Moderatus of Gades

Moderatus Of Gades

(loderatus Gaditanus), a distinguished exponent of the neo-Pythagorean school of philosophy, surnamed after his native place, flourished during the reign of the emperor Nero (A.D. 54-68). He collected all the MSS. extant on the philosophical views of Pythagoras, and embodied them in his works: Lib. 11:De placitis sectce Pythagoricae; Lib. 5, Scholarum

Pythagoricarun, which are unfortunately no longer extant. (Simply a fragment of his is preserved by Stobaeus, Eclog. page 3.) According to Porphyry (Vita Pythag. § 32 et 53), Moderatus sought to justify the incorporation into Pythagoreanism of Platolnc and not theological doctrines, through the hypothesis that the ancient Pythagoreans themselves intentionally expressed the highest truths in signs, and for that purpose made use of numbers. The number one was the symbol of unity and equality, and of the cause of the harmony and duration of all things, while two was the symbol of difference and inequality, of division and change, etc. SEE NEO-PYTHAGOREANISM. Moderatus is reputed to have been a man of considerable eloquence, and not only to have been popular in his day, but to have found an imitator, to some extent, in Iamblichus (q.v.). See Schoell, Histoire de la litterature Graeque, 6:54; Ueberweg, Hist. Philos. 1:232 sq. (J.H.W.)