DERISION OF THE GENTILE PHILOSOPHERS BY HERMIAS THE PHILOSOPHER
A 1. The blessed apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians who dwell by the Laconian Greece: "Beloved," he declares, "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (I Cor. III, 19); and he spoke not without purpose. For it seems to me that it had its beginning from the apostasy of the angels; for which cause the philosophers, when they set forth their dogmas, speak neither consistently nor in agreement with one another. For some of them say that the soul is fire, as Democritus; others, air, as the Stoics; others, mind; others, motion, as Heraclitus; others, an exhalation; others, a power flowing from the stars; others, a moving number, as Pythagoras; others, a generative water, as Hippon; others, an element from elements; others, harmony, as Deinarchus; others, blood, as Critias; others, spirit; others, unity, as Pythagoras; and the ancients, the opposites of these. How many opinions regarding these things? How many contentions? How many arguments of sophists contending rather than finding the truth?
B 2. But let it be assumed that they are in disagreement about the soul, though they have pronounced themselves in agreement on other things concerning it. And others call its pleasure—one, a good; another, an evil; and another, a mean between good and evil. Regarding its nature, some say it is immortal, others mortal; others, that it persists for only a short time; others, that they turn it into beasts; others, that they dissolve it into atoms; others, that they undergo three incarnations; others, that they appoint periods of three thousand years for it. For indeed, if even a hundred...
years they do not live, they promise things concerning three thousand future years. What, therefore, must these things be called? As it seems to me, A a portent, or folly, or madness, or discord, or all these things at once? If they have found out any truth, let them be of one mind, or let them agree; and then I shall gladly be persuaded by them. But if they pull the soul apart and drag it in different directions into another nature, and one into another essence, and change matter from matter B, I admit that I am troubled by this constant flux of things. Now I am immortal, and I rejoice; now, on the other hand, I become mortal, and I weep; just now I am being dissolved into atoms; I become water, and I become air, I become fire; then after a little while neither air nor fire; he makes me a beast, he makes me a fish. And so, in turn, I have dolphins as brothers; but when I look upon myself, I fear the body, and I know not by what name I should call it—man, or dog, or wolf, or bull, or bird, or serpent, or dragon, or chimera. For into all beasts I am changed by these lovers of wisdom C—terrestrial, aquatic, winged, multiform, wild, tame, voiceless, vocal, irrational, rational; I swim, I fly, I flutter, I creep, I run, I sit. And Empedocles presents himself, and makes me a shrub.
3. *The disagreements of the philosophers.* — Since, therefore, philosophers cannot find the human soul in agreement, much less can they speak truly concerning the gods or the world. For they possess such hardihood—that I might not say stupor—for they who cannot find their own soul seek the nature of the gods themselves; and those who do not know their own body undertake the superfluous labor of investigating the nature of the world. In the principles of nature, certainly, they oppose each other exceedingly. Where Anaxagoras takes me up, he will teach these things: Mind is the beginning of all things, and it is the cause and mistress of all things, and it provides order to the disordered, and motion D to the immovable, and distinction to the commingled, and adornment to the unadorned. When Anaxagoras says these things, he is a friend to me, and I submit myself to his opinion. But Melissus and Parmenides oppose him.
A Parmenides, in poetic verses, also proclaims that the substance is one, and eternal, and infinite, and immovable, and in every way similar. Therefore, I know not how I change my mind again into this opinion; Parmenides drives Anaxagoras from my mind. But after I think I have a firm opinion, Anaximenes, taking up the discourse, cries out in opposition: "Nay, I tell you, the whole is air, and this, being condensed and compacted, becomes water and air; but if it be rarefied and dispersed, it becomes ether and fire. And returning to its own nature, it is liquid air; but if it be condensed," he says, "it changes." And again I adapt myself to this, and I love Anaximenes.
4. Empedocles stands directly in the way, grave and threatening, and shouting loudly from Etna: "The principles of all things are enmity and friendship; the one gathering, the other separating; and the strife of these brings all things to pass." And I define them as both similar and dissimilar, and infinite, and having an limit, and eternal, and generated. Well done, O Empedocles, I follow you even to the craters of fire. B But on the other side Protagoras stands and pulls me away, saying: "Man is the term and judge of things; and those things that fall under the senses are things; but those that do not fall under them do not possess the forms of substance." By this argument, I am cajoled by Protagoras, and I am pleased that all, or at least most things, remain for man. From another quarter, Thales suggests the truth to me, defining: "Water is the beginning of everything, and from the moist all things stand together, and are resolved into the moist, and the earth is borne upon water." Why, then, should I not believe Thales, the eldest of the Ionians? But his own fellow-citizen Anaximander says that the eternal motion is a more ancient principle than the moist, and by this some things are generated and others perish. And so, therefore, let Anaximander be trusted. C
5. Furthermore, is not Archelaus celebrated, who declares that the principles of the universe are the hot and the cold? But the grandiloquent Plato does not agree with this either, saying that the principles are God, and matter, and the pattern. Now I am indeed persuaded. For why should I not be ready to believe a philosopher who has even fashioned the chariot of Zeus? Behind him stands his student Aristotle, envying his master for the construction of the chariot. He defines other principles: to act and to be acted upon. And that which acts is impassive—namely, the ether. But that which is acted upon possesses four qualities: dryness, humidity, heat, and cold; for by the change of these into one another, everything is generated and perishes. We are weary now of shifting our minds, D up and down,
