The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.

VI. Accordingly, Clitarchus, in his twelfth book, says that the Gymnosophists despise death and that the Chaldeans study astronomy and the science of soothsaying. He notes that the Magi occupy themselves with service to the gods, sacrifices, and prayers, as if they were the only people to whom the deities listen. They deliver accounts of the existence and generation of the gods, saying that they are fire, earth, and water. They condemn the use of images and, above all, those who say that the gods are male and female. They speak much of justice and consider it impious to burn the bodies of the dead. They allow men to marry their mothers or daughters, as Sotion tells us in his twenty-third book. They study divination, asserting that the gods reveal their will through these sciences. They also teach that the air is full of phantoms that, by emanation and evaporation, glide into the sight of those with clear perception. They forbid ornamental extravagance and the use of gold; their garments are white, their beds are made of leaves, and their food consists of vegetables, cheese, and coarse bread. They use a rush for a staff, which they thrust into the cheese to pick up pieces to eat. They are ignorant of magical divination, as Aristotle asserts in his book on Magic, and Dinon in the fifth book of his Histories. Dinon says that the name of Zoroaster, translated, means "a sacrifice to the stars," a statement Hermodorus supports. But Aristotle, in the first book of his Treatise on Philosophy, says that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians and that they recognize two principles: a good demon called Jupiter or Oromasdes, and an evil demon called Pluto or Arimanius. Hermippus, Eudoxus, and Theopompus in his History of the Affairs of Philip provide the same account. The latter writer also says that, according to the Magi, men will have a resurrection and be immortal, and that what exists now will persist hereafter under its own name; Eudemus of Rhodes agrees. Hecataeus says that, according to their doctrines, the gods themselves are beings who have been born.