(1) Nor is that which so greatly disturbs you, and for which you so strenuously contend, attended with any difficulty, I mean abstinence from animals, if it is rightly understood. For those who worship the Gods do not abstain from animals, lest the Gods should be defiled by the vapours arising from them. For what exhalation from bodies can approach those who, before any thing material can come into contact with their power, intangibly amputate matter? Nor is it the power of the Gods only that abolishes all bodies, and causes them to vanish, without any approximation to them; but a celestial body, also, is unmingled with all the material elements; nor does it receive into itself any thing extraneous, nor impart any portion of itself to things of a foreign nature.

(2) Separately, however, he forbade the most contemplative of philosophers, and who have arrived at the summit of philosophic attainments, the use of superfluous and unjust food, and ordered them never to eat any thing animated, nor in short, to drink wine, nor to sacrifice animals to the Gods, nor by any means to injure animals, but to preserve most solicitously justice towards them. And he himself lived after this manner, abstaining from animal food, and adoring altars undefiled with blood. He was likewise careful in preventing others from destroying animals that are of a kindred nature with us, and rather corrected and instructed savage animals through words and deeds, than injured them through punishment. And farther still, he also injoined those politicians that were legislators to abstain from animals.

For as they wished to act in the highest degree justly, it is certainly necessary that they should not injure any kindred animal. Since, how could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were detected in indulging an insatiable avidity by partaking of animals that are allied to us? For through the communion of life and the same elements, and the mixture subsisting from these, they are as it were conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance. He permitted, however, others whose life was not entirely purified, sacred and philosophic, to eat of certain animals; and for these he appointed a definite time of abstinence. These therefore, he ordered not to eat the heart , nor the brain ; and from the eating of these he entirely prohibited all the Pythagoreans.

For these parts are of a ruling nature, and are as it were certain ladders and seats of wisdom and life. But other things were considered by him as sacred on account of the nature of a divine reason. Thus he exhorted his disciples to abstain from mallows , because this plant is the first messenger and signal of the sympathy of celestial with terrestrial natures. Thus, too, he ordered them to abstain from the fish melanurus ; for it is sacred to the terrestrial Gods. And also not to receive the fish erythinus , through other such like causes. He likewise exhorted them to abstain from beans , on account of many sacred and physical causes, and also such causes as pertain to the soul. And he established as laws other precepts similar to these, beginning through nutriment to lead men to virtue.

(30) And there is a great Matter for us to see in the several Meats which God forbid them, especially Swine's Flesh, whose Source [Quality or Property] will not subsist in the Fire, but affords only a Stink; and so it does also in the Fire of the Soul, which reaches [or stirs] the Originality of the first Principle; from whence the first Principle (in the Soul) stinks [or makes and it makes the Gates of the Breaking-through [into the Light] swelled, [thick, misty, fumy,] and dark: For the Soul is also a Fire, which burns; and if it receives such a P Source, [Quality, or Property,] then that darkens it the more, and burns in the Vapor, like a Flash [of Lightening,] as may be seen in the Fat of Swine; for which Cause God did forbid it them.

(1) Since, however, nutriment greatly contributes to the best discipline, when it is properly used, and in an orderly manner, let us consider what Pythagoras also instituted as a law about this. Universally, therefore, he rejected all such food as is flatulent, and the cause of perturbation, but he approved of the nutriment contrary to this, and ordered it to be used, viz. such food as composes and compresses the habit of the body. Hence, likewise, he thought that millet was a plant adapted to nutrition. But he altogether rejected such food as is foreign to the Gods; because it withdraws us from familiarity with the Gods. Again, according to another mode also, he ordered his disciples to abstain from such food as is reckoned sacred, as being worthy of honor, and not to be appropriated to common and human utility. He likewise exhorted them to abstain from such things as are an impediment to prophesy, or to the purity and chastity of the soul, or to the habit of temperance, or of virtue. And lastly, he rejected all such things as are adverse to sanctity, and which obscure and disturb the other purities of the soul, and the phantasms which occur in sleep. These things therefore he instituted as laws in common about nutriment.

(2) How, therefore, can any terrestrial vapour, which is not elevated five stadia from the earth before it again flows down to the earth, either nourish a circulating and immaterial body, or, in short, produce in it a certain defilement, or any other passion? For it is acknowledged that an etherial body is void of all contrariety, is liberated from all mutation, is entirely pure from the possibility of being transmuted into any thing else, and is perfectly free from a tendency to, and from the middle, because it is either without any tendency, or is convolved in a circle. Hence, it is not possible that bodies, which consist of different powers and motions, which are all-variously changed, and are moved either upwards or downwards, should have any communion of nature or power with celestial bodies, or that any exhalation of the former should be mingled with the latter. As the former, therefore, are entirely separated from the latter, they will not effect any thing in them. For celestial bodies being unbegotten, are not capable of receiving any mutation from generated natures. How, therefore, can the Gods be defiled by such like vapours, who suddenly, as I may say, at one stroke, amputate the vapours ascending from all matter and material bodies?

(1) For, in short, the vehicle which is subservient to dæmons neither consists of matter, nor of the elements, nor of any other of the bodies known to us. What perfect supply of food, therefore, can there be from one essence to another [specifically different]? Or what enjoyment can accede from foreign to foreign natures? There cannot be any. But much more, as the Gods by the fire of lightning divide matter, and separate from it things which are essentially immaterial, but which are vanquished and bound by it, and render them impassive from being passive; thus also the fire that is with us, imitating the energy of divine fire, destroys every thing which is material in sacrifices, purifies the things which are offered, liberates them from the bonds of matter, and renders them, through purity of nature, adapted to the communion of the Gods. It likewise liberates us after the same manner from the bonds of generation, assimilates us to the Gods, causes us to be adapted to their friendship, and conducts our material nature to an immaterial essence.

(3) This, therefore, it is not fit to suspect of the Gods [ viz. that they can be defiled by vapours]; but it is much more requisite to think that things of this kind are foreign to us and to our nature. For things which are divided, and also material and kindred natures, are able to have a certain communion with each other in acting and suffering; but things which are essentially different, and such as are entirely transcendent, and which employ other natures and powers, these cannot act on or receive any thing from each other. The defilement, therefore, produced by material natures, falls on things which are detained by a material body; and from these it is necessary those should be purified who are capable of being defiled by matter. But how can those beings be defiled by material essences who neither have a divisible nature nor possess the power of receiving in themselves the passions of matter? How, likewise, can divinity, who has nothing in common with us, in consequence of antecedently existing superior to human imbecility, be polluted by my passions, or by those of any other man?

(1) Here, therefore, the same reasoning is likewise sufficient. For with us the enjoyment of bodies which once were united to soul, impresses in us heaviness and defilement, ingenerates in us voluptuousness, and produces many other diseases in the soul. But with the Gods, and with mundane and total causes, this is by no means the case. For the exhalation which ascends after a divine manner from animals that are sacrificed, as it is comprehended by, and does not comprehend, the Gods, and as it is also connected with the universe, but does not conjoin wholes and the Gods to itself, is in consequence of this coadapted to superior beings and to total causes, but does not restrain them and coadapt them to itself.

(92) Timaeus: And the fourth kind, which lives in the water, came from the most utterly thoughtless and stupid of men, whom those that remolded them deemed no longer worthy even of pure respiration, seeing that they were unclean of soul through utter wickedness; wherefore in place of air, for refined and pure respiring, they thrust them into water, there to respire its turbid depths. Thence have come into being the tribe of fishes and of shellfish and all creatures of the waters, which have for their portion the extremest of all abodes in requital for the extremity of their witlessness. Thus, both then and now, living creatures keep passing

(4) And together with the lizard those fish are spiritually fed, that is, no food is necessary for them; and till the renovation of the universe they remain in contention.

(1) Descending, however, to particulars, the soul of animals, the dæmon who presides over them, the air, the motion of the air, and the circulation of the heavens, variously change the viscera, conformably to the will of the Gods. But an indication that they are so changed is this, that they are frequently found without a heart, or deprived of the most principal parts, without which it is not at all possible for animals to be supplied with life. With respect to birds, likewise, the impulse of their proper soul moves them, and also the dæmon who presides over animals; and, together with these, the revolution of the air, and the power of the heavens which descends into the air, accord with the will of the Gods, and consentaneously lead the birds to what the Gods ordained from the first. Of this the greatest indication is, that birds frequently precipitate themselves to the earth, and destroy themselves, which it is not natural for any thing to do; but this is something supernatural, so that it is some other thing which produces these effects through birds.

