gher order. The priesthood, like the Jewish, was communicated only
from father to son, except to the royal family,[70] whom they were bound to
instruct, the better to fit them for government. Whether it were that these
Magians thought it would bring the greater credit to them, or the kings,
that it would add a greater sacredness to their persons, or from both these
causes, the royal family of Persia, so long as the Magi prevailed among
them, was always reckoned {64} of the sacerdotal tribe.[71] The kings of
Persia were looked on to be of that sacerdotal order, and were always
initiated into the sacred rites of the Magians, before they took on them
the crown, or were inaugurated into the kingdom.[72]

PYTHAGORAS next assumed, in the west, the most prominent place for
learning. He was the scholar of Zoroaster at Babylon, and learned of him
most of that knowledge which afterward rendered him so famous. So saith
Apulcius (Floridorum secundo), and so say Jamblichus (in vita Pythag. c.
4), Porphyry (Ibid. p. 185. edit. Cant.), and Clemens Alexandrinus
(Stromata i. p. 223) for the Zabratus or Zaratus of Porphyry, and the
Na-Zaratus of Clemens, were none other than this Zoroaster; and they relate
the matter thus: that when Cambyses conquered Egypt he found Pythagoras
there on his travels, for the improvement of himself in the learning of
that country; that, having taken him prisoner, he sent him, with other
captives, to Babylon, where Zoroaster (or Zabratus, as Porphyry calls him)
then lived; and that he there became his disciple, and learned many things
of him in the eastern learning. There may be error as to date, but that
Pythagoras was at Babylon, and learned there a great part of that knowledge
which he was afterward so famous for, is agreed by {65} all. His stay
there, Jamblichus tells us, was twelve years; and that, in his converse
with the Magians, he learned from them arithmetic, music, the knowledge of
divine things, and the sacred mysteries pertaining thereto. But the most
important doctrine which he brought home thence, was that of the
immortality of the soul; for it was generally agreed among the ancients
(Porphysius in vita Pythagorae p. 188, edit., Cant. Jamblichus in vita Pyth.
c. 30), that he was the first of all the Greeks that taught it. Prideaux
says he takes this for certain, that Pythagoras had this from Zoroaster,
for it was his doctrine, and he is the earliest heathen on record who
taught it.[73] But Pytha