Pythagoras and early Icelandic law

Lube Reykjavik > YAAS Pythagoras and Early Icelandic Law The ancient Roman writer and stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC - 64 AD) left the world a puzzle to ponder: or in the The laws of Zaleucus and Charondas are still admired. And it was not in public life establish to were they which principles l constitutiona the learnt men two these that chambers of lawyers retreat, now in Sicily (then in its heyday), and throughout the Greek areas of Italy, but in the secret haïlowed and famous, of Pythagoras. (Seneca, p. 163) Zaleucus and Charondas were the famous first lawmakers of the Greek colonies in Italy of the 7th and 6th centuries BC. One may surmise that Roman law was largely based on their work. At a conference where hundreds of scholars of law and jurisprudence are assembled there are presumably many who have pondered the words of Seneca and some who know the connection between the Lex Romana and the early lawmakers, Zaleucus and Charondas. I have not had the fortune to meet such scholars; it seems most experts on law have been at a loss to explain Seneca’s words. Certain quotascholars have doubtiess shrugged them off as irrelevant. Conversely, the above n of constitutio Icelandic pagan the of study the in importance major of become has tion c. 930 AD. What did Seneca mean? Was he talking of constitutional principles as known to of modern scholars, or was he referring to “secret” teachings, “hallowed and famous, Pythagoras”? If so, what is meant thereby? How could law be based on the sacred lore n of Pythagoras? Or what, precisely, do we know about the connection of Pythagorea teaching with law? The reason why these questions have become so important for “Nordic Perspectives” concerning “Law, Justice and the State” is that to judge by the symbolic language to preserved in Icelandic manuscripts from the Middle Ages, ideas usually attributed Pythagoras were central to the early Icelandic constitution. If correctly deciphered this Justice symbolic language establishes Pythagorean sacred lore as the kernel of “Law, Europe. Northern in , implication by and, Iceland, pagan medieval in and the State” It should be mentioned here that the numerology and even the basic geometric than the forms usually attributed to Pythagoras are now considered to be much older classical Gresk thinker. Whether Icelanders had their knowledge of “Pythagoras” from doubt sources such as Plato's Timaeus thus remains to be verified; what seerns beyond of followers the as knowledge of kind same the had Iceland of settlers is that the was law Roman If BC. century Pythagoras in antiquity. Pythagoras lived in the sixth (with based on “Pythagoras”, Icelandic constitutional principles said to be derived le modifications) from Gulabing in Norway are close relatives. The hitherto unintelligib find to seem then would Pythagoras with up bound problem ofjust how Roman law was n an explanation in the system of Norse/Celtic settlers of Iceland employing Pythagorea Icelandic medieval sound, may it as ideas when framing their constitution. Strange “justice” may then throw light on ancient Roman concepts of right and wrong. ARSP-Beiheft 61. Mikael M. Karisson and Olafur Päll Jénsson (eds.) Law, Justice and the State IV. © 1995 Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart

Pythagoras and Exrly Icelandic Law Pythagcrean Ethics are said to be based on the premise that the universal principles of Harmony, Proportion and Justice govern the physical cosmos. They are thought to indicate that individ uals and societies alike attain their peak of excellence when informed by these same princip les. This mode of thinking has been deduced from ancient Iceland ic myth and allegory. What follows here is based on studies in Symbolism. Most of this material has been explained previously; it is a subjective interpretation of meanin g in myth and allegory.! Every aspect of the material was Originally presented as a hypothe sis: here it will for convenience be spoken of without a proviso. We are concer ned with what must surely be the central issue of any theory: that which explains the greatest number of items under study in the most economical way and at the same time accounts for the subject thought” explains the greatest number of phenomena observed in ancient symbolism