RMM 123 0315

EMPEDOCLES ON DIVINE NATURE
Spyridon Rangos
Presses Universitaires de France | « Revue de métaphysique et de morale »
2012/3 N° 75 | pages 315 à 338

ISSN 0035-1571
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 95.85.80.148 - 31/07/2018 14h49. © Presses Universitaires de France
ISBN 9782130593799
Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-metaphysique-et-de-morale-2012-3-page-315.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pour citer cet article :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spyridon Rangos, « Empedocles on Divine Nature », Revue de métaphysique et de
morale 2012/3 (N° 75), p. 315-338.
DOI 10.3917/rmm.123.0315
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses Universitaires de France.

© Presses Universitaires de France. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les
limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la
licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie,
sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de
l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage
dans une base de données est également interdit.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Dossier : puf322120_3b2_V11 Document : RevueMeta_03_12
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 27/192
Empedocles on Divine Nature 1
RÉSUMÉ. — L’objet de cet article est d’examiner l’ensemble des entités qui sont appe-
lées divines dans le poème philosophique d’Empédocle (à savoir les racines, les puis-
sances, les dieux à longue vie, les daimones, la Sphère et l’esprit saint). Il s’agit de se
demander si ces entités aboutissent à une vision consistante de la divinité. On examine
aussi la dialectique de la mortalité et de l’immortalité présente dans la pensée d’Empé-
docle. Dans la mesure où la moindre chose, y compris les vivants les plus instables, sont
issus des principes divins, il y a un sens à dire que, dans le cosmos d’Empédocle, toutes
les choses composées sont considérées comme étant divines. Mais en un autre sens, seules
les structures hautement intégrées méritent d’être considérées en tant que dieux. On
montre que souffrir comme un mortel revient à vivre une vie fragmentée continuellement
menacée par le spectre de la mort. Au contraire, mener une vie de dieu revient à vivre au
sens plein, sans être tourmenté par le terme éventuel d’une existence heureuse. En conclu-
sion, on établit que deux orientations distinctes de la poésie grecque et de la philosophie
semblent avoir rivalisé dans l’interprétation qu’Empédocle se faisait des dieux.
ABSTRACT. — The paper examines all the entities that are said to be divine in
Empedocles’ philosophical poetry (i.e. roots, forces, long-lived gods, daemons, the
Sphere and the holy mind), and raises the question of whether or not they form a rather
consistent view of what it is for something to be a god. The paper also examines the
dialectics of mortality and immortality in Empedocles’ thought. Since everything whatso-
ever, including the most unstable living beings, stemmed from divine principles there is a
sense in which all composite things were regarded as divine in Empedocles’ cosmos. But
there is another sense in which only highly integrated structures were considered to be
gods. To suffer as a mortal, it is argued, was to live a fragmented life continuously
threatened by the prospect of death. Contrariwise, to lead a divine life was to live in
wholeness, not at all worried by the eventual termination of such a blessed existence. In
conclusion it is argued that two distinct trends of early Greek poetry and philosophy seem
to have vied for supremacy in Empedocles’ understanding of godhead.
1. I wish to wholeheartedly thank Jean-Claude Picot and Stavros Kouloumentas for attentively
reading an earlier draft of this paper, detecting omissions, raising pertinent objections, and saving me
from errors. For those that remain I am fully responsible. My thanks should also go to Constantin
Macris for an inspiring discussion, oral comments, and much more. All three have generously offered
me invaluable help for which I am grateful. Last but not least, I would like to thank Anne Gabrièle
Wersinger, the editor of the papers on Empedocles published in this volume, for the invitation and our
impeccable collaboration.
Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, No 3/2012

Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 28/192
316 Spyridon Rangos
ὅλβιος, ὃς θείων πραπίδων ἐκτήσατο πλοῦτον,

δειλὸς δ’ ᾧ σκοτόεσσα θεῶν πέρι δόξα μέμηλεν.
I. SUBJECT, AIM AND METHOD
Several entities in Empedocles’ philosophical poetry are characterized in

ways that make the reader think of them as divine. The most prominent of them
are (i) the four elements, (ii) the two motive forces, (iii) the Sphere or Sphairos
(B28-29), and (iv) the holy mind of fragment B134. 2 Besides them, we also
hear (v) of the Muse that is called upon to inspire the poet (B3.3, B4.2, B131),
(vi) of “gods” (B3.1, B21.12, B23.8, B115.1, B131.4, B132.2, B146.3, cf.
B147.1) and “blessed ones” (B115.6) in the plural, (vii) of couples of opposite
personifications said by Plutarch to be the “twofold moirai and daimones” who

take hold of us at birth (B122 quoted in Tranq. anim. 474b; cf. B123 quoted by
Cornutus in Epidr. 17, p. 30 Lang), and (viii) of transmigrating daimones, again
in the plural (B115.5, cf. B147). 3 Empedocles famously claimed to be one of
those daemons in a state of exile (B115.13). He also claimed to be honoured as
a god by his compatriots in Acragas (B112.4-6, cf. B23.11). And the question
immediately arises: What is the divine in Empedocles’ philosophical poetry?
Did Empedocles have a coherent idea of what it means for something to be a
god or daemon, or did he use those characterizations rather loosely without ever
seriously considering in what respects the entities intended might belong to a
common class? 4
My hypothesis is that Empedocles was indeed consistent on the subject of the
divine, and my aim is to test such a hypothesis against the available evidence of
Empedocles’ extant fragments. I personally trust those ancient authors who testify
to the existence of two separate poems. However, I shall use the evidence provi-
ded by the surviving fragments rather indiscriminately, first because, with the
2. All testimonies and fragments of Empedocles are cited from Diels et Kranz (1951). ‘B
+number’ denotes fragments and ‘A+number’ testimonies in this standard edition of the Presocratics.
The translations and paraphrases of Empedocles’ fragments given in this paper are based on WRIGHT
(1995) and INWOOD (2001). All other translations of Greek texts are my own. I use double quotes
(“…”) to signal quotations from Empedocles and other authors, single ones (‘…’) for all other
purposes and primarily in order to indicate the linguistic sense, rather than the extra-linguistic
reference, of a word or phrase. I owe a great deal to O’Brien’s and Primavesi’s publications. The
present paper may be considered a kind of response to PRIMAVESI (2006b) and (2008b).
3. I leave out of account the ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις which Porphyry mentions (Antr. 8) when he
introduces B120 as well as the female daimon who is the subject of B126, according to the same
author (apud Stob. Ecl. I.49.60 [=I.144 Wachsmuth]; cf. Plut. Esu carn. 998c), for which see
DETIENNE (1959) 9-17.
4. The question is raised in a similar way by GUTHRIE (1965) 257-265, but to no firm conclusion.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 29/192
notable exception of B112 and a fragment added by Wright, 5 we simply do

not know of any other Empedoclean fragment that positively comes from the Puri-
fications and, secondly, because I believe that the overall doctrine underlying the
composition of the two poems was one and the same, though it might have been
more pronounced, sophisticated and developed in the rather esoteric Physika or
On Nature (meant to instruct Pausanias) and more allusive and mythological in
the Purifications that were explicitly addressed to a wider audience.
Empedocles had no standard ways of referring to the principles of his physi-
cal system. He could use the name of Zeus now to denote elemental fire (B6.1)
and then to allude to the reign of Strife (B128.2) or even to the visible world as
opposed to the underworld (B142). He could also refer to elemental fire by the
name of Hephaestus (B96.3, B98.2), and use the designations of ‘sea’ (θάλασσα,
πόντος) and ‘rainfall’ (ὄμβρος) for elemental or even visible water. 6 The consis-
tency we are looking for is a consistency of philosophical doctrine rather than

poetic expression.
II. IMMORTAL AND LONG-LIVED GODS:

