The spirit of Pythagoras, which had suddenly found wings, began to plunge into his past life, into his mist-enveloped birth and his mother’s mysterious love. Childhood’s memory returned to him with striking clearness. He recalled the fact that his mother had carried him in her arms, when only a babe of twelve months, to the temple of Adonaï, in a vale of Lebanon. He saw himself again as a child, clinging to the neck of Parthenis, with mighty forests and mountains all around, whilst the river formed a waterfall close by. She was standing on a terrace shaded with giant cedars. In front of her stood a majestic-looking, white-bearded priest, smiling on the mother and child as he uttered grave-sounding words the little one did not understand. Often had his mother brought back to his mind the strange utterance of the hierophant of Adonaï: “O woman of Ionia, thy son shall be great in wisdom; but remember that, though the Greeks still possess the science _of the gods_, the knowledge _of God_ can no longer be found elsewhere than in Egypt.” These words came back to him along with his mother’s smile, the old man’s beautiful face, and the distant murmur of the waterfall dominated by the priest’s voice, with that magnificent scenery all around, like the dream of another life. For the first time he guessed the meaning of the oracle. He had indeed heard of the wonderful knowledge of Egyptian priests and their dreadful mysteries, though he thought he could do without it all. Now he understood that he needed this “science of God,” to penetrate to the very heart of nature, and that he could find it only in the temples of Egypt. It was the gentle Parthenis who, with maternal instinct, had prepared him for this work, and borne him as an offering to the sovereign God! From this moment he made up his mind to go to Egypt, and there undergo initiation.