THE SEARCH FOR CONTROL:
A STUDY OF TRE GREGERS 63F THE THGUGHT
0F EMPEBOCLES AND HERACLITUS

Thesis for the Begree of Ph. D
MICH¥GAN STATE UNIVERSITY
MARYIN B. O'KEEFE, SJ.
1969

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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

THE SEARCH FOR CONTROL:
A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF THE THOUGHT
0F EMPEDOCLES AND HERACLITUS

presented by

Martin D. O'Keefe, S.J.

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Major professor

Date >’ Mix \96‘3

0-169

 

ABSTRACT
THE SEARCH FOR CONTROL:

A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF THE THOUGHT
0F EMPEDOCLES AND HERACLITUS

BY

Martin D. O'Keefe, S.J.

The question of the origins of Greek philosophy is one that has
almost as many answers as it has persons giving those answers. This
dissertation constitutes an attempt to provide a textual study of two
of the pre-Socratic philosophers, with a view toward establishing one
such answer.

Chapter One gives a brief sampling of the diversity of opinion
on this subject. Some seven authors are examined and their views
sketched and discussed: Bréhier, Windelband, Zeller, Guthrie,
Copleston, Cornford, and Burnet. The idea is then advanced that one
significant reason why the Greeks, rather than some other culture,
originated philosoPhy might be the influence that Greek religion had
on the thinkers of the pre-Socratic period.

With this in mind, Chapter Two engages in a somewhat protracted
discussion of what is meant by the term "Greek religion." The term
is limited, in this paper, to the Olympian pantheon, taken in a wide
sense; in any event, the mystery religions are not discussed. The
chapter divides into a series of tepics: (1) who the gods were, (2)
where the gods came from (in both a geographical and a psycholoqical
sense), (3) where the gods went, (4) what the gods demanded of men,

and (5) what men demanded of the gods. The chapter concludes that the

Martin D. O'Keefe, S.J.

fundamental purpose for which Greek religion was elaborated in the
first place was to provide for man some sort of control over events in
the universe; when it proved incapable of performing this task, it
was gradually jettisoned. The question then becomes, can the philos-
ophies of Empedocles and Heraclitus be seen as attempts to fill the
same need, on a rational rather than an authoritarian basis?

Chapter Three is devoted to Empedocles, and is divided into
three sections: (1) his life and works, (2) a general sketch of his
doctrine, and (3) a careful textual examination of the Empedoclean
fragments, with a view toward seeing whether Empedocles' thought can
legitimately be viewed as such a search for cosmic control. This
third section is conducted by means of posing a series of questions,
and attempting to answer them on the basis of available textual evi-
dence. The questions are as follows: (1) what did Empedocles think
of the Olympian gods? (2) what did he think of gods and religion in
general? (3) in what did Empedocles' "religion" consist? (4) to what
extent is man capable of what Empedocles demands of him? (5) what is
the inner dynamic that makes possible what Empedocles' "religion"
promises man? The question is then posed explicitly as to whether
there is here a conception of cosmic control; the answer is in the
affirmative.

Chapter Four employs the same methodology as did Chapter Three;
the difference is that the subject matter is now the fragments of
Heraclitus. The conclusion of the chapter is that here too the notion
of a search for cosmic control can be discerned, but on a somewhat

more limited basis than in the case of Empedocles.

Martin D. O'Keefe, S.J.

In both Chapter Three and Chapter Pour, the author accepts with-
out further ado the text as given in Diels, recognizing at the same
time that the textual problem is a large one, particularly in the case
of Heraclitus.

Chapter Five embraces a summary of the first four chapters, a
prospectus of where further work could be done, and some remarks on
the significance of the project. The author sees the project as not
simply a question of the origins of Greek philosophy, but also as part
of a larger question regarding the possibility or impossibility of
legitimate interplay between the authoritarian and the rational modes

of thought.

THE SEARCH FOR CONTROL:
A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF THE THOUGHT

OF EMPEDOCLES AND HERACLITUS

BY

Martin D. O'Keefe, S.J.

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Philosophy

1969

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No author completes a study, however modest, except through
the help of his teachers. This statement is pre-eminently true in
the case of the present dissertation, which literally would never
have been written except for the inspiration and encouragement that
the author received with unfailing constancy from Professor William
J. Callaghan and Professor Harold T. welsh, both of the philosophy
department of Michigan State University. To these two men, scholar-
administrator and scholar-teacher respectively, go my sincere

gratitude and boundless admiration.

ii

 

 

TABLE or CONTENTS
Page
CWER ONE 0 DIVERGENT VIEWS 0 O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O 0 1

Introductory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Brehier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Windelband . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Zeller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lO
Guthrie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Copleston. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cornford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Burnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER ONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

CHAPTER TWO. THE RELIGION OF THE GREEKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

The Gods: Who They Were . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Gods: Where They Came From. . . . . . . . . . .9. . . . 55

Native Gods and Foreign Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

The Developing Religious Consciousness of the Greeks . 61
The Gods: Where They went . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
The Gods: What They Demanded of Men . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The Men: What They Demanded of the Gods . . . . . . . . . . 87
The Men and the Gods: Some Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . 91
FOOTNOTES T0 CHAPTER TWO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

CHAPTER THREE. EMPEDOCLES OF AKRAGAS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Life and works I O I O O O I O O O 0 O O O O O I O O O O O O 107
Empedocles' Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Empedocles as Synthesizer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . llO

Empedocles as Innovator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)
Page

The "Why" of Empedocles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER THREE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

CHAPTER FOUR O HERACLITUS 0F EPaESUS O O O O O O O C O O O O O C O 145

Life and works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Heraclitus' Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
The "Why" of Heraclitus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

CHAPTER FIVE. SUMMARY, PROSPECTS, AND SIGNIFICANCE. . . . . . . . 184

smry O O 0 O O O O O O O O O I I O I O O O O O 0 O O O O I 184
Future Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Significance O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O 197

BIBLIWMPHY O O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O I O 201

iv

Table 1 :

Table 2 :

Table 3 :

Table 4 :

Table 5 :

Table 6 :

Table 7 :

Table 8:

Table 9:

LIST OF TABLES

Offspring of Chaos . . . . . .
Offspring of Earth . . . . . .
Offspring of Sky . . . . . . .
Offspring of the Titans. . . .
Offspring of the Olympians . .
Offspring of the Nymphs. . . .
Offspring of Other People. . .
Amalgamated Pantheon . . . . .

Greek Ecclesiastical Calendar.

Page
46
47
47
48
50
51
52
59

80

CHAPTER ONE

DIVERGENT VIEWS

"Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus."

Introductory

Few scholars quarrel any more with the idea that philosophy,
as we know it in the West, got its start with the ancient Greeks.
"The Greeks, then, stand as the uncontested original thinkers and
scientists of EurOpe. They first sought knowledge for its own sake,
and pursued knowledge in a scientific, free and unprejudiced spirit."1

Yet, while the fact of the Greek origin of philosophy is now
commonly acknowledged, the explanation of that fact presents some
serious problems. One could pose these in two obviously allied, but
hardly identical, questions: (1) why was it that the Greeks
originated philosophy; and (2) why was it that the Greeks, rather
than some other culture, originated philosophy? Is it, in other
words, merely an accident of history that the Ionians and the
Eleatics, and then the mainland Greeks, turned their minds to a
rational explanation of the world around them--as if this achievement

were something that could have been performed by any comparable cul—

ture, but merely happened to be achieved by this one? Or is there

something indigenous to the Greek character that brought this about:
some cultural factor, perhaps, that was lacking in other civiliza-
tions?

The question could be broadened. One might ask, for instance,
why it was that the sixth century of the pre-Christian era should
have been the time when rational speculation of this type should have
occurred. It will not do to hold that no civilization prior to that
time had developed sufficiently to engage in this sort of pursuit;
one has merely to consider the development of the Hebrews, for in-
stance, in the eleventh century,2 to say nothing of the near-Eastern
cultures with which those Hebrews came into contact.3 It is, further-
more, commonplace in history books to point to the cultures that had
developed in Egypt many centuries before the sixth century.

Yet the fact of the matter remains: it is in the sixth century,
and in Greece, that the development of philosophy properly so called
did, in fact, begin. And the question attending that fact also re-
mains: why?

Proffered explanations are as numerous as writers on Greek phil-
osOphy. But the explanations tend to differ from one another, some
being perhaps more plausible than others. The divergence makes at
least one thing clear: the final answer to the question is not yet
possessed.

It will be the aim of this first chapter to survey some of these
explanations, and to attempt to see how adequate they are in divining
the origins of the Greek genius. Two comments, however, must be made

at the outset, both methodological in nature: first, no attempt is

intended at a complete survey of authors who have written on this
subject. The reason for this will be obvious: the sheer plurality
of these makes a comprehensive survey an impossibility in anything
short of a very large book. Rather, what is envisioned is a sampling,
admittedly limited in scope but hopefully representative of the diver-
sity of opinion that exists on this question. Furthermore, a com-
plete survey is not necessary to the purposes of this chapter, which
aims rather at the more modest goal of establishing that there is,
indeed, little agreement on the subject; to achieve this aim, a
sampling will suffice. Second, the authors chosen fall into two
groups: first, writers of general histories of Greek philosophy,
including Bréhier, Windelband, Zeller, Guthrie, and Copleston; and
second, two writers of somewhat more extended studies on the precise
topic under discussion: Cornford and Burnet.4 The procedure to be
followed in each case will be as follows: an exposition of the
author's views on the subject, at varying length depending on the
amount of space the author himself devotes to our question; follow-
ing each exposition there will be a brief critique. The aim of this
latter could perhaps find its focus in seeing which of the "two al-
lied, but hardly identical questions"5 the author actually succeeds
in answering.

Once this survey is completed, the positive side of this study
can begin. It will attempt to trace in two of the pre-Socratic phil-
osophers, Empedocles and Heraclitus, a factor which the present

writer himself considers critical to their philosophical development.

Bréhier

The thesis that philosophy began with the Greeks did not always
enjoy universal acceptance. Thus we find E. Bréhier6 saying:

Along with those who, with Aristotle, makes Thales in the sixth
century the first philosopher, there were already historians in
Greece tracing the origins of philosophy back beyond Hellenism,
to the barbarians. Diogenes Laertius, in the preface to his
Lives of the Philosophers, speaks of the legendary antiquity of
philosophy among the Persians and Egyptians.7

Bréhier is here advocating the idea that the origins of Greek thought
are to be found in the pre-Hellenic civilizations of Mesopotamia and
Egypt. As he puts it:

It is impossible not to feel the kinship of thought between the
well-known thesis of the first Greek philosopher, Thales, that
all things are made of water and the beginning of the Poem of
Creation, written some centuries earlier in Mesopotamia: "When
the sky above was not named, and when the earth below had no
name, from the primordial Apsu, their father, and from the
tumultuous Tiamat, their mother of all, the waters mingled in
one." Texts like this suffice at least to show that Thales was
not the inventor of an original cosmogony. The cosmogonic images
which he was perhaps the first to define had existed for long
centuries. We suspect that the philosophy of the first physiolo-
gists of Ionia may be a new form of an extremely ancient line.8

Bréhier then continues with a number of considerations that are
sociological in nature, and which will be examined in more detail
when we come to consider the thesis of Cornford. But Bréhier's con-
clusion is worth noting, for the purposes of this study: "If such is
the case, the first philosophical systems of Greece would not be
original; they would only be the elaborated form of a much more
ancient thinking."9

And thus the reasons for beginning the study of philosophy in

sixth-century Greece are sheerly pragmatic ones:

If, in spite of these remarks, we make our history begin with
Thales, it is not because we deny the long prehistory in which
philosophical thought was developed; it is only for the practi-
cal reason that the epigraphic sources for the Mesopotamian
civilizations are few in number and difficult to get at.10
Bréhier's work was written in the 1920's and the 1930's, when
the "Oriental origins" theory was fashionable and when Lavy-Bruhl and
others were at the height of their sociological popularity. Neither
factor obtains very much today. Perhaps principally responsible for
the demise of the "Oriental origins" theory is the work of E. Zeller
and J. Burnet, which will be examined below (although from another
aspect);11 the responsibility for the fall of Levy-Bruhl lies out-
side the scope of this dissertation. Nevertheless, Bréhier's thesis
is noteworthy as an example of the extreme disagreement that has
existed among scholars on the origins of Greek thought--a disagree-

ment that will become increasingly obvious when we turn to other

authors.

Windelband

 

Considerably prior to Bréhier, and therefore expressing an older
point of view, is the work of Wilhelm Windelband.12 In this classic
work, Windelband enumerates a number of factors which he considers
formative of the Greek genius. The critical development is, in his
view, the growth in awareness of personal individuality, fostered by
several economic and political factors. Thus, Greek trade was an im-
portant contributing element:

Over the entire Mediterranean, from the Black Sea to the Pillars
of Hercules, the Greek colonies and trade centres were extended.

Even Egypt opened its treasures to the enterprising Ionian
spirit. . . . For here in Ionia of Asia Minor the riches of the

entire world were heaped together; here Oriental luxury, pomp,
material pleasure held their public pageants; here began to
awaken the sense of the beauty of living and the love of higher
ideals, while rude customs still ruled upon the continent of
Europe. The spirit became free from the pressure of daily need,
and in its play created the works of noble leisure, of art, and
of science.13 -
Prosperity also led to changes in political and social conditions:
the aristocratic class found themselves moved to the periphery of
importance;14 and there arose a class of non-aristocrats, who strove,
once they "took advantage of these democratic tendencies, and after
destroying the power of the oligarchy, to set up monarchies and equal-
ize, as far as possible, the interests of all classes. [The result
was] tyranny based on democratic principles. . . ,"15 or, in other
words, the rise to power of such men as Thrasybulus in Miletus,
Polycrates in Samos, Pittacus in Lesbos, Periander in Corinth,
Peisistratus in Athens, Gelon and Hiero in Syracuse.16 Such men
"drew poets to themlselves]; they founded libraries; they supported
every movement in art and science."17 The aristocrats, on the other
hand, were forced to retire into private life, and this too had an
impact: they adorned that private life "with the gifts of the
Muses."18 And thus, "The reversed relations favored in many ways the
unfolding and extending of intellectual interests."19
But the reversed relations of aristocrats and commoners were
of more than economic importance, for "In the passion and excitement
of internecine political conflict, the individual becomes conscious
of his independence, and he 'girds up his loins' to assert his rights

everywhere."20 And one significant place where the individual began

asserting his rights was the sphere of ethics; the upsurge of Gnomic

poetry, which occurs about this time, indicates as much. The content
of this type of literary work was mainly sententious reflections upon
moral principles; this is an important develOpment, for

. . . any extended reflection upon maxims of moral judgment shows
immediately that the validity of morality has been questioned in
some way, that social consciousness has been unsettled, and that
the individual in his growing independence has transcended the
bounds authoritatively drawn by the universal consciousness.21

Individuals, in other words, go their own way in moral matters. The

simple devotion to the conventions of the previous age had ceased, and

social consciousness was profoundly disturbed.22

Nor was this desire to think for oneself limited to the ethical
sphere, of course.

While in this way, through political and social relations, the
independence of individual judgment was educated first on its
practical side, and the propensity was formed for expressing

such judgment, it was an inevitable consequence that a similar
emancipation of single individuals from the ordinary way of
thinking should take place within the domain of theory. Inde-
pendent judgment naturally appeared at this point, and formed its
own views about the connection of things. Nevertheless this pro-
pensity could manifest itself only in a revision and reconstruc-
tion of those materials, which the individuals discovered partly
in the intellectual treasures accumulated previously in the
nation's practical life, and partly in the religious ideas.23

Meantime, the fund of historical and geographical knowledge
available to the Greek mind had increased considerably. Thus for in-
stance:

The inventive, trade-driving Ionians undoubtedly had learned very
much from the Orientals, with whom they had intercourse and of
whom they were rivals. Among these, especially among the
Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, there existed knowledge
that had been garnered through many centuries, and it is incred-
ible that the Greeks should not have appropriated it whenever
opportunity offered.24

Without wishing to get into the very involved discussion on the extent

to which the Oriental influence was decisive in moulding the Greek

character, a topic that would take us needlessly far afield, this
at least can be said:

It would be denying the existence of the sun at noontide to refuse
to acknowledge that the Greeks in great measure owe their informa-
tion to contact with the barbarians. . . . The Greeks imported a
large amount of information out of the Orient. This consisted in
special facts of knowledge, particularly of a mathematical and
astronomical kind, and consisted perhaps besides in certain mytho-
logical ideas. But with the recognition of this situation, which
recognition in the long run is inevitable, one does not rob the
Greeks in the least of their true originality. . . . They were
the first to transmute this knowledge into a wisdom sought on ac-
count of itself. This spirit of science, like their original ac-
tivity, resulted from emancipated and independent individual
thought, to whibh Oriental civilization had not attained.25

There was also a growth in the Greeks' knowledge of their own
history, as transmitted from the old epic through the channels of
theogonic and heroic poetry.26 To these were added collections of
saga and of the histories of the founding of cities, as they had been
gathered by the logographers.

Of these there appeared, in the sixth century, Cadmus, Dionysius,
and especially Hecateius of Miletus, with his neptfiynats, in which
history and geography are closely interwoven. In these men real-
istic considerations had taken the place of aesthetical, and

their writings therefore have the prose rather than the poetic
form.2

It was, of course, inevitable that these social, economic, and
informational changes should be reflected in Greek religious thought.
These religious notions were in the liveliest fermentation about the
times of the seventh and sixth centuries. Windelband sees the explan-
ation for this fact in the great vitality which from the very begin-
nings had characterized the religious existence of the Greeks, owing
to their unparalleled development:

Out of the early differentiation of originally common ideas, out

of the captious formation of local cults within families, tribes,
cities, and provinces, incidentally also out of the introduction

of distinctive foreign religious ceremonies, there grew up a rich,
and, as it were, confusingly iridescent variety of religions.28

In addition to the Olympian religion, stemming from epic poetry, there
were also the older cults that had shut themselves up even more
closely within the Mysteries. And, as civilization advanced, two
directions manifested themselves in Greek thought: the first toward
mythical explanation of nature, and the second toward ethical ideal-
izing.29

By way of summary, therefore, one might fairly say that
Windelband advances a sort of sociological explanation of the Greek
genius. It came about as a result of the dawning consciousness of
the Greek individual as an individual, as opposed to a member of the
herd or as a moment in the collective, community consciousness; this
awareness of individuality was fostered by many factors (economic,
political, intellectual), and manifested itself in numerous spheres
(ethical, intellectual, religious).

There is, doubtless, much truth in Windelband's view. And yet
it is not completely satisfying. For is it not the case that many
civilizations have passed into a dawning consciousness of the indi-
vidual as individual? Once again, one has but to look at the Hebrews
for a counterargument: from the intense community consciousness that
one finds in the older books of the Old Testament, the Israelites did,
in fact, come to a similar increased individual consciousness, as is
evidenced by the books of Job and Ecclesiasticus, and still later in
the books of the Maccabees. Further, one finds a questioning of tra-
ditional mores and accepted beliefs in these same books. But one does

not find a philosophy in any recognizable sense of the term.

10
Zeller

If Windelband tends toward the sociological in his explanation
of the origins of Greek genius, Zeller30 does not. For him, it is
more a matter of the peculiar temperament that the Greeks possessed,
seasoned here and there with factors from other cultures that entered
their lives. At root, however, it is the "Apolline clarity of the
Greek mind"31 that is the ultimate explanation, however much it may
have been influenced, temporarily and to varying degrees, by other
considerations. Thus:

Ionia in Asia Minor is the cradle of Greek philosophy. It was
here, in the colonies on the other side of the Aegean Sea, where
Homer's song first resounded, that Greek philosophy came into
being. Both were the product of the Ionic mind. This is unde-
niable however great the chronological difference may be, and
however far the cry from the Homeric hero to the Ionic thinker
and researcher. Homer and philosophy--these are the two poles
between which the world of Greek thought rotates.

The distinguishing characteristic of the Greek mentality is
its rational character, its recurrent stress on the mind and its role
in human affairs. And this is true from the beginnings of Greece
right on through the remainder of its intellectual history.

Even Homer's language betrays the intellectual structure of the
Greek mind. For even in the violent world of warrior heroes it
is mind that is superior and not the will, for which there is
actually no word. That a man's actions depend on the state of
his knowledge was as axiomatic to the Homeric poets as it was
to Socrates. They regarded what we call "character" as know-
ledge: a king "knows justice," a woman "knows chastity," the
savage Cyc10p "knows wantonness," the hate-filled Achilles
"knows wrath like a lion."33

This Greek intellectualism shows itself even in the realm of

religion, at least in the early days of Greece: "The Apolline clarity

of the Ionic mind, sifting and arranging, created out of the welter of

11

local cults the Olympian hierarchy, a model of the Ionic aristocracy
with their king at the head, a point which was made by Herodotus.
These human, all too human, gods are, with all the might that is
theirs, more products of an artistic imagination-than objects of
serious worship."34
A remarkable feature of the Greek rationalistic view of the
world and of life, however, is their conception of death and of the
transience of all things in this life:
Although naiveté has been with justice recognised as the most pro-
nounced characteristic of the Homeric poems, we should not over-
look the fact that they contain much reflection on the world and
life. . . . More important is the deep feeling for the transi-
ence of all earthly things which animates the Homeric man and is
all the stronger because for him life in the light of the sun is
alone the true life, against which the shadowy existence of Hades
is of little significance. The shortness of life and the suf-
fering of earthly existence gives rise to a variety of observa-
tions on the lot of the "poor mortal." Sometimes we find moods
of actual pessimism. . . .35
This rationalistic strain, thus started with Homer, is con—
tinued-in Hesiod, with certain modifications. Hesiod is, for in-
stance, at pains to try to bring some order into the multitude of the
gods by means of a genealogical arrangement.36 But, while remaining
within the pale of traditional ideas on the question of gods and men,
nevertheless also does he engage in some rational speculation, first
about cosmological matters37 and then about ethics, the latter coming
out most clearly in his myth of the five ages of the world. And he
therefore ". . . with his serious and meditative mind and his inten-
tion to tell men the truth and improve them morally, stands on the
border line between two epochs as the forerunner of speculative

thought."38

12

Having set up as the distinguishing characteristic of the early
Greeks their rational bent, whether in the area of religious thought
proper or in ethical speculation divorced from (or at least without
much relation to) that religious thought, Zeller then goes on to take
note of the phenomenon of the emancipation of the individual. His ac-
count of the factors influencing this development is much akin to that
of Windelband: extension of territorial properties, the contact with
other peoples and cultures that this entailed, the gradual ascendancy
of a "prosperous and ambitious bourgeoisie"39 against the aristocracy.
Again in agreement with Windelband, he cites manifestations of this
emancipation of the individual in the flowering of lyric poetry and
of Gnomic. As an over-all generalization, "The individual became
conscious of himself and his own strength and significance, burst the
bonds of custom, and put the new in the place of the traditional."40

Significantly, a new note and, in Zeller's view, one foreign to
the Greek character, begins to be heard in the sphere of religious
thought. Once the individual began to realize his own personal im-
portance, "The old popular cults no longer satisfied the new strong
emotions and the necessity for a personal relation between the indi-
vidual man and his God made itself felt."41 Zeller attributes this
felt need for interpersonal relationship with the divine to changes
in Greek life that had occurred: insecurity of life and property,
which the political revolutions had brought in their wake, could
scarcely help re-enforcing the feeling of the transience of everything

42

earthly noted above. But at this point a strange influence makes

itself felt in the appearance of the mystery religions. These, Zeller

13

feels, were imported from the Orient, via Thrace, to supply for the
deficiency of the Homeric cultic gods. For along with the transience
of earthly things was felt the need to have relationships with the
gods kept aright, with consequent fear of transgression. And, given
transgression, the necessity for ritual purification and atonement
made itself felt. Zeller cites as an example of this new tendency
the summoning to Athens of Epimenides of Crete, in order to purify
the city after its defilement by Cylon at the end of the seventh
century.43 In the wake of this development there enters into Greek
thought an element of the irrational: a mysticism, a religious awe
and fear, and--something completely foreign to the Greek mentality--
a certain asceticism and disparagement of the body.
This development prepared the ground for a quite new religion,
independent of the Olympian one: the Dionysian worship. Zeller
gives a somewhat protracted account of what this involved;44 perhaps,
however, it will suffice for our purposes to notice one critical doc-
trine that enters in, that of the dichotomy of the eternal soul and
the mortal body.45 In Zeller's words,
The Orphic mystery religion is a complete reversal of the true
Greek view of life, according to which the corporeal man is the
real man and the soul merely a sort of strengthless shadowy
image. In the Orphic philosophy on the other hand the eternal
and indestructible is the soul, while the body is transient, un-
clean, and contemptible.46

Whether or not this is, as Zeller contends, a "belief wholly foreign

to the Greek nature"47 (since almost the diametric opposite of the

rationalistic Greek that Zeller envisions), and whether or not it is

true to say that "the Greek mind in its maturity acquired an inde-

pendence of thought that was strong enough to break unaided through

14

the shell of myth and to fashion a new picture of the world in the
light of reason,"48 it is certainly true that this Greek adventure
into mysticism did manage to shake the authority of the Olympic re—
ligion and to change some of its forms. It may well be that
[the involvement in the mystery religions] may have worked like
a ferment in the minds of the men of that time and thus far have
given a new impulse to thought. The Greek of the sixth century
B.C. who was no longer satisfied with the traditional religion
had two courses open to him: that of rational thought and in-
vestigation, which the Ionic physicists followed, and that of
religious mysticism, to which Orphicism pointed the way.

Thus we see that, for Zeller, the chief factor responsible for
the Greek achievement was the innate rationalism of the Greek mind,
spurred on by historical factors and by the introduction of the
largely non-rational Orphic trend of thought to forge out new and
more satisfactory answers to questions relating to death and man's
security. In Zeller's own words,

Thus we find an explanation for the rise of Greek philosophy
primarily in the peculiar gifts of the Greek peOple, in which
understanding and imagination, rational and instinctive forces
were united in a fruitful combination. The enthusiastic element,
which was undeniably present in the Greek character, was tempered
by a feeling for truth and clarity. Their passionate disposition
was held in check by a sense of order and a love of moderation
and restrained by law, . . . Their philosophy is their own pe-
culiar creation which was bound to well up from the depths of
their nature, as soon as the progress of mental develOpment had
brought them beyond the childhood stage of myth and the Logos
boldly spread its pinions in quest of knowledge and truth. 0

The present writer confesses a certain sympathy for Zeller's
view, for it does seem that he at least provides an answer to the
question of why the Greeks, rather than some other culture, were the
ones to develop philosophy. Windelband, on the other hand, seems to

answer simply the question of why the Greeks did it, and leaves un-

touched the problem of whether some other group of people could have

15

accomplished the same task. Yet there remain serious problems with
Zeller's view as well. How does one account for this rationalism of
the Greeks, which Zeller seems largely to take as a datum? Perhaps
the idea is that this was simply the peculiar gift of the Greeks,
which no culture before them had possessed. But this is basically
unsatisfactory. Could it not be possible that they were somehow
forced to be rationalistic? However, before exploring this possi-

bility, let us turn to another author.
Guthrie

For W. K. C. Guthrie,51 Greek philosophy, properly so called,
began "when the conviction began to take shape in men's minds that
the apparent chaos of events must conceal an underlying order, and
that this order is the product of impersonal forces."52 Prior to
this, it does not seem at all unreasonable to man that his world may
be a baffling melange of conflicting events:

To the mind of a pre-philosOphical man, there is no special dif-
ficulty in accounting for the apparently haphazard nature of much
that goes on in the world. He knows that he himself is a creature
of impulse and emotion, actuated not only by reason but by de-
sires, love, hatred, high spirits, jealousy, vindictiveness.
What more natural than that the wa s of the world around him
should have a similar explanation? 3
That is to say, what more natural than that there should be no under—
lying principle of order Operative in the world, than that the world
itself should be the product of sheer happenstance and chance?

Guthrie sees this pre-philosophical mentality expressed in

religious polytheism:

He [pre—philosophical man] sees himself to be at the mercy of
superior and incomprehensible forces, which sometimes seem to

16

act with little regard for consistency or justice. Doubtless

they are the expression of beings like-minded with himself, only

longer-lived and more powerful.54
And thus it is that in Homeric times, everything has a personal ex-
planation: not just such external and physical phenomena as rain,
storms, thunder, sunshine, etc., but also human passions, outstanding
prowess in battle, and so forth: all are the work of some god or
goddess, to the pre-philosOphic mind. And the reason for this is
that

in this way human frailty provides for one of its most constant

needs, the need for an excuse. Responsibility for impulsive

action which is bound to be regretted when (in our significant

expression) the doer ”comes to himself" can be transferred from

the agent to an external compulsion.55

Philosophy, however, comes into being only when men come to

realize that there is no assortment of personal, super-human beings
who are responsible for man's actions and environment, that rather
the cosmos is under the sway of impersonal, not personal, forces, and
that underneath apparent disorder there is really order. Not that
this is a natural conclusion that one would reach upon observation of
the world around him. Quite the contrary:

We must recognize that in the prevailing state of knowledge the

religious explanation would seem by far the most natural and

probable. The world as our perceptions show it to us i§_chaotic

and inconsistent. The freedom and responsibility of personal

will, still more the unpredictable consequences of a clash of

conflicting wills, account for its vagaries, on a superficial

view, far better than the hypothesis of a single underlying

order.56

In this philosophic work of stripping away the anthropomorphic

gods and superhuman beings, the early Greek philosophers did, indeed,

find predecessors in the genealogies of the theologian and his idea

of the dasmos, or distribution of provinces and functions among the

17

gods; but ”The final stripping away of anthropomorphic imagery, with

all its momentous consequences for the free development of specula-

tion, was theirs [the philosophers'] alone."57

Thus, the origin of philoBOphy, in Guthrie's view:

The birth of philosophy in Europe, then, consisted in the abandon-
ment, at the level of conscious thought, of mythological solutions
to problems concerning the origin and nature of the universe and
the processes that go on within it. For religious faith there is
substituted the faith that was and remains the basis of scientific
thought with all its triumphs and all its limitations: that is,
the faith that the visible world conceals a rational and intel-
ligible order, that the causes of the natural world are to be
sought within its boundaries, and that autonomous human reason is
our sole and sufficient instrument for the search.58

We might ask, however, how it was that men came to throw off
the shackles of anthrOpomorphism. Guthrie's explanation centers
around the circumstances in which the early philosophers lived. For
instance, the considerable luxury of Miletus gave rise to leisure,
almost to the point of luxuriousness, with accompanying materialistic
outlook.59 And, in such a situation, "[Miletus'] high standard of
living was too obviously the product of human energy, resource, and
initiative for it to acknowledge any great debt to the gods."60 As
for the gods themselves, Guthrie considers the saying of the poet
Mimnermus as an appropriate expression of the esteem in which they
were held: "'From the gods we know neither good nor evil.”61

Another factor was that, once given this initial impulse to
dispense with the gods in this materialistic culture that was Miletus,
"Its development was facilitated by the fact that neither here nor in
any other Greek state was freedom of thought inhibited by the demands
of a theocratic form of society such as existed in the neighbouring

Oriental countries."62

18

Furthermore, the knowledge that the Greeks acquired was not per-
force put to practical ends, as it was in neighboring cultures.

The torch of philosophy was not lit in Egypt, for they lacked the
necessary spark, that love of truth and knowledge for their own
sakes. . . . Philosophy (including pure science) can only be ham-
pered by utilitarian motives, since it demands a greater degree

of abstraction from the world of immediate experience, wider
generalization and a freer movement of the reason in the sphere

of pure concepts than submission to practical ends will allow.

It is perfectly true, in Guthrie's view, that the Greeks inherited a
considerable amount of knowledge from their neighbors: Babylonian
astronomy, Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics, Egyptian and Summarian
metalwork, Asian textiles, to mention only some. But the Greeks added

something that no one else had:

These peoples, then, were the neighbours and in some things the
teachers of the Greeks; they were content when by trial and
error they had evolved a technique that worked. They proceeded
to make use of it, and felt no interest in the further question
of why it worked, no doubt because the realm of causes was still
governed by religious dogma instead of being open to the free
debate of reason. Here lies the fundamental difference between
them and the Greeks.64

Back of this ability to ask "why," Guthrie sees a peculiar
gift of the Greeks, that of abstract thought. Whereas the Egyptians
had thought of geometry as a matter of individual rectangular or tri-
angular fields, the Greeks lift it from the plane of the concrete and
material and proceed to think about rectangles and triangles in them-

selves. In fact,

. . . their material embodiment ceases to be of any importance,
and we have made the discovery which above all others stands to
the especial credit of the Greeks: the discovery of form.

. . . [This] marks the advance from percepts to concepts, from
individual examples perceived by sight or touch to the universal
notion which we conceive in our minds . . . in geometry: [for
instance], no longer triangles but the nature of triangularity
and the consequences which logically and necessarily flow from
being a triangle.55

I. «(A1-kkbe
. v .

19

Perhaps we can now summarize Guthrie's contribution, and reflect
upon it. Philosophy began when men envisioned a unity at work in the
world which was the result of an impersonal, directive force. This
viewpoint replaced the older, polytheistic one, which made personal
deities responsible for events in the world and saw no need for postu—
lating an underlying unity. The shift in viewpoint was the product
of wealth and leisure, which led to a materialistic viewpoint and
consequent ignoring of the gods, added to the innate Greek curiosity
about why things should be as they are and the Greek ability to engage
in abstract thought.

What can be said about all this? First, that there is much here
that is useful and unquestionably true. Doubtless the replacement of
polytheism by rationalistic endeavor does mark the beginnings of phil-
osophy. Unquestionably the gods of Olympus were held in little repute,
generally speaking, in the centuries that followed Homer.66 Certainly
the conviction of unity as opposed to unquestioned plurality is a mark
of philosophy in its early stages. But some questions remain un-
answered. The disregard of the traditional Greek religion, which
Guthrie rightly stresses, is not accounted for simply by wealth and
materialism, in the present writer's view. If it were so, then it
ought to follow that every wealthy civilization should be irreligious
and, given the ability of abstract thought, ought also to be philo-
sophical. Neither of these, it seems to me, is the case. To return
to the counterexample proposed at a previous point in this chapter:
the Hebrews were certainly a wealthy civilization on at least one oc-

casion (the period wherein David and Solomon reigned). They were not,

20

however, irreligious. (Neither were they philosophical, though one
would not expect them to be; the inability of the Israelites of that
time to think in abstract terms is notorious.) Furthermore, the same

argument ought to apply, debitis mutandis, to the civilization of

 

Rome, which certainly was a wealthy civilization on more than one oc-
casion and, however religious or irreligious they might have been,
certainly originated precious little philosophy of lasting value,
although Romans certainly were capable of considerable degrees of

abstract thought (in the spheres of law and government, for instance).

Copleston

It is possible to handle Copleston's treatment67 fairly briefly,
since his remarks on our subject are few. Nevertheless, as will ap-
pear later, they appear to this writer to be cogent, if undeveloped.

Having remarked first on the rational character of the early
Greeks and their contacts with foreign cultures,68 Copleston then goes
on to observe that one curious factor in the development of the Greek
genius was the absence of any sort of "orthodoxy" in religious and
ethical matters:

Moreover, owing to the character of the Greek religion, they were
free from any priestly class that might have strong traditions
and unreasoned doctrines of their own, tenaciously held and im-
parted only to a few, which might hamper the deve10pment of free
science.

