thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
interpret her wanings, and envelopment in darkness, during which she longs for, and follows after the Sun: for which reason they invoke the Moon for aid in love affairs; and Isis, says Eudoxus, presides over amours. These stories, indeed, have a certain share of plausibility, but as for those that make out Typhon to be the Sun, these are not even to be listened to. Let us, however, now resume our proper theme.LIII. For Isis is the Female Principle of Nature, and that which is capable of receiving all generation, in virtue of which she is styled by Plato, Nurse, and All-receiving, but by the generality, The one of numberless names; because she is converted by the Logos (Reason) into, and receives, all appearances and forms. But she has, implanted in her nature, the love for the First and Supreme of all, the which is identical with the Good, and this she longs after and continually pursues: whereas the part that belongs to the Bad One she flees from and repels, though she is the field and material for them both; of herself always inclining towards the Better One, and permitting it to generate and discharge into herself emissions and likenesses, wherewith she rejoices and is glad to be impregnated, and to be filled with birthsfor birth is an image of existence in Matter, and that which is born is a copy of that which is.LIV. From all this, they do not absurdly to fable that the soul of Osiris is eternal and incorruptible, but that his body Typhon did tear to pieces and put out of sight; and Isis wandered about, sought for it, and joined it together again; for that which is, the Intelligible and the Good, is above all change or corruption, but the Sensible and Corporeal models certain images after His likeness, and borrows certain rational principles, forms, and resemblances, which, like seal-impressions in wax, do not last for ever, but the disorderly and turbulent Principle, driven down hither from above, seizes upon themthat Principle which is at war with the Horus whom Isis bore, who is the Sensible image of the Intelligible World. For this reason he (Horus) is related to have had a charge of illegitimacy brought against him by Typhon, because he is not pure and without alloy like his father the Word (Reason), (who exists by himself free from admixture and from passion), but is bastardized by Matter, on account of his bodily part. Nevertheless he gains his cause through Hermes, that is the Word (Reason), bearing witness and proving how that Nature changing her from after the model of the Intelligible, produces the World. For the birth of Apollo that came to pass between Isis and Osiris, whilst the (twin) gods as yet lay within the womb of Rhea, darkly expresses that this world first became visible, and that Matter, being proved to be incomplete in itself, was perfected by the Word (Reason), and thus produced the first birth. On which account they tell that this god was lame and lying in darkness,
and they name him the Elder Horus; for the world did not exist, but an image as it were, a spectre of the world that was to be.LV. Now this Horus is well-defined, and complete, he has not destroyed Typhon utterly, but stripped him of his activity and strength: for which reason they say the statue of Horus at Coptos grasps in his one hand the genitals of Typhon, and they fable that Hermes cut out the sinews of Typhon, and used them for lyre strings, thereby meaning that the Word brought the all into harmony, made it concordant out of discordant parts, and did not destroy its destructive principle, but merely ham-strung it. Hence, this principle is weak and inoperative here below, mingling itself and clinging close to such members as are subject to corruption and to change, it is the creator of earthquakes and tremors in the ground, of droughts in the air, and strange blasts; and, again, of whirlwinds and lightnings, and it infects waters and winds with pestilences, and rears up and tosses itself as far as the Moon, oftentimes checking and darkening her lustre, as the Egyptians believe. And they tell that Typhon at one time hit Horus; at another struck out his eye and swallowed it up, and then gave it back to the Sun; signifying by blow the monthly waning of the Moon, by blinding, her eclipse, which the Sun remedies, when he again reflects himself upon her, after she has passed through the shadow of the earth.LVI. Now the better and more divine Nature is made up of Threethe Intelligible, Matter, and that formed out of these two, which the Greeks denominate World. Plato calls the Intelligible Idea, Model, Father, and Matter he terms Mother, Nurse, the seat and receptacle of generation; and that which results from both he is accustomed to denominate Issue, and Birth, and we may conjecture that the Egyptians [reverence] the most beautiful kind of triangle, [The right-angled.] because they liken it to the nature of the universe, and Plato seems to employ this figure in his Republic, when drawing up his Marriage scheme. The triangle, too, has this propertythree the right angle, and four the base, and five the hypothenuse, being of equal value with the lines containing it. We must therefore compare the line forming the right angle to the male, the base to the female, the hypothenuse to the child of the two; and the one to be Osiris, as the Final Cause; the other, Isis as the recipient; the third, Horus as the result; for as to the Three, the first, it is uneven and perfect; for the Four, a square with a perfect side, is the produce of the Two: as for the Five, it partly resembles the father, partly the mother, being made up of the three and the two; also the All derives its name from the Five (, ) and to reckon is called counting by fives, for the number Five produces when squared the same number as that of the letters
