Contents

Foreword

Introduction to Plato

Euthyphro

Introduction to Aristotle

Physics, Book VIII (Chapter 3-5)

Metaphysics, Book XII (Chapter 7 and 8)

Introduction to Xenophanes

Fragments

Introduction to Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus

Introduction to Seneca

On the God Within Us

Introduction to Cicero

On the Nature of the Gods

Book I (part 8 and 9)

Book I (part 10-15)

Book I (part 16-20)

Book II (part 13-15)

Book III (part 15 and 16)

Foreword

By Van Bryan

The decision to publish this anthology was not one that was made easily. It had been decided by the staff of Classical Wisdom Weekly that we would like to create an E-book exploring the ideas and themes of Plato’s The Euthyphro.

A cornerstone of Platonic philosophy, The Euthyphro, has been heralded as one of the first true pieces of religious philosophy in the Western intellectual tradition. As such, it has found a place on the bookshelves of university professors and on the sylabbi of philosophy students the world over.

The idea was that The Euthyphro would give readers an insight into a topic that has been of great interest to myself, as well as numerous other classical readers, for several years. It was meant to introduce you, dear reader, to the topic of ancient religious philosophy.

However, when I sat down to give it thought, I could not ignore the gnawing realization that I would be doing our readers a disservice if I included only Plato while ignoring the innumerable other schools of thought that had something to say on matters of the divine.

You see, while Plato’s The Euthyphro might immediately come to mind when we think of ancient literature that attempted to tackle questions of a divine or spiritual nature, it was hardly the only one.

The Pre-Socratics, the Milesian philosophers, the Pythaogreans, the Epicureans, the Stoics, not to mention Aristotle, all contributed in their own ways to the development of Western theological thought.

How then, could we include Plato while ignoring the contributions made by these others?

Well…we couldn’t.

To that end, we have endeavored to create a sampling of religious philosophy from the ancient world. Included in this collection, you will indeed find Plato, but you will also find selections that demonstrated some of the central tenets of Aristotelian, Epicurean, Stoic, and Pre-Socratic religious philosophy.

But before we start, I suppose I should first answer the question that is perhaps, even now, racing through your mind. Why bother with ancient religious philosophy? With such a plethora of topics to discuss, why would we decide to compile an anthology that examines a topic such as religion? What was the reason?

Well…there are actually two reasons.

As pointed out by our colleague, Ben Potter, it was the religious traditions of the ancient Greeks, more than anything else, which cemented and solidified the idea of a unified classical Greek culture. We must remember that while ancient Greece shared a common land mass and language, they were not one people. Many of the city-states considered themselves independent entities, and the citizens would have been insulated as a result.

The only true common denominator, then, was the religion of the age, which centered on the Olympian deities. It was the worship of the gods, the rituals, prayers and sacrifices that truly unified the ancient Hellenic civilization and gives us an idea of a singular, unified classical Greek culture.

Moreover, religion in the ancient world was no laughing matter. In fact, a few noted classical figures met their end because they either insulted, or otherwise disturbed, the religious sensibilities of the age.

Socrates, for instance, was accused, among other things, of believing in strange gods. In Athens, 399 BC, this was a serious accusation. In this case, the father of Western philosophy was found guilty and executed by way of hemlock poison.

Although a little less plausible, we also hear the legend of Aesop, the author of the famous fables, who supposedly stole from the temple at Delphi and was thrown from a cliff as recompense.

Paradoxically, while religion in the ancient world was something of a cultural staple, the religion of the early classical Greeks did not have the structure or the dogma that modern religious institutions possess.

Again, Ben Potter hits the nail on the head when he writes…

“…they (the ancient Greeks) had no codified or dogmatic faith – they had nothing recognisable to the mainstream religions of today and would have been much harder pressed to answer a question like: ;what do worshippers of Hera believe?’ or ‘what does your faith teach?’ than if a modern devotee were similarly quizzed.”

What this means is that the early classical philosophers had no structured codex, no organized religious doctrines from which to work from. The closest we come to finding any set of doctrines that laid out the “ground rules” for the popular religion of the age is within the epic works of Homer and Hesiod, where the gods are described as anthropomorphized, often bickering, deities.

And as we will see in the selections to follow, many of the ancient thinkers spent their time pointing out egregious inconsistencies surrounding the Olympian deities.

Plato is our first author to do so. In The Euthyphro, the question is raised “what is piety?” The answer given by the dialogue’s namesake is that that which is loved by the gods and that which is pious are one in the same.

However, it is Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, who points out that Homer describes the gods as constantly bickering. The gods, in short, do not always agree. It would make sense to conclude then that the gods are capable of loving different things. If that which is pious is that which is loved by the gods, but the gods are never unanimous on what they love, how can we possibly know what is pious?

The characters in the dialogue continue on to attempt to reconcile this inconsistency, but the fact that such a discrepancy existed in the first place goes to demonstrate the frailty and disorder of the ancient Greek religious beliefs.

Because there was no “ground floor”, no set religious doctrines from where the ancients could start, this meant that the classical thinkers often went about with their theological inquiries, if not completely in the dark, then with dimmest of lighting. This makes their work, their arguments for or against the divine, all the more impressive and worthy of sharing with you, our reader.

The other reason Classical Wisdom Society decided to compile such an anthology as this is because of the profound effect that these early philosophers had on the development of Western theological thought.

Whether you yourself are religious or not, there is no denying that religion in our modern age still plays a major role in the lives of many people. Some estimates place the percentage of people in the world who consider themselves religious somewhere around 80%.

With such a large percentage of the population being effected by such a thing as faith, it might be of interest to us, the classical reader, to see how the ancient thinkers contributed to the development of these pervasive institutions.

Philosophical and religious thought in the ancient world can often be thought of as two, mostly parallel lines marching forward through the centuries. These lines of thought are mostly parallel because, throughout the centuries, philosophical inquiry has often dipped into the realm of religion, and religion, likewise, regularly borrows from philosophy. In these instances, the lines blur.

They are hardly the only schools of thought, philosophical, religious or otherwise, that existed in the vast realm of ancient history. However, for the purpose of this anthology, I mean specifically to draw attention to the Hellenic philosophies and the undeniable influence they had on the development of the most dominant faith in the Western world-Christianity.

It is these instances, where the waters of Greek philosophy and early Christian thought muddle, which the truly dedicated classical reader will find of great interest.

After all, at Classical Wisdom Weekly, we believe that a truly fulfilled life always finds time to include an understanding of the classics and the undeniable influence they had on the development of Western society. In this instance, we can see how the classical philosophies helped shape and hone one of the foremost faiths in the world.

So, which classical works inspired or influenced early theologians?

As we have already mentioned, the theological scaffolding of the Olympian religion was shaky at best. This means that “theology”, as we understand it today, was not truly a universally recognized field of philosophical study. In fact, many of the works of the ancient philosophers that we consider to be of a religious nature today, were written with the intention of answering questions of a secular nature.

Plato’s The Euthyphro, while undeniably asking questions about the validity of the Olympian religion, is something of an appetizer intended to whet our appetites for the serious, Platonic philosophy to come.

The central question of The Euthyphro concerns how we can know that which is truly pious. As I have already mentioned, and as you will read for yourself, appealing to the Olympian deities offers no assistance in giving us an answer. The same problem occurs when we try to answer “what is justice?’ or “what is wisdom?’ If virtues like “wisdom”, “justice” or even “love” do not come from the gods, where do they come from? Do they exist at all?

To give a metaphysical platform to the idea of non-relative virtue, Plato develops what is known as the Theory of Forms. Very briefly, this idea states that there exists a cerebral realm where concepts like “justice”, “wisdom” and even “love” exist perfectly and eternally. It is only through commitment to philosophical contemplation that we can gain an understanding of the Forms and, in doing so, come closer to the ultimate form, the form of the Good.

While Plato’s Theory of Forms has serious implications for popular religions, it is mostly a model that aims at answering questions of a metaphysical and epistemological nature.

Aristotle is another writer whose works we might assume were theological, but were, in fact, mostly secular. The works of his that you will find ahead make the argument that there must exist one, or more than one, prime mover that initiated movement in the universe. While this might certainly sound like an argument for the existence of God, or gods, Aristotle wrote these lines as part of his Physics as a way to understand movement. Again, his focus was not squarely aimed at the divine.

Epicurus is just one more example. His Letter to Menoeceus does mention the gods and their disinterest in our lives. However, these mentions of the divine are almost a side note. His real intention was to answer questions on ethics, questions of living a good life.

In the case of Plato and Aristotle and their influence on later religious thought, we immediately think of Thomas Aquinas, also known as “Saint Thomas”. An immensely influential theologian of the 13th century, Aquinas is notable in that he took several Aristotelian and Platonic precepts and constructed them so as to support popular Christian dogmas.

In his magnum opus Summa Theologica, Aquinas actually uses Aristotle’s “unmoved mover” argument, which you shall read in the coming pages, to “prove” the existence of a singular God. Aquinas so admired Aristotle, that in the course of his Commentaries on Aristotle, he often refers to Aristotle simply as “The Philosopher”.

Aquinas, while diverging on a number of opinions, does also take some cues from Plato. He viewed the Platonic world of Forms and the Platonic idea of transmigration of the soul as early attempts to uncover popular Christian revelations.

The relation between Aquinas, Aristotle, and Plato is of interest to us because we know that much of Aquinas’ work was used as theological architecture to support the doctrines of the Church. This was crucial for the survival of the Church, because by the 13th century, much of the Aristotelian corpus had been translated to Latin, which in turn reopened the debate on the relationship between reason and faith.

The ideas of Aristotle and, to an extent, Plato were therefore used by Aquinas to bridge the gap between reason and faith and give stability to a religious doctrine that might have otherwise crumpled under the weight of philosophical scrutiny.

Epicurus is another philosopher that I listed as being influential to the development of religion in the ancient world. Epicurus, however, was not a key player in the development of Christian thought, but instead shares a unique relationship with another faith-Judaism.

The relationship between Epicureanism and Judaism was not, at least originally, a positive one. Amazingly, in the Talmudic Mishnah, an authoritative doctrine on Rabbinical Judaism, there is a passage that specifically mentions the followers of Epicurus.

“All Israel has a share in the world to come, as Isaiah said: And all of your people who are righteous will merit eternity and inherit the land. And these are the people who do not merit the world to come: The ones who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and those who deny the Torah is from the heavens, and Epicureans (‘Apikorsim’).”

The Hebrew term “Apikoros” actually closely translated to “heratic” and was used to refer to a follower who did not believe in the ancient Jewish scripture, specifically the monotheistic conception of God and the ancient belief in the “world to come”.

What is of interest to us is that “Apikoros” is a direct reference to Epicurus and his philosophies. The Epicurean philosophy must have been of considerable influence if it warranted the creation of a term to describe someone who followed its precepts.

In modern times, Apikoros has taken on a slightly different meaning. It is now believed to refer to a Jew who is mostly secular in nature and does not abide by strict religious doctrine. Such an idea is suggested by the author Yaakov Malkin in his book “Judaism and Apikorism”.

“These Jewish Apikorism are called “secular” in everyday parlance, since they express in their lifestyle and approach to Judaism, beliefs that coincide with apikorism (epicureanism): free from the obligation to observe religious precepts and customs…” - Yaakov Malkin (Judaism and Apikorism)

These examples that I have listed are only a few instances of classical philosophers influencing the theological or religious thoughts of future thinkers. It has been understood for centuries that the classics have had a significant and lasting effect on almost every facet of our society. It is unsurprising then that religious thought would also take cues from the ancient world.

Of course, we are not trying to say that the classical age outright created our modern institutions of faith. We are not suggesting that Christian dogma, for instance, is merely a copying of earlier Hellenic philosophies. Instead, we are intending to point out that, throughout human history, religious thought has evolved and been influenced by an array of unique factors. Hellenic philosophy just happens to be among them.

Additionally, the creation of this anthology is not meant to advocate the superiority of one religious faith over another. Moreover, the absence of a particular faith being discussed in this introduction or in the texts ahead is not meant to suggest the unimportance of those institutions in the mind of the author or in the scope of history.

After all, our business is the classics, and we follow classical history wherever it may lead. In this instance, it just so happens to lead toward examining the dominant faiths of the Western world and the role that the Hellenic philosophers had in contributing to its development.

I suppose the final question you may be wondering is whether or not one must be religious in order to read this anthology. The answer is ‘no’.

This collection, while addressing topics of theological importance and examining the development of religious thought, is not intended to be a religious text. The selections you will find ahead belong in the category of “philosophy” and can be filed away in that ever-expansive category of “classical literature”. To that end, these selections can be read and enjoyed by any reader, regardless of faith or spiritual beliefs.

The examinations to follow, while sometimes considered “religious” or “theological”, are really human questions. They are questions that have undoubtedly found space in the consciousness of all peoples at one time or another. The ancients, in short, are merely considering questions that we have all wondered; questions about the soul, what gods there may be, the creation of the universe, and whatever may await us in this life or the next.

-Van Bryan (November, 2015)

Introduction to Plato

By Nicole Saldarriaga

It would be no exaggeration to call Plato one of the most important figures in the growth and spread of the philosophical tradition. In fact, he’s widely regarded as the central character in philosophy’s history. He, his teacher (Socrates) and his famous student (Aristotle) form an extremely influential trio of ancient thinkers that are revered for their work to this day. After all, even people who are completely unfamiliar with any kind of philosophy usually know those three names and know that in some way, those men were important.

There aren’t many sources left from which we can glean information about Plato’s early life, but we do know that he was a bright boy born into an extremely wealthy aristocratic family, which would have given him early access to some of the best teachers and instructors available. His relationship to Socrates may not have marked Plato’s first exposure to philosophy, but it was clearly among the most important and influential student-teacher relationships Plato would have—most of Plato’s work (which, amazingly, is extant in its entirety) is in dialogue form and features Socrates as the main character.

The selection you’re about to read is one of these dialogues, named the Euthyphro after the man with whom Socrates speaks. The two men meet on the porch of the palace of King Archon (note that Archon was not a king in the way we usually understand—he was, instead, one of the Athenian magistrates, and, along with some religious duties, he presided over hearings that involved impiety and homicide), both of them waiting to attend a hearing. Euthyphro is bringing a suit against his own father for homicide, and Socrates is waiting to be tried for impiety and corruption of the youth.

It’s important to first understand that Euthyphro’s behavior would not only have been considered highly unconventional, but also worthy of suspicion and perhaps punishment. According to Ancient Athenian law and tradition, cases of homicide were only brought to the court by the victim’s family, not by the family of the accused murderer. Worse still, Euthyphro is accusing his father—and while modern day readers may identify with Euthyphro’s claim that wrongdoers should be punished no matter who they are to you, his contemporaries would have seen his behavior as the highest form of disrespect and disloyalty. But Euthyphro is stubborn in his convictions, and we soon learn that he is doing this because he believes it is the “pious,” or holy, thing to do.

