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The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library
This anthology, the largest collection of Pythagorean writings ever to appear in English, contains the four ancient biographies of Pythagoras and over 25 Pythagorean and Neopythagorean writings from the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The material of this book is indispensable for anyone who wishes to understand the real spiritual roots of Western civilization.
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
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528 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie
156 books6 followersKenneth Sylvan Launfal Guthrie (1871-1940), philosopher and writer, was a grandson of famous feminist pioneer Frances Wright and brother of William Norman Guthrie, a Scottish-born Episcopalian priest who issued a series of translations of ancient philosophical writers, "making available to the public the neglected treasures of Neo-platonism".
Among his works was a translation of the complete works of Plotinus (1918). He was also an active prohibitionist. In addition he composed music and wrote poetry. He has been described as a "brilliant but eccentric scholar" by Manly Palmer Hall.
Among his works was a translation of the complete works of Plotinus (1918). He was also an active prohibitionist. In addition he composed music and wrote poetry. He has been described as a "brilliant but eccentric scholar" by Manly Palmer Hall.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 28, 2008
good read for jury duty. they'll never pick you.
August 8, 2012
The text covers three renditions of Pythagoras' life from various ancient authors, none of which were close contemporaries. Many of the fragments, however, go back considerably more than the biographies, and I found them especially illuminating. Of course, there is a great deal of lore associated with Pythagoras, and one is left wondering what to believe. Clearly the accounts of him being in two places at once and having a leg of gold cannot be true, despite the frequent citations of these supposed aspects of his life. One gets the sense of devoted followers striving to ascibe divinity to a gifted man, as is common in ancient cultures. The interesting parts of the texts are insights into the everyday details of Pythagorean life, which was as regimented as anything I could imagine. If followed, these requirements of silence, contemplation and self control would have certainly resulted in a very Spock-like personalty type, a sort of saintly philosopher. This is a must read for anyone who is interested in a faith that didn't quite make it when compared with Chritianity and Islam. Then again, the faith was based on the science of numbers, so in that respect, perhaps Pythagoreanism has become ascendent.
February 27, 2017
As I said about the Presocratics and Stoics in other reviews, all the writings of the first Pythagoreans and of Pythagoras have disappeared and the fragments attributed to Pythagoras are contested. But, if not an exhaustive account of later Pythagorean writings and thought, this book is at least a thorough representative of such.
It includes the extant biographies of Pythagoras by Iamblichus, Porphyry and Laertius and the various quotations and aphorisms attributed to Pythagoras. This book also serves as a great survey of Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean thought. It must be admitted that much of the writings included here are really more Platonic, but, given that Plato himself was profoundly influenced by Pythagoreanism, this isn't much of an inconsistency.
The biographies are often full of mythical material and discerning the man, Pythagoras, from the myth is not always an easy task; but they also contain some points of philosophical interest, and thus, worth reading. The second section contains the so-called Pythagorean library, which is of more value to the philosophical reader. All of the Pythagorean subjects, e.g. regarding numbers, music, ethics, etc, are given ample consideration.
For it's value as compendious survey and collection alone, this book is very much worth owning. I have used it strictly as resource previously and it's great for that as well.
It includes the extant biographies of Pythagoras by Iamblichus, Porphyry and Laertius and the various quotations and aphorisms attributed to Pythagoras. This book also serves as a great survey of Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean thought. It must be admitted that much of the writings included here are really more Platonic, but, given that Plato himself was profoundly influenced by Pythagoreanism, this isn't much of an inconsistency.
The biographies are often full of mythical material and discerning the man, Pythagoras, from the myth is not always an easy task; but they also contain some points of philosophical interest, and thus, worth reading. The second section contains the so-called Pythagorean library, which is of more value to the philosophical reader. All of the Pythagorean subjects, e.g. regarding numbers, music, ethics, etc, are given ample consideration.
For it's value as compendious survey and collection alone, this book is very much worth owning. I have used it strictly as resource previously and it's great for that as well.
July 3, 2022
Denna är skrämmande användbar. Vad den innehåller är en genomgång av de återstående källtexterna som refererar direkt till Pythagoras och hans skola. Den innehåller inte genomgången av de senare pythagoreernra, utan bara biografier och texter som anses "kanoniska". Dessa innehåller en försvarlig mängd fascinerande ideer.
Om du har tre veckor över, och hittar boken någonstans, skaffa den och läs!
