The Golden Chain Read online

  In Greece, the word philosophy—philosophia, “love of knowledge,” or desire for the knowledge that frees the soul from the wheel (which is what this word, coined, they say, by Pythagoras, must have meant to him)—is the closest equivalent of yoga; sadhana finds a very close equivalent in bios, meaning a specially adopted lifestyle, such as the Orphic bios, the Pythagorean bios, and so on.14

  According to Hermetic doctrine, there were four kinds of men who received human bodies with the task of being transformed into divinity: just kings, true philosophers, genuine prophets, and root-cutters, or magical healers (Kore kosmou 41–42). An image and function of the “philosopher” partly depended on the archetype of the divine ruler and priest who was a son of Ra, or the divine Intellect, in the terms of Egyptian solar theology. Thus one can say that true philosophia was an inspired task aimed at a transformation of the soul—an intellectual search for the meaning of forms and ideas, symbols and images, metaphysical and natural causes. The Pythagoreans considered philosophy in terms of medicine and therapeutics and regarded themselves as adherents of a tradition greater than their own personalities, in most cases preserving anonymity and attributing their achievements to the archetypal figure of Pythagoras or to other semi-legendary sages.

  For Iamblichus and his successors, who were concerned about the gradual corruption and distortion of knowledge in their time, the origins of Hellenic philosophy were to be traced back to ancient revelations. As the Egyptians and Chaldeans were original revelatory sources for all mankind, so Pythagoras was for Hellenic philosophy.15 Hence, the science of the divine established by Plato, including the famous theory of Ideas, was thought of as being derived and developed from the Pythagorean sources which, in turn, depended on certain “perennial” patterns drawn from the various civilizations of the ancient East. For the late Neoplatonists, the true Hellenic “love of wisdom” could be supported and illustrated not only by the inspired poetry of Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod, but also by the Egyptian, Phoenician, and Assyrian myths and “theological dogmas,” including the so-called Chaldean Oracles (ta logia). Endeavoring to show the close relationship between Pythagoras and Plato, Proclus gave Pythagoras a central role and asserted that his teaching was

  … in harmony with the first principles of Plato and with the secret revelations of the theologians. For all Greek theology derives from Orphic mystagogy, Pythagoras first learning from Aglaophemus the secrets concerning the gods, Plato after him receiving the complete science of the gods from Pythagorean and Orphic writings (Plat. Theol. 1.5.25).

  Accordingly, both in metaphysics and physics, Platonism can be reduced to Pythagoreanism and subordinated to the revealed wisdom of the ancient East. What distinguishes the theology of Plato from that of the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian initiates as well as the Homeric, Orphic, and Pythagorean sages, is its scientific and demonstrative character. The proper objects of the Platonic science of dialectic are higher realities, or metaphysical “things” (ta prag-mata), not passing phenomena. But in Neoplatonism this science itself was finally surpassed and transcended by the supra-rational “vision” and theurgic union conducted by the gods themselves.

  Proclus described the Orphic and Pythagorean approach as inspired, symbolic, anagogic, and revelatory in contrast to the Socratic approach which was rational, ethical, and demonstrative. He thought that Plato was able to combine both these methods. Thus, just as Iamblichus tried to prove that Pythagoras provided scientific form to revelations of the Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom, so Syrianus and Proclus granted to Plato the role of the first strictly scientific thinker, who put the ancient revelations into scientific and dialectical terms. But Orphism and Pythagoreanism still belonged to the revelatory realm of anagogic symbolism. In short, philosophy was a tradition of divinely revealed truth which might be more or less successfully rendered into the auxiliary set of abstract logic and strictly rational categories that were “philosophical” in the narrow sense of the word. But this revealed truth—revealed and then rationalized (i.e., adapted to the rules of human logic)—was conveyed to fallen souls for their salvation by the superior daemonic souls of those hermeneutists who belonged to the Golden Chain and were directly connected with the divine realm.

