{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020379.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020379.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020379.htm","text":"Now the Pythagorean symbols were connected with the Barbarian philosophy in the most recondite way. For instance, the Samian counsels \u201cnot to have a swallow in the house;\u201d that is, not to receive a loquacious, whispering, garrulous man, who cannot contain what has been communicated to him. \u201cFor the swallow, and the turtle, and the sparrows of the field, know the times of their entrance,\u201d 3008 says the Scripture; and one ought never to dwell with trifles. And the turtle-dove murmuring shows the thankless slander of fault-finding, and is rightly expelled the house.\n \u201cDon\u2019t mutter against me, sitting by one in one place, another in another.\u201d\u00a03009\n \nThe swallow too, which suggests the fable of Pandion, seeing it is right to detest the incidents reported of it, some of which we hear Tereus suffered, and some of which he inflicted. It pursues also the musical grasshoppers, whence he who is a persecutor of the word ought to be driven away.\n \u201cBy sceptre-bearing Here, whose eye surveys Olympus,\nI have a rusty closet for tongues,\u201d\nsays Poetry. \u00c6schylus also says:\u2014\n \u201cBut, I, too, have a key as a guard on my tongue.\u201d\nAgain Pythagoras commanded, \u201cWhen the pot is lifted off the fire, not to leave its mark in the ashes, but to scatter them;\u201d and \u201cpeople on getting up from bed, to shake the bed-clothes.\u201d For he intimated that it was necessary not only to efface the mark, but not to leave even a trace of anger; and that on its ceasing to boil, it was to be composed, and all memory of injury to be wiped out. \u201cAnd let not the sun,\u201d says the Scripture, \u201cgo down upon your wrath.\u201d 3010 And he that said, \u201cThou shall not desire,\u201d 3011 took away all memory of wrong; for wrath is found p. 451 to be the impulse of concupiscence in a mild soul, especially seeking irrational revenge. In the same way \u201cthe bed is ordered to be shaken up,\u201d so that there may be no recollection of effusion in sleep, 3012 or sleep in the day-time; nor, besides, of pleasure during the night. And he intimated that the vision of the dark ought to be dissipated speedily by the light of truth. \u201cBe angry, and sin not,\u201d says David, teaching us that we ought not to assent to the impression, and not to follow it up by action, and so confirm wrath.\nAgain, \u201cDon\u2019t sail on land\u201d is a Pythagorean saw, and shows that taxes and similar contracts, being troublesome and fluctuating, ought to be declined. Wherefore also the Word says that the tax-gatherers shall be saved with difficulty. 3013\nAnd again, \u201cDon\u2019t wear a ring, nor engrave on it the images of the gods,\u201d enjoins Pythagoras; as Moses ages before enacted expressly, that neither a graven, nor molten, nor moulded, nor painted likeness should be made; so that we may not cleave to things of sense, but pass to intellectual objects: for familiarity with the sight disparages the reverence of what is divine; and to worship that which is immaterial by matter, is to dishonour it by sense. 3014 Wherefore the wisest of the Egyptian priests decided that the temple of Athene should be hyp\u00e6thral, just as the Hebrews constructed the temple without an image. And some, in worshipping God, make a representation of heaven containing the stars; and so worship, although Scripture says, \u201cLet Us make man in Our image and likeness.\u201d 3015 I think it worth while also to adduce the utterance of Eurysus the Pythagorean, which is as follows, who in his book On Fortune, having said that the \u201cCreator, on making man, took Himself as an exemplar,\u201d added, \u201cAnd the body is like the other things, as being made of the same material, and fashioned by the best workman, who wrought it, taking Himself as the archetype.\u201d And, in fine, Pythagoras and his followers, with Plato also, and most of the other philosophers, were best acquainted with the Lawgiver, as may be concluded from their doctrine. And by a happy utterance of divination, not without divine help, concurring in certain prophetic declarations, and, seizing the truth in portions and aspects, in terms not obscure, and not going beyond the explanation of the things, they honoured it on as certaining the appearance of relation with the truth. Whence the Hellenic philosophy is like the torch of wick which men kindle, artificially stealing the light from the sun. But on the proclamation of the Word all that holy light shone forth. Then in houses by night the stolen light is useful; but by day the fire blazes, and all the night is illuminated by such a sun of intellectual light.\nNow Pythagoras made an epitome of the statements on righteousness in Moses, when he said, \u201cDo not step over the balance;\u201d that is, do not transgress equality in distribution, honouring justice so.\n \u201cWhich friends to friends for ever, binds,\nTo cities, cities\u2014to allies, allies,\nFor equality is what is right for men;\nBut less to greater ever hostile grows,\nAnd days of hate begin,\u201d\nWherefore the Lord says, \u201cTake My yoke, for it is gentle and light.\u201d 3016 And on the disciples, striving for the pre-eminence, He enjoins equality with simplicity, saying \u201cthat they must become as little children.\u201d 3017 Likewise also the apostle writes, that \u201cno one in Christ is bond or free, or Greek or Jew. For the creation in Christ Jesus is new, is equality, free of strife\u2014not grasping\u2014just.\u201d For envy, and jealousy, and bitterness, stand without the divine choir.\nThus also those skilled in the mysteries forbid \u201cto eat the heart;\u201d teaching that we ought not to gnaw and consume the soul by idleness and by vexation, on account of things which happen against one\u2019s wishes. Wretched, accordingly, was the man whom Homer also says, wandering alone, \u201cate his own heart.\u201d But again, seeing the Gospel supposes two ways\u2014the apostles, too, similarly with all the prophets\u2014and seeing they call that one \u201cnarrow and confined\u201d which is circumscribed according to the commandments and prohibitions, and the opposite one, which leads to perdition, \u201cbroad and roomy,\u201d open to pleasures and wrath, and say, \u201cBlessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, and standeth not in the way of sinners.\u201d 3018 Hence also comes the fable of Prodicus of Ceus about Virtue and Vice. 3019 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: \u201cAt\u0153eas king of the Scythians to the people of Byzantium: Do not impair my revenues in case my mares drink your water;\u201d for the Barbarian indicated symbolically that he would make war on them. Likewise also the poet Euphorion introduces Nestor saying,\u2014\n \u201cWe have not yet wet the Ach\u00e6an steeds in Simois.\u201d\np. 452 Therefore also the Egyptians place Sphinxes 3020 before their temples, to signify that the doctrine respecting God is enigmatical and obscure; perhaps also that we ought both to love and fear the Divine Being: to love Him as gentle and benign to the pious; to fear Him as inexorably just to the impious; for the sphinx shows the image of a wild beast and of a man together.\n[Jude 23.]\n451:3013\nIt is so said of the rich; Matt. xix. 23; Mark x. 23; Luke xviii. 24.\n451:3014\n[Against images. But see Catechism of the Council of Trent, part iii. cap. 2, qu\u00e6st. xxiv.]\n451:3015 451:3016 451:3017 451:3018 451:3019\n[See P\u00e6dogogue, ii. 11, p. 265, supra.]\n452:3020","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chapter V.\u2014On the Symbols of Pythagoras.","type":"page"}