Om du har tre veckor över, och hittar boken någonstans, skaffa den och läs!
September 12, 2020
Some thoughts:
1. Pythagoras clearly never ate refried beans, because he would have quickly abandoned his weird reverence towards the things if he had tasted the glory.
2. I was glad to read the philosophical ancestor of Plato and Aristotle, since we focus so much on them.
3. The thoughts on marriage, family, and women were very good, and society would have a lot less problems if households were ran like that.
Overall, glad I read it.
1. Pythagoras clearly never ate refried beans, because he would have quickly abandoned his weird reverence towards the things if he had tasted the glory.
2. I was glad to read the philosophical ancestor of Plato and Aristotle, since we focus so much on them.
3. The thoughts on marriage, family, and women were very good, and society would have a lot less problems if households were ran like that.
Overall, glad I read it.
July 19, 2019
Timateus of locri
Regarding the things in the universe, there exist form, matter and the perceptible which is, as it were, an offspring of the two others. Form is unproduced, unmoved, stationary, of the nature of the same, perceptible by the mind, and a patter of such things produced as exist by a state of change. Matter, however, is a recipient of impressions, is a mother and a nurse, and is procreative of the third kind of being. For receiving upon itself the resemblances of form, and as it were remoulding them, it perfects these productions. He asserted moreover that matter, though eternal, is not unmoved; and though of itself it is formless and shapeless, yet it receives every kind of form; and that which is around bodies is divisible and partakes of the nature of the different; and that matter is called by the twin names of place and space.
the soul enclosed like a prison in order that it may be kept safe
a slave to his passion cannot possibly be free
soul is united to the body as through a certain punishment, and that it is buried in this body as a sepulchre
as life contains bodies, whose cause is the soul, so harmony, connectedly, comprehends the world, whose cause is god.
In virtue, see passion as shadow and outline in a picture which depends on animation and delicacy, imitating the truth, in conjunction with goodness of colouring
Philolaus shows us the being manifesting in number Five quality and color, in the number six, the soul and life, in the number seven, reason, health, and what he calls light, then he adds love, friendship, prudence and reflection are communicated in beings by the number eight.
the soul is bound to the body as a punishment
The beginning of knowledge of beings is in the things that produce themselves. Of these some are intelligible, and others sensible. The former are immovable, the latter are moved. The criterion of intelligible things is the world; that of sensible things is sensation
The subject that judges, the object that is judged, and the rule by which that object is judged. What judges is the mind, or sensation, what is judged is the logos, or rational essence; The rule of judgment is the act itself which occurs in the being, whether intelligible or sensible.
Man is born and was created to know the essence of universal nature; and precisely the function of wisdom is to possess and contemplate the intelligence manifested in all beings.
The object of wisdom is no particular being, but all the beings, absolutely; and it should not begin to seek the principles of an individual being, but the principles common to all. The object of wisdom is all the beings, as the object of sight is all visible things. The function of wisdom is to see all beings in their totality, and to know their universal attributes, and that is how wisdom discovers the principles of all beings.
The essence of a place is that all other things are in it, while itself is not in anything.
For of its parts one, the past, is no more, and the future is not yet; how then could the present, without parts and indivisible, possess true reality?
If the body is the organ of the soul, then reason is the guide of the entire soul, the istress of the body, this tent of the soul, and that all the other physical advantages should serve only as instruments to the intellectual activity.
Hatred should not be entertained voluntarily against those who are not perfectly bad, but when once formed, it should be strenuously and firmly maintained, unless its object should change his morals.
Pythagoras gradually imbued him with his wisdom, exhorting him to go into the struggle not for the sake of victory, but for the exercise, that he should gain by the training, avoiding the envy resulting from victory. For the victors, through decked with leafy crowns, are not always pure.
The same events occur again, for nothing is entirely new
Special regard should be given to two times of the day, the one when we go to sleep, and the other when we awake. At each of these we should consider our past actions, and those that are to come.
Above all things to speak the truth, for this alone deifies men.
Pass not over a balance, that is, shun avarice; Poke not the fire with a sword, that is, we ought not to excite a man full of fire and answer with sharp language; pluck not a crown meant not to violate the laws, which are the crowns of cities.
Beans were forbidden as the living creatures were produced together with the plants, so that both men and beans arose out of putrefaction
Number one denoted to them the reason of Unity, Identity, Equality, the purpose of friendship, sympathy, and conservation of the Universe, which results from persistence Sameness. For unity in the details harmonizes all the parts of a whole.
