Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

174 l/-59 to l/-64


if division is the separation of what is united, and according to them all
things stay united with each other, all the same even when they are
divided? And how could one avoid the inconsistency of saying that objects
which are adjacent to each other and can easily be separated from each
other are all the same united with each other, being coherent and never
being able to be separated from each other without division?


Plotinus 2.4.1 (SVF 2.320) [11-60]


And those who postulate that the only things that exist are bodies and
that substance consists in them say that matter is one and that it underlies
the elements and that matter itself is substance. All other things are, as
it were, modifications of matter and even the elements are matter in a
certain state. Moreover, they dare to bring matter into the realm of the
gods. And finally, they say that their god himself is this matter in a
certain state and they give it [matter] a body, saying that body itself is
qualityless, and magnitude too.


Aristocles, in Eusebius Prep. Ev. 15.14,
816d-817a (SVF 1.98)


[11-61]

They say that fire is an element of the things that exist, as does
Heraclitus, and that the principles of this are matter and god (as Plato
said). But he [Zeno] said that both (the active and the passive) were
bodies, while Plato's first active cause was said to be incorporeal. And
then, at certain fated times, the entire cosmos goes up in flames and then
is organized again. And the primary fire is like a kind of seed, containing
the rational principles and cause of all things and events, past, present,
and future. And the interconnection and sequence of these things is fate
and knowledge and truth and an inescapable and inevitable law of what
exists. Thus, all things in the cosmos are organized extremely well, as
in a very well-managed government.


Stobaeus Anthology 1.10.16c, vol. 1
p. 129.1-130.20 W-H (SVF 2.413)


[11-62]

Chrysippus. Concerning the elements which come from substance, he
holds views of this sort, following Zeno the leader of the school. He says
there are four elements, <fire, air, water, and earth, from which all animals
are formed> and plants and the whole cosmos and the things contained
in it, and into which these same things are resolved. And is said
to be an element par excellence because the others are first formed from

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