Studies in Xenophanes

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Studies in Xenophanes Author(s): Aryeh Finkelberg Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 93 (1990), pp. 103-167Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/311284Accessed: 26-08-2015 02:33 UTC

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STUDIES IN XENOPHANES

ARYEH FINKELBERG

T seems convenient to begin our discussion of Xenophanes' teaching with Aristotle's account at Metaph. 986b10-987al. Here Aristo-

tle classes Xenophanes with Parmenides and Melissus under the common denomination of "partisans of the One," ivi*ovtE;, and credits them with holding in common the doctrine that the universe is one unchangeable entity, a position which, in Aristotle's view, disqualifies them as collaborators in the discovery of causes.' Nevertheless, after dismissing the "partisans of the One" collectively, he proceeds to deal with each of them severally, specifying their individual positions. In doing so, he makes the principal distinction between Parmenides' and Melissus' notions of the One: the former posited unity in definition

(•arax -rv

•6yov), the latter, in matter (Icarax ilV jXrlqv). Without

entering into a long discussion, which would be inappropriate here, of Aristotle's notion of material and formal unity as such, we may observe that the criteria underlying this distinction are also operative in Aristotle's judgment on Xenophanes' concept of God, so that the definition of these criteria is prerequisite to understanding his account of Xenophanes. What, then, are Aristotle's grounds for attributing the formal unity to Parmenides and material unity to Melissus? One reason, generally recognized by commentators, is the difference in the spatial characteristics of the One (which Aristotle regards as a corollary (8t6) of the distinction between what is one in logos and in matter)- finite in Parmenides and infinite in Melissus. Another and more important indication (for the difference in the spatial characteristics is noted only parenthetically by Aristotle, in a passing remark)2 has escaped the

' Cf. Ph. 184b25. 2 Cf. W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford 1924, repr. 1958) 1.154, ad

986b22; see also J. B. McDiarmid, "Theophrastus on the Presocratic Causes," HSCP 61 (1953) 117.



104 Aryeh Finkelberg

notice of many critics, though it is explicit in Aristotle. I mean the relationship between the One and the Many: ".. . But Parmenides seems in places (rtox) [sc. in the Doxa part of his poem] to speak with more insight. For, claiming that, besides the existent, nothing non- existent exists, he thinks that of necessity only one thing exists, viz. the existent and nothing else ..., but being forced to follow the observed facts, and supposing the existence of that which is one in definition, but more than one according to our sensations, he now

(nrtatv) posits two causes and two principles ... fire and earth ... ."3 Parmenides' concept of Being as he posits it in the Aletheia does not in principle differ from Melissus';4 yet as far as the doctrine Parmenides advances in the Doxa is considered, his One, appearing to allow for sensible diversity, turns out to be unity in definition. As Aristotle puts it elsewhere: "Of those who said the universe was one, then, none succeeded in discovering a cause of this sort [sc. efficient cause], except perhaps Parmenides, and he only inasmuch as (icartx 'roaooo ov 6oov) he supposes that there is not only One but also in some sense (irow) two causes."5 Parmenides' transition from the One to "two causes and two principles" and their exact relation to the One is not altogether clear to Aristotle; yet "inasmuch as" Parmenides "in places" admits that beside the One there is somehow also plurality "according to our sensations," his notion of Being may be regarded as unity in definition.6 Thus its compatibility with the sensible manifold, together with its finitude (and more primarily than the latter) is, in Aristotle's view, indicative of the formal character of the unity postulated.

3 Metaph. 986b27 (here and elsewhere Aristotle is quoted in the Oxford translation with occasional minor changes); cf. Cael. 298b15. Rendering ntot as 'in places,' 'elsewhere' seems to me preferable to the reading 'with somewhat more insight': the former construal seems to be suggested both by the fact that Aristotle refers here to the Doxa and

by t•adtv at 986b33. 4 Cf. Aristotle's discussion in Ph. 184b15-187a10. 5 Metaph. 984b2. 6 Cf. H. Bonitz, Aristotelis Metaphysica. Commentarius (Bonn 1849, repr. Hil-

desheim 1960) 72, 84; A. E. Taylor, Aristotle on His Predecessors (repr., Chicago- London 1949) 49; Ross (above, n. 2) 1.153, ad 986b19; K. Deichgraiber, "Xenophanes nrepi (poeco;," RhM 87 (1938) 14. H. Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Phi-

losophy (Baltimore 1935) 220 n. 15, is therefore wrong in assuming that Aristotle deduces the formal character of Parmenides' and the material character of Melissus' One

only from the finitude of the former and the infinity of the latter.



Studies in Xenophanes 105

Turning now to Aristotle's account of Xenophanes, we should note two things at the outset. First, the appearance of Xenophanes' name in our passage is by no means casual: his inclusion among the "partisans of the One" is prepared from the beginning. In stating the general doctrine of those who "spoke of the universe as if it were one entity" Aris- totle, before referring to each of them by name, draws the preliminary distinctions: ".. . they are not all alike in the excellence of their statement or in its conformity to the facts of nature (tp6orov Se o*. trv

&Yrbv rtvtESm oitZE to- Kic• O; OE Tol 'CX ar" ailV iptaiv)." In what follows, the latter distinction appears to be between Parmenides (obviously, on approaching his teaching as admitting that "there is not only One but also in some sense two causes") and Melissus, while the "excellence in the statement" seems to be the distinction between the Eleatics and Xenophanes who is said to have given "no clear statement." Secondly, in classing Xenophanes with the Eleatics Aristotle does not, as it is often contended,7 merely follow the tradition which associated Xenophanes with Parmenides. Aristotle's remark "... Xenophanes, the first of these partisans of the One (for Parmenides is said8 to have been his pupil) .. ." shows that what Aristotle infers from the tradition, whatever its origin may be, is not the nature of Xeno- phanes' concept but only his historical priority over Parmenides in putting forward this specific form of monism. Moreover, Aristotle clearly distinguishes the typological affinity he observes between the Eleatic and Xenophanean notions of the One from the presumed historical influence of Xenophanes on Parmenides. In contrast to Plato who was

7 Notably by Kirk in G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philoso- phers2 (Cambridge 1983) 165.

8 Aristotle's yyerat has been much pressed to prove his alleged caution and even doubt, see, e.g., Ross (above, n. 2) 1.154, ad 986b22; W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge 1962) 1.369; D. Babut, "Sur la 'thdologie' de X6no- phane," RPhilos 99 (1974) 435; cf. W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philoso- phers (Oxford 1947) 54 n. 65, and others. Yet yyerat is regularly used in references to an established, known fact, see F. Uberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 1. Die Philosophie des Altertums12, K. Praechter ed. (Berlin 1926) 81; A. Lumpe, Die Phi- losophie des Xenophanes von Kolophon (diss. Munich 1952) 22. M. Stokes, One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy (Washington 1971) 84 n. 55, replies that "it need not be so used here," but regrettably does not explain why in this particular case the word need not be used as it is regularly elsewhere.




ready to allow Xenophanes as one of the "Eleatic tribe,"9 Aristotle coins the word ivitovtE; to cover both Xenophanes and the Eleatics, without, however, implying the unity of 'school'; if this precaution has proved inadequate to save Aristotle from misinterpretation by some modem scholars, the blame is not his.10 To conclude, Aristotle deliberately groups Xenophanes with Parmenides and Melissus, and in doing so he proceeds from the nature of Xenophanes' concept rather than from historical or other considerations.

From Aristotle's counting Xenophanes with the "partisans of the One" it follows that he considers the Xenophanean God to be the entire universe envisaged as one unchangeable entity. Now, as in the case of the Eleatics, Aristotle proceeds to specify Xenophanes' individual position: he states regarding Xenophanes what he has already said regarding the "partisans of the One" collectively, namely, that Xenophanes' One is identical with the whole of existence, "with his sight on the whole of the world he says that the One is, viz. God,"" and notes that Xenophanes "gave no clear statement." This remark has been taken to the effect that Aristotle "obviously could not understand what Xeno- phanes meant by his one motionless god."12 Yet this is a conclusion hardly to be inferred from Aristotle's text. What Aristotle plainly means in saying that Xenophanes "gave no clear statement, nor does he seem to have grasped the nature of these [sc. formal and material causes]" is that, having declared the universe to be One God, Xeno- phanes did not specify, in one way or another, whether the unity he postulated was formal, like that of Parmenides, or material, like that of Melissus, and moreover, he seems to be altogether unaware of this difference. 13

9 Sophist 242D (= H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,5 W. Kranz ed. [Berlin 1934] 21 A 29).

10 Thus, e.g., J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy4 (London 1930) 126, says that "the context shows he [Aristotle] means to suggest he [Xenophanes] was the first of the Eleat- ics"; similarly McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 119.

1 Cf. Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1. 369, 380-381 n. 1; alternatively: "that the One is God." I do not see why Kirk (above, n. 7) 172, declares this phrase to be "cryptic," the more so in that he himself does not doubt that Aristotle's wording "clearly implies" (my italics) that he considers Xenophanes' God to be identical with the world.

12 Kirk (above, n. 7) 171; cf. Stokes (above, n. 8) 83. 13 E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung6

(Leipzig 1919, repr. Hildesheim, 1963) 1.631 (followed, among others, by Uberweg- Praechter (above, n. 8) 74; Burnet (above, n. 10) 124; cf. H. Diels, Doxographi Graeci4 [Berlin 1965] 110 and n. 1) is wrong in interpreting Aristotle's remark about Xeno-




Now why could Aristotle not determine which kind of unity was

posited by Xenophanes? To answer this question we should recall that in forming his judgment concerning the respective natures of Par- menides' and Melissus' One, Aristotle was relying on two criteria, the spatial characteristics of the One and its compatibility with "more than one according to our sensations." The lack of clear statement on Xeno- phanes' part must therefore mean the lack of unambiguous determination of God in precisely these two respects. This is to say that in Xeno- phanes Aristotle found neither direct statements nor indirect indications as to whether he assumed that God, though one entity, nevertheless allowed internal diversity and whether he conceived of God as finite or infinite.14 The former obscurity is surprising. Melissus consistently denied the sensible manifold, but Parmenides "in places" spoke "with more insight," that is, supplemented his doctrine of the One with that of "two causes and two principles"; on Aristotle's account, Xenophanes seems to have done neither. Aristotle, however, knew that, beside the doctrine of the One, Xenophanes, like Parmenides, advanced cosmo- gonical and cosmological doctrines one of which, namely, that earth stretches indefinitely dawnwards, he discusses in De Caelo;15 yet strangely enough, Aristotle does not take Xenophanes' cosmology as an indication of the formal character of his One, as he does in the case of Parmenides. Below, in examining Theophrastus' account of Xeno- phanes, Aristotle's reasons will become clear; here we must content ourselves with the mere statement of this fact.

phanes' lack of clarity as referring to the lack of specification of God's spatial characteristics. See the criticism of this exegesis in: Cherniss (above, n. 6) 201 n. 228; McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 117; P. Steinmetz, "Xenophanesstudien," RhM 109 (1966) 47; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.369 and n. 2; cf. Bonitz (above, n. 6) 84 ("... naturam eius unitatis non descripsit, nihil potest a hanc de generibus causarum questionem conferre.") and Ross (above, n. 2) 1.154, ad 986b22.

14 Cf. Jaeger (above, n. 8) 43 n. 23, and esp. 53. K. von Fritz, "Xenophanes," RE, ser. 2, 9.2 (1967) 1555, is right in that Aristotle says that Xenophanes did not clearly indicate whether the unity he postulated was formal or material, not that he did not clearly express whether God was finite or infinite (cf. above, n. 13). Yet this is not to say, as von Fritz does, that Aristotle's account provides no evidence on the latter point: the spatial characteristics are taken by him as indicative of the kind of unity, and his uncertainty as to whether Xenophanes' God is a formal or material One is direct evidence that Xeno- phanes, inter alia, did not determine whether his God was finite or infinite.

15 294a21 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 47).




Thus, not finding in the "theological" context evidence for whether Xenophanes allowed the inner diversity of his One, and, for reasons we have not yet specified, avoiding use of Xenophanes' cosmological doctrine as such evidence, and in the absence of indications whether Xeno- phanes conceived of God as finite or infinite (and other possible indications which he perhaps would have been ready to accept as such), Aris- totle preferred to count God with neither kind of unity, rather suggesting that Xenophanes was unaware of the difference. It is because of this "naivete" that he finally dismisses Xenophanes together with Mel- issus, whose "naivet6," however, is apparently of another sort,-the crude concept of the One as a material unity, which is incompatible with "the facts of nature."16

To sum up, Aristotle maintained that Xenophanes' God was the entire universe envisaged as one unchangeable entity, yet the precise sense of God's oneness and unchangeability was not clear to him.17 In fact, he found no way of determining whether the unity postulated by Xenophanes was that in definition (and thus allowed inner diversity and hence motion) or that in matter (in which case plurality and motion were totally excluded). In these circumstances, Aristotle preferred to leave the issue undecided and blame Xenophanes himself.18

16 Cf. Bonitz (above, n. 6) 84, and Ross (above, n. 2) 1.152, ad 986b27. I do not think, as Ross does, that Aristotle's criticism of Melissus' argumentation (Soph. El. 167b12) is of relevance here.

171I can find no support in Aristotle for Steinmetz' conclusion (above, n. 13) 48, that, in Aristotle's opinion, "1. Die AuBerungen des Xenophanes zielen auf Gott, sind also

eigentlich Theologie. 2. In dieser Theologie steckt ein ontologischer Kern ..." Nowhere does Aristotle regard Xenophanes' concept of God as theological; on the contrary, he

clearly regards it as ontological, as his classing of Xenophanes with the Eleatics proves. J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers2 (London 1982) 84 n. 6, thinks that in doing so Aristotle is misled by Plato (see above, n. 9); yet Timon's fr. 59 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 35) speaks in favor of both Plato's and Aristotle's views. The very question whether Xenophanes' concept was theological or ontological presupposes an anachronis- tic distinction and results from underestimating the "theological" purport of the early speculation (on which see my "On the Unity of Orphic and Milesian Thought," HThR 79 [1986] 321-335 and "The Milesian Monistic Doctrine and the Development of Preso- cratic Thought," Hermes 117 [1989] 257-270), as well as from the misinterpretation of

Theophrastus' words quoted in Simplicius (on which see below in the text). 18 McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 117, is correct in pointing out that ".. . Aristotle ... is

admitting his own lack of evidence for classing Xenophanes with either Parmenides or Melissus" but comes to the surprising conclusion that "Aristotle concludes that whatever

Xenophanes meant, it was something different from the doctrines of Parmenides and Me- lissus." This idea seems to arise from the strange classification found in Cherniss (above,




Aristotle's attribution of unchangeability to God can be checked against Xenophanes' authentic lines. The first relevant piece isfr. 26:

Always he remains in the same [place], not moving at all, nor it is fitting for him to go now here and now there.

It has been suggested that dvqonag is to be taken here in its "philosophic" sense, i.e., as covering the whole field of change.19 Quite apart from the question in which respect Xenophanes' God is actually unmoved, the assumption as such is altogether wrong: it is anachronis- tic to read into Xenophanes' tcavo•gEvo; oi~Ev the much later technical sense of ytvrqotg. Moreover, the context leaves no doubt that what Xenophanes means is locomotion.20 This, however, does not imply, as some scholars contend, that locomotion is the only kind of movement Xenophanes denies his God.21 Let us consider another relevant line, fr. 25:

But without toil he shakes all things by the will of his mind.22

The fact that God's accomplishments are effortless entails his absolute repose, which amounts to the denial of both locomotion and distur-

n. 6) 220 n. 15: "Xenophanes does not say anything which can show in which way he meant the unity he championed to be understood [viz. whether it is formal or material], and Aristotle decides that it was with a view to the whole universe that he said that the One is God." Does Cherniss mean that the unity declared "with a view to the whole universe" need not be either formal or material?

19 Notably by H. Frankel, Dichtung und Philosophie des friihen Griechentums (New York 1951) 428.

20 Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1546-1547; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1. 382; Babut (above, n. 8) 430, and some others.

21 See Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1. 382 (cf. F. M. Cornford, Principium Sapientiae [Cam- bridge 1952] 147), who asserts that &civrlroq in Metaph. 986b14 must mean "ungenerated." But does not Aristotle say: ". .. some at least of those who maintain it to be one ... say the one and nature as a whole is unchangeable not only in respect of generation

and destrucilton (for this is a primitive belief, and all agreed in it), but also of all other change; and this view is peculiar to them" (Metaph. 984a29)? This equally applies to the suggestion of F. M. Cleve, The Giants of the Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy (The Hague 1965) 24, that God is unchangeable only in respect of his size.

22 On v6oi cppEvi see: K. von Fritz, "NOYX, NOEIN and Their Derivatives in Preso- cratic Philosophy 'excluding Anaxagoras)," CP 40 (1945) 229-230; see also S. M. Darcus, "The Phren of the Noos in Xenophanes' God," SO 53 (1978) 25-39.




bance. Xenophanes' God thus always remains in the same place and in the same state, which is tantamount to freedom from all kinds of movement including change.23

God's identity with the entire universe is not only implied by group- ing God with Eleatic Being but is also explicitly and unambiguously pointed out by Aristotle: "with his sight on the whole of the world he says that the One is, viz. God." Still, some critics challenge this report.24 How, we are asked, can God, if unmoved and indentical with the world, be said, as in fr. 25, to move all things? Does this not rather suggest that unchangeable God is distinct from the changeable inivta, the totality of things, which he sets in motion?25 To examine the validity of this objection we must consider the question from three points of view, doxographic, logical, and historical.

In equating Xenophanes' God with the whole of existence Aristotle concurs with Plato who, relating Xenophanes to the "Eleatic tribe," specifies their-and hence also Xenophanes' -teaching as the unity of "what we call all things."26 Theophrastus, as we shall see later, and the Sceptic Timon who, being an admirer and imitator of Xenophanes' poetry, was necessarily well acquainted with it,27 adhered to the same

23 Xenophanes' criticism of the popular belief that the gods are born (fr. 14) implies that God is also ungenerated and a fortiori everlasting (cf. Xenophanes' apophthegms collected in Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] under 21 A 12). Babut (above, n. 8) 434, thinks that "l'immobilit6 de Dieu n'est en d6finitive que la cons6quence imm&diate de son apti- tude A r6aliser sa volont6 A distance." Yet God's immobility is but a particular aspect of his unchangeability (which Babut is not ready to accept in Xenophanes), the explanation of which should be looked for in the ontological purport of the concept of God.

24 On various grounds, see K. Reinhardt, Parmenides und die Geschichte der

griechischen Philosophie (Bonn 1916) 116, 122, 125, 152; Cherniss (above, n. 6) 201 n. 228; O. Gigon, Der Ursprung der griechischen Philosophie (Basel 1945) 184; Jaeger (above, n. 8) 43; Lumpe (above, n. 8) 22-26; J. Kerschensteiner, Kosmos (Miinchen 1962) 90-93; Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 171-172.