COSMIC PRINCIPLES, TRADITIONAL DEITIES,
AND INVENTED PERSONIFICATIONS
Empedocles seems to have made a sharp distinction between entities that are,
strictly speaking, “immortal” and other entities that are “long-lived”. 7 The former
group consists solely of the four roots or (more commonly) elements — I do not
assume any semantic difference between the two terms — and of the two forces
whose continual struggle for domination produces alternate phases of unification
and separation of the elements. (In what follows I shall use the term ‘principles’
to collectively refer to elements and forces.) The Sphere and the eponymous or
anonymous gods and daemons that populate Empedocles’ universe (including
the Muse Kalliopeia of B131.3) belong to the latter group. Although in the extant
fragments the Sphere is nowhere called ‘long-lived’, Empedocles clearly concei-
ved him as a temporally finite god (B31).
In a general sense, all members of both groups are divine. But the members of
each group are divine for a different reason. The principles are divine because
they are ungenerated and indestructible. On the contrary, gods, daemons, and the
5. WRIGHT (1995) 151, fr. 152. B153 is not a fragment but, rather, a testimony.
6. B21.5, B22.2, B27.2, B38.3, B73.1, B98.2, B100.12,18, B115.9-10. For a plausible (but by no
means certain) tabulation of correspondences see WRIGHT (1995) 23.
7. ἀθάνατοι/α: B35.14, B147.1, cf. B16, B17.30-35; δολιχαίωνες: B21.12, B23.8; μακραίωνος
λελάχασι βίοιο: B115.5.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 30/192
318 Spyridon Rangos
Sphere are divine although they come into being and perish, 8 and we must see
why.
In B21.9-14 and B23.5-8 “long-lived gods, highest in honour” are mentioned
together with trees, men, women, beasts, birds and fish as entities that have
sprung (ἐβλάστησε) from the roots. In a still enchanted world (to use Weber’s
famous phrase) it was normal for people to sense deities around and to place
them side by side with plants and animals as indisputable members of the
universe. Though not necessarily identical with the traditional deities of the
Greek pantheon, Empedocles’ “long-lived gods highest in honour” owe a great
deal to the collective imagination of the Greeks as crystallized in myth and cult.
Long-lived gods were for Empedocles specific living structures made up of the
four elements. But instead of claiming, as Homer and Hesiod did, that gods are
born immortal, Empedocles thought of them as perishable entities, presumably
because he realized that only what has no beginning in time may have no
temporal end. Moreover, Empedocles’ conception of the cyclical alternation of
phases of total unity and phases of total separation of the elements in the uni-
verse precluded any compound entities, including the Sphere, from being truly
immortal. Immortal were only the principles of Empedocles' system because
they were simple. We need not, however, assume that all long-lived gods were
meant to die with the advent of the absolute rule of Love or the absolute rule of
Strife. If their life-span was deemed longer than that of any other known crea-
ture, this need not mean that they came into being with the gradual advent of
Love or Strife and will pass away when Love or Strife achieves indisputable
predominance over the opposite force. 9 After all, experience shows that plants,
animals and humans die before the total supremacy of either force in the uni-
verse at large. Empedocles seems to have perceived a microcosmic reflection of
the cosmic cycle to be operative in the generation, maturation, decay and death
of individual living beings (B20=ensemble c of P.Strasb.=Physika 301-308; cf.
B26.5-7). If so, he will have imagined gods to perish when their life-span comes
to an end.
Long-lived gods belong to the category of mortal things (θνητά). But of all
perishable things gods are explicitly said to be the most honourable. It is reaso-
nable to assume that their high honour was in Empedocles’ mind causally related
8. That the Sphere comes into being and passes away is evident from Empedocles’ acceptance of
a cosmic cycle with alternate phases of total unification and total segregation of the elements. That
gods and daemons perish is evident from the ascription of longevity, as opposed to everlastingness, to
them. That gods come into being is made clear from B21.9-14 and B23.5-8.
9. I accept O’BRIEN’s (1969) 2, 189-236 reconstruction of Empedocles’ cycle (with four phases
and two cosmogonies) rather than the rival interpretation put forward by BOLLACK (1965-1969) I.97-
124.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 31/192
to their long lives, although we cannot be sure whether longevity was deemed
the effect or the cause of their high honour.
So far I have assumed that principles were divine in Empedocles’ poetry. To
substantiate that claim some argument is needed. For Empedocles never calls
them explicitly gods. As for elements, the argument is rather easy and straightfor-
ward. In B6 (cf. B96 and B98) each of the four roots is mentioned with the name
of a traditional god. Already in antiquity there was some dispute about the exact
correspondence between traditional names and elements (A33), and the dispute
has continued well to the present date. 10 Some claimed that Hera stands for air
and Aidoneus (=Hades) for earth while others thought the reverse. But it was
clear that Zeus and Nestis (probably a Sicilian goddess akin to Persephone 11)
represent fire 12 and water, 13 respectively, and that each root was named after a
traditional (panhellenic or local) deity because of some affinity between the
mythological and cultic function of the deity in question and the character of the
root it represents. Zeus, for instance, the god of the thunderbolt who dwelled on
mountain peaks and the vault of the sky, pointed to heavenly brightness, and so
could become a symbol of elemental fire. By calling the roots after the names of
traditional deities Empedocles must have assumed not only that the roots are
divine 14 but also that they are more divine than the (to his mind perishable) gods
of traditional cult. In this respect, the arrangement of the roots in two couples
well-known from traditional mythology (Zeus-Hera, Aidoneus-Nestis = Hades-
Persephone) should be significant.
When we come to the motive forces we find straightforward evidence for the
divinity only of Love. Strife is nowhere explicitly mentioned as a deity nor called
by the name of a traditional god. Such a silence may be telling (although B59,
B128 and B122.3 do provide allusions to Strife’s divine status). By contrast, in
many fragments Aphrodite, Cypris and even Harmonia are names for Love
(Φιλότης, Στοργή), which clearly implies that Love is a divinity. 15 Empedocles
10. Cf. KINGSLEY (1996) 15-48; PICOT (2000) 41-82.

11. KINGSLEY (1996) 348-356; PICOT (2008).
12. Although the roots were explicitly said to be equal with one another and of the same age
(B17.27), in the identification of fire with Zeus the king (cf. B128.2) we may find implicit
confirmation of Aristotle’s view (Met. A.4, 985a33-b3, GC II.3, 330b19-21 = A36-37; cf. A31)
according to which Empedocles accorded to fire a more prominent role than to each of the other three
elements.
13. The unattested Nestis clearly stands for water since she is she “who moistens with tears the
mortal spring” (B6.3).
14. Cf. Arist. GC II.6, 333b20-22: καίτοι τά γε στοιχεῖα διακρίνει οὐ τὸ νεῖκος, ἀλλ’ ἡ φιλία τὰ
φύσει πρότερον τοῦ θεοῦ· θεοὶ δὲ καὶ ταῦτα. Phil. In GC 265.13-16 Vitelli: θεοὶ γὰρ καὶ ταῦτα. ἤτοι
ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλέους θεοὺς καὶ ταῦτα λέγοντος, ἢ μᾶλλον ὡς ἑπόμενον τῇ ὑποθέσει· εἰ γὰρ πρῶτά ἐστι
τοῦ σφαίρου καὶ ἀμετάβλητα, πῶς οὐκ ἀκόλουθον καὶ ταῦτα λέγειν θεούς ;
15. B71.4, B73.1, B86-87, B95, B96, B98.3, B151, cf. B35.13 where “the onrush of perfect
Love” is called ἄμβροτος (immortal), an adjective always related to gods.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 32/192
320 Spyridon Rangos
claims that humans perceive Love’s power in their own limbs, since she is the
cause behind “amorous desires and sexual acts”, and that they worship her as Joy
(Γηθοσύνη) and Aphrodite (B17.22-24). But no mortal, he continues (25-26), has
understood her as a power “swinging among” the elements. Empedocles’ task
was to show the truly cosmic force that stood behind the traditional cult of a
particular goddess. Rather than seeking to subvert traditional piety, Empedocles
wanted to disclose the real philosophical foundations behind Aphrodite’s popular
cult.
In B128 Empedocles spoke of an unspecified earlier time, apparently similar
to the golden age of traditional mythology, when Cypris was queen of the uni-
verse and worshipped as such by humans. Her cult, we learn, was bloodless
because those early people, presumably closer to the ethical message of Empedo-
clean vegetarianism, understood that “it was a great defilement to bereave ani-
mals of life and eat their parts” (B128.9-10) as was the custom of sacrificial
practice throughout mainstream Greek religion. Empedocles claimed that there
was “neither Ares as god nor Kydoimos (=Tumult), neither king Zeus nor Kronos
or Poseidon” during that peaceful reign of Aphrodite. The aforementioned names
of traditional male gods seem to stand for aspects or particular manifestations of
Strife. But since the fragment assumes the existence of many particular things
including individual men who “propitiated Aphrodite with pious statues and
painted animal figures, with perfumes of subtle fragrance and offerings of distil-
led myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, and pouring on the earth libations of
golden honey” (B128.4-7), the fragment cannot possibly refer to the absolute
reign of Love when no particular entities exist in the uniform body of the Sphere.
The fragment as a whole must, then, refer to a cosmic phase when Strife has not
yet begun to gain, or has already lost, sufficient influence in the universe. And if
the present state of the world is, on the most plausible reconstruction of
Empedocles’ cosmic cycle, a phase of ascending Strife, it follows that B128
refers to a past period when Strife had less influence on the world than it has
today (cf. B130).
B128 is quoted by Porphyry who explicitly draws on Theophrastus (De abst.
II.20-21). Porphyry introduces the fragment by saying that Empedocles, “while
dealing with the theogony, also displays, along with it, the sacrificial offerings,
saying…”. 16 Since gods were entities of the natural world in Empedocles’ sys-
tem, as B.21.9-14 and B23.5-8 suggest, an account of their origin could find a
16. Porph. Abst. II.21: περὶ τῆς θεογονίας διεξιὼν καὶ περὶ τῶν θυμάτων παρεμφαίνει λέγων…
(corr. Bernays): περί τε τῶν θυμάτων καὶ περὶ τῆς θεογονίας διεξιὼν παρεμφαίνει λέγων… (codd.).
Following Nauck I adopt Bernays’ correction which makes better sense. According to it, the καί is
emphatic rather than copulative, and Empedocles is not credited with a (quite implausible) discourse
on sacrificial offerings on an equal footing with his discourse on the origin of gods.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 33/192
natural place in the Physika. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that