But there is more here than simply the absence of possible op-
pression of "free thinkers":

. . . one can agree . . . that Greek philosophy was from the first
thought pursued in the spirit of free science. It may with some

have tended to take the place of religion, both from the point of
view of belief and conduct; yet this was due to the inadequacy of

21
Greek religion rather than to any mythological or mystical
character in Greek philosOphy.7

And that, apart from a remark or two about the presence even
in developed philosophy of some elements of the ancient myths,71 is
about all that Copleston has to say on the subject. But these few
remarks contain a real germ of inquiry. For the question occurs,
just what was the relationship between Greek religion and Greek
philosophy? Copleston remarks that the Greek religion was inadequate;
in what ways, one wonders, is this true? And did this have any effect
on the development of Greek rationalistic thought?

It will eventually be the thesis of this present writer that
the inadequacy of the Greek religion was indeed a critical factor in
the development of the peculiar genius of the Greeks. But before
this can be developed, two other authors must be considered, for they
too see significance in the role of Greek religion. Yet their theo-

ries will differ from what this study will eventually advocate.
Cornford

If Windelband's explanation of the origin of Greek genius has a
sociological tinge, as has been suggested,72 that of Cornford is un-
abashedly sociological in its whole tenor.73 Beginning with the con-
sideration that the philosophical thought of the Greeks did not sud-
denly appear on the earth without antecedents or ancestry, Cornford
remarks:

But, when we dwell upon this liberty of thought, we must not be
misled into putting another construction upon it, and imagining
that Thales or Anaximander was like Adam on the day of his crea-

tion, with no tradition behind him, no inherited scheme of
things, opening his innocent eyes on a world of pure sense

22

impressions not as yet co-ordinated into any conceptual scheme.74
Cornford's notion will be that the philosophic thought of the Greeks
did indeed have its antecedents in their religious thought, and the
latter found its roots in the Greeks' progression from herd conscious-
ness to individual consciousness. But perhaps this is to state the
matter too simply, and it will be_better simply to follow the deve10p-
ment of Cornford's argument.

Cornford attempts to trace the ancestry of several prominent
Milesian themes, among them the nature (or odcts) of things, God or
Spirit, and Soul. It would take far too long to follow Cornford's
development of all three of these themes; fortunately, it is not
necessary to do so, as the pattern of argumentation is basically the
same in all three. We will sketch out, then, only his views on the
ancestry of TOOLS; and even this will be limited to two aspects which
aficts was seen to possess: those of Destiny and of Law.

Noting, then, that the cosmology of Anaximander includes three
factors, (1) a primary "stuff" or odots, (2) an order, disposition,
or structure into which this "stuff" is distributed, and (3) the pro-
cess by which this order arose,75 Cornford sets out to discover the
source of the second of these. His purpose:

The point we hope to bring out is that this scheme was not in-
vented by Anaximander, but taken over by him from pre-scientific
representation, and that this fact explains those of its charac-
teristics which seem most obscure and gratuitous.
He notes that, for Anaximander, the secular process of birth and
perishing is described in moral language; thus the passage of things
back into the four elements is termed "making reparation" or "paying

the penalty of injustice," and the inference is "that injustice was

AA 4

23

committed in the very fact of their birth into separate existence."77
Both Fate and Right have set the bounds of the original elemental
order, and therefore the power presiding over the physical order is
moral.78 But this seems to involve a paradox: the order of our world
is, precisely, disorder. How is this possible?

Cornford then traces this conception of order in the world back
to the early religious representations in Homer and in Hesiod. In
Anaximander, the elements are assigned to their provinces nerd 13
xpsdv--according to what is ordained; in this conception, Necessity
and Right are united.79 In Homer, something similar occurs: the gods
themselves are subordinate to a remote power, which is both primary
(i.e., older than the gods) and moral: Moira, or Destiny, which is
not the creation of the gods and against which they cannot stand.
Moira, however, is not a blind and senseless barrier of impossibility;
rather, it is a moral decree that forms the boundary of right and
wrong. The twin notions of Destiny and Right which Moira involves are
hardly distinguished, although it does seem possible for man to go be-
yond what is Right (thereby inviting punishment) but not beyond
Destiny. For gods and men alike there are certain destined bounds
which normally and rightly circumscribe their power. It is just pos-
sible to exceed them, but only at the cost of provoking an instant
nemesis. Thus what seems ironclad is not the question of physical im-
possibility (a notion which Cornford thinks is apparently absent in
Homer), but rather the moral boundary.80

Further investigation into the nature of Moira shows that at

root the basic notion is one of "part" or "allotted portion": the

i
l
24 ii
gods as well as men have their allotted portion or sphere, either a
department of nature or a field of activity. The developed concept
of Moira is simply a generalization of this. The original conception
of Moira is a spatial one: there exists a system of provinces, co-
existing side by side, with clearly marked boundaries, which are not
to be transgressed without the penalty of nemesis.81
Turning to Hesiod, Cornford finds the same general conception
of Moira, although with added dimensions as well: here there is a
temporal notion added to the spatial one, in that the separation of
the world into elemental provinces is older in time than the birth of
the gods. Furthermore, the parcelling out of these provinces is an
act of division, repulsion, strife.82 In Hesiod, the division of
the world is into the four elements:
Here, then, we find, as a distinct stage in cosmogony, a division
of the world into three portions (uotpat), just as in Homer "all
things were divided into three," and the three provinces were as-
signed to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. The starry heaven is for
Zeus, the sea for Poseidon; for Hades remains either the "misty
darkness"--that is, the air--or the earth, according as it is be-
lieved that the dead, whose lord he is, dwell in the western
darkness beyond the sunset, or underground.83
These elements, in Hesiod, have a status parallel to the gods in
Homer: both have their appointed regions and departments, and both
are subject to Moira. Cornford's summary of all this:
Thus far we have found a departmental ordering of the world estab-
lished in religious representation long before it is affirmed by
philosophy. Further, in religion and philosoPhy alike, this dis-
position is both primary and moral. The physical order is guarded
by the same powers that punish moral transgression--those minis-
ters of justice or Erinyes, the Moirai in their darkest as-
pect° . . . This conception of the primary world-order is taken
over by Anaximander with its main outline unchanged, and, above
all, its moral character unquestioningly retained. The mutual

strife of the elements in their perpetual aggression is an
"injustice"--an infringement of moral boundaries. So far the

25

philosophic representation is identical with the religious; where

Anaximander innovates is in making the primary order partly the

effect of a mechanical cause--the "eternal motion"--and in elim-

inating the gods, whose place is taken by the elements, out of

which, according to Hesiod, the gods had arisen.84

However, Cornford's thesis is not simply that philosophy super-
seded religion. More exactly, his idea is that religion itself is an
interloper which had superseded something else, and that philosophy
is in part a restoration of that earlier, more primitive force. For
it is noticeable that Moira is impersonal: it is a moral power
indeed, but not necessarily a benevolent one or one with any particu-
lar interest in the wishes of mankind. Foresight, purpose, etc., are
not credited to Moira; rather, it is a blind, automatic force that
leaves subordinate wills their free play, as long as they do not
transgress their boundaries.85 Except for its moral character, Moira
is not a particularly religious conception, even though it is the
ultimate force in the universe as seen by Greek polytheism. "It would
be a conception of the same order as the notion of Natural Law, which
has taken its place in modern thought."86 Being impersonal, Mdira was
liable to be superseded by a more personal conception of how the uni-
verse was run: in other words, its position vis-i-vis the gods was
likely to be reversed in men's minds.87 And traces of exactly this
process are found in Hesiod. Through such theological conceptions as
the great oath of the gods, the role of the Styx in conferring the
primacy upon Zeus, and others, this process, over a period of time,
did in fact take place; in developed religious consciousness, the
88

gods tend to become masters of Moira instead of vice-verse.

The process, then, from primitive religious consciousness up to

26

the time of Anaximander, is as follows:

We find, in fact, that the basis and framework of Greek poly-
theism is an older form of that very order of Destiny and Justice
which is reaffirmed by nascent science in the cosmology of
Anaximander. Out of the provinces of that dispensation, the
personal powers which had taken shape within them have disappeared
again. The gods have faded, and we are left with the elements
from which Hesiod tells us that the gods arose. Seen against the
background of the destined order, the life of the gods from first
to last shows up as a mere episode. Nature--the living and self-
moving stuff of all things that exist--and the primary forms in
which her upswinging life is confined by the appointment of
Destiny and Justice-—these are older than the gods and they out-
last them. The course of philos0phy starts from the same point
from which, centuries earlier, religion took its departure on the
way that led to the last and fatal absurdities of complete anthro-
pomorphism.89

Cornford then embarks on an investigation of where the primitive
concept of Moira itself came from. He admits that there are few
enough facts on which to base the inquiry:

Hitherto we have been guided by survivals in Greek thought and
linguistic usage, which gave us a sufficient basis for recon-
struction. But at this point we must either fold our hands and
rest content, like the Greeks themselves, in the contemplation of
Moira as a final and inexplicable fact, or we must have recourse
to our knowledge of other religious systems of a type indisputably
more primitive than any recorded for us in Greek sources. We must
boldly enter the domain of hypothesis, taking for our guide the
comparative method.90

 

The question, then, is this: granted for the moment that
Anaximander stripped away the barnacles of polytheism which had col-
lected on the earlier representation of Moira as a departmental order-
ing of the cosmos, where did this conception itself of the moral order
of the world come from? Cornford's thesis is that it arises as a col-
lective representation, meaning by this latter term, in the ideas of
Levy-Bruhl, notions that are (1) common to members of a given social
group, (2) transmitted from generation to generation, (3) imposed on

the individuals within that group, and (4) awaken in the group's

27

members feelings of reapect, awe, adoration, etc.91 These are not,
however, dogmas or formulated creeds, but rather are inalienable and
ineradicable frameworks of conception, apparatuses of concepts and
categories within which we do our thinking. These frameworks are
provided us by the societies in which we live, are embodied in the
very language we use, are imbibed by us at our mothers' knee.92 Such
collective representations, which in Cornford's view are the basic
stuff of moralities and religions,93 are imposed upon the individual
at an early age, with sufficient emotional power to make them lasting
and unquestioned:
Religions and moralities are epidemic now as they have always
been. They are transmitted contagiously by herd suggestion, and
each tends to spread over an area as is covered by a type of
mentality homogeneous enough to absorb that particular mode of
belief.9
And the collective representation of the ordered universe
itself: where did it come from? Cornford's hypothesis is direct:
Moira came to be supreme in nature because it was first supreme in
human society, which was seen to be continuous with nature.
We think we understand why positive laws of conduct are still en-
forced by these emotions. If we were called upon to maintain
them, we should urge that, in the main, they correspond to prac-
tical interests at all times important for the existence or well-
being of socialized humanity. But why should this same emotional

sacntion ever have become attached to beliefs about the order and
structure of non-human nature. . . ? When the question is thrown

into this shape, the answer lies near at hand. It is this: Moira

came to be supreme in Nature over all the subordinate wills of men
and gods because she was first supreme in human society, which was
continuous with Nature. Here, too, we find the ultimate reason
why Destiny is moral: she defines the limits of m2?2§4.°f social
custom.95

To put this in the concrete, Cornford believes that Moira came to be

a collective representation simply because of tribal boundaries: it

28

was necessary for peace and, indeed, for the preservation of the group
that its boundaries be clearly marked out from those of other tribes,
and theirs from its. Within their own sphere, members of the tribe
were free to operate and live; overstepping the bounds of the al-

lotted geographical region, however, meant transgressing the territory

of another group and brought with it retribution.96

Two further quotations from Cornford's work will suffice to con-
clude this already over-long exposition of his theory.

Here at last we touch the bedrock. Behind philosophy lay religion:
behind religion, as we now see, lies social custom-~the structure
and institutions of the human group. . . . Now it appears that
Moira is simply a projection, or extension, of Nduos [constitu-
tional order] from the tribal group to the elemental grouping of
the cosmos.97

We are now in a position to formulate the answer to our main
question, as follows: Primitive beliefs about the nature of the
world were sacred (religious or moral) beliefs, and the structure
of the world was itself a moral or sacred order because, in cer-
tain early phases of social development, the structure and be-
havior of the world were held to be continuous with-~a mere ex-
tension or projection of—-the structure and behavior of human

societx.93'

In the pages in his book that follow, Cornford makes a similar

 

analysis of the origins of the other major themes of Milesian thought,
i.e., God and soul. We shall not follow him in these; the analyses
take much the same form as that of Moira. But some sort of reflection
and comment would seem to be called for in regard to the analysis that
we have traced out.

First of all, it is certainly legitimate enough to suppose that
Cornford is quite correct in supposing that one ought not approach the
Milesians "as if Thales had suddenly drOpped from the sky, and as he

bumped the earth, ejaculated, 'Everything must be made of water!”99

29

As Cornford remarked on another occasion, "The philosophic Muse is not
a motherless Athena."100 Yet Cornford's tracing out of the ancestry
'3f Greek thought makes the reader wonder whether what is really going
on is not an instance of "post hoc ergo propter hoc," even supposing
that the "hoc" in question is accurately delineated. From the fact
that primitive peoples held rigid lines in their thinking about tribal
boundaries (granted for the moment that they did so), does it follow
that these ideas got projected upon the entire cosmos? Perhaps they
did; but it is an understatement to say that this has not been demon-
strated. And even supposing that such a projection did occur: is it
established that primitive ideas like this have an innate sticking
power such that they permeate the mentality of men who live centuries
after the original tribe? Once again, perhaps they do. But this is
scarcely established.

However, in all fairness, it must be recalled that Cornford
himself termed his theory an hypothesis. But even this needs to be
qualified to the extent of saying that it is an unproved hypothesis,
however likely or unlikely it might strike individual scholars as
being. Furthermore, it is only as accurate as the sociology that
underlies it.

The present study, however, is not an exercise in sociology.

And the point of the exposition of Cornford's theory is not to estab-
lish definitively whether he was right or wrong; it is rather merely
to give another instance of the vast diversity of thought that exists
on the subject of the origins of Greek philosophy. And on that basis,
perhaps we may be permitted to leave Cornford's work as it stands and

turn to the final author whom we shall consider in this chapter.

30

Burnet

In his study of the early Greek period,101 John Burnet remarks

that the Greeks felt needs that a philosOphy of nature and a philos-
ophy of conduct could satisfy only after the traditional view of the
world and the traditional rules of conduct had broken down. But the
breakdown of the two was not a simultaneous process: "The ancestral
maxims of conduct were not seriously questioned till the old view of
nature had passed away: and, for this reason, the earliest philos-
ophers busied themselves mainly with speculations about the world
around them."102 Thus we have, it would seem, an ancient version of
science vs. religion, with science winning the battle.

Observing that it is the Aegean civilization, rather than the
later Achaian one, to which we really owe the Greek genius, Burnet
contends that this older civilization must have had a tolerably con-
sistent view of the world long ago, although we have as yet no idea
of what that view might have been.103 However, the Achaian invaders
assisted the free development of the Greek genius by breaking up the
powerful monarchies of earlier days and particularly by checking the
growth of a superstition such as that which ultimately stifled Egypt
and Babylon.104 Furthermore, the invaders brought with them the
Olympian religion, even though this was to assume the artistic form
and stamp of the older civilization?5 This was significant, for

It [the Olympian religion] could not become oppressive to them
as the old Aegean religion might very possibly have done. It
was probably due to the Achaians that the Greeks never had a

priestly class, and that may well have had something to do with
the rise of free science among them.106

Homer was an Aegean, and yet we find few remnants of the ancient

HA." '-:.- 1r: 9

31

world-view in his epic; hence this must have been discarded at a

fairly early date.107 Yet there are traces of this older Aegean view

in Hesiod, since he is the poet of the common people, among whom the

older view had never died out.108 Nevertheless,-Hesiod too is af-

fected by the Achaian influence: despite the savage tales he relates,

the tales concern the Olympian gods, whom he is trying to systematize.

And thus,

The Olympian pantheon took the place of the older gods in men's
minds, and this was quite as much the doing of Hesiod as of Homer.
The ordinary man would hardly recognize his gods in the humanized
figures, detached from all local associations, which poetry had
substituted for the older objects of worship. Such gods were in-
capable of satisfying the needs of the people.1

Furthermore, Hesiod constructs a theogony in his poem-~something that
would not occur to a primitive man, who does not feel called upon to
form an idea of the beginnings of things. Chaos and Eros, of whom

Hesiod sings, are speculative figures, however much they may be

blurred in his poem.110

One remarkable fact about the Ionians, thinks Burnet, is that
they were much impressed with the transitoriness of things. There is
a fundamental pessimism in their outlook on life which is a perfectly

logical outcome for an overcivilized age with no definite religious

convictions.111 This had repercussions in their philosophy, for

. . . this sentiment always finds its best illustrations in the
changes of the seasons, and the cycle of growth and decay is a far
more striking phenomenon in Aegean lands than in the North, and
takes still more clearly the form of a war of opposites, hot and
cold, wet and dry. It is, accordingly, from that point of view
that the early cosmologists regard the world. The opposition of
day and night, summer and winter, with their suggestive parallel-
ism in sleeping and waking, birth and death, are the outstanding
features of the world as they saw it.112

This process of encroachment of opposites is described in terms

‘v ‘._3__._.._.

32

taken from human society, since in the early days the regularity and

constancy of human life was far more clearly realized than the uni-

formity of nature.113 And so,

That is why the encroachment of one Opposite on another was spoken
of as an injustice (éétnfa) and the due observance of a balance
between them as justice (éfnn). The later word xéouog is based on
this notion too. It meant originally the discipline of an army,
and next the ordered constitution of a state.114

However, this was not enough. The earliest cosmologists were
not satisfied with the view of the world as a perpetual contest be-
tween opposites; they felt that these opposites must somehow have a
common ground, from which they had issued and to which they must re-
turn once more. "They were in search of something more primary than
the Opposites, something which persisted though all changed, and
ceased to exist in one form only to reappear in another."115 This
common substance they termed ¢60L§ (épxfi is an Aristotelian term, in
Burnet's view).116

Now, if this is so, we can understand at once why the Ionians
called science Hep? ofiosws iatopfn. We shall see that the

growing thought which may be traced through the successive repre-
sentatives of any school is always that which concerns the primary
substance, whereas the astronomical and other theories are, in the
main, peculiar to the individual thinkers. The chief interest of
all is the quest for what is abiding in the flux of things.117

In all this, however, there is no trace of theological specula-
tion. "We have seen that there had been a complete break with the
early Aegean religion, and that the Olympian polytheism never had a
firm hold on the Ionian mind. It is therefore quite wrong to look for
the origins of Ionian science in mythological ideas of any kin ."118

At least, Burnet claims, this was the situation in Ionia, what-

ever may be said for the remainder of Greece. It was only after the

33

coming of the Achaians that the Greeks were able to establish their
settlements on the coast of Asia Minor, and there was no traditional
background there at all; Ionia was a country without a past.119 As
for the fact that the Ionians called their primary substance Beds,
Burnet says that this means no more and no less than the use of the
epithets "ageless" and "deathless," which they also applied to it.
This particular 366; was never worshipped, according to the custom
that had come in of using 866; in a secular sense.120
Burnet next faces the vexed and vexing question of Oriental in-
fluence on the early Greeks, and dismisses it rather abruptly. It is
foolish, he says, to look for a Greek borrowing of Egyptian and
Babylonian philosOphy until it becomes established that these nations
had a philosophy to begin with.121 Even when borrowings can be shown,
as in the area of mathematics, Burnet claims an originality for the
Greeks: the Egyptians may indeed have had loyLorLufi, but they cer—
tainly did not have anything like doneunttxfi, or the scientific study
of numbers.122 The same sort of criticism applies to the assertion
that the Greeks borrowed from Babylonian astronomy. In addition to
the fact that the early Ionians do not talk about the stars very much,
there is the consideration that the Babylonians performed their as-
tronomy for practical purposes, whereas Greek thought on the subject
was speculative.123 By way of summary of all this, Burnet says:
We may sum up all this by saying that the Greeks did not borrow
either their philosophy or their science from the East. They did,
however, get from Egypt certain rules of mensuration which, when
generalized, gave birth to geometry: while from Babylon they
learnt that the phenomena of the heavens recur in cycles. This
piece of knowledge doubtless had a great deal to do with the rise

of science; for to the Greek it suggested further questions such
as no Babylonian ever dreamt of.

34

By way of a summary of Burnet's views on the origin of the Greek
genius, then, we may say that he traces it first to a breakdown in the
scientific view of the world that had been held in ancient times; this
in turn led to a questioning of accepted views in other areas, such as
ethics. In Ionia, there was a felt need to find something more stable
and permanent underneath the apparent transitoriness of all things;
having neither a set scientific view nor a set religious background
from which to draw this stability, the Ionians proceeded to search for
it by means of Speculative reason, something for which they had a pe-
culiar gift not found in other cultures of the time.

One wonders, however, whether the same comment that was applied
to Cornford might not fit the case of Burnet. In his confidence that
the earlier world-view of the Aegeans had faded from mind, there is a
good deal asserted--but considerably less established. One thing that
is not established is precisely whether or not there was this earlier
world view. It will be remembered that even Burnet says that we can
know very little of what it might have been--even granting its ex-
istence. Furthermore, Burnet's ordering of the rise of philOSOphic
thought (scientific thought first, and only later ethical) seems less
than certain. This fact will become more apparent as the present
study proceeds. Perhaps it was, indeed, this way. But perhaps too
there is a certain amount of retrojection of modern history, with its

science-vs.-religion mentality, back into the past.

**************

We have now come to the end of this brief sampling of opinion

on the origins of the Greek genius. The explanations prOposed have

\

H“)

35

differed from one another considerably; what one author has seen as
critical may have been dismissed as unimportant by another. Yet the
one point on which all would agree, it seems to the present writer, is
that the question does not admit of a simple, uncomplicated answer.
The origins of Greek genius, no less than that genius itself, are
multi—faceted.

It is probably clear at this point that the present writer feels
that one of these facets could stand careful scrutiny. This is the
role that Greek religion played: how did it influence the pre-
Socratics? The following chapters will attempt to study this
question, on a scale, however, limited in two respects: first, it
will confine itself to the Olympian religion, leaving aside the tre-
mendously complicated (and better studied) contribution of the mystery
religions. Secondly, it will attempt to trace the influence of this
religion in only two of the pre-Socratics, Empedocles and Heraclitus.
The reasons for these limitations are pragmatic: to attempt anything
else is to undertake a far larger task than would be appropriate to a
dissertation. Admittedly, an adequate investigation of the question
would indeed require delving into the influence of the mystery re-
ligions, and would require tracing the influence of both religious
strands in all the pre-Socratics. But this is a task for research in
later years.

By way of preparation for examining the text of these two phil-
osophers, it seems necessary first to devote some pages to the Olym-
pian religion, to see in some degree what it was, what it taught, what

it required of man. This will be the task of the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

1Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy (westmin-
ster: The Newman Press, 1966), I, 16.

2Cf. Bernhard Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), passim.

3Cf., for instance, the work of Mendenhall on the Hittite civil-
ization (Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East [Pitts-
burgh, 1955]).

4The reader may well find himself distressed to discover omitted
from these pages the theory, espoused to some degree by Gilbert Murray
(Five Stages of Greek Religion [New York: Columbia University Press,
1925]) and to a greater extent by E. R. Dodds (The Greeks and the Ir-
rational [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951]), on the
link between the Greeks and the irrational element in man's life. To
some extent, this omission is simply an instance of the general dic-
tum, expressed in the text, that a complete enumeration of theories
on the subject of the origins of Greek philosophy is neither possible
nor necessary for the work of this study. Yet, another consideration
is operative in the omission of the Murray-Dodds thesis:‘ the author
feels that any sort of fair evaluation of the theory must await the
judgment of history on the whole question of the importance of the ir-
rational factor in man's religious and ethical origins. The Murray-
Dodds theory could, indeed, be presented; it could not, however, be
judged. Consequently, in view of the aims of the chapter, I have pre-
ferred simply to omit it rather than risk being unfair to it.

5Cf. supra, p. l.

6Emile Bréhier, The History of Philosophy, tr. Joseph Thomas
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).

71bids, I, 3.

81bid.

loIbid., I, s.

lle. infra, pages lOff and 30ff.

36

t? q

37

12W. Windelband, History of Ancient Philosophy, tr. Herbert

Ernest Cushman (New York: Dover, 1956).

13Ibide' ppe 16-17.

14Ibide' p. 170

lsIbid.

16Ibid., p. 18.

17Ibid.

laIbid.

lgIbid.

2oIbid.

ZlIbid., pp. 18-19.

221bid., p. 19.

23Ibid., p. 20.

24Ibide' pp. 20-21.

25Ibid., p. 22.

26Ibid., p. 24.

27Ibid., p. 25.

28Ibid., p. 26.

 

3oEduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy,
tr. L. R. Palmer (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1967).

31Ibid., p. 25.

321b1d.. pp. 24-25.
33Ibid., p. 25.
34Ibid.

351bid., p. 26.

36Ibid., p. 27.

38

agxbide ' pe 28.

40Ibid., p. 29.

421bid.

43Ibid., p. 30.

44Ibid., pp. 31ff. On this point, cf. also Zeller's A History
of Greek Philosophy, tr. S. F. Alleyne (London: Longmans, Green, and
Co., 1881), I, 59ff.

45Zeller, Outlines, op.cit., p. 31.

461b1d., p. 32.

 

47Ibid., p. 33.

481b1dol PP. 33‘34.

491b1d., p. 34.

50Ibid., Pp. 35-36. It will be noted that this study does not
give an exposition of Zeller's refutation of the "Oriental origins"
thesis mentioned above in connection with Bréhier. This is an omis-
sion at once deliberate and pragmatic: it would lead us very far
astray from the point of this study, since it is a refutation of a
theory and not a new theory itself; furthermore, the refutation is
quite lengthy. It can be found in Outlines, cp.cit., pp. 33f., and
at even greater length in Zeller's History, op.cit., pp. 26ff.

51

 

W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge:
University Press, 1962).

szlbid., I, 26.

53Ibid.

 

Ibid.

551bid., I, 27.

SGIbide ' I, 28.

57Ibide ' I, 290

F C

39

Ibid., I, 31.

64Ibide I I, 35-36.

651bid., I, 36-37.

66One could cite an exception to Guthrie's contention, however,
in the Oresteia of Aeschylus. Nevertheless, as an ut in pluribus sort
of statement, Guthrie's words seem defensible enough.

67Copleston, A History of Philosophy, op.cit.

68Ibid., p. 15.

69Ibid., p. 16.

7°Ib1d.

711bid., p. 17.

72Cf. supra, p. 9.

73F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (New York: Harper
and Row, 1965).

 

74Ibid., pp. 2-3.

751bid., p. 9.

761bid., pp. 9-10.

77Ibide' p. 10.

781bid.

79Ibid., p. 11.

eoIbide ' pp. 11-130
811bid., pp. 14-17. Cornford cites as a primary locus for thil

interpretation of Moira the words of Poseidon in XV Iliad, where the
sea god protests the interference of Zeus into his province.

4O

821bid.: pp. l7ff.

83Ibid., p. 17.

84Ibid., p. 19.

85Ibid., p. 20.

86$bid.. p. 21. It would be of no small interest to know pre-
cisely what Cornford's conception of Natural Law was.

87Ibid.

eelbide ' pp. 21.-26o

891bid., p. 39.

90Ibid., p. 41, emphasis added. One might add that we are also
entering the domain of French sociology of the early years of the
present century, as represented, for example, by L. Lévy-Bruhl or
E. Durkheim.

91Levy-Bruhl, Fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inferieures,
1910, quoted in Cornford, 1.c., pp. 43—44.

 

92Cornford, op.cit., p. 45.

93Ibid., pp. 46f.

94Ibid., p. 49. This entertaining mg£_apparently enjoys in
Cornford's mind the status of what the Schoolmen might call a factum
omnino evidens. Others might think that the ”a" of the Latin substan-
tive really ought to be an "i"; in any event, Cornford does not dally
to bolster his assertion with evidence.

95££i§,. p. 51, emphasis present in the original.

961bid., pp. Slff.

97Ibid., p. 54.

98$bi§,. p. 55, emphasis present in the original.

99F. M. Cornford, Thucydides Mythistoricus, quoted by W. x. C.
Guthrie in his introduction to Cornford's The Unwritten Philosophy
and Other Essays (Cambridge: University Press, 1967). P. x.

looAlso quoted by Guthrie in Cornford's Unwritten Philosophy,

op.cit., p. ix.

101John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (London: Adam & Charles
Black, 1948).

 

41

1°21b1d., p. 1.

1°31b1d., p. 2.
104Ibid., pp. 2-3.
105

Ibid., p. 3.

106Ibid., p. 4.

107Ibidel PP. 4-5.

loaxbid. ' p. S 0

109Ibid., p. 6.

110Ibid., p. 7.

lllIbid., p. 8.

llZIbid.

113Ibid., p. 9.

114Ibid.

llsIbid.

116Ibid., p. 10.

117Ib1do’ pp. 11-120
llelbide’ P0 13.
1191bid., p. 14.

120

Ibid. It is at this point that Burnet takes cognizance of
Cornford's study, which we have already seen. His comment: "He
[Cornford] fails to realize how completely the old 'collective repre-
sentations' had lost their hold in Ionia." (P. 14n.)
121Ibid., pp. 17-18. Lest this paragraph seem somewhat incon-
sistent with the earlier refusal to discuss this question of Oriental
influence in any length (cf. supra, p. 38, note 50), it should be
noted that Burnet's remarks that this paragraph contains are by no
means his only thoughts on the subject. His full treatment of the
question is nearly as long as that of Zeller, and for that same reason
is not included here. However, the subject is such that at least some-
thing ought to be said on it in a survey like this; and Burnet's ampu-
tation of the whole question ad genua seems to fulfill this purpose.

1221bid., p. 19.

l23mm” pp. Zlff.

124Ibid., p. 24.

42

._.‘_—.—. x.-
1‘

 

CHAPTER TWO
THE RELIGION OF THE GREEKS

"Heu nihil invitis fas quemquam fidere divis."

--Vergil, Aeneid, II, 402.

The title of this chapter is, in some ways, a misnomer. The in-
ference could be made from it that the Greeks did possess a single,
somewhat coherently structured religion; but the inference would be
wrong on several counts. There is, for one thing, the difference be-
tween the Olympian religion and the mystery religions which has al-
ready been remarked elsewhere in this study.1 Also, however, and more
importantly, the Olympian religion itself is no simple, uncluttered
phenomenon. Anyone at all familiar with Homer is aware of the welter
of gods, goddesses, and semi-divine persons of one stature or another
that carried on their various (and often mutually hostile) activities
between snowy Olympus and earth. Upon analysis, the religion preva-
lent in Greece around the time of the pre-Socratics shows itself to be
an amalgum of many factors.2 The general picture which emerges is
that of the Olympian religion acting as an interloper, coming into
Greece with the advent of the Achaians, and becoming assimilated by
(rather than itself superseding) the religious thought of the native

population while at the same time profoundly influencing that native

43

 

44 ‘i

thought. This process was not a smooth one; it will appear later in
this chapter that a good deal of stretching and accommodating had to
be done in order to eliminate at least the most glaring of the contra-

dictions that arose.

The Gods: Who They Were

 

An unknown author once listed the names of the twelve major
Olympian deities in two hexameters:

Juno, Vesta, Ceres, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.

The matter is, of course, considerably more complicated than that, for
the major deities are only a part of the pantheon. The reader of
Homer is acquainted with many other divine beings; in fact, he might
well wish that a neat ordering of all the gods such as the hexameters
achieve for the major ones could be accomplished. Homer, however,
makes no such attempt to systematize the gods or their activities.
Such questions as the relationship between the supremacy of Zeus and
the domains of the other gods, for example, are simply not resolved.
Perhaps the author or authors of the lllfié.‘nd the Odyssey felt no
need to do so. However that may be, the fact is that for one trying
to form a picture of religious thought in Greece in any sort of sys-
tematic fashion, Homer is not a particularly helpful source.

Hesiod, however, is another matter. In the Theggony we do,
indeed, find an effort at systematization. Perhaps we can be forgiven
if we omit the much-debated question why a need for that systematiza-
tion made itself felt; interesting as it unquestionably is, this

question is nevertheless not terribly pertinent to the main task of

45

this chapter. The objective of these pages is to attempt to glimpse
the religious thought of the ordinary, but somewhat more intelligent,
Greek in the seventh and sixth centuries of the pro-Christian era:
for that purpose, the picture given in the Theggony is enough to
start with.4

The Theggony attempts to show how the various deities were

interrelated. It does this by means of a genealogy, showing how all

the deities take their ultimate origin from Chaos, the Earth, and Eros.5

As the poem proceeds, however, it becomes obvious that Eros is rela-
tively unimportant (in the sense that it has no offspring). Chaos
gives birth to Darkness and Night, which in turn marry and generate
Light and Day:6 Night, on its own, has a host of offspring, mostly
abstractions.7 But it is Earth whose progeny are of the most interest,
and it is on these that Hesiod spends the most time.

Hesiod's picture is a complex one, and it is difficult to pre-
sent it in orderly form. The present writer has discovered by exper-
ience that a genealogical chart well-nigh defies construction; the
intermarriages of different orders of divinities renders that project
far too complicated to be useful. Thus in the pages that follow,
tables are employed, taking as a focal point the offspring produced by
various marriages. The tables are the present writer's own construc-
tion; the bracketed numbers in the right-hand margin of the tables
refer to the line(s) of the Theggony justifying the insertion of a
particular entry into the table. Each such bracketed number governs
both the line in which it occurs and all successive lines until the
next number appears. The ordering of the gods within each table is

the order of their appearance in the poem.

46
Table l: The Offspring of Chaos8

Chaos

Darknessk//////r ‘\\\\\\"Night [116-125]
\ Ligh/

Day

Destruction [211-225]

Black Spectre

Death

Sleep

Dreams

Blame

Grief

Fates

Spectres of
Vengeance

Retribution

Deceit

Love

Old Age

Strife

Distress [226-232]
Distraction
Famine
Sorrow

Wars
Battles
Murders
Slaughters
Feuds

Lies

Angry Words
Lawlessness
Madness
Oaths

.__.—# -3 .
9-9. c '.:

Earth's Consort
None
None
None

Sky

Ocean

Tartarus

Sky's Consort
Earth

None

47
Table 2: The Offspring of Earth

Offspring of the Union
Sky

Mountains

Waters

THE TITANS:
Ocean
Coeus
Crius
Hyperion
Iapetus
Thea
Rhea
Themis
Mnemosyne
Phoebe
Tethys
Cronos
Cyclopes: Thunderer, Lightener, Flash
Hundred-Arms: Cottus, Briareus, Gyes
Eryines
Giants

Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, Eurybia .

