THEOPHRASTUS AND THE DOXOGRAPHY

BY

JAAP MANSFELD

1. The doxographical accounts concerned with Xenophanes' theology and ontology present a difficult problem. What I would like to designate the 'doxographical vulgate', i.e. the plurality of reports in a number of sources which according to Diels' still widely accepted reconstruction should be derived from Theophrastus' Physikon doxai [Nr. 171 in the catalogue at Diog. Laert. IX 48], des- cribe Xenophanes' God as one, spherical, eternal, unmoved, homogeneous, and rational. Two other reports, however, share a significant difference. The pseudo-aristotelian treatise De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia (henceforth MXG), ch. 3, and Simplicius in his Commentary on 's Physics, pp. 22.22-23.30 Diels, which Zeller usefully printed in parallel columns 1), not only provide the descrip- tion of the vulgate, but add that Xenophanes' God is neither limited nor unlimited and neither at rest nor in motion 2). Both ps.- 1) See E. Zeller-W. Nestle, Die Philosophieder Griechenin ihrergeschichtlichen Ent- wicklung, I 1 (Darmstadt 7 1963= Leipzig 6 1919), 628 f. n. 1. 2) I accept Diels'date (the 1st-2nd cent. CE) for the anonymous aristotelizing author of MXG; see H. Diels, Aristotelisqui ferturde MelissoXenophane Georgia libellus (SBBerlin, Phil.-hist. Kl. Abh. 1900. I, Berlin 1900), 8 ff. (cf. also my paper 'De Melisso XenophaneGorgia': PyrrhonizingAristotelianism, forthcoming in RhM). J. Wiesner, Ps. AristotelesMXG: Der historischeWert desXenophanesreferates. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Eleatismus (Amsterdam 1972), 261 ff., argues that the cor- respondences between MXG and Simplicius (and certain passages in 's )are to be explained as interpolations by a "späteleatische Quelle" into a doxography deriving from Theophrastus (and Aristotle). To this extent he follows M. Untersteiner, Senofane: Testimonianzee frammenti(Firenze 1955), who attributed the whole of MXG to an anonymous Megarian philosopher and argued, pp. LXXVI ff., that the negated polar opposites are of Megarian provenance. It will become clear in the course of the argument of the present paper why I cannot accept these hypotheses. MXG's account of Xenophanes in chs. 3 (-4) cannot be squared with the extant fragments. There is a snag here, for chs. 1-2 compare well with the extant 287

Aristotle and Simplicius are fully aware that one has a problem here. The former dialectically exploits the contradiction between the negated pairs of polar opposites and some among the positive attributes to prove Xenophanes' position not acceptable (ch. 4). The latter irons out the contradiction by arguing that 'spherical' (i.e. limited) means 'homogeneous' and 'unmoved' means 'beyond motion and rest', thus explaining those positive attributes which conflict with the negated polar pairs in the sense of precisely these fragments of Melissus, see K. Reinhardt, Parmenidesund die Geschichteder griechischen Philosophie (Bonn 1916, repr. Frankfurt a. M. 1977), 90 f.; P. Steinmetz, XenophanesstudienRhM 109 (1966), 49 f. ; G. Reale, Melisso :Testimonianze e fram- menti (Firenze 1970), 298 ff.; and Wiesner, op. cit., 42 ff. The section on too, chs. 5-6, seems to be rather reliable; see my paper Historical and Philosophical Aspectsof Gorgias' "On What Is Not", in: L. Montoneri-F. Romano (eds.), Gorgia e la Sofistica(Catania 1987), 243 ff.; also for references to the learned literature (add Steinmetz, op. cit., 49). Arguing from analogy, influential and competent historians of Greek philosophy have insisted that MXG should be assumed to be as credible when dealing with Xenophanes as it seems to be when dealing with the others. Consequently, its systematical account of Xenophanes' theology, or sec- tions thereof, would be based upon a poem, or parts of a poem or poems, that are no longer extant (see Reinhardt, op. cit., 95 ff., and the somewhat more cautious K. von Fritz, Xenophanes,in: Pauly-Wissowa, RE Bd. 9A [1967], cols. 1541 ff. Note Wiesner's objections, op. cit., 17 ff., 245 ff.). But the analogy does not work. It is shored up by the unproven and unprovable assumption that MXG on Melissus is based on Melissus' treatise. All we need assume is that it is based on a rather good doxography (it is still worthwhile to quote S. Karsten, Philosophorumveterum ... reliquiae, I 1: Xenophanes[Amsterdam 1830], 100: "verba τεΧνωθηνατεΧΝωσαi, i [MXG 3.977a17, the Xenophanes ch.; cf. infra, n. 40] non sunt vulgaria; unde suspicari quis posset, ea ex ipso Xenophane expressa esse. Sed idem verbum in huius libelli cap. I [974a22, τεΧνυσθαi],ubi de Melisso sententia agitur, usurpat ..., cum tamen in ipsis Melissi verbis apud Simplicium relatis non occurrat". Cf. also infra, n. 40). The author of MXG is an honest reporter. It can be proved that his sources for Melissus and Gorgias happened to be historically rather reliable; that his source(s) for Xenophanes possessed the same quality does not follow therefrom, but needs to be proved separately. It should be noted that the catalogue of Aristotle's works, at Diog. Laert. V 25, lists both a Mελισσoυ [Nr. 95] and a [Nr. 98], but that the (Nr. 99] also to be found there according to most editions is the result of Menagius' charitable emendation (ms At Diog. Laert. V 25, a [Nr. 93] is mentioned as well, which also occurs [as Nr. 84] on the list of the VitaHesychii (see 1. Düring, Aristotlein theAncient BiograPhical Tradition [Göteborg 1957], 85). P. Moraux, Les listesanciennes des ouvragesd'Aristote (Louvain 1951), 198 f., suggests that in Diog. Laert., loc. cit., the Nrs 93 and 99 are an instance of those titles "qui figurent Plusieursfois chez Diogène, même sous des formes légèrement différentes" and "ne se rencontrent qu'une seule fois chez l'Anonyme" (i.e. Hesych.; Moraux' italics); it should be noted that, ibid., he there- fore does not seem to accept the emendation of Diog. Laert. Nr. 99, although he