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PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS While Summarizing the Doctrines Of CHAPTER THREE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS A. PRESOCRATICS While summarizing the doctrines of the greatest Greek philosophers (PE X.14 .lO-l 7) in order to show how these philosophers appeared later than Moses and the Hebrew prophets and thus were depen­ dent upon Moses and the prophets, Eusebius inserts a quotation of Anaxagoras (X.14.12).' An almost identical version of this quotation is also given at XIV. 14.9,2 again in a summary of Presocratic opin­ ions, while the succeeding chapter (XY.15) discusses more fully the doctrine of Anaxagoras with quotations from Plato's Phaedo. Both of these quotations occur in summaries of philosophical opin­ ions. The first version, at X.14.l2, occurs in a summary of opinions held by leading Greek philosophers, beginning with Thales. The sec­ ond version, at XIV. 14.9, follows a lengthy quotation of Ps-Plutarch's De placitis philosophorum that records the opinions of Presocratics from Thales to Empedocles (XIV. 14. 1-6). Interestingly, another summa­ rized report of Anaxagoras' views comes at XIV. 16.2 in a treatment by Ps-Plutarch of philosophical opinions on the gods. But, although Ps-Plutarch must be counted as a possible source for information on Anaxagoras, the quotation of Anaxagoras at XIV.14.9 (and that at X.14.12) cannot be linked to any of Ps-Plutarch's extant material. 3 Nor do the two quotations of Anaxagoras come from Diogenes Laertius, II.6, as Gifford proposes, since the verbal similarities between t PE X.14.12: ~v yap apx~v (cpl1cri) to. 7tpaY/lclt(x O/lOU 7tecpup/lEvCl. vou~ Of eicreA9rov mJta h: til~ a't(l~iCl~ d~ ta~tv ~YClyev. ("For, in the beginning [apx~v], he says, all things were mixed together; but Mind, entering in, brought them from disorder into order.") Eusebius' text is not included in the collection of H. Dicls and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 1964), but cf. fro Bland fro B 12. 1 PE XIV.14.9: ~v yap ev apxn (cpl1criv) O/lOU to. 7tpaY/lCl't(l 7tecpup/lEvCl. vou~ Of dcreA9rov ClUta elC til~ atCl~iCl~ ei~ ta~tv ~YClye. ("For, in the beginning [ev apxnJ, he says, all things were mixed together; but Mind, entering in, brought them from dis­ order into order. ") 3 Sec K. Mras, PE, I.612, against the suggestion of E. H. Gifford, PE, 1I.365. 76 CHAPTER THREE the passages in Eusebius and Diogenes are insufficient to show depen­ dence.4 An alternative is that Eusebius drew the quotations from Porphyry's Historia philosophica, and this is a plausible suggestion, though it cannot be proved.5 It is equally possible that Eusebius uti­ lized some other unidentified source, such as a doxography. The quotations of three other Presocratics may be considered together. I have argued elsewhere that the ostensibly direct quotations of Protagoras' IT£pt S£illv (at Xly'3.7 and XIV.19.l0), Metrodorns if Chios (at XIV.19.9), and Democritus (at Xly'3.7 and XIV.19.9) derive from the eighth book of Aristocles' De philosophia. Eusebius provides these quotations at XIV.19.9-10 in a connecting passage between extracts from Aristocles (XIV.19.1-7 and XIV.20.l-l2), whose work is the source for the information in this and other connecting passages that link a series of extracts from the De philosophia (XIY.l 7-21).6 Another quotation of Democritus (fr. 299 Diels-Kranz at PE X.4.23) appears also in Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis (1.69.5), which is probably Eusebius' source. An allusion to a statement of Heracleitus appears at XIV.3.8, imme­ diately succeeding the quotations of Protagoras and Democritus at XIV.3.7 that Eusebius drew from Aristocles. 7 One might expect that the reference to Heracleitus similarly derives from Aristocles, but no evidence links the fragment of Heracleitus to Aristocles' De philosophia. The source is unknown, though one can speculate that Eusebius made use of a doxography or some other handbook.8 Eusebius summarizes Parmenides' doctrine at XIV.3.9, immediately after the fragment of Heracleitus. Neither Gifford, nor Mras, nor .j M. Smith, "A Hidden Use of Porphyry's History of Philosophy in Eusebius' Pracparatio Evangelica," JTS 39 (1988), p. 497, against the suggestion of E. H. Gifford, PE, II.59. S M. Smith in JTS (1988). Smith also suggests that Eusebius used Porphyry's his­ tory of philosophy for quotations of Protagoras, Metrodorus of Chios, and Democritus in the PE, but this suggestion should be rejected (cf. A. J. Carriker, JTS [1996]). <; See A. J. Carriker, JTS (1996), for the full argument. The quotation of Protagoras also appears at Diels-Kranz, Frog. der Vorsokr., fr. B4; that of Metrodorus at Diels­ Kranz, fr. B I and fr. B2; that of Democritus is not included in the fragments of Democritus, but cf. Leukippos A6. 7 For the quotation of Heracleitus, cf. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsokr., fro B90. s Cf. E. des Places, Eusebe de Cesarie, comrrumtaieur: platonisme et emture sainte, Theologie historique 63 (Paris, 1982) p. 39, who notes that Eusebius could have used a doxo­ graphy rather than borrowed the quotation directly from a text of Heraclcitus. .
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