as has been said, 2 and shows 3 the mysteries of the Gods to those who are with truth and justice called the Carriers of the holy [symbols] and Wearers of the holy robes. 4
3. And these are they who carry the holy reason (logos) about the Gods, purged of all superstition and superfluity, in their soul, as in a chest, and cast robes round it 5—in secret disclosing such [things] of the opinion 6 about the Gods as are black and shadowy, and such as are clear and bright, just as they are suggested by the [sacred] dress.
4. Wherefore when the initiates of Isis at their “death” are adorned in these [robes], it is a symbol that this Reason (Logos) is with them; and with Him and naught else they go there. 7
5. For it is not the growing beard and wearing cloak that makes philosophers, O Klea, nor clothing in linen and shaving oneself that makes initiates of Isis; but a true Isiac is one who, when he by law 8 receives them, searches out by reason (logos) the [mysteries] shown and
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done concerning these Gods, and meditates upon the truth in them.
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