Pythagoras

Qq e 1QL o ARTICLE IL PYTHAGORAS. Greece, lying midway between Asia Minor and Italy, transmitted, about 800 years before the birth of our Saviour, a hardy and enterprising population to Sicily and the neighboring continent; and at the same time, as though mindful of the sunny shores to the East, from which their ancestors had adventurously launched their lurks, Greeks, with restless energy, glided through the thousand emerald Isles of the Ægean, to lay the foundations of Samos, Ephesus, and Miletus, and the nine other noted cities on the coast of Asia Minor. The excursion westward, in those days, was full of peril. ‘Though the distance between the nearest points of Epirus and Italy, was not more than fifty miles, but few Islands intervened; and abroad on the blue sea, with no land in sight, was a position which early sailors dreaded, and for which their diminutive craft were but poorly adapted, Overcoming all difficulties, however, just at the close of the eighth century, B. C., active Greeks spread over the modern Calabria, and encouraged by the success which attended their efforts, Tarentum, Locri, and Rhegium, with the two great cities, Sybaris and Croton, speedily started into existence. ‘The walls of Sybaris had a circuit of six miles, whilst those of Croton are believed to have extended over at least twelve miles. We enter into the midst of one of these places with Pythagoras, about five hundred and thirty years before Christ. Sybaris and Croton were then the greatest Hellenic cities; and the region of Italy of which they VOL. vil.—35 same APARTEROY Sane

[April. > 1860.] PYTHAGORAS, 547 were the principal masters, was called Magna Gracia. captives in Babylon; and that he found his way into Sybaris was notorious for her luxurious indolence. The host of vices which spring from self-indulgence, found western Europe, to become familiar with the religion of the Druids. Jamblichus, with some probability, as- Her wealthy citizens were steeped to serts that on his way to Egypt, he visited Phoenicia, and the lips in effeminacy, drunkenness, debauchery. Some conception of the number of her inhabitants may le became acquainted with the prophets and philosophers, formed from the statement which is given, that the arm) This Mochus, Selden and others believe to have been Moses. a home there. she despatched against Croton, consisted of three hum who were the successors of Mochus, the physiologist. For generations after her over- After his return, the flourishing Grecian cities in Italy throw, “Sybaritic stories” held much the same plac attracted his notice; and Croton received his preference dred thousand men. among the Grecks, that the Arabian Nights hold in by the superior character of its population. Christendom, was ruled by an aristocracy. Croton was renowned for the skill of her physicians, The city The public mind, 533 or 535, B. C., was weighed down by a defeat which their Unlike the Sybarites, her citizens were of vigorous boii: ly habit, and frequently carried away the prize at the Olympic games. In size, in riches, and in population, army had just suffered from the united Locrians the city was inferior to Sybaris. acquired abroad, After a political rev and Rhegians. Pythagoras had observed closely, and carefully compared and sifted the knowledge which he had He had gathered up the golden grains lution at the latter place, Croton had given shelter to * for philosophy that time was bearing down in Grecian body of her exiles. channels from the past. The demand for them having bees ‘Thales, Anaximander and Xerefused, the Sybarites marched toward Croton, and suf. nophanes, had loosened from the sand and strenuously fered a fatal defeat from the army of that city, consisting labored at elemental principles of thought. of only one third their numbers. Mingling The Crotoniates wert with these, Egyptian mysticism and ascetic observance, exasperated to such a degree, that after destroying the the Samian sage was prepared to offer to the people of city, they altered the course of the neighboring river Croton a new scheme of philosophy with which religion so that it should flow over and obliterate its site. and politics were strangely blended. It was twenty or twenty-five years before this event that Pythagoras arrived at Croton. He had been bors in the Island of Samos, about 580, B, C, With ar His success must have been beyond his own brightest expectations; for, respected by the people at large, he attached to himself great numbers of the rich and influardent thirst for knowledge, he had spent many yea’ ential, out of whom three hundred formed a in travelling into foreign countries. ciety, with peculiarities of dress, of diet, and of religious he had visited Egypt. It is certain that It is alleged without any ev rites. select so- With the heartiest contempt for all others, the dence, that he journeyed as far as India; that he eon members of this fraternity cherished the warmest friendferred in their own cities with the Persian and Chaldear ship for each other; and through the establishment of Magi; that he attended upon the instructions of Zr similar clubs, dependent upon their head at Croton, and roaster; that he conversed with Jewish prophets then Working for the same political ends, the secret society

[April, of the Pythagoreans became a mighty political engine among all the cities of Magna Grecia. u The Pythagoreans, however, excited opposition through their arrogant manners; through their aristocratical uffiliations; through the great power they were able to wield; and through the political opinions embraced from 1860.] PYTHAGORAS. 