(3) And now I will adduce Plato himself, who clearly deems it fit to believe the children of God. For, discoursing on gods that are visible and born, in Timaoeus, he says: "But to speak of the other demons, and to know their birth, is too much for us. But we must credit those who have formerly spoken, they being the offspring of the gods, as they said, and knowing well their progenitors, although they speak without probable and necessary proofs." I do not think it possible that clearer testimony could be borne by the Greeks, that our Saviour, and those anointed to prophesy (the latter being called the sons of God, and the Lord being His own Son), are the true witnesses respecting divine things. Wherefore also they ought to be believed, being inspired, he added. And were one to say in a more tragic vein, that we ought not to believe, "For it was not Zeus that told me these things," yet let him know that it was God Himself that promulgated the Scriptures by His Son. And he, who announces what is his own, is to be believed. "No one," says the Lord, "hath known the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him." This, then, is to be believed, according to Plato, though it is announced and spoken "without probable and necessary proofs," but in the Old and New Testament. "For except ye believe," says the Lord, "ye shall die in your sins." And again: "He that believeth hath everlasting life." "Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." For trusting is more than faith. For when one has believed that the Son of God is our teacher, he trusts that his teaching is true. And as "instruction," according to Empedocles, "makes the mind grow," so trust in the Lord makes faith grow.

(24) For I pass over Plato; he plainly, in the Epistle to Erastus and Coriscus, is seen to exhibit the Father and Son somehow or other from the Hebrew Scriptures, exhorting in these words: "In invoking by oath, with not illiterate gravity, and with culture, the sister of gravity, God the author of all, and invoking Him by oath as the Lord, the Father of the Leader, and author; whom if ye study with a truly philosophical spirit, ye shall know." And the address in the Timoeus calls the creator, Father, speaking thus: "Ye gods of gods, of whom I am Father; and the Creator of your works." So that when he says, "Around the king of all, all things are, and because of Him are all things; and he [or that] is the cause of all good things; and around the second are the things second in order; and around the third, the third," I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father.

(4) "And in many other instances both among Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons are already numerous." And it is clear that the barbarians signally honoured their lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods. For, according to Plato, "they think that good souls, on quitting the supercelestial region, submit to come to this Tartarus; and assuming a body, share in all the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for the race of men;" and these make laws and publish philosophy, "than which no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of men, or will come."

(31) And he said unto him that they were truly his sons : " And thou hast truly seen that they are truly my sons."

(383) Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials ‘Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this—he it is who has slain my son 15 .’ These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

(43) Thy son Horus is seated upon thy throne, and all that liveth is subject to him. Endless generations are at his service, endless generations are in fear of him; the cycle of the gods is in fear of him, the cycle of the gods is at his service. So saith Tmu, the Sole Force of the gods; not to be altered is that which he hath spoken

(3) But do not, O Asclepius, I pray thee, think the doings of the terrene Gods are the result of chance. The heavenly Gods dwell in the heights of Heaven, each filling up and watching o’er the rank he hath received; whereas these Gods of ours, each in its way,—by looking after certain things, foretelling others by oracles and prophecy, foreseeing others, and duly helping them along,—act as allies of men, as though they were our relatives and friends.

(9) And Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, too, bore an illustrious son, Dionysus, the joy-inspiring, when she mingled with him in love." Cadmus, the father of Semele, came to Thebes in the time of Lynceus, and was the inventor of the Greek letters. Triopas was a contemporary of Isis, in the seventh generation from Inachus. And Isis, who is the same as Io, is so called, it is said, from her going (ienai) roaming over the whole earth. Her, Istrus, in his work on the migration of the Egyptians, calls the daughter of Prometheus. Prometheus lived in the time of Triopas, in the seventh generation after Moses. So that Moses appears to have flourished even before the birth of men, according to the chronology of the Greeks. Leon, who treated of the Egyptian divinities, says that Isis by the Greeks was called Ceres, who lived in the time of Lynceus, in the eleventh generation after Moses. And Apis the king of Argos built Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of the Arcadica. And Aristeas the Argive says that he was named Serapis, and that it is he that the Egyptians worship.

