Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • John Beaumont
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Truth of this, he bids us only confider how many Queftions have been raifed, and learned Dif- courfes made concerning thefe two little Sentences there found, Know y ourfelf, and Nothing too much ; and he fays the 'word Ei is no lefs fertile for occafioning fuch fine Difcourfes. And in the conclufion oEthis Trad, he fays the word Ei is in fome fort contrary to that Precept, Know yourfelf and in fomething a- greeing with it: for the former is a Word of Adora¬ tion and Admiration of God, as he is Eternal and always in Being; and the latter is a Notifying and Memorial to mortal Man of the Weaknefs and Ina¬ bility of his Nature. And we find that Cicero, in his Tufculan Queftions, L. 5. gives a fine Explication of this Precept, Know yourfeIf; where he fays, As we confider the admirable Order of the World, and re¬ volve it day and night incur Minds, we arrive at the Science enjoin'd at Delpkos, viz. That the Mind of Man having depofed all Vice, know itfelf, and have a Senfe of its being united with the Divine Mind, by which it's fill'd with an infatiable Joy. I mufi: confefs, I know no higher Expreffion, or more feeling Refentment of a Deity can be uttered by a regenerate Chriftian. And it feems no wonder, that P hit arch, who was the moil: learned of all the Gentiles fmce Chriftianity, having fo great an Efteem, as he exprefies, for the Founders of the Oracle of Delphos, and for their Precepts and Inftitutions, and perhaps not having converfed with the learned Chriftians, ftill continued a Gentile. I may here note, That the two fhort Precepts, Know yourfelf, and Nothing too much, are faid to have been firft introduced by cfhales and Chilo, two of the wife Men of Greece; for 7’hales being ask'd, What he thought the moft difficult thing in Nature ? anfwer'd. The Knowledge of a Man's felf. And Chilo had of¬ ten this Saying in his Mouth, Defire nothing too much : But the AmphiByow, who were the Deputies