concer ning early Icelandic law and provides a solution where none was seen before. It integrates the heathen constitution of Iceland with the myths, the gods, the world picture , ancient numerology, music and seemingly every other aspect of our pagan spiritual culture , Needless to say we are witnessing a revolution in our attitude towards the origin of Iceland ic law: formerly the pagan Icelandic constitution was believed to be different from most, if not all, constitutions in Europe. Further, our pagan religion was thought to have been entirely without coherence and order. The conclusions here arrived at are diametr ical|ÿ opposed to those tenets: (1) Number and proportion were of overriding concern to Icelanders in forming the constitutional principles of Alpingi (the General Assembly) at Bingvelli r. Harmony was à basic concept; nothing in the physical cosmos was conceived of outside the realm of numerical reason. This, in itself, is not hard to understand: what does come as a surprise is that the principles involved seem to have been employed right from the beginning of the settlement. They were used to determine the peaceful allocation of land from the time of the first settler, Ingélfr Arnarson in c. 870 AD. Major ideas of Alpingi are directly connected with the two settlements of Skallagrimr Kveldélfsson in the west and Ketill hængr in the south. pingvellir as a spiritual centre of law and order was determined by those two settlements and their demarcations. (2) The Icelandic notions of law were far from being savage, and they certainly do not exemplify what some scholars call pre-logical thinking. They were finely wrought conceptions, closely bound up with the communal life of Icelande rs as a group or as a 1 Pélsson, Einar (1969-1991), The Roots of Icelandic Culture, 10 Volumes, Reykjavik. This work was published in the Icelandic language. The books are: The Backgroun d of Njals Saga 1969; Religion and the Settlement of Iceland 1970; Time and Fire 1972; Stone Cross 1976; The Ominous Bear 1978; The Celtic Heritage 1981; The Dome of Heaven 1985; The Theme. Paganism and Hrafnkels Saga 1988; Egils Saga and the Two Wolves 1990; The Ancient Althing at Thingvellir 1991.Two books in English by the speaker, The Sacred Triangle of Pagan Iceland and Evil and the Earth, both deal with Pythagorean concepts and their usage in pagan Iceland. A book that deals with the conversion of Icelanders to Christianity is planned for publication in 1995. EPP EN TEE ENNRT NE EENENEEUEN state. At the same time they were religious; Alpingi can not be separated from major The Pythagorean ethical and political tractates still extant under consideration is considered valid. “Pythagorean un = 56 no concepts of mythology. It is a common belief that “Germanic paganism classical; precious little in my researches suggesis the existence of Icelandic mythology ‘as an entity separate from classical European civilization in general. On the contrary: almost every aspect of pagan Icelandic law, its justice, its state and its religion, indicates a close connection with classical concepts. (3) Like the cultured medieval European, the pagan Icelander of c. 870-930 as “an organiser, a codifier, a builder of systems”. Like them he wanted a pe no everything and everything in the right place”. l'am here quoting the English mediev C.S. Lewis: “Distinction, definition, tabulation were his delight. ! It seems mepag settler of Iceland wanted to formalise all aspects of his life (Lewis 1964, P- ps e system he built, on the other hand, was not new and unlike every other system in ee 2 often inferred by Nordic scholars. It was that of ancient unne knew ae g say of them what: C.S. Lewis says ï© on. We might numerology and the laws of proportion “we see the tranquil, andic state ‘we ly Icelandic ati of the early Î general::1in the creation man in i dieval indefatigable exultant energy of passionately systematic minds bringing huge of heterogenous material into unity” (Ibid). masses (4) What to many a modern mind seems pedantic, was evidently A to the framers /_ ituti on. Correct proportion was ipso ffacto correc i constituti f the pagan Icelandic justice, Thus the settlers unified and ordered their whole cosmos in score w settled land. They actually measured their land in accordancecnrs n ir newly their countries. Yet, to have been