“The children, Theano… you should save our children,” he urged her with the only reason he knew that would make her abide.
Aristaeus understood then what to do. He shoved her daughter into her arms, kept her son with him, grabbed her by the elbow with his free hand, and darted with them towards the secret exit. Pinned to the floor, his vision blurred, his heart dying, Pythagoras witnessed how his beloved family disappeared through the passage.
A strong blast urged him back to the imminent catastrophe. He realized that the enemy had reached the main gate. The terrible sound as the statue of Hermes-Enoch smashed down on the ground by the entrance, reached him achingly. The bolted gate trembled under the violent assaults. The fierce attempts of the Pythagoreans to hold it did not appease the Master. He knew that it was merely a matter of time before their resistance waned and the gate crashed opened. He quickly summoned some of his top Initiates. They ran to the Temple of the Muses, and scuttled down inside the crypt. There, in safety and secrecy, Pythagoras entrusted the Secret Word to his elite, whom he had honored with the noble name of the Trees of the Garden.
“I’m sending you around the world to continue cultivating the seed of Sophia. You must never forget to nourish it with drops of water, sparks of light, pulses of life and beats of love. Go now, brothers and sisters… Go!”
Complying to his last recommendation, they pledged their most binding and solemn oath of all times:
“I swear by him who has transmitted to our minds The Sacred Four, the Tetraktys, High and Pure, The Root and Source of ever flowing Nature, The Model of the gods.”
In tears, they bid their Master farewell then charged out of the City, and towards their holy mission.
Pythagoras walked out to face his destiny in courage.
Tears, he had none, other than those mixed with the blood of his shattered heart as he contemplated the hungry fire flames licking, then swallowing the main gate. His people retreated, avoiding the blaze that burned everything to ashes. He witnessed in pain the ferocious hatred of his foes storming into the city. He beheld their indescribable rage, savagely exterminating every living person along their way.
His soul endured the excruciating blows his Silent Pythagoreans received in sacrifice to Sophia, as the creatures of darkness struck them blows to the head, pummeled their bodies, and slashed their throats. The clean white robes marring into crimson red as dozens of bodies collapsed to the ground; white doves bleeding away the purity of their lifestyle to a violent and unjust death.
The criminals set the place on fire. The wails of children and women, who had stayed behind, could not impel them to stop the cruelty of their crimes. In pain and revolt, innocence sobbed from the very depth of its essence. Motherhood moaned away its last breath, as the barbaric extermination forged its way through it. Cries ricocheted all around. They echoed among the collapsing walls, on the streets, and between the alleys. As the heat of the attack decreased, lamentations and weeping emerged from the few terrified women left alive, holding to their bosoms the cadavers of their loved ones.
The odious bellows of victory gave Kylon a sense of cowardly reassurance and safety. Only then did he decide to cross the threshold of what had stood, just moments ago, as the stoutest and most forbidden gates to him. Elated, he rode his horse through them then halted abruptly at the hellish sight all around him, which filled him with fascination.
The criminals he had created that past year had succeeded in turning the White City of love and peace into a bloody bath of death and destruction!
Motionless, he contemplated the outcome of his wicked scheme. A great sense of victory filled his being all the way to the depths of his depraved soul. With it, came the scent of fresh blood, torn flesh, and blazing ashes; mixing together the reverberations of triumphant cheers from his army with the moans of the wounded, and the dolorous wails of women and children. What struck him then, with a more acute sensation, was the terror and anguish that suddenly grabbed at his capability to breathe. Akin to the portent of drums, heralding his own damnation, his heart hammered painfully in his chest, blurred his vision, and waned his hearing. Breathless, he watched as his rabble set fire to the Temple of El-Apollo first and the Temple of the Muses next. His own horse whined and startled in revolt. It became difficult to control. Its head snapped left and right. It pulled back. It whined again, louder, and shook feverishly trying to dismount its rider. Kylon grabbed the bridle tight, veered the animal towards the exit, and darted out of the nightmare he himself had generated .