Number Two, or Dyad, signified the dual reason of diversity and inequality, of everything that is divisible, or mutable, existing at one time in one way, and at another time in another way.
Three, number that has beginning, middle and end. Everything that is perfect has a middle.
Decad comprehends every reason or ratio of numbers, every proportion, and every species - why should nature herself not be denoted by the most perfect number ten.
Man is a microcosm, reflecting all of the elements that make up the universe
The eyes are the gates of the sun
The ability of remembering was most important for experience.
Luxury the first evil that usually glides into houses and cities, the second insolence, the third destruction.
method of restraining men from injustice, namely the fear of judgment.
For voluntariness is as necessary . for the ruler to govern as in the ruled to obey. So also must there be a concurrence of will between teacher and learner, for no satisfactory progress can be made while there obtains resistance on either side.
hereditary possessions they might transmit it to their posterity. This could best be effected if the members of the administration realised their equality with the citizens, with the only supereminence of justice
While he who is able to discern what is advantageous to himself may be considered the best man, next to him in excellence should be ranked he who can see the utility in what happens to others, while the worst man is he who waits till he himself is afflicted before understanding where true advantage lies.
in greek pais - a child, paidea - education
unquestioned proposition is that all men are depraved
The reason to select most sacred spots to walk was the idea that a person is disturbed while he is mingled in the crowed
restricted the word purification to music as he saw it as medicine.
three states of mind, called exartysis, or readiness, synarmoge, or fitness, and epaphe, or contact, which converted souls to contrary passions, and these could be produced by certain appropriate songs.
many of the precepts derived from the Mysteries, which were not the fruit of arrogance, in their estimation, but were derived from divinity
Every action has it’s own repercussions, either beneficial or not, for which the individual is supremely responsible
apollo with the One a - not pollon - of many
The universe is one, but the phenomenal realm is a differentiated image of this unity - the world is a unity in multiplicity. What maintains the unity of the whole, even though it consists of many parts, i s the hierarchical principle of harmony, the logos of relation, which enables ever part to have its place in the fabric of the all.
With industrial revolution philosophy and science has been split apart where science went into technological side. The human spirit was sacrificed for material good. Mechanisation
Tetraktys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row, symbolized the perfection of Number and the elements which comprise it.
philosopher - a lover of wisdom, before, people called themselves wise ( sophos )
accepted the Orphic belief in transmigration. Distinguishing factor between is that pythagoreans liberation from the wheel is obtained not through religious rite, but through philosophy. Hence philosophia is a form of purification, a way to immortality.
Man, by comprising a world-order in miniature, contains all of those principles, constituting the greater cosmos, of which he is a reflection, including the powers of divinity.
Pythagoras parable of the three lives: one group of humanity is covetous , another ambitions, and the other curious.
Arithmetic - number in itself. geometry - number in space. music or harmonics - number in time. astronomy - number in space and time.
The contemplation of divine Law, which was the content of the study of mathematics, was a direct contact with a divine Reality. Plato’s philosophy is a metaphysic of transcendent, the pythagorean philosophy is a metaphysic of the immanent order.
Man, while possessing a soul which clearly transcends the limitations of the body, the realm of time and space, is nonetheless a reflection of the entire universe, a microcosm and is linked together with nature, other living beings, and the Gods through harmony, justice, and proportion. The pythagorean goal is not to leave the divinely beautiful cosmos behind for a realm of transcendent harmony, but rather to become of, and enhance the function of, transcendent harmony in the natural, psychological and social order.
and the ancients, who were superior to us and dwelt nearer to the gods, have handed down a tradition that all things that are said to exist consist of one and a many and contain in themselves the connate principles of limit and unlimitedness. plato
Number is not something to be used, rather, its nature to be discovered
it is not so much involved with the investigation of things, as the investigation of principles.
The monad, or Unity, is the principle of Number. He did not see One as a number at all, but as the principle underlying number, which is to say that numbers—especially the first ten— may be seen as manifestations of diversity in a unified continuum.
With the Dyad arises the duality of subject and object, the knower and the known.
Limit(peros) is definite boundary, the unlimited (apeiron) is indefinite and is therefore in need of limit.
Apeiron also may be translated as Infinite, but it is infinite in a negative sense, that is it is infinitely or indefinitely divisible, and hence weak, rather than the modern “positive” usage of the term, which is often synonymous with “powerful”.
