Greek mystery religion and Pythagoreanism
Pythagoras
Founder of a disciplined community concerned with purification, moral practice and the fate of the soul, and the origin of almost everything later occultism means by number and harmony.
- Dates
- c. 570 BCE – c. 490 BCE
- Dating
- approximate dates
- Born
- Samos
- Died
- Metapontum, southern Italy
The life
He grew up on Samos and migrated around the age of forty to Croton in southern Italy, probably about 530 BCE, where he established his community. Early evidence associates him particularly with reincarnation, ritual rules, purification and an unusual status as a religious sage or wonder-worker. Political violence against his circle apparently drove him to Metapontum, where he died; the stories of his death vary considerably.
Place in the tradition
Later tradition gathered number, harmony, cosmology, reincarnation, purification and secrecy under his name, giving Pythagoras his lasting esoteric stature.
a note on the record
History and later legend
No surviving book can be securely attributed to Pythagoras. The Golden Verses, Sacred Discourses and pseudo-Pythagorean treatises belong to the tradition that grew around his name, while later generations greatly enlarged his mathematical and occult legend.