III. Best philosophers asserting immortality: Pherecydes, Pythagoras, metempsychosis; Druids, Brahmans, Pharisees
III. The best philosophers asserting the immortality of the soul are Greeks or Latins. Pherecydes the Syrian, as Cicero witnesses in Tusculan Disputations book 1, was first or among the first, and his disciple was Pythagoras, who, though he knew the soul to be immortal, yet did not have it known what happens to it after departure from the body, and embraced metempsychosis, concerning which Ovid in Metamorphoses book 15 introduces him speaking thus: Souls lack death, and always, the former seat left behind, they live in new homes and dwell in those received. The Druids of the Gauls, embracing Pythagoras's opinion, according to Julius Caesar, Gallic War book 6, wish above all to persuade this — that souls do not perish, but after death pass from some to others. And the Brahmans who still survive among the Indians today profess themselves disciples of Pythagoras, as Linschoten witnesses, part 1, chapter 38, and believe that souls are immortal, yet so that they transmigrate from one body into another, and that there is no difference whether they fly into a brute or a human body, according as each has done well or ill. This reciprocal recurring discourse of souls, as Tertullian calls it in On the Soul chapter 28, the Pharisees also of old believed, as Josephus witnesses in Jewish War book 2, chapter 7, and Antiquities book 18, chapter 2; concerning Herod the tetrarch and the Jews the same seems to be gathered from Matthew 14:2 and 16:14 and Luke 9:7.
Latin
III. Optimi philosophi, immortalitatem animae asserentes, sunt Graeci aut Latini. Pherecydes Syrus, teste Cicerone 1. Tusc. primus vel inter primos, & hujus discipulus Pythagoras fuit, qui cum sciret animam esse immortalem, nec tamen cognitum haberet, quid ea post abitum e corpore fieret, μετεμψύχωσιν amplexus est, de qua Ovidius 15. Metam. eum ita loquentem introducit: Morte carent animae, semperque priore relicta Sede novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptis. Pythagorae opinionem Druides Gallorum amplexí, apud Julium Caesarem lib. 6. de bello Gallico, in primis hoc volunt persuadere, non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios. Et qui apud Indos hodieque supersunt Brachmanes, Pythagorae discipulos se profitentur, teste Linscotano part. 1. cap. 38. & credunt, quod animae immortales sint, sed ita tamen, ut ex uno corpore in aliud transmigrent, nec esse differentiam sive in brutum, sive in humanum corpus involent, prout quisque vel bene vel male egerit. Hunc reciprocum discursum recidivatum animarum, ut Tertullianus lib. de anima cap. 28. vocat, Pharisaei quoque olim crediderunt, teste Josepho lib. 2. de bello Judaico cap. 7. & lib. 18. antiquit. cap. 2. de Herode tetrarcha & Judaeis ex Matth. 14.v.2. & 16.v.14. & Luc. 9.v.7. idem colligendum videtur.