Allusions to the story of Osiris and his circle appear as early as the Pyramid texts (ca. 2400–2300 BCE), and, by the first millennium BCE, they were among the most widely evoked myths in Egyptian ritual contexts. And yet, after all the discoveries made since the decipherment of hieroglyphs and other Egyptian scripts, Plutarch’s Greek text remains the most comprehensive surviving version of the myth. The accumulation of Egyptological research has shown that, while Plutarch interpreted the myth of Osiris according to his own middle-Platonic agenda, much of the information that he transmitted can be tied to religious ideas and practices originating in Egypt itself. This was the conclusion of John Gwyn Griffiths over fifty years ago in his landmark study of Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride (Griffiths 1970). Since then, however, much additional knowledge has emerged through papyrological research, especially in demotic Egyptian texts, and through the study of cross-cultural interactions between Egypt and the wider Mediterranean. In a welcome addition to scholarship on a critical source for such intercultural histories, Panagiota Sarischouli provides a revised edition and translation of the narrative in Plutarch’s essay, along with an up-to-date commentary and studies comparing Plutarch’s version with Egyptian traditions on Osiris, the broader mythical context of “dying and rising gods,” as well as Osirian myths and figures as they appear in the Greek and Egyptian magical formularies. Her aim is to “decode” the Osiris myth as it appears in Plutarch through a “transcultural” reading that considers multiple traditions in relation to this narrative.
In the first chapter of part one, Sarischouli introduces the author and his work, the sources he cites, the date of composition, the structure, and the nature of Plutarch’s philosophical interpretations of Osirian myth. In contrast to those strands of scholarship that have emphasized Hellenocentric motivations in Plutarch’s philosophical appropriation of Egyptian myth, Sarischouli sides with those arguing that Plutarch had genuine interests in Egypt and sought out reliable information (see esp. p. 35), even if he aligned this knowledge with Platonic cosmological and ontological interpretations, and pitted his arguments against rival interpretive approaches within his own intellectual horizons (Euhemerism, Stoic natural allegory, etc.). Fortified by more recent Egyptological research, Sarischouli goes somewhat beyond Griffiths’ positive assessment of Plutarch’s relation to Egyptian sources. While Griffiths argued that Plutarch’s information was mediated by the Greek-language texts of authors such as Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hecataeus of Abdera, and the Egyptian priest Manetho of Sebennytos, Sarischouli draws on more recent work (e.g. Thissen (2009) and Stadler (2017)) to argue that Plutarch could have had some knowledge of late Egyptian and demotic script, perhaps via his teacher Ammonios. This raises the possibility that Plutarch not only drew on Greek sources that were already four centuries old by his day but also was engaging in a dialogue with more contemporary Egyptian versions of the Osiris myth. Sarischouli bolsters this circumstantial case by drawing attention to recently published Greek and demotic Egyptian papyri (P. Oxy. LXXXV 5481 and P. Carlsberg XI 5–7) that include episodes of Plutarch’s Osiris myth, such as Isis’s search for Osiris at Byblos, that were previously unattested in Egyptian traditions.
In the second chapter of part one, Sarischouli follows up this overview of Plutarch, his essay, and its sources with a slightly revised edition of the mythical portion of the text (De Iside et Osiride 12–19, 355D–359D), a clear and readable English translation, and a detailed commentary. The edition includes a full critical apparatus and makes a few changes, which are cogently explained in the commentary. The commentary builds on the work of Griffiths as well as subsequent studies and commentaries to provide a framework for the interpretation of Plutarch’s myth according to relevant material from Greek, Egyptian, and other evidence.[1] Within the scope of this brief review, it is impossible to delve into all the details of the commentary, but in general it is characterized by a thorough treatment of textual lemmata from philological and historical perspectives, and is especially well grounded in scholarship on Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt and the papyri, while also delving into the pharaonic background to Plutarch’s myth.
The second part of the book begins with a chapter that revisits the material of the commentary, but in the form of a detailed overview of Osirian myth based on Egyptian sources, as well as a synthetic account of the relationship of Plutarch’s narrative to these traditions. Sarischouli notes similarities and divergences (see esp. pp. 289–93), concluding that Plutarch’s version retains an ancient plot that is nevertheless interspersed with more recent details of Egyptian or Near Eastern origin. Only in isolated cases were Plutarch’s divergences the result of interpretations and interpolations solely derived from Greek traditions (pp. 283–84). The fourth chapter situates the myth represented by Plutarch in relation to other “dying and rising gods” with which ancients and moderns (from Frazer 1914 to more recent works such as Mettinger 2001) have compared Osirian myth: Dumuzi/Tammuz; Adonis; Attis; Dionysus/Zagreus; Kore; Persephone. Sarischouli outlines this web of inter-related gods and their analogies and differences, situating Osiris in this comparative mythology. At times, this chapter reads as an independent essay and seems the least closely connected to the goal of elucidating Plutarch’s story. While duly noting the historical assimilation of Osiris with Adonis, Sarischouli differentiates the Egyptian god: he was a god of agricultural cycles and the underworld but did not return to the world of the living, nor did he alternate between upper and lower worlds with the seasons; and he was identified with the deceased only in ritual terms (at least according to Egyptian conventions), in contrast with afterlife beliefs patterned on the myths of similar divinities. A fifth chapter extends the context of Plutarch’s myth to contemporary and later parallels in Greek and Egyptian ritual texts, documenting how mythical episodes and key personae figure in the Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies (also known as the magical papyri). Sarischouli systematically catalogues both commonalities with the Osiris myth in Plutarch, as well as a decline in salience of certain motifs over time (Osiris as a god of eternal rebirth; Isis as a “magician”) and the growing emphasis on other motifs (e.g., Seth’s malevolent role). Each of these three chapters is well documented and clearly organized, and provides both a contribution to contextualized knowledge of Osirian myth and an accessible resource for future scholarship.
