Plutarch on Isis and Osiris Text, Cult, And Cultural Appropriation

American Philological Association

Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Appropriation Author(s): Daniel S. Richter Reviewed work(s): Source: Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 131 (2001), pp. 191216 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20140969 . Accessed: 25/04/2012 15:21 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Transactions

of the American Philological

Association

131 (2001)

191-216

Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Appropriation* Daniel S. Richter Princeton University

'EXXnviK?v

y?p

x\ Tlai?

?oTt.

(Plutarch, Is. 2.35If)

The de hide et Osiride {de hide, h.)} written late in Plutarch's life,2 offers some of the most sophisticated formulations of middle-Platonic that metaphysics have come down to us.3 As scholars have long been aware, this is a deeply and text.4 Classicists have generally maintained that in the explicitly philosophical de hide Plutarch merely uses the Egyptian material as a vehicle through which to express middle-Platonic conceptions about the structure and genesis of the

*

Several

carnations. Faraone,

William

read drafts of this work in one or more in of its various generously are due to above all to Shadi Bartsch, Frederick Brenk, Christopher Jonathan Laura Jonathan Z. Smith, Graf, Hall, Slatkin, Stephen Scully,

scholars Thanks Fritz

Stull, and Ann Marie Yasin. The article has greatly benefited as well from the

comments of the two anonymous insightful What confusion and lapses remain

readers are due

editors.

of TAPA above

and TAPA's

all to my

own

past

and present

stubborness.

^he most important commentaries on the de hide are Hopfner 1940, Gwyn Griffiths 1970, Betz and Smith 1972, Cavalli 1985, and Froidefond 1988. Recently, much inter esting work on the de hide has been done by Italian scholars; see Borghini 1991, Chiodi 1991, Casadio 1991, Casadio 1994, and Chiodi 1996. 2On its date see Bowersock

to an understanding of Plutarch's metaphysics are Froidefond 1986 and

fundamental Dillon

1989.

1965, Jones 1966, and Gwyn Griffiths 1970: 16-18.

For

Plutarch's

reading

of

Plato's

Timaeus,

see

Froidefond

Hershbell 1987. The best overview of middle-Platonism generally is still Dillon 4See Feldmeier 1998.

1987

1977.

and

192

Daniel

S. Richter

it is thus seen as incidental to the primary, philosophical

cosmos; an exegesis

of Plato's

aim of the text,

Timaeus.5

to its philosophical agenda, however, the de hide has a fairly of the Egyptian cult of the goddess Isis and her consort Osiris as

In addition

full discussion it existed in the Pharaonic

period.6 As historians of Roman religion have been Ro reflected in Plutarch's Quaestiones impressed by the depth of knowledge have often cited Plutarch's de hide as a relatively ac manae,7 so Egyptologists curate account of the cultic practices associated with Isis in the Pharaonic pe riod.8 Both Gwyn Griffiths9 and Hani10 felt that Plutarch, despite his inability to or to converse with non-Alexandrian read hieroglyphics natives, was a good religious historian.11

ismeant to be read as an exegesis,

5Plutarch does not explicitly claim that the de hide as

de

is his

intends

this

in Timaeo. He does, procreatione statements text to sum up various about

Animae latter

tell his

however, Plato's

view

sons

that he

the soul

of

and

the

structure of the cosmos that he had himself made in other treatises. That the de hide one

of

those

seems

treatises and Horus

Isis, Osiris,

clear

expound

from

remark

Plutarch's

in myth

and

enigma

of that the Egyptian myths truths that Plato had metaphysical

to the Timaeus

formulated (1026c). The relationship of the de hide towards treatise

the middle he will

relate

theological

itself when

AiyuTrricov references that follows between

parallels

states

Plutarch

"Triv

passage

48.371a)?a For

of de hide

OeoXoyiav" to the Timaeus

the de hide

and

is

there

early

that

in the

is made explicit of

remainder

to Plato's and

Christian

the (Is.

"?i?ooocpia" the Laws (Is. 48.370e-f). see Betz and literature,

Smith 1972. Throughout, I have used the Greek text of Gwyn Griffiths 1970. Translations are from

Griffiths

Gwyn

1970,

in some

cases

adapted.

6For the archaizing Sitz im Leben of the de hide, as the spouse

on Osiris emphasis an archaizing feature. tarch's

8For

good

Isis rather

see Gwyn Griffiths than

the Hellenistic

1970: 44. Plu is itself

Sarapis

1996.

Graf

7For example

of

treatments

general

Festugi?re 1949, Witt Griffiths 1980.

of

1971, Malaise

the

cult

of

Isis

1972, Dunand

in the Greco-Roman

1972-73, Heyob

world,

see

1975, and Gwyn

9Gwyn Griffiths 1970. 10Hani 1976. ^Scott-Moncrieff,

however,

argued

that the de hide

reflected

Plutarch's

narrow

inter

est in the Hellenized Alexandrian cult, which, Plutarch felt, "alone held the key of the Egyptian

true faith."

