Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources

by Wasserman, James

  CHAPTER 4

  PIETY TO THE DEAD

  Piety to the dead was a part, not the least, of the Pythagorean doctrine. Whence Cicero, speaking of the immortality of the soul: “More prevalent with me,” says he, “is the authority of the ancients, or our ancestors, who afforded the dead religious rites—which certainly they had not done if they had conceived that nothing pertains to them; or of those who were in this country and instructed Magna Graecia (which now is abolished but then flourished), with their institutions and precepts.”751

  Pythagoras allowed not the bodies of the dead to be burned, herein imitating the Magi, as not willing that any mortal should participate of divine honor.752 The Pythagorean custom, as described by Pliny, was to put the dead into earthen barrels amongst leaves of myrtle, olive, and black poplar.753

  To accompany the dead at funerals in white garments he conceived to be pious; alluding to the simple and first nature, according to number, and the principle of all things.754

  The Crotonians delighted in burying their dead sumptuously. One of the Pythagoreans told them he had heard Pythagoras discoursing of divine things thus:

  “The celestial gods respect the affections of the sacrificers, not the greatness of the sacrifice. On the contrary, the terrestrial gods, as to whose share the lesser things belong, delight in banquets, and mournings, and funeral litations, and costly sacrifices. Whence Hades (the Infernal Regions), from its making choice of entertainment, is named Pluto. Those who pay honors to him most sparingly he permits to continue longest in the upper world. But of those who are excessive in mourning, he brings down ever and anon one, that thereby he may receive the honors which are paid in memory of the dead.”

  By this discourse he wrought a belief in his Auditors that they who do all things moderately upon such adverse occasions further their own safety; but as for those who bestow excessive charge, they will all die untimely.755

  They forbore to make tombs of Cypress, forasmuch as Jupiter's scepter was of that wood, as Hermippus, in his second book of Pythagoras, affirms.756

  CHAPTER 5

  REVERENCE OF PARENTS, AND OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW

  Next to gods and daemons, we ought to reverence parents and the law; and to render ourselves obedient to them, not falsely, but really.757 Or as Porphyry says, “He commanded to think and to speak reverently of gods and daemons, to be kind to parents and benefactors, and to obey the law.”758

  They held (says Iamblichus) that we ought to believe, there is no greater ill than anarchy; for a man cannot be safe, where there is no governor.759 They held also that we ought to persevere in the customs and rites of our own country, though they be worse than those of other countries. To revolt easily from settled laws, and to be studious of novelty, they conceived to be neither advantageous nor safe.

  Seeing that contumelies, pride, and contempt of law often transport men to unjust actions, he daily exhorted, that the law should be assisted and injustice opposed.760 To which end he alleged this distinction: The first of ills, which insinuates itself into houses and cities, is pride; the second, insolence; the third, destruction. Everyone therefore ought to expel and extirpate pride, accustoming himself from his youth to a temperate masculine life, and to be free from slanderous repining, contentious reproaching, and hateful scurrility.

  Wickedness disobeys the Divine Law, and therefore transgresses.761

  A wicked man suffers more torment in his own conscience than he who is punished in body and whipped.762

  CHAPTER 6

  LAWMAKING

  Moreover, says Iamblichus, he constituted another excellent kind of Justice, the legislative part, which commands that which ought to be done, and forbids that which ought not to be done. This is better than the judicative part. For the judicative resembles that part of medicine which cures the sick, but the legislative suffers them not to fall sick, but takes care afar off of the health of the soul.

  Varro affirms that Pythagoras delivered this discipline (of governing states) to his auditors last of all—when they were now learned, now wise, now happy. For he saw so many rough waves therein, that he would not commit it but to such a one as was able to shun the rocks; or if all failed, might stand himself as a rock amidst those waves.763

  They who punish not ill persons would have the good injured.764

  THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY: ITS PARTS AND FIRST OF THE SCIENCE CONCERNING INTELLIGIBLES

  We come next to the theoretical part, to which more particularly belongs that saying of Pythagoras: that by philosophy be had this advantage—to admire nothing. For philosophical discourse takes away wonder—which arises from doubt and ignorance—by knowledge and examination of the facility of everything.

