Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (41 page)

CHAPTER 3

T
HE
S
UPREME
W
ORLD

T
he Supreme World, being (as we said) that of the Deity, is one, divine, continual, constant Essence of Sempiternity, poised (as it were) with immoveable weight. It is termed
, the all-governing Throne.
⁹⁷²
Not confined to genus, place, time, nor reason, it is the free unlimited president over all these; infinitely supreme in place, power, possession, excellence, above all Essence, Nature, Eternity, Age.

This Divine Mind, the receptacle of principles, Pythagoras symbolically terms Number; saying Number is the Principle of all things. (For none can believe so meanly of so wise a person, as that he should conceive the ordinary numbers by which we cast account, to be the Principles of all things—which are far from being antecedent to things, for they are consequential accidents.) So Plutarch: by Number Pythagoras understands the Mind, a Symbol not improper; in Incorporeals nothing more divine than the Mind; in Abstractions nothing more simple than Number.
⁹⁷³

The divine Essence therefore—existent before Eternity and Age (for it is the Age of Ages), the preexistent entity and unity of existence, substance, essence, nature—was by Pythagoras called
, ONE; by Parmenides
, BEING, both upon a like ground. Because it is the super-essential Unit and Being, from which, by which, through which, in which, and to which all things are; and are ordered, and persist, and are contained, and are filled, and are converted.

Of this first one, and first
Ens
, Aristotle says thus: Plato and the Pythagoreans hold no other concerning Ens or One. But that this is their nature, their essence is the same, to be One and a Being. Xenophanes declared this One to be God, herein agreeing with Pythagoras, who asserted infinite, and one, and number, to be the first Principles of things. By “infinite” is signified the power, for nothing can be imagined before power, which in God is infinite, or rather it is infinite God. In him
Esse
and
Posse
are not distinct. He contains the essences, virtues, and operations of all producibles.
⁹⁷⁴

With Pythagoras agrees Anaxagoras, for all things were together.
⁹⁷⁵
Democritus says all thing were in power. This also is the mixing of things mentioned by Empedocles and Anaximander. Not confusedly in Chaos, Erebus, or Night; but distinctly and orderly in full light, in the most perfect splendor of the divine light, intuitive knowledge. That is the IDEA (from
[“seeing,
meaning
understanding”]†), whose power is being. It includes all, whether mental, rational, intelligible, sensible, vital, substantial, or adhesive; and is not only all things that are, but those that are not.

This is no other than the divine Essence—within which (before all things) one produced two. Two is the first number; one is the principle of Number; One is God. And the production of two is within the divine Essence (for number is constituted of itself, and next one is naturally only the number two). This two must necessarily be God also, for within God is nothing but God. Thus these three (One and Two) being the Principle and first, and not exceeding the Essence of God, are indeed one God. For his Essence is not divided by the production of two out of one. In like manner it often happens in corporeals, that one being moved to two, proceeds to three, the substance of things continuing. For example, as in a tree, of boughs and branches; in man, the body arms and fingers. Of one therefore in the Divinity producing, and two produced, arises a Trinity to which, if there be added an essence formally distinct from them, there will be a formal Quaternity. This is the infinite one and two, the Substance, Perfection, and end of all Number. One, two, three, four by a collective progression make Ten; beyond ten there is not anything. This Pythagoras meant, when he asserted that the Principle of all things is the Tetractys. He understood God by it; for he swore by it, and seems to have transferred the Hebrew Tetragammaton into Greek Symbol.

Thus the most apt symbol of the Principles of things is one and two. For when we make enquiry into the causes and origin of all things, what sooner occurs than one and two?
⁹⁷⁶
That which we first behold with our eyes is the same and not another; that which we first conceive in our mind is Identity and Diversity, One and Two. Alcmaeon (contemporary with Pythagoras) affirmed two to be many—
which he said were contrarieties (perhaps the same with Empedocles
[“strife”]†), yet unconfined and indefinite, such as white and black, sweet and bitter, good and evil, great and small.

These multiplex diversities the Pythagoreans designated by the number Ten: as finite and infinite, even and odd, one and many, right and left, male and female, steadfast and moved, straight and crooked, light and darkness, good and ill, square and oblong. These pairs are two, and therefore contrary; they are reduced all into ten, that being the most perfect number, as containing more kinds of numeration than the rest: even and odd, square and cube, long and short, the first uncompounded and first compounded. Nothing is more absolute than the number Ten, since in ten proportions, four cubic numbers are consummated, of which (according to the Pythagoreans) all things consist. By this all nations reckon (not exceeding it) as by the natural account of ten fingers. Heaven itself consists of ten Spheres. Architas includes all that is in the number ten. In imitation of whom Aristotle names ten kinds of Ens, categories, reducible to two, Substance and Accident, both springing from one Essence. For ten so loves two that from one it proceeds to two, and by two it reverts into one.

The first Ternary is of one and two, not compounded, but consistent. One having no position makes no composition; a unit while a unit has no position, nor a point while a point. There being nothing before One, we rightly say one is first. Two is not compounded of numbers but a co-ordination of units only. It is therefore the first number, being the first multitude. It is not commensurable by any number, only by unit, the common measure of all number. For one two is nothing but two. So that the multitude which is called “Triad,” Arithmeticians term the first number uncompounded, the Duad being not an uncompounded number, but rather not-compounded.

Now the Triad, through its propensity to multiply and communicate its goodness to all creatures, proceeds from power to operation.
⁹⁷⁷
The Triad, beholding with a perpetual intuition that fecundity of multitude which is in it—productive (as it were) of number from number—and that essentiality which is one in it—the fountain of all production, the beginning of all progression, the permanence
of all immutable substance—it reverts itself into itself, multiplying itself (as it were) by unity and duality, saying, “Once twice two, are four.” This is the Tetractys, the Idea of all created things; for all progression is perfected in four.
⁹⁷⁸

Hence arises the Decad, the ten most general kinds of all things. One, two, three, four, going out of Omnipotency to Energy (out of power to act) produce ten, the half whereof is five. Now in the midst put five, on the right hand the next superior number six, on the left hand, the next inferior four; these added together, make ten. Again, the next superior seven, and the next inferior three make ten. Again, the next superior eight, and the next inferior two make ten. Lastly, one and nine make ten.

This ten being carried up to twenty, comes again to one; and so on, in all the cardinal numbers to a hundred. For as twice one makes two, thrice one three, four times one four, and so forward; so twice ten makes twenty, thrice ten thirty, four times ten forty, and so on. The like in a hundred, a thousand, and forward. And because the Decad arises out of and ends in a Monad, the Greeks express ten by
[iota]. The Hebrews express it by a Point, which mark (as well amongst the Barbarians, as in Latin) denotes One.
⁹⁷⁹
Hitherto allude the Pythagorean symbols One and Two. Zaratas (the Master of Pythagoras) used these as the names of propagation—one the father; two the mother. One and two (in the divine essence) producing four, the Tetractys, the idea of all things, which are consummated in the number Ten. This Pythagoras styles: