Even the special appurtenances of Christian monasticism—silence, meditation, chanting, distinctive costumes, beads, incense, kneeling, hands raised in prayer—all too likely go back to the Pythagoreans and beyond them to their influences, the Indian Buddhists and their predecessors.

Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian - Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003)