  The fall in philosophical insight, as well as the mission of the superior souls sent down to recall corrupted souls to the divine abode, was exemplified in the Phaedrus of Plato. Thus even Socrates, who described philosophy as a kind of divinely inspired madness (mania), was referred to as a savior by Hermeias of Alexandria. According to him, Socrates had been sent down to the world of becoming as a benefit to mankind and to turn souls—each in a different way—to philosophy. Not only Pythagoras, Archytas, Socrates, and Plato, but also later philosophers such as Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Syrianus were “companions of the gods” (apadous theon andras) and belonged to the revelatory and soteriological tradition of philosophy, the main principles of which were received from daemons and angels. Such men were ranked with divine beings and called “daemonic” by the Pythagoreans. They were members of the divine choir, free from subjection to the body and “instructed by the divine” (theodidaktos). Thus philosophy was “sent down” along with those who preserved intact their pure vision of the gods in the heavenly procession (or the solar boat of Osiris-Ra, to express the matter in Egyptian terms), who were the providential agents of Eros and the inspired interpreters of the noetic realities. They were the keepers of anagogic power, because dialectic and discursive thought were regarded as necessary aspects of the ascent. According to Hermeias, true philosophers were divine-like souls who derived their wisdom from the immaterial realm and then translated it to fallen souls—those who ought to regrow their wings through the complete course of purification and recollection of their archetypal origins.

  The ultimate goal of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy was assimilation to god through the cultivation of virtue and truth. It meant a return to the first principles reached through philosophical education (paideia) and recollection (anamnesis), scientific investigation, contemplation, and liturgy (or theurgic ascent), based on the ineffable symbols and sacramental rites. By this philosophical practice the initiate student was transformed into a saintly and divine man (theios aner). As Hermeias says, Socrates

  … thought it right to call the divine men gods in the Sophist, for the wise and divine men are as gods in relation to men. And so he was wont often to credit his works to the divine men, in the Phaedrus to Pythagoras, in the Charmidas to Zalmoxis, a wise man, and the story of Atlantis in the Timaeus to the Egyptians (In Phaedr. 253.18–25).

  * * *

  The present anthology consists of four unequal parts, starting with accounts on the life of Pythagoras as attested by comparatively late Hellenic and even Byzantine writers, who strictly obey the rules of the particular genre. We are thus not too preoccupied with the historical precision of these accounts; we wish, rather, to present an archetypal and sometimes idealized mythological background, along with the important hermeneutical contents of the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition. Even if frequent references to the Eastern sources cannot be proved as valid in a strictly historical sense, they serve as the important icons and symbols of a consciously constructed Pythagorean-Platonic self-image, and mark the frame of certain metaphysical horizons.

  Some Pythagorean excerpts presented in the second part are regarded as “spurious” by many modern scholars simply because their real authors or editors belong to times later than claimed. The majority of scholars too easily forget that in the ancient world an “author” could be regarded as auctoritas: sometimes the whole tradition (or school, hairesis) was concealed under such archetypal names as Hermes, Solomon, or Pythagoras. The ideas were not their personal belongings and so those who searched for a sacred meaning paid attention to the inner contents, not the outer personal identities. As ‘Allamah Tabataba’i has remarked: “for us the person who wrote the Nahj al-balaghah is ‘Ali even if he lived a century ago.”16
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  The excerpts selected from Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus, Timaeus and other dialogues are pivotal for the understanding of what sense is conveyed by the word “philosophy” and how Plato used cosmological and philosophical myths in order to build an integral and meaningful world picture.

  The fourth and largest part of the anthology is devoted to Hellenic Neoplatonism, from Plotinus and Porphyry to Damascius. The main emphasis is laid on various hermeneutical aspects of late Platonic metaphysics and sacred mythology, as well as philosophical ethics and theurgy. The close relationship between the Platonic and Pythagorean perspectives is revealed, while referring to the Egyptian and Near Eastern parallels attested by the Neoplatonists themselves. This is a view “from the inside” of the Neoplatonic tradition (paradosis).