of the Egyptian alphabet, and also the number of years that Apis lived. Horus they are accustomed to style Kaimis, that is He that is seen, for the world is an object of sense, and visible to the eye; and Isis is sometimes styled Mouth, sometimes Athyri and Methyer; by the first of these names they signify Mother, by the second The worldly house of Horus (in the same way as Plato has the Seat and Receptacle of generation); the third title is a compound from full and cause, because Matter isfull of the world; and is made up of that which is good, pure, and well arranged.LVII. Hesiod too may be thought, when he makes the first elements of Creation to be Chaos, Earth, Tartarus, Love, to assume no other first Principles than those aforesaid. Let us therefore distribute his names and assign them thus: to Isis that of Earth, to Osiris that of Love, to Typhon that of Tartarus, for his Chaos seems to imply a certain place or basis for the Universe; and the case, somehow or other, recalls that fable of Platos which Socrates has related in the Symposean concerning the birth of Love, how that Poverty, being desirous of having children, laid herself down by the side of Wealth as he was asleep, and, conceiving by him, brought forth Love, who is small and of every shape, inasmuch as he is the offspring of a father that is good, wise, and competent for all things, but of a mother that cannot help herself, destitute, and through her need is always attaching herself to someone else and suing to someone else. For his Wealth is no other than the Primal Lover, Projector, Finisher, and All-sufficient; and by Poverty he means Matter, which is by itself in need of the Good One, is impregnated by him, is ever craving and ever receiving, whilst he that springs from the two (the World, orHorus), is neither eternal, nor free from passions, nor incorruptible, yet being ever re-born, contrives by means of the changes and revolutions of the passions to continue always young and never to be destroyed.LVIII. For we must make use of myths, not entirely as [real] histories, but taking out of them that which is to the purpose, and is in the form of a similitude. When, therefore, we speak of Matter, we must not borrow our notions from certain philosophers, and think of it as a body without soul, uncreative, idle, and inactive of itself, for we call oil the material of perfume, and gold of an ornament, though they are not devoid of every quality by themselves: and the soul itself and intellect of man we hand over to Reason to beautify and to regulate, as being the material of knowledge and virtue: and the mind some have made out to be the region of Ideas, and a thing modelled after the Intelligible world: and some are of opinion that the seed of generation is not a power nor final cause, but only the material and instrument
of generation. These [theorists] we ought to follow, and conceive this goddess as having part in the Primal God, and ever joined with him out of love for the goodness and beauty that surround him, yet is never satiated; but like as we say that a man who is obedient to law and what is just, is enamored of justice, and a virtuous woman that has a husband and lives with him, always desires him, so we must conceive this goddess as always craving after the Good One, though she be ever in his presence, and is ever being filled with the most powerful and purest influences.LIX. But where Typhon intrudes, laying hold of the extremities, in this case, where she appears to be of sad countenance, and is said to mourn and be seeking after certain scattered members of Osiris, and to robe the same, [she is] receiving into her lap and concealing the things that were destroyed, in the same way as she again brings to light the things that are born, and sends them forth out of herself. For the things that be in the heavens and the stars, the reasons, forms, and emissions of the God are unchangeable, whereas those disseminated through the things subject to passion, namely, in earth, sea, vegetables, animals, are interchangeable, perishable, and buried: and again afterwards come to light once more, and are made visible by their births: for which reason the fable tells that Nephthys was the wife of Typhon, but that Osiris lay with her by stealth; because the extreme parts of Matter (which parts they denominate Nephthys and End) are chiefly possessed by the destructive Power, whereas the generative and life-giving Principle distributes amongst them but a weak and dull seed, and which is destroyed by Typhon, except what little Isis takes up and saves and nourishes, and unites together, for on the whole this world is more good than bad, as Plato suspected, as well as Aristotle.LX. For the generative and conservative Principle of Nature is set in motion against him (Typhon) for the purpose of Being, whilst the determinating and corrupting part is moved by him for the purpose of not being. Hence they name the former Isis, from its being sent out (), and travelling, with knowledge, as being a motion endued with soul, and intelligence, since her Name is not a foreign word; for just as all gods have a common designation derived from Visible and Running ( from and ), so this goddess do we call Isis, and the Egyptians also Isis, from the word signifying knowledge and Motion at the same time. And thus Plato says that the ancients signified Holy One () by calling her Isia, and similarly Intelligence and Perception, as being a current and movement impulse of the mind that longs for an object and is carried onwards; and that they placed understanding ( ) and, generally, goodness and virtue in the things that flow and that run; as on the other hand that thing is reviled by the opposite names,
