The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

clearly in speaking of the virtue attached to certain names invoked by the Egyptian sages and the most enlightened of the magians of Persia." Synesius, the famous Bishop of Ptolemais, initiated into the mysteries, declares that the science, by means of which one linked the intelligible essences to sentient forms, by the invocation of spirits, was neither vain nor criminal, but on the contrary quite innocent and founded upon the nature of things.' Pythagoras was accused of magic. Ignorance and weakness of mind have always charged science with this banal accusation. "^ This philosopher, rightly placed in the rank of the ablest physicians of Greece,'' was, according to his most devoted disciples, neither of the number of the gods, nor even of those of the divine heroes; he was a man whom virtue and wisdom had adorned with a likeness to the gods, by the complete purifjdng of his understanding which had been effected through contemplation and prayer.* This is what Lysis expressed by the following lines:

27. Instructed by them, naught shall then deceive thee; Of diverse beings thou shall sound the essence; And thou shall know the principle and end of All.

That is to say, that the true disciple of Pythagoras, placed en rapport with the gods through contemplation, arrived at the highest degree of perfection, called in the mysteries, autopsy; saw fall before him the false veil which until then had hidden Truth, and contemplated Nature in its remotest sources. It is necessary, in order to attain to this sublime degree, that the intelligence, penetrated by the divine ray of inspiration, should fill the understanding

" Origen., Contr. Cels., 1. i., p. 19.

* Syn^s., De Insomn., p. 134 et seq.; Niceph. Greg., Schol. in Synes., p. 360 et seq.

with a light intense enough to dissipate all the illusions of the senses, to exalt the soul and release it wholly from things material. Thus it was explained by Socrates and Plato. " These philosophers and their numerous disciples put no limit to the advantages of autopsy, or theophany, as they sometimes named this highest degree of the telestic science.

They believed that the contemplation of God could be carried so far during this same life, that the soul became not only united to this Being of beings, but that it was mingled and blended with it.

Plotinus boasted having experienced the joy of this beatific vision four times, according to Porphyry, who himself claimed to have been honoured with it at the age of sixty-eight.* The great aim of the mysteries was to teach the initiates the possibility of this union of man with God, and to indicate to them the means.

All initiations, all mythological doctrines, tended only to alleviate the soul of the weight of material things, to purify it, so that, desirous of spiritual welfare, and bemg projected beyond the circle of generations, it could rise to the source of its existence. ' If one examines carefully the different cults which still dominate upon earth, one will see that they have not been animated by any other spirit.

The knowledge of the Being of beings has been offered everywhere as the aim of wisdom ; its similitude, as the crown of perfection; and its enjoyment, as the object of all desires and the goal of all efforts. The enumeration of its infinite faculties has varied; but when one has dared fix one's attention upon the unity of its essence, one has always defined it as has Pythagoras: the principle and the end of all things.

The Spirit whence proceed the created beings [say the Brahmans], by which they live after being emanated from it, o Plat., In Georgid, In PhcBd.; Ibid., De Rep., 1. vii.; August., De Civil. Dei, 1. iii., c. i et 1. x., c. 29.

* Acad, des Inscript., t. xxxi., p. 319.

<: Procl., In Tim., 1. v., p. 330; Cicer., Somn. Scip., c. 2, 3, 4, et 6; Hierocl., In AuT. Carm., v. 70.

244 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras toward which they aspire, and in which they are finally absorbed, this'Spirit is that, to the knowledge of which thou shouldst aspire, the Great Being." — The Universe is one of its forms. * — It is the Being of beings: without form, without quality, without passion; immense, incomprehensible, infinite, indivisible, incorporal, irresistible : no intelligence can conceive of its operations and its will sufifices to move all intelligences."^ — It is the Truth and the Science which never perish."^ — Its wisdom, its power, and its plan, are as an immense and limitless sea which no being is in condition either to traverse or to fathom. There is no other God than it. The Universe is filled with its immensity. It is the principle of all things without having principles.' God is one,-^ eternal, like unto a perfect sphere which has neither beginning nor end. He rules and governs all that exists by a general providence, resultant of fixed and determined principles. Man ought not to seek to penetrate the nature or the essence of this Ineffable Being : such a research is vain and criminal. —