Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE GOSPEL OF PHILOSOPHIC HEATHENISM 221dient and docile. It may further be likened to a greatEgyptian merchant ship, with many compartments,many pilots, under the command of one, the oldest andwisest, many skilful sailors and armed combatants.We may consider the world in the likeness of thisship. The chief and most conspicuous place is to beassigned to God, the progenitor of this living thing,and next under Him to the deities who direct itsparts. And here we assent to the poets when they tellus that there are many gods in heaven and in the seaand in the springs and rivers, and likewise about theearth, and some too under the earth. But that placeunder the earth, if such a place exists, which they describeas full of horror and the abode of corruption, letus separate from our conception I of the ordered world." 1Now we have been told that Apollonius in his dietavoided wine, as disturbing the ether of the soul.Thus he viewed the human soul as sharing that fifthelement which the Indians said that the gods breathed.Again, Apollonius especially loves to converse withlarch as on the subject of foreknowledge. larchashighly praises him for this, and says, " They who takepleasure in the art of divination become by it divine,and work for men's salvation. For I consider thatman most happy and equal in power to the Delphicgod who possesses in himself the power of foreling and foretelling to others ignorant of it what welearn by approaching the oracles. And since the artof divination enjoins all who consult the oracle to gothither with pure hearts, or orders them to depart, itseems to me that he who wishes to know the secretsof futurity should keep himself pure, should have nostain upon his soul, no scars of sins upon his mind.1 Book iii. 34, 35.