Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	believe_v	body_n	resurrection_n	3,894	5	8.8966	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48814	A chronological account of the life of Pythagoras, and of other famous men his contemporaries with an epistle to the Rd. Dr. Bently, about Porphyry's and Jamblicus's lives of Pythagoras / by the Right Reverand Father in God, William, Ld. Bp. of Coventry and Lichfield.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1699 (1699)	Wing L2674; ESTC R39066	37,819	76

Pythagoras himself said that after the Fisherman's death his Soul had rested 207 years in Hades before it came into that body of his But what of all this The Doctrine of Transmigration of Souls is sufficiently proved if the Soul of Pythagoras was at any time formerly in the body of Euphorbus And that as Porphyry tells us was positively affirm'd by Pythagoras himself and prov'd beyond dispute as likewise his Scholar Jamblichus tells us in the very same words But these Philosophers were wise they took care to hide that part of their Ware which would haue disgrac'd all the rest It was the Aegyptian Doctrine that Souls pass'd out of men into Beasts and Fishes and Birds This also according to Heraclides Pythagoras used to say of himself that he remembred not only what Men but what Plants and what Animals his Soul had pass'd thoro●gh And tho' this was more than Mercury gave to Aethalides Pythagoras took upon 〈◊〉 to tell many others how their Souls had lived before they came into their bodies One particularly that was beating a Dog he desir'd to forbear because in the yelping of that Dog he heard a Friend's Soul speak to him So Empedocles that lived in the next Age after Pythagoras and was for a while the Oracle of his Sect declared of himself that he had been first a Boy then a Girl then a Plant then a Bird then a Fish Apollonius had the same Impudence if Philostratus may be believed who tells us he own'd that his Soul was formerly in the Master of a Ship he shew'd one young Man that had in him the Soul of Palamedes another of Telephus both kill'd at the time of the Trojan War and in a tame Lion that was carried about for a sight he said there was the Soul of Amasis King of Egypt How could such Fictions as these come into Men's heads There is more than idle Fancy in them They shew plainly a pernicious Devilish design to confound those two Doctrines that have so great an influence into Men's minds to make them do good and eschew evil the Doctrines of the Immortality of the Soul and of the Resurrection of the Body For if those Fictions were true there would be no difference between the Soul of a Man and the Soul of a Brute or a Plant and there would be many more Bodies than there would be Souls to animate them at the Resurrection What would not the Devil give to have these things believ'd by all Mankind For the Tricks they tell us he had to make the People admire him they are so agreeable to his Character that his Historian Jamblichus with the same Design Aped him in some of them unless he is bely'd by Eunapius the Writer of his Life They were as one may properly call them the Artifices of an Impostor Mahomet the greatest that ever was of that sort when he set up to be a Prophet though it is not likely that he had ever heard of Pythagoras yet took the very same Methods that He did to impose upon Mankind This will appear in several of the following Instances if any one will take the Trouble to compare them with those that are in Mahomet's Life The first thing we read Pythagoras did to make way for the Authentical publishing of his Doctrines was to make himself look like a sort of Demigod to the People For this purpose he provided himself a Cell under ground and then giving out he was dead he retir'd into that Hole and there for a long time together seven Years as some tell us he lived unknown to all Mankind Only his Mother was in the Secret for she was to supply him with Necessaries but of these he took in no more than just what would keep him alive Then at last he came forth like a perfect Skeleton and shewed himself as one that had been all this while in another World He that was so greedy of vain Glory that he could afford to purchase it at this Rate would not spare his Pains or refuse any Help to get into Possession of his Purchase And for this it being requisite he should do things above the Power of any Mortal therefore of such things true or false they tell us not a few in his Life Some of the Fathers have said that he wrought them by Compact with the Devil But I see no Necessity of that for he had other ways by which other Men have obtained the fame of working Miracles He was doubtless both a natural Philosopher and a great Mathematician He understood all the Secrets of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans And having many Disciples on those Accounts it seems very likely that he might act in Confederacy with them This at least they could do for him they might help devise Stories