(51) No complete records are available which give the secret doctrine of the Egyptians concerning the relationship existing between the spirit, or consciousness, and the body which it inhabited. It is reasonably certain, however, that Pythagoras, who had been initiated in the Egyptian temples, when he promulgated the doctrine of metempsychosis, restated, in part at least, the teachings of the Egyptian initiates. The popular supposition that the Egyptians mummified their dead in order to preserve the form for a physical resurrection is untenable in the light of modern knowledge regarding their philosophy of death. In the fourth book of On Abstinence from Animal Food, Porphyry describes an Egyptian custom of purifying the dead by removing the contents of the abdominal cavity, which they placed in a separate chest. He then reproduces the following oration which had been translated out of the Egyptian tongue by Euphantus: "O sovereign Sun, and all ye Gods who impart life to men, receive me, and deliver me to the eternal Gods as a cohabitant. For I have always piously worshipped those divinities which were pointed out to me by my parents as long as I lived in this age, and have likewise always honored those who procreated my body. And, with respect to other men, I have never slain any one, nor defrauded any one of what he deposited with me, nor have I committed any other atrocious deed. If, therefore, during my life I have acted erroneously, by eating or drinking things which it is unlawful to cat or drink, I have not erred through myself, but through these" (pointing to the chest which contained the viscera). The removal of the organs identified as the seat of the appetites was considered equivalent to the purification of the body from their evil influences.

(2) He, therefore, who wishes to worship these theurgically, in a manner adapted to them, and to the dominion which they are allotted, should, as they are material, employ a material mode of worship. For thus we shall be wholly led to a familiarity with them, and worship them in an allied and appropriate manner. Dead bodies, therefore, and things deprived of life, the slaying of animals, and the consumption of victims, and, in short, the mutation of the matter which is offered, pertain to these Gods, not by themselves, but on account of the matter over which they preside. For though they are in the most eminent degree separate from it, yet at the same time they are present with it. And though they comprehend matter in an immaterial power, yet they are coexistent with it. Things that are governed, also, are not foreign from their governors; and things which are subservient as instruments, are not unadapted to those that use them. Hence, it is foreign to the immaterial Gods, to offer matter to them through sacrifices, but this is most adapted to all the material Gods.

(9) The fish has been used as an emblem of damnation; but among the Chinese it typified contentment and good fortune, and fishes appear on many of their coins. When Typhon, or Set, the Egyptian evil genius, had divided the body of the god Osiris into fourteen parts, he cast one part into the river Nile, where, according to Plutarch, it was devoured by three fishes--the lepidotus (probably the lepidosiren), the phagrus, and the oxyrynchus (a form of pike). For this reason the Egyptians would not eat the flesh of these fishes, believing that to do so would be to devour the body of their god. When used as a symbol of evil, the fish represented the earth (man's lower nature) and the tomb (the sepulcher of the Mysteries). Thus was Jonah three days in the belly of the "great fish," as Christ was three days in the tomb.

(1) It is now, however, time for me to pass on to the next doubt which you propose, viz. “ Why it is requisite that the inspector [who presides over sacred rites] ought not to touch a dead body, though most sacred operations are performed through dead bodies? ” Again, therefore, that we may dissolve this doubt, we shall direct our attention to this apparent opposition; for there is not in reality any, but these things alone seem to subsist contrarily. For if the laws of sacred rites ordered that the same dead bodies should not be touched and should be touched, this would be a thing contrary to itself. But if they order that some dead bodies should be abstained from as impure, but that others which are consecrated should be touched, this is not attended with any contrariety. Farther still, it is not lawful to touch human bodies when the soul has left them, since a certain vestige, image, or representation of divine life is extinguished in the body by death. But it is no longer unholy to touch other dead bodies, because they did not [when living] participate of a more divine life. To other Gods, therefore, who are pure from matter, our not touching dead bodies is adapted; but to those Gods who preside over animals, and are proximately connected with them, invocation through animals is properly made. According to this, therefore, no contrariety takes place.

