Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/222

 regards it as a pious duty to accept the Osirian legend as containing a substratum of truth, embodying the religious lore of the Egyptian priesthood, but he reserves to himself the right of interpreting the expression of this truth in the light of his own philosophy. His attitude is identical with that assumed by the authors of the various explanations of the myth which he reports as current in antiquity. "These interpretations," in the lively expression of Mr. Andrew Lang, "are the interpretations of civilized men, whose method is to ask themselves: 'Now, if I had told such a tale as this, or invented such a mystery play of divine misadventures, what meaning could I have intended to convey in what is apparently blasphemous nonsense?'" It will be seen that Plutarch does not himself finally adopt any special interpretation, although he emphatically rejects those which are not pious as well as philosophic. He is desirous rather of showing in what way the investigation of such questions should be approached, than of imposing any definite conclusion on the understanding; of cultivating an aptitude for rational and reverent inquiry, than of establishing a final and inflexible dogma.

He deals first with the Euhemerists, or "Exanthropizers." Euhemerus of Tegea, or, as Plutarch here calls him, Euhemerus of Messene, first treated with


 * [Footnote: quemadmodum mathematici arcum cælestem Solis tradunt esse imaginem variatam visus ad nubem reflexu: Sic fabula hoc loco indicium est orationis alio reflectentis intellectum.—]