25 Frainkel (above, n. 19) 428, 431-432; cf. Lumpe (above, n. 8) 23; Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 171-172.

26 Sophist 242D (Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 29). Stokes (above, n. 8) 84, says that "Aristotle is clearly ... Eleaticizing Xenophanes. But his involuntary Eleaticization does not proceed so far as to credit Xenophanes explicitly with the view ... that all things (meaning the world) are one." Does Stokes mean that Aristotle did not count Xeno-

phanes with the "partisans of the One" or that he did not say that the "partisans of the One" spoke of the universe "as if it were one entity"?

27 Fr. 59. On Timon as an independent source on Xenophanes see: Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 35-37; cf. Barnes (above, n. 17) 98.




view of God. The consensus is indeed impressive: including all our best and most ancient authorities, it comprises the most diverse sources, ranging from Plato to the Peripatetics and the Sceptics. The doctrine is thus one of the best attested Presocratic conceptions, and anyone who seeks to dismiss it must be prepared to face this fact. Yet, to my knowledge, no really convincing explanation of it has been ever proposed.28 Now the Xenophanean line known to us as fr. 25 was known to the ancients as well, yet it did not prevent them from equating God with the world. Must we therefore conclude that Plato, Aristo- tle, Theophrastus, and Timon totally lost their acumen in their stubborn determination to impose on Xenophanes, by their joint efforts, an idea he never even dreamed of? Or would it be wiser to admit that they knew what they were talking about and that, had modern critics known the full context of this saying, they would never have argued in the way they do?

But is God's immobility indeed incompatible with his being identi-

28 The often repeated claim that Aristotle misrepresents Xenophanes because he wrongly regards him as a "primitive Eleatic" is the bold petitio principii. Besides, why should he do this? With slight variations, the popular explanation runs along the following lines: in relating Xenophanes to the "Eleatic tribe" Plato was possibly joking; Aristo- tle probably took this remark too seriously, while Theophrastus, of course, only repeated his master's opinion. As simply as that,-see: Burnet (above, n. 10) 127; Cherniss (above, n. 6) 353, cf. 201 n. 228; Jaeger (above, n. 8) 53-54 and esp. n. 65; Fr'inkel (above, n. 19) 432 n. 13; McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 119-120 (approved by H. Schwabl, "Der Forschungsbericht. Die Eleaten," Anzeiger f. d. Altertumswissenschaft 10 [1957] 211); Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 165; cf. Ross (above, n. 2) 1.154, ad 986b22; the list can easily be lengthened. But what of the possibility that one of the actors in this comedy of doxographic errors misread his part,-for example, Plato was serious, Aristo- tle was not a credulous simpleton, or Theophrastus disappointingly consulted Xeno- phanes' verses? (For a balanced view of Theophrastus as a historical source on Pre- socratic philosophy see: C. Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology [New York 1960] 17-24.) To demonstrate that Plato's remark was not intended as a serious historical judgment it is usual to point out that to the statement that the "Eleatic tribe" starts from Xenophanes he adds the phrase "and even before" which most likely refers first and foremost to the Milesians (cf. Jaeger [above, n. 8] 54 n. 65). The presumption thus seems to be that anyone who speaks of Eleatic monism as evolving from Milesian monism must be joking. Apart from the intrinsic merits of this presumption, it may be noted that Aristotle says precisely that at Metaph. 984a27 and he is not joking. But even supposing that Plato was playful, while the Peripatetics, totally lacking in humor, were ready to turn all Plato's joking into historical fact, what about Timon's evidence? Was he also guided by Plato's remarks? Or perhaps he was reading Xenophanes' verses in an edition with a Peripatetic commentary?




cal with the world? Obviously not, provided that God is conceived as an intelligible essence unifying the sensible manifold,-in Aristotle's terms, the One in definition. Now it seems that fr. 25 suggests just this idea of unity. From the more general point of view, this understanding of God is required by the fact that, beside the concept of the unchangeable One, Xenophanes posited a cosmological doctrine which in its very essence assumes plurality and change. If in trying to understand Xenophanes' position we wish to spare ourselves the difficulties which generations of Parmenidean scholars have experienced in adopting the formal approach to Parmenides' system, with the inevitable result of viewing his mind as split between the real and the fantasy world,29 we will have to grant Xenophanes a more or less unified outlook, that is, to assume the "formal" character of his One. I am aware of the objection that logically necessary is not the same as historically true or even

plausible, and I shall therefore turn now to the historical aspect of the issue.

Do we indeed possess historical evidence that allows us to credit

Xenophanes with such a sophisticated idea of unity? Fortunately, we do. The idea in fact antedates Xenophanes, being attested, at least in a

rudimentary form, in Anaximander. I mean Diogenes' report that, according to Anaximander, "the parts change, while the whole is

unchangeable."30 "The whole" referred to here can hardly be anything other than the Apeiron which is therefore said to remain unchangeable notwithstanding the changes of its "parts," i.e., the various components of the developed world. If my interpretation is correct, the Apeiron appears here as a selfsame intelligible essence unifying the changeable manifold.31 I do not intend to claim that this concept of the Apeiron is

predominant in Anaximander; all I wish to show is that Anaximander

29 "A doctrine which, taken literally, might seem to be either madness or sheer sophis- try" (C. Kahn, "The Thesis of Parmenides," Review of Metaphysics 22 [1969] 715); "As to whether Parmenides himself accepted these conclusions ... we can merely guess ... perhaps he believed it all the time, and was mad" (M. Furth, "Elements of Eleatic Ontol-

ogy," in A. P. D. Mourelatos ed., The Pre-Socratics [New York 1974] 296). There is

something decidedly wrong with the interpretation of a philosophic doctrine that requires one to assume the insanity of its author.

30 Diog. 2. 1 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 12 A 1). 31 It is not impossible that it was Anaximander, and precisely for this reason, whom

Plato primarily had in mind when he said that the "Eleatic tribe" started even before

Xenophanes (cf. above, n. 28).




occasionally touches upon the idea of the intelligible unity of the manifold. But occasional as it may be, the idea is not incidental: it arose, as I argue elsewhere, in response to the inadequacy of the material form of monism.32 Consequently, if truly understood, the idea had to produce a profound effect on the monistic thinker aware, as already Anax- imander evidently was, of the failure of material monism to provide a consistently monistic picture. Now who is a better candidate for the role of such a thinker than Ionian-born and Ionian-educated Xeno- phanes who in his youth, as Theophrastus tells us, was personally acquainted with Anaximander33 and who, as Aristotle puts it, was the first of the "partisans of the One," that is, the champions of the new kind of monism?34

I conclude that the Xenophanean concept of God as the single and unchangeable, intelligible essence unifying the manifold, an essence endowed with divine powers and causing and controlling all that goes on in the world, must be the development of one of the facets of the Anaximandrean notion of the Apeiron, the divine substance underlying the entire universe and governing it.35

32 "The Milesian Monistic Doctrine" (above, n. 17). The insuperable difficulty of material monism is the logical impossibility to reduce the sensible manifold to one of its members or, to put it otherwise, both to maintain the existence of the manifold and to claim it to be a self-identical definite body.

33 Diog. 9. 21 (= Theophr. fr. 6a = Diel-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 2); cf. Diels-Kranz (above, n. 9) 28 A 1. See also von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1543. McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 119, declares that "... to complete the Eleatic line of descent Theophrastus adds that Xenophanes was the pupil of Anaximander-apparently on no other grounds than Aristotle's questionable supposition that the Eleatic doctrine was an outgrowth and a reaction against the Ionian monism." Apart from the implied accusation that Theo- phrastus committed deliberate historical falsification, we must ask whether what fits Aristotle's notions must necessarily be dismissed as unhistorical?

34 On the dependence of Xenophanes' meteorology on Anaximander's see Kahn (above, n. 28) 204.

35 So understood the Xenophanean concept is the direct forerunner of Parmenides' idea of Being as the intelligible unity underlying the world composed of fire and night,-see my "Parmenides: Between Material and Logical Monism," AGPh 70 (1988) 1-14.




Turning now to Theophrastus, let us begin with his general approach to Xenophanes' concept of God which is outlined in the statement quoted by Simplicius:36

Theophrastus says that Xenophanes of Colophon, the teacher of Parmenides, assumes that the principle is one, or that being and the whole is one, and he agrees that the mention of Xenophanes' opinion rather belongs to a study other than that concerned with natural philosophy.

Some critics take these words to mean that Theophrastus, presumably following Aristotle in the passage discussed above, dismisses Xenophanes' idea of the One as too "naive" to be included within the framework of his inquiry.37 The Greek, however, does not mean this; what it says is simply that Theophrastus adjudges the account of Xeno-

phanes' One to be more appropriate elsewhere. Where, then, if not in the study of natural philosophy, should, in Theophrastus' view, the Xenophanean notion of God be considered?38 The clue is found in Aristotle at De Caelo 298b15:

Some removed generation and destruction from the world altogether. ... So maintained the school of Melissus and Parmenides. But however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature. There may be

things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, but if so

36 Phys. 22.22 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 31). 37 E.g., Jaeger (above, n. 8) 40 and n. 2; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.367; Babut (above,

n. 8) 436. The wide currency of this misinterpretation is the more surprising in that it not

only has no textual support in the Greek of Simplicius' quotation, but is also at variance with the indisputable fact that Theophrastus does account for Xenophanes' doctrine, cf. Diels (above, n. 13) 113.

38 It has been suggested that this domain must be theology. This is the view of Diels

(in Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] ad loc., retained by Kranz: "Xen. gehire eigentlich zur

Theologie"; but see Diels (above, n. 13) 109-110) which has become standard in Xeno-

phanean scholarship, see, among others, Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 102; Deichgrliber (above, n. 6) 13 and n. 23; M. Untersteiner, Senofane, testimonianze eframmenti (Firenze 1956) cxciv n. 94; Barnes (above, n. 17) 86 n. 6.




they belong to another and higher inquiry than the study of nature. They [the Eleatics], however, had no idea of any form of being other than the substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what was true of them to things perceived.

In criticizing the Eleatics Aristotle proceeds here from his principal distinction between changeable, viz. corporeal being, the study of which falls in the domain of natural philosophy, and unchangeable, viz. incor- poreal being, to inquire into which is the business of first philosophy, the highest kind of philosophic investigation. The Eleatics' fault lies in their confounding the two provinces. Insofar as they assumed the unchangeable, they were speaking as true metaphysicians,39 but insofar as they attributed unchangeableness to what was corporeal, i.e., to essentially changeable being or nature, their teaching appeared to be a natural philosophy and a mistaken one. If then the Eleatics have philosophic merits, these are to be found in the province of first philosophy rather than in philosophy of nature. As Aristotle says elsewhere, "while inquiring into truth concerning being, they assumed being to be the perceptible alone."40

The locution Theophrastus uses in his judgment on Xenophanes' God, -'rpa;q evatt t0XXov Tfi; nrepi poGEA(o iaoropia•, is the same as Aristotle's t&^XX6v oEatv -'~pat Kai t rporpa;q i 1 qniuotfjiG oCfIVEWo; in his judgment on the Eleatics, and Theophrastus' -Trpa ioropia can hardly mean other than his master's -Trpa Ka 7rpot rpa oGiVt;, that is, first philosophy. What Theophrastus is saying is that the account of Xenophanes' idea of God as the unchangeable One belongs not so much to the study of natural philosophy with which he is preoccupied, as to that of first philosophy.41 It is thus an application to Xenophanes of Aristotle's approach to the Eleatics. Theophrastus thus shares his master's view of Xenophanes' God as a concept kindred to Eleatic

39 Cf. Ph. 184b25; 185a12. 40 Metaph. 1010al. 41 Cf. Diels (above, n. 13) 109-110 (cf. above, n. 38): "nimirum quae primae philoso-

phiae sunt a naturalium rerum cognitione arcet."




Being,42 but so far it is still unclear with which kind of unity he counts the Xenophanean One.43

The synoptic picture of the Xenophanean doxography concerning his "theological" teaching (Table 1) shows that the unity of "the whole" (2) and its equation with God (4) are two statements which constitute the solid core of the original account: they are found in almost all our sources ultimately depending on Theophrastus and in almost identical formulation. The divine whole is said to be unchangeable in Hippolytus and Cicero and eternally selfsame in Ps.-Plutarch (3), which is, in effect the same thing.

Now let us compare this presumably Theophrastean description with those found in Aristotle and Timon (Table 2). The resemblance between the three descriptions adduced in Table 2, which cannot stem from each other (the fact that Theophrastus' description goes beyond Aristotle's shows that, even if he took his master's formulation into consideration, he definitely consulted the original, as the parallel with Timon also indicates), confirms that all three authors paraphrase certain Xenophanean lines." (piaot 6ooirl in Timon's paraphrase speaks in favor of Ps.-Plutarch's &ei i0t1otov,

with Hippolytus' "•o pzrEOT3oXfi and Cicero's neque mutabile as a gloss. The fact that we have here the paraphrase of Xenophanes' lines is of the utmost importance, for we are now in a position to verify the doxographic equation of God with the world and to assess its correctness finally and completely.

In Hippolytus and Ps.-Plutarch the paraphrase (2)-(3)-(4) is preceded by similar statements (1). Taking into account that in Hippolytus

42 Cf. McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 116. 43 Barnes (above, n. 17) 84 n. 6, is correct in that "Theophrastus did not say (pace

Jaeger ... [cf. above, n. 37]) that Xenophanes was not a physiologos; rather he said that

Xenophanes' alleged monism was not a 'physical opinion."' Yet Barnes believes that

Theophrastus relates the Xenophanean monistic doctrine to theology (cf. above, n. 38) and in consequence misinterprets the intended meaning of Theophrastus' remark: "Xeno-

phanes' theological monism was lightheartedly construed by Plato as an ontological monism; Theophrastus solemnly indicates that Plato is romancing." Setting aside the assumption that Plato misconstrued Xenophanes' doctrine, Theophrastus means nothing like this; he, like Aristotle, shares Plato's notion of Xenophanes' God as an ontological concept.

44 Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 37 and n. 69, 47-48, assesses the paraphrase on the strength of the resemblance between Aristotle's and Timon's wordings; as does also Barnes

(above, n. 17) 99. Stokes (above, n. 8) 71, in his turn, observes the resemblance in word-

ing between Aristotle and the doxographies stemming from Theophrastus but makes no constructive conclusions.




oi03 icvEi^zat seems to be superfluous in view of 50 tRetapooXfig

in the next phrase and that all other sources which refer to God's immobility mention it considerably later, in (11), we should regard Hippolytus' version as a loose paraphrase and prefer Ps.-Plutarch's wording.

The paraphrase which defines the essence of Xenophanes' concept of God is followed by statements of his characteristics. Three possibilities are given in (5): ungenerated45 (represented by the argument in Ps.-Plutarch and by another such argument in Simplicius where the order of (5) and (6) is reversed); 'ungenerated and eternal'46 in Cicero and Theodoretus, in the latter (10); and 'eternal' in Hippolytus. The question whether 'eternal' is a gloss cannot be answered with certainty, but 'eternal' alone in Hippolytus seems to be wrong.47

Though God's oneness appears only in two sources, in Hippolytus (6) and Simplicius (5) in whom it is again represented by the argument, this attribution is nevertheless highly plausible, as the paraphrase (2)- (3)-(4) strongly suggests. As distinct from oneness, Hippolytus' and Alexander's predication of God's homogeneity (7) is wrong. True, fr. 24 implies that God is somehow homogeneous qua single common sensorium.48 Still, homogeneity is not here God's attribute on its own merits but the implicit corollary of his perceiving as a whole. Indeed, had Aristotle found in Xenophanes the explicit statement of God's homogeneity, he need not have deliberated whether or not God somehow allows internal diversity and, since he ignored Xenophanes' cosmology, he would definitely have taken the Xenophanean One as unity in matter. Homogeneity thus was not in Xenophanes, and this, together with the fact that it is found only in two sources, strongly suggests that it was not in Theophrastus either; rather it is to be regarded as a later

45 Cf. fr. 14. 46 Cf. Arist. Rh. 1399b5; 1400b5 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 12, 13). 47 Stokes (above, n. 8) 70, is perhaps right in taking Adtius' attribution of ungenerated-

ness and eternity to the cosmos as supporting the Theophrastean origin of 'ungenerated' and 'eternal' as applied to God (AMt. 2.4.11 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 37). But his tentative conclusion that being found in Cicero (Acad. 2.118 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 34) they justify regarding Cicero's omnia (plural) as also Theophrastean is unwarranted. In Theodoretus (4.5 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 36) who also says that God is ungenerated and eternal the subject is in the singular, see Table 1.

48 On God as the common sensorium see von Fritz (above, n. 22) 228-230; cf. Gigon (above, n. 24) 185; Jaeger (above, n. 8) 44; Lumpe (above, n. 8) 18; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.375.




Table 1

Hippol. Ps.-Plut. Simpl. Cic. Ps.-Galen Haer. 1.14 Strom. 4 Phys. 22.22 Acad. 2.118 Hist. Phil. 7

oMboy yive•~ t oiTe y~veatv

o& ov?s 0peiperat Topiav o-V& KtVEdat arO

aLtLt,

2 Kai iOn Ev a , ETvat gav & Miv unum esse Tvat

T6 siRv ontv fYVtt r6 n&v ap•rv rIlot

Ev omnia ndzvEa Tv To ov Kat irav.

3 i( daE neque id

LeTaxo•i;. 8iiotov" esse mutabile

4 TplTYoip y F p v et id Kal ot

oo Kat ?Tv Tou3To iai esse deum

IOnpX•etv y•EOv dvat In&v Ov OEOov

OEv 'AeyEv,

5 datov [dIyvriltov: 8v Fva CvV neque natum argument] i~iKcvUotv umquam et

[argument] sempiternum,

6 Iai tva dy~vi1Tov [argument]

7 Kati iaotov nvcivT1

8 Kai

ni•eepao-

oiiTe & conglobata nen•epao- REvov Kait netpov o)tE figura. ivov,

oqtatpoe~tm nerepaoL~d vov eFvat . ..

9

10

11 oute

'tvoV- ;OYtKov, UE vov oIUre

gLEVOV OUtFE

lpegofvV...

12 Kati taot adeta- TotS Loptot; OlTrlov. atoOrlonK6v.

13 Kai zirdvra voiv 5U

prlotv aabxb X~Myov "&zaX' ... •Kpacat- vet" [B 25].

14




Table 1 (continued) Sext. Emp. Theodoret. Diogenes Alexander Nicolaus Pyr. 1.224 4.5 9.19 ap. Simpl. ap. Simpl.

2 v Evat v dvat 7b L&v, 7r L&v

iE~pioe

3

4 mKa v olaitv Oebv o•upvfi O eoe rot; naotv,

5

6

7 navraXdOeV o8otov

8 edvat 8 o'zttpoet&- opatpoetm i, nEnepaogpv ov •ratpov ompatpoetL8 Ka) Kat Kat

nEnEpacLovOV, octpatpOetm

9 ptyuiv 4otov EXo-oav 10 0o YEVtIo)V

aXStov

11 m ri tnaOfi mti

an•av d tvar7ov

Kat artvtrlov.

