#pythagorus

THE SYMBOLIC APHORISMS OF PYTHAGORAS

Iamblichus gathered thirty-nine of the symbolic sayings of Pythagoras and interpreted them. These have been translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor. Aphorismic statement was one of the favorite methods of instruction used in the Pythagorean university of Crotona. Ten of the most representative of these aphorisms are reproduced below with a brief elucidation of their concealed meanings.

I. Declining from the public ways, walk in unfrequented paths. By this it is to be understood that those who desire wisdom must seek it in solitude.

II. Govern your tongue before all other things, following the gods. This aphorism warns man that his words, instead of representing him, misrepresent him, and that when in doubt as to what he should say, he should always be silent.

III. The wind blowing, adore the sound. Pythagoras here reminds his disciples that the fiat of God is heard in the voice of the elements, and that all things in Nature manifest through harmony, rhythm, order, or procedure the attributes of the Deity.

IV. Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down. The student is instructed to aid the diligent but never to assist those who seek to evade their responsibilities, for it is a great sin to encourage indolence.

V. Speak not about Pythagoric concerns without light. The world is herein warned that it should not attempt to interpret the mysteries of God and the secrets of the sciences without spiritual and intellectual illumination.

VI. Having departed from your house, turn not back, for the furies will be your attendants. Pythagoras here warns his followers that any who begin the search for truth and, after having learned part of the mystery, become discouraged and attempt to return again to their former ways of vice and ignorance, will suffer exceedingly; for it is better to know nothing about Divinity than to learn a little and then stop without learning all.

VII. Nourish a cock, but sacrifice it not; for it is sacred to the sun and moon. Two great lessons are concealed in this aphorism. The first is a warning against the sacrifice of living things to the gods, because life is sacred and man should not destroy it even as an offering to the Deity. The second warns man that the human body here referred to as a cock is sacred to the sun (God) and the moon (Nature), and should be guarded and preserved as man’s most precious medium of expression. Pythagoras also warned his disciples against suicide.

VIII. Receive not a swallow into your house. This warns the seeker after truth not to allow drifting thoughts to come into his mind nor shiftless persons to enter into his life. He must ever surround himself with rationally inspired thinkers and with conscientious workers.

IX. Offer not your right hand easily to anyone. This warns the disciple to keep his own counsel and not offer wisdom and knowledge (his right hand) to such as are incapable of appreciating them. The hand here represents Truth, which raises those who have fallen because of ignorance; but as many of the unregenerate do not desire wisdom they will cut off the hand that is extended in kindness to them. Time alone can effect the redemption of the ignorant masses

X. When rising from the bedclothes, roll them together, and obliterate the impression of the body. Pythagoras directed his disciples who had awakened from the sleep of ignorance into the waking state of intelligence to eliminate from their recollection all memory of their former spiritual darkness; for a wise man in passing leaves no form behind him which others less intelligent, seeing, shall use as a mold for the casting of idols.

- God’s body is light, and his soul is truth

  Pythagoras of Samos (570–490 BC) stands in a class all his own. Often described as the first pure mathematician, his philosophy was grounded in the beauty of numerical logic. He considered the subjects of goodness and justice to be his personal business, and spent much time pondering and teaching them together with his ongoing mathematical research.   Pythagoras was born in Samos, Ionia, traveled with his father to Tyre and was taught there by the Chaldaeans and the learned men of Syria. Iamblichus, in his Life of Pythagoras, said that as a young man, Pythagoras visited Thales in Miletus, who advised him to learn mathematics and astronomy in Egypt. Porphyry’s account suggests that Pythagoras visited many temples there, but was accepted into the priesthood only at Diospolis.

“Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher, literally a lover of wisdom.”–Porphyry of Tyre

  Pythagoras founded a school in Croton (now Crotone, in southern Italy), wherein he taught his philosophy. According to Iamblichus, his followers occupied an inner circle (esoterikoi) called the mathematikoi (learners) and an outer circle (exoterikoi) called the akousmatikoi (listeners), according to their degree of intimacy with Pythagoras. Porphyry wrote, The mathematikoi learned the more detailed and exactly elaborated version of this knowledge, the akousmatikoi (were) those who had heard only the summary headings of his (Pythagoras’s) writings, without the more exact exposition.   Porphyry of Tyre wrote, Pythagoras was indeed the first man to call himself a philosopher. Others before had called themselves wise (sophos), but Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher, literally a lover of wisdom. More importantly, for Pythagoras and his followers, philosophy was not merely an intellectual pursuit, but a way of life, the aim of which was the assimilation to God.…Such things taught he, though advising above all things to speak the truth, for this alone deifies men. For as he had learned from the Magi, who call God Oremasdes [Ormuzd], God’s body is light, and his soul is truth. He taught much else, which he claimed to have learned from Aristoclea at Delphi.

A song about the something that Pythagoras wrote, about the harmony of blacksmiths working but the deafness that the craftsmen must have by being masters of their craft...