Typhoeus

Table 3: The Offspring of Sky

Offspring of the Union
The Titans (see above, Table 2)

Aphrodite (also called Cytherea
or The Cyprian)

Fife—flan. Ta*-

[129ff]
[129ff]
[131ff]

[132ff]

[184ff]

[237ff]

[820ff]

[188ff]

48

Table 4: The Offspring of the Titans

 

Titan Consort Offspring of the Union
Ocean Tethys (Titan) Sons (rivers): Daughters (nymphs):
Nile [337ff] ' Peitho [346ff]
Alpheus Admete
Eriadnus Ianthe
Strymon Electra
Maeander Doris
Ister Prymno
Phasis Urania
Rhesus Hippo
Achelofis Clymene
Nessus Rhodea
Rhodius Callirrhoé
Haliacmon Zeuxo
Heptaporus Clytia
Granicus Idyia
Aesepus Pasithoé
Simois Plexaura
Peneus Galaxaura
Hermus Dione
Caicus Melobosis
Sangarius Thoé
Ladon Polydora
Parthenius Cerceis
Euenus Pluto
Ardescus PerseIs
Scamander Ianira
+30,000 un— Acaste
named others Xanthe
[367ff] Petraea
Menesto
Europa
Metis
Eurynome
Telesto
Chryseis
Asia
Callipso
Eudora
Tyche
Amphiro
Ocyrrhoé
Styx
+30,000 un- [363ff]
named others
Nereus [234f]

Ocean

C0608

Crius

Earth

Phoebe

Eurybia

(Titan)

49

Table 4 (continued)

Thaumas
Phorcys
Ceto

Eurybia

Leto
Asteria

Astraeus

[237ff]

[404ff]

[375ff]

1--. \

(daughter of Pallas
Ocean 8 Earth) Perses

Hyperion

Iapetus

Thea

Rhea

Themis

Mnemosyne

Thea

(Titan)

Clymene (Nymph)

Hyperion
(Titan)

Cronos (Titan)

Zeus

(Olympian)

Zeus

(Olympian)

Sun
Moon
Dawn

Atlas
Menoetius
Prometheus
Epimetheus

Sun
Moon
Dawn

THE OLYMPIANS:
Hestia
Demeter
Hera
Hades
Poseidon
Zeus

The Hours:
Good Order
Justice
Peace

The Fates:
Clotho (Spinner)
Lachesis (Allotter)
Atropos (Inflexible)

The Nine Muses
Clio Erato
Eutrepe Polyhymnia
Thalia Urania
Melpomene Calliope
Terpsichore

[371ff]

[507ff]

[371ff]

[453ff]

[901ff]

[75ff]

50

Table 4 (continued)

 

Phoebe Coeus (Titan) Leto [404ff]
Asteria
Tethys Ocean (Titan) Rivers & Nymphs; cf. p. 48.
Cronos Rhea (Titan) The Olympians; cf. p. 49.
Table 5: The Offspring of the Olympians
Olympian Consort Offspring of the Union
Demeter Zeus (Olympian) Persephone [912ff]
Demeter Iasion (mortal) Wealth [969ff]
Hera none Hephaestus [930ff]
Hera Zeus (Olympian) Hebe [921ff]
Ares
Eileithyia
Poseidon Amphitrite Triton [930ff]
(daughter
of Nereus)
Zeus Metis (Nymph) Athena [886ff; 924ff]
Zeus Themis (Titan) The Hours and The [90lff]
Fates: cf. Table 4
Zeus Eurynome The Graces: [907ff]
(Nymph) Aglaea (Pageantry)
Euphrosyne (Happiness)
Thalia (Festivity)
Zeus Demeter Persephone [912ff]
(Olympian)
Zeus Mnemosyne The Nine Muses: cf. Table 4 [916ff]
(Titan)
Zeus Leto Apollo [918ff]

Artemis

51

 

Table 5 (continued)

 

Zeus Hera Hebe [921ff]
(Olympian) Ares
Eileithyia
Zeus Maia (daughter Hermes [938f]
of Atlas)
Zeus Semele Dionysius [940ff]
(daughter of
mortal Cadmus)
Zeus Alcmene (mortal) Heracles [943f]
Table 6: The Offspring of the Nymphs
Nygph Consort Offspring of the Union
Doris Nereus Fifty Daughters: [240ff]
Ploto Doris
Eucrante Panopea
Sao Galatea
Amphitrite Hippothoé
Eudora Hipponoé
Thetis Cymodoce
Galene Cymo
Glauce Eione
Cymothoé Halimede
Speo Glauconome
Tho§ Pontoporea
Halia Leagora
Pasithia Euagora
Erato Laomedea
Eunice Polynoé
Melite Autonoé
Eulimene Lysianassa
Agave Euarne
Doto Psamathe
Proto Menippe
Pherusa Neso
Dynamene Eupompe
Nesaea Themisto
Actaea Pronoé
Protomedea Nemertes

52

Table 6 (continued)

 

Electra Thaumas Iris [265ff]
Harpies (Aello & Ocypete)
Clymene Iapetus (Titan) Atlas [507ff]
Menoetius
Prometheus
Epimetheus
CallirrhoE Chrysaor (son Geryon [287ff]
of Medusa)
Idyia Aeétes Medea [sssff]
Perseis Sun Circe [956f]
Aeétes
Metis Zeus (Olympian) Athena; cf. Table 5
Eurynome Zeus (Olympian) The Graces: cf. Table 5
Styx Pallas Glory [383ff]
Victory
Power
Strength
Table 7: The Offspring of Other People9
Male Consort Female Consort Offspring of the Union
Phocrys (son of Ceto (daughter of The Graiae (Pemphredo [270ff]
Earth 5 Ocean) Earth & Ocean) and Enyo)
The Gorgons (Sthenno, [274ff]
Euryale, Medusa)
Dragon
------------ Medusa (Gorgon) Chrysaor [280f£]
Pegasus
------------ Ceto Snake Goddess [29Sff]
Typhaon Snake Goddess Orthus (Hound of [309ff]
Geryon
Cerberus

Hydra of Lerna

53

Table 7 (continued)

 

- Hydra of Lerna

Orthus Chimaera
Astraeus (son Dawn
of Eurybia &

Titan Crius)

Perses (son of Asteria (daughter
Titan Crius & of Titans Coeus
Eurybia) 8 Phoebe)

Typhoeus (son ------------
of Earth &

Tartarus

Chimaera

Sphinx
Nemean‘Lion

The Violent Winds:
Zephyr
Boreas
Notus

The Stars

Hecate

All other storm winds

[319]

[326ff]

[378ff]

[411]

[869ff]

The picture of the Greek gods, as presented in the Theggony, is

therefore an extremely complicated one.

But despite that fact, it is

not the whole story. There are at least three other areas of Greek

religious thought that must be mentioned, in addition to the Olympian

gods properly so called. The reason for this will be apparent in the

next section of this chapter.

Rose remarks that from the time of Hesiod onwards, "The number

of powers to be revered was augmented by the widespread worship of

'the gentry' (heroés), generally known to us as the hero cult."

10

Though the word "hero" originally meant simply a man of good family or

a gentleman, and though the notion of hero worship is absent from

11

Homer, by the time that Hesiod was writing it becomes common enough.

And so we find Hesiod saying:

54

But when the earth had covered over this generation as well, Zeus,
Cronos' Son, produced yet another, the fourth, upon fertile earth.
This race was more just and more upright, a godly race of heroes
who are termed demi-gods; it preceded our own on the face of
boundless earth.

Aurcp éxeL ucL Ttho yévos news yet' éxdlu¢ev,

aEILs er' allo tétspov étL xeoVL toulufioreCpn

Zeus KpovCéns uoCnoe, 6LuaLdrepov uaL spELov,

avépmv npwwv 82Lov yévos, 0L ualéovraL

fiuCOCOL, tporépn yevefi xar' dstpova yatav.12

The cult of the heroes was a fairly widespread one as well:

At all events, historical Greece was full of the tombs, real or
supposed, of such persons, and the cult given them differed from
that of the chthonian gods only in being on the whole less im-
portant and more strictly local; a ”hero" was not able, it would
seemiBto do either good or ill far from the spot where his bones
lay.

Secondly, there is question of the daimones, innumerable and in-
visible beings who do good or ill to mankind. Of these, Hesiod says,

A golden race of men with human speech did the immortals, those
dwellers on Olympus, first make. These men lived in the time of
Kronos, in the days when he ruled over heaven. They lived just
like gods: carefree their hearts, long the distance between them
and grievous toil. . . . Free spirits are they called as they
live on earth: kindly deliverers from ill and guardians of mortal
men, givers of wealth as they, wrapped in mist, mark just and evil
deeds alike over all the earth.

Xpficeov uEv upthora yévos uepénwv dvepwuwv

abavaIOL toCnoav OlduuLu 6wuut' exovres.

0C ucv éuL Kpdvov Hoav, or' oupavD éuBaoCleueV°

more 860L 6' ecwov aunbéa euuov exovreg

vdava 512p TE udev ucL 6Lcdog- . . .

TOL uev 6aCuoveg ayvOL éuLx86VLOL ualéovtaL

éoeloC, alegCuaXOL, edlaxeg evntmv avepéuwv

(0L pa eukdoaouva re 6Cxag xaL axétlLa Epya

népu éoaduevOL udvrn ¢0ervres éx' aIev),

slantoédtaL-

And so, "The plain man, then, in ancient Greece lived in a world full
of all manner of supernatural powers, great and small, friendly or un-
friendly. . . ."15 And, it might be added, he or his clan contributed

not a few of them. For the third source of divinities was the clan

55

itself. As Rose notes,
The dead of the family or clan (genos) had not ceased to be mem-
bers of it, and being senior members, they were entitled to re-
spect and good usage. This is a different thing from the hero
cult already described, although allied to it; it would seem
that the care bestowed on the ghost of a father or mother did not
differ essentially, in intention at least, from that given to the
aged and infirm. Ghosts, in popular belief, continued to live
vaguely in the nether world. . . . Wherever they might be, how-
ever, they had much the same wants as in life, food, drink,
clothing, and water to wash in, for the Greeks were a very
cleanly people. Hence foods and drinks were the commonest of
offerings at graves. 6
Furthermore, as a sort of joining of the family cult and the
hero cult, there was the phenomenon of the "domestic hero," the sort
of friendly ghost whose special job it was to take care of the indi-
vidual family dwelling.17
Such, then, were the divinities of the Greeks, and they are
numerous enough. The next logical question that might pose itself is,
what function did all these various figures have in the life of the
ordinary, educated Greek? How did he regard them? Did.they have any
significant role to play? Yet the answer to these questions itself
depends on a further question, which will be the burden of the next

section of this chapter: where did the gods come from--not gene-

alogically, but rather in the consciousness of the Greeks?
The Gods: Where They Came From

The question of the origin of the Greek gods could be viewed in
two further senses, even leaving out the family-tree approach of
Hesiod. One might ask, for instance, which of the Olympian gods that
Hesiod names are native Greek gods and which are imports from other

countries. Or, one might ask the deeper question of why the Greeks

56

had gods at all-~where did the gods come from in terms of the con-
sciousness of the Greeks? Both of these questions deserve considera-

tion.
Native Gods and Foreign Gods:

Into the early Minoan civilization came, with shattering abrupt-
ness, the Achaian invasion.18 But the effect on the native religion
was not as disruptive as one might expect, for

Polytheism is tolerant, as a rule, and when its adherents learn
of deities other than their own, one of three things happens.
Either they adopt them and worship them side by side with those
they know already, or they acknowledge them as the proper objects
of the other people's cult, . . . or, finally, they identify the
new powers with their own supernatural beings, perhaps adopting
the foreign name as a title of the native god, or contenting them-
selves with saying that such a people worship one of the deities
they know, but call him by a different name. 9
And thus, to the cult of the Minoans were added further divinities.
The Minoan cult seems to have stressed goddesses rather than gods, and
the majority of these were mother-goddesses.20 An example of such a
goddess is the earth: the primitive conception is widespread enough
that the earth, hearing as it does food plants of all kinds, is a sort
of woman and vegetation is her offspring. Such a notion seems to have
been a common heritage in the Mediterranean.21 The question of par-
thenogenesis on the part of Mother Earth seems to have differed in
different locales: in some places there is the conception of Sky as
a father, but in other areas "The Earth-Mother may be so important as
to make the question of her husband or lover quite uninteresting."22

In any case, most of the works of Cretan and Mycenean art tend to

concentrate on the female representation; there is rarely a trace of

57

a divine husband, though there is often enough question of a divine
child.23
When the invaders came in, the idea of a female goddess was at

least no novelty: they themselves worshipped One such goddess-mother,
Demeter.24 Consequently, finding other goddesses did not surprise
them. In the case of the great female goddess of Argos, for example,
they simply recognized that here was another such goddess, whose name
they did not happen to know. So they simply called her "Hera," which
is apparently nothing more than the female form of the word 22522;
"Lady." From inscriptions we know that "Hera" was the patron of women
and all that concerned them, from childhood to old age, and hence was
a mother herself:

Therefore, to so logical a people as the invaders, it was clear

that she must have a husband, and no husband august enough for

her save their own great god Zeus. Thus it came about that the

Greek divine family had at the head of it a husband and wife of

entirely different origins. The proper and original consort of

Zeus was pretty certainly an earth-goddess, which there is no

proof that Hera ever was.25

To take another example: Artemis seems originally to have been

a mother—goddess whose proper domain was the realm of wild things:
the uncultivated land and the creatures that inhabit it. She also
had something to do with female parturition and female sudden death,
in the original Minoan conception.26 Obviously, such a goddess ought
to be fertile. But she was not the great goddess that “Hera" was, and
she did not have a consort. What were the Achaian invaders to make of
this? Since in their thinking the gods and goddesses ought to behave

like nobles, and since among the Achaian nobility chastity was a

prized virtue of the female branch ("though their males might allow

58

themselves considerable liberty";27 it followed that this goddess
must be a virgin, not a mother~goddess at all.

Similarly with Athena. Her name indicates a pre-Greek origin:
the suffix :pg_belongs to the ancient tongue of the land rather than
that of the invaders.28 And the earliest traces we have of her indi-
cate that she was associated with military strongholds such as the
Acropolis, where the castles of the ancient Mycenaeans once stood.
She is therefore a warlike individual, which initially seems odd in
that classical Greek religion had a war god (rather than goddess),
Ares. But it seems, at least in Rose's estimation, that she was once
the patron of the ancient princes and their houses: when her wor—
shippers passed from the scene, she remained. Since they had been
warlike princes (everything we know about the early culture suggests
that it was indeed a warlike one), it was only fitting that their
patroness should also be somewhat bellicose. And bellicose she re-
mained even into classical times.29

Much the same sort of amalgamation took place in the instance of
Aphrodite, a Cyprian mother-goddess who found herself displaced by
Hera in the invaders' minds and thus relegated out of the realm of
motherhood and into that of love.30 And a similar account can be
given of many of the other members of the pantheon. The table on the

following page will indicate as much.

59

1—, _- _.7r_“"-

 

Table 8: The Amalgamated Pantheon31
Deity Nationality Original Function New Function; Reason
Hera native Minoan mother-goddess of wife of Zeus; "Hera";
Argos patron of women and
all that concerned
them
Artemis native Minoan mother-goddess of subordinate to Hera:
wild areas no consort and hence
chaste, as a female
noble ought to be
Athena native Minoan royal patroness goddess of war and
the things of war
Aphrodite Cyprian mother-goddess of after coming to
Cyprus Greece, displaced by
Hera; functions di-
minished: love not
motherhood
Zeus Achaian great god of the father of the pan-
sky and associated theon; has an intel-
phenomena; chief ligible Indo-European
of the gods name; many marriages
with native deities
of the region
Poseidon probably god of water in god of the sea, once
Achaian general, of under- Achaians acquired
ground waters and first-hand knowledge
underground phe- of the sea, became
nomena; often merchants, etc.; thus
husband of mother- displaced native sea-
goddesses because of gods Amphitrite and
fertilizing power of Nereus
water
Apollo native Minoan uncertain god of herdsmen, of
medicine (herdsmen
must know this due to
their lonely way of
life), of music (same
reason), of wolves
Ares Thracian god of warring god of war, but

Thracian factions

little more than a
supernatural cut-
throat; his name is

60

Table 8 (continued)

Hephaistos non-Achaian god of volcanic
fires
Dionysius Phrygian nature deity; wor-

shipped by women
in ecstatic wor-
ship

Hermes Arcadian god of stone piles

a common noun

god of craftsmen who
use fires; Greece was
comparatively indus-
trialized in later
times; prior to this,
H is a god of crafts-
manship in Homer.
Became god of vol-
canoes when moved to
Sicily. Somewhat a
comic figure, for to
the Greeks strangers
were comic, however
terrifying. Lame; an
ancient smith often
was

god of wine (Greeks
had many nature dei—
ties already); god of
ecstatic powers of
wine; god of fertil-
ity (power of wine)

god of roads and of
those who use them in
their occupations:
heralds, merchants,
robbers. Himself a
herald and a robber.
God of young men
(which heralds usu-
ally were)

So much for the nationalities and transformation of nationali-

ties of the members of the pantheon. But there remain the questions

of the daimones, the heroes, and the other elements which, pre-

scinding from the members of the pantheon, went to make up Greek re-

ligious thought. Where did they come from? For that matter, where,

61

in a deeper sense, did the members of that pantheon themselves come

from?
The Developing Religious Consciousness of the Greeks:

The remote origins of any religious thought are apt to be
shrouded in the mists of time, and this is as true of the Greeks as
of any other culture. There are no records to give an investigator
a clear, precise picture of how it is that man comes to acknowledge a
divinity of one kind or other. There are, to be sure, hints in the
cultural remains that survive a given race of men; such are the in-
scriptions, sherds, and the like, of Greece. But they are only hints.
Considerable disagreement can therefore be expected on the subject,
and the best that can be achieved is only a theory. And, it has been
said, for every theory there are several counter-theories.

In any event: for the purposes of this study, I have adopted
the viewpoint of M. P. Nilsson, whose book on the history of Greek
religion32 strikes me as being remarkably sane. There are some reser-
vations that I would wish to make on that theory,33 but on the whole I
would tend to subscribe to it once those reservations are taken into
account. The theory can be sketched fairly much as follows.

The religion of the early Minoan-Mycenaean age was at least
partly a mythology.

This leads us to the fundamental question: What is mythology? As
we read it in a modern or ancient handbook it is divided into two
parts: divine and heroic myths. But in reality the border line
does not fall where the divisions would suggest, but rather within
the domain of the divine myths themselves. The divine mythology
consists of two parts, separate in principle, but connected by a

thousand interwoven threads. The one is of sacral and religious
origin, the other of mythical.34

62

By the mythical representation of a god, Nilsson means a description
of that god's nature, activity, and sphere of action, as also the
forms of his epiphanies and his attributes.3S This is to be dis-
tinguished from all other beliefs about the gOd, which take their rise
from religious motives.36 However, though the two strands can be dis-
tinguished mentally, in fact they are always joined together; mythol-
ogy is thus a combination of mythical and religious elements.

Back of the mythical elements, however, stands the folk tale.37
In the latter, two definite tendencies can be distinguished, the "in-
ventive" and the aetiological.38 The "inventive" stories in folk lore
"are.invented in the sense that, unlike the aetiological tale, they
have no definite end in view, but are related merely for the pleasure
of telling tales."39 Among the inventive folk tales, a number of
motifs can be distinguished; Nilsson discusses adventure motifs, the
motif of hero-vs.-enemy, that of the hero in quest of the hand of the
fair princess, and others. We need not follow his discussion of all
of these. But worth noting is his observation that Greek myths, in
their developed form, lack the element of magic almost entirely.
"Just as the Greek gods, unlike those of many other peoples, are not
concerned with magic, so the Greek myth, unlike the folk tale, has no
magical ingredients."40 The folk tale, to be sure, had such motifs;
the myth, as it developed in Greece, did not. "And so we miss the
witch who is so common in our own folk-tales. There are two excep-
tions, Medea and Circe, but significantly enough they are foreign

women."41 The reason that the magic is eliminated is the Greek

rationalistic tendency, which Nilsson sees as the peculiar gift of

63

the Greeks.42 Similarly, although the notion of the taboo is found
commonly in folk lore, it is much more rare in developed Greek myth.43

The second tendency in folk lore is the aetiological: to ac~
count for a given practice, or custom, or natural phenomenon, a story
is invented, the end product of which is the event in question. For
instance, to explain the practice in one cultic sacrifice of giving to
Zeus the inferior part of the sacrificial animal, the story of Pro-
metheus' deception of Zeus is invented.44 Or, to explain a peculiar
stone formation, a tale is invented wherein a human being, in one
or other dire circumstance, has been transformed into stone; his or
her physical posture at the time is that which the particular stone
under consideration has to this day.45

To summarize: back of the Greek religion of the seventh and
sixth centuries stands, at least in part, the religion of the Minoan
and Mycenaean cultures. This latter was, again at least in part, a
mythology, in somewhat developed form; it consisted of mythical ele-
ments and specifically religious ones. Back of these constitutive
mythical elements stands the folk tale, of which there are two dis-
tinguishable varieties, the inventive and the aetiological. Or, to
start the process at the other end: we begin with the folk tale and
its two tendencies. To this are added specifically religious con-
siderations, and we have a mythology, which formed an important (if
not exclusive) part of Mycenaean-Minoan religious thought. To this we
add the consistently rationalistic character of the Greeks, and the
end product is the de-magicized, de-tabooized classical mythology

which formed an important part of classical Greek religion.

64

Two elements in the preceding account, however, are thus far
unsatisfactory. What are the "specifically religious elements" that
are added to the mythical factor to result in Minoan-Mycenaean myth-
ology? And why is it that, in either inventive or aetiological folk
tale, a divine framework, rather than something else, was adopted?
Nilsson's theory on these points is basically that several primitive
notions (chiefly those of mégg_or dynamism, animism, taboo, and magic)
developed into that framework, eventually culminating either in the
personalized pantheon or in the more impersonal notion of daimones
and their ilk. This must be explored at some length.

Among most peoples there is a belief in "power" (mans), which
penetrates everything. . . . Among primitive peoples "power" is
also a force in itself: it exists before and independently of
gods or spirits. It is merely "power," and whether it is good or
evil depends upon how it comes into contact with man. Man must
beware of it and proceed cautiously in regard to it, for if it
can help, it can also harm.46

Rose's ideas on this may make the notion clearer.

[Dynamism, or mane—ism] is the notion, generally vague and hardly
expressed in any definite words, that there exists a kind of
power, not necessarily belonging to any particular sort of being,
but most likely to be found in the possession either of a note-
worthy man or woman, or of something which is not human at all,
but more potent than mankind, a god, a spirit, a beast or bird.

. . . It may manifest itself in quite unlikely forms, dwelling,
for example, in a stick or a stone which is fancied to have pe-
culiar properties, in magic regalia, or in forms of words, or
ritual gestures. . . . It works . . . to effect everything which
is beyond the ordinary power of men, outside the common processes
of ggture. . . . When one has got it he can use it and direct
it.

In addition to the concept of mana, there is the idea of anim-
ism, i.e., the attitude of mind wherein everything is conceived of as
alive. For example,

To man at an early stage of his develOpment, . . . it seemed per-
fectly obvious that a river was alive, for it behaved in many ways

65

like a man or a beast. Like them it moved, and like them it ut-
tered sounds; it might work harm or good, and at times it did
strange and unaccountable things, such as disappearing underground
to rise again farther on, or vanishing in summer to reappear in
winter. Furthermore, rivers are not all alike, since some flow
swiftly, others slowly, some have clear and some muddy water, and
so forth. The conclusion was obvious, given the very limited
knowledge of nature then available: a river was a very powerful
living being, possessed of much mana, either the body or habita-
tion of someone greater than man-~this was the usual Greek way of
regarding it--or in some other and mysterious fashion having a
life and a will of its own, and so much power that it was well to
treat it with respect and avoid making it angry.48
Very closely associated with animism and dynamism is the notion
of taboo, meaning that which is either sacred or accursed.49 Taboo
ideas abound in the mind of primitive man, but "They accumulate more
than elsewhere about the critical points of human life, about birth,
death, and marriage, when man is more exposed than at other times to
the attacks of 'power' or 'the powers.”50 Hence there is need for
protection against such forces or powers, and these protections take
various forms, such as the use of certain herbs (supposed to have cer-
tain powers themselves) and purifications (for the evil force that
threatens is conceived after the fashion of a plague that is communi-
cated to everyone who comes into contact with it: hence the need of
the mother in childbirth--as also the child--to be purified, the need
for those who are present at another's death to undergo purifications,
all to rid themselves of the mysterious miasma that is present on
those occasions). It is but a short step from taboo, as so conceived,
to the notion of ritual purity and impurity51 and, since all men are
born, die, or otherwise participate in situations which involve de-

filement, to the need of purification.

The final primitive notion is that of magic: thus the notion of

66

the magic circle appears, within the borders of which no evil power
can pass.52 Magic differs from the purifications noted above only in

that it is a sort of opus operatum rather than opus operans: it is

 

 

seen as efficacious in itself, without much reference to the benevo-
lence of the particular power whose influence man is trying to
avert.53 However, since there is question of powers that can work
good as well as evil, the practice of magic extends to the acquisition
of favors from the powers as well; thus we have such things as rain
magic, fertility magic (on the agricultural level and the human level
54
both), and so forth.

Such are the primitive ideas that are found in early societies,
in Nilsson's view. But what constitutes the passage to the gods?
Nilsson's explanation is as follows:

The gap between "power" and "the powers" is not great--no greater
than the difference between the singular and the plural of the
word. Yet we feel at once the change of sense when the word is
put into the plural. The undivided, homogeneous stream of power,
which is ever breaking forth and expressing itself in individual
manifestations, is split up into centres of power. Man projects
his own consciousness and volitional ego into the world about
him; he must do so, for it is only by way of analogy that he can
attain to any knowledge of that which lies behind phenomena,
whether real or imagined, and the first analogy is his own being.
Hence he ascribes to the powers feeling, will, and purpose.
Yet this is putting the matter too summarily, and perhaps it would be
better to trace the stages. From the unitary notion of power, con-
ceived of as some one thing residing in a multitude of objects and
manifesting itself in many ways, it is a relatively short step to a
plurality of powers: the multiplicity, present in objects and mani-

festations, accrues to the powers themselves. Furthermore, since it

is in the nature of the powers that they perform actions which are

67

above the capabilities of man--indeed, that they are able to influence

the lives of men for good or for ill, and that at will--it follows

that the powers possess an ontological status above the human. This

means in turn that they possess whatever humans possess, and more be-

sides. Hence we have personal attributes assigned to the powers.

As Nilsson pictures the process,
The belief in daimones peoples the world with spirits. They live
in the deserts, among the mountains, in the forest, in stones, in
trees, in water, in rivers and springs; they are the occasion of
everything that concerns man, they send fruitfulness and dearth,
good fortune and disease. It is they who have given rise to the
old saying that "fear created the gods." For man is much more
strongly roused to a consciousness of the interference of higher
powers in his life when misfortunes come upon him than when things
are taking their normal course. As a consequence of this concep-
tion, the object of the earliest cult is by one means or another
to keep the powers at a distance from life; it is apotropaeic, a
warding-off of evil. . . . Magic, in its primitive stage, has
[another] function: by magical rites men try to secure for them-
selves and for others fertility and prosperity: magic serves the
individual and social good.56

Nilsson traces the origin of the Demeter and the Hermes cults along

these lines by way of illustration.57 ,

The further question comes up as to how a single god originated
from, say, many examples of the cycle of nature in agriculture. Why,
in other words, did not the individualization process continue down to
the extreme of having one daimon for each manifestation of power?
Sometimes it did. For instance, in the Hermaic stone heap, it both
could and did happen that the end result would be, not one god, but a
multitude of local gods.58 But it also happened that, because of some
striking similarity in timing or in the particular form that a mani—

festation of power took that all the manifestations became combined

into one. Thus, a harvest cycle and the processes it involves are the

68

same, relatively speaking, wherever one goes; hence unity is a more
impressive feature of this manifestation of power than is diversity,
and the result is Demeter, one goddess rather than a multitude of
Demeteresses.59
So, as far as the developed and personalized gods of nature and

of things pertaining to affairs on earth went,

The needs of man created the gods, and the cult is an expression

of his need. A god is a daimon which has acquired importance and

a fixed form through the cult. From among a crowd of similar

beings the cult chooses one as its object, and this becomes a

single god. But the belief in numerous daimones lives on, and if

both the single divinity and the group of daimones are present to

the mind together, the latter acquire a leader. Thus we have Pan

and the Panes, Silenus and the Sileni, . . .60

The powers, however, lived in places other than earth. They

also peopled the heavenly phenomena. Such were the powers that lived,
for instance, in the sun and the stars. But these, although they had
their gods and goddesses, nevertheless were never very important in
the Greek cult. Much more critical were the powers that inhabited
the phenomena that posed a more imminent danger to mankind, e.g., the
god who ruled over such things as storms, or rain, or thunder. It
must be borne in mind that rain is a terribly important consideration
in Greece: on it depends the fertility of the fields, and on the lat-
ter, owing to the peculiar geographical situation that Greece has,
depended the sustaining of life itself. Now, one cannot localize
storms and thunder. They pertain to the entire land, are shared by
all the people alike. Hence the sort of deity which grew up in con-
nection with celestial phenomena of this sort tended to be universal

right from the start,61 in contrast to some of the nature gods who

emerged into individuality from among the herd of localized powers.

69

But whether it starts from earth or sky, the process of divine
individualization does not simply cease with the emergence of definite
individuals. For once the individuals emerge (or once they are pres-
ent at all, in the case of the gods of the celestial phenomena), there
is the tendency to fit them into a hierarchy, at least incipiently.

In Greece the great deities grew at the expense of the Nature
spirits and local gods. They even made the former their followers
and retainers. Artemis was surrounded by mountain- and forest-
nymphs, Poseidon by sea-nymphs, Dionysius by Sileni and satyrs.
. . . The greater gods usurped the functions of the less, appro-
priating their names as epithets, or made them their servants and
subordinates.
It seems, therefore, that although the gods have arisen out of the
daimones and the daimones have arisen out of the milieu of magic and
taboo, the appearance of one stage does not mean the complete disap-
pearance of the previous one. This is true in another sense, too.
For even after the full-blown gods had appeared, magic still persisted;
it merely changed its home. It now migrated into the rites wherein
the gods were honored.
Thus the weather-magic passed into the cult of Zeus, purifications
and the curing of diseases into that of Apollo, rites of fertility
into those of Demeter and Dionysius, and the annual bonfires into
that of Artemis. This is how the gods acquired the greater part
of their rites and festivals, which were originally pre-deistic.63
Obviously, the aura of magic and the notion of man's somehow being
able to be a part of the divine did nothing to diminish the authority
of the gods or the esteem in which they were held by men. That there
should be gods was definitely to the advantage of man, especially when
man could, to put the matter crudely, put the gods to work for him by

his cultic acts.

This, then, is the origin of the gods, in Nilsson's view:

70

"[A view of the Greek pantheon] must be based on the proposition that
man's needs create the gods, and that beginning with the gods of na-
ture he rises to those which are an expression of the higher functions
of his life."64 From dynamism, animism, taboo, and magic, man pro-
gresses to powers, then to personalized and individual powers; rem—
nants of the various stages remain, however, and interpenetrate later
stages.

Yet this view of the gods is not that of the Greeks of the
seventh and sixth centuries; it belongs, rather, to an age antecedent
to Homer, at whose hands men's views of the gods underwent a transfor-
mation that was to be of profound significance for philosophy and,
indeed, for the gods themselves. It will be the task of the next
section of this chapter to sketch that transformation, and then to try
to go on somewhat and see, to the limited extent that is possible,
just what view men held of the gods during the seventh and sixth cen-

turies themselves.

The Gods: Where They Went

 

The reader who, with the foregoing background in mind, takes up
the $1339 or the Odyssey senses at once an abrupt change.65 The names
are familiar, indeed: Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and all the other char-
acters are there. But they are a far cry from Nilsson's ggpgfbecome-
daimones-become-gods. For one thing, their activities are at once
seen in conflict. To put no fine point on it, they are wrangling
among themselves, often enough. For instance, we find Father Zeus

saying to Ares,

71

"You turncoat," he said, "don't come to me and whine. There is
nothing you enjoy so much as quarreling and fighting; which is
why I hate you more than any god on Olympus."

ufi 1C uOL, dlloupdaalle, napecduevos uLvupLCe°
ExeLOTos 66 uoC éOOL 826v 0C 'Oluunov EXOUOLv,
aiel ydp IOL EpLs re eCln tdleuoC re udxcL re.
Things get so bad that Zeus has to call a council on Olympus and
threaten the gods and goddesses to make them behave themselves.
"If I find any god taking an independent course and going to the
Trojans' or the Danaans' help, he shall be thrashed ignominiously

and packed off to Olympus. Or I will seize him and hurl him down
into the gloom of Tartarus. . . ."

ov 6' av éymv anavcuee Bewv éeélovra voflam

éledvr' n prEOOLV apnyéuev n AGVGOLOL,

nlnyeLg on rare xdauov éleficeraL Ouluundvée-

fi uLv élwv pC¢m ég Taptapov nepdcvrs, . . .6
This, perhaps, is not so bad; it might just be an extension of the
gods' role as protectors of men and procurers of men's needs. After
all, men come into conflict; therefore it is not unusual that their
protectors should also. Yet there is something else here. It is not
so much what Homer has the gods doing; rather, it is how he writes
of them that is different. For in the original conception, at least
as Nilsson saw it, the gods had developed out of awesome powers and,
however much they might be able to be turned to the service of man,
were themselves awesome figures. But this is most emphatically not
the case in Homer. The awe is gone, though lip service is paid to it.
One does not outwardly berate the gods, for the gods can still harm.
And one does request things of the gods, for they can do good. But
one is certainly not afraid of the gods. For that matter, one does

not have a particularly high regard for them. After all, why should

man respect the gods, who are little more than glorified human beings,

72

differing from their mortal counterparts only in that they are more
powerful and are immortal? They certainly have all the disreputable
characteristics that are to be found in mortals: they scheme, they
plot, they cheat, they deceive, they rebel against Zeus. They have
love lives which would be questionable even when measured against the
standard of human morality: witness the illicit affair between
Aphrodite and Ares and the vengeance of Hephaistos.

The reason for this is the tendency to anthropomorphism, or the
visualizing of the gods after the model of humans, which seems to be a
fairly common tendency among developing cultures.68 Among the Greeks,
however, it enjoyed one characteristic not found elsewhere: it was
relentlessly consistent. "In this consistent anthropomorphism lies a
genuine Greek rationalism. The gods are anthrOpomorphic, they re-
semble man, and consequently they are neither more nor less than man-
like."69

Furthermore, in the passage from the earlier view to the Homeric
one, there is involved the transition from cult to poetry. This is
significant, for in the cult there is rarely occasion to juxtapose the
deities, a process which is pregnant with problems.

[The relative position of the gods] was of less importance in the
cult, where the god who is being worshipped at that moment has an
almost exclusive preponderance. Man directs his attention to one
particular god, and the others are not immediately present to the
mind. In the cult, therefore, there can scarcely be any question
of relative superiority or inferiority among the gods. It is

quite different in poetry, where the gods appear alongside of one
another upon the same plane and as patrons of opposite camps.

Here the consequences of anthropomorphism appear, which were con-
cealed in the cult. The world of the gods is equipped with every

human frailty.70

And once the gods are juxtaposed, there is question of a divine

73

society. Now, just as man projects his own personal characteristics
onto the daimones, making them into personal beings modeled upon him-
self, so also on the social level: the society of the gods tends to
get modeled upon the social structure prevalent among the people doing
the anthropomorphising. And so,
The divine community is a copy of the conditions of the age of
chivalry. The seat of the gods is, therefore, an acrOpolis with
its royal stronghold, Olympus. . . . There Zeus sits when he
wishes to be alone, as he sat before; there he summons the coun-
cil of the gods. Lower down lies the city of the gods, and all
other buildings in it are outshone by Zeus's palace, the floor of
which is laid with plates of gold. There the gods sit upon their
thrones and drink wine like the Phaeacian princes at the house of
AlcinoBs . . . Life goes on [among the gods] much as in some
royal house in which there is constant entertaining. Zeus rules
like Agamemnon over a troop of wilful and refractory vassals, each
of whom is pursuing his own designs. . . . Like every noble
family, the Olympians have their genealogical tree.71
In other words, the gods have become, in Homer, a sort of glorified
group of Achaian nobles, whose concern for the 01 noAAoC (except in
the case of certain adopted favorites) is practically nil.72 The
suspicion is inescapable that much the same relationship existed be-
tween the ordinary man and the gods as pertained between the ordinary
man and the nobleman: one of tolerance, of a sort of outward con-
formity (for the nobleman could do the commoner good or ill), but cer-
tainly nothing like the inward awe that had characterized the rela-
tionship between primitive man and daimon or possessor of mana.
Yet even this needs qualification, for "ordinary man" in the
preceding paragraph would have to be understood with reference to the
ordinary man who knew the Iliad and the Odyssey or else had some sort

of connection with the nobility. Doubtless there were such as these

latter; baronial entourages could be large affairs among the Greeks

74

as they were later to be among the medievals. But just as there were
commoners who were also members of the households of nobility, so also
there must have been commoners-~and very likely the majority of them--
whose contact with the nobility was slight. That would mean, in turn,
that their contact with the noble-ized gods and goddesses was propor—
tionately slight. What we would expect, therefore, is a cleavage of
sorts. Some men, those connected with the Achaian nobility in one way
or other, would continue the anthropomorphising process in terms of
the social structure with which they were acquainted. But others, and
these the majority, very likely would not do so. Their mentality
would continue to be largely what it was, despite their knowledge of
Homer; ordinary peOple are notoriously conservative in their relig-
ious views, and there is no reason to expect that it was otherwise in
ancient Greece. Hence we would expect to find, in an account of Greek
religion in the Homeric period, the Olympian pantheon, indeed, con-
ceived after the fashion of an Achaian barony; but there would also
be earlier, persistent strains of daimones, localized gods, vaguely
personalized gods of the home and hearth, and the like. And in fact
this is what we do find.

