The Golden Verses of Pythagoras · 26 of 122 · tr. Florence M. Firth
Section 12 (part 3)
75 words accord with their energies, to honour and reverence them with the greatest earnestness.
SYMBOL 9.
Cut not fire with a sword.
1 Explanation .--This Symbol exhorts to prudence.
For it excites in us an appropriate conception with the respect to the propriety of not opposing sharp words to a man full of fire and wrath, nor contending with him.
For frequently by words you will agitate and disturb an ignorant man, and will yourself suffer things dreadful and unpleasant.
Heraclitus also testifies to the truth of this Symbol, for he says, "It is difficult to fight with anger; for whatever is necessary to be done, benefits the soul." For many by gratifying anger have changed the condition of the soul, and have made death preferable to life.
But by governing the tongue and being quiet, friendship is produced from strife, the fire of anger being extinguished, and you yourself will not appear to be destitute of intellect.
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76 SYMBOL 10.
Remove yourself from every vinegar bottle.
Explanation .--The truth of the preceding is testified by the present Symbol.
For it exhorts to prudence and not to anger; since that which is sharp in the soul and which we call anger is deprived of reasoning and prudence.
For anger boils like a kettle heated by the fire, being attentive to nothing but its own emotions, and dividing the judgment into minute parts.
It is proper therefore that the soul being established in quiet should turn from anger, which frequently attacks itself as if it touched sounding brass.
Hence it is requisite to suppress this passion by the reasoning power.
SYMBOL 11.
Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down.
Explanation .--This Symbol exhorts to fortitude, for whoever takes up a burden signifies an action of labour and energy; but he who lays one down, of rest and remission.
So that the Symbol has the following p.
76 meaning.
Do not become either to yourself or another the cause of an indolent and effeminate mode of conduct; for every useful thing is acquired by labour.
But the Pythagoreans celebrate this Symbol as Herculean, thus denominating it from the labours of Hercules.
For, during his association with men, he frequently returned from fire and everything dreadful, indignantly rejecting indolence.
For rectitude of conduct is produced from acting and operating, but not from sluggishness.
SYMBOL 12.
When stretching forth your feet to have your sandals put on, first extend your right foot; but when about to use a foot-bath, first extend your left foot.
Explanation .--This Symbol exhorts to practical prudence, admonishing us to place worthy actions about us as right-handed; but entirely to lay aside and throw away such as are base, as being left-handed.
SYMBOL 13.
Speak not about Pythagorean concerns without light.
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78 Explanation .--This Symbol exhorts to the possession of intellect according to prudence.
For this is similar to the light of the soul, to which being indefinite it gives bound, and leads it, as it were, from darkness into light.
It is proper, therefore, to place intellect as the leader of everything beautiful in life, but especially in Pythagorean dogmas; for these cannot be known without light.
SYMBOL 14.
Step not beyond the beam of the balance.
Explanation .--This Symbol exhorts us to the exercise of justice, to the honouring equality and moderation in an admirable degree, and to the knowledge of justice as the most perfect virtue, to which the other virtues give completion, and without which none of the rest are of any advantage.
It also admonishes us that it is proper to know this virtue not in a careless manner, but through theorems 1 and scientific demonstrations.
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Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The text exhorts abandoning 'popular and merely human life' and dismissing 'human manners'.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text distinguishes between 'terrestrial gods', 'intellectual gods', and 'primary gods'.
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
[auto] The passage explicitly describes a 'celestial journey' and 'circular progression' away from popular life toward a divine life, making ascent the central theme.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The aim is to become separated from material nature and adhere to the 'divine will', implying transformation.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
The text discusses 'Symbols', 'worship of the gods', and 'adoring' as means to conjoin with the divine, consistent with Neoplatonic ritual practice.