discovered in other coun! S j process does not seem iverse. This N itself the ide can hardly have been peculiarly Icelandic; the best jdicial mines mener Europe organised their “theology, science, and history into à singe cons s Fete (Ibid, p. 11). Which is precisely w * (Ibid, i mental Model of the Universe” î nious i European coun terpartss theythe: were intense Io Like i their i landic Î ancestors doing. c different in ter À well-ordered state was based on system; s0 was Justice. What is Iceland is that we can decipher this ancient sysiem through srbale A speculations as those of Pythagoras? The settiers’ intri But why such iniricate dat OUI passion ps an Mode icti tions must be harmonised. They had to build a Mod j Contradic i this. jains ty get everything in without a clash; no great and finely ordered multiplici was possible without numbers. And in that field Pythagorean learning reigned supreme. But was this Model pagan? Says C. S. Lewis: harmonising views of very In the last age of antiquity many writers .. were... gathering and n, and Stoical, but out Aristotelia o Platonic, f out only not Model c isti syncretisti a ildi igin; building i and perfected. (Ibid, p. 12) SFPaurn andChristian elements. This Model the Middle Ages adopted If C.S. Lewis is right, the Model of early Iceland seems to fit perfectiy. Airost every aspect thereof suggests that it was Christian no less than pagan. which Christian and pagan settlers evidently agreed. It was a model on (5) The framers of the Icelandic constitution were accurate thinkers. Their sens They ne se theories were in a harmonious relationship with their religious beliefs. had — the only they only to have recognized their Model as provisional; it was the

one possible äs an integrated whole. Their mythology was a part thereof. It specified other words, was the horizon itself, divided into the twelve houses of the Zodiac. Each ofthe 36 priest-chieftains had a place on the sacred Wheel; each representing a decan of the circle (10x36=360). Thus there were three godar to each “house” of the Zodiac. This was reflected in the constitution: there were nine g03orà (priest-chieftainships) to man’s place in the universe — in harmony with the gods and their proportions, The Was no Conflict between justice and religion and science. All were aspects of the same whole. But one thing seems certain: the knowledge here referred to was the prope £ a select few. In fact, it seems to have been contained in “secret groves”, Le in Che no (6) Justice in Iceland seems to have been based on an idea named the Centre. The supreme power of a community was enthroned in a central position, here at Pingvellir It can be seen with fair certainty that Norse models for the Icelandic Centre were Uppsalir (Uppsala) in Sweden and Jajangr (Jelling) in Denmark. A parallel doubtless existed in Norway; indeed all seats of kings were probably Centres of this kind. If vou lean too far on one side you have no justice. It is the central balance that counts É À Centre called for a circumference; the circumference was a major idea in the settlers” thinking. I signified the idea of a Mother; the Circle became the holy symbol of Albingi. In paganism spatial order was not the opposite of the spiritual: both were sides of the same coin. Even with the formal adoption of Christianity in the year 1000 these two ideas do not seem to have been separated. As Snorri Sturluson tells us in the preface to his Edda (c. 1223), Norse pagans believed everything to be made from some efni”, Le. matter (what the Greeks called hyle). Matter was not inherently evil; it was the potentiality of all particular bodies; it just had to be shaped into some form to become part of an ordered universe. As far as can be seen, unformed matter was thus akin to chaos, which was equated with injustice, while formed matter was part of the ordered universe, and hence à foundation of justice. The concept of the Mother became embodied in the number 4; the classical quaternion of virtues, Prudence Temperance Fortitude and Justice, doubtlessly connected therewith. As such, the Mother stood for law and order — fertility and reproduction, creation, formed matter. Two other numbers were basic, 3 and 5. The number 3 stood for the “Father” and 5 stood for the “Son” Mythically these were denoted by the god Njôror (“Father”), Freyja (“Mother”, incidentally also a “Daughter” as in fertility cults of the Middle East) and Freyr (Son”). With the advent of Christianity these three seem to have been changed into 3 God the Father, 4 Mary the Mother and 5 Christ the Son. These deities were connected with the famous Pythagorean triangle 3:4:5. Justice was correct creation, correct measure. | (7) Fortune and her Wheel were a central concept to early Icelandic justice. Fatalism was a part of that concept. The Wheel, however, was not an abstract idea; it was marked in the landscape. The Model of the cosmos was conceived of as a sphere around the central position of the law assembly at pingvellir (and, by implication, at Uppsalir and Jalangr). This sphere was precisely measured: it was 432,000 feet in diameter (Roman feet of 29.60 cm). A basic (non-physical) Wheel had previously been fastened to the settlement of Ketill hængr in the so-called Rangérhverfi. IL was a replica of the scientific world picture of the age, which was thought to be 216 diameters of the sun across (see for example Martin / Nülsson 1934, p. 19). The sacred circle of Alpingi, in 6e de detente each quarter of the land. When the 36 gosar assembled at Alpingi, each had two msn eme mms +9 called pagan “mysteries”. As in the south we may surmise that it was closely uarded knowledge, known only to initiates. The original 36 priest-chieftains will resumabl have been guardians of the system as a whole. P d en 55 Pythagoras and Eariy icelandic Law umrésamenn, or advisers. The number of the ruling body during sessions was thus 108, a major idea in Pythagorean thought. lies (8) As far as can be determined, there were originally 12 minor or local law-assemb 12 the of each to jurors, or judges in the land (ping); 3 goüar to each and 36 démendur, on based was which Alpingi, of circle greater the with tallied This told. ping, or 432 all a line 432,000 feet in length. The Indo-European world age in which we live (preserved in early Hindu records), was 432,000 years in duration. This world age seems to lie at the back of the best known mythical poem of the Edda, Vôluspé. This poem deals with the creation and the destruction of the world — and is hence inextricably bound up with the concept of justice. Creation of the world was likened to the creation of man and his society. Creation meant the order of the cosmos; each created thing had a specific form. irrational Correct creation was thus inherently moral, a basis for justice. Evil, crime and one who was man moral À society. in behaviour were immoral, they represented chaos obeyed the laws of society which, in turn, were based on the order of the cosmos. The correctly measured line between the two settlements of Skallagrimr and Ketill hængr the was thus more than measure; it marked justice as a correct proportion. Alpingi was by point; al mathematic à thus was Albingi standards cosmic By Centre of that line. moral standards it was the place par excellence of justice. Maïter was (9) Matter is not the universe itself. It is its raw material. To medieval man to make combined four These composed of four Elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire, the the different forms. The Fifth Element was the Quintessence, the aether. In Iceland into divided early was Iceland on. combinati in Space and Time for stood Element Fifth four fiérungar (“quarters”), the highest juridical authority being named fimmtardémr (or Fifth Assembly) when established at Ajpingi inc. 1004-20. There is every indication that justice was thus bound up with the basic Elements (and the 4 Cardinal Points plus the Centre) of the world. on According to the Book of Icelanders (c. 1119-33), Icelandic law was based of it omitted, some to, added was I Gulaping. of that particular in law, n Norwegia upon by changed and modified in order to serve the Icelandic constitution as decided konungr jarl hersir hôldr of hierarchy n Norwegia the As the settlers of Iceland. (approximately: Yeoman-Chieftain-Earl-King) has not been discovered in Iceland, the two belief has been widespread that a connection could hardly be found between the kingsNorse and eftains, priest-chi 36 of gosaveldi Icelandic the kinds of constitution, this hip. This has seemed a curious puzzle to scholars. Pythagorean thought can resolve issue. known as (10) The law of Gulaping in Norway was noted for a numerical method sacred our of marking the in evident is number of usage “halving” and “doubling”. This particular in method, Another below. see shall we as Iceland, in r Pingvelli sites

