Life of Pythagoras — Iamblichus, trans. Thomas Taylor (1818)
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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.
And with respect to Hippasus, some say that he was a Crotonian, but others a Metapontine. But the philosophy of the Acusmatici consists in auditions unaccompanied with demonstrations and a reasoning process; because it merely orders a thing to be done in a certain way, and that they should endeavour to preserve such other things as were said by him, as so many divine dogmas. They however profess that they will not speak of them, and that they are not to be spoken of; but they con43 ceive those of their sect to be the best furnished with wisdom, who retained what they had heard more than others. But all these auditions are divided into three species. For some of them indeed signify what a thing is; others what it especially is; but others, what ought, or what ought not, to be done. The auditions therefore which signify what a thing is, are such as, What are the islands of the blessed? The sun and moon. What is the oracle at Delphi? The tetractys. What is harmony? ‘That in which the Syrens subsist. But the auditions which signify what a thing i saaee) is, are such as, What is the most just thing? To sacrifice. What is the wisest thing? Number.* But the next to this in wisdom, is that which gives names to things. What is the wisest of the things that are with us, [i.e. which pertain to human concerns]? Medicine. What is the most beautiful? Harmony. What is the most powerful? Mental decision. What is the most
1 Kuster, one of the editors of this Life of Pythagoras, not perceiving that these auditions are both questions and answers, has made them to be questions only, and in consequence of this was completely at a loss to conceive the meaning of ézep éotiv % dppovia, év 4 al Leippves. Hence, he thinks it should be, re éoriv 7 dppovia y zSov ai LepHves ; but is not satisfied with this reading after all. Something I have no doubt is wanting; but the sense of the passage is, I conceive, that which is given in the above translation.
2 << Pythagoras,” (says Proclus in MSS. Schol. in Cratylum,) “ being asked what was the wisest of things, said it was number ; and being asked what was the next in wisdom, said, he who gave names to things. But by number, he obscurely signified the intelligible order, which comprehends the multitude of intellectual forms : for there that which is the first, and properly number, subsists after the superessential one.} This likewise supplies the measures of essence to all beings, in which also true wisdom, and knowledge which is of itself, and which is converted to and perfects itself, subsist. And as there the intelligible, intellect, and intelligence, are the same, so there also number and
1i.e. Number according to cause, which subsists at the extremity of the intelligible order. For number according to hyparxis or essence, subsists at the summit of the order which is intelligible and at the same time intellectual. See the 3d book of my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.
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excellent? Felicity. What is that which is most truly asserted? That men are depraved. Hence they say that Pythagoras praised the Salaminian poet Hippodomas, because he sings:
Tell, O ye Gods! the source from whence you came, Say whence, O men! thus evil you became?
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