Grant us good whether prayed for or unsought by us; But that which we ask amiss, do thou avert.[576] The prayer was, as I have said, one of the principal dogmas of the religion of Zoroaster[577]: the Persians also had the greatest confidence therein. Like the Chaldeans, they founded all magical power upon its efficacy. They still possess today certain kinds of prayers for conjuring maladies and driving away demons. These prayers, which they name _tavids_, are written upon strips of paper and carried after the manner of talismans.[578] It is quite well-known that the modern Jews use them in the same way. In this they imitate, as in innumerable other things, the ancient Egyptians whose secret doctrine Moses has transmitted to them.[579] The early Christians were inclined to theosophical ideas on this subject. Origen explains it clearly in speaking of the virtue attached to certain names invoked by the Egyptian sages and the most enlightened of the magians of Persia.[580] Synesius, the famous Bishop of Ptolemaïs, initiated into the mysteries, declares that the science, by means of which one linked the intelligible essences to sentient forms, by the invocation of spirits, was neither vain nor criminal, but on the contrary quite innocent and founded upon the nature of things.[581] Pythagoras was accused of magic. Ignorance and weakness of mind have always charged science with this banal accusation.[582] This philosopher, rightly placed in the rank of the ablest physicians of Greece,[583] was, according to his most devoted disciples, neither of the number of the gods, nor even of those of the divine heroes; he was a man whom virtue and wisdom had adorned with a likeness to the gods, by the complete purifying of his understanding which had been effected through contemplation and prayer.[584] This is what Lysis expressed by the following lines: 27. _Instructed by them, naught shall then deceive thee; Of diverse beings thou shalt sound the essence; And thou shalt know the principle and end of All._