(22) Pythagoras declared that the eating of meat clouded the reasoning faculties. While he did not condemn its use or totally abstain therefrom himself, he declared that judges should refrain from eating meat before a trial, in order that those who appeared before them might receive the most honest and astute decisions. When Pythagoras decided (as he often did) to retire into the temple of God for an extended period of time to meditate and pray, he took with his supply of specially prepared food and drink. The food consisted of equal parts of the seeds of poppy and sesame, the skin of the sea onion from which the juice had been thoroughly extracted, the flower of daffodil, the leaves of mallows, and a paste of barley and peas. These he compounded together with the addition of wild honey. For a beverage he took the seeds of cucumbers, dried raisins (with seeds removed), the flowers of coriander, the seeds of mallows and purslane, scraped cheese, meal, and cream, mixed together and sweetened with wild honey. Pythagoras claimed that this was the diet of Hercules while wandering in the Libyan desert and was according to the formula given to that hero by the goddess Ceres herself.

(20) Accordingly such food, in order to clear understanding, is to be rejected. Wherefore also the Egyptians, in the purifications practised among them, do not allow the priests to feed on flesh; but they use chickens, as lightest; and they do not touch fish, on account of certain fables, but especially on account of such food making the flesh flabby. But now terrestrial animals and birds breathe the same air as our vital spirits, being possessed of a vital principle cognate with the air. But it is said that fishes do not breathe this air, but that which was mixed with the water at the instant of its first creation, as well as with the rest of the elements, which is also a sign of the permanence of matter.

(79) Or if by tasting it should fall into a desire and longing to eat that which is not of the quality of the body, or is none of its own; as mother Eve in Paradise fell a longing to eat of the devil's crabapples, and did eat thereof; such stirring in lust the council also rejecteth.

(3) Man's bodily needs are simple, being comprised under three heads: food, clothing, and a dwelling place; but the bodily desires which were implanted in him with a view to procuring these are apt to rebel against reason, which is of later growth than they. Accordingly, as we saw above, they require to be curbed and restrained by the divine laws promulgated by the prophets.

(2) "Now the weak eateth herbs," according to the noble apostle. The Instructor, divided by us into three books, has already exhibited the training and nurture up from the state of childhood, that is, the course of life which from elementary instruction grows by faith; and in the case of those enrolled in the number of men, prepares beforehand the soul, endued with virtue, for the reception of gnostic knowledge. The Greeks, then, clearly learning, from what shall be said by us in these pages, that in profanely persecuting the Godloving man, they themselves act impiously; then, as the notes advance, in accordance with the style of the Miscellanies, we must solve the difficulties raised both by Greeks and Barbarians with respect to the coming of the Lord.

(24) It is asserted that on this ground the Pythagoreans exercised abstinence. But to me, on the contrary, it seems that they marry for the sake of procreating children, but after they have begotten children they desire to control sexual indulgence. That is why they give the mysterious command to abstain from beans, not because pulse leads to flatulence and is indigestible and causes troubled dreams, nor because the bean is shaped like a man's head; as the verse has it, "It is alike to eat beans and the head of one's parents." The real reason is that if beans are eaten they make women barren. At any rate Theophrastus in the fifth book of his Causes of Plants relates that if the pods of beans are put round the roots of newly planted trees the shoots dry up and that if birds that live round houses are continuously fed on beans they become unable to lay eggs.

(558) rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards—of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good—shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be

(50) VII. Nourish a cock, but sacrifice it not; for it is sacred to the sun and moon. Two great lessons are concealed in this aphorism. The first is a warning against the sacrifice of living things to the gods, because life is sacred and man should not destroy it even as an offering to the Deity. The second warns man that the human body here referred to as a cock is sacred to the sun (God) and the moon (Nature), and should be guarded and preserved as man's most precious medium of expression. Pythagoras also warned his disciples against suicide.

(4) But what is the solid food and what the liquid? For the Good Wisdom is celebrated as at once bestowing and providing these. I suppose then, that the solid food is suggestive of the intellectual and abiding perfection and sameness, within which, things Divine are participated as a stable, and strong, and unifying, and indivisible knowledge, by those contemplating organs of sense, by which the most Divine Paul, after partaking of wisdom, imparts his really solid nourishment; but that the liquid is suggestive of the stream, at once flowing through and to all; eager to advance, and further conducting those who are properly nourished as to goodness, through things variegated and many and divided, to the simple and invariable knowledge of God. Wherefore the divine and spiritually perceived Oracles are likened to dew, and water, and to milk, and wine, and honey; on account of their life-producing power, as in water; and growth-giving, as in milk; and reviving, as in wine; and both purifying and preserving, as in honey. For these things, the Divine Wisdom gives to those approaching it, and furnishes and fills to overflowing, a stream of ungrudging and unfailing good cheer. This, then, is the veritable good cheer; and, on this account, it is celebrated, as at once life-giving and nourishing and perfecting.