549 relate that he was once meditating on the arrangement of some settled rule to guide the ear in music. Passing n blacksmith shop, he heard four hammers striking the anvil in succession. The blows produced a pleasant concord. Seeing the hammers to be of different sizes, their leader. A popular tumult was at length excited he had them carefully weighed, and discovered that they were to each other in the proportion of six, eight, nine, and twelve. Ie now suspended four strings, equal in length and thickness, and fastening to them weights, early writers, perished. By 420 B, C., the brotherhoo! in this proportion, he ascertained, upon striking them, that they gave the same sound as the hammers. Upon against them, and the building in which they were convened having been set on fire, most of them, Pythagoras himself being among the number, according to some had been dispersed through Greece. had nearly died out. By 300 B. C., 11 But reviving again, and absorbed this he founded his theory of musical intervals. by new Platonism, it is found contemporaneous and in The frontispiece to Marpurg's History of Music, represents the philosopher weighing the hammers. But little or none of its scientific tendencies, but with more than its primitive and imaginative fanaticism. no such concord of sounds will be produced by different antagonism with Christianity. It was revived, too, with -Whilst Pythagoras imparted political maxims to his disciples, politics held but a subordinate place, we have reason to suppose, as well in bis estimation as in his teachings. ‘His philosophy assumed the character chief ly of scientific speculation and religious instruction. Much of it was borrowed from the Egyptians, to whom he was also indebted for several peculiarities in his mode of teaching, especially that of conveying knowledge through symbols. But even when this is granted, there remains more of originality in the positive system and achievements of Pythagoras than belongs probably to even the later sages of Greece. Much that is fabulous mingles with the accounts that reach us of the scientific attainments of this philosopher. As none of his instructions were committed to writing, until the generation in which he lived had passed away, there was ample opportunity for mistakes and misrepresentations. Jamblichus, Gaudentius, and Macrobius, hammers on the same anvil; and no such proportion of weights will give the required musical intervals. Singularly enough, though, as Galileo determined by actual experiment, the squares of the given numbers will yield these intervals. Pythagoras was acquainted, we may believe, with musical ratios, but arrived at his knowledge of them rather through meditation and design. Discoveries in all parts of the science of music are attributed to him; and we know that he employed it With his disciples to sooth disorderly passions. The key to the doctrines of Pythagoras is supposed to be found in the idea of unity in multiplicity; multiplicity being unity unfolded, and always capable of reduction again into unity. The Deity, the principle pervading all things, is the great unit, and all things again ean be resolved back into the Deity. "The one expandcd into the many, or the many bound up in the one, constitute harmony. numerous Kindred To things discover by what principle are together joined educe the idea of order, was a leading object kept in

[A pril, ‘This led him into politics, through the considernomy. 550 view. PYTILAGORAS. PYTHAGORAS. 591 And here, it would seem, he embraced or disco- From this he vered the truth of what we are now wont to call the Covery naturally turned to discover how order was to be pernican system, which makes suns the centres of planeestablished in the individual mind. Virtue he made to tary motions, and gives the earth, as by no means the result from a perfect proportion of all the active princilargest of these planets, only its own relative place. “The ples of the soul. ten fundamental numbers contain the whole system of the ation of order in society or government. Truth was eminently a Pythagorean world; hence the decadal astronomic system; and as the virtue, and justice the glory of man. * Number is associated with every part of his philosonumber ten has its root in unity, these ten great bodies turn around a centre which represents unity. ‘The cenphy; so prominent is this that his followers have been denominated a mathematical sect. Ile took his discitre of the system of the world, according to appearance, ples at once into the study of geometry and arithmetic, the senses, and the school of Jonia, is the earth; the cenlaying far the greater stress upon the latter. tre of the system of the universe, according to reason He carried his numbers over both into the science of mind and of morals; “he went,” as has been said, “from the arithand the Italian school, is the sun. metic of virtue to the virtue of arithmetic.” ple, is immobile, the sun is immobile. ‘The uni- Now, as the sun represents unity, and as unity, although the active princi- ‘The laws of the verse was arranged according to mathematical propormovement of the ten great bodies around the sun, contions. stitute the music of the spheres; the entire world is a The heavens moved according to their own eternal harmony. Lines and numbers possessed a symbolic meaning; and through them, he supposed he had ac cess to the deepest secrets of nature. He defined juswhole. harmoniously arranged, xéepos, and it has preserved this beautiful name.”* These mathematical principles set to music, produced tice to be a square number; and identified the virtues that exquisite poetical conception which Shakspeare has with numerical relations. so happily expressed: numbers.” Nature was “an imitation of The soul was a moving ‘number, a self-moving monad, its physical constitution, fire. It was both intellectual and passionate; its intellect being immortal: Moral good was essential unity; plurality or division. moral evil essential Pythagoras strove to be practical, and considered music as founded upon proportion, to be the link between the practical and the ideal. To him belongs the credit of the x6ou0ç; and he is reputed to have been the author of the multiplication table, and to have discovered that the square on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. Numbers led him over into astro. * Butler. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold’st, But in his motion like an angel sings. If we may take the verses which Ovid attributes to Pythagoras, as containing the scientific tenets of the Pythagoreans of the Augustan age, and consider them as an amplification only of principles, delivered by the Samian philosopher, then the wonder that Pythagoreans anticipated the inductions of modern science, relative to the movements of the heavenly bodies, is multiplied, for Ovid's verses show that he had anticipated some of * Cousin.

