Excerpt from The Mystery of the Ages Contained in the Secret Doctrine of All Religions

When Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse, once proposed to the philosopher Simonides the question: What is God? the latter desired a day to consider it. Being asked the same question the next day, he desired two days for that purpose, and thus from time to time doubled the number. Hiero, being greatly surprised at this, inquired the reason of his conduct. "Because," said Simonides, "the longer I consider the subject, the more obscure it seems to be."

"Should you now ask of me this same question," says Cicero, in his dissertation De Natura Deorum, "On the Nature of the Gods," "I will reply to you as Simonides did to the tyrant of Syracuse; and I am disposed to believe," he continues, "that Simonides, who was not only an excellent poet, but also was neither wanting in erudition nor in good sense, after his mind had followed opinion after opinion, one more subtle than the other, without being able to discern which were true, finally lost all hope of finding Truth."

Thus far the learned of old. Uninspired reason, it would appear, cannot attain to a knowledge of the Divine; and if this was the state of mind of the great Roman orator when he wrote his treatise On the Nature of the Gods, well might an average Roman of that period exclaim: What is Truth? while Truth incarnate stood before him.

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