Chapter XXVIII.—The Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration Sketched and Censured.

What, then, by this time means that ancient saying, mentioned by Plato,215    Phædo, p. 70. concerning the reciprocal migration of souls; how they remove hence and go thither, and then return hither and pass through life, and then again depart from this life, and afterwards become alive from the dead? Some will have it that this is a saying of Pythagoras; Albinus supposes it to be a divine announcement, perhaps of the Egyptian Mercury.216    [Hermes. See Bacon, De Aug. i. p. 99.] But there is no divine saying, except of the one true God, by whom the prophets, and the apostles, and Christ Himself declared their grand message. More ancient than Saturn a good deal (by some nine hundred years or so), and even than his grandchildren, is Moses; and he is certainly much more divine, recounting and tracing out, as he does, the course of the human race from the very beginning of the world, indicating the several births (of the fathers of mankind) according to their names and their epochs; giving thus plain proof of the divine character of his work, from its divine authority and word. If, indeed, the sophist of Samos is Plato’s authority for the eternally revolving migration of souls out of a constant alternation of the dead and the living states, then no doubt did the famous Pythagoras, however excellent in other respects, for the purpose of fabricating such an opinion as this, rely on a falsehood, which was not only shameful, but also hazardous. Consider it, you that are ignorant of it, and believe with us.  He feigns death, he conceals himself underground, he condemns himself to that endurance for some seven years, during which he learns from his mother, who was his sole accomplice and attendant, what he was to relate for the belief of the world concerning those who had died since his seclusion;217    De posteris defunctis. and when he thought that he had succeeded in reducing the frame of his body to the horrid appearance of a dead old man, he comes forth from the place of his concealment and deceit, and pretends to have returned from the dead. Who would hesitate about believing that the man, whom he had supposed to have died, was come back again to life? especially after hearing from him facts about the recently dead,218    De posteris defunctis. which he evidently could only have discovered in Hades itself! Thus, that men are made alive after death, is rather an old statement. But what if it be rather a recent one also? The truth does not desire antiquity, nor does falsehood shun novelty. This notable saying I hold to be plainly false, though ennobled by antiquity. How should that not be false, which depends for its evidence on a falsehood?—How can I help believing Pythagoras to be a deceiver, who practises deceit to win my belief? How will he convince me that, before he was Pythagoras, he had been Æthalides, and Euphorbus, and the fisherman Pyrrhus, and Hermotimus, to make us believe that men live again after they have died, when he actually perjured himself afterwards as Pythagoras. In proportion as it would be easier for me to believe that he had returned once to life in his own person, than so often in the person of this man and that, in the same degree has he deceived me in things which are too hard to be credited, because he has played the impostor in matters which might be readily believed. Well, but he recognised the shield of Euphorbus, which had been formerly consecrated at Delphi, and claimed it as his own, and proved his claim by signs which were generally unknown. Now, look again at his subterranean lurking-place, and believe his story, if you can. For, as to the man who devised such a tricksty scheme, to the injury of his health, fraudulently wasting his life, and torturing it for seven years underground, amidst hunger, idleness, and darkness—with a profound disgust for the mighty sky—what reckless effort would he not make, what curious contrivance would he not attempt, to arrive at the discovery of this famous shield? Suppose now, that he found it in some of those hidden researches; suppose that he recovered some slight breath of report which survived the now obsolete tradition; suppose him to have come to the knowledge of it by an inspection which he had bribed the beadle to let him have,—we know very well what are the resources of magic skill for exploring hidden secrets: there are the catabolic spirits, which floor their victims;219    From καταβάλλειν, to knock down. and the paredral spirits, which are ever at their side220    From πάρεδος, sitting by one. to haunt them; and the pythonic spirits, which entrance them by their divination and ventriloquistic221    From πυθωνικός, an attribute of Pythius Apollo; this class were sometimes called ἐγγαστρίμυθοι, ventriloquists. arts. For was it not likely that Pherecydes also, the master of our Pythagoras, used to divine, or I would rather say rave and dream, by such arts and contrivances as these? Might not the self-same demon have been in him, who, whilst in Euphorbus, transacted deeds of blood? But lastly, why is it that the man, who proved himself to have been Euphorbus by the evidence of the shield, did not also recognise any of his former Trojan comrades? For they, too, must by this time have recovered life, since men were rising again from the dead.

