Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources
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Smelling judges of odors, good and ill and the four between them: putrid, humid, liquid, vaporous.840
Taste judges of flavors, sweet, bitter, and the five between them. For they are in all seven: sweet, bitter, sharp, acid, fresh, salt, hot.
Touching judges many things: heavy, light, and those that are between them; hot, cold, and those that are between them; hard, soft, and those that are between them; dry, moist, and those that are between them. The other four senses are seated in the head only and confined to their proper organs. But touching is diffused through the head, and the whole body. It is common to every sense, but exhibits its judgment most manifestly by the hands.
CHAPTER 4
OF THE RATIONAL PART OF THE SOUL: THE MIND
According to Plutarch, Pythagoras defined the soul as, “A self-moving number,” adding that he takes number to be the same as a mind.841 The mind, is induced into the soul ab extrinseco, from without, by divine participation842 culled out as a small part of the universal Divine Mind.843 For there is a soul intent and penetrating in all directions through the whole nature of things844 from which our souls are plucked.845 She is immortal, because that from which she is taken is immortal, yet not a god—but the work of the eternal God.846 Thus Pythagoras confirmed the opinion of his master Pherecides, who first taught that the souls of men are sempiternal.
Our Souls (said he) consist of a tetrad: mind, science, opinion, sense. From this tetrad proceeds all art and science by which we ourselves are rational.847 The mind therefore is a monad, for the mind considers according to a monad. By way of example, there are many men. These, one by one, are incomprehensible by sense and innumerable. But we understand this one man to which none has resemblance. And we understand one horse, for the particulars are innumerable. Thus every genus and species is according to monad, wherefore to everyone in particular they apply this definition—whether a rational creature or a neighing creature. Hence is the mind a monad, whereby we understand these things. The indeterminate duad is science. For all demonstration, and all belief of science, and likewise all syllogism from some things granted, infer that which is doubted. And they easily demonstrate another thing, the comprehension whereof is science. Therefore it is as the duad. Opinion is justly a triad, being of many. Triad implies a multitude, as, thrice happy Greeks—(The rest of the text is wanting.)
The Pythagoreans assert eight organs of knowledge: Sense, Phantasie, Art, Opinion, Prudence, Science, Wisdom, Mind.848 Of these, we have in common with divine natures, art, prudence, science, mind. With beasts we share sense and Phantasie. Only opinion is proper to us. Sense is a deceitful knowledge through the body; Phantasie, a motion in the soul; art, a habit of operating with reason. We add, “with reason,” for a spider also operates, but without reason. Prudence is a habit elective of that which is right in things to be done. Science is a habit of those things which are always the same and in the same manner. Wisdom is a knowledge of the First Cause. Mind is the principle and fountain of all good things.
CHAPTER 5
OF THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL
What he delivered to his auditors (says Porphyry) none can certainly affirm, for there was a great and strict silence observed amongst them.849 But the most known are these: First, he said that the soul is immortal; then, that it enters into other kinds of living creatures. (Or, as Laertius expresses it: He first asserted that the soul, passing through the circle of necessity, lives as several times in different living creatures.)850 Moreover, that after some periods, the same things that are now generated are generated again; that nothing is simply new. And that we ought to esteem all animate creatures to be of the same kind with us.
These doctrines Pythagoras seems to have brought first into Greece. Diodorus Siculus affirms, he learned them of the Egyptians.851 They were the first who asserted that the soul of man is immortal, and the body perishing, it always passes into another body. And when it has run through all things terrestrial, marine, volatile, it again enters into some generated human body. This circuit is completed in three thousand years. This opinion (adds Herodotus) some of the Greeks have usurped as their own—some more ancient, others later—whose names knowingly I omit.852
Pythagoras (says Theodoret), Plato, Plotinus, and the rest of that sect acknowledged souls to be immortal. They asserted that souls are preexistent to bodies, and that there is an innumerable company of souls. Those which transgress are sent down into bodies, so as being purified by such discipline, they may return to their own place. Those which while they are in bodies lead a wicked life, are sent down farther into irrational creatures, hereby to receive punishment and right expiation: the angry and malicious into serpents, the ravenous into wolves, the audacious into lions, the fraudulent into foxes, and the like.