Einar Päissor connected with the Norwegian Frostaping, was that of a numerical sequence based on an increase by a third part, Le. fines, remuneration etc. increased by a third part (23+1/3) according to the recipient’s class or status in the community (see for instance Brun 1962, p. 18). The halving and the doubling of Gulaping is called the Egyptian method of calculation; the increase by a third part is evidently based on ancient methods best known from the Timaeus of Plato, but thought to be derived from Pythagoras. These two methods seem to have been known and used simultaneously by the settlers of Iceland. The best known hierarchy of SW-Norway at the time of the settlement of Iceland was based on four rungs of the ladder of state. First came the powerful farmer, the hôldr, then the hersir, the ruler of a wide area. then the jarl, the earl, and to finish with the king himself, the konungr. The lawman Haukr Erlendsson left us a singularly important manuscript named Hauksbôk, written in c.1306-08. Haukr was lawman at Apingi and later on at Gulaping. Haukr included diverse things in his manuscript, among them the Eddic Vôluspä, the poem dealing with the creation and the destruction of the world. Another section of that manuscript is a translation of a book by Alexander de Villa Dei (d.1240), Carmen de Algorismo, on the famous Arabic Algorismus with its Arabic numerals. At the end of Algorismus there is a chapter called Article 17, which has not been found in a European original and seems to be directly traceable to the Timaeus of Plato. At the same time, the material contained in Article 17 corresponds closely to what I have elicited from mythical symbolism in Iceland. In Article 17 Haukr states that the progression of the numbers 8-12-18-27 means Earth-Water-Air-Fire. This corresponds well to my own hypothesis concerning justice in Norway during the 9th century. According to this hypothesis the groundwork of a Norwegian “small kingdom” was directly based on the Four Elements as follows: the privileges and the duties of each man of power had its origin in the number 8, the hôldr, who was thus based on the Element EARTH, 12, the hersir, who was thus based on the Element WATER, 18, the jar, who was thus based on the Element AIR, and 27, the konungr, who was thus based on the Element FIRE. This progression, or perhaps better, regression by a third part (it seems to have been calculated “backwards”, i.e. 27-18-12-8, each number being 2/3 of the preceding one) is to be found in the Pythagorean theories of the Timaueus by Plato (Plato ch. 22-31). Why, then, was the above hierarchy not adopted by Icelanders? It was not necessary. The Icelandic commonwealth of c. 930 AD starts with the King himself, the Element FIRE and its number, 27. In a sparsely populated new country where equality was striven for, the hôldr, hersir, jarl hierarchy was irrelevant. The ideas behind their social status were incorporated into the power-structure of the priest-chieftains named goar; each of the 36 priest-chieftains embodying the idea of the Four Elements, each holding 1/36th of the sacred circle — the crown — of state. (11) The basic symbol of creation in Iceland was the same as that of ancient Egypt - the so-called Primeval Hill, considered to be the origin of all things in rituals of fertility. This hill, named Bergpérshvoll in Iceland was for obvious reasons connected with the material of the created world, the Elements EARTH-WATER-AIR-FIRE. The earth was created through Fire, man was created through Fire (becoming warm at birth and losing his heat at death}; society was also created through Fire — the symbol of kingship. EE ET EEE 5à Pythagoras and Eariy icelandic Law 35 Among other things this explains why the pagan poem Vôluspé dealing with the creation and the destruction of the world, is to be found in a manuscript with the Book of Settlements — and ancient Pythagorean numerology — in Hauksbôk by a Christian | Jawman. It also explains the relationship between the idea of justice in Norway and Iceland. And it connects the strands of an otherwise unintelligible puzzle. If, in other