of the Miracles that he wrought and then for their own Credit as well as his they would be industrious to spread them among the People Such Lyes they were I do not doubt that Porphyry and Jamblichus tell us of his laying Winds Tempests and Earthquakes for of these they do not give any particular Instance nor are these things mentioned by any other Writers that I remember So likewise they tell us of his curing Diseases whether of Body or Mind which they say he did with Charms that is as Cyril saith he did them by the help of the Devil For his hearing the Musick of the Spheres that Porphyry speaks of as a wonderfull Harmony now we know this is a Lye framed upon a false Imagination But if this were true being an invisible Miracle and impossible to be proved it could not be made use of to prove any thing else Many other lying Wonders they tell of him which seem to have been made only for Talk being such as could signifie nothing to the good of Mankind As namely how to shew his Company what he could do he took up Serpents that had killed other Men and handled them so as that they neither hurt him nor he them How for the same purpose by whistling to an Eagle that happen'd to fly over his Head he brought her down to his Hand and then let her go again Another time seeing some Fisher men at their draught he foretold them the exact Number of Fishes that their Net should bring up and when they were told threw them in again How by stroaking a Bear and whispering a Bull in the Ear he brought them both to the Pythagorean Diet the Bear to eat nothing that had life and the Bull to crop no more Bean-tops How he spoke to a River that he was passing over with many of his Friends and it answer'd him again in all their Hearings Good morrow Pythagoras But this goes beyond all the rest if there be any Truth in it that when Abaris had been all over Greece to beg Money for the Temple of his God Apollo Hyperboreus at last in an evil hour for himself he

A Chronological Account Of the LIFE of PYTHAGORAS AND OF Other Famous Men His Contemporaries With an Epistle to the R d Dr. BENTLEY ABOUT Porphyry's and Jamblichus's Lives of Pythagoras By the Right Reverend Father in God William L d B p of Coventry and Lichfield LONDON Printed by J. H. for H. Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and J. Hartley against Gray's-Inn-Gate in Holborn 1699. To the Reverend Dr. BENTLEY SIR YOV are pleas'd to ask my Opinion concerning the time of the Birth and Death of Pythagoras and of the chief Passages of his Life and also of the Lives of other famous Men his Contemporaries I am sure you know these things better than I and therefore you need not come to me for Information But if you have only a mind to know my opinion of these matters I can't deny you that and in truth that is all I can tell you of that great Philosopher Not but that I have by me every thing that I observ'd concerning Pythagoras when I read the old Greek and Latin Authors and to satisfie your desire I have put my Collections in order to draw out a Chronological Account of his Life if it were possible But now they are here before me I know not well what to make of them they look like Moon-shine in rough Water all over Discord and Confusion Out of which I am so far from making out that which I design'd a perfect Account of his Life that I must confess I can't do any thing towards it There is not in all my Collection any one certain year in which any thing happen'd to him or was done by him Yet I cannot lament that great Man's misfortune in this nor ours neither for as he was a perfect Iugler so his Life being all fast and loose I must needs say is written worthy of himself and it is not only come intire into our hands notwithstanding those defects I have mention'd but with many Improvements by later Writers who have striven to out-do one another in Stories to his Honour and Praise Of those many eminent Writers that have employ'd their Pens on this Subject there are three that have given us his History at large Diogenes Laertius Porphyry and Jamblichus These three I believe have cull'd out all that was remarkable in any of the rest and the two last were his great Admirers who would not omit any thing that might make for his Glory They describe him as a very extraordinary Person for his Parts and Inventions for the good of Mankind they tell us what Discoveries he made in natural Philosophy how much he advanced the Mathematical Sciences as well by his Studies as his Travels But above all they magnifie his knowledge of the Gods and of the things of Religion Laertius tells us he was initiated in all the Sacred Rites as well of the Greeks as Barbarians Those other Writers of his Life take particular notice of this in every Stage of his Travels And yet Porphyry will not let his Reader be ignorant that Pythagoras was a Deist as well as himself and took both Apollo and Jupiter for no other than deify'd Men which he shew'd by the Verses that he made in those places where he was to see