Pythagorean Ethics after Stobaeus

Pythagoras, Joannes Stobaeus, Florence M. Firth (C) · Living the Life Series · 8 pages

From The Golden Verses of Pythagoras and Other Pythagorean Fragments, selected and arranged by Florence M. Firth, Crotona, Hollywood, California: Theosophical Publishing House, 1904 — described here as a florilegium of Johannes Stobaeus giving fifty-five Pythagorean ethics. Eight pages, numbered throughout. It is one of three Pythagorean files in this batch, with the allegorical symbols and the sentences of Sextus.

The fragments are given as numbered sentences and are meant to be taken one at a time. The first is a rule about intention rather than action — do not even think of doing what ought not to be done — and the second states the preference the whole collection works from: choose rather to be strong in soul than in body. Others hold that things of a laborious nature contribute more to virtue than pleasures do, that every passion of the soul is most hostile to its salvation, and that it is difficult to walk many paths of life at one and the same time. The sixth is the longest and functions as the collection's centre: that one should choose the most excellent life, since custom will make it pleasant; that wealth is an infirm anchor and glory more infirm still, as are the body, dominion and honour, all of them imbecile and powerless; and that the powerful anchors are prudence, magnanimity and fortitude, which no tempest can shake — this being called the Law of God, that virtue alone is strong and everything else a trifle. The remaining fragments turn to conduct and judgment: that all the parts of human life, like those of a statue, ought to be beautiful; that frankincense should be given to the gods but praise to good men; that the unjustly accused should be defended; and that a horse is judged generous by its nature rather than its adornment, as a man is judged by the generosity of his soul rather than by his wealth.

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