Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​They should use songs accompanied by the lyre, and render fitting gratitude through hymns to gods and good men. They should abstain from beans because, being flatulent, they partake most of the psychic nature; and moreover, if not ingested, they render the stomach more orderly, and for this reason also make dream visions smooth and untroubled. Alexander says in his Successions of Philosophers that he also found the following doctrines in the Pythagorean notebooks:

​The first principle of all things is the Monad; and from the Monad arose the Indefinite Dyad, to serve, as it were, as matter for the Monad, which is the cause. From the Monad and the Indefinite Dyad arose numbers; from numbers, points; from these, lines, out of which come plane figures; from plane figures, solid figures; and from these, sensible bodies, whose elements are four: fire, water, earth, air. These transform and change through and through, and out of them arises a cosmos that is animate, intelligent, spherical, embracing at its center the earth, which is itself spherical and inhabited all around.

​There are also Antipodes, and what is down for us is up for them. Light and darkness, hot and cold, dry and moist are equally apportioned in the cosmos. Through the predominance of these, summer arises from the hot, winter from the cold, spring from the dry, and autumn from the moist. If they are in equal measure, the finest seasons of the year result, of which flourishing spring is healthy, while declining autumn is sickly. So too of the day, morning flourishes while evening declines; hence evening is more sickly. The air around the earth is stagnant and sickly, and all things in it are mortal; but the uppermost air is in perpetual motion, pure, and healthy, and all things in it are immortal and therefore divine.

​The sun, the moon, and the other stars are gods; for heat predominates in them, which is the cause of life. The moon is illuminated by the sun. There is a kinship between men and the gods, in that man partakes of heat; wherefore the god exercises providence over us. Fate is the cause of the administration of things both as a whole and in particular. A ray extends from the sun through the aether, both the cold and the thick. They call air the cold aether, and the sea and moisture the thick aether. This ray penetrates even into the depths, and for this reason vivifies all things.

​All things that partake of heat live; wherefore plants too are living beings, yet not all have a soul. The soul is a fragment of aether, both of the hot and of the cold, by virtue of partaking also of the cold aether. Soul differs from life; and it is immortal, since that from which it was severed is also immortal. Living beings are generated from one another by seeds, and spontaneous generation from earth is impossible. The seed is a drop of brain containing within itself hot vapor; and when this is introduced into the womb, lymph, moisture, and blood are emitted from the brain, out of which flesh, sinews, bones, hair, and the entire body are formed; while from the vapor arise soul and sensation.