[April, PYTHAGORAS. 1860.] 553 Doubtless the zeal with which he comthe leading principles of the most recent of the sciences of Nazareth. —geology. hated error, the unwearied patience with which he set And that is solid earth that once was sea: Seas in their turn retreating from the shore, Make solid land, what ocean was before; And far from strands are shells of fishes found, And rusty anchors fixed on mountain ground. And what were fields before, now washed and worn himself to educe a more satisfactory ethical code, and above all, the calmness with which he took the cup from the hand of the executioner, the victim of popular misunderstanding and hate, are traits which elevate him to the highest pinnacle of philosophical greatness. By falling floods from high, to valleys turn. * But Socrates lived in an age as historic as that of the This whole passage upon the Pythagorean Philosophy, in the 15th Book of the Metamorphoses, is exceedingly curious. He taught that “nothing perishes in this Saviour. The facts in the life of each can be ascertained, and if doubt be suggested of an action or a doctrine, the records of Plato and Xenophon, and of the four evangelists, are at hand for a ready solution. But pass back a few generations, and the clouds come down from the land of myths; and the fancy that can make of world; but things merely vary and change their form. Being born is only that anything begins to be that which it was not before; death is only ceasing to be the same thing. Whilst nothing keeps the same visage long, the sum of the whole continues constant.” A rare skill in physiognomy enabled him to reject from the inner circle of the brotherhood, those who would prove to be unworthy. His early studies had made him well acquainted with the regimen best to be pursued, to render the body most vigorous; and the training for the athletes of Croton had many things in common with the mode of living which he adopted for himself and enforced upon his disciples. A passing glance is all that it comports with our present purpose to give of Pythagoras as the man of science. It is Pythagoras the mystic, the religious teacher, with whom we are concerned, likened by some to St. Benedict or St. Francis, and by others so depicted in his ch racter and life, that from the mists of remote Paganism, he is made to confront and surpass Him who spake a never man spake, Skepticism has been accustomed to offer Socrates 1 a character worthy of being compared *Dryden’s Trans , with Jess ahero, a Hercules ora Jupiter, can as easily make a god ofa philosopher. The state of the case seems to be this. New Platonism, from the beginning of the third century after Christ, down to the fall of heathenism, absorbed what was left of Pythagorean philosophy, and became the jealous rival of Christianity. This was an eclectic system far in advance of any of its predecessors, which did not even deny the ‘inspiration of Jesus Christ. It was an early naturalism, mainly evolved from the writings of Plato, which owed much of its interest and comprehensiveness to the silent influence of Christianity upon those ages. Of the New-Platonists, none were more able or active than Porphyry and Jamblichus, The former lived in the closing half of the third century, and was among the most determined opponents of the Christian Church. The other was the disciple of Porphyry. The life of Pythagoras, as written by each of these, eight hundred vears after the time of the philosopher, is but a collection of the apocryphal stories relating to him, which were current in their age.