This piques Socrates’ interest, and the dialogue that follows is all about the definition of piety—what it means and how to put it into practice. It becomes a particularly interesting text, however, when you realize that it is positively riddled with Socratic irony. Socrates pretends to be Euthyphro’s student (a task made easy by Euthyphro’s over-confident attitude) and asks Euthyphro to teach him about piety. However, it’s almost immediately clear that Socrates is doing this to force Euthyphro into a position where he must examine and properly explain his beliefs.

In this way Socrates—the good teacher—shows Euthyphro that one can only claim to be knowledgeable on a subject when one can support, explain, and justify one’s beliefs; and in the dialogue format we can see that this is only possible when a student isn’t just handed answers, but led to the answers with the right questions. This is the only way to ensure that the student is capable of dialoguing about and supporting his or her convictions.

In the end, Euthyphro is unable to support his beliefs about the nature of piety, and he leaves the porch of the king without presenting his suit (an end that is probably much safer for him, and very likely what Socrates wanted to see him do). The dialogue thus ends without a conclusive answer about the nature of piety; but, considering the themes of the dialogue itself, this is probably the point. The inconclusive ending may be a challenge to the reader to puzzle through the questions him or herself—to come to conclusions through their own investigations and discovery, not to just swallow answers they read in books or hear from teachers.

So—read on. What will you conclude?

Euthyphro

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Persons of the Dialogue

SOCRATES

EUTHYPHRO

Scene

The Porch of the King Archon.

Euthyphro. Why have you left the Lyceum, Socrates? and what are you doing in the Porch of the King Archon? Surely you cannot be concerned in a suit before the King, like myself?

Socrates. Not in a suit, Euthyphro; impeachment is the word which the Athenians use.

Euth. What! I suppose that some one has been prosecuting you, for I cannot believe that you are the prosecutor of another.

Soc. Certainly not.

Euth. Then some one else has been prosecuting you?

Soc. Yes.

Euth. And who is he?

Soc. A young man who is little known, Euthyphro; and I hardly know him: his name is Meletus, and he is of the deme of Pitthis. Perhaps you may remember his appearance; he has a beak, and long straight hair, and a beard which is ill grown.

Euth. No, I do not remember him, Socrates. But what is the charge which he brings against you?

Soc. What is the charge? Well, a very serious charge, which shows a good deal of character in the young man, and for which he is certainly not to be despised. He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. And of this our mother the state is to be the judge. Of all our political men he is the only one who seems to me to begin in the right way, with the cultivation of virtue in youth; like a good husbandman, he makes the young shoots his first care, and clears away us who are the destroyers of them. This is only the first step; he will afterwards attend to the elder branches; and if he goes on as he has begun, he will be a very great public benefactor.

Euth. I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the opposite will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in what way does he say that you corrupt the young?

Soc. He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the ground of his indictment.

Euth. I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the familiar sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you. He thinks that you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the court for this. He knows that such a charge is readily received by the world, as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and think me a madman. Yet every word that I say is true. But they are jealous of us all; and we must be brave and go at them.

Soc. Their laughter, friend Euthyphro, is not a matter of much consequence. For a man may be thought wise; but the Athenians, I suspect, do not much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom to others, and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say, from jealousy, they are angry.

Euth. I am never likely to try their temper in this way.

Soc. I dare say not, for you are reserved in your behaviour, and seldom impart your wisdom. But I have a benevolent habit of pouring out myself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener, and I am afraid that the Athenians may think me too talkative. Now if, as I was saying, they would only laugh at me, as you say that they laugh at you, the time might pass gaily enough in the court; but perhaps they may be in earnest, and then what the end will be you soothsayers only can predict.

Euth. I dare say that the affair will end in nothing, Socrates, and that you will win your cause; and I think that I shall win my own.

Soc. And what is your suit, Euthyphro? are you the pursuer or the defendant?

Euth. I am the pursuer.

Soc. Of whom?

Euth. You will think me mad when I tell you.

Soc. Why, has the fugitive wings?

Euth. Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life.

Soc. Who is he?

Euth. My father.

Soc. Your father! my good man?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And of what is he accused?

Euth. Of murder, Socrates.

Soc. By the powers, Euthyphro! how little does the common herd know of the nature of right and truth. A man must be an extraordinary man, and have made great strides in wisdom, before he could have seen his way to bring such an action.

Euth. Indeed, Socrates, he must.

Soc. I suppose that the man whom your father murdered was one of your relatives-clearly he was; for if he had been a stranger you would never have thought of prosecuting him.

Euth. I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding against him. The real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain. If justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him. Now the man who is dead was a poordependent of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants and slew him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what happened. For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him, that before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father. They say that he did not kill him, and that if he did, dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take any notice, for that a son is impious who prosecutes a father. Which shows, Socrates, how little they know what the gods think about piety and impiety.

Soc. Good heavens, Euthyphro! and is your knowledge of religion and of things pious and impious so very exact, that, supposing the circumstances to be as you state them, you are not afraid lest you too may be doing an impious thing in bringing an action against your father?

Euth. The best of Euthyphro, and that which distinguishes him, Socrates, from other men, is his exact knowledge of all such matters. What should I be good for without it?

Soc. Rare friend! I think that I cannot do better than be your disciple. Then before the trial with Meletus comes on I shall challenge him, and say that I have always had a great interest in religious questions, and now, as he charges me with rash imaginations and innovations in religion, I have become your disciple. You, Meletus, as I shall say to him, acknowledge Euthyphro to be a great theologian, and sound in his opinions; and if you approve of him you ought to approve of me, and not have me into court; but if you disapprove, you should begin by indicting him who is my teacher, and who will be the ruin, not of the young, but of the old; that is to say, of myself whom he instructs, and of his old father whom he admonishes and chastises. And if Meletus refuses to listen to me, but will go on, and will not shift the indictment from me to you, I cannot do better than repeat this challenge in the court.

Euth. Yes, indeed, Socrates; and if he attempts to indict me I am mistaken if I do not find a flaw in him; the court shall have a great deal more to say to him than to me.

Soc. And I, my dear friend, knowing this, am desirous of becoming your disciple. For I observe that no one appears to notice you- not even this Meletus; but his sharp eyes have found me out at once, and he has indicted me for impiety. And therefore, I adjure you to tell me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder, and of other offences against the gods. What are they? Is not piety in every action always the same? and impiety, again- is it not always the opposite of piety, and also the same with itself, having, as impiety, one notion which includes whatever is impious?

Euth. To be sure, Socrates.

Soc. And what is piety, and what is impiety?

Euth. Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime-whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be-that makes no difference; and not to prosecute them is impiety. And please to consider, Socrates, what a notable proof I will give you of the truth of my words, a proof which I have already given to others:-of the principle, I mean, that the impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished. For do not men regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods?-and yet they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because he wickedly devoured his sons, and that he too had punished his own father (Uranus) for a similar reason, in a nameless manner. And yet when I proceed against my father, they are angry with me. So inconsistent are they in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned.

Soc. May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with impiety-that I cannot away with these stories about the gods? and therefore I suppose that people think me wrong. But, as you who are well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than assent to your superior wisdom. What else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know nothing about them? Tell me, for the love of Zeus, whether you really believe that they are true.

Euth. Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of which the world is in ignorance.

Soc. And do you really believe that the gods, fought with one another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets say, and as you may see represented in the works of great artists? Thetemples are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered with them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?

Euth. Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which would quite amaze you.

Soc. I dare say; and you shall tell me them at some other time when I have leisure. But just at present I would rather hear from you a more precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to the question, What is “piety”? When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do, charging your father with murder.

Euth. And what I said was true, Socrates.

Soc. No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many other pious acts?

Euth. There are.

Soc. Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?

Euth. I remember.

Soc. Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.

Euth. I will tell you, if you like.

Soc. I should very much like.

Euth. Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.

Soc. Very good, Euthyphro; you have now given me the sort of answer which I wanted. But whether what you say is true or not I cannot as yet tell, although I make no doubt that you will prove the truth of your words.

Euth. Of course.

Soc. Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying. That thing or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme opposites of one another. Was not that said?

Euth. It was.

Soc. And well said?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, I thought so; it was certainly said.

Soc. And further, Euthyphro, the gods were admitted to have enmities and hatreds and differences?

Euth. Yes, that was also said.

Soc. And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger? Suppose for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number; do differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance with one another? Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a sum?

Euth. True.

Soc. Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly end the differences by measuring?

Euth. Very true.

Soc. And we end a controversy about heavy and light by resorting to a weighing machine?

Euth. To be sure.

Soc. But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided, and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another? I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable. Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we quarrel is such as you describe.

Soc. And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur, are of a like nature?

Euth. Certainly they are.

Soc. They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences-would there now?

Euth. You are quite right.

Soc. Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them?

Euth. Very true.

Soc. But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust,-about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.

Euth. Very true.

Soc. Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?

Euth. True.

Soc. And upon this view the same things, Euthyphro, will be pious and also impious?

Euth. So I should suppose.

Soc. Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion.

Euth. But I believe, Socrates, that all the gods would be agreed as to the propriety of punishing a murderer: there would be no difference of opinion about that.

Soc. Well, but speaking of men, Euthyphro, did you ever hear any one arguing that a murderer or any sort of evil-doer ought to be let off?

Euth. I should rather say that these are the questions which they are always arguing, especially in courts of law: they commit all sorts of crimes, and there is nothing which they will not do or say in their own defence.

Soc. But do they admit their guilt, Euthyphro, and yet say that they ought not to be punished?

Euth. No; they do not.

Soc. Then there are some things which they do not venture to say and do: for they do not venture to argue that the guilty are to be unpunished, but they deny their guilt, do they not?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. Then they do not argue that the evil-doer should not be punished, but they argue about the fact of who the evil-doer is, and what he did and when?

Euth. True.

Soc. And the gods are in the same case, if as you assert they quarrel about just and unjust, and some of them say while others deny that injustice is done among them. For surely neither God nor man will ever venture to say that the doer of injustice is not to be punished?

Euth. That is true, Socrates, in the main.

Soc. But they join issue about the particulars-gods and men alike; and, if they dispute at all, they dispute about some act which is called in question, and which by some is affirmed to be just, by others to be unjust. Is not that true?

Euth. Quite true.

Soc. Well then, my dear friend Euthyphro, do tell me, for my better instruction and information, what proof have you that in the opinion of all the gods a servant who is guilty of murder, and is put in chains by the master of the dead man, and dies because he is put in chains before he who bound him can learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do with him, dies unjustly; and that on behalf of such an one a son ought to proceed against his father and accuse him of murder. How would you show that all the gods absolutely agree in approving of his act? Prove to me that they do, and I will applaud your wisdom as long as I live.

Euth. It will be a difficult task; but I could make the matter very dear indeed to you.

Soc. I understand; you mean to say that I am not so quick of apprehension as the judges: for to them you will be sure to prove that the act is unjust, and hateful to the gods.

Euth. Yes indeed, Socrates; at least if they will listen to me.

Soc. But they will be sure to listen if they find that you are a good speaker. There was a notion that came into my mind while you were speaking; I said to myself: “Well, and what if Euthyphro does prove to me that all the gods regarded the death of the serf as unjust, how do I know anything more of the nature of piety and impiety? for granting that this action may be hateful to the gods, still piety and impiety are not adequately defined by these distinctions, for that which is hateful to the gods has been shown to be also pleasing and dear to them.” And therefore, Euthyphro, I do not ask you to prove this; I will suppose, if you like, that all the gods condemn and abominate such an action. But I will amend the definition so far as to say that what all the gods hate is impious,and what they love pious or holy; and what some of them love and others hate is both or neither. Shall this be our definition of piety and impiety?

Euth. Why not, Socrates?

Soc. Why not! certainly, as far as I am concerned, Euthyphro, there is no reason why not. But whether this admission will greatly assist you in the task of instructing me as you promised, is a matter for you to consider.

Euth. Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.

Soc. Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others? What do you say?

Euth. We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.

Soc. We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

Euth. I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.

Soc. I will endeavour to explain: we, speak of carrying and we speak of being carried, of leading and being led, seeing and being seen. You know that in all such cases there is a difference, and you know also in what the difference lies?

Euth. I think that I understand.

Soc. And is not that which is beloved distinct from that which loves?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. Well; and now tell me, is that which is carried in this state of carrying because it is carried, or for some other reason?

Euth. No; that is the reason.

Soc. And the same is true of what is led and of what is seen?

Euth. True.

Soc. And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the state of beingcarried, but the converse of this. And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers. Do you not agree?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. Is not that which is loved in some state either of becoming or suffering?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro: is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?

Euth. No, that is the reason.

Soc. It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And that which is dear to the gods is loved by them, and is in a state to be loved of them because it is loved of them?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. Then that which is dear to the gods, Euthyphro, is not holy, nor is that which is holy loved of God, as you affirm; but they are two different things.

Euth. How do you mean, Socrates?

Soc. I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledge by us to be loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.

Euth. Yes.

Soc. But that which is dear to the gods is dear to them because it is loved by them, not loved by them because it is dear to them.

Euth. True.

Soc. But, friend Euthyphro, if that which is holy is the same with that which is dear to God, and is loved because it is holy, then that which is dear to God would have been loved as being dear to God; but if that which dear to God is dear to him because loved by him, then that which is holy would have been holy because loved by him. But now you see that the reverse is the case, and that they are quite different from one another. For one (theophiles) is of a kind to be loved cause it is loved, and the other (osion) is loved because it is of a kind to be loved. Thus you appear to me, Euthyphro, when I ask you what is the essence of holiness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence-the attribute of being loved by all the gods. But you still refuse to explain to me the natureof holiness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what holiness or piety really is, whether dear to the gods or not (for that is a matter about which we will not quarrel) and what is impiety?

Euth. I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.

Soc. Your words, Euthyphro, are like the handiwork of my ancestor Daedalus; and if I were the sayer or propounder of them, you might say that my arguments walk away and will not remain fixed where they are placed because I am a descendant of his. But now, since these notions are your own, you must find some other gibe, for they certainly, as you yourself allow, show an inclination to be on the move.

Euth. Nay, Socrates, I shall still say that you are the Daedalus who sets arguments in motion; not I, certainly, but you make them move or go round, for they would never have stirred, as far as I am concerned.

Soc. Then I must be a greater than Daedalus: for whereas he only made his own inventions to move, I move those of other people as well. And the beauty of it is, that I would rather not. For I would give the wisdom of Daedalus, and the wealth of Tantalus, to be able to detain them and keep them fixed. But enough of this. As I perceive that you are lazy, I will myself endeavor to show you how you might instruct me in the nature of piety; and I hope that you will not grudge your labour. Tell me, then-Is not that which is pious necessarily just?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And is, then, all which is just pious? or, is that which is pious all just, but that which is just, only in part and not all, pious?

Euth. I do not understand you, Socrates.

Soc. And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you are younger. But, as I was saying, revered friend, the abundance of your wisdom makes you lazy. Please to exert yourself, for there is no real difficulty in understanding me. What I mean I may explain by an illustration of what I do not mean. The poet (Stasinus) sings-

Of Zeus, the author and creator of all these things,

You will not tell: for where there is fear there is also

reverence. Now I disagree with this poet. Shall I tell you in what respect?

