NeoPythagorean

Neopythagoreanism is a label applied by scholars to a late antique philosophical and religious current that revived and reformulated Pythagoras’s ideas in the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE. It arose in the Hellenistic and early Roman worlds, especially in places such as Alexandria and the broader eastern Mediterranean, and it persisted through the influence of later writers who systematized Pythagorean thought within a broader Platonic and Stoic framework.

Core teachings of Neopythagoreanism center on the immortality and transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the purification of the soul through philosophy and ethical conduct, and the belief that the structure of the cosmos is ordered by numbers and harmonic ratios. The soul’s ascent toward the intelligible and divine realm is pursued through contemplation, study of mathematics and music, and adherence to virtuous living. Dietary practices and initiatory or ritual elements were common features in many circles, reflecting a view of kinship among living beings and a disciplined way of life.

Method and influence are characterized by a syncretic approach: Pythagoras’s sayings were interpreted allegorically, and Pythagorean ideas were integrated with Platonic and sometimes Stoic concepts. The movement did not form a single, formal school but rather a network of thinkers and communities. Over time, Neopythagorean ideas influenced later Neoplatonism and contributed to the transmission of Pythagorean symbolism and ethics into late antique thought and beyond, shaping subsequent philosophical and religious traditions.