Neopythagoreanism

Neopythagoreanism was an attempt to re-introduce a

mystical religious element into Hellenistic philosophy
(dominated by the Stoics) in place of what had come to
be regarded as an arid formalism. The founders of the
school sought to invest their doctrines with the halo of tradition by ascribing them to Pythagoras and Plato. They
went back to the later period of Platos thought, the period when Plato endeavoured to combine his doctrine of
Ideas with Pythagorean number theory, and identied the
Good with the Monad (which would give rise to the Neoplatonic concept of the One), the source of the duality of
the Innite and the Measured with the resultant scale of
realities from the One down to the objects of the material
world.
They emphasized the fundamental distinction between
the soul and the body. God must be worshipped spiritually by prayer and the will to be good, not in outward
action. The soul must be freed from its material surrounding, the muddy vesture of decay, by an ascetic habit
of life. Bodily pleasures and all sensuous impulses must
be abandoned as detrimental to the spiritual purity of the
soul. God is the principle of good, Matter the groundwork of Evil. In this system can be distinguished not only
the asceticism of Pythagoras and the later mysticism of
Plato, but also the inuence of the Orphic mysteries and
of Oriental philosophy. The Ideas of Plato are no longer
self-subsistent entities but are the elements which constitute the content of spiritual activity. The non-material
universe is regarded as the sphere of mind or spirit.

Apollonius of Tyana ( c. 15?c. 100? CE), one of the most

important representatives of Neopythagoreanism

Neopythagoreanism (or Neo-Pythagoreanism) was

a school of Hellenistic philosophy which revived
Pythagorean doctrines. Neopythagoreanism was inuenced by Middle Platonism and in turn inuenced
Neoplatonism. It originated in the 1st century BCE and
ourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The 1911
Britannica describes Neopythagoreanism as a link in the
chain between the old and the new within Hellenistic
philosophy. As such, it contributed to the doctrine of
monotheism as it emerged during Late Antiquity (among
other things inuencing early Christianity). Central to A basilica where Neopythagoreans held their meetings in
Neopythagorean thought was the concept of a soul and the 1st century was found near Porta Maggiore on Via
its inherent desire for a unio mystica with the divine.[1]
Praenestina in Rome (discovered 1915).
The word Neopythagoreanism is a modern (19th century) term, coined as a parallel of Neoplatonism.

2 See also
1

History

Pythagoreanism

In the 1st century BCE Cicero's friend Nigidius Figulus

made an attempt to revive Pythagorean doctrines, but the
most important members of the school were Apollonius
of Tyana and Moderatus of Gades in the 1st century
CE. Other important Neopythagoreans include the mathematician Nicomachus of Gerasa (. 150 CE), who wrote
about the mystical properties of numbers. In the 2nd century, Numenius of Apamea sought to fuse additional elements of Platonism into Neopythagoreanism, preguring
the rise of Neoplatonism. (Iamblichus, in particular, was
especially inuenced by Neopythagoreanism).

School of the Sextii

Allegorical interpretations of Plato

3 Notes
[1] Calvin J. Roetzel, The World That Shaped the New Testament, 2002, p. 68.

4 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography
Charles H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans:
A Brief History, Indianapolis: Hackett 2001 ISBN
0-87220-575-4 ISBN 978-0872205758
This article incorporates text from a publication
now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). "Neopythagoreanism". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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