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
But to the women he is said to have discoursed concerning sacrifices as
follows: In the first place indeed, as they would wish that another
person who intended to pray for them, should be worthy and good, because
the Gods attend to such as these; thus also it is requisite that they
should in the highest degree esteem equity and modesty, in order that
the Gods may be readily disposed to hear their prayers. In the next
place, they should offer to the Gods such things as they have produced
with their own hands, and should bring them to the altars without the
assistance of servants, such as cakes, honey-combs, and frankincense.
But that they should not worship divinity with blood and dead bodies,
nor offer many things at one time, as if they never meant to sacrifice
again. With respect also to their association with men, he exhorted them
to consider that their parents granted to the female nature, that they
should love their husbands in a greater degree than those who were the
sources of their existence. That in consequence of this, they would do
well either not to oppose their husbands, or to think that they have
then vanquished, when they submit to them. Farther still, in the same
assembly also, Pythagoras is said to have made that celebrated
observation, that it is holy for a woman, after having been connected
with her husband, to perform sacred rites on the same day; but that this
is never holy, after she has been connected with any other man. He also
exhorted the women to use words of good omen through the whole of life,
and to endeavor that others may predict good things of them. He likewise
admonished them not to destroy popular renown, nor to blame the writers
of fables, who surveying the justice of women, from their accommodating
others with garments and ornaments, without a witness, when it is
necessary for some other person to use them, and that neither litigation
nor contradiction are produced from this confidence,—have feigned, that
three women used but one eye in common, on account of the facility of
their communion with each other. He farther observed, that he who is
called the wisest of all others, and who gave arrangement to the human
voice, and in short, was the inventor of names, whether he was a God or
a dæmon, or a certain divine man,[13] perceiving that the genus of women
is most adapted to piety, gave to each of their ages the appellation of
some God. Hence he called an unmarried woman _Core_, i. e. Proserpine;
but a bride, _Nympha_; the woman who has brought forth children,
_Mater_; and a grandmother, according to the Doric dialect, _Maia_. In
conformity to which also, the oracles in Dodona and at Delphi, are
unfolded in to light through a woman. But through this praise pertaining
to piety, Pythagoras is said to have produced so great a change in
female attire, that the women no longer dared to clothe themselves with
costly garments, but consecrated many myriads of their vestments in the
temple of Juno.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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