 The precise role of Forms in Plutarch's interpretation of the creation remains obscure. Plutarch discussed this issue in treatises no longer extant, such as, for example, Where are the Forms?, yet the relevant surviving evidence is inconclusive (see though Schoppe 1994, Ferrari 1995, 1996b). Some insight can be gained from the myth of Isis and Osiris, which Plutarch presents as an analogy to the world creation in his De Iside et Osiride. Osiris is a divine intellect that brings everything into being by being sown in matter, that is, in Isis, the reasons (logoi) of himself (De Iside 372E-F), eventually producing Horus, i.e. the cosmos (ibid. 374A, De an. procr. 1026C). Osiris is identified with the good itself (372E), to which Isis always inclines, offering herself to be impregnated “ with effluxes and likenesses in which she rejoices” (ibid. 373A).  Apparently Osiris stands for the demiurge of the Timaeus and also the Form of the Good of the Republic (cf. De an. procr. 1017 A-B) —which explains why Osiris constitutes the object of desire by nature and Isis (De Iside 372E-F; cf. De facie 944E) and Isis stands for the receptacle (De Iside ibid., De an. procr. 1026C; Timaeus 49a, 51a). This suggests that Plutarch probably maintained the existence of the Forms in God (cf. Timaeus 39e), as did several other Platonists in late antiquity (e.g. Alcinous, Didascalikos 163.11–17, with Dillon 1993, 93–96). This is supported by the fact that for Plutarch Osiris is both the intellect and the logos present in the world soul (De Iside 371A, 376C, De an. procr. 1023C–D) and by Plutarch's claim that God is the totality of Forms (paradeigma; De sera 550D; see Helmig 2005, 20–26). However, it is not clear how for Plutarch the Forms exist in God, since in Plutarch's view God, as Osiris, can be analyzed into three elements, intellect, soul, and body (De Iside 373A). That Plutarch makes such a distinction with regard to God is also supported by his claim that “God is not senseless nor inanimate nor subject to human control” (De Iside 377E-F) and also by his reference to the body of Osiris, which symbolizes the Forms immanent in matter (ibid.; Dillon 1977, 200). Presumably, then, Plutarch assumes the existence of a divine soul, guided by statements in Plato Philebus 30c, Sophist 248d-249a, Timaeus 46d-e, according to which the intellect, to the extent that it implies life, requires the presence of the principle of life, namely soul (Plat. Quest. 1002F).