On the State of Scholarship

[sdi]

[By considering myths as symbolic of occult phenomena] 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 seed-times 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.

(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris LXV)

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I disagree with Plutarch a lot, but he's got just so many gems strewn throughout his essays that he's always worth reading and reading carefully. (Here, I'm looking squarely at you, Sir James George Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, and Gilbert Murray...)

Comments

[jprussell]

It really is crazy how often you find things written in Ancient Greek that seem to be perfectly written for today. To be fair, though, I've always thought those myths are about the turning of seasons and planting of crops and such, but they're not only about those, which would indeed be tiresome.

[sdi]

Certainly, but we are initiated, are we not? What need have we for the exoteric? ;)