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Updated: June 3, 2025
"These are the anchorites of the Theban desert," said Colonna calmly; "followers not of Christ and His apostles, and the great fathers, but of the Greek pupils of the Egyptian pupils of the Brachmans and Gymnosophists." And Clement thought that he burned to go and embrace the holy men and tell them his troubles, and seek their advice.
At length a Brachman, who seemed to be fourscore years of age, took the business upon himself, and said in a grave tone, that two things brought a soul to glory, and made him a companion to the gods; the one was to abstain from the murder of a cow, the other to give alms to the Brachmans.
He conversed often with those of that religion, and one day found a favourable occasion of treating with them: Passing by a monastery, where above two hundred Brachmans lived together, he was visited by some of the chiefest, who had the curiosity to see a man whose reputation was so universal.
If those offerings with which they maintain their families come to fail, they denounce to the people, that the offended pagods threaten the country with some dreadful judgment, or that their gods, in displeasure, will forsake them, because they are suffered to die of hunger. The doctrine of these Brachmans is nothing better than their life.
This must have been his employment for many years; the next incident in his life being his Eastern journey, which was not undertaken till he was between forty and fifty years of age. His object in this expedition was to consult the Magi and Brachmans on philosophical matters; still following the example of Pythagoras, who is said to have travelled as far as India with the same purpose.
Father Xavier, who saw how large a progress the gospel had made amongst the people, and that if there were no Brachmans in the Indies, there would consequently be no idolaters in all those vast provinces of Asia, spared no labour to reduce that perverse generation to the true knowledge of Almighty God.
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