IV. c. 28.

6 I cannot trace Hippolytus' authority for attributing these neo- Pythagorean puerilities to Pythagoras himself. Diog. Laert., Aristotle and the rest represent him as saying only that the monad was the beginning of everything, and that from this and the undefined dyad numbers proceed. The general reader may be recommended to Mr. Alfred Williams Benn's statement in The Philosophy of Greece (Lond.,
38 PHILOSOPHUMENA
Pythagoras said was a sacred Tetractys, a source of ever- lasting Nature containing roots within itself, and that from the same number all the numbers have their beginning. For the n and the 12 and the rest share the beginning of their being from the 10. The four divisions of the same decad, the perfect number, are called number, monad,1 square2 and cube. The conjunctions and minglings of p. 11. which make for the birth of increase and complete naturally the fruitful number. For when the square is multiplied3 by itself, it becomes a square squared ; when into the cube, the square cubed ; when the cube is multiplied by the cube, it becomes a cube cubed. So that all the numbers from which comes the birth of things which are, are seven ; to wit : number, monad, square, cube, square of square, cube of square and cube of cube.
He declared also that the soul is immortal and that there is a change from one body to another.4 Wherefore he said that he himself had been before Trojan times Aethalides,5 and that in the Trojan era he was Euphorbus, and after that Hermotimus the Samian, after which Pyrrho of Delos, and fifthly Pythagoras. But Diodorus the Eretrian and Aristoxenus the writer on music 6 say that Pythagoras
1898), pp. 78 ff. that "the Greeks did not think of numbers as pure abstractions, but in the most literal sense as figures, that is to say, limited portions of space."
1 Macmahon thinks "number" and "monad" should here be transposed, as Pythagoras considered according to him the monad as " the highest generalization of number and a conception in abstraction." Yet the monad was not the highest abstraction of current (Greek) philosophy. See Edwin Hatch, Itiftuence of Greek Ideas upon the Christian Church (Hibbert Lectures), Lond., 1890, p. 255.
2 dvva/xis is here used like our own mathematical expression "power." Why Hippolytus should associate it especially with the power of 2 does not appear. By Greek mathematicians it seems rather to be applied to the square root.
3 Kvki mistake occurs in the same sentence, where it is said that the square multiplied by the cube is a cube. The sentence is fortunately repeated with the needful correction in Book IV, p. 116 infra. Macmahon gives the proper notation as (a2)2 = a4, (a2)3 = a6, (a3)3=a*.
4 fieTevaw/xaTaj-is. The phrase which is here correctly used through- out, but which has somehow slipped into English as metempsychosis.
6 So Diog. Laert., VIII, vit. Pyth., c. 4.
6 Diodorus of Eretria is not otherwise known. Aristoxenus is mentioned by Cicero, Qucest. Tuscu/an, I, 18, as a writer on music.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 39
went to visit Zaratas * the Chaldaean : and Zaratas explained to him that there are from the beginning two causes of things that are, a father and mother : and that the father is light and the mother, darkness : and the divisions of the light are hot, dry, light (in weight) and swift ; but those of the darkness cold, moist, heavy and slow. From these the whole cosmos was constructed, to wit : from a female and p. 12. a male : and that the nature of the cosmos 2 is according to musical harmony, wherefore the sun makes his journey rhythmically. And about the things which come into being from the earth and cosmos, they say Zaratas spoke thus : there are two demons,3 a heavenly one and an earthly. Of these the earthly one sent on high a thing born from the earth which is water j but that the heavenly fire partook of the air, hot and cold. Wherefore, he says, none of these things destroys or pollutes the soul, for the same are the substance of all. And it is said that Pythagoras ordered that beans should not be eaten, because Zaratas said that at the be- ginning and formation of all things when the earth was still being constructed and put together, the bean was produced. And he says that a proof of this is, that if one chews a bean to pulp and puts it in the sun for some time (for this plays a direct part in the matter), it will give out the smell of human seed. And he says that another proof is even clearer. If when the bean is in flower, we take the bean and its blossom, put it into ajar, anoint this, bury it in earth, p. 13. and in a few days dig it up, we shall see it at first having the form of a woman's pudenda and afterwards on close examin- ation a child's head growing with it.
Pythagoras perished at Crotona in Italy having been burned along with his disciples. And he had this custom that when any one came to him as a disciple, he had to sell
1 That is, of course, Zoroaster. The account here given of his doctrines does not agree with what we know of them from other sources. The minimum date for his activity (700 B.c). makes it impossible for him to have been a contemporary of Pythagoras. See the translator's Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, I, p. 126; II, p. 232.
2 Reading with Roeper r^v K6a-fiov KdtTfxov (pucriv Kara, "that the cosmos is a nature according to," etc.
3 Sai^oves, spirits or daemons in the Greek sense, not necessarily evil. But Aetius, de Placit. rhilosoph. ap. Diels Doxogr. 306, makes Pythagoras use the word as equivalent to rb k
40 PHILOSOPHUMENA
his possessions and deposit the money under seal with Pythagoras, and remain silent sometimes for three and some- times for five years while he was learning. But on being again set free, he mixed with the others and remained a disciple and took his meals along with them. But if he did not, he took back what belonged to him and was cast out. Now the Esoterics were called Pythagoreans and the others Pythagorists. And of his disciples who escaped the burning were Lysis and Archippus and Zamolxis, Pytha- goras' house-slave, who is said to have taught the Druids among the Celts to cultivate the Pythagorean philosophy. And they say that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians, and being struck with the plausible, imposing and with difficulty disclosed wisdom of the priests, p. 14. he imitated them also in enjoining silence and, lodging his disciples in cells, made them lead a solitary life.1
3. About Empedodes.
But Empedocles, born after these men, also said many things about the nature of demons, and how they being very many go about managing things upon the earth. He said that the beginning of the universe was Strife and Friendship and that the intellectual fire of the monad is God, and that all things were constructed from fire and will be resolved into fire.2 In which opinion the Stoics also nearly agree, since they expect an ecpyrosis. But most of all he accepted the change into different bodies, saying :
"For truly a boy I became, and a maiden, And bush, and bird of prey, and fish, A wanderer from the salt sea."3
1 Hippolytus like nearly every other writer of his time here confuses the Egyptians with the Alexandrian Greeks. It was these last and not the subjects of the Pharaohs who were given to mathematics and geometry, of which sciences they laid the foundations on which we have since built. Certain devotees of the Alexandrian god Serapis also shut themselves up in cells of the Serapeum, which they could hardly have done in any temple in Pharaonic times. See Forerunners, I, 79 Hippolytus gives a much more elaborate and detailed account of Pythagorean teaching in Book VI, II, pp. 20 ff. infra.
2 Diog. Laert., VIII, vit. Heradit., c. 6, attributes this opinion to Heraclitus.
3 This verse appears in Diog. Laert., VIII, vit. Empedocles, c. 6.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 41
He declared that all souls transmigrated into all living p. 15. things.1 For Pythagoras the teacher of these men said he himself had been Euphorbus who fought at Ilion, and claimed to recognize the shield.2 This of Empedocles.