(April, 1860.) PYTITAGORAS. 505 How little these writers and the materials which they used, are to be relied upon, Mosheim, Lardner and other authorities, will enable us to determine. Of Porphyry, Mosheim says: B. I. part 1, chap. 5, § 8: “But those very works, and the history of his life, show us at the same Grote himself says: “A large proportion of the false statements concerning Pythagoras, comes from these time, that he was a much more virulent than formidable Greece, vol, iv. page 398, enemy to the Christians; for by them it appears, that he was much more attentive to the suggestions of a suan analogue to the great Christian Teacher, perstitious spirit, and the visions of a lively fancy, than similar claim for Pythagoras. New-Pythagoreans, who were not deterred by the want of memorials from illustrating, with ample latitude of fancy, the ideal character of the master.” History of They evidently üsed him as For every claim that was urged for Christ, they were ready with a to the sober dictates of right reason, and a sound judgment; and it may be more especially observed of the remaining fragments of his work against the Christians, previous generations. that they are equally destitute of judgment and equity, relations had been by every successive age, the Nazaand are utterly unworthy of a wise and good man.” Dr. Lardner concludes that “most of the things related by these two authors, concerning the wonderful works nsrene as he stood distinctly delineated a pure and exalted embellishments still newer, and not less easily borrowed. cribed to Pythagoras, are so trifling and so manifestly The Pythagoras of the New-Platonists owed as much to We cannot believe that these romancers contented themselves with the stories which had floated down from Embellished as the wonderful personage, such as the world had never seen, afforded fabulous,” that he cannot believe they intended to oppose the gospel narratives of the life of the Saviour, as their them to the miracles of Jesus Christ. philosophy owed to his doctrines. “Many,” writes Mosheim, B. I. part 1, chap. v. $ 9: “were the deceitful and perfidious stratagems by which this sect (the New-Platonists,) endeavored to obscure the lustre, and diminish the authority of the Christian Our wonder is, that whilst perfectly aware that the fables which assume the name of lives of Pythagoras at the hands of Porphyry and Jamblichus, have just as much of the real biography within them as the story of doctrine. St. George and the Dragon, the most able English historian since the days of Gibbon,* can deem it proper to None of these seemed to be more dangerous than the seducing artifice with which they formed a comparison between the life, actions, and miracles of Christ, and the history of the ancient philosophers, and placed crowd his page with references to these romances, When the narrative will not allow of their introduction in the the contending parties in such fallacious points of view, main type, as though some object would be damaged by as to make the pretended sages of antiquity appear in nothing inferior to the divine Saviour. With this view, their omission, they are crowded into foot notes, And our wonder is not lessened at this unusual mode of treating his subject, when we remember, that these fables Archytas of Tarentum, Pythagoras, of whom Porphyry wrote the life, Apollonius Tyanœus, a Pythagorean philosopher, whose miracles and peregrinations were highly celebrated by the vulgar, were brought upon the scene, and exhibited as divine teachers, and rivals of the Son of God.” were heaped together to form a magazine against Christianity, and that with an unsuspicious mind, they tend to remove every thing like novelty from the life, labors, * Grote.

miracles and purposes of Christ, [April, In furnishing an exact parallel to the person and mission of the Son of God, 1860.] Jamblichus, and kindred spirits, that some philosopher thould be an exact counterpart for the public mind, to sessing supernatural power, to the level of old woman's Jesus of Nazareth. tales, of myths, and suspicious legends of by-gone are loose legend as of equal value with authentic facts, ont historian offers a critical and distinctive judgment uj That we are not forcing our facts to sustain the opinion, that the manner in which the historian of Greece niL©e the legends themselves, dissecting Porphyry and Jam: “The compilations of Porphyry and Jamblichus o the life of Pythagoras, copied from a great variety of authors, will doubtless contain some truth amidst thet confused heap of statements, many incredible, and neatly and Dikacarchus, the best authors from whom the biographers quote, lived near two centuries after the death of Pythagoras, and do not appear to have hod any early memorials to consult, nor any better infor mants than the contemporary Pythagoreans.” Grote, vol. 4, page 402. The greediness with which thes later Pythagoreans received any stories with the slight. est element in them of the supernatural, is another res son he assigns for rejecting their authority as “selectors and discriminators” of accounts respecting Pythagorss. We more than doubt the propriety of introducing this tissue of myths, principally contained in the notes, in a grave historical work. Arranging and presenting these stories as the author does, a weight is given to them as similar in their pretensions to the narratives of the Christian gospels, which they so little deserve. They are stories that would not have been originated, hal and Jamblichus did of old, and as Blount did, Apollonius of Tyana, as a character in every important respect as elevated as that of Jesus of Nazareth, will be worker of miracles, approaching to and sometimes even confounded with the gods.” But it is very difficult to single out what these portions of truth really are, Even Aristoxennt presents Pythagoras, unduly protrudes him as Porphyry easily perceived when we gather together, from the face of the work, the points of resemblance. In the pages of the fourth volume of Grote, devoted to Pythagoras, he is presented as an “important teacher, prophet and blichus most effectually. all unauthenticated. 