Euth. By all means.

Soc. I should not say that where there is fear there is also reverence; for I am sure that many persons fear poverty and disease, and the like evils, but I do not perceive that they reverence the objects of their fear.

Euth. Very true.

Soc. But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.

Euth. No doubt.

Soc. Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is also fear. But there is not always reverence where there is fear; for fear is a more extended notion, and reverence is a part of fear, just as the odd is a part of number, and number is a more extended notion than the odd. I suppose that you follow me now?

Euth. Quite well.

Soc. That was the sort of question which I meant to raise when I asked whether the just is always the pious, or the pious always the just; and whether there may not be justice where there is not piety; for justice is the more extended notion of which piety is only a part. Do you dissent?

Euth. No, I think that you are quite right.

Soc. Then, if piety is a part of justice, I suppose that we should enquire what part? If you had pursued the enquiry in the previous cases; for instance, if you had asked me what is an even number, and what part of number the even is, I should have had no difficulty in replying, a number which represents a figure having two equal sides. Do you not agree?

Euth. Yes, I quite agree.

Soc. In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by you in the nature of piety or holiness, and their opposites.

Euth. Piety or holiness, Socrates, appears to me to be that part of justice which attends to the gods, as there is the other part of justice which attends to men.

Soc. That is good, Euthyphro; yet still there is a little point about which I should like to have further information, What is the meaning of “attention”? For attention can hardly be used in the same sense when applied to the gods as when applied to other things. For instance, horses are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship. Is it not so?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. I should suppose that the art of horsemanship is the art of attending to horses?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. Nor is every one qualified to attend to dogs, but only the huntsman?

Euth. True.

Soc. And I should also conceive that the art of the huntsman is the art of attending to dogs?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. As the art of the ox herd is the art of attending to oxen?

Euth. Very true.

Soc. In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to the gods?-that would be your meaning, Euthyphro?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And is not attention always designed for the good or benefit of that to which the attention is given? As in the case of horses, you may observe that when attended to by the horseman’s art they are benefited and improved, are they not?

Euth. True.

Soc. As the dogs are benefited by the huntsman’s art, and the oxen by the art of the ox herd, and all other things are tended or attended for their good and not for their hurt?

Euth. Certainly, not for their hurt.

Soc. But for their good?

Euth. Of course.

Soc. And does piety or holiness, which has been defined to be the art of attending to the gods, benefit or improve them? Would you say that when you do a holy act you make any of the godsbetter?

Euth. No, no; that was certainly not what I meant.

Soc. And I, Euthyphro, never supposed that you did. I asked you the question about the nature of the attention, because I thought that you did not.

Euth. You do me justice, Socrates; that is not the sort of attention which I mean.

Soc. Good: but I must still ask what is this attention to the gods which is called piety?

Euth. It is such, Socrates, as servants show to their masters.

Soc. I understand-a sort of ministration to the gods.

Euth. Exactly.

Soc. Medicine is also a sort of ministration or service, having in view the attainment of some object-would you not say of health?

Euth. I should.

Soc. Again, there is an art which ministers to the ship-builder with a view to the attainment of some result?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, with a view to the building of a ship.

Soc. As there is an art which ministers to the housebuilder with a view to the building of a house?

Euth. Yes.

Soc. And now tell me, my good friend, about the art which ministers to the gods: what work does that help to accomplish? For you must surely know if, as you say, you are of all men living the one who is best instructed in religion.

Euth. And I speak the truth, Socrates.

Soc. Tell me then, oh tell me-what is that fair work which the gods do by the help of our ministrations?

Euth. Many and fair, Socrates, are the works which they do. Soc. Why, my friend, and so are those of a general. But the chief of them is easily told. Would you not say that victory in war is the chief of them?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. Many and fair, too, are the works of the husbandman, if I am not mistaken; but his chief work is the production of food from the earth?

Euth. Exactly.

Soc. And of the many and fair things done by the gods, which is the chief or principal one?

Euth. I have told you already, Socrates, that to learn all these things accurately will be very tiresome. Let me simply say that piety or holiness is learning, how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices. Such piety, is the salvation of families and states, just as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is their ruin and destruction.

Soc. I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen. But I see plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me-dearly not: else why, when we reached the point, did you turn, aside? Had you only answered me I should have truly learned of you by this time the-nature of piety. Now, as the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither he leads-I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what is piety? Do you mean that they are a, sort of science of praying and sacrificing?

Euth. Yes, I do.

Soc. And sacrificing is giving to the gods, and prayer is asking of the gods?

Euth. Yes, Socrates.

Soc. Upon this view, then piety is a science of asking and giving?

Euth. You understand me capitally, Socrates.

Soc. Yes, my friend; the. reason is that I am a votary of your science, and give my mind to it, and therefore nothing which you say will be thrown away upon me. Please then to tell me, what is the nature of this service to the gods? Do you mean that we prefer requests and give gifts to them?

Euth. Yes, I do.

Soc. Is not the right way of asking to ask of them what we want?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. And the right way of giving is to give to them in return what they want of us. There would be no, in an art which gives to any one that which he does not want.

Euth. Very true, Socrates.

Soc. Then piety, Euthyphro, is an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another?

Euth. That is an expression which you may use, if you like.

Soc. But I have no particular liking for anything but the truth. I wish, however, that you would tell me what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts. There is no doubt about what they give to us;for there is no good thing which they do not give; but how we can give any good thing to them in return is far from being equally clear. If they give everything and we give nothing, that must be an affair of business in which we have very greatly the advantage of them.

Euth. And do you imagine, Socrates, that any benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts?

Soc. But if not, Euthyphro, what is the meaning of gifts which are conferred by us upon the gods?

Euth. What else, but tributes of honour; and, as I was just now saying, what pleases them?

Soc. Piety, then, is pleasing to the gods, but not beneficial or dear to them?

Euth. I should say that nothing could be dearer.

Soc. Then once more the assertion is repeated that piety is dear to the gods?

Euth. Certainly.

Soc. And when you say this, can you wonder at your words not standing firm, but walking away? Will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk away, not perceiving that there is another and far greater artist than Daedalus who makes them go round in a circle, and he is yourself; for the argument, as you will perceive, comes round to the same point. Were we not saying that the holy or pious was not the same with that which is loved of the gods? Have you forgotten?

Euth. I quite remember.

Soc. And are you not saying that what is loved of the gods is holy; and is not this the same as what is dear to them-do you see?

Euth. True.

Soc. Then either we were wrong in former assertion; or, if we were right then, we are wrong now.

Euth. One of the two must be true.

Soc. Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety? That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth. For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell. If you had not certainly known the nature of piety and impiety, I am confident that you would never, on behalf of a serf, have charged your aged father with murder. You would not have run such a risk of doing wrong in the sight of the gods, and you would have had too much respect for the opinions of men. I am sure, therefore, that you know the nature of piety and impiety. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.

Euth. Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.

Soc. Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life.

Introduction to Aristotle

By Van Bryan

We would be utterly remiss if we included in this anthology a selection from Plato while snubbing his pupil, and the man considered to be his necessary and default successor, Aristotle.

The fact that Aristotle is considered something of an heir apparent to Plato, the next important chapter in the field of ancient philosophy, does not mean that he is more of the same. In many ways, Aristotle departs dramatically from the philosophy, tone, and even writing style of his mentor.

The most immediate difference we recognize when comparing the works of Plato and Aristotle is the style of writing. While it is believed that Aristotle did pen dialogues, none have survived to this day. What extant works we do possess come in the form of lecture notes.

Because of this, Aristotle’s works can appear overly technical and, at times, incomplete. In some instances Aristotle goes to great lengths to explain, in detail, points of his argument that would seem self-explanatory. In other instances, the man can make seemingly inexplicable claims without providing any support whatsoever!

Because of this, new readers of philosophy often pass over his works, opting instead for the more welcoming, and literary, works of Plato.

While Aristotle is something of an acquired taste, his treatises have been preserved for thousands of years for a reason. Many of his arguments and conclusions were revolutionary. He was, in many ways, ahead of his time. His works are still read and considered as serious contributors to important philosophical questions. And for the dedicated reader, they can be incredibly fulfilling.

When considering what selections of Aristotle to include in this compilation, we tossed around a number of ideas. Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not really have a default religious philosophy text that immediately comes to mind in the way that Plato’s Euthyphro does.

In the end, we picked selections from Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. This may seem a strange choice, especially when we could have included selections from On the Heavens, which lays out the Aristotelian cosmology in excessive detail.

However, we chose these selections because they contain Aristotle’s explanation for what has become known as “the unmoved mover”.

While the lead up to the unmoved mover is rather technical, the basis of the argument revolves around the source of motion. Aristotle makes the claim that motion in objects is manifested by other movers. By this, we mean to say that the rock is moved by the agency of the stick, the stick is moved by the agency of the hand, the hand is moved by the agency of the man, etc…

The implication of this thought is that we would naturally fall into an endless regress. We could ask, “what caused movement in the man?” And we could continue on this path forever.

However, an infinite regress is impossible, certainly there has to be an end. There must be, in short, a first, or prime, mover who got the ball rolling. This first mover, then, is the unmoved mover, or a prime mover that began motion in the universe without being moved itself. Aristotle writes of the unmoved mover in Physics and actually makes reference to the unmoved mover as “God” in his Metaphysics.

Aristotle’s unmoved mover had a profound influence on later, medieval theologians, most notably Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas so admired Aristotle’s argument for a first mover that he used it to support the early Christian dogma. Aquinas makes the argument that the unmoved mover is God and includes this argument in his Quinque viae , or “Five Proofs”, a list of five theological arguments that are meant to logically prove the existence of God.

And so we see that Aristotle, in his own way, greatly contributed to the development of Western religious thought.

Physics, Book VIII (Chapter 3-5)

By Aristotle

Translated by R. P. Hardie

Part 3

Our enquiry will resolve itself at the outset into a consideration of the above-mentioned problem-what can be the reason why some things in the world at one time are in motion and at another are at rest again? Now one of three things must be true: either all things are always at rest, or all things are always in motion, or some things are in motion and others at rest: and in this last case again either the things that are in motion are always in motion and the things that are at rest are always at rest, or they are all constituted so as to be capable alike of motion and of rest; or there is yet a third possibility remaining-it may be that some things in the world are always motionless, others always in motion, while others again admit of both conditions. This last is the account of the matter that we must give: for herein lies the solution of all the difficulties raised and the conclusion of the investigation upon which we are engaged.

To maintain that all things are at rest, and to disregard sense-perception in an attempt to show the theory to be reasonable, would be an instance of intellectual weakness: it would call in question a whole system, not a particular detail: moreover, it would be an attack not only on the physicist but on almost all sciences and all received opinions, since motion plays a part in all of them. Further, just as in arguments about mathematics objections that involve first principles do not affect the mathematician-and the other sciences are in similar case-so, too, objections involving the point that we have just raised do not affect the physicist: for it is a fundamental assumption with him that motion is ultimately referable to nature herself.

The assertion that all things are in motion we may fairly regard as equally false, though it is less subversive of physical science: for though in our course on physics it was laid down that rest no less than motion is ultimately referable to nature herself, nevertheless motion is the characteristic fact of nature: moreover, the view is actually held by some that not merely some things but all things in the world are in motion and always in motion, though we cannot apprehend the fact by sense-perception. Although the supporters of this theory do not state clearly what kind of motion they mean, or whether they mean all kinds, it is no hard matter to reply to them: thus we may point out that there cannot be a continuous process either of increase or of decrease: that which comes between the two has to be included. The theory resembles that about the stone being worn away by the drop of water or split by plants growing out of it: if so much has been extruded or removed by the drop, it does not follow that half the amount has previously been extruded or removed in half the time: the case of the hauled ship is exactly comparable: here we have so many drops setting so much in motion, but a part of them will not set as much in motion in any period of time. The amount removed is, it is true, divisible into a number of parts, but no one of these was set in motion separately: they were all set in motion together. It is evident, then, that from the fact that the decrease is divisible into an infinite number of parts it does not follow that some part must always be passing away: it all passes away at a particular moment. Similarly, too, in the case of any alteration whatever if that which suffers alteration is infinitely divisible it does not follow from this that the same is true of the alteration itself, which often occurs all at once, as in freezing. Again, when any one has fallen ill, there must follow a period of time in which his restoration to health is in the future: the process of change cannot take place in an instant: yet the change cannot be a change to anything else but health. The assertion. therefore, that alteration is continuous is an extravagant calling into question of the obvious: for alteration is a change from one contrary to another. Moreover, we notice that a stone becomes neither harder nor softer. Again, in the matter of locomotion, it would be a strange thing if a stone could be falling or resting on the ground without our being able to perceive the fact. Further, it is a law of nature that earth and all other bodies should remain in their proper places and be moved from them only by violence: from the fact then that some of them are in their proper places it follows that in respect of place also all things cannot be in motion. These and other similar arguments, then, should convince us that it is impossible either that all things are always in motion or that all things are always at rest.

Nor again can it be that some things are always at rest, others always in motion, and nothing sometimes at rest and sometimes in motion. This theory must be pronounced impossible on the same grounds as those previously mentioned: viz. that we see the above-mentioned changes occurring in the case of the same things. We may further point out that the defender of this position is fighting against the obvious, for on this theory there can be no such thing as increase: nor can there be any such thing as compulsory motion, if it is impossible that a thing can be at rest before being set in motion unnaturally. This theory, then, does away with becoming and perishing. Moreover, motion, it would seem, is generally thought to be a sort of becoming and perishing, for that to which a thing changes comes to be, or occupancy of it comes to be, and that from which a thing changes ceases to be, or there ceases to be occupancy of it. It is clear, therefore, that there are cases of occasional motion and occasional rest.

We have now to take the assertion that all things are sometimes at rest and sometimes in motion and to confront it with the arguments previously advanced. We must take our start as before from the possibilities that we distinguished just above. Either all things are at rest, or all things are in motion, or some things are at rest and others in motion. And if some things are at rest and others in motion, then it must be that either all things are sometimes at rest and sometimes in motion, or some things are always at rest and the remainder always in motion, or some of the things are always at rest and others always in motion while others again are sometimes at rest and sometimes in motion. Now we have said before that it is impossible that all things should be at rest: nevertheless we may now repeat that assertion. We may point out that, even if it is really the case, as certain persons assert, that the existent is infinite and motionless, it certainly does not appear to be so if we follow sense-perception: many things that exist appear to be in motion. Now if there is such a thing as false opinion or opinion at all, there is also motion; and similarly if there is such a thing as imagination, or if it is the case that anything seems to be different at different times: for imagination and opinion are thought to be motions of a kind. But to investigate this question at all-to seek a reasoned justification of a belief with regard to which we are too well off to require reasoned justification-implies bad judgement of what is better and what is worse, what commends itself to belief and what does not, what is ultimate and what is not. It is likewise impossible that all things should be in motion or that some things should be always in motion and the remainder always at rest. We have sufficient ground for rejecting all these theories in the single fact that we see some things that are sometimes in motion and sometimes at rest. It is evident, therefore, that it is no less impossible that some things should be always in motion and the remainder always at rest than that all things should be at rest or that all things should be in motion continuously. It remains, then, to consider whether all things are so constituted as to be capable both of being in motion and of being at rest, or whether, while some things are so constituted, some are always at rest and some are always in motion: for it is this last view that we have to show to be true.