(39) We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God's greatest gift is self-restraint.

(19) Now Man was to dwell upon the Earth as long as it was to stand, and manage [rule and order] the Beasts, and have his Illustrious or shining, Delight and Recreation therein: But he ought not to have eaten any earthly Fruit, wherein the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] did stick. It is true he should have eaten, but only with the Mouth, and not into the Body; for he had no [Entrails, Stomach, or] Guts, nor any such hard dark Flesh, it was all perfect; for there grew paradisical Fruit for him, which afterwards went away, when he went out of Paradise: And then God cursed the Earth, and the heavenly Limbus was drawn from him, together with that Fruit, and he lost Paradise, God, and the Kingdom of Heaven. For before Sin, when Paradise was upon the Earth, the Earth was not bad [or evil, as now it is.]

(19) And they say that the greatest increase is produced by swine's flesh. Wherefore it is beneficial to those who exercise the body; but to those who devote themselves to the development of the soul it is not so, on account of the hebetude that results from the eating of flesh. Perchance also some Gnostic will abstain from the eating of flesh for the sake of training, and in order that the flesh may not grow wanton in amorousness. "For wine," says Androcydes, "and gluttonous feeds of flesh make the body strong, but the soul more sluggish."

(25) But to the Mockery be it spoken, he is a Weed, and shall be thrown to the Beasts. And now though other Seed be found among the Wheat (when it is fanned and sifted) that he cannot get out, shall he therefore not use his Wheat for Food? Every Kind of Grain has its Virtue; one strengthens the Heart, the other the Stomach, another the other Members of the Body; for one Essence alone makes no Tincture, but all the Essences together make the Senses, [Thoughts,] and Understanding.

(1) When the Father produced by intellect And austenty seven kinds of food, One of his [foods] was common to all, Of two he let the gods partake, Three he made for himself, One he bestowed upon the animals On this [food] everything depends, Both what breathes and what does not. How is it that these do not peiish When they are being eaten all the time He who knows this imperishableness— He eats food with his mouth (pratika), He goes to the gods, He lives on strength. Thus the verses.

(5) That which I execrate, I eat it not. Let me feed upon the bread of the red corn of the Nile in a pure place, let me sip beer of the red corn of the Nile in a pure place; let me sit under the branches of the palm trees [in Heliopolis] in the train of Hathor, when the solar orb broadeneth, as she proceedeth to Heliopolis with the writings of the divine words of the Book of Thoth

(12) Thus also those skilled in the mysteries forbid "to eat the heart;" teaching that we ought not to gnaw and consume the soul by idleness and by vexation, on account of things which happen against one's wishes. Wretched, accordingly, was the man whom Homer also says, wandering alone, "ate his own heart." But again, seeing the Gospel supposes two ways - the apostles, too, similarly with all the prophets - and seeing they call that one "narrow and confined" which is circumscribed according to the commandments and prohibitions, and the opposite one, which leads to perdition, "broad and roomy," open to pleasures and wrath, and say, "Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, and standeth not in the way of sinners." Hence also comes the fable of Prodicus of Ceus about Virtue and Vice. And Pythagoras shrinks not from prohibiting to walk on the public thoroughfares, enjoining the necessity of not following the sentiments of the many, which are crude and inconsistent. And Aristocritus, in the first book of his Positions against Heracliodorus, mentions a letter to this effect: "Atoeeas king of the Scythians to the people of Byzantium: Do not impair my revenues in case my mares drink your water;" for the Barbarian indicated symbolically that he would make war on them. Likewise also the poet Euphorion introduces Nestor saying,- "We have not yet wet the Achaean steeds in Simois."

(2) The divine law, then, while keeping in mind all virtue, trains man especially to self-restraint, laying this as the foundation of the virtues; and disciplines us beforehand to the attainment of self-restraint by forbidding us to partake of such things as are by nature fat, as the breed of swine, which is full-fleshed.

(17) Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

(4) Similarly, repressing our desires, it forbade partaking of fishes which have neither fins nor scales; for these surpass other fishes in fleshiness and fatness. From-this it was, in my opinion, that the mysteries not only prohibited touching certain animals, but also withdrew certain parts of those slain in sacrifice, for reasons which are known to the initiated. If, then, we are to exercise control over the belly, and what is below the belly, it is clear that we have of old heard from the Lord that we are to check lust by the law.

(89) Timaeus: one has the time to spare, by means of dieting rather than irritate a fractious evil by drugging. Concerning both the composite living creature and the bodily part of it, how a man should both guide and be guided by himself so as to live a most rational life, let our statement stand thus. But first and with special care we must make ready the part which is to be the guide to the best of our power, so that it may be as fair and good as possible for the work of guidance. Now to expound this subject alone in accurate detail would in itself be