Pythagorean Oaths

With respect to oaths, however, all the Pythagoreans religiously observe them, being mindful of the Pythagoric precept:

A certain Pythagorean, being compelled by law to take an oath, yet in order that he might preserve a Pythagoric dogma, though he would have sworn religiously, chose instead of swearing to pay 3 talents, this being the fine which he was condemned to pay to the defendant.

Pythagoras however believed that nothing happened by chance and fortune. Instead, he believed that all events happened according to divine providence, especially those that affected good and pious men.

This is confirmed by:

• Androcydes in his treatise on Pythagoric Symbols
• Thymaridas a Pythagorean Tarentine

When Thymaridas was about to sail someone said to him:

He thought it was more scientific and equitable, not to resist or be indignant with divine providence.

Where did these men derive so much piety?

It can be found in the writings of Orpheus which has a perspicuous paradigm of the Pythagoric theology according to numbers.

Pythagoras received auxiliaries from Orpheus, composed his treatise Concerning the Gods, which on this account also he inscribed the Sacred Discourse, because it contains the flower of the most mystical place in Orpheus;

whether this work was in reality written by Pythagoras, as by most authors it is said to have been, or as some of the Pythagoric school who are both learned and worthy of belief assert, was composed by Telauges;

being taken by him from the commentaries which were left by Pythagoras himself to his daughter Damo, the sister of Telauges, and which it is said after her death were given to Bitale the daughter of Damo, and to Telauges the son of Pythagoras, and the husband of Bitale, when he was of a mature age.

When Pythagoras died, he was left very young with his mother Theano.

This Sacred Discourse is also called the treatise concerning the Gods (for it has both these inscriptions). It says:

Thus, he learnt from the Orphic writers that the essence of the Gods is defined by number.

Through the same numbers also, he produced an admirable fore-knowledge and worship of the Gods, both which are especially most allied to numbers.

This, however, may be known from hence; for it is necessary to adduce a certain fact, in order to procure belief of what is said.

When Abaris performed sacred rites in his accustomed manner, he procured a fore-knowledge of future events.

• This is studiously cultivated by all the Barbarians, through sacrificing animals, especially birds.
• They believe that the viscera of such animals are subservient to a more accurate inspection.

Pythagoras wanted to impart it to Abaris through a safer way without blood and slaughter because:

• he did not want to suppress his ardent pursuit of truth
• he thought that a cock was sacred to the sun

And so Pythagoras furnished him with a consummate knowledge of all truth through the arithmetical science.

• Abaris also obtained from piety, faith concerning the Gods.

For Pythagoras always proclaimed, that nothing admirable pertaining to the Gods or divine dogmas should be disbelieved, because the Gods are able to accomplish all things.

The divine dogmas in which it is requisite to believe, are those which Pythagoras delivered.

Thus, therefore, the Pythagoreans believed in, and assumed the things about which they dogmatised, because they were not the progeny of false opinion.

Hence Eurytus the Crotonian, the auditor of Philolaus said, that a shepherd feeding his sheep near the tomb of Philolaus, heard some one singing.

But the person to whom this was related, did not at all disbelieve the narration, but asked what kind of harmony it was. Pythagoras himself, also, being asked by a certain person what was indicated by seeming in sleep to converse with his father who was dead, answered that it indicated nothing. For neither, said he, is any thing portended by your speaking with me.

Pythagoras likewise used pure and white garments and coverlids. He did not use those that were made of wool.

This custom he also delivered to his auditors.

In speaking also of the natures superior to man, he employed honorable names, and words of good omen, and upon every occasion made mention of and reverenced the Gods;

During supper, he performed libations to the divinities, and ordered his disciples to celebrate with hymns the beings that are above us, every day.

He paid attention likewise to rumors and omens, prophecies and lots, and in short, to all casual circumstances.

Moreover, he sacrificed to the Gods with millet, cakes, honey-combs, and other fumigations.

But he did not sacrifice animals, nor did any one of the contemplative philosophers.

His other disciples, however, viz. the acusmatici, and the politici, were ordered by him to sacrifice animals, such as a cock, or a lamb, or some other animal recently born, but not frequently.

At the same time they were prohibited from sacrificing oxen.

