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However, they also tell many fabulous stories
about their gods, such, for example, as the following :
Oromazes, born from the purest light,and Areimanius.
born from the darkness, are constantly at Avar with
each other ; and Oromazes created six gods, the first
of Good Thought, the second of Truth, the third of
Order, and, of the rest, one of Wisdom, one of Wealth,
[p. 115]
and one the Artificer of Pleasure in what is Honourable. But Areimanius created rivals, as it were, equal
to these in number. Then Oromazes enlarged himself to thrice his former size, and removed himself as
far distant from the Sun as the Sun is distant from
the Earth, and adorned the heavens with stars. One
star he set there before all others as a guardian and
watchman, the Dog-star. Twenty-four other gods
he created and placed in an egg. But those created
by Areimanius, who were equal in number to the
others, pierced through the egg and made their way
inside1; hence evils are now combined with good.
But a destined time shall come when it is decreed that
Areimanius, engaged in bringing on pestilence and
famine, shall by these be utterly annihilated and shall
disappear ; and then shall the earth become a level
plain, and there shall be one manner of life and one
form of government for a blessed people who shall all
speak o ne tongue. Theopompus2 says that, according
to the sages, one god is to overpower, and the other
to be overpowered, each in turn for the space of three
thousand years, and afterward for another three
thousand years they shall fight and war, and the one
shall undo the works of the other, and finally Hades
shall pass away ; then shall the people be happy, and
neither shall they need to have food nor shall they
cast any shadow. And the god, who has contrived to
bring about all these things, shall then have quiet and
shall repose for a time,3 no long time indeed, but for
the god as much as would be a moderate time for a
man to sleep.
[p. 117]
Such, then, is the character of the mythology of
the sages.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 5.
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