Apothegms by Sextus the Pythagorean

Sextus, Thomas Taylor (T) · Living the Life Series · 9 pages

One hundred and four apothegms translated and annotated by Thomas Taylor, from his Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, or Pythagoric Life, London: J.M. Watkins, 1818, the sentences excerpted from pages 192 onwards. Nine pages, numbered throughout. Note that the author's name is spelt Sextus in the running head of the document and in its Author field, but Sectus on its title page, in its embedded Title, and in the file name; the standard form is Sextus, which is used here.

The sentences are short, numbered, and arranged so that each stands alone. The first sets a standard of attention — that to neglect things of the smallest consequence is not the least thing in human life — and the second states the collection's recurring measure of a man: that the wise man, and the despiser of wealth, resembles God. The third is the longest and the most philosophically interesting, an argument against seeking the name of God: everything called by a name receives its appellation from something more worthy than itself, so that one person calls and another hears; who then could have given a name to God? The conclusion drawn is that God is not a name for God but an indication of what we conceive of him. Two further sentences continue in the same vein — that God is a light incapable of receiving its contrary, darkness, and that you have in yourself something similar to God. The remainder work outward from these to conduct, and the form is characteristic of this section as a whole: statements compressed to the point where they must be unfolded by the reader rather than merely assented to.

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