65
In this way we shall undertake to deal with the numerous and tiresome people, whether they be such as take pleasure in associating theological problems with the seasonal changes in the surrounding atmosphere, or with the growth of the crops and seedtimes and ploughing; and also those who say that Osiris is being buried at the time when the grain is sown and covered in the earth and that he comes to life and reappears when plants begin to sprout. For this reason also it is said that Isis, when she perceived that she was pregnant, put upon herself an amulet Cf. 378 b, infra. on the sixth day of the month Phaophi; and about the time of the winter solstice she gave birth to Harpocrates, imperfect and premature, Cf. 358 d, supra. amid the early flowers and shoots. For this reason they bring to him as an offering the first-fruits of growing lentils, and the days of his birth they celebrate after the spring equinox. When the people hear these things, they are satisfied with them and believe them, deducing the plausible explanation directly from what is obvious and familiar.
66
And there is nothing to fear if, in the first place, they preserve for us our gods that are common to both peoples and do not make them to belong to the Egyptians only, and do not include under these names the Nile alone and the land wrhich the Nile waters, and do not assert that the marshes and the lotus are the only work of God’s hand, and if they do not deny the great gods to the rest of mankind that possess no Nile nor Buto nor Memphis. But as for Isis, and the gods associated with her, all peoples own them and are familiar with them, although they have learned not so very long ago to call some of them by the names which come from the Egyptians; yet they have from the beginning understood and honoured the power which belongs to each one of them.
