Onatas (philosopher)

Onatas (Greek: Ὀνάτας; fl. c. 5th century BC) of Croton or Tarentum was a Pythagorean philosopher. Nothing is known about his life, but a long passage from a work entitled On God and the Divine (Greek: Περὶ θεοῦ καὶ θείου) is preserved Stobaeus. The work probably dates from the 1st century BC or AD and is part of the pseudonymous Neo-Pythagorean literature.

The author ("Pseudo-Onatas") argues that God is a governing part of the universe, although the universe itself is not God but only divine. He argued against the belief in a single deity on the basis of the many "powers" in the universe; they must belong to different gods. He also claimed that the earthy mixture of the body defiles the purity of the soul.