Page:The Golden verses of Pythagoras (IA cu31924026681076).pdf/262

 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 Ptolemaïs, 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 purifying of his understanding which had been effected through contemplation and prayer.ə This is what Lysis expressed by the following lines:

27. Instructed by them, naught shall then deceive thee; Of diverse beings thou shalt sound the essence; And thou shalt 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