Homer, then, would represent not so much a simple continuation
of the anthropomorphic process along the lines of the social struc-
ture, as an alternate path that Greek thought took. But one alternate
implies another, and the other would be the older strain. Such, in-
deed, is the view of Nilsson (although the reasoning involved in the
preceding paragraph is not his): "Homer represents not a leap, but a

break, in the develOpment; the post-Homeric period joins on where the

75

pre-Homeric period had ended."73 Perhaps the best indication that
this is accurate lies in the fact that Hesiod felt it necessary to ac-
count, in his catalogue of the divinities, for items quite other than
(and on a quite different plane from) the Olympian divinities. A
glance at the offspring of Night, for instance,74 will show that the
abstractions listed there have a completely different status from the
Titans and their rambunctious offspring; many of the abstractions are
simply personifications of nature powers.

However, whether in the Homeric vein or in the older conception,
the issue of the gods on the social plane had been raised, and that
was a decisive event. In earlier times, man thought of his gods with
reference to his needs, primarily; and this tends to be a self-
centered sort of thing. The gods, if Nilsson's view is adequate, are
projections of the human individual, intended to satisfy his needs.
But the critical point here is that they are projections of the $2332.
vidual, not the clan. As long as thought of the gods remains on this
level, the naive sort of personalization will do well enough. But
when the question is raised of the social group, then inevitably the
question of the relationship of individuals within that social group
will also be raised. And therefore the question of the relationship
of the gods among themselves will be raised. But there is more to
this than merely the establishment of some sort of satisfactory divine
pecking order. That is a speculative question, and a Greek peasant
might well not have concerned himself with it. But there are dif-
ferent kinds of relationships of individuals within the social group,

and perhaps one of the most important of these is the question of

76

justice between two individuals. Justice is an obvious human social
need; what sort of response will it find in the realm of the divine?
Man clearly cannot guarantee that he will always get justice in deal-
ing with his fellow-men; hence we have another instance of a need
above the capabilities of most men. And it is reasonable to suppose
that man, following his earlier practice, will turn to the gods as the
source of that justice. Whether or not they will be able to support
that burden is a question that we shall see at a later point in this
chapter. But the point is brought in here simply to indicate that the
Homeric period, while perhaps not a homogeneous outgrowth of Greek
religious thought, was nevertheless quite critical to the growth of
that thought. Perhaps, as Nilsson says, the post—Homeric period did
join on where the pre-Homeric one ended.75 But it would be difficult
to imagine that the issue that the Homeric period raised did not have
profound influence on that post—Homeric period. The status of the
gods as the providers of human wants would never more be the same, for
now the question had been raised to a quite different level.

Much the same sort of problem was occurring on the strictly
Homeric level, incidentally. For once the social question is raised,
insuperable difficulties arise for anyone who would consistently
anthropomorphise. These difficulties center around the divine attri-
butes of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Once again,
these are difficulties that will be taken up in a later subsection of
this chapter; but it should be noted here that it is only when the
anthropomorphism is relatively complete, i.e., is made to include man

considered as a social being as well as a needy individual, that the

77

problems arise--with what will turn out to be disastrous consequences
for the Olympian pantheon.

Such, then, is the picture of the realm of the gods as it is
given in one of the two major sources of the religious thought of the
early Greeks. We also find, however, that it is not simply accepted
wholesale. The concept of the gods as simply glorified Achaian nobles
was "a bit much," and Hesiod sets about toning down the implications

as much as he can. Thus the opening lines of the Works and Days are

 

devoted to restoring the lustre of Zeus's tarnished image:

Muses of Pieria, you who glorify others in song, come here and
tell of Zeus; sing the praises of your father. It is through
him, through the will of great Zeus, that mortal men are obscure
or famous, known or unknown. Easily does he make someone strong,
easily does he bring the strong man crashing down; easily does
he humble the proud man and exalt the humble; easily does he,
even Zeus who thunders on high and dwells far aloft, straighten
the crooked and humiliate the scornful.

MoanL HLEaneev dOLOfiULV uleCouocL

66016, AC' évvéners, ooétspov natép' uuveCoucaL-

e \ \ w Q ~ w a o

ovre 6La BOOTOL av6pes ouws amaTOLVTe maTOL TE,

dnToC 1' dppnToC re ALB: peydAOLo éxntL.

. \ \ p c \ o

péc uev yap BpLaEL, péa OE BDLGOVTG xaléITeL,

data 66 t' (SfiveL onolLBv uaL dyfivopa H&O¢€L

Zebg 6¢LBpeu€TnS, as uniptata ééuata vaCEL.
Later on, the judgment of Zeus is appealed to as a standard for human
justice; that judgment is true and perfect.77 Prometheus' audacity
and apparent success in deceiving Zeus turn out to be not so wise
after all;78 nevertheless Zeus does not allow his anger to exceed all
bounds: the lid is replaced on Pandora's box "by the design of aegis-
bearing Zeus the cloud—gatherer (aLydeou BoulfiOL ALOS veoelnyepé-

7 .

Too)" 9 before Hope escapes. The point of Zeus's supremacy has been

made, and Zeus sees nothing to be gained by belaboring it: "Thus in

no way is it possible to escape the mind of Zeus (ofirws oGIL nn EOTL

78

ALbs vdov éguléaoaaLL"80 Woe betide mortals if they do not serve the
gods; they cannot afford to ignore the divine, for that is how the
second race of men, the dpyupeov yévos, came to their dire end: "be-
cause they gave no honor to the blessed gods who dwell on Olympus
(ofivexa tLudg 06x 56L6ov uandpeOOL fieots, of 'Oluunov ExouaLv)."81
Mankind, however, does not seem to have profited by the experience,
for the present race is the worst of the lot; Hesiod wishes that he
had been born either before his own time or else after it. As far as
the present crop of men is concerned, "Harsh will be the troubles that
the gods will visit upon them (xalsnes 6t 8601 6éoou0L uspCuvcs),"82
among which Hesiod includes domestic strife, injustice, exaltation of
brute force, envy, and the like.83 Injustice especially, however,
will merit the direst retribution from Zeus,84 and violence and
cruelty will merit similar requital.85 Nor ought man think that,
since he is but one man among so many, he can practice evil unnoticed;
Zeus has thirty thousand spirits watching over the deeds of men.86

Much more of the same theme runs through the remainder of the
poem. In general, it can be said that Hesiod is concerned with re-
storing to the gods' reputation a certain moral quality: they have
concern for goodness and evildoing, rewarding the former and punishing
the latter. Whether they themselves practice what they preach, how—
ever, is discreetly passed over in silence.

Such, then, are the two major sources of the view of the gods
that reached down into seventh- and sixth-century Greece. Of the
other literary remains of the time, little need be said, save perhaps

to notice the tendency that occurs in the so-called Homeric hymns to

79

juxtapose the sacred and the ridiculous:

The Hymn to Hermes is entirely different. It is certainly not
lacking in zest and humor; and compared with the hymns to Demeter
and Apollo, it has something of the effect of the "satyr play"
which, later on, was to accompany the performance of the tragic
trilogies at Athens. . . . '
For, as Apollo seized him, he sent forth an omen, a hard-
worked belly-serf, a rude messenger, and sneezed directly
after. And when Apollo heard it, he dropped Hermes on the
ground. (294-8.)
Here we are closer to the kind of humor that AristOphanes de-
lighted in than to the religious gravity of the Hymn to Demeter.
Again and again we shall find Greek writers mixing the profane
and the sacred, sheer buffoonery and seriousness, in precisely
the same way.87

 

And yet, for an account of Greek religious thought, what we have
seen thus far is incomplete. We have seen who the gods were, where
they came from, and what happened to them from the time of their
origins to the seventh and sixth centuries. There remain two other
areas. Some idea has been given of what the gods did; the next
question would be, what did they demand in return? And the correlate
of that question might be, what did man demand of the gods as a result
of the divine demand? To these two topics the remaining sections of

this chapter will devote themselves.

The Gods: What They Demanded of Men

 

Perhaps the best way to see what the Greeks considered to be
demanded of themselves by the gods is to view their festivals. This
can be done fairly expeditiously, since the Greek ecclesiastical cal—
endar, so to speak, was a good bit simpler than its Christian counter-
part of later days (which, in the current year [1969], requires a
fairly substantial volume of 259 pages merely to list the feasts in-

volved). Furthermore, Rose's comment at the end of his description of

80

the Greek festivals is instructive:

This, in outline and with the omission of a number of festivals
which were merely commemorative of events in Athenian history, or
were brought in by foreigners with the permission of the Athenian
government, or finally are so obscure and difficult. . . , was
the ecclesiastical year of the Greek community which we know best,
or rather of which we are, in this and other respects, least ig-
norant.88

In the table which follows (the present writer's own construc-

tion), the division is according to the months of the Greek year.
Table 9: The Greek Ecclesiastical Calendar89

1. Month of Hekatombion (midsummer: approximately July):

a. Feast of Hekatombia: 7th day (7); in honor of Apollo; sac-
rifice of hekatombs; little else known.

b. Feast of the Kronia: 12th day; in honor of Kronos; a harvest
festival.

c. Feast of the Panathenaia: 28th day; in honor of Athena;
songs, dances, sacrifices, bestowal of new mantle on statue of
Athena.

2. Month of Metageitnion:
a. Feast of Metageitnia: some connection with relationships be-
tween neighbors; sacrifices to Apollo; little else known.
b. Feast of Eleusinia: biennial; in honor of Demeter and Kore;
athletic events; reference to the fertility of the fields.

3. Month of Boedromion ("Helpers"):

a. Feast of Boedromia: 7th day; in honor of Apollo; little else
known.

b. Eleusinian Mysteries: 15th through 22nd days; sacred dances
and pantomimes; re-enactment of the myth of Kore, daughter of
Demeter; probably originally a magic fertility rite for the
fields.

4. Month of Pyanopsion:
a. Feast of Proerosia: 5th day; asking blessing on husbandmen.
b. Feast of Pyanopsia: 7th day; in honor of Apollo; a feast of
porridge was offered to Apollo to stimulate the crops.
c. Feast of Thesmophoria: 11th to 13th days; a fertility feast
for the fields; female participants only.

5. Month of Maimakterion:
a. Feast of Maimakteria: in honor of Zeus; purpose was to ward
off damage from the autumn storms.

6. Month of Poseidon:
a. Feast of Poseidea: 8th day; little known.

7.

8.

81

Table 9 (continued)

b. Feast of the Haloa: 26th day; festival of Demeter; fertility
magic is prominent; Poseidon also honored under his older role
of fertility god.

Month of Gamelion:

a. Feast of Gamelia: commemorates the marriage of Zeus and Hera
and that of Sky and Earth.

b. Feast of Lenaia: 12th to 14th days; feast of Dionysius; an
urban celebration; use of drama.

Month of Anthesterion:

a. Feast of Anthesteria: 11th to 13th days; a spring festival;
a festival of flowers; a wine festival, including the libation
of the first pourings of the new wine; a festival in honor of
the dead.

b. Feast of Diasia: 23rd day; in honor of Zeus Meilichios;
greatest of the Zeus feasts; involved a holocaust; a gloomy
feast; title "Meilichios" is a euphemism.

Month of Elaphebolion:

a. Feast of Elaphebolia: in honor of Artemis; festival of stags.

b. Urban Dionysia: 8th to 13th days; in honor of Dionysius;
major occasion for the celebration of drama.

10. Month of Munichion:

a. Feast of Munichia: 16th day; a festival of Artemis; little
known.

11. Month of Thargelion:

a. Feast of Thargelia: 6th and 7th days; purification feast; in
honor of Apollo; selection of one man and one woman to act as
scapegoats to carry off the miasmata of the people.

b. Feast of Kallynteria and Plynteria ("housecleaning" and "clothes
washing," reSpectively): 24th and 25th days; the temple of
Athena and the statue's coverings were cleansed by the women.

12. Month of SkirOphorion:

a. Feast of the Skira: fertility feast; burying of fertility
symbols.

b. Feast of Dipolieia: 14th day; feast of Zeus Polieus, god of
the city and the citadel; ritual slaying of sacred ox and
judicial trial and condemnation of the instrument used in the
slaying.

82

Even a casual perusal of the table will reveal the predominance
of agricultural and fertility feasts. How much of this was religion
and how much was magic it is impossible to say,90 but the point is the
same in either case: one demand that the gods made was that man give
heed to them when it came to crOp growing. The far-reaching import-
ance of this appears when one considers how basic to life itself in
ancient Greece was the success or failure of the cr0p. Indeed, it is
not too much to say that life simply depended, unqualifiedly, on this:
if the crop was good, life was good; if the crOp failed, life was
harsh and not infrequently extinguished.91 But this means that the
gods demanded due recognition, whether magically or religiously, for
the maintenance of life itself.
When the gods did allow the continuance of life, there were cer-
tain conditions attached. For while the gods might not inflict the
extreme punishment of starvation, they were quite capable of making
life fairly miserable if provoked. We see a realization of this fact
reflected in the rise of the phenomenon which Nilsson terms "legal—
ism":
Legalism is the attempt to win the grace and favour of the gods
by fulfilling their commandments. In some religions, as those of
Judaea and Persia, legalism developed into a ritual law, whose
commands and prohibitions are binding on human life down to minute
details. The sound good sense of the Greeks kept them from going
to any such extreme, but they went part of the way.92

Instances of legalism of this sort occur as early as Hesiod. Thus,

it is only after praying to Zeus Chthonios and to Demeter that one

ought to begin plowing.93 There are certain days or seasons that are

lucky for a given project, others that are the reverse; Hesiod's ad-

vice is brief and to the point: "But you, Perses, be mindful of the

83

proper times for all works (TJvn 6', 6 Hépon, épywv usuvnuévos etvaL
mpanv udvrmv)."94 A libation to Zeus or any other god ought not be
poured with unwashed hands, lest the god, far from hearing the prayers
of the pourer, spit them back at him.95 So also, the private needs of
the body ought not be attended to in public, for "The nights belong to
the blessed (uaxdpwv TOL vuxreg EoOLv)."96 There is even a proper
time for procreation: it should be done after a festival of the gods,
7
rather than after some profaning activity like a burial.9 There are
certain rubrics to be observed when crossing a river, violation or
neglect of which brings the wrath of the gods.98 And there are many
more such pieces of advice, the observance of which, feels Hesiod,
will bring the blessing of the gods and the disregard of which will
incur their hatred. The gods, of course, were notorious for doing
something about their hatreds.
Nor was Hesiod the only one to plump for religious legalism of
this sort.
There is a supplement to Hesiod's Works and Days which, however,
is not much later than the poem itself; it shows how far it was
possible to go in imposing a set of rules on the business of life.
It . . . deals with the days of the month-—a list of lucky and
unlucky days which, revised with the help of astrology, was long
authoritative. The first, last, fourth, and seventh days are
holy, but the fifth is to be avoided; the sixteenth is not good

for plants, but it is for men; it is not lucky for a girl either
to be born on that day or to be married, and so on.

 

It might be wondered just how much of all this really pertained to
Greek religion, properly so called. Sometimes explicit references to
the anger of the gods are made; just as often, however, it is simply
lucky or unlucky to do something, or to do it on a given date. But

' the question is somewhat of an academic one. It is highly unlikely

84

that the Greek peasant, at least, made the distinction. After all, if
he got whatever it was that he wanted, he was fortunate (or "lucky,"
if you will), and this meant that the gods were pleased with him. If
he did not, i.e., if he was unfortunate or unlucky, it could only mean
that the gods were displeased. And, since it is obviously better to
get what one wants than not to get it, it paid to make sure that the
gods were pleased with one continuously.

One way to make sure that the gods would not be pleased with
one, however, was to be unjust. This is a theme that runs throughout

the Works and Days of Hesiod, and even a casual reading of the poem

 

will indicate as much. For example, the basic plaint on which the
whole work is based, the unjust acts of Perseus, shows that this was
uppermost in Hesiod's mind.100 Zeus is, after all, the avenger of
injustice and the rewarder of justice,101 and it is useless to hide
evil deeds from him, for his thirty thousand watchful spirits attend
to the doings of men.102 The upshot is that, in great deeds or small,

"An evil plan is most evil of all for the planner (fi 6% xaxh Boulh IQ

BouledoavTL nonfat”) "103

The comparison is sometimes made104 between Hesiod and the
Hebrew prophet Amos:

Both quiver with a passion for justice, but there is a great dif—
ference between their expressions of it. Hesiod's Zeus is not
Amos' Yahweh, the jealous god whose very nature is justice and
whose wrath smites and punishes the unjust. Zeus had long been,
and still is in Hesiod, the champion of justice; his eyes see
everything and notice everything; he fixes a penalty for the
haughty who commit wickedness and shameful deeds, but since Zeus
sat enthroned in the far distance, the result is that his inter-
vention lacks the force and obviousness which characterize that
of Amos' Yahweh. He sends out watchers who move invisibly about
the earth and observe the doings of mankind. When anyone commits
injustice, Zeus' daughter Dike, the goddess of justice, sits

85

beside him and complains of the unrighteousness of men, weeping
for the evil doings of men who wrong her. To Amos justice is the
very kernel of the divine activity, to Hesiod it is the foundation
on which human society rests, given and protected by Zeus. For
Amos, justice belongs to the sphere of the deity, for Hesiod, to
the human sphere, although it is under divine protection.105
The comparison is instructive, and I shall return to it again later on
in this chapter;106 for now, however, it is worth bearing in mind
that "justice" to a Greek refers primarily to what later ages will
call "retributive justice,"107 the retribution which avenges wrong-
doing (or, the other side of the coin, the blessings which reward
righteousness). It is not so much a question of the good or evil deed
considered in itself, but rather the divine action that is consequent
upon it, that is the decisive factor in the Greek notion of justice.

The gods, then, have thus far demanded acknowledgment of their
sway over human life itself (witness the large number of sacrifices
that constitute the bulk of the Greek religious calendar), and acknow-
ledgment of their influence over the conduct of that.life as well, and
also righteousness on the part of men, lest men be visited with divine
justice. They have demanded, in homely language, that men pay atten-
tion to them, and that men avoid wrongdoing. And they have demanded
that this be a continuous, life-long process.

Men, however, are notorious in their inability to stay on the
straight and narrow path for any great length of time. Given that
fact, another demand of the gods becomes clear: should man become in-
volved in wrongdoing, it behooves him to purge himself of it as ex-
peditiously as possible lest the drastic punishment of nemesis enter

the picture. And so it is that we find the curious ceremony of the

scapegoat in the Thaegelia festival.

86
Something else follows from this. For if man is to avoid wrong-
doing, and if man is inept at avoiding it, it follows that some sort
of divine guidance will be in order. And divine guidance there was,
in the form of oracles, most notably at Delphi, where advice on puri-
fication from wrongdoing was prolific in the early days of Greece.108
As the oracle developed, advice began to be given on all sorts of
other topics as well.
He [Apollo] was the divine authority to which recourse was had
for regulating or, when necessary, reforming a cult. He gave
recognition to new gods and heroes (we may say that he canonized
the latter), and to alterations in established worships. He regu-
lated the cults of settlers who were going out to found a city
in foreign parts. He sanctioned regulations for festivals, with
which the introduction of an ordered calendar, which he favoured,
was closely connected, for the hundreds of Greek names of months
(they varied from one state to the next) are almost with ex-
ception derived from festivals celebrated in them. He extended
his activity from sacral to civil law. . . . States had recourse
to him and asked for his sanction for the laws which their legis-
lators had recorded or given, and Apollo thus gave the civil law
his support by right of his divine authority.1 9
Perhaps the best summation of Apollo's oracular advice is con-
tained in the inscription found on the temple at Delphi: yvfiBL
oeuvt6v: know yourself, i.e., know what you are-—a man and nothing
more. Know that you are not a god, and do not attempt to act like a
god. Know rather that you are a human. And, correlative with this,
know that other men are humans as well, and that you must act toward
them as one human toward another, and not as a god toward a human.110
To their primary demands of acknowledgement of their sway over
life and the conduct of life, the gods now demand righteousness, or,
should wrongdoing occur, purification from it. They also demand that

the position of gods vis-a-vis men be rigidly maintained, that man

should not seek to become a god either in his dealings with the gods

87

or with other men. Nor is this merely an idle demand. It is en-
forced with threats of nemesis.
We must turn, now, in the next section of this chapter, to see

what "demands, so to speak, men made of the gods: what did the Greek
seek from his gods? What did he expect to find in them? And, most

critically, were the gods able to deliver what was expected?

The Men: What They Demanded of the Gods

 

We can perhaps begin this section by recalling something that
was said above: the gods expected men to practice righteousness and
avoid wrongdoing, and the latter demand was backed up by the threat of
divine retribution. But there is another side to divine retribution:
if that is the correlative of wrongdoing, it ought to follow, in the
eyes of the logical Greeks, that there should be a correlative of
righteousness as well. In other words, the upright man should prosper
in his life. Furthermore, if man sought the counsel of the gods at
one of the oracles, and if that counsel was given, then by following
that counsel man ought to prosper. Or, to put the matter even more
fundamentally, if man's needs create the gods, as Nilsson has con-
tended, then what is to be said if those needs are not met? What if
the gods fail, or appear to fail, and man does not prosper? Obviously,
something is standing in the way, and it can only be injustice. But
what if man is doing all he can to be upright, is following the advice
of the oracles, is diligently maintaining his place as a man and not
trying to be a god, and nevertheless is still suffering ill? Em—

pirically, the doctrine that the just man prospers and the unjust man

88

suffers simply does not work out on either count: the just man is
often afflicted, and the unjust man seems often to proSper in direct
proportion to his wickedness.

One of two things must happen at this point. Either the entire
idea of the gods and their sway over human life will be rejected, or
else some sort of modification will have to be introduced into the
doctrine. The first alternative seems not to have been taken by very
many in Greece, at least in the early days. There is the interesting
case of Xenophanes, in the early fifth century,111 but this seems to
be rare. The usual course is for the somewhat simplistic doctrine to
be amended. This can take one of several directions. There is the
idea that the just man is suffering for the transgressions of his an-
cestors; this is fairly common, but it hinges on the conception of
clan solidarity and cannot survive an emerging notion of the individ-
ual as individual. Another modification that is possible is to place
man's final vindication in some sort of life after death. That this
option was tried is obvious by a contrast of the conception of the
realm of the dead in Homer and the more developed notion that one
finds in, say, the transmigration doctrine of the Pythagoreans. This
notion of life after death reaches a climax when the claim is made
that, indeed, the sufferings of the just man occur in an inconsider-
able, trivial portion of his existence, and that vindication holds
sway over a much larger span of that existence. Or, a combination of
these notions is possible: the just man could be suffering for a
transgression that he committed in some earlier phase of his ex-

istence°

89

Another problem that the logical Greeks could see with the
divine scheme of things was this: why is it that a given act is un—
righteous for a man, whereas a god could perform that same act with
impunity? Thus for instance: it is wrong for a man to abscond with
his neighbor's wife, but the gods have few if any inhibitions about
doing just this--witness the variegated love lives of Zeus. This is,
at root, a complaint about the whole peculiar sort of moral goings-on
that abound among the Olympians as they appear in Homer, a complaint
whose point grows all the sharper the closer the gods come to being
simply super-humans. It seems the height of injustice that there
should be a double standard, one for men and quite another for gods.
Justice (whether commutitive or retributive) becomes an arbitrary,
irrational thing if this is the case.
The solutions to this problem also take different directions.
The earliest of them is that found in Hesiod.
For we find . . . a tendency to correct the existing myths in the
interests of morality or theology. It is Hesiod who tells the
story of how Prometheus befooled Zeus; it is also Hesiod who
spoils it by saying that Zeus was not really deceived at all, but
only pretended to be. Hesiod's fellow-countryman, Pindar, can be
very critical of myths. A story was told how Tantalus, to test
the gods' omniscience, served up to them the flesh of his own son
PelOps. One of them ate a little of it without recognizing it,
and ever afterwards Pelops had, though miraculously restored to
life, one shoulder of ivory and not of flesh. To Pindar this
is both incredible and impious. Pelops was snatched up alive to
heaven by Poseidon, who loved him for his beauty, and the tale
that he had been murdered by his father was nothing but slander.
As to his ivory shoulder, he had had that from his birth.112

The first approach, therefore, is to correct the myths in the in-

terests of edification. Another approach is simply to deny the valid-

ity of any of the disedifying myths:

90

Years later, Euripides, who was a radical in religious matters

as in many others, put into the mouth of one of his characters

the bold statement, "If the gods do aught base, they are no gods."
Pindar would rather have said that they were gods, therefore they
do nothing base, whatever lying fables men may tell of them.113

However, it takes considerable ingenuity to correct myths, and
it is too much to expect that the ordinary Greek engaged in much of
this. It is much more likely that this simply became an unresolved,
and festering, problem. It takes considerable hardihood, on the other
hand, simply to deny all the offensive myths. If one is to be con-
sistent about this, he will have to deny a large number of them, and
this leaves very little religious base from which to operate.

To these problems, i.e., the sufferings of the just man and the
disedifying character of the myths, is added yet another difficulty.
For what happens when the gods prove themselves incapable of perform-
ing the functions expected of them? When, for example, a city is
under the divine protection of one or other god or goddess, and 10,
that city is one day successfully stormed and burned, what is to be
said for the divine power that was supposed to be protecting it?
Similarly, when all the due sacrifices have been made and all the
proper formalities observed in order to insure a good crop, and then
blight hits the fields and the population of a town comes near star-
vation, what happened to the god? One can, of course, say that there
is some hidden miasma among the citizenry. But when this sort of
thing happens regularly, that explanation begins to strain credulity
beyond the breaking point. When the disaster is on a large scale, of

course, the impact is all the greater.

Theoretical problems, moreover, presented themselves to the more

91

reflective type Greek. The question of omnipresence, for example,
gave birth to problems that seemed to contradict divine omnipotence.
Thus in the Ilig§_we have Thetis' power to intercede for her son
limited by the fact that she cannot have immediate access to Zeus:
he and the other gods have gone to Ethiopia for a banquet.114 The
other gods take advantage of Poseidon's absence to victimize him
somewhat in sanctioning the return of Odysseus.115 Similarly with
regard to divine omniscience: in the example just cited, Poseidon
does not know about Odysseus' return until he sees the latter's ship
out on the sea.116 Menelaus and his troop capture Proteus unawares
and unsuspecting.117 And finally, the same thing is true in regard
to omnipotence: even Poseidon cannot save Odysseus from Charyb-

dis;118 it avails the Cyclops not at all to cry out to Poseidon over

the loss of his eye, for the god can do nothing about it.119 All
these--and numerous others like them--are disturbing, particularly

when added to the lack of morality and other anomalies in the world

of the gods which we have already noted.

The Men and the Gods: Some Reflections

 

It is time to reflect on what has been sketched out in this
long chapter, and to draw some conclusions about the Greeks, their
gods, and the problems that both had with each other. What I wish
to suggest here--and it is a notion fundamental to this disserta-
tion-~is simply this: Greek religion was basically an authoritarian
one. Certain things were to be done because the gods said so. But

by way of enforcing this, certain threats were made. The threats,

92

however, had corollaries, and those corollaries were capable of being
empirically tested. In a word, the gods failed the test. They failed
it on a number of scores, but perhaps the situation could be put thus:
having failed to do what they were supposed to do, the gods found
themselves in a position wherein the basic premise of their suprem—
acy--the yvfieL oeuurdv they imposed on man--could not stand logical
scrutiny because of serious internal contradictions. The gods them-
selves were not (commutatively) just. Nor were they subject to
retributive justice, without which commutative justice, in an
authoritarian framework, is at best meaningless and at worst ir-
rational. Any attempts to ameliorate the situation proved to be
more palliatives than cures.

There is, indeed, a certain parallel between the Greeks and the
Hebrews in regard to the notion of the sufferings of the just man.
The Hebrews too started out with the notion that (retributive) justice
requires that the evil man should suffer and that the good should
prosper; this is the tenor of many of the early books of the Old
Testament. Moreover, the Hebrew religion, like the Greek one, was an
authoritarian one. However, at this point the parallel fails, since
the internal contradiction did not develop in the Yahwistic religion.
The command was, indeed, to be holy because Yahweh was holy. But the
difference was precisely that: Yahweh ye§_holy, and therefore his
credibility was not to be questioned. The result was that the Hebrews
were able to work out, within the authoritarian framework, some sort
of satisfactory concept of life after death (the process is seen at

work in the writings of Qoheleth and in the book of Job, and it

93

reaches a considerably higher stage in the books of the Maccabees).
The Greeks did not, for the internal inconsistency necessitated re-
jecting the framework itself.
Yet, given a rejection of the Olympians, where was the Greek to

turn? Some turned to the mystery religions:

There was always a possibility that in times of discontent some

of them might also tamper with the traditional hierarchy of the

gods. It is not, therefore, surprising that by about the sixth

century or earlier we hear of religious innovations.120
In the mystery religions, a number of answers might be found, more or
less satisfactory. Others, however, and among these some very seri-
ous thinkers, opted in another direction, with immense consequences
for the history of human thought. For if the yvmeL occurdv had to be
rejected in one of its meanings, there still remained the germ of
something viable in it: know that you are a man, and that you are not
a god-~since there are no gods. And therefore the question must be:
what does it mean to be a man? The question will have to be answered
in sheerly human terms; there are no others, for the authority struc-
ture has passed away. Nor can help be sought in vestiges of religion,
even when that religion itself is rejected, for the good reason that
Greek religion was not a "teaching" religion, one with fixed creed and
.doctrine. Once the gods were discredited, nothing remained for ra-
tional thought to use as a starting point. This too is a difference
between the Greek and the Hebrew religions, for the Hebrews did indeed
have definite creeds and beliefs. For the Hebrews and, indeed, for
the Christian faith after them, the question was how to determine the

relationship between the authoritarian and the speculative modes of

thought-~a question, incidentally, not definitively decided until the

‘___..:1AFT'_'
. 2
h .

w

94

time of Nicea in the fourth century of the Christian era. But for the
Greeks, there was no question of reconciling the two. The speculative
mode simply replaced, rather than augmented, the authoritarian one,
both because of the contradictions inherent in the Greek authoritarian
structure and because there was no dogmatic content in Greek religion
to which the speculative mode could attach itself. And thus the ra-
tional or speculative mode went off on its own in Greece--with, as

has been remarked, incalculably immense consequences for the history
of Western thought.

Obviously, the process of the rejection of the authority struc-
ture has been streamlined considerably in these pages. I do not sug-
gest that all this came about rapidly, or that the entire train of
thought that I have sketched out occurred to any one individual at any
assignable point of time. Yet it is my contention that something like
this must have been the over-all effect produced by multiple disil-
lusionment with the divine.

Finally, before this excessively long chapter comes to a close,
some attention should be paid to how the theory detailed in the above
paragraphs ties in with the opinions of the different authors given
in the first chapter of this study. If there is any merit in the
theory, after all, one side benefit from it ought to be the unifica-
tion of at least some of the discordant notes that we have seen in ex-
planations of the origins of the Greek genius.

I shall omit Bréhier; since he considers the origins of Greek
thought to be non—Greek, it will be obvious enough that his work and

the theory I have sketched are simply incompatible.

95

Windelband, it will be remembered, held the critical factor to
be the growth in awareness of personal individuality, fostered by a
number of economic and political factors. Granted; but the question
is, in what regard is this developing consciousness important? Many
peOples have advanced from clan consciousness to individual conscious-
ness, but they have not originated philOSOphies. It is rather that
when the individual becomes conscious of himself as an individual, he
simultaneously realizes that he must be held responsible for his own
deeds only, rather than those of his ancestors or of other members of
the clan. Therefore an explanation of personal misfortune based on
collective consciousness must fail and hence must be replaced. In the
case of the Greeks, the rejection of the divine authority structure
and the lack of dogmatic content in the Olympian religion successfully
obviated any possibility of replacing this rejected explanation with
another one drawn from religious sources. In this they differed from
other ancient peoples.

That the theory propounded by the present study is compatible
with Zeller's view will be obvious enough. The "Apolline clarity of
the Greek mind" was precisely what the Greeks had left--and all they
had left-—to formulate answers to the questions that the Olympian re-
ligion left blank. That clarity of mind was also, very probably, the
driving force that led to their success in doing so. They 3252 an in-
quisitive and clear-thinking peOple, and that meant that they would
not be satisfied with cloudy, inconsistent, or contradictory answers.
It is also that clarity of mind that saw the flaws in the Olympian

scheme of things. Thus, both their peculiar gift of rationality and

96

the field upon which they were forced to exercise that gift dis-
tinguished them from other ancient peoples.

Guthrie's idea of a basic underlying order is one that cer-
tainly is not contradicted by anything that this study has stated.

But on the other hand, neither is its agreement with it immediately
apparent. Certainly philosophy did begin, in both views, when anthro—
pomorphic polytheism was rejected. But the reasons for this rejection
differ in the two views. I have already indicated that I do not con-
sider the idea of increased wealth as a sufficient reason for this to
be adequate. Many peoples, once again, have acquired considerable
wealth down through the ages; but precious few of them have origin-
ated philosophies.

Copleston's remark about the absence of any "orthodoxy" in Greek
religion fits in with the ideas that I have advanced, I think. Obvi-
ously there was no orthodoxy; there was nothing to be orthodox about.

With Cornford, I have some agreement and some disagreement. I
do, indeed, think that the work of the first phiIOSOphers was to strip
away the encrustation of Greek religious thought. I would not, how-
ever, wish to follow him in his analysis of the source of that relig-
ious thought for reasons that I have already stated.121 Basically,
it will be remembered that Cornford's notion views philOSOphy as a
later development of certain primitive convictions, imbibed non-
critically during adolescence. Again, I think that this remains to be
established and, prior to proof, can reasonably enough be disregarded.

With Burnet, the question is posed quite explicitly: which came

first, science or ethics? He opts quite definitely for science,

97

remarking that polytheism was not rejected and a reasoned ethics
worked out until the older cosmologies were undermined. I am not
satisfied with this, I admit, for reasons that I have given above.122
I find myself wondering if it were not the other way around, and that
the search for stability amid change in the physical universe were not
simply a reflection of the search for stability in the moral order,
once authoritarian polytheism had been rejected. For while it is a
fact that the early Ionian cosmologists did turn their energies to
finding an underlying, unchanging substratum for the physical uni-
verse, that fact is hardly self-explanatory. In fact, it is inex-
plicable, if one opts for the science-then-ethics view. The only
option then is simply to accept the fact that one fine day this group
of men began to wonder about physical change, without much good rea-
son for doing so. If on the other hand the sequence is reversed, and
one sees in the Ionians an effort to find stability in the physical
world as a ground for stability in the moral world (since that ground
could no longer be sought in the supernatural world), then the pattern
becomes a good deal more intelligible.