  Despite the minor shortcomings and anachronistic renderings of the Hellenic divinities by Roman names, we have used some texts translated from the Greek into English by Thomas Taylor, the famous Platonist who has been systematically neglected by the narrow-minded scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. The first reason for including these texts is that Thomas Taylor had a deep understanding of Hellenic philosophy and his renderings are in principle quite correct. The second reason is very simple: there are no other English translations at all. Because of the prevailing negative attitude toward late Neoplatonism by modern historians of philosophy (with Plotinus as a rare exception), certain works by Proclus, Hermeias and Damascius are to this day only available in the Greek originals. What seems most important to a student of metaphysics, hieratic imagination, and theurgy is regarded as a worthless fable by the positivist heirs of the Enlightenment.

  The rediscovery of this ancient Hellenic wisdom allows us to see the crucial importance of the Neoplatonic doctrines for the formation of traditional Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought. If freed from modern misreadings—which, unfortunately, even had an effect on some contemporary Traditionalist writers—the ancient Pythagorean and Platonic tradition can be regarded as one of the main intellectual pillars of the sophia perennis.

  Algis Uždavinys

  Footnotes

  Christos C. Evangeliou, The Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia, and Africa (New York: Binghamton University, 1997), p.71.

  E.N. Tigerstedt, The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1974), p.55.

  Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, ed. with an intro. by Arnold I. Davidson (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995), p.24.

  Zailan Moris, “The Essential Relation between Revelation and Philosophy in Islam and its Importance in Understanding the Nature and History of Islamic Philosophy” in The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. Lewis Edwin Hahn, Randall E. Auxier, and Lucian W. Stone, Jr. (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2001), p.634.

  Gregory Vlastos, “Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought” in Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, vol. 1, ed. D.J. Furley and R.E. Allen (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), p.92.

  Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p.166.

  Christos C. Evangeliou, The Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia, and Africa p.55.

  Christos C. Evangeliou, The Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia, and Africa p.105.

  Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition, p.328.

  Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred (Albany, New York: SUNY, 1980), p.35.

  The Tripartite Doctrine claims that (1) the world is samsara, (2) it is governed by karma, and (3) the goal of escape is moksha, liberation, release. Samsara refers to the cyclic process of transmigration (gr. metempsuchosis).

  Alain Danièlou, Siva and Dionysus, trans. K.F. Hurry (London and the Hague: East-West Publications, 1982), p.28.

  Giovanni Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 1, From the Origins to Socrates, trans. John R. Catan (Albany, New York: SUNY, 1987), p.15.

  Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (New York: Allworth Press, 2002), p.100.

  Dominic J. O’Meara, Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p.103.

  Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Reply to Zailan Moris” in The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, p.635.

  PART I

  TRADITIONAL ACCOUNTS

  ON THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF PYTHAGORAS

  Though Pythagoras (born c.570 B.C.E.) did not invent philosophy as such, his role as a spiritual guide who reinterpreted and synthesized all available religious and philosophic knowledge (including the mysteries of Egypt and the science of Babylonia, inherited from Sumer) was crucial to the rise of the Hellenic intellectual tradition and the establishment of the so-called esoteric “house of mysteries.” In a sense, Pythagoras exemplified Heracles (Melqart of the Phoenicians), i.e., as being an archetype of the spiritual hero who practiced the rites of incubation, oracular dreams, and was immortalized through the theurgic (or alchemical) fire. He joins the company of the gods in Heaven, thus following certain Phoenician and Hittitian cultic patterns. By emphasizing the sacred (both cosmogonical and soteriological) aspect of Number as reflecting the One and its irradiations, Pythagoras maintained the presence of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the orderly hierarchical cosmos. While asserting that unity was the principle of all things, he set up Limit (peras) and the Unlimited (apeiron) as the two most basic archetypes of theophany.