Empedocles included in his cosmogony, except for a zoogony, also a theo-
gony 17 in which gods were analysed as particular configurations of the four
elements — like everything else. While Hesiod had composed a theogony in
which the present state of the divine world was explained by means of the
familiar notions of natural birth from pre-existing parents and family struggles
for domination, Empedocles composed a more philosophical theogony in which
(in Aristotelian terminology) the material constituents of long-lived gods were
the roots and their efficient cause the power of Love in its struggle with Strife.
The reign of Cypris was not meant as a period of primordial monotheism. The
exact opposition of “king Zeus” (B128.2), who was traditionally king and ‘father’
of other deities as well as men (πατήρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε), to “queen Cypris”
(B128.3) implies that other divinities, besides the great goddess of Love, were
acknowledged by those primordial people. We may think of the divine persons

that formed the entourage of the goddess of love in traditional mythology (such as
Himeros, Eros, Persuasion, and Harmony) 18 as being the gods and goddesses of
that distant era. We may also assume, more controversially, that Ares, Kydoimos,
and the other warrior-gods were not worshipped in that distant period of powerful
Love because they had not yet come into being.
In B122 Empedocles mentions some female deities of his own poetic creation.
They are arranged in pairs of opposites. “She-of-the-earth” is contrasted with the
“far-seeing She-of-the-sun”, “bloody Discord” with “Harmony of solemn
aspect”, the “Beautiful one” with the “Ugly one”, the “Speedy one” with the
“Slow one”, and “lovely Faultlessness” with “Obscurity of black harvest 19”.
Plutarch who quotes the fragment (Tranq. an. 474b) informs us that they are the
“fates and daemons who take hold of, and rule, each one of us at the time of
birth”.
These divine personifications obviously mean to indicate the contrary powers
to which we are subject in present life. The second pair, in particular, clearly
represents Strife and Love. And since in Empedocles’ physical doctrine all oppo-
sition ultimate stems from the fundamental contrariety between the two strug-
gling forces we may assume that the other pairs were considered to be so many
specific manifestations of the two forces as they mingle with the elements. The
Beautiful One, for instance, would be the unifying power of Love, and the Ugly
One the disintegrating influence of Strife, in so far as each relates to physical
17. Cf. GUTHRIE (1965) 255; KAHN (1993) 432.

18. Hes. Theog. 201-206; P.Derv. col. XXI.
19. I read with Plutarch μελάγκαρπος rather than μελάγκουρος (‘black-eyed’, i.e. ‘with sightless
pupils’ = ‘blind’ according to Mullach, or ‘black-haired’ according to Wilamowitz) with Tzetzes
(app. crit. in DIELS et KRANZ (1951) I.361; WRIGHT (1995) 281.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 34/192
322 Spyridon Rangos
appearance. Similarly, Faultlessness qualified as “lovely” (ἐρόεσσα) would be

the outcome of Love’s strong presence in the mixture of the blood around the
heart where thought resides (B106), and Obscurity characterized by the ‘bad
fruits’ it produces would be the outcome of Strife’s aggressive presence in the
heart-blood of congenitally dull people or during sickness and old age. If we
accept that the Sphere is motionless as long as Love reigns supreme while the
speed of the roots’ movement increases with the gradual advent of Strife and
reaches its culmination when Strife arranges the elements in four concentric
layers, 20 we may infer that motion and (high) speed are products of Strife whe-
reas rest and slowness products of Love. With the first pair of opposites it is less
clear how it relates to the motive forces. But once we notice that She-of-the-sun
is qualified as “far-seeing”, the opposition turns out to be between clear percep-
tion, on the one hand, and senselessness, on the other, outcomes of Love and
Strife, respectively.
The divinity of all those personifications must have been a way for Empedocles
to indicate the pervasive and multifaceted influence of Love and Strife in our
world. 21 In earlier and later stages of the cosmic cycle, we may assume, one
member of each pair passes away simultaneously with the retreat of the cosmic
force which has brought it about. Quite generally, then, the long-lived deities that
are present at any time in the circular evolution of the universe are a sure
indication of the relative influence of Love and Strife at that time.
III. SPECIAL CASES OF GODHEAD :

THE SPHAIROS AND THE HOLY MIND
Apart from roots and forces we hear also of the Sphere (Σφαῖρος) as a god.
B31 speaks of a god’s limbs as beginning to tremble, and the reference can only
be to the Sphere when it starts dissolving under the influence of raising Strife.
Since the Sphere comes into being with the absolute rule of Love and passes
away after a certain period of time, 22 the ascription of divinity to him cannot be
for the same reasons as the ascription of divinity to the principles. During the
period of his life, the Sphere rejoices in circumambient aloneness and rest
20. O’BRIEN (1969) 46-54.

21. A similar argument can be developed in the case of the opposites of B123 (which, however,
are not explicitly mentioned as goddesses).
22. According to the most plausible interpretation of the highly abbreviated Byzantine scholia
(RASHED (2001), PRIMAVESI (2006a)), the life-span of the Sphere amounts to one fifth of the whole
cosmic cycle (PRIMAVESI (2006b) 59; PRIMAVESI (2008a) 19; PRIMAVESI (2008b) 255), while,
according to O’Brien’s reconstruction, to half of it (O’BRIEN 1969: 1, 57). The Byzantine scholia
need not reflect genuine Empedoclean views.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 35/192
(B27.4, B28.2) — both senses are present in Greek μονίη. 23 The ascription of
divinity to him, therefore, is meant to indicate the Sphere’s self-sufficiency and
bliss as results of its wholeness. For of all compound beings in Empedocles’
philosophy, including blessed and long-lived individual gods, the Sphere alone is
truly all one. In this respect the Sphere is the prototype of all integrated beings.
Since no amount of Strife is present in it to cause a distinction of one part from
another the Sphere has no parts as long as it endures. Furthermore, the Sphere’s
ignorance of Strife, of which Aristotle complained, 24 was meant to perfect his
well-being. For since it is a universal law in Empedocles’ system that like is
known be like (B109), the most blessed things should be the most ignorant of
disruptive forces as well. In the primordial time of B128 people knew and wor-
shipped no manifestation of Strife and were, presumably, happier than the pre-
sent generation of men who venerate Ares and Kydoimos.
A puzzling divine entity in Empedocles’ surviving verses is the “holy and

tremendous 25 mind” (φρὴν ἱερὴ καὶ ἀθέσφατος) of B134. Because the description
of the holy mind closely resembles that of the Sphere (B134.2-3 ≈ B29.1-2), 26
one might be tempted to equate the holy mind with the Sphere, as it has been done
time and again. But the equation is refuted by the last line of B134 where
Empedocles speaks of “swift caring-thoughts” (φροντίσι θοῇσιν) which the holy
mind “darts through the whole cosmos” (κόσμον ἅπαντα καταΐσσουσα). The
activity of the holy mind is here presented as an extroverted mental and emotional
care. For unlike other terms denoting ‘intelligence’ and ‘thought’ (such as
νόημα, φρόνησις, etc.), φροντίς is a word with strong emotional undertones 27 and
should be translated as ‘worry’, ‘concern’, ‘caring thought’, or ‘attentive care’
(cf. B131.2). Such an emotional-cum-rational care/concern on the part of the holy
mind implies the existence of an entire ordered structure (κόσμος ἅπας) as some-
thing distinct from the holy mind itself. 28 Therefore, the holy mind is not one and
23. O’BRIEN (2010).