4. About Heraditus.
But Heraclitus of Ephesus, a physicist, bewailed all things, accusing the ignorance of all life and of all men, and pitying the life of mortals. For he claimed that he knew all things and other men nothing.3 And he also made statements nearly in accord with Empedocles, as he said that Discord and Friendship were the beginning of all things, and that the intellectual fire was God and that all things were borne in upon one another and did not stand still. And like Empedocles he said that every place of ours was filled with evil things, and that these come as far as the moon extending from the place surrounding the earth, but go no further, since the whole place above the moon is very pure.4 Thus, too, it seemed to Heraclitus.
And after these came other physicists whose opinions we p- 16. do not think it needful to declare as they are in no way incongruous with those aforesaid. But since the school was by no means small, and many physicists afterwards sprang from these, all discoursing in different fashion on the nature of the universe, it seems also fit to us, now that we have set forth the philosophy derived from Pythagoras, to return in order of succession to the opinions of those who adhered to Thales, and after recounting the same to come to the ethical and logical philosophies, whereof Socrates founded the ethical and Aristotle the dialectic.
1 So Diog. Laert., ubi. cit.
2 This sentence seems to have got out of place. It should probably follow that on Lysis and Archippus, etc., on the last page. The story of the shield is told by Diog. Laert., VIII, vit. Pyth., c. 4, and by Ovid, Mriamorph., XV, 162 ff. For more about Empedocles see Book VII, II, pp. 82 ff. infra.
3 Diog. Laert., VIII, vit.Heraclit., from whom Hippolytus is probably quoting, says that in his boyhood, Heraclitus used to say, he knew nothing, in his manhood everything. Has Hippolytus garbled this ?
4 There is nothing of this in what Hippolytus, Diogenes Laertir.s or any other author extant gives as Empedocles' opinions, ra. ko.k.6. seems to be equivalent to 8a.ifj.oves, as suggested in n. on p. 39 supra. Hippo- lytus returns to Heraclitus' opinions in Book IX, II, pp. 119 ff, infra.
42 PHILOSOPHUMENA
5. About Anaximander.
Now Anaximander was a hearer of Thales. He was Anaximander of Miletus, son of Praxiades.1 He said that the beginning of the things that are was a certain nature of the Boundless from which came into being the heavens and the ordered worlds 2t within them. And that this principle is eternal and grows not old and encompasses all the ordered worlds. And he says time is limited by birth,
p. 17- substance,3 and death. He said that the Boundless is a principle and element of the things that are and was the first to call it by the name of principle. But that there is an eternal movement towards Him wherein it happens that the heavens are born.' And that the earth is a heavenly body 4 supported by nothing, but remaining in its place by reason of its equal distance from everything. And that its form is a watery cylinder 5 like a stone pillar ; and that we tread on one of its surfaces, but that there is another opposite to it. And that the stars are a circle of fire distinct from the fire in the cosmos, but surrounded by air. And that certain fiery exhalations exist in those places where the stars appear, and by the obstruction of these exhalations come the eclipses. And that the moon appears sometimes waxing and sometimes waning through the obstruction or closing of her paths. And that the circle of the sun is 27 times greater than that of the moon and that the sun is in the highest place in the heavens and the circles of the fixed
p. 18. stars in the lowest. And that the animals came into being in moisture evaporated by the sun. And that mankind was at the beginning very like another animal, to wit, a fish. And that winds come from the separation and condensation of the subtler atoms of the air6 and rain from the earth giving back under the sun's heat what it gets from the clouds,7
1 So Diog. Laert., II, vit. Anaximander, c. I, verbatim.
2 k6
3 ovaia. It may here mean essence or being. A good discussion of the changes in the meaning of the word and its successors, vwoaTaais and TTpoawrrou, is to be found in Hatch, op. cit., pp. 275-278.
4 fxerecapov, a phenomenon in the heavens, but also something hung up or suspended.
5 GTpoyyvXov, used by Thcophrastus for logs of timber.
6 Lit., "from the separation of the finest atoms of the nir and from their movement when crowded together."
7 So Roeper. Cruice agrees.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 43
and lightnings from the severance of the clouds by the winds falling upon them. He was born in the 3rd year of the 42nd Olympiad.1
6. About Anaximenes.
Anaximenes, who was also a Milesian, the son of Eurys- tratus, said that the beginning was a boundless air from which what was, is, and shall be and gods and divine things came into being, while the rest came from their descend- ants. But that the condition of the air is such that when it is all over alike 2 it is invisible to the eye, but it is made perceptible by cold and heat, by damp and by motion. And that it is ever-moving, for whatever is changeable3 changes not unless it be moved. For it appears different when condensed and rarefied. For when it diffuses into greater rarity fire is produced ; but when again halfway condensed into air, a cloud is formed from the air's p. 19. compression ; and when still further condensed, water, and when condensed to the full, earth; and when to the very highest degree, stones. And that consequently the great rulers of formation are contraries, to wit, heat and cold. And that the earth is a flat surface borne up on the air in the same way as the sun and moon and the other stars.4 For all fiery things are carried through the air laterally.5 And that the stars are produced from the earth by reason of the mist which rises from it and which when rarefied becomes fire, and from this ascending fire6 the stars are constructed. And that there are earth-like natures in the stars' place carried about with them. But he says that the
1 A. W. Benn, op.cit., p. 51, gives a readable account of Anaximander's speculations in physics. Diels, op. cit., pp. 132, 133 shows in an excellently clear conspectus of parallel passages the different authors from whom Hippolytus took the statements in our text regarding the Ionians. The majority are to be found in Simplicius' commentaries on Aristotle, Simplicius' source being, according to Diels, the fragments of Theophrastus' book on physics. Next in order come Plutarch's Stromaia and Aetius' De Placitis Philosophorum, many passages being common to both.
2 bfxaXwTaros, aeqtiabilis, Cr., "homogeneous."
3 Lit., " whatever changes."
4 Planets. See n. on p. 36 supra.
5 Sib. ttAcLtos. Cruice translates ob latitudinem, Macmahon " through expanse of space."
1 ^6T€ (i>pi(6/j.evov. See n. on p. 42 supra.
VOL. I. D
44 PHILOSOPHUMENA
stars do not move under the earth, as others assume, but round the earth :asa cap is turned on one's head, and that the sun is hidden, not because it is under the earth, but because it is hidden by the earth's higher parts, and by reason of its greater distance from us. And because of their great distance, the stars give out no heat. And that p. 20. winds are produced when the air after condensation escapes rarefied ; but that when it collects and is thus condensed 2 to the full, it becomes clouds and thus changes into water. Also that hail is produced when the water brought down from the clouds is frozen ; and snow when the same clouds are wetter when freezing. And lightning come when the clouds are forced apart by the strength of the winds j for when thus driven apart, there is a brilliant and fiery flash. Also that a rainbow is produced by the solar rays falling upon solidified air, and an earthquake from the earth's increasing in size by heating and cooling. This then Anaximenes. He flourished about the 1st year of the 58th Olympiad.3
7. About Anaxagoras.
After him was Anaxagoras of Clazomene, son of Hegesi- bulus. He said that the beginning of the universe was mind and matter, mind being the creator and matter that which came unto being.4 For that when all things were together, mind came and arranged them. He says, however, that the material principles are boundless, even the smallest of them. And that all things partake of movement, being p. 21. moved by mind, and that like things come together. And that the things in heaven were set in order by their circular motion.5 That therefore what was dense and moist and dark and cold and everything heavy came together in the middle,
1 So Diog. Laert., II, vit. Anaxim., c. 1. This is the feature of Anaxi- menes' teaching which seems to have most impressed the Greeks.
