MindStar
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Once this point is understood, the philosophical
teachings of the Pythagoreans become
intelligible. A passage in lamblicus (which goes
back to Aristoxenus) gives their point of view
very clearly, and we must connect it with our
previous discussion about the importance of the
problem of justice:
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Pythagoras thought that the most efficacious
device for the establishment of justice was the
rule of the gods, and beginning with that he
established the state and the laws, justice and
the just.
In this interesting passage we have a long step
forward in the theologizing of the concept of
justice. The contemplation of divine things,
thought the Pythagoreans, instructed by
Pythagoras himself, was useful for mankind.
The reason was that we need a master, some
ruling principle against which we do not dare to
rise in rebellion, and this is provided by the
divinity. Our animal nature, he argued, is
subject to hybris and is diverse and chaotic,
subject to control by a variety of impulses,
desires, and passions. There must be a power
which by its superiority and its “threatening
eminence ( epanastasis)” will introduce
prudence and order into chaos. 136
The Sphinx: Compare this notion of justice as a divine
standard to the Egyptian concept of Maat which
we discussed earlier. Here we find evidence of a
Form discussed virtually identically by first the
Egyptians, then Pythagoras, then Plato. It is
something higher than law, higher than human
reason or learned wisdom - it is a “god” itself.
The Chimæra: The actual characteristics of what are
generally known as the “Egyptian gods” are far
closer to the notion of Forms than they are to the
later pantheons of pagan cultures such as Greece,
Rome, and Scandinavia. A reading of Egyptian
texts translated directly from the hieroglyphic will
substantiate this. In only a very few legends [such
136 Winspear, Alban D., The Genesis of Plato’s Thought, pages 81-82.
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as that of the death and rebirth of Osiris] do the
gods assume human behavioral characteristics. In
the vast bulk of the existing texts they are far more
abstract, having “personalities” that seem to
overlap one another and symbolic attributes that
are difficult to identify in terms of purely-human
desires. Consider the following inscription from
the tomb of Rameses VI in this light, noticing the
overlap between Truth ( Maat) and Ra:
Adoration to Truth. Salutation to thee, this Eye
of Ra through which he lives every day! They
who are behind the chapel fear her, the Brilliant
One, She who comes out from the head of him
who made her. On the Head Serpent, who
comes out in front of him! Thou art the brilliant
eye who leads him, the word of judgment of the
One Whose Name Is Hidden, the victorious one
before the Ennead, Lady of Fear, great of
respect, Truth, through whom Ra is glorified,
she who appeases for him the Two Lands by her
decrees, she who speaks to the gods and chases
away evil, whose abomination is sin, she who
appeases the hearts of the gods! Thou art the
balance of the Lord of the Two Banks, whose
face is beautiful when Ra comes to his Truth,
being glorious through her. Those in Busiris
praise him through her, litanies are sung to him
by the great gods while she adores the powers of
the Two Chapels. He is glorious through her,
more than the gods, in this her name of the
Brilliant One. Thoth brought her and reckoned
her, the Established One, the Brilliant, the
Reckoned One, in this her name of the Ipet
Serpent. He made her live as a Uræus in this her
name of Opener of the Ways, She who leads him
on the ways of the horizon, in this her name of
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Leader of Men. He erected her on his head in
this her name of Very Great Crown. 137
The Sphinx: A passage such as this is quite impossible
to explain in terms of ordinary human conventions
and values. It certainly bears scant resemblance to
the light, allegorical adventures of later
Mediterranean gods and goddesses. Yet to one
versed in the language of the Egyptian
priesthoods, its meanings are quite clear. If Plato
were an Egyptian initiate, one can see why he
would dismiss conventional means of reductionist
logic as a means for comprehending the Forms.
The Chimæra: We have seen definite evidence of
Pythagorean doctrine in the Platonic writings, and
at the beginning of this discussion we recounted
Plato’s visit to the Pythagorean centers in Italy and
Africa from 399 to 387 BCE. But are there any
grounds to suppose that Plato received direct
initiation at the hands of an Egyptian priesthood?