However, the test of a theory is how well it works out in the
writings of the men to whom the theory is supposed to apply. Conse-
quently, the following two chapters of this study will be devoted to
an examination of the extant writings of Empedocles and Heraclitus,

with a view toward seeing whether or not that theory can be borne out.

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

le. supra, p. 35.

2H. J. Rose, Ancient Greek Religion (New York: Hutchinson's
University Library, 1946), pp. 18ff.

 

3Quoted in Paul F. Distler, S.J., Vergil and Vergiliana
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1966), p. 310.

 

4At first blush, it might seem that a considerable obstacle
stands in the way of this study: there is no universally agreed-upon
text of the Theogony. Granted; there is not, and there seems to be
no way to separate out to everyone's complete satisfaction what Hesiod
himself wrote and what is an interpolation. Fortunately, however,
"The text which has come down to us contains extensive interpolations
which were inserted at a time so close to Hesiod's as to make them
almost indistinguishable from Hesiod's own work." (Quotation taken
from Norman 0. Brown, tr., Hesiod: Theogony [New York: Library of
Liberal Arts, 1953], p. 7; emphasis added.) Since it is the re-
ligious milieu of Hesiod's time that is our primary concern, the text-
ual problems, vexing as they are to the scholar of Hesiod himself,
need not concern us.

 

 

5Hesiod, Theggony, LL. ll6ff.

61bid., LL. 124ff.

7Ibid., LL. 211ff.

8The English rendering of the names in the tables is that of
Brown, op.cit. I do not, however, follow him in translating Xdog as
"The Void." The fact that some of the names in the tables are trans-
lated and some merely transliterated is also due to Brown.

One might wonder about the source of Hesiod's genealogies. Part
of them can be identified as coming from Homer (Iliad, XVIII, 40ff: '
the daughters of Nereus, for example); the others could either be his
own constructions or could stem from a now-lost source.

91 omit from this table much of the material found in lines 956-
1022 of the poem, not so much because of their doubtful authenticity
but rather because they deal exclusively with the unions of divine
personages and mortals. The offspring of these unions thus lie some-
what outside the scope of interest of this study.

98

99

10Rose, op.cit., p. 27.

11Ibid.

12Hesiod, WOrks and Days, LL. 156-160. The text is that of
Evelyn-White (1914); the translation is the present author's.

 

13Rose, op.cit., p. 28.
14Hesiod, works and Dayg, LL. 109-126; my translation.
15

Rose, op.cit., p. 28.

16Ibid., p. 30.

17Ibid., p. 32.

18The view of history adopted here is the traditional one that
the Minoans suffered an invasion from the mainland, a view expressed
by (among others) J. B. Bury, A History_of Greece (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1963), PP. 44ff. There are, to be sure, other and
more recent views of what happened. But this still seems to be the
dominant view, at least as present; and the present writer feels
that it would be out of place for him to enter into argument about a
question wherein the opinion of professional historians is divided.

19Rose, 0p.cit., pp. 18f.

201bid., p. 47.

211bid.. pp. 47f.

22Ibid., p. 48.

23Ibid.

24Ibid., p. 50. Evidence that Demeter was Greek (i.e., Achaian)
rests on linguistic considerations: the last two syllables of the
name are simply the Greek word for "mother," and the first perhaps a
by-word for "spelt" (Rose, op.cit., p. 50).

zsIbido I pp. SOfe

26This is somewhat inferential from the (later) fact that Arte-

mis is certainly the bringer of death to women in Homer (cf. Iliad,
VI, 428; XIX, 59; XXIV, 602-609; Odyssey, XI, 172; XVIII, 202).

27Rose, 0p.cit., p. 51.

28Ibid., p. 52.

29Ibid., pp. 52f.

100

30Ibid., pp. 53f.
31The information for the table is distilled from Rose, op.cit.,
pp. 50-62.

2 . .
Martin P. Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, second
edition (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1964).

3Perhaps the greatest such reservation is that Nilsson puts the
theory forth as something which applies to religions in general, with-
out much distinction. Thus for instance, in one place we find the
following illuminating (if illegitimate) transfer:
This tendency to exalt one among a number of similar beings to a
position of supremacy was so ingrained that it has left an example
dating from the time of transition to the Christian faith. The
Lycian "wild gods" are represented as twelve similar figures; to
them a thirteenth was added as their ruler, and he was placed in
the middle and was somewhat larger in size, but was in other re-
spects just like the rest. (Pp. 112f.)
But Nilsson's evidence is largely drawn from Greek sources, and the
implied principle that all religions work the same way is one which is
hardly self—evident. I should think, therefore, that the scape of the
evidence ought to determine the scope of the conclusions--which means
that, as far as a study of the origins of Greek religious thought
goes, Nilsson's evidence is pertinent and his conclusions warranted;
when the Greek evidence is extended to cover conclusions from other
areas, however, it ceases to be scholarly and becomes either opinion
or prejudice.

34Nilsson, op.cit., p. 45.

3SIbid.

36Nilsson is not completely clear at this point in the book just
what these "religious motives" are supposed to be. Presumably he is
referring to man's needs, fears, desires, etc., which he will discuss
at a point in his book later than the one we are now considering.

37Nilsson, op.cit., p. 48.

38Ibid., p. 48. The term "inventive" is Nilsson's.

39Ibid.

40Ibid., p. 52.

41Ibid., pp. 52f.

421bid., p. 52.

4352id, There are exceptions, e.g., Psyche's prohibition

against looking at her bridegroom in daylight.

101

44Ibid., p. 62.
45Ibid., p. 66.

46Ibid., pp. 81f.

47
Rose, op.cit., pp. 20f.

48Ibid., pp. 21f.

49Nilsson, op.cit., p. 82.

SOIbid.

51Ibid., p. 83.

52Ibid., pp. 87f.

53Ibid., p. 88.

54Rose, op.cit., pp. 90ff.

55Nilsson, op.cit., p. 104.

56Ibid., p. 106.

57Ibid., pp. 108f.

SBIbid., p. 111.

591bid., p. 110.

6OIbid., p. 112.

61Ibid., p. 113.

621bid., p. 115.

63Ibid., p. 117.

64Ibid., p. 118.

65In the pages which follow, the discerning reader will perhaps
experience a sense of dissatisfaction in that no thorough accounting
of the Homeric view of the origins of the gods is presented (as is
done for Hesiod); nor is much attempt made at a systematic delinea-
tion of the views which Homer had of the gods themselves and their ac-
tivities. It is a dissatisfaction which the author shares. However,
several considerations militated against such a presentation. For one
thing, Homer is not systematic in his presentation of the gods; they
are not the focal point of his story. Quite the opposite; the gods
tend to be brought into the story for the sake of the men in the story.

102

Thus a systematic presentation of Homer's thoughts on the Olympian
divinities is something that would have to be constructed by bringing
together elements from all the books of the Iliad and the Odyssey--an
enterprise whose length would border on the prohibitive. By way of a
brief characterization, however, one might say that the gods in Homer
are not the absolute and perfect beings that we in the Judaeo—
Christian tradition expect them to be. Plato, it is true, thought
that the god(s) was (were) perfect and hence forbade the poets from
having a place in his republic; it is also true that the role of
the gods in the Eumenides of Aeschylus is certainly satisfying and
perhaps inspiring. But in Homer, the gods are merely interesting
and not a model for human conduct; they are if anything worse, not
better, than men. They lie to and otherwise deceive both one another
and men. They provide a change of tone, sometimes similar to that
of comic relief (as, for example, in the Hephaistos story [Iliad,
I, 571ffn. Perhaps above all they are useful for indicating human
motivation (as when Zeus causes panic among the Greeks [Iliad,VIII,
77ff], or, when Achilles is about to kill Agamemnon, Athena appears
to him and bids him desist [Iliad,I, 188ff]). Nor should it be for-
gotten that the Olympian gods that Homer depicts do not represent
the whole of Greek religion. Thus we see Furies (in, for example,
the Eumenides of Aeschylus), Fates (in Sophocles' Oedipps Rex), and
Necessity (in Aeschylus' Prometheus); there are also, as has been
mentioned, the mystery religions. In this latter connection, a
classic study is that of L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States
(five volumes; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896-1909)--a work which
in this present study is presumed rather than summarized.

Another reason why a thorough account of the religion in
Homer's day is not given is that, in the present writer's View, it
is not really demanded by the work of the thesis. The reader will
note that the point at issue is simply that there is a drastic change
between Homer's gods and the earlier, soul-searingly terrifying
divinities portrayed by Nilsson and Rose. For this, the recollections
of the thoughtful reader who is basically familiar with Homer will
perhaps suffice.

Should the reader wish a somewhat detailed accounting of the
gods in Homer, however, he may consult the work of E. T. Owen, :22
Story of the Iliad (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966).

 

 

 

66Homer, Iliad, V, 889-891. The text is that of Murray (1924),
the translation that of E. V. Rieu, in the Penguin Classics Edition
(p. 116).

672232;. VIII. 10-13; Rieu translation.
68 . ,

Nilsson, op.c1t., p. 143.
69Ibid., p. 144.
70Ibid., pp. 145f.

71Ibid., pp. 146-148.

103

72This suggests the relevance of an earlier section of this
chapter: not only did the Achaian invaders bring along their own
deities, whose functions and personalities merged and became fused
with those of the native gods, but they also brought their own manner
of conceiving divinity. This too becomes melded with the native one,
with far-reaching consequences. This notion was suggested earlier,
in connection with the transformation undergone by Artemis (supra, pp.
57f); its full ramifications become clear now.

73Nilsson, op.cit., p. 136.

74Cf. Table 1, supra, p. 46.

75Nilsson, 0p.cit., p. 136.

7 . . .
6He51od, Works and Days, op.c1t., LL. 1-8; my translation.

 

77Ibid., L. 36.
78Ibid., LL. SSff.
79 . .
Ibid., L. 99; my translation.
80
Ibid., L. 105; my translation.
81Ibid., LL. 138-139; my translation.
82 .
Ibid., L. 178; my translation.
83Ibid., LL. 182ff.
84Ibid., LL. 229ff.
85Ibid., LL. 238ff.
86

Ibid., LL. 252f.

87Robert Flaceliére, A Literary History of Greece (New York:
New American Library, 1968), pp. 89f.

88H. J. Rose, Religion in Greece and Rome (New York: Harper and
Row, 1959), p. 89.

 

 

89Ibid., pp. 67-89.

9on. ibid., p. 73n:
The difference between magic and religion is essentially that the
former is supposed to be effective in itself, the words, actions,
and so forth, of the magician having power to compel, if neces-
sary, both nature and the gods governing it to obey him. The
religious attitude is more dependent, involving petitions to what-
ever beings are believed in to do what the worshipper wants, and
not trying to force them to agree.

104

91Cf. James Conway, S.J., Introduction to the History of Greek

 

Philosgphy, unpublished ms (New York: Fordham University, n.d.),
p. 13.

 

92Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Piety, tr. H. J. Rose (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1948), pp. 30ff.

93

 

 

Hesiod, Works and Days, op.cit., LL. 465f.
94 .
Ibid., LL. 64lf; my translation.
95Ibid., LL. 724—726.
96 .
Ibid., L. 730; my translation.
97Ibid., LL. 735f.
98

Ibid., LL. 737-739.

99Nilsson, Greek Piety, 0p.cit., p. 32.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lOOCf. LL. 212ff et alibi passim.
101 .
Hesiod, Works and Days, op.c1t., LL. 225ff.
lo21bid., LL. 252ff.
103Ibid., L. 266; my translation.
104 . . . .
e.g., in Nilsson, Greek Piety, op.c1t., pp. 34f.
105Ibid.
106Cf. infra, p. 92.
107 . . .
Nilsson, Greek Piety, 0p.c1t., p. 35.
108Ibid., pp. 42ff.
109Ibid., p. 46.
110Ibid., PP. 47ff.
lll . . . .
Rose, Anoient Greek Religion, op.c1t., p. 98.
112Ibid.
113Ibid., p. 99.
114 . .
Cf. Nilsson, History, op.c1t., p. 149.
115

Ibid.

105

lléIbid., p. 150.

117Ibid.

llBIbid., p. 151.

llglbid.

ORose, Religion in Greece and Rome, op.cit., p. 93. The in-
novations that Rose has in mind are those of Orphism.

121Cf. supra, p. 29.

122Cf. supra, p. 34.

123There are some interesting corollaries to this theory. One

would be that the early cosmologists were not as far from the main-
stream of later Greek thought as is sometimes supposed: the same
ethics-leading-to-metaphysics pattern would appear in their work as
is visible in Plato or Plotinus. Then too, it would no longer be
quite as accurate to say, as is commonly done, that the SOphists and
Socrates, in their quite different ways, shifted the direction of
philosophy from cosmology to the study of man. What would have been
shifted, in this theory, is the explicit matters treated, but not the
underlying rationale. However, such corollaries are fit topics for
full-blown treatments themselves, and therefore cannot be more than
simply mentioned in this study.

CHAPTER THREE
EMPEDOCLES OF AKRAGAS
dlBLog, ds eeCwu npaxC6wv éntfioato xlofitov,

65L16g 6', 5L Guardeooc 866v uépL 665a uéunlev.

--Empedocles, Fragment 132.

Perhaps the best way to begin this chapter is by adverting to
a caution voiced by one historian of ancient philosophy:

Even where the [source] material is abundant, as with Plato and
Aristotle, it has afforded ground for widely varying interpreta-
tions. If for these two philosophers there were available only
such meager fragments as are now extant for so many other Greek
philosophers, one can readily imagine how far from what is now
known any reconstruction of their thought would be. Try, for
instance, to figure out a reconstruction of Plato's doctrine of
Ideas based upon the account of Diogenes Laertius (III, lO-lS)!
One can therefore realize the caution that is necessary in re-
constructing more ancient doctrines from the fragments and re—
ports handed down. The safest procedure is to keep as closely
as possible to the wording of the fragments. The texts them-
selves remain immortal, while interpretations of them change.1

One of the "more ancient doctrines" to which Owens refers in
this passage is that of Empedocles. And Owens' caution will deter-
mine both the order of topics in this chapter and how those topics
are treated. We will speak first of Empedocles' life and works, then
of the general drift of his thought (as it can be pieced together
from the fragments); and finally we will consider certain special
questions that are of particular interest to the general subject mat-

ter of this paper, attempting to formulate answers to those questions

106

107

on the basis of the fragments.

Life and Works

 

Disagreement is the keynote when one speaks of details of
Empedocles' life. "No sufficiently established facts are known about
the life of Empedocles."2 However, certain details are traditionally
accepted by most. His floruit date is put around 450 B.C., though
this is a somewhat disputed point.3 The exact dates of his birth and
death are unknown; he is mentioned as visiting Thurii soon after its
foundation, which would make him alive in 444 B.C.4 His age at death
is variously given: some opt for seventy-seven,5 others for ninety-
nine.6 His life seems to have been a favorite theme for apocryphal
biographical tales, centering mostly around his political activities
or his death.7 Thus for instance, he is supposed to have had strong
democratic tendencies, preventing a tyranny at Akragas and helping the
citizenry establish a democratic form of government;8 he brought
about the dissolution of an otherwise-unknown oligarchic association
called "The Thousand," and perhaps it was for that feat that he him-
self was offered the kingship (which he refused).9 On his death,
there is the tale of how he supposedly leaped into Mt. Etna, in order
that his body might not be found and therefore that he might be de-
clared a god, in accordance with his claims in life.10 Other ways in
which he is supposed to have perished include hanging from a high
crag, drowning at sea, and falling out of a wagon.11

Of the sort of person he was, of his interests and activities,

the sources have little enough to say. His claim to be a god and to

108

receive divine homage from other men12 evoked from Burnet the follow-
ing comment: "The truth is, Empedocles was not a mere statesman; he
had a good deal of the 'medicine-man' about him."13 He engaged in
Iactivities which were looked upon as sorceries,l4 and promised the
ability to do likewise as a reward for ardent discipleship.ls We know
from the considerable number of biological references in his work that
he was interested in natural science, particularly human anatomy; for
instance, there are fragments dealing with human bones,16 the human
spine,17 blood and flesh,18 the ear,19 breathing,20 and smell,21 to
name only some. He had a certain religious interest: his claim to be
a god has already been noted, but there lies behind this his doctrine
on transmigration and reincarnation of the soul.22 That he had a low
opinion of existing religions can be inferred from his strictures on
sacrifice.23 However, that there was a certain kinship between his
religious thought and that of others of the day comes out in his no-

tions about diet and abstinence,24 as also in the motif of purifica-

tion from sin or fault.25

Perhaps we can let Freeman tie all this together:

To sum up: we know no definite facts about the life of
Empedocles, as all anecdotes are embroideries on remarks, often
misunderstood, in his own poems. All that we know of his life,
character, and work must be derived from the surviving fragments,
especially the apostrophies to his pupil, and the address to his
fellow citizens. These show him as a man interested only in
natural science, especially medicine, and in a certain religious
doctrine; who scorned the everyday affairs of men; and who
believed that knowledge would give power over nature, while purity
as he conceived it would lead straight to apotheosis and heavenly
bliss. He attained to great fame, being admired by his fellow
citizens, with whom he was on very friendly terms, and also by
inhabitants of other cities. He travelled to some extent, but
whether he ever left Sicily is uncertain. On his travels, he was
particularly welcome because of his medical knowledge, which led
many to regard him as a seer, or even a god. His death occurred

109

away from Acragas, the place and manner of it being unknown.26

Of his works, our knowledge is scarcely better. we know that
he wrote two poems, one with the common enough title Hepi Tuoews ("On
Nature") and the other entitled KaeapuoC ("Purifications").27 He is
thus the second of the Greek philosophers to put forth his ideas in
verse, if we exempt the satirist Xenophanes from consideration.28 The
sources (Diogenes and Souidas)29 tell us that the two poems together
totaled some five thousand verses, and it is a matter of some debate
as to how many lines each of the two contained by itself. Aristotle
has a few unfavorable comments on Empedocles' Sicilian style; the
Stagirite thinks that Empedocles has little in common with Homer ex-
cept metre, and that he is in fact not a poet but a scientist; fur-
thermore, thinks Aristotle, poetry is an unsuitable vehicle for the
expression of philosophical thought.3o Empedocles had, we are told,
written other works as well: a treatise on medicine is mentioned, as
also certain other prose and verse works; of these, nothing re-
mains.31 As Parmenides before him, he employed the epic metre in the

writings that we have.32

Empedocles' Doctrine

 

It is important at the outset to realize the purpose of this
section. The aim here is not to give a complete, systematic account
of Empedocles' thought. This has already been done, far more compe-
tently than the present author could present it, in such works as
Burnet and Zeller, to name only two; and there seems to be no useful

purpose to be served by attempting to duplicate their efforts. The

110

aim here is simply to present the general trend of his thought on some
important questions, to the degree that that can be pieced together
from the available fragments. This in itself has the sole purpose of
providing a matrix or background, against which certain queries can be
put to Empedocles' doctrine, in an attempt to arrive at a deeper
understanding of it. Thus there will be whole areas of his thought
which I shall present only very summarily if at all-~things like his
biological thoughts, to cite one large area. Some background is
needed for the work of this paper, but that background need not be a
complete exposition.

Empedocles can be presented under two aspects, that of a syn-
thesizer of what has gone before and that of an innovator in his own

right.

Empedocles as Synthesizer

 

Thales, it will be remembered, opted for water (or, more prop-

erly, "the moist") as the basic Urstoff of all reality,33 Anaximines

for air.34 Anaximander had chosen 16 dneLpov for his candidate,35 and

had added a primitive sort of explanation of how all things came from

the basic Urstoff in his notion of "separating out."36 The Pythag-

oreans had contributed the notion of the universe as a cosmic harmony
and, more importantly, as a moment in an ever-recurring cycle:

According to the Pythagoreans, the evolution of the world was not
in a straight line but was accomplished in great cycles. The
stars and the universe return periodically to their orbits, and
the clock of the world runs ever on, from eternity to eternity.
This eternal regress, this everlasting return of all things, ex-
tends to even the minutest particles. "I will again stand before
you with staff in hand and will again teach you," Pythagoras is
supposed to have said.37

111

Heraclitus, while stressing the importance of change, had pro-
posed fire as his candidate for the Urstoff, which fire acted more or
less like an immanent law directing the process of change. He also
held for a doctrine of cyclic return of all things in his doctrine of
the so-called "upward" and "downward" paths. Of Heraclitus we shall
see much more, however, in the next chapter of this study, where his
doctrine will be examined in detail; hence we can here pass on di-
rectly to his almost deliberate antithesis, Parmenides.

Far from admitting his Ephesian predecessor's notions on change,
Parmenides denies the very reality of change, or rather, holds that
nothing that is really real does change.38 To make this intelligible,
he introduces his doctrines of the "Way of Opinion" and the "Way of
Truth" (two of the major divisions of his entire poem). Once again,
the exact status of these "Ways" is a matter of dispute;39 but at
least this much is clear enough, that philoSOphic truth does not
necessarily lie in the direction that the common man might expect.
Sense knowledge, indeed, comes in for some harsh comments.4o True
being turns out to be a whole, simple and indivisible, continuous.41
It is motionless; there is no non-being into which it could move.42
True being is spherical in form, equidistant in every direction from
the center.43 Paradoxically, both Heraclitus and Parmenides distrust
the senses, but for quite different reasons: the former, in that they
tend to give an illusion of permanence (to the detriment of all-
important change), the latter, in that they tend to give an illusion
of change (to the detriment of all-important permanence).

Into this milieu moves Empedocles. To the Ionian-Heraclitean

112

question of the primary Urstoff of reality, he gives the following
answer:

Four roots there are of all things; learn of them first, then:
bright Zeus, life-giving Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who with
her tears gives moisture to a mortal spring.

 

1éocapa yhp udv1wu éLcéuo1a xpfi1ou duoue-
Zsbs dypns 'Hpn 1e oepéoBLog 66' 'AL6wveug 44
Nfio1Cs 3', fi'6axpGOLs 1éyyeL upoukuc Bp61ELov.

There is not, therefore, one primary element to be sought, but rather
four: earth, air, fire, and water. Empedocles represents these four
mythologically, a fact which has been a source of difficulty to in-
terpreters ever since. Thus,
It is characteristic of Empedocles that he should present the
"four roots" at their first appearance in mythological guise.
Nestis is certainly water, but even in antiquity there was a
difference of Opinion concerning the other three.4
Freeman's solution can be adopted, since the matter is of little
enough concern for the purposes of this study (insofar as the centre-
versy turns upon which proper name goes with which element, rather
than upon the nature of the elements themselves):
They [ancient commentators] were also in doubt as to which name
applied to which element: Nestis was obviously water, but was
Aidoneus earth or air, Hera earth or air, Zeus air or fire?
Aetius is probably recording the correct interpretation, that is,
that Zeus and Hera are fire and air (Aether), reigning as they do
in the heavens, and that Aidoneus, god of the underworld, is
earth. Aidoneus' association with Demeter and Persephone, so
closely related to earth, makes this almost certain; and he would
then be coupled to the to us unknown Nestis, probably a local
water—goddess, as a lower deity. The names were of little im-
portance to Empedocles; elsewhere he calls fire Hephaestus.46
In any event, there are four basic elements. These are
dyévn1o--uncreated,47 and what men foolishly call "becoming" or

"passing away" is simply a mixture or the dissolution of a mixture of

these four elements:

113

F.‘ 0.

Something else will I tell you: there is no [such thing as] birth
of any mortal man, nor any end in baneful death; there is only a
mingling and an exchange of things previously mingled. This is
what is termed "birth" among men.

5110 6é 10L épéw- ¢GOLS 066ev6g é01L dndv1wv

8vn1mv, 066C TLS oblouévou $0vd10L0 1eleu1d,

dlld udvov uCELg 1s 6Ldlla§Cs 1e uLy€v1wv

é01C, euOLs 6' éni 10t§ 6v0ud§e1aL duepéuoLOLv.

 

But when [the four elements], mingled together in the shape of a
man, come forth into the light, or else in the shape of the race
of wild beasts or of plants or birds, then men say that they have
come into being. When, however, they have been separated out, men
call these occasions baneful death. They do not call them what
Right [demands]; nevertheless, I too, in accord with their cus-
tom, shall speak in the same way.

0L 6' 61s uév na1d e616 uLyév1' sis aieép' C(xmv1oL)

fi xa1d enpmu dypo1épmu yéuog fi xo1a Sduvwv

6% not' onvau, 161s uév 16 (ACYOUOL) yevéoeaL-

£612 6' dnoanvSHOL, 1d 6' 06 6u060Cu0va xdruov-

8 eéuLg (00) xaléou0L, vdumL 6' énCunuL xcL au1ds.

Consequently, absolute becoming or annihilation is impossible; there
is rather simply a question of spatial location of the four elements:

Fools! They have no foresighted thoughts, who fondly think that
something which did not previously exist has come into being, or
else that something has perished and been utterly destroyed.

vfinLOL- 06 7&0 ouLv 601Lx6000vés eLOL uépLuVOL,

0? 6n yCyueoeaL ndpog 06x éOv éAchouOLv

5 1L xa1aeufiL0x6Lv 1e ual égdlluoeaL dudv1nL.

That something should come into being that previously did not
exist is unthinkable; and that something which exists should
be destroyed completely is impossible and unbelievable. For
it will always be where someone once put it.
Ex 12 760 066du' é6v10g dufixavdv éo1L yevéoecL
ch 1' ébv égatoléceaL dufiuucrov xai dtuo10v.
dial 760 1fiL €010L, dunL xé TLS oiév épeC6nL.49

Thus it would seem that Parmenides was only half right in his

evaluation of sense knowledge and the masses: there is such a thing

114

as change, and in this Parmenides was wrong; but change is not what
it seems to be. Rather, it is merely the association or dissolution
of the four elements, and to that extent the "Way of Truth" is cor—
rect. It is, of course, quite true that sense knowledge is impover-
ished and that men get only a partial view of reality;50 yet the
senses do have some value.51 An illustration of such a partial view I
might be seen in the fact that the Ionians and Heraclitus had opted
for one particular element for their Urstoff, whereas in point of fact
all four are equal:

All these are equal, and are of the same age in their genesis;

but each rules over the others in its own honor, and besides,

each has its own character. Each holds sway in the revolving
course of time.

-*--——-----——-----_-----------------—--------~----------------

1o01o 7&0 [0d 16 IduTc not 51Lxc yévvav §a0L,

1Lufig 6' d11ng 5110 ué68L, udpa 6' 6305 énd01wL,

év 6e uépeL upa1é0u0L 160L110u€v0L0 x06v0L0.52
In that regard, Anaximander had a point: it is not any one of the
elements that is primary. But, instead of going out of the ambitus
of the elements to 10 ditLpou, he would have been better advised to
seek the solution in the sum of the elements taken together.

The Pythagoreans, too, had a point, as did Heraclitus. There

is a cyclic process involved in history. And it is a process in—
volving the four elements. But it involves more than that; and for

this, Empedocles emerges much more in his role as innovator rather

than as synthesizer.

115

Fear 77777.7”

Empgdpcles as Innovator

 

The notion of a basic Urstoff is therefore hardly new with
Empedocles, though his shift from monism to pluralism in holding for
four primary elements instead of one could certainly be said to be so.
Neither is the notion of a world cycle a new contribution; the
Pythagoreans entertained that notion, as did Heraclitus (as we shall
see). But perhaps Empedocles' greatest piece of originality lay in
his recognition that the fact of change in the universe is not ade-
quately explained simply by isolating the element or elements that is
or are involved in change. The elements, he saw, are what change,
i.e., are the subject of the change. But the further question must be
answered, what brings about the change? In Aristotelian terms,
Empedocles saw the need for an efficient cause.

Yet it is at least arguable that Heraclitus had seen the same
need; his notion of an intelligent fire which directed the cosmic
process is easily interpreted as a step in the direction of providing
for that need. We shall see more of this in the fourth chapter of
this study. Yet Empedocles will make much the same observation
vis-a-vis Heraclitus' fire that Anaximander did with reference to
Thales' water: just as water (or "the moist") is itself involved in
the process of change and therefore cannot be the substrate respon—
sible for that process, so also any one of the elements involved in
change cannot be the agent directing the change. There is need for an
efficient, directing cause; in this Empedocles will agree with
Heraclitus. But this efficient cause (Empedocles does not, obviously,

call it by that name) must be external to the process of change,

116

cannot be itself involved in it. This is the insight that will mark
Empedocles as innovator. To be sure, it is an insight that he will
grasp only imperfectly; the influence of his predecessors is strong,
and there are places where he will seem to have'his external agent
entering into the cosmic process. But there are also places wherein
that agent is fairly clearly outside the process, not itself being a
part of change but rather directing it ab extra. As Burnet puts it,
Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of what
he regarded as efficient causes. "The Love of Empedocles," he
says,"is both an efficient cause, for it brings things together,
and a material cause, for it is a part of the mixture." And
Theophrastus expressed the same idea by saying that Empedokles
sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife, and some-
times put them on a level with the other four.53
There are two such external agents in Empedocles' thought, and
he describes them in mythological terms:
And these [the elements] in no wise cease at any time to change,
all of them now coming together into one under the direction of

Love, now being moved apart, each from the other, under the bane
of Hate. ‘

 

 

ual 1501: 511&OOV15 6Launeptg 066au5 1fiyeL,
511015 uev 0L161n1L ouvepxduev' sis 5v 5uov1a,
511015 6' 55 6Cx' 5xa01a mopeuuevc Nerog ExeeL.

Love and Hate, then, are the forces influencing the elements in their
ceaseless mutations.

What sort of process is it that Love and Hate direct? It is
perhaps best envisioned as a constantly repeated passage from unity
to diversity and then back to unity:

For they themselves [the elements] exist as such; but, running
through one another, they become men and the types of other ani-
mals, now coming together under Love to form one cosmic whole,
now each moving apart in its own way under Hate's bane, until

such time as they grow together into the one whole and are all
under its sway.

 

117

5615 759 601Lv 15015, 6L' 511fi1mv 66 860v15
yCyov1(5L) 5vepwnoC 16 X51 511wv 56665 enpmv
511016 56v 4L1d1n1L ouvepxduev' 6L5 Eva xdouov,
511016 6' 56 6Cx' 5u5015 00006u665 Nereos ExeeL,
eicduev Ev 0uu06v15 16 15v 616vep86 yévn15L.55

When the universe is under the direction of Love, there is no diver-
sity to be found:

Then there is discerned neither the swift limbs of the Sun nor the
shaggy might of Earth nor the sea; wrapped fast in such an im-
penetrable concealment of Harmony does the rounded sphere exult
alone in its circularity.

Eve' 061' 'H61C0Lo 6L6C6615L 6x65 yuta

0666 utu 066' 5Cns 150L0v uévog 0666 8515505-
06155 'Apuoang uuvamL x06ewL 601fipLu15L
Zeatpog nun101epfig uoanL neanyéL yanv.56

Articulation of any sort, at this stage, is unknown: there is no
strife or war;57 the sphere is a perfect one, with all points equi-

distant from the center;58 reality possesses the strictest sort of

unity.59

However, this stage is destined not to last; Hate has its ap-
pointed time, too.

But when vast Hate is nourished in (its) limbs, and breaks forth
to take the honor due it because the time is fulfilled, that time
which for both [Love and Hate] is established by a broad oath. . .

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And with the ascent of Hate, diversity appears in all forms: the pro-
duction of a multitude of men,61 the articulation of parts of individ—
ual men,62 the production of trees, beasts, birds, fish, and even the
63
gods themselves.
Yet neither is the dominion of Hate a permanent one; eventually

it too is banished to the outermost edge of the sphere in its turn,64

118

and the process of unification begins once more. Burnet summarizes
all this as follows:

It will be clear from what has been said that we must distinguish
four periods in the cycle. First we have the Sphere, in which all
the elements are mixed together by Love. Secondly, there is the
period when Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when, there-
fore, the elements are partially separated and partially combined.
Thirdly comes the complete separation of the elements, when Love
is outside the world, and Strife has given free play to the at-
traction of like for like. Lastly we have the period when Love

is bringing the elements together again, and Strife is passing
out. This brings us back to the Sphere, and the cycle begins
afresh.65

Of the nature of Love and Hate, what they are in themselves and
without reference to their function, Empedocles has little to say,
directly (though this is a question that will occupy us once more in
the third section of this chapter). Hate is said to be "hostile" or
"unfriendly,"66 but this is said from the viewPoint of the elements,
which Hate affects. Love, similarly, is termed "joyful,"67 or "af-
fectionate."68 Both Love and Hate perform their function in subser-
vience to Fate (66 0606L 550n§L69 the latter Operating.in terms of a
broad oath (115160; 150' 50x06).70 Love and Hate therefore are not
supreme in the universe, whatever be their exact relation to Fate.
Love and Hate are, however, eternal:

As they were before, so shall they be; nor will it ever come

about, I think, that unspeakable time shall be bereft of the
two of them.

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1061mv 500016056 x66650615L 551610g 5iév.71

 

They always were and always will be. Their successive ascendancy sug-
gests that neither can be considered all-powerful.
Thus, Love and Hate are not supreme, are not independent; they

are, on the other hand, eternal. But other than these somewhat jejune

119

facts, Empedocles has nothing to say as to what they are in them-
selves. Are they personal forces? At times, it seems so: Hate is
said to be "Nourished" (éepéuan);72 Love is held blameless:73 But
whether they are personal or merely personified is something which is
not at all clear from the text as we have it.

They are, however, not incorporeal.

The Love and Strife of Empedocles are no incorporeal forces. They
are active, indeed, but they are still corporeal. At the time,
this was inevitable; nothing corporeal had yet been dreamt of,

. . . The fragments leave no room for doubt that they were thought
of as spatial and corporeal. All the six are called "equal."

Love is said to be "equal in length and breadth" to the others,
and Strife is described as equal to each of them in weight

(fr. 17).74

Such, then, is the view of Empedocles as synthesizer and as in~
novator in the lengthening search for an explanation of the funda-
mental fact of change in the universe. Perhaps we can turn to Matson
for a brief summary of all this:

Empedocles's picture of the world is briefly this: There is not
one basic stuff but four "roots of all things," earth, air, fire,
and water, of which all changing and perishing particulars are
mixtures in various proportions. Besides the roots there are two
forces: Affection, which mingles the roots, and Strife, which
tends to separate them. The cosmic process recurs in cycles. At
one time, the reign of Affection, the world is a sphere consisting
of all the roots thoroughly mixed together, only the force of
Strife being outside. But Strife enters and begins the work of
separation. At its completion, the reign of Strife, the four
roots exist in their pure states, apart from each other in a
sphere now having earth at its core covered by successive layers
of water, air, and fire. Then Affection begins to take over once
more, to complete the cycle of existence and initiate another
turn.

There are many other facets to Empedocles' thought, but perhaps this
lbrief summary presentation will enable us to get on with the business
<3f posing some questions that will bear on the main point of this

artudy. It is the author's belief that the answers to those questions,

120

to the extent that they can be formulated on the basis of the extant
fragments, may show us a depth in Empedocles' thought to which a sum-

mary presentation like this does less than full justice.

The "Why" of Empedocles

 

It will be helpful to have a correct perspective on the section
of this chapter which follows. The thesis has been intimated ear-
lier76 that the root concern of the early Greek philosOphers was an
ethical one, and that at least one major reason why their thought took
the direction it did was that their Olympian religion had failed to
provide them with satisfactory answers. It is now time to put the
over-all task of this study into its prOper focus. It is not the
work of this dissertation to attempt to establish this general claim
concerning the origins of Greek philosophy in globo; for that, one
would need very many very large volumes. Rather, the statement on the
origins of philosOphy as thus far enunciated functions as an over-all
guide, determining the thesis that is proper to this study, rather
than as a thesis to be itself proved herein. The claim that this
study is intended to make is a more limited one: Empedocles and
Heraclitus had ethics as their root concern, and one major reason why
these two men turned to philosophy was that the traditional religion
had failed them. The enterprise is thus not to establish the general
claim, but rather to see whether that general claim can be verified of
these two men.

