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See Eusebius, Vopiscus, Lampridius, etc., as quoted by Bayle. See Brucker on this point, vol. ii. p. 141, who refers to various authors. Eusebius takes a more sober view of the question, allowing the substance of the history, but disputing the extraordinary parts. See in Hierocl. 5 and 12. Most of them are imitations of the miracles attributed to Pythagoras. See Philostr. i. 4, 5, viii. 30, 31.
Pythagoras recognized this truth when he shrouded himself in mystery and delivered his lectures from behind a curtain, though to be sure he has come to be regarded as something of a charlatan in consequence." "Pray, sir," said the Preacher, absent-mindedly puffing at his pipe again, "may I ask what you are?" "A blacksmith, sir." "And where did you read of Pythagoras and the like?"
Thales, Pythagoras, and the followers of Pythagoras do distribute the universal globe of heaven into five circles, which they denominate zones; one of which is called the arctic circle, which is always conspicuous to us, another is the summer tropic, another is the solstice, another is the winter tropic, another is the antarctic circle, which is always out of sight.
A highly mythological and fabulous life of Zoroaster, translated by Anquetil du Perron, called the Zartrisht-Namah, describes him as going to Iran in his thirtieth year, spending twenty years in the desert, working miracles during ten years, and giving lessons of philosophy in Babylon, with Pythagoras as his pupil.
What a deep breath he draws when he succeeds in raising yet another dark corner of antiquity to the level of his own intelligence! when, for example, he discovers in Pythagoras a colleague who is as enthusiastic as himself in arguing about politics. Another racks his brains as to why Œdipus was condemned by fate to perform such abominable deeds killing his father, marrying his mother.
It is for that reason that Demeter is the Madonna of Greece, as her ethereal daughter was the saviour. The myth of it all, brought by Pythagoras from Egypt is very old. Known in Memphis, it was known too in Babylon, perhaps before Memphis was.
It is reported, indeed, of Pythagoras that he sacrificed an ox to the Muses upon having made some new discovery in geometry; but, for my part, I cannot believe it, because he refused to sacrifice even to Apollo at Delos, lest he should defile the altar with blood. But to return.
In like manner I can never sufficiently praise that Pythagoras in a dunghill cock, who being but one had been yet everything, a philosopher, a man, a woman, a king, a private man, a fish, a horse, a frog, and, I believe too, a sponge; and at last concluded that no creature was more miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them.
It is reported of Plato that he came into Italy to make himself acquainted with the Pythagoreans; and that when there, among others, he made an acquaintance with Archytas and Timæus, and learned from them all the tenets of the Pythagoreans; and that he not only was of the same opinion with Pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul, but that he also brought reasons in support of it; which, if you have nothing to say against it, I will pass over, and say no more at present about all this hope of immortality.
"The fathers on the other hand, defend themselves by saying, that they did nothing more: on this occasion than what the philosophers had always done; that Pythagoras' precepts were inculcated by an ipse dixit, and that they had found the same method useful with the vulgar, who were not at leisure to examine things; whom they taught therefore to believe, even without reasons: and that the heathens themselves, though they did not confess it in words, yet practiced the same in their acts."
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