Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (37 page)

SYMBOL XXI

This,
Cut not in the way
, expresses that truth is one, falsehood multiplex. Which is manifest from this—that what everything is, speaking plainly, is expressed but one way; but what it is not, is expressed infinite ways. Philosophy seems to be a way. It therefore says, choose that philosophy and that way to philosophy, in which thou shalt not
cut (or divide) nor establish contrary doctrines. But choose those which are constituted and confirmed by Scientific demonstration, by Mathematics and contemplation—which is to say, philosophize in a Pythagorean manner.

It may be taken also in another sense. Forasmuch as that philosophy which proceeds by corporeals and sensibles (with which philosophy the younger sort are satisfied, who conceive that God, and qualities, and the mind, and virtues—and in a word all the principal causes of things—are bodies) is easily subverted and confuted; as appears by the great disagreement amongst them who go about to say anything therein. But the philosophy which is of incorporeals, and intelligibles, and immaterials, and eternals—which are always the same in themselves, and towards one another, never admitting corruption or alteration—is firmly established and the cause of irrefragable demonstration. Now this precept advises us when we philosophize and perfect the way which is manifest, that we shun the snares and entertainments of corporeals and divisibles, and intimately apply ourselves to the substances of incorporeals—which are never unlike themselves by reason of the truth and stability which they naturally have.

SYMBOL XXII

This,
Receive not a Swallow into your house
, advises that you admit not a slothful person (who is not a constant lover of labor, neither will persevere to be a disciple) unto your doctrines—which require continual labor and patience by reason of the variety and intricateness of the several disciplines. He makes use of the swallow to represent sloth, and cutting off times, because this bird comes to us but in one season of the year and then stays but a short while with us; but is absent from us and out of our sight a much longer space.

SYMBOL XXIII

This,
Wear not a Ring
, is likewise exhortatory after the Pythagorean way thus. Forasmuch as a ring encompasses the finger of the wearer in the nature of a chain; but has this property—that it pinches not, nor pains, but is so fit as if it naturally belonged to that part—and
the body is such a kind of chain to the soul. Wear not a ring signifies this: Philosophize truly, and separate your soul from the chain which goes round about it. For philosophy is the meditation of death, and separation of the soul from the body. Seriously and earnestly therefore apply yourself to the Pythagorean philosophy, which separates the soul by the mind from all corporeals, and is conversant about intellectuals and immaterials by theoretical doctrines. But untie and loose your sins, and all things that pluck you back and hinder philosophizing—diversions of the flesh, excessive eating, unreasonable repletion, which as it were, fetter the body, and continually breed infinite disease.

SYMBOL XXIV

This,
Grave not the image of God in a Ring
, advises thus: Philosophize, and above all things, think that the gods are incorporeal. This Symbol is beyond all others the Seminary of the Pythagorean doctrines. Of it all things (almost) are fitly adapted, and by it are they established to the end. Think not that they use forms that are corporeal, neither that they are received into material substance—fettered (as it were) to thy body—like other living beings. As we have said, the ring expresses a chain, and corporeity, and sensible form. The figures engraved in rings, as it were the figure of some animal perceptible by sight, are those from which we must absolutely separate the gods. The gods being eternal and intelligible and always the same in themselves and towards one another, as is largely discoursed in the treatise concerning God.

SYMBOL XXV

This,
Look not in a glass by candlelight
, advises in a more Pythagorean manner the following. Philosophize, pursuing not the phantasies of sense (which give a kind of light to comprehensions like a candle, neither natural nor true), but those which procure Science and are conversant in the mind. Seek those by which a most bright purity is constituted in the eye of the soul of all Notions and Intelligibles, and the speculation of them; but not of Corporeals and Sensibles. For such are in continual fluxion and mutation (as has often been shown). They are no way stable nor existing like themselves,
whereby they might uphold a firm and Scientific comprehension as the others do.

SYMBOL XXVI

This,
Be not seized with immoderate laughter
, shows that we should vanquish passion. Put thyself in mind of right reason; be neither blown up in good fortune, not cast down in bad; admitting no thought of change in either. He named laughter above all other passions, because that is most apparently shown in the face itself. Perhaps also because this is proper to man only of all living creatures; whence some define man as a risible living creature. This precept shows that we ought to take humanity only, as it were in our way, like guests. But to acquire the imitation of God, as far as we are able by Philosophising, secretly withdrawing ourselves from the property of men, and preferring the rational before the risible in distinction from other creatures.

