Mircea Eliade "From Primitives to Zen": EMPEDOCLES GOES AMONG MEN

AS AN IMMORTAL

Friends who dwell throughout the great town of golden Acragas, up by the citadel, men mindful of good deeds, unversed in wickedness, havens of respect for strangers, all hail. I go about among you all an immortal god, mortal no more, honoured as is my due and crowned with garlands and verdant wreaths. Whenever I enter the prosperous townships with these my followers, men and women both, I am revered; they follow me in countless numbers, asking where lies the path to gain, some seeking prophecies, while others, for many a day stabbed by grievous pains, beg to hear the word that heals all manner of illness. (Frag. 112.)

But at the end they come among men on earth as prophets, bards, doctors and princes; and thence they arise as gods mighty in honour, sharing with the other immortals their hearth and their table, without part in human sorrows or weariness. (Frags. 146, 147.)

Translation by G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1957), P. 354

Books by Mircea Eliade:

• Mircea Eliade “The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion”
• Mircea Eliade “Two Strange Tales”
• Mircea Eliade, Alf Hiltebeitel, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona “A History of Religious Ideas: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms (History of Religious Ideas) Vol.3”
• Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History”
• Mircea Eliade, Jr., Fred H. Johnson “Journal II, 1957-1969 (Journal)”
• Mircea Eliade, Catherine Spencer “Bengal Nights: A Novel”
• Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask, Wendy Doniger “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series (General))”
• Mircea Eliade “The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy”
• Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth”
• Mircea Eliade, Mac Linscott Ricketts “Journal IV, 1979-1985 (Journal)”
• Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity (History of Religious Ideas)”

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