Upon this ground (as some conceive) it was that he forbade to eat flesh.853 For we ought to esteem all animals creatures to be of the same kind with us,854 and to have common right with us, and to be allied (in a manner) to us.855 Whence a bean is by Horace styled cognata Pythagorae, because he forbade it to be eaten upon the grounds that men and beans arose out of the same putrefaction.856
This assertion he defended by many instances, particularly of himself. Heraclides relates the following.857 Pythagoras said he had been in former times Aethalides, esteemed the son of Mercury. (Aethalides was a powerful orator who wrote two treatises, the one mournful, the other pleasant.858 Like Democritus and Heraclitus, he bewailed and derided the instability of life, and was said to die and live from day to day.) Pythagoras related that Mercury bade him (as Aethalides) request whatsoever he would, immortality only excepted. He desired that he might preserve the remembrance of all actions, alive and dead. Whereupon he remembered all things while he lived, and after death, retained the same memory. That afterwards he came to be Euphorbus and was slain by Menelaus.
Now Euphorbus said that he had been in former times Aethalides, and that he had received this gift from Mercury: to know the migration of the soul as it passed from one body to another; and into what plants and animals it migrated; and what thing his soul suffered after death; and what other souls suffered. Euphorbus dying, his soul passed into Hermotimus. Now Hermotimus, desiring to profess who he was, went to the Branchidae. Coming into the Temple of Apollo, he pointed to the shield which Menelaus had hung up there. He said, that upon his return from Troy, he had dedicated that shield to Apollo, it being then old, and nothing remaining but the Ivory stock. (But Porphyry and Iamblichus affirm it was dedicated, together with other Trojan spoils, to Argive Iano in her Temple at Mycenae.)
As soon as Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and again remembered all things: how he had been first Aethalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and lastly Pyrrhus. When Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and remembered all that we have said.
Others relate that he said he had been first Euphorbus; secondly, Aethalides; thirdly, Hermotimus; fourthly, Pyrrhus; and lastly, Pythagoras.859 Clearchus and Dicaearchus said that he had been first Euphorbus; then Pyrander; then Calliclea; then a beautiful courtesan, named Alce.860 For this reason, of all Homer's verses he did especially praise these, and set them to the harp, and often repeated them as his own funeral ode.
As by some hand, a tender Olive set
In a lone place, near a smooth Rivolet:
Fair she shoots up, and, fan'd on every side
By amorous winds, displays her blooming pride;
Until some churlish unexpected gust
Plows up her root, and buries her in dust.
So by Alcides slain Euphorbus lay,
Stretch'd on the ground, his Arms the Victor's prey.
Hence in his person, Ovid.861
O you, whom horrors of cold death affright,
Why fear you Styx? vain names, and endless night,
The dreams of Poets, and feign'd miseries
Of forged Hell? Whether last-flames surprise,
Or age devours your bodies; they nor grieve,
; Nor suffer pains. Our souls for ever live:
Yet evermore their ancient houses leave
To live in new, which them, as guests receive.
In Trojan Wars, I (I remember well)
Euphorbus was, Pantheus son, and fell
By Menelaus Lance: my shield again
At Argos late I saw in Juno's fane.
All alter, nothing finally decays;
Hither and thither still the spirit strays,
Guest to all bodies, out of beasts it flys
To men, from men to beasts, and never dies.
As pliant wax each new impression takes,
Fixed to no form, but still the old forsakes,
Yet is the same: so souls the same abide,
Though various species their reception hide.