24. Met. B4, 1000b3-5 ; An. I.5, 410b4-6.
25. The usual translation of ἀθέσφατος is, in accordance with its etymology, ‘unspeakable’,
‘unutterable’, ‘inexpressible’, ‘ineffable’. But Picot (forthcoming) has shown that the word, as
actually used in ancient literature, means ‘huge’, ‘enormous’, ‘immense’, ‘vast’, i.e. it has a
quantitative rather than a qualitative sense. I have tried to combine the two senses by opting for
‘tremendous’.
26. The differences between the two fragments are : the presence in B134, (i) of the particle μὲν
instead of the explicative γάρ, (ii) of ἀπαὶ instead of ἀπό, and (iii) of λαχνήεντα instead of γεννήεντα.
ZUNTZ (1971) 216, 250 accepts στήθεα λαχνήεντα instead of μήδεα λαχνήεντα in B134.3. WRIGHT
(1995) 131, 253-254 obelizes the whole line B134.2.
27. Cf. Theog. 729; Sim. 8.9; Pind. Ol. 1.19; Nem. 10.22; PMG 995, 1037.4; and numerous
references to prose writers in L.S.J. s.vv. φροντίζω, φροντίς.
28. In the only other fragment where the word κόσμος is used, i.e. B26.5, the term (qualified by
the numerical ‘one’) means not ‘world’ but an individual ‘ordered structure’ such as an individual
human being or an individual animal. That the verse in question does not refer to the state of the
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 36/192
324 Spyridon Rangos
the same with the Sphere; still, the conspicuous similarity between the two des-
criptions stares us in the face.
Both the holy mind and the Sphere are said to possess neither limbs nor geni-
tals. This obviously means that they should not be imagined in anthropomorphic
or theriomorphic terms nor as having sexual appetites. The popular representation
of gods in traditional mythology and iconography is thus rejected. Since the
Sphere is a blessed god because of its wholeness which is a consequence of the
absence of Strife, we may assume, given its similarity to the holy mind, that the
holy mind is holy and tremendous because it is not defiled by Strife either.
Ammonius who quotes the fragment says that Empedocles referred specifi-
cally to Apollo since that was the immediate subject of his discourse. 29
Ammonius assumes that what Empedocles said of Apollo applies more gene-
rally to Empedocles’ conception of the divine as a whole. We do not know
whether Ammonius made the generalization himself or inferred it from the

context of Empedocles’ verses. But Tzetzes is more precise when he introduces
the two last lines of the fragment with the words: “In the third book of the
Physika Empedocles, while showing what is the essence of the divine, says
verbatim the following…”. 30 Since a copy of Empedocles’ Physika was avai-
lable in Byzantium, 31 we can be relatively sure, against the authority of Diels,
that the fragment stemmed indeed from the third book of the Physika 32 and that
Empedocles intended those verses as a general description of divinity. In other
words, what Empedocles said of Apollo was meant equally to apply to all other
gods, at least those of a similar kind. Since the subject of B134, whether Apollo
or the Sphere, is not an immortal principle but rather a temporally finite god,
Sphere is indicated by line B26.7 in which the unity of all extant stuff, i.e. the state of the Sphere, is
the end product (εἰσόκεν) of the partial mixture and separation of the elements that was going on in
the previous lines where Love was assumed to be gradually gaining influence in the universe. In B134
the word κόσμος is qualified by the adjective ἅπας (‘entire’). This qualification implies the existence
either of just one ordered structure permeated throughout by the caring-thoughts of the holy mind or
of numerous such structures collectively understood. In view of B26.5 the latter option seems
preferable. Moreover, if κόσμος ἅπας referred to the very body of the Sphere, the holy mind would
be made to think of, and care for, its own well-being, an option which, though not absurd in itself, is
not supported by the overall tone of the fragment (cf. BOLLACK (2003) 95-96).
29. In De Int. 249.1-5 Busse : ὁ Ἀκραγαντῖνος σοφὸς ἐπιρραπίσας τοὺς περὶ θεῶν ὡς
ἀνθρωποειδῶν ὄντων παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖς μύθους, ἐπήγαγε προηγουμένως μὲν περὶ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος,
περὶ οὗ ἦν αὐτῷ προσεχῶς ὁ λόγος, κατὰ δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ περὶ τοῦ θείου παντὸς ἁπλῶς
ἀποφαινόμενος… (the sage of Acragas, having first castigated the myths of the poets about gods as
being human-like in form, added, primarily about Apollo who was the proximate subject of his
discourse, but speaking in the same manner also about the divine in general…).
30. Chiliades 7.143, 522-3 Kiessling: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς τῷ τρίτῳ τε τῶν Φυσικῶν δεικνύων / τίς ἡ
οὐσία τοῦ θείου, κατ’ ἔπος οὕτω λέγει.
31. PRIMAVESI (2002) 190-191, 200-201.
32. “Tzetzes’ reference to a third book of the Physika is likely to represent genuine information”
(JANKO (2005) 96; cf. ZUNTZ (1971) 216-218, 250).
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 37/192
what Empedocles said of him would equally apply to all other “long-lived gods,
highest in honour”. It would then follow that for Empedocles the “long-lived
gods, highest in honour” were essentially minds whose caring-thoughts exten-
ded to the entire structured universe.
Mythologically Apollo was a notorious killer. But in cult and ritual practice he
was addressed as the god of healing, purification, prophesy and music, which were
all domains very intimately connected to Empedocles’ own concerns. It seems that
Empedocles either disregarded Apollo's traditional association with blood-
shedding or approached it allegorically rather than literally. The famous Indian
mystic Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1836-86) is reported to have said that Kali, the
terrible mother goddess of Hinduism, appears black as long as she is viewed from
a distance: when embraced in the soul of her devotee she is shown to be warm and
loving. Empedocles may have entertained a similar view about Apollo who was
also the favourite god of the Pythagoreans. We know that Empedocles was accu-
sed of breaking the Pythagorean oath of silence and of vulgarizing Pythagorean
doctrines. 33 Since he is also reported to have composed a hymn to this god 34 we
may suppose that Apollo had a particular significance for him. The hymn was
supposedly destroyed immediately after Empedocles’ death by his sister or daugh-
ter. In it, we learn (A23), Empedocles identified Apollo with the sun in a kind of
natural allegory. Even if this hymn was destroyed, it is not unreasonable to sup-
pose that an approximation of Apollo to the sun would have stood in the back-
ground of, or have found a place in, Empedocles’ major poetic composition. This
should have occurred in the third book of the Physika where B134 belonged.
The identification of Apollo with the sun as the greatest of gods is ascribed to
Orpheus in Aeschylus’ lost play Bassarai or Bassarides, 35 a tragedy that, like
the rest of the tetralogy to which it belonged (Lykourgeia), dramatized the story
of Dionysus from a decidedly Orphic perspective. It seems that the approxima-
tion of Apollo to, or his identification with, the sun was an idea thriving in Orphic
and Pythagorean circles to whom Empedocles was clearly indebted for the doc-
trine of transmigration.
One of the obvious features of the sun is that it is all-round ; another that its
rays reach the earth from a great distance and have a beneficial effect on plants
and animals. The sun was considered to play a major role in the preservation of
the cosmic order in as divergent authors as Heraclitus, Alcmaeon, the Derveni
author, Plato and Aristotle. 36 Some of those authors regarded the sun as the
33. D.L. VIII.54-55=A1; cf. A7.

