The golden verses of Pythagoras

by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet; Pythagoras

This application of the number 12 to the Universe is not at all an arbitrary invention of Pythagoras; it was common to the Chaldeans, to the Egyptians from whom he had received it, and to the principal peoples of the earth[258]: it gave rise to the institution of the zodiac, whose division into twelve asterisms has been found everywhere existent from time immemorial.[259] The distinction of the three worlds and their development into a number, more or less great, of concentric spheres inhabited by intelligences of different degrees of purity, were also known before Pythagoras, who in this only spread the doctrine which he had received at Tyre, at Memphis, and at Babylon.[260] This doctrine was that of the Indians. One finds still today among the Burmans, the division of all the created beings established in three classes, each of which contains a certain number of species, from the material beings to the spiritual, from the sentient to the intelligible.[261] The Brahmans, who count fifteen spheres in the universe,[262] appear to unite the three primordial worlds with the twelve concentric spheres which result from their development. Zoroaster, who admitted the dogma of the three worlds, limited the inferior world to the vortex of the moon. There, according to him, the empire of evil and of matter comes to an end.[263] This idea thus conceived has been general; it was that of all the ancient philosophers[264]; and what is very remarkable, is that it has been adopted by the Christian theosophists who certainly were not sufficiently learned to act through imitation.[265] The followers of Basil, those of Valentine, and all the gnostics have imbibed from this source the system of emanations which has enjoyed such a great renown in the school of Alexandria. According to this system, the Absolute Unity, or God, was conceived as the spiritual Soul of the Universe, the Principle of existence, the Light of lights; it was believed that this creative Unity, inaccessible to the understanding even, produced by emanation a diffusion of light which, proceeding from the centre to the circumference, losing insensibly its splendour and its purity in proportion as it receded from its source, ended by being absorbed in the confines of darkness; so that its divergent rays, becoming less and less spiritual and, moreover, repulsed by the darkness, were condensed in commingling with it, and, taking a material shape, formed all the kinds of beings that the world contains. Thus was admitted, between the Supreme Being and man, an incalculable chain of intermediary beings whose perfections decreased proportionably with their alienation from the Creative Principle. All the philosophers and all the sectarians who admired this spiritual hierarchy considered, under the relations peculiar to them, the different beings of which it was composed. The Persian magians who saw there genii, more or less perfect, gave them names relative to their perfections, and later made use of these same names to evoke them: from this came the Persian magic, which the Jews, having received by tradition during their captivity in Babylon, called Kabbala.[266] This magic became mixed with astrology among the Chaldeans, who regarded the stars as animated beings belonging to the universal chain of divine emanations; in Egypt, it became linked with the mysteries of Nature, and was enclosed in the sanctuaries, where it was taught by the priests under the safeguard of symbols and hieroglyphics. Pythagoras, in conceiving this spiritual hierarchy as a geometrical progression, considered the beings which compose it under harmonious relations, and based, by analogy, the laws of the universe upon those of music. He called the movement of the celestial spheres, harmony, and made use of numbers to express the faculties of different beings, their relations and their influences. Hierocles mentions a sacred book attributed to this philosopher, in which he called the divinity, the Number of numbers.[267] Plato, who, some centuries later, regarded these same beings as ideas and types, sought to penetrate their nature and to subjugate them by dialectics and the force of thought. Synesius, who united the doctrine of Pythagoras to that of Plato, sometimes called God, the Number of numbers, and sometimes the Idea of ideas.[268] The gnostics gave to the intermediary beings the name of Eons.[269] This name, which signifies, in Egyptian, a principle of the will, being developed by an inherent, plastic faculty, is applied in Greek to a term of infinite duration.[270] One finds in Hermes Trismegistus the origin of this change of meaning. This ancient sage remarks that the two faculties, the two virtues of God, are the understanding and the soul, and that the two virtues of the Eon are perpetuity and immortality. The essence of God, he said again, is the good and the beautiful, beatitude and wisdom; the essence of Eon, is being always the same.[271] But, not content with assimilating beings of the celestial hierarchy to ideas, to numbers, or to the plastic principle of the will, there were philosophers who preferred to designate them by the name of Words. Plutarch said on one occasion that words, ideas, and divine emanations reside in heaven and in the stars.[272] Philo gives in more than one instance the name of word to angels; and Clement of Alexandria relates that the Valentinians often called their Eons thus.[273] According to Beausobre, the philosophers and theologians, seeking for terms in which to express incorporal substances, designated them by some one of their attributes or by some one of their operations, naming them Spirits, on account of the subtlety of their substance; Intelligences, on account of the thought; Words, on account of the reason; Angels, on account of their services; Eons, on account of their manner of subsisting, always equal, without change and without alteration.[274] Pythagoras called them Gods, Heroes, Demons,[275] relative to their respective elevation and the harmonious position of the three worlds which they inhabit. This cosmogonic ternary joined with Creative Unity, constitutes the famous Quaternary, or Sacred Tetrad, the subject of which will be taken up further on.

