Note 732 — Chapter XXXVII · IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.

The compilations of Porphyry and Jamblichus on the life of Pythagoras, copied from a great variety of authors, will doubtless contain some truth amidst their confused heap of statements, many incredible, and nearly all unauthenticated. But it is very difficult to single out what these portions of truth really are. Even Aristoxenus and Dikæarchus, the best authors from whom these biographers quote, lived near two centuries after the death of Pythagoras, and do not appear to have had any early memorials to consult, nor any better informants than the contemporary Pythagoreans,—the last of an expiring sect, and probably among the least eminent for intellect, since the philosophers of the Sokratic school in its various branches carried off the acute and aspiring young men of that time.

Meiners, in his Geschichte der Wissenschaften (vol. i, b. iii, p. 191, seq.), has given a careful analysis of the various authors from whom the two biographers have borrowed, and a comparative estimate of their trustworthiness. It is an excellent piece of historical criticism, though the author exaggerates both the merits and the influence of the first Pythagoreans: Kiessling, in the notes to his edition of Jamblichus, has given some extracts from it, but by no means enough to dispense with the perusal of the original. I think Meiners allows too much credit, on the whole, to Aristoxenus (see p. 214), and makes too little deduction for the various stories, difficult to be believed, of which Aristoxenus is given as the source: of course the latter could not furnish better matter than he heard from his own witnesses. Where Meiners’s judgment is more severe, it is also better borne out, especially respecting Porphyry himself, and his scholar Jamblichus. These later Pythagorean philosophers seem to have set up as a formal canon of credibility, that which many religious men of antiquity acted upon from a mere unconscious sentiment and fear of giving offence to the gods,—That it was not right to disbelieve any story recounted respecting the gods, and wherein the divine agency was introduced: no one could tell but what it might be true: to deny its truth, was to set bounds to the divine omnipotence. Accordingly, they made no difficulty in believing what was recounted about Aristæus, Abaris, and other eminent subjects of mythes (Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 138-148)—καὶ τοῦτό γε πάντες οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι ὅμως ἔχουσι πιστευτικῶς, οἶον περὶ Ἀρισταίου καὶ Ἀβάριδος τὰ μυθολογούμενα καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα λέγεται ... τῶν τοιούτων δὲ τῶν δοκούντων μυθικῶν ἀπομνημονεύουσιν, ὡς οὐδὲν ἀπιστοῦντες ὅτι ἂν εἰς τὸ θεῖον ἀναγηται. Also, not less formally laid down in Jamblichus, Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, as the fourth Symbolum, p. 324, ed. Kiessling. Περὶ θεῶν μηδὲν θαυμαστὸν ἀπιστεῖ, μηδὲ περὶ θείων δογμάτων. Reasoning from their principles, this was a consistent corollary to lay down; but it helps us to estimate their value as selectors and discriminators of accounts respecting Pythagoras. The extravagant compliments paid by the emperor Julian in his letters to Jamblichus will not suffice to establish the authority of the latter as a critic and witness: see the Epistolæ 34, 40, 41, in Heyler’s edit. of Julian’s letters.