Pythagoreanism

CORNELLI, G. Una metafisica pitagorica nel Filebo? In Methexis XXIII (2010)

by GABRIELE CORNELLI

The Hieroglyphic Monad of John Dee Theorems I-XVII: A Guide to the Outer Mysteries

by Teresa Burns

co-authored with J. Alan Moore

Alcune donne della Scuola Pitagorica

by Daphne Varenya

2010 La destrucción de Síbaris y la política pitagórica

by Marco García Quintela

Complementa el artículo de 2002 "La destrucción de Síbaris y la mitopoyesis pitagórica"

'The ubiquitous Divine Man', Numen 43 (1996) 135-154.

by Jaap-Jan Flinterman

Working on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana (as I did in the late 1980's and early 1990's for my PhD)... more Working on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana (as I did in the late 1980's and early 1990's for my PhD) unavoidably entails prolonged exposure to scholarly discussions about the so-called theios anēr hypothesis: the theory that early Christologies were influenced by a pagan conception of a miracle-working divine man, Apollonius almost invariably being presented as the embodiment par excellence of such a conception. I have to admit that getting acquainted with this branch of learning was a rather disorientating experience. Unsurprisingly, discussions about the 'divine man' turned out to have strong ideological overtones. For orthodox Christians the idea that pagan conceptions could have influenced Christian beliefs seemed hard to accept. Proponents of the theios anēr hypothesis, on the other hand, were often less straightforward than they should have been about the scarcity of the evidence for pagan 'divine men'. In addition, quite a few scholars, especially (but not exclusively) from the literary side of academia, appeared to be in the habit of demonstrating their acquaintance with a supposedly important subject by either referring to the classic exposition by Ludwig Bieler (as if the final word about the matter had been spoken in the 1930's) or mentioning in footnotes more recent titles which they had insufficiently digested (as their texts made abundantly clear). Working on the Life of Apollonius obliged me to familiarize myself to a certain extent with the debate on the 'divine man', and the publication of studies by Graham Anderson (Sage, Saint & Sophist. Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman Empire) and Erkki Koskenniemi (Apollonios von Tyana in der neutestamentlichen Exegese. Forschungsbericht und Weiterführung der Diskussion), both in 1994, gave me the opportunity to organize and expand my thoughts on the subject, resulting in this review article published in Numen.
Three years after Koskenniemi's study another book on the subject was published, by David S. du Toit: THEIOS ANTHROPOS. Zur verwendung von θεῖος ἄνθρωπος und sinnverwandten Ausdrücken in der Literatur der Kaiserzeit (J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]: Tübingen 1997). Koskenniemi's study had been a frontal attack on the theios anēr hypothesis from an historical point of view: he argued that as the main evidence for the allegedly Hellenistic conception of the 'divine man' was an early third-century CE portrait of Apollonius of Tyana, influence of such a conception on the earliest Christologies was simply impossible. Du Toit's focus, on the other hand, was on semantics: he argued that the Greek words traditionally translated as 'divine man' do not correlate with a conception of a 'divine man', and that the existence of such a conception must be considered an unproven assumption. For a critical assessment of Du Toit's contribution to the debate see my '"The ancestor of my wisdom": Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in Life of Apollonius', in: E. Bowie, J. Elsner (eds), Philostratus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009, 155-175. In my view, there is no denying that the Pythagorean tradition knew a notion of 'Gottmenschentum'.

Le vie dell’Hades e le vie di Parmenide. Filologia, filosofia e presenze femminili nelle lamine d’oro “orfiche”

by Luigi Battezzato

Published in in «Seminari Romani» 8.1 (2005) 67-99

Please check the printed version for reference. The downloadable file present on this website has been generated from the word file submitted by the author. Pagination differs from that of the published version; check the printed version for the exact final form of the text.

Discussion of the Greek golden lamellae transmitting instructions on the afterlife. Discussion of possible differences... more Discussion of the Greek golden lamellae transmitting instructions on the afterlife. Discussion of possible differences in the text for women.

Struttura e significato del silenzio nel rituale d’iniziazione pitagorico: il silenzio come morte rituale in Studia Patavina: Rivista di Scienze Religiose, Vol 52, N°1

by Pietro Piro

Publisced in Studia Patavina: Rivista di Scienze Religiose, Vol 52, N°1, Padova 2005, pp. 127-148, ISSN 0039-3304, ora in Le prime luci dell'alba. Materiali di storia delle religioni, Navarra Editore, Palermo 2009, pp. 94-122.

Starting from an analysis of Greek society, wholly orientated, in political terms, towards creating an essentially... more Starting from an analysis of Greek society, wholly orientated, in political terms, towards creating an essentially structural paideia, the author aims to illustrate how the mystical alternatives represented an attempt to accede to an alternative way of salvation to that offered by the political religion. The Pythagorean sect represented such an alternative and precisely because of its characteristics as a communitas, was exposed to the typical tensions of the structure/anti-structure dialectic which pervaded the society. In this light the events which culminated in the anti-Pythagorean revolt are examined and interpreted. Having considered the general political context, the role of silence within the initiation ritual of the sect is analysed, firstly by considering some interpretations which concentrate more on the doctrinal contents to leave unsaid rather than on the actual use of silence as a structural moment of the initiation ritual. The role of silence as part of the ritual practice is then analysed, identifying four fundamental phases: an initial physiognomic and anamnestic exam; a preliminary three-year period; a further intermediate period of five years; and a final phase of either aggregation to the communitas or violent expulsion. In this perspective silence was interpreted as a period of ritual death and rebirth, inserted within a specific initiation context.