557 not the Christian histories then been in existence; and | had it not been deemed a necessity by Porphyry and they bring down the claims of Jesus of Nazareth as pos Reminding us strongly of Gibbon’s skilful use of the note to convey skeptical ideas, and at the same time guarding against the charge of employing this kind ef PYTHAGORAS. | a€CURE: He believed in “divine inspirations coming on men,” and concluded that he “was inspired by the gods to reveal a new mode of life—the Pythagorean life—and to promise divine favor to a select and docile few.” “He was not an impostor, he was delivered from that by believing in his inspiration.” He was esteemed “godlike by succeeding generations of Pythagoreans.” “Meiners established it as probable, that the stories respecting the miraculous powers and properties of Pythagoras, got into circulation either during his life-time or at least not long after his death.” Ile was “a person favored by the gods, and patentee of divine secrets.” Ile was a religious missionary, “Ife was an ethical teacher.” On his first appearance at Croton “his preaching and his conduet produced an effect almost electric upon the minds of the people.” “No less than two thousand persons were converted at his first preaching.” The object which Pythagoras had in view was to

1860.] PYTHAGORAS. “found a new special order of brethren, bound together by religious rites and observances peculiar to che selves.” Ife “appears as the revealer of a mode of life, for Christianity more evident than just such a bold claim for an ancient philosopher. Porphyry and Jamblichus, calculated to raise his disciples above the level of mat ras, to those who were accustomed to weigh historic evikind and to recommend them to the favor of the gods. IIe promised “divine favor to a select and docile few, dence, even in their own day, could make nothing of Pythago- And to produce the Samian sage, in this late day, as a counterpoise to the meek man of Nazareth, is as the recompense of a strict ritual obedience, of austere self-control, and of laborious training, bodily as well a* only to show what unsanctified philosophy would do if mental.” There was probably “a certain measure of self-denial The facts about Christ's character and works are all derived from eye-witnesses, Nothing is taken for grant- 1t obtained the ed, but every arrangement is made for substantiating the peculiar attachment and obedience of many devoted truth of every occurrence, by the testimony of those who embodied in the Pythagorean life.” adherents. it were able. It exacted “entire mental devotion to the are present. Every miracle He performs is in public. master,” or faith. Pythagoras died after “forty days of voluntary abstinence from food.” The banding toget! Ile heals the blind upon the way side, when the multier of the Pythagoreans “was without any thing like community of property which some have ascribed ' funeral, them.” tude are passing; He restores Lazarus to life at a great wonderful works, is such as would be admitted as complete in any court of justice. An early author is quoted who pronouncrl Pythagoras to have been “engaged in fishing for men. What is there that is distinctive about Jesus of Nazareth, that we have not here? Pythagoras, ar cording to this representation, is as wise; he forte]! the future as well; he as well performs miracles. He is a good man, believing himself to be inspired, and 1quiring his disciples to have implicit faith in him. I is the founder of a brotherhood, which endures nearly* thousand years, and in which self-denial and exact rh ‘The evidence that is offered for each of His a.e—p It is the best of contemporaneous testimony. They who offer it, do it under the urgency of duty; and they are plain, honest men, who can be suspected of no sinister motives for attaching themselves to the cause of a new leader, They do not affirm that they have heard from others that Jesus of Nazareth raised the son of the widow of Nain, or turned the water into wine at Cana of Galilee; but these, and all similar miracles they allege, we saw. It is not that some one suspected that Nay, there 1 he had beheld the Saviour alter his crucifixion, in some that very element here, that many a scientific man, 044 estimating the dignity of his pursuit, and yet, not rew!s Tiberias, but it is that he appeared in the very midst gious observances are made obligatory. Upper room, or standing upon the shore of the sea of of his disciples, showing them his hands and his side. to reject the claims of the Christian religion, would I It is present before the eyes of T'homas, as palpable to but too glad to recognise in its founder, a love for seientific research, and the injunction of it upon his follows the senses as ever he was, saying, “Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, as a direct duty. and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but be- But nothing makes the worth of the historic evidence

[April, 1860.] lieving.” Itis eating with seven disciples, who clustered around him and looking up into his eyes with wonder and love, saw that it is no other than their Lord. PYTHAGORAS. 561 lo Pythagoras, were ascribed to him antecedent to the lime of the Saviour, and before the Saviour's miracles were generally known through the world. Seen forty days after the resurrection, not by one or tiro We might be willing to rest the case on the lowest merely, but always by several, the facts of the gospel degree of probability; and merely ask from the whole history, with those who are able to weigh testimony, round of record, of whatever kind, that it be made promust be regarded as beyond dispute. bable that Pythagoras uttered one distinet prophecy, But where is there a solitary miracle wrought by Pythagoras, either distinctly described, or set before the like our Saviour’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerustudent of history with a shadow of evidence. The first memorials of him were not made public until about one hundred years after his death, by Philolaus, ani these are mostly accounts of his scientific discoverie« of Christianity fall, and the external evidences of Chrissalem, or brought one dead man to life like Lazarus. If