Religious Philosophy

"The mass of straight goodness and vision in the world is enormous and the amount of clear, humanitarian thinking is unbounded; it is in the hands of the masses of good little men and the millions of right thinking people in every land that the salvation of the world lies and by them the preparatory work for the Coming of the Christ will be done. Numerically, they are adequate to the task and need only reassurance and wise coordination to prepare them for the service required, before the reappearance of the Christ becomes possible."

"The problems confronting us should be faced with courage, with truth and understanding; as well as with the willingness to speak factually, with simplicity and with love in the effort to expose the truth and clarify the problems which must be solved. The opposing forces of entrenched evil must be routed before He for Whom all men wait, the Christ, can come."

"It is not for us yet to know the date or the hour of the reappearance of the Christ. His coming is dependent upon the appeal (the often voiceless appeal) of all who stand with massed intent; it is dependent also upon the better establishment of right human relations and upon certain work being done at this time by senior Members of the Kingdom of God, the Church Invisible, the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet; it is dependent also upon the steadfastness of the Christ's disciples in the world at this time and His initiate-workers—all working in the many groups, religious, political and economic."

"In the light of the past, therefore, and of humanity's present need, which Christ and the Hierarchy must meet, what will be the teaching which He will this time give?... The probability is that His teaching will fall into four parts; we would do well to consider each of them and do our best to understand and prepare the human mind for the reception of what He has to give."

"I. The Establishing of Right Human Relations. The phrase "right human relations" is one that is today being much discussed; it is being increasingly realised that it is a major human need, and the only hope of a peaceful and secure future. Wrong human relations have reached such a stage of difficulty that every phase of human life is in a state of chaotic turmoil; every aspect of daily living is involved—family life, communal living, business relations, religious and political contacts, governmental action and the habitual life of all peoples, including the entire field of international relations. Everywhere there is hate, competition, mal-adjustment, strife between parties, the vilest kind of muck raking and scandal making, deep distrust between men and nations, between capital and labour and among the many sects, churches and religions. The difference between a sect and a church is, after all, only one of degree and historical inception; it is one of interpretation, of fanatical adherence to some pet truth and always—exclusiveness, which is contrary to Christian teaching. Nowhere is there peace today or understanding; only a small minority in relation to the Earth's population are struggling for those conditions which will lead to peaceful and happy relationships."

"Simplicius... preserved an explanation, in all probability Alexander’s... that they called the even number unlimited "because every even is divided into equal parts, and what is divided into equal parts is unlimited in respect of bipartition; for division into equals and halves goes on '. But, when the odd is added, it limits it; for it prevents its division into equal parts.""

"[W]e must not impute to the Pythagoreans... that even numbers can be halved indefinitely. They had... studied the properties of the decad, and... must have known that... 6 and 10 do not admit of this."

"Aristotle notes that the point in which the Pythagoreans agreed with Plato was in giving numbers an independent reality of their own; while Plato differed from the Pythagoreans in holding that this reality was distinguishable from that of sensible things."

"Aristotle speaks of certain "elements"... of numbers, which were also the elements of things. ...Primarily, the "elements of number" are the Odd and the Even... identified in a somewhat violent way with the Limit and the Unlimited... the original principles of the Pythagorean cosmology. Aristotle tells us... the Even... gives things their unlimited character when... contained in them and limited by the Odd... [C]ommentators... understand... this to mean... the Even is... the cause of infinite divisibility. They get into great difficulties, however..."

"In this way, then, the Odd and the Even were identified with the Limit and the Unlimited, and it is possible... Pythagoras... had taken this step... by... Unlimited he meant something spatially extended, and... identified... with air, night, or the void, so we are prepared to find... his followers also thought of the Unlimited as extended."

"The doctrine is more precisely stated by Aristotle to be that the elements of numbers are the elements of things, and... therefore things are numbers. He is equally positive that these "things" are sensible things, and... are... the bodies of which the world is constructed. This construction... out of numbers was a real process in time, which the Pythagoreans described in detail."

"Aristotle is... decided in his opinion that Pythagoreanism was intended to be a cosmological system like the others. "Though the Pythagoreans... made use of less obvious s and elements than the rest, seeing that they did not derive them from sensible objects, yet all their discussions and studies had reference to nature alone. They describe the origin of the heavens, and they observe the phenomena of its parts, all that happens to it and all it does." They apply their first principles entirely to these things, "agreeing... with the other natural philosophers in holding that reality was just what could be perceived by the senses, and is contained within the compass of the heavens," though "the first principles and causes of which they made use were... adequate to explain realities of a higher order than the sensible.""