34. D.L. VIII.57; A23 ; cf. SOLMSEN (1980).
35. Aesch. fr. 23a Radt.
36. Heracl. B94, B99 ; Alcmaeon apud Nic. Dam. De plantis 1.2.44 (not in DIELS et KRANZ
(1951)), P.Derv. col. IV, XIII, XXV; Plat. Rep. VI, 508a-509b; Tim. 39b; Arist. GC II.10. In
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 38/192
326 Spyridon Rangos
ultimate cause of the generation and nutrition of plants and animals. From
Herodotus we also learn that the sun was a symbol of cosmic order in the imagi-
nation of everyday people. 37 If Empedocles, who is known to have shown an
interest in the sun in his cosmological poem, 38 identified Apollo with the sun, 39
all those features of the latter would be transferred to the former. What is more,
the divinity of B134, which possesses neither limbs nor genitals and seems to be
all-round in shape and a holy mind in essence, would be enriched with a visual
image from our sense experience. However, we should hesitate before we reach
the conclusion that Empedocles’ supposed identification of Apollo with the sun
amounted to a total identity of the two. It seems preferable to think that the sun
provided Empedocles with a visible object which could be used as a symbol for
invisible Apollo. For in B133 Empedocles claims that the divine is imperceptible
by the senses. Now, if what Empedocles said of Apollo was meant to apply to all
other long-lived gods, it would follow that, besides being minds, long-lived gods
were spherical and benevolent beings like the sun. (We shall qualify this claim in
the following section.)
IV. MYSTERIOUS DAEMONS AND BLESSED GODS
In archaic poetry ‘daemon’ was either a synonym for ‘god’, especially in

situations where the identity of the deity involved could not be determined, or a
generic term for ‘divinity’ quite indiscriminately. 40 Later, in Plato for instance
(Symp. 202d-203a), ‘daemon’ becomes the name of higher-than-human powers
that lie in-between the mortal and the divine realms. The Platonic meaning of
the term seems to owe quite a lot to Pythagorean doctrine. 41 But Empedocles’
system has no room for such intermediary entities. In two fragments (B21.9-12,
B23.5-8) “gods highest in honour”, but no daemons, are mentioned side by side
with men, women, trees and animals, and in another (B146) the gods represent
the highest level in the scale of daemonic reincarnations. It seems safe to
Alcmaeon (“et ideo dicit Alcmaeon quod terra mater est plantarum et sol pater”), Plato and Aristotle
the sun was regarded as an ultimate cause of the generation and nutrition of plants and animals. I owe
Alcmaeon’s reference to Stavros Kouloumentas.
37. Herod. VIII.143.2.
38. A56; cf. KINGSLEY (1994).
39. The case is argued forcefully by Picot (forthcoming); cf. STAMATELLOS (2005) 37-38.
40. The obvious exception to this rule seems to be provided by Hesiod’s men of golden race who
became δαίμονες (O.D. 122) after death. But those men, while still alive, already “lived like gods”
(ὥστε θεοὶ δ’ ἔζωον ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες, O.D. 112), so that their post-mortem daemonic status
does not necessarily mean that they became something less than full-blown gods with a particular
function. In O.D. 314 the word δαίμων retains the common (in archaic poetry) sense of ‘god’.
41. Cf. DETIENNE (1963); KERFERD (1965).
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 39/192
conclude that for Empedocles gods stood immediately above the human level of
being.
In line with earlier poetic usage, Empedocles did not always sharply distin-
guish between ‘gods’ and ‘daemons’. B59 obviously refers either to the roots or
(less probably) to the forces but, in any case, to some immortal principles, and
calls them “daemons”. 42 In B115.5, by contrast, which stems from the fragment
that is our primary evidence for Empedoclean transmigration and the daemonic
cycle, the daemons are said to have been appointed a “long-lasting life”
(μακραίωνος λελάχασι βίοιο), a qualification which, in a different form (δολι-
χαίωνες), is normally used for “gods highest in honour” (B21.12 ; B23.8). What
is more, in B147 Empedocles spoke of “immortals” in the poetically standard
way to mean ‘gods’ (rather than ‘imperishable principles’) and stated that “with
the other immortals they [=the deamons 43] share hearth and table, having no
part in human misery”. Such an implicit identification of daemons with gods

implies one of the following two ideas: either the daemons reassume their divine
status at the end of their wandering period or they never lost it during their
successive reincarnations. We shall see that the first option is preferable.
Empedocles’ physical doctrine leaves no room for transmigrating entities
unless they are somehow constituted by the elements. Although many scho-
larly suggestions have been made (some more plausible than others), the
daemon’s material constitution remains a mystery and his relation to the
principles of Empedocles’ physical doctrine cannot be determined on the
available evidence. However, the doctrine of reincarnation was, no doubt,
present in the Physika. 44 Apparently, Empedocles conceived a parallelism
between the cosmic and the daemonic cycles somewhat along the following
lines: 45
1. Full reign of Love — the daemon is in the community of blessed gods

in the Sphere blissful state – primary wholeness
2. Disruption of the Sphere — the daemon commits the crime of

by Strife bloodshed/perjury
the daemon is sentenced to exile
42. O’BRIEN (1969) 323-336 adopts, and argues extensively for, Cornford’s suggestion according
to which they are “fragmentations of Love imprisoned in mortal bodies”. If he is right, Empedocles’
terminology was stricter than I have assumed.
43. The word is not mentioned in the fragment but is the obvious subject of the participle ἐόντες.
44. MARTIN et PRIMAVESI (1999) 90-95; KINGSLEY (2002) 399-342.
45. Cf. PRIMAVESI 2006) 63; (2008) 265.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 40/192
328 Spyridon Rangos
3. Ascending rule — the daemon is in exile

of Strife descending series of incarnations
mortal pain gradually increased
4. Full reign of Strife — the daemon is in exile

in the Roots wretched state – ultimate fragmentariness
5. Ascending rule — the daemon is in exile

of Love ascending series of incarnations
mortal pain gradually decreased
6. Restoration of the Sphere — the daemon returns to the community of gods
by Love blissful state – ultimate wholeness
The evidence for the daemonic cycle is mainly provided by B115 which most
probably came from the Purifications. 46 To the very simple question ‘when is
the daemon in a happy state of bliss?’, the answer should be obvious: the
daemon is happy before the beginning of his wandering period and after its
conclusion. His suffering begins with bloodshed and perjury, 47 reaches its
zenith (or nadir) at mid-point, and ends when the daemon finds again a place in
the company of blessed gods. The daemon’s exile from home signals a period
of 30,000 seasons, probably the equivalent of 10,000 years, when the daemon
finds himself in alien places (B115.6-11) or assumes alien garments (B126; cf.
B115.7). The penalty for his transgression consists in a period of successive
incarnations in ever worse life forms until he reaches ultimate misery. Then a
series of successive incarnations in ever better life forms begins. If the first
series of incarnations indicates increased alienation from home, this second
series indicates gradual proximity to home.
B146 refers to this second series of reincarnations: “By the end”, it says, “they
become seers, minstrels, physicians and leaders for the sake of earth-dwelling
men, whence gods highest in honour spring”. The subject of the maim verb is
missing and should be supplied from Clement’s context. The Christian father said
that Empedocles spoke of “the souls of wise men” (τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν σοφῶν). The
term ψυχή is only once found in Diels’ collection of Empedocles’ fragments
46. O’BRIEN (2001) 79-149.

47. In the famous fragment B115, which is reconstructed by Diels from the accounts provided
mainly by Plutarch and Hippolytus, verses 3 and 4 (if genuine, cf. ZUNTZ (1971) 194-5) seem to be
alternative ways to denote the same thing. To bypass the false dilemma whether daemons’ crime
consisted in murder or perjury we may assume that the daemons had sworn an oath binding them to
avoid bloodshed so that their transgression could be qualified as either perjury or murder since it was
both at once. For a very convincing defence of the manuscript reading φόβῳ (instead of φόνῳ, which
is Stephanus’ correction) in B115.3 see PICOT (2007).
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 41/192
(B138), in a half line whose attribution to Empedocles has been seriously challen-
ged. 48 But even there the word bears the old sense of ‘life-breath’. It is then
certain that in B146 Empedocles was speaking not of disembodied psychai but of
daimones instead. The “end” (τέλος) of B146 must, then, mean the end of the
daemons’ transmigration period. It follows that the daemons incarnate as pro-
minent men just before their final incarnation as “gods highest in honour”. If so,
then Empedocles must have seen in incarnations an hierarchical order. 49 In
B127 lions are said to be the best animals and laurel-trees the best plants as abodes
of transmigrating daemons. Such a ‘chain of being’ (or scala entis) ranging from
the lowest plants to the highest gods would correspond to a scala divinitatis, as
we shall see.
The seers, minstrels, physicians and leaders of B146 are all men of superior
mental skills destined to assuage the pain of average humans. Those four profes-
sions were probably seen by Empedocles as suitable for rather integrated dae-
mons, i.e. those with a higher degree of love in their constitution. If the
daemon’s wandering period begins when the daemon practically lays confidence
in raving Strife, as B115.14 states, it must end when he practically suspends that
confidence for the sake of the opposite force. And since to put confidence in
Strife practically means to shed blood and break an oath, to lay confidence in
Love must mean to abstain from killing, reassume the binding oath, and exhibit
an increased sense of care for life quite generally. We may reasonably assume
that when the daemons finally incarnate as gods their confidence in Love
reaches its culmination. Their mythological return to the company of gods must
then be understood as one and the same with their assumption of divine forms.
In plainer words, when the daemons incarnate as gods they eo ipso return to the
company of “other immortals and share hearth and table with them” (B147).
Their participation in the company of gods is a return to the place of origin. The
end coincides with the beginning. All intermediary stages are greater and lesser
forms of alienation and fragmentation.
It must be clear that Empedocles’ daemons are not identical with gods. The
divine form is just one among the many possible forms that a daemon may
assume during transmigration. But it is not just any form, i.e. a form on an equal
footing with others: the divine is the original form of the daemon. When in home
and in a state of bliss the daemon is a god; when in exile and in a state of misery
the daemon is a mortal creature of one sort or another. Before we proceed to
investigate the dialectics of mortality and immortality in Empedocles’ system it
would be advisable to deal with a fragment where the philosopher-poet, while
48. PICOT (2006).