A general conclusion would perhaps have helped to draw out Sarischouli’s contributions more explicitly and to outline their impact and potential for future research. This work has helped to put Plutarch’s myth in dialogue not only with pharaonic and late-period Egyptian evidence mediated through earlier Greek-language Aigyptiaka, but also with near-contemporary religious ideas and myths in multiple cultural fields. Throughout the work terms such as syncretism and hellenization (but not egyptianization) are used to describe various “mixed” cultural phenomena and identifications between gods within and beyond Egypt. Sarischouli provides a classification of different forms of syncretism (pp. 245–48) but does not take up critiques of such terms and their legacies in anthropology, religious studies, and other fields that have come to grips with the underlying models of agency, perspective, and political contestation covered by these terms. Given the rich evidence and analysis that Sarischouli provides, there is perhaps a missed opportunity to situate Plutarch and his transcultural work in this perspective. In this work, as in others, Plutarch’s philosophical interpretations are considered distinct and alien from Egyptian mythical traditions (e.g., p. 43), but Plutarch’s implication in ongoing transcultural dialogues and his evident knowledge of and respect for Egyptian traditions raises intriguing questions about the history of intellectual (as well as religious) exchanges. If Plutarch’s teacher Ammonios, who came to Athens from Egypt (according to Eunapius), could expose him to Egyptian language and religious traditions, could he not also have involved Plutarch in prior and contemporary dialogues between Egyptian and Greek thinkers, dialogues with a history going back at least to Eudoxus, the student of Plato, and perhaps even earlier? As Sarischouli reminds us (p. 46), Plutarch’s religio-philosophical project adumbrates the Neoplatonism of Plotinus (also from Egypt) and other speculative theosophical traditions such as the Hermetica and Gnosticism, raising questions about where to draw ethno-cultural lines in such long-standing philosophical and intellectual exchanges (see also p. 37).
On the other hand, such quibbles and questions can be regarded as a product of Sarischouli’s success in reassessing the place of Plutarch’s Osirian myth in multiple intellectual and cultural currents of his lifetime, and of prior and subsequent ages. This book will be a beneficial resource for scholars of ancient religions in the Mediterranean world (broadly conceived) and is sure to stimulate further research.
Works cited
Frazer, J.G., 1914, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Part IV (2 vols.): Adonis, Attis, Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion, London.
Froidefond, C., 1988, Plutarque oeuvres morales. Vol. V.2: Isis et Osiris, Collection Budé 317, Paris.
Görgemanns, H., 2003, Plutarch. Drei religionsphilosophische Schriften: übersetzt und herausgegeben von H. Görgemanns unter Mitarbeit von R. Feldmeier und J. Assmann, Düsseldorf/Zurich.
Griffiths, J.G., 1970, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, Cardiff.
Mettinger, T.N.D. 2001, The Riddle of Resurrection: Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East, Stockholm.
Nardelli, J.-F., 2017, L’Osiris de Plutarque: un commentaire de De Iside et Osiride, chapitres 12–19, Huelva.
Pordomingo Pardo, F. and J. A. Fernández Delgado, 1995, Plutarco: obras morales y de costumbres o Moralia. Vol. VI: Isis y Osiris. Diálogos Piticos, Madrid.
Stadler, M.A., 2017, “Ägyptenrezeption in der Kaiserzeit”, in M. Erler and M. A. Stadler, eds., Platonismus und spätägyptische Religion: Plutarch und die Ägyptenrezeption in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Berlin, 21–42.
Thissen, H.-J. (1993), “‘…αἰγυπτιάζων τῇ φωνῇ…’. Zum Umgang mit der ägyptischen Sprache in der griechisch-römischen Antike”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97, 239-252.
Notes
[1] Since Griffiths 1970, there have been several other editions and/or translations with commentaries, but the majority were primarily intended to provide translations for broad audiences with brief explanatory notes (e.g. Froidefond 1988; Pordomingo Pardo and Fernández Delgado 1995; Görgemanns 2003). The exception is Nardelli 2017, which Sarischouli cites where relevant, while also remaining independent, especially in the case of textual emendations.