Pythagoras

Pythagoras founded a brotherhood of disciples dedicated to philosophia (from the Greek word philo, meaning "love," and sophia, meaning "wisdom"). He said philosophers were "lovers of wisdom." He was called a "leader and father of divine philosophy." The Pythagorean society he led was known for its belief in the purification of the soul. Living by a set of religious and ethical rules was the way to purification and human bliss.

Since Pythagoras believed in reincarnation of the soul from human to human and even human to animal, he and his followers were vegetarians. He believed in a brotherhood of all living things. All living things must be interrelated because their souls have each possessed a great number of different bodies during past transmigrations. One writer told the story of how Pythagoras, seeing someone beating a dog, told him to stop, since he had recognized the voice of a friend in the yelping of the dog. Whether the tale is true or not, Pythagoras did believe in a migration of the soul in which the soul survives death.

The Pythagoreans also dedicated themselves to certain ritual practices. There were thirty-nine rules in all, most of which were rules of abstinence. The Pythagoreans also believed in prolonged silences as a means to improving their self-control. All such rituals furthered the purification of the soul.

They believed that whereas physical sensuality contaminates the soul, the noblest means of purification is intellectual activity, which liberates the soul, and the greatest intellectual activity is mathematics.

Bibliography

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Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism.. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. Pythagoras was the son of a gem-engraver or a merchant. As such he was born into a family of comparative wealth, which enabled him to pursue his own studies without having to worry much about money. Like most Greek philosophers of the era, Pythagoras was part of the upper crust of society and not required to work to support himself, rather he spent his time learning, teaching and playing politics.

Pythagoras is supposed to have claimed that he had been Euphorbus, the son of Panthus, in the Trojan war, as well as various other characters, a tradesman, a courtesan, etc. The people of Croton where he settled for a time after he left Samos were supposed to have identified him with the Hyperborean Apollo, and he was said to have practised divination and prophecy. In the visits to various places in Greece - Delos, Sparta, Phlius, Crete, etc. which are ascribed to him, he usually appears either in his religious or priestly guise, or else as a law­giver.