Pythagorean Friendship Is Equality

In the treatise of Pythagoras “friendship is equality; equality is friendship” which he often repeated to his disciples. Timeus posits that koin.a ta. fi.lwn ei;naj “all common among friends” and filo,thj, i,so,thj friendship, equality and esteem nothing their own. So, to give away the possessions as a cause of opposition and trouble; for since all things were common amongst them, no man had properity to anything. In the Pythagorean sayings several strands of the friendship topos are encountered. First, care in the selection of friends; it is better to have one than many worthless friends. Second, motif of friendship is that of sharing for which Timaeus affirms that “koi,na ta. fi,lwn” (friends have all things in common)” and “filo,thj i,so,thj” (Friendship is Equality) and “fi,loj e,sti.n a;lloj e,gw,” (a friend is another

Third, one should stay friends regardless of the circumstances alter their relative status or wealth. Finally, friendship with God is viewed as the ultimate goal. Schottroff and Stegemann comments that in Luke’s descriptions in Acts 2: 44-; 4: 32 view the distribution of wealth and goods among the members of the early church as “an equalization of ownership” and argue that ‘thinks of equalization in arithmetic terms’. The distribution according to the need of each one should be regarded as ‘equalization’ in simple arithmetic terms. The ultimate goal of distributing according to the need of each person is not to equalize the poor with the rich, but to care for the poor who could have survived without help from wealthy. In this context, when the meaning i,so,thj (i[soj) is an equality of value and force which is sometimes equally significant but not an equality of size or number. In the Greco Roman context i,so,thj can mean ‘fair distribution’ in terms of Greek political and legal structure, and so in the Greek states it is a basic principle of democracy along with