536 PYTHAGOREAN WRITINGS. 



the lower world in general ; but only concerning the 

 fables of Homer about it. In the free tranilation of the 

 author, this fenfe totally vanifhes ; I rauft, therefore, 

 for my own juftification, give one that is fomewhat 

 more verbal. (e Is any one uncompliant and obfHnate 

 [again ft thefe reprefentations] ; then let him undergo 

 the punifhment which the laws ordain, and alfo thofe 

 unutterable horrors, which, according to the traditions, 

 are to be inflicted on him in the upper and lower 

 world, (where unavoidable chaftifements await the 

 unhappy dead)-, nay, even all the woes which the 

 Ionian poet has feigned in a very laudable manner from 

 the old traditions, in order to make mankind religious. 

 For, as we fometimes cure bodies by poifon, when 

 wholefomer remedies fail ; fo-we terrify fouls by fictions, 

 when they will not hearken to the truth." The laft 

 period defends the utility of fictions; in the former 

 nothing elfe was named but the defcription of the 

 Tiomerical fiction of the lower world ; it is therefore 

 manifeft that here only the homerical fable is fhewn not 

 to be conformable to truth ; confequently no injury is 

 done to the pythagorean toleration. 



But was not Homer's religion the popular religion ? 

 — Whether it was or was not is quite indifferent to us 

 here, fince we have exprefs teftimony, that Pythagoras 

 declared the fable of Homer to be impious and abfurd. 

 Diogenes Laertius informs us, from Hieronymus, an 

 author who lived under Ptolemy Philadelphia, that 

 Pythagoras related that he had feen, the foul of Hefiod, 

 in the world below, bound to a brazen pillar, and 

 writhing with pain ; and that he faw the foul of Homer 

 hanging to 4 tree, and furrounded with makes, on ac- 

 count 



