Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/225

 simplest first. These are the Physical Allegorists. "Just as the Greeks assert that Cronus is an allegorical symbol for Time, Hera for Air, the birth of Hephaistos for the transformation of Air into Fire, so also among the Egyptians there are those who maintain that Osiris symbolizes the Nile, Isis the Earth, fecundated in his embrace, Typhon the Sea, into which the Nile falls to disappear and be scattered, except such part of him as has been abstracted by the Earth to make her fruitful." He shows how this identification of Typhon with the sea explains certain sayings, beliefs, and practices of the Egyptians, but he regards it as rather crude and superficial, and passes on to an explanation given by the more learned priests, who, with a more philosophic application of the principles of allegorical interpretation, identify Osiris with the Moist Principle of the Universe, and Typhon with the Dry Principle, the former being the cause of Generation, the latter being hostile to it. The similarity of these views to early Greek speculation is pointed out by a statement that the Egyptians held that Homer, like Thales, had learnt from them that Water is the generative principle of all things, Homer's Ocean being Osiris, and his Tethys, Isis. This ancient theory is fully discussed by Plutarch, showing how the Egyptians applied it to the myth, but also indicating similarities of detail and identities of principle between the Egyptian and Greek mythologies. "Those who combine with these physical explanations certain points borrowed from astronomical speculation," are next dealt