 One of the most discussed treatises among the pseudepigrapha are the Pythagorean Notes, which were excerpted by Alexander Polyhistor in the first century BCE, who was in turn quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Pythagoras (VIII 24–33). Thus the Notes date before the middle of the first century BCE (probably towards the end of the third century BCE [Burkert 1972a, 53]) and are earlier than most pseudepigrapha. In Diogenes’ life the Pythagorean Notes serve as the main statement of Pythagoras’ philosophical views. The treatise is wildly eclectic, drawing from Plato’s Timaeus, the early Academy and Stocisim and the scholarly consensus is that the treatise is a forgery (Burkert 1961, 26ff., Long 2013, Laks 2014). It is tempting to suppose that some early material may be preserved amidst later material, but the text is such an amalgam that it is in practice impossible to identify securely any early material (Burkert 1961, 26; Laks 2014, 375). The Notes are well organized and present a complete if compressed philosophy organized around the concept of purity (Laks 2014). Starting from basic principles (the Platonic monad and dyad) they give an account of the world, living beings, and the soul ending with moral precepts (some of the Pythagorean acusmata). Kahn thought that the treatise reflected a Pythagorean community that was active in the Hellenistic period (2001, 83) but Long is more likely to be right that its learned eclecticism suggests that it is a scholarly creation (Long 2013, 158–159).