the which, according to its nature, is an impediment, binds down, holds back, and hinders from rushing after and going, for we denominate it badness, inability, cowardice, pain.LXI. Now Osiris has got his name compounded out of the words and : for he is the common Word (Reason) of the things in heaven, and of those in hell, of which the former the ancients were wont to term , the latter . And he that reveals the things of heaven, the WORD of those that move above, is named Anubis, sometimes Hermanubis, [The deity, so frequent on Gnostic talismans, bearing the caduceus of Hermes, and accompanied with the Cock.] the former as belonging to those above, the latter as belonging to those below; for which reason people sacrifice to the one a white cock, to the other a saffron-colored [To typify infernal flames.] one; for they believe the former character of the god to be unmixed and public, the latter composite and multifarious. You must not be surprised at this derivation of names from the Greek, for there are an infinite number of other words that went into exile along with those that emigrated [Alluding to the old tradition about Danaus, &c.] from Greece, but remain in use and sojourn as foreigners amongst other nations; for adopting some of which certain people censure poetry as talking barbarously; those writers, [critics] I mean, who term things of the kind dialects (). And in what are named the Books of Hermes, they relate that it is written concerning the Sacred Names, that the Power appointed to preside over the circuit of the Sun, Horus, the Greeks call Apollo; and that which presides over the Wind some call Osiris, some Sarapis, others Sothi, in the Egyptian language. The last word signifies pregnancy, and to conceive ; hence, through a corruption of the word, the star is called the Dog [, as if from : these derivations cannot be preserved in translation.] in Greek, which they consider an attribute of Isis. But we ought by no means to dispute about names, not but that we might have reclaimed from the Egyptians their name of Sarapis rather than that of Osiris, the former being a foreign and the latter a Greek word; but we hold them both as belonging to one God and to one Power.LXII. The Egyptian usage is cognate to the aforesaid, for they often designate Isis by the name of Athene, which expresses the same meaning, I have proceeded out of myself, and is expressive of self-communicated motion. But Typhon, as above stated, is called Seth, Bebon, and Synthese names being meant to declare a certain forcible and impeding check, opposition, and turning upside down. Besides, they call a loadstone Bone of Osiris, but iron of Typhon (as Manetho relates), for just as the iron is often, like something alive, attracted to and following after the loadstone, but often turns away and is repelled from it in the opposite direction, in like manner the salutary good and rational motion of the world often attracts
by persuasion, draws to itself, and renders more gentle that harsh and Typhonian force; and again, when it has been driven back into itself, it upsets the latter, and plunges it once more into helplessness. Besides, with respect to Jupiter, Eudoxus relates that the Egyptians have a legend that in consequence of his legs having grown into one, he was unable to walk, and out of shame remained in solitude, but that Isis, having cut asunder and separated these parts of his body, rendered his walking powers sound footed. Through these things also does Fable hint, that the Mind and Word of God, which had walked in the Invisible and the Hidden, came out into Knowledge by means of Motion.LXIII. The Sistrum too shows that the things that are must be shaken, and never cease from motion, but be as it were aroused and stirred up when they slumber and are slothful, for they pretend they drive off and repulse [Hence the idea of driving away the Devil by the sound of bells.] Typhon with the sistra, showing that when Corruption has tied fast and brought it to a standstill, Generation again unlooses and restores Nature by means of Motion. And as the sistrum is circular in the upper part, the arch contains the four things that are shaken, because the part of the universe that is born and perishes, is surrounded by the Lunar sphere, but all things are set in motion and changed within it by means of the four elements, Fire, Earth, Water, Air. And on the arch of the sistrum, at the top, they figure a Cat having a human face [sphinx], and on the lower part, below the things that are shaken, sometimes a head of Isis, sometimes of Nephthys, symbolizing by these heads Generation and End (for these are the Changes and Motions of the elements), and by the Cat, the Moon, on account of the pied color, [Showing the original color of the Cat to be tabby.] nocturnal habits, and fecundity of the animal, for it is said to bring forth one, and then two, then three, then four, up to five at a birth, and always adds by one up to seven [to her litter], so that in all it produces eight-and-twenty young, the which are equal in number to the illuminations of the Moon. This, however, may be somewhat fabulous, but the pupils in its eyes appear to grow full and dilate themselves at the full of the moon, but become thin and dull during the wane of that luminary; and by the human head of the Cat they express the intelligence and rationality of the changes connected with the Moon.LXIV. And to speak comprehensively, neither Water, nor Sun, nor Earth, nor Rain, is it correct to regard as Osiris or Isis; nor on the other hand, Drought, or Sea, or Fire, as Typhon; but simply whatever in these elements is either excessive or disordered in its changes, or deficiencies, to assign this to Typhon: whilst all that is well-ordered, good, and beneficial,