(4) And from the time of Inachus to the Trojan war twenty generations or more are reckoned; let us say, four hundred years and more. And if Ctesias says that the Assyrian power is many years older than the Greek, the exodus of Moses from Egypt will appear to have taken place in the forty-second year of the Assyrian empire, in the thirty-second year of the reign of Belochus, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian, and of Inachus the Argive. And in Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who succeeded Inachus, the flood of Ogyges occurred; and monarchy subsisted in Sicyon first in the person of Ægialeus, then of Europs, then of Telches; in Crete, in the person of Cres. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man. Whence, too, the author of Phoronis said that he was "the father of mortal men." Thence Plato in the Timaeus, following Acusilaus, writes: "And wishing to draw them out into a discussion respecting antiquities, he said that he ventured to speak of the most remote antiquities of this city respecting Phoroneus, called the first man, and Niobe, and what happened after the deluge."

(4) It is worth while, however, to relate how this report became so prevalent. The Pythian oracle then had predicted to this Mnesarchus (who came to Delphi for the purposes of merchandize, with his wife not yet apparently pregnant, and who inquired of the God concerning the event of his voyage to Syria) that his voyage would be lucrative and most conformable to his wishes, but that his wife was now pregnant, and would bring forth a son surpassing in beauty and wisdom all that ever lived, and who would be of the greatest advantage to the human race in every thing pertaining to the life of man. But, when Mnesarchus considered with himself, that the God, without being interrogated concerning his son, had informed him by an oracle, that he would possess an illustrious prerogative, and a gift truly divine, he immediately named his wife Pythaïs, from her son and the Delphic prophet, instead of Parthenis, which was her former appellation; and he called the infant, who was soon after born at Sidon in Phœnicia, Pythagoras; signifying by this appellation, that such an offspring was predicted to him by the Pythian Apollo.

For we must not regard the assertions of Epimenides, Eudoxus, and Xenocrates, who suspect that Apollo at that time, becoming connected with Parthenis, and causing her to be pregnant from not being so, had in consequence of this predicted concerning Pythagoras, by the Delphic prophet: for this is by no means to be admitted. Indeed, no one can doubt that the soul of Pythagoras was sent to mankind from the empire of Apollo, either being an attendant on the God, of co-arranged with him in some other more familiar way: for this may be inferred both from his birth, and the all-various wisdom of his soul. And thus much concerning the nativity of Pythagoras.

(1) Whence most beautifully the Egyptian priest in Plato said, "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, not having in your souls a single ancient opinion received through tradition from antiquity. And not one of the Greeks is an old man;" meaning by old, I suppose, those who know what belongs to the more remote antiquity, that is, our literature; and by young, those who treat of what is more recent and made the subject of study by the Greeks, - things of yesterday and of recent date as if they were old and ancient. Wherefore he added, "and no study hoary with time;" for we, in a kind of barbarous way, deal in homely and rugged metaphor. Those, therefore, whose minds are rightly constituted approach the interpretation utterly destitute of artifice. And of the Greeks, he says that their opinions" differ but little from myths." For neither puerile fables nor stories current among children are fit for listening to. And he called the myths themselves "children," as if the progeny of those, wise in their own conceits among the Greeks, who had but little insight meaning by the "hoary studies" the truth which was possessed by the barbarians, dating from the highest antiquity. To which expression he opposed the phrase "child fable," censuring the mythical character of the attempts of the moderns, as, like children, having nothing of age in them, and affirming both in common -their fables and their speeches - to be puerile.

(57) And before him Orpheus said, speaking of the in hand: "Son of great Zeus, Father of Aegis-bearing Zeus." And Xenocrates the Chalcedonian, who mentions the supreme Zeus and the inferior Zeus, leaves an indication of the Father and the Son. Homer, while representing the gods as subject to human passions, appears to know the Divine Being, whom Epicurus does not so revere. He says accordingly: "Why, son of Peleus, mortal as thou art, With swift feet me pursuest, a god Immortal? Hast thou not yet known That I am a god?"

