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

li.e. To spheres; Iamblichus indicating by this, that Pythagoras as well as Orpheus considered a spherical figure as the most appropriate image of divinity. For the universe is spherical ; and, as Iamblichus afterwards observes, the Gods have a nature and morpbhe similar to the universe ; morphe, as we learn from Simplicius, pertaining to the color, figure, and magnitude of superficies. Kiessling, having no conception of this meaning, and supposing the whole passage to be corrupt, has made nonsense of it by his alterations. For according to his version, Pythagoras, after the manner of Orpheus, worshipped the Gods not bound to a human form, but to divine numbers. For instead of iSpvpace he reads dpvOyos. But divine numbers both according to Orpheus and Pythagoras are the Gods themselves.

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to Hercules on the eighth day of the month from the beginning, looking in so doing to his being born in the seventh month. He further asserted, that it was necessary that he who entered a temple should be clothed with a pure garment, and in which no one had slept; because sleep in the same manner as the black and the brown, is an indication of sluggishness; but purity is a sign of equality and justice in reasoning.

He also ordered, that if blood should be found involuntarily spilt in a temple, a lustration should be made, either in a golden vessel, or with the water of the sea; the former of these [i.e. gold] being the most beautiful of things, and a measure by which the price of all things is regulated; but the latter as he conceived being the progeny of a moist nature, and the nutriment of the first and more common matter.

He likewise said, that it was not proper to bring forth children in a temple; because it is not holy that in a temple the divine part of the soul should be bound to the body. He further ordained, that on a festive day neither the hair should be cut, nor the nails pared; not thinking it fit that we should leave the service of the Gods for the purpose of increasing our good.

He also said, that a louse ought not to be killed in a temple; conceiving that a divine power ought not to participate of any thing superfluous and corruptible. But that the Gods should be honored with cedar, laurel, cypress, oak, and myrtle; and that the body should not be purified with these, nor should any of them be divided by the teeth.

He likewise ordained, that what is boiled should not be roasted; signifying by this that mildness is not in want of anger. But he would not suffer the bodies of the dead to be burned; following in this the Magi, being unwilling that any thing divine should communicate with a mortal nature.

He likewise thought it was holy for the dead to be carried out in white garments; obscurely signifying by this the simple and first nature, according to number and the

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principle of all things. But above all things he ordained, that an oath should be taken religiously; since that which is behind is long.! And he said, that it is much more holy to be injured than to kill a man: for judgment is deposited in Hades, where the soul and its essence, and the first nature of things are [properly] estimated. Farther still, he ordered that sepulchral chests {i.e. biers] should not be made of cypress, because the sceptre of Jupiter was made of this wood, or for some other mystic reason. He likewise ordained that libations should be performed before the table of Jupiter the Saviour, and of Hercules and the Dioscuri; in so doing celebrating Jupiter as the presiding cause and leader of this nutriment; Hercules, as the power of nature; and the Dioscuri, as the symphony of all things. But he said, that libations should not be offered with closed eyes. For he did not think it fit, that any thing beautiful should be undertaken with shame and bashfulness. Moreover, when it thundered, he ordained that the earth should be touched, in remembrance of the generation of things. But he ordered that temples should be entered from places on the right hand, and that they should be departed out of from the left hand. For he asserted that the right hand is the principle of what is called the odd number, and is divine; but that the left hand is a symbol of the even number, and of that which is dissolved. And such is the mode which he is said to have adopted in the cultivation of piety. But other particulars which we have omitted concerning it, may be conjectured from what has been said. So that I shall cease to speak further on this subject.