1. Euripides, Bacchae, 275 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 275. τὰ πρῶτʼ ἐν ἀνθρώποισι· Δημήτηρ θεά— | 275. are first among men: the goddess Demeter—she is the earth, but call her whatever name you wish; she nourishes mortals with dry food; but he who came afterwards, the offspring of Semele, discovered a match to it, the liquid drink of the grape, and introduced it |
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2. Euripides, Helen, 1301 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1301. ̓Ορεία ποτὲ δρομάδι κώ- | 1301. Once with swift foot the mountain mother of the gods rushed through the wooded glen, and the river’s stream |
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3. Euripides, Phoenician Women, 685 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 685. goddess Demeter the queen of all, Earth the nurse of all, won it for themselves; send to the help of this land those torch-bearing goddesses; for to gods all things are easy. Eteocles to an attendant |
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4. Herodotus, Histories, 2.82, 2.144 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 2.82. Other things originating with the Egyptians are these. Each month and day belong to one of the gods, and according to the day of one's birth are determined how one will fare and how one will end and what one will be like; those Greeks occupied with poetry exploit this. ,More portents have been discovered by them than by all other peoples; when a portent occurs, they take note of the outcome and write it down; and if something of a like kind happens again, they think it will have a like result. 2.144. Thus they showed that all those whose statues stood there had been good men, but quite unlike gods. ,Before these men, they said, the rulers of Egypt were gods, but none had been contemporary with the human priests. of these gods one or another had in succession been supreme; the last of them to rule the country was Osiris' son Horus, whom the Greeks call Apollo; he deposed Typhon, and was the last divine king of Egypt . Osiris is, in the Greek language, Dionysus. |
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5. Hecataeus Abderita, Fragments, None (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
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6. Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, 24 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
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7. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 1.22.7, 1.96.2, 1.96.4 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.22.7. Consequently the Greeks too, inasmuch as they received from Egypt the celebrations of the orgies and the festivals connected with Dionysus, honour this member in both the mysteries and the initiatory rites and sacrifices of this god, giving it the name "phallus. 1.96.2. For the priests of Egypt recount from the records of their sacred books that they were visited in early times by Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus, and Daedalus, also by the poet Homer and Lycurgus of Sparta, later by Solon of Athens and the philosopher Plato, and that there also came Pythagoras of Samos and the mathematician Eudoxus, as well as Democritus of Abdera and Oenopides of Chios. 1.96.4. Orpheus, for instance, brought from Egypt most of his mystic ceremonies, the orgiastic rites that accompanied his wanderings, and his fabulous account of his experiences in Hades. |
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8. Livy, History, 39.8.7 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
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9. Plutarch, On Isis And Osiris, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 354d. thinks that the meaning "concealed" or "concealment" lies in this word. Hecataeus of Abdera, however, says that the Egyptians use this expression one to another whenever they call to anyone, for the word is a form of address. When they, therefore, address the supreme god, whom they believe to be the same as the Universe, as if he were invisible and concealed, and implore him to make himself visible and manifest to them, they use the word "Amoun"; so great, then, was the circumspection of the Egyptians in their wisdom touching all that had to do with the gods. Witness to this also are the wisest of the Greeks: |
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10. Plutarch, Greek Questions, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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11. Plutarch, Table Talk, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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12. Athenagoras, Apology Or Embassy For The Christians, 28 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 28. But it is perhaps necessary, in accordance with what has already been adduced, to say a little about their names. Herodotus, then, and Alexander the son of Philip, in his letter to his mother (and each of them is said to have conversed with the priests at Heliopolis, and Memphis, and Thebes), affirm that they learned from them that the gods had been men. Herodotus speaks thus: of such a nature were, they said, the beings represented by these images, they were very far indeed from being gods. However, in the times anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above the rest. The last of these was Horus the son of Osiris, called by the Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks. Almost all the names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt. Apollo was the son of Dionysus and Isis, as Herodotus likewise