(215) 140 O N., 140 let thy messengers go; let thine envoys hasten to thy father, to Atum. 140 Atum, let him ascend to thee; enfold him in thine embrace, 141 (for) there is no god, (who has become) a star, who has not his companion. Shall I be thy companion? 146. Look (at me); thou hast regarded the form of the children of their fathers, 141 who know their speech. (They are now) imperishable stars. 141 (So) shalt thou see those who are in the palace, (that is) Horus and Set. 142 Mayest thou spit in the face of Horus; mayest thou drive away the injury from him. 142 Mayest thou catch the testicles of Set; mayest thou drive away his mutilation. 142 That one was born to thee; this one was conceived by thee. 143 Thou art born, O Horus, as one whose name is "Him at whom the earth quakes." [Thou art conceived, O Set, as one whose name is] "Him at whom heaven trembles." 143 That one (Horus) has not a mutilation; this one (Set) has not an injury; this one (Set) has not an injury; that one (Horus) has not a mutilation. 144 Thou art born, Horus, of Osiris; thou art more ba than he, thou art more m than he. 144 Thou art conceived, Set by Geb; thou art more ba than he, thou art more m than he. 145 No seed of a god, which belongs to him, goes to ruin; so thou who belongest to him wilt not go to ruin. 145 R`-Atum does not surrender thee to Osiris. He judges (lit. numbers) not thy heart; he gains not power over thy heart. 145 R`-Atum does not surrender thee to Horus. He judges (lit. numbers) not thy heart; he gains not power over thy heart. 146 Osiris, thou dost not gain power over him (Set); thy son gains not power over him. 146 Horus, thou dost not gain power over him (Set); thy father gains not power over him. 147 Thou belongest, O mn, to that god, of whom the twin-children of Atum said (to him): 147 "Arise," said they, "in thy name of god"--and so thou becomest an Atum to (of) every god: 148 Thy head is (that of) Horus of the D.t, O Imperishable. 148 Thy face is that of Mnti-'irti, O Imperishable. 148 Thine ears are the twin-children of Atum, O Imperishable. Thine eyes are the twin-children of Atum, O Imperishable. 148 Thy nose is (that of) Anubis, O Imperishable. Thy teeth are (those of) Sopdu, O Imperishable. 149 Thine arms are Hp and Dw-mw.t.f, which thou needest to ascend to heaven, when thou ascendest; 149 thy legs are 'Im.ti and b-n.w.f, which thou needest to descend to the lower heaven (underworld) when thou descendest. 149 Thy (other) members are the twin-children of Atum, O Imperishable. 149 Thou perishest not, thy ka perishes not, (for) thou art a ka.

(1) [Asclepius] What dost thou call, Thrice-greatest one, the heads of things, or sources of beginnings?

[Trismegistus] Great are the mysteries which I reveal to thee, divine the secrets I disclose; and so I make beginning of this thing with prayers for Heaven’s favour. The hierarchies of Gods are numerous; and of them all one class is called the Noumenal, the other [class] the Sensible. The former are called Noumenal, not for the reason that they’re thought to lie beyond our senses; for these are just the Gods we sense more truly than the ones we call the visible,—just as our argument will prove, and thou, if thou attend, wilt be made fit to see. For that a lofty reasoning, and much more one that is too godlike for the mental grasp of [average] men, if that the speaker’s words are not received with more attentive service of the ears,—will fly and flow beyond them; or rather will flow back [again], and mingle with the streams of its own source.

(12) At this point I have just recollected the following. In the end of the Timoeus he says: "You must necessarily assimilate that which perceives to that which is perceived, according to its original nature; and it is by so assimilating it that you attain to the end of the highest life proposed by the gods to men, for the present or the future time." For those have equal power with these. He, who seeks, will not stop till he find; and having found, he will wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest. And what? Were not also those expressions of Thales derived from these? The fact that God is glorified for ever, and that He is expressly called by us the Searcher of hearts, he interprets. For Thales being asked, What is the divinity? said, What has neither beginning nor end. And on another asking, "If a man could elude the knowledge of the Divine Being while doing aught?" said, "How could he who cannot do so while thinking?"

(33) "Among the gods who are her sons, inasmuch as he hath given her support

(1) [Asclepius] And of what nature, O Thrice-greatest one, may be the quality of those who are considered terrene Gods?

[Trismegistus] It doth consist, Asclepius, of plants, and stones, and spices, which contain the nature of [their own] divinity. And for this cause they are delighted with repeated sacrifice, with hymns, and lauds, and sweetest sounds, tuned to the key of Heaven’s harmonious song.

