1. Cicero, On Divination, 1.52 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •knowledge, lazy argument Found in books: Jedan (2009) 35| 1.52. Sed veniamus nunc, si placet, ad somnia philosophorum. Est apud Platonem Socrates, cum esset in custodia publica, dicens Critoni, suo familiari, sibi post tertium diem esse moriendum; vidisse se in somnis pulchritudine eximia feminam, quae se nomine appellans diceret Homericum quendam eius modi versum: Tertia te Phthiae tempestas laeta locabit. Quod, ut est dictum, sic scribitur contigisse. Xenophon Socraticus (qui vir et quantus!) in ea militia, qua cum Cyro minore perfunctus est, sua scribit somnia, quorum eventus mirabiles exstiterunt. | 1.52. But let us come now, if you please, to the dreams of philosophers.[25] We read in Plato that Socrates, while in prison, said in a conversation with his friend Crito: I am to die in three days; for in a dream I saw a woman of rare beauty, who called me by name and quoted this verse from Homer:Gladly on Phthias shore the third days dawn shall behold thee.And history informs us that his death occurred as he had foretold. That disciple of Socrates, Xenophon — and what a man he was! — records the dreams he had during his campaign with Cyrus the Younger, and their remarkable fulfilment. Shall we say that Xenophon is either a liar or a madman? |
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3. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.21 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •knowledge, lazy argument Found in books: Jedan (2009) 36 | 1.21. But there is also with the Indians a sect composed of those philosophizing among the Brachmans. They spend a contented existence, abstain both from living creatures and all cooked food, being satisfied with fruits; and not gathering these from the trees, but carrying off those that have fallen to the earth. They subsist upon them, drinking the water of the river Tazabena. But they pass their life naked, affirming that the body has been constituted a covering to the soul by the Deity. These affirm that God is light, not such as one sees, nor such as the sun and fire; but to them the Deity is discourse, not that which finds expression in articulate sounds, but that of the knowledge through which the secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise. And this light which they say is discourse, their god, they assert that the Brachmans only know on account of their alone rejecting all vanity of opinion which is the soul's ultimate covering. These despise death, and always in their own peculiar language call God by the name which we have mentioned previously, and they send up hymns (to him). But neither are there women among them, nor do they beget children. But they who aim at a life similar to these, after they have crossed over to the country on the opposite side of the river, continue to reside there, returning no more; and these also are called Brachmans. But they do not pass their life similarly, for there are also in the place women, of whom those that dwell there are born, and in turn beget children. And this discourse which they name God they assert to be corporeal, and enveloped in a body outside himself, just as if one were wearing a sheep's skin, but that on divesting himself of body that he would appear clear to the eye. But the Brachmans say that there is a conflict in the body that surrounds them, (and they consider that the body is for them full of conflicts); in opposition to which, as if marshalled for battle against enemies, they contend, as we have already explained. And they say that all men are captive to their own congenital struggles, viz., sensuality and inchastity, gluttony, anger, joy, sorrow, concupiscence, and such like. And he who has reared a trophy over these, alone goes to God; wherefore the Brachmans deify Dandamis, to whom Alexander the Macedonian paid a visit, as one who had proved victorious in the bodily conflict. But they bear down on Calanus as having profanely withdrawn from their philosophy. But the Brachmans, putting off the body, like fishes jumping out of water into the pure air, behold the sun. |
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