(16) On the other hand, to despise this Sphere, and the Gods within it or anything else that is lovely, is not the way to goodness.

Every evil-doer began by despising the Gods; and one not previously corrupt, taking to this contempt, even though in other respects not wholly bad, becomes an evil-doer by the very fact.

Besides, in this slighting of the Mundane Gods and the world, the honour they profess for the gods of the Intellectual Sphere becomes an inconsistency; Where we love, our hearts are warm also to the Kin of the beloved; we are not indifferent to the children of our friend. Now every Soul is a child of that Father; but in the heavenly bodies there are Souls, intellective, holy, much closer to the Supernal Beings than are ours; for how can this Kosmos be a thing cut off from That and how imagine the gods in it to stand apart?

But of this matter we have treated elsewhere: here we urge that where there is contempt for the Kin of the Supreme the knowledge of the Supreme itself is merely verbal.

What sort of piety can make Providence stop short of earthly concerns or set any limit whatsoever to it?

And what consistency is there in this school when they proceed to assert that Providence cares for them, though for them alone?

And is this Providence over them to be understood of their existence in that other world only or of their lives here as well? If in the other world, how came they to this? If in this world, why are they not already raised from it?

Again, how can they deny that the Lord of Providence is here? How else can He know either that they are here, or that in their sojourn here they have not forgotten Him and fallen away? And if He is aware of the goodness of some, He must know of the wickedness of others, to distinguish good from bad. That means that He is present to all, is, by whatever mode, within this Universe. The Universe, therefore, must be participant in Him.

If He is absent from the Universe, He is absent from yourselves, and you can have nothing to tell about Him or about the powers that come after Him.

But, allowing that a Providence reaches to you from the world beyond- making any concession to your liking- it remains none the less certain that this world holds from the Supernal and is not deserted and will not be: a Providence watching entires is even more likely than one over fragments only; and similarly, Participation is more perfect in the case of the All-Soul- as is shown, further, by the very existence of things and the wisdom manifest in their existence. Of those that advance these wild pretensions, who is so well ordered, so wise, as the Universe? The comparison is laughable, utterly out of place; to make it, except as a help towards truth, would be impiety.

The very question can be entertained by no intelligent being but only by one so blind, so utterly devoid of perception and thought, so far from any vision of the Intellectual Universe as not even to see this world of our own.

For who that truly perceives the harmony of the Intellectual Realm could fail, if he has any bent towards music, to answer to the harmony in sensible sounds? What geometrician or arithmetician could fail to take pleasure in the symmetries, correspondences and principles of order observed in visible things? Consider, even, the case of pictures: those seeing by the bodily sense the productions of the art of painting do not see the one thing in the one only way; they are deeply stirred by recognizing in the objects depicted to the eyes the presentation of what lies in the idea, and so are called to recollection of the truth- the very experience out of which Love rises. Now, if the sight of Beauty excellently reproduced upon a face hurries the mind to that other Sphere, surely no one seeing the loveliness lavish in the world of sense- this vast orderliness, the Form which the stars even in their remoteness display- no one could be so dull-witted, so immoveable, as not to be carried by all this to recollection, and gripped by reverent awe in the thought of all this, so great, sprung from that greatness. Not to answer thus could only be to have neither fathomed this world nor had any vision of that other.

(2) Wherefore it stands to reason, that the ideas entertained of God by wicked men must be bad, and those by good men most excellent. And therefore he who is in soul truly kingly and gnostic, being likewise pious and free from superstition, is persuaded that He who alone is God is honourable, venerable, august, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, but not the cause of evil. And respecting the Hellenic superstition we have, as I think, shown enough in the book entitled by us The Exhortation, availing ourselves abundantly of the history bearing on the point. There is no need, then, again to make a long story of what has already been clearly stated. But in as far as necessity requires to be pointed out on coming to the topic, suffice it to adduce a few out of many considerations in proof of the impiety of those who make the Divinity resemble the worst men. For either those Gods of theirs are injured by men, and are shown to be inferior to men on being injured by us; or, if not so, how is it that they are incensed at those by whom they are not injured, like a testy old wife roused to wrath?

(2) Again, however, assuming a more elevated exordium, I am desirous to exhibit the principles of the worship of the Gods, which Pythagoras and his followers established; viz. that all such particulars as they define with respect to doing or not doing a thing, have for the mark at which they aim, a consent with divinity. This also is with them the principle, [of piety] and their whole life is arranged with a view to follow God . The language, too, of their philosophy is this, that men act ridiculously in exploring good from any other source than the Gods; and that their conduct in this respect resembles that of a man, who in a country governed by a king should reverence one of the magistrates in the city, and neglect him who is the ruler of all of them.

For they were of opinion that such was the conduct of mankind. For since God is, and is the Lord of all things, it is universally acknowledged that good is to be requested of him. For all men impart good to those whom they love, and to those with whom they are delighted; but they give the contrary to good, to those to whom they are contrarily disposed. It is evident, therefore, that those things are to be done, in which God delights. It is, however, not easy for a man to know what these are, unless he obtains this knowledge from one who has heard God, or has heard God himself, or procures it through divine art. Hence also, the Pythagoreans were studious of divination.

For this alone is an interpretation of the benevolence of the Gods. And in short, he will conceive an employment of this kind to be worthy of regard, who believes that there are Gods; but he who thinks that either of these is folly, will also be of opinion that both are foolish. Many of the mandates, however, of the Pythagoreans were introduced from the mysteries; for they did not conceive them to be the productions of arrogance, but to originate from a certain divinity. And in a similar manner, all the Pythagoreans believe such things as are mythologically related of Aristeas the Proconesian, and Abaris the Hyperborean, and other particulars of a like nature. For they consider every thing of this kind to be credible; and of many [such] things they make trial themselves.

They also frequently recollect such-like particulars as appear to be fabulous, as not disbelieving in any thing which may be referred to divinity. A certain person therefore relates, that Eurytus said, that a shepherd feeding his sheep near the tomb of Philolaus, heard some one singing. But the person to whom this was related, did not at all disbelieve the narration, but asked what kind of harmony it was? Both of them, however, were Pythagoreans, and Eurytus was the disciple of Philolaus. It is likewise said, that a certain person told Pythagoras, that he appeared to himself once to converse with his father who was dead, and that he asked Pythagoras what this indicated? Pythagoras replied, that it indicated nothing; but that he had in reality conversed with his father.

As therefore, said he, nothing is signified by my now discoursing with you, so neither is any thing signified by your conversing with your father. Hence, in all particulars of this kind, they did not think that they were stupid, but those that disbelieved in them. For they did not conceive that some things are possible to the Gods, but others impossible, as those fancy who reason sophistically; but they believed that all things are possible to the Gods. And this very assertion is the beginning of the verses, which they ascribe to Linus, and which are as follow: