Pythagoras Teaches Women

Dr. Kathryn Rombs // Metaphysics of Motherhood

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December 24

Pythagoras had female as well as male students. Pythagoras believed that the soul’s telos is apprehension of order, which is number (ratio, proportion, etc.). The body, on the other hand, is a deterrent to the soul’s telos. For Pythagoras, wisdom is the life-long detachment from bodily desires, and the freedom of the soul to apprehend intellectual truth. Pythagoras was the first person to use the term “philosopher”–“philo” and “sophia,” “lover of wisdom.” For him, women and men both had souls and could be lovers of wisdom. The differences between the genders were, to him, physical, and thus unimportant.

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Dr. Kathryn Rombs

I’m Kathryn Rombs, mother of six children and grandmother of one sweet baby girl. I live in Rome with my husband and the three children still under our roof. I am a Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas, where I have taught philosophy off and on for 15 years, most recently last year as an affiliate professor on UD’s Rome Program. While my doctorate is in philosophy, I am currently pursuing an STL in theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. I love Mighty Is Her Call, especially in its lifting up so many Catholic mothers and being a platform for their various talents, messages, charisms and gifts. I love that this ministry is a chance for the Church and world to see more clearly the sacredness of Catholic motherhood. Mothers empty themselves for their loved ones, just as Christ “emptied himself. . . and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-11). It’s a vocation that affords the chance to live a radical Christ-like calling.

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