The Pythagoreans are likened to the Jesuits probably on account of their
submission to Pythagoras as Master, their love of learning and their
austerities. Like the Jesuits, the Pythagorean league entangled itself
with politics and became the object of hatred and violence. Its
meeting-houses were everywhere sacked and burned. As a philosophical
school Pythagoreanism became extinct about the middle of the
fourth century.