Perhaps this can be clarified by analogy. When one proposes an

hypothesis designed to explain some phenomenon in the area of the

121

physical sciences, it is permissible and even obligatory to treat the
hypothesis as provisionally true (granting its initial reasonable-
ness), and then set about studying particular instances to see whether
the hypothesis receives support or refutation frOm them. Debitis
mutandis, this study is functioning as such an investigation of two
particular instances. It is the author's belief that these instances
will support the general theory. To pursue the analogy a bit further,
physical sciences attempt to put an hypothesis to as many tests as
possible, with the aim of further strengthening it, or of further
weakening it, or of destroying it altogether. Similarly, it is the
author's hope to put his general theory to numerous tests in the
future, with much the same aim. But, just as one would not expect the
entire scope of test cases to be presented within a single study in
the physical sciences, neither can this be expected in the present
work. There are very many pre-Socratic philosophers, each of whom
requires considerable scrutiny. This is therefore a legitimate task,
but a task for the future. In any event, however, the point should be
made here that, at any stage of the process, the methodology is not
first to establish the general theory, and then set about applying it
to particular instances. Rather, the methodology is, given the pro-
visional theory, to examine the particular instances with the precise
aim of strengthening or weakening the theory.

With this in mind, we can now turn to a rather close examination
of Empedocles. We shall find that he has nothing to say, directly,
that would help or hinder the theory. But this is what one would ex—

pect. If he were clear and precise on this topic, we certainly should

122

never find the welter of diverse scholarly Opinion that we saw in the
first chapter of this study. No; support or refutation will have to
be eked out of the text in somewhat roundabout fashion. The easiest
way to do this, it seems to the author, will be to propose a series
of questions, and see what answers to them can legitimately be con-
structed out of the Empedoclean fragments.

We might ask first, What did Empedocles think of the Olympian
gods? (The term "Olympian" is used here in the wide sense to desig-
nate any member of the Homeric-Hesiodic pantheon.) The first
reference we find to gods at all in the H801 46065g comes in the invo-
cation at the beginning of the poem:

But, 0 gods, turn away [from me] their madness of speech, and
channel forth a pure spring from my holy lips.

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61 6' 50va 01005156 1565056 5x61660516 1nyfiv.

 

Little, however, can be made of this. Empedocles is writing in verse,
and the invocation of the gods in one form or other at the beginning
of a Greek poem is a familiar enough device. Hence this has the ear-
marks of a literary convention, and I would be unwilling to make much
depend on it. Perhaps, of course, he did mean more by it; but this
cannot be assumed. The same comment could be made with reference to
his invocation of the Muse, which immediately follows his address to
the gods.78 The Muse is again mentioned in the next fragment that we
have, wherein Empedocles refers to her testimony as trustworthy ("6g
66 150' 60616008 161615L 1L01éu515 M060ns”);79 again, however, how
much of this is simply literary convention it is impossible to say.

The names of some of the Olympians occur in the following

123

fragment (quoted earlier in this paper80 in connection with the four
elementé:
Four roots there are of all things; learn of them first, then:

bright Zeus, life-giving Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who with
her tears gives moisture to a mortal spring.

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But, interestingly enough, these Olympians are identified with the
four roots of things, i.e., with earth, air, fire, and water.82 How—
ever this identification is to be understood, there is here no
question of divine beings, as that term would normally be understood.

Empedocles sharpens his views of the Olympians vis-5-vis the

four elements somewhat in this fragment:

From these [elements] comes everything that was and is and will
be . . , even the long-lived gods, most renowned in honor.

I ‘ 0 p U ' U ' U .

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15L 16 8601 601Lx5C656eg 1LufiL0L 060L010L.83

The gods, then, come from the elements, just as does everything else.
It is noteworthy that Empedocles does not restrict his comment to the
gods of the pantheon; the assertion is made that from the four ele-
ments come 860C, simply so taken. One cannot say, therefore, that in
Empedocles' view the gods always were and always will be; they come
and go, just like every other manifestation of differentiation. In
part, this is not terribly significant, since the Greeks in general
did not believe that the gods always were--as Hesiod's genealogy makes
abundantly clear. The notion of their passing away, however, is some-
thing novel. What is very significant, however, is that the gods

themselves are involved in the process of unification or dissolution

-_—-v '

I‘
"‘

 

124

of the four elements. They do not direct that process; they are part
of it. But that means that their role of governing the universe is
attenuated almost to the vanishing point, and with it their right to
make demands on men. One wonders just why the gods should be, indeed,
"1LufiLOL 060t010t." It is difficult to avoid the impression that,
since the pantheonic gods were by and large simply men on a somewhat
grander scale—-a fact that the second chapter of this study undertook
to demonstrate-~Empedocles simply treats them accordingly in his
cosmological scheme.

I shall pass over here the numerous references to Love and Hate,
reserving treatment of them to a later point in this chapter. It is
interesting to note in passing, however, that Empedocles frequently
refers to Love as "Aphrodite," one of the Olympians (in the narrow
sense).84

When we next hear of the Olympians, they are back in their
familiar role as personifications of the elements. Thus, we find
earth receiving parts of glowing Nestis and twice as many parts of
Hephaestus;85 a recipe for the construction of blood and flesh occurs
in another fragment, where we are told that earth, Hephaestus, mois—
ture, and Aether join together in more or less equal proportions to
produce the desired result.86

In the H601 6606ws, therefore, the Olympians are either identi-
fied poetically with the elements, or, when Empedocles is speaking
somewhat more plainly, are themselves the results of the mingling to—
gether of the elements. And, as we have seen, as such they differ

little enough from man. Certainly they are not viewed as having much

 

125

claim on man's allegiance or, for that matter, on his intelligence.

In the K5850uof, another and, at first sight, a disparate view
of the gods appears. In the Opening fragment, during his address to
the citizens of Akragas, Empedocles refers to himself as a god:

0 friends, greetings! No longer as a man but as an immortal god,
honored by all, do I wander in your midst.

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In what sense this is true is something that will be discussed below:
the thing to be noticed here, however, is that in some sense
Empedocles, once a mortal, now claims divinity.

We learn how Empedocles views his passage from humanity to di-
vinity in the following fragment:

There is an edict of Necessity, an ancient divine decree, time—
less, ratified with broad oaths: whenever someone sins and de-
files his limbs by murder, or, under Hatred, sinfully swears a
false oath, howsoever much be he a divine being sharing in the
blessed life, for three times ten thousand years must he wander
apart from the blessed, being born during that time into all
manner of mortal forms, forms which exchange difficult paths of
life in turn.

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5(6L06, 1A516600L N516000nyL066606 50u0LS°

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06066606; 15610?5 6L5 xpdvou 6:665 36n166
5075A65g BL610L0 6615XA5000615 nelsdeous.88

This is the famous transmigration doctrine, which has raised consider-
able discussion as to whether it represents a shift in Empedocles'
thought or possibly even a contradiction in his views,89 or else con-
stitutes a flat-out dualism in his thought between the realm of matter

and the realm of spirit.90 Its consistency (or lack thereof) with the

126

remainder of his system is something that, again, we shall discuss
later; for the moment, it is enough to observe that there is a trans—
migration doctrine contained in his thought and that, in some as yet
undetermined sense, it is possible for some men to become gods--what—
ever this latter term is taken to mean.

A number of abstractions that Hesiod lists recur in Empedocles
when he is recounting his transmigration travels: Murder, Wrath, Dis-
eases,91 Discord, Harmony,92 and so forth. It is worth observing
that, however the transmigration doctrine be interpreted, these fig—
ures possess a lower status than the realm from which Empedocles
claims to have fallen. Once again, the gods have been demoted con-
siderably.

As a generalized answer to the first question, then, we may say
that the gods of the pantheon are not regarded by Empedocles as being
supreme or as having any valid claim on men. The gods themselves are
as much involved in the cosmic process as are men and all other
things; their lack of direction of the whole process is critical
here. Nowhere are the Olympians as a class put in a governing posi-
tion; the sole exception to this is Aphrodite, who is identified
poetically with Love, one of the moving forces. But the Aphrodite of
Empedocles has nothing in common with the Aphrodite of Homer and
Hesiod except the name, as we shall see.

The second question that could be posed is closely allied to the
first one. In view of the downgrading which he accords the Olympians,
what does Empedocles think of religion and gods in general?

First, he is clear on one fact:

127

Blessed is he who has acquired the riches of divine understanding;
unhappy however he whose concern for it provides (only) an exces~
sively Opaque view of the gods, and that but an Opinion.

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It pays, therefore, for man to be clear in his ideas on the gods. And
the first thing to be noted about them (or him) is this:
It is impossible to bring(the god)within easy reach with our eyes,

or to take hold of him with our hands, wherein lie the greatest
routes Of learning for men's minds.

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The reason for this is that the divinity, properly conceived, is not
anthropomorphic. He has no physical members or organs, but rather is
a quite different sort:
For he is not well supplied with a human head upon his limbs, nor
do two shoots dart forth from his back; no feet has he, no swift

knees, no hairy genitalia. Mind is he, holy, unspeakable: mind
alone, occupying the entire universe with swift thoughts.

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Since the divinity is not physical, there is no need for sacri—
96 . . . . 97
fice, which produces only ill-effects upon the sacrificers.
Hence, by implication (since the Greek religion consisted largely in
sacrifice, and since the Greek gods themselves are shown above to be
helpless when it comes to regulating the things that go on in the uni-
verse anyway), the religion held heretofore is to be rejected.

However, what of this divinity to which Empedocles refers? What

can be said about him? We have just seen that he (or it; Empedocles

128

uses the masculine article, but that does not necessarily denote per-
sonality) is incorporeal, is mind, and that it is pervasive Of the
universe. That is all that Empedocles tells us about his divinity in
the Kaeapuof, but there are further clues in the’HspI 6606ws. Thus,
in one fragment we find a repetition of the denial of possession of
material, bodily organs. The fragment is this:

Nor do two shoots dart forth from his back; no feet has he,

no swift knees, no hairy genitals; but (it? he?) is a sphere,
equal to itself in all directions.

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dlld 005t00s En6 151 (15610666) (00; 65616L.98
There is no possessive genitive with 661010 in this fragment, nor
anything like a dative of reference to point out to whom or what
the description in the first two lines is intended to apply. Nor is
the subject of 6n6 stated (I am taking 005t00g as predicative). But
the similarity of description between this fragment and the one quoted
on the preceding page leaves little doubt about the matter: both
fragments are speaking of the same subject, i.e., the divinity. The
present fragment gives us some further information about that divin-
ity: this non-corporeal being is a sphere, equidistant in all direc-
tions with reference to itself. Empedocles tells us elsewhere that
this sphere is completely eternal (516(0w6) and exists in solitude.99
It is, however, precisely this sphere whose solitary splendor is in-
terrupted by the opposing actions of Love and Hate:100 when the
sphere is dominated by the influence of Love, there is no articulation

and hence complete unity;101 there is nothing there but the sphere

itself. But when the influence of Hate begins to make itself felt,102

129

articulation begins: the limbs of the god (are first formed and then)

tremble,103 and eventually there are formed all the things of the

world.104

In other words, Empedocles' "god" turns out to be the whole Of
reality, considered, however, under its unitive aspect. The god is
the sphere, and the sphere is properly god only when it is united,
alone, in solitary, circular splendor.105

There is, then, a god of sorts for Empedocles; thus our second
question finds its answer. But it brings in its train a third
question: since the Greek gods are replaced by this one, by what is
Greek religion to be replaced? Or, in other words, what can be said
Of Empedocles' religion? The transmigration doctrine gives us a clue
as to the nature and characteristics of that religion.

The first characteristic would seem to be a negative one. This
religion is not intended for everybody. That much is clear enough
from Empedocles' reference to the divine Spirit who pollutes himself
with bloodshed:106 the fate of such a spirit is descent into all
sorts of mortal existences--the implication being that mortality is a
lower, undesirable state, one wherein the life of the blessed is un-
known, and that not merely on a wide scale but on a universal one. It
is not as if no human ever enters upon Empedocles' religion, however.
Empedocles himself did: he is "no longer a mortal (06161L 86n-
16s)."107 And it must be possible for other men to do likewise;
else, what would be the sense in Empedocles' almost evangelistic

preaching of his transmigration doctrine (in whatever way, once again,

this is to be understood)? Not all men do, in point of fact, accept

130

this, however. It is very difficult for them to do so, says
Empedocles, and it is as unwelcome as it is difficult.108 Neverthe-
less, some do achieve its goals: they find themselves ascending in
stature through various honorable offices on earth and eventually
maturing as "gods most honorable."109

But what is the nature of this religion in itself? What is it
that constitutes the life of the blessed? The answer comes in
Empedocles' description of his earlier fall from the status of the

blessed:

Of such am I myself now, an exile from the divine and a wanderer,
having put my trust in raging hatred.

T5” 151 éY& VSV EiuL, 067d; 866366 151 dlfi1ng,
N66161 u5uvou66m1 ICOUVOS.110

It is because he has put his trust in hate that he has fallen from the
state of the blessed; the reverse, therefore, must be that wherein
the life of the blessed consists: Love. And when Love reigns su-
preme, as we have seen, then all is gathered into the single unity of
the god-sphere.

In other words, the transmigration doctrine states that when
Empedocles entrusted himself to Hate, he fell away from the realm of
the blessed into the world of mortals, where there exist all manner of
ills, including the abstractions noted above, as also such things as
growth and decay, rest and waking, movement and repose, silence and
speech, defilement,111 and myriad other unlovely items. But this is
to say that in turning from Love to Hate, he passed (or was ejected)
from the state of unity (the blessedness of the god-Sphere) to the

state of multiplicity. And this is nothing more than a restatement of

l3]. 1

his cosmological principles. Or, to put matters the other way, his
cosmology turns out to be a restatement of his transmigration doc-
trine: in brief, his philOSOphy is his religion. From that, it fol-
lows that true religion for man consists in philosophy. This would
give a considerably deeper and sharper meaning to his statement that
the god is "mind."112

If religion is in reality philosophy, the next question to be
posed would be this: what capabilities does man have in this regard?
What can he do, and what results can come of his efforts?

The Parmenidean rejection of the senses must first be dealt
with. Let it be admitted plainly, then, that the path to knowledge is
a thorny one. The sense organs are limited (01616101013)113 to begin
with, and the men who use them do not help matters when they get the
idea that they have achieved a complete grasp of the Whole ("16 6'
5A06 [16g] 66x6151 6130616")114 whereas in fact they have looked at
only a small segment of reality ("150006 66 Cwfis 16606 u6pog dapfi-
05616s").115 However, with instruction and care, they can learn a

116

great deal. For the senses, although limited, are trustworthy:

Nor deny credence to any of the other limbs, wherever there is
a path to knowledge.

ufiTE 11 1w6 5AAw6, 0160n1 16009 6011 6ofi051
761w6 110116 60616, . . 117

For that matter, all the senses are equally trustworthy.118 Man can

learn, provided that he does not place a higher value on what he sees

than on what he hears.119 Thus, if he listens, he can come to know-

ledge: "dAA' 576 udSwv 1A631- udan 7&0 101 006656 56561."120 The

account that will be proposed by Empedocles is clear, certain;

132

therefore the hearer should place his confidence in it: "6115 1006;
1505' 1081."121
Not only does man have the root ability to engage in this work;
he is also free to do so. That Empedocles thought that this was the
case is clear enough; witness his repeated summonses to man to
listen and learn (e.g., in the very first fragment that we have, ad-

dressed to Pausanias).122 It is true that many men and perhaps the

majority of them d2_not do so; Empedocles recognizes this.123 But it
does not follow from this that they cannot; indeed, Empedocles' prom-
ises of cosmic control, which we shall see shortly, indicate the con-
trary: these promises are in the nature of inducements.124 For that
matter, the whole effort of Empedocles points the same way: why at-
tempt to teach men to be disciples if they are not free to do so in
the first place?

Man therefore has both the equipment and the freedom to pursue
the religion which is philosophy. What results may be eXpected from
his diligence?

For one thing, lasting knowledge can be acquired.125 Further-
more, some measure of control can be achieved against the process of
change in human life: "0d0u515 6' 5005 767601 15166 151 76050; 6A150
16130111."126 And more: some control is possible over the forces Of

nature that cause destruction in man's environment:

You shall halt the force of the unresting winds which rush over
the earth and destroy the tilled fields with their blast.

156061; 6' dxaudtwv 666006 66609 01 1' 611 75156
606666601 16015101 151508166306016 600605;.127

Furthermore, damage once caused can be reversed: for instance,

133

"You shall lead back from Hades the spirit of a dead man (5561s 6' 6E

28

’AC650 151508106606 66609 666063)."1 The man who is proficient in

Empedocles' knowledge will achieve a certain immunity from the many
ills and types of destruction that beset mortal men.129

Thus the path is Open. By knowledge alone man can, albeit with
difficulty, arrive at a state wherein he is in control of the forces
of destruction: he can check them or reverse them at will.130 And
so the direction of the universe, once proper to the gods, has now
passed (at least in principle) to man. This is the meaning, it seems
to the author, of Empedocles' statement (quoted above, page 125) that
he has become a god.

The final question that ought to be posed is this: we have
seen that man can somehow control the forces of Hate, to some degree.
What, precisely, is the mechanism behind this? Admitting that he can
do so, the question is just how does he do it? What is the dynamism
that makes this state of affairs possible?

The real key to this question, it seems to the author, lies in
the nature of Love and Hate. A central text for this is that fragment
wherein Empedocles is discussing, within the context of the transmi-
gration doctrine, how it happened that he was forced to wander in a
world of discord and multiplicity. He tells us fairly clearly how it

happened:

Of such am I myself now, an exile from the divine and a
wanderer, having put my trust in raging Hatred.
1G6 151 676 666 6161, 0676s 866666 151 dlfi1ng,
N66161 65160666w1 1Cou6og.13l

This much we have seen before. But in what did this "having confidence

 

134

in Hate" consist? In the same thing that the 'A6d71ng x0665 pro-
scribed: either bloodshed or a false oath.132 But both of these are
personal acts, productive by their very nature of death or deception,
and, in either case, of disunity. In other words, it is not an al-
legiance to a cosmic power of some sort or other that was the cause

Of the disunification, and hence of Empedocles' exile from the realm

of the blessed; it was rather his owngpersonal hatred that caused all

 

this. For the acts which this hatred inspired are ipso facto dis-
ruptive, dis-unifying. Empedocles' exile was not so much a matter of
punishment for an evil deed as the logical consequence of that deed.
It is significant that the decree which forbade such acts is 'A6d11ng
xpfiua, not Mofpas: given the deed, the exile must follow. There can
be no question of reprieve, in the very nature of the case.

If this is correct, then it is easy enough to see how man can
control the results of Hatred and Love: he controls them because he
controls their cause, and he controls their cause because that cause
is not an impersonal (let alone a mythological) motive force at work
in the universe, but rather is man's own personal feelings, passions,
decisions. And therefore while in one sense it is correct to say that
Love and Hate are the moving, directive forces Of the universe, in an-
other sense it can be said that man himself controls--or can control--
what happens in the universe. Man has no need of gods; man himself
can be a god.

It is now time to summarize and synthesize this section, and to
attempt to see what support it does or does not provide for the thesis
underlying this study. In the summary paragraphs which follow, I

shall re-pose the important questions once again, and supply brief

 

 

135

answers to them, distinguishing as I do so those answers which have
definite textual support and those which are inferential.

First: what did Empedocles think of the Olympian gods?

Clearly, not much (inferential). They are simply a part of the cosmic
process, themselves formed of the four elements (textual). That pro-
cess is directed by Love and Hate (textual), not the gods (inferen-
tial). Sacrifices are to be eliminated (textual); hence the gods

are not to be worshipped (inferential). After all, why worship them,
since they do not control things and since their benevolent control of
things was a very large part of Greek religion (inferential)? For
that matter, man may himself become a god, as Empedocles did, i.e., a
member of the company of the blessed (textual). The Olympian gods are
located, in the transmigration doctrine and in the cosmological
scheme, on a plane inferior to that of the blessed or to that of Love
and Hate (textual). Hence the gods have no valid claim on men (in-
ferential). -

Next: if the gods are false, what of gods and religion in gen-
eral? Empedocles has a religion, no question of that. The transmi-
gration doctrine shows as much (textual). But his god is not anthro-
pomorphic (textual), and hence has no need of traditional worship
(textual). Empedocles' god is mind (textual), and is pervasive Of the
universe (textual). However, the "god" of the transmigration doctrine
is also the sphere of the cosmological scheme (textual and inferen-
tial). As such, it is completely unified; there is no articulation
or diversity within it (textual). But total unity like this is the

product of Love (textual).

 

136

Third: since there is such a thing as religion, in what does
true religion consist, for Empedocles? It is quasi-exclusive (text-
ual); it is difficult (textual); it is deifying, i.e., unifying
(textual); it consists in Love (inferential). 'The religion and the
philosophy of Empedocles are one; this is the meaning of saying that
the god is "min " (inferential).

Fourth: can man achieve this? Yes, albeit with difficulty
(textual). And if he does, it promises him control Of the forces of
change in the universe and in human life (textual). Even death it-
self can be reversed (textual).

Finally: what makes this possible? The fact that the directive
force Of the universe is man's personal love and hate. These are not
impersonal cosmic forces extrinsic to man (inferential). Man is free
to do this (inferential), although it is no easy process (textual).

So much for the summary. Is Empedocles' system a product of
dissatisfaction with the pantheonic gods? I would argue that it is.
The whole point of the system is the control of cosmic events by man--
the exact antithesis Of the Olympian theory, wherein man precisely
could not control events and had to turn to divine help. The common
Homeric image of the gods as super-humans is reflected in Empedocles'
making the gods part and parcel of the cosmic process and denying them
any sort Of directive role in that process, assigning that role rather
to Love and Hate. But Love and Hate turn out to be under the control
Of man, not the gods. The gods are unnecessary, since they cannot
control the process; hence they are quietly "swept under the rug."

The gods' lack of control is, I should think, simply a recognition of

 

137

the experiential fact that they have become, in Greek religion, impo-
tent. That they do not and cannot control events is a conclusion that
Greek religion itself had come close to making, as we saw in the sec-
ond chapter of this study; Empedocles merely says why this is so.

The ethical character Of the system seems clear enough. The
entire cosmic scheme has been elaborated not for the sake of explain-
ing the universe, as a sort Of speculative venture, but rather with
the aim of showing man how he can control it. And man's control is
contingent upon his conduct--whether he directs his actions by Love or
by Hate. Far from being a mythology (let alone a wild-west medicine
show), the system of Empedocles is a moral system of a high order.

It is time now to turn from Akragas to Ephesus, and examine the
work of 6 210161665: Heraclitus. The aim of the fourth chapter will
be the same as that of the third: a search for confirmation or for
weakening of the general theory on the origins of Greek thought that
has guided these pages. Since the aim is the same, the methodology
of the chapter will also be identical with that used in our examina-
tion of Empedocles: a brief section on his life and works, then a
short exposition of the general drift of Heraclitus' thought, and

finally the posing of a series Of questions to his system.

 

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

lJoseph Owens, C.Ss.R., A History of Ancient Western Philosophy
(New York: Appleton—Century-Crofts, 1959), p. viii.

 

2Ibid., p. 103.

3Kathleen Freeman, Companion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 172. For another
view regarding an earlier date, cf. Owens, Op.cit., pp. 417-419.

4Freeman, Op.cit., p. 172. The original source for this is
Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche,
1906), 21Al, par. 52; this book will hereafter be referred to by the
abbreviation 2, The later edition of Diels by Kranz will be referred
to as 25,

It will be remembered that the system of citations commonly em-
ployed in reference to Diels' work runs as follows: each of the
philOSOphers treated by Diels is assigned an arbitrary number (that
assigned to Empedocles is 21), and that number is commonly the first
member in a reference. Diels divides his work on each philosopher
into two major segments, usually: section A deals with the life and
works of the philosopher under question, section B with the extant
fragments themselves. The notation "A" or "B" is thus placed after
the identification number of each phiIOSOpher to indicate which seg-
ment of Diels' treatment is in question. Finally, following this, the
apprOpriate paragraph or section number within the segment is indi-
cated. Thus, in the reference to Empedocles given in the first para-
graph of this footnote, "21" means Empedocles, "A" means the first
major segment of Diels' treatment, and "l" is the relevant subsection
within that segment. By further convention, whenever there is
question Of a large number Of citations from one philOSOpher, the
identification number is omitted; hence the reference above could
have been written as simply Al, par. 52.

 

525, Al, par. 52.

62E, Al, par. 73 and 74.

7G. S. Kirk and J. 8. Raven, The Pre-Socratic PhilosOphers

(Cambridge: University Press, 1963), p. 321.

 

825, Al, par. 72 and 73.

138

 

139

9Burnet, Early Greek PhilOSOphy, Op.cit., p. 199; the tale is
recounted by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives, viii, 63 and 68.

 

10Burnet, op.cit., p. 202.

11

95, Al, par. 73 and 74.

12
2}

8112 O

l3Burnet, op.cit., p° 199. As this chapter proceeds, it will
become apparent to the reader that I think that there is a good deal
more to Empedocles than a wild-west fraud.

142!

15

I

[U

16

[U

I

17

[U
6

18

ID

19

[U

20

IU

21

ID

22

ID

23

IU

24

IU

25

[U

I

Blll.

3110—111.

896 0

B97.

B98.

B99.

8100.

B101.

8112-115 and 117-123.

8128 and 136-138.

8139-141.

3143-147.

26Freeman, Op.cit., pp. 177-178. It will shortly become ap-
parent that I disagree somewhat with Freeman in some of the details of
her summation. Nevertheless, by and large it is acceptable enough for
our purposes.

272!

pages l73ff and 205ff.

28Burnet, op.cit., p. 203. The first philosophical poet was

Parmenides.

29

Cf. Burnet, Op° et loc. cit.

30

 

Cited in Freeman, Op.cit., p. 179.

3llbid., pp. l78f.

 

140

32Something should be said at this point about the text. It

will be noted that I simply accept the text as given in Diels, and do
not enter into a discussion of the difficulties that attend his read-
ing. The reason is not that I am unaware of those difficulties, but
rather that the establishment of a critical text is a major under-
taking of no mean proportions, and an undertaking that would not be
directly pertinent to the purposes of this paper. The text question
is a valid and important one, indeed; but it is not the question Of
this study. The same comment applies to the ordering of the fragments
within the two poems.

339-; 131-3 0

[U

, 3B3.

ID

2A9, 10, 16.

37Johannes Hirschberger, The History of Philosophy, tr. A. N.
Fuerst (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1958), I, 16-17.

 

382, 18B8, We 3_4e
39 . . . .
Cf. the discuSSion in Freeman, op.c1t., pp. l4lff.
40Ibid.
41

p_, 18B8, W. 22-25.

42Ibid., VV. 26-31.

43Ibida ’ We 42-49.

44D, 2186. Translations of the fragments of Empedocles through-

out this—chapter are the responsibility of the author.

45Kirk and Raven, op.cit., pp. 324f.

46Freeman, Op.cit., p. 181.

472, B7.

48 ’ 88-9 0

[D

49

[U

Ell-12.
50

IU

82.

51 BB.

[0

52

[U

817, vv. 27-29.

 

141

53Burnet, Op.cit., p. 232.

54B, 817' We 6.8.

2, B26, vv. 3-7.

3, 1327.

65Burnet, op.cit., p. 234.

67Ibid.

6813, 1322.

69

 

[U

, B26, v, 2.
70

O

, B30.

71 816.

ID

72

IO

B30.
73

IO

, BBS.
74 .
Burnet, op.c1t., p. 232.

75Wallace I. Matson, A History Of Philosophy (Cincinnati:
American Book Company, 1968), p. 38. Matson's occasional summaries
are useful, however much I would hesitate to recommend other elements
in his book.

76Cf. supra, pp. 9lff.

772, B4, vv. 1-2.

 

 

782, B4, vv. 3ff.

792, B5.

80Cf. supra, p. 112.

859, B6.

82

Cf. supra, p. 112, for a note on the
Olympian represented which element.

832, B21, vv. 9 and 12.

84

1?

B22 and 86, apud alia.

85 B96.

ID

86 B98.

ID

87 3112, We 1' 4'5.

[U

88

[U

I B115, We 1—8e

89Burnet, Op.cit., p. 250.
9

 

912, 3121.

92 8122.

ID

93 8132.

ID

94 8133.

(U

95 8134, vv. 1-5.

[0

96 8136.

ID

ID

8128, 136, 137.
9, B29.

9, 828.

142

OZeller, Outlines, Op.cit., pp. 74-75.

controversy as to which

 

143
104E, 821 o
105 .
2, 328; cf. also the reference to the god's "trembling"
under the influence of Hate in 2, B31.

1062, 6115 .

107

[U

B112, v. 4.

108 B114.

IU

109 8146.

[U

110

I0

B115, VV. 13-14.

[D

112

IO
U!
H
U
.5
<3
A

113

'5’
8
.4
l"

114

'5’
E3
5
5"

115Ibid., v. 3.

116Ibid., VV. 8~9; cf. also Bl: oh 5% xlfleL.

1172: B4, W. 12*13.

118Ibid., Vv. 10-11.

119Ibid.

1202, 317. v. 14; cf. also ibid., vv. 25-26.

121

ID

, B23, v. 11.

122 B1.

ID

123 B113°

ID

124 B110 and 111.

ID

125

ID

8110, v. 3.
126

IU

Blll' W. 1-2.
127

ID

8111, VV. 3—4.

128 B111, v. 9.

ID

129 B113.

[U

 

144

130It might be objected that Empedocles makes no such general

promises as I am attributing to him, but rather simply promises his
disciple power over certain specified phenomena of nature. On sheerly
textual grounds, this is true enough. But the correct conclusion from
this is simply that we do not have all of the text and hence do not
know whether or not Empedocles made other explicit promises. Hence we
are obliged to look at the kind of power that this one instance in-
volves; the question of the number of such powers is insoluble on
textual grounds. The power to which reference is extant is a power
over nature, and there seems to be no good reason to suppose that
Empedocles limited his promise to this one particular power over
nature. Still, if the point be insisted upon, it can be granted
without weakening the essential argument: man would still have a
power, albeit a strictly circumscribed one, over at least one of
Hate's results. And that is enough.

131g, B115, W. 13—14.

leIbid. ’ We 3-40

CHAPTER FOUR
HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS

fieog 73p depdueuov uEv 06x Exeu yvéuas, fistov 6% EXEL.

--Heraclitus, Fragment 78.
Life and werks

As in the case of Empedocles, we know very little about the life
of Heraclitus; and what few scraps of information we do have are
largely legend. His traditional floruit date is ga_500 B.C.;

Diogenes tells us that he was in his prime in the sixty-ninth Olympiad
(504/3 - 501/0 B.C.).l Burnet notes that Heraclitus refers in Frag-
ment 16 to Pythagoras and Xenophanes in the past tense, and is re-
ferred to himself by Parmenides;2 these references help fix the date
of Heraclitus as being a generation or so after Pythagoras and
XenOphanes and a generation or so before Parmenides.3 Diogenes re-
ports that he died around the age of sixty.4

Tales abound about his life. We can let a secondary source give
us an accounting of these:

The tradition regarding his life and death is most unsatisfactory,
for it is all obviously an attempt to dramatize his writings.
From these, one thing emerged clearly for the anecdotists: his
”pride," as they called it; that is, his low Opinion of his fel-
lows. Thus we get a number of anecdotes based on this idea: he
refused to take part in politics, because he disapproved of the
Ephesian constitution, and retired, first to the temple of

Artemis, then to the mountains, where he ate grass. He preferred

145

 

146

to play knuckle-bones in the temple with the children, rather
than be a politician. He withdrew from his position of Basileus,
an office hereditary in his family and carrying with it certain
marks of honor, in favor of his brother. He had no teacher (al-
though some wished to connect him with Hippasus, others with
Xenophanes) but learnt everything by self-investigation. Though
contemptuous of his fellow-citizens, he was not more partial to
others: he refused with scorn an invitation from King Dareius
to visit his court, and even preferred unpopularity at home to
life in Athens. These tales are clearly based on his character
as it emerges from his writings: his many expressions of con-
tempt for others, his condemnation of the Ephesians for their
expulsion of Hermodorus, his views on tyranny and so forth.5

It is therefore a case of "When facts fail, creative imagination sup-
plies." Burnet gives us an idea of how this works in some specific
instances:

Heraklitos said (fr. 68) that it is death to souls to become

water; and we are told accordingly that he died of dropsy.

He said (fr. 114) that the Ephesians should leave their city to

their children, and (fr. 79) that Time was a child playing

draughts. We are therefore told that he refused to take any

part in public life, and went to play with the children in the

temple of Artemis. He said (fr. 85) that corpses were more fit

to be cast out than dung; and we are told that he covered him—

self with dung when attacked with dropsy. Lastly, he is said to

have argued at great length with doctors because of fr. 58

["Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the sick, demand a

fee for it which they do not deserve to get."].6

The tales of his death are similar fabrications. Diogenes re-

ports: Heraclitus retired to the mountains and ate grass, thereby [1]
incurring dropsy;7 since the doctors were unable to cure him, he
resorted to a home remedy of dung plaster in an effort to steam the
moisture out of himself with heat (without success; he died).8 Other
tales have him dying at the hands of (or, perhaps more prOperly, the
teeth of) ravenous dogs.9 All these stories are of approximately
equal historical value. There are, to be sure, other stories of his

life and activities (e.g., the famous episode of the barley drink,

indicative of the Ephesians' dependence on their high standard of

147

living), or the one about the gods in the stove;10 but there seems

little point in pursuing them. In sum,
Thus we can be sure of nothing in his life, which seems to have
been devoted to thought, and not to have included even any travels.
He was probably an aristocrat by birth, and as he lived at Ephesus,
not at Miletus, his originality was not tempered by too close con-
tact with fellow-workers. The rest is unknown.11
As for Heraclitus' writings, he is said to have written one
work, and this seems to have impressed ancient commentators mostly by
its obscurity. There is a story to the effect that Socrates, having
read through the book, gave his opinion of it as follows:
What I understood was excellent, and I suppose that what I didn't

was too. But one would need a Delian diver [to get to the bottom
of it.]

 

d‘uév ouvfiua, yevvata° quaL 65 not d‘ufi ouvfiua- tlhv Anlfou
yé TLVOS éeITaL xoluuBnroD.12
Heraclitus does write in an oracular style; there is no disputing
that. Burnet's explanation of this fact will do as well as any (al-

though it is not uncontested):

In the first place, it was the manner of the time. The stirring
events of the age, and the influence of the religious revival,
give something of a prophetic tone to all the leaders of thought.
Pindar and Aischylos have it too. It was also an age of great in-
dividualities, and these are apt to be solitary and disdainful.
Heraklitos at least was so. If men cared to dig for the gold they
might find it (fr. 8); if not, they must be content with straw
(fr. 51). This seems to have been the view of TheOphrastus, who
said the headstrong temperament of Heraklitos sometimes led him
into incompleteness and inconsistencies of statement.13

The book is divided, most probably by later commentators,14 into
three sections, treating of metaphysical, political, and theological

questions respectively. But the divisions are not hard and fast; "The

subject matter is too closely interwoven for that."15 We have left to

us only approximately one hundred twenty-six fragments,16 the

 

148

arrangement of which is a matter of some dispute. I shall, in this
chapter as in the last, simply follow the order of the fragments as
given in Diels. Nevertheless, it is good to be aware that the author-
ities on the subject differ. Thus,

In his edition, Diels has given up all attempt to arrange the
fragments according to subject. . . . I think, too, that he over-
estimates the difficulty of an approximate arrangement, and makes
too much of the view that the style of Heraklitos was "aphor-
istic." That it was so, is an important and valuable remark;

but it does not follow that Heraklitos wrote like Nietzsche. For
a Greek, however prophetic in his tone, there must always be a
distinction between an aphoristic and an incoherent style.l7

Heraclitus ' Doctrine

 

Once again, as in the preceding chapter, this section will not
attempt a thoroughgoing exposition of all of Heraclitus' thought, but
rather only those aspects of it which form a necessary background for
the work of this chapter. The basic task of this section is therefore
to set the stage for the third section.