49. KAHN (1993) 447.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 42/192
330 Spyridon Rangos
speaking of human happiness or well-being, gives us glimpses of what it means

for a human being to be like god.
B132, which forms the motto of the present paper, says: “happy is the man
who has gained the wealth of divine understanding, / wretched he who cherishes
an obfuscated opinion about the gods”. The gnomic tone of the fragment is a
traditional literary form. 50 What is striking here is the ambiguity of the first
verse. ‘To possess the wealth of divine understanding’ may mean ‘to possess an
understanding such as the gods possess’. But it may also mean ‘to possess a
wealth of knowledge about the gods’. If the first line of the fragment stood on its
own without a sequence, the first interpretation would be the most natural. But
the presence of the second verse tends to favour the second interpretative option.
For line 2 does not state that ‘wretched is he who does not understand things as
gods understand them’. Rather, it states that ‘wretched is he who does not enter-
tain the right opinions about the gods’, namely a person whose ideas about divine
nature are either fundamentally confused or plainly false. We may ask why
knowledge of the true nature of the gods was so important for Empedocles. We
may also ask ourselves whether the ambiguity of the first verse might, after all,
have been intentional. To answer those two questions we need to go back to
B134 and see it in conjunction with B133.
In B133 Empedocles says that “it is not possible to bring it [=the divine] close
within reach of our eyes or to grasp it with the hands”. Apparently ‘eyes’ and
‘hands’ represent the sense organs, and the fragment means to say that gods
cannot be perceived through the senses. This denial, however, need not imply
that gods are absolutely imperceptible. If gods are holy and loving minds, as
B134 on our interpretation implies, they may be graspable by means other than
sense perception. Empedocles’ epistemological principle, pronounced clearly in
B109, states that like is known by like. It would then follow that holy and loving
minds are grasped only by other such holy and loving minds ; for “love is known
by love” (B109.3), and Pausanias is urged to mentally perceive Love (τὴν σὺ
νόῳ δέρκευ) rather than “sit staring dazed” (B17.21; cf. B2). Now, if gods are
loving minds sending forth their caring thoughts to the entire cosmos, as B134
on our interpretation suggests, then “to possess the wealth of divine understan-
ding”, in the sense of possessing a mind such as the gods possess, would be
tantamount to ‘caring for the entire cosmos’. But to actively care for the entire
cosmos is to actually possess a considerable amount of love and, because of that,
to possess an understanding of, among other things, the divine as caring mind. It
follows that to care about divine nature, in the sense of wanting to know what it
is, is to care about caring love. It also follows that the happy human being who
50. Cf. Hes. Theog. 96-97; Hom. H. Dem. 486-487; Alcm. Fr. 5, 37-39 Page.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 43/192
possesses the wealth of divine understanding is like a god among humans. I

conclude, therefore, that for Empedocles to actually possess intimate knowledge
about divine nature and to be such a divine nature must refer to the same state of
affairs under two different descriptions. Empedocles’ own self-proclaimed divi-
nity (B112.4) springs to mind as a case in point. 51 Having realized the essentially
divine nature of his own being as caring love Empedocles urged his fellow
citizens to do the same by abstaining from bloodshed and purifying themselves
from the pollution implicated in the works of Strife. Sextus seems to have very
well captured the meaning of Empedocles’ self-proclaimed divinity when, after
rejecting interpretations that saw arrogance and sin in Empedocles’ behaviour,
claimed, instead: “Empedocles called himself a god because, having kept his
mind pure from baseness and unpolluted, he alone apprehended the god without
by means of the god within himself”. 52 It seems that the Purifications, as its title
suggests, contained specific advice about how one may reach such a purified
state of being. 53
For Empedocles, then, to be a divine being is to have the constitution of a holy
and caring mind. B105 strongly suggests that thought is produced by the circula-
tion of blood around the heart, and B98 states quite plainly that blood “and other
kinds of flesh” are mixtures of all four roots in equal measures, the difference
presumably being the more thorough mixture of the elements in blood than in
flesh. For Empedocles the more well-mixed blood is, the better the thinking
produced by its circulation around the heart will be. But since anything that is
well-blended is so blended because of a greater influence of Love in it, the best
blood, and hence the best thinking, should be the blood that is most influenced by
the power of Love. Gods as holy and caring minds will have been for Empedocles
very much like pure hearts with excellent blood, their loving thoughts being the
outcome of the circulation of this superb blood. By being pure, pulsating, and
probably spherical hearts Empedocles’ gods resemble the Sphere in which all
four elemental masses are perfectly united under the supreme power of Love. It is
not, therefore, the case that “daimon parallels the holy phren”. 54 The case is,
rather, that any long-lived god is such “a holy and tremendous mind”.
51. I follow the traditional interpretation of B112.4-6 defended by PANAGIOTOU (1983) against
VAN DER BEN’s (1975) 22-25 novel interpretation.
52. Cf. Sextus Adv. Math. I.303: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς θεὸν ἑαυτὸν προσηγόρευσεν, ἐπεὶ μόνος καθαρὸν
ἀπὸ κακίας τηρήσας τὸν νοῦν καὶ ἀνεπιθόλωτον τῷ ἐν ἑαυτῷ θεῷ τὸν ἐκτὸς θεὸν κατείληφεν.
53. SEDLEY (1998) 2-10.
54. DARCUS (1977).
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 44/192
332 Spyridon Rangos
V. THE DIALECTICS OF MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY
In several extant fragments Empedocles juxtaposes the merely human with the
divine element. In B3.1-2 the gods are summoned to turn from the poet’s tongue
“the madness of these” — presumably vulgar — “men and to let a pure stream
flow from the hollowed lips” of the poet who then entreats the Muse to “send
what is right and fitting for mortals to hear”. In another such epiclesis (B131) the
poet, after reminding the Muse of her earlier help to him about merely mortal
concerns, asks her to answer his present prayer “as he is going to unfold a noble
account about blessed gods”. In B112.4 Empedocles opposes mortality with
immortal divinity and claims for himself the status of the latter. In B23.11 the
poet states that the recipient of his message, i.e. Pausanias, hears a discourse from
a god. This authority claim, whether it refers to Empedocles himself or to his

