Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (27 page)

CHAPTER 3

T
HE
I
NTERVALS AND
H
ARMONY OF THE
S
PHERES

P
ythagoras (says Censorinus) asserted that this whole world is made according to musical proportion; and that the seven planets between Heaven and the Earth, which govern the nativities of mortals, have a harmonious motion. And they have Intervals correspondent to musical Diastemes, and render various sounds according to their several heights so consonant that they make most sweet melody. But to us these sounds are inaudible by reason of the greatness of the noise, which the narrow passage of our ears is not capable to receive.
⁶⁷⁶

For as Eratosthenes determined that the largest circumference of the Earth is 252,000 stadia; so Pythagoras declared how many stadia there are between the Earth and every star. In this measure of the world, we are to understand the Italic
stadium
, which consists of 625 feet. (For there are others of a different length, such as the Olympic of 600 feet, and the Pythic of 500.) From the Earth therefore to the Moon, Pythagoras conceived to be about 12,600 stadia. And that distance, according to musical proportion, is a tone. From the Moon to Mercury (who is called
[“twinkling”]) half as
much, as it were a hemitone. From thence to Phosphorus, which is the star Venus, almost as much, that is, another hemitone. From thence to the Sun, twice as much, as it were a tone and a half. Thus the Sun is distant from the Earth three tones and a half, which is called diapente; from the Moon, two and a half, which is diatessaron. From the Sun to Mars, who is called
[“Fire”], there is the same interval as from Earth to the Moon, which makes a tone; from thence to Jupiter, who is called
[“radiant”], half as much, which makes a hemitone. From there to the Supreme Heaven where the signs are is a hemitone also. So that the diasteme from the Supreme Heaven to the Sun is diatessaron, that is, two tones and a half: from the same Heaven to the top of the Earth six tones, a diapason concord. Moreover he referred to other stars many things which the masters of music treat of, and showed that all this world is Enharmonic. Thus Censorinus. But Pliny, delivering this opinion of Pythagoras, reckons seven tones from the Earth to the Supreme Heaven; for whereas Censorinus accounts for a hemitone from Saturn to the Zodiac, Pliny makes it sesquiduple.
⁶⁷⁷

Intervals and harmony of the spheres From Thomas Stanley, The History of Philosophy (slightly modified)

CHAPTER 4

O
F THE
P
LANET
V
ENUS

N
ext to the Sun (says Pliny), there is a great star called Venus, alternately errant in names, emulating both the Sun and Moon.
⁶⁷⁸
For presenting and rising before morning, he takes the name of Lucifer, as another Sun bringing on day. On the other side shining at Sunset, it is called Vesper, as suspending light and performing the office of the Moon. This is its nature, which Pythagoras the Samian first found out about the forty-second Olympiad [ca. 608
B.C.
], which was of Rome the 147th year. In magnitude, Venus exceeds all the other stars, and is of so great splendor that this star only casts a shadow. Whence it has a diversity of names: some call it Juno; others, Isis; others, Mother of the gods. By the nature hereof, all things are generated upon Earth. For at rising, it scatters prolific dew, supplying not only the conceptions of Earth, but likewise stimulating all living creatures. It performs the revolution of the Zodiac in 348 days, never receding from the Sun more than forty-six parts, according to Timaeus. Thus Pliny.

That there is a mistake in the time has been already shown; but the thing itself is confirmed by Laertius, who affirms Pythagoras first said that Vesper and Lucifer are the same star. Yet elsewhere Laertius adds that some ascribe this to Parmenides. But that it was a doctrine of the Pythagoreans, appears from this account given by Timaeus. The star Juno many call Venus and Lucifer. All person are not skillful in the rules of sacred Astronomy, and in the sciences of rising and setting. For the same star is sometimes
Hesper
when it follows the Sun in such manner that it is conspicuous to us when the Sun is set; and sometimes
Eous
when it goes before the Sun and rises before Sun-rising.

Section II: Philosophy

P
HILOSOPHY
, I
TS
N
AME
, D
EFINITION
, P
ARTS
, M
ETHOD

T
he Pythagoreans, being adorned with these studies of Science, from thence ascended to perfect the Works of the World and the Principles of Nature.
⁶⁷⁹

Pythagoras first gave the name to Philosophy defining it as, “A longing and love of wisdom.”
⁶⁸⁰
Wisdom is the science of truth in things that are. Things that are, he called
immaterials, eternals
, and
sole agents
, which are the
incoporeals;
the rest are equivocally called such by participation with these: viz.
corporeals, materials
, and
corruptibles
, which indeed are not.

