Plutarch's E at Delphi Is an Address to the God

Platonic dialogue may not be on every reading list to day, but plutarch and apparently his teacher, ammonius, before him, saw the timaeus as a particularly important platonic work. All platonists of this period would agree with emmonius that the divine is unchanging and eternal, whereas bodily things are subject to constant flux. Since we are not gods, we dwell in an inferior, ever changing region. In saying a you are, we declare to the god that he is exalted beyond our realm. And when the inscription reminds us to know ourselves, it means we should never forget our more lowly station.