From The East August 2025

Happy July/August Brethren.

I hope everyone is having an outstanding Summer with their families and friends. As we all know, time moves more rapidly than we realize. Therefore, I would like to remind everyone that our next Stated Communication, Thursday August 28, is just around the corner. Please come join your Brethren in breaking bread together and sharing in friendship and brotherly love.

All of those who were present at our April 24th meeting were rewarded with an excellent presentation on “Pythagoras & Euclid” by our SGD Justin Webster. For those of you who were unable to attend, I would like to give a brief history of our ancient friend.

PYTHAGORAS

Pythagoras was born in c. 570 BC on the Greek island of Samos in the eastern Aegean Sea. His father was Mnesarchus, a gem-cutter or merchant, and his mother was Pythaïs, a woman who was said to be a descendant of Ancaeus, the mythical founder of Samos. He is reported to have fathered 4 children (Telauges, Mnesarchus, Myia and Arignote). During Pythagoras’s formative years, Samos was a thriving cultural hub known for its feats of advanced architectural engineering, including the building of the Tunnel of Eupalinos- a 3339 ft. aqueduct tunnel that is the second known in history to have been excavated from both sides and the first to use a geometry-based approach. In addition, Samos was a major trading center and was also known for its festival culture. All of these would have culminated in making Samos a center for the exchange of traditions, ideas, religions, etc.

Ancient Greece was heavily influenced by the cultures of Mesopotamia and the Levante. During Pythagoras early adulthood, he is reputed to have traveled and studied throughout the ancient world. Some later writers claimed he traveled to Egypt and learned the Egyptian language from the Pharaoh Amasis II (reigned 570-526 BC) before studying with Egyptian priests in Thebes. Other ancient writers, however, claimed that Pythagoras had learned the secret teachings of the Magi in Persia or perhaps even from Zoroaster himself. In addition, Pythagoras is supposed to have been taught arithmetic from the Phoenicians and astronomy from the Chaldeans. By the third century AD, writers were going as far as purporting that he traveled to India where he was taught by sages. And, still others claimed he went to Europe to learn from the Celts and Iberians. Although some of these assertions are obviously inaccurate, what is for certain is that he traveled extensively and studied from learned men throughout the ancient world.

No authentic writings of Pythagoras have survived. Therefore, many of the breakthroughs attributed to him are most likely the contributions of his students. The mathematical and scientific discoveries he has been credited with include the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagorean tuning, the five regular solids, the theory of proportions, the sphericity of the Earth, the identity of the morning and evening stars as the planet Venus, and the division of the globe into five climatic zones. He is also supposedly the first person to call himself a philosopher (“lover of wisdom”). However, of all the inventions he has been credited with, the teaching most securely identified with Pythagoras is metempsychosis or the “transmigration of souls,” which holds that every soul is immortal and, upon death, enters into a new body. He may have also devised the doctrine of musica universalis, which holds that the planets move according to mathematical ratios and thus resonate to produce an inaudible symphony of music.

In antiquity, it was reported that while Pythagoras was still on Samos he founded a school known as the “semicircle.” According to ancient writers, the school became so renowned that the brightest minds from throughout Greece congregated there to hear Pythagoras’ teachings and to debate matters of all types. Then, around 530 BC, he left Samos and settled in the Greek colony of Croton, in southern Italy. Although it has been claimed he fled the tyrannical rule of Polycrates of Samos (ruled 540-52 BC), this cannot be concretely confirmed. While living in Croton, all sources agree that Pythagoras was so charismatic that he quickly acquired great political influence in his new environment. He served as an advisor to the elites in Croton and gave them frequent advice.

The exact nature of the death of Pythagoras is shaded in mystery. However, the most likely scenario according to sources goes as follows. Pythagoras’s emphasis on dedication and asceticism are credited with aiding in Croton’s decisive victory over the neighboring colony of Sybaris in 510 BC. After the victory, some prominent citizens of Croton proposed a democratic constitution, which the Pythagoreans rejected. The supporters of democracy, headed by Cylon and Ninon, the former of whom is said to have been anti-Pythagorean because of his exclusion from Pythagoras’s brotherhood, roused the populace against them. Followers of Cylon and Ninon attacked the Pythagoreans during one of their meetings. The building was apparently set on fire, and many of the assembled members perished. Some of the more fanciful accounts purport that his devoted students laid down on the ground to make a path for him to escape by walking over their bodies across the flames like a bridge. And still another tale states that Pythagoras almost managed to escape, but that he came to a fava bean field and refused to run through it, since doing so would violate his teachings, so he stopped instead and was killed.

…to be continued. (next month I will continue my biography of Pythagoras by exploring his teachings and attributed discoveries)

Jeffrey Reinsch
Worshipful Master