The Sphinx: There are at least two indications that he
did. First there is the following passage from the
Prefaces of St. Jerome [circa 340-420 CE], placed
by order of Popes Sixtus V [1585-1590] and
Clement VIII [1592-1605] as introduction to the
Bible:
Pythagoras and Plato, those masters of the
genius of Greece, visited as pilgrims seeking
after knowledge and as humble disciples the
sacerdotal college of the soothsayers at
Memphis [ Memphiticos vates], preferring to be
initiated with respect to the ancient doctrines of
137 Piankoff, Alexandre (Ed.), The Tomb of Ramesses VI, page 321.
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that distant land, rather than impose on their
country the yoke of their own ideas. 138
The Chimæra: At the risk of belaboring the point, I
again note that this passage was written prior to
the final destruction of the Alexandrian library and
[possibly] such references to the matter as it may
have contained for scholars of the time.
The Sphinx: For that matter, there may have been other
sources available to St. Jerome which, for one
reason or another, have not survived to the present
day. Our second bit of evidence comes from
Proclus, who states that Plato was initiated in
Egypt over a thirteen-year period by the priests
Patheneitb, Ochoaps, Sechtnouphis, and Etymon
of Sebennithis. 139
The Chimæra: Again we can indulge in a little
detective-work. The names of the first three priests
can be rendered precisely in hieroglyphics; that
argues for their authenticity. [The fourth can be
rendered only approximately and thus is not
conclusive.] The “thirteen-year period” happens to
coincide with the normal training time for an
Egyptian scribe [to achieve full fluency in the
hieroglyphic language]. As for Sebennithis, it was
the seat of the Egyptian government from 378 to
360 BCE
under Nekht-Hor-heb I, first pharaoh of
138 “Taceo de philosophis, astronomis, astrologis, quorum scientia
mortalibus utilissima est, et in tres partes scinditur. to dogma
thnmeqodon, thn empeirian. Ad minores artes veniam,” etc. [A.
Hyeronomi, Prologus galateatus, in Bibl. saer.].
139 Proclus, quoted in Christian, Paul, Histoire de la Magie, du
Monde Surnaturel et de la Fatalité à travers les Temps et les
Peuples, page 88.
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the XXX Dynasty. Hence it would have been both
relatively secure from a political standpoint and a
logical place for Plato to seek Egyptian
initiation. 140
The Sphinx: Talk about last-minute timing! In 340
BCE, after more than four thousand years of native
national rule, Egypt finally fell to a Persian army
[which in turn fell to Alexander the Great in 332].
How sophisticated the Egyptian initiatory systems
remained under purely-occupational governments
is open to question - as would be the willingness of
Egyptian priests to initiate foreigners under such
circumstances. Even Pythagoras’ initiation many
years earlier seems to have occurred only after
some arm-twisting by Amasis, himself a native
Egyptian pharaoh and thus an initiate in his own
right. A Persian or a Ptolemaic ruler would not
have had such leverage over the native
priesthoods, nor the knowledge to judge whether
forced-instruction were in fact genuine. After
Pythagoras and Plato the link with the Egyptian
priesthoods was broken. [This may very well
account for the sharp distinctions between the
Pythagorean/Platonic doctrines - with their
apparent sophistication and seeming uniqueness -
and the decidedly-diluted commentaries (such as
those of Aristotle) which trailed along after them.]
The Chimæra: Having come this far, what may we
conclude concerning Plato’s legacy?
140 Brugsch-Bey, Heinrich, Egypt Under the Pharaohs, pages
450-451.
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The Sphinx: He left two memorials: his writings and his
Academy. The former contain discussions of
Forms [or Egyptian “gods”, if you will!] on an
initiatory level, although they are also useful as
exercises in ordinary logic. The latter was, in
effect, a Pythagorean school minus the strict
personal and psychological discipline that
Pythagoras thought important [and which
contributed directly to the burning of Crotona and
the slaying of Pythagoras himself - by outraged ex-
students who had failed to withstand the
pressure]. Evidently Plato thought that he could
transmit the doctrines in an environment more
suited to Greece than to Egypt. And he was
successful, at least to the extent that the Academy
enjoyed a long and productive existence - and to
the extent that his own writings were preserved for
our consideration at this point in the time-
continuum. He may have failed to provide the
Greece of his own day with the sort of enlightened
government that he might have preferred, but he
had seen Pythagorean domination of Sicily and
Italy come to grief. So perhaps he was not so
anxious as some might suppose to duplicate the
Pythagorean experiment in Greece itself. Whereas
Pythagoras died a violent death and left none of
his personal works for posterity, Plato lived a full
life and left a rich heritage for scholars - and
Initiates - of the future. That, certainly, is
testimony to his wisdom.
The Chimæra: “The secret worship of the logos in the
cosmos, the divine spark in every human form.” 141
141 Incantation, Raghavan Iyer to M.A. Aquino, 1975.
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