THE OPPOSITE OF THE HELLENIC PHILOSOPHIC & CREATIVE RELIGION, SINCE MAN VIOLATES THE UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL LAWS BY TAKING LIVES OF LIVING BEINGS
Pythagoras’ love for animals was great and multi-layered, it was expressed in a symbolic, but also particularly pedagogical way, he taught that: all living creatures (beings) are subject to kinship, because there is a spirit that runs through the entire world as a soul and this unites everything into a Unity.
He taught that there is a kinship not only between men, but also between men and God there is some kinship, as also with living creatures without reason.
So if we kill them and feed on their flesh, we commit injustice and disrespect as if we were killing relatives.
The moral issue raised by the Pythagoreans is not about our biological need for meat, but about morality. The moral issue is murder.
He believed that plant food in its natural state is the best choice for humans. He recommended eating raw vegetables, nuts and honey. He taught that we should abstain from the food of living beings (“abstaining from living things”).
“As long as man continues to be the merciless destroyer of other beings, he will never know health or peace. Because as long as people slaughter animals, they will kill each other.”
He advised us to stay away from living things and said that people who redden the altar of the blessed gods with warm blood are disrespectful. And the philosopher Empedocles agreed with this, saying, will you not stop the evil-sounding killing? do you not see that out of foolishness you are devouring one another?
Opposite to morality, because animals that belong to a large family disappear, that is why he considered the slaughter of animals disrespectful.
Opposite of health and longevity.
Contrary to the balance of nature.
Opposite of peace and quiet, as it is disturbed by the hunting and slaughter of animals.
Opposite to the political virtues, because the excessive use of meat and blood excites man’s animal passions and warlike instincts.Opposite to spiritual virtue, because meat-eating is foreign to purity of soul and spirit and to the elevation of the ego to a divine ego.
The text is based on passages from: Porphyry (Life of Pythagoras, op. 19), Iamblichus, PYTHAGORIAN LIFE, op, 107,108 and Sextus Empiricus, op. 127-129
source: Pythagorean Philosophy & Modern Science
YGEIA was used as a greeting among the Pythagoreans.
*******H Y G E I A = Υ Γ Ε Ι Α = H E A L T H*****************’
PENTELIAN MARBLE/ CAPITOLIUM
Croton, one of the ancient Greek colonies-cities in southern Italy. Historians agree, that he combined radiant charisma. Pythagoras was a teacher of many things, an uptown mystic in a backwater town. Crotonians flocked to bask in his glamour and soak up his wisdom. Pythagoras also had a “golden thigh,” according to many ancient writers, who soberly reported this curious characteristic as if the man’s leg literally were made of the metal. There was no one the great man wouldn’t teach — children, the poor, city elders. To all, he disseminated his beliefs on faith, diet and morality. He admired women , whom he treated as equals, a typical behavior for a man in those days that led some historians a few centuries later to discuss about Pythagoras
– A small portion of the mythagogy, surrounding the Greek mathematician is the cult of personality and the mystical power of numbers.
“Bowl of Hygeia“
The snake in the Bowl of Hygeia is symbolic of Aesculapius (see the Rod of Asclepius) while the bowl itself represents Hygeia. Snakes were used in representations related to healing and medicine because ancient Greeks associated this animal’s ability to shed its old skin and grow a new one with wisdom, healing, and resurrection. The bowl represents the venom from the snake, which either kills or heals.
Hygeia is the Greek goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation. Together with the asklepian (Rod of Asclepius), Hygeia’s symbol—the Bowl of Hygeia—is one of the oldest and most important symbols associated with medicine.”
– Both quote and symbol (inset right) found at the Symbols Archive. Interestingly, while Hygeia is often interpreted as feeding a snake from a bowl, this description seems to inform us that Hygeia was milking the venom from her snakes jaws…a venom which either “kills or heals.”
Cults dedicated to the god Dionysius preferred frenzied channeling rituals. Pythagoras’s angle was numbers. He was, after all, a mathematician — some consider him the world’s first — To him, numbers were divine, the primary elements of all existence. Individual numbers had divine powers. Numbers, he said, are “the cause of gods” The number One and 2 he considered building blocks for all other numbers, not numbers themselves. Numbers were the building blocks of everything else, as well.
| Museum Collection | British Museum, London |
|---|---|
| Catalogue No. | London 1772,0320.30.+ |
| Beazley Archive No. | 220497 |
| Ware | Attic Red Figure |
| Shape | Hydria |
| Painter | Attributed to the Meidias Painter |
| Date | ca. 420 – 400 B.C. |
| Period | Classical |
Hygieia is a goddess from Greek mythology (also referred to as: Hygiea or Hygeia; /haɪˈdʒiːə/;Ancient Greek: Ὑγιεία or Ὑγεία, Latin: Hygēa or Hygīa). Hygieia is a goddess of health (Greek: ὑγίεια – hugieia/, cleanliness and hygiene. Her name is the source for the word “hygiene”.
Hygieia was one of the dauthers of Asclepius and his wife Epione. Hygieia and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo’s art: Hygieia (health, cleanliness, and sanitation); Panacea (universal remedy); Iaso (recuperation from illness); Aceso (the healing process); and Aegle (radiant good health).
The role of Hygieia in antiquity
One notable reference regarding Hygieia’s role as a goddess of health can be found within the Hippocratic oath. This oath is used by physicians in order to swear before various healing gods, one of which being Hygieia, that they would follow a code of established ethical standards of practice.
Section of the translated oath from Greek to English:
I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
HYGIEIA and ASCLEPIUS
The worship of Hygieia was closely associated with the cult of Asclepius. While Asclepius was more directly associated with healing, Hygieia was associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health. In the second century CE, the famous traveler Pausanias provided an account based on what he witnessed within the state of Greece.
