PISTORIUS, JOHANN. — Polemicist and historian, born at Nidda on 14 February 1546 (hence the name Niddanus), died at Freiburg in Brisgau on 18 July 1608. Son of the homonymous P. J. Niddanus senior, who as a parish priest had embraced Protestantism, married, and played a notable part in various religious colloquies.
He studied theology, law, and medicine at Marburg and Wittenberg, later becoming court physician to Margrave Charles of Baden-Durlach, in whose service he also acted as historiographer and adviser on religious matters. After various vacillations between Lutheranism and Calvinism, he returned in 1588 to Catholicism, to which he devoted himself with zeal.
PISTORIUS, JOHANNES. — German historian and controversialist, born at Nidda, Hesse, 14 Feb. 1546; died at Freiburg, 18 July 1608. He studied at Marburg and Wittenberg, and became physician to the margrave of Baden-Durlach, in whose service he also acted as historiographer and religious adviser. After vacillating between Lutheranism and Calvinism, he returned to Catholicism in 1588.
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PYTHAGORAS. — Greek philosopher and religious reformer, b. at Samos c. 580 B.C., d. at Metapontum c. 500 B.C. (according to some, at Croton). After travels in Egypt and the East, he settled at Croton in Magna Graecia, where he founded a religious and philosophical school distinguished by strict ethical and religious discipline. The Pythagoreans observed prolonged silence (ἐχεμυθία), abstained at least partially from meat and, it seems, from beans, and followed various ethical and ritual precepts (the latter later interpreted as ethical symbols). Each evening they performed an examination of conscience.
According to later testimony, the sect comprised two classes of disciples: the *exoterics* (outsiders not initiated into the secrets of doctrine, i.e., simple hearers, ἀκούσματα); and the *esoterics* (those initiated into wisdom, μαθηματικοί). Others distinguish three categories (ἀκούσματα, μαθηματικοί, φυσικοί). The master’s views were accepted as unquestionable truths (according to the famous maxim ἀνθρὸς ἐφε). The school, which spread from Croton to other parts of Magna Graecia, acquired great political power and governed several cities. Soon, however, violent hostility arose from democratic factions against the aristocratic Pythagoreans; the first uprising broke out during Pythagoras’ lifetime (hence his flight from Croton), and further seditions followed until, at an unspecified time (between 460 and 400 B.C.), a revolution occurred in which the Pythagorean order was destroyed and most of its members killed. Survivors fled to Thebes (Lysis and Philolaus), Phlius, and later some returned from exile to Tarentum, where Pythagoreanism flourished anew under Archytas until its extinction in the late 4th century B.C.
Among the principal ancient Pythagoreans, besides Philolaus (who first expounded the doctrine in writing), are Simmias and Cebes (known through Plato), Ocellus Lucanus, Timaeus of Locri, Lysis, and Archytas (distinguished mathematician and physicist).
It is difficult to determine how much of Pythagorean theory goes back to Pythagoras himself; it is certain, however, that he taught belief in reincarnation (v.), transmitted to his disciples the core of ethical-religious precepts that became the most characteristic heritage of Pythagoreanism, and initiated those mathematical studies that later brought the school its greatest glory (it is possible that the Pythagorean theorem goes back to him personally). In any case, it is more appropriate to speak, not of Pythagoras alone, but of the Pythagoreans in general.
Their metaphysical conception was closely tied to the aforementioned mathematical studies. Observing the importance of numerical relations in the universe—since nothing is knowable without number (πάντα γὰρ τὰ γιγνώσκονται ἀριθμῷ)—they affirmed that the principle of things is number. This seems to be understood, according to Aristotle’s testimony (cf. esp. *Metaphysics*, I, 5, 985 b 23 ff., 986 a 15), as meaning that number is the intimate substance, the *ousia* of things themselves; nor is this interpretation contradicted by the fact that the Pythagoreans also regarded numbers as models of things (ibid., 987 b). Two fundamental categories of number are recognized: the odd (περιττόν) and the even (ἄρτιον), to which Philolaus adds the ἄρτιον περισσόν, the even-odd, equivalent, it seems, to the One. The odd is limited (περιττόν) and the principle of limit (πέρας); the even is unlimited (ἄρτιον) and the principle of the unlimited (ἀπείρων). The universe is an harmony of these contrary principles, to which other antithetical pairs are linked (cf. the Pythagorean table of opposites in Aristotle, *Metaphysics*, I, 5, 986: πέρας—ἄπειρον; περιττόν—ἄρτιον; ἕν—πλεῖον; δεξιόν—ἀριστερόν; φῶς—σκότος; ἀγαθόν—κακόν, etc.). Discord is reconciled in a numerical harmony, so that the entire heavens are harmony and number (cf. Aristotle, *Metaphysics*, I, 5).
The Pythagoreans, speculating on individual numbers, attributed to them particular virtues and significations; they held in special esteem, besides the One and Two (principles of the odd and even respectively), the Four and the Ten, perfect numbers. To this, so to speak, metaphysical arithmology was joined positive mathematics (discovery of the incommensurable, successive approximations to √2, method of application of areas, etc.).
Pythagorean theology appears to have been oriented in a monotheistic direction, admitting a supreme God above the gods; but it is doubtful whether this doctrine was developed philosophically in connection with arithmology, or that God was identified by them with the One as the original principle (cf. Zeller-Mondolfo, I, 2 [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 457-74). The school’s cosmology, initially akin to the conceptions of the early Ionians, later developed into a system that regarded the earth as rotating, like the sun and a supposed “counter-earth,” around a central fire. Ecphantus admitted the rotation of the earth on its axis and thus explained the alternation of day and night (Cicero, *Academica priora*, 2, 39, 123). Another Pythagorean theory is that of the harmony of the spheres.
In psychology, the school regarded the human soul as an eternal, divine substance, joined—by way of penalty—to a body and destined to transmigrate from body to body, not only into human bodies but also into those of beasts or plants (*palingenesia*, not *metempsychosis*, is the term most likely used by the ancient Pythagoreans). In union with the body, the soul is confined as in a tomb (Philolaus, fr. 14 D; Plato, *Gorgias*, 493 A). These incarnations will continue until the soul has purified itself and become worthy to return to its celestial home. How this conception (later taken up by Plato) was connected by the Pythagoreans with arithmology is not entirely clear.
Pythagorean ethics, inspired by religion, prescribed imitation of the Divinity to man and inculcated purity of life, moderation and harmony in all activities, and also the cultivation of wisdom as a means of salvation.
Pythagoreanism exerted great influence on Greek thought, especially on Platonism (v.). The school, which died out in the 4th century B.C., was later revived, beginning in the 1st century, in an eclectic form (v. NEO-PYTHAGOREANISM).