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
compelled some not to abstain either from their mothers or their
daughters, and violating law, their country, city, and king, with their
hands as it were bound behind them, they are violently dragged along
like slaves to extreme destruction. But from avarice germinate rapine,
robbery, parricide, sacrilege, sorcery, and such other evils at are the
sisters of these. In the first place, therefore, it is necessary to
purify the woods in which these passions have fixed their abode, with
fire and sword, and all the machines of disciplines; and having
liberated the reasoning power from such mighty evils, we may then
implant in and deliver to it something useful and good.” So great and so
necessary was the attention which, according to Pythagoras, ought to be
paid to disciplines prior to philosophy. He likewise ordained that a
singular honor, and the most accurate investigation, should be given to
the teaching and participation of his dogmas, as he judiciously examined
the conceptions of those that came to him, by various documents, and ten
thousand forms of scientific theory.
CHAP. XVIII.
After this we must narrate how, when he had admitted certain persons to
be his disciples, he distributed them into different classes according
to their respective merits. For it was not fit that all of them should
equally participate of the same things, as they were naturally
dissimilar; nor was it indeed right that some should participate of all
the most honorable auditions, but others of none, or should not at all
partake of them. For this would be uncommunicative and unjust. While
therefore he imparted a convenient portion of his discourses to each, he
benefited as much as possible all of them, and preserved the proportion
of justice, by making each a partaker of the auditions according to his
desert. Hence, in conformity to this method, he called some of them
Pythagoreans, but others Pythagorists; just as we denominate some men
Attics, but others Atticists. Having therefore thus aptly divided their
names, some of them he considered to be genuine, but he ordained that
others should show themselves to be the emulators of these. He ordered
therefore that with the Pythagoreans possessions should be shared in
common, and that they should always live together; but that each of the
others should possess his own property apart from the rest, and that
assembling together in the same place, they should mutually be at
leisure for the same pursuits. And thus each of these modes was derived
from Pythagoras, and transmitted to his successors. Again, there were
also with the Pythagoreans two forms of philosophy; for there were
likewise two genera of those that pursued it, the Acusmatici, and the
Mathematici. Of these however the Mathematici are acknowledged to be
Pythagoreans by the rest; but the Mathematici do not admit that the
Acusmatici are so, or that they derived their instruction from
Pythagoras, but from Hippasus.
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