Page 44 - STOLEN LEGACY By George G. M. James

2. Pythagoras

Born in the Aegean Island of Samos, supposedly in 530 B.C.; the following doctrines have been
attributed to Pythagoras:

(i) Transmigration, the immortality of the soul and salvation.

This salvation is based upon certain beliefs concerning the soul. True life is not to be found here
on earth, and what men call life is really death, and the body is the tomb of the soul. Owing to
the contamination caused by the soul's imprisonment in the body, it is forced to pass through an
indefinite series of re-incarnations: from the body of one animal, to that of another, until it is
purged from such contamination. Salvation, in this sense, consists of the freedom of the soul
from the "cycle of birth, death and rebirth", which is common to every soul, and which condition
must remain until purification or purgation is completed.

Being liberated from the ten chains of the flesh, and also from successive re-incarnations, the
soul now acquires her pristine perfection, and the eligibility to join the company of the Gods,
with whom she dwells forever. This was the reward which the Pythagorean System offered its
initiates.

(ii) The doctrines of (a) Opposites, (b) the Summum Bonum, or Supreme Good, and (c) the
process of purification.

(a) The Union of opposites creates harmony in the universe. This is true in the case of musical
sounds, such as we find in the lyre: where the harmony produced is the result of the mean
proportional relation between the lengths of the two middle strings to that of the two extremes.
This is also true in natural phenomena, which are identified with number, whose elements consist
of the odd and the even. Thus, the even is unlimited, because of its quality of unlimited
divisibility, and the odd indicates limitation; while the product of both is the unit or harmony.
Similarly, do we obtain harmony in the union of positive and negative; male and female; material
and immaterial; body and soul?

(b) The Summum Bonum or Supreme Good in man is to become godlike. This is an attainment,
or transformation which is the harmony resulting from a life of virtue. It consists in a harmonious
relationship between the faculties of man, by means of which his lower nature becomes
subordinated to his higher nature.

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Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook