On Providence (The Egyptian Tale) 93–122

It was written about the sons of Taurus, and the first part, as far as the riddle of the wolf, was read at the very time when the worse man was in power, having prevailed in the faction-fight. The following part was woven on after the return of the best men, who asked that the treatise should not remain cut short at their misfortunes, but, since what had been foretold seemed to be coming to pass according to God, that it should go on, on the same theme, to their better fortunes as well. So, since the overthrow of the tyranny was already being carried out, …

… one may especially admire that the treatment suffices for many themes. For many doctrines, among those undecided until now, have found room for examination in the fiction, and each has been worked out precisely; lives are written that will serve as examples of vice and of virtue; the treatise also contains a history of present affairs; and throughout, the myth has been worked out and embroidered for usefulness.

Book One. The myth is Egyptian. The Egyptians excel in wisdom. Perhaps, then, this too, though it is a myth, may hint at something more than a myth, because it is Egyptian. And if it is not even a myth but a sacred account, it would be all the more worth telling and writing down. Osiris and Typhos were brothers and sprang from the same seed. But kinship of souls and of bodies is not one and the same. What belongs to souls is not to have sprung on earth from the same two parents, but to have flowed from one source. The nature of the cosmos furnishes two kinds of soul, the one luminous, the other shapeless; and

the one gushes up from the ground, as though rooted somewhere below, and leaps out of the holes of the earth, to see whether it can do violence somewhere to the divine law; the other hangs from the back of heaven. It is sent down to adorn the region about the earth, but on its descent it is charged to take care lest, while it adorns and orders what is disordered and unadorned, it should itself, by drawing near, be filled with ugliness and disorder. And there stands a law of Themis declaring to souls that any soul which consorts with the lowest extremity of beings yet keeps its nature and remains undefiled shall flow back up the same road again and be poured back into its own source; just as those that in some way rushed out from the other portion must, by necessity of nature, find their lodging in their kindred caverns.

These are the noble and ignoble births of souls; and in this way a Libyan and a Parthian may be kin, and in this way those whom we call brothers may in no respect belong to each other in the kinship of souls. This was hinted in the two Egyptian boys as soon as they were born, and shown brilliantly as they grew up. The younger, born and reared by a divine dispensation, was even as a baby fond of listening and fond of stories — for a story is the philosophy of children — and as he grew he loved a learning that always outran his years. He lent his ears to his father, and whatever wise thing anyone knew he hungered after on every side, at first wanting, like a puppy, to know everything at once, as natures that promise great things do: they are eager and spring up before the time, already pledging to themselves the lovely end. Later, however, well before his youth, he was quieter than a well-bred old man; he listened with decorum, and when he himself had to speak, either to ask about what he had heard or for some other

reason, anyone could see him hesitating and blushing. He would step out of the road and give up his seat to the elders of the Egyptians, and that though he was the son of the man who ruled the great kingdom. He had modesty too, and above all it was in his nature to care for people, so that while he was still at that age it was hard to find an Egyptian for whom the lad had not obtained at least one good thing from his father. The elder, Typhos, was, in a word, wrong-handed in everything. All wisdom — the Egyptian, and that of the foreign teachers whom the king had brought in for his son Osiris — he refused with his whole mind and laughed at the thing as idle and enslaving to the mind. Seeing his brother walk in good order and live with modesty, he thought it was fear, because no one ever saw him punching with his fist or leaping with his heel

on anyone, or running a disorderly race — and that though he was nimble and lithe, and the body about his soul was a light burden. Nor did Osiris ever drink in gulps, or guffaw so that his laughter shook his whole body — the things Typhos did every day and thought the only deeds of free men: to do whatever one happened to wish. He resembled neither his family in nature nor any human being at all; to put it in a word, he was not even like himself, but some evil of every kind. Now he would seem sluggish and "a useless burden of the earth," waking from sleep only so far as to fill his belly and lay in other provisions for sleeping; now, neglecting even the moderate measure of what nature needs, he would caper unmusically and make trouble for those of his own age and those older. He admired bodily strength as the most perfect good, and used it badly, battering doors and throwing clods; and if anyone was wounded, or he did some other harm, he rejoiced as at a testimony