2 TraxvOevra.
3 Diog. Laert., ubi cit., puts Anaximander in the 58th Olympiad (548 B.C.) and Anaximenes in the 63rd. This is more probable than the dates in our text. For Anaximenes' sources, mostly Aetius and Theo- phrastus, see Diels' conspectus mentioned in n. on p. 43 supra.
4 tV Se v\r]v yivofi€V7]v, fieri materiam, Cr.
5 rrjs iyKVKXtov KivhaecDS. Macmahon says "orbicular," but it means if anything centripetal and centrifugal, as appears in next sentence.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 45
and from the compacting of this the earth was established ; x but that the opposites, to wit, the hot, the brilliant and the light were drawn off to the distant aether. Also that the earth is flat in shape and remains suspended 2 through its great size, and from there being no void and because the air which is strongest bears (up) the upheld earth. And that the sea exists from the moisture on the earth and the waters in it evaporating and then condensing in a hollow place ; 3 and that the sea is supposed to have come into being by this and from the rivers flowing into it. And the rivers, too, are established by the rains and the waters within the earth ; for the earth is hollow and holds water in its cavities. But that the Nile increases in summer when the snows from the northern parts are carried down into it. And that the sun and moon and all the stars are burning stones and are carried about by the rotation of the aether. And that below p. 22. the stars are the sun and moon and certain bodies not seen by us whirled round together. And that the heat of the stars is not felt by us because of their great distance from the earth ; but yet their heat is not like that of the sun from their occupying a colder region. Also that the moon is below the sun and nearer to us ; and that the size of the sun is greater than that of the Peloponnesus. And that the moon has no light of her own, but only one from the sun. And that the revolution of the stars takes place under the earth. Also that the moon is eclipsed when the earth stands in her way, and sometimes the stars which are below the moon,4 and the sun when the moon stands in his way during new moons. And that both the sun and moon make turnings (solstices) when driven back by the air ; but that the moon turns often through not being able to master the cold. He was the first to determine the facts about eclipses and renewals of light.5 And he said that the moon was like the
1 vtto(tt?)vcu. Hippolytus seems most frequently to use the word in this sense.
2 fxtTtwpov. See n. on p. 42 supra.
3 rd re eV avrrj vSara i^arixiaQivra . . . viroaravra ovtus yeyovevat. I propose to fill the lacuna with /ecu irvKPwdevra eV icolAcp. For a description of this cavity see the Phcedo of Plato, c. 138. I do not understand Roeper's suggested emendation as given by Cruice.
4 There must be some mistake here. lie has just said that the sun and moon are below the stars.
6 (pooTio-fiol, illuminationes, Cr. So Macmahon. It clearly means here "shinings forth again," or "lightings up."
46 PHILOSOPHUMENA
earth and had within it plains and ravines. And that the Milky Way was the reflection of the light of the stars which are not lighted up by the sun. And that the shooting stars P- 23. are as it were sparks which glance off from the movement of the pole. And that winds are produced by the rarefaction of the air by the sun and by their drying up as they get towards the pole and are borne away from it. And that thunderstorms are produced by heat falling upon the clouds. And that earthquakes come from the upper air falling upon that under the earth ; for when this last is moved, the earth upheld by it is shaken. And that animals at the beginning were produced from water, but thereafter from one another, and that males are born when the seed secreted from the right parts of the body adheres to the right parts of the womb and females when the opposite occurs. He flourished in the 1st year of the 88th Olympiad, about which time they say Plato was born.1 They say also that Anaxa- goras came to have a knowledge of the future.
8. About Archelaus. Archelaus was of Athenian race and the son of Apollo- dorus. He like Anaxagoras asserted the mixed nature of matter and agreed with him as to the beginning of things. But he said that a certain mixture 2 was directly inherent in mind, and that the source of movement is the separation from one another of heat and cold and that the p. 24. heat is moved and the cold remains undisturbed. Also that water when heated flows to the middle of the universe wherein heated air and earth are produced, of which one is borne aloft while the other remains below. And that the earth remains fixed and exists because of this and abides in the middle of the universe, of which, so to speak, it forms no part and which is delivered from the conflagration.3 The first result of which burning is the nature of the stars, the
1 Diog. Laert. quotes from Apollodorus' Chronica that Anaxa- goras died in the 1st year of the 78th Olympiad, or ten years before Plato's birth. For Hippolytus' sources for his teaching, mainly Diog. Laert. , Aetius and Theophrastus, see Diels, ubi cit.
2 /jujfxa, not ^I|ts. But of what could the creative mind be com- pounded before anything else had come into being?
3 4k rrjs Trvpwa-eus. Does he mean the heated air, and why should the earth form no part of the universe ? Something is probably omitted here.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 47
greatest whereof is the sun and the second the moon while of the others some are greater and some smaller. And he says that the heaven is arched over us x and has made the air transparent and the earth dry. For that at first it was a pool ; since it was lofty at the horizon, but hollow in the middle. And he brings forward as a proof of this hollowness, that the sun does not rise and set at the same time for all parts as must happen if the earth were level. And as to animals, he says that the earth first became heated in the lower part when the hot and cold mingled and man 2 and the other animals appeared. And all things were unlike one another and had the same diet, being nourished on p. 25. mud. And this endured for a little, but at last generation from one another arose, and man became distinct from the other animals and set up chiefs, laws, arts, cities and the rest. And he says that mind is inborn in all animals alike. For that every body is supplied with 3 mind, some more slowly and some quicker than the others.
Natural philosophy lasted then from Thales up to Arche- laus. Of this last Socrates was a hearer. But there are also many others putting forward different tenets concerning the Divine and the nature of the universe, whose opinions if we wished to set them all out would take a great mass of books. But it would be best, after having recalled by name those of them who are, so to speak, the chorus-leaders of all who philosophized in later times and who have furnished starting-points for systems, to hasten on to what follows.4
9. About Parmenides.
For truly Parmenides also supposed the universe to p. 26. be eternal and ungenerated and spherical in form.5 Nor did
1 'EirLKAidrjj/ai, de super incumbere, Cr., "inclined at an angle,'' Macmahon. Evidently Archelaus imagined a concave heaven fitting over the earth like a dish cover or an upturned boat or coracle. This was the Babylonian theory. Cf. Maspero, Hist. ancnne de f Orient dassique, Paris, 1895, I> P- 543> antl illustration. Many of the Ionian ideas about physics doubtless come from the same source.