Meanwhile, inside the underground chamber of the Temple of the Muses, Pythagoras and some of his mathematikoi prayed to their God El-Apollo and to the three superior goddesses of the Muses; those who presided over the sciences of Cosmogony, who mastered the art of divination, and managed both concepts of life and death. They also handled the spirits of the au-delà and their reincarnations. The prayers were in preparation for their final passage into another existence.
A thunderous blast shook the foundation of the Temple where they stood. An earsplitting sound reverberated back to them.
“The Temple!” someone yelled in dread.
Pythagoras dashed forward. His group rushed behind him. They scuttled up the spiral stairs. They penetrated the hall of the Temple. Horror brought them to a brutal standstill. The fires of hell reigned in fury.
A huge piece of wood crashed on fire at their feet. They jumped backward, awakened from their shock. Quickly, they snatched their cloaks from their shoulders, and tried in frenzied despair to subdue the flames around them. In no time, their tunics had caught on fire, so had their hair and beards. The smell of burnt flesh soared. Cries of agony spawned. The flames engulfed them.
Pythagoras sobbed faintly as he whispered in the smoky air that he breathed in for the last time:
“I’m the one,
standing on the throne of Sophia,
a son of man.
I leave the Earth
and return to myself
before I fly to the Great One.”
He then collapsed. The flames consumed him in a flash. His Psyche, his Subtle Chariot, lifted his spirit up in resurrection. It soared high above, free, towards the Father of Life and into the Heart of the Central Fire… into the Great Light[45]!
Down on Earth, the aftermath of greed and envy prevailed throughout the White City. A carcass of black stones, and smoldered wood, miserably subsisted to claim the last vestiges of an empire built from love in purity, and consumed by fire in odium. The thick black smoke forged ahead, and spread thicker and thicker to pollute the air, and diffuse a venomous stench all over the region, and far beyond it. The flora bent in sorrow then perished. The greenery yielded to its extermination, not without shrieks. The Cedars lifted their burning arms in prayers of sacrifice. The birds fled far away to grieve in silence the annihilation of their heaven on earth.
And high above in the sky, a white eagle soared and glided for a long while, witnessing, in protest, the extermination of the City of a god…
Appendix
Many years after the massacre, the Pythagoreans continued to spread all around Magna Graecia. They resided mostly in the major cities of Tarentum, Metapontium, Rhegium, and Sicily. Their persecution persisted wherever they went, being a minority. In order to recognize each other, they adopted secret handshakes, signs, and passwords.
At a later stage, some Pythagorean families returned to their native city of Crotona. There, the authorities allowed them to settle down under the strict condition that they would not practice politics at all. Reunited once again, even if in small numbers, they convened in secret at the same diminished hill where the White City once stood in all its majesty.
Aristaeus of Crotona, who had best endorsed and understood the Pythagorean teachings in their entirety, led the Society. Theano[46], on the other hand, assumed the guidance of the Pythagorean women. Her daughter Damo took charge of the young girls. Taught and guided by both her mother and Aristaeus, Damo grew to treasure the se
cret writings of her father, the Great Master. She later married Meno the Crotoniate, and earned the first place as a philosopher at the altar of life. As for Telauges, the son of Pythagoras, he evolved into one of the best Masters of his time. He was the one who initiated Empedokles into the Pythagorean Doctrine.[47]
Without a doubt, the Pythagorean Society expanded to a significant extent after the terrible death of the Philosopher. Unfortunately though, the Society later split into many diverse, and yet important factions. Such divisions encompassed the scientific, spiritual-religious, and political fields.
Around 460 BCE, the Society endured another fierce suppression that burned all its meetinghouses into ashes. That happened while some fifty to sixty Pythagoreans held a top-secret meeting in the House of Milo of Crotona, in that city. Assassins attacked them unexpectedly and killed many of them. Those who survived the ferocious attack fled to Thebes in Greece, and to other places throughout the Mediterranean World.