  Theoretical philosophy seems to have been divided by the Pythagoreans into two parts, they first (says Iamblichus) delivered the science of intelligibles and the gods; next which, they taught all Physic. To the science of intelligibles belong these heads, wherewith Iamblichus begins his recapitulation of the gods, of heroes, and of daemons.765

  CHAPTER 1

  OF THE SUPREME GOD

  Pythagoras defined what God is thus: a Mind which penetrates in all directions, and is diffused through every part of the World and through all Nature; from whom all animals that are produced receive life.766

  God is one.767 He is not (as some conceive) out of the world, but entire within himself, in a complete circle surveying all generations. He is the Temperament of all ages, the Agent of his own powers and works, the Principle of all things; one in heaven luminary, and father of all things; mind and animation of the whole, the motion of all circles.

  God (as Pythagoras learned of the Magi, who term him Ahura Mazda) in his body resembles Light, in his soul, Truth.768 He said that God only is wise.769

  He conceived that the first being (God) is neither sensible nor susceptible to sensation or emotion; but is invisible and intelligible.770

  CHAPTER 2

  OF GODS, DAEMONS, HEROES

  Next to the supreme God, there are three kinds of intelligibles: gods, daemons, heroes. That Pythagoras thus distinguished them is manifest from his precept that we must in worship prefer gods before daemons, heroes before men.771 But in Iamblichus, he seems either to observe a different method, or to confound the terms; teaching first of gods, then of heroes, last of daemons; which order perhaps is the same with that of the Golden Verses.772

  First, as decreed, th' immortal Gods adore,

  Thy Oath keep: next great Heroes, then implore

  Terrestrial Daemons with due sacrifice.773

  By Terrestrial Daemons seems to be understood not Princes (as Hierocles) but the daemons themselves, confined to several offices upon earth; For,

  “All the air is full of souls, which are esteemed daemons and heroes. From these are sent to men dreams and presages of sickness and of health; and not only to men, but to sheep also, and to other cattle. To these pertain expiations, and the warding off of evil, and all divinations, Cledons and the like.”774

  CHAPTER 3

  OF FATE AND FORTUNE

  All the parts of the world above the Moon, are governed according to Providence and firm order, and the Decree of God† which they follow. But those beneath the Moon by four causes: by God, by fate, by our election, by fortune.775 For instance, to go aboard into a ship or not is in our power; storms and tempests to arise out of a calm is by fortune; for the ship, being underwater to be preserved, is by the providence of God. Of fate there are many manners and differences. It differs from fortune as having a determination, order, and consequence; but fortune is spontaneous and casual—as to proceed from a boy to a youth, and orderly to pass through the other degrees of age, happens by one manner of fate. (Here the text seems deficient.)

  Man is of affinity with the Gods, by reason that he participates of heat, wherefore God has a providential care of us.776 There is also , a Fate of all things in general and in particular, the cause of their administration.†

  CHAPTER 4

&nbs
p; DIVINATION

  For as much as by daemons and heroes all divination is conveyed to men, we shall here add what Pythagoras held and practiced therein. Iamblichus says that he honored divination not the least of the sciences.777 For what things are agreeable to God cannot be known unless a man hear God himself, or the gods, or acquire it by divine art. For this reason, they diligently studied divination, as being the only interpretation of the benevolence of the gods. It is likewise an employment most suitable to those who believe there are gods. But whoever thinks either belief in the gods or divination a folly, to him the other is such also.

