Chapter V. That the Mythical Narratives Related Concerning Gods Contain Covert Histories of Daemons

[PLUTARCH] ‘THEY therefore do better who think that the incidents recorded concerning Typhon and Osiris and Isis refer to sufferings neither of gods nor of men, but of certain mighty daemons, whom Plato and Pythagoras and Xenocrates and Chrysippus, following the ancient theologians, state to have been stronger than men, and far superior in power to our nature; having, however, their divine element not unmixed nor unalloyed, but sharing both in the nature of the soul and the bodily sense, which is susceptible of pleasure and pain, and in all the feelings which, being engendered by these alternations, trouble some of them more and some less. For various degrees of virtue and vice are found in daemons just as in men. Thus the deeds of the Giants and Titans celebrated in song among the Greeks, and many unholy practices of Kronos, and the contests of Python with Apollo, and the banishments of Dionysos, and the wanderings of Demeter, fall nothing short of the acts of Osiris and Typhon, which one may hear everywhere made the subject of licentious fables. Also the things which, being veiled in mystic rites and initiations, are kept secret and out of sight, have a similar relation to the gods.’ [1]

Presently he adds:

‘Empedocles even asserts that the daemons suffer punishment for any sins and offences which they have committed:

“The angry ether drives them down to sea; Sea spits them out upon the solid earth; Earth flings them to the blazing Sun; he back To ether’s whirling depths. Thus each from each Receives, and all reject the hateful crew:” [2]

until having been thus chastened they recover once more their natural place and rank. Akin to these and suchlike stories are said to be the legends told concerning Typhon, how that he committed dreadful crimes out of envy and spite, throwing everything into confusion, and filled both earth and sea all full of evils, and then was punished for it.’

Having put forward these statements, and worked out the argument more fully in the book which I have mentioned, Plutarch relates the like stories also in his book On the Cessation of Oracles,in the following manner: [3]

‘This man ascribed his inspiration to daemons, and had much to say about Delphi, and there was none of the stories told here about Dionysos, nor of the sacred rites performed, of which he had not heard; but those also he asserted to be mighty sufferings of daemons, and the same of the story about the Python, and that the slayer’s banishment was not for nine years nor to Tempe, but that he was driven out and entered into another world: and afterwards, in the revolutions of nine Great Years having become pure and a true Phoebus in brilliancy, he returned thence and took possession of the oracle, which was guarded in the meantime by Themis. Such, he said, was the case also with the legends of Typhon and the Titans, that there were battles of daemons against daemons, then banishments of the conquered, or punishments by a god of those who had committed sins, such as Typhon is said to have committed upon Osiris, and Kronos on Uranos; gods, whose honours among us have become more obscure, or have altogether ceased, since they have departed into another world. For I learn that the Solymi, who are neighbours of the Lycians, used to pay the highest honours to Kronos: but after he killed their chief rulers Arsalos, and Arytos, and Tosibis, and fled, and departed to some place or other----for they cannot tell whither----he was neglected, but Arsalos and his companions were addressed as gods by the name Sciri, and the Lycians make their imprecations both public and private in their name. Many stories like these you may gather from the mythologies. But if we call certain daemons by the customary names of the gods, it is not to be wondered at, said the stranger; for each of them likes to be called after the god with whom he has been associated, and of whose power he partakes: even as among us one is Dius, and another Athenaeus, and a third Apollonius, or Dionysius, or Hermaeus. But though some of these by accident were rightly so named, the greater part received names not at all befitting them, but changed in derivation from the names of gods.’

So much says Plutarch in his careful treatise On the Cessation of Oracles,showing, in addition to the other points, that the daemons are subject to death, the very thing which I shall bring forward at the proper time.

But meanwhile, let us collect whatever else concerning the power and operation of the good daemons, as he calls them, is set forth at another time by the author of the compilation against us in the book which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles:for now again, as indeed often before, I shall make use especially of him as a witness and evidence of the delusion about those whom they imagine to be gods, in order that they may be put to shame at being stricken by their own spears and arrows.

For thus the demonstration of the matters which lie before us, being derived from the very friends of their gods, who have both been esteemed devout, and have accurately examined the account of their own religion, will be found complete and irrefutable.

Now the author aforesaid writes as follows in his book which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles,wherein he protests against betraying the secrets of the gods, and binds himself by oath and exhorts others to conceal what he shall say and not publish it to many.

What then Avere these matters of such importance? He affirms that Pan is a servant of Dionysos, and that he being one of the good daemons appeared once upon a time to those who were working in the fields. What ought a good deity, or at all events the advent of a good deity, to confer on those to whom the manifestation of the good has been vouchsafed?

Did then any good result to the beholders of this good daemon, or have they found him an evil daemon, and learned this by practical experience? This admirable witness says indeed that those to whom this blessed sight was vouchsafed all died at once; for thus he speaks: [4]