Then lest thy greedy belly should destroy
(I prophesy) depressed piety,
For bear t'expulse thy kindreds Ghosts with food
By death procur'd, nor nourish blood with blood.862
Neither did he instance himself only, but put many others also in mind of the accidents of their former life: how they had lived before their souls were confined the second time to the body.863 This he did (adds Porphyry864) to those whose souls were rightly purified, such was Millias of Crotona, whom he caused to call to memory, that he had been Midas son of Gordias. Whereupon Millias went to Epire to perform some Funeral rites as he appointed.865
CHAPTER 6
THE SEPARATE LIFE OF THE SOUL
The soul has a twofold life: separate from, and within the body. Her faculties are otherwise in anima, otherwise in animali.866
The soul is incorruptible; for when it goes out of the body, it goes to the soul of the world which is of the same kind.867
When she goes out upon the earth, she walks in the air like a body.868 Mercury is the keeper of souls and for that reason is called called [“the Escorter”], and [“the keeper of the gate”], and [“of the underworld”], because he brings souls out of bodies in the earth and the sea—of which those that are pure he leads into a high place. The impure come not to them, nor to one another, but are bound by the Furies in indissoluble chains.
The Pythagoreans affirmed that the souls of the dead neither cast a shadow, nor wink; for that it is the Sun which causes the shadow.869 But he who enters there is by the law of the place deprived of the Sun's light, which they signify in that speech.
Pythagoras held that earthquakes proceed from no other cause but the meeting of the dead.870
MEDICINE
To physic we shall annex, as its immediate consequent, medicine. Apuleius affirms that Pythagoras learned the remedies and cures of diseases from the Chaldeans.871 Laertius, that he neglected not medicine.872 Aelian, that he studied it accurately.873 Iamblichus, that the Pythagoreans esteem it not the least of the sciences.874 Lastly, Diogenes relates of Pythagoras that whenever his friends fell into any indisposition of body, he cured them.875
Health Pythagoras defined as the consistence of a form. Sickness, the violation of it.876
CHAPTER 1
DIETETICS
Of medicine, the Pythagoreans chiefly applied themselves to the Dietetic part, and were most exact in that. They endeavored first to understand the proportion, not only of labor, but likewise of food and rest.877 Then concerning the dressing of such meats, they were almost the first who endeavored to comment and to define.
Forasmuch as diet does much conduce to good institution, being wholesome and regular, let us examine what he decreed therein. Of meats, he absolutely disallowed such as are flatulent and disorder the body. On the contrary, he approved and commanded those which confirm and unite the constitution—whence he judged millets to be a convenient food.
But he also wholly forbade such meats as are not used by the gods, because they separate us from the correspondence which we have with them.
Likewise he advised to abstain from such meats as are esteemed sacred, which deserve a respect, and are nothing convenient for the ordinary use of man.
Whatsoever meats obstructed divination, or were prejudicial to the purity and sanctity of the mind, or to temperance and habitual virtue, he advised to shun. As also those which are contrary to purity, and defile the Imaginations which occur in sleep, and the other purities of the soul, he rejected and avoided.878
These rules concerning diet he prescribed generally to all persons, but more particularly to philosophers who are most addicted to contemplation of the sublimest things.879 He denied at once all superfluous meats as were unlawful to be eaten, not permitting them at any time to feed on that which had life, or to drink wine, or to sacrifice to the gods any living creature, or hurt any of them. But he commanded with all exactness to preserve the justice which belongs even to them. In this manner he lived himself, abstaining from the flesh of living creatures, and worshipping unbloody altars. He took care that others should not put tame beasts to death. And himself making the savage tame, and moderating and instituting them both by words and actions; but by no means would he punish or kill them.
He likewise commanded civil lawgivers to abstain from the flesh of living creatures, because it behooved them—who would make use of the height of justice—no way to injure living creatures which are of affinity with us. For how can they persuade other men to do just things, who themselves are transported by avarice to feed on living creatures—which are of affinity with us; allied in a manner to us; and, through the community of life, consisting of the temperament and commixture of the same elements.880
But to others whose life was not extraordinary pure, sacred, and philosophical, he prescribed a certain time for abstinence.881 To those he decreed that they should not eat the heart, and that they should not eat the brain. And these are prohibited to all Pythagoreans: for they are leaders, and, as it were, seats and houses of wisdom and life. But these were consecrated by the nature of the divine word.