This

was,

as Scott-Moncrieff

remarked,

of the facts" (1909: 90). For Plutarch's etymological Egyptian

hieroglyphics,

see Is.

10.354e,

56.374a.

"of

course

a total

inversion

(or ecphrastic?) interpretations of

193

Plutarch on Isis and Osiris

The present contribution seeks to answer the question of why Plutarch chose the ostensibly Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris as the vehicle for his most mature and developed thoughts on the divine and the structure of the universe. This is a question that has been posed before, both of Plutarch's text itself12 and in broader intellectual histories of the early Roman Empire.13 Most scholars, Hani among them, have assumed that the prestige of Egyptian wisdom moti vated Plutarch's attempt to discover in the cult of Isis reflections of Greek phi that, despite Plutarch's general suspi losophical speculation. Hani maintained cion of non-Greek forms of cult,14 the religions of Egypt and Persia "ont trouv? ... ? cause de leur ?l?vation morale."15 Smelik gr?ce devant lui (sc. Plutarch) and Hemelrijk see a similar motivation behind the de hide and go so far as to claim that "in his well-disposed appreciation of Egyptian ceeds all earlier authors including Herodotus."16 In what

religion Plutarch

ex

I shall suggest that Plutarch's de hide was motivated less an saw than to what he by early imperial Egyptomania by accept unwillingness as the culturally derivative status of Greece that an Egyptian origin of Greek wisdom the Egyptian implies.17 This is not to say that the de hide dismisses follows,

12Most recently by Brenk 1999. 13SeeHartog 1986, Hartog 1996 (especially chapter 2), and Vasunia 1995, with exten sive bibliography. Armstrong (1978: 89) sees this form of Egyptomania as typical of the "most

age:

discover

of philosophers that the doctrines

the early

in perfect losophy were which their degree of knowledge sis easily enabled them to make."

and de Pythiae

oraculis

as

those

oriental

era were

pious men the ancient masters

wisdom sources

of and

and

to

anxious

of Greek

the East?a

phi

discovery of exege

their methods

756c; the Syrian Goddess at adversus Coloten

the Jews

407c;

of

immemorial

of genuine

14Hostility towards Attis at Erotikos 1127d

of our

centuries

they regarded accord with the

at Quaestiones

convivales

IV.4-5

and de

Superstitione 169c. The key text on this hostility, the de Superstitione (Sup.), is discussed below. 15Hani

1976:

8. For Hani's

thoughts

on Plutarch's

relationship

to Iranian

see

dualism,

Hani 1964. 16Smelik and Hemelrijk 1984: 1946. 17A clear formulation of which may be found at Diodorus Siculus many been

of

the customs

that obtained

in ancient

inhabitants accepted by the present and for that reason, those men who Greeks;

days among no but aroused have

won

the Egyptians little

the greatest

admiration repute

1.69.2-3: "For have

not

among

only the

in intellectual

things have been eager to visit Egypt in order to acquaint themselves with its laws and institutions, which they considered to be worthy of note" (Tro?A? y?p tcov TraAaicbv e9cbv tcov yevon?vcov o? n?vov Trap? to?? ?yxcop?oic Trapa AiyuTrriois

194

Daniel

S. Richter

material as worthless; a deep respect for the wisdom of Egypt and an insistence on the priority of Greek philosophical speculation are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I believe that Plutarch chose to explicate his middle-Platonic via an allegorical metaphysics interpretation of the cult and myth of the Egyp tian goddess Isis in an effort to renegotiate the traditional, derivative status of Greek cult.18 On my reading, the de hide is an appropriative text that has as one over of its central aims the demonstration of the priority of Greek philosophy Egyptian cult. In a recent and provocative book, David Dawson has explored the potential to Dawson's model, of literary allegory for cultural appropriation.19 According ancient authors, Philo and early Christian apologists prominent among them, used allegory as a means of appropriating pagan culture for their own ends. Frederick Brenk has argued that the de hide is in fact an exception to Dawson's rule and that the ultimate end of the text is not the Hellenization of the Egyptian cult of Isis and that in Plutarch's text we find rather "Egyptomania and a kind of of Rome, up to a point."20 I think that Brenk is right to religious Egyptianization observe

that Plutarch's

as the vehicle

choice of the Isis material

phical message perhaps unintentionally egyptianizes asking a different question here and would distinguish

the Platonic

for the philoso text. But I am

between

the aim and the

?TroSoxfj? etuxev, ?XX? Kai Trap? to?? "EXXrjaiv o? nETpico? ?Sauiaaaor). Bicrrrep oi

tcov

n?yioToi ?va

?v TraiBeig tcov

HETaaxcoai

?aXeTv,

e'i? AtyuTTTov Trapa ?