their Sepulchres Indeed by those Verses one cannot but think that he despised those made Gods in his Heart and so did probably those Philosophers that tell us these things though according to the latitude of their Principles they were nevertheless as zealous as he was for the propagating of Heathen Idolatry What Notions men have of a Deity one cannot better judge than by their Morals For every one that hath any sense of Religion will endeavour to conform himself to the God whom he worships At least he will avoid any thing that he knows to be contrary to his God If we judge this way of Pythagoras according to the accounts they give of him we have reason to believe that as the Apostle tells us of them whom the Heathens worship'd his Gods were no better than Devils It could be no otherwise if there be any truth in the stories they tell of his impudent Diabolical Fictions and of the fraudulent ways that he took to make the people admire him which they also that tell us these things seem to think were no lessening of his Moral Virtues Particularly they shew how he persuaded his Hearers to receive that Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls That it was originally an Aegyptian Doctrine we are told by Herodotus But if lying Philostratus may be believ'd the Aegyptians had it from the Bramins It is agreed that Pythagoras was he that first brought it into Greece and there it seems he had a mind to be thought the first Author of it To make the people believe this he told them an impudent Lye that his Soul was in Euphorbus at the time of the Trojan War and in the six hundred years between that and his Birth his Soul had pass'd through several other bodies before it came into his He faced them down that he knew this by a singular gift of remembring all the Stages through which his Soul had pass'd in its Travels First When Euphorbus was kill'd by Menelaus which was in the year before Christ 1185 then his Soul as he said came into Aethalides the Son of Mercury After his death it came into Hermotimus then into one Pyrrhus a Fisherman and at last it came into Pythagoras This is Porphyry's way of telling the Story But from others we have it that Pythagoras himself used to say That his Soul was in Aethalides before it came into Euphorbus And for this they give us the Authorities of them that had reason to know things of him much better than Porphyry namely Diog Laertius saith it from Heraclides that lived near the time of Pythagoras and another from Pherecydes the mòst intimate Friend of Pythagoras They tell their story with particulars worth knowing if there were any truth in it As namely How Pythagoras came by the gift above-mention'd They tell us that Mercury whose office it was to carry Souls into Hades gave the Soul of his Son Aethalides in its way thither the privilege not to drink the Waters of Lethe the drinking whereof makes Souls forget all that pass'd in this world and so it is plain how as Pythagoras used to say Euphorbus remembred his Soul had dwelt formerly in the body of Aethalides and Hermotimus that his Soul was in both these and the Fisherman that his Soul was in those three and Pythagoras that his Soul was in them all They also tell us how it came to pass that in six hundred years that Soul of his was only in two bodies namely of Hermotimus and the Fisherman for Mercury as Pythagoras himself used also to say gave the Soul of his Son Aethalides leave to rest sometimes in Hades and at other times to travel above-ground and so

and therefore without ever mentioning Christ or Christians which he could not do in this Book without seeming to make some kind of reflection upon them he only endeavours to make Pythagoras and those of his Sect out-shine them in the Lustre that he gives them with his Eloquence such as it is Which together with other Services that he did to the cause of Heathenism against the Christian Religion did so far endear him to Julian that wretched Apostate that after he came to shew himself which was not till he took the Empire upon him he writ more Epistles to Jamblichus than to any other while He was living and after his Death never mentioned him but with the highest Encomiums calling him sometimes the Hero sometimes the Divine Jamblichus and one whom he admired next the Gods Julian having been sometime a Reader in the Church might very well understand him as I do in the following instances of his Book which I take to have been written in a kind of Abusive imitation of the Gospel Namely where he tells us how the Mother of Pythagoras being with Child of him which was more than her Husband yet knew was brought by him to the Oracle of Apollo Pythius at Delphi and there the Prophetess told him both the first News of his Wife's Conception and also that the Child she then went with should prove the greatest good to Mankind Thereupon he saith her Husband changed his Wife's name from Parthenis to Pythais and afterwards when the Child was born call'd him Pythagoras as being foretold by Apollo