Xl9Trov 12 Ka'i 8Pov 8E

oyLKdv. Opav Kati 0 Kov duoiEtV,

g11 ~lEVTOt

dvvat voi3v

pcp6vlvotv

13

14 Kati itov.



Table 2

Aristotle Metaph. 986b24 Theophrastus Timonfr. 59

... ei 6 Xov kov o-pavbv v tb vv

cai av Cont Ei; av raoit re n&v [= tb ^ v149 Ol9oX1Jf; VELiEtO t6b ev dvai prlat

i0 g•taloXok/e__

inayv 8' bv aiei tadvt

o•otvov &vexicogevov giav eit piuatv i'raO' 6~ooilv.

tbv OE6v. icai rouro 06 0E6; cott.

49 & )o; opav6; does not here mean 'sky' (in which W. P6tscher, "Zu Xenophanes, Frgm. 23," Emerita 32 [1964] 11-12, is correct pace Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] adfr. 23; cf. also Bonitz [above, n. 6] 84; Cleve [above, n. 21] 25) but rather 'the whole world,' cf. Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 171-172, and is synonymous with 6 0kXov icai nx&v in Cae. 278b9-22. See Ross (above, n. 2) 1.154, ad 986b24.

bO o>

t•

t•?




doxographic addition after the pattern of Parmenides' Being.5o All our sources, Ps.-Plutarch being an honorable exception, ascribe

one or another spatial characteristic to Xenophanes' God (8). The overwhelming majority are in favor of finitude and/or sphericity; Cicero, who in Acad. 2.118 adheres to this attribution, surprisingly changes his mind in Nat. D. 1.11.28, where he ascribes infinity to God; Nicolaus Damascenus is also in favor of infinity, as Simplicius reports; he himself proposes the apparently wrong 'neither finite nor infinite.' Diels takes the majority opinion as authoritative and deduces the Theo- phrastean origin of 'finite' and 'spherical.'51 Yet we saw that Aristotle could find nothing in Xenophanes to indicate whether God is finite or infinite.52 Where then did Theophrastus obtain the information which had been unavailable to Aristotle? The suggestion which first comes to

50 Some critics (see Burnet [above, n. 10] 125 n. 1; Deichgriiber [above, n. 6] 27 and n. 44; Barnes [above, n. 17] 98-99) take Timon's fr. 60 (... OEbv ... Toov &ncvrT (d&rpefii) d&acr0i voespotepov in

vorl•ta) as an evidence of God's homogeneity. Here,

however, as distinct from fr. 59, Timon obviously goes far beyond Xenophanes' wording and even Xenophanes' very idea, for it is of course needless to argue that Xenophanes could neither speak nor conceive of God as voep•kepog; i v6rlLa. Timon here accom- modates Xenophanes' notion to later conceptual patterns, so that we need not, while rejecting

voeptrepov i7 v6rlega, take Toov &nainv as more authentic, and the fact that

Aristotle did not know about God's homogeneity indeed proves that it is not authentic. This, however, is not to say that the word i8goto; did not occur in Xenophanes: Table 2 shows that Deichgrdiber (above, n. 6) is correct in suggesting that the word can be traced back to Xenophanes. But we must distinguish between gLoto; without qualification or qualified with &eli (as in Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 32; cf. Timon fr. 59.6: 6pion; 6jooir) which gives 'the same,' 'selfsame,' and ~igoto; qualified with adverbials like

ixcvrl,, cavax~•68Ev, or riavral (Hippol. Haer. 1.14; Simpl. Phys. 22.22;

Timon fr. 60 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 33, 31, 35) which means 'everywhere the same,' viz. 'homogeneous.' The appearance of 'homogeneous' in some doxographers is thus easily explicable, especially in view of Parmenides' use of i"Lotov.

51 Diels (above, n. 13) 111 and n. 3, 112 and n. 2, 113; cf. Burnet (above, n. 10) 125; McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 117; Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 54.

52 Diels (above, n. 13) 110 n. 1, quoting with approval Susemihl's (wrong, see above, n. 13) exegesis of Metaph. 986b22, does not explain why Theophrastus allegedly goes against his master's opinion here. The fact that Aristotle unambiguously testifies that Xenophanes did not provide God with spatial characteristics does not prevent many Xenophanean scholars from asserting the sphericity of God, a temptation their ancient colleagues also could not resist, see, e.g., Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 115-116; DeichgrAiber (above, n. 6) 27 and n. 45; Gigon (above, n. 24) 183; B. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind, trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer (New York 1982) 142; Kahn (above, n. 28) 80; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.376-379; Cleve (above, n. 21) 10-11, 14; Barnes (above, n. 17) 98-99; Darcus (above, n. 22) esp. 30-31.




mind is that Theophrastus, who, as distinct from Aristotle, took into account not only the 'theological' but also the physical part of Xeno- phanes' teaching, found finitude and/or sphericity in the latter and, assuming the identity between the world and God, transferred it to God. Yet apart from the lack of any evidence that Xenophanes asserted the finitude and/or sphericity of the world, this possibility is precluded by Theophrastus' view of Xenophanes' physical and 'theological' doctrines as issuing from alternative cognitive approaches--aistheseis and logos (see below), which makes it impossible for him to come to conclusions about one of these doctrines on the basis of the other. Must we therefore with Diels, who indicates as Theophrastean REltEpaaotI- vov 6•K icai opatpoEti a&r6 [sc. Ti Gn&v = tbv OE v] 6t& 16 ravta-

X60EV iotIov VCyEtv in Simplicius, suggest the Theophrastean origin of the inference of God's finitude and sphericity from his homogeneity as found by Simplicius in Alexander?53 Hardly, for Theophrastus, as we concluded, did not attribute homogeneity to Xenophanes' God, nor did Alexander, as Simplicius' report makes clear, ever claim that this inference had been drawn by Theophrastus. From a more general point of view, it is highly improbable that such an invention could belong to Theophrastus: the inference is historically unwarranted, for while Par- menides derived the finitude of his Being from its homogeneity (fr. 8.42-49), another 'partisan of the One,' Melissus, conceived of Being as homogeneous and yet infinite. Could Theophrastus indeed have overlooked this? And to saddle Theophrastus with such a historically crude inference one ought to be able, at least, to suggest some reason for his making it. Yet there was no such reason: as we shall see, Theo- phrastus neither interpreted Xenophanes' God as formal unity, in which case he might have sought support for his approach in God's finitude, nor tried to find similarities everywhere between Xenophanes' and Par- menides' teachings.

On no account therefore can the finitude and/or sphericity of Xeno- phanes' God be plausibly attributed to Theophrastus. The fact that all our sources, with the exception of Ps.-Plutarch, provide God with one or other spatial characteristic only proves the relatively early (at least as early as Cicero) corruption of the Theophrastean account, while the consensus of the majority of these sources on God's finitude and sphericity shows that the assimilation of God to Parmenides' Being was the

53 Diels (above, n. 13) 481 and n. ad loc.; cf. above, n. 51.




predominant tendency.54 When homogeneity and sphericity penetrated into the Theophrastean report, it is only natural that they should have been connected in the Parmenidean manner, i.e., the latter was taken as entailed by the former.55

We merely mention (9) which is a paraphrase of fr. 23, and (10) the appearance of which here is obviously the result of some rearrange- ment of the original order, and come to (11). Here four of our authorities (in Ps.-Galen (11) and (12) are reversed) are concerned with God's relation to motion. Of these four, three, Ps.-Galen, Sextus, and Theo- doretus, to which one should add the reported opinions of Alexander and Nicolaus, say that God is unmoved. This is undoubtedly Theo- phrastus' view: God's immobility was implied in Aristotle's statement of the common doctrine of the "partisans of the One" and is clearly entailed by the description of God as "eternally selfsame" in the paraphrase (2)-(3)-(4). On the other hand, Simplicius' minority opinion "neither moved nor unmoved" is patently mistaken.

The synopsis shows that Theophrastus' description of God concluded with the statement that he perceives as a whole (12) and governs all things with his mind, the latter being supported by the quotation of fr. 25 (13).

To sum up, what we can safely ascribe to Theophrastus besides the paraphrase (2)-(3)-(4), are the following statements: God is ungenerated and eternal, one, unmoved, thoroughly perceiving, and governing all things by his mind. At the same time we can observe that the doxographic sources at our disposal fall into three main groups according to the way in which they deviate from Theophrastus' exposition. The first group, represented by the great majority of our authorities, reports what may be called the "Parmenidized" version of Xenophanes' concept; these are the accounts of Hippolytus, Cicero (in Acad.), Ps.- Galen, Sextus, Theodoretus, and Diogenes, as well as the view which Simplicius found in Alexander; in all of these the characteristically Par- menidean 'finite' and/or 'spherical,' and in two of them--Hippolytus and Alexander-also the Eleatic 'homogeneous,' are mistakenly

54 Cf. Jaeger (above, n. 8) 43 n. 23; Lumpe (above, n. 8) 29; cf. also Untersteiner's arguments (above, n. 38) lxx-lxxvi.

55 As Stokes (above, n. 8) 75, puts it, "It would not have been difficult for a historian to deduce the sphericity of the god from his being the same everywhere, and his being the same everywhere from his ability to see, hear, and perceive as a whole."




ascribed to Xenophanes. On the other hand, Cicero's (in Nat. D.) and Nicolaus' (as reported by Simplicius) attribution of infinity to God seems evidence of the existence of, in a sense, the contrary doxographic tendency, namely, the assimilation of God to Melissus' Being. The third group is represented by Simplicius alone who ascribes to Xenophanes the surprising idea that God is neither finite nor infinite and neither moved nor unmoved. As distinct from the two previously described deviations from Theophrastus' account, that of Simplicius has no rational explanation and is, in all probability, the result of some doxographic corruption of the original text. We must therefore try to determine what exactly in Theophrastus' account could have given rise to such a misrepresentation.

Let us repeat: Xenophanes did not provide God with spatial characteristics, nor did Theophrastus ever attempt to do so. This, however, does not necessarily mean that Theophrastus passed the issue over in silence. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that Theo- phrastus somehow had to refer to the question, for, apart from its general interest, the spatial characteristics of the One was precisely the controversial issue among the Eleatics, and it would hardly be possible to speak of the "first of these partisans of the One" without mentioning his position concerning this problem. It may be added that in his discussion of the "partisans of the One" Aristotle took the spatial characteristics of the One as one of the two criteria of whether the One was conceived as formal or material unity; true, Theophrastus seems not to follow these distinctions, preferring his master's more usual and gen- eralized view of the Eleatics, but it seems improbable that he merely ignored a point to which Aristotle drew attention. Now to state Xeno-

phanes' position in the Eleatic controversy regarding the spatial characteristics of the One is precisely to say that he had none, that he said neither that God is finite nor that he is infinite. We may assume thus that it was some such Theophrastean statement that was misinterpreted as the "neither finite nor infinite" which we find in Simplicius.56 Advanc-

ing this explanation of Simplicius' "neither finite nor infinite," we must

apply the same kind of explanation to his "neither moved nor unmoved" as well.57 Let us consider whether some such explanation is

56 Cf. Jaeger (above, n. 8) 53 n. 64; McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 117-118; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.369; cf. also Stokes (above, n. 8) 72 n. 15.

57 To say, as Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.369, does, that "Aristotle's negative verdict that

Xenophanes did not distinguish between material and non-material, nor (as is implied)




applicable also in the latter case. As far as we can see from our material, Theophrastus adduces two

authentic lines to support his judgment that God is unmoved, fr. 26. It follows that Xenophanes never made the formal statement of God's immobility in all respects, and Theophrastus, like ourselves, had to gather this from God's being "eternally selfsame," from the partial descriptions like fr. 26, and from the general context of Xenophanes' monistic doctrine.58 If so it would only be natural if Theophrastus noted this fact, namely, if he let his reader know that Xenophanes not only did not state whether God is finite or infinite, but also whether he is moved or unmoved. Nevertheless, Theophrastus had to continue, that Xenophanes conceived of God as unmoved is clear from his calling God eternally selfsame and from the following words, fr. 26. And indeed, the fact that Simplicius, after reporting "neither moved nor unmoved," immediately proceeds to the exegesis of fr. 26 to show that it is not incompatible with this thesis, suggests the original purport of what became "neither moved nor unmoved." Being originally supported by the quotation of fr. 26 this could hardly have been something other than the assertion of God's immobility59 and in the form allowing the doxographic misinterpretation of the kind found in Simplicius, i.e., in the form I suggest.60

In Table 3 we can now restore the main points of Theophrastus' description of Xenophanes' God and compare it with the three kinds of deviations displayed by the sources stemming from it. We can see how the corruption of Theophrastus' account gave rise to the whole spec-

between finite and infinite, is absurdly twisted by the later writers into a positive statement that the divine unity of Xenophanes was both moved and unmoved, both finite and infinite" is hardly to explain the emergence of the "neither moved nor unmoved." It is clear what was twisted into "neither finite nor infinite," but what was twisted into "neither moved nor unmoved"?

58 Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 53, is correct in saying that Theophrastus did not apply the notions "finite" and "infinite" to God, but is mistaken in adding (because of assuming that the MXG closely reflects Theophrastus' account) that he did not apply the notions "moved" and "unmoved" either.

59 Cf. Stokes (above, n. 8) 72.

60 My argument proceeds from the assumption that Simplicius' report is not a mechanical compilation, see below in the text.



Table 3

Theophrastus Simplicius 'Parmenidized' 'Melissized' version version

(1) ungenerated and ungenerated ungenerated and eternal eternal

(2) one one one

(3) it is not said neither finite nor finite and spherical infinite whether finite or infinite infinite

(4) it is not said neither moved nor whether moved or unmoved unmoved

(5) yet actually unmoved unmoved unmoved

(6) thoroughly thoroughly perceiving perceiving (7) governing all governing all things things by his mind by his mind

tlj

,•?




trum of the logically possible misinterpretations.61 On the one hand, garbling led to the textual misinterpretations like those in Simplicius, and on the other, dropping, in the course of epitomizations, what might seem less relevant, naturally led to excisions of "what Xenophanes did not say"-(3) and (4), and the absence of (3) immediately opened the way to doxographic suggestions concerning the issue.

The important difference between Aristotle's and Theophrastus' reports is that while Aristotle deliberately confines himself to Xeno- phanes' monistic doctrine, Theophrastus accounts both for Xeno- phanes' conception of God and his cosmology. This being the case, Theophrastus had to face the problem of the relationship between these two facets of Xenophanes' teaching.

About Parmenides and his opinion Theophrastus in the first book of his Physical Opinions says thus: 'But Parmenides who came after him'-he means Xenophanes-'took both ways. For indeed, he both says that the whole is eternal and tries to account for the coming-to-be of existing things, not however thinking about both [ways] alike, but according to truth assuming the whole to be one, ungenerated, and spherical, while according to the opinion of the many as to accounting for the coming-to-be of perceptible things, positing two principles, fire and earth, etc.62

61 It is odd to think, as some critics do, that Theophrastus' (and Aristotle's) wordings were necessarily directly responsible for the confusions in the later doxographers, see, e.g., Jaeger (above, n. 8) 53 and n. 64; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.368-369; Stokes (above, n. 8) 72 and n. 15. Theophrastus was a conscious writer and, as far as we can judge from De sensu, expressed himself pretty clearly (cf. G. M. Stratton, Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology Before Aristotle [London 1917] 16 n. 1, 53; Kahn [above, n. 28] 21 and n. 2). The later authors, on their part, were not so unintelligent as not to understand Theophrastean Greek; it is, of course, possible that sometimes certain misunderstandings might arise because of careless reading of Theophrastus, but the real source of the doxographic misrepresentations lies elsewhere, in inadequate abridgments and condensations of the original account and rearrangements made on inadequate or loose grounds, not to speak of copyists' errors and mechanical corruptions. Gross slips on the author's part and inexplicable insensitivity or complicated perverseness on the part of later readers are scholarly conventions.

62 Alex. in Metaph. 984b3 (= Theophr.fr. 6 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 7).




Notwithstanding a slight corruption of the text,63 there can be no doubt that this account of Parmenides followed upon and was formally connected with (toirc8p &' ,ltyev6ogevog) that of Xenophanes. The position with which Parmenides is contrasted here is, then, that of Xenophanes. Now the unprepared emergence of &pC'p6tepat 66oi in the account of Parmenides suggests that they have already been defined in the preced- ing passage, that is, in the account of Xenophanes. Are we thus to conclude that Theophrastus interpreted Xenophanes' teaching as a bipartite system like Parmenides' though attributing to Parmenides himself the labelling of the "ways" as "according to truth" and "according to the opinion of the many"? On the contrary: the Theophrastean "but Par- menides who came after him ... took both ways" rather suggests that Xenophanes, on Theophrastus' account, took only one "way," undoubtedly that of the "eternal whole."64 Ps.-Plutarch's report turns this suggestion into fact. The opening sentence of his section on Xeno- phanes provides the counterpart to the opening sentence of Theo- phrastus' account of Parmenides as quoted by Alexander; the parallelism is so complete that we should assess this sentence as a quotation or, at least, a very close paraphrase of Theophrastus' words:

[Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4:] 'But Xenophanes of Colophon who pursued a certain way of his own different from [that of] all these spoken of beforehand [sc. the Milesians] allows neither coming-to-be nor destruction but says that the whole is eternally selfsame ...' [Theophr. fr. 6 ap. Alex.] 'But Parmenides who came after him took both ways [sc. that of Xenophanes as well as that of his Mile- sian predecessors]. For indeed, he both says that the whole is eternal and tries to account for coming-to-be of existing things .. .'65

63 See Diels (above, n. 13) 482 and n. ad 1.8.

64 Cf. Simpl. Phys. 28.4 (= Theophr. 8 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 8): AE SuKtRRoq 6/ ...,

0 trlv atiiv 0l &taE HaPCEV lKcl~ l.V i MZEvocwVEFt REPi tUv ivtoV 0 66v....

65 One should say a few words here about the quality of the relevant portion of Ps.- Plutarch's Stromateis. To begin with the Parmenidean section, it consists almost entirely of more or less close paraphrases of the text of the first book of Theophrastus' Physical Opinions:

Ps.-Plut. Strom. 5: Theophr.fr. 6 (ap. Alex.):

lapg JEvi&l& 6• 0"'Eerrl;, •tatpo; to~tp 6& EE~YEv61Evoq l-ap Lv06

EEvop•pvoI, ajia i EV K

tvtov Toso lh-p7rto;' 6 'EXde'" ;i'

8o(o&v avteRtotMaato,, aja 6&% Kai .tiv & potpa; XOe ta%` 686o




Theophrastus' interpretation of Xenophanes' position is surprising: how indeed could he assert that Xenophanes pursued only the way of "the eternally selfsame whole" while accounting for the Xenophanean doctrines concerned with "coming-to-be of existing things"? The solution, if there is one, must be that Xenophanes, while positing a certain physical doctrine, somehow dismissed it or stated something about it that could be taken by Theophrastus as such a dismissal. This being the case, the famous Xenophanean scepticism comes to mind, but to be a suitable candidate, i.e., be possibly understood as a sort of dismissal of his own physical account, it must apply to the cosmological realm alone. We must then examine the relevant material in order to determine the precise scope of Xenophanes' sceptical attitude.