A natural if somewhat partial view of Heraclitus would have him
carrying on the work of his Ionian predecessors in the search for a
basic Urstoff underlying change. Perhaps this will do for a start,
for he does indeed have a basic Urstoff. It will soon appear, how-
ever, that the conception involved is a good bit more subtle than it
might seem at first.

First of all, then, there is the appalling fact of change to
contend with. There is a constant strife at work in the universe:

You have to realize that war is the common property of all things,

and that strife is justice, and that everything comes about in ac-
cord with strife and necessity.

eibévat 6E xph 15v udleuov édvra guvdv, ual éfunv Epuv, not
yLvdueva xdvra xar' Epuv xaL xpedueva [xpéwv7113

 

149

This strife, the conflict that is change, extends all the way down to
the minutiae of our lives--to such an extent that it is not possible
for a man to step twice into the same river, for instance (since by
the time that he takes the second step, the river will have changed
and therefore he will not be stepping into the samg_river).19 Change
is a fact of our lives, whether living or dead, awake or asleep, young
or old: the living become the dead, the awake become the sleeping,
the young become the old.20 Yet more: the dead become the living,
the sleeping become the awake, the old become the young.21

Ought one, therefore, seek for a basis of solidarity in an
Urstoff, as the Ionians did? To be sure, there is such an Urstoff:
however myriad be the things of our experience, the fact remains that

This universe . . . always was, is, and will be everlasting fire,
kindled in measure and quenched in measure.

 

xdouov tdvée . . . fiv del ual Ecer ual 501Gb n09 deficwov,
dttduevov pérpa ual duooBevvduevov uétpa.22

Not that the world around us deceives us, and seems to be other things
while really being fire; the fire is "kindled in measure and quenched
in measure,"23 and in a definite order: it first becomes sea, then
earth and water.24

But what of this fire itself-~what can be said of it? We wonder
first of all whether Heraclitus' fire is intended to be material fire,
the sort of thing of which we have experience; he does not tell us.
What it is, he does not say; of what it does, he gives some indica-
tions. For one thing, it steers the cosmos: "r& 66 xdvta oiaxECSL
Kepauvdg."25 It changes into all things, and all things change

into it:

150

There is an exchange: all things [exchange for] fire and fire
for all things, just as goods for gold and gold for goods.

nupds re dvrauouBfi ta ndvIa not IUD dudvrwv Suwanep xpuaofi
xpfiuara ual xonudrwv xpuodg.

There is no escape from this process:

For he [Heraclitus] says that fire, coming upon all things, will
judge and seize them.

tdvra ydp, enof, 15 nfip éneABBv anvet not natalfi¢erat.27
Furthermore, the sun, which according to the tradition of the sum-
marizers is a bowl of fire,28 is in charge of the Seasons, and the
. 29
Seasons bring all things.
The process of fire's change to all things and all things'
change to fire can be seen as two movements of a single cyclic pro-
cess; these two movements have traditionally been called the Upward
and the Downward Paths. In the doxographical account, we read:
He called change the upward and the downward path [the terms them-
selves are found in the fragments that we have; of. 2, B60], and
held that the world comes into being in virtue of this. When fire
is condensed it becomes moist, and when compressed it turns to
water; water, being congealed, turns to earth, and this he calls
the downward path. And, again, the earth is in turn liquified,
and from it water arises, and from that everything else; for he
refers almost everything to the evaporation from the sea. This is
the path upwards.3

The two moments, however, are really one: "The path up and down is

one and the same (6665 five ndtw ufa mUTfi)."31

At this point we begin to see that we have here, not an attempt
at somehow establishing stability amid the evident fact of change, but
rather something quite different, something a good deal more radical.
Heraclitus is affirming, in effect, that the former enterprise is wit-

less; reality itself i§_change. It is not some stable element under-

lying change. For if all things are at root fire, and if the fire

151

itself is always and ceaselessly engaged in traversing the Upward or
Downward Path (never are we told that the process ceases, or termin-
ates in some sort of cosmic conflagration),32 the implication is
strong that there is no stable element underlying change, that change
itself is the important factor, is true reality. A further hint in
this direction is provided by a bit of speculation about something
which Heraclitus himself does not tell us, i.e., why he chose fire as
his Urstoff:

All this made it necessary for him to seek out a new primary sub-
stance. He wanted . . . something which of its own nature would
pass into everything else, while everything else would pass in
turn into it. This he found in Fire, and it is easy to see why,
if we consider the phenomenon of combustion. The quantity of fire
in a flame burning steadily appears to remain the same, the flame
seems to be what we call a "thing." And yet the substance of it
is continually changing. It is always passing away in smoke, and
its place is always being taken by fresh matter from the fuel that
feeds it. If we regard the world as an "ever-living fire" (fr.

20 [Bywater]), we can understand how it is always becoming all
things, while all things are always returning to it.

Thus we have here no mere repetition of the Ionian search. Yet,
as Freeman remarks,

If, however, Heraclitus is to be counted as a metaphysician and
not a nihilist in philosophy, there must be something, some one
unchanging reality to which he directs us. This cannot be, as it
was for the Milesians, his material substrate; for Fire itself
changes, and of its essential nature. It is actually no more at
rest than the Cosmos born from it, for the process of change is
eternal. . . . Is it, then, perhaps the eternal process of change
that is the unchanging element in his system? This would not be
of much help, for we should be confined to acknowledging this and
then giving up all attempt at further investigation. Knowledge in
any real sense would still be impossible, and obviously Heraclitus
did not think this, as his own speculations prove.34

Precisely what this "unchanging reality" is begins to appear when
Heraclitus is talking about his fire, in a fragment already quoted in

part: the fire which is all things is said to be "enkindled in

 

152

measure and extinguished in measure."35 But the notion of uérpa makes
us pause. There is, after all, nothing in fire itself which would
suggest a notion of rational bounds set for the fire--and that is pre-
cisely what "measure" does suggest. What we have here is a fire with
a certain amount of direction imposed upon its activity, a fire the
activity of which is directed by rule or law. There is, we are told
explicitly, a directive purpose involved here:

[Heraclitus says that] there is one wisdom: to know the purpose
which has directed all things through all things.

eivat yep Ev to coedv, énfioraofiau yvmunv, étén éuuBépvnoe ndvra
610 ndvtwv.36

This purpose, or law, is universal, common to all;37 all things come
into being in accordance with this law.38 If one views the world from
the standpoint of this law, he will see that all things are one.39 It
is this one law which stands behind the strife and war that charac-
terize the universe, therefore, since all things come about through
strife40 but in accordance with the law.41 I

What Heraclitus is doing, therefore, is this: he is suggesting
that all things change, and that there is nothing to be sought by way
of an unchanging substrate. There is, indeed, a substrate, fire. But
that, by its very nature, is perhaps the least stable of the elements,
and certainly is not an unchanging substrate. The search is misdi-
rected; one ought not seek for stability behind change, but rather
for the reason or law directing the change. One should not implicitly
deny the importance of change by seeking something that does not

change; one should rather affirm the importance of change and seek

to understand the "why" of it, to whatever extent that proves possible:

 

153

"Hence it is necessary to follow after that which is common (5L0 bet
Eteaeau we. XOLme)."42 It is in this sense, I think, that one must

understand Heraclitus' exhortation to his readers to listen, not to

him, but to the law.43

In this connection, an observation of Freeman's is worth noting:

Heraclitus never speaks of this Logos as a material thing; when
he describes it, it is as something knowable, that is, as a Law.
He does not, however, separate it from his substrate Fire; he
says, "The thunderbolt steers all things," so that we can say,
with Hippolytus, that the Fire is "intelligent" [2, B64], that is,
that wisdom is the property of the Fire. But it is not "in" the
Fire in a material sense; it is the Law in the nature of the
Fire, and the movements of the Fire are subject to it. The Logos
is nowhere described as material in the way in which Empedocles'
Love and Hate, or Anaxagoras' Mind, are described.

We might next ask, given the fact that all things come from Fire
in accordance with measure, what is the path that this process takes?
What are the mutations involved, the end product of which is, say, a
stone or a stick?

We are told that the following are the changes of_fire:

First, sea; but half of sea is earth, and half water spout. . . .
The sea is poured out and measured according to the same measure
as there pertained before it became earth.

upmtov edlaooa, Seldoons 66 Th uEv fiuLou yfi, 16 66 fiutau

tpnotfip. . . . edlaooa 6LaxéeraL not ustpéeraL sis 16v abtbv
Adyov, duotog updoeev fiv R yevéoeau yfi.45

Perhaps, however, since this part of the cosmology is not all that
critical to the purposes of this paper, we can simply accept an inter-
pretation of this passage:

From [fire's] region appears to come rain, which ultimately
nourishes the sea, and is itself replenished (for fire "consumes"
moisture) by the moist evaporation ascending from the sea. Sea,
as Anaximines had shown, turns into earth, and earth at other
times and places changes to water. Thus sea and earth are what
cosmic or aitherial fire "turns to." Changes between the three
world-masses [i.e., between earth, fire, and sea] are going on

nr‘-“‘*# "'""' ' I

154

simultaneously in such a way that the total of each always remains

the same. If a quantity of earth dissolves into sea, an equiva-

lent quantity of sea in other parts is condensing into earth, and

so with changes between sea and "burner" (fire). . . . The Logos

or proportion remains the same--again it is the measure and regu-

larity of change, this time of large-scale cosmological change,

that is stressed.46 ’
It is, therefore, a question of step-by-step transmutation of one ele-
ment into another, either in the Downward Path of fire's becoming
other things, or else in the Upward one of other things' becoming
fire. It is not a leap; all things are done uétpa. One can, how-
ever, consider this process of continual change on two levels: within
a given individual being, there is this continual process of change
going on; simultaneous with this, however, the same thing could be
said for the universe. The ordered change can thus be seen either
microscopically or macrosc0pically. In either case, it is the same
process:

Nothing, not even the most stable-seeming and solid substance,

is really at rest. It has the double movement: the oscillation

of the opposites within itself, and the movement of the Whole,

either towards or away from the source.
In this movement, seen from either perspective, the particular being
existing at any one time is maintained in being precisely by the
strife of opposites within itself: its existence is, precisely, a
tension between given opposites, and when this tension is resolved in
favor of one of the conflicting elements, the being changes to another
being, a different one, wherein a different tension pertains between
different warring opposites.48

So much for sticks and stones. What, however, of man--or, since

Heraclitus expresses little interest in the body as such in the frag-

ments we have, what of man's soul?

155

The information he provides us is scanty enough. We are told
that souls are vaporized from the wet49--i.e., they are part of the
upward process, the passage from water back to the rarer elements.
Souls, therefore, are tending toward fire. It is death for a soul to
become water, Heraclitus affirms;50 it might delight in doing so, but
it is to its own peril,51 and a dry soul is the wisest and the best.52
The soul has its own Logos or law,53 which is so profound as to be in-
scrutible,S4 but seems to be capable of increase as the soul's need
for it increases.55 Souls, we are further told, have the sense of
smell left to them in Hades;56 their role in Hades is to function
as watchful guardians of the living and the dead.57

This is the data that Heraclitus gives us. What, precisely, are
we to make of it?

Some of the fragments can be put together coherently, at least.
It would seem that it is soul's duty to strive to become fire, for one
thing. It is the soul's destruction for it to become wet, and yet it
originated from the wet; hence retrogression to its original state
seems prohibited, and the upward dynamic must continue. That this is
a constantly ongoing process seems indicated by the fact that the
soul's law can grow to meet the soul's needs; moreover, since the
best soul is not only dry (Enpfi) but bright as well 616711),58 the sug-
gestion is there that the best soul is a dry soul that has become
bright, i.e., become fire (abyfi is often used in Greek to describe the
rays of the sun). It is, therefore, the law of soul that soul should

strive to do, on its own level, what the entire universe is doing,

viz., become fire.

156

The fragments dealing with the soul's fate after the death of
the body, however, are another matter. There is obviously some sort
of afterlife, as the references to the souls in Hades make clear. In
that afterlife, moreover,

There await men, after they have died, things which they are not
looking for or even imagine.

53335633232322'SESQSSSEI;2-533.123T5533};”333;"332223313T35'
Gods and men alike honor those slain in war,60 and the more magnifi-
cent the death that men undergo, the greater their reward.61 But in
what this honor and this reward consist, Heraclitus does not say. We
can infer that it will have to do with something on the level of soul
rather than that of the body, for after death a corpse is a more fit-
ting object of rejection than is excrement.62 On the other hand,
since all things are tending toward fire in Heraclitus' over—all cos-
mology, it is at least puzzling to speak of any sort of personal im—

mortality of soul. This, however, is something that we will have to

explore at greater length in the third section of this chapter.

The "Why" of Heraclitus

 

We shall employ the same methodology here as in the corres-
ponding section of this paper's third chapter: a series of questions,
answers to which will be constructed from the extant fragments of
Heraclitus' work.

First, then, what did Heraclitus think of the Olympian gods?

He is clear enough on that point:
And to those statues of theirs, men pray in much the same manner

[and with the same effectiveness] that one might have in con—
versing with buildings-~being totally ignorant as they are as to

157

what gods and heroes might be.

 

 

\ a o ‘ u 6 ~
not rots evaluaOL 6e TontéOLOLv suxovrat on0Lov at It; 66u0LaL
Aeoxnvedonro 06 TL yLvmoumv 35069 066' fipwag oETLvés eioL.63

The comparison with what we might call "talking with a brick wall"
bears, strictly, on prayers to statues, rather than prayers to gods;
nevertheless, the inference can be made that prayers to the gods them-
selves is equally ineffective. No normal Greek ever thought that a
statue of a god that he might possess w§§_that god, as the accounting
of Greek religion in this paper's second chapter made clear. Prayers
to the gods, then, are a waste of time. So are the rites that com-

monly attend those prayers:

[Men] purify themselves by staining themselves with blood--to no
avail; it is just as if one were to want to wash off mud by
walking into other mud. A man would be thought to be out of his
mind, if any other man noticed him acting in that way. '
uaeafpovtan 6' 511mg atuatL uLaLvdustL ofov at TLS sis unlbv
équg unlmt éuov€§outo. uafvsoeaL 6' iv 6oxofn, 63 TL: aétev
évepéuwv énumpdoauro 061w nouéovra.64

Some of the rites, indeed, are worse than simply foolishness:

To those who roam at night, to magicians, to frenzied men, to
Lenaean women, to the initiated: to such, what happens after
death brings terrifying tidings; to them the fire brings proph—
ecy. For the mysteries that are esteemed among men initiate
them into unholiness.

vuxtunleLs, udyo:s, BdXXOLs, lfivatg, pSOIaLgo todIOLs ductlet
16 nerd edvatov, todroLs uavrsderat TO nflp. Id 76p voutcdueva
uar' évfipénoug uuorfipLa desmeII uuerIaL.55

Worse yet, some rites are more than just unholy foolishness. Some of
them are downright shameful, and it is only the intention of the
ritual that gives it any redeeming value at all:
If it were not in Dionysius' honor that they hold their procession
and sing their hymn to the genitalia, they would be acting most

shamelessly. Hades, however, is much the same thing as Dionysius,
in whose honor they rave and celebrate the Lenaean festival.

 

158

6i uh Yep ALovdwOL nouufiv éuouobvro not finvegv aloud ci6oCOL0Lv,
évaL6éOTara etpyaor' 5v. entbs 6s 'At6ng xaL ALdvuoog, OTEwL
, \
UGLVOVTGL not AnvaLCOUOLv.66
Much current religion, therefore, is idiocy, unholy, and even
shameful. Why? The basic reason is this:
This universe, the same for all, was made by no god or man;

rather, it always was, is, and will be everburning fire, enkindled
in measure and extinguished in measure.

xdouov tdv6e, 16v abrév dndvtwv, 0616 TLS 866V 051: dvepmxwv

étofnosv, éll' fiv 651 not Eoruv ual EOTGL qu defzmov, dutduevov

uétpa ual drooBevvduevov uétpa.67
The gods did not create the universe. Neither do they control it:
that, as we have seen, is the work of fire, acting in accord with its
immanent uérpov. For if the gods did not control the fire in the
creation of the universe, why assume that they do so after that crea-
tion is completed? Since the gods are unnecessary in the beginning
of the universe, there is no reason to suppose that they have any say
in the matter once that universe is under way. And, if the gods do
not control the cosmos, religion is useless; once again, the basic
purpose of Greek religion was precisely to effect some sort of control
of events through the gods. Heraclitus is now claiming that such con-
trol is not within the power of the gods.

Chapter Two made it clear that the twin literary sources of the
Olympian gods were Homer and Hesiod. It is instructive, therefore, to
see what Heraclitus has to say about these two poets, for his comments
reflect not merely personally upon Homer and Hesiod, but upon what

they had to say (about the gods, among other things) as well:

Knowing many things does not teach one to be wise; if it did, it
would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras.

toluuafifn vdov EXELv 06 6L6doneL- 'Hofo6ov yap 6v é6f6a£e x61
Hueaydpnv. . . .68

159

[Heraclitus] thought Homer deserved to be thrown out of the lists
and given a beating, and the same for Archilochus.

16v 6% 'Ounpoy Esconev dELov éx 16v dypdev édelleoeaL n61
dan6CeoeaL not 'Aprloxov éuofmg.6 '

Elsewhere, Heraclitus says, with blunt directness, that Homer and

Hesiod simply did not know what they were doing.70

Moreover, it seems in the last analysis that there is not much

difference between the status of an immortal (a god) and a mortal:

The immortals are mortal, the mortals are immortal, each living
the others' death and dying the others' life.

éSdVQTOL evnrof, euntol éSivaTOL, Cmvteg 16v éxefvwv advatov,
16v 6% éxefvwv Bfov reevemteg.7

The reason for this is that gods and men alike have a common origin

in strife:

War is father of all things, of all things king; it shows forth
some as gods, others as men; some it makes slaves and others
free.

Hdleuog ndvrmv uév naTfip éorn, ndvrwv 6E BaOLAedg, not robs uEv
8606s 56EL£E 1063 6% dvepénoug, robs uEv 6odloug énofnoe 100$

66 éleuSépous.72

However, not all the traditional religion is unqualifiedly bad,

in Heraclitus' view. He has a certain measure of respect for the

Delphic oracle:

And

According to Heraclitus, the Sibyl, speaking out with prophetic
mouth her cheerless and unbeautified and unincensed message,
reaches out over a thousand years with her voice, through (the
power of) the god.

ZCBUAAa 66 uaLvouéme atduatL nae' 'dexleLrov éyélaora ual
dualléntora ual dudpLOTa maeyyouévn xLAfwv érav éguxvetrat

tfiL ewvfiL 6L0 16v 856v.

 

the oracle is not deceptive:

The lord, whose place of prophecy is located at Delphi, neither

160

speaks clearly nor completely conceals, but rather gives indi-
cations.

6 dvag, 05 16 uavretdv éorL 16 év Aelmots, 0516 Aéysn 0616
updnreu 6116 onuafvsu.74

Apollo, it seems, has more to commend himself than do the other gods,
in Heraclitus' view. He does not say why, and we are left to specu-
late on the point. It does seem safe enough to say, however, that the
main difference between religion at Delphi and religion at very many
other places lay in the fact that at Delphi there was a fairly heavy
stress put on man's reason rather than his emotions-~at least in the
practical order. To be sure, there were the usual oracular trappings
(the tripod, the smoke, and so forth), but the reason why the oracle
enjoyed such spectacular success was that the priests who ran it had
access to a considerable amount of information from a number of
sources. Delphi was a crossroads of sorts, to which people from many
areas came, each bringing certain bits of information regarding his or
her homeland-~all of which the priests collected, thereby providing
themselves with a store of facts on the basis of which they could
provide some shrewd answers to questions that devotees put to the
oracle.75 Furthermore, the well-known cryptic nature of the oracle's
responses put a premium on intellectual acumen on the part of the re—
cipient of the oracle's answer. For reasons which will become clear
when we get further along in this section of the present chapter,
Heraclitus would be sympathetic to such an intellectualistic approach.

In summary, therefore, the answer to the first question we posed
is this: very much of the cult of the Olympian gods is foolishness or

worse, since the gods are powerless to accomplish the main purpose of

.r. ]
;._..._ - ...»~us.

161

religion. Gods and men alike are under the power of strife (or, in
more familiar terms, fire), and really do not differ very much from
one another. Yet there is a valuable element in at least one phase of
Greek religion.

To turn, then, to the next question: granting that the current
gods and religions are less than satisfactory, what can be said of the
notion of divinity and religion in general, in Heraclitus' view?

To begin with, it is clear that Heraclitus does not jettison
the idea of divinity completely, however widespread be the miscon-
ceptions that people may have of it; the fragments that we have al-
ready examined concerning the Delphic oracle show as much. Further-
more, there are several fragments wherein he speaks of the divine in
terms of at least approval, if not praise. Thus for instance, he
says:

The god is day-night, winter-summer, war-peace, surfeit-
hunger . . . [the god] changes just like [fire], whenever it is

mixed in with incense, and he is named according to each one's
pleasure.

 

6 366g fiuépn abopdvn, XELumv eépos, ndleuog sipfivn, ndpos

ALuds . . . éAAOLOUTaL 6E Sumogep (HUD), éndtav OUDULYfiL

eufiuaOLv, 6voudcerat X03' fi6ovnv éudorou.
In other words, there is such a thing as the divine, and it consists
in opposition of one sort or other--more accurately, in a tension of
opposites. Men, however, by their religious ceremonies, can and do
create all sorts of confusion as to the nature of the divine.

This divinity which is Opposition has understanding:

The human race does not have any means of knowing, but the divine
does.

680; 76p evapéneuov uEv 06x Exet yvéuas, Setov 6E EXEL.77

 

J-g-n .w..‘..~ .g. .4.-‘.. ..

And this intelligent opposition-divinity surpasses mankind:

Man has been called foolish by the divine in the same fashion that
a child would be by a grown man.

dvhp vfintos finouoe nods 6afuoveg Snwonsp nets I005 6v6p6s.78

It is, however, no mean feat for man to recognize this divinity:

But many things about the gods, thinks Heraclitus, escape being
understood because of lack of belief.

 

\ ~ \
dlla va uév Befwv To nolld, nae' 'denleutov, dnLorCnL 5L0-
meyydveL uh yLyvdoxsoeaL.

In the divinity, moreover, the tension between good and evil
that plagues man's understanding finds resolution:

To the god, all things are beautiful and good and just; but men
consider some things unjust and some things just.

~ \ \ \ \ \
TwL usv eemn uald udvro ual dyaea naL 6€xaLa, dv8pwn0L 6e d‘pev
U I I‘ \ ' 80
a6an uneLlfiwaOLv a 6: 6anLa.

And finally, the divine is a model for the human, particularly for
human law:
Anyone who speaks wisely must find his strength in that which is
shared by all, just as a city does on law, and much more so. For
all human law is nourished by one divine law, the power of which

extends just as far as it wishes, and which is enough for every-
thing, and which is superior.

Ebv vdwt Aéyovras ioxupreoeaL xph rm» Eume udvtwv, Suwanep
vduwt udlug, not uolb ioxuporépmg. rpémovIaL ydp ndvtes oi
dvepéneLOL vduOL 666 évbg 100 86600: npatet yep Tooobrov dadoov
éeéAEL not dgapnet 6601 not nepuyfverau.
The divine law, therefore, controls everything, and human laws ought
to be based on it.
There is, then, a god, of some sort. Does man have any obliga—
tions toward this divine being? Or, in other words, is there such a

thing as religion? Obviously, yes. From the fact that human law

ought to be based on divine law, it follows immediately that man must

know the divine law; else how can he base his laws on it? Further-
more, man, we are told, must base not merely his laws on the divine
law, but his strength on the divine strength. The requirement of
basing human law on divine law is put forth in the fragment quoted
above as an illustration of a general principle: a§_the city on law.
However, the general principle itself is left unstated, and we are
left to draw the parallel by ourselves.

Therefore: there is a god, and there is a religion. Hence our
second question, the "An est?" question, finds its answer. The third
question is the correlative "Quid est?" one: what is Heraclitus' god,
and in what does religion consist, in his view?

We know some phases of the answer already, for we have seen that
Heraclitus holds that his god is intelligent, is a tension of oppo-
sites, surpasses mankind, and is a model for man. Now, we are told
that there is a law which governs the entire universe, and is common
to all things;82 one single thing "which has directed all things
through all things (615m énuBépvnos ndvra 6L6 IdVva)."83 However,
since human nature has no means of understanding but the divine nature
does,84 it follows that this single, directive purpose is on the level
of the divine. Furthermore, again since human nature lacks under~
standing but the divine nature does not, it follows that wisdom is
also on the level of the divine. Wisdom, however, is one: "That
which alone is wise is one (Eb r6 cowbv uoDvov)."85 Hence, on the
level of the divine are found both the attribute of unitary wisdom and
the activity of directing the universe.

The divine law steers the universe, therefore. But the universe

164

. . . always was, is, and will be everburning fire, enkindled in
measure and extinguished in measure.

""”"'T'?'--?'I '''''' ?-:""""'T':"""T """"""""""
6v GEL not EOTLV uaL EOTGL uUp GELCwOV, aurduevov uérpa
nooBevvduevov uétpo.86

X
9
1".
Q...

It follows that the divine wisdom, directing the universe, is doing

so by means of the uérpov that is the characteristic of the fiery

Urstoff. The divine law, or the Logos, as Heraclitus frequently calls

it, is not identified with the fire, but rather is the directive force

behind that fire's activities. Yet neither should one think of the

Logos as being totally separated from the fire; we are told, after

all, that "The lightning flash directs everything (T6 6% ndvta oia-

. 87 . . .

HLCSL Kepauvdg)." Once again, Freeman's observation is useful:
Heraclitus never speaks of this Logos as a material thing; when
he describes it, it is as something knowable, that is, as a Law.
He does not, however, separate it from his substrate Fire; he
says "The Thunderbolt steers all things," so that we can say,
with Hippolytus, that the Fire is "intelligent," that is, that
Wisdom is a property of the Fire. But it is not "in" the Fire in
a material sense; it is the Law in the nature of the Fire, and
the movements of the Fire are subject to it.88

One might say, in the terminology of a later age, that the Logos is

immanent to the fire, or is the immanent law directing its activities.

The close association of the Logos with the fire throws some
light on Heraclitus' statement that the divine nature is a tension of
opposites, for the essence of fire is the transmutation of one thing
into another: fire is neither the unburned material nor the burned
material, but rather the process whereby the one becomes the other.

It is the midpoint in the change, without being either terminus. It

is the struggle between these two termini, the tension between them;

and fire exists only as long as this tension exists. Once this ten-

sion is resolved in favor of either unburned material or ashes, the

165

fire goes out. Mutatis mutandis, the same could be said for any other

 

variety of change. And the Logos is the directing force behind the
activity of the fire, hence behind its nature. It is possible, there-
fore, to conceive of the Logos, as immanent in the fire, as being pre-
cisely that tension between opposites that Heraclitus envisions in
fragment 67, cited some paragraphs back.89 Hence Heraclitus can speak
approvingly of his Logos in this role:

That which is in Opposition is in concord, and out of things that

differ there comes a most excellent harmony, and all things come

about through strife.

\oo ‘0... o t 0
TO aerEouv ovumépov not ex va 6Lo¢5p6Vva xaAlLOTnv apuovuov
\
nan ndvra nar' Eva yfveoeau.90

They do not understand how that which is different is in agreement
with itself; harmony is a turning back upon itself, like that of
a bow and a lyre.

RESCIQSISEEE‘SIQQESSJES33233152331522:"$53.33; """
dpuovfin 5xwonep tdgou x61 ldpng.91

We are further told that in the Logos, all is justice, beauty,
and goodness; it is only men who think that the contrary obtains in
certain cases,92 presumably, once again, since intelligence and wisdom
are lacking at the human level and it is only at the status of the
divine that the full picture can be seen.

A caution is needed at this point, however. "But we are not en-
titled to suppose that Heraclitus regarded the One, Fire, as a pg£:_
£2221 God, any more than Thales or Anaximines regarded Water or Air as
a personal God: Heraclitus was a pantheist, . . ."93 Our modern

tendency to place a relationship of implication between intelligence

and personality did not hold in Heraclitus' day.

166

SO much for Heraclitus' god. What of man's duties toward that
god, or, what of religion?

Perhaps a good way of seeing what man should do is to investi-
gate Heraclitus' strictures about the majority of mankind, who fail to
do what they should. The reverse will then indicate what they should
be doing.

In the very first fragment that we have, Heraclitus complains
that, although he is setting out the law of the universe,

. . . men are always devoid of understanding, both before they
hear and after they have heard for the first time.

\
. 661 dadvsTOL yfyvovraL dvepquL X61 updoeev fi’dxofloau
D

6nodoavtes 16 upmtov.

NO

P’0

Man's first obligation, then, must be to strive to understand the law
of the universe. The majority of mankind are unaware of what they are
doing,95 and consequently are like the deaf: they are "not present
even when they are present (napedvrag dustvat)."96
Yet it is not a speculative sort of knowledge of the law of the

universe that Heraclitus has in mind:

Hence it is necessary to follow the [common, that is the] uni-
versal [law].

 

\ - 1 1 l
6L0 6st EueoeaL Tut [€uvmt, TOUTéOTL TwL] HOvaL.97

One must follow the law; one cannot disregard it, and form a world

. 98 . . . .
view of his own. This 18 not an easy process, nor is it one that is
commonly achieved:

For many people do not understand things like this when they en-
counter them, nor do they come to understand them after learning
about them, although they seem to themselves (to do so).

06 76p mpovéOUOt TOLGUTG nollof, 6u600L§ éyuupefiouv, 066E
uaedvreg yLvéoxououv, éwUTOIOL 6E 6oxéOUOL.

 

 

167

Even after one has come to an understanding of the law of the uni-
verse, he must continue to work at it, it seems.

To come to a knowledge of the law of the universe, and to fol-
low it: what could this mean? We recall that the "law of the uni-
verse" refers to the fact that all things are in flux, that all things
are at root fire in one or other moment of the Upward or Downward
Paths, and that the entire process is under the direction of Logos.
What it would mean to come to a knowledge of these facts is intel—
ligible enough; but what could it mean to follow that law?

We get some clues in Heraclitus' specific prescriptions. He
tells us that man must not allow his soul to become wet through

100 .

pleasure. We know, however, that man 5 soul came from the wet

. . . 101 .
and is en route, so to speak, to becoming fire. This could only
mean that man's duty is to further the cosmic process: he must make
sure that his soul, which is after all the important part of him (of.

u "102 v =-

the references to corpses as dung ), continues on its way to the
fiery state. He must not do anything that would retard the progress
of his soul towards that state; thus we have the prohibitions against

drink, which would make the soul wet,103 and against pleasure.104 A

man must have character; that for him is "fulfillment."105 All men
can come to a knowledge of themselves and to the level of intel-
. 106 .
lectual actiVity -—mean1ng that they can come to a knowledge of
their role in the universe.
Coming to a knowledge of the law of the universe is wisdom, on

the human level:

For one thing is wisdom: to know the understanding which has
guided all things through all things.

W—__‘—_ _

\ ) .4 r v
ervaL yap EV Tb oowév, énfioruoeai yvdunv, 616m énuBépvnos
udvra 6L6 ndvrwv.

Practically speaking, how does one set about achieving this? It takes

work: "For it is necessary for wise men to be searchers into very many
. \ \ 9 ~ I . I“ "108

things (xpn 76p 85 uala rollwv Loropag mtloodoous 6v666g elvaL).

One must, first and foremost, listen:

[Heraclitus says that] when men have listened, not to me but to
the Word, it is the part of wisdom to agree that all things are
one.

06x éuoO, 6116 100 16700 660606v169 duoloyefv oomdv éOTL 3v
ndvta EIVOL.

One must act as one who is awake and recognizes that there is "but one
I \ \ "110

universe, common [to all] (eva n6L kOLVOV ndouov elvaL). One must

be attentive, therefore: eyes and ears must be attuned to the uni-

verse as a whole. It is by this path, rather than by "guess[ing]

rashly about very important matters (uh sixfi nepl 16v usyforwv ovu-

"111 that one will attain the goal.

Balléueaa),
In a word,

. . . wisdom consists in speaking the truth and in acting with
understanding according to nature.

. . . coefn dlnfiéa AEYELv no: noxetv 6616 odOLv énafovr6g.llz
Acting according to nature, however, means doing whatever one can to
make sure that the soul attains the status of fire, and refraining
from doing anything that might hinder it from that goal. "The great—

o u . ‘ ~ i \ p "113
est Virtue is to be wise (TO epoveav apatn ueytcrn).

It is only when we realize the intellectualistic tenor of
Heraclitus' system that the prohibitions on sense pleasures--as well

as his profound contempt for the vast majority of mankind——become

logical. For the vast majority of mankind do not operate

intellectually, at least predominantly so. Most people are content
simply with going about their day-to-day business, enjoying their day—

to-day pleasures. They do not, unlike Heraclitus, "seek the meaning

of themselves"; they cannot say, as he did, "ééLCnodunv éuewurdv"ll4

--nor, indeed, are they particularly interested in doing so. But this
means that they do not arrive at wisdom:

Poor witnesses for mankind are the eyes and the ears when men
have uncivilized souls.

nauot udprupeg dvepfiKOLonv émealuoi M61 516 Badepoug ¢ux6g
éxdvtwv.

 

In other words, the root of wisdom, or religion, lies in a strictly
intellectual recognition of how the universe is constituted and run,
and in a persistent effort to hold in strict check anything that might
dampen down and hinder the activities of reason. In the light of
this, the fact that this is not a doctrine that would appeal to the
masses becomes somewhat of an obviosity. (Also in the light of this,
the intellectualistic tenor goes a good way toward explaining
Heraclitus' benevolence toward the Delphic oracle.ll6)

What can man expect to get out of this sort of religion? What
hopes has he for his future? Heraclitus is somewhat terse on the
point. Initially, man gains fame in this present life:

The best men choose one thing in preference to all others, namely

a deathless reputation among men. But the majority simply glut
themselves, like cattle.

o \ u i 0 0 en ! ...
6Lp£0v161 yap av 6vTL6 navtwv 0L GOLOTOLi nkéog aévaov 9vn1wv,
oi 6E nollol nexdpnvraL Suwanep nrfivea.

After death, as we have seen, something awaits man, too:

There await men, after they have died, things which they are not
looking for or even imagine.

l“; l r ALA." a -F v~ Q
‘

 

170

9 o I I t i 9 8
avepwnous uéveL anoeavdvtag 6006 006 elnovrau 006E 6065000Lv.ll

But precisely what these things are that await men, Heraclitus does
not say.

This seems like little enough incentive for even the best of men
to adopt Heraclitus' Word. Furthermore, there is another, and a some—
what more far—reaching problem that presents itself: the universe,
under the direction of Logos, is going to go right on doing what it is
doing, independently of whether or not man co-operates with it. For
that matter, man is going to co—operate with the universe in this re-
gard as the universe pursues its upward route to the fiery state,
whether he wants to or not. What, then, is the point of exhorting him
to do so? The cosmic system Operates with necessity, and the precise
point of an exhortatory ethical system in this (or any other) neces-
sitarian structure is not at all clear. It looks very much as if
Heraclitus is saying, "You will co-operate in the universe whether you
want to or not; therefore co-operate willingly." And the problem
with that, of course, is that in such a context the adverb "willingly"
is evacuated of all meaning.