words, justice was based on the Elements, which were formed to make a world in accordance with Pythagorean numerology, we can understand the mythical framework of the pagan Norse/Icelandic state of the 8th and 9th centuries. (12) Most, if not all, major ideas connected with the name of Pythagoras have been discovered in the Icelandic material here referred to. We see the Lambda-formula that divided the world into odd numbers and even numbers according to male and female principles (the classic two “arms” of 1-3-9-27 and 1-2-4-8), we see the first ten numbers used much as explained by lamblichus (d. c.333 AD) in his Theology of Arithmetic, we see the Five Regular Solids as described by Plato in his Timaeus (Plato op.cit. ch. 22), we see the Perfect Cube (the 6x6x6-216) as a foundation that can not be rocked, we see the World Tree as a perfectly measured cosmos (mjôtuër or mjôtviür in the poem Vôluspé, “measuring rod”) and we see the famous triangle 3:4:5 used in the most intricate ways as a yardstick of right and wrong. Further, we see the doubling of “Egyptian” arithmetic in the usage of the numerical sequence 27-54-108-216-432864-1728, which was of great importance to the Pythagoreans. This method of using numbers is indeed seen as being “Egyptian” in Iceland, as the gods named Freyr and Freyja corresponded directiy to Osiris and Isis in the ancient world. Perhaps most startling of all is to see the triangle 3:4:5 used as a symbol of justice. But this corresponds to the usage of Pythagoras as reported by Tamblichus (amblichus op-cit., p. 101). In short: the words of Seneca on Pythagoras as the source of Roman law become intelligible in the light of the early Icelandic constitution. This would seem to call for a reevaluation of the basis of European law in general. To summarize: Justice in the pagan Icelandic goëaveldi of c. 930 AD was based on “Pythagorean” concepts. The justice of man had to comply with the justice of the gods. Justice was seen in the workings of the universe, in specific numbers and in correct proportions employed by the deities to fashion the world. The justice of man was hallowed by the justice of the gods. This was mirrored in the usage of the perfect creation number 6: 6 was the number of Man as Microcosmos (the “line”} 6x6 (36) was the number of the state as Mesocosmos {the goôorë) (the “square”) 6x6x6 (216) was the number of the universe as Macrocosmos (the “cube”) Justice was thus based on numerical order in the world. Numbers were precise in myths and allegories: that is why we can use such material as a source for explaining ancient statehood and law.

References Brun, Viggo (1962), Regnekunsten i det Gamle Norge, Oslo/Bergen. lamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic, (attributed to him), Michigan, 1988. Lewis, C.S. (1964), The Discarded Image, Cambridge. Martin, P. / Nilsson, N. (1934), Nordisk Kultur: Tideräkningen, Stockholm. Pälsson, Einar (1969-1991), Rætur fslenzkrar menningar, 10 volumes, Reykjavfk. - (1991), Det gamle Alting pä Thingvellir: Den islandske forfatning i hedendommen i nordisk sammienhæng, Reykjavik. — (1993), The Sacred Triangle of Pagan Iceland, Reykjavik. - Ua 1 £ [al & Le ËEu LR [9 Einar Pélsson EPRCTE" sim 56 À NL S Tunga Stông i Piérsärdal (1994), Evil and the Earth, Reykjavik. Plato, Timaeus and Critias, (translated with an introduction and an appendix on Atlantis by Desmond Lee), Penguin Books, reprinted 1974, Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Penguin, 1969. d , Pingvellir K.. Skäthoh ©CA y S & < Y © €,Lo A Biétteli Steinkross Re Brihymingur D Sémsstaüir & HliSarendi Dagmélafall Fig. 1: The Cosmos of Rangérhverfi. The triangle 3:4:5 was a part thereof. icelandic symbolism indicates that this cosmos was an earthly sanctuary (216.00 feet in diameter) devoted to the gods and representing a projection on the ground of the sacred area of the heavens.

s Pythagoras and Eariy fcelandic Law s9 Circle of the Sun 60x60x60-216,600 Cubus perfectus 6x6x6-216 Triangle 216 1 2 4 The Lambda 216 The Ash of Oûinn's Steed 216 Fig. 2: The marking of the Althing and Thingvellir. There were two basic numbers, 216,000 and 432,000. Time was equated with distance. : 8 3 9 27 2x2x2-8 3x3x3-27 Fig. 3: Major ideas behind the Althing at Thingvellir and the Icelandic Constitution in A.D. 930 as indicated by ancient symbolism.