affirms: According to the Egyptians, Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and Isis; while Latona is their nurse and their preserver. These beings of heavenly origin they had for their first kings: partly from ignorance of the true worship of the Deity, partly from gratitude for their government, they esteemed them as gods together with their wives. The male cattle, if clean, and the male calves, are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally; but the females, they are not allowed to sacrifice, since they are sacred to Isis. The statue of this goddess has the form of a woman but with horns like a cow, resembling those of the Greek representations of Io. And who can be more deserving of credit in making these statements, than those who in family succession son from father, received not only the priesthood, but also the history? For it is not likely that the priests, who make it their business to commend the idols to men's reverence, would assert falsely that they were men. If Herodotus alone had said that the Egyptians spoke in their histories of the gods as of men, when he says, What they told me concerning their religion it is not my intention to repeat, except only the names of their deities, things of very trifling importance, it would behoove us not to credit even Herodotus as being a fabulist. But as Alexander and Hermes surnamed Trismegistus, who shares with them in the attribute of eternity, and innumerable others, not to name them individually, [declare the same], no room is left even for doubt that they, being kings, were esteemed gods. That they were men, the most learned of the Egyptians also testify, who, while saying that ether, earth, sun, moon, are gods, regard the rest as mortal men, and the temples as their sepulchres. Apollodorus, too, asserts the same thing in his treatise concerning the gods. But Herodotus calls even their sufferings mysteries. The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude, both of men and women, many thousands in number, beat themselves at the close of the sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious scruple forbids me to mention. If they are gods, they are also immortal; but if people are beaten for them, and their sufferings are mysteries, they are men, as Herodotus himself says: Here, too, in this same precinct of Minerva at Saïs, is the burial-place of one whom I think it not right to mention in such a connection. It stands behind the temple against the back wall, which it entirely covers. There are also some large stone obelisks in the enclosure, and there is a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone. In form it is circular, and in size, as it seemed to me, about equal to the lake at Delos called the Hoop. On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their mysteries. And not only is the sepulchre of Osiris shown, but also his embalming: When a body is brought to them, they show the bearer various models of corpses made in wood, and painted so as to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after the manner of him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection with such a matter. |
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13. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.31.4 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.31.4. Such is the legend. Phlya and Myrrhinus have altars of Apollo Dionysodotus, Artemis Light-bearer, Dionysus Flower-god, the Ismenian nymphs and Earth, whom they name the Great goddess; a second temple contains altars of Demeter Anesidora (Sender-up of Gifts), Zeus Ctesius (God of Gain), Tithrone Athena, the Maid First-born and the goddesses styled August. The wooden image at Myrrhinus is of Colaenis. |
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14. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 3.1, 9.27 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
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15. Origen, Against Celsus, 4.17 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 4.17. But will not those narratives, especially when they are understood in their proper sense, appear far more worthy of respect than the story that Dionysus was deceived by the Titans, and expelled from the throne of Jupiter, and torn in pieces by them, and his remains being afterwards put together again, he returned as it were once more to life, and ascended to heaven? Or are the Greeks at liberty to refer such stories to the doctrine of the soul, and to interpret them figuratively, while the door of a consistent explanation, and one everywhere in accord and harmony with the writings of the Divine Spirit, who had His abode in pure souls, is closed against us? Celsus, then, is altogether ignorant of the purpose of our writings, and it is therefore upon his own acceptation of them that he casts discredit, and not upon their real meaning; whereas, if he had reflected on what is appropriate to a soul which is to enjoy an everlasting life, and on the opinion which we are to form of its essence and principles, he would not so have ridiculed the entrance of the immortal into a mortal body, which took place not according to the metempsychosis of Plato, but agreeably to another and higher view of things. And he would have observed one descent, distinguished by its great benevolence, undertaken to convert (as the Scripture mystically terms them) the lost sheep of the house of Israel, which had strayed down from the mountains, and to which the Shepherd is said in certain parables to have gone down, leaving on the mountains those which had not strayed. |
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