Concerning Xenophanes' sceptical position we possess a number of reports, which fall into two groups. One includes Sotion as reported in Diogenes, and Hippolytus, both of whom depict Xenophanes as a per-

Evavdtav EXEetprlaEv aToadav. [i.e., both adhering to Xenophanes and diverging from him].

di8tov giv yTp O xR&v Kci d~ivrltov Kca yYap ; da6t6v oxt tr6t n&v anorcpaiveTat caxt tliv t(ov Rpaywtr

ov &rnopawivatat Kcai yVEatv

&?'ijOetav elvat yXp ar6% [B 8.4]" &ano8t6vat netp&Xat Tcxiv 6vtxov, oij

6ooio; repi agPoTepowy og0moV, &U&6 rcaT' &XijAetav CV gv t6 iT v Kct

xyEv7jTov Kati a patpoEt8&; -j; o`aMo43civov, yvEaEtv Yti UTv Kcva' i ?1`MNnXtv v eu8fji Kaj a 0tX&av &• Txvv RoXXv E?i t6

8ol'ovTOv E dvat. yeveoiv adoIo8Ovat T-v watvo0vPov io notuov ; ApcXdq, x5RIp Ki% yiyv KtX.

Kat tra aiatija&7 S eK(kXXXcp EL C eK

aXr1OEta;. 9p71o b'et ei'st rnap" T6 8v

i•dppXEt, Theophr.fr. 7 (ap. Simpl.): toUto olK catv

6v" v T8EJO LR Ov Lv TO napa To ov

o•lK ov" tv o lcK Ov o6iiv

To• t; ot; oIcK otxt. Ot4TO0 oitv3vT% tv o v vpa To ov.

aVyvrltov knoxdieit KcX.

We have, therefore, ground to expect-and the correspondence between Alexander's quotation and the first sentence of the Strom. 4 confirms our expectation-that the section on Xenophanes should more or less faithfully reflect the exposition of the first book of the Physical Opinions, the more so that in Ps.-Plutarch the two sections constitute a continuous exposition (as distinct from all other sources) reproducing that of Theophrastus. (Close verbal parallels between the Stromateis 4 and Hippolytus' Refutatio are not per- tinent to the issue, for they mostly occur in the material which comes from other books of Theophrastus' work.)




fect Sceptic who denied anything to be knowable;66 the other group consists of Timon and Ps.-Galen who qualify Xenophanes' position as inconsistent and "mixed," asserting that, while applying the sceptical attitude elsewhere, in his monistic doctrine he was a "dogmatic."67 It is not hard to see which of these two accounts deserves to be trusted. Both traditions are of Sceptic origin68 and within this framework Timon's and Ps.-Galen's presentation is, so to speak, the lectio difficilior. Certainly, Timon who greatly esteemed Xenophanes- obviously, because of the latter's sceptical attitude69 -would have been happier had Xenophanes been more consistent, had he been tOXeto; &dxxpo; and not only 'xiaxvrpo;.

We have thus no reason to disbelieve Timon who, in addition, is our earliest and best qualified source on the issue. We may therefore, following in this Diogenes,70 dismiss the rival account as a misrepresentation originating in inferior Sceptic sources.71

We can thus safely conclude that the scope of Xenophanes' scepticism was limited to natural explanations, and hence it was the sceptical qualification which Xenophanes gave his cosmological doctrine that is reflected in Theophrastus' statement that Xenophanes abandoned "the way of accounting for coming-to-be of existing things" while pursuing "the way of the eternal whole." Since, however, Theophrastus could not possibly have made the simple statement that Xenophanes rejected cosmology and then gone on to account for his cosmological doctrines, we should admit that this statement was not unqualified. The wording

66 Diog. 9.20; Hippol. Haer. 1.14.2 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 1, 33). 67 Timon fr. 59 where Xenophanes is shown repenting of his being poagpgo6ep3Xerxro;

because of positively asserting the unity of the whole (cf. Sext. Emp. Pyr. 1.224 = Diels- Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 35; Math. 7. 48-52); Ps.-Galen (Hist. phil. 7 = Diels [above, n. 13] 604, cf. Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 35): toiSq ks e v uL1ty•v ai'peatv LErel- X-06tcat

npxdipxetv Evoqdv7Iv Rev •iepi

d Rvroyv ipxopcK6ra, ~ ooyiatioavra

BE Cd6vov Tb elvat RIadvra Ev Kcai roiro nxdpXetv Oeyv nexEpaaot(vov XoylKcbv & idprtiI rov. Cf. H. Diels, Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta (Berlin 1901) 45; id., "Uber Xeno-

phanes," AGPh 10 (1897) 530 (= id., Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte der antiken Philo-

sophie [Hildesheim 1969] 53); Deichgraiber (above, n. 6) 30. 68 On Sotion's associating Xenophanes with the Sceptic trend see Diels (above, n. 13)

146, 148. 69 See Sext. Emp. Pyr. 1.223 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 35); cf. Diog. 9.3. 70 4.20 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 1): 9p01i %& oritMov tpvrtov a~xbyv einriv

KaStcaximtxa E(vat n. 1r3v2a, niavootwEvos. 71 Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 23, is wrong in assuming that Sotion follows Timon.




of fr. 34 and 35, which, as we now know, refer to the physical province only and which are precisely the lines most probably quoted by Theo- phrastus himself, give us an idea as to what Theophrastus' qualification might have looked like: "the other way, that of accounting for coming-to-be of existing things, he dismissed, declaring such accounts to be no more than opinions deprived of any certainty, saying thus (fr. 34); nevertheless he proposes some such opinion which he seems to have adjudged looking plausible, as he says himself (fr. 35)."72

We can see now why Aristotle was reluctant to take Xenophanes' cosmology as evidence of the formal character of his One: it seems that he was not certain of the precise purport of Xenophanes' scepticism, whether it was restricted to explanations of the structure of the sensible manifold or extended to its very existence. The status of cosmology not being altogether clear to him, Aristotle preferred not to base on it his conclusions regarding the kind of unity postulated by Xenophanes; he thus neither referred to Xenophanes' cosmological doctrine as evidence of the "formal" character of God, nor took the sceptical qualification of its validity as evidence of the contrary view.

The conclusion that Xenophanes' scepticism applies to natural explanations only, not extending to the "theology," naturally raises the question why the doctrine of the One is immune to it. To find the answer we should first determine the reasons for Xenophanes' physical scepticism, i.e., his labelling natural explanations as no more than more or less plausible opinions. The main statement of Xenophanes' scepticism isfr. 34:73

72 In Theodoretus (4.5 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 36) after the report on Xeno- phanes' "theology" we read: nityv Bi a3 t6&v(E V tB v rXy(ov E~ntlrXc 0Evo; K Eti7 1Yi q <p9vat ~iiava Eiprl(KEv. Though somehow reflecting Theophrastus' general approach this crude exegesis must be, I believe, a doxographic gloss.

73 Frtinkel ("Xenophanesstudien," Hermes 60 [1925], later included in his Wege und Formen friihgriechischen Denkens2 [Miinchen 1960] 338-349; an English trans. of the second part of the study under the title "Xenophanes' Empiricism and His Critique of Knowledge (B 34)" is published in Mourelatos [above, n. 29] 118-131; subsequent references are to this translation) misconstrues the Greek of the fragment and misinterprets its purport. Frainkel's exegesis has exercised much influence on subsequent interpretations, notably those of Untersteiner, Snell, von Fritz, and Guthrie. For the correct rendering of the Greek see: E. Heitsch, "Das Wissen des Xenophanes," RhM 109 (1966) esp. 208-216; see also Lumpe (above, n. 8) 34; Barnes (above, n. 17) 138-139.




Certain truth no man has seen nor will be anyone who knows about the gods and concerning everything I speak of; for even if he should happen to say what is true, he himself however does not know [this]; opinion is wrought over all [men].74

To begin with, the two last lines of fr. 34 can hardly mean that precise knowledge in the physical realm (for as we know now it is this realm that constitutes the scope of the sceptical pronouncement of 34.1) is unattainable because the objects of this knowledge are illusory, lacking in reality, or the like. On the contrary, 34.3 seems to imply that they are perfectly knowable in themselves75 (and are actually known by God)76 yet to the human being this kind of knowledge is nevertheless unattainable. Why so? The answer that first suggests itself is that this is due to the relativity, invalidity, or the like of our sense-perceptions.77 On a closer examination of the problem, however, we see we must abandon this approach. Quite apart from the question whether Xeno- phanes indeed discredited sense-perceptions, we should ask ourselves, is it because of the relativity, deceptiveness, or the like of our senses that we lack certain knowledge in such matters as to whether the rain- bow is the goddess Iris or a cloud of a certain kind, whether or not the earth indefinitely stretches downwards, or whether the moon is somehow useful to the world?78 But let us consider the method to which Xenophanes resorted in his physical theory:

74 For the grammatical possibilities of construing 34.2 see U. von Wilamowitz- Moellendorff, Euripides Herakles2 (Bad Homburg 1957) 3.62, ad 237; Friinkel (above, n. 73) 127 and n. 38; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.395 and n. 3; Heitsch (above, n. 73), 223-224 and n. 60. In 34.4 I render i&tor as the masculine following Burnet (above, n. 10) 121 n. 1; Untersteiner (above, n. 38) ccxxv n. 36; Barnes (above, n. 17) 138 and n. 5. For the meaning of "gods" in 34.2 see below, n. 101.

75 Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1559. 76 Augustin. De civ. D. 7.17; Arius Did. ap. Stob. Ecl. 2.1.18 (= Diels-Kranz [above,

n. 9] 21 A 24); cf.fr. 23.2. 77 Cf., among others, Diels (above, n. 67) 53; Deichgr5iber (above, n. 6) 20-21; Heitsch

(above, n. 73) esp. 221-225. H. A. T. Reiche, "Empirical Aspects of Xenophanes' 'Theology'," in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, J. P. Anton and G. L. Kustas, eds.

(Albany 1972) 88, stresses, in addition, "biological and cultural expectancy-patterns." 78 Fr. 32, cf. Aet. 2.18.1 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 39); fr. 28, cf. Arist. Cael.

294a21 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 47); Aet. 2.30.8 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 42).




... Xenophanes thinks that mingling of earth with sea takes place and that in course of time earth is dissolved by the wet element, claiming as proofs that shells are found in the midst of the land and on mountains; and in the quarries at Syracuse, he says, the impressions of a fish and of seaweed have been found, on Paros the impressions of a bay-leaf in the depth of the stone, and on Malta flattened shapes of all sea-creatures. These, he says, were formed when everything, long ago, was covered in mud, and the impression dried out in the mud. All men are destroyed when the earth is carried down to the sea and turns to mud, then a new generation begins.. .79

The basic approach is clearly empirical and inductive. Certain facts are observed, their common denominator is suggested and some further inferences are drawn. Not a word is said about the relativity or uncertainty of the primary data-the case is not that what one person takes to be the impression of a fish another thinks to be a bird or not an impression at all. It follows, then, that if there is something dubious and uncertain here, it is not the facts themselves, and hence it must be the conclusions one draws from facts that are uncertain and unreli-

able.80 Why so? For the answer we must return tofr. 34. The fragment is a self-contained passage with a clear-cut structure:

the sceptical pronouncement is made in the first two lines and the scope of its application is delineated; in the last two lines, introduced by the explicative ydp, the grounds of the sceptical pronouncement are stated and the general conclusion is drawn.81 What, then, are the grounds?

79 Hippol. Haer. 1.14.5 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 33), Guthrie's translation. The report provides an excellent example of what Deichgriber (above, n. 6) 22, calls, with reference to Alcmeon'sfr. 1, Tekmerienmethode, that is, drawing conclusions by, as Reiche (above, n. 77) 88, puts it, "collecting and collating empirical tekmeria."

80 Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1558. 81 Heitsch (above, n. 73) 222, points out that "Die Gedankenfiihrung gliedert sich in

zweimal zwei Verse; von ihnen enthiilt das erste Verspaar eine Behauptung, das zweite eine Begriindung", but immediately qualifies his own statement: "Diese Begriindung gilt jedoch weniger dem sachlichen Gehalt der Behauptung, sondern eher der Art und Weise, in der sie vorgetragen wird." The purpose of this, to say the least, unnecessary qualification most clearly appears on 227: "Das mit yadp anschliessende Verspaar be- griindet, wie schon gesagt, nicht, weshalb der Mensch kein sicheres Wissen erlangt-eine solche Begriindung lieferten jene Partien, aus denen die fr. 15 und 38 erhalten sind- sondern erliiutert, wie Xenophanes dazu kommt, trotz allem Fortschritt (fr. 18), von dem die Erfahrung ja zeugte, auch ffir alle Zukunft zu behaupten, ein sicheres und endgiiltiges




Obviously, these lie in the impossibility of ascertaining the truth of our inferences from the observed facts. One can only guess the meaning of what one observes without being able to verify one's conclusions, so that all such conclusions necessarily remain no more than guesses and can never acquire certainty; for even if a guess is completely correct, we have no means of ascertaining this, just as we have none of ascertaining the contrary.82 Nobody can say for certain whether the sun indeed consists of small sparks as it seems reasonable to suggest; nobody can prove whether the earth indeed was once mud as some observations seem to indicate; nobody can affirm with entire assurance that sea water is salt because of various mixtures carried into it and for no other reason.83 That is why there can be no certain knowledge among human beings about all such things but only opinion, more plausible and less plausible.84

Wissen ... werde es fiir den Menschen nicht geben." Yet it is artificial to limit the explicative force of the yd'p in fr. 34.3, and there is no justification for importing the grounds for the sceptical pronouncement of 34.1-2 from elsewhere.

82 Cf. Plato, Meno 80D; Sext. Emp. Math. 7.46-52. Sextus' interpretation is therefore

generally correct, cf. U. von Wilamowitz, "Lesefriichte," Hermes 61 (1926) 280; Kranz in Diels-Kranz (above, n. 9) ad loc. pace Fr'inkel (above, n. 73) 124-125, followed by von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1557-1558; Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.395 n. 5; J. Lesher, "Xenophanes' Scepticism," Phronesis 23 (1978) 2, and some others. Von Fritz (ibid.) objects that

Xenophanes could not say that he happened to touch the truth in his criticism of anthro-

pomorphism but did not know this himself; this is quite correct, but the objection is mis- directed: Xenophanes' scepticism does not apply to the "theological" domain.

83 AMt. 2.20, 3; Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4 and Hippol. Haer. 1.14.3; Hippol. Haer. 1.14.6; Hip- pol. Haer. 1.14.4 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 40, 32, 33). Nobody can know such matters but God whose knowledge is free from the spatial and temporal limitations to which human condition is subject. It is here, if anywhere, that the traditional opposition between divine omniscience and human ignorance may be supposed to exercise an influence on Xenophanes. Deichgraiber, however, without any justification, specifies this

opposition as that between the Muse and the poet, for which he is correctly rebuked by J. Mansfeld, Die Offenbarung des Parmenides und die menschliche Welt (Assen 1964) 8 n. 1; Deichgr~iber's approach has gained favor among Xenophanean scholars some of whom go as far as to assume that this is all that Xenophanes wanted to stress (see esp., Steinmetz [above, n. 13] 40; Snell [above, n. 52] 139-141).

84 This is, in fact, the well known demand by the Ionian ioroptrl (cf. Frfinkel [above, n. 73] 131; Deichgraber [above, n. 6] 24, cf. 20; see also Heitsch [above, n. 73] esp. 194-205) of awto~ia as the prerequisite of reliable knowledge which Xenophanes applied universally, i.e., also to the province of cosmological speculation where it is

impracticable. Frtinkel (ibid., cf. Jaeger [above, n. 8] 43 n. 2; Barnes [above, n. 17) 139-140) compares the Hippocratic treatise On Ancient Medicine, 1:




Having considered the reasons for Xenophanes' sceptical attitude to physical speculation we may now attempt to determine why the doctrine of the One does not fall within the scope of this scepticism. Prima facie, if the impossibility of verification, that is, its purely speculative character, is what in Xenophanes' view renders knowledge uncertain, turning it into a mere opinion, this must apply to any kind of speculative knowledge, both physical and "theological." Must we, then, allow that Xenophanes did not trouble to be consistent, that he simply declared that though human beings can never attain certain knowledge about distant things and his accounts of heavenly and underground things were mere opinions, concerning the divine he possessed precise knowledge and therefore his account of One God was

If a man were to learn and declare the state of these [things in the sky or below the earth], neither to the speaker himself nor to his audience would be clear whether the statements were true or not. For there is no test the application of which would give certainty (o16 yap oti, rpbq O Tt Xpil &AvEviyKavTa E•i&vait T •ocpq). [Hippocrates, W. H. S. Jones, trans. (London-New York 1923) 1.15.]

Frankel (and Jaeger), misinterpreting Xenophanes' position, fails to draw the true parallels between it and the position of the Hippocratic writer. Barnes (ibid.) points out the continuity between Xenophanes' approach and that of the author of the treatise. In fact the quoted passage merely repeats what Xenophanes says in fr. 34 and about the same things-it is precisely the knowledge of "heavenly and underground things," the subject of physical speculation, that is lacking certainty because it cannot be verified. To the uncertainty of the knowledge in the cosmological province the Hippocratic writer opposes medicine, where the empirical verification of assumptions is fairly possible and hence precise knowledge is attainable. Barnes (ibid.), arguing from the treatise to Xenophanes, concludes that he "advocates a limited, not a general scepticism: it is theology and natural science, not knowledge in general, that must elude our human grasp" (cf. Lumpe [above, n. 8] 33-34). Barnes is correct, except for the "theology" which, as we shall soon see, is quite a different matter.