Purification

4. Be a good son, just brother, spouse tender, and good father.

The aim of the doctrine of Pythagoras was to enlighten men, to purify them of their vices, to deliver them from their errors, and to restore them to virtue and to truth; and after having caused them to pass through all the degrees of the understanding and intelligence, to render them like unto the immortal gods.

This philosopher had for this purpose divided his doctrine into two parts: the purgative part and the unitive part. Through the first, man became purified of his uncleanness, emerged from the darkness of ignorance, and attained to virtue: through the second, he used his acquired virtue to become united to the Divinity through whose means he arrived at perfection. These two parts are found quite distinct in the Golden Verses. Hierocles, who has clearly grasped them, speaks of it in the beginning of his Commentaries and designates them by two words which contain, he said, all the doctrine of Pythagoras, Purification and Perfection.[276] The Magians and the Chaldeans, all of whose principles Pythagoras had adopted, were agreed on this point, and in order to express their idea, made use of a parabolical phrase very celebrated among them. “We consume,” they said, “the refuse of matter by the fire of divine love.”[277] An anonymous author who has written an history of Pythagoras, preserved by Photius, said that the disciples of this great man taught that one perfects oneself in three ways: in communing with the gods, in doing good in imitation of the gods, and in departing from this life to rejoin the gods.[278] The first of these ways is contained in the first three lines of the Golden Verses which concern the cult rendered, according to the law and according to the faith, to the Gods, to the glorified Heroes, and to the Spirits. The second, that is, the Purification, begins at the fourth line which makes the subject of this Examination. The third, that is, the union with the Divinity, or Perfection, begins at the fortieth line of my translation:

Let not sleep e’er close thy tired eyes.

Thus the division that I have believed ought to be made of this short poem is not at all arbitrary, as one sees the judicious Bayle had remarked it before me.[279]

It is worthy of observation, that Pythagoras begins the purgative part of his doctrine by commending the observance of natural duties, and that he places in the rank of primary virtues, filial piety, paternal and conjugal love. Thus this admirable philosopher made it his first care to strengthen the ties of blood and make them cherished and sacred; he exhorts respect to children, tenderness to parents, and union to all the members of the family; he follows thus the profound sentiment which Nature inspires in all sentient beings, very different in this from certain legislators, blinded by false politics, who, in order to conduct men to I know not what power and what imaginary welfare, have wished, on the contrary, to break those ties, annihilate those relationships of father, son, and brother, to concentrate, they said, upon a being of reason called Country the affection that the soul divides among those objects of its first love.[280] If the legislators had cared to reflect a moment, they would have seen that there existed no country for the one who had no father, and that the respect and love that a man in his virile age feels for the place of his birth, holds its principle and receives its force from those same sentiments that he felt in his infancy for his mother. Every effect proclaims a cause; every edifice rests upon a foundation: the real cause of love of country is maternal love; the sole foundations of the social edifice are paternal power and filial respect. From this sole power issues that of the prince, who, in every well-organized state, being considered as father of the people, has right to the obedience and respect of his children.

I am going to make here a singular comparison which I beg the reader to observe. Moses, instructed in the same school as Pythagoras, after having announced the Unity of God in the famous Decalogue which contains the summary of his law, and having commanded its adoration to his people, announces for the first virtue, filial piety[281]; “Honour,” he said, “thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be multiplied in this country of Adam, that Jhôah, thy Gods, has given thee.”[282]

The theocratic legislator of the Hebrews in making this commandment places recompense by the side of precept: he declares formally that the exercise of filial piety draws with it a long existence. Now, it must be remarked that Moses being content with enclosing in his doctrine the sole purgative part, doubtless judging his people not in a condition to support the unitive part, spoke to them nowhere of the immortality which is its consequence; contenting himself with promising the joys of temporal blessings, among which he carefully placed in the first rank a long life. Experience has proved, relative to people in general, that Moses spoke with a profound understanding of the causes which prolong the duration of empires. Filial piety is the national virtue of the Chinese, the sacred foundation upon which reposes the social edifice of the greatest and the most ancient people of the world.[283] This virtue has been to China, for more than four thousand years, what love of country was to Sparta or to Rome. Sparta and Rome have fallen notwithstanding the sort of fanaticism with which their children were animated, and the Chinese Empire which existed two thousand years before their foundation, still exists two thousand years after their downfall. If China has been able to preserve herself in the midst of the flux and reflux of a thousand revolutions, to save herself from her own wrecks, to triumph over her own defects, and to subjugate even her conquerors, she owes it to this virtue which, raising itself from the humblest citizen to the Son of heaven seated upon the imperial throne, animates all the hearts with a sacred fire, of which Nature herself provides the nourishment and eternalizes the duration. The Emperor is the father of the state; two hundred million men, who regard themselves as his children, compose his immense family; what human effort could overthrow this colossus?[284]