Matter ( the indefinite ) receives and is shaped by form ( limit )
His experiments on the monochord confirmed the importance of numerical peros as the limiting factor in the otherwise indefinite realm of manifestation.
Numbers are divine and they represent the harmony of nature. The music is the use of numbers that are hidden just in time, the visual arts occupy the space. Disobedience to harmonics leads to ugliness. Obedience presupposes a state of soul open also to Intelligible Beauty.
He proposed laws that included the lower cast and included women as equal
Since truth is perennial and invariable, to create an “original” philosophy is merely to hatch another untruth
Pythagoras is a source for vegetarianism, speculative music and physicists, meditation, arithmology etc. Plato was inspired by him.
The philosophical doctrines of ultimate concern should never be published, seeing that philosophy is a process, and that books can never answer questions, nor engage in philosophical enquiry
Regarding the things in the universe, there exist form, matter and the perceptible which is, as it were, an offspring of the two others. Form is unproduced, unmoved, stationary, of the nature of the same, perceptible by the mind, and a patter of such things produced as exist by a state of change. Matter, however, is a recipient of impressions, is a mother and a nurse, and is procreative of the third kind of being. For receiving upon itself the resemblances of form, and as it were remoulding them, it perfects these productions. He asserted moreover that matter, though eternal, is not unmoved; and though of itself it is formless and shapeless, yet it receives every kind of form; and that which is around bodies is divisible and partakes of the nature of the different; and that matter is called by the twin names of place and space.
the soul enclosed like a prison in order that it may be kept safe
a slave to his passion cannot possibly be free
soul is united to the body as through a certain punishment, and that it is buried in this body as a sepulchre
as life contains bodies, whose cause is the soul, so harmony, connectedly, comprehends the world, whose cause is god.
In virtue, see passion as shadow and outline in a picture which depends on animation and delicacy, imitating the truth, in conjunction with goodness of colouring
Philolaus shows us the being manifesting in number Five quality and color, in the number six, the soul and life, in the number seven, reason, health, and what he calls light, then he adds love, friendship, prudence and reflection are communicated in beings by the number eight.
the soul is bound to the body as a punishment
The beginning of knowledge of beings is in the things that produce themselves. Of these some are intelligible, and others sensible. The former are immovable, the latter are moved. The criterion of intelligible things is the world; that of sensible things is sensation
The subject that judges, the object that is judged, and the rule by which that object is judged. What judges is the mind, or sensation, what is judged is the logos, or rational essence; The rule of judgment is the act itself which occurs in the being, whether intelligible or sensible.
Man is born and was created to know the essence of universal nature; and precisely the function of wisdom is to possess and contemplate the intelligence manifested in all beings.
The object of wisdom is no particular being, but all the beings, absolutely; and it should not begin to seek the principles of an individual being, but the principles common to all. The object of wisdom is all the beings, as the object of sight is all visible things. The function of wisdom is to see all beings in their totality, and to know their universal attributes, and that is how wisdom discovers the principles of all beings.
The essence of a place is that all other things are in it, while itself is not in anything.
For of its parts one, the past, is no more, and the future is not yet; how then could the present, without parts and indivisible, possess true reality?
If the body is the organ of the soul, then reason is the guide of the entire soul, the istress of the body, this tent of the soul, and that all the other physical advantages should serve only as instruments to the intellectual activity.
Hatred should not be entertained voluntarily against those who are not perfectly bad, but when once formed, it should be strenuously and firmly maintained, unless its object should change his morals.
Pythagoras gradually imbued him with his wisdom, exhorting him to go into the struggle not for the sake of victory, but for the exercise, that he should gain by the training, avoiding the envy resulting from victory. For the victors, through decked with leafy crowns, are not always pure.
The same events occur again, for nothing is entirely new
Special regard should be given to two times of the day, the one when we go to sleep, and the other when we awake. At each of these we should consider our past actions, and those that are to come.
Above all things to speak the truth, for this alone deifies men.
Pass not over a balance, that is, shun avarice; Poke not the fire with a sword, that is, we ought not to excite a man full of fire and answer with sharp language; pluck not a crown meant not to violate the laws, which are the crowns of cities.
Beans were forbidden as the living creatures were produced together with the plants, so that both men and beans arose out of putrefaction
Number one denoted to them the reason of Unity, Identity, Equality, the purpose of friendship, sympathy, and conservation of the Universe, which results from persistence Sameness. For unity in the details harmonizes all the parts of a whole.