we must regard as the work indeed of Isis, but as the image, imitation, and Reason of Osiris. If so we worship and honor them, we shall not go wrong. Nay more, we shall make Eudoxus cease from disbelieving, and being perplexed, wherefore the superintendence of love-affairs is not given to Ceres, but to Isis; and why Bacchus is not empowered to raise the Nile or to rule over the Shades;for by one common rule we hold that these two deities are ordained to preside over the whole empire of the Good; and that all whatever exists in Nature beautiful and good, exists through their means; the one supplying the final causes, the other receiving them, and continuing permanent.LXV. In this way we shall also meet those common and trivial stories of people whether to identify the legends concerning these deities with the seasonable changes of the atmosphere, or with the growth, sowings, and ploughings of the grain; and who say that Osiris is then buried when the sown grain is hidden in the ground, and that he comes to life and shows himself again when there is a beginning of sprouting; wherefore Isis perceiving that she is pregnant, ties an amulet round her neck on the 6th of the first quarter of the month Phaophi, and that Harpocrates is born about the winter solstice, unfinished and infant-like in the plants that flower early and spring up early, for which reason they offer to him first fruits of growing lentiles, and they celebrate her being brought to bed after the vernal equinox. For when they hear all this, people are satisfied and believe it; drawing as they do conviction from home, from things at hand, and with which they are familiar.LXVI. And it is no great harm if in the first place they make the gods our common property, and not the exclusive possession of the Egyptians; instead of by confining these names to the Nile alone, and the region the Nile waters, or by talking of marshes, lotus-flowers, and god-making, thereby deprive the rest of mankind of deities of the highest order nothing to do with eitherwho have neither Nile, Butos, or Memphis. But Isis, and the gods connected with her, all men have and knowsome of them indeed they have, not long ago, learnt to call by names brought from Egypt; but of each one they knew and reverenced the power from time immemorial. And secondly, and what is more importantlet them take good heed, and fear lest they unwittingly degrade and resolve divine beings into winds and currents and sowings and ploughings, and affections of the earth, and changes of seasons; like as those who say that Bacchus is wine, Vulcan flame; and, as Cleanthes somewhere or other says, that Proserpine means the air that pervades the crops, and is slaughtered; and as a poet has it:What time the youths cut Ceres, limb from limb.For these persons differ in no respect from such as should consider sails, cables, and anchor as a pilot, or yarn and thread as a
weaver; or a jug and basin as a potter, or else honeyed potions and gruel as a physician.LXVII. But those theorists engender horrible and impious notions, who apply the names of deities to natural productions and to things that be without sense, without life, and necessarily consumed by men in want of and making use of them. For these things themselves it is impossible to conceive as gods (for we cannot conceive God as an inanimate thing, subject to man), but from these productions we have drawn the inference that they who created them, and bestow, and dispense them to us constantly and sufficiently, are godsnot different gods amongst different people, nor Barbarian or Grecian, of the South or of the Northbut like as the Sun, Moon, Sky, Earth, Sea, are the common property of all men, but yet are called by different names by different nations; in the same manner, as one reason regulates all things, and one Providence directs, and subordinate Powers are appointed over all things, yet different honors and titles are by custom assigned to them amongst different peoples: and these have established, and do employ,symbols, some obscure, some more intelligible, in order to lead the understanding into things divine. And this not without danger: for some having entirely missed their meaning, have slid into superstition; whilst others shunning every superstition like a quagmire, have unknowingly fallen into Atheismas down a precipice. [Another allusion to the spread of Christianity, the preachers of which drew their strongest arguments from the, apparently, absurd symbolism of the old religions.]LXVIII. For which cause it is especially fitting in this case that we borrow from Philosophy Reason for our guide, and so consider each particular of the things told and done: in order that we may not, as Theodorus expresses it, when he offers words with his right hand some of his hearers take them with their left; in the same way we should go wrong by taking in a different sense what the laws have ordained well concerning sacrifices and festivals. For that we ought to construe all things according to their sense, we may learn from these people themselves of whom we are treating: for on the nineteenth day of the first month they hold a festival to Hermes, and eat honey and figs, repeating A sweet thing is the Truth; and again the charm which Isis hangs about her neck is interpreted as A TRUE VOICE: [Translation of the Coptic inscription upon the amulet, perhaps the famous Abracadabra.] and Harpocrates we must not regard as an incomplete and infant god, or some sort of pulse, but as presiding over and correcting mens notions of the deities, when as yet new, incomplete, and inarticulate; for which reason he has his finger laid upon his mouth in token of reticence and silence. And in the month Mesori, they serve up pulse, repeating The Tongue is Fortune, the Tongue is a deity, and of all the plants growing in Egypt they say the Persea is the most sacred to the gods, because its