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Passages similar to: Life of Pythagoras — CHAP. XXXII.
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Neoplatonic
Life of Pythagoras
CHAP. XXXII. (5)
We shall however adduce another example of it, viz. the salvation of legitimate opinion; for, preserving this, he performed that which appeared to him to be just, and which was dictated by right reason, not being diverted from his intention either by pleasure, or labor, or any other passion, or danger. His disciples also chose to die rather than transgress his mandates. And when they were exposed to all-various fortunes, they preserved invariably the same manners. When also they were involved in ten thousand calamities, they never deviated from his precepts. But it was a never-failing exhortation with them, always to give assistance to law, but to be hostile to illegality, and to be accustomed from their birth to a life of temperance and fortitude, in order to restrain and repel luxury. They had also certain melodies which were devised by them, as remedies against the passions of the soul, and likewise against despondency and lamentation, which Pythagoras invented, as affording the greatest assistance in these maladies. And again, they employed other melodies against rage and anger, through which they gave intension and remission to these passions, till they reduced them to moderation, and rendered them commensurate with fortitude. That, however, which afforded them the greatest support in generous endurance, was the persuasion that no human casualties ought to be unexpected by men who are in the possession of intellect, but that all things ought to be expected by them, over which they have no absolute power.
Christian Mysticism
Chapter XI: Abstraction From Material Things Necessary in Order to Attain To the True Knowledge of God. (1)
Now the sacrifice which is acceptable to God is unswerving abstraction from the body and its passions. This is the really true piety. And is not, on...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XX: The True Gnostic Exercises Patience and Self - Restraint. (36)
Zeno said well of the Indians, that he would rather have seen one Indian roasted, than have learned the whole of the arguments about bearing pain. But...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter V: On Contempt for Pain, Poverty, and Other External Things. (1)
Fit objects for admiration are the Stoics, who say that the soul is not affected by the body, either to vice by disease, or to virtue by health; but...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XVIII: The Mosaic Law the Fountain of All Ethics, and the Source From Which the Greeks Drew Theirs. (2)
And from this sentiment, as from a fountain, all intelligence increases. "For the sacrifices of the wicked are abomination to the Lord; but the prayer...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter IV: Divine Things Wrapped Up in Figures Both in the Sacred and in Heathen Writers. (1)
For intelligence or rectitude this great crowd estimates not by truth, but by what they are delighted with. And they will be pleased not more with oth...
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Greek
Book X (621)
Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven...
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Western Esoteric
Paradiso: Canto VII (4)
The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases; For the blest ardour that irradiates all things In that most like itself is most vivacious. With all...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter V: On the Symbols of Pythagoras. (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...
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Greek
Book IV (440)
Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XIV: Greek Plagiarism From the Hebrews. (15)
For why should we speak of those who make an abuse of philosophy? These know neither the way to the forum, nor know they the court or the senate-house...
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Greek
Book IV (439)
Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rationa...
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Greek
Book VI (504)
Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? You may remember, I said, that we divided the ...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter I: Preface. the Author's Object. the Utility of Written Compositions. (27)
But that is to be regarded as in accordance with reason, which nobody speaks against, with reason. And that course of action and choice is to be appro...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter VI: Prayers and Praise From A Pure Mind, Ceaselessly Offered, Far Better Than Sacrifices. (13)
But if any one of the righteous does not burden his soul by the eating of flesh, he has the advantage of a rational reason, not as Pythagoras and his ...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XVIII: The Mosaic Law the Fountain of All Ethics, and the Source From Which the Greeks Drew Theirs. (1)
It is then clear also that all the other virtues, delineated in Moses, supplied the Greeks with the rudiments of the whole department of morals. I...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter III: The Gnostic Aims At the Nearest Likeness Possible to God and His Son. (3)
It was this, consequently, which the Law intimated, by ordering the sinner to be cut off, and translated from death to life, to the impossibility...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XVII: On the Saying of the Saviour, "all That Came Before Me Were Thieves and Robbers." (7)
Further, the counsels and activities of those who have rebelled, being partial, proceed from a bad disposition, as bodily diseases from a bad...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter VIII: Women as Well as Men, Slaves as Well as Freemen, Candidates For the Martyr's Crown. (11)
Wherefore those who are determined to live piously ought none the less to exhibit alacrity, when some seem to exercise compulsion on them; but much...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XI: The Mystical Meanings in the Proportions of Numbers, Geometrical Ratios, and Music. (13)
But he must by no means linger over these studies, except solely for the advantage accruing from them; so that, on grasping and obtaining this, he may...
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Hermetic
12. About The Common Mind (6)
Of men, again, we must class some as led by reason, and others as unreasoning.
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