Number Two, or Dyad, signified the dual reason of diversity and inequality, of everything that is divisible, or mutable, existing at one time in one way, and at another time in another way.
Three, number that has beginning, middle and end. Everything that is perfect has a middle.
Decad comprehends every reason or ratio of numbers, every proportion, and every species - why should nature herself not be denoted by the most perfect number ten.
Man is a microcosm, reflecting all of the elements that make up the universe
The eyes are the gates of the sun
The ability of remembering was most important for experience.
Luxury the first evil that usually glides into houses and cities, the second insolence, the third destruction.
method of restraining men from injustice, namely the fear of judgment.
For voluntariness is as necessary . for the ruler to govern as in the ruled to obey. So also must there be a concurrence of will between teacher and learner, for no satisfactory progress can be made while there obtains resistance on either side.
hereditary possessions they might transmit it to their posterity. This could best be effected if the members of the administration realised their equality with the citizens, with the only supereminence of justice
While he who is able to discern what is advantageous to himself may be considered the best man, next to him in excellence should be ranked he who can see the utility in what happens to others, while the worst man is he who waits till he himself is afflicted before understanding where true advantage lies.
in greek pais - a child, paidea - education
unquestioned proposition is that all men are depraved
The reason to select most sacred spots to walk was the idea that a person is disturbed while he is mingled in the crowed
restricted the word purification to music as he saw it as medicine.
three states of mind, called exartysis, or readiness, synarmoge, or fitness, and epaphe, or contact, which converted souls to contrary passions, and these could be produced by certain appropriate songs.
many of the precepts derived from the Mysteries, which were not the fruit of arrogance, in their estimation, but were derived from divinity
Every action has it’s own repercussions, either beneficial or not, for which the individual is supremely responsible
apollo with the One a - not pollon - of many
The universe is one, but the phenomenal realm is a differentiated image of this unity - the world is a unity in multiplicity. What maintains the unity of the whole, even though it consists of many parts, i s the hierarchical principle of harmony, the logos of relation, which enables ever part to have its place in the fabric of the all.
With industrial revolution philosophy and science has been split apart where science went into technological side. The human spirit was sacrificed for material good. Mechanisation
Tetraktys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row, symbolized the perfection of Number and the elements which comprise it.
philosopher - a lover of wisdom, before, people called themselves wise ( sophos )
accepted the Orphic belief in transmigration. Distinguishing factor between is that pythagoreans liberation from the wheel is obtained not through religious rite, but through philosophy. Hence philosophia is a form of purification, a way to immortality.
Man, by comprising a world-order in miniature, contains all of those principles, constituting the greater cosmos, of which he is a reflection, including the powers of divinity.
Pythagoras parable of the three lives: one group of humanity is covetous , another ambitions, and the other curious.
Arithmetic - number in itself. geometry - number in space. music or harmonics - number in time. astronomy - number in space and time.
The contemplation of divine Law, which was the content of the study of mathematics, was a direct contact with a divine Reality. Plato’s philosophy is a metaphysic of transcendent, the pythagorean philosophy is a metaphysic of the immanent order.
Man, while possessing a soul which clearly transcends the limitations of the body, the realm of time and space, is nonetheless a reflection of the entire universe, a microcosm and is linked together with nature, other living beings, and the Gods through harmony, justice, and proportion. The pythagorean goal is not to leave the divinely beautiful cosmos behind for a realm of transcendent harmony, but rather to become of, and enhance the function of, transcendent harmony in the natural, psychological and social order.
and the ancients, who were superior to us and dwelt nearer to the gods, have handed down a tradition that all things that are said to exist consist of one and a many and contain in themselves the connate principles of limit and unlimitedness. plato
Number is not something to be used, rather, its nature to be discovered
it is not so much involved with the investigation of things, as the investigation of principles.
The monad, or Unity, is the principle of Number. He did not see One as a number at all, but as the principle underlying number, which is to say that numbers—especially the first ten— may be seen as manifestations of diversity in a unified continuum.
With the Dyad arises the duality of subject and object, the knower and the known.
Limit(peros) is definite boundary, the unlimited (apeiron) is indefinite and is therefore in need of limit.
Apeiron also may be translated as Infinite, but it is infinite in a negative sense, that is it is infinitely or indefinitely divisible, and hence weak, rather than the modern “positive” usage of the term, which is often synonymous with “powerful”.