It may be noted in this connection that the idea of the advance of mankind, which seems to be the purport of fr. 18, is therefore situated on a different plane, pace Heitsch (above, n. 73) esp. 227. (Apropos:

ttetvov in 18.2 cannot mean more certain

knowledge, as notably Snell [above, n. 52] 139-140, claims, but better conditions of life.) If Xenophanes here anticipates later theories, these are the Sophistic doctrines of material, social, and cultural advance rather than the idea of infinite scientific progress, as K. Popper, "Back to the Presocratics," in Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, D. J. Furley and R. E. Allen, eds. (London 1970) 1.152, would have us believe. This advance in the search for better conditions of life involves, of course, the progress of knowledge, but of practical knowledge whose attainability Xenophanes never denied. When we realize this, the position of the Hippocratic author proves to be entirely identical with that of Xeno- phanes.




the most certain truth? This seems highly implausible, if not to say altogether paradoxical. At any rate, to saddle a thinker with incon- sistencies and contradictions is not the best exegetical method, and before resorting to it, it is always advisable to investigate other possibilities. We should therefore explore the alternative, namely, that Xenophanes drew an epistemic distinction between cosmological and "theological" speculation, considering the latter as certain in itself. The assumption amounts to saying that in his monistic doctrine Xenophanes widely used apodeictic inference and, what is not less important, was aware of its character. Theoretically speaking, this is not historically impossible, for the distinction between apodeictic and non-apodeictic knowledge is found in Parmenides.85

There is nothing inherently improbable in assuming Xenophanes' use of logical proofs which, it seems, were already employed by Anax- imander,86 whose associate Xenophanes is reported to have been. The real question then is not whether Xenophanes could have used logical arguments but rather what extent and quality of argumentation can be admitted without transcending the limits of historical plausibility. It may be stated at the outset that such an "upper limit" hardly exists: Parmenides with his purely deductive doctrine of Being was, even if much younger, a contemporary of Xenophanes,87 and nobody, I ima- gine, would contend that had Parmenides been born some thirty or

forty years earlier, his doctrine could not have taken the inferential form. Xenophanes thus could have resorted to logical proofs, and the

possibilities range between sporadic and rudimentary use and a continuous discourse like Parmenides'. The first question, therefore, is what evidence we have to prove that Xenophanes resorted to argumentation and what kind of argument, if any, did he use.

The allegedly Xenophanean argumentation is amply presented in the relevant section of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De Melisso

85 As I argue in "Parmenides' Foundation of the Way of Truth," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 6 (1988) 39-67.

86 See C. Kahn, "Anaximander and the Argument Concerning the AFEIPON at Physics 203b4-15," in Festschrift Ernst Kapp (Hamburg 1958) 19-29; F. Solmsen, "Anaximander's Infinite: Traces and Influences," AGPh 44 (1962) 109-131; E. Asmis, "What is Anaximander's Apeiron?" Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981) esp. 287-293.

87 For Xenophanes' dates see: Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 13-34; cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1542.




Xenophane Gorgia (= MXG).88 Here Xenophanes is credited with arguing for God's being (1) ungenerated, (2) one, (3) homogeneous, (4) spherical, (5) neither finite nor infinite, and (6) neither moved nor unmoved.89 Four of these, namely (1), (2), (5), and (6) are reported as Xenophanean also by Simplicius.9? Now of the six arguments reported in the MXG, four (3), (4), (5), and (6) should be dismissed at the very outset as non-Xenophanean, for they are intended to prove theses which, as we have seen in examining Aristotle's and Theophrastus' accounts, Xenophanes never maintained. It may be added that (4) and (5) are mutually incompatible, as is rightly observed by the author of the Xenophanean section of the MXG himself. We are left thus with two arguments (1) and (2) of which (1), as also (5) and (6), employ the notions of being and not-being, thus betraying their post-Parrfienidean date.91 There remains then (2), about which we can say no more than that it is not impossible that the kernel of this reasoning goes back to Xenophanes.

Another source in which we find information about Xenophanes' argumentation is Ps.-Plutarch-I mean his not too intelligible precis of the proof of God's ungeneratedness. But before attempting penetration into the rational core of this apparently distorted reasoning I would like to discuss another passage where Ps.-Plutarch's account also proves to be patently confused, the report on Xenophanes' CtEpi 0EsV.

Its very location in the middle of the exposition of Xenophanes' physical doctrine, between the report of the sun's origin and constitu-

88 For a review of current approaches to the MXG see: Untersteiner (above, n. 38) xvii-cxviii.

891 would not subscribe to von Fritz' statement ([above, n. 22] 228 n. 30) that "there is nothing in the arguments which he (the author of the MXG) attributes to Xenophanes that could not easily be retranslated into the comparatively simple form of the literal frag- ments of Xenophanes' work."

90 Phys. 22.22 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 31). 91 Von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1550-1552, argues for the pre-Parmenidean origin of (1)

suggesting that O5jotov, if taken as "gleich" rather than "ihnlich," makes the proof into genuinely archaic reasoning. Yet von Fritz' argument is weak and requires additional premises which are not in the MXG; incidentally 6a"otoo occurs twice in Xenophanes' authentic lines (fr. 15.3, 23.2) and on both occasions not in the presumably archaic sense "gleich" but as "ihnlich." Von Fritz' observation that the claim that "like cannot come from like" would contradict common sense (which he takes as indicating the meaning "equal" rather than "like") shows, I believe, that the argument is a dialectical exercise of relatively late origin.




tion and that of the earth's magnitude, leaves no doubt that there is something wrong with our passage, for on no account can this be its proper place. Moreover, not only does the passage prove to be mis- placed, its content also betrays confusion. Indeed, &ico~etv •E icai 6pav KaO6ko ai ai•l icarX& gepo;, predicated here of the gods, is associated in other sources with One God (see Table 1, line 12), and this is undoubtedly correct, as is shown by the singular infr. 24, olo; 6p0, oi~Xo8; &8 voEt,

olX)o; 6~ ' &icoEt, to which this description can

be traced back.92 But perhaps Xenophanes admitted the existence of other, lesser gods who, he maintained, are also thoroughly perceiving? This suggestion does not save the situation: in Theophrastus the phrase was related to One God; whatever Xenophanes might have said about the supposed "lesser gods," Theophrastus was speaking of One God. Two possibilities therefore exist: either Ps.-Plutarch or his source read- dressed Theophrastus' report about God's perceiving as a whole to the

gods or he was mistaken about the true subject of Theophrastus' predication. The latter solution is clearly preferable: mistaking God for the

gods, in itself quite a possible doxographic error, easily explains both the surprising location of the passage and the fact that in Ps.-Plutarch's account of Xenophanes' monistic doctrine not a word is said about God and his identity with "the whole," which in Theophrastus was conse- quent upon the statement of the Xenophanean concept of the "eternally selfsame whole"; it is thus quite probable that this Theophrastean passage, not found in Ps.-Plutarch, was, as a result of doxographic confusion, altered into nrEpi 0tEv and then, being detached from the account of the One, naturally relocated into a more appropriate context, the

cosmological part of Xenophanes' teaching. Now let us perform an

experiment. We shall take the nEpi O'Eov report as the direct continua- tion of the account of the "eternally selfsame whole" and present the entire passage as a column in synoptic table, while two other columns will present the texts of the MXG and Simplicius (see below).

The parallels between the MXG and Simplicius, on the one hand, and Ps.-Plutarch, on the other, are undeniable.93 The argument which comes first in the Stromateis, though in itself differing from the first

92 Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14), 1555. 93 This shows beyond any doubt that the nEpi Oestv report in the Stromateis did not

come from the antianthropomorphic polemics of the Silloi, as Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 94-95, suggests.



MXG 3

[The 1st argument] (1) 'Al'6var6v 1(Plotv Edvat, ei' tI

'aot, yevcoOat, Toiro XCywov Ecit tol Oeo" &vdyI Cn yp irot 4i~ 6cooio'i 4 1vogloio 0 yevao0at tb yev6pevovw uvatrbv &6 oi86&tepov" oite yhxp Ctgotov 69~' 6 Lotol

Rpooi5cEtv excvwouivat galt ov

teIrFvoat ... ovr' av , dAvogoiolo

tdv6ototov yeva01at. (2) ei Y •Xp ytyvoto t daOeveaot- poi tb ia o p6tepov i 7 E &c - tovo; rIb .teiov , 'Ic XEipovo; tb Kpettrov, 1i tojvavTiov ta Xeipo K 1i trv Ipettr6vov, t6 ov E4 oi~c ifzvo % v yevio0at- 6enEp 6I-

vatov. di6tov gv oiv 8t&x ra3tra

etvat trv Oedv.

[The 2nd argument] (3) ei 6' 8 a1tv 6 6S; &RdIdvtov icpdntatov, Eva

•vrlaiv air6bv ipooliretv eTvat. ei tyXp 66i0 i RoEioci elev, o6X av ai'6t pdat-

ozov Kal pPluXtoov abyv Evat

Simplicius, Phys. 22.22

[The 2nd argument] (4) &aFyvyrov &5 F6 Aieitiev ic toi 8E5V

ON YVvd 9%Evov

1 6•Lto

% 1o ~

avogloiou ytveo0at. ~h XX& b t' v

•gotov dra0•; (ltv ln6 tolD

6fto8ov" oi6v yhxp CRXhOv yevv&v ii yevv&o0at IpooaiKet Tob 'gTotov iK toT 6•olov"

Ei •tk

F Eavotiolo

y(votto, ~oaat t6 5v T i toio vx T OvTO;.

[The 1st argument] (3) t6 yap v toiro cai irtv tv Oebyv XEyev 6 0., yv i'va REv 6et-

1cV•otlV FI toi T dvtO)V KpdtlatoxV elvat* •6to'vov yap, (raloiv, ovtov

6logio; indpxetv av6ymcl tnaoa t

Ps.-Plutarch, Strom. 4

... Evat xyet t6 r&v &el 6 gotov" ei yap yiyvotto rtoito, p00oiv, ava- yiaov ixp6 oltoo Rit evat zv to R 5v &6 oi~ic &v yvotto o 06' &v t6

•R ov 7cotuioat Tt oTie wxob to Ril

v'ro, yEvott' av Ut.

ano(oaiverat 6k icai Iepti Oetv 6;

o R6epta 11teovia• v alnot;

o~oarl;" o0 yap aotov Seox6teoFa( tva ztv 0e~iV ...

^e k: Et

h NI

rt,

O Tt S1 Zr

21

W V=r



Rcvtov. Ficaato;o yap civ OEo;g ziv now0v 61o' Rot av otorog ;etrl. rouro y(p Oco'v iat' EoA sdvalytv Tvat, lcpa-rEiv, &x 1 Icpa- reto• am i•

a wov r cp prtoaxov

eivat. wa, o ae ca0o il ipEir, a-r& toooiVov oiwc e vat Oe6v.

(4) nt'6vov oiv ivryov, ei Atv elev rai id v ah'AiAXWV cpeiZttZroi; t

Sitrotjo, o61 &Cv eivat Oeo6q- nqxupc0 vat yap b Eo yv il cpa-

retG0at. (5) i"ov & "i'vrow, oiK av exety Go U w0t ,

o 8v Slv IV XV -EOf (PI)tV, OV

eivat pdatorov* T6 Se ioov oti'T pilttov o•'te XEipov evat rtol

Woot. that' Ecliep eI' xe Ical rotolu-

tov Eill 0e6;, Eva g6vov cvat r6v 8o6v. oi68k ya'p o6& ndcvra -6-

vao0at i&v & po?hotto It et6vov

6vTmov" 'va &pa dvat t6vov.

[The 3rd argument] (6) Eva 6' dvra tgotov dvcat xc&vTr, 6p6tovra ica• &t oiovra ra; Ie aiAxa; ai'o0ioetS

,Xov'ta xcvrl" ei 'yap gir•, pa•rev &v Kai KparGa lt )xc' &6Ln" Vi y a th agiep•p Oeoi, tirep davatov.

wpaeiv- b &6 itvowv icpyTtoaov Kai aptarov 0edg.

[Absent in Simplicius] ...

e1ttctehoai re giltrev6bq altiiv tr7iva Lgn86'

hwo•" da&coietv 68 ical

6pav •c•kov X icai iR•x

Katc gepoq.

4•L~ O




argument in the MXG (the second in Simplicius), is, as there, a proof of God's ungeneratedness, whereas what in Ps.-Plutarch is mistakenly reported as Xenophanes' nEpi OEyv appears to be originally a series of arguments: the report that there can be no lordship among gods parallels the argument of the MXG for God's oneness, the argument which in both sources, the MXG and the Stromateis, comes second (first in Simplicius),94 while Ps.-Plutarch's statement that gods are free from any want, conjoined with the paraphrase of fr. 24, is comparable, in its position and reference to this Xenophanean line, with the third argument of the MXG. Before forming a general judgment on the nature of Ps.-Plutarch's information we must discuss it in more detail.

The only argument preserved as such in the Stromateis is that for God's ungeneratedness. Yet as it stands the reasoning is neither entirely intelligible nor possibly pre-Parmenidean. The premise is pretty clear: "for had it ['the eternally selfsame whole,' God] come to be, it is necessary for it not to be before this." But what follows is less understandable and its wording bears the post-Parmenidean stamp: "but not-being [must we spell 'not-Being'?] cannot come to be, nor can not-being produce anything nor can something come to be by the agency of not-being." Should we then translate ad sensum "but being not-Being it [changing the subject from not-Being to God] can never come to be, nor can not-Being produce something, nor can something come to be by the agency of not-Being"? But let us try another way. Taking into consideration that at Xenophanes' time, and especially in poetry, the article was used sporadically95 and that supplying 'v with it by later doxographers would be only natural, we shall attempt to read the argument dropping the articles: Ei y•xp yiyvotro rouro, &vayicaiov Rxp6 ro5rou gi~l Evat- [-r] gili (E)6v 8 oicx &av y votro- (putting the colon here) oi-r' (instead of o8)6' of MSS) &v [br] til

(E)6v notioaot -t o10E '3'o [Toi] gjrL (')6vTo; 7YVOtZ' TiV Tt,-"for had it ['the whole,' or God] come to be, it is necessary for it not to be before this; but not being, it can never come to be: neither nought can produce anything nor anything can come to be by the agency of nought." The sense is

94 The whole report tEpi ~iOov being the misinterpreted account of One God, this argument must originally have been the proof of God's oneness. Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1554; Barnes (above, n. 17) 91-92.

95 See R. Kiihner and B. Gerth, Ausfiihrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache4, Satzlehre (Leverkusen 1955) 1.581-588; E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik, A. De- brunner ed. (Munich 1950), 2.20-24.




perfect and is obtained precisely by eliminating what is post- Parmenidean in the wording, the articles which suggest the conceptual meaning of 6'v. Is this a mere coincidence? It should be noted that the reasoning clearly implies God's being the whole of existence: had he not existed, there would be nothing at all out of which or by the agency of which he could come to be.96

Proceeding to the second argument we should note in advance that the poor condition of the material allows no hope of an exact reconstruction; all that can be done is to render it intelligible while adding as little as possible: "Among gods there can be no supremacy, for it does not suit the divine holiness (ou0 ytxp iotov) that god should be under lordship; but were there many gods, there would be lords and subjects among them (perhaps the alternative 'or all of them would be lords of each other' was also posited, cf. the MXG and especially Simplicius); hence there is only one God."97 Whatever the detailed form of the

proof, what is obvious is that God's oneness was inferred from the

incompatibility of the idea of the divine with that of being inferior to one another. The way of arguing is characteristically Xenophanean:

96 The argument as I reconstruct it closely resembles Melissus' proof of the impossibility of coming-to-be (fr. 1). Barnes ignores the argument reported in the Stromateis, preferring instead to put his trust in (1) of the MXG which, he believes, though "contaminated by later Eleatic logic" nevertheless "contains a Xenophanean core" ([above, n. 17] 87); in support Barnes quotes fr. 1 of Epicharmus. Now if this fragment parodies Xeno-

phanes' ideas, as it very probably does, the argument alluded to seems to be that of Ps.- Plutarch rather than of the MXG; compare Epicharmus' to-j &B 'ica; g11i ~Eov y' &rt6 tvo;

tLs8' ;"6 tit Itp&aov i6ott

with the restored argument of the Stromateis. The "Xeno-

phanean core" that Barnes extracts from the fragment is that "a generated god must have

something to 'come from.'" This is again closer to Ps.-Plutarch's version than to that of the MXG. Then Barnes abandons "the colourless" ylyvEaOat of Epicharmus (who is

presumably a live witness and at any rate, if he parodies Xenophanes, quite likely also imitates his locutions) in favor of the mEicvov of the MXG (following in that Steinmetz

[above, n. 13] 52). Barnes finally concludes that the argument "states the necessary truth that everything that is born has a parent" (ibid. 87). I wonder how the author of such rea-

soning gained Barnes' praise as "a brilliant, original, and sophisticated talent" (ibid. 84). 97 Recognizing the identity of this argument with that in the MXG and Simplicius, von

Fritz (above, n. 14) 1554, points out that in itself the reasoning may serve for proving both the oneness of God and G6itterdemokratie or rather, as he specifies, anarchy, preferring for this reason the setting of the MXG. Barnes (above, n. 17) 91, also says that the

argument is "compatible with the plurality of potent divinities each of which is at least as

great as anything else in existence" contending that the version of the Stromateis is the

misinterpretation of the reasoning found in the MXG. But Gotteranarchie is the reductio ad absurdum rather than a conceivable alternative.




the conclusion is obtained by explicating the idea, in this case supremacy, necessarily present in the notion of the divine; the pro- cedure is well attested in fr. 26 where the denial of God's locomotion follows from its "unfittingness" for the divinity, and in Xenophanes' sayings adduced by Aristotle where certain popular religious beliefs and practices are dismissed as incompatible with the notion of the divine.98 The wording of the argument bears, I believe, the unmistak- able stamp of authenticity. I mean o y&p 6'atov, comparable with

o6 n ~irtnp~nEt of fr. 26 and &~Epo~otv in the first of the two sayings mentioned.

8Eot6 Ea0cat also seems to be authentic. The word is more specific than xpa-rEiv in the MXG and Simplicius and more shar- ply conveys the contrast with the divine dignity.

The last two phrases of Ps.-Plutarch's account of Xenophanes' iEpi OEcov contain what has remained of the inference in which, from the premise that God is in want of nothing, the conclusion is drawn that he hears, sees and-we may safely add on the basis of fr. 24-thinks as a whole. What therefore is lost-not simply remaining implicit as the emphatic p il cKara ppo; added to Ka0oXou shows-is the statement that possessing the perceiving ability only in one part of himself God would lack it in another part. We may thus outline the third argument as follows; "God is altogether free from any want; but had he heard, seen, and thought only in one part of himself he would be in want of these in another part; hence he hears, sees and thinks wholly and not in one or another part of himself." The proof, like the previous one, proceeds from the characteristically Xenophanean analytical explica-

98 Rh. 1399b5; 1400b5. See also Deichgriber (above, n. 6) 28-29; 0. Dreyer, Unter- suchungen zum Begriff des Gottgeziemenden in der Antike (Hildesheim 1970) 21 n. 59; Babut (above, n. 8) 431-434; Barnes (above, n. 17) 85-86. Babut is right as opposed to Jaeger (above, n. 8) 49-51, who regards the prepon-category in Xenophanes as the expression of a religious feeling; it also seems wrong to interpret this category as purely ethical, as in Gigon (above, n. 24) 191. For the meaning and development of the prepon-category see M. Pohlenz, "TO HPEHON. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Geistes," in his Kleine Schriften (Hildesheim 1965) 1.100-139. Reiche (above, n. 77) 93-95, objects that the understanding of the prepon-category in Xeno- phanes as a purely aprioristic norm specifying the logically necessary connection of God's essence with certain predicates, as Deichgriiber (above, n. 6) 29, interprets it, causes the break between the "theology" and the cosmology in Xenophanes; yet this is precisely what is already produced by Xenophanes' exclusion of the "theology" from the scope of the sceptical attitude.




tion of the ideas necessarily implied in the notion of the divine, in the present case, freedom from deficiency.

