Neo-Pythagoreanism

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Neo-Pythagoreanism

philosophy

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July 23, 2026

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Neo-Pythagoreanism was a philosophical school that emerged in Alexandria around the 1st century CE. It revived many ideas from ancient Pythagoreanism but with mystical interpretations. Key figures like Apollonius of Tyana, who believed himself to be a reincarnation of Pythagoras, propagated an ideal of Pythagorean life focused on wisdom, purity, and divine approximation.12

Neo-Pythagoreanism became integrated into Neoplatonism through philosophers such as Moderatus of Gades and Nicomachus of Gerasa. A central interest for Neo-Pythagoreans was the Pythagorean way of life and the mystical significance of numbers. This school of thought also influenced traditions like Christian monasticism.2

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Platonism
Greek Platonism from Aristotle through Middle Platonism: its nature and history
…philosophy (and the closely related Neo-Pythagoreanism) were the recognition of a hierarchy of divine principles with stress on the transcendence of the supreme principle, which was already occasionally called “the One”; the placing of the Platonic forms in the divine mind; a strongly otherworldly attitude demanding a “flight from the…
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…philosophy (and the closely related Neo-Pythagoreanism) were the recognition of a hierarchy of divine principles with stress on the transcendence of the supreme principle, which was already occasionally called “the One”; the placing of the Platonic forms in the divine mind; a strongly otherworldly attitude demanding a “flight from the…
Read More

mathematics
Number theory
…in this tradition are called neo-Pythagoreans, since they viewed themselves as continuing the Pythagorean school of the 5th century bce, and, in the spirit of ancient Pythagoreanism, they tied their numerical interests to a philosophical theory that was an amalgam of Platonic metaphysical and theological doctrines. With its exponent Iamblichus…
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…in this tradition are called neo-Pythagoreans, since they viewed themselves as continuing the Pythagorean school of the 5th century bce, and, in the spirit of ancient Pythagoreanism, they tied their numerical interests to a philosophical theory that was an amalgam of Platonic metaphysical and theological doctrines. With its exponent Iamblichus…
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Philo Judaeus
Originality of his thought
Aristotle, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the Cynics, and the Stoics. Philo’s basic philosophic outlook is Platonic, so much so that Jerome and other Church Fathers quote the apparently widespread saying: “Either Plato philonizes or Philo platonizes.” Philo’s reverence for Plato, particularly for the Symposium and the Timaeus, is such…
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Aristotle, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the Cynics, and the Stoics. Philo’s basic philosophic outlook is Platonic, so much so that Jerome and other Church Fathers quote the apparently widespread saying: “Either Plato philonizes or Philo platonizes.” Philo’s reverence for Plato, particularly for the Symposium and the Timaeus, is such…
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