Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (32 page)

CHAPTER
2

O
F
THE
W
ORLD

T
he World, or comprehension of all things, Pythagoras called
[“order”], from its order and beauty.
⁷⁹⁴

The world
⁷⁹⁵
was made by God,
⁷⁹⁶
in thought, not in time.
⁷⁹⁷
He gave it a beginning from fire and the fifth element. For there are five figures of solid bodies which are termed mathematical. Earth was made of a Cube; fire of a Pyramid or Tetrahedron; Air of an Octahedron; Water of an Icosahedron; the Sphere of the Universe of a Dodecahedron. In these, Plato follows Pythagoras.

The world is corruptible in its own nature, for it is sensible and corporeal.
⁷⁹⁸
But it shall never be corrupted, by reason of the providence and preservation of God.
⁷⁹⁹
Fate is the cause of the order of the universe and all particulars.
⁸⁰⁰
Necessity encompasses the world.

The world is animate, intelligible, spherical, enclosing the earth in the midst of it.
⁸⁰¹

The Pythagoreans affirm
⁸⁰²
that what is without heaven is infinite; for beyond the world there is a Vacuum, into which, and out of which, the world respires.
⁸⁰³

The right side of the world is the east, whence motion begins; the left is the West.
⁸⁰⁴

CHAPTER
3

O
F
THE
S
UPERIOR
OR
A
ETHERIAL
P
ARTS
OF
THE
W
ORLD

P
ythagoras first called heaven
[“order”],† as being perfect in all kinds of animals and adorned with all kinds of pulchritude.
⁸⁰⁵

In the fixed sphere resides the first Cause: whatsoever is next him, they affirm to be best, and firmly compounded and ordered; that which is furthest from him, the worst.
⁸⁰⁶
There is a constant order observed as low as the Moon, but all things beneath the Moon are moved promiscuously.

For the air which is diffused about the earth is unmoved and unwholesome, and all things that are in it are mortal. But the air which is above is perpetually in motion, and pure, and healthful; and all that are in it are immortal, and consequently divine.
⁸⁰⁷

This they call, the free Aether (immediately above the Moon). Aether, they perceived, as being void of matter and an eternal body; free, because it is not obnoxious and filled with material disturbances.
⁸⁰⁸

Hence it follows that the Sun, Moon, and the rest of the stars, according to Pythagoras, are gods.

The Pythagoreans held that every star is a world in the infinite Aether, which contains earth, air, and Aether. This opinion was also held by the followers of Orpheus, that every star is a world.
⁸⁰⁹

The Sun is spherical, eclipsed by the Moons coming under him.
⁸¹⁰

The body of the Moon is of a fiery nature; she receives her light from the Sun.
⁸¹¹
The eclipse of the Moon is a reverberation or obstruction from the Antichthon.

The Pythagoreans affirm that the Moon seems earthly because she is round-about inhabited as our earth. But the creatures are larger and fairer, exceeding us in size fifteen times, neither have they any excrements, and their day is so much longer.
⁸¹²

Some of the Pythagoreans affirm that a comet is one of the planets that appears not in heaven but after a long time, and is near the Sun, as it happens also to Mercury. For because it recedes but little
from the Sun, often when it should appear, it is hid; so as it appears not but after a long time.
⁸¹³
Or, as Plutarch expresses it, a comet is one of those stars which are not always apparent, but rise after a certain period. Others hold that it is the reflection of our sight on the Sun, like images in glasses.
⁸¹⁴

The rainbow he asserted to be the splendor of the Sun.
⁸¹⁵

Celestial bodies frequently appear in ancient art. This silver denarius was issued by Juba II and his wife Cleopatra Selene, the only daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII, who were made co-rulers of the Kingdom of Mauretania by Rome's first emperor, Augustus. It represents Juba II with his portrait on the obverse and Cleopatra Selene with a star above a crescent (alluding to the goddess Selene) on its reverse.

Photo courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.

O
F
THE
S
UBLUNARY
P
ARTS
OF
T
HE
W
ORLD

O
f the inferior sublunary parts of the world, the anonymous Pythagorean places first the sphere of fire, then that of air, next that of water, last that of Earth.
⁸¹⁶

The bodies of all the elements are round, except that of fire, which is conical.
⁸¹⁷

Below the Moon all things move in a disorderly manner. Evil therefore necessarily exists about the region of the Earth; that being settled lowest as the basis of the world, the receptacle of the lowest things.
⁸¹⁸

The air, which is diffused about the Earth is unmoved and unwholesome, and all things in it are mortal.
⁸¹⁹

There, is generation and corruption. For things are produced by alteration, mutation, and resolution of the elements. Motion is a difference or diversity in matter.
⁸²⁰

In the world, there is equally proportioned, light and darkness, heat and cold, dryness and humidity. When they are exuberant, the excess of heat causes summer; of cold, winter. When they are equal, then are the best seasons of the year: whereof that which is growing up is the spring, healthful; that which is decaying is autumn, unhealthful.
⁸²¹
Even of the day, the morning is growing up, the evening decaying, and therefore more unwholesome.

CHAPTER
1

O
F
L
IVING
,
AND
A
NIMATE
C
REATURES

T
here penetrates a beam from the Sun through the Aether which is cold and dry.
⁸²²
(They call the air, “cold aether,” and the Sun and humidity, “gross aether.”) This beam penetrates to the Abyss, and thereby all things vivificate. All things live inasmuch as they participate of heat (wherefore even plants are
living creatures). But all things have not soul. The soul is a portion of aether, of heat, and cold, for it participates of cold aether. The soul differs from life. She is immortal, because that from which she is taken is immortal. Thus Alexander in his successions, out of the commentaries of the Pythagoreans.