Pythius for so he saith that name signifies Jamblichus will not take upon him to say as he tells us some Others did that the Child was of Apollo's own getting but he saith none can doubt it was one of Apollo's Companions in Heaven that came down to be the Soul of that Child He should have said rather one of Pluto's Companions in Hell for the Soul of Pythagoras came then out of Hades if Pythagoras himself may be believ'd But Jamblichus was aware that Pythagoras overshot himself sometimes and did it particularly in his account of the Stages that his Soul pass'd thro' in it's Travels Therefore Jamblichus takes notice of no other but Euphorbus in whom that Soul formerly dwelt He smuggles all the other Names we have mention'd not only from his Master Porphyry but even from Pythagoras himself But however he saith it hath been affirm'd by many and that with great probability that Pythagoras was the Son of God Nay that he was one of the Heavenly Gods that then appear'd upon Earth for the Good of Mankind a greater Good than ever did come before or should ever come after His Disciples indeed could not agree among themselves what God he should be Some would have it that he was Apollo Pythius others that he was Apollo Hyperboreus others that he was Aesculapius others that he was one of the Daemons that dwelt in the Moon They that said he was Apollo seem'd to be the greatest number and they had the greatest Authority on their side even his Own for so Pyth. himself told Abaris to entitle himself to the Money as we have shewn that he was the very God himself and proved it by shewing him his Golden Thigh such as it seems Abaris had told him that the Image of his God had in Scythia But then lest Abaris should ask him what he made Here Pythagoras added that he put on human Shape that Men might not be afraid to Converse with him as they would if they knew the Excellence of his Person and so they would deprive themselves of the benefit of his Doctrine Such stuff as this runs through his Book which being written for the deifying of an Impostor plainly shew'd that the design of it was to Banter the Gospel of Christ. He begins like one of the Heathen Poets with invoking the Gods and Pythagoras to assist him in the Work How he ended it we cannot tell for his Book is imperfect But probably he continu'd it with an account of this Impostor's Disciples in imitation of the Acts of the Apostles In short as well for History as for Doctrinal matters from one end to the other it hath so much of the Devil in it that it seems to have been wholly written by his Inspiration But all this I do acknowledge to have been a Digression as well as all the rest of what I have written that doth not concern the Writers of Pythagoras's Life For it was my proper business to shew of what credit They are as to matter of History Now the two chief of these being Porphyry and Jamblichus who were great Philosophers themselves and such great Admirers of Pythagoras as they shew in the writing of his Life one ought to expect they would have taken care to gather all that was True of him out of all the former Historians and to have mingled nothing with it that was Inconsistent with the truth of History How well they have perform'd this in other respects I shall not take upon me to examin But I shall take account of it only as to matter of Chronology And that I think sufficiently sheweth how much at random it is that Jamblichus pretends to give the Years of Pythagoras's Life and his chief Actions and Events and also how grosly both He and Porphyry before him have abused their Readers in the accounts that they give us of his principal Disciples As to the years of Pythagoras's Life Jamblichus tells us that it was much about his XVIII year that he set out to Travel and that after some time which I take to be IV years spent in other Countries he came into Aegypt and there he stay'd XXII years He goes on and says that the Philosopher being taken there by Cambyses's Soldiers was carry'd to Babylon and there he stay'd XII years and then return'd home to Samos being now about LVI years old There he stay'd for some time it should seem for another IV years and then in Olympiad LXII he went into Italy There he says he govern'd his School XL years wanting I and lived in all very near C years So Distinct an account as this is of the years of Pythagoras's Life whereof there is not the least Item in any of the ancienter Writers did I confess not a little rejoyce me when I first met with it and so much the more because of two Certain Notations of time by which if they were true all those years might be reduced to the like certainty There is nothing better known in ancient History than the year of Cambyses's conquering Aegypt We are certain it was in the end of the third year or the beginning of the fourth of Olymp. LXIV So that according to Jamblichus this was the very year of Pythagoras's being carry'd to Babylon And the time of his going into Italy is as certain according to Jamblichus