  Pythagoras approved all kinds of divination, except that which is performed by the sacrifice of living creatures.778

  He first used divination by frankincense.779 This was the only burnt offering by which he divined.780

  He also used divination by Cledons,781 and by birds, which Cicero confirms, saying that he would himself be an augur;782 and that the Pythagoreans observed not only the voices of the gods, but of men also, which they call omens.783 Cledons are observations of occurrent speeches, collecting from what is accidentally said upon some other occasion, the effect of what is sought: an instance whereof, see in the Epigram of Callimachus upon Pittacus.784

  The interpretation of dreams, Porphyry says, he learned of the Hebrews. He communicated it also to his disciples; for Iamblichus relates he used means to procure them quiet sleeps with good and prophetic dreams. For this reason, some conceive, it was that he forbade flatulent and gross meats, for that they obstruct the serenity which is requisite thereto. Such apparitions he held not to be fantastic but real (not “a dream” but “in reality”), as is manifest from one who told him that he dreamed he had talked with his father who was dead, and asked him what it portended. “Nothing,” says he, “for you did really talk with him. As my speaking now to you portends nothing, nor did that.”785

  He was skillful likewise in judicial Astrology, if we credit Apuleius, who affirms the Chaldeans showed him the science of the stars, the number of the planets, their stations, revolutions, and the various effects of both in the nativities of men.786

  Varro relates him skillful in Hydromancy,787 which (says he) came from Persia, and was practiced by Numa, and afterwards by Pythagoras; wherein they used blood, and invocation of daemons.

  Eustathius says the Pythagoreans affirm that all brass does sound by some diviner spirit, for which reason a tripod of that metal is dedicated to Apollo. And when the winds are all laid, the air calm, and all things else quiet, yet the hollow brass caldrons seem to quake.788 The same may be the meaning of Pythagoras when he says, “The sound which is made by brass, is the voice of the voice of the Daemon enclosed in the brass.”789 (Reading, perhaps, .)

  For so Psellus describes a kind of hydromancy practiced by the Assyrians: They take a basin full of water convenient for the daemons to glide into the bottom. The basin of water seems to make a noise as if it breathed. The water in the basin in substance differs nothing from other water—but through the virtue infused thereinto by charms is much more excellent, and made more ready to receive a prophetic spirit. This is a particular daemon, terrestrial, attracted by compositions. As soon as he glides into the water, he makes a little sound inarticulate, which denotes his presence. Afterwards the water running over, there are certain whispers heard with some prediction of the future. This kind of spirit is very wandering, because it is of the solar order, and this kind of daemons purposely speak with a low voice, that by reason of the indistinct obscurity of the voice, their lies may be less subject to discovery. Hitherto Psellus.

  PHYSIC

  The general heads of Physic are these: of the world, and of all things in the world, of Heaven, and of Earth, and of the natures between them.790 The defect of the fragments concerning these, we shall endeavor to supply by adding the Treatise of Timaeus the Locrian upon the same subject. [See page 301]

  The brass tripod of Apollo appears on the reverse of this silver stater of Croton, struck c.420 B.C. The obverse shows young Heracles seated before an altar, and among his accouterments. The reverse shows Apollo's tripod decorated with hanging fillets, amidst a scene of Apollo preparing to discharge an arrow into the serpent Python.

  Photo courtesy of Numismatica Ars Classica

  CHAPTER 1

  PRINCIPLES

  The most learned of the Naturalists (says Sextus Empericus) attributed so great power to numbers, that they thought them to be the principles and elements of all things.791 These were the disciples of Pythagoras. For, say they, such as treat of philosophy aright imitate those who study a language. They first examine words, because language consists of words; then, because words consist of syllables, they next consider syllables; and because syllables consist of letters, they next examine letters. In like manner, say the Pythagoreans, natural philosophers, when they make enquiry into the universe, must first examine into what the universe is resolved.

  Now to affirm that something apparent to sense is the principle of all things is repugnant to Physic. For whatsoever is apparent to sense must be compounded of things not apparent. Whereas a principle is not that which consists of any thing, but that of which the thing consists. Therefore things apparent cannot be said to be principles of the universe, but those of which things apparent consist, themselves not being apparent.