I suggest that the real dynamic at work here is the same one
that was operative in the Olympian religion, i.e., that of control.
The real punch of Heraclitus' system lies in the fact that, by the
heavy stress on the cultivation of man's reason, Heraclitus is sug-
gesting that man can somehow share in the control of the universe that
is the function of the divine reason. This, however, would involve
some sort of identification of man's reason with the divine reason;

.and the question then becomes, can such an identification be justified

 

 

171

from the text?

A direct justification is not forthcoming. Nevertheless, there
are places in the text from which a tolerably strong argument in that
direction can be constructed. We are told, for instance, that man
must base his strength

. . . on that which is shared by all, just as a city does on law,

and much more so. For all human law is nourished by one divine
one.

. . . ioxupfceoeaL xph 16L Eume ndvtwv, dnwonep vdqu udlts,

x61 nolb i0xup01€pmg. TpéOOVIaL ydp ndvres 0C dv3pdn6L01 vduoL

660 évOs 100 86f00.119
The argument is elliptical, and it will pay us to fill it out. The
first three steps in the argument are given: (1) man must base his
strength on that which is shared by all; (2) in just the same fashion
as a city bases its strength on law; (3) but even much more so, for
human law is nourished by divine law. The fourth step is omitted,
but it would go something like this: (4) therefore man's strength is
divinely nourished by its basis too. The relationship between human
law and divine law ought not be missed: there is a very close con-
nection between the two. What is this connection? The verb is sig-
nificant: tp660VT6L. This verb is commonly used in Greek to denote
the imparting of physical sustenance from mother to child, and the
suggestion presents itself that the relationship between the two types
of law is a close one indeed. However, I would not want to claim too
much for this, as the verb is capable of other meanings as well.
Nevertheless, it is curious that that particular verb should be used,
rather than something like, say, uLuofivrau.

However, whatever be the precise relationship between human and

 

172

divine law, our real interest is in the relationship between man's
strength and its basis. Now, we have been told that the soul has its
own Logos, which is capable of increase according to the soul's re-
quirements;120 and we have seen that it is the task of soul to strive
to attain fiery status. Presumably, therefore, it is the function of
this soul-Logos to direct this process as well. But this process is
precisely the image, on a small scale, of the cosmic-Logos' task.
Adding this fact together with the fourth step of the elliptical ar-
gument, we can conclude that there is a close relationship between
soul-Logos and cosmic-Logos, a relationship expressed by the curious
verb TpémovraL, and that the two have the same function, in the one
case on a microcosmic level and in the other on a macrocosmic one.
There is another fragment concerning the soul, wherein

Heraclitus says that

You could not discover in your travels the boundaries of the soul,

even if you traverse the entire route; its Logos is too profound
for that.

«13%2"£22.35?ESS'SSJES'EEEGSSIS17%;?2.335238323323837""-

0616 Basbv ldyov EXEL.121
Why, we ask ourselves, is the soul-Logos so impenetrable? Why, for
that matter, does the soul even have its own Logos-~nothing else in
the universe has one of its own. For that matter, the soul~Logos is
a curious affair: it has precisely the same function as cosmic-Logos.
Now, cosmic—Logos seems to do a competent enough job on running the
remainder of the universe; why is it necessary for soul to have a
Logos of its own to do exactly the same job that cosmic—Logos does

well everywhere else? Why indeed--unless soul-Logos i§_cosmic-Logos,

but operating on a particular scale? Both Logoi possess identity of

173

function and identity of at least one characteristic (profundity);
the suggestion is strong that they simply possess identity, period,
and that the only difference between the two is the Sphere of opera-
tion.

If this is true, many interesting things follow. If man can,
by controlling his own activities, control his own soul, he can be
in attunement with the Logos of that soul. And if the soul—Logos is
identified with the cosmic one, or at least if it bears a close re-
lationship to it, man can be in attunement with the entire cosmos.
Not that man can control the cosmos in the sense of directing it at
will; the restriction of the soul-Logos' field of activity that
Heraclitus prOposes seems to rule that out. It seems rather that,
from that viewpoint, the cosmos controls man. However, man can be
said to be controlling his own destiny: he can consciously strive to
bring about the situation wherein whatever happens to him in the cos-
mic process happens, in effect, by his own choice. And that is, in a
remarkable way, a sort of control over the cosmos itself: the cosmos
is no longer something threatening, something irrational, something
which can affect man's life without his having any say about it.
Rather, it is a factor in his life that he has assented to and con-
sciously striven for, and which he can accept on those terms. In a
weird sort of fashion, man has achieved the security that he has
sought.

And thus the third question that we have posed to Heraclitus
finds its answer; we have seen what his god and his religion were.

In the process of constructing answers to these queries, however, we

174

have at the same time formulated for this chapter an answer to the
fourth question that was put to Empedocles in the third chapter, i.e.,
whether or not man can achieve what Heraclitus proposes. We have seen
that he can, albeit with difficulty. For that matter, we have also
found for this chapter an answer to the final question that could be
asked, i.e., the question as to why all this is possible. For, as we
have seen, the whole enterprise is possible because of the close rela-
tionship (whether of identity or of something else) that pertains be-
tween cosmic-Logos and soul-Logos.

It is therefore time to summarize once more, to re-pose these
questions and provide brief answers to them. As in Chapter Three, I
shall distinguish those answers which have definite textual support
from those which are inferential.

What, then, did Heraclitus think of the Olympian gods? Very
little (textual); praying to them is about as effective as holding a
conversation with a house (textual). Furthermore, most of the rites
used to honor the gods are shameful or worse (textual). Worse yet,
their cult is useless, for they did not make the cosmos (textual),
nor do they run it (inferential), and hence the basic purpose of
religion is something that the gods cannot fulfill (inferential). The
Olympian gods seem to differ very little from the men whose gods they
are (textual). Nevertheless, the Delphic oracle and its associated
ceremonies are not without some merit (textual), perhaps because of
their stress on the intellectual (inferential).

Next: if the gods and current religion are, for the most part,

a waste of time or worse, then what of divinity and religion in

 

175

general? Heraclitus does have a "god" of some sort; he has a defi—

nite conception of the divine (textual). The divine, whatever be its
nature, does surpass the human (textual). Furthermore, man does have
some obligations toward the divine, at least the obligation of know-

ledge (textual and inferential).

Thirdly: granted that there is some sort of divine and some
sort of religion, in what do both consist? Heraclitus' "god" is, es-
sentially, a tension of opposites (textual), which possesses an under-
standing (textual) which surpasses the human type of understanding
(textual). In the divinity, all the paradoxes which man perceives in
a conception of divinity are resolved (textual); this divinity is a
model for man (textual); the divine law controls everything (text-
ual). Wisdom is located on the level of the divine (textual). From
the level of the divine comes the uétpov which controls the fiery
Urstoff (inferential). On the level of the divine, all is justice,
beauty, and goodness (textual). Of man's duties toward this divine
Logos, Heraclitus places primacy on effort toward understanding the
Logos (textual), and on man's attempting to follow that Logos (text-
ual). This involves a denial of sense pleasure (textual), which would
hinder the soul from its upward path to the status of the fiery (text-
ual and inferential); consequent upon this is the need for modifica-
tion in man's activities in such wise that the intellectual level re-
tains unhindered primacy (textual and inferential). Nan attains to a
knowledge of the Logos that directs the universe through hard work
(textual), principally by attentive listening (textual); this know—

ledge of the Logos is wisdom (textual), which is one (textual).

 

 

176

Wisdom, however, leads man to act according to nature and to pay heed
thereto (textual), which means, in the practical order, doing all that
he can to help his soul on its progress to fiery status (inferential).
The man who attains wisdom achieves fame in this present life (text-
ual), and after death attains to some sort of reward (textual).

Fourth: can man do this? Yes, though it is not easy (textual).
If he succeeds, he attains not only to an intellectual knowledge of
how the cosmos works but to a certain measure of control, not indeed
of the universe (textual), but at least of his own personal destiny as
an element in that universe.

Finally: why is this possible? The control over one's own
destiny is possible because the Logos that governs man's individual
soul has the same function vis-a-vis individual soul that the over-all
Logos has for the entire cosmos (textual), because the soul-Logos has
an extremely close relationship with the cosmic-Logos (textual), and
because the soul-Logos may well be identical with the cosmic-Logos
(inferential). Hence, by following the soul-Logos, as either closely
associated with or identified with the cosmic-Logos, man has control
over his own destiny to the extent that he becomes a willing co-
Operator with that Logos (inferential).

So much for the summary. The big questions remain: is all this
a product of dissatisfaction with the Olympian gods, and is it at root
an ethical system?

To take the latter question first, there seems little question
about the ethical character of the system. Whenever Heraclitus speaks
‘of man, it is practically always with reference to something that man

Tought to do, or else to chastise him for doing something that he ought

177

not do. It is clearly a program of life that he is prOposing.

Furthermore, I think that Heraclitus' thought was a product of
dissatisfaction with the Olympian scheme of things. That he was dis-
satisfied with the Olympians is clear enough; rhis remarks on sacri-
fices, on prayers to the gods (or, more exactly, to their statues),
and his stinging comments on the Dionysiac rites leave no doubt on
that score. But we should notice why he is dissatisfied with them.
It comes through quite clearly in the fragments that we have examined
that his dissatisfaction is rooted in the fact that the Olympians do
not control the universe, that they have no say in its direction. In
a word, they do not control the universe, and therefore are useless
and ought to be dismissed with a certain contempt. Nevertheless, not
all the Olympians are so treated; the Delphic oracle retains honor,
and that fact is consistent enough if one reflects on the intellectu-
alistic character of that oracle. For Heraclitus thinks that control
of the universe--to the extent that this is possible at all—~comes
through intellectualistic means: man, freely striving to understand
the Logos that is behind the fiery Urstoff, also freely strives to at-
tune himself to it, and thereby to control his own fate. Heraclitus
does not, to be sure, propose the idea that man can control the entire
universe; this will be the great contribution of Empedocles, as we
have seen in the last chapter. But he does prOpose that man can
govern his own lot-~which, in the last analysis, was what the Greek
religion was trying to do.

And thus we come to the end of this study of Heraclitus. In

doing so, we also come to the end of the substantive part of this

 

178 ‘

dissertation, for the task that this study set itself has been accom-
plished. The final chapter can therefore devote itself to a summary
of what has been seen, a preview of further work that could be done,

and some reflections on the significance of both.

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

lBurnet, op.cit., p. 130.

2 .
Ibid.; Burnet's reference to "Fragment 16" refers to the
Bywater arrangement of the fragments.

3Ibid.; cf. also Freeman, op.cit., p. 104.

42, 12Al, par. 3.

5Freeman, op.cit., pp. 104ff.

6Burnet, op.cit., p. 131n4 and p. 137; Burnet's translation;
Bywater arrangement and numbering of the fragments throughout the

entire quote.
7
2! Al, par. 3.

8Ibid.

92! A1, par. 5.

102, A3b and A9.

11Freeman, Op.cit., pp. lOSf.

122, A4. Translations throughout the chapter are the work of
the author, unless the contrary is expressly indicated.

13Burnet, op.cit., p. 132. For another view, cf. Freeman,
op.cit., pp. lO6f; for a somewhat more sanguine (if somewhat more
glib) account of this and other res Heraclitiae, cf. Bréhier, op.cit.,

I, 48ff.

14Bréhier disagrees; op.cit., I, 48.

15Freeman, op.cit., p. 106.

162, pp. 6lff.

17Burnet, Op.cit., p. 132n5. Freeman disagrees: Op.cit.,
p. 108nl.

182, BBQ .

179

180

192, B49a; cf. also 2, B12.

209, 688.

21Ibid.

229, 630.

23Ibid.

25

 

B64.

[0

26 9

ID
II!
0

27 66.

[U
U!

282, A1, par. 10.

299, 6100.

ODiogenes Laertius, quoted in and translated by Burnet, 1.c.,
p. 147.

312, B60.

32Cf. the discussion on this point in Burnet, 1.c., pp. l58ff.

33Ibid., p. 145.

4Freeman, 1.c., p. 115.

352, 630.

36

[U

’ B41.

37 B2.

IO

38 Bl.

ID

39 B50.

U

40 B80

[0

41 61.

U

42 B2.

[C3

43 , B50.

[0

44Freeman, 1.c., pp. ll6f. Chapter Three of this present study

 

181

IL'-‘ 'x. ‘-

makes it clear that I would take issue with Freeman on the material
nature of Love and Hate in Empedocles.

452, 631.

46Kirk and Raven, op.cit., p. 201.

47Freeman, Op.cit., p. 115.

482; Al. par. 7; A8; of. also 851 and B8.

IO

B12; cf. also B36.

13, 636.

 

g, 698.

B63.

IU

58 B118.

[0

59 B27.

IU

60 824.

IU

825°

[0

653, 614 .

662, B15. The translation makes no attempt to reproduce the
Greek pun on 6i60€0L01v and 'Af6ns.

67g, 830.

6833, B40 .

 

182

70 BS6 and B106, inter alia.

ID
‘

 

71

[0

B62.
72

IU

B53.
73

[U

B92.

IU

75

Cf. C. M. Bowra, The Greek Experience (New York:

 

lishing Company, 1957), pp. 60f.

762, 867.

77

[U

’ B780
78

[0

B79; cf. also 883.

79D, B86.

80

B102.

IO

81 8114.

U

82

ID

82.

83 B41.

ID

84 B78.

ID

ID

86 B30.

[0

87 B64.

[0

88Freeman, Op.cit., pp. ll6f.

8
9Cf. supra, p. 161.
90

929, B102.

93Copleston, Op.cit., I, 43.

941), Bl.

World Pub-

 

183

1002, B77 .

101Cf. supra, p. 155.

1032, B117; the obvious physical pun of "drink a wet" is
hardly what is intended here.

1042, 877.

105

[U

, B119.

106 8116.

[U

107 B41.

[U

108 B35.

[U

109 B50.

[0

110 B89.

[0

111 847.

U

112

[U

, B112.

113Ibid.

1149, 8101.

115D, B107.

116Cf. supra, pp. lS9f.

 

CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, PROSPECTS, AND SIGNIFICANCE

"Quo res summa loco, Panthu? Quam prendimus arcem?"

--Vergil, Aeneid, II, 322.

Summary

Few scholars deny that philOSOphy got its start in the West with
the Greeks. To the question of why the Greeks did what they did in
this area, however, answers diverge widely. Chapter One attempted a

brief sampling of some of these answers. Bréhier, somewhat extra

 

chorum canens, denies the Greek origin of phiIOSOphy, and makes their
contribution rather a development of MeSOpotamian and Egyptian
thought; the sole reason for beginning the study of philosophical de-
velOpment with the Greeks is a pragmatic one: the sources are avail-
able among the Greeks, whereas they are not in the case of the earlier
civilizations. Windelband admits the Greek origins of philosophy, and
places the responsibility for these on the dawning consciousness of
the early Greek as an individual. This development in turn was due to
a number of quasi-sociological factors (economic, political, intel—
lectual), and manifested itself in a number of spheres (ethical, re—
ligious, intellectual), of which philosophy was but one. Zeller has

a simpler suggestion: the Greek achievement was due to the peculiar

184

 

185

Greek temperament, particularly to the "Apolline clarity of the Greek
mind," with its highly rationalistic approach to the world in general.
Zeller too, however, takes note of the phenomenon of the develOpment
of the individual's consciousness of himself as individual, as opposed
to a moment in a collective "herd consciousness." He further comments
on the role of the Dionysiac religious rites as a catalyst, forcing
the Greeks to forge out intellectual answers to questions of life and
death so as to supply for the inadequacies of traditional answers to
these questions.

Guthrie, however, sees the cause of the rise of philosOphy to
lie in the growing scientific conviction that the cosmos conceals an
underlying order, which latter can be uncovered and mastered. Such
a shift in viewpoint was occasioned by the increased growth and
leisure which the Greek city-states enjoyed, an economic fact that
left little sympathy for the view that the gods controlled all. Added
to this somewhat materialistic outlook were the innate Greek curiosity
and their peculiar ability to engage in abstract thought. Copleston
remarks that the crucial factor was the absence of any sort of relig-
ious orthodoxy that might have hindered the free exercise of thought
on religious matters, to say nothing of the general inadequacy of the
Greek religion.

Cornford thinks that philOSOphy succeeded religion, indeed, but
furthermore that religion itself had been a sort of interloper, usurp-
ing the primitive conviction of order in the universe—-a conviction
itself simply the projection, onto the full scale of the cosmos, of

early tribal boundary assignments. And finally, Burnet thinks that

 

186

philOSOphy emerged as the victor in a primitive version of the science-
vs.-religion debate: a breakdown occurred in the scientific view of
the world that had held sway since ancient times, and this led to the
search for a new scientific view--a quest that spilled over into quite
other areas as well.

Chapter One, therefore, has demonstrated clearly enough that
there is little agreement among scholars as to the real reason for the
rise of the Greeks as philosophy's progenitors. It has also indicated
that perhaps one would be misadvised to seek for a single cause of
that rise; it could well be that we are dealing with a complex phe-
nomenon that is the result of very many factors indeed.

Nevertheless, it is the author's conviction that one factor in
particular had an importance that was significant in the extreme. The
failure on the part of the Greek religion to provide man with a work-
able, coherent set of answers to questions which every man, Greek or
not, must inevitably ask himself—~questions regarding his own status
in the universe, his eventual destiny and how he is to set about pur-
suing that destiny, and others-~this failure, it seems to me, forced
the admittedly rationalistic Greeks to turn to other sources for an-
swers. In a word, Greek religion had failed, and was therefore re-
placed.

However, to say that Greek religion had failed is one thing, and
to explain in what that failure consisted is quite another. The lat-
ter requires a reasonably adequate grasp of just what is meant by the
term "Greek religion." Chapter Two undertook this exposition. How-

ever, the reservation was made immediately that there would be

187

question, in this chapter, only of the Olympian religion, as opposed
to the mysteries. The reservation is unabashedly pragmatic: the at-
tempt to explore the mystery religions would take far more time and
space than their importance would warrant, in view of their complexity
and their relatively small number of adherents among the Greeks. And
thus, without denying the importance of the mysteries, Chapter Two put
them to one side for investigation at some future date——with, however,
the candid admission that a perfectly thorough performance of the task
at hand would, indeed, require their consideration.

Chapter Two contained some five sections: (1) Who were the
gods? This question is answered in part by a series of tables, con—
structed by the author, based mostly on Hesiod's Theogony. In the
tables, an attempt is made to state, not only the names of the gods in
the pantheon, but also their parentage. Yet, even when the tables are
considered, there remain other divinities, heroes, daimones, and do-
mestic heroes, to be taken into account.

(2) Where did the gods come from? This question can be read in
one of two senses, either as an inquiry about the geographic origins
of the various divinities (which gods came with which peoples from
which countries), or as an inquiry into what might be called the
psychological origins of the gods (where the gods came from in the
consciousness of man). A table attempted to summarize the answer to
the former notion, showing the amalgamated pantheon. As for the lat-
ter inquiry, the theory of Nilsson suggested that at root the gods
came into being as an instrument whereby man could control, to some

degree, the universe around him. The primitive ideas of animism,

 

 

1
188 l
L

dynamism, and magic were explored, and their passage into the idea of
divinity indicated. In general, Nilsson opts for the idea that the
needs of man created the gods, and that beginning with the gods of
nature, man rises to those which form an expression of the higher
functions of his life.

(3) Where did the gods go? It is a disturbing fact that the
gods that one meets in Homer, for example, are a far cry from the
papazbecome~daimones (et al)-become gods. There is little awe, little
respect in how Homer writes of the gods, and we wonder what has hap-
pened. The answer lies in the fact that the gods have taken on the
status of glorified human beings, with apprOpriately magnified vir-
tues but, unfortunately, appropriately magnified vices as well. The
gods have become anthropomorphic, and the results are disastrous. One
reason for this is that the gods have come to be viewed after the
model of the Achaian nobles; the invaders, it seems, brought not only
their own gods but their mode of conceiving the gods.- However, there
is something else here as well. In Homer, we have passed from cult to
poetry, which means that the gods have now been juxtaposed and com-
pared with one another. Again, the consequences are dramatic, for the
divine society is also conceived along anthropomorphic lines. However
much Hesiod and others may try to perform a re-dignifying process on
the gods, the decisive issue has been raised: given the fact that the
gods are now on the social plane, what of their social relationships
with one another-~in particular, what of justice on the divine level?
Moreover, once the gods are juxtaposed, insuperable difficulties pre-

sent themselves when each of the divinities, or at least the major

189

divinities, is endowed with omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-
presence; here polytheism encounters problems that monotheism, by the
very nature of the case, does not.

(4) What did the gods demand of man? In other words, in what
did Greek religion consist? The Greek "ecclesiastical calendar" gives
the answer. The lion's share of it was sacrificial: the gods de-
manded recognition, as a condition for their active benevolence in
man's regard. The gods also demanded justice on the part of men. And
they demanded both of these on a long-term, lifelong basis. Given
failure in either of these, the gods demanded expiation on the part of
man.

(5) What did men demand of the gods? In a word, men demanded
that the gods should "practice what they preached" in the matter of
justice: if men did what they were supposed to, then the gods ought
to reward men accordingly; conversely, if men engaged in wrongdoing,
then punishment ought to be in order. But herein lay the seeds of the
gods' own destruction. What happened when men did what they were sup—
posed to, and nevertheless good men were not rewarded, did not pros-
per, and evil men were not punished, did prosper? One of two things
must happen: either the doctrine of the gods will be totally re-
jected, or the somewhat simplistic doctrine of justice's producing
prosperity (and the reverse) will be modified. The latter course
seems to have been followed at first: the just man suffers for the
transgressions of his ancestors, or the just man is vindicated after
death, or something of the sort. But this type of solution can sur-

vive only so long, and then the grim alternate presents itself.

 

190

Furthermore, the gods were inconsistent: men found themselves won-
dering why a given act could be unjust for a man, but just for a god.
The gods seem to operate on a double standard; but if that is the
case, justice becomes an irrational and somewhat arbitrary sort of
thing. Once again, one of two things must happen: either the
stories of the gods' injustices must be purged as being lying fabri-
cations of men, or else the divine duplicity becomes a festering,
unresolved problem. Then there is the problem of the gods' proving
incapable of fulfilling their functions--as, for example, when a city
that a god was supposed to protect succumbed to attadk. Credulity
begins to be strained at this, particularly when instances of such
happenings multiply.

In brief, Chapter Two indicated, among other things, that Greek
religion was an authoritarian one, wherein certain things were to be
done because the gods said so. By way of enforcing this, certain
threats (of Nemesis and of lesser ills) were made. But these threats
had corollaries, and those corollaries were capable of being empiric-
ally tested. Bluntly, the gods failed the test, and that on a number
of scores. This, in turn, laid their basic premise of supremacy Open
to objection because of serious internal contradictions: the gods
were not just in a commutative sense, and they were not subject to re-
tributive justice. Attempts to rectify the situation proved futile,
and the Greeks were faced with the question of where to turn next.
Some sought the mystery religions, but others sought what was later to
be called philosoPhy: the speculative mode of thought replaced the

authoritarian one.

 

191

Chapters One and Two formed a very long but, I think, very
necessary introduction to the work that is prOper to this disserta-
tion. I have no intention of proving in these pages the thesis that
the failure of Greek religion was the (or even a) decisive factor in
the development of Greek philosophy, simply so taken. I do, indeed,
believe this. But to establish it would take volumes, for it would
require a careful examination of all of the fragments of all of the
pre-Socratic philosophers of any significance. This, I fear, would be
considerably more than ought to be attempted in any doctoral disserta-
tion, even if it were completely possible--which, owing to the paucity
of extant fragments of many of the pre-Socratics, it is not. No; the
dissertation proper aims at a much more limited objective: it attempts
to show that in the case of two of the pre-Socratics, it is demon-
strable that their work can be viewed as ethical (rather than primar—
ily scientific) in tenor, and that it comes about as at least a par—
tial result of dissatisfaction with the Olympian religion.

With this in mind, Chapter Three focuses on Empedocles. After
two preliminary sections on his life/works and on a general exposition
of significant portions of his thought, the chapter poses five
questions to the Empedoclean fragments: (1) What did Empedocles
think of the Olympian gods? Very little; themselves formed of the
four elements, they are simply a part of the cosmic process, and have
no directive role in it. They are not to be worshipped, since they do
not and cannot perform this directive role. The cosmic process is
rather governed by the action of Love and Hate, both of which are en-

visioned as superior in status to the gods. Indeed, man himself can

“my-J

 

192

become a god. (2) If the Olympian gods are false, what of gods and
religion in general? Empedocles has a god, which, however, is not
anthropomorphic and has no need of traditional worship. His god is
mind. But it is also the sphere of Empedocles' cosmological scheme.
That there is such a thing as religion, the transmigration doctrine
makes clear. (3) In what does religion consist? It consists, at
root, in Empedocles' philOSOphy: a deification of man, consisting
basically in love. (4) Is man capable of the end that Empedocles sets
before him? Yes, although not without difficulty. But success in
this means control over the forces of change in the universe. (5)
What makes this possible? The fact that the Love and Hate which
direct the universe are not impersonal forces, but rather are man's
own love and hate. The control of the cosmos is therefore within
man's capability.

These five questions asked and answered, there remain two
others: (a) Is Empedocles' system basically an ethical one? Clearly,
yes. It is a program of life, an exposition of how man ought to live.
(b) Is the system a result of dissatisfaction with the Olympian gods?
Once again, yes. It will be recalled that the precise reason why the
traditional gods were rejected was that they do not control the uni-
verse, and therefore could not achieve the purpose for which they had
arisen in the first place. Empedocles' system is, simply put, a re—
placement for this. It offers man a way wherein he can, indeed, con-
trol the universe.

Chapter Four operates in parallel fashion to Chapter Three.

After initial sections on the life/works of Heraclitus and on a

193

general exposition of his system, similar questions are put to the
Heraclitean fragments: (1) What did he think of the Olympian gods?
Very little. Prayer to them is useless; their rites are shameful or
worse. Furthermore, their cult is useless, since they did not make
the universe and do not control it. They also differ very little
from the men whose gods they are. Still, there is some merit in the
Delphic oracle, possibly because of its intellectualistic tenor. (2)
What, then, of gods and religion in general? Heraclitus does have a
definite conception of the divine which, whatever its nature, sur-
passes the human. Man has some obligations toward the divine. (3) In
what do Heraclitus' "god" and his religion consist? His "god" is a
tension of Opposites, possessing an understanding that surpasses the
human. In this tension of opposites, all paradoxes are resolved.

The divine, a model for man, controls everything; on the level of the
divine is located wisdom. From the level of the divine issues the
metron which controls the fiery Urstoff. The divine is the region of
justice, beauty, and goodness. As for religion, this consists mostly
in an attempt at understanding the Logos and in attempting to follow
that Logos. This involves a singleminded sort of effort wherein
everything that could distract from the central aim must be elimina-
ted; the intellectual level must have unchallenged primacy. Man
comes to a knowledge of the Logos through hard work, particularly by
attentive listening. But this knowledge of the Logos is unitary wis-
dom, and wisdom leads man to act according to nature and to pay heed
thereto-~meaning, on the practical level, that man must do all he can

to help his soul progress to fiery status. (4) Is this possible?

 

194

Yes, although with difficulty. If successful in this, man achieves
some sort of control, not of the cosmos, but of his own personal des-
tiny. (5) Why is this possible? This control is possible because the
Logos that governs man's individual soul has the same function as the
cosmic—Logos and has a close relationship-~possib1y one of identity--
thereto. Hence by controlling the one he controls (in the sense ex—
plained) the other.

And once again, the questions asked and answered, there remain:
(a) Is Heraclitus' system an ethical one? Of this there seems little
doubt. (b) Is the system a product of dissatisfaction with the Olym-
pian scheme of things? I would argue that it is, simply because of
the fact that it, like Empedocles' system, is an attempt at securing
some sort of control over the events of man's existence--a control
that Heraclitus avers is impossible to the gods. Yet intellectual-
istic religion, even traditional religion (the Delphic oracle) re-

tains honor.

Future Prospects

 

Were this project to be extended beyond its present limits, to
which other pre—Socratic philosophers ought it address itself?
Ideally, of course, to all of them. However, like most ideals, this
is impossible for a number of reasons. The fact that the project con-
sists, essentially, in textual examination rules out the vast major-
ity of potential subjects; there are very few of the early Greeks of
whose writings we possess enough to make such a study possible. And

even among these few, there are even fewer of whom it can be said with

 

195

anything like certainty that the writings we possess are indeed
theirs. The field is, to say the very least, quite limited.

Nevertheless, there are some of the pre-Socratics that would be
fit subjects for a continuation of this dissertation. Among these I
would single out two whom I would be inclined to take next:

Parmenides and Anaxagoras.

The reader is aware that, in the argument of this paper, both
Empedocles and Heraclitus opted for some sort of control of the uni-
verse on the part of man. Empedocles' idea was that man could control
the cosmos by means of his own personal love and hatred; Heraclitus',
that man could control his own destiny, to some extent, by intellectu-
alistic means. Now, the floruit dates of Parmenides and Anaxagoras
occur, chronologically, in between those of Empedocles and Heraclitus;
and it would be fascinating to see whether or not Parmenides and
Anaxagoras could legitimately be viewed as stemming from Heraclitus
and leading to Empedocles. For if the intermediate two could be shown
to have as a prime concern man's control over the universe, in one
sense or other, then some highly significant results might emerge. If
one considers Parmenides' heavy stress on the "Way of Truth"--which,
whatever be said of the "Way of Opinion," was certainly intellectu—
alistic enough--and Anaxagoras' doctrine of Nous, and if he weds these
with the notion of control, the following sequence emerges: Heracli-
tus, partial control (i.e., control of personal destiny) through in-
tellectualistic means; Parmenides, control (to what extent?) by in-
tellectualistic means; Anaxagoras, control (again, to what extent?)

by Nous; Empedocles, complete control by means of voluntary exercise

196

of love and hate--i.e., by intellectualistic means plus other factors.

Obviously, some careful textual work would have to be done to
determine whether or not the notion of control can be found in
Parmenides and Anaxagoras; this would be the primary task of any ex-
tension of this study. It might be that such a E2315 either is not
present in their writings, or at least could not be demonstrated as
being present. The latter, I suspect, would be the more likely peril,
insofar as the notion of control is present both before and after
their time. In any event, given a demonstrable notion Of control in
the writings of the two men, one would then have to determine the ex-
tent to which each envisions control possible. Finally, it would be
necessary to explore just what Parmenides meant by the "Way of Truth"
and what Anaxagoras meant by Nous, and to determine precisely how each
operates and how it is related both to man's intellect and to the uni-
verse that is to be controlled.

Parmenides and Anaxagoras, therefore, would be the next figures
whom I would logically treat, were I to extend this dissertation.
Nevertheless, an examination of their works would not be the item that
I would be most interested in doing. Rather, were I to have my own
way, I should like to go backward in time, to the period before
Heraclitus, and ascertain at what exact point the notion of control of
the universe entered the stream of philosophic thought. Is it, in-
deed, with Heraclitus himself that it does so? Or is it earlier?
.Could one even succeed in pin-pointing the first philOSOpher who
broached the idea? These are the questions that most interest me, and

to these I should love to turn my attention. But I cannot; the

F.“

 

textual evidence required for such an investigation is utterly
lacking.

And thus, since my real interest cannot be managed, I suspect
that I would prefer to aim my studies in the other direction. Since I
cannot learn where the notion of control came from, it would be of al-
most equal interest to investigate where it went. And with that in
mind, I should think that the next phase of interest to me would be an
investigation of the period after Empedocles. I do not, however, mean
the era of Plato and Aristotle; this has been well studied by many
scholars, and I do not think that I could add very much of signifi-
cance to what they have done. Nor do I refer to the post-Aristotelian
period, wherein the activities of Alexander the Great brought philoso-
phy to some rather dark days. I mean, rather, the patristic period:
the first three or four centuries of the present era. Here, it seems
to me, the root question that urged on the Greeks arises once more;
and I should like to follow its wanderings on this terrain.

It is not immediately evident, however, that the great figures
of the patristic era were concerned with the same questions that exer-
cised the Greeks; and thus perhaps it is time, by way of a finale to
this paper, to make some remarks as to the significance of the Greek

enterprise as represented in the work of Empedocles and Heraclitus.

Significance

 

Let us go back just a little. I have argued that man's control
of the universe, or of his own destiny in that universe, is a major

motif in the writings of two of the pre-Socratic philosOphers. And I

198

 

KW

have suggested that the universe‘s control passed from the hands of
the gods to those of men themselves, for a number of reasons. I have
not, however, posed the question of why man seeks control over the
universe. In one sense, perhaps the "why" question is otiose; man is
not, after all, a disinterested spectator in the events that take
place in the cosmos. They concern him, and concern him deeply. Some-

where in the vast corpus Augustinianum--and I regret that I cannot say

 

exactly where-~there is a comment to the effect that no one engages in
philosophy "nisi ut beatus sit"; it is man's happiness and his own
future that are at stake here.

Yet in another sense, the "why" question is anything but an
obviosity: why is it that man felt the necessity for assuming con-
trol over the universe himself? Why, at root, were the gods rejected?

I have suggested that the Olympian gods were rejected for a num-
ber of reasons, among which were internal inconsistencies. As I
phrased it in the body of this dissertation, the authoritarian mode of
thought (that of the Greek religion) was rejected and the rational
mode adopted in its place--for the good reason that the two came into
conflict. Given contradictions such as those Spawned by Greek re-
ligious authoritarianism, there could have been no other outcome.

Yet the issue is not thereby settled by the results of a single
case. The question will rear its head over and over again in subse-
quent philosophical thought: what is the relationship between the
authoritative and the rational modes of thought? Can they be recon-
ciled? Ought they be? These are momentous questions, questions that

have sparked many a heated debate—~one of the most notable of which,

199

it should be noted once again, was the Arian controversy. This latter
was at root a debate as to whether the rational dare invade the realm
of the authoritarian: ought one allow a non-authoritarian concept

like the homoousion into the same lists with authoritarian Scripture?

 

The same question is at the base of numerous other philOSOphical
oddities, like the doctrine of the "double truth" that so vexed the
Medievals. And, be it said, the question is still at work in the
philosoPhical milieu of the present day, wherein the relationship of
philosophy with authority is anything but clear. In our day, the
question is more nearly the reverse of the Arian one: ought one allow
the authoritarian mode into the same lists with the rational one?

Not only are the questions momentous; the alternative answers
are more so. Suppose one opts for the solution that the two modes of
thought are not reconcilable. The inevitable consequences are either
the rejection of a whole area of thought, or else a sort of intel-
lectual schiZOphrenia wherein one has his philosophy in one compart-
ment, his religion in another, and perhaps a number of other areas in
still other compartments. If on the other hand one permits the recon-
ciliation of the two, then what happens to the autonomy of either--
or both?

Yet something even deeper is at stake here. Whatever be said of
the schizophrenic philosopher mentioned in the last paragraph, can
truth itself really be parcelled up in this fashion? Or is there such
a thing as truth? Has philosophy, in its long history, really ever
answered the Socratic demand for an unchanging, eternal truth whereon

one can ground his ethic—-or, indeed, ground anything at all? Or

 

 

ought man even be able (or expected) to strive for a unity in his in-
tellectual life?

These too are questions, of the answers of which man is not a
detached observer. He cannot refuse, in the practical order, to take
a stand on them. The Greeks, as we have seen, took such a stand. The
significance of this dissertation, it seems to me, could be summed up
in a single question: were they definitively right in the choice

they made, and in the reasons for which they made it?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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