to his excellence. He lusted out of season and was most violent in assaulting for intercourse. Moreover, envy smouldered in him against his brother, and equally against the Egyptians, because they, the people, admired Osiris in speeches and songs, and at home and at the public shrines all everywhere asked every good thing for him from the gods; and he both was and seemed such. For this reason Typhos even formed a club of foolish boys, for no other purpose — for by nature he could love no one from the heart — but that he might have partisans who were not on Osiris's side. Anyone could easily buy his favour and get from Typhos whatever boys want, if only he whispered something that led to abuse of Osiris. So from childhood their nature promised the difference between their lives.

As the first fork of two roads, diverging little by little, makes the gap ever wider as it goes on, until at last they end in the greatest opposition, so one may see it happen with the young too: a small difference, as it goes on, leads very far apart. But these two did not part even little by little; they turned at once in opposite directions, each having received perfect virtue or perfect vice as his lot. As they grew, the opposition of their choices grew with them, and they gave clearer proofs, marked out in deeds. Osiris, as soon as he reached youth, shared the command with the appointed generals, though the law did not yet give arms to those of his age; but he governed by judgment, being as it were the mind and using the generals as hands. Then, as his nature grew like a plant, it bore ever more perfect fruit. Made commander of the bodyguard, entrusted with the hearings, governing the city, and presiding over the council, he handed back each office far more venerable than he received it. Typhos, appointed treasurer of funds — for their father had decided to test the nature of his sons in smaller tasks — disgraced himself and the man who chose him, being caught in theft

of public money, in taking bribes, and in reckless frenzy in his administration. Moved to another kind of office, to see whether he might after all fit somewhere, he did more shamefully still, and made the part of a good kingdom over which Typhos presided an entire year of ill-omened days. When he went on to other people, the wailing passed on to them. Such was Typhos at ruling men. In private he danced the cordax, gathering the most disorderly of the Egyptians and foreigners, men ready to say and hear, to suffer and to do anything, so that his dining-hall was a workshop of every kind of licentiousness. While awake he snored himself and delighted to hear others snore, thinking the thing some marvellous music; and praise and honours went to whoever drew out the licentious sound longest and rounded it best. One of them, the "bravest" of all, had lost all shame at everything, and, shrinking from nothing disgraceful, won many other prizes,

and some offices fell to him as the wage of shameful frankness. Such, then, was Typhos at home. But when he sat in the guise of one who conducts public affairs, he showed clearly that vice is manifold: it is at strife both with virtue and with itself, and both opposites are its portions. The slack fellow was at once in a rage, and, barking harder than an Epirote dog, he devised misfortune, now for a private person, now for a household, now for a whole city, and rejoiced at working the greater evil, as if washing away the disgrace of his laziness at home with people's tears. In one thing the evil was of benefit: often, at the very point of doing something terrible, his mind would wander and he would fall into strange notions, so that he resembled the nympholepts, contending vehemently about the shadow at Delphi; and in the meantime the man in danger was saved, and no further word was said about him. Or he would be seized by lethargy and be heavy-headed for a time, so that

he was absent, and the memory of recent events had slipped away; and he would wrangle with the administrators about how many grains of wheat a medimnus holds and how many cyathi a chous, displaying a superfluous and absurd sharpness. Sometimes even sleep rescued a man from disaster, falling on Typhos very opportunely; and he would have pitched headlong off his seat, had not some servant dropped his torch and propped him up. So a tragic all-night sitting often ended in comedy. For he did not even do business by day, being by nature hostile to the sun and light and akin to darkness. Though he knew clearly that everyone with even a little share of good sense had condemned his utter ignorance, he did not blame himself for the absurdity; instead he was for that reason the common enemy of people with sense, as though they wronged him because they knew how to judge — he who was helpless at giving counsel but most resourceful at plotting. Folly and madness were joined in him, banes of the soul that strengthened each other, from which other evils

