2. Pythagoras

And not far from this time there flourished another philosophy founded by Pythagoras, who some say was a Samian. They call it the Italic because Pythagoras, fleeing from Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, took up his abode in a city of Italy and there spent his life. Whose successors in the school did not differ much from him in judgment. And he, after having enquired into physics, combined with it astronomy, geometry and music. And thus he showed that unity is God, and after curiously studying the nature of number, he said that the cosmos makes melody and was put together by harmony, and he first reduced the movement of the seven stars to rhythm and melody. Wondering, however, at the arrangement of the universals, he expected his disciples to keep silence as to the first things learned by them, as if they were mystæ of the universe coming into the cosmos. Thereafter when it seemed that they had partaken sufficiently of the schooling of the discourses, and could themselves philosophize about stars and Nature, he, having judged them purified, bade them speak. He divided the disciples into two classes, and called these Esoterics and those Exoterics. To the first-named he entrusted the more complete teaching, to the others the more restricted. He applied himself to magic also, as they say, and himself invented a philosophy of the origin of Nature, based upon certain numbers and measures, saying that the origin of the arithmetical philosophy comprised this method by synthesis. The first number became a principle which is one, illimitable, incomprehensible, and contains within itself all the numbers that can come to infinity by multiplication. But the first unit was by hypothesis the origin of numbers, the which is a male monad begetting like a father all the other numbers. In the second place is the dyad, a female number, and the same is called even by the arithmeticians. In the third place is the triad, a male number, and it has been called odd by the arithmeticians’ decree. After all these is the tetrad, a female number, and this is also called even, because it is female. Therefore all the numbers derived from the genus (now the illimitable genus is “number”) are four, from which was constructed, according to them, the perfect number, the decad. For the 1, 2, 3, 4 become 10 if for each number its appropriate name be substantially kept. This decad Pythagoras said was a sacred Tetractys, a source of everlasting Nature containing roots within itself, and that from the same number all the numbers have their beginning. For the 11 and the 12 and the rest share the beginning of their being from the 10. The four divisions of the same decad, the perfect number, are called number, monad, square and cube. The conjunctions and minglings of which make for the birth of increase and complete naturally the fruitful number. For when the square is multiplied by itself, it becomes a square squared; when into the cube, the square cubed; when the cube is multiplied by the cube, it becomes a cube cubed. So that all the numbers from which comes the birth of things which are, are seven; to wit: number, monad, square, cube, square of square, cube of square and cube of cube.

He declared also that the soul is immortal and that there is a change from one body to another. Wherefore he said that he himself had been before Trojan times Aethalides, and that in the Trojan era he was Euphorbus, and after that Hermotimus the Samian, after which Pyrrho of Delos, and fifthly Pythagoras. But Diodorus the Eretrian and Aristoxenus the writer on music say that Pythagoras went to visit Zaratas the Chaldæan; and Zaratas explained to him that there are from the beginning two causes of things that are, a father and mother: and that the father is light and the mother, darkness: and the divisions of the light are hot, dry, light (in weight) and swift; but those of the darkness cold, moist, heavy and slow. From these the whole cosmos was constructed, to wit: from a female and a male; and that the nature of the cosmos is according to musical harmony, wherefore the sun makes his journey rhythmically. And about the things which come into being from the earth and cosmos, they say Zaratas spoke thus: there are two demons, a heavenly one and an earthly. Of these the earthly one sent on high a thing born from the earth which is water; but that the heavenly fire partook of the air, hot and cold. Wherefore, he says, none of these things destroys or pollutes the soul, for the same are the substance of all. And it is said that Pythagoras ordered that beans should not be eaten, because Zaratas said that at the beginning and formation of all things when the earth was still being constructed and put together, the bean was produced. And he says that a proof of this is, that if one chews a bean to pulp and puts it in the sun for some time (for this plays a direct part in the matter), it will give out the smell of human seed. And he says that another proof is even clearer. If when the bean is in flower, we take the bean and its blossom, put it into a jar, anoint this, bury it in earth, and in a few days dig it up, we shall see it at first having the form of a woman’s pudenda and afterwards on close examination a child’s head growing with it.

Pythagoras perished at Crotona in Italy having been burned along with his disciples. And he had this custom that when any one came to him as a disciple, he had to sell his possessions and deposit the money under seal with Pythagoras, and remain silent sometimes for three and sometimes for five years while he was learning. But on being again set free, he mixed with the others and remained a disciple and took his meals along with them. But if he did not, he took back what belonged to him and was cast out. Now the Esoterics were called Pythagoreans and the others Pythagorists. And of his disciples who escaped the burning were Lysis and Archippus and Zamolxis, Pythagoras’ house-slave, who is said to have taught the Druids among the Celts to cultivate the Pythagorean philosophy. And they say that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians, and being struck with the plausible, imposing and with difficulty disclosed wisdom of the priests, he imitated them also in enjoining silence and, lodging his disciples in cells, made them lead a solitary life.