[186] _De Iside et Osiride_, 352 A. We need not here trouble with Plutarch’s fanciful philology, almost as fanciful as that of some modern Aryanists. His meaning is clear—Absolute Being is the object of the worship of Isis—cf. MAX MÜLLER: _Selected Essays_, vol. i. p. 467: “Comparative philologists have not yet succeeded in finding the true etymology of Apollo.” (Plato’s derivations are given in the _Cratylus_, 266 C.) [187] _Iliad_, xiii. 354. (Chapman’s translation.) [188] _De Iside et Osiride_, 351 E. [189] _Neoplatonism_, by C. BIGG, D.D. (“Chief Ancient Philosophies”), p. 216. [190] Cf. the _De Placitis Philosophorum_, 881 B. [191] _De Ε apud Delphos_, 384 F. [192] 386 E. [193] Alluding to HESIOD—_Works and Days_, 735 sq. [194] _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_, 562 B. [195] _De Ε_, 393 A. [196] _De Ε_, 387 B, C. [197] PLATO: _Philebus_, 39 E. [198] ARISTOTLE: _Ethics_, viii. 12. [199] _De Superstitione_, 167 E. [200] _De Defectu Orac._, 423 E. [201] PLUTARCH on _The Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked_: revised edition, with notes, by Professors H. B. Hackett and W. S. Tyler. (New York, 1867.) [202] _Sur les Délais de la Justice Divine dans la punition des coupables_, par le Comte JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. (Lyons et Paris, 1856.)—“_J’ai pris_,” says de Maistre, “_j’ai pris quelques libertés dont j’espère que Plutarque n’aura point se plaindre_;” and, speaking of the _jeunesse surannée_ of Amyot’s style, he adds: “_Son orthographe égare l’œil, l’oreille ne supporte pas ses vers: les dames surtout et les étrangers le goûtent peu._” Another French critic justly remarks on these “liberties” of de Maistre: “_C’est trop de licence. Plutarque n’est pas un de ces écrivains qui laissent leurs pensées en bouton_” (Gréard, p. 274). Yet it is upon de Maistre’s “paraphrase” that Gréard bases his own analysis! [203] WYTTENBACH: _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_ (_Præfatio_). It is pleasant to repeat the praise which Christian writers have poured on this tract. “_Diese Schrift_” says Volkmann, “_gehört meines Erachtungs unbedingt mit zu dem schönsten, was aus der gesammten nachclassischen Litteratur der Griechen überhaupt auf uns gekommen ist_.” (VOLKMANN, vol. ii. p. 265.) One may wonder a little, perhaps, at the limitation conveyed in the _nach_ of _nachclassischen_.—Trench says that some of Plutarch’s arguments “would have gone far to satisfy St. Augustine, and to meet the demands of his theology.” [204] The Epicurean author of the _De Placitis_, still inveighing against “that tall talker, Plato,” is bitterly emphatic on this point.—“_If there is a God, and human affairs are administered by His Providence, how comes it that bareness prospers, while the refined and good fall into adversity?_” And he instances the murder of Agamemnon “_at the hands of an adulterer and an adultress_,” and the death of Hercules, that benefactor of humanity, “_done to death by Dejaniras drugs_.” (881 D.) [205] _Symposiacs_, 642 C, 700 E. [206] _Symposiacs_, 654 C.