greater and readier still. A race of men to wipe them out neither exists nor could ever arise in nature. All these things the father saw and understood, and he was anxious for the Egyptians; for he was king, and priest, and wise — Egyptian accounts even say that he was a god. For the Egyptians do not disbelieve that countless gods reigned over them one after another before the country was ruled by men and the kings were reckoned by descent, Piromis son of Piromis. When, then, the divine laws were removing him to the greater gods, and the appointed day had come, there had been gathered for it, by proclamation long before, from every Egyptian city, the priests of every brotherhood and the native class of soldiers — these by the compulsion of the law — while the other parts of the peoples were allowed

to watch the election, though not to vote themselves. Swineherds were kept even from the spectacle, and anyone of foreign race who bore arms as a hireling of the Egyptians was likewise forbidden to be present. In this, too, the elder of the sons came off far worse: for Typhos's partisans were swineherds and foreigners, a plainly crazed and numerous crowd. But he yielded to custom, and did not even make an attempt, nor did he think the exclusion terrible but fitting, since the law had condemned it and it was already the nature of those classes. The king is installed for the Egyptians in the following way. There is a sacred mountain beside the great city of Thebes, and another mountain opposite it, with the stream of the Nile between them. Of the mountains, the one opposite

is the Libyan one, and the law is that the candidates for the kingship live on it during the time of preparation, so that they perceive nothing of the choice; the sacred mountain is the Egyptian one. On the summit there is a tent for the king, and beside him those of the priests who are wise in the great wisdom; and the order proceeds through all the nobility, distributing places by the rank of their initiations. These form a first circle about the king, as about a heart; the soldiers, another circle, come next to them. These are still about the hill which, on the long mountain, rises as another mountain, like a breast, and makes the king visible even to those standing farther off. Around the foot of this breast stand those who are allowed to be present at the spectacle. These only applaud whatever they perceive; the others hold the authority of the choice. When the king has performed the divine rites, and those whose task it is have set in motion the whole sacred procession, as though the deity were present and

were helping to think about the choice, when the name of one of the candidates for the kingship is proclaimed, the soldiers raise their hands, while the comasts, the temple-wardens and the prophets cast votes. This group is fewer in number but far more powerful: a prophet's vote counts as a hundred hands, a comast's as twenty, and a temple-warden's as ten. Then another of the royal names, and on it hands and votes. If the count is close, the king, by voting for one side, makes it far greater; or by adding himself to the lesser he brings it to equality. In that case the vote must be postponed and they must hold fast to the gods, sitting longer in attendance and purifying themselves more strictly, until the gods — not through veils, nor through signs on either side, but seen in person — declare the king themselves, and the people hear the divine proclamation with their own ears. These things happened in this way, as it chanced each time, now so, now otherwise. But in the case of Typhos and Osiris, though the priests had done nothing, the gods

were at once clearly seen from the very first, standing by in person and giving orders, each arranging his own worshippers, and it was plain to everyone for what purpose they were present. And yet even had they not been present, every hand and every vote was waiting for the name of the younger of the royal sons. But great things here are announced beforehand by greater preludes, and the divine gives signs for events that will turn out far beyond expectation, whether better or worse. Osiris, then, as was right, stayed where he was, in the place where he had spent the time from the beginning. The other writhed and fretted to know how the election went, and at last could not master himself so as not to make an attempt and corrupt the votes. So, sparing neither himself nor the royal laws, he committed himself to the stream, swept along, swimming, doing and suffering everything, a laughing-stock to those who saw him, and landed across the river. He thought he was unnoticed, except by those he approached and promised money; but everyone knew, and they cursed both him and his scheme. Yet it did not seem right to expose a deranged nature. And this

turned out most grievous for him: he was there himself, he heard it himself, as he was voted down by every judgment and rejected by every hand; and the gods even hurled a curse at him. Then Osiris came when sent for, having done nothing; and gods, priests, in short everyone, met him with sacred honours and sacred pipes at the bank where the barge that takes up the new king from the Libyan side was to put in. At once great signs came from heaven, and from the same place good voices, and every kind of sign by which the future is hunted, lesser and greater, announced the good news of the kingship to the Egyptians — except that the daemons of the worse portion did not seem likely to keep quiet or bear the happiness of men calmly, but seemed about to attack and were swelling with rage. And some plot was signified. When, then, the royal initiation had been completed by the gods and by his father, they foretold

