Miscellanies 1.15.71

So much about the Sibyl. Numa, the king of the Romans, was a Pythagorean, and, benefiting from the writings of Moses, prevented the Romans from making an image of God in human or animal form. At any rate, in the first hundred and seventy years, though they built temples, they made no statue, either sculpted or painted. For Numa showed them in a hidden way that it is not possible to lay hold of the best except by the mind alone. Philosophy, then, a thing of great benefit, flourished long ago among the barbarians, shining through the nations, and later came down to the Greeks as well. Its leaders were the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans of the Assyrians, the Druids of the Galatians, the Samanaeans of the Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians (who by their magic foretold the birth of the Savior, coming to the land of Judea led by a star), the gymnosophists of the Indians, and other barbarian philosophers. Of these there are two kinds, some called Sarmanae and others Brahmins. Of the Sarmanae, those called forest-dwellers neither live in cities nor have roofs, but clothe themselves in the bark of trees, eat fruits, and drink water with their hands; they know neither marriage nor begetting of children, like those now called Encratites. There are also among the Indians those who obey the precepts of Boutta, whom they have honored as a god because of his extraordinary holiness.