LV. 1. But this Horus [of ours] is their Son»^

horizoned ' and perfect, who has not destroyed Typhon utterly, but has brought over to his side his efficacy and strength; hence they say it is that the statue of Horus at Coptos grasps in one hand Typhon's virUia.
2. Moreover, they have a myth that Hermes cut out the sinews of Typhon and used them for lyre strings, — [thus] teaching [us] how Season (Logos) brought the universe into harmony, and made it concordant out of discordant elements. He did not destroy the destruc- tive power but lamed it.
3. Hence while weak and ineffective up there, down here, by being blinded and interwoven with the passible and changeable elements, it is cause of shakings and tremors in earth, of droughts and tempests in air, and again of lightnings and thunderings.
4. Moreover, it infects waters and winds with pesti- lences, and shoots up and rears itself as far as the moon, frequently blurring and blackening its light, as Egyptians think.
mythus of Qnosticiam. The imperfect birth (Abortion) of the Sophia (Wisdom, Nature, lais), as the result of her effort to bring forth of herself, without her consort^ or syzygy, while still in the Plerdma (Womb of Rhea), paves the way for the whole scheme of one of the main forms of Qnostic cosmology and subsequent soteriology, the Creator Logos and Saviour having to perfect the imperfect product of Nature. This is, I believe, the first time that the above passage of Plutarch has been brought into connection with the Sophia-mythus, and all previous trans- lations with which I am acquainted accordingly make havoc of the meaning. See F, F, F,, pp. 339 fL; and for the Pauline use of the technical term "Abortion," D. J, L., pp. 355 ft; for ^ Balaam the Lame Man ''(la by-name for Jeschu-Horus), see ibid,, p. 201. Reitzenstein (pp. 39, 40) quotes these two chapters, and adds some parallels from the Trismegistic literature.
1 Adopting the suggestion of Bemardakis — S vlht for a^6t,
' Or "defined," itpur/idpos — a play on ip0s.
836 THRICE-GREATEST HKRMK8
6. And they say that lyphon at one time strikes the Eye of Horns, and at another takes it out and swallows it By ''striking" they refer enigmatically to the monthly diminntion of the nuxxi, and by "blinding" to its eclipse, which the son remedies hj immediately shining on it after it has passed out of the shadow of the earth.^