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| The Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration Sketched and Censured.
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Chapter XXVIII.—The
Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration Sketched and
Censured.
What, then, by this time means that ancient
saying, mentioned by Plato,1703
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.1704
| 1704 [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;1705
| 1705 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,1706
| 1706 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;1707
| 1707 From καταβάλλειν,
to knock down. | and the
paredral spirits, which are ever at their side1708
| 1708 From πάρεδος, sitting
by one. | to haunt them; and the
pythonic spirits, which entrance them by their divination
and ventriloquistic1709
| 1709 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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