this can be done, we acknowledge that the bulwarks lianity are overthrown. There is one feature in the character of Christ, that Before that, neither he nor his disciples committed anythis contrast, as it becomes, brings out most beautifully. thing to writing, It is the simplicity of the aim of his life. Meiners, it is stated, in a nole, “established it as probable that the stories respecting the miraculous powers and properties of Pythagoras, go! into circulation either during his life-time, or at leas not long after his death.” This probability we deem to after, ready to be expressed; proclaim all about tion. rocks, Christ With all the treasures of wisdom, such as Solon civil organizations tenders to magic. They are like the miracles of the apocryphal Gospels, discriminated from those of the real at the first glance, as unnecessary to be performed, ani for human society, Christ never confounded what he had to teach with political disquisitions or apophthegms. Ile was simply the moral (cacher, the unblemished man, the man suspected of belonging to occasions that had no claims upon supema: fy a candid mind, that the wonderful deeds attributed the and Montesquieu longed and labored for, about the best to a level with the slight-of-hand performance of pre the disc of the moon. It cannot be shown, so as to satis perfectly competent to the stars, and complicates his doctrine with no such scientific instrucbe exceedingly slight. If admitted at all, the sage is de graded into a shameless impostor, and his miracles sink tural interference. As examples of what are called the miracles of Pythagoras, we may take these two: At the Olympic Games, he is said to have exhibited a golden thigh to convince Abaris that he was Apollo. It is claimed that he wrote in letters of blood whatever he pleased on a looking-glass, and setting it opposite the full moon, caused the writing on the glass to be read on With all the lreasures of knowledge, such as Pythagoras was striving to weakness, announcing to others the most elemental and self-commending moral truths. He speaks it forth plainly; he wishes the whole world to understand him. He has no concealed doctrines; he assumes no peculiar dress nor manner of speech. Ile withdraws himself from no class of men; he has a word for all, for his heart is full of tenderness for all, a a =i Ile is a character clear as crystal; transparent as the water from the mountain- “ide, which he so aptly made the emblem of his truth, A contrast may be drawn between Pythagoras and VOL, vul.—36

[April, 1860.] The ened in the Gospels, is like coming out of Aristotle's imatire originality of the Saviour's character is a noticeable point. Pythagoras travels for twenty or thirty years gined cave, and looking upon the broad, beautiful, sunthe founder of Christianity in other respects. He secures the confidence of the Egyptian priests, and is initiated into their mysteries, and becomes familiar PYTHAGORAS, illumined world. vee 563 One sentence to the woman of Samaria, gives more instruction about the nature of God, | and the worship that is acceptable to him, than can be with the methods by which they keep the multitudes derived from all the writings of Socrates, or Plato, or in awe. Cicero. He visits Phoenicia, and probably other coun. One single sermon delivered on a mountain'in tries of the East, and returns home with much gathered the early part of his ministry, in maxims of exquisite lore, ready to impart what he has learned to disciples, morality, in compactness and completeness of exhibition of the simple religious duties, is unlike any other diswho shall be willing to submit themselves to religious observances that his temperament and reflection have induced him to borrow. But Jesus of Nazareth springs up among an agricul: course ever delivered to men. Whence came that unborrowed wisdom? Whience did this humble Jew obtain that comprehensive knowledge of religious doctrine? With what deep ocean of inexhaustible truth tural, exclusive, and comparatively unlettered people. He is born in the bosom of an humble family, and soon did the human mind of Jesus of Nazareth communilearns to bear the burden of a widowed mother’s sup cate? His companions are poor, and no philosophy Read over the beatitudes of Christ, that delineation handed down from preceding generations, expands his mind, or excites his ambition. Amiable, industrious, prudent and dignified, he is chiefly known for the regi of exalted dispositions of mind which, prevailing in human society, would at once bring back the golden age, larity of his life, and for the unwonted ripeness of his best precepts of Pythagoras, like the following: “Receive not a swallow into your house.” “Adore the port. judgment. All at once his friends and countrymen are and then from Jamblichus and others, read some of the startled to hear that he is abroad teaching the people. sound of the whispering wind.” They listen to him and concur in the general opinion, that never man spake as this man. with asword.” “Look not into a mirror by the light of a candle.” “Turn aside from an edged tool.” “ Ent Moral truth was made to flash like a sunbeam on the not the heart or brain.” “Taste not that which hath fallen from the table.” “Break not bread.” “Sleep not at noon.” “When it thunders, touch the earth.” eye of his listeners. Knotty questions were disentangled by the elucidation of a single principle. Acute scribes attempted to answer him in his speech, but stool “Stir not the fire monuments of rebuked vanity before the people, when “Roast not that which has been boiled.” “ Abstain from beans.” “Discourse not of Pythagorean doctrines he opened his lips and taught which was the great comwithout light.” mandment of the law. “Engrave not the image of God in a ring.” And then his sublime enuncir tions of doctrine! Plodding through the volumes of the “Above all things govern your tongue.” “ Rememmasters of haman literature in sunny Greece, and the ber that the paths of virtue and of vice resemble the letter Y.” Persius, Satire 3rd, line 56th, refers to this sitting down to the teachings of Jesus Christ, as record: last saying: Et tibi que Samios diduxit littera ramos.