  Several comparatively late accounts devoted to the life and teachings of Pythagoras have survived. They are based on much earlier sources and reflect, at the very least, the universally accepted and partly idealized views regarding this legendary hero, who not only “established science” (i.e., brought it from the East), but promoted the distinctive Pythagorean way of life (bios Puthagorikos).1 According to the Hellenic tradition, Pythagoras restricted the use of the word wisdom (sophia) so as to make it refer only to the science of immaterial realities treated as true Being, against the fluid material world of becoming whose very flow imitates the archetypes of true Being and derives from them. Before him wise men in Greece called themselves sages (sophoi, tantamount to those “exceeding in wisdom” who bear the attributes of the god Ea in Mesopotamia), but Pythagoras was the first among the Greeks to call himself a lover of wisdom, philosophos. He regarded philosophia as a form of purification, a way of life aimed at assimilation to God and the gaining of immortality.

  This metaphysical attitude was established on the ground of Oriental arts and sciences and certain esoteric practices of Orphism. For example, Pythagoras envisaged the mathematical sciences as preparing the human soul for a higher pursuit, thereby acting as a bridge from the material world to the immaterial divine Intellect. The school of Pythagoras was thus a religious society centered around the Muses and their leader Apollo, the solar Intellect. Following the lead of Apollo and Pythagoras, one thereby became aware of the divine order and unity. But to know the cosmos was to seek and know the divine and archetypal structure within the soul, since the soul, according to Orphism, was a divine spark of Dionysus (who himself is tantamount to the Egyptian Osiris) bound in the mortal body as to a tomb, which also served as an alchemical vessel. By means of contemplation, the universal principles were perceived and through spiritual exercises the soul was transformed and harmonized.

  The Pythagorean strain survived in Neoplatonism. For Porphyry and other Neoplatonists, Pythagoras was a member of a great chain of ancient prophets, theologians, and sages, essentially a Platonic philosopher whose many doctrines could be traced to their Eastern prototypes.

  Presented below are selected excerpts from the anonymous biography preserved by Photius (c.820–891, or 897 C.E.), a Byzantine patriarch and teacher of philosophy at the Imperial Academy in Constantinople. Some scholars surmise that this unknown author may in fact preserve some p
arts of Aristotle’s lost treatise On the Pythagoreans. Diogenes Laertius (3rd century C.E.) compiled his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, drawn from a great many sources, amongst which are some testimonies on Pythagoras. The works on Pythagoras produced by Porphyry (c.232–c.305 C.E.) and Iamblichus (c.245–c.325 C.E.) partly reflect Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean approaches, which in many respects faithfully follow that of ancient Pythagoreanism. The opinion of some modern scholars that Pythagoreanism only later developed as a religious philosophy based on ritual activities is rather bizarre and entirely false.

  Footnotes

  We transcribe Puthagorikos instead of Pythagorikos, thus following J.O. Urmson’s The Greek Philosophical Vocabulary (Duckworth, 1990). The same principle is followed in transcribing other terms in the text such as psuche (instead of psyche), dunamis (instead of dynamis), and huparxis (instead of hyparxis).

  Cf. Plato’s Phaedrus 246ff for the myth of the charioteer.

  Cenobites: those who lived a communal, as opposed to a solitary life.

  Paeon: a form of Apollo as the physician of the gods.

  1. Anonymous

  The Life of Pythagoras

  The excerpts here reproduced from the anonymous Life of Pythagoras are taken from the writings of the Byzantine patriarch Photius, a politician, literary critic, and tutor of philosophy at the Imperial Academy in Constantinople. In his search for “sobriety,” Photius took the side of Aristotle and criticized Plato. The author of the Life of Pythagoras, as preserved by Photius, cannot be identified; but it is clear that he tries to connect Pythagoras and Aristotle when he says: “Plato was the pupil of Archytas, and thus the ninth in succession from Pythagoras; the tenth was Aristotle.” This treatise is important as a source of Pythagorean cosmology, especially as regards the ancient idea that man is a microcosm who reflects the entire universe.