Pythagorean Teachings across the Centuries - Rosicrucian Order

wrote of it to their friends, as if they had
gained some great advantage.
“The people of Metapontum used to
call his house the temple of Ceres; and the
street leading to it they called the street of
the Muses, as we are told by Favorinus in
his Universal History. And the rest of the
Pythagoreans used to say, according to the
account given by Aristoxenus, in the tenth
book of his Laws on Education, that his
precepts ought not to be divulged to all
the world....” 10
Porphyry Followed the Pythagorean Life
In this brief summary about the
evolution of the Pythagorean thinking,
two important sources cannot be omitted:
the writings of Porphyry and Iamblichus.
Porphyry (ca. 233-ca. 309 CE), a Phoenician
disciple of Plotinus, was a true follower of
the Pythagorean teachings. Faithful to the
doctrine of the school, he believed that all
life must be dedicated to the purification of
the soul, to the control of the body, and to
overcoming passions in order to merge with
the Divine. In order to attain this elevation
toward God, it is necessary to overcome
the obstacles produced by the vibrations
and impulses of matter. One must have
determination to rid oneself of that “clothing
that imprisons and obscures the soul.”
In his work, On Abstaining from Using
Animals as Food, Porphyry highlights
Peter Paul Rubens, Pythagoras Advocating Vegetarianism
(1618-20). Royal Collections of the United Kingdom.
the advantages of a vegetarian diet. The
interesting aspect is not so much what he tells
us about the food, but the ethical concept
of this practice—of this rule of life related
to eating—from the Pythagorean point of
view. He explains that the Pythagorean rule
is not only healthy, but rather is a necessary
instrument for the union with the Divine,
which must be the goal of life for all human
beings who are aware of their divine origin.
In this work Porphyry discussed his
theory concerning sacrifices, considering
them as inferior acts of worship and
only likely to invoke evil spirits. Only
philosophers, understood as disciples of
Pythagoras, avoid these practices of low
magic in order to consecrate themselves
to God, since they are students of nature
and understand her signs. Further, they are
seen to be intelligent, modest, moderate,
and always intent on raising themselves to
the Divine. 11
Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras
His best known work is The Life of
Pythagoras, in which Porphyry described the
school of Crotona as follows:
“When he reached Italy, he stopped at
Croton. His presence was that of a free man,
tall, graceful in speech and in gesture, and in
everything else. Dicaearchus relates that the
arrival of this great traveler, endowed with all
the advantages of nature, and prosperously
guided by fortune, produced on the
Crotonians so great an impression, that he
won the esteem of the older magistrates by
his many and excellent discourses. They
ordered him to deliver exhortations to
the young men, and then to the boys who
flocked out of the school to hear him, and
then to the women, who came together for
this purpose.
“Through this he achieved great
reputation, and he drew great audiences
from the city, not only of men, but also
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