Now wisdom is the science of those things which are, but not of those which are equivocally. For corporeals are not capable of being taught, nor admit certain knowledge, being infinite and not comprehensible by science. And things which (as it were) are not—according to the difference of all things—neither can be rightly described by any definition. Of those whose nature is such as that they cannot be known, it is impossible to frame a science. Wherefore neither is it likely that there can be a love of a science which is not. But rather of that which is conversant about those things which properly are, and continue always the same, and are like themselves, and co-exist always with a true appellation—upon the knowledge of these follows that which is of equivocal things (though not sought after), as the science of particulars follows the science of universals. For as Archytas says, “They who know universals well, will plainly see what particulars are.”

Wherefore things that are, are not of one kind only and simply, but of many and various kinds—intelligibles and incorporeals, whose appellation is
, “things that are.” Corporeal things, subject to sense, are those which exist by participation of those that are. Concerning all these, he delivered most proper sciences, leaving nothing unexcused; and delivered also to men the common sciences—such as the demonstrative, the definitive, and the divisive—as is manifest from the commentaries of the Pythagoreans.

Hereupon he defined philosophy as the knowledge of things that are; and the knowledge of things divine and human; as also the meditation of death,
⁶⁸¹
daily endeavoring to free the soul from the prison of the body; and the resemblance of God as far as is possible for man.
⁶⁸²

For the scope of philosophy is to free the mind, the divine part of the soul which is planted in us, and to set it at liberty. Without which liberty none can learn or perceive anything solid or true by the help or benefit of sense. For the mind, according to him, sees all things and hears all things. All things else are deaf and blind.
⁶⁸³

Thus it is that philosophy is of two kinds: practical and theoretical. The practical, according to the method of the Pythagoreans, precedes the theoretical. The reason is thus explained by Hierocles.

Philosophy is the purification and perfection of human life—purification from material irrationality and the mortal body; perfection from the recovery of its own excellent life, reducing it to the divine resemblance. Virtue and truth are chiefly able to effect these by taking away excess of passions. This (rightly) induces the divine form.
⁶⁸⁴

First are laid down the instructions of practical virtue: for to begin with, we must compose the Irrationality which is in us, and then (so prepared) apply ourselves to the knowledge of the more divine things. For as it is not possible for the eye, being full of dirt and not cleansed, to look upon things very bright, so neither can the soul, not possessing virtue, gaze upon the beauty of Truth. For that which is not pure is not capable of touching that which is pure. Practical philosophy produces virtue; theoretical, truth. As in these Golden Verses of Pythagoras we find the practical philosophy called human virtue, but the theoretical celebrated as divine virtue when closing the instructions in civil virtue,

These labor (says he) study these, and these affect;
To divine Virtue, these thy steps direct.

First therefore a man must be made good, then a god. The civil virtues render a man good, but the sciences conducing to the divine virtue divinize. But to those who ascend, the lesser things precede
the greater. For which reason in the Pythagorean precepts, the rules of virtue are first delivered, teaching us to ascend from the greatest use of life to the divine resemblance.

Three ways, say they, man may become better than himself. First by conversation with the gods. For it is necessary that he who addresses himself to them, at that time, sequester himself from all evil, assimilating himself as near as he can to God. Secondly, by well doing, for that is proper to God, and therein he imitates God. Thirdly, by death. For if the soul in this life, being a little separated from the body, becomes better and begins to divine in dreams, by visions, and the altered states of mind brought on by diseases, it will be much better when it shall be wholly separated from the body.
⁶⁸⁵

Hence he affirmed that the most considerable of all things human is to inform the soul concerning good and ill.
⁶⁸⁶
He taught that men have perfect felicity
⁶⁸⁷
when they have a good soul;
⁶⁸⁸
or that the knowledge of the perfection of the virtues of the soul is the chief felicity. Further, that every man is appointed by God to know and to contemplate;
⁶⁸⁹
that virtue is a harmony, and so is all good, even God himself;
⁶⁹⁰
and that the end or chief good is to resemble God. Whence he expressly said, “Follow God, not visible to the eye, but intelligible to the understanding, by the harmony of the World.”
⁶⁹¹
That the most excellent things given by the gods unto men are: to speak truth, and to benefit others [theoretical and practical virtue], and that each of these resembled the works of God.
⁶⁹²
To the latter Strabo alludes when commending those who said men imitate the gods most when they benefit others.
⁶⁹³
The former is confirmed by Porphyry when he advised above all things to speak truth, for that only is able to make men like to the gods.
⁶⁹⁴
For God himself in his body resembles light, in his soul truth, as he learned of the Persian Magi who term God Ahura Mazda. This is that
(divinity) which Iamblichus
⁶⁹⁵
reckons last in his recapitulation of the same with which the Golden Verses conclude, thus:

Then stripped of flesh up to free Aether soar,
A deathless God, divine, mortal no more.