In like manner he prohibited mallows, as being the first messenger and interpreter of celestial affections, and (as I may say) compassions towards men.
Likewise he commanded to abstain from the melanure (a fish so called from the blackness of its tail) because it is peculiar to the terrestrial deities.
He forbade also the Erythrine for the like reasons.
Also to abstain from beans, for many reasons divine and natural, referring to the soul.
The Pythagoreans at dinner used bread and honey.882 Wine they drank not between meals. At supper, wine, and grain, and bread, and broth, and herbs, both raw and boiled. They likewise set before them the flesh of sacrificed beasts. They seldom ate broths of fish, because some of them are in some respects very hurtful. Likewise seldom the flesh of such creatures as do not hurt mankind.
As concerning the diet of Pythagoras himself,883 his dinner consisted of honeycombs or honey; his supper of bread made of millet. He ate bread with a relish or spread made of boiled or raw salads, very seldom of the flesh of sacrificed victims (and that not promiscuously of every part), and seldom of seafish.884
When he chose to go into the private places of the gods and to stay there a while, he used for the most part such meats as expelled hunger and thirst. For the expelling of hunger, he made a composition of the seed poppy, sesame, and the skin of the sea-onion—well-washed till it was quite drained of the outward juice; of the flowers of the daffadil, and the leaves of mallows, of barley and pea. Of all these, taking an equal weight, and chopping them small, he made up into a mass with Hymettian honey. Against thirst, he took of the seeds of cucumbers, and the fullest dried raisins (taking out the kernels), and the flower of coriander, and the seeds of mallows, and purselain, and scraped cheese, meal and cream; these he mixed up with wild honey.885 This diet he said was taught to Hercules by Ceres when he was sent into the Lybian deserts.886
CHAPTER 2
THERAPEUTIC
The Therapeutic part Pythagoras practiced by Poultices, Charms, and Music. The Pythagoreans (says Iamblichus) treated chiefly by poultices; but p
otions they less esteemed. And of those they used only such as were proper against ulcerations; but incision, and cauterizing they absolutely disallowed.
Magical Herbs, says Pliny, were first celebrated in our part of the world by Pythagoras, following the Magi.887 He first wrote a treatise on their virtues, assigning the invention and original to Apollo and Aesculapius, Immortal gods.
By Coriacesia and Callicia, says Pliny, Pythagoras affirms that water will be turned into ice. I find in others no more concerning this.888
He likewise speaks of Menais, which he also calls by another name “Corinthas.” The juice whereof boiled in water, he says, immediately cures the biting of serpents when treating with moist heat the part therewith. The same juice being spilt upon the grass, they who tread upon it, or are besprinkled therewith, die irrecoverably: a strange nature of poison except against poison.889
There is an herb that Pythagoras called “Aproxis,” the root whereof takes fire at distance, as does naptha, of which says Pliny, we have spoken in the wonders of the Earth.890 The same Pythagoras relates: that if any disease shall happen to men when the Aproxis is in its flower, although they be cured, yet shall they constantly have some grudging thereof as often as it blows; and wheat, and hemlock, and violet, have the same quality. “I am not ignorant,” adds Pliny, “that this book is by some ascribed to Cleemporus, the physician. But pertinacious fame and antiquity vindicate it to Pythagoras.”
Pythagoras wrote also one volume concerning the sea onion, collecting the medicinal properties thereof, which Pliny professes to have taken from him.891 And again, Pliny says Pythagoras affirms that a sea-onion, hung over the threshold of the gate, hinders all ill medicaments from entering the house.
Likewise, coleworts (as Pliny relates) were much commended by Pythagoras.892 He adds that concerning the white kind of the Eringo (by the Romans called centum-capita), there are many vanities delivered, not only by the Magi, but by the Pythagoreans.893