2 Reading, as Cruice suggests, koX avdpuirovs for nal uvo^oia. So Diog. Laert., II, vit. Archel., c. 17.
3 xp^(Ta
4 A fair specimen of Hippolytus' verbose and inflated style.
5 No other philosopher has yet been quoted as saying that the earth was spherical.
48 PHILOSOPHUMENA
he avoid the common opinion making fire and earth the principles of the universe, the earth as matter, but the fire as cause and creator. [He said that the ordered world would be destroyed, but in what way, he did not say.]1 But he said that the universe was eternal and ungenerated and spherical in form and all over alike, bearing no impress and immoveable and with definite limits.
10. About Leucippus.
But Leucippus, a companion of Zeno, did not keep to the same opinion (as Parmenides), but says that all things are boundless and ever- moving and that birth and change are unceasing. And he says that fulness and the void are elements. And he says also that the ordered worlds came into being thus : when many bodies were crowded together p. 27. and flowed from the ambient 2 into a great void, on coming into contact with one another, those of like fashion and similar form coalesced, and from their intertwining yet others were generated and increased and diminished by a certain necessity. But what that necessity may be he did not define.
n. About Democritus.
But Democritus was an acquaintance of Leucippus. This was Democritus of Abdera, son of Damasippus,3 who met with many Gymnosophists among the Indians and with priests and astrologers 4 in Egypt and with Magi in Babylon. But he speaks like Leucippus about elements, to wit, fulness and void, saying that the full is that which is but the void that which is not, and he said this because things are ever moving in the void. He said also that the ordered worlds are boundless and differ in size, and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, but that in others both are
1 This sentence is said to have been interpolated.
2 4k rod irepiexovTos, " from the surrounding (aether)." An expression much used by writers on astrology and generally translated "ambient."
3 Diog. Laert., IX, vit. Dem., c. 1, says either Damasippus or Hegesis- tratus or Athenocritus.
4 It is doubtful whether astrology was known in Egypt before the Alexandrian age. Diog. Laert., vit. cit., quotes from Amisthenes that Democritus studied mathematics there, and astrology was looked on by the Romans as a branch of mathematics. Cf. Sextus Empiricus, ubi cit., supra.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 49
greater than with us, and in yet others more in number. And that the intervals between the ordered worlds are p. 28 unequal, here more and there less, and that some increase, others flourish and others decay, and here they come into being and there they are eclipsed.1 But that they are destroyed by colliding with one another. And that some ordered worlds are bare of animals and plants and of all water. And that in our cosmos the earth came into being first of the stars and that the moon is the lowest of the stars, and then comes the sun and then the fixed stars : but that the planets are not all at the same height. And he laughed at every- thing, as if all things among men deserved laughter.
12. About Xenophanes.
But Xenophanes of Colophon was the son of Ortho- menes.2 He survived until the time of Cyrus. He first declared the incomprehensibility of all things,3 saying thus :
Although anyone should speak most definitely He nevertheless does not know, and it is a guess 4 which occurs about all things.
But he says that nothing is generated, or perishes or is p. 29. moved, and that the universe which is one is beyond change. But he says that God is eternal, and one and alike on every side, and finite and spherical in form, and conscious 5 in all His parts. And that the sun is born every day from the gathering together of small particles of fire and that the earth is boundless and surrounded neither by air nor by heaven. And that there are boundless (innumerable) suns and moons and that all things are from the earth. He said that the sea is salt because of the many compounds which
1 koX ttj fxev yeveaOai, ttj 5e fc&fffrrc*?*
2 So Apollodorus. Diog. Laert., IX, vit. Xenofhan., c. 1, says of Dexius.
3 Diog. Laert., ubi cit., says Sotion of Alexandria is the authority for this, but that he was mistaken. Hippolytus says later in Book I (p. 59 infra) that Pyrrho was the first to assert the incomprehensibility' of everything. If, as Sotion asserted, Xenophanes was a contemporary of Anaximander, he must have died two centuries before Pyrrho was born.
4 Sokos 5'eTrl iraai tctvcto*, scd in omnibus opinio est, Cr. Yet Mkos is surely a " guess."
5 CuV0T]Tt/C(fa.
5o PHILOSOPHUMENA
together flow into it. But Metrodorus said it was thanks to its trickling through the earth that the sea becomes salt. And Xenophanes opines that there was once a mixture of earth with the sea, and that in time it was freed from moisture, asserting in proof of this that shells are found in the centre of the land and on mountains, and that in the stone- quarries of Syracuse were found the impress of a fish and of seals, and in Paros the cast of an anchor below the surface of the rock 1 and in Malta layers of all sea-things. And he says that these came when all things were of old time buried in mud, and that the impress of them dried in the mud ; but p. 30. that all men were destroyed when the earth being cast into the sea became mud, 'and that it again began to bring forth and that this catastrophe happened to all the ordered worlds.2
13. About Ecphantus.
A certain Ecphantus, a Syracusan, said that a true knowledge of the things that are could not be got. But he defines, as he thinks, that the first bodies are indivisible and that there are three differences 3 between them, to wit, size, shape and power. And the number of them is limited and not boundless ; but that these bodies are moved neither by weight nor by impact, but by a divine power which he calls p. 31. Nous and Psyche. Now the pattern of this is the cosmos, wherefore it has become spherical in form by Divine power. And that the earth in the midst of the cosmos is moved round its own centre from west to east.4
14. About Hippo.
But Hippo of Rhegium5 said that the principles were cold, like water, and heat, like fire. And that the fire came from the water, and, overcoming the power of its parent, constructed the cosmos. But he said that the soul was sometimes brain and sometimes water ; for the seed also
1 eV t earliest mention of fossils.
2 Is this a survival of the Babylonian legends of the Flood ?
3 irapaWayyas, differentias , Cr. Perhaps " alternations."
4 The whole of this section on Ecphantus is corrupt. He is not alluded to again in the book.
5 Hippo is mentioned by Iamblichus in his life of Pythagoras.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 51
seems to us to be from moisture and from it he says the soul is born.
These things, then, we seem to have sufficiently set forth. Wherefore, as we have now separately run through the opinions of the physicists, it seems fitting that we return to Socrates and Plato, who most especially preferred (the study of) ethics.
15. About Socrates.
Now Socrates became a hearer of Archelaus the physi- cist, and giving great honour to the maxim "Know thyself" and having established a large school, held Plato to be the most competent of all his disciples. He left no writings behind him ; but Plato being impressed with all his p# wisdom x established the teaching combining physics, ethics and dialectics. But what Plato laid down is this : —
16. About Plato.
Plato makes the principles of the universe to be God, matter and (the) model. He says that God is the maker and orderer of this universe and its Providence.2 That matter is that which underlies all things, which matter he calls a recipient and a nurse.3 From which, after it had been set in order, came the four elements of which the cosmos is constructed, to wit, fire, air, earth and water,4 whence in turn all the other so-called compound things, viz., animals and plants have been constructed. But the model is the thought of God which Plato also calls ideas, to which giving heed as to an image in the soul,5 God fashioned6 all
1 a-jro/na^d/xepos, " been sealed with," or tl copied." Cf. Diog. Laert., II, vit. Socrates, c. 12.