[April —And the mystery of the beans and flesh is thus ex plained: “Ile forbade his disciples to eat flesh, a also beans, because he supposed them to have been pr -emVur. | 560.] PYTIAGORAS. 565 the fewer, the more they deemed themselves distinguished. That adaptation to the common people, which is the duced from the same putrified matter from which, nt tlory of the Gospel, is one of its most prominent peculithe creation of the world, man was formed.” arilies; it shares it neither with philosophy nor with false religion. How great a conception it was; how di- Göspel, of any such eastern absurdities as metemp*Y. vine! There is a contrast, too, in the entire absence in the chosis, or doctrines that may lead to it. This singular freedom of the Saviour's teachings from any opinion that after ages have shown to be false; the simple and unmixed truth which he delivered, never overthrown by all the subtleties of men or schools—standing apart [rom glosses that speculative philosophy has ever attempted to lay upon it, to réassume its native proportion and genuine colors, at the first earnest contemplation of man—is a marked attribute of the doctrines of the Na zarene. Pythagoras seeing a dog beaten, and hearing him howl, desired the striker to desist, saying, “Itis the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognize by his voice. He is said to have affirmed that he had seen not only Not to bring nectar to lips accustomed to drink from jewelled cups, but to carry down draughts of comfort to the hearts of the overburdened many; to bear the bread of life, and the water of life to the famished and the thirsty, teeming in all the plains, and on all the hillsides of the world. To soothe all asperities; to hush all differences, and to make blend in the music of good will to man, all the dialects of all climes. To make one happy family of those whom God has made of one blood of all nations, children of one Father, and worshipping in the grandeur of one universal religion. But it was after a long probation, and through initiatory ceremonies that the favored applicant was re- Euphorbus in the Grecian army before Troy, but also a ceived into the brotherhood. When admitted, the candidate was obliged to subject himself to severe abstinence, tradesman, a courtezan, and various other characters, and to rigorous exercise. before his actual existence. Ipse ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram: cui pectore quondam Sedit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atride. Pythagoras does not appear to have intended his philosophy to have become the property of the common people. They who were initiated into his brotherhood, were generally the wealthy and the influential. These found that in his society, which contributed to the selfish desire after something exclusive. The nearer they approached the master, the more remote they were from the masses. They held something worth holding, which was the property of but few; and poverty. Ie took a vow of voluntary For three years he was exposed to contradiction, ridicule and contempt, to teach him humility and industry. A long term of silence, lasting from two to five years, was imposed upon him. There was a gralation of orders, each higher one possessing secrets not revealed out of its own circle. There was the esoteric school, the members of which were called the “genuine disciples.” These were the true Pythagoreans—the mathematieians—to whom the master entrusted his entire doctrine, who were permitted to take minutes of his observations, to ask questions, and offer remarks. Then there was the exoteric school, whose members were taught only by symbol and image, who were bound

[April to secrecy, and allowed to commit nothing that they heard to writing. Modern fraternities only imitate these ancient devices, which even at so early a period, were common among the societies of the Grecian cities. —nr. 1860.] AR©T—E mystery, or lends to the innumerable secret societies of IDEADO no esoteric doctrines, with no protracted periods of pr» bation, with no gradations of order, the Christian soci ety, from the first, has been the simplest social organi» profusion these knew better how to employ them to effect than the Egyptian priests. There never was a better imitator in all such matters than Pythagoras. At Samos, we are told he withdrew to a cave, and tauglit his disciples with a great show of mystery. Ilis precepts were delivered as though they were responses from a divine zation, perfectly open to public view, and courting pu oracle. Onee With a long, flowing beard, clothed in a white linen robe, with a golden crown upon his head, as some admitted to the body of believers, the disciple held bu position as a Christian unchallenged, participated in represent, he was never seen to express in his countenance, joy, or grief, or anger, or any other emotion, every rile, and listened to every doctrine. A society like this, however, was most remote from the ideal of Pythagoras. He had witnessed the power There were, probably, external badges which distinguished the various orders of his fraternity from each other; some difference in costume, or difference in color which mystery held over the minds of the Egyptian He well understood the influence of the dim religion light, the deep religious tone, the breath of the super natural from the wreathing incense and the smoking or kind of ornament, As the initiated drew nearer to the circle within which the, master stood alone, he was required to practise more severity, and felt himself rewarded for his diet of beans, with secret doctrines, which With truths half told and half concealed, with none less devoted could share. rites half pictured and half left in the folds of the im Milo, who was a Pythagorean, had been content with the honor of the brothpenetrable curtain, the imagination of the enthusia*t was excited to the highest pitch. Along winding and gloomy avenues, he heard no sound but the echo of his own footstep, and felt only the directing touch of hir erhood in some lower grade, where, upon something better than simple vegetables, he strengthened the muscle that carried the bullock, the fist that felled it, and the stomach that digested it in a single day. Whither he had gone he knew net, Perhaps he had known the glory of promotion to a higher when the solemn strains of musical instruments inspired him with terrors. The voice that addressed him, the removing of the bandage from his eyes, the flashing of torches, the administration of oaths, the procession hither and thither of masked men in ashy robes—ther was nothing wanting in the procedure, which gave 19 modern'times their charm and terror. scenic appendages to strike the senses; and none ever gorean brotherhoods and the Christian Church, than is the Church now from all similar associations. With unknown guide. the brotherhoods of the middle ages their impressive Wherever the human mind has invented itself a retuating themselves, from the beginning, were the Pytht altar. 