Matter ( the indefinite ) receives and is shaped by form ( limit )
His experiments on the monochord confirmed the importance of numerical peros as the limiting factor in the otherwise indefinite realm of manifestation.
Numbers are divine and they represent the harmony of nature. The music is the use of numbers that are hidden just in time, the visual arts occupy the space. Disobedience to harmonics leads to ugliness. Obedience presupposes a state of soul open also to Intelligible Beauty.
He proposed laws that included the lower cast and included women as equal
Since truth is perennial and invariable, to create an “original” philosophy is merely to hatch another untruth
Pythagoras is a source for vegetarianism, speculative music and physicists, meditation, arithmology etc. Plato was inspired by him.
The philosophical doctrines of ultimate concern should never be published, seeing that philosophy is a process, and that books can never answer questions, nor engage in philosophical enquiry
September 9, 2016
A collection of source materials on Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in English translation. The translations are rather old; this is an augmented reprint of a book first published in 1920. It includes the Lives of Pythagoras written by Iamblicus, Porphyry, and Diogenes Laertius,and various fragments and testimonia from later Pythagoreans and neo-Pythagoreans, Plato and Aristotle, and the Church Fathers. There is some material on his mathematical and physical discoveries, but most of the material is on his religious and ethical ideas. Today, these seem like platitudes, but since Pythagoreanism was the main influence on Platonism and neo-platonism, and that was the major influence on Christian theology, the ideas may have been more original in their context. Much of what is attributed to Pythagoras is obscure and probably symbolic; the interpretations here are interesting but not necessarily what he had in mind. For example, he put a major emphasis on not eating or even coming in contact with beans. The interpretations here range from "don't eat anything which causes flatulence", which seems rather trivial for a major religious taboo, to "don't vote for Democrats", which is certainly good advice but probably not what he meant either.
February 10, 2017
To grasp the significance of pythagoras this is a great resource. Pythagoras ideas have filtered through almost every field of mysticism: kabbalah, Islamic even Hindu. So a cmpilation of acient biograhies a collection of the surviving fragments from the Pythagoreans is more tnan welcome.
October 22, 2012
Pythagoras was a bad ass but a lot of his followers were nutbags.
August 21, 2024
So, this is my first foray into Pythagoreanism and I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I really enjoyed most of this book, but it is DENSE and is probably better for academics and researchers rather than a lay reader. That being said, most of it was understandable and enjoyable to get a fairly in depth knowledge of Pythagoreanism as well as multiple accounts of the life of Pythagoras. It is all very interesting and has a lot in common with early Christian beliefs as well as being an influencer on Plato/Aristotle. I mean, except for some of the weird beliefs about beans. I'm still not sure what beans hurt Pythagoras but he clearly felt some way about them.
July 19, 2017
Too dense for me, but interesting.
May 7, 2022
This has to be the definitive source for material regarding the Greek philosopher. The book is structured in three parts; introduction (general as well as the tradition and development), sourcebook (the meat of the book, a deep dive into the man and the religion) and library (a collection of tertiary texts providing more insight). Too much information is given to cover here, but in brief everything from numbers, mathematics as harmonic mediation, the soul, development of the monochord and tetractys are included. If you're interested in moving past geometry of triangles and really learning Pythagorean beliefs, this is where to start.
March 8, 2022
This is the best collection of Pythagorean works and biographies I have found. With a pretty great academic-ish essay at the start which clarifies a lot of the Pythagorean philosophy and puts it into a historical context, and talks a bit about it's relevance for today.
A lot of the stuff from other Pythagorean's is not so great, but the biographies, golden verses and symbols are essential. You will find more symbols than in a lot of the other collections.
Worth getting for sure.
A lot of the stuff from other Pythagorean's is not so great, but the biographies, golden verses and symbols are essential. You will find more symbols than in a lot of the other collections.
Worth getting for sure.
April 25, 2016
According to the Theosophical Society (who also sells this) and my recollection of reading this, it is the largest, but possibly not complete except in bibliography, book of Pythagorean texts. An interesting text it has (IIRC) is Pythagoras' _Golden_Verses_
October 17, 2018
I prefer the original sources. I enjoyed accessing, previewing and studying these Pythagorean references.
July 23, 2016
This book isn't what most people might think of as entertaining unless you enjoy history and particularly Pythagorean and Neopythagorean writings. I enjoyed it throughly.
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