2 irpovbov^vov avrov. The ro'Se rb irav of the line above shows that Plato did not mean that the forethought extended to other worlds than this.
3 This expression, like many others in this epitome of Plato's doctrines, is found in the Ets to. tov U\drwpos Elaaywyr) of Alcinous, who flourished in Roman times. The best edition still seems to be Bishop Poll's, Oxford, 1667. Alcinous' work was, as will appear, the main source from which Hippolytus drew his account of Plato's doctrines.
4 "Alcinous, op. ci'L, c. 12.
5 Ibid., cc. 9, 12.
6 iSrifxiovpyei. Not created ex nihilo, but made out of existing material as an architect makes a house.
52 PHILOSOPHUMENA
p. 33. things. He said that God was without body or form and could only be comprehended by wise men ; but that matter is potentially body, but not yet actively. For that being itself without form or quality, it receives forms and qualities to become body.1 That matter, therefore, is a principle and the same is coeval with God, and the cosmos is un- begotten. For, he says, it constructed itself out of itself.2 And in all ways it is like the unbegotten and is imperishable. But in so far as body 3 is assumed to be composed of many qualities and ideas, it is so far begotten and perishable. But some Platonists mixed together the two opinions making up some such parable as this : to wit, that, as a wagon can remain undestroyed for ever if repaired part by part, as even though the parts perish every time, the wagon remains complete ; so, the cosmos, although it perish part by part, is yet reconstructed and compensated for the parts taken away, and remains eternal.
Some again say that Plato declared God to be one, unbegotten and imperishable, as he says in the Laivs : —
P- 34- " God, therefore, as the old story goes, holds the beginning and end and middle of all things that are."4 Thus he shows Him to be one through His containing all things. But others say that Plato thought that there are many gods without limitation5 when he said, "God of gods, of whom I am the fashioner and father." 6 And yet others that he thinks them subject to limitation when he says: "Great Zeus, indeed, driving his winged chariot in heaven ; " 7 and when he gives the pedigree 8 of the children of Uranos and Ge. Others again that he maintained the gods to be originated and that because they were originated they ought to perish utterly, but that by the will of God they remain imperishable as he says in the passage before quoted, " God of gods, of whom I am the fashioner and father, and who are formed by my will indissoluble." So that if He wished them to be dissolved, dissolved they would easily be. But he accepts the nature of demons, and says some are good, and some bad.
1 Alcinous, op. cit., cc. 8, 10
2 e| avTov (rweo-Tdvai avrov. So Cruice. Macmahon reads with Roe per avrr\s for avrov, " the world was made out of it" (?'. e. matter).
3 The body of the cosmos is evidently meant. Cf. Alcinous, c. 12.
4 de Legg, IV, 7. 5 aopiaroos. 6 Timccus, c. 16. 7 Phcedrus, c. 166. 8 yevzaAoyfi.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 53
And some say that he declared the soul to be un- originated and imperishable x when he says : " All soul is immortal for that which is ever moving is immortal," and when he shows that it is self-moving and the beginning of movement. But others say that he makes it originated but imperishable 2 through God's will ; and yet others composite and originated and perishable. For he also supposes that there is a mixing-bowl for it,3 and that it has a splendid p. 35. body, but that everything originated must of necessity perish. But those who say that the soul is immortal are partly corroborated by those words wherein he says that there are judgments after death, and courts of justice in the house of Hades, and that the good meet with a good reward and that the wicked are subjected to punishments.4 Some therefore say that he also admits a change of bodies and the transfer of different pre-determined souls into other bodies according to the merit of each ; and that after certain definite peregrinations they are again sent into this ordered world to give themselves another trial of their own choice. Others, however, say not, but that they obtain a place according to each one's deserts. And they call to witness that he says some souls are with Zeus, but that others of good men are going round with other gods, and that others abide in everlasting punishments, (that is), so many as in this life have wrought evil and unjust deeds.5
And they say that he declared some conditions to be without intermediates, some with intermediates and some p. 36. to be intermediates. Waking and sleep are without inter- mediates and so are all states like these. But there are those with intermediates like good and bad ; and inter- mediates like grey which is between black and white or some other colour.6 And they say that he declares the
1 Alcinous, c. 25. 2 P/ucdrus, cc. 51, 52.
3 For this see the Ttmieus, c. 17.
4 This sentence is corrupt throughout, and there are at least three readings which can be given to it. I have taken that which makes the smallest alteration in Cruice's text.
5 Phitdo, c. 43.
6 I do not think this can be found in any writings of Plato that have come down to us. Hippolytus probably took it from Aristotle, to whom he also attributes it ; but I cannot find it in this writer either. A passage in Arist., Nicomachean Ethics , Book II, c. 6, is the nearest to it.
54 PHILOSOPHUMENA
things concerning the soul to be alone supremely good, but those of the body or external to it to be no longer supremely good, but only said to be so. And that these last are very often named intermediates also j for they can be used both well and ill. He says therefore that the virtues are extremes as to honour, but means as to sub- stance.1 For there is nothing more honourable than virtue ; but that which goes beyond or falls short of these virtues ends in vice. For instance, he says that these are the four virtues, to wit, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude, and that there follow on each of these two vices of excess and deficiency respectively. Thus on Prudence follow thoughtlessness by deficiency and cunning by excess ; on Temperance, intemperance by deficiency and sluggishness by excess; on Justice, over-modesty by deficiency and greediness by excess ; and on Fortitude, p. 37. cowardice by deficiency and foolhardiness by excess.2 And these virtues when inborn in a man operate for his perfection and give him happiness. But he says that happiness is likeness to God as far as possible. And that any one is like God when he becomes holy and just with intention. For this he supposes to be the aim of the highest wisdom and virtue.3 But he says that the virtues follow one another in turn and are of one kind, and never oppose one another ; but that the vices are many-shaped and sometimes follow and sometimes oppose one another.4 He says, again, that there is destiny, not indeed that all things are according to destiny, but that we have some choice, as he says in these words : " The blame is on the chooser: God is blameless," and again, "This is a law of Adrasteia." And if he thus affirms the part of destiny, he knew also that something was in our choice.5 But he says that transgressions are involuntary. For to the most beauti- ful thing in us, which is the soul, none would admit
1 So Alcinous, c. 29. The other statements in this sentence seem to be Aristotle's rather than Plato's, Cf. Diog. Laert., V, vit. Arist., c. 13, where he describes the good things of the soul, the body and of external things respectively.