to him clearly, as those who knew clearly, everything else — swarms of good things — but also that he must put his brother out of the way, since he had been born an evil fate for the Egyptians and for his father's house, if he was not to throw everything into confusion; so that he should neither see nor hear of the prosperity and plenty of Egypt under Osiris's reign, for nothing good was bearable to the nature of Typhos. They taught him the twofold substance of souls and the necessary opposition which souls from below bear to those from above. For this reason they thought it right that he should destroy and cut off a nature hostile to the good and divine order, feeling no shame before what people call kinship. When he softened, they told him how much he himself must suffer, and the Egyptians, and their neighbours, and all whom the Egyptians ruled: for the evil was not feeble, nor would ordinary care be enough to fence off and blunt his open and secret attacks. He had champions as well, a powerful band of envious daemons, whose kin he was and by whom he had been thrust forth into birth, so that they might have him as a tool of their wickedness toward men; on that road they had begotten him and reared him

and brought him to birth, and educated him in their own way, a Typhos who would be of great benefit to them. One thing more they think needed for him to lack nothing: to clothe him with the power of office, for so he will be perfect from perfect, both wishing and able to do great evils. "And you," said one of the gods, "they reckon men's gain and their own loss; for the misfortunes of nations are a feast for evil daemons." So again and often they admonished him to send his brother away and let him go to ruin somewhere far off, knowing and seeing Osiris's gentle nature; and because of it they were at last compelled to say that he would hold out for a time, but would give way before he knew it and betray himself and all men, buying with the fine name of brotherly love the greatest misfortunes in fact.

"But if you," he said, "are gracious and helpful, I shall not be afraid of my brother if he stays, and I shall be free of the anger of the daemons; for it is easy for you, if you wish, to heal even what has been overlooked." His father took him up: "You judge wrongly in this, my son. For the divine portion in the cosmos is busy with other things, acting for the most part according to the first power in it, and filled with intelligible beauty. For there is another, supercosmic race of gods there, which holds together all beings down to the last, while it remains itself unswerving and untouched by matter. That is the blessed spectacle for those who are gods by nature, and to see its source as well is more blessed still. That source, by remaining in itself, is overfull of good things, being overfull of itself; and for the others the good is to be turned toward the God who is there. Yet their activity is not simple or of one form; they also take care of portions of the cosmos, bringing the action that is in contemplation down, as far as it admits, into what is under their governance. The pure part of them is ranked immediately under that first substance,

and they in turn set in order those nearest them, and the succession of ranks descends in sequence to the last of beings, and all things enjoy the care of the first through the intermediaries. Yet not equally — otherwise there would be no last — but beings grow weaker as they descend, until at last there is discord and a counterfeiting of order, at the point where the being of beings ceases. Something like this happens with things here. The wandering element of the nature that is in becoming has received the last and most perishable part of the bodily lot; heaven has received the first and imperishable, and has been allotted the corresponding form of soul. What these are there," he said, pointing to the gods, "the daemon is among the much-shaken elements: a reckless and bold nature, which because of its great distance from there does not heed the good order of the divine. Since the dregs of beings are not sufficient for their own preservation — for they flow away beneath and do not abide in being, but imitate it by becoming —

and since the daemons, being kin to the nature here, have been allotted a destructive substance, the divine must of necessity watch over it and give certain beginnings of motion, which the world here follows well for a time, as long as the impulse lasts. Just as puppets worked by strings keep moving even after the one who gave the mechanism its start of motion has stopped, yet do not move without end — for they do not have the source of motion from within themselves, but move only while the power given them is strong and does not slacken as it proceeds farther from its origin — in the same way, my dear Osiris, think that the good and the divine both are and are not of this place, but are sent down from elsewhere. That is why good souls would appear here only rarely, and the visits of the gods

