WorkIamblichus

Life of Pythagoras

Life of Pythagoras, Inferred

Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325 CE)

InferredMargaret Fuller references the obscure legend of Pythagoras's "golden thigh," a symbol of esoteric wisdom accessible only to the spiritually pure.

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p126

read

“it is only to those perfected in purity that Pythagoras can show a golden thigh.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.

Inferred Margaret Fuller references the obscure legend of Pythagoras's "golden thigh," a symbol of esoteric wisdom accessible only to the spiritually pure.