2 Alcinous, cc. 28, 29. 3 Ibid., c. 27. 4 Ibid., c. 29.
5 Ibid., c. 26. The passage about the choice [of virtue] is in the Republic, X, 617 C. Hippolytus had evidently not read the original, which says that according as a man does or does not choose virtue, so he will have more or less of it,
THE PHILOSOPHERS 55
something evil, that is, injustice ; but that by ignorance and mistaking the good, thinking to do something fine, they arrive at the evil.1 And his explanation on this is most p. 38. clear in the Republic, where he says : " And again do you dare to say that vice is disgraceful and hateful to God? How then does any one choose such an evil ? He does it, you would say, who is overcome by the pleasures (of sense). Therefore this also is an involuntary action, if to overcome be a voluntary one. So that from all reasoning, reason proves injustice to be involuntary." But some one objects to him about this : " Why then are men punished if they transgress involuntarily?" He answers: "So that they may be the more speedily freed from vice by undergoing correction." 2 For that to undergo correction is not bad but good, if there- by comes purification from vices, and that the rest of mankind hearing of it will not transgress, but will be on their guard against such error.3 He says, however, that the nature of evil comes not by God nor has it any special nature of its own ; but it comes into being by contrariety and by following upon the good, either as excess or deficiency as we have before said about the virtues.4 Now Plato, as we have said above, bringing together the three divisions p. 39- of general philosophy, thus philosophized.
17. About Aristotle.
Aristotle, who was a hearer of this last, turned philosophy into a science and reasoned more strictly, affirming that the elements of all things are substance and accident.5 He said that there is one substance underlying all things, but
1 Alcinous, c. 30.
2 This passage is not in the Republic, but in the Clitopho, as to Plato's authorship of which there are doubts. Cruice quotes the Greek text from Roeper in a note on p. 38 of his text.
3 Alcinous, c. 30. 4 Ibid., c. 29.
5 " Substance" (ovaia) and "accident " (crvixfSelST}K6s) are defined by Aristotle in the Metaphysica, Bk. IV, cc. 8, 9 respectively. The defi- nitions in no way bear the interpretation that Hippolytus here puts on them. In the Categories, which, whether by Aristotle or not, are not referred to by him in any of his extant works, it is said (c. 4) that " of things in complex enunciated, each signifies either Substance or Quantity, or Quality or Relation, or Where or When, or Position, or Possession, or Action, or Passion." It is from this that Hippolytus probably took the statement in our text. The illustrations are in part found in Metaphysica, c. 4.
56 PHILOSOPHUMENA
nine accidents, which are Quantity, Quality, Relation, the Where, the When, Possession, Position, Action and Passion. And that therefore Substance was such as God, man and every one of the things which can fall under the like defi- nition : but that as regards the accidents, Quality is seen in expressions like white or black ; Quantity in " 2 cubits or 3 cubits long or broad " ; Relation in " father " or " son " ; the Where in such as "Athens" or "Megara"; the When in such as " in the Xth Olympiad " ; for Possession in such as " to have acquired wealth " ; Action in such as " to write and generally to do anything " ; and Passion in such as " to be struck." He also assumes that some things have means and that others have npt, as we have said also about Plato.
p. 40. And he is in accord with Plato about most things save in the opinion about the soul. For Plato thinks it immortal ; but Aristotle that it remains behind after this life and that it is lost in the fifth Body which is assumed to exist along with the other four, to wit, fire, earth, water and air, but is more subtle than they and like a spirit.1 Again whereas Plato said that the only good things were those which concerned the soul and that these sufficed for happiness, Aristotle brings in a triad of benefits and says that the sage is not perfect unless there are at his command the good things of the body and those external to it. Which things are Beauty, Strength, Keenness of Sense and Com- pleteness; while the externals are Wealth, High Birth, Glory, Power, Peace, and Friendship ; but that the inner things about the soul are, as Plato thought : Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude.2 Also Aristotle says that evil things exist, and come by contrariety to the good, and are below the place about the moon, but not above it.
Again, he says that the soul of the whole ordered world is eternal, but that the soul of man vanishes as we have said
p. 41. above. Now, he philosophized while delivering discourses in the Lyceum ; but Zeno in the Painted Porch. And Zeno's followers got their name from the place, i. e. they were called Stoics from the Stoa; but those of Aristotle from their mode of study. For their enquiries were con-
1 The famous " Quintessence." So Aetius, De Plac. Phil., Bk. I, c. 1, §38. But see Diog. Laert. in next note.
2 This is practically verbatim from Diog. Laert., V, vit. ArisL, c 13.
THE PHILOSOPHERS 57
ducted while walking about in the Lyceum, wherefore they were called Peripatetics. This then Aristotle.1
18. About the Stoics.
The Stoics themselves also added to philosophy by the increased use of syllogisms,2 and included it nearly all in definitions, Chrysippus and Zeno being here agreed in opinion. Who also supposed that God was the beginning of all things, and was the purest body, and that His providence extends through all things.3 They say posi- tively, however, that existence is everywhere according to destiny using some such simile as this : viz. that, as a dog tied to a cart, if he wishes to follow it, is both drawn along by it and follows of his own accord, doing at the same time what he wills and what he must by a compulsion like that p. 42. of destiny.4 But if he does not wish to follow he is wholly compelled. And they say that it is the same indeed with men. For even if they do not wish to follow, they will be wholly compelled to come to what has been foredoomed. And they say that the soul remains after death, and that
1 Hippolytus gives as is usual with him a more detailed account of Aristotle's doctrines on these points later. (See Book VII, II, pp. 62 ff. infra.) He there admits that he cannot say exactly what was Aristotle's doctrine about the soul. He also refers to hooks of Aristotle on Providence and the like which, teste Cruice, no longer exist. Cf. Macmahon's note on same page (p. 272 of Clark's edition).
2 iwl rb (ToK\oyi artis expolitione philosophiam locufletarunt.
3 Prof. Arnold in his lucid book on Roman Stoicism (Cambridge, 191 1, p. 219, n. 4) quotes this as a genuine Stoic doctrine. But Diog. Laert., VII, vit. Zeno, c. 68, represents Zeno, Cleanthes, Chry- sippus, Archedemus and Posidonius as agreeing that principles and elements differ from one another in being respectively indestructible and destroyed, and because elements are bodies while principles have none. For the Stoic idea of God, see op. cit., c. 70. So Cicero, De Natnra Deorum, Bk. I, cc. 8, 18, makes Zeno say that the cosmos is God, but in the Academics, II, 41 that Aether is the Supreme God, with which doctrine, he says, nearly all Stoics agree. Perhaps Hip- polytus is here quoting Clement of Alexandria, Sfromateis, VI, 71, who says that the Stoics dare to make the God of all things "a corporeal spirit." For the Stoic doctrine of Providence, see Diog. Laert., vit. Zeno, c. 70.
4 tcoiqjv kolI rb avTej*ov(riov fiera ttjs aidyKTjs olov ttjs €i/j.apfj.4vris. Tb QLvre^ovcriov is the recognized expression for free will. Note the difference between avaytci), "compulsion," and elfiap/devr], "destiny." For the Stoic doctrine of Fate, see Diog. Laert., vit. cit., c. 74.
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it is a body x and is born from the cooling of the air of the ambient, whence it is called Psyche.2 But they admit that there is a change of bodies for souls which have been marked out for it.3 And they expect that there will be a conflagration and purification of this cosmos, some saying that it will be total but others partial, and that it will be purified part by part. And they call this approximate destruction and the birth of another cosmos therefrom, catharsis* And they suppose that all things are bodies, and that one body passes through another ; but that there is a resurrection 5 and that all things are filled full and that there is no void. Thus also the Stoics.