Having examined and assessed severally the arguments retrievable from the Stromateis we should now appraise the reliability of this information in general. Our synopsis demonstrates that all three accounts of Xenophanes' arguments, those of the MXG, Simplicius, and Ps.- Plutarch, can be traced back to one common source, and since the ultimate source of the Stromateis is Theophrastus, he must be also the source of the two other accounts. Theophrastus, it would then appear, reported certain Xenophanean arguments, and this report has come down to us in three versions. Two of them, those of the MXG and Sim- plicius, preserved very little from their ultimate source while adding much that is non-authentic; in consequence, these reports provide no evidence for Theophrastus' account of Xenophanes' arguments and a

fortiori of these arguments themselves." But have we reason to assume that the information concerning Xenophanes' arguments which we find in the Stromateis faithfully represents Theophrastus' account?

As we have seen, the Stromateis, certainly in their section on Par- menides and in all probability also in that on Xenophanes' God, closely follow i~ of Theophrastus' Physical Opinions, which lends great reliability to Ps.-Plutarch's account in general and the information concerning the Xenophanean argumentation in particular. It is important in this connection that Ps.-Plutarch is the only doxographic writer (for Simplicius, strictly speaking, is not such) who reports the Parmenidean

argument and moreover, in its Theophrastean setting; 100 the author of the intermediary source to whom the Stromateis go back seems to have had a taste for such things.

Now the order in which the Xenophanean arguments are reported in the Stromateis (after restoring the original place and purport of the

99 Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 91-93, was the first to assess the MXG's stemming from

Theophrastus' account (see also O. Regenbogen, "Theophrastus von Eresos," RE, Suppl. 7 [1940] 1544-1545), but was wrong in taking this as sufficient basis for using the MXG as historical evidence on Xenophanes, a mistake in which he is followed by Gigon, Stein- metz, von Fritz, and Barnes. Those guided by the method recommended by von Fritz

(above, n. 14) 1459, namely, to distinguish between the form and content of the MXG, inevitably find themselves producing, as Barnes confesses, accounts "of a somewhat arbi-

trary air." '10 Two settings, Theophrastus' and Eudemus', are reported by Simplicius, Phys. 115.

11 (Dieis-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 28).




Table 4 Theophrastus Ps.-Plutarch Simplicius MXG

1 1. ungenerated: 1. ungenerated: argument argument

la 2. ungenerated: 1. ungenerated: argument (non- argument (non- Theophrastean) Theophrastean)

2 2. one: argument 2. one: argument 1. one: argument 2. one: argument 3 3. it is not said

whether finite or infinite

3a 3. homogeneous: argument

3b 4. spherical, argument

3c 3. neither finite 5. neither finite nor infinite: nor infinite: argument argument

4 4. it is not said whether moved or unmoved

4a 4. neither moved 6. neither moved nor unmoved: nor unmoved:

argument argument 5 5. actually

unmoved 6 6. thoroughly 3. thoroughly

perceiving: perceiving: argument argument

7 7. governing all 5. governing all things by his things by his mind mind

alleged nEpi OE(ov passage) strictly parallels the order of Theophrastus' descriptive statements as reconstructed above (see Table 3 above, page 126), thus complementing three of them with corresponding arguments-see Table 4. Further, the comparison between our three accounts of Xenophanes' arguments is instructive. The Stromateis parallel the MXG and Simplicius only as far as they follow Theo- phrastus, but differ from them, taking Theophrastus' side, where they depart from him, either in arrangement or in nomenclature; none of the pseudo-Xenophanean arguments current among the doxographic writers is found in Ps.-Plutarch. As to the arguments themselves, none can be dismissed as definitely non-Xenophanean because of a post- Parmenidean character or over-sophisticated dialectics; they are not




only blameless in this respect but are apparently Xenophanean both in spirit and method. This being the case, we should assess the information as authentically Theophrastean and, as far as Theophrastus' summaries are correct, which we also have no great reason to disbelieve, the arguments themselves as genuinely Xenophanean.101

101 The assessment of the authenticity of the argument for God's oneness, based on the logical incompatibility between the notion of the divine and the plurality of gods (as well as the recognition that Ps.-Plutarch's report Itept O 0Cv is but a misrepresentation of Theo-

phrastus' report Itept toi o eooi) rules out the possibility that Xenophanes allowed the existence of "lesser gods" besides One God, as some Xenophanean scholars believe; see

Jaeger (above, n. 8) 43-46 and n. 34; Lumpe (above, n. 8) 26-28; Untersteiner (above, n. 38) clxii; Cleve (above, n. 21) 8-9; Stokes (above, n. 8) 81; cf. G. Calogero, "Senofane, Eschilo e la prima definizione dell'onnipotenza di Dio," in Studi di filosofia greca, eds. V. E. Alfieri and M. Untersteiner (Bari 1950), esp. 34. Von Fritz (above, n. 14) seems to combine the "lesser gods" (1547. 48-68) with the argument for God's oneness (1559). This being the case, the "polytheistic" interpretation of fr. 23.1 is precluded; those who, as, e.g., Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1.375, feel unhappy with Wilamowitz' "polar expression" (see his Euripides Herakles [above, n. 74] ad 1106; cf. Uberweg- Praechter [above, n. 8] 76; Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] ad loc.; Burnet [above, n. 10] 129 and n. 1; Kirk, Raven, Schofield [above, n. 7] 170) should be referred to the modern for- mulaic theory of the archaic hexameter. The explanations of the "lesser gods" as elements (see Kahn [above, n. 28] 165 n. 3, followed by Reiche [above, n. 77] 92; cf. Gigon [above, n. 24] 178) is unacceptable: there can be only One God (so correctly Barnes [above, n. 17] 83, 92) and, as the argument shows, there can be no other divine beings, be

they anthropomorphic, astral, or other. But let us set aside the argument and examine the

problem of the "lesser gods" on its own merits with a view to explaining the 0eof in fr. 34.2 (see above, n. 74).

Supposing that Xenophanes allowed the existence of other gods beside One God, his

vigorous criticism of anthropomorphic beliefs excludes the possibility that these gods may be the anthropomorphic divinities of popular religion. In that case they must be "...the elements and sun, moon, and stars .. ." (Kahn loc. cit.). Reiche (loc. cit.), sub-

scribing to Kahn's explanation, draws the natural implication that "by physicizing them [viz. the elements, fixed and errant stars] Xenophanes definitely does not mean that they therefore cease to be theoi." This position is difficult to defend. First, Xenophanes deprives these phenomena of what first and foremost makes the Greek god- everlastingness; the sun, stars, and comets come from clouds (Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4; Hippol. Haer. 1.14.3; Aet. 2.4.11; 20.3; 3.2.2; 3.6 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 32, 33, 38, 40, 44, 45), the most ephemeral of phenomena, and because of this the sun and the moon are constantly born and extinguished (AMt. 2.24.9; 25.4 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 41a, 41); note that this is hardly compatible with Xenophanes' criticism of men for

believing that the gods are born and may "die" (it is not impossible, therefore, that it was

precisely the intention to deprive the gods of popular religion of their everlastingness and hence their divinity that prompted Xenophanes to posit the somewhat extravagant theory of innumerable coexistent and ephemeral suns and moons). Further, as Barnes (above, n. 17) 96, points out, "... it is plain that by talking of 'what men call [Barnes' italics] Iris




Having seen that the accounts of the Xenophanean arguments of the MXG, Simplicius, and Ps.-Plutarch ultimately derive from Theo- phrastus we may attempt now to arrange all our sources, including those on Xenophanean reasoning, into a single stem.102

Discussing the views of the early philosophers in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics (in Phys. 20-28), Simplicius repeatedly refers to Theophrastus as the source of his information on the subject and concludes his account of these philosophers by describing it as "an abridged outline of what is reported on the principles" (Phys. 28.30),

or the Dioscuri [fr. 32; A&t. 2.18.1 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 39] Xenophanes implies that there is, in reality, nothing divine about these phenomena ...." Lesher (above, n. 82) 10 and n. 26, observes that Epicurus' explanations of heavenly phenomena "resemble both in content and terminology those given by Xenophanes." (That Epicurus was influenced by Xenophanes' doctrines is further supported by Sext. Emp. Math. 10.18.) Lesher concludes that Epicurus' rejection of divine interference in the movement of the sky and the heavenly bodies is the explicit statement of what is implicit in Xeno- phanes' natural account. At any rate, Epicurus used Milesian meteorology, of which Xenophanes was a distinguished exponent. We can thus see that Xenophanes' accounts of the "elements" and meteorological phenomena not only do not suggest their divinity, but rather speak against it (cf. Frinkel [above, n. 73] 130; Jaeger [above, n. 8] 42, 48-49; Guthrie [above, n. 8] 1. 393).

Now what does Xenophanes say about gods? Two things. First, that they cannot be such as men believe they are, which is germane to his positing the alternative conception of One God. Secondly, that what men believe to be the gods are not such, which is per- tinent to the physical realm: "She whom men call Iris, she too is by its nature a cloud, purple and red and green to see" (fr. 34); "... that which some call the Dioscuri are small clouds glimmering because of their specific motion" (AMt. 2. 18.1 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 39). It follows that when Xenophanes says in fr. 34 that nobody can have certain knowledge "about the gods," he means that nobody can know what exactly is that which men call Iris or the Dioscuri, or, putting it more generally, what men are in the habit of calling gods. This is the domain which later came to be known as meteorology, but for which Xenophanes had no general term covering the scope of the natural explanations as delineated by the Milesians. The "about the gods [that is, that class of things which are commonly thought to be gods] and concerning everything I speak of [here, that is, all other such things]" of fr. 34 is merely the archaic description of the domain later known as meteorology.

102 It should be stated immediately that in outlining the stem I do not intend to present a general picture of the Theophrastean transmission; what I shall try to determine are the main turning-points in the transmission of the report on Xenophanes' God which should be postulated to account for the state of the doxographic material at our disposal.




that is, a short summary of the "On the Principles," the first book of Theophrastus' Physical Opinions. Formally, Simplicius' account of Xenophanes does not constitute an exception; here too he refers his information to Theophrastus, paraphrasing or even quoting his words verbatim.103 It appears, however, that a considerable part of the account has nothing to do with Theophrastus and closely resembles the picture presented in the MXG. This has made critics believe that in reporting about Xenophanes Simplicius conflates Theophrastus' account with that of the MXG,104 an assumption which leads to insuperable difficulties.105 Fortunately, it is quite unnecessary to assume that Sim- plicius resorted to the MXG to explain the emergence in his report of the false propositions (3c) and (4a): these did not come into Theo- phrastus' account from elsewhere but originated within it, being a

103 See Diels (above, n. 13) 111-113, 480-481; cf. McDiarmid (above, n. 2) 116. 104 This is the view of Diels (above, n. 13) 109-112, which has become standard in

Xenophanean scholarship. 105 It is quite inconceivable how Simplicius could have combined two such incompati-

ble reports (explanations like McDiarmid's [above, n. 2] 118, are hardly realistic). Diels himself (above, n. 13) 112, is at a loss to explain this-"nolo argutari qua ratione haec cum priore sententia secundum metaphysica confirmata conciliaverit, utrum ambiguita- tem illam allatis Xenophanis versibus demonstraverit an alia in capite de principio alia in c. de deo attulerit"; he then suggests (ibid.) that Simplicius had no access to Theo-

phrastus' work but drew his information from Alexander (cf. Uberweg-Praechter [above, n. 8] 74; Burnet [above, n. 10] 126; McDiarmid [above, n. 2] 116). This suggestion however is unwarranted-see Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 92 n. 1; Regenbogen (above, n. 99) 1536; Kahn (above, n. 28) 14 n. 1; but if abandoned, the hypothesis of the conflation becomes altogether impracticable. Further, Simplicius nowhere indicates that he uses some other account beside Theophrastus; we therefore have to allow that he takes the MXG to be also by Theophrastus. But this suggestion makes Simplicius hold that Theo-

phrastus produced two incompatible accounts of Xenophanes. Could he have believed this? Could he, at the very least, not even have mentioned this extraordinary fact?

Finally, we are told (Kahn, loc. cit) that Simplicius' presumable reliance on the MXG or a similar source proves that "he was perfectly capable of ignoring the Phys. Opin." Let alone that the isolated and doubtful example of such a practice on Simplicius' part can

prove hardly anything, what Simplicius is admitted to be doing on this explanation cannot

properly be called "ignoring the Phys. Opin."; the only appropriate name is deliberate for-

gery: Simplicius would then not merely have preferred another source to Theophrastus, he would have combined Theophrastus' account with what he knew was not by Theo-

phrastus and moreover was entirely incompatible with him and proceeded to ascribe this

amalgam to Theophrastus. Can one credit Simplicius with such conscious (and purpose- less) falsification? (For the quality of Simplicius' scholarship see Diels [above, n. 13] 112).




product of garbling of (3) and (4)-see Table 3.106 Evidently, this is the same garbled version of Theophrastus' account from which the MXG also ultimately derives its information. And, indeed, the differ- ences in wording and even, to an extent, in the setting of the arguments, between Simplicius and the MXG suggest their independent derivation from a common source rather than the former's direct dependence on the latter. 107

To judge from Simplicius, the distorted account at his disposal contained (la), (2), (3c), (4a), and (7)-see Table 4. It follows that it could not have included (3), (4), and (5). Nor did it contain (3b), which Simplicius, having found it in Alexander, dismisses as incompatible with the "Theophrastean" (3c); nor, in all probability (3a), for Simpli- cius does not report God's homogeneity, mentioning it only in connection with Alexander's (3b). Now since argument (3a) originates from the reframing of (6), the lack of the former suggests the presence of the latter; yet though reporting (7) Simplicius does not mention (6) which is closely related to it, and this seems to suggest that in his source (6) was lacking.

106 That the version of Theophrastus' work Simplicius used was mutilated in more than one respect seems to me obvious. First of all, this was very probably not the whole of Theophrastus' work but only the first book, "On the Principles": Simplicius' commentary offers no evidence that he possessed something more. Further, it has been observed that his reliance on Theophrastus is sometimes mediated by Alexander. This suggests that he had no access to these pieces of the Theophrastean information, i.e., they were missing in his version of the "On the Principles." Diels (above, n. 13) 113, lists three cases where Simplicius, as he maintains, clearly resorts to Alexander's reproduction of Theophrastus: Phys. 38.20 (= Theophr. fr. 6), 115.11 (=fr. 7), and 700.18 (=fr. 15). As to fr. 15, the mere mention of Alexander's name after Theophrastus' is not sufficient testimony to reliance on Alexander; butfr. 6 and 7 are undeniable. In both cases the subject is Parmenides' doctrine, and Simplicius' knowledge of Theophrastus' account of Par- menides seems not to go beyond this information. The conclusion that the section on Parmenides was missing in Simplicius' manuscript of the "On the Principles" seems una- voidable. Now in Theophrastus, the account of Parmenides followed that of Xenophanes which, in turn, was preceded by the account of the Milesians; in Simplicius, the confused account of Xenophanes appears at the very beginning, before the Milesians. It would follow that not only did Simplicius possess only one detached book of Theophrastus' work, but that the text of this book was damaged in the part dealing with Xenophanes and Par- menides: the account of Parmenides dropped out entirely, while the report on Xeno- phanes, fundamentally garbled, was relocated at the beginning of the book.

107 Cf. von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1552.




Simplicius' report shows that (3c) and (4a), having originated as a result of the garbling of Theophrastus' text, were then provided with proofs, presumably to bring them in line with other Xenophanean theses accompanied by corresponding arguments; perhaps the corrupted text made it obvious that some arguments had been originally reported, thus prompting attempts to reconstitute them. This also seems to be the occasion on which (1) was provided with a new argument, thus being turned into (la): all three arguments, (la), (3c), and (4a), have one essential distinctive feature in common-all resort to the Parmenidean notions of Being and not-Being. Since it is hard to see why anyone might be interested in replacing one proof of God's

ungeneratedness with another, the simplest explanation seems to be that the original argument was missing or mutilated. We should therefore conclude that Simplicius' source was a product not only of a

degradation of Theophrastus' text, but also, which is worse, of a "res- torative" work of some doxographic writer. We must then postulate that between Theophrastus and the "restored" account used by Simpli- cius there was a version of Theophrastus' work in which the account of

Xenophanes was garbled (perhaps as a result of some abridgment and condensation, but perhaps merely because of careless copying and similar technical corruptions): theses (5) and (6) as well as argument (1) were lacking or unrecognizably mutilated, while (3) and (4) appeared, because of rephrasing or textual corruption, in a form open to

just such a misunderstanding as that attested in Simplicius' source. Beside the view found in his manuscript of the "On the Principles,"

Simplicius reports the views he found in Alexander and Nicolaus, which diverge from what he takes to be Theophrastus. Thus he informs us that, according to Alexander, being homogeneous, God is finite and spherical, which amounts to argument (3b). Since Simplicius takes this view to be Alexander's own and dismisses it as non-

Theophrastean, we must conclude that Alexander neither presented (3b) as Xenophanes' argument nor claimed it to be Theophrastus' rea-

soning. Further, Simplicius' tnrexpaoaokvov

&& icai oqptIpoEt0E; acxr [sc. t6 na&v 'AXcavSp6r 'plaot] 8ta 6b rEnavtaX60ev igotov [EEvopd6-

vrlv] XyEtv shows that in Alexander homogeneity was presented as the authentic Xenophanean statement. Does this mean that argument (6) was reframed in the way known to us from the MXG, that is, as argument (3a)? Simplicius' wording seems to suggest that it still was not. In our passage Simplicius consistently uses SeticvUco in references to




arguments,108 while using Xyco for statements.109 If so iavtaXov60ev Sgotov [EEvo<ptivrlV] Vyetv must indicate that in Alexander the homo-

geneity was reported as Xenophanes' statement rather than as an argument. To sum up, Alexander ascribed to Xenophanes the assertion that God is homogeneous and, on applying Parmenidean logic, claimed that God is finite and spherical. We can therefore conclude that Alexander's report stems from what has been termed above (Table 3) the "Parmenidized" version of Theophrastus' account.

It is not hard to see that the "Parmenidized" version is also the ultimate source of the overwhelming majority of our authorities- Hippolytus, Cicero (in Acad.), Theodoretus, Diogenes, Sextus, and Ps.-Galen, for all of them report (3a) or (3b) or both (see Table 1). At the same time none of them gives (4) and (7), which indicates that these were not in the "Parmenidized" version. Now the "Parmenidiza- tion" of Theophrastus' account, i.e., the insertion into it of the theses (3a) and (3b), which are closely related, is possible only if (3) was previously excised (provided, of course, that one does not assume a deliberate falsification). It follows that between Theophrastus' account and its "Parmenidized" version there must have been a report allowing the insertion of (3b), i.e., lacking (3). Now the dropping of (3) must have followed from epitomizations in the course of which Theophrastus' account was abridged by excising what seemed dispensable; obviously, the Theophrastean statements of "what Xenophanes did not say," (3) and (4), must have been the first to be dropped. It is therefore most probable that (4), as well as (7) which may have seemed too self- evident to require a special mention, were dropped together with (3), that is, in the source between Theophrastus' account and its "Parmeni- dized" version, a source which I shall therefore term the Abridged Summary. This Summary must thus have contained (1), (2), (5), and (6), while dropping (3), (4), and (7); the "Parmenidized" version then was the expansion of this Summary by the addition of theses (3a) and (3b) which, as far as we can judge from Alexander, were connected by means of the inference after Parmenides' pattern, which amounts to argument (3b), without, however, presenting it as Xenophanes' own reasoning.

Of six accounts, those of Hippolytus, Cicero (in Acad.), Theo-

108 Diels-Kranz (above, n. 9) 1.121.29 and 31; 122.1 and 12. 109 Diels-Kranz (above, n. 9) 1.122.7; cf. 121.28.




doretus, Diogenes, Sextus, and Ps.-Galen, which stem from the "Par- menidized" version of the Abridged Summary, only Hippolytus des- cends directly from it, for, while dropping the arguments, as in all other sources of this group, he reports all the theses presumably contained in it and in the same order (only (5) is relocated, being given earlier, see Table 1). The rest of the accounts stemming from the "Parmenidized" version report only some of the theses, in various combinations and orders; what, however, is more significant is that all of them lack thesis (3a). Such consistency can hardly be incidental; rather it suggests their derivation from a common source differing from the "Parmenidized" version in that it lacks (3a). In determining the mutual relationship between these two sources we should take into account that the doxographic idea that Xenophanes conceived of God as finite and spherical had to be, and actually was, as Alexander's report shows, the result of inference by the analogy with Parmenides from God's homogeneity which, in turn, was easily suggested by God's perceiving as a whole.Ito It is therefore not very plausible that homogeneity and finitude entered the transmission separately, and at any rate homogeneity must have come before finitude, not vice versa. It follows that the account in which finitude and/or sphericity is reported while the homogeneity is lacking should be assumed to derive from a text in which both attributes are present, being, in all probability, its abridged form. We should therefore postulate the existence of an abridged form of the "Parmenidized" version as a common source to which the accounts of Cicero (Acad.), Theodoretus, Diogenes, Sextus, and Ps.-Galen can be traced.

Beside the "Parmenidized" version, yet another expansion of the Abridged Summary seems to have existed where Xenophanes' God was described as infinite presumably by analogy with Melissus' Being. The existence of this version, termed "Melissized" (see Table 3), is suggested by the coincidence of the reports of Cicero (in Nat. D.) and Nicolaus Damascenus (ap. Simpl.). Finally, Ps.-Plutarch's account most probably is in direct descent from the Abridged Summary, being mediated neither by the "Parmenidized" nor "Melissized" versions.

It remains to consider the origins of the Xenophanean section of the MXG. This is obviously the product of the combination of two sources, the "Parmenidized" version of the Abridged Summary and the

110 Cf. Stokes (above, n. 8) 75.




"restored" version of the "On the Principles" which was also the source of Simplicius. In the MXG two diverging transmissions of Theo- phrastean origin met again to produce the "full" picture of Xenophanes. The "restored" account of Xenophanes from the "On the Principles" was taken as the basis of the compilation, as the fact that the MXG gives (la) rather than (1) of the "Parmenidized" version shows. This must be put down to the compiler's respect for Theophrastus' name, under which the "On the Principles" came to him, as distinct from the "Parmenidized" version: we remember that Simplicius takes Alexander's report as the latter's own view, evidence that it was presented by Alexander anonymously, which would hardly have been the case if it had circulated under Theophrastus' name. From the "restored" version came (la), (3c), and (4a); (2) was in both sources; (3b) which in the "Parmenidized" version was intended as explicative was taken as Xenophanes' own argument; (6) of the "Parmenidized" version was reformulated in the Parmenidean spirit, thus being turned into argument (3a), which made the thesis (3a), already present in the "Parmenidized" version, inferential and thus provided (3b) with the inferential premise and the whole with the character of a continuous deduction. (Of course, these changes, the turning of (3b) into Xeno- phanean argument and the reframing of (6) as (3a) could have occurred earlier, in intermediate sources.) To reconcile the apparent incompati- bilities, (5) of the "Parmenidized" version was excised in favor of the "Theophrastean" (4a) of the "restored" version of the "On the Princi- ples"; in (3b) the "finite" was dropped to avoid the clash with "neither finite nor infinite," which, of course, did not save the situation, and the compiler himself points out the incompatibility of "spherical," which implies finitude, with (3c). The compiler's lavish elaboration of the "Xenophanean" arguments111 was not, I believe, a conscious falsification; it was rather the "reconstruction," on the basis of doxographic summaries, of the arguments as the compiler imagined they must ini- tially have looked.

The entire stem is presented in Table 5.

I1 On the non-Theophrastean locutions in the MXG see Diels (above, n. 13) 113.



Table 5 THEOPHRASTUS: (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7)

THE CORRUPTED VERSION OF THE ABRIDGED SUMMARY THE 'ON THE PRINCIPLES': OF THE PHYS. OPIN.:

(1) without its argument; (2); (3) and (1),(2),(5),(6); (3) (4) and (7) dropped (4) corrupted; (5) and (6) missed; (7)

'RESTORED' VERSION OF THE 'PARMENIDIZED' VERSION: THE 'MELISSIZED' VERSION: THE 'ON THE PRINCIPLES': (1),(2); theses (3a) and (3b) added; (1),(2); thesis 'infinite' added; (1) supplied with the new argu- argument (3b) admitted as (5),(6) ment = (la); (2); (3) and (4) explicative; (5),(6) misinterpreted and supplied with the arguments = (3c) and (4a); (7)

THE ABRIDGED FORM OF THE 'PARMENIDIZED' VERSION: (1),(2); (3a) dropped; (3b),(5),(6)

Simplicius: The Xenophanean Alexander: Hippolytus: Cicero (Acad.): Cicero (Nat. D.) Ps.-Plutarch: the order of (la) section of the theses (3a) (5),(1),(2) (2),(5),(1),(3b) 'infinite' (1);(2) and (3) and (2) reversed; MXG: and (3b); (3a),(3b),(6) Theodoretus: Nicolaus: misinterpreted (3c),(4a),(7) (la),(2); (6) argument (3b) (2),(3b),(1),(5) 'infinite' as

rnEpi E~ov

restated as as explicative Sextus: (3a); (3b) as (2),(3b),(5),(6) Xenophanean; Ps.-Galen: (5) and (7) dropped (2),(3b),(6),(5)

Diogenes: (3b),(6)

Vt ?C1

~2t ca ;sl *rl k. ;3 h. 0? ca

d~




Some of Xenophanes' arguments having been explicated and his use of inferential proofs thus firmly established, we may proceed to ask to what extent the Xenophanean monistic doctrine was inferential. For indeed, the fact that Xenophanes used logical proofs does not necessarily mean that his conception of One God was deductive or predom- inantly deductive, for his arguments might well have been sporadic and of secondary importance within the general framework. Yet we have, I believe, good reason to conclude that precisely the contrary was the case. Let us compare Xenophanes' argumentation according to its order in Theophrastus' account (Table 4) with fr. 8 of Parmenides' Aletheia :112

Parmenides (1) Ungenerated and eternal [8.6]. .. .rva yxp y7vvav 8tlioCae

[7] m' n"60ev a6I\O'v; o06' 8K rl dovzog Eaooom

[8] (po•oOat

o' o6Di voesv icrX. [12] o~'6 inor' r9 crl p d6vro; ~1prioet

Rioeto; ioXClg [13] yyvsaeai 'rt nap' C9a6 'ricX. (2) One and continuous (8.22-25) (3) Unchangeable (8.26-31) [8.29] rau6r6v t' v

TaUiT, te gvov

Ica0' haDTy6 te cei'rat [30] xo ;FoS 9'gReS6ov aiOt giCve

(4) Perfect (8.32-49) [8.32] otveFiev oix d&reh ErrlXov Tb

F6v OIt; dvat- [33] Foat yTp o6•I CIt6ieviq. rl- bv

8' &v Rav'bS 9Se&iTo. [34] TaDb9yv 8' oati voe iv e Kcai

oiveFiev i~For V6nTIa.

Xenophanes (1) Ungenerated and eternal [Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4]: ei y&p ytyvotro TO)Co, avaylccaov Rp o TO)toR) gi1 evalt [To]

R•7 (E)6v &8 o3DC &v

yvotTo - ouir' [instead of o68' of MSS] av ['r] Ril (A)6V Ro017iuat lit oIt e %)r [Tol] A (A)6vro;g yvoti' av Tt.

(2) One (3) Unmoved [fr. 26.1] aleFl 8' v zaj'fP g igve 1 vo 9evo o86'v IdX.

(4) Thoroughly perceiving [Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4] itti6eo0ai Te grnSv b; ... gr8' ,k;-

adCoItyv 8% iali 6pav (Ica voEsv) Ica0dkoxoD cai rl caraT g po; =

112 In the segmentation of the fragment I follow Schofield in Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 249-253.




[35] 0o ya'p a&veU Toi 6vTo;, 9v fr. 24:

n•~paqctoievov oaytv, oieo 6p , oi~Xo &5 voe' , o~o; & [36] eFiprijaet; b voEIv ... I' a&couet. [42] au6,rxp ~inei nieipa;q n~iatov,

teTeXehRTLevov C0aTi [43] ni&vroOev, etGmrickou aq(paiprI

EvalyKtov icyK(p, [44] geCaa60ev ivaoinag idv'rn' "

T6 ytp orTe Rt Ciei ov

[45] oTrEe It 1pai6repov iteXvat pe6v a'tt 'tf7 1i 'tf7. [46] o rze yazp oK Ec ov gaoUt, x6 cev aotaIoi 1v iiceio0at

[47] ei; 6Og6v, oj ' byv agrtyv iuno; ei'rcev d6vro;

[48] 'i &Xhov ti 8' faooov, 8 nEi% Rnav anttv ~atoukov

[49] of yap iauvroOev •Tov, 6.ilo;

v Rneipaut Kicpet.

The order of Parmenides' arguments follows the reported order of Xenophanes', and this becomes even more evident if we take into consideration that God's thorough perception is undoubtedly a manifesta- tion of his perfection.113 The parallelism is the more notable in that Parmenides' arguments are only loosely connected with each other and could actually have been arranged otherwise. The parallels are found not only in the arrangement of the reasoning but also on the linguistic plane, and though scanty, they are especially significant, for Xeno-

phanes' arguments have come down to us in summaries and corrupted ones at that; where we have the authentic wording, namely in the case of "unmoved," the resemblance is striking indeed.114 Finally, in the Parmenidean arguments (1) and (4) we can easily discern variations on the corresponding Xenophanean ideas,115 (4) being especially interest-

113 Cf. fr. 23.2: "[God] is not like mortals either in body or in thought." Barnes (above, n. 17) 94 and n. 20, rightly equates God's being free from any want with his perfection, adducing as the parallels Eur. HF 1345 (cf. Guthrie [above, n. 8] 1.373), Antiphon's fr. 10, Xen. Mem. 1.6.10, and Diogenes the Cynic ap. Diog. 6.105.

114 Cf. Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 112-114; Stokes (above, n. 8) 83 n. 53. 115 Cf. Diels (above, n. 13) 111 n. 2: "Xenophanis rationem representari licet ex Par-

menid. v. 66 St." (Diels quotesfr. 8.5-8 and 12-13).




ing in this respect. Parmenides begins by applying to Being Xeno- phanes' denial of any want to God; the meaning of the following lines, 8.34-36, is obscure and controversial, but the undisputable fact that a certain connection is established between the One and thinking suffices for our purpose: the sequence of Parmenides' ideas is the same as in Xenophanes, from oiic citt6ei;g to voeiv. After a short digression in which he dismisses mortal errors (8.38-41), Parmenides returns to Being and proceeds to describe its perfection-the idea manifestly present in the Xenophanean God's thorough perception-and then especially dwells on the homogeneity of Being, again the very characteristic implied in God's being a single common sensorium. Par- menides thus moves in the circle of Xenophanes' ideas, developing and explicating them, a fact which points to an influence much deeper than any formal dependence.

The comparison is indeed illuminating: in his deduction of the attributes of Being, Parmenides mutatis mutandis follows fairly closely, as our comparative material, scarce as it is, shows, the pattern of Xeno- phanes' "theological" poetry. This proves the essentially, though not necessarily wholly and thoroughly, inferential character of the Xeno- phanean monistic doctrine.116 I am prepared for the objection that, if Xenophanes was indeed the pioneer of inferential discourse, why do we hear nothing about this from our ancient authorities? Well, supposing that Parmenides was this pioneer, do we hear anything about this?117

116 In reconstructing Theophrastus' account I did not have Parmenides' fr. 8 in mind; the idea of tentatively comparing these occurred to me later, and the result was surprising. The close correspondence between Parmenides' fr. 8 and my reconstruction of Theo- phrastus' account both verifies the latter and attests the basing of Parmenides' thought on Xenophanes. The extent and specifications of these influences are naturally open to argument, but not, I believe, the fact itself.

117 We are in a position now to decide whether Xenophanes wrote a formal composition on the philosophic subjects. The ancients say that he did; Burnet (above, n. 10) 115, followed by Jaeger (above, n. 8) 39 and nn. 6, 7, 8; 40 and nn. 9, 10, 11; Steinmetz (above, n. 13) 54-68; and von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1545-1546, disagree; see in detail in: Unter- steiner (above, n. 38) ccxxxiii ff. Now it is obvious that the idea that Xenophanes presented his "theological" conception in sporadic utterances scattered throughout his poetry is not really compatible with the inferential, or close to such, form of his doctrine; and it is altogether incompatible with the fixed order of the arguments, the existence of which is proved by the parallelism between Theophrastus' account of Xenophanes and Parmenides' fr. 8. It follows then that Xenophanes' monistic doctrine could have been expounded only in a continuous poetic passage, either a separate poem or a part of a




In the light of our conclusions we can understand the purport of a curious testimony by a man who most likely was personally acquainted with Xenophanes at Hieron's court in Syracuse, had occasion to listen to his performances118 and parodied his doctrines in comedies. I mean Epicharmus.'19

In Metaph. 1010a6 Aristotle, criticizing his predecessors, remarks: "... therefore, while they speak plausibly, they do not say what is true

(Eisc6oKg gvAv XYO1otv, oiU & anrl0fi •• • ,youatv) (for it is fitting to put

the matter so rather than as Epicharmus put it against Xenophanes)." What then did Epicharmus say? There are three theoretical possibilities: (a) "he speaks plausibly and what is true," (b) "he speaks implau-

major inclusive piece. At the same time, fr. 34 presupposes as its context a more or less extensive passage concerned with philosophic topics (cf. Deichgraiber [above, n. 6] 19; Gigon, Untersuchungen zu Heraklit [Leipzig 1935] 151; Untersteiner [above, n. 38] c-cxiv; Barnes [above, n. 17] 83-84), specifically, as we have seen, with natural explanations. There are therefore two possibilities: either the monistic deductions and the natural explanations constituted two parts of a unified philosophic composition, or they were two separate poems, on God and on the world (whether or not combined with other

topics such as criticism of popular beliefs, etc.). Now there are three reasons for preferring the former option. First, the ancients knew only one Xenophanean philosophic piece, which is thrice referred to in our sources as lepi P•0ioe;,-by the grammarians Crates of Mallos and Pollux (Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 B 30, 39) and presumably by AMtius (Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] A 36, the second text, wrongly assessed by Diels as "aus d. homerischen Allegorien,"-see J. Mansfeld, "Aristotle and Others on Thales, or The Beginning of Natural Philosophy," Mnemosyne 38 [1985] 127 n. 64); cf. also Diog. 8.56 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 5). The title by no means indicates that the content of the piece was restricted to cosmological speculation alone; HEpti poEoS is usual in ancient references to the early philosophic compositions, and even the Parmenidean

poem was referred to as HEpi ple o; (Suda s.v.; Diog. 8.55; Simpl. De Caelo 556, 25 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 2, 9, 14). Secondly, the combination of the monistic and

cosmological doctrines as two formally distinct parts of the same poem is attested for Par- menides, which, in view of the overt influence, may be taken as suggesting the unified

composition in Xenophanes as well. Thirdly, in the absence of contrary evidence, we should admit the unified poem in order to meet the requirement of the most economical solution. We may thus assume that Xenophanes wrote a poem known in antiquity under the conventional title Hepi <piamo;, which formally fell into two parts, on God and on "the gods and all other such things," that is, cosmology (cf. above, n. 101). It is quite a different question whether the piece was a didactic epic or a Sillos, i.e., whether it also included criticism and polemics, and whether it was in hexameters or in mixed meters,

questions which, it seems, can hardly be solved. 118 See Diog. 9.18 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 1): A&k & icKa acrgT6 ppa•4

et

119 Cf. above, n. 96; see also Reinhardt (above, n. 24) 122-125.




sibly and what is not true," (c) "he speaks implausibly but what is true." Of these only (c) is a true witticism capable of sticking in the memory and worth recalling and at the same time providing Aristotle's "plausibly but what is not true" with the best contrast.120 The next question is, what was Epicharmus' point of reference? As we have seen, Xenophanes declared that his cosmology was not true but only plausible, using, it must be noted, a similar expression, ,otico6Ta toi

T6CIotat (fr. 35). Now if it was the Xenophanean cosmology that was Epicharmus' intended target, i.e., if he simply derided Xenophanes' sceptical qualification of natural accounts, the joke appears to be an idle mockery which could hardly appeal to Aristotle and be described by him as what "Epicharmus put against (or 'in regard to'-eiq) Xeno- phanes." It seems therefore much more probable that the target was Xenophanes' "theology." Now it is perfectly understandable that one can call the concept of a thoroughly perceiving and totally immovable cosmic god implausible, but it is not immediately obvious why one should at the same time assent, though ironically, to the truth of this idea. This, however, is easily explained if we bear in mind that Xeno- phanes' implausible doctrine was supported by "irrefutable" proofs. It seems, therefore, that Epicharmus ironically alludes to Xenophanes' own qualification of his natural explanations: they are, as he himself confesses, plausible yet hardly true; his account of the divine is, of course, true, yet, regrettably, implausible. The situation, amply illus- trated in Plato, is quite puzzling for anyone inexperienced in logical discourse as all Xenophanes' hearers certainly were: the starting-point seems undeniably true but the conclusions are surprising and hardly acceptable. It was precisely this paradox, I believe, that made Epi- charmus call Xenophanes' "theology" "implausible truth." Such was its effect on contemporary hearers and such witticisms were current among them.121

120 See Th. Gomperz in Diels-Kranz (above, n. 9) ad loc.; Ross' note ad loc. in the Oxford translation, and Ross (above, n. 2) 1. 276, ad 1010a6.