Part 4

Now of things that cause motion or suffer motion, to some the motion is accidental, to others essential: thus it is accidental to what merely belongs to or contains as a part a thing that causes motion or suffers motion, essential to a thing that causes motion or suffers motion not merely by belonging to such a thing or containing it as a part.

Of things to which the motion is essential some derive their motion from themselves, others from something else: and in some cases their motion is natural, in others violent and unnatural. Thus in things that derive their motion from themselves, e.g. all animals, the motion is natural (for when an animal is in motion its motion is derived from itself): and whenever the source of the motion of a thing is in the thing itself we say that the motion of that thing is natural. Therefore the animal as a whole moves itself naturally: but the body of the animal may be in motion unnaturally as well as naturally: it depends upon the kind of motion that it may chance to be suffering and the kind of element of which it is composed. And the motion of things that derive their motion from something else is in some cases natural, in other unnatural: e.g. upward motion of earthy things and downward motion of fire are unnatural. Moreover the parts of animals are often in motion in an unnatural way, their positions and the character of the motion being abnormal. The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnaturally, because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself. Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-e.g. animals-make this fact clear: for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something but as to how we ought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the moved. It would seem that in animals, just as in ships and things not naturally organized, that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion, and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion.

The greatest difficulty, however, is presented by the remaining case of those that we last distinguished. Where things derive their motion from something else we distinguished the cases in which the motion is unnatural: we are left with those that are to be contrasted with the others by reason of the fact that the motion is natural. It is in these cases that difficulty would be experienced in deciding whence the motion is derived, e.g. in the case of light and heavy things. When these things are in motion to positions the reverse of those they would properly occupy, their motion is violent: when they are in motion to their proper positions-the light thing up and the heavy thing down-their motion is natural; but in this latter case it is no longer evident, as it is when the motion is unnatural, whence their motion is derived. It is impossible to say that their motion is derived from themselves: this is a characteristic of life and peculiar to living things. Further, if it were, it would have been in their power to stop themselves (I mean that if e.g. a thing can cause itself to walk it can also cause itself not to walk), and so, since on this supposition fire itself possesses the power of upward locomotion, it is clear that it should also possess the power of downward locomotion. Moreover if things move themselves, it would be unreasonable to suppose that in only one kind of motion is their motion derived from themselves. Again, how can anything of continuous and naturally connected substance move itself? In so far as a thing is one and continuous not merely in virtue of contact, it is impassive: it is only in so far as a thing is divided that one part of it is by nature active and another passive. Therefore none of the things that we are now considering move themselves (for they are of naturally connected substance), nor does anything else that is continuous: in each case the movent must be separate from the moved, as we see to be the case with inanimate things when an animate thing moves them. It is the fact that these things also always derive their motion from something: what it is would become evident if we were to distinguish the different kinds of cause.

The above-mentioned distinctions can also be made in the case of things that cause motion: some of them are capable of causing motion unnaturally (e.g. the lever is not naturally capable of moving the weight), others naturally (e.g. what is actually hot is naturally capable of moving what is potentially hot): and similarly in the case of all other things of this kind.

In the same way, too, what is potentially of a certain quality or of a certain quantity in a certain place is naturally movable when it contains the corresponding principle in itself and not accidentally (for the same thing may be both of a certain quality and of a certain quantity, but the one is an accidental, not an essential property of the other). So when fire or earth is moved by something the motion is violent when it is unnatural, and natural when it brings to actuality the proper activities that they potentially possess. But the fact that the term ‘potentially’ is used in more than one sense is the reason why it is not evident whence such motions as the upward motion of fire and the downward motion of earth are derived. One who is learning a science potentially knows it in a different sense from one who while already possessing the knowledge is not actually exercising it. Wherever we have something capable of acting and something capable of being correspondingly acted on, in the event of any such pair being in contact what is potential becomes at times actual: e.g. the learner becomes from one potential something another potential something: for one who possesses knowledge of a science but is not actually exercising it knows the science potentially in a sense, though not in the same sense as he knew it potentially before he learnt it. And when he is in this condition, if something does not prevent him, he actively exercises his knowledge: otherwise he would be in the contradictory state of not knowing. In regard to natural bodies also the case is similar. Thus what is cold is potentially hot: then a change takes place and it is fire, and it burns, unless something prevents and hinders it. So, too, with heavy and light: light is generated from heavy, e.g. air from water (for water is the first thing that is potentially light), and air is actually light, and will at once realize its proper activity as such unless something prevents it. The activity of lightness consists in the light thing being in a certain situation, namely high up: when it is in the contrary situation, it is being prevented from rising. The case is similar also in regard to quantity and quality. But, be it noted, this is the question we are trying to answer-how can we account for the motion of light things and heavy things to their proper situations? The reason for it is that they have a natural tendency respectively towards a certain position: and this constitutes the essence of lightness and heaviness, the former being determined by an upward, the latter by a downward, tendency. As we have said, a thing may be potentially light or heavy in more senses than one. Thus not only when a thing is water is it in a sense potentially light, but when it has become air it may be still potentially light: for it may be that through some hindrance it does not occupy an upper position, whereas, if what hinders it is removed, it realizes its activity and continues to rise higher. The process whereby what is of a certain quality changes to a condition of active existence is similar: thus the exercise of knowledge follows at once upon the possession of it unless something prevents it. So, too, what is of a certain quantity extends itself over a certain space unless something prevents it. The thing in a sense is and in a sense is not moved by one who moves what is obstructing and preventing its motion (e.g. one who pulls away a pillar from under a roof or one who removes a stone from a wineskin in the water is the accidental cause of motion): and in the same way the real cause of the motion of a ball rebounding from a wall is not the wall but the thrower. So it is clear that in all these cases the thing does not move itself, but it contains within itself the source of motion-not of moving something or of causing motion, but of suffering it.

If then the motion of all things that are in motion is either natural or unnatural and violent, and all things whose motion is violent and unnatural are moved by something, and something other than themselves, and again all things whose motion is natural are moved by something-both those that are moved by themselves and those that are not moved by themselves (e.g. light things and heavy things, which are moved either by that which brought the thing into existence as such and made it light and heavy, or by that which released what was hindering and preventing it); then all things that are in motion must be moved by something.

Part 5

Now this may come about in either of two ways. Either the movent is not itself responsible for the motion, which is to be referred to something else which moves the movent, or the movent is itself responsible for the motion. Further, in the latter case, either the movent immediately precedes the last thing in the series, or there may be one or more intermediate links: e.g. the stick moves the stone and is moved by the hand, which again is moved by the man: in the man, however, we have reached a movent that is not so in virtue of being moved by something else. Now we say that the thing is moved both by the last and by the first movent in the series, but more strictly by the first, since the first movent moves the last, whereas the last does not move the first, and the first will move the thing without the last, but the last will not move it without the first: e.g. the stick will not move anything unless it is itself moved by the man. If then everything that is in motion must be moved by something, and the movent must either itself be moved by something else or not, and in the former case there must be some first movent that is not itself moved by anything else, while in the case of the immediate movent being of this kind there is no need of an intermediate movent that is also moved (for it is impossible that there should be an infinite series of movents, each of which is itself moved by something else, since in an infinite series there is no first term)-if then everything that is in motion is moved by something, and the first movent is moved but not by anything else, it much be moved by itself.

This same argument may also be stated in another way as follows. Every movent moves something and moves it with something, either with itself or with something else: e.g. a man moves a thing either himself or with a stick, and a thing is knocked down either by the wind itself or by a stone propelled by the wind. But it is impossible for that with which a thing is moved to move it without being moved by that which imparts motion by its own agency: on the other hand, if a thing imparts motion by its own agency, it is not necessary that there should be anything else with which it imparts motion, whereas if there is a different thing with which it imparts motion, there must be something that imparts motion not with something else but with itself, or else there will be an infinite series. If, then, anything is a movent while being itself moved, the series must stop somewhere and not be infinite. Thus, if the stick moves something in virtue of being moved by the hand, the hand moves the stick: and if something else moves with the hand, the hand also is moved by something different from itself. So when motion by means of an instrument is at each stage caused by something different from the instrument, this must always be preceded by something else which imparts motion with itself. Therefore, if this last movent is in motion and there is nothing else that moves it, it must move itself. So this reasoning also shows that when a thing is moved, if it is not moved immediately by something that moves itself, the series brings us at some time or other to a movent of this kind.

And if we consider the matter in yet a third wa Ly we shall get this same result as follows. If everything that is in motion is moved by something that is in motion, ether this being in motion is an accidental attribute of the movents in question, so that each of them moves something while being itself in motion, but not always because it is itself in motion, or it is not accidental but an essential attribute. Let us consider the former alternative. If then it is an accidental attribute, it is not necessary that that is in motion should be in motion: and if this is so it is clear that there may be a time when nothing that exists is in motion, since the accidental is not necessary but contingent. Now if we assume the existence of a possibility, any conclusion that we thereby reach will not be an impossibility though it may be contrary to fact. But the nonexistence of motion is an impossibility: for we have shown above that there must always be motion.

Moreover, the conclusion to which we have been led is a reasonable one. For there must be three things-the moved, the movent, and the instrument of motion. Now the moved must be in motion, but it need not move anything else: the instrument of motion must both move something else and be itself in motion (for it changes together with the moved, with which it is in contact and continuous, as is clear in the case of things that move other things locally, in which case the two things must up to a certain point be in contact): and the movent-that is to say, that which causes motion in such a manner that it is not merely the instrument of motion-must be unmoved. Now we have visual experience of the last term in this series, namely that which has the capacity of being in motion, but does not contain a motive principle, and also of that which is in motion but is moved by itself and not by anything else: it is reasonable, therefore, not to say necessary, to suppose the existence of the third term also, that which causes motion but is itself unmoved. So, too, Anaxagoras is right when he says that Mind is impassive and unmixed, since he makes it the principle of motion: for it could cause motion in this sense only by being itself unmoved, and have supreme control only by being unmixed.

We will now take the second alternative. If the movement is not accidentally but necessarily in motion-so that, if it were not in motion, it would not move anything-then the movent, in so far as it is in motion, must be in motion in one of two ways: it is moved either as that is which is moved with the same kind of motion, or with a different kind-either that which is heating, I mean, is itself in process of becoming hot, that which is making healthy in process of becoming healthy, and that which is causing locomotion in process of locomotion, or else that which is making healthy is, let us say, in process of locomotion, and that which is causing locomotion in process of, say, increase. But it is evident that this is impossible. For if we adopt the first assumption we have to make it apply within each of the very lowest species into which motion can be divided: e.g. we must say that if some one is teaching some lesson in geometry, he is also in process of being taught that same lesson in geometry, and that if he is throwing he is in process of being thrown in just the same manner. Or if we reject this assumption we must say that one kind of motion is derived from another; e.g. that that which is causing locomotion is in process of increase, that which is causing this increase is in process of being altered by something else, and that which is causing this alteration is in process of suffering some different kind of motion. But the series must stop somewhere, since the kinds of motion are limited; and if we say that the process is reversible, and that that which is causing alteration is in process of locomotion, we do no more than if we had said at the outset that that which is causing locomotion is in process of locomotion, and that one who is teaching is in process of being taught: for it is clear that everything that is moved is moved by the movent that is further back in the series as well as by that which immediately moves it: in fact the earlier movent is that which more strictly moves it. But this is of course impossible: for it involves the consequence that one who is teaching is in process of learning what he is teaching, whereas teaching necessarily implies possessing knowledge, and learning not possessing it. Still more unreasonable is the consequence involved that, since everything that is moved is moved by something that is itself moved by something else, everything that has a capacity for causing motion has as such a corresponding capacity for being moved: i.e. it will have a capacity for being moved in the sense in which one might say that everything that has a capacity for making healthy, and exercises that capacity, has as such a capacity for being made healthy, and that which has a capacity for building has as such a capacity for being built. It will have the capacity for being thus moved either immediately or through one or more links (as it will if, while everything that has a capacity for causing motion has as such a capacity for being moved by something else, the motion that it has the capacity for suffering is not that with which it affects what is next to it, but a motion of a different kind; e.g. that which has a capacity for making healthy might as such have a capacity for learn. the series, however, could be traced back, as we said before, until at some time or other we arrived at the same kind of motion). Now the first alternative is impossible, and the second is fantastic: it is absurd that that which has a capacity for causing alteration should as such necessarily have a capacity, let us say, for increase. It is not necessary, therefore, that that which is moved should always be moved by something else that is itself moved by something else: so there will be an end to the series. Consequently the first thing that is in motion will derive its motion either from something that is at rest or from itself. But if there were any need to consider which of the two, that which moves itself or that which is moved by something else, is the cause and principle of motion, every one would decide the former: for that which is itself independently a cause is always prior as a cause to that which is so only in virtue of being itself dependent upon something else that makes it so.