(5) But after his father Mnesarchus had returned from Syria to Samos, with great wealth, which he had collected from a prosperous navigation, he built a temple to Apollo, with the inscription of Pythius; and took care to have his son nourished with various and the best disciplines, at one time by Creophilus, at another by Pherecydes the Syrian, and at another by almost all those who presided over sacred concerns, to whom he earnestly recommended Pythagoras, that he might be as much as possible sufficiently instructed in divine concerns. He, however, was educated in such a manner, as to be fortunately the most beautiful and godlike of all those that have been celebrated in the annals of history. On the death of his father, likewise, though he was still but a youth, his aspect was most venerable, and his habits most temperate, so that he was even reverenced and honored by elderly men; and converted the attention of all who saw and heard him speak, on himself, and appeared to be an admirable person to every one who beheld him.

Hence it was reasonably asserted by many, that he was the son of a God. But he being corroborated by renown of this kind, by the education which he had received from his infancy, and by his natural deiform appearance, in a still greater degree evinced that he deserved his present prerogatives. He was also adorned by piety and disciplines, by a mode of living transcendency good, by firmness of soul, and by a body in due subjection to the mandates of reason. In all his words and actions, he discovered an inimitable quiet and serenity, not being subdued at any time by anger, or laughter, or emulation, or contention, or any other perturbation or precipitation of conduct; but he dwelt at Samos like some beneficent dæmon.

Hence, while he was yet a youth, his great renown having reached Thales at Miletus, and Bias at Priene, men illustrious for their wisdom, it also extended to the neighbouring cities. To all which we may add, that the youth was every where celebrated as the long-haired Samian , and was reverenced by the multitude as one under the influence of divine inspiration. But after he had attained the eighteenth year of his age, about the period when the tyranny of Policrates first made its appearance, foreseeing that under such a government he might receive some impediment in his studies, which engrossed the whole of his attention, he departed privately by night with one Hermodamas (whose surname was Creophilus, and who was the grandson of him who had formerly been the host, friend, and preceptor in all things of Homer the poet,) to Pherecydes, to Anaximander the natural philosopher, and to Thales at Miletus.

He likewise alternately associated with each of these philosophers, in such a manner, that they all loved him, admired his natural endowments, and made him a partaker of their doctrines. Indeed, after Thales had gladly admitted him to his intimate confidence, he admired the great difference between him and other young men, whom Pythagoras left far behind in every accomplishment. And besides this, Thales increased the reputation Pythagoras had already acquired, by communicating to him such disciplines as he was able to impart: and, apologizing for his old age, and the imbecility of his body, he exhorted him to sail into Egypt, and associate with the Memphian and Diospolitan priests. For he confessed that his own reputation for wisdom, was derived from the instructions of these priests; but that he was neither naturally, nor by exercise, endued with those excellent prerogatives, which were so visibly displayed in the person of Pythagoras. Thales, therefore, gladly announced to him, from all these circumstances, that he would become the wisest and most divine of all men, if he associated with these Egyptian priests.

(52) Of those, too, who at one time lived as men among the Egyptians, but were constituted gods by human opinion, were Hermes the Theban, and Asclepius of Memphis; Tireseus and Manto, again, at Thebes, as Euripides says. Helenus, too, and Laocoon, and OEnone, and Crenus in Ilium. For Crenus, one of the Heraclidae, is said to have been a noted prophet. Another was Jamus in Elis, from whom came the Jamidae; and Polyidus at Argos and Megara, who is mentioned by the tragedy.

(2) Fables likewise bear testimony to the antiquity of this dialect. For in these it is said that Nereus married Doris the daughter of Ocean; by whom he had fifty daughters, one of which was the mother of Achilles. Metrodorus also says, that according to some, Hellen was the offspring of Deucalion, who was the son of Prometheus and Pyrrha the daughter of Epimetheus; and that from him came Dorus, and Æolus. He farther observes, that he learnt from the sacred rites of the Babylonians, that Hellen was the offspring of Jupiter, and that the sons of Hellen were Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus; with which narrations Herodotus also accords. It is difficult, however, for those in more recent times to know accurately, in particulars so ancient, which of these narrations is to be preferred.

But it may be collected from each of these histories, that the Doric dialect is acknowledged to be the most ancient; that the Æolic is next to this, which received its name from Æolus; and that the Ionic ranks as the third, which derived its appellation from Ion the son of Xuthus. The Attic is the fourth, which was denominated from Creusa, the daughter of Erectheus, and is posterior to the former dialects by three generations, as it existed about the time of the Thracians, and the rape of Orithyia, as is evident from the testimony of most histories. Orpheus also, who is the most ancient of the poets, used the Doric dialect.