for all things arise and perish through their mutual transformation. I am already exhausted, tossed up and down by opinions. But I shall stand by the judgment of Aristotle, and let no other opinion cause me tumult any longer. A
6. But what 34 should I suffer? For there are elders more ancient than these who cut the nerves of my soul; Pherecydes, for instance, who says the first principles are Zeus, Chthonia, and Cronus; Zeus being the aether, Chthonia the earth, and Cronus time. The aether is the agent, the earth the patient, and time that in which things come to be. There is, then, 35 emulation among these elders toward one another. For Leucippus, deeming all these things trifles, says that the first principles are the infinite, the immovable 36, and the smallest; and that the fine parts, carried upward, became fire and air, while the coarse parts, subsiding downward, became water and earth. How long must I be taught such things, learning nothing true? Unless, perhaps, Democritus will deliver me from this error, by declaring that the first principles are the "something" and the "nothing," and that the "something" is the full, while the "nothing" is the void; and that the full, by change or rhythm in the void, makes all things. Perhaps I might be persuaded by good Democritus, and might wish to laugh along with him, were I not diverted from such an opinion by Heraclitus, who weeps at the same time and says: "The beginning of all is fire; its two affections are rarity and density, one acting and the other suffering; one compacting, the other separating." I have had my fill, and am already intoxicated with so many first principles. But Epicurus also exhorts me from another side, by no means to insult his beautiful opinion of atoms and the void; for through their manifold and multi-formed combination, all things come to be and perish. C
7. I do not contradict you, excellent Epicurus; but Cleanthes, having raised his head from the well, laughs at your opinion, and himself proclaims 37 the true principles: God and matter. He posits that earth turns into water, water into air, air is carried up, fire descends to the regions near the earth, and the soul penetrates through the whole world, partaking of which we are brought to life. Now, there being so many of these thinkers, another multitude from Libya floods in upon me, Carneades and Clitomachus 39, and as many as are their followers, who trample underfoot all the opinions of the others, and themselves openly judge that all things are incomprehensible, and that an always-false representation always lies close to the truth. What then shall I do, having labored for so long a time? How shall I pour out from my mind so many opinions? For if nothing can be comprehended, truth has departed from men, and…
A the celebrated philosophy chases shadows rather than possessing the knowledge of things.
8. Others, then, from the ancient tribe, Pythagoras and his fellow tribesmen, grave and taciturn, deliver other opinions to me as if they were mysteries, and also that great and secret saying, HE HIMSELF SAID IT: "The beginning of all things is unity," and from its figures and numbers the elements are made. And of each of these, he expounds the number, the form, and the measure in some such way as this: Fire is completed by twenty-four right-angled triangles, B contained by four equilateral triangles. Each equilateral triangle is composed of six right-angled triangles; whence they also liken it to a pyramid. Air is completed by forty-eight triangles, contained by eight equilateral ones; it is likened to an octahedron, which is contained by eight equilateral triangles, each of which is divided into six right angles, so that the whole number is forty-eight. Water, contained by one hundred and twenty, is likened to an icosahedron, which consists of twenty equal and equilateral triangles… But the aether is completed by twelve equilateral pentagons, and is similar to a dodecahedron. Earth is completed by forty-eight triangles, C and is contained by six equilateral squares; it is similar to a cube. For the cube is contained by six squares, each of which is divided into four triangles; so that the sum total becomes twenty-four.
But I, in turn, having become inspired, disdain home and country, wife and children, and care no longer for these; but I myself ascend into the aether, and having taken the cubit from Pythagoras, I begin to measure the fire. For it is not sufficient to measure Zeus; but if I myself, the great animal, the great body, the great soul, do not ascend into heaven and measure the aether, the dominion of Zeus will perish. But when I have measured, and Zeus has learned from me D how many angles the fire has, I descend again from heaven, and having eaten olives and figs and vegetables, I hasten with all speed to the water, and by the cubit, the finger, and the half-finger, I measure the liquid substance, and I calculate its depth, so that I may also teach Poseidon how great a sea he rules.
A I traverse the entire earth in a single day, collecting its number, its measure, and its figures. For I am persuaded that, being such as I am and of such magnitude, I shall not leave out even a span of the whole world. I know the number of the stars, and of the fishes, and of the wild beasts; and by placing the world in a balance, I can easily come to know its weight. Up to this point, my soul, intent upon these matters, has aspired to rule over the whole universe.
10. B But Epicurus, looking on, says to me: "You, my friend, have measured only one world, whereas there are many and infinite worlds. Therefore, I am again compelled to speak of many heavens, other ethers, and of these, many. Come then, delay no longer, having provided yourself for a few days, and travel through the Epicurean worlds." I fly easily over the boundaries, Tethys and Ocean. Entering into a new world, and as it were into another city, I measure all things in a few days. From there I pass over again into a third world; then into a fourth, and fifth, and tenth, and hundredth, and thousandth, and where at last? For already, all things are to me darkness of ignorance, and black deceit, and infinite error, and imperfect representation, and incomprehensible stupidity; unless I should wish to count even the atoms themselves, from which so many worlds have originated, so that I might leave nothing unexamined, especially things so necessary and useful, upon which the happiness of both house and city depends. These things, then, I have related, desiring to reveal the contradiction that exists in their opinions, and how their inquiry into things wanders into the infinite and is held by no limit, and that their end is inexplicable and useless, seeing that it is confirmed by no evident thing nor by clear discourse.