Chapter 15

Xenophanes

The reputed founder of the Eleatic School was Xenophanes.
It is, however, doubtful whether Xenophanes ever went to
Elea. Moreover, he belongs more properly {41} to the his-
tory of religion than to the history of philosophy. The real
creator of the Eleatic School was Parmenides. But Par-
menides seized upon certain germs of thought latent in
Xenophanes and transmuted them into philosophic prin-
ciples. We have, therefore, in the first instance, to say
something of Xenophanes. He was born about the year
576 B.C., at Colophon in Ionia. His long life was spent in
wandering up and down the cities of Hellas, as a poet and
minstrel, singing songs at banquets and festivals. Whether,
as sometimes stated; he finally settled at Elea is a matter
of doubt, but we know definitely that at the advanced age
of ninety-two he was still wandering about Greece. His phi-
losophy, such as it is, is expressed in poems. He did not,
however, write philosophical poems, but rather elegies and
satires upon various subjects, only incidentally expressing

his religious views therein. Fragments of these poems have

come down to us.

Xenophanes is the originator of the quarrel between phi-

losophy and religion. He attacked the popular religious

notions of the Greeks with a view to founding a purer and

nobler conception of Deity. Popular Greek religion con-

sisted of a belief in a number of gods who were conceived

very much as in the form of human beings. Xenophanes at-

tacks this conception of God as possessing human form. It

is absurd, he says, to suppose that the gods wander about

from place to place, as represented in the Greek legends.

It is absurd to suppose that the gods had a beginning. It

is disgraceful to impute to them stories of fraud, adultery,

theft and deceit. And Xenophanes inveighs against Homer

and Hesiod for disseminating these degrading conceptions

{42} of the Deity. He argues, too, against the polytheistic

notion of a plurality of gods. That which is divine can only