"[T]he numbers were intended to be mathematical... though... not separated from... things of sense. ...[T]hey were not mere predicates of something else, but had an independent reality... "They did not hold that the limited and the unlimited and the one were... substances, such as fire, water... [etc.,] but... the unlimited itself and the one itself were the reality of the things of which they are predicated, and that is why they said that number was the reality of everything.""

"Aristotle... argues... if the Unlimited is... a reality, and not merely the predicate of some other reality, then every part of it must be unlimited... just as every part of air is air. The same thing is implied in his statement that the Pythagorean Unlimited was outside the heavens. Further than this, it is hardly safe to go."

"Accordingly the numbers are, in Aristotle’s own language, not only the formal, but also the material, cause of things. According to the Pythagoreans, things are made of numbers in the same sense as they were made of fire, air, or water in the theories of their predecessors."

"According to Aristotle, the Pythagoreans said Things are numbers, though that does not appear to be the doctrine of the fragments of "Philolaos." According to them, things have number, which make them knowable, while their real essence is... unknowable. ...[B]ut ...things are numbers seems meaningless. We have seen reason for believing that it is due to Pythagoras..., though we did not feel able to say... clearly what he meant..."

"There is no such doubt... [in] his school. Aristotle says they used the formula in a cosmological sense. The world... was made of numbers in the same sense as others had said it was made of "four roots" or "innumerable seeds." It will not do to dismiss this as mysticism."

"Platonic elements which have crept into later accounts... are of two kinds. First... genuine Academic formulae... as... identification of the Limit and the Unlimited with the One and the Indeterminate Dyad; ...secondly ...the Neoplatonic doctrine which represents it as an opposition between God and Matter. ...[N]o one will any longer attribute these doctrines to the Pythagoreans of the fifth century."

"[T]he problem... is still extremely difficult."

"Whatever we may think of Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans of the fifth century were scientific men, and they must have meant something... definite. ...[T]hey used the words Things are numbers in a ...non-natural sense, but there is no difficulty in such a supposition."

"[W]e cannot safely take Plato as our guide to the original meaning of the Pythagorean theory, though... from him alone... we can learn to regard it sympathetically."

"This sufficiently justifies... regarding the "fragments of Philolaos" with... more than suspicion."

"Aristotle... was... out of sympathy with Pythagorean ways of thinking, but took... great... pains to understand them. This was... because they played so great a part in the philosophy of Plato and his successors, and he had to make the relation of the two doctrines as clear as he could to... his disciples."

"The Pythagoreans had... a great veneration for the... words of the Master... but... veneration is often accompanied by a singular licence of interpretation."

"[W]e have to... interpret what Aristotle tells us in the spirit of Plato, and... consider how the doctrine... is related to the systems which had preceded it. ...[This] delicate operation... has been made... safer by recent discoveries in the early history of mathematics and medicine."

"Philolaos and his followers cannot have regarded the Unlimited in the old Pythagorean way as Air; for... they adopted the theory of Empedokles as to that "element," and accounted for it otherwise. ...[T]hey can hardly have regarded it as an absolute void; for that conception was introduced by the Atomists. ...[T]hey meant by the Unlimited the ', without analysing that... further."

"Plato was intimate with these men and was deeply impressed by their religious teaching, though... he did not adopt it... He was still more attracted by the scientific side of Pythagoreanism, and... this exercised a great influence on him. His own system in its final form had many points of contact with it, as he is careful to mark in the ' But... he is apt to develop Pythagoreanism on lines of his own, which may or may not have commended themselves to Archytas, but are no guide to the views of Philolaos and Eurytos. He is not careful... to claim the authorship of his own improvements in the system. He did not believe that cosmology could be an exact science, and he... therefore... credit[s] Timaios the Lokrian, or "ancient sages"... with theories which... had their birth in the Academy."

"Plato had many enemies and detractors, and this literary device enabled them to bring against him the charge of plagiarism. Aristoxenos... made the extraordinary statement that most of the Republic was... found in a work by Protagoras. ...He seems also... the... source of the story that Plato bought "three Pythagorean books" from Philolaos and copied the Timaeus out of them. ...[A]ccounts... imply... Plato bought... either a book by Pythagoras, or... notes of his teaching..."