We must therefore make a fresh start and consider the question; if a thing moves itself, in what sense and in what manner does it do so? Now everything that is in motion must be infinitely divisible, for it has been shown already in our general course on Physics, that everything that is essentially in motion is continuous. Now it is impossible that that which moves itself should in its entirety move itself: for then, while being specifically one and indivisible, it would as a Whole both undergo and cause the same locomotion or alteration: thus it would at the same time be both teaching and being taught (the same thing), or both restoring to and being restored to the same health. Moreover, we have established the fact that it is the movable that is moved; and this is potentially, not actually, in motion, but the potential is in process to actuality, and motion is an incomplete actuality of the movable. The movent on the other hand is already in activity: e.g. it is that which is hot that produces heat: in fact, that which produces the form is always something that possesses it. Consequently (if a thing can move itself as a whole), the same thing in respect of the same thing may be at the same time both hot and not hot. So, too, in every other case where the movent must be described by the same name in the same sense as the moved. Therefore when a thing moves itself it is one part of it that is the movent and another part that is moved. But it is not self-moving in the sense that each of the two parts is moved by the other part: the following considerations make this evident. In the first place, if each of the two parts is to move the other, there will be no first movent. If a thing is moved by a series of movents, that which is earlier in the series is more the cause of its being moved than that which comes next, and will be more truly the movent: for we found that there are two kinds of movent, that which is itself moved by something else and that which derives its motion from itself: and that which is further from the thing that is moved is nearer to the principle of motion than that which is intermediate. In the second place, there is no necessity for the movent part to be moved by anything but itself: so it can only be accidentally that the other part moves it in return. I take then the possible case of its not moving it: then there will be a part that is moved and a part that is an unmoved movent. In the third place, there is no necessity for the movent to be moved in return: on the contrary the necessity that there should always be motion makes it necessary that there should be some movent that is either unmoved or moved by itself. In the fourth place we should then have a thing undergoing the same motion that it is causing-that which is producing heat, therefore, being heated. But as a matter of fact that which primarily moves itself cannot contain either a single part that moves itself or a number of parts each of which moves itself. For, if the whole is moved by itself, it must be moved either by some part of itself or as a whole by itself as a whole. If, then, it is moved in virtue of some part of it being moved by that part itself, it is this part that will be the primary self-movent, since, if this part is separated from the whole, the part will still move itself, but the whole will do so no longer. If on the other hand the whole is moved by itself as a whole, it must be accidentally that the parts move themselves: and therefore, their self-motion not being necessary, we may take the case of their not being moved by themselves. Therefore in the whole of the thing we may distinguish that which imparts motion without itself being moved and that which is moved: for only in this way is it possible for a thing to be self-moved. Further, if the whole moves itself we may distinguish in it that which imparts the motion and that which is moved: so while we say that AB is moved by itself, we may also say that it is moved by A. And since that which imparts motion may be either a thing that is moved by something else or a thing that is unmoved, and that which is moved may be either a thing that imparts motion to something else or a thing that does not, that which moves itself must be composed of something that is unmoved but imparts motion and also of something that is moved but does not necessarily impart motion but may or may not do so. Thus let A be something that imparts motion but is unmoved, B something that is moved by A and moves G, G something that is moved by B but moves nothing (granted that we eventually arrive at G we may take it that there is only one intermediate term, though there may be more). Then the whole ABG moves itself. But if I take away G, AB will move itself, A imparting motion and B being moved, whereas G will not move itself or in fact be moved at all. Nor again will BG move itself apart from A: for B imparts motion only through being moved by something else, not through being moved by any part of itself. So only AB moves itself. That which moves itself, therefore, must comprise something that imparts motion but is unmoved and something that is moved but does not necessarily move anything else: and each of these two things, or at any rate one of them, must be in contact with the other. If, then, that which imparts motion is a continuous substance-that which is moved must of course be so-it is clear that it is not through some part of the whole being of such a nature as to be capable of moving itself that the whole moves itself: it moves itself as a whole, both being moved and imparting motion through containing a part that imparts motion and a part that is moved. It does not impart motion as a whole nor is it moved as a whole: it is A alone that imparts motion and B alone that is moved. It is not true, further, that G is moved by A, which is impossible.

Here a difficulty arises: if something is taken away from A (supposing that that which imparts motion but is unmoved is a continuous substance), or from B the part that is moved, will the remainder of A continue to impart motion or the remainder of B continue to be moved? If so, it will not be AB primarily that is moved by itself, since, when something is taken away from AB, the remainder of AB will still continue to move itself. Perhaps we may state the case thus: there is nothing to prevent each of the two parts, or at any rate one of them, that which is moved, being divisible though actually undivided, so that if it is divided it will not continue in the possession of the same capacity: and so there is nothing to prevent self-motion residing primarily in things that are potentially divisible.

From what has been said, then, it is evident that that which primarily imparts motion is unmoved: for, whether the series is closed at once by that which is in motion but moved by something else deriving its motion directly from the first unmoved, or whether the motion is derived from what is in motion but moves itself and stops its own motion, on both suppositions we have the result that in all cases of things being in motion that which primarily imparts motion is unmoved.

Metaphysics, Book XII (Chapter 7 and 8)

By Aristotle

Translated by R. P. Hardie

Part 7

Since (1) this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were not true, the world would have proceeded out of night and ‘all things together’ and out of non-being, these difficulties may be taken as solved. There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for ‘one’ means a measure, but ‘simple’ means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best.

“That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of its meanings. For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved. Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than as it is. Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial motion, then in so far as it is subject to change, in this respect it is capable of being otherwise,-in place, even if not in substance. But since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial motion; and this the first mover produces. The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses-that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.

“On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy for but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.

“Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus do, that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in the effects of these, are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior and complete, and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e.g. we must say that before the seed there is a man,-not the man produced from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.

“It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things. It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible (for it produces movement through infinite time, but nothing finite has infinite power; and, while every magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the above reason, have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite magnitude because there is no infinite magnitude at all). But it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior to change of place.

Part 8 “

“It is clear, then, why these things are as they are. But we must not ignore the question whether we have to suppose one such substance or more than one, and if the latter, how many; we must also mention, regarding the opinions expressed by others, that they have said nothing about the number of the substances that can even be clearly stated. For the theory of Ideas has no special discussion of the subject; for those who speak of Ideas say the Ideas are numbers, and they speak of numbers now as unlimited, now as limited by the number 10; but as for the reason why there should be just so many numbers, nothing is said with any demonstrative exactness. We however must discuss the subject, starting from the presuppositions and distinctions we have mentioned. The first principle or primary being is not movable either in itself or accidentally, but produces the primary eternal and single movement. But since that which is moved must be moved by something, and the first mover must be in itself unmovable, and eternal movement must be produced by something eternal and a single movement by a single thing, and since we see that besides the simple spatial movement of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance produces, there are other spatial movements-those of the planets-which are eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have proved these points in the physical treatises), each of these movements also must be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal. For the nature of the stars is eternal just because it is a certain kind of substance, and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and that which is prior to a substance must be a substance. Evidently, then, there must be substances which are of the same number as the movements of the stars, and in their nature eternal, and in themselves unmovable, and without magnitude, for the reason before mentioned. That the movers are substances, then, and that one of these is first and another second according to the same order as the movements of the stars, is evident. But in the number of the movements we reach a problem which must be treated from the standpoint of that one of the mathematical sciences which is most akin to philosophy-viz. of astronomy; for this science speculates about substance which is perceptible but eternal, but the other mathematical sciences, i.e. arithmetic and geometry, treat of no substance. That the movements are more numerous than the bodies that are moved is evident to those who have given even moderate attention to the matter; for each of the planets has more than one movement. But as to the actual number of these movements, we now-to give some notion of the subject-quote what some of the mathematicians say, that our thought may have some definite number to grasp; but, for the rest, we must partly investigate for ourselves, Partly learn from other investigators, and if those who study this subject form an opinion contrary to what we have now stated, we must esteem both parties indeed, but follow the more accurate.

“Eudoxus supposed that the motion of the sun or of the moon involves, in either case, three spheres, of which the first is the sphere of the fixed stars, and the second moves in the circle which runs along the middle of the zodiac, and the third in the circle which is inclined across the breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the moon moves is inclined at a greater angle than that in which the sun moves. And the motion of the planets involves, in each case, four spheres, and of these also the first and second are the same as the first two mentioned above (for the sphere of the fixed stars is that which moves all the other spheres, and that which is placed beneath this and has its movement in the circle which bisects the zodiac is common to all), but the poles of the third sphere of each planet are in the circle which bisects the zodiac, and the motion of the fourth sphere is in the circle which is inclined at an angle to the equator of the third sphere; and the poles of the third sphere are different for each of the other planets, but those of Venus and Mercury are the same.

“Callippus made the position of the spheres the same as Eudoxus did, but while he assigned the same number as Eudoxus did to Jupiter and to Saturn, he thought two more spheres should be added to the sun and two to the moon, if one is to explain the observed facts; and one more to each of the other planets.

“But it is necessary, if all the spheres combined are to explain the observed facts, that for each of the planets there should be other spheres (one fewer than those hitherto assigned) which counteract those already mentioned and bring back to the same position the outermost sphere of the star which in each case is situated below the star in question; for only thus can all the forces at work produce the observed motion of the planets. Since, then, the spheres involved in the movement of the planets themselves are—eight for Saturn and Jupiter and twenty-five for the others, and of these only those involved in the movement of the lowest-situated planet need not be counteracted the spheres which counteract those of the outermost two planets will be six in number, and the spheres which counteract those of the next four planets will be sixteen; therefore the number of all the spheres—both those which move the planets and those which counteract these—will be fifty-five. And if one were not to add to the moon and to the sun the movements we mentioned, the whole set of spheres will be forty-seven in number.

“Let this, then, be taken as the number of the spheres, so that the unmovable substances and principles also may probably be taken as just so many; the assertion of necessity must be left to more powerful thinkers. But if there can be no spatial movement which does not conduce to the moving of a star, and if further every being and every substance which is immune from change and in virtue of itself has attained to the best must be considered an end, there can be no other being apart from these we have named, but this must be the number of the substances. For if there are others, they will cause change as being a final cause of movement; but there cannot he other movements besides those mentioned. And it is reasonable to infer this from a consideration of the bodies that are moved; for if everything that moves is for the sake of that which is moved, and every movement belongs to something that is moved, no movement can be for the sake of itself or of another movement, but all the movements must be for the sake of the stars. For if there is to be a movement for the sake of a movement, this latter also will have to be for the sake of something else; so that since there cannot be an infinite regress, the end of every movement will be one of the divine bodies which move through the heaven.

“(Evidently there is but one heaven. For if there are many heavens as there are many men, the moving principles, of which each heaven will have one, will be one in form but in number many. But all things that are many in number have matter; for one and the same definition, e.g. that of man, applies to many things, while Socrates is one. But the primary essence has not matter; for it is complete reality. So the unmovable first mover is one both in definition and in number; so too, therefore, is that which is moved always and continuously; therefore there is one heaven alone.) Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these bodies are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency; they say these gods are in the form of men or like some of the other animals, and they say other things consequent on and similar to these which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first point from these additions and take it alone-that they thought the first substances to be gods, one must regard this as an inspired utterance, and reflect that, while probably each art and each science has often been developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others, have been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient treasure. Only thus far, then, is the opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest predecessors clear to us.

Introduction to Xenophanes

By Van Bryan

Xenophanes might be considered a strange addition to this anthology. I’m certain that only the most dedicated of classical readers would be familiar with this man and his limited extant work.

An ancient philosopher and theologian, Xenophanes was born sometime in the late 6th century BC in Ionia Greece, modern day Turkey. It is believed that he left his home when he was a young man and spent his years traveling mainland Greece as well other parts of the Mediterranean. Xenophanes is often lumped into the category of “Pre-Socratic” along with all other notable ancient philosophers who had the bad fortune of being born before the life of Socrates.

The reason I say that Xenophanes had “bad fortune” has to do with the fact that the introduction of Socratic thought was so revolutionary to philosophy, that any thinkers who came before are often pushed aside or disregarded. As a result, when learning of the Pre-Socratics, if one even bothers to learn them at all, we often lump them together in a singular chapter and consider their contributions as a series of thoughts from a singular school, rather than unique philosophies from diverse and remarkable individuals.

However, there is no denying that Xenophanes is an obscure philosopher when compared to the other thinkers included in this anthology. In fact, the only time we often hear of Xenophanes is when he is being mentioned by the likes of Aristotle or Plato.

His obscurity, as I mentioned above, is because he is often missed amidst the jumble of the other Pre-Socratics. However, the other reason for his anonymity is because he left almost no extant work. What little of his work that did survive the several-thousand-year voyage to our time, comes in the form of fragments. These fragments are so few, in fact, that this introduction to Xenophanes might end up having a higher word count than the entirety of his surviving works!

However, the reason Xenophanes makes the cut and arrives in this collection is because his fragments, while noticeably scarce, put forth religious criticisms that had been unheard of at the time.

He openly criticizes Homer and Hesiod for their careless anthropomorphizing of the gods. He argues that divine deities would not necessarily have the appearance of humans. And if these deities were indeed divine, then they certainly wouldn’t have human faults like jealousy, rage, or carelessness.

Xenophanes argues, instead, for a singular God that is incorporeal, omnipotent, omniscient, and supremely perfect. Xenophanes, in short, may very well have been the first monotheist of the Western world. This is a remarkable statement when we consider that almost every modern religion espouses the existence of a singular God. Given that Xenophanes was centuries ahead of his time, at least in the realm of theological thought, it is surprising that he is not better known.

So while Xenophanes may be an unfamiliar name, he is absolutely perfect for this anthology, and readers like you will surely appreciate his presence.

Fragments

By Xenophanes

Translated by Arthur Fairbanks

1. God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind.

2. The whole [of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears.

3. But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.

4. It [i.e. being] always abides in the same place, not moved at all, nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another.

5. But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have human voice and body.

6. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle.

7. Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all things which are disreputable and worthy of blame when done by men; and they told of them many lawless deeds, stealing, adultery, and deception of each other.

8. For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.

9. For we are all sprung from earth and water.

10. All things that come into being and grow are earth and water.

11. The sea is the source of water and the source of wind; for neither would blasts of wind arise in the clouds and blow out from within them, except for the great sea, nor would the streams of rivers nor the rain-water in the sky exist but for the sea; but the great sea is the begetter of clouds and winds and rivers.

12. This upper limit of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity.

13. She whom men call Iris (rainbow), this also is by nature cloud, violet and red and pale green to behold.

14. Accordingly there has not been a man, nor will there be, who knows distinctly what I say about the gods or in regard to all things, for even if one chances for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks he knows.

15. These things have seemed to me to resemble the truth.

16. In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.

17. The following are fit topics for conversation for men reclining on a soft couch by the fire in the winter season, when after a meal they are drinking sweet wine and eating a little pulse: Who are you, and what is your family? What is your age, my friend? How old were you when the Medes invaded this land?

18. Now, however, I come to another topic, and I will show the way… . They say that once on a time when a hound was badly treated a passer-by pitied him and said, ‘Stop beating him, for it is the soul of a dear friend; I recognised him on hearing his voice.’

19. But if one wins a victory by swiftness of foot, or in the pentathlon, where the grove of Zeus lies by Pisas’ stream at Olympia, or as a wrestler, or in painful boxing or in that severe contest called the pancration, he would be more glorious in the eyes of the citizens, he would win a front seat at assemblies, and would be entertained by the city at the public table, and he would receive a gift which would be a keepsake for him. If he won by means of horses he would get all these things although he did not deserve them, as I deserve them, for our wisdom is better than the strength of men or of horses. This is indeed a very wrong custom, nor is it right to prefer strength to excellent wisdom. For if there should be in the city a man good at boxing, or in the pentathlon, or in wrestling, or in swiftness of foot, which is honoured more than strength (among the contests men enter into at the games), the city would not on that account be any better governed. Small joy would it be to any city in this case if a citizen conquers at the games on the banks of the Pisas, for this does not fill with wealth its secret chambers.

20. Having learned profitless luxuries from the Lydians, while as yet they had no experience of hateful tyranny, they proceeded into the market-place, no less than a thousand in number all told, with purple garments completely covering them, boastful, proud of their comely locks, anointed with unguents of rich perfume.