(39) Now then if the Beast's [or Animal's Nature] was merely out of a Lump of Earth, then they would eat Earth; but feeling fit is proceeded out of the Matrix of the Earth by the Fiat, therefore it desires also such Food as the Matrix affords out of its own Essence; and that is not Earth, but Flesh. Yet this Flesh now is a Mass whence the hBody comes, and the Spirit of the Constellation makes the i Tincture therein; which [Spirit] rules over all as in one Mother, and in every Life it makes the Understanding. For the Spirit of the Constellation rules in all Things, in the Earth, Stones, Metals, Elements and Creatures.

(1) In the next place we shall explain how divination is effected through sacred animals, such, for instance, as hawks. We must never say, therefore, that the Gods accede through bodies that are thus procured, being employed. For they do not preside over animals, either partibly, or proximately, or materially, or with a certain habitude towards them. But to dæmons and these such as are very much divided, to different orders of whom different animals are allotted, and who proximately exercise a government of this kind, and do not obtain their proper dominion in a way perfectly independent and immaterial, such a contact with the organs of divination must be ascribed. Or, if some one is willing so to admit, a seat must be attributed to them, through which we may be able to associate with and employ them. It is necessary, therefore, to think that this seat should be pure from bodies. For there can be no communion whatever between the pure and its contrary; but it is reasonable to admit that this seat is conjoined with men, through the soul of animals. For this soul has a certain alliance to men, through homogeneity of life; but it is allied to dæmons, because, being liberated from body, it has in a certain respect a separate subsistence. Hence, being a medium between both, it is subservient to its presiding dæmon, but announces to those who are yet detained in body that which its prefect commands. And it imparts to both these a common bond with each other.

(37) If we will be still so very earthly minded, as to think that God made all the Beasts of a Lump of Earth, of what then is their Spirit made? Seeing that Earth is not very Flesh, and the Blood is not mere Water. Besides, the Earth and the Water is not Life; and though the a Air comes in it, yet it still remains such an Essence as springs only in the Fiat, and the Tincture which rises up in the Fire, and from whence the noble Life is stirred is hidden.

(2) For these assertions are much more true, and more characteristic of the essence and power of the Gods, than what you suspect to be the case, viz. “ that the Gods are especially allured by the vapours produced in the sacrifices of animals .” For if dæmons are invested with a certain body, which some think is nourished by sacrifices, yet this body is immutable and impassive, luciform and unindigent; so that neither does any thing flow from it, nor is it in want of any influx externally introduced. And if some one should admit that there is this influx, yet since the world and the air contained in it have a never failing abundance of exhalations from terrene places, an efflux of this kind being equally diffused on all sides, what use can there be of sacrifices to dæmons? But neither do the influxions equally and commensurately fill the place of the effluxions, so as that neither excess should at any time predominate, nor deficiency be produced, but that there should be a perfect equality and similitude of the bodies of dæmons, and this invariably the same.

(3) For the Demiurgus of the universe has not provided abundant nutriment, and which may be easily obtained, for all the animals in the earth and the sea, but has made the beings superior to us to be in want of it; nor has he imparted to other animals a native abundance of what is daily requisite, but given to dæmons nutriment which is adscititious and procured by us men; so that if we through indolence, or some other pretext, should neglect an offering of this kind, the bodies of dæmons would be in want of food, and would participate of incommensuration and disorder. Why, therefore, do not the authors of these assertions subvert the whole order of things, so as to make us to be in a better and more powerful class of beings? For if we supply dæmons with nutriment, we shall much more be the causes of their existence. For every thing receives nutriment and perfection from that by which it was generated. And this, indeed, may be seen in the visible generations of things; but it may also be surveyed in the heavens and the earth. For terrestrial are nourished by celestial natures. But this becomes most eminently manifest in invisible causes. For soul indeed, is perfected by intellect; but nature by soul. And other things are in a similar manner nourished by their causes. If, therefore, it is impossible that we should be the primordial causes of dæmons, it is, for the same reason, impossible that we should be the causes of their nutriment.