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Whether or not we accept the hypothesis of direct influence from Persi — Pythagoreanism

"Whether or not we accept the hypothesis of direct influence from Persia on the Ionian Greeks in the sixth century, any student of Orphic and Pythagorean thought cannot fail to see that the similarities between it and Persian religion are so close as to warrant out regarding them as expressions of the same view of life, and using the one system to interpret the other. The characteristic preoccupation of Pythagoreanism with astronomy and the contemplation of the heavens becomes transparently clear, when we see it in the light of notions like , , and ."
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Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism
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Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the ancient Greek colony of Croton, in modern Calabria (Italy) circa 530 BC. Early Pythagorean communities spread throughout Magna Graecia.

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"None of Pythagoras own work has survived, but the ideas fathered on him by his followers would be the most potent in modern history. Pure knowledge, the Pythagoreans argued, was the purification (catharsis) of the soul... rising above the data of the human senses. The pure essential reality... was found only in the realm of numbers. The simple, wonderful proportion if numbers would explain the harmonies of music... [T]hey introduced the musical terminology of the octave, the fifth, the fourth, expressed as 2:1, 3:1, and 4:3. ..."
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Pythagoreanism