21. For now the floor is clean, the hands of all and the cups are clean; one puts on the woven garlands, another passes around the fragrant ointment in a vase; the mixing bowl stands full of good cheer, and more wine,

mild and of delicate bouquet, is at hand in jars, which says it will never fail. In the midst frankincense sends forth its sacred fragrance, and there is water, cold, and sweet, and pure; the yellow loaves are near at hand, and the table of honour is loaded with cheese and rich honey. The altar in the midst is thickly covered with flowers on every side; singing and mirth fill the house. Men making merry should first hymn the god with propitious stanzas and pure words; and when they have poured out libations and prayed for power to do the right (since this lies nearest at hand), then it is no unfitting thing to drink as much as will not prevent your walking home without a slave, if you are not very old. And one ought to praise that man who, when he has drunk, unfolds noble things as his memory and his toil for virtue suggest; but there is nothing praiseworthy in discussing battles of Titans or of Giants or Centaurs, fictions of former ages, nor in plotting violent revolutions. But it is good always to pay careful respect to the gods.

22. For sending the thigh-bone of a goat, thou didst receive the rich leg of a fatted bull, an honourable present to a man, the fame whereof shall come to all Greece, and shall not cease so long as there is a race of Greek bards.

23. Nor would any one first pour the wine into the cup to mix it, but water first and the wine above it.

24. Already now sixty-seven years my thoughts have been tossed restlessly up and down Greece, but then it was twenty and five years from my birth, if I know how to speak the truth about these things.1

25. Nor is this (an oath) an equal demand to make of an impious man as compared with a pious man.

26. Much more feeble than an aged man.

27. Bacchic wands of fir stand about the firmly built house.

28. From the beginning, according to Homer, since all have learned them.2

29. If the god had not made light-coloured honey, I should have said that a fig was far sweeter.

30. Holy water trickles down in thy grottoes.

31. As many things as they have made plain for mortals to see!

Introduction to Epicurus

By Nicole Saldarriaga

Epicurus lived around 341-270 BCE and was one of those ancient philosophers largely concerned with the attainment of mental tranquility. Most of his work has been lost to time, but we still have access to a few fragments of letters, and we know many of his teachings through the work of the thinkers he influenced.

Epicurus’ school of philosophy (called Epicureanism) is built upon two basic principles: ataraxia (tranquility characterized by freedom from fear and worry) and aponia (freedom from pain, the which resulted in pleasure). While this ultimate goal of pleasure often gives Epicureanism a bad name, Epicurus and his followers did not define pleasure the way we might define it today. To them, pleasure was simple in nature—it was all about finding joy in simple things like a meal of bread and water on a grassy hill near a brook, not pursuing extravagant luxuries—and ultimately the most pleasure came from eradicating the fear of death and religious superstition.

Practically, this meant that while Epicureans did believe in the existence of gods, their conceptualization of the gods was very different than the customary beliefs of their time. According to the Epicureans, the gods were immortal and happy, but they were utterly removed from (and unconcerned with) the human world. They did not have any interest in interfering with human affairs, and they certainly never caused anything to happen. To support this idea, Epicurus and his followers wrote much on the topic of natural science (specifically the existence and the nature of atoms) to show that the world and everything in it was made according to nature, not thanks to the creative power of any god.

This idea, according to Epicurus, could free believers from fear and anxiety because they would no longer worry about pleasing the gods or about supernatural punishment, and (more importantly) they would be freed from the fear of death because the study of atoms would teach them that there is no afterlife. The afterlife could not exist, thought Epicurus, because the atoms that made up the body and the soul could not exist separately—once the body died, the soul could not exist on its own, and its atoms would therefore disperse—leading him to conclude that death is nothing but an ultimate loss of sensation.

In his “Letter to Menoeceus,” Epicurus chooses to leave out all these principles of natural science and instead speak to his friend plainly about the basic ideals of his philosophy. Though in a practical sense he is simply expounding his own beliefs, the letter reads like a comforting balm against fears that are typical and natural in all of us. In many ways, Epicurus is showing his love and care for Menoeceus by showing him that a life without fear—a life full of simple joy—is eminently attainable.

Letter to Menoeceus

By Epicurus

Translated by Robert Drew Hicks

Epicurus to Menoeceus, greeting.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

Those things which without ceasing I have declared unto thee, those do, and exercise thyself therein, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, thou shalt not affirm of him aught that is foreign to his immortality or that agrees not with blessedness, but shalt believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For verily there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favourable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like unto themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.

Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply sentience, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly apprehended that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time men shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise man does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offence to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirableness of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not.

We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.

We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but ofttimes pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them.

And ofttimes we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is choiceworthy, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one’s self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful for health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.

When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; from it spring all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honour, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.

Who, then, is superior in thy judgement to such a man? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honour the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.

Exercise thyself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by thyself and with him who is like unto thee; then never, either in waking or in dream, wilt thou be disturbed, but wilt live as a god among men. For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.

Introduction to Seneca

By Nicole Saldarriaga

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE- 65 CE) is often considered one of the important writers of Stoic philosophy. Though he himself lived a controversial and complicated life (he didn’t always seem to live the simple life of a Stoic), his written work is applauded today for its rhetorical style and especially for the Stoic doctrines it expounds.

Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium around the 3rd Century BCE, is not—as some people believe—the practice of eradicating emotion altogether. Instead, the philosophy teaches a kind of peaceful self-control over one’s reactions to the events of the outside world. To the Stoic, nothing is inherently good or evil—an event that might be considered evil (for example, the death of a loved one) can only affect the Stoic as strongly as he allows himself to react to it. This practice had an ultimate goal of overcoming destructive and overwhelming passions, resulting in a more level and compassionate personality and, ultimately, a state of peace.

The following letter is taken from a collection called the Moral Letters to Lucilius. Titled “On the God Within Us,” it passionately (and rather lovingly) proposes that all humans have an element of the divine within them. According to Seneca, there is no need to pray in the conventional manner, or to “beg the keeper of a temple” to intercede for us, when we already have a holy spirit within.

In light of this, it’s interesting to think about the Stoic idea that man is happiest when he lives according to his nature—that is, when he lives in community and in relationship with other people, without being negatively affected by the surrounding world or the actions of other people. Is Seneca’s “holy spirit” simply a different way to conceive of that human nature?

In any case, Seneca clearly believes that those people who have learned to live a Stoic lifestyle have somehow tapped more deeply into that divine force that is in all of us. His letter to Lucilius is a comfort in that it shows us the divinity of our souls, but it is also an encouragement to take that idea one step further—to keep seeking that holy spirit, that divine power, by living in a way more according to our nature and ultimately more peaceful. He seems to be telling us, “You already have all you need within you—you must simply look for it.”

On the God Within Us

By Seneca

Translated by Richard Mott Gummere

You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel. In each good man

A god doth dwell, but what god know we not.

If ever you have come upon a grove that is full of ancient trees which have grown to an unusual height, shutting out a view of the sky by a veil of pleached and intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, and your marvel at the thick unbroken shade in the midst of the open spaces, will prove to you the presence of deity. Or if a cave, made by the deep crumbling of the rocks, holds up a mountain on its arch, a place not built with hands but hollowed out into such spaciousness by natural causes, your soul will be deeply moved by a certain intimation of the existence of God. We worship the sources of mighty rivers; we erect altars at places where great streams burst suddenly from hidden sources; we adore springs of hot water as divine, and consecrate certain pools because of their dark waters or their immeasurable depth. If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, who looks down upon men from a higher plane, and views the gods on a footing of equality, will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you, will you not say: “This quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells? A divine power has descended upon that man.” When a soul rises superior to other souls, when it is under control, when it passes through every experience as if it were of small account, when it smiles at our fears and at our prayers, it is stirred by a force from heaven. A thing like this cannot stand upright unless it be propped by the divine. Therefore, a greater part of it abides in that place from whence it came down to earth. Just as the rays of the sun do indeed touch the earth, but still abide at the source from which they are sent; even so the great and hallowed soul, which has come down in order that we may have a nearer knowledge of divinity, does indeed associate with us, but still cleaves to its origin; on that source it depends, thither it turns its gaze and strives to go, and it concerns itself with our doings only as a being superior to ourselves.

What, then, is such a soul? One which is resplendent with no external good, but only with its own. For what is more foolish than to praise in a man the qualities which come from without? And what is more insane than to marvel at characteristics which may at the next instant be passed on to someone else? A golden bit does not make a better horse. The lion with gilded mane, in process of being trained and forced by weariness to endure the decoration, is sent into the arena in quite a different way from the wild lion whose spirit is unbroken; the latter, indeed, bold in his attack, as nature wished him to be, impressive because of his wild appearance, – and it is his glory that none can look upon him without fear, – is favoured in preference to the other lion, that languid and gilded brute.

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own. We praise a vine if it makes the shoots teem with increase, if by its weight it bends to the ground the very poles which hold its fruit; would any man prefer to this vine one from which golden grapes and golden leaves hang down? In a vine the virtue peculiarly its own is fertility; in man also we should praise that which is his own. Suppose that he has a retinue of comely slaves and a beautiful house, that his farm is large and large his income; none of these things is in the man himself; they are all on the outside. Praise the quality in him which cannot be given or snatched away, that which is the peculiar property of the man. Do you ask what this is? It is soul, and reason brought to perfection in the soul. For man is a reasoning animal. Therefore, man’s highest good is attained, if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth. And what is it which this reason demands of him? The easiest thing in the world, – to live in accordance with his own nature. But this is turned into a hard task by the general madness of mankind; we push one another into vice. And how can a man be recalled to salvation, when he has none to restrain him, and all mankind to urge him on?

Farewell.

Introduction to Cicero

By Van Bryan

Cicero, the Roman orator and statesman died in 43 BC at the age of 64. All of his philosophical works were produced in the two years immedietly preceding his death. He was drawn to write these philosophical pieces, he tells us, as a way to distract himself from his political inactivity during this time.

The writing to follow was actually written as a dialogue that took place in the house of Caius Aurelius Cotta in Rome. Cicero remains something of a spectator during the dialogue. The real participants are Caius Velleius and Quintus Lucilius Balbus. These two men were Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, respectively.

The two participants go back and forth discussing various aspects of ancient religious philosophy. This includes enumerating the various merits of their own theology while criticizing the religious philosophies of other schools of thought.

Early Christian theologians would warmly receive On the Nature of the Gods. They would see in Cicero what they considered an early attempt to uncover Christian revelations. The arguments to follow have often been used as a way to disprove polytheism.

On the Nature of the Gods

By Cicero

Translated by Francis Brooks

Book I (part 1 and2 )

In the following passages, Cicero writes to Marcus Junius Brutu, remembered for all of history as the murderer of Julius Caesar. Cicero describes why he has undertaken this examination of religious philosophy and explains the importance of such inquiries.

Part 1

While there are many questions in philosophy which have not as yet been by any means satisfactorily cleared up, there is in particular, as you, Brutus, are well aware, much difficulty and much obscurity attaching to the inquiry with reference to the nature of the gods, an inquiry which is ennobling in the recognition which it affords of the nature of the soul, and also necessary for the regulation of religious practices. The opinions of the greatest thinkers with regard to it conflict and vary to an extent which should be taken as strong evidence that the cause of their doing so is ignorance, and that the Academics were wise in refusing to make positive assertions upon uncertain data. Is there anything, indeed, so discreditable as rashness, and is there anything rasher and more unworthy of the dignity and strength of character of a wise man than the holding of a false opinion, or the unhesitating defence of what has not been grasped and realised with proper thoroughness? In this inquiry, to give an instance of the diversity of opinion, the greater number of authorities have affirmed the existence of the gods; it is the most likely conclusion, and one to which we are all led by the guidance of nature; but Protagoras said that he was doubtful, and Diagoras the Melian and Theodorus of Cyrene thought that there were no such beings at all. Those, further, who have asserted their existence present so much diversity and disagreement that it would be tedious to enumerate their ideas separately.

For a great deal is said about the forms of the gods, and about their locality, dwelling-places, and mode of life, and these points are disputed with the utmost difference of opinion among philosophers; while upon the question in which our subject of discussion is mainly comprised, the question whether the gods do nothing, project nothing, and are free from all charge and administration of affairs, or whether, on the other hand, all things were from the beginning formed and established by them, and are throughout infinity ruled and directed by them,—on this question, especially, there are great differences of opinion, and it is inevitable, unless these are decided, that mankind should be involved in the greatest uncertainty, and in ignorance of things which are of supreme importance.

Part 2

For there are and have been philosophers who thought that the gods had absolutely no direction of human affairs, and if their opinion is true, what piety can there be, and what holiness, and what obligation of religion? It is right that these should be accorded, in purity and innocence of heart, to the divinity of the gods, but only if the offering is observed by them, and if something has been accorded by the immortal gods to humanity. But if they have neither the power nor the wish to aid us, if they have no care at all for us and take no notice of what we do, if there is nothing that can find its way from them to human life, what reason is there for our rendering to them any worship, or honour, or prayers? On the other hand, in an empty and artificial pretence of faith piety cannot find a place any more than the other virtues; with piety it is necessary that holiness and religious obligation should also disappear, and when these are gone a great confusion and disturbance of life ensues; indeed, when piety towards the gods is removed, I am not so sure that good faith, and human fraternity, and justice, the chief of all the virtues, are not also removed.

But there is another school of philosophers, and a great and high-minded one it is, who hold that the entire universe is ordered and ruled by the mind and the intelligence of the gods, and, more than this, that the gods also take counsel and forethought for the life of men; for they think that the crops and other produce of the earth, the variations in the weather, the succession of the seasons, and the changing phenomena of the sky, by means of which everything that the earth bears is ripened and comes to maturity, are gifts bestowed by the immortal gods upon mankind, and they adduce many instances which will be mentioned in the course of these books, and which are of such a kind as to almost make it seem that the immortal gods manufactured these precise things for the benefit of man! Against this school Carneades advanced many arguments, with the result of rousing men of intelligence to a desire for investigating the truth; for there is no question on which there is such marked disagreement, not only amongst the unlearned, but the learned as well, and the fact of their opinions being so various and so mutually opposed makes it of course possible, upon the one hand, that not one of them is true, and certainly impossible, upon the other, that more than one should be true.

Book I (part 8 and 9)

In the following passages, Cicero describes the remarks of the Epicruean philosopher Caius Velleius. In these passages, Velleius takes time to criticize the idea of God as described by Plato and the Stoic philosophers.

Part 8

Velleius then began, displaying, as is usual with his school, no lack of confidence, and afraid, beyond all things, of seeming to be in doubt upon any point, just as though he had that moment come down from the assembly of the gods and the inter-mundane spaces of Epicurus. Listen, he said, to no groundless and fanciful beliefs; no fabricator and builder of the world, like the god from Plato’s Timæus; no prophetic beldame like the πρόνοια of the Stoics (whom in our own language we may call providence); no world itself, either, endowed with mind and sensation, a round and glowing and whirling deity, the prodigies and marvels of philosophers who do not reason but dream. Why, by what manner of means could Plato, your pet authority, have beheld the construction of this great work, the construction with which he represents the world as being put together and built by God? How was so vast a fabric set about? What were the tools, and levers, and machines, and agents employed in it? On the other hand how could air, fire, water, and earth have been obedient and submissive to the architect’s will? And whence did those five forms arise1from which the other elements are formed, and which are so conveniently adapted for affecting the mind, and producing sensation?