567 ligion, it has gathered around it in Not more distinct in their arrangements for perp lic inspection in every purpose and movement. PYTHAGORAS. circle, when he failed in rending the tree, and caught in the ineffectual cleft by his brawny hands, was devoured, all helpless, by the wild beasts, honl. So complicated an ohject as Pythagoras pursued, was not consistent with the character of an inspired

teacher. [April. With all the urgency that is applied to drive through a parallel with the one great Prophet of hu manity, the Samian sage cannot be shown to have car! principally for the religious necessities of his followers His position among the notables, is as a philosapler. and earnest only for morals as they contributed to make his disciples indifferent to common wants, and to render them susceptible of a lofty mental improvement His thirst for power, which lay at the foundation ol his character, led him to mingle in the polities of Mar Grecia, and at length excited against him the popular rage, and proved the immediate cause of his death. What a contrast with Christ and his religion! A the springlet gushes from the rock, clear as the eryst 5 and meanders on to the sea, ever revealing to the ex? its treasures of pebbles and sands, the life of Christ is transparent. To raise a mortal to the skies by makins him fit for them, was the end of his ministrations. Qu! into the village, along to the well-side, through the streets of Jerusalem, into its synagogues and its temple, he went, to seek the people, not waiting to be sought He hid himself behind no artfully chosen speech; he kept back for no favored few, more distinguished doc trines, He was the man of the people, arising from among them, anxious for their welfare; sending down his consolation, and administering his help to the poor. the sick, the blind, and the lame. He called upon none to betake themselves to other diet than that ts which they were aceustomed; he made no requisition of garb or speech, to render them peculiar among the brethren. All that he insisted upon was, that thes should show that they were his followers, by being mor forgiving, more compassionate, more kind than other He wedded no prayers, no praise to sunrise or sunse! 1860. | PYTHAGORAS, lo midday or midnight hours.. 569 Bringing out the principles of religious worship aud morality, as God brings out the flowers over the field,—in that apparent disregard of order which adapts them so much the better lo the variety-loving mind of man,—each truth is a study in itself, each truth is a completed whole from whatever point contemplated. The shepherd under the mountain cliff, meditating, though he may not mine as deep into the hidden treasures of heavenly wisdom, may find the shining gold on the surface, abundant enough to make him passing rich; and the student, with his microscopic eye, and diligent comparison of utterance with utterance, though he may trace along the yellow vein, and mark the net-work of other intermingling veins, will only find the same gold, though he will find it more plentifully than his ignorant brother in Christ. How beautiful that life of Jesus Christ! The best human representations of him are what the Parian marble is to human flesh. The words in which men form and express their conceptions, are too coarse, too rigid, to exhibit the Saviour of men. As we go back from all the countenances on which the most skilful painters have exhausted their art, as wanting elements that we feel, rather than know, ouglıt to be upon the canvass; so we step aside from every word-pieture of the Saviour as imperfeet, as unworthy of the sublime original. We ask anew of Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John, what the Prophet said, and what the Prophet did; and passively suffer his features ta mirror themselves on the clear waters of his doctrines ind doings, as meek and melancholy, earnest, dignified, masculinely strong. But Pythagoras !—practising upon the superstitious bar of his disciples; condescending to clumsy masque-

(April, rade, and mendacious pretence; founding a lodge, which, though rude as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, rouw misty-eyed skeptics would exalt to share the glory of the Christian Church; at best securing from his follow: ers the abstinence of anchorites, but lighting up to them no golden visions of streets of celestial cities which they were to win; retailing borrowed learning, and repreducing Eastern mystic observances with sepulchral voice from behind the sombre veil; like a Carmelite or a Franciscan, challenging attention by a pretentious plainness of-garb and austerity of tone; a politician, a philosopher, a physiologist, an astronomer, a mathematician; but with no finger wreathed with power from heaven to raise the dead; with no tongue touched with a live coal to disclose the secrets of the future. Pythagoras is but a phantasmagorial spectre, starting forward as the len“# are adjusted by the skeptical hand, to rattle his bones, and threaten with his skeleton arm; but, in the very natúre of the case, the moment when he towers the most like a giant, about to diminish in his proportions, and recede in the distance, the merest shadow of a shade. Skepticism must go elsewhere to gather materials lor an onset upon Christianity. The philosophers of Greece have never been of service, when called from their own sphere to witness against Christ. The edge of their weapons has ever been turned, in the end, against those who so ignorantly, and with so, great presumption, have called them into the field to do battle for untruth. ins nen )