In his encyclopedic text Description of Greece, written circa 160 CE to 174 CE, Pausanias described encountering statues of Asclepius and Hygieia, located at Tegea.
In addition to statues which represent the two figures, the incorporation of Hygieia within the cult of Asclepius can also be seen in medical iconography on numerous ancient Graeco-Roman coins. The close association between Hygieia and Asclepius indicates the important place she held in the cult of Asclepius.
Hygieia’s primary temples were in Epidaurus, Corinth, Cos and Pergamon. At the Asclepeion of Titane in Sicyon (founded by Alexanor, Asclepius’ grandson), the Greek historian Pausanias remarked that a statue of Hygieia was covered by women’s hair and pieces of Corinthisnclothes. According to inscriptions, similar sacrifices such as this were offered at Paros.
Hygieia was also associated with the Greek goddess Athena. In the 2nd century AD, Pausanias noted statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens.
Hygieia is related to the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, who is the son of the Olympian god Apollo. Hygieia was one of the dauthers of Asclepius and his wife Epione.
Hygieia and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo’s art:
AECLE/ΑΙΓΛΗ (radiant good health);
PANACEA/ΠΑΝΑΚΕΙΑ (universal remedy);
IASO/ΙΑΣΩ (recuperation from illness);
ACESO/ΑΚΕΣΩ (the healing process); and Aegle (radiant good health).
HYGIEIA was usually worshipped in the same temples with her father, as at Argos, where the two divinities had a celebrated sanctuary..
The role of Hygieia in antiquity
One notable reference regarding Hygieia’s role as a goddess of health can be found within the Hippocratic oath. This oath is used by physicians in order to swear before various healing gods, one of which being Hygieia, that they would follow a code of established ethical standards of practice.
I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
Hygieia and Asclepius
The worship of Hygieia was closely associated with the cult of Asclepius. While Asclepius was more directly associated with healing, Hygieia was associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health. In the second century CE, the famous traveler Pausanias provided an account based on what he witnessed within the state of Greece.
In his encyclopedic text Description of Greece, written circa 160 CE to 174 CE, Pausanias described encountering statues of Asclepius and Hygieia, located at Tegea.
Asklepios and Hygeia, 5th century BC Archaeological Museum of Constantinople
In addition to statues which represent the two figures, the incorporation of Hygieia within the cult of Asclepius can also be seen in medical iconography on numerous ancient Graeco-Roman coins. The close association between Hygieia and Asclepius indicates the important place she held in the cult of Asclepius.
Hygieia’s primary temples were in Epidaurus, Corinth, Cos and Pergamon. At the Asclepeion of Titane in Sicyon (founded by Alexanor, Asclepius’ grandson), the Greek historian Pausanias remarked that a statue of Hygieia was covered by women’s hair and pieces of Corinthisnclothes. According to inscriptions, similar sacrifices such as this were offered at Paros.
Hygieia was also associated with the Greek goddess Athena. In the 2nd century AD, Pausanias noted statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens.
“Athena Hygieia” was one of the cult titles given to Athena, as Plutarch recounts of the building of the Parthenon (447–432 BC):
Hygieia by Alexander Handyside Ritchie, College of Physicians, Queen Street, Edinburgh
A strange accident happened in the course of building, which showed that the goddess was not averse to the work, but was aiding and co-operating to bring it to perfection. One of the artificers, the quickest and the handiest workman among them all, with a slip of his foot fell down from a great height, and lay in a miserable condition, the physicians having no hope of his recovery. When Pericles was in distress about this, the goddess [Athena] appeared to him at night in a dream, and ordered a course of treatment, which he applied, and in a short time and with great ease cured the man. And upon this occasion it was that he set up a brass statue of Athena Hygieia, in the citadel near the altar, which they say was there before. But it was Phidias who wrought the goddess’s image in gold, and he has his name inscribed on the pedestal as the workman of it.
“Hugieia” (ύγιεία: health) was used as a greeting among the Pythagoreans.
However, the cult of Hygieia as an independent goddess did not begin to spread until the Delphic oracle recognized her, after the devastating Plague of Athens (430–427 BC), and in Rome after the 293 BC plague there.
The poet Ariphron, from the Greek city-state Sicyon, wrote a well-known hymn during the 4th century BC which celebrated Hygieia.
Statues of Hygieia were created by Scopas, Bryaxis and Timotheos, among others, but there is no clear description of what they looked like. In the surviving depictions, she is often shown as a young woman feeding a large snake that was wrapped around her body or drinking from a jar that she carried.
Recent discoveries
In August 2021, archaeologists from Dumlupınar University announced the discovery of statue of Hygieia in the Ancient Greek city Aizanoi. The human sized statue was portrayed with a snake in its arms. The statue was revealed inside the columned gallery throughout the south wing of the agora.
“Athena Hygieia” was one of the cult titles given to Athena, as Plutarch recounts of the building of the Parthenon (447–432 BC):
Detail of Hygeia from a painting depicting the arrival of the Argonauts in the garden of the Hesperides during their return from Colchis.
Hygeia, the goddess of good health, holds a sceptre in one hand and lifts her veil with the other.
| Museum Collection | British Museum, London |
|---|---|
| Catalogue No. | London 1772,0320.30.+ |
| Beazley Archive No. | 220497 |
| Ware | Attic Red Figure |
| Shape | Hydria |
| Painter | Attributed to the Meidias Painter |
| Date | ca. 420 – 400 B.C. |
| Period | Classical |
