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

1. “Wisdom as much excels in all human affairs as the sight does the [other] corporeal senses, intellect the soul, and the sun the stars. For the sight is the most far-darting, and the most multiform of all the senses; intellect is the supreme part of the soul, judging by reason and dianoia what is fit, and existing as the sight and power of the most honorable things; and the sun is the eye and soul of things which have a natural subsistence. For through it all things become visible, are generated, and rise into existence.! Deriving also their roots, and being generated from thence, they are nourished, increased and excited by it In conjunction with sense.

2. ““Man was generated by far the wisest of all [terrestrial] animals. For he is able to contemplate the things which exist, and to obtain from all things science and wisdom. ‘To which also it may be added, that divinity has engraved and exhibited in him the system of universal reason, in which all the forms of things in existence are distributed, and the significations of nouns and verbs. For a place is assigned for the sounds of the voice, viz. the pharynx, the mouth, and the nostrils. But as man was generated the instrument of the sounds, through which nouns and verbs are signified, so likewise of the conceptions which are beheld in the things that have an existence. And this appears to me to be the work of wisdom, for the accomplishment of which man was generated and constituted, and received organs and powers from divinity.

3. “Man was generated and constituted, for the

1 For voyras in this place, I read @verat.

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purpose of contemplating the reason of the whole of nature, and in order that, being himself the work of wisdom, he might survey the wisdom of the things which exist.—For if the reason of man 1s contemplative of the reason of the whole of nature, and the wisdom also of man perceives and contemplates the wisdom of the things in existence,—this being acknowledged, it is at the same time demonstrated, that man is a part of universal reason, and of the whole of the intellectual nature.

4. “Wisdom is not conversant with a certain definite existing thing, but is simply conversant with all the things that exist. And it is requisite, that it should not first eile fa the principles of itself, but the common principles of all beings. For wisdom so subsists with reference to all beings, that it is the province of it to know and contemplate the universal accidents of all things. And on this account wisdom discovers the principles of all beings.

5. ‘“‘Whoever, therefore, is able to analyze all the genera which are contained under one and the same principle, and again to compose and con-numerate them, he appears to me to be the wisest of men, and to possess the most perfect veracity. Farther still, he will also have discovered a beautiful place of survey, from which it will be possible to behold divinity, and all things that are in co-ordination with, and successive to him, subsisting separately, or distinct from each other. Having likewise entered this most ample road,

1 Neither of the Latin translators North and Arcerius have understood this passage, and therefore have erroneously translated it. For the original is: xai wavra ra év tq ovorotyxeia Kai Tater Ta éKxeivou xaraxexwpiopeva. This North translates: ‘ Atque omnia in rerum serie et ordine ab illo separata.” But Arcerius: “ Atque omnia que sunt in nature cognatione ordineque ab illo separata.” By the things however co-ordinate with, and successive to God, Archytas means the other Gods, who, though subordinate to the supreme, yet in consequence of partaking of the same nature, are said to be co-ordinate with him. Gale, likewise, did not perceive the error of the Latin translators.

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being impelled in a right direction by intellect, and having arrived at the end of his course, he will have conjoined beginnings with ends, and will know that God is the principle, middle, and end, of all things which are accomplished according to justice and right reason.” 1

1 Plato says this of God in his Laws.

PYTHAGORIC ETHICAL SENTENCES FROM STOBAUS,

Which are omitted in the Opuscula Mythologica, &Sc. of Gale.

Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.

Choose rather to be strong in soul than in body.

Be persuaded that things of a laborious nature contribute more than pleasures to virtue.

Every passion of the soul is most hostile to its salvation.

It is difficult to walk at one and the same time in many paths of life.}