CHAPTER NINE
A CENTO OF CENTOS, PART 2 THE PYTHAGOREAN TRADITION, CONTINUED: EMPEDOCLES AND HERACLITUS
IX 1. Empedocles
IX 1.1 Introduction
The fullest treatment of Empedocles in the Ref, one that in fact is disertis verbis devoted to Empedocles, is found at VII 29-31. In these chapters, Empedocles is said to be the philosopher plagiarized by the important heresiarch Marcion; Hippolytus does not reveal that Marcion is a Christian theologian with an important Gnostic strain but treats him as just another Gnostic. At Ref VII 29.1 and elsewhere, Marcion is said to have introduced two Gods, a good one and an evil one, but this appears to be a not entirely correct rendering ofMarcion's thought.1 Long before him, Empedocles according to Hippolytus had done the same thing, his doctrine being that there are two causes of the All, viz. evil Strife and good Love. Again, this is not what Empedocles said himself, but an interpretation which ultimately goes back to Aristotle, who clearly states that what he offers is indeed an exegesis:2
1 An account of Marcion's doctrines is given at Osborne (1987) 99 ff., who argues that Hippolytus' picture is correct. But Marcion's doctrine is subtler than Hippolytus makes it out to be-see e.g. Hershbell (1973) 105 ff., Rudolph (1977) 334 ff.-for he distinguished between the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge lording it in a just but hard and unrelenting way over his unhappy creation, and the new and strange God who lives beyond the Demiurge (and unknown to him) in his own heaven. It is this other, incomprehensible God who is wholly good and who sends down his own Son, and it is he who has revealed the New Testament. Therefore one cannot say that Marcion 's Demiurge is an evil God, however much he may be inferior to the transcendental good God. Hippolytus has adjusted Marcion 's system to some extent in order to make it more like the Empedoclean system he presents and to which according to his argument it may be traced back. We must also ob serve that the 'third power' introduced by Marcion following Empedocles accor ding to Ref VII 29.25 is the 'middle power' (VII 31.6), that is to say the Son sent down by the unfathomably good God, and not the 'just reason' in between the two other Gods, an innovation of Prepon's (Ref. VII 31.1-4) which is read back by Hippo lytus into Marcion 's middle power by means of an appeal to the same Empedoclean proof-text, see infra, Ch. IX 1.4. We may already note that the idea of a 'just God' is attributed by Hippolytus to Heraclitus (Ref. IX 9.1), see infra, Ch. IX 2.1. 2 Met. A 4 985a4-9 (= Vorsokr. 31A39, I p. 290.33 ff.): ei yap 'tt~ if one follows up and appreciates the utterances of Empedocles with a view to their real meaning and not to his halting language, he will find that Love is the cause of what is good and Strife of what is evil. So if one were to affirm that in a way Empedocles means, and is the first to do so, that Evil and Good are principles [scil., in physics], he would presu mably be right ... Hippolytus adds that he has explained Empedocles' views of the management of the cosmos before (viz., at Ref I 3),3 but that with regard to the detailed confrontation with the heresy of the KAE'IftA.oyo<; (viz. Marcion) they will have to be set forth once again. His exegesis of Empedocles, as we shall see, is by no means entirely original. To our taste, it more often than not is rather forced, but we should remember that the allegorical interpretation of the poets in antiquity as a rule is quite fantastic or even bizarre, and furthermore that Empedocles was considered to be a Pythagorean by Hippolytus, and not by Hippolytus alone. 'Dark' Pythagoras, he had explained in a previous book, spoke in riddles, and riddles have to be explained (see above, Ch. VIII 2. 7-8). IX 1.2 Physics: Empedocles On the Elements and Principles, and On the Cosmos Empedocles according to Hippolytus (Ref VII 29.4 ff.) says that the elements from which the cosmos is formed are six.4 Two of these are material (uA.tK6.), viz. earth and water.5 Two further ones are 'instru ments' (opyava) through which the material elements are arranged and modified, viz. fire and air. The final pair are those who fashion and demiurgize matter, viz. Strife and Love. As evidence Empedocles Aa~~avot 1tpos 'tlJV litavmav Kat ~lJ 1tpQs ii ljfEAAt~E'tUt Aeyrov 'E~1td)oKAf\S, Eupftcm 'ti]v ~ev qn/..{av ai't{av oilcrav 'tOOV ayaSrov 'tO lie VElKOS 'tOOV KUKOOV, Wcr't' El ns