This also is an indication of the honor which he paid to the Gods, that he exhorted his disciples never to employ the names of the Gods uselessly in swearing.

On which account also Syllus, one of the Pythagoreans in Crotona, paid a fine for not swearing, though he could have sworn without violating truth.

An oath too such as the following is ascribed to the Pythagoreans, as they were unwilling, through reverence, to name Pythagoras; just as they very much abstained from using the names of the Gods.

But they manifested the man through the invention of the tetractys:

Pythagoras emulated the Orphic mode of writing and [piety of] disposition.

He honored the Gods in a way similar to that of Orpheus, placing them in brass images, not conjoined to our forms, but to divine receptacles[36]. This is because they:

• comprehend and provide for all things
• have a nature and morphe similar to the universe.

He also promulgated purifications, and initiations which contain the most accurate knowledge of the Gods.

He was the author of a compound divine philosophy and worship of the Gods, some of which he learned from:

• the followers of Orpheus
• the Egyptian priests
• the Chaldæans and Magi
• the mysteries performed in Eleusis, in Imbrus, Samothracia, and Delos
• those which are performed by the Celtæ, and in Iberia.

The Sacred Discourse of Pythagoras is extant among the Latins. It is not read to all, nor by all of them, but by those who are promptly disposed to learn what is excellent, and apply themselves to nothing base.

He ordained that:

• men should make libations thrice
• Apollo oracles should be delivered from the tripod
  • This is because the triad is the first number
• sacrifices should be made to Venus on the sixth day
  • This is because this number is the first that partakes of every number, and, when divided in every possible way, receives the power of the numbers subtracted and of those that remain.
• it is necessary to sacrifice to Hercules on the eighth day of the month from the beginning, looking in so doing to his being born in the seventh month.
• it was necessary that he who entered a temple should be clothed with a pure garment, and in which no one had slept
  • This is because sleep in the same manner as the black and the brown, is an indication of sluggishness; but purity is a sign of equality and justice in reasoning.
• if blood should be found involuntarily spilt in a temple, a lustration should be made, either in a golden vessel, or with the water of the sea; the former of these [i. e. gold] being the most beautiful of things, and a measure by which the price of all things is regulated; but the latter as he conceived being the progeny of a moist nature, and the nutriment of the first and more common matter.
• it was not proper to bring forth children in a temple
  • This is because it is not holy that in a temple the divine part of the soul should be bound to the body

• on a festive day, neither the hair should be cut, nor the nails paired; not thinking it fit that we should leave the service of the Gods for the purpose of increasing our good.
• a louse should not be killed in a temple; conceiving that a divine power ought not to participate of any thing superfluous and corruptible.
• the Gods should be honored with cedar, laurel, cypress, oak, and myrtle
• the body should not be purified with these, nor should any of them be divided by the teeth
• what is boiled should not be roasted; signifying by this that mildness is not in want of anger
• the bodies of the dead should not be burned; following in this the Magi, being unwilling that any thing divine should communicate with a mortal nature.
• it was holy for the dead to be carried out in white garments; obscurely signifying by this the simple and first nature, according to number and the principle of all things.
• an oath should be taken religiously; since that which is behind is long.[37] This was his most important rule.
• it is much more holy to be injured than to kill a man: for judgment is deposited in Hades, where the soul and its essence, and the first nature of things are [properly] estimated.
• sepulchral chests [i. e. biers] should not be made of cypress, because the sceptre of Jupiter was made of this wood, or for some other mystic reason.
• libations should be performed before the table of Jupiter the Saviour, and of Hercules and the Dioscuri; in so doing celebrating Jupiter as the presiding cause and leader of this nutriment; Hercules, as the power of nature; and the Dioscuri, as the symphony of all things.
• libations should not be offered with closed eyes. For he did not think it fit, that any thing beautiful should be undertaken with shame and bashfulness.
• the earth should be touched when it thundered, in remembrance of the generation of things
• temples should be entered from places on the right hand, and that they should be departed out of from the left hand.

For he asserted that the right hand is the principle of what is called the odd number, and is divine; but that the left hand is a symbol of the even number, and of that which is dissolved.

Such is the mode which he is said to have adopted in the cultivation of piety.