Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

...and to practice asceticism, asserting that the gods appear to them. They say the air is full of *demons, who flow into the eyes of those observing them, subtly and as if by evaporation, and they forbid external worship and luxurious living. Their clothing is white, their bed is the ground, their food is vegetables, cheese, and coarse bread. They use a reed as a staff, at the top of which they attach cheese, which they put to their mouths and eat. Aristotle says in the book he titled The Magicus, and Dinon in the fifth book of his histories, that they are ignorant of magical divination; he also asserts that Zoroaster, according to the interpretation of his name, was a worshipper of the stars. Hermodorus also records this. Aristotle, in the first book of his On Philosophy, is the authority that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians, and that there are two principles according to them: a good demon and an evil one. He says the one is called Jupiter and Horomasdes, the other Pluto and Arimanius; Hermippus also says this in his first book On the Magi, as do Eudoxus in his Periodos and Theopompus in the eighth book of his Philippics. The latter also says that men will live again, according to the opinion of the Magi, and will be immortal, and that all things subsist by their prayers. Eudemus of Rhodes also records these things. Furthermore, Hecataeus says that the gods were also born according to their opinion. Clearchus of Soli, in his book On Discipline, asserts that the Gymnosophists descended from the Magi. Many also report that the Jews derived their origin from them. They also call upon Herodotus and argue that he is a liar, as he wrote a history of the Magi. For neither did Xerxes hurl javelins into the sun, as he says, nor did he cast fetters into the sea, since these are considered gods by the Magi. They did, however, remove signs and statues from public view, according to the tenets of their discipline. But they spoke thus of the philosophy of the Egyptians regarding the gods and justice: that matter was the first principle of things, from which were subsequently distinguished the four elements, and [there were] perfect...