Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (42 page)

Eternal Nature's fountain—

This is the knowledge of things in the Divine Mind operating intellectually. From this fountain of Eternal Nature, flows down the Pythagorean numbers One and Two—which from Eternity, in the fountain of the immense Ocean, was, shall be, or rather always is, abundantly streaming. This One was by the Ancients termed
[“Zeus”], Jupiter; Two,
[“Hera”], Juno, wife and sister to Jupiter, of whom writes Homer:

Golden-thron'd Juno, with eyes full of love
Beheld her spouse and brother, sacred Jove,
Sitting on th' top of fount abounding Ide.
⁹⁸⁰

In Ide,
, from “prescience”) Jupiter and Juno sat as one and two—in the streaming idea of the Tetractys, whence flow the principles of all things, Form and Matter.

CHAPTER 4

T
HE
I
NTELLIGIBLE
W
ORLD

T
he Intelligible World proceeds out of the Divine Mind after this manner.
⁹⁸¹
The Tetractys, reflecting upon its own essence as the first unit, productive of all things, and on its own beginning as the first product, says thus. Once one, twice two, immediately arises a Tetrad, having on its top the highest unit. It is a pyramid whose base is a plain Tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity produces the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent of Juno (Matter) to inferior things. Hence arises essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is the creation of the middle world, which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the Deity, admitting no comparison. It is termed Olympus,
, wholly lucid and replete with separate forms—where is the seat of the Immortal gods, whose top is Unity, wall Trinity, superficies Quaternity:

—Deum domus alta
[the high house of the gods]

Number, emanating from the divinity by degrees, declines to the figure of creatures; instead of the Tetractys, a Tetragon. In each of its angles a point, for so many units, the unit at the top, which now begins to have position, elevated as much as is possible. Thus the former sides elevated will be four triangles, built upon their quadrangular latitude, and carried on to one high point. This is the Pyramid itself, the species of fire, of which a Pyramid having four bases and equal angles is compounded.
⁹⁸²
It is the most immovable and penetrant form, without matter essential separate light, next to God sempiternal life.

The work of the Mind is life; the work of God is immortality, eternal life. God himself is not this created light, but the Author of all light, whereof in the divine Trinity He contains a most absolute Pyramid, which implies the vigor of Fire. Whence the Chaldeans and Hebrews affirm that God is Fire. But the Pyramid which this divine Tetractys produces is the fiery light of the immaterial world,
of separate intelligences, beyond the visible Heaven, termed
, age, eternity, aether.

Having overcome these things (says Pythagoras), thou shalt know
, the cohabitation, of the immortal gods, and mortal men. †
⁹⁸³
In which words are implied three properties of this middle world:
Condition, Chorus
, and
Order.
(Pythagoras terms the middle world “free Aether”; free, as being separated from the power of matter; Aether, as receiving ardor from God and heating all inferiors by an insensible motion.)

Condition:
It is replenished with forms, simple, immaterial, separate, both universal and individual, containing all ideations of genus and species. The exemplars are imitated in lesser copies, their original being in the Divine Mind. Thus the world of the Deity is the absolute exemplar: in the intelligible world the abstract example; and in the sensible world, not example but contraction of exemplars, as seal, figure, and sealed wax.

Chorus:
It is the infinite joy of the blessed spirits, their immutable delight, styled by Homer
, inextinguishable laughter.† For what greater pleasure, than to behold the serene aspect of God; and next Him, the ideas and forms of all things, more purely and transparently, than secondarily in created beings? And to communicate these visions to inferiors, the office of the gods called
, from speculation and vision. These are the Angels communicating their visions to others, not that we imagine them equal to the Supreme God who is ineffable. No Daemons, how good soever, are admitted into this chorus: so says Plotinus (the most exact follower of the Pythagorean Mysteries, as Porphyry and Longinus attest). The gods we conceive to be void of passion.
⁹⁸⁴
But to Daemons we adjoin passions, saying they are sempiternal in the next degree after the gods. It is better to call none in the intelligible world Daemon; rather, if a Daemon be placed there, to esteem him a god.

Order:
It is thus explained by Pythagoras. If thou live according to right reason, grieving for what is ill done, and rejoicing in what is well done, and prayest the gods to perfect thy work:

Then stript of flesh, up to free Aether soar,
A deathless god, divine, mortal no more.
⁹⁸⁵

This is the order in the acquisition of man's beatitude. The incorporeal Heaven of the middle world—the invisible Olympus of the blessed—admits nothing impure. Therefore vices are to be shunned and virtues to be embraced. The preservation of men is by the mercies of God. Therefore the Divinity is to be worshipped, and the superior powers to be invoked, that they would perfect our work. Lastly, nothing material, corporeal, or mixed is received there. Therefore we must die, and wholly put off the body, before we can be admitted to the society of the gods.