lt for a modern thinker to realize, trained as he is in the ways of specialism, the Pythagoreans regarded mathematical and astronomical studies as inseparable from moral and religious disciplines and from personal self-examination. Behind the practices of self-discipline and self-examination which were part of the daily life there lay a profound set of convictions about the nature and destiny of the soul” (Wheelwright 209). Because of the Pythagoreans religious school, there was “a particularly strong temptation, not only to venerate the founder, but to attribute all its doctrine to him personally” (Guthrie 149). Mystery cults such as the Eleusinian mysteries worshipped a specific god or goddess, but the Pythagoreans can almost be considered worshippers of Pythagoras. Another difference between the mystery cults and the Pythagoreans lies in the beliefs on the route to salvation. “Eleusis taught that immortality was to be obtained through the single revelation, after suitable preparation, of the mystic objects or symbols; the Orphics added the need for carrying out in daily life an elaborate system of religious, possibly also moral, prohibitions; to Pythagoras the way of salvation lay though philosophy” (Guthrie 199). At Eleusis, initiation was all that mattered. The participants of the Eleusinian cults returned home to live normal lives. Pythagoreans dedicated their entire lives to education and excellence that would gain them access to the “divine soul” after death.The Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries strongly influenced the development of Pythagoreanism with their beliefs on the soul and their practices in initiation, rituals and secrecy. Both these mysteries, as well as the Pythagoreans, believed in the immortal soul that cycles through the process of transmigration until the soul becomes pure enough to unite with the divine. The Pythagoreans adopted the initiation ceremony from the...