  They who maintain atoms, or Homoeomeries, or bulks, or intelligible bodies, to be the principles of all things were partly in the right, partly not. As conceiving the principles to be unapparent, they are in the right; as holding them to be corporeal, they err. For as intelligible unapparent bodies precede the sensible, so must incorporeals precede intelligible bodies. The elements of words are not words; nor of bodies, bodies. But they must either be bodies or incorporeal; therefore they are wholly incorporeal.

  Neither can we say that Atoms are eternal, and therefore though corporeal, the principles of all things. For first they who assert Homoeomeries, and bulks, and leasts, and indivisibles, to be elements, conceive their substance eternal; so as in that respect, Atoms are no more elements than they. Again, though it were granted that atoms were eternal, yet they who conceive the world to be unbegotten and eternal, enquire by an imaginary way the principles whereof it first consists. So we (say the Pythagoreans), treating of Physic, consider in an imaginary way of what things these eternal bodies, comprehensible only by reason, consist.

  Thus the Universe consists either of bodies or incorporeals. We cannot say bodies, for then we must assign other bodies whereof they consist; and so proceeding to infinite, we shall remain without a principle. It rests therefore to affirm that intelligible bodies consist of incorporeals, which Epicurus confesses, saying, “By collection of figure, and magnitude, and resistance, and gravity, is understood a body.”

  Yet it is not necessary that all corporeals preexistent to bodies be the elements and first principles of beings. Ideas (according to Plato) are incorporeals, pre-existent to bodies, and all generated beings have reference to them; yet they are not the principles of being. For every Idea, singly taken, is said to be one; when we comprehend others with it, they are two, or three, or four. Number therefore is transcendent to their substance, by participation whereof, one, two, or more, are predicated of them. Again, solid figures are conceived in the mind before bodies, as having an incorporeal nature; yet they are not the principles. Superficies precede them in our imagination, for solids consist of superficies. But neither are superficies the elements of beings, for they consist of lines; lines precede them; numbers precede lines. That which consists of three lines, is called a Triangle; that which of four, a Quadrangle. Even line itself, simply taken, is not conceived without number—but being carried on from one point to another, is conceived in two. As to Numbers, they all fall under the Monad. For the Duad is one Duad, the Triad one Triad, and the Decad one summary of number.

  This moved Pythagoras to say, that the principle of all things is the Monad, by participation hereof, every being is termed One. And wh
en we reflect on a being in its identity, we consider a Monad. But when it receives addition by the other, it produces indeterminate Duad, so called in distinction from the Arithmetical determinate Duads, by participation whereof all Duads are understood as Monads by the Monad. Thus there are two principles of beings, the first Monad, and the indeterminate Duad.

  That these are indeed the principles of all things, the Pythagoreans reach variously. Of beings (say they), some are understood by Difference, others by Contrariety, others by Relation. By difference are those which are considered by themselves subjected by their proper circumscription: as, a man, a horse, a plant, earth, water, air, fire; each of these is considered absolutely without any comparison. By contrariety are those which are considered by one to the other: as good and ill, just and unjust, profitable and unprofitable, sacred and profane, pious and impious, moving and fixed, and the like. By relation are those which are considered by relation to others: as right to left, upwards to downwards, double to half. For right is understood by a relative habit to left, and left by a relative habit to right; upwards to downwards, and downward to upwards; and so on of the rest.

  Those which are understood by contrariety differ from those that are understood by relation. In contraries, the corruption of the one is the generation of another: as of health, sickness, motion, rest. The induction of sickness is the expulsion of health, and the induction of health is the expulsion of sickness; the same in grief and joy, good and ill, and all things of contrary natures. But the relative exist together, and perish together. For right is nothing unless there be left; double is nothing unless we understand the half whereof it is the double. Moreover, in contraries there is no mean, as between health and sickness, life and death, motion and rest. But between relatives there is a mean—as between greater and lesser, the mean is equal; between too much and too little, sufficient; between too flat and too sharp, concord.