These brutal acts and persecutions failed to destroy the will and faith of the Pythagoreans. The Order subsisted for many years and functioned significantly well in fact. Among the distinguished Pythagoreans, emerged the notorious names of Archytas and Philolaos, both natives of the city of Tarentum. However, sometime around the third century BCE, the Pythagorean Society ceased to exist again, and for a long while.
At the beginning of the Roman Empire, around the first century CE, the Pythagoreans resurrected once more, like the invincible Phoenix, and succeeded in regaining their power. Yet, with time, they strove to maintain their position and status within the Empire. When the Emperor Constantine decreed Christianity as the official, and only, religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, the Pythagoreans became an unwelcome minority.
Nevertheless, through the consecutive ages, ever since the Pythagorean Order started, it succeeded in influencing a large mass of people. Among them, many became famous philosophers like Plato and his Academy, Apollonius of Tyana, Plotinus and his small circle, Nicomachus of Gerasa, Moderatus, Numenius of Apamea, Kronius, Thrasyllus, Porphyry of Sur (Tyre), Iamblichus of Chalcis (Anjar), Ammonius Saccas and his group, and many others.
Truth be told, Pythagoras has marked humanity to a significant extent. His adepts and followers left their spiritual and social impact on several other sects, and religious societies, that flourished around the Mediterranean Sea.
The Essenes (from Asayas, healers) appeared sometime around the fourth and third centuries BCE at Mt. Carmel, and through a major part of Galilee, if not all of it. Entirely different from the Qumran Community of the Dead Sea, the Asayas assumed a lifestyle similar to the way of life of the Pythagoreans. They shared their goods, prayed at sunrise, practiced silence, wore white linen tunics, and treasured the Mysteries well.
Jesus Christ was their ultimate revelation.
The Therapeuts, those healers who lived like hermits in secluded groups through the deserts of Egypt, presented, as well, the same Pythagorean influence.
Strangely though, the religious community of the Druses, that lives to-date in Mount Lebanon, and in some parts of the Middle East, endorses a particular occult doctrine in which Pythagoras stands as one of their Seven Sages!
Likewise, comes hitherto one of the most enigmatic and problematic secret societies of all times; the brotherhood of the Freemasons. Similar to the other sects, influenced by the Pythagorean doctrine, they have adopted many of its ways and concepts. To date, Pythagoras embodies their Peter Gowar who is greatly honored within their higher degrees.
At any rate, the Pythagorean teachings continued to infuse the Mediterranean World for hundreds of years after Jesus Christ, and until the early Middle Ages. Sometime around the sixth century CE, the Society and its concepts endured another strict prohibition, until around the mid European Renaissance when the Pythagoreans resurfaced, once more. Later on, it reemerged as a completely esoteric system.
If truth is to be told, humanity owes Pythagoras a great deal of Knowledge, and in many different fields. He stands as the organizer of spiritual laws, as a pioneer in mathematics, both in its exoteric system with the Theorem of Pythagoras, and the esoteric one with his Theology of Numbers. In Astronomy through his Heliocentric System; in Music for his Invention of the Monochord; in the Organization of the Perfect City with its innovative Social structure, and finally, in Philosophy!
Pythagoras strongly believed that Philosophy could undeniably shed some light on our most pressing life queries, and certainly shape us to become Lovers of Wisdom, as he had once been. He is, indeed, one of those very rare prophets who made us realize that our sole purpose in life, and our very last end, is to become like God.
In all truth, the Doctrine and Philosophy of the Mathemagician are well and alive to this very day and… they shall never die!
There are men and gods,
and beings like Pythagoras.
(The Pythagoreans)
Bibliography
English
- Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor, Printed in Great Britain by the Haycock Press Ltd, London, 1965.
- Gorman Peter, Pythagoras a Life, First published in 1979 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, Printed in Great Britain by Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd.
- Strohmeier John & Westbrook Peter, Divine Harmony - The life and teachings of Pythagoras, Berkeley Hills Books, California, 1999, 2003.