Muse, 55 repeats the traditional distinction between mortals and immortals. But
the opposition between mortality and immortality assumes almost tragic propor-
tions in B115 where long-lived daemons are said to be born in all kinds of mortal
forms as a result of their transgression. Although the daemon is not an immortal
but a “long-lived” entity, his punishment consists in his assumption of various
mortal forms (B115.7 : παντοῖα εἴδεα θνητῶν). The opposition of the daemonic
with the merely mortal shows that Empedocles’ notion of mortality was not
confined to the literal meaning of the term. We may infer that the ascription of
mortality to a thing did not or did not only mean that the thing in question would
eventually die, i.e. dissolve. It could mean also that this thing was afflicted by
pain and death while still alive. The opposite of mortality in this sense was not
immortality but a blessed, integrated and well-balanced existence permeated by
Love like that of the long-lived gods qua caring minds and, in a greater degree, of
the Sphere. In B139, which thanks to the Strasbourg papyrus we know to have
been part of the Physika, the Empedoclean speaker would prefer death to the
presumably wretched existence he is now leading as a result of committing the
cruel deed of eating flesh. For him to be non-existent is preferable to leading a
disintegrated and wretched life. If mortality implied a mentally fragmented state
of being which caused pain and death to other living creatures, its opposite,
namely immortality, would be a state of psychological and mental wholeness.
The opposition of mortality (appropriately understood) to blessedness is not
confined to the daemonic cycle. A similar opposition appears in the cosmic cycle.
The alternate dominance of Love and Strife brings about a corresponding change
55. “The god mentioned here is sometimes said to be his muse, but nothing besides a desire to
save Empedocles from the sin of arrogance supports the interpretation” (INWOOD (2002) 57, n.127).
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 45/192
in the status of the elements. When the roots are arranged in four concentric layers
under the absolute rule of Strife they are ζωρά (B35.15), a term which has caused
a long controversy about its precise meaning. 56 But when they are mixed together
in various configurations under the relative influence of Love, “tens of thousands
of mortal types” (ἔθνεα μυρία θνητῶν) are said to come into being, “a wonderful
spectacle to see” (B.35.16-17). We may notice the parallelism between ἔθνεα
μυρία θνητῶν of the cosmic cycle and the παντοῖα εἴδεα θνητῶν of the daemonic
cycle. If the designation θνητά in the former case applied only to the various
combinations of the elements that produce unstable and ultimately dissolvable
living structures, the opposition between the mortality of compound structures to
the immortality of their simple constituents would be readily understandable. But
it seems that Empedocles wanted to say something more than that. In describing
the birth of mortal creatures he wrote the memorable verse (B35.14): “immedia-
tely what were formerly accustomed to be immortal sprang forth as mortal” (αἶψα
δὲ θνήτ’ ἐφύοντο, τὰ πρὶν μάθον ἀθάνατ’ εἶναι). This phrase strongly suggests
that the immortal roots themselves undergo a change of status and become mortal
when they combine with one another under the influence of Love. Their change
reminds us of the corresponding change of status which the daemon undergoes
when forced to leave the company of gods. It seems that Empedocles meant the
opposite attributes of ‘mortality’ and ‘immortality’ to denote not only mutually
exclusive classes of things (i.e. principles, on the one hand, and derivative entities,
on the other) but also temporally successive states of being (like wakefulness and
sleep). Mortality and immortality are not only enantiomorphic opposites in the
sense that the one is precisely what the other is not. They seem to be enantiodro-
mic too, in the sense of coming from, and resulting in, one another. The idea was
clearly put forward by Heraclitus (B62, B76). But it seems that it has had an
impact on Empedocles too. The elements recognize themselves as divine/immor-
tal only when Strife reigns supreme and liberates their innate tendency to form
homogeneous masses on the principle of ‘like to like’. But they forget, so to
speak, their divine origin when they are mixed together under Love’s pressure.
What they seem primarily to forget is their essential deathlessness, rather than a
hypothetical bliss. For, to my knowledge, the roots are nowhere characterized by
Empedocles as blessed when unmixed. Mixed structures are, then, worried by
death because they have forgotten the essential endlessness of their constituent
parts.
56. For references see WRIGHT (1995) 208. I think that, on the evidence of Aristotle’s Poetics
(1461a) 14-15 and 23-25, we should read ζωρά τε πρίν, κέκρητο. I suspect that the standard meaning
of ζωρός (‘pure’, ‘unmixed with water’ in the case of wine) comes from an earlier (unattested) sense
of ‘strong’ and/or ‘alive’.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 46/192
334 Spyridon Rangos
Now, if some particular compound structures are not only mortal but also
blessed, that would mean that those particular structures are not worried by
death, presumably because they have realized that death cannot afflict the essen-
tial immortality of their ultimate parts. Those compound structures were, I sug-
gest, for Empedocles the “long-lived gods highest in honour”, and we have seen
that those gods, including the Sphere, are the most integrated mortal beings. It
follows quite generally that as long as mortal compound structures are fully
integrated and live their lives in bliss not at all worried by the eventual termi-
nation of such a blissful existence, they can be described as divine. But whenever
compound mortal things are afflicted by pain, misery and the prospect of
death, because of a lower degree of integration, they can be described as exiled
divinities.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Let us now draw some conclusions. Since the roots are themselves alive and
intelligent, it follows that everything constituted out of them will, in a certain
sense, be also alive and intelligent (B110.10). And since the roots are divine
(because they are unchangeable and imperishable in themselves), all destructible
things made out of them (plants, animals, humans, and gods) will have a certain
share in divinity. They can, therefore, be characterized under two distinct and
seemingly contradictory descriptions: they are obviously mortal since their indi-
vidual structure will sooner or later be dissolved; but they are immortal since the
portions of the elements that make up their present forms will continue to exist
for ever in innumerable other configurations. As mortal they can be said to be
inhabited by daemons unconscious of their divine origin. As immortal they are
inhabited by daemons who have realized their divine status.
The narrative of the poem On Nature was, in an important sense, the descrip-
tion of a divine drama. All six principles of Empedocles’ physical doctrine are
divine, and their interaction produces the cosmic alternation of One and Many.
In the process the elements suffer loss of their divinity and become the mortal
constituents of compound structures. They thus lose sight of their essential
immortality and get involved in the fundamental duality of coming-into-being
and passing-away.
The vegetative, animal, human and divine realms constitute a hierarchy of
lower and higher species and individuals displaying various grades of integration.
There is a sense in which everything whatsoever is divine, and another sense in
which only highly integrated structures are divine. The prototype of them all is
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 47/192
the Sphere, the integrated whole par excellence, but there are innumerable others.
They are the “long-lived gods, highest in honour”. Their visible symbol is the
sun who darts heat and life-providing energy to the entire cosmos of our sense
experience.
According to Empedocles, the cosmic cycle as a whole is variously reflected
in the birth, maturation and death of each and every distinct being of our
world. At the peak of their existence distinct beings are integrated structures
which resemble, in a very dim way, the wholeness of the Sphere. But their
physical wholeness is rarely coupled by a corresponding awareness of whole-
ness. The physical and the mental aspects of wholeness seem to part company.
Such a rupture of mental wholeness is expressed in the vivid imagery of exiled
daemons. Whereas Empedocles’ Sphere indicates the sacredness, aliveness and
unity of blissful being, the exiled daemon is a symbol of the profanation and
the empirical fragmentariness of life.

A distinctive feature of those highly integrated structures which also possess a
mental awareness of wholeness is bliss. In Empedocles’ natural and ethical phi-
losophy, bliss turns out to be the most prominent feature of divinity, more pro-
minent than immortality or merely everlasting existence. The most blissful
entities are the most divine, and since wholeness is the product of Love those
entities that display bliss in the highest degree are those in the actual life of
which Love plays a most prominent role. Immortality presupposes simple, hence
indissoluble, entities, while bliss is ascribed to fully integrated entities which
must be compound, hence perishable.
Two different tendencies or trends of early Greek philosophy seem to vie for
supremacy in Empedocles’ understanding of godhead. 57 The first, stemming
from Ionian monism, says that the truly divine nature is the everlasting ἀρχή out
of which everything is constituted. In it divinity was the predicate of endless
continuity through time or (which is the same) eternal perseverance in time. The
second, coming from Eleatic monism, says that motionless Being is, despite
appearances, always a spherical whole, always full, always lacking in nothing.
In this second trend divinity was primarily a predicate of timeless wholeness, not
of temporal continuity or endless persistence. Those two different views about
the divine had also a Homeric pedigree. For the traditional gods of Homer were
both immortal (ἀθάνατοι / αἰὲν ἐόντες) and blissful (μάκαρες). In his teaching
Empedocles tried to summarize the entire poetic and philosophical tradition of
his time. Still, the tension between the two conceptions of divinity is evident.
Divine bliss cannot last for ever. For, in line with Heraclitus’ message, Being is
57. Cf. SOLMSEN (1975) 136-141, 144-145.

Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 48/192
336 Spyridon Rangos
(in) conflict. The Homeric immortality of gods and their Homeric bliss seem to
have parted company “in the tragic age of the Greeks”.
Spyridon RANGOS
Department of Philology, University of Patras, Greece
References
BOLLACK J. (1965-1969), Empédocle : Introduction à l’ancienne physique ; Les
Origines, 3 vol., Paris.
BOLLACK J. (2003), Empédocle. Les Purifications : Un projet de paix universelle,
Paris.
CURD P. (2005), “On the Question of Religion and Natural Philosophy in

Empedocles”, in Pierris (ed.), 137-162.
DARCUS S. M. (1977), “Daimon Parallels the Holy Phren in Empedocles”,
Phronesis 22: 175-190.
DETIENNE M. (1959), « La “démonologie” d’Empédocle », Revue des études
grecques 72 : 1-17.
DETIENNE M. (1963), La notion de δαίμων dans le pythagorisme ancien, Paris.
DIELS H. and KRANZ W. (1951), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 vols.,
6th rev. ed., Berlin.
GUTHRIE W.K.C. (1965), A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. II: The Presocratic
Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus, Cambridge.
INWOOD B. (2001), The Poem of Empedocles: A Text and Translation with an
Introduction, Rev. ed., Toronto.
JANKO R. (2005), “Empedocles’ Physika Book I: A New Reconstruction”, in
Pierris (ed.), 93-135.
KAHN C. H. (1993), “Religion and Natural Philosophy in Empedocles’ Doctrine
of the Soul”, in A. P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The Presocratics: A Collection of
Critical Essays, Princeton, 426-456.
KERFERD G. B. (1965), “Δαίμων in Pythagorean Thought” (= review of Detienne
1963), Classical Review 15: 77-79.
KINGSLEY P. (1994), “Empedocles’ Sun”, Classical Quarterly n.s. 44: 316-324.
KINGSLEY P. (1995), Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and
Pythagorean Tradition, Oxford.
KINGSLEY P. (2002), “Empedocles for the New Millennium”, Ancient Philosophy
22: 333-413.
MARTIN A. and PRIMAVESI O. (1999), L’Empédocle de Strasbourg (P. Strasb. gr.
Inv. 1665-1666) : introduction, édition et commentaire, Berlin/New York.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 49/192
O’BRIEN D. (1969), Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle, Cambridge.

O’BRIEN D. (2001), “Empedocles: The Wandering Daimon and the Two
Poems”, Aevum Antiquum n.s. 1: 79-179.
O’BRIEN D. (2010), “Μονίη in Empedocles: Slings’ ‘Iron Rule’”, Mnemosyne
n.s. 63: 268-271.
PANAGIOTOU S. (1983), “Empedocles on His Own Divinity”, Mnemosyne n.s. 36:
276-285.
PICOT J.-C. (2000), « L’Empédocle magique de P. Kingsley », Revue de philoso-
phie ancienne 8 : 24-86.
PICOT J.-C. (2006), « Aristote Poétique 1457 b 13-14 : la métaphore d’espèce à
espèce », Revue des études grecques 119 : 532-551.
PICOT J.-C. (2007), “Empedocles, Fragment 115.3: Can One of the Blessed
Pollute His Limbs with Blood?», in S. Stern-Gillet et K. Corrigan (eds.),
Reading Ancient Texts, vol. I : Presocratics and Plato (Essays in Honour of

Denis O'Brien), Leiden/Boston, 41-56.
PICOT J.-C. (2008), « La brillance de Nestis (Empédocle, fr. 96) », Revue de
philosophie ancienne, 26 : 75-100.
PICOT J.-C. (forthcoming), « Apollon et la φρὴν ἱερὴ καὶ ἀθέσφατος (Empédocle,
fr. 134 DK) », Anais de Filosofia Clássica.
PIERRIS A. (ed.) (2005), The Empedoclean Κόσμος: Structure, Process and the
Question of Cyclicity, Patras.
PRIMAVESI O. (2002), « Lecteurs antiques et byzantins d’Empédocle. De Zénon à
Tzétzès », in A. Laks et C. Louguet (eds.), Qu’est-ce que la Philosophie
Présocratique ? / What is Presocratic Philosophy ?, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, 183-
204.
PRIMAVESI O. (2006a), “Empedokles in Florentiner Aristoteles-Scholien”,
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 157: 27-40.
PRIMAVESI O. (2006b), “Apollo and Other Gods in Empedocles”, in M.M. Sassi
(ed.), La costruzione del discorso filosofico nell'età dei Presocratici / The
Construction of Philosophical Discourse in the Age of the Presocratics, Pisa,
51-77.
PRIMAVESI O. (2008a), Empedokles Physika I: Eine Rekonstruktion des zentralen
Gedankengangs, Berlin/New York.
PRIMAVESI O. (2008b), “Empedocles : Physical and Mythical Divinity”, in
P. Curd et D.W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to Presocratic
Philosophy, Oxford, 250-283.
RASHED M. (2001), « La chronographie du système d’Empédocle : documents
byzantins inédits », Aevum Antiquum n.s. 1 : 237-259.
SEDLEY D. (1998), Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom,
Cambridge.
Date : 2/8/2012 17h5 Page 50/192
338 Spyridon Rangos
SOLMSEN F. (1975), “Eternal and Temporary Beings in Empedocles’ Physical

Poem”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 57: 123-145.
SOLMSEN F. (1980), “Empedocles’ Hymn to Apollo”, Phronesis 25: 219-227.
STAMATELLOS G. (2007), Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study
of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus’ Enneads, Albany.
VAN DER BEN N. (1975), The Proem of Empedocles’ Peri Physios: Towards a
New Edition of All the Fragments, Amsterdam.
WRIGHT M.R. (1995), Empedocles: The Extant Fragments, 2nd ed., London.
ZUNTZ G. (1971), Persephone: Three Essays in Religion and Thought in Magna
Graecia, Oxford.

RMM 123 0315

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

RMM 123 0315

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

EMPEDOCLES ON DIVINE NATURE

Presses Universitaires de France | « Revue de métaphysique et de morale »

2012/3 N° 75 | pages 315 à 338

Pour citer cet article :

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses Universitaires de France.

Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Empedocles on Divine Nature 1

Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, No 3/2012

316 Spyridon Rangos

ὅλβιος, ὃς θείων πραπίδων ἐκτήσατο πλοῦτον,

I. SUBJECT, AIM AND METHOD

Several entities in Empedocles’ philosophical poetry are characterized in

personifications said by Plutarch to be the “twofold moirai and daimones” who

Empedocles on Divine Nature 317

notable exception of B112 and a fragment added by Wright, 5 we simply do

tency we are looking for is a consistency of philosophical doctrine rather than

II. IMMORTAL AND LONG-LIVED GODS:

318 Spyridon Rangos

Empedocles on Divine Nature 319

10. Cf. KINGSLEY (1996) 15-48; PICOT (2000) 41-82.

320 Spyridon Rangos

Empedocles on Divine Nature 321

natural place in the Physika. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that

acknowledged by those primordial people. We may think of the divine persons

17. Cf. GUTHRIE (1965) 255; KAHN (1993) 432.

322 Spyridon Rangos

appearance. Similarly, Faultlessness qualified as “lovely” (ἐρόεσσα) would be

III. SPECIAL CASES OF GODHEAD :

20. O’BRIEN (1969) 46-54.

Empedocles on Divine Nature 323

A puzzling divine entity in Empedocles’ surviving verses is the “holy and

23. O’BRIEN (2010).

324 Spyridon Rangos

whether Ammonius made the generalization himself or inferred it from the

Empedocles on Divine Nature 325

33. D.L. VIII.54-55=A1; cf. A7.

326 Spyridon Rangos

IV. MYSTERIOUS DAEMONS AND BLESSED GODS

In archaic poetry ‘daemon’ was either a synonym for ‘god’, especially in

Empedocles on Divine Nature 327

part in human misery”. Such an implicit identification of daemons with gods

1. Full reign of Love — the daemon is in the community of blessed gods

2. Disruption of the Sphere — the daemon commits the crime of

328 Spyridon Rangos

3. Ascending rule — the daemon is in exile

4. Full reign of Strife — the daemon is in exile

5. Ascending rule — the daemon is in exile

46. O’BRIEN (2001) 79-149.

Empedocles on Divine Nature 329

48. PICOT (2006).

330 Spyridon Rangos

speaking of human happiness or well-being, gives us glimpses of what it means

Empedocles on Divine Nature 331

possesses the wealth of divine understanding is like a god among humans. I

332 Spyridon Rangos

V. THE DIALECTICS OF MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY

a god. This authority claim, whether it refers to Empedocles himself or to his

Empedocles on Divine Nature 333

334 Spyridon Rangos

Empedocles on Divine Nature 335

the empirical fragmentariness of life.

57. Cf. SOLMSEN (1975) 136-141, 144-145.

336 Spyridon Rangos