Pythagoras – the teaching
With the Pythagoreans conceptual thinking entered a world view shaped by myth. What the teaching covered and why master and pupils can hardly be told apart.
The influence of the Pythagorean teaching reaches into our own time. It is said that through the Pythagoreans rational, conceptual thinking entered a world view that until then had been ruled by myth. For Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus), the fifteenth-century theologian, philosopher and churchman, Pythagoras was the first philosopher in name and in fact.
The word philosophy, “love of wisdom”, is said to go back to him. He called himself not a wise man but one who loves wisdom.
Master or pupils?
Which ideas really come from Pythagoras himself and which were only developed by his successors can no longer be determined, apart from a very few basic thoughts. Aristotle already almost never speaks of the teachings of Pythagoras, but of those of the Pythagoreans. The pupils traditionally credited their discoveries to the master.
What the teaching covered
How far the teaching reached can be guessed from a summary in Iamblichus, for all due caution about his reliability. In essence he says: Pythagoras was rightly held in high esteem. Through him the Greeks gained a correct idea of the gods, heroes and daimons, of the world, of the movements of spheres and stars with their eclipses, eccentricities and epicycles, of heaven and earth and everything visible and hidden between them. Through him science and spiritual vision took root, everything that makes the soul see and purifies the mind so that it recognises the true first causes of the universe.
Iamblichus goes on to list what was owed to Pythagoras:
- the best constitution and concord among the people
- common property among friends
- worship of the gods and duties towards the dead
- legislation and education
- the art of silence
- sparing other living beings
- self-control, prudence and sharpness of mind
From this one can read the roles in which Pythagoras was seen. He was priest, philosopher, statesman and natural scientist, and as natural scientist at once mathematician, astronomer and physician. The next parts follow these roles.
Two circles of pupils
The Pythagoreans distinguished between akousmatikoi, the “listeners”, who followed rules and sayings, and mathematikoi, the “learners”, who were initiated into the reasons. This division explains why much of the inner circle remained secret. More in Part 8: The Pythagorean brotherhood.