SYMBOL XXVII

This,
At a Sacrifice pare not your nails
, is exhortative to friendship. For of domestics and allies, some being nearly related to us (such as brothers, children, parents) are like our limbs and parts which cannot be taken away without much pain and maim. Others who are allied to us at a great distance (as the children of uncles, or of cousins, or their children, or such like) resemble those parts which may be cut off without pain (as hair, nails, and the like). Intending therefore to signify those allies, whom by reason of this distance we at other times neglect, he uses the word “nails,” saying, “Cast not those quite away.” But in Sacrifices—though at other times neglected—carry them along with you and renew your domestic familiarity with them.

SYMBOL XXVIII

This,
Lay not hold on everyone readily with your right hand
, means: Give not your right hand easily. That is, draw not to you, nor endeavor to draw out, improper and uninitiated persons by giving them your right hand. Moreover, to such as have not been long tried by disciplines and doctrines, nor are approved as worthy to participate of
temperance and of the quinquennial silence, and other trials, the right hand ought not to be given.

SYMBOL XXIX

This,
When you rise out of bed, wrap the coverlets together and confound the print of your body
, advises that having undertaken to philosophize, you should acquaint yourself with Intellectuals and Incorporeals. Therefore as soon as you rise from the sleep of ignorance and that darkness which resembles night; draw not to yourself any corporeal thing to the light of philosophy—which resembles the day. But blot out of your remembrance all prints of that sleep.

SYMBOL XXX

This,
Eat not the heart
, signifies that we ought not to tear asunder the unity and conspiration of the whole. Moreover it implies, Be not envious, but obliging, and communicative. Hereupon it exhorted to philosophy. For of all Arts and Sciences, only philosophy envies not the good of others, nor grieves thereat, nor rejoices in the ill of a neighbor. But it declares that all men are by nature allied to one another, and friends, and alike affected, and subjected alike to fortune, and alike ignorant of the future; and therefore commands them to commiserate and love one another as becomes a creature sociable and rational.

SYMBOL XXXI

Like that is this,
Eat not the Brain
, for this is the principal instrument of Wisdom. It signifies therefore that we ought not with reproaches to bite and tear in pieces things well intended and doctrines. Those are well intended which are exactly considered by the principal reason of mind, like to things comprehended by Science. For these are beheld not by the organs of the irrational soul—that is, by the heart and the liver—but by the pure rational part of the soul. Wherefore it is a folly to oppose them. This Symbol rather advises to worship the fountain of Minds, and next instrument of Intellection, by whose means we acquire Speculation and Science, and (in a word) all Wisdom, and truly philosophize; and not to confound and deface the prints that are therein.

SYMBOL XXXII

This,
Spit upon the cutting of thy Hair and parings of they Nails
, says thus. Those things are easily condemned which are born with thee, but are more distant from the Mind. As on the other side, those are more esteemed which are nearer to the mind. So having addicted thy mind to philosophy above all, reverence those things which are demonstrated by the soul and mind without the organs of sense by speculative Science. But condemn and spit upon those things which are seen without the light of the mind by the sensitive organs which are born with us—which are not capable of reaching the eternity of the mind.

SYMBOL XXXIII

This,
Receive not an Erythrine
, seems to respect the etymology of the word. Entertain not an impudent blushless person, nor on the other side one over-bashful, ready to fall back from the mind and firm intellection. Whence is understood also, Be not such yourself.

SYMBOL XXXIV

This,
Deface the print of a pot in the ashes
, signifies that he who applies his mind to philosophy, must forget the demonstrations of confusion and grossness (that is of corporeals and sensibles) and wholly make use of demonstrations of Intelligibles. By ashes are meant the dust or sand in Mathematical tables wherein the demonstrations and figures are drawn.

SYMBOL XXXV

Approach not her to get Children who has money
, is not meant of a woman but of a Sect and philosophy which has in it much corporeity and gravity tending downwards. For of all things in the Earth, Gold is the most heavy and aptest to move towards the center which is the property of corporeal weight. To approach means not only coition, but to apply ourselves and to be assistant.

SYMBOL XXXVI

This,
In the first place honor the figure and the degrees, the figure and the
Triobolus;
advises to philosophize, and study Mathematics not
superficially; and by them as by degrees of ascension, arrive at our proposed end; but despise those things which others prefer before these. And chiefly reverence the Italic philosophy which considers Incorporeals in themselves, before the Ionic which first looks upon bodies.

SYMBOL XXXVII

This,
Abstain from Beans
, advises to beware of everything that may corrupt our discourse with the gods and prescience.

SYMBOL XXXVIII

This,
Plant Mallows but eat it not
, signifies that such things are turned with the Sun. “Plant,” that is, insisting on its nature and application to the Sun and Sympathy, neither abstain from it, nor wholly adhere to it. But transfer your mind and intellect, and transplant them, as it were, to plants and herbs of the same kind; and to animals which are not of the same kind; and to stones and rivers; and in a word to all natures. For thou wilt find that which designs the unity and conspiration of the World to be fruitful and full of variety and admirably copious, as if it sprung from a mallow root. Therefore not only eat not, nor deface such observations, but on the contrary increase them, and multiply them, as it were by transplantation.

SYMBOL XXXIX

This,
Abstain from living Creatures
, exhorts to Justice and respect of alliance by a like kind of life and the like.

By these is explained the Symbolical exhortative form—containing much that is common with the customs of the Ancients, and the Pythagoreans. Thus Iamblichus.

CHAPTER
4

T
HE
S
AME
S
YMBOLS
E
XPLAINED
BY
O
THERS

M
ost of these Symbols are mentioned also by others, with different explications. The first, Olympiodorus ascribed to Philolaus, delivering it thus:
When you come into a Temple, turn not back.
⁹⁰⁸
Iamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras, cites it in the same words, adding this exposition: “That we ought not to perform divine rites, cursorily and negligently.”

Upon the second, Adore
not the gods, as it were, in passing by
, Plutarch says we ought to go from home with that express intent.
⁹⁰⁹
And for this reason the cryers used upon Festival days to go before the Priests, and commanded the people to forbear working.

The same exposition Iamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras gives of the third,
Sacrifice and go to sacred rites barefoot.

To the fourth,
Concerning the gods, disbelieve nothing wonderful, and concerning divine Doctrines
, may be applied to what Iamblichus says in the life of Pythagoras. Many precepts were introduced into the practice of divine rites, forasmuch as they gave firm credit to these things, conceiving them not to be fantastic boasts, but to derive their beginning from some god.
⁹¹⁰
All this the Pythagoreans believe to be true—as the fabulous reports concerning Aristaeus the Proconnesian, and Abaris the Hyperborean, and the like. And they did not only believe all these, but also endeavored themselves to frame many things that seem fabulous, derogating from nothing which relates to the Deity. In all such things he conceived not that the persons themselves were foolish, but those only who gave no belief to it. For they are not of opinion that the gods can do some things, others they cannot, as the Sophists imagine; but, that all things are possible. And the same is the beginning of the verses which they ascribe to Linus, but perhaps were made by Pythagoras.

Hope all things, for to none belongs despair;
All things to God easy and perfect are.

The fifth,
Decline highways
, is mentioned by many. Only Laertius delivers it quite otherwise:
Go not out of the highway.
But in the exposition differs not from the rest. That we ought not to follow the opinions of the vulgar, which are without judgment, and not indisputable; but those of the few and learned.

The sixth,
Abstain from the Melanure, for it belongs to the Terrestrial gods
, Plutarch interprets, as forbidding to converse with persons black in impiety.
⁹¹¹
Tryphon, as forbidding falsehood and lies which are black in their essence. The Melanure is a kind of fish so named from the blackness of its tail.

The ninth,
Cut not fire with a sword
, is one of those Symbols which are ascribed to Andocides the Pythagorean. Porphyry,
⁹¹²
Plutarch,
⁹¹³
Laertius,
⁹¹⁴
and Athenaeus,
⁹¹⁵
interpret it as advising not to exasperate an angry person, but to give way to him. Fire is anger, the sword, contention. St. Basil expounds it of those who attempt an impossibility.

The tenth, Laertius reads thus,
Turn away a sharp sword.
It is generally expounded, Decline all things dangerous.

The eleventh,
Help to lay on a burden, but not to take it off
, is expounded by Porphyry that we ought to further others, not in sluggishness, but in virtue and labor. Or as Iamblichus, that we ought not to be the cause of another's being idle. Laertius and Olympiodorus cite it thus:
Lay not burdens down together, but take them up together;
expounding it that we must work together in the course of life, and co-operate with others in actions, tending not to idleness but to virtue.

The twelfth which is cited by Suidas out of Aristophanes, in verse, thus:

Into the shoe first the right foot,
The left first in the basin put.

He expounds it not as a Symbol, but a Proverb of those who perform things dexterously.

The fourteenth,
Pass not over a balance
, is generally interpreted by Plutarch,
⁹¹⁶
Laertius,
⁹¹⁷
Clement of Alexandria,
⁹¹⁸
Porphyry,
⁹¹⁹
and others that we ought to esteem Justice, and not to exceed it. Athenaeus and Porphyry expound it as counseling against avarice, and advising to pursue equality.

The fifteenth, Laertius delivers thus:
When you go to travel, look not back upon the bounds.
⁹²⁰
Plutarch thus,
When you come to the borders, return not back.
They both interpret it that when we are dying, and arrived at the bound or end of our life, we should bear it with an equal mind—without grief, nor to desire a continuance of the pleasures of this life. So also Porphyry.