"Philolaos wrote on medicine, and... while... influenced by the... Sicilian school, he opposed them from the Pythagorean standpoint. ...[H]e said... our bodies were composed only of the warm... [O]nly after birth... the cold was introduced by respiration. The connexion... with the old Pythagorean theory is obvious. Just as the Fire in the macrocosm draws in and limits the cold dark breath which surrounds the world... so do our bodies inhale cold breath... Philolaos made , blood, and the causes of disease..."

"Philolaos... is a sufficiently remarkable figure... and has... been spoken of as a "precursor of Copernicus.""

"We know nothing of Timaios except what Plato tells us... and he may... be a fictitious character like the Eleatic Stranger."

"At the same time, Pythagoreanism had taken root in Hellas. Lysis... remained at Thebes, where Simmias and Kebes had heard Philolaos, and there was an important community of Pythagoreans at Phleious. Aristoxenos was personally acquainted with the last generation of the school, and mentioned by name Xenophilos the Chalkidian from , with Phanton, Echekrates, Diokles, and Polymnestos of Phleious. They were all, he said, disciples of Philolaos and Eurytos. Plato was on friendly terms with these men, and dedicated the Phaedo to them. Xenophilos was the teacher of Aristoxenos..."

"In the fourth century, the chief seat of the school is at Taras, and we find the Pythagoreans heading the opposition to Dionysios of Syracuse. ...[In] this period... Archytas... the friend of Plato... almost realised, if he did not suggest, the ideal of the . ...He was also the inventor of mathematical mechanics."

"It seems natural to suppose... the Pythagorean elements of Plato’s Phaedo and Gorgias come mainly from Philolaos. Plato makes Sokrates express surprise that Simmias and Kebes had not learnt from him why it is unlawful for a man to take his [own] life, and it seems to be implied that the Pythagoreans at Thebes used the word "philosopher" in the... sense of... seeking to find... release from the burden of this life? It is... probable that Philolaos spoke of the body... as the tomb... of the soul. ...[H]e taught the old Pythagorean religious doctrine in some form, and... likely... laid stress upon knowledge as a means of release. ...Plato ...is by far the best authority ...on the subject."

"We know... Philolaos wrote on "numbers"; for Speusippos followed him in the account he gave of the Pythagorean theories on that subject. It is probable... he busied himself... with arithmetic, and... his geometry was... primitive... Eurytos was his disciple, and... his views were... crude."

"Simplicius, with the poem of Parmenides before him, corrects Aristotle by substituting Light and Darkness for Fire and Earth... Parmenides... calls one "form" Light, Flame, and Fire, and the other Night, and we... consider whether these can be identified with the Pythagorean Limit and Unlimited. We have... reason to believe that... the world breathing belonged to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism, and... identifying this "boundless breath" with Darkness, which stands... for the Unlimited. "Air" or mist was always regarded as the dark element. And that which gives definiteness to the vague darkness is... light or fire, and this may account for the prominence given to that element by Hippasos. We may probably conclude... that the Pythagorean distinction between the Limit and the Unlimited... made its first appearance in this crude form. If... we identify darkness with the Limit, and light with the Unlimited, as most critics do, we get into insuperable difficulties."

"We are told that the other book which passed under the name of Pythagoras was really by Lysis."

"In... Aristotle... the Boundless is also... the void or empty. This identification of air and the void is a confusion... in Anaximenes... too. We find also... the other confusion... air and vapour. ...Pythagoras identified the Limit with fire, and the Boundless with darkness. We are told by Aristotle that Hippasos made Fire the first principle... Parmenides... attributes... two primary "forms," Fire and Night. ...Light and Darkness appear in the Pythagorean table of opposites under the heads of the Limit and the Unlimited respectively."

"The Pythagoreans held, [Aristotle] tells us that there was "boundless breath" outside the heavens, and that it was inhaled by the world. In substance, this is the doctrine of Anaximenes, and... it was that of Pythagoras... Xenophanes denied it. ...[F]urther development of the idea is ...due to Pythagoras ...We are told that, after the first unit had been formed ...the nearest part of the Boundless was first drawn in and limited; and... the Boundless thus inhaled... keeps the units separate from each other. It represents the interval between them. This is a... primitive way of describing... discrete quantity."

"The identification of breath with darkness ...is a strong proof of the primitive character of the doctrine; for in the sixth century darkness was supposed ...a sort of vapour, while in the fifth, its true nature was ...known. Plato... makes the Pythagorean Timaios describe mist and darkness as condensed air."

