PYTHAGORAS & the Golden Verses – From Ethics to the Divine

PYTHAGORAS & the Golden Verses – From Ethics to the Divine

In writing the Golden Verses, Pythagoras had only one goal: to enlighten men, to purify them of their vices, to deliver them from their errors, to bring them back to Virtue, to Truth, to make them similar to the immortal Gods. God, said Pythagoras, has Light as his body and Truth as his soul. In his commentaries on the Golden Verses, Hierocles writes in his prologue: “Philosophy aims to purify human life and lead it to its end … it leads it to its end, because it makes it recover, by making it resemble God, the pure happiness of which it is capable.” This initiatory journey is similar to the Egyptian boat that crosses the river that leads to immortality. In order to make the Divine Light that animates us shine, we must first learn to tame the human nature of which we are made. It is not permitted for the impure to touch the pure.