The seventeenth Laertius reads thus,
Wipe not a seat with Oil.

The eighteenth, Laertius and Suidas deliver thus:
Touch not a white Cock, for it is sacred to the Moon, and a monitor of the hours.

The nineteenth,
Sit not upon a Choenix
, Plutarch and Porphyry interpret, that we ought not to live idly, but to provide necessaries for the future. For a Choenix, according to Laertius and Suidas, is the same which Clearchus calls “Hemorotrophen,” a proportion of food daily spent. But Clement of Alexandria interprets it as advising to consider not the present day, but what the future will bring forth. To be solicitous, not of food, but prepared for death.

The twentieth,
Breed nothing that has crooked talons
, is ascribed to Andocydes the Pythagorean.

The twenty-first, Olympiodorus delivers thus:
Cleave not wood in the way.
Whereby, says he, the Pythagoreans advised not to disquiet life with excessive cares and vain solicitude.

The twenty-second is
Entertain not a swallow under your roof.
Plutarch interprets this as take not unto you an ungrateful and unconstant friend and companion. For only this bird, of all the lesser kind, is reported to prey upon flesh.
⁹²¹
Clement of Alexandria and Porphyrius interpret it as forbidding to admit into our society a talkative person, intemperate of speech, who cannot contain what is communicated to him.
⁹²²

The twenty-third, Plutarch alleged thus,
Wear not a straight Ring.
That is, says he, Follow a free course of life and fetter not yourself.
⁹²³
Or, as St. Hierom, That we live not anxiously, nor put ourselves into servitude, or into such a condition of life as we cannot free ourselves from when we should have a mind to do it.

The twenty-fourth,
Wear not the picture of the gods in Rings
, Porphyry expounds: Discourse not of the gods inconsiderately or in public.
⁹²⁴
Iamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras, delivers it thus:
Wear not the image of God in a Ring lest it be defiled; for it is the image of God.
⁹²⁵
Clement of Alexandria affirms the meaning to be that we ought not to mind Sensibles but to pass on to Intelligibles.
⁹²⁶

In the twenty-eighth,
Lay not hold on everyone readily with your right hand
, Plutarch omits
, Suidus
It is generally expounded thus,
Be not hasty and precipitate in contracting friendship with any.

The twenty-ninth,
When you rise out of bed, wrap the coverlet together, and confound the print of your body
, Plutarch refers to the modesty and respect due to the bed. Clement of Alexandria says it signifies that we ought not in the daytime to call to mind any pleasures, even of dreams, which we had in the night.
⁹²⁷
Perhaps also, says he, it means, that we ought to confound dark phantasie with the light of truth.

The thirtieth and thirty-first,
Eat not the Heart and the Brains
, Iamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras, says he enjoined forasmuch as these two are the seats of life and knowledge.
⁹²⁸
Porphyry to the first, and Plutarch to the second, give one interpretation: Consume not yourself with grief nor afflict your mind with cares.

The thirty-second, Laertius delivers contrary to Iamblichus:
Upon the paring of your nails or cuttings of your hair, neither pass urine nor tread.

The thirty-fourth,
Deface the print of a pot in the ashes
, Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria expound as advising that upon reconcilement of enmity, we utterly abolish and leave not the least print or remembrance of anger.

The thirty-sixth,
Honor the figure and the three oboli
, seems to have reference to the story related in the sixth chapter of his life.

Of the thirty-seventh,
Abstain from Beans
, there are alleged many different reasons.
⁹²⁹
Aristotle says he forbade them for that they resemble
[“the genitals”], or the gates of the Infernal Region; or for that they breed worms (a little sort of maggot called “Midae”); or for that they resemble the nature of the Universe; or for that they are oligarchic, being used in suffrages. This last reason is confirmed by Plutarch, who explains this Symbol: Abstain from suffrages; which of old were given by beans.†
⁹³⁰

Porphyry says He interdicted beans because the first beginning and generation being confused, and many things being commixed and growing by assimilation together, and putrifying in the earth by little and little, the generation and discretion broke forth together; and living creatures being produced together with plants, then out of the same putrefaction arose both men and beans; whereof he alleged manifest arguments. For, if anyone should chew a bean, and, having minced it small with his teeth, lay it abroad in the warm Sun, and so leaving it for a little time return to it, he shall perceive the scent of human blood. Moreover, if anyone at the time when beans
shoot forth the flower, shall take a little of the flower which then is black, and put it into an earthen vessel, and cover it close, and bury it in the ground ninety days, and at the end thereof take it up and take off the cover—instead of the bean, he shall find either the head of an Infant or or
[“the vagina of a woman”].
⁹³¹
The same reason Origen ascribes to Zaratus, from whom perhaps Pythagoras, being his student, received them.
⁹³²