… I once witnessed an initiation in which there were two pairs of eyes, and the lower pair had to close when the upper was looking; and when the upper closed, the lower in turn were opened. Think, then, that this is a riddle of contemplation and action: beings of the middle rank use each in turn, while the more perfect use the better more, and consort with the worse only so far as is necessary. These too, then, are works of gods, who do what is necessary for the cosmos, though these are not goods of the first rank, since men too now manage their households, less or more, and now practise philosophy — and in the latter they are more divine. From this, understand what I am telling you. Do not demand that the gods sit in constant attendance on you, when they have the task of providing

after the model of the makers of machines: to give the beginning of good motion in a state. This is what they do when they fit together a kingship, sending kindred souls down here. For this is a divine and magnificent providence, to care for many myriads of people through one man. From then on, they must be about their own affairs; but you, held fast among alien things, must remember where you come from, and that you fulfil this as a service to the cosmos; you must try to lead yourself upward, and

not let things here leave the better nature behind. They do stretch out a hand where it is in their power. But when matter stirs up its own offshoots for war against the soul, the resistance on this side, without the gods, is small; for each is strong on its own ground. The daemons will first want to make the soul their own, and the attempt goes as follows. It is impossible to be on earth without also having some irrational portion of soul. The many put it in front; the wise man keeps it hanging at his side; but all must have it. Through this, as through something akin to them, the daemons come to the living being, arranging a betrayal; for what happens is exactly like a siege. As coals are affected by torches — they catch fire faster because they are already fit for fire — so the nature of a daemon, being passionate, or rather being passion alive and moving, when it draws near a soul stirs the passion in it and brings the potency into act; for each thing acts by contact, and everything acted upon is made like the agent. So daemons kindle desire, so anger, and the evils akin to these, consorting with souls through the parts that belong to them, which by nature perceive their presence, are moved, and are strengthened by them to rise up against the mind, until they master the whole soul or give up

the attempt. This is the greatest of contests. There is no time, no manner, no place that they leave untried in their assaults; they attack from where no one would expect it; everywhere there are engines, they subdue everything; everywhere there are snares; the war is stirred up from within, until they take the soul or give up. The gods watch these fine contests from above, and in them you will be crowned — would that you might be in the second as well! But there is reason to fear that you may win these and be taken in the others. For when the divine portion of the soul does not follow the worse, but often beats it back and throws it toward itself, nature in time lets that part too be tempered so as to withstand the assaults and, as though glazed, no longer admit the inflows from the daemons. Then the living being truly becomes divine and one whole. And this is "a heavenly plant" on earth, which has received no alien graft so as to bear its fruit, but has changed that too into its own nature. But they, having despaired of it,

then in earnest fight the second contest, to cut it down and wipe it off the earth as something that does not belong to them; for they are ashamed of their defeat if one of another race goes about in their territory as master, being and appearing a trophy of victory over them. Such a man does them damage not only in himself, but draws others too away from their dominion; for when virtue is shown, worse things must perish. For this reason they plot to destroy private man and ruler alike, anyone at all who has slipped the reins of the laws of matter. But here you, being king, could guard yourself more easily than any private person. For they attack from outside, when the inward attempts have failed, by war and faction and whatever injures the body — and by these a king who takes forethought for himself would be least likely to be taken. For it is invincible when strength and wisdom come together; but when they are parted from each other, ignorant force and weak good sense are easy to overcome.

You must surely admire, my son, the conception of our fathers in the sacred images. We Egyptians make the form of the god Hermes double, setting a young man beside an old one, because we think that whoever of us is to be a good overseer must be both intelligent and valiant, since either without the other is incomplete for doing good. For this reason too the Sphinx is set up by us in front of the sacred precincts, a sacred symbol of the union of the goods:

a beast in strength, a human being in wisdom. For strength bereft of intelligent leadership is carried along in a frenzy, confusing and disturbing everything; and mind is useless for action when it is not served by hands. Virtue and fortune come together rarely, but for great things, as they came together in you. So no longer trouble the gods, when you can be saved from your own resources if you wish. It is not right for them to be always away from their own place, lingering among things alien and worse — unless it is also impious to use badly the resources sown in us for our preservation, and for things on earth to be kept in order and in keeping with the order given. For that is to force them to come again, before the appointed times, to care for things here. At those times, when the harmony which they tuned is loosening and growing old, they come again to tighten it, and to rekindle it, as it were, when it is growing cold; and they do this gladly, fulfilling this as a service