It would be tedious to remark upon all his theories, which have more the appearance of day dreams than of ascertained results, but the prize instance is the following: he represented the world not merely as having come into existence, but as having been almost turned out by hand, and yet asserted that it would be everlasting. Now do you think that a man like this, who thinks that anything that has come into being can be eternal, has put, as the saying is, even the surface of his lips tophysiologia,in other words, to natural philosophy? For is there any agglomeration that cannot be dissolved, or anything that, having a beginning, has not also an end? As for your πρόνοια, Lucilius, if it is the same as the power we have been discussing, I ask, as I did just now, for the agents, machines, and all the planning and ordering of the entire work. If, on the other hand, it is something different, I ask why it made the world liable to perish, instead of making it everlasting, as was done by the god of Plato.

Part 9

And from both of you inquire why these powers suddenly appeared as constructors of the world, and why for innumerable ages they were asleep, for it does not follow, if there was no world, that there were no ages. By ages I do not now mean those that are made up of a number of days and nights by means of the yearly revolutions, for I acknowledge that ages in that sense could not have been attained without a rotatory movement of the heavens, but from infinitely far back there has existed an eternity, the nature of which in point of extent can be conceived, though it was not measured by periods of time. I ask, then, Balbus, why during that limitless extent of time your πρόνοια refrained from action. Was it labour that it shunned? But God was not affected by that, nor was there any, since all the elements, the air of heaven, the bodies composed of fire, the lands, and seas, were obedient to the divine will. What reason, again, was there why God should be desirous of decking the world, like an ædile, with figures and lights? If he did so in order that he himself might be better lodged, it is clear that for an infinite amount of time previously he had been living in all the darkness of a hovel. And do we regard him as afterwards deriving pleasure from the diversity with which we see heaven and earth adorned? What delight can that be to God? And if it were a delight, he would not have been able to go without it for so long. Or was this universe, as your school is accustomed to assert, established by God for the sake of men? Does that mean for the sake of wise men? In that case it was on behalf of but a small number that so vast a work was constructed. Or was it for the sake of the foolish? In the first place there was no reason why God should do a kindness to the bad, and in the second place what did he effect, seeing that the lot of all the foolish is undoubtedly a most miserable one? The chief reason for this is the fact that they are foolish, for what can we name as being more miserable than folly? and the second is the fact that there are so many ills in life that, while the wise alleviate them by a balance of good, the foolish can neither avoid their approach nor endure their presence.

Book I (part 10-15)

In the following passages, Caius Velleius continues by recounting the theological beliefs of many early Greek philosophers. There are notable mistakes and inaccuracies in these summations of Pre-Socratic thought. However, they remain mostly correct and would be of interest to any reader who is curious about the metaphysical and theological beliefs of the earliest Western thinkers.

Part 10

These, Lucilius, are the beliefs of your school, but to show what their character is I will retrace them from their farthest source in the past. Thales, then, of Miletus, who was the first to inquire into such subjects, said that water was the first principle of things, and that God was the mind that created everything from water. Now if there can be divinity without sensation, why did he mention mind in addition to water? On the other hand, if mind can exist by itself apart from matter, why did he mention water in addition to mind? Anaximander’s opinion is that the gods have come into being, emerging and disappearing at far distant intervals in the form of innumerable worlds; but how can we conceive of God except as immortal? Anaximenes, who lived later, declared that air was God, that it had come into existence, and that it was unmeasured, infinite, and always in motion; as though air could be God when it is without form, especially when we consider that it is fitting that God should possess not merely some kind of form, but the most beautiful, or as though mortality did not overtake everything that has known a beginning.

Part 11

Next Anaxagoras, who derived his system from Anaximenes, was the first to hold that the order and measure of all things was planned and accomplished by the power and intelligence of an infinite mind, in saying which he failed to see that there can be no activity joined with, and allied to, sensation in what is infinite, and no sensation at all in anything that does not feel through its own nature being acted upon. In the next place, if he intended this mind of his to be some kind of living thing, there will be some inner part on the strength of which it may be called living; but there is no part more inward than mind; let mind, therefore, be surrounded with an outer body. Since he objects to this, what we get is pure, unbodied mind, with nothing added by means of which it may be able to receive sensation, a state of things which seems to surpass the powers of conception possessed by man’s understanding.

Alcmaeo of Croton, who assigned divinity to the sun, and moon, and other heavenly bodies, and also to the soul, was unaware that he was endowing the perishable with immortality.

As for Pythagoras, who held that the whole nature of things was traversed and permeated by a soul, from which our own souls are taken, he failed to see that by this division into human souls the divine soul was rent and lacerated, and that when the human souls experienced pain, as most of them would a portion of the divine soul also suffered, which is impossible. Why, moreover, should the human soul, if it were God, be ignorant of anything? and how, again, would this God, if he were nothing but soul, be either implanted in the universe, or infused into it? Then Xenophanes, who held that the infinite sum of things, combined with mind, constituted divinity, is subject, on the score of mind itself, to the same censure as the others, and to severer censure on the score of infinity, in which there can be no sensation and no connection with anything external.

As to Parmenides, he evolves an imaginary something resembling a crown (his word for it is στεϕάνη), a bright ring of unbroken fire which girds the sky, and which he calls God, but in which no one can look for a divine form or for sensation. He is the parent, too, of many other extravagances, for he ranks under the head of divinity war, and strife, and desire, and the other principles of the same kind, which are liable to be brought to an end alike by illness, sleep, forgetfulness, or old age; he makes also the same claim in the case of the stars, but as that has been censured in another it need not now be dwelt upon in him.

Part 12

Empedocles, in addition to many other blunders, goes most discreditably astray in his conception of the gods, for he would have the four natural elements, from which he believes that all things are compounded, to be divine, though it is clear that these come into being, and suffer extinction, and lack all sensation. Nor does Protagoras, who denies absolutely the possession of any definite conviction as to their existence, non-existence, or character, seem to have the faintest conception of the divine nature. As for Democritus, when at one moment he reckons among the number of the gods the images of things and their revolutions, at another the natural power that disperses these images and sends them forth, and at another our own apprehension and intelligence, is he not involved in the greatest error? And when he further declares positively that nothing is eternal, because nothing remains perpetually in the self-same state, does he not do away with divinity with a completeness which leaves no idea of it remaining? Then again, how can air, which Diogenes of Apollonia represents as being God, possess sensation or divine form? In the inconsistency of Plato we come to a subject which it would be tedious to discuss. He says in the Timæus that the father of this world cannot be named, and also lays down in the books of the Laws that no inquiry at all ought to be made into the nature of God, and yet both in the Timæus and the Laws he attributes divinity to the world, the sky, the stars, the earth, the souls of men, and the deities that we have received from the religious system of our forefathers, views which are clearly false in themselves and in direct opposition to each other. As to his belief that God exists without a body of any kind, that he is, as the Greeks say, ἀσώματος, it is impossible to conceive what such a condition could be like, for he must then be without sensation, forethought, and pleasure, all of which qualities we embrace in our idea of God.

Xenophon, too, makes in fewer words very much the same mistakes. In the record that he has given of the sayings of Socrates he represents Socrates as arguing that the form of God ought not to be made a subject of inquiry, and at the same time asserting the divinity both of the sun and of the soul, and as speaking of God at one moment in the singular, and at another in the plural, which statements are involved in pretty much the same error as those which we quoted from Plato.

Part 13

Antisthenes, again, destroys the significance and essential nature of the gods when he declares in the work entitled “On Natural Philosophy,” that there are many gods believed in by the people, but only one that is known to nature. Nor is Speusippus far different; following in the steps of Plato, who was his uncle, he attempts to wrest from our minds our knowledge of the gods by describing the deity as a kind of living energy, by which all things are directed. Aristotle gives a most confused account, on the same lines as his master, in the third book of his treatise “On Philosophy,” where at one moment he ascribes absolute divinity to mind, at another represents the world itself as divine, at another places the world under the dominion of some other power, to which he assigns the function of guiding and preserving, by means of a kind of retrograde movement, the world’s motion, and at another speaks of the ethereal heaven as God, not understanding that the heaven is a part of that world to which he has himself given the title of God elsewhere. How, moreover, could the divine consciousness of the heaven be maintained when moving at such speed? and where will a place be found for the great number of other gods, if we also count the heaven as God? When he further declares that God is incorporeal, he deprives him of all consciousness, and also of forethought; besides, if God has no body, how can he be moved? on the other hand, if he is constantly in motion, how can he know peace and happiness?

Nor is any more discernment in these matters shown by Aristotle’s fellow-pupil Xenocrates, in whose books on the nature of the gods there is no description of a divine form. His account is that there are eight gods, five whom we name in naming the wandering stars, and one formed from all the fixed stars that are in the sky, as though from a number of scattered limbs, whom we are to regard as a single god; for a seventh he adds the sun, and for an eighth the moon,—but how these deities can be conscious of happiness it is impossible to conceive.

Heraclides of Pontus, who also belongs to Plato’s school, filled his books with childish stories, and believes at one moment in the divinity of the world, and at another in the divinity of mind; and he also assigns divinity to the wandering stars, thus depriving God of feeling and representing his form as variable, and yet again in the same book he enrols earth and sky among the gods.

The inconsistency of Theophrastus is equally insufferable; in one place he ascribes sovereign divinity to mind, in another to the sky, and in another to the stars and constellations of the heavens. Nor does his pupil Strato, who is called the natural philosopher, deserve to be listened to; he holds that all divine force is resident in nature, which contains, he says, the principles of birth, increase, and decay, but which lacks, as we could remind him, all sensation and form.

Part 14

Zeno is of opinion, to come now to your school, Balbus, that the law of nature is divine, and that it fulfils its function by enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong; we cannot understand, however, how he makes this law animate, which nevertheless is what we undoubtedly require God to be. He also speaks elsewhere of æther as God, if that is a conceivable God which is without feeling, and which never presents itself to us at the time of prayers, or petitions, or vows; in other works he supposes a certain reason that pervades the whole nature of things, to be endowed with divine power, and this attribute of divinity he further assigns to the stars, and also to the years, the months, and the different seasons of the year. But it is when he interprets Hesiod’s θεογονία, or “birth of the gods,” that he simply puts an end to the ordinary, well-apprehended ideas on the subject of the gods, for he does not include in their number either Jupiter, or Juno, or Vesta, or any one similarly addressed, but declares that these names were assigned with some sort of allegorical meaning to mute and inanimate objects.

No less erroneous are the opinions of Zeno’s pupil Aristo, who holds that no form of God is conceivable, and denies him sensation, and is in a state of complete uncertainty as to whether he is, or is not, animate. Cleanthes, who studied under Zeno at the same time as the last-named writer, asserts at one moment that the world itself is God, at another bestows that title upon the mind and intelligence of nature as a whole, and at another finds an undoubted God in the farthest and highest fiery element, called by him ether, which extends in a circle on every hand, surrounding and enclosing the universe on the outside. In the volumes, moreover, which contain his inditement of pleasure, he seems to take leave of his senses, for in one place he delineates a kind of divine form and aspect, in another he ascribes divinity in its fullest sense to the stars, and in another declares that there is nothing so divine as reason, the result of which is that nowhere at all is that god disclosed whom our minds make known to us, and whom we wish to make correspond with the ideal in our soul, as though with an imprinted outline of himself.

Part 15

Persæus, who also was a pupil of Zeno, says that it was men who had discovered some great aid to civilization that were regarded as gods, and that the names of divinities were also bestowed upon actual material objects of use and profit, so that he is not even content to describe these as the creations of God, but makes out that they are themselves divine. Yet what can compare with the absurdity either of endowing mean and unshapely objects with the honours of divinity, or of ranking among the gods men already cut off by death, whose worship would have had to consist entirely in mourning?

We come next to Chrysippus, who is considered the most skilful exponent of the fantastic notions of the Stoics, and who gathers together a large band of deities so utterly removed from knowledge that, although our mind seems able to picture in imagination anything whatever, we cannot even form an idea of them by conjecture. For he tells us that divine power resides in reason and in the soul and mind of nature taken as a whole, and then again he declares that the world itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul, then that it is this same world’s guiding principle, operating in mind and reason, together with the common nature of things and the totality which embraces all existence, then the foreordained might and necessity of the future, then fire and the principle of æther that we have mentioned before, then those elements whose natural state is one of flux and transition, such as water, earth, and air, then the sun, the moon, the stars, the universal existence in which all things are contained, and also those human beings who have attained immortality. He further maintains that ether is that which men call Jove, and that the air which permeates the seas is Neptune, and that the earth is what is known by the name of Ceres, and he treats in similar style the titles of the other gods. He also identifies Jove with the power of uninterrupted, eternal law, the guide of life, as it may be called, and mistress of duty, which he also describes as fore-ordained necessity and the eternal truth of the future, though none of these qualities are such as to give an appearance of divine power being resident in them.

All this is in his first book on the nature of the gods; in the second his aim is to harmonise the stories of Orpheus, Musæus, Hesiod, and Homer with what he has himself said on the subject of the immortal gods in the first book, so that even the oldest poets, who had not so much as a conception of such things, are made to seem to have been Stoics. Diogenes of Babylon follows in his steps in the work entitled De Minerva, where he removes from mythology the travail of Jupiter, and birth of the maiden goddess, and transfers them to natural philosophy.

Book I (part 16-20)

In the following passages, Caius Velleius continues by describing, in detail, the Epicurean idea of God. We have already discussed this briefly in our chapter on Epicurus. However, Velleius’ arguments tend to be more technical, more philosophical, and therefore more fulfilling to certain readers.

Part 16

Any one who should reflect how unthinkingly and recklessly these ideas are advanced, ought to reverence Epicurus and place him among the number of those very beings that form the subject of this inquiry, for it was he alone who perceived, in the first place, the fact of the existence of the gods from the idea of them which nature herself had implanted in all men’s minds. For what nation or race of men is there that does not possess, independently of instruction, a certain preconception of them? It is this which Epicurus calls by the name of πρόληψις, that is, a certain idea of a thing formed by the mind beforehand, without which nothing can be understood, or investigated, or discussed; and we have learnt the purport and advantage of this exercise of the reason from that divine volume of his upon criterion and judgment.

Part 17

You see, then, that what constitutes the foundation of this inquiry is excellently well laid, for since the belief in question was determined by no ordinance, or custom, or law, and since a steadfast unanimity continues to prevail amongst all men without exception, it must be understood that the gods exist. For we have ideas of them implanted, or rather innate, within us, and as that upon which the nature of all men is agreed must needs be true, their existence must be acknowledged. Since their existence is pretty universally admitted not only among philosophers but also among those who are not philosophers, let us own that the following fact is also generally allowed, namely, that we possess a “preconception,” to use my former word, or “previous notion” of the gods (new designations that have to be employed when the objects of designation are new, just as Epicurus himself applied the term πρόληψις to what no one had described by that name before)—we possess, I say, a preconception which makes us think of them as blessed and immortal.

