Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (14 page)

CHAPTER 3

P
URIFICATORY
I
NSTITUTION BY
S
UFFERINGS

T
he chief goal that Pythagoras proposed was to deliver and free the mind from the engagements and fetters in which it is confined from her first infancy. Without which freedom, none can learn anything sound or true, nor can perceive by what that which is unsound in sense operates.
²⁸⁴
For the mind (according to him) sees all, and hears all; the rest are deaf and blind.

This he performed by many exercises which he appointed for purification of the mind, and for the probation of such as came to him, which endured five years before they were admitted.

If upon this examination (which we declared) he judged any person capable, he then remitted him for three years to be despised, making a test of his constancy and true love to learning, and whether he were sufficiently instructed as to despise glory, to condemn honor, and the like.
²⁸⁵

He conceived it, in general, requisite that they should take much labor and pains for the acquisition of arts and sciences. To that end he appointed for them some torments of cauterizing and incision, to be performed by fire and steel, which none that were of an ill inclination would undergo.
²⁸⁶

CHAPTER 4

S
ILENCE

M
oreover, he imposed upon those that came to him silence for five years, making trial how firmly they would behave themselves in the most difficult of all contingencies; for such is the government of the tongue, as is manifest from those who have divulged mysteries.
²⁸⁷

This
a quinquennial silence,† was called
[“restraining speech”], and sometimes, but less frequently,
[“keeping silent”],
from keeping our speech within ourselves.†
²⁸⁸

The reason for this silence was that the soul might be converted into herself and away from external things—from the irrational passions in her, and from the body, even unto her own life, which is to live forever.
²⁸⁹
Or as Clement of Alexandria expresses it, that his disciples, being diverted from sensible things, might seek God with a pure mind.
²⁹⁰
Hence Lucian, to the demand how Pythagoras could reduce men to the remembrance of the things which they had formerly known (for he held science to be only reminiscence), makes him answer, “First, by long quiet and silence, speaking nothing for five whole years.”
²⁹¹

Yet Aulus Gellius affirms that he appointed not the same length of silence to all, but different periods to several persons according to their particular capacities.
²⁹²
And Apuleius says that for the graver sort of persons this taciturnity was moderated by a shorter space; but the more talkative were punished, as it were, by exile from speech five years.

He who kept silence heard what was said by others, but was not allowed either to question, if he understood not, or to write down what he heard.
²⁹³
None kept silence less than two years. Agellius adds that those within the time of silence and hearing were called
Acoustici.
But when they had learned these things (the most difficult of all to hold their peace and to hear) and were now grown learned in silence, which they called
[“restraining speech”]—then they were allowed to speak, and to question, and to write what they heard and what they conceived. At this time they were called
Mathematici
, from those arts which they then began to learn and to mediate. Thus says Agellus, although how rightly I question. For
Mathematici
and
Acousmatici
were distinctive appellations of the Pythagoreans, not in probation but after admission, as we shall see hereafter.

Thus Apuleius says Pythagoras taught nothing to his disciples before silence. And that the first meditation for one who meant to become a wise man was wholly to refrain the tongue of words—those words which the poets call “winged,” to pluck off the feathers and to confine them within the walls of our teeth.
²⁹⁴
This was the first rudiment of wisdom, to learn to meditate, and to unlearn to talk.

CHAPTER 5

A
BSTINENCE
, T
EMPERANCE
,
AND
O
THER
W
AYS OF
P
URIFICATION

M
oreover, he commanded them to abstain from all foods that had life, and from certain other meats also which obstruct the clearness of the understanding.
²⁹⁵
And for the same end (viz. in order to aid the inquisition and apprehension of the most difficult theorems), he likewise commanded them to abstain from wine; to eat little; to sleep little; to show a careless contempt of honor, riches, and the like; to offer an unfeigned respect towards kindred—sincere equality and kindness towards such as were of the same age, and a propensity to further the younger without envy.

In fine, he procured to his disciples a conversation with the gods by visions and dreams—which never happen to a soul disturbed with anger or pleasure, or any other unbefitting transportation, or with impurity, or rigid ignorance.
²⁹⁶
He cleansed and purified the soul divinely from all these; and enkindled the divine part in her and preserved her; and directed in her that intellectual divine eye which is better, as Plato says, than a thousand eyes of flesh. For by the help of this only, truth is apprehended.
²⁹⁷
After this manner he procured purification of the intellect. And such was his form of institution as to those things.

Diodorus says they had an exercise of temperance that worked in the following manner.
²⁹⁸
There being prepared and set before them all sorts of delicate food, they looked upon it a good while; and after their appetites were fully provoked by the sight thereof, they commanded it to be taken off and given to the servants.
²⁹⁹
They themselves went away without dining. This they did, says Iamblichus, to punish their appetite.

CHAPTER 6

C
OMMUNITY OF
E
STATES

I
n this time, all that they had (that is their whole estate) was made common, that is, put together communally.
³⁰⁰
They brought forth, says Aulus Gellius, whatsoever they had of stock or money and constituted an inseparable society, as being that ancient way of association which truly is termed
[“life in community”].
³⁰¹
This was given up to such of the disciples as were appointed for that purpose. These were called
Politici
and
Economici
, as being persons fit to govern a family and to give laws.

This was conformable to the precepts of Pythagoras (as Timeus affirms): first
all common amongst friends; and
friendship, equality;
³⁰²
and, esteem nothing your own. By this means he exterminated all propriety and increased community even to their last possessions. He sought thus to eliminate possessions as a cause of dissension and trouble; for, since all things were common amongst them, no man had a propriety to anything.
³⁰³

But what Aulus Gellius terms an “inseparable society” is to be understood only conditionally. If someone misliked this community, he took again his own estate, and more than that which he brought into the community, and departed.
³⁰⁴