121 We can now appraise the extent of Jaeger's misinterpretation of Xenophanes' thought when he writes: "It is nothing that rests on logical proof, nor is it really philo- sophical at all, but springs from an immediate sense of awe at the sublime of the Divine" ([above, n. 8] 49). Von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1547, correctly warns that "das logische Ele- ment in X.s theologischem Denken ... sollte ... nicht Uibersehen werden" (cf. Reinhardt [above, n. 24] 100; Deichgriiber [above, n. 6] 28-30; Barnes [above, n. 17] 94). Yet the very controversy as to whether Xenophanes was a religious mystic, as Nietzche first claimed (Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen in Werke, ed. K. Schlechta




After this long discussion of Xenophanes' argumentation and related subjects we may return to the question which necessitated it, whether the contrast he drew between the two facets of his teaching, "theological" and physical, was of epistemic character. We know now that Xenophanes used inferential proofs and these proofs were not accidental, but rather constituted the very texture of his monistic conception. Now this inferential or almost inferential doctrine was intended as true, as its exemption from the scope of the sceptical attitude shows and as Epicharmus' testimony seems to attest, while the cosmological account was professedly declared to be not true but only, at best, a plausible opinion, since the conclusions arrived at in this quarter lack certainty-they are possible but never the only ones possible, that is, never necessary; it follows, then, that the conclusions obtained in the "theological" sphere were regarded by Xenophanes as certain,122 that is, the only possible, or necessary ones. This means that he was aware of the apodeictic character of his inferences,123 and we must therefore recognize that he in effect distinguished between apodeictic and non-apodeictic knowledge.124 The truth of Xenophanes' monistic doctrine is thus guaranteed by the very fact that it is attained

through necessary inferences; physical speculation, on the other hand, is not apodeictic and because of this requires empirical verification which, however, is impracticable, reducing this kind of knowledge to no more than opinion.125

(Munich 1956) 2. 385; cf. Jaeger, loc. cit.) or a rational "theologist" (see Reinhardt, loc. cit.; Barnes, loc. cit.) is somewhat artificial: the mystical intuition may well be followed

by conceptual elaboration and argument,-pace Kirk, Raven, Schofield (above, n. 7) 165. 122 Cf. Deichgriber (above, n. 6) 30; Gigon (above, n. 24) 19; von Fritz (above, n. 14)

1557-1558. 123 Cf. Deichgriber (above, n. 6) 29: "Die Pridikate, die der Gott erhilt, ergeben sich

mit der im nrpatxov gelegenen Notwendigkeit." Yet as the first argument in Ps.-Plutarch's account shows, it would be wrong to restrict Xenophanes' argumentation to the "logisch- explicative Methode" (ibid. 30).

124 My conclusions concerning the logical standing of Xenophanes' monistic doctrine and the epistemological opposition between it and the cosmology are close to those of

Deichgriber (above, n. 6) 29-30. 125 Lumpe (above, n. 8) 35, is therefore wrong in concluding that Xenophanes'

"Methode ist ... weder rein empiristisch noch rein rationalistisch"; as a matter of fact,

Xenophanes uses two different methods in his monistic and his cosmological doctrines.




The next question is how Theophrastus defined, if at all, Xeno- phanes' epistemic approach. The relevant sentence in Ps.-Plutarch runs as follows: &artopaiveTat eictai tag aio0rojet; esV~iE Icaci

icaO•6ko aov aiarSi rai a3byv b6v 6yov tacld4 Xt,-"Xenophanes says that senses lie and together with them he discredits on the whole the logos itself." The report as it stands is undoubtedly wrong and seems to have come from inferior Sceptic sources. Yet this can hardly be the case. First, the section of the Stromateis concerned with Xenophanes has thus far proved itself a source not contaminated with alien, non- Theophrastean, doxographic traditions, and we need not make an exception for a single phrase, the more so that it does not display any specifically Sceptic feature.126 Secondly, the location of the sentence in the account, after the exposition of the monistic doctrine and before the report on Xenophanes' cosmology, is undoubtedly correct and points to the original purpose of the phrase, namely the determination of the epistemological standing of the "theological" doctrine in Xenophanes' teaching. We therefore have every reason to believe that the statement did not come from any other source but is yet another example of the garbling of Theophrastus' wording in Ps.-Plutarch.

Now supposing that Theophrastus reported Xenophanes' epistemological approach, how did this report read? In the passage from Metaph. 5 discussed at the beginning of this paper Aristotle puts the Parmenidean opposition between Aletheia and Doxa as follows: "...but being forced to follow the observed facts, and supposing the existence of that which is one in definition (iarax b6v

,6yov), but more

than one according to our sensations (icarx ri~v ai'O0rltiv), he now posits two causes ... fire and earth ..." This is to say that in Aletheia Parmenides follows logos while disregarding aisthesis, whereas in Doxa he is guided by aisthesis while abandoning logos. This was also Theophrastus' view, as appears from Ps.-Plutarch's report that Par- menides tz; aio0GioEtS 3KEP

,lXEt *K tig &,rl9ei

ag,-"throws out

Nevertheless Lumpe is much closer to the truth than those critics who, as Frinkel and Reiche, try to reduce Xenophanes' approach to a "rigorous empiricism" (Frinkel [above, n. 73] 130).

126 Pace Barnes (above, n. 17) 137, who ranges Ps.-Plutarch's report with Sotion's (cf. also Lumpe [above, n. 8] 32),-compare Sotion's wording (ap. Diog. 9.20 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 1, above n. 70) echoed in Hippol. Haer. 1.14.1 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 33).




sense-perception from the truth."127 Now what applies to Parmenides' Aletheia must also apply to Xenophanes' "theology": Xenophanes, in Theophrastus' view, was the inventor of the "way of the eternally selfsame whole" followed by Parmenides in Aletheia, and in his "theology" Xenophanes also largely resorted to logos, that is, a priori deductions. It follows that Theophrastus must have said that Xenophanes followed logos while disregarding aistheseis. Now this is the formulation found in Aristocles,128 who classes Xenophanes with the Eleatics and the Megarians, describing all of them as thinkers who disregard aistheseis and relied on the logos alone. But why conclude that Aristo- cles' characterization of the epistemological position of a number of thinkers goes back to Theophrastus' description of Xenophanes' individual position? Let us examine the wording of Aristocles' report:

oi'ovrat yap 6Eiyv r&; aRv aiaoroetl; a cai Taxg pavaoia(;

ca-ra•3&rxxtv, al'T 68 ~E6vov

To) X6yTp _nttoyEIitv" V otalza

ydp tva lrp rEpov •Riv E. Kai

HapptEvi86rli al ZIivyov ial

MXtioao - " eyov, i9oaEpov 8' oi

nEpi XzriXnova icai tot; ME-

yaptco't;. 08Ev iotvv oLTol

YE O OV EV Elvat Zal b 'TO EpovV

Rtil EdVvat tnrl•p 7yEvv&a( tI Rn8& E'(pOIpEacxiat Ri6lE tIVEi- aoat 6 T'napdanIav.

Ps.-Plut. Strom. 4: atoqpaiverat 68' Kaici rz;g aia,0Aa& \jIg tSIg Kai ia06xo'u Oav alzaigi Kai aplrv Thv k6yov 8tapac"Lxt.

Hippol. Haer. 1.14.2: k*ytt 6~ 0rt o0i6v y•veFat o0- cE0eipe- rat o

ltvE riat Kai zt &riv TO

nav FOatv Krx.

If the resemblance between Aristocles' and Ps.-Plutarch's wording is not enough to ascertain their common descent, then the additional

127 Ps.-Plut. Strom. 5 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 22). Kahn (above, n. 28) 24, notes that "the two sections of Parmenides' poem are distinguished [by Theophrastus] Ica'

&dXAO•tav jRiv and jara 86t av 6& Oi)v noh yov, according to the very words of

Parm. B 1.29-30 ... Aristotle's own distinction in terms of X6yoq and ai'atOriot or

qatv6gieva (Vors. 28 A 24-25) is less accurate, for the terms are his own rather than those of the writer in question." Yet having described the distinction in Parmenides' own terms Theophrastus interprets it in terms of X6yoq and ai'a0loOnq.

128 Flepi ptlooopiaq if ap. Eus. Praep. Evang. 14.17.1 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 49).




parallel with Hippolytus finally proves this. Aristocles, that is, here draws on the Theophrastean doxography of Xenophanes (in all probability, on the "Parmenidized" version, as the parallel with Hippolytus suggests-see Table 5) applying what is said with reference to Xeno- phanes to a whole group of thinkers.

We can thus conclude that Theophrastus did define Xenophanes' epistemological approach and that his definition was exactly as we would expect it to be-"he throws out aistheseis, while trusting logos alone." The definition is loose and misleading, for it implies that, in contrast to the "theology," the "physics" is "according to aistheseis"; yet the actual contrast is not that between two kinds of cognition, purely intellectual and that based on the senses but that between two kinds of inferences, a priori demonstration labelled certain knowledge and a posteriori inferences which, when unverifiable, are but fallible guesses. 129

Here our reconstruction of Theophrastus' account can be regarded as completed: we have determined his general approach to Xeno-

129 We can now see whether, as is usually believed, Xenophanes held that the sense- perceptions are unreliable. Comparing the report in the Stromateis with that of Aristocles we observe that Ps.-Plutarch not only completely misrepresents the second part of Theo- phrastus' statement, but also glosses its first part as "senses lie," and therefore we must not take these words as suggesting that Theophrastus reported Xenophanes' distrust of the reliability of sense-perceptions. Theophrastus' "throwing out aistheseis, while trusting logos alone" must also be Aetius' reason for listing Xenophanes together with ten other philosophers under the title "the senses lie"; and indeed, the names listed (AMt. 4.9.1 = Diels [above, n. 13] 396; cf. Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 49) suggest this interpretation rather than the unreliability of sense-perceptions. The doxographic material at our disposal thus provides no evidence that Theophrastus ever said that Xenophanes claimed the unreliability of our sense-perceptions, and the fact that the Sceptics did not explicitly ascribe this view to Xenophanes further proves our conclusions. We are left with Xeno- phanes' fr. 38 which is usually interpreted as stressing the relativity of our perceptions and our empirical judgments (e.g., Frinkel [above, n. 19] 430; G. Rudberg, "Xenophanes, Satiriker und Polemiker," SO 26 [1948] 133; Guthrie [above, n. 8] 1.401). This is the possible purport of the lines, but in the absence of the broader context it is not clear whether this was the intended one. At any rate, it is evident that the idea of the unreliability of the senses, if articulated by Xenophanes at all, was casual and peripheric in his thought.




phanes' twofold teaching and dwelt on the main points of his report on Xenophanes' monistic doctrine; the examination of Xenophanes' cosmological conception, however interesting and desirable, is a separate task which should be left for another opportunity. After such a lengthy discussion one should perhaps briefly recapitulate the results arrived at, and the best way to do this seems to be to present the Theo- phrastean account in the form of the ordered series of statements reconstructed above. In this list the sources from which a given statement is excerpted or on the basis of which it is formulated are referred to by the name of the author and the page and line(s) of the Diels-Kranz edition; statements and parts of statements which are purely conjectural are italicized.

i. [Ps.-Plut.; 122.15-18] But Xenophanes of Colophon who pursued a certain way of his own different from [that of] all those spoken of beforehand [sc. the Milesians] allows neither coming-to-be nor destruction but says that the whole is eternally selfsame.

ii. [Simpl.; 121.28] He says that this One and Whole is God, saying thus-fr. 23.

iii. [Simpl.; 121.27-28] The mention of this Xenophanean opinion rather belongs to a study other than that concerned with natural

philosophy [that is, in that concerned with first philosophy]. iv. He says that God is ungenerated and eternal which he proves as

follows: [on the basis of Ps.-Plut.; 122.18-20] had it [the Whole or God] come to be, it is necessary for it not to be before this; but not being, it can never come to be: neither nought can produce anything nor anything can come to be by the agency of nought.

v. That God is one he proves so: [on the basis of Ps.-Plut.; 122. 23-24] among gods there can be no supremacy, for it does not suit the divine holiness that God should be under lordship; but were there many gods, there would be lords and subjects among them (perhaps also: or all of them would be lords of each other).

vi. [on the basis of Simpl.; 121.24-25; 122.3-6] He does not say whether God is finite or infinite,

vii. nor does he say [on the basis of Simpl.; 121.25; 122.3-6] whether he is moved or unmoved,

viii. but [on the basis of Simpl.; 122.6-9] actually he conceives of God as unmoved, for he calls him eternally selfsame and says- fr. 26.

ix. He says that God is thoroughly seeing, hearing, and thinking-




fr. 24; he demonstrates this in the following way: [on the basis of Ps.-Plut.; 122.25-26] God is altogether free from any want; but had he seen, heard and thought only in one part of him he would be in want of these in another part; hence he sees, hears, and thinks wholly and not in one or another part of himself.

x. [on the basis of Simpl.; 122.13-14] And he says that God governs all things by his mind, saying-fr. 25.

xi. [on the basis of Ps.-Plut.; 122.20-21; Aristocles; 126.6-8] Thus he throws out sense-perceptions, while trusting logos alone.

xii. [on the basis of Ps.-Plut.; 122.15-18; Theophr. ap. Alex.; 219.31-33] The other way, that of accounting for coming-to-be of existing things he dismisses declaring such accounts to be no more than opinion deprived of any certainty saying this in such words-fr. 34.

xiii. Nevertheless he proposes some such opinion which he himself seems to adjudge looking plausible, as his own words show- fr. 35.

xiv. [Theophr. ap. Alex; 219. 31-33] But Parmenides who came after him took both ways [sc. that of Xenophanes and that of the Mile- sians, cf. (i)]. For indeed, he both says that the whole is eternal and tries to account for coming-to-be of existing things not however thinking about both [ways] alike, but according to truth assuming the whole to be one, ungenerated, and spherical, while according to the opinion of the many as to accounting for the coming-to-be of perceptible things, positing two principles, fire and earth, etc.

The reconstructed account represents that of the first book of the Physical Opinions. Indeed, (i) is the counterpart of (xiv) which is explicitly related by Alexander to the first book; (ii)-(x) also belong there, for they either come from Simplicius' report or correct and com- plement it where it is wrong or incomplete, while this report itself comes from the first book of the Physical Opinions. That the account of Xenophanes' arguments was given by Theophrastus there is further supported by the fact that the Theophrastean pr6cis of the Parmenidean argument was found by Alexander in the first book.130 Finally, the fact that in (xiv), which is a quotation from the first book, Theophrastus

130 Simpl. Phys. 115.11 (= Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 28).




outlines the respective standing of Parmenides' Aletheia and Doxa, suggests that the statements (xi)-(xiii), where Xenophanes' epistemological approach is reported, also belong here.

If Theophrastus' account was as I suggest, it seems to have been of great accuracy. True, it misrepresents Xenophanes' position in that his epistemic approach is interpreted in terms of the contrast logos: aistheseis, but this is the only major misinterpretation I can find in the account. On the whole, this is a precise report which moreover does not show any tendency to assimilate Xenophanes' teaching to that of Parmenides, a tendency which, as we have seen, is easily discernable in later doxographic writers. Theophrastus takes Xenophanes' text simply and literally and reports it as it stands, accurately and precisely, stressing the specific and indicating only the most general parallels and most apparent lines of historical continuity-as a matter of fact, he mentions only two: that Parmenides was Xenophanes' "pupil" and that he adopted in his Aletheia the "way" initiated by his "teacher" combin- ing it, in Doxa, with the "way" of Xenophanes' Milesian predecessors.

Yet it would be hard to point out even one important Parmenidean doctrine which is not, in one or another way, rooted in Xenophanes' teaching. Such is, first and foremost, the Parmenidean idea of the intelligible unity of the sensible manifold which in Xenophanes himself was, as we have suggested, the development of one of the facets of Anaximander's Apeiron; more specifically, this is the view of unity as one of two aspects, true, the most essential, significant, and sublime, but nevertheless one aspect only, of reality, complementary to its other aspect, that of the manifold. The inferential form of Parmenides' Aletheia was obviously inspired by Xenophanes' attempt to present his monistic doctrine as deductive, and we have seen that the order of the arguments in that part of Aletheia where the attributes of the One are deduced (fr. 8) follows that of Xenophanes' "theology." Again, Par- menides' contrast of Aletheia and Doxa as necessary and possible accounts of reality has roots in Xenophanes' distinction between apodeictic and non-apodeictic kinds of knowledge.131 We may go on to point out that the main attributes of Parmenides' One-its eternity, oneness, unchangeability, and, to an extent, perfection-were already

131 The importance of Xenophanes' distinction between knowledge and opinion for the

subsequent development of Greek thought is rightly stressed by Guthrie (above, n. 8) 1. 399.




established, and most of them demonstrated, for his One by Xeno- phanes; that Parmenides' terminological use of doxa, and perhaps also of logos,132 can be traced back to Xenophanes; and that it is not improbable that the very idea of the unity of all things as that of Being was suggested to him by Xenophanes' argument for God's ungeneratedness. To exhaust the list, we should also mention Parmenides' concept of the universe as the intelligent sensorium,133 and his dualistic physics, two ideas of undoubtedly Xenophanean origin.134 And if we add to all this the Xenophanean thought-patterns operative under the surface of Parmenides' poem, the depths of which we have had occasion to catch a glimpse, we shall be in a position to appraise what is implicit in the lapidary Aristotelian remark "Parmenides is said to have been his pupil."

132 See, however, von Fritz (above, n. 14) 1559, but also H. Fournier, Les verbes 'DIRE' en grec ancien (Paris, 1946) 55-57, 217-221.

133 This doctrine, as I argue in "'Like by Like' and Two Reflections of Reality in Par- menides," Hermes 114 (1986) 405-412, accounts for two alternative ways of cognizing reality, as Being and as the mixture of fire and night.

134 The dualistic pattern, at least in rudimentary form, is found in the Milesian cosmo- gonists (Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 12 A 10; Hippol. Haer. 1.7 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 13 A 7). Yet while adopting and further refining the Milesian view of cosmic process as propelled by the interaction of two main cosmic opposites, Xenophanes introduces a significant novelty: he was the first to see the interaction of the pair of the opposites, at least in part, as their mingling (Hippol. Haer. 1.14.5 = Diels- Kranz [above, n. 9] 21 A 33; cf. fr. 29, 33). It is precisely this idea, this time in more developed and universal form, that operates in Parmenides. According to him, the world is constituted by the pair of opposites, fire and night, which partly are in the mixed state (fr. 9), while all things-the animal body (fr. 16), water and air (Arist. Gen. Corr. 330b13 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 35), the heavenly bodies (AMt. 2.7.1; 20, 8a; 3.1.4 = Diels-Kranz [above, n. 9] 28 A 37, 43, 43a) are but various mixtures of fire and night; the mingling of these was the way in which the developed world came into being (fr. 13) and is the way in which it is maintained (fr. 12. 3-6).



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