- Russell Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy, A touchstone book, published by Simon & Shuster, Inc. 1972. Printed by Murray Printing Co, Forge Village, Mass, NY, USA.
- Hastings James (Edited by), Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Printed in Great Britain by Morrison and Gibb Limited, T&T. Clark, Edinburgh, London, 1930, Volume X.
- Herodotus, The Histories, Printed in the United States of America, Published by Barnes & Noble Books, 2005, New York, USA.
- Davies Paul, The Mind of God, First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster LTD, 1992.
- Blavatsky H.P, Isis Unveiled, Printed in the United States of America by Versa Press, First Quest Edition, 1993, Volume I & II.
- Blavatsky H.P, The Secret Doctrine, Printed in the United States of America by Versa Press, First Quest Edition, 1993, Volume I, II, & III.
French
- Laerce Diogene, Vie, Doctrines et Sentences des Philosophes Illustres, Tome 2, Traduction, notice et notes par Robert Genaille, GARNIER FRERES, Flammarion, Paris, 1965.
- Schure Edouard, Les Grands Initiés, Rama-Krishna-Hermès-Moise-Orphée-Pythagore-Platon-Jésus, Librarie Académique Perrin, 1960 et 1997, pour la présente édition.
- Mattei Jean-François, Pythagore et les Pythagoriciens, Editions Que sais-je? Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1993,1996.
- Saint-Michel Leonard, Pythagore Les Vers d’Or, Éditions ADYAR, Paris, 1995.
- Gobry Ivan, Pythagore ou la naissance de la philosophie, Editions Seghers, Paris, 1973.
- Ghyka Matila C., Le Nombre D’or, Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1976.
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[1] It is said that Mnesarchus, father of Pythagoras, was a merchant from the Samos Island in the Aegean Sea; center of Phoenician commerce. The name Samos probably derived from the Phoenician word ‘Shamos’ (Shamas or Sun). In the same line of discovery, the Aegean, a Phoenician civilization, was the base of the Grecian civilization, as claimed by many historians. Thus, Mnesarchus would be of Phoenician roots. Our ancestors conveyed to us that Mnesarchus was born in Sur (Tyre). Neanthes, one of the early sources, claimed that Mnesarchus was Tyrian by birth, thus, not a Tyrrhenian; as some have also suggested in an attempt to tarnish the truth.
[2] The Murex is a sea snail found only on the Phoenician coasts.
[3] It is said that the word Britain comes from the term Prutani, given to the Celts by the Romans. We, however, believe that the Phoenicians gave to Britain the name Bar-Tanak, meaning the Land of Tin. History and Archeology reveal that Britain was the Phoenician secret reservoir of tin they used to trade or bring ho
me.
[4] The establishment of the port of Marseilles in France was for long credited to the Phocaeans, a people of Asia Minor, of the Ionic civilization and the port Massilia was called as such from the 6th century BCE. However, we believe that the Phoenicians founded it nearly at that time and called it Marsa-El, which means the Docking of the Phoenician ships of El!
[5] The name of the European Continent, Europe, derives undoubtedly from Europa, the daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre. Legend says that her brother Kadmus went searching for her in Greece after she was kidnapped by Zeus, the most High God of the Grecian world. During the many years of his search, Kadmus introduced the Phoenician Alphabet to the Greeks and founded many cities; the most famous among them was Thebes.
[6] According to Diogenes Laertius and many other historians, Thales was the son of Examios, a Phoenician, descending directly from the lineage of Agenor, king of Tyre and the Father of Kadmus. Thales later left Phoenicia, migrating to Miletus, where he became a citizen.
[7] Pherecydes was born in the island of Syros, a Phoenician settlement in the Aegean Sea. Diogenes Laertius affirmed that he was not only the maternal uncle of Pythagoras but his Master as well. Iamblichus, however, mentioned him as Pherecydes the Syrian, but, at the time of Pherecydes, the name Syria was not used at all and not even known. Iamblichus surely meant Pherecydes the Phoenician.
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