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| Heraclitus' Estimate of Hesiod; Paradoxes of Heraclitus; His Eschatology; The Heresy of Noetus of Heraclitean Origin; Noetus' View of the Birth and Passion of Our Lord.
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Chapter
V.—Heraclitus’ Estimate of Hesiod; Paradoxes of Heraclitus;
His Eschatology; The Heresy of Noetus of Heraclitean Origin;
Noetus’ View of the Birth and Passion of Our Lord.
In this manner Heraclitus assigns to the visible an
equality of position and honour with the invisible, as if what was
visible and what was invisible were confessedly some one thing.
For he says, “An
obscure harmony is preferable to an obvious one;” and,
“Whatsoever things are objects of vision, hearing, and
intelligence,” that is, of the (corporeal)
organs,—“these,” he says, “I pre-eminently
honour,” not (on this occasion, though previously), having
pre-eminently honoured invisible things. Therefore neither
darkness, nor light, nor evil, nor good, Heraclitus affirms, is
different, but one and the same thing. At all events, he censures
Hesiod978
| 978
See Theogon., v. 123 et seq., v. 748 et seq. | because he knew
not day and night. For day, he says, and night are one,
expressing himself somehow thus: “The teacher, however, of
a vast amount of information is Hesiod, and people suppose this
poet to be possessed of an exceedingly large store of knowledge,
and yet he did not know (the nature of) day and night, for they
are one.” As regards both what is good and what is bad,
(they are, according to Heraclitus, likewise) one.
“Physicians, undoubtedly,” says Heraclitus, “when
they make incisions and cauterize, though in every respect they
wickedly torture the sick, complain that they do not receive fitting
remuneration from their patients, notwithstanding that they perform
these salutary operations upon diseases.” And both straight
and twisted are, he says, the same. “The way is straight
and curved of the carders of wool;”979
| 979
Γναφέων: some
read γναφείῳ, i.e., a
fuller’s soap. The proper reading, however, is probably
γνάφω,
i.e., a carder’s comb. Dr. Wordsworth’s text has
γραφέων and
ἐν τῷ
γραφείῳ, and he translates
the passage thus: “The path,” says he, “of the
lines of the machine called the screw is both straight and crooked, and
the revolution in the graving-tool is both straight and
crooked.” | and the circular movement of an
instrument in the fuller’s shop called “a screw” is
straight and curved, for it revolves up and circularly at the same
time. “One and the same,” he says, “are,
therefore, straight and curved.” And upward and
downward,980
| 980
See Diogenes, Laertius, ix. 8. | he says, are one
and the same. “The way up and the way down are the
same.” And he says that what is filthy and what is pure are
one and the same, and what is drinkable and unfit for drink are one and
the same. “Sea,” he says, “is water very pure
and very foul, drinkable to fishes no doubt, and salutary for
them, but not fit to be used as drink by men, and (for them)
pernicious.” And, confessedly, he asserts that what is
immortal is mortal,981
| 981 Plato,
Clemens Alexandrinus, [vol. ii. p. 384, this series], and Sextus
Empiricus notice this doctrine of Heraclitus. | and that what
is mortal is immortal, in the following expressions:
“Immortals are mortal, and mortals are immortal, that
is, when the one derive life from death, and the other death from
life.” And he affirms also that there is a resurrection of
this palpable flesh in which we have been born; and he knows God to be
the cause of this resurrection, expressing himself in this
manner: “Those that are here982
| 982
᾽Ενθάδε
ἔοντας: some read,
ἔνθα θεὸν
δεῖ, i.e., “God must arise and become the
guardian,” etc. The rendering in the text is adopted by
Bernays and Bunsen. | will God enable to arise and
become guardians of quick and dead.” And he likewise
affirms that a judgment of the world and all things in it takes place
by fire, expressing himself thus: “Now, thunder pilots all
things,” that is, directs them, meaning by the thunder
everlasting fire. But he also asserts that this fire is endued
with intelligence, and a cause of the management of the Universe, and
he denominates it craving and satiety. Now craving is, according
to him, the arrangement of the world, whereas satiety its
destruction. “For,” says he, “the fire, coming
upon the earth, will judge and seize all
things.”
But in this chapter Heraclitus
simultaneously explains the entire peculiarity of his mode of thinking,
but at the same time the (characteristic quality) of the heresy of
Noetus. And I have briefly demonstrated Noetus to be not a
disciple of Christ, but of Heraclitus. For this
philosopher asserts that the primal world is itself the Demiurge
and creator of itself in the following passage: “God is
day, night; winter, summer; war, peace; surfeit, famine.”
All things are contraries—this appears his
meaning—“but an alteration takes place, just as983
| 983
Or, “as commingled kinds of incense each with
different names, but denominated,” etc. | if incense were mixed with other
sorts of incense, but denominated984
| 984 Dr.
Wordsworth reads ὃ νομίζεται,
and translates the passage thus: “But they undergo changes,
as perfumes do, when whatever is thought agreeable to any individual is
mingled with them.” | according to the pleasurable sensation
produced by each sort. Now it is evident to all that the
silly successors of Noetus, and the champions of his heresy, even
though they have not been hearers of the discourses of Heraclitus,
nevertheless, at any rate when they adopt the opinions of Noetus,
undisguisedly acknowledge these (Heraclitean) tenets. For they
advance statements after this manner—that one and the same God is
the Creator and Father of all things; and that when it pleased Him, He
nevertheless appeared, (though invisible,) to just men of
old. For when He is not seen He is invisible; and He is
incomprehensible when He does not wish to be comprehended, but
comprehensible when he is comprehended. Wherefore it is that,
according to the same account, He is invincible and vincible,
unbegotten and begotten, immortal and mortal. How shall not
persons holding this description of opinions be proved to be disciples
of Heraclitus? Did not (Heraclitus) the Obscure anticipate
Noetus in framing a system of philosophy, according to identical
modes of expression?
Now, that Noetus affirms that the Son and
Father are the same, no one is ignorant. But he makes his
statement thus: “When indeed, then, the Father had not been born, He
yet was justly styled Father; and when it pleased Him to undergo
generation, having been begotten, He Himself became His own Son, not
another’s.” For in this manner he thinks to establish
the sovereignty of God, alleging that Father and Son, so
called, are one and the same (substance), not one individual produced
from a different one, but Himself from Himself; and that He is styled
by name Father and Son, according to vicissitude of times.985
| 985
Hippolytus repeats this opinion in his summary in book x.
(See Theodoret, Hær. Fab., iii. 3.) | But that He is one who has appeared
(amongst us), both having submitted to generation from a virgin, and as
a man having held converse among men. And, on account of the
birth that had taken place, He confessed Himself to those beholding Him
a Son, no doubt; yet He made no secret to those who could comprehend
Him of His being a Father. That this person suffered by being
fastened to the tree, and that He commended His spirit unto Himself,
having died to appearance, and not being (in reality)
dead. And He raised Himself up the third day, after having been
interred in a sepulchre, and wounded with a spear, and perforated with
nails. Cleomenes asserts, in common with his band of
followers, that this person is God and Father of the universe,
and thus introduces among many an obscurity (of thought) such as
we find in the philosophy of Heraclitus.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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