Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, or Pythagoric Life: Accompanied by Fragments of the Ethical Writings of certain Pythagoreans in the Doric dialect; and a collection of Pythagoric Sentences from Stobaeus and others, which are omitted by Gale in his Opuscula Mythologica, and have not been noticed by any editorIamblichus
Philosophy
Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, or Pythagoric Life: Accompanied by Fragments of the Ethical Writings of certain Pythagoreans in the Doric dialect; and a collection of Pythagoric Sentences from Stobaeus and others, which are omitted by Gale in his Opuscula Mythologica, and have not been noticed by any editor
Iamblichus
Ethics, Ancient; Philosophers -- Greece -- Biography; Philosophy, Ancient; Pythagoras; Pythagoras and Pythagorean school
“Again, as when water is changed into air, the water does not become
air, or the subject of air, but that which was the subject of water
becomes the subject of air, so when one number unites itself with
another, as for instance the triad with the duad, the species or forms
of the two numbers are not mingled, except in their immaterial reasons
(or productive principles), in which at the same time that they are
separate, they are not impeded from being united, but the quantities of
the two numbers which are placed together, become the subject of the
pentad. The triad, therefore, is one, and also the tetrad, even in
mathematical numbers: for though in the ennead or number nine, you may
conceive a first, second, and third triad, yet you see one thing thrice
assumed; and in short, in the ennead there is nothing but the form of
the ennead in the quantity of nine monads. But if you mentally separate
its subject, (for form is impartible) you will immediately invest it
with forms corresponding to its division; for our soul cannot endure to
see that which is formless, unadorned, especially as she possesses the
power of investing it with ornament.
“Since also separate numbers possess a demiurgic or fabricative power,
which mathematical numbers imitate, the sensible world likewise contains
images of those numbers by which it is adorned; so that all things are
in all, but in an appropriate manner in each. The sensible world,
therefore, subsists from immaterial and energetic reasons, and from more
ancient causes. But those who do not admit that nature herself is full
of productive powers, lest they should be obliged to double things
themselves, these wonder how from things void of magnitude and gravity,
magnitude and gravity are composed; though they are never composed from
things of this kind which are void of gravity and magnitude, as from
parts. But magnitude is generated from essentially impartible elements;
since form and matter are the elements of bodies; and still much more is
it generated from those truer causes which are considered in demiurgic
reasons and forms. Is it not therefore necessary that all dimensions,
and all moving masses, must from these receive their generation? For
either bodies are unbegotten, like incorporeal natures; or of things
with interval, things without interval are the causes; of partibles
impartibles; and of sensibles and contraries, things insensible and void
of contact: and we must assent to those who assert that things
possessing magnitude are thus generated from impartibles. Hence the
Pythagorean Eurytus, and his followers, beholding the images of things
themselves in numbers, rightly attributed certain numbers to certain
things, according to their peculiarity. In consequence of this, he said
that a particular number is the boundary of this plant, and again,
another number of this animal; just as of a triangle 6 is the boundary,
of a square 9, and of a cube 8. As the musician, too, harmonizes his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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