Moderatus of Gades facts for kids

Moderatus of Gades was a Greek philosopher who lived around the 1st century AD. He belonged to a group called the Neopythagorean school. Moderatus wrote important books about the ideas of the Pythagoreans. He believed that later followers of Pythagoras didn't add new ideas. Instead, he thought they just used Pythagoras's original teachings but changed the words.

Life of Moderatus

Moderatus came from a city called Gades, which is now Cádiz in Spain. He might have been related to a writer named Columella, who was also from Gades. We don't know much about Moderatus's life.

A writer named Plutarch gives us a small clue. Plutarch said that around 90 AD, a student of Moderatus named Lucius was at a party in Rome. This suggests that Moderatus was teaching during the second half of the 1st century AD. It seems Moderatus lived in Rome for at least some time.

Writings of Moderatus

Most of Moderatus's writings have been lost over time. We only have small parts, called fragments. A philosopher named Porphyry quoted some of Moderatus's work. This work was about the ideas of the Pythagoreans, especially their ideas about numbers.

It's not clear if this book had ten or eleven parts. Another small piece of Moderatus's writing was saved by Simplicius of Cilicia. Other ancient writers like Stobaeus also kept parts of his work. The Byzantine writer Stephanus of Byzantium mentioned a five-book work by Moderatus called "Pythagorean Lectures."

Moderatus's Philosophy

Moderatus wrote a big work called "Lectures on Pythagoreanism." It had either ten or eleven books. In this work, he explained all the ideas of the Pythagoreans.

Numbers as Symbols

Moderatus believed that the Pythagoreans used numbers to explain deep ideas. He said numbers were like drawings in geometry. A drawing of a triangle isn't the real triangle itself. It just helps us understand the idea of a triangle in our minds.

In the same way, the Pythagoreans used numbers as symbols. They helped explain things that were hard to put into words.

• Number One (Monad): This number stood for unity, sameness, and equality. It represented friendship and how everything in the universe is connected. It showed how all parts of something fit together.
• Number Two (Duad): This number meant diversity and inequality. It showed things that could be divided or changed. It represented things that could be one way at one time and another way later.
• Number Three (Triad): This number stood for things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It represented anything that was complete or perfect. If something was perfect, they would use the idea of the Triad to describe it.
• Number Ten (Decad): This was considered the most perfect number. It included all other numbers and ideas. The Pythagoreans believed that if nature follows the rules of numbers, then the number Ten, which holds all number ideas, must represent nature itself.

Pythagorean Ideas and Later Philosophers

Moderatus thought that many great Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, got their best ideas from Pythagoras. He believed they just made small changes to these ideas. He thought they took the good parts and left out anything that seemed strange or hard to understand.

Moderatus likely came to this idea by reading old writings that seemed to be by Pythagoreans but actually contained ideas from Plato and Aristotle. He thought these writings were truly ancient. This made him believe that early Pythagoreans already knew the deep philosophical ideas that Plato later wrote about.

The One and Reality

Moderatus also had ideas about "the One." He saw "the One" existing on three different levels:

1. The highest level: "The One" is beyond everything we can see or touch. It's even beyond being itself.
2. The middle level: Here, "the One" represents true reality, like the perfect forms or ideas that Plato talked about.
3. The lowest level: This is a "sensible One." It connects to the first two levels and helps create the things we can see and feel.

Moderatus believed that the physical world we live in is not directly connected to the highest "One" or the world of perfect ideas. He saw the material world as a reflection of these ideas. He thought the material world was not perfect, but it still had some order because it followed mathematical rules.

The Soul

Moderatus believed in the immortality of the soul. He thought the soul helped create harmony between different parts. For him, this idea fit well with the Pythagorean teachings about numbers and their role in the universe.

See also

In Spanish: Moderato de Cádiz para niños