19. Aboiit Epicurus.
p. 43. But Epicurus held an opinion almost the opposite of all others. He supposed that the beginnings of the universals were atoms and a void ; that the void was as it were the place of the things that will be ; but that the atoms were matter, from which all things are. And that from the concourse of the atoms both God and all the elements came into being and that in them were all animals and other things, so that nothing is produced or constructed unless it be from the atoms. And he said that the atoms were the most subtle of things, and that in them there could be no point, nor mark nor any division whatever ; wherefore he called them atoms.6 And although he admits God to be eternal and imperishable, he says that he cares for no one and that in short there is no providence nor destiny, but all things come into being automatically. For
1 Diog. Laert., ubi cit., c. 84.
2 From ipv£is, " cooling " — a bad pun.
15 It is extremely doubtful whether the metempsychosis ever formed part of Stoic doctrine.
4 Zeno and Cleanthes both accepted the ecpyrosis. See Diog. Laert., ubi cit., c. 70. The same author says that Panretius said that the cosmos was imperishable.
5 (rcDyua Sia adofiaTos /xev x^P6^, corpusque per corpus viigrare, Cr. Macmahon inserts a "not" in the sentence, but without authority. The Stoic resurrection assumed that in the new world created out of the ashes of the old, individuals would take the same place as in this last. See Arnold, op. cit.y p. 193 for authorities.
6 aro/xoi, " that cannot be cut." The rest of this sentence is taken from Diog. Laert., X, vit. Epicur., c. 24, and is quoted there from Epicurus' treatise on Nature.
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(jod is seated in the metacosmic spaces, as he calls them. For he held that there was a certain dwelling-place of God outside the cosmos called the metacosmia, and that He took His pleasure and rested in supreme delight j and that p. 44 He neither had anything to do Himself nor provided for others. In consequence of which Epicurus made a theory about wise men, saying that the end of all wisdom is pleasure. But different people take the name of pleasure differently. For some understood by it the desires, but others the pleasure that comes by virtue. But he held that the souls of men were destroyed with their bodies as they are born with them. For that these souls are blood, which having come forth or being changed, the whole man is destroyed. Whence it follows that there are no judgments nor courts of justice in the House of Hades, so that whatever any one may do in this life and escapes notice, he is in no way called to account for it.1 Thus then Epicurus.
20. About (the) Academics.
But another sect of philosophers was called Academic, from their holding their discussions in the Academy, whose p. 45. founder was Pyrrho, after whom they were called Pyrrho- nian philosophers. He first introduced the dogma of the incomprehensibility of all things, so that he might argue on either side of the question, but assert nothing dogmati- cally. For he said that there is nothing grasped by the mind or perceived by the senses which is true, but that it only appears to men to be so. And that all substance is flowing and changing and never remains in the same state. Now some of the Academics say that we ought not to make dogmatic assertions about the principle of any- thing, but simply argue about it and let it be ; while others favoured more the " no preference " 2 adage, saying that fire was not fire rather than anything else. For they did not assert what it is, but only what sort of a thing it is.3
1 With the exception of the Deity's seat in the intercosmic spaces and the idea that the souls of men consist of blood-, all the above opinions of Epicurus are to be found in Diog. Laert., X, vit. Epic.
2 ov /xaWov, " not rather."
3 See n. on p. 49 supra. The doctrines here given are those of the Sceptics, and are to be found in Diog. Laert., IX, vit. Pyrrho^
VOL. I. E
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21. About (the) Brachmans among the Indians.
The Indians have also a sect of philosophizes in the Brachmans x who propose to themselves an independent life and abstain from all things which have had life and from
p. 46. meats prepared by fire. They are content with fruits 2 but do not gather even these, but live on those fallen on the earth and drink the water of the river Tagabena.3 But they spend their lives naked, saying that the body has been made by God as a garment to the soul. They say that God is light ; not such light as one sees, nor like the sun and fire, but that it is to them the Divine Word, not that which is articulated, but that which comes from know- ledge, whereby the hidden mysteries of nature are seen by the wise. But this light which they say is (the) Word, the God, they declare that they themselves as Brachmans alone know, because they alone put away vain thinking which is the last tunic of the soul. They scorn death ; but are ever naming God in their own tongue, as we have said above, and send up hymns to Him. But neither are there women among them, nor do they beget children.4 Those, however, who have desired a life like theirs, after they
p. 47- have crossed over to the opposite bank of the river,5 remain there always and never return • but they also are called Brachmans. Yet they do not pass their life in the same way ; for there are women in the country, from whom those dwelling there are begotten and beget. But they say that this Word, which they style God, is corporeal, girt with the
c. 79 ff. and in Sextus Empiricus, Hyp. Pyr>ho, J, 209 ft. Diog. Laert. quotes from Ascanius of Abdera that Pyrrho introduced the dogma of incomprehensibility, and Hippolytus seems to have copied this with- out noticing that he has said the same thing about Xenophanes.
1 Diog. Laert., I, Prooem., c. I, mentions both Gymnosophists and Druids, but if he ever gave any account of their teaching it must be in the part of the book which is lost. Clem. Alex., Stro??iateis, I, c. 15, describes the two classes of Gymnosophists as Sarmanse and Brachmans. The Sarmanse or Samancei (Shamans ?) seem the nearer of the two to the Brachmans of our text.
2 aicpoSpvoi, hard-shelled fruit such as acorns or chestnuts.
3 Roeper suggests the Ganges.
4 Megasthenes, for whom see Strabo V, 712, differs from Hippolytus in making the abstinence of the Gymnosophists endure for thirty-seven years only.
6 Nothing has yet been said about any bank.
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body outside Himself, as if one should wear a garment of sheepskins ; but that the body which is worn, when taken off, appears visible to the eye.1 But the Brachmans declare that there is war in the body worn by them [and they consider their body full of warring elements] against which body as if arrayed against foes, they fight as we have before made plain. And they say that all men are captives to their own congenital enemies, to wit, the belly and genitals, greediness, wrath, joy, grief, desire and the like. But that he alone goes to God who has triumphed 2 over these. Wherefore the Brachmans make Dandamis, to whom Alexander of Macedon paid a visit, divine 3 as one who had won the war in the body. But they accuse Calanus of having impiously fallen away from their philo- sophy. But the Brachmans putting away the body, like fish who have leaped from the water into pure air, behold p. 48. the Sun.4
2 2 . About the Druids among the Celts.
The Druids among the Celts enquired with the greatest minuteness into the Pythagorean philosophy, Zamolxis, Pythagoras' slave, a Thracian by race, being for them the author of this discipline. He after Pythagoras' death travelled into their country and became as far as they were concerned the founder of this philosophy.5 The
1 The whole of this sentence is corrupt. Macmahon following Roeper would read: "This discourse whom they name God they affirm to be incorporeal, but enveloped in a body outside himself, just as if one carried a covering of sheepskin to have it seen ; but having stripped off the body in which he is enveloped, he no longer appears visibly to the naked eye."