CAPUT XXVIII.

0697A

Quis ille nunc vetus sermo apud memoriam Platonis de animarum reciproco discursu, quod hinc abeuntes eant illuc, et rursus huc veniant et vivant, et dehinc e vita abeant, rursus ex mortuis effici vivos? Pythagoricus, ut volunt, quin et divinus, ut Albinus existimat, aut Mercurii forsitan Aegyptii. Sed nullus sermo divinus, nisi Dei unius, quo Prophetae, quo Apostoli, quo ipse Christus intonuit. Multo antiquior Moyses etiam Saturno, nongentis circiter annis, nedum pronepotibus ejus; certe divinior multo, qui decursus generis humani ab exordio mundi quoque per singulas nativitates nominatim temporatimque digessit, satis probans divinitatem operis ex divinatione vocis. Si vero Samius 0697B Sophista Platoni auctor est animarum de recidivatu revolubili semper ex alterna mortuorum atque viventium suffectione, certe ille Pythagoras, etsi bonus caetera, tamen ut hanc sententiam exstrueret, non turpi modo, verum etiam temerario mendacio incubuit. Cognosce qui nescis, et crede nobiscum. Mortem simulat, subterraneo latitat, septenni se illic patientia damnat, interea quae de posteris defunctis ad fidem rerum esset relaturus, ab unica conscia et ministra matre cognoscit: ut satis sibi visus est corpulentiam interpolasse ad omnem mortui veteris horrorem, de adytis fallaciae emergit, ut ab inferis redditus. Quis non crederet revixisse, quem crediderat obisse? audiens praesertim ab eo quae de posteris mortuis nisi apud inferos non videretur cognoscere potuisse, sic 0697C ex mortuis vivos effici senior sermo est. Quid enim, si et junior? Neque veritas desiderat vetustatem, neque mendacium devitat novellitatem. Teneo plane 0698A falsum, antiquitate generosum; quidni falsum, cujus testimonium quoque ex falso est? Quomodo credam non mentiri Pythagoram, qui mentitur ut credam? Quomodo mihi persuadebit Aethalidem , et Euphorbum, et Pyrrhum piscatorem, et Hermotimum se retro ante Pythagoram fuisse, ut persuadeat vivos ex mortuis effici, qui iterum se Pythagoram pejeravit? Quanto enim credibilius ipse ex semetipso semel redisset in vitam, quam totiens alius atque alius, tanto et in durioribus fefellit, qui molliora mentitus est. Sed clypeum Euphorbi olim Delphis consecratum recognovit, et suum dixit, et de signis vulgo ignotis probavit. Respice ad hypogeum ejus, et, si capit, crede. Nam qui talem commentus est stropham, cum injuria bonae valetudinis, cum fraude vitae 0698B septinnio excruciatae infra terram inedia, ignavia, umbra; cui tanti fuit fastidium coeli; quam non accesserit temeritatem? Quam non tentaverit curiositatem, ut ad notam clypei illius perveniret? Quid autem, si in historiis aliquibus occultioribus reperit? quid, si defectae jam traditionis superstites aliquas famae aurulas hausit? quid, si ab aedituo redempta clam inspectione cognovit? Scimus etiam magiae licere explorandis occultis per catabolicos, et paredros, et pythonicos spiritus. Non enim et Pherecydes, Pythagorae magister, his forsan artibus divinabat, ne dicam somniabat? Quid si idem daemon in illo fuit, qui et in Euphorbo res sanguinis gessit? Denique, qui se Euphorbum ex argumento clypei probarat, cur neminem Trojanorum commilitonum aeque recognovit? 0698C Nam et illi jam revixissent, si vivi ex mortuis fierent.