Life of Pythagoras — Iamblichus, trans. Thomas Taylor (1818)

but that all events happened conformably to divine providence, and especially to good and pious men, is confirmed by what is related by Androcydes in his treatise on Pythagoric Symbols, of Thymaridas the Tarentine, and a Pythagorean.

For when through a certain circumstance he was about to sail from his own country, and his friends who were present were embracing him, and bidding him farewell, some one said to him, when he had now ascended into the ship, May such things happen to you from the Gods, O Thymaridas, as are conformable to your wishes!

But he replied, predict better things; -for I should rather wish that such things may happen to me as are conformable to the will of the Gods. For he thought it was more scientific and equitable, not to resist or be indignant with divine providence.

If, therefore, any one wishes to learn what were the sources whence these men derived so much piety, it must be said, that a perspicuous paradigm of the Pythagoric theology according to numbers, is in a certain respect to be found in the writings of Orpheus.

Nor is it to be doubted, that Pythagoras receiving auxiliaries from Orpheus, composed his treatise Concerning the Gods, which on this account also he inscribed the Sacred Discourse, because it contains the flower of the most mystical place in Orpheus ; whether this work was in reality written by Pythagoras, as by most authors it is said to have been, or as some of the Pythagoric school who are both learned and worthy of belief assert, was composed by Telauges; being taken by him from the commentaries which were left by Pythagoras himself to his daughter Damo, the sister of Telauges, and which it.is said after her death were given to Bitale the daughter of Damo, and to Telauges the son of Pythagoras, and the husband of Bitale, when he was of a mature age.

For when Pythagoras died, he was left very young with his mother Theano. In this Sacred Discourse also, or treatise concerning the Gods (for it has both these inscriptions), who it was

78 that delivered to Pythagoras what is there said concerning the Gods, is rendered manifest.

For it says: “that Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus was instructed in what pertains to the Gods, when he celebrated orgtes in the Thracian Libethra, being initiated in them by Aglaophemus; and that Orpheus the son of Calliope, having learnt wisdom from his mother 1n the mountain Pangeus, said, that the eternal essence of number is the most providential principle of the universe, of heaven and earth, and the intermediate nature; and farther still, that it 1s the root of the permanency of divine natures, of Gods and demons.

1 From these things, therefore, it is evident that he learnt from the Orphic writers that the essence of the Gods is defined by

1 « The Pythagoreans,” (says Syrianus in Aristot. Metaphys. lib. 13.) “ received from the theology of Orpheus, the principles of intelligible and intellectual numbers, they assigned them an abundant progression, and extended their dominion as far as to sensibles themselves. Hence that proverb was peculiar to the Pythagoreans, that all things are assimilated to number.

Pythagoras, therefore, in THE Sacrep Discourse, clearly says, that “number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and is the cause of Gods and demons.

He also supposes, that “ to the most ancient and artificially ruling deity, number is the canon, the artificial reason, the intellect also, and the most undeviating balance of the composition and generation of all things.” airés pev LliPtydpas, ev rd iépm Aoyy, Stappydyy popdwv xai Wewy xpdyropa rév dpOpov edeyer eat, Kai Odwy Kai Saipovwv airiov’ Kai ro mpécBvrarw kai xpariorevovre réexvity Géw Kavova, Kai oyov TexviKdy, vouv te xai otaOpdv axNivécraray tov apiOuov trexe cvaordaros nai yevéoews tiv wdvrwv.

Syrianus adds, “ But Philolaus declared that number is the governing and self-begotten bond of the eternal permanency of mundane natures.” didddavs be, ris TOv KoopeKdv dusvias Stapdvys THY Kpaticrevovcay Kal atroyevy ovoxyy éwat dredyvaro rév dpOpsy.

“And Hippasus, and all those who were destined to a quinquennial silence, called number the judicial instrument of the maker of the universe, and the first paradigm of mundane fabrication.” dé: Se wépe ‘Immacov dxovopatixot étrov Kpitixdy xoopoupyov Béov dpyévor, xai wapdderypa mpwrdv xooporoiias.

“ But. how is it possible they could have spoken thus sublimely of number, unless they had considered it as possessing an essence separate from sensibles, and a transcendency fabricative, and at the same time paradigmatic ? ”