2 iyeipas rp6iraiov, lit., " raised a trophy."
3 deo\oyov(Ti. Eusebius, Pmp. Ev., uses the word in this sense. For the Dandamis and Calanus stories, see Arrian, Anabasis, Bk. VII, cc. 2, 3.
4 This is quite unintelligible as it stands. It probably means that the Brachmans worship the light of which the Sun is the garment, and that they think they are united with it when temporarily freed from the body. Is he confusing them on the one hand with the Yogis, whose burial trick is referred to later in connection with Simon Magus, and on the other with some Zoroastrian or fire-worshipping sect of Central Asia?
5 ts . . . ejcet xwpT)(Tas dtrios tovtols ravTrjs ttjs cpiKocro(pias e'-ye- vcto. Does the e'/ce? mean Galatia, whose inhabitants were Celts by origin? Hippolytus has probably copied the sentence without under- standing it.
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Celts glorify the Druids as prophets and as knowing the future because they foretell to them some things by the ciphers and numbers of the Pythagoric art. On the principles of which same art we shall not be silent, since some men have ventured to introduce heresies constructed from them. Druids, however, also make use of magic arts.
p. 49. 23. About Hesiod ?-
But Hesiod the poet says that he; too, heard thus from the Muses about Nature. The Muses, however, are the daughters of Zeus! For Zeus having from excess of desire companied with Mnemosyne for nine days and nights consecutively, she conceived these nine in her single womb, receiving one every night. Now Hesiod invokes the nine Muses from Pieria, that is from Olympus, and prays them to teach him : 2
0 How first the gods and earth became ; The rivers and th' immeasureable sea High-raging in its foam : the glittering stars ; The wide-impending heaven ; . . . Say how their treasures,3 how their honours each Allotted shared ; how first they held abode On many-caved Olympus : — this declare p. 50. Ye Muses ! dwellers of the heavenly mount
From the beginning ; say who first arose ?
" First Chaos was, next ample-bosomed Earth, The seat eternal and immoveable Of deathless gods, who still the Olympian height Snow-topt inhabit. Third in hollow depth Of the vast ground, expanded wide above '*
The gloomy Tartarus. Love then arose Most beauteous of immortals : he at once Of every god and every mortal man Unnerves the limbs ; dissolves the wiser breast By reason steel'd, and quells the very soul.
" From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night . . .
1 Hesiod is treated by Aristotle, Metaphysica, Bk. II, c. 15, as one who philosophizes, which perhaps accounts for the introduction of his name here.
2 Sidaxdwat, ut se edocerent, Cr. So Macmahon. The context, however, plainly requires that it is Hesiod and not the Muse who is to- be taught. The rendering of poetry into prose is seldom satisfactory, so I have ventured to give here the version of Elton, which is as close to- the original as it is poetic in form.
3 ws
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From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day * Whom she with dark embrace of Erebus Commingling bore.
"Her first-born Earth produced Of like immensity,2 the starry Heaven : That he might sheltering compass her around On every side, and be for evermore To the blest gods a mansion unremoved.
"Next the high hills arose, the pleasant haunts Of goddess-nymphs, who dwell among the glens Of mountains. With no aid of tender love
Gave she to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol'n p. 51.
In raging foam ; and Heaven-embraced, anon She teemed with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls His vast abyss of waters
"Crceus then, Coeus, Hyperion and Iapetus, Themis and Thea rose ; Mnemosyne And Rhea ; Phoebe diademed with gold, And love-inspiring Tethys ; and of these, Youngest in birth, the wily Kronos came. The sternest of her sons ; and he abhorred The sire that gave him life
" Then brought she forth The Cyclops haughty of spirit."
And he enumerates all the other Giants descended from Kronos. But last he tells how Zeus was born from Rhea.
All these men, then, declared, as we have set forth, their opinions about the nature and birth of the universe. But they all, departing from the Divine for lower things, busied themselves about the substance of the things that are. So that when struck with the grandeurs of creation and think- ing that these were the Divine, each of them preferred before the rest a different part of what was created. But they discovered not the God and fashioner of them.
The opinions therefore of those among the Greeks who have undertaken to philosophize, I think I have suffici- p. 52. ently set forth. Starting from which opinions the heretics have made the attempts we shall shortly narrate. It seems fitting, however, that we, first making public the mystic rites,3 should also declare whatever things certain men
1 Aldrjp re Kal 'H/xep-q. One would prefer to keep the word "Aether," which is hardly " sunshine."
- l
3 ret jjLvariKa. The expression generally used for Mysteries such as those of Eleusis. Either he employs it here to include the tricks
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have superfluously fancied about stars or magnitudes ; for truly those who have taken their starting-points from these notions are deemed by the many to speak prodigies. Thereafter, we shall make plain consecutively the vain opinions1 invented by them.2
of the magicians described in Book IV, or he did not mean to describe these last when the sentence was written, but to go instead straight from the astrologers to the heresies. The last alternative seems the more probable.
1 aSpavri, infirm as, Cr.
2 The main question which arises on this First Book of our text is, What were the sources from which Hippolytus drew the opinions he here summarizes? Diel$, who has taken much pains over the matter, thinks that his chief source was the epitome that Sotion of Alexandria made from Heraclides. As we have seen, however, Diogenes Laertius is responsible for a fair number of Hippolytus' statements, especially concerning the opinions of those to whom he gives little space. Certain phrases seem taken directly from Theophrastus or from whatever author it was that Simplicius used in his commentaries on Aristotle, and the likeness between Alcinous' summary of Plato's doctrines and those of our author is too close to be accidental. It therefore seems most probable that Hippolytus did not confine himself to any one source, but borrowed from several. This would, after all, be the natural course for a lecturer as distinguished from a writer to adopt, and goes some way therefore towards confirming the theory as to the origin of the book stated in the Introduction.
END OF BOOK I
BOOKS II AND III
(These are entirely missing, no trace of them having been found attached to any of the four codices of Book I or to the present text of Books IV to X. We know that such books must have once existed, as at the end of Book IV (p. 117 infra) the author tells us that all the famous opinions of earthly philosophy have been included by him in the preceding four books, of which as has been said only Books I and IV have come down to us.
Our only ground for conjecture as to the contents of Books II and III is to be found in Hippolytus' statement at the end of Book I, that he will first make public the mystic rites l and then the fancies of certain philosophers as to stars and magnitudes. As the promise in the last words of the sentence seems to be fulfilled in Book IV, where he gives not only the method of the astrologers of his time, but also the calculations of the Greek astronomers as to the relative distances of the heavenly bodies, it may be presumed that this was preceded and not followed by a description of the Mysteries more elaborate and fuller than the casual allusions to them which appear in Book V. So, too, in Chap. 5 of the same Book IV, which he himself describes in the heading as a "Recapitulation" of what has gone before, he refers to certain dogmas of the Persians and the Babylonians as to the nature of God, which have certainly not been mentioned in any other part of the book which has come down to us. So, again, at the beginning of