For nature that gave us the idea of gods as such, has also engraved in our minds the conviction that they are blessed and eternal. If that is so, there was truth in the doctrine put forward by Epicurus, that what is blessed and eternal knows no trouble itself, and causes none to others, and is therefore unaffected by anger or favour, since, as he said, anything that is so affected is marked by weakness. Enough would have now been said, if our aim were only to worship the gods with piety, and to be freed from superstition, for a divine nature of this exalted kind, being eternal and supremely blessed, would receive the pious worship of mankind (everything that is of surpassing excellence inspiring a just reverence), and also all fear arising from the violence and anger of the gods would have been dispelled, now that it is understood that anger and favour have no place in a blessed and immortal nature, and that, when those feelings have been removed, no terrors threaten us from the powers above. However, in order to confirm this belief, the mind looks for form in God, and for active life, and the working of intelligence.

Part 18

Now, with regard to form, we are partly prompted by natural instinct, and partly instructed by reason. So far as natural instinct is concerned, no one of us in any nation attributes to the gods any but a human aspect, for under what other shape do they ever present themselves to any one whether waking or asleep?

We will not, however, refer everything to primary ideas, when the same declaration is made by reason itself. For since it seems appropriate that the nature which, whether as being blessed or eternal, is the most exalted, should also be the most beautiful, could any arrangement of limbs, or cast of feature, any outline or appearance be more beautiful than man’s? Your school, at any rate, Lucilius,—as for my friend Cotta, his opinions vary—is accustomed, when exhibiting the ingenuity of the divine handiwork, to point out how admirably everything in the human figure is contrived for purposes of beauty as well as use. Now if the human figure surpasses the form of any other animate being, and if God is animate, this figure which is the most beautiful of all, is assuredly possessed by him. Since, moreover, it is understood that the gods are supremely blessed, and since no being can be blessed without virtue, and virtue cannot exist without reason, or reason be found anywhere except in a human form, it must be admitted that the gods have the outward aspect of man, though this is not body, but quasibody, and does not contain blood, but quasi-blood.

Part 19

Though these speculations of Epicurus were too acute, and their exposition too subtle, for every one to be able to appreciate them, still my confidence in your intelligence leads me to state them with less fullness than the subject requires. Well, Epicurus tells us—for he was one who could not only bring obscure and highly recondite questions before his mind’s eye, but positively deals with them as though they were lying in his hands—that the essence and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived by mind and not by sense, and that it does not possess what we may call solidity, or maintain an unvarying self-identity, like the bodies which on account of their compactness he calls στερέμνια.

His account is that through the images being perceived owing to their similarity and their passage before us, when an infinite series of very similar images is formed from innumerable atoms and streams towards us, our mind, intently fixed and concentrated upon these, arrives with the utmost joy at the conception of a blessed and immortal nature. And this mighty power of infinity, which so well deserves to be much and heedfully contemplated, must needs be conceived of as so constituted that each part in it is balanced by its equivalent, according to what Epicurus calls ἰσονομία, or equal distribution, the result of which distribution is that for a given number of mortal beings there is a no less number of immortal, and that if the agencies which destroy are innumerable, those which preserve must be also without limit.

And then, Balbus, it is usual with your school to inquire from us what the life of the gods is like, and how they spend their days. In a way, you may be certain, which for blessedness and abundant possession of every good cannot be excelled even in imagination. For God does nothing, is involved in no occupations, and projects no works; he rejoices in his own wisdom and virtue, and is assured that his state will always be one of the highest felicity eternally prolonged.

Part 20

We should be right in describing this God as blessed, but yours as a slave to toil. For if it is the world itself that is God, what can be less restful—and nothing that is not restful is blessed—than to revolve round the celestial axis without a moment’s pause and at a marvellous rate of speed? If, on the other hand, a god of some kind is resident in the world itself, who is to rule and direct it, to maintain the courses of the stars, and the changes of the seasons, and the ordered alternation of events, to have his eye upon lands and seas, and to guard the well-being and the lives of men, assuredly it is an oppressive and laborious task in which he is involved.

We, on the contrary, make blessedness of life depend upon an untroubled mind, and exemption from all duties, for we were taught by him who taught us everything else, that the world was produced by the working of nature, without there having been any need for a process of manufacture, and that what your school declares to be capable of accomplishment only by means of divine intelligence is a thing so easy that nature will produce, and is producing, and has produced worlds innumerable.

It is because you do not see how nature can accomplish this without the help of some kind of mind that, like the tragic poets, in your inability to bring the plot to a smooth conclusion, you have recourse to a god. Yet you would certainly feel no need for his agency if you had before your eyes the expanse of region, unmeasured and on every side unbounded, upon which the mind may fasten and concentrate itself, and where it may wander far and wide without seeing any farthermost limit upon which to be able to rest.

Now in this immensity of length and breadth and height there floats an infinite quantity of innumerable atoms which, in spite of the intervening void, nevertheless join together, and through one seizing upon one, and another upon another, form themselves into connected wholes, by which means are produced those forms and outlines of the material world which your school is of opinion cannot be produced without bellows and anvils.

You have therefore placed our necks beneath the yoke of a perpetual tyrant, of whom we are to go in fear by day and night, for who would not fear a god who foresaw everything, considered everything, noted everything, and looked upon himself as concerned in everything,—a busy and prying god?

From this has come, in the first place, your idea of preordained necessity, which you call εἱμαρμένη, meaning by the term that every event that occurs had its origin in eternal truth and the chain of causation—(though what is to be thought of a philosophy that holds the ignorant old crone’s belief that everything happens by destiny?)—and secondly your art of μαντικὴ, or divinatio,as it is called in Latin, which, if we were willing to listen to you, would imbue us with such superstition that we should have to pay regard to soothsayers, augurs, diviners, prophets, and interpreters of dreams. From these terrors we have been released by Epicurus, and claimed for freedom; we do not fear beings of whom we understand that they neither create trouble for themselves, nor seek it for others, and we worship, in piety and holiness, a sublime and exalted nature. My enthusiasm, I fear, has led me into too great length, but it was difficult, although my proper character was rather that of a listener than a speaker, to leave so important and lofty a subject incomplete.

Book II (part 13-15)

In the following passages, Cicero recounts remarks given by the Stoic philosopher Quintus Lucilius Balbus. Balbus describes the Stoic idea that the universe operates with absolute reason. An important tenat to Stoic philosopy, this idea has implications for metaphysical, ethical, and theological thought. The heavenly bodies, Balbus says, has life and operates with perfect reason.

Part 13

The fourth and highest stage consists of beings who are created naturally good and wise, in whom right reason in an unchanging form is innate from the beginning, that reason which must be regarded as more than human, and must be assigned to what is divine, that is, to the universe, in which this complete and perfect reason must needs exist.

For it cannot be said that in any order of things there is not something final and perfect. Just as in the case of vines or cattle, we see that, unless some force interposes, nature arrives by a way of her own at perfection, and just as a certain attainment of consummate workmanship exists in painting and architecture and the other arts, so it is inevitable that in collective nature there should much more be a progress towards completion and perfection. Many external influences can prevent the other kinds of being from reaching perfection, but nothing can stand in the way of universal nature, because it itself limits and contains all kinds of being. That, therefore, must be the fourth and highest stage, which no force can come near. Now it is in that stage that universal nature has its place, and since it is the characteristic of that nature that all things should be inferior to it, and nothing able to stand in its way, it necessarily follows that the universe is intelligent, and more than that wise. Besides, what is more foolish than that the nature which embraces all things should not be declared supremely excellent, or that, being supremely excellent, it should not be in the first place animate, in the second possessed of reason and forethought, and lastly wise? In what other way can it be supremely excellent?

For if it resembled plants, or even animals, it would not deserve to be considered of the highest degree of excellence, but rather of the lowest, while if it participated in reason, and yet were not wise from the beginning, the condition of the universe as compared with that of man would be the lower of the two. For man can become wise, but if the universe during the limitless course of past time has been destitute of wisdom, it will assuredly never acquire it, and will therefore be lower than man. Since that is absurd, the universe must be regarded as wise from the beginning, and as divine.

Part 14

It was, indeed, an ingenious remark of Chrysippus that just as the cover was created for the shield, and the sheath for the sword, so all other things with the exception of the universe were created for the sake of something else, the crops and fruits, for instance, which the earth produces, for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of men, as the horse for carrying, the ox for ploughing, and the dog for hunting and keeping watch. As for man himself, he was born in order to observe and imitate the universe, being in no wise perfect, but a particle, so to speak, of that which is, for it is only the universe to which nothing is wanting, and which is knit together on every side, and is perfect and complete in all its numbers and parts. Now since the universe embraces all things, and there is nothing that is not contained within it, it is perfect at every point. How, then, can that which is of most excellence be lacking to it? There is nothing more excellent than mind and reason, so it is impossible that these should be lacking to the universe. Chrysippus, therefore, is again right when he declares, adding instances, that in what is matured and perfect everything is of higher excellence, in a horse, for example, than in a colt, in a dog than in a whelp, in a man than in a boy, and in like manner that whatever is best in the whole world, must reside in something that is perfect and complete. As there is nothing more perfect than the universe, and nothing more excellent than virtue, it follows that virtue is an attribute of the universe. Human nature is not indeed perfect, yet virtue is attained in man, so how much more easily in the universe! Virtue, then, does exist in the universe, which is therefore wise, and consequently divine.

Part 15

Having thus ascertained the divinity of the universe, we must attribute the same quality to the heavenly bodies, which are created from the purest and most mobile portion of ether, without being intermingled with any other element, and are throughout glowing and transparent, so that it is with entire correctness that they too are described as animate, and as possessing feeling and intelligence. That they are throughout of a fiery nature Cleanthes thinks is confirmed by the testimony of two senses, those of touch and sight. For the brightness of the sun, considering how far and wide it shines notwithstanding the immensity of the universe, is more vivid than that of any flame, and its action is such as not only to warm, but often even to consume, neither of which effects would it have unless it were of a fiery nature.

“Therefore,” he says, “since the sun is of a fiery nature, and is fed by the moisture of the sea, for no fire would be able to maintain itself without some nourishment, it must either resemble the fire which we employ for purposes of use and sustenance, or that which is contained in the bodies of animate beings. But this fire of ours, which is required by the uses of life, is the destroyer and consumer of all things, and wherever it moves works universal havoc and ruin. The fire, on the other hand, belonging to the body, which is life-promoting and healthful, preserves and nourishes and increases and sustains all things, and endows them with sensation.” He says, therefore, that there is no doubt which of these two fires the sun resembles, since it too causes all things to flourish and ripen, each in its own kind. Consequently, since the fire of the sun resembles the fire, which is in the bodies of animate beings, the sun also must be animate, and so indeed must the other stars, as they have their origin in the celestial glow which is called ether or heaven. Now since some forms of life are developed upon the earth,[96]others in the water, and others in the air, it is, according to Aristotle, absurd to suppose that no animate existence is produced in that part which is best fitted for the production of what is animate.

But the stars occupy the region of ether, and since that is highly rarefied, always in motion, and of potent quality, it is inevitable that the animate existence which is produced in it should be of the keenest sensitiveness and the readiest mobility. Since, therefore, the stars are produced in that region, it follows consistently that they possess feeling and intelligence, and by this means it is proved that they ought to be ranked among the number of divine beings.

Book III (part 15 and 16)

In the following passages Caius Velleius considers certain paradoxes surrounding God and virtue. Namely, he asks how it is that God can possess any virtue at all? God cannot be brave, because bravery would imply a potential for fear, and God has no need for fear for he is above such human emotions. More arguments are presented against the classical deities. It is believed that Christian theologians borrowed their arguments against polytheism from the passages to follow

Part 15

Then again, what kind of God can we conceive of as possessing no virtue? And yet shall we attribute sagacity to God, which consists in a knowledge of good and evil, and of what is neither good nor evil?

What need has he, in whom there is not, and cannot be, any evil, to discriminate between good and evil? And what need has he of reason and apprehension, which we employ for the purpose of obtaining by means of the evident a knowledge of the obscure, whereas to God nothing can be obscure? As for justice, the virtue which assigns to each his due, how is it appropriate to the gods? For it was the product, as you maintain, of human fellowship and association. Temperance, in the next place, consists in foregoing the pleasures of the body, and if body has a place in heaven, so also have pleasures. And how can God be conceived of as brave? Is he so in respect to pain, or labour, or danger, not one of which things affects him? How, then, can we conceive of a God who neither exercises reason, nor is possessed of any virtue?

I cannot, moreover, when I consider the things that are said by the Stoics, look down upon the folly of the multitude and the uninstructed. Instances of the conduct of the latter are as follows: the Syrians worship a fish; the Egyptians have deified almost every kind of animal; if we turn to Greece, they have there a number of gods who were once men, the Alabandi Alabandus, the people of Tenedos Tennes, and the whole nation Leucothea, whose mortal name was Ino, and her son Palæmon; while our own countrymen have Hercules, Æsculapius, the Tyndaridæ, Romulus, and several others, who they think were received into heaven like new citizens added to the roll.

Part 16

These, then, are the beliefs of the ignorant. And what do you philosophers do? In what respect better? (I say nothing of the belief I am going to mention, for it is a master-piece: let us by all means grant that the universe itself is divine. This, I suppose, is the meaning of the quotation—

The dazzling sky, which all address as Jove.

Then why do we add more gods? And what a multitude of them there are! For you reckon each single constellation as a god, and call these gods by the names either of animals, as the Goat, the Scorpion, the Bull, the Lion, or of inanimate things, as the Argo, the Altar, and the Crown.) But even if we grant this, how can what remains be, I do not say granted, but in any way understood? When we speak of corn as Ceres, and of wine as Liber, we use, it is true, a customary mode of speech, but do you think that any one is so senseless as to believe that what he is eating is the divine substance? And as for those whom you assert to have attained from the human state to the divine, it is for you to give an explanation of how that could have happened, or why it has ceased to happen, and I shall be glad to be informed. In my present mind I do not see how he to whose body, as Accius says, “torches were laid on Mount Oeta,” made his way from that conflagration “to his sire’s eternal home,” and in fact Homer represents him as being met in the under world by Ulysses just as the other dead were. At the same time I should certainly like to know which Hercules in particular we are to worship, for the investigators of the more profound and recondite accounts tell us of several. The most ancient is the son of Jupiter, and, moreover, of the most ancient Jupiter (for in the early writings of the Greeks we find also more than one Jupiter); from that Jupiter, then, and Lysithoë comes the Hercules of whom we hear that he struggled with Apollo for the tripod.

The second is reported to have been an Egyptian, the son of Nilus, and he, it is said, drew up the Phrygian books. The third is one of the Digiti of Ida, and receives funeral honours from the Coans. The fourth is the son of Jupiter and Asteria, the sister of Latona, and is worshipped principally at Tyre, the mother city, according to tradition, of Carthage. The fifth belongs to India, and is called Belus. The sixth is the one we know, born from Alcmena and begotten by Jupiter, that is, by the third Jupiter, for, as I shall proceed to show, we are told of more than one.