The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
four elements are all equally an essence without any distinctive quality,
namely, matter; but fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and
earth the dry—though this last quality is also common to the air. The
fire is the highest, and that is called æther, in which first of all the
sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set, then that in which
the planets revolve; after that the air, then the water; and the sediment
as it were of all is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest.
LXX. They also speak of the world in a threefold sense; at one time
meaning God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having
for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable,
and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and
order that we see; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs all
substance in himself, and then re-produces it from himself. And this
arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so the third sense
is one composed of both the preceding ones. And the world is a thing
which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal
substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a
system compounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist
in them; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of
the things created on their account. And the heaven is the most remote
circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.
Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect
and providence, as Chrysippus says, in his works on Providence, and
Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since mind
penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us;
but it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in
others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into
the bones and sinews; and into some it penetrates as the mind does, for
instance, into the dominant principle. And thus the whole world, being
a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, has the æther as
its dominant principle, as Antipater, of Tyre, says in the eighth book
of his treatise on the World. But Chrysippus, in the first book of his
essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that the
heaven is the dominant principle of the world; and Cleanthes attributes
this to the sun. Chrysippus, however, on this point contradicts himself;
for he says in another place, that the most subtle portion of the æther,
which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in
a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through
every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself according to a
certain habit; and that it is this which communicates to them the faculty
of feeling.
They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical
form. For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as
Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural
Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And
on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is
incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being
contained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as
a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact;
for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord
and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the
earth. And Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacuum, and
also in the first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so
does Apollophanes in his Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollodorus,
and so does Posidonius in the second book of his discourses on Natural
Philosophy. And they say that these things are all incorporeal, and all
alike. Moreover, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the
motion of the world. And that of time, the past and the future are both
illimitable, but the present is limited. And they assert that the world
is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the
things which are perceptible by the senses; and whatever has its parts
perishable, must also be perishable in the whole. And the parts of the
world are perishable, for they change into one another. Therefore, the
whole world is perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for
the worse it is perishable; therefore, the world is perishable, for it
can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.
Now the world was created when its substance was changed from fire to
moisture, by the action of the air; and then its denser parts coagulated,
and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and
became air; and this being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And
then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and
animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks of the creation, and
of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so
does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise
on the World. But Panætius asserts that the world is imperishable.
Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason,
and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume
of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natural
Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it is an animal in this sense,
as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation. For that which
is an animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is
better than the world; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued
with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were
a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an
animal.
Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his treatise on
the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollodorus, in his Natural
Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses
on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the universe, according to
Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of
the world itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world,
then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite.
LXXI. Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved in connection
with the movements of the entire heaven; but the planets move according
to their own peculiar and separate motions. And the sun takes an oblique
path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does
the moon, which is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire, as
Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on the Heavenly
Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the same author informs us,
in the sixteenth book of his Disclosures on Natural Philosophy. Also
it is spherical, as he says in another place, being made on the same
principle as the world is. Therefore it is fire, because it performs all
the functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is proved by
the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole
heaven. Also the fact of the earth throwing a conical shadow, proves that
the sun is greater than it, and the sun is seen in every part, because
of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun,
inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.
Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the other
stars, receive nutriment; the sun from the vast sea, being a sort of
intellectual appendage; and the moon from the fresh waters, being mingled
with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the
sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other
stars derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider that
the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable. And
that the moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from
the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it
on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe;
for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it
reveals it; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water.
And the moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on
which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon;
and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still
it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely
towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun,
being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south.
When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the
other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the
sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between
the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells
us.
LXXII. They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect,
and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil,
having a foreknowledge of the world and of all that is in the world;
however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator
of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and
that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different
names, according to its powers; for they call him Δία as being the person
(δι’ ὃν) everything is, and Ζῆνα, inasmuch as he is the cause of life,
(τοῦ Ζῆν), or because he pervades life. And Ἀθηνᾶ, with reference to the
extension of his dominant power over the æther (εἰς αἰθέρα). And Ἥρα,
on account of his extension through the air (εἰς ἀέρα). And Ἥφαιστος,
on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief instrument of art;
and Ποσειδῶν, as pervading moisture, and Δημήτηρ, as pervading the
earth (Γῆ). And in the same way, regarding some other of his peculiar
attributes, they have given him other names.[91]
The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world, and
the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine, in his eleventh
book on the Gods, and so also does Posidonius, in the first book of his
treatise on the same subject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his
treatise on the World, says that his substance is aërial. And Boethus,
in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the
fixed stars.
LXXIII. And his nature they define to be, that which keeps the world
together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth.
And nature is a habit which derives its movements from itself, perfecting
and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the
principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same
as the things from which it is separated. And it has for its object,
suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man.
LXXIV. But Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius, in the
second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh
book of his treatise on Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate.
And fate, (εἱμαρμένη), is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of existing
things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
LXXV. They also say that divination has a universal existence, since
Providence has; and they define it as an act on account of certain
results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the second book of his treatise on
Divination, and Athenodorus and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his
discourses on Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise
on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panætius denies that it has any