SOURCE: Eduard Zeller, "The Pythagoreans," in Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, translated by L. R. Palmer, thirteenth edition, 1931. Reprint by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1955, pp. 31-40.

In the following essay, Zeller examines what is known about Pythagoras himself and about the beliefs of the brotherhood of Pythagoreans in general, explaining that there were actually two distinct groups of Pythagoreans. Zeller touches on several characteristics of early Pythagorean thought, including the belief that the soul is continually reincarnated until it has been purified, at which point it enters a state of divinity, and the numeric nature of things as derived from the group's study of music

Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Order

With Pythagoreanism begins the transformation of the Greek mode of thought by a foreign element which originated in the Orphic mysticism, a cult strange to the Hellenic nature, and by its fusion with Greek thought, gave...