LXIV. 1. But, to speak concisely, it is not correct to

consider either water or sun or earth or heaven as Osiris or Isis, or, again, fire or drought or sea as T]rphon ; but if we were to assign simply that [nature] to the latter which is not subject to measure or rule owing to excesses or insufficiencies, and should reverence and honour that which has been subjected to order and is good and beneficent, as the work of Isis, and the image and copy and reason of Osiris, we should not miss the mark.
2. Moreover, we shall make Eudoxus* cease to dis- believe and be perplexed, how it is neither Demeter who has charge of love-affairs but Isis, nor Dionysus who has the power either to make the Nile increase or to rule over the dead [but Osiris].
^ More " Physiologus " ; or rather, there was a mystical theory about other things which was adapted to a popular natural history of the cat, and then the fable was cited as ** proof " of the original theory.
s Cf. IxiL €t al.
346 THiaCE-ORSATBST inat^rasi
3. For we diink that by (me Common Beftscm (Zojfmy theee Gods have been ordained over every domain of good; and every fair and good thing possible for nature owes its origin to their means, — [Osiris] giving [them] their origins and [Isis] receiving and distributing [them].
Against tek Wkathib and Yiqstaiiqh God Thiobus