"The Pythagorean Order was simply, in its origin, a religious fraternity... and not, as has sometimes been maintained, a political league. Nor had it anything to do with the "Dorian aristocratic ideal." Pythagoras was an Ionian, and the Order was originally confined to Achaian states. Nor is there the slightest evidence that the Pythagoreans favoured the aristocratic rather than the democratic party. The main purpose... was to secure for... members a more adequate satisfaction of the religious instinct than... the State religion. It was... an institution for the cultivation of holiness. ...[I]t resembled an Orphic society, though it seems that Apollo, rather than Dionysos, was the chief Pythagorean god. That is doubtless why the Krotoniates identified Pythagoras with Apollo Hyperboreios. ...[H]owever, an independent society within a Greek state was apt to be brought into conflict with the larger body. The only way in which it could then assert its right to exist was... by securing the control of the sovereign power. The history of the Pythagorean Order... is, accordingly, the history of an attempt to supersede the State..."

"When discussing the Pythagorean system, Aristotle always refers it to "the Pythagoreans," not to Pythagoras himself. ...[T]his was intentional ...Pythagoras himself is only thrice mentioned in the whole Aristotelian corpus, and in only one... is any philosophical doctrine ascribed to him. ...Aristotle ...is quite clear that what he knew as the Pythagorean system belonged in the main to the days of Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Leukippos; for ...he goes on to describe the Pythagoreans as "contemporary with and earlier than them.""

"[T]hink, then, of a "field" of darkness or breath marked out by luminous units ...which the starry heavens would naturally suggest."

"The Phaedo is dedicated... to Echekrates and the Pythagorean society at Phleious, and it is evident that Plato in his youth was impressed by the religious side of Pythagoreanism, though the influence of Pythagorean science is not clearly marked till a later period."

"[A] good many fragments of... Aristoxenos and Dikaiarchos are embedded in the mass. These writers were both disciples of Aristotle; they were natives of Southern Italy, and contemporary with the last generation of the Pythagorean school. Both wrote accounts of Pythagoras; and Aristoxenos, who was personally intimate with the last representatives of scientific Pythagoreanism, also made a collection of the sayings of his friends."

"As the Unlimited is spatial, the Limit must be spatial too, and we should... expect... the point... line, and... surface were regarded as... forms of the Limit. That was the later doctrine; but the characteristic feature of Pythagoreanism is... that the point was not... a limit, but... the first product of the Limit and the Unlimited, and was identified with the arithmetical unit. According[ly]... the point has one dimension, the line two, the surface three, and the solid four... [i.e.,] Pythagorean points have magnitude... lines breadth, and... surfaces thickness. The whole theory... turns on the definition of the point as a unit “having position." ...[O]ut of such elements ...it seemed possible to construct a world."

"It is... probable that we should ascribe to Pythagoras the Milesian view of a plurality of worlds, though... not... infinite ...Petron, one of the early Pythagoreans, said there were ...a hundred and eighty-three worlds arranged in a triangle; and Plato makes Timaios admit, when laying down ...only one world, that something might be urged in favour of ...five, as there are five regular solids."

"There is no reason to believe that the detailed statements which have been handed down with regard to the organisation of the Pythagorean Order rest upon any historical basis... The distinction of grades within the Order, variously called Mathematicians and Akousmatics, Esoterics and Exoterics, Pythagoreans and Pythagorists, is an invention designed to explain how there came to be two widely different sets of people, each calling themselves disciples of Pythagoras, in the fourth century B.C. So, too, the statement that the Pythagoreans were bound to inviolable secrecy, which goes back to Aristoxenos, is intended to explain why there is no trace of the Pythagorean philosophy proper before Philolaos."

"[W]e have... testimony that the five "Platonic figures,"... were discovered in the Academy. In the to Euclid... Pythagoreans only knew the , the pyramid (), and the , while the and the were discovered by Theaitetos."

"[T]he most striking result of the Greeks' faith that the world could be understood in terms of rational principles was the invention of abstract mathematics. The most grandiose ambition they conceived was to explain all the properties of Nature in arithmetical terms alone. This was the aim of the Pythagoreans... [T]hey... knew that the phenomena of the Heavens recurred in a cyclical manner; and... discovered ...that the sound of a vibrating string ...is simply related to the length ...and its 'harmonics' always go with simple fractional lengths. ...[S]ince the Pythagoreans were a religious brotherhood... they thought that this search would lead to more than explanations alone. If one discovered the mathematical harmonies in things, one should... discover how to put oneself in harmony with Nature. ...[T]hey had ...positive grounds for thinking that both astronomy and acoustics were at the bottom arithmetical; and the study of simple fractions was called 'music' right down until the late Middle Ages."