Les origines du pythagorisme romain: problèmes historiques et philosophiques (I) Les premiers indices du pythagorisme romain

by Michel Humm

published in: Les Etudes Classiques, 64, 1996, p. 339-353.

Les origines du pythagorisme romain : problèmes historiques et philosophiques (II) L’origine tarentine du pythagorisme romain

by Michel Humm

published in: Les Etudes Classiques, 65, 1997, p. 25-42.

Una sententia pitagorica di Appio Claudio Cieco ? (Festo, p. 418 L.)

by Michel Humm

published in: M. TORTORELLI GHIDINI, A. STORCHI MARINO et A. VISCONTI (ed.), Tra Orfeo e Pitagora. Origini e incontri di culture nell’Antichità. Atti dei seminari napoletani 1996-1998, Naples, 2000, p. 445-462.

Numa et Pythagore: vie et mort d'un mythe

by Michel Humm

published in: P.-A. DEPROOST et A. MEURANT (ed.), Images d’origines. Origines d’une image. Hommages à Jacques Poucet, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université catholique de Louvain et Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis (Transversalités, 4), 2004, p. 125-137.

Le mundus et le Comitium: représentations symboliques de l'espace de la cité

by Michel Humm

published in: M. GAILLARD, M. HUMM (ed.), Ville-Violence-Pouvoir. Antiquité - Haut Moyen Age, Histoire urbaine, 10, 2004, p. 43-61.

Another Andalusian Revolt? Ibn Rushd's Critique of al-Kindi's Pharmacological Computus

by Tzvi Langermann

appeared in the volume edited by Jan Hogendijk and A I Sabra, The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives, MIT Press, 2003

The Hieroglyphic Monad of John Dee Theorems I-XVII

by J. Alan Moore

by Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore

Review of Daniel Graham's *The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy* (Cambridge, 2010).

by Jason Rheins

'Si fama non fallit fidem'. Les druides dans la littérature latine de l’antiquité tardive

by Robert Wisniewski

Antiquité Tardive 17 (2009), 307-315

The subject of the paper are the reasons of intense, though short-lived, interest that a few Latin authors of the last... more The subject of the paper are the reasons of intense, though short-lived, interest that a few Latin authors of the last years of the 4th century had in the druids.
The druids, the most emblematic institution of the Gallic religion, are mentioned by Greek and Latin authors up to the beginning of the 2nd century AD. Afterwards they completely vanish from literature only to reappear in the 390ties in the works of Ammianus Marcellinus, Ausonius of Bordeaux and the anonymous author of the Historia Augusta.
In older scholarship it was quite widely accepted that the druidic episodes in three lives of emperors in the HA can be treated as proving the revival of indigenous Gallic priesthood in the 3rd century, and that Ausonius’ Commemoratio professorum Burdigalensium testifies to their survival at least up to the end of the 4th century. Nowadays scholars are more cautious about the actual renaissance of the druidism. But even if this revival is – as I think – a late antique literary phenomenon, the question imposes itself about the sources of the sympathetic interest in this vernacular religious institution that Latin authors of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD treated as alien and ominous.
I suggest that there are three reasons of the popularity of the druids in late antiquity, especially in the intellectual milieu of Gaul in the second half of the 4th century. Firstly, we should have in mind the vivid “ethnographic” interest of the late ancient intelligentsia, especially in one’s own people and family history. Because of their unquestionable aristocracy and antiquity the druids were attractive not only as a subject of research but also as ancestors and forefathers. Secondly, the druids were considered philosophers, indigenous Gallic representatives of Pythagoreanism – the school that the intellectuals of Late Antiquity voluntarily identified with. Thirdly, they were seen as teachers, and thus proper role models for Ausonius and his fellow-professors in Bordeaux. The re-disappearance of the druids from literature after the end of the 4th century should be linked to the disappearance of the group of Gallic pagan intellectuals and writers. In the 5th century too, there were authors interested in local history and traditions but their heroes were Christian martyrs, not heathen priests.

Roger Penrose - pitagorejczyk zespolony? [Roger Penrose - Pythagorean of Complex Numbers?]

by Mateusz Hohol

published in: "Semina Scientiarum" 2009, no. 8, pp. 79-90.

From Servius to Frazer: The Golden Bough and Its Transformations

by Anthony Ossa-Richardson

« L’interprétation symbolique des lois alimentaires dans la Lettre d’Aristée : une influence pythagoricienne », Journal of Jewish Studies 52/2, 2001, p. 253-268

by Katell Berthelot

« Philo on Philanthrôpia Towards Animals in De Virtutibus 125-147 », The Studia Philonica Annual 14, 2002, p. 48-65.

by Katell Berthelot