the attributes of the primitive founder passed for godlike, but
who had no memorials, no historical judgment, and no means of
forming a true conception of Kroton as it stood in 530 B.C.[1]
To trace these tales to a true foundation is impossible: but we may entertain reasonable belief that the success of Pythagoras, as a person favored by the gods and patentee of divine secrets, was very great,—that he procured to himself both the reverence of the multitude and the peculiar attachment and obedience of many devoted adherents, chiefly belonging to the wealthy and powerful classes,—that a select body of these adherents, three hundred in number, bound themselves by a sort of vow both to Pythagoras and to each other, and adopted a peculiar diet, ritual, and observances, as a token of union,—though without anything like community of property, which some have ascribed to them. Such a band of men, standing high in the city for wealth and station, and bound together by this intimate tie, came by almost unconscious tendency to mingle political ambition with religious and scientific pursuits. Political clubs with sworn members, under one form or another, were a constant phenomenon in the Grecian cities,[1]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Aulus Gell. N. A. iv, 11. Apollonius (ap. Jamblich. c. 262) alludes to (
Greek characters) what the date of these may be, we de
not know, but there is no reason to believe them anterior to Aristoxenus.
to the gods,―That it was not right to disbelieve any story recounted respecting the gods, and wherein the divine agency was introduced: no one could tell but what it might be true: to deny its truth, was to set bounds to the divine omnipotence. Accordingly, they made no difficulty in believing what was recounted about Aristæus, Abaris, and other eminent subjects of
mythes (Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 138-148)— (
Greek characters) Also, not less formally laid down in Jamblichus, Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, as the fourth Symbolum, p. 324, ed. Kiessling. (Greek characters). Reasoning from their principles, this was a consistent corollary to lay down; but it helps us to estimate their value as selectors and discriminators of accounts respecting Pythagoras. The extravagant compliments paid by the emperor Julian in his letters to Jamblichus will not suffice to
establish the authority of the latter as a critic and witness: see the Epistolæ. 34, 40, 41, in Heyler's edit. of Julian's letters.
