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The philosophy of ancient Greece investigated
The philosophy of ancient Greece investigated Author:Walter Anderson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART. II. E C T I O N I. Of Pythagoras—his Travels into Egypt and other foreign Countries—his In- jlitution of the Italic School of Philofophy,—and the pec... more »uliar Difcipline taught in it. IN the more ancient times, the Egyptian temples are faid to have contained no images or ftatues of the gods ; and, from Homer's fi- lence upon the head, it may be inferred that thofe of Greece were not furnifhed with them in the time of the Trojan war. It is even to be prefumed that many of the rites and ceremonies recited by him, as ufed in facrifices and expiations, were introduced after that period f. It is likewife known that neither the antient Chaldeans of Aflyria, nor the Magi of Perfia, admitted of images, nor, for fome time, of temples, for religious worfhip ; and that they adored, under the expanfe of the heavens, the firft or fovereign principle of all things, in the fun, or the element of fire ; while the Egyptians paid a fimilar veneration to that of wateti The like fimplicity of religion appears to have obtained among the antient nations of Italy ; and, according to Dionyfius Halicarnaf- feus J, Pliny, and Plutarch, it took place in the facred inftitutions of the Romans by their firft King, and more efpecially in thofe of his fuccef- for. The religion of the Sabines, fays Livy §, of which nation Numa Pompilius was, had much of the character of that of the Pythagoreans ; and,and, although it was afterwards accounted by the Romans too auftere, it might well be accounted more pure and incorrupt than any other in its precepts. In its exterior forms, a principal regard was paid to com- pofure of mind, and to a chafte adoration of the prefent, but invfible divinity. Numa , adds Plutarch, difapproved the ufe of fenfible images of the deity; " for the firft caufe," faid that legi...« less