Xenophanes

 

1. Introduction
2. Biographical Information
3. Philosophical Views
    3.1. Criticism of  Polytheism
    3.2. The True Nature of God
    3.3. God as Spherical and the Cosmos

 

1. Introduction

Although only fragments of his poems have survived, it is clear from them that Xenophanes takes exception to traditional Greek polytheism. He ridicules the portrayal of the gods in the poets Hesiod and Homer. It is not so clear, however, what he offers in place of polytheism, since it is difficult to reconstruct from the surviving fragments his understanding of Reality. Because of this, summaries of  his philosophy by later writers are particularly useful. The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria quotes from Xenophanes work to prove that some Greeks at least believed in one God.
 

2. Biographical Information

Xenophanes was born c. 570 BCE, and was a native of Ionia Colophon in Asia Minor. With the coming the Persians, early in his life, he took up residence in Sicily, where he supported himself as a poet in the court of Hieron; he expressed his philosophical views in verse, much of which was satirical. From Sicily, he went to Magna Graecia (southern part of Italy), where he became a celebrated philosopher. Xenophanes was reputed to have been the founder of the Eleatic school, of which Parmenides is the best known representative (see Plato, Sophist 242c-d; Aristotle, Metaphysics 986 b 10-25).
 

3. Philosophical Views

3.1. Criticism of  Polytheism

In the surviving fragments of his poems, Xenophanes attacks as ludicrous the traditional portrayal of the gods in the works of the poets Hesiod and Homer, whom, by the way, Herodotus credits with forming the Greek conception of the gods (II, 53). His objections are twofold. First, he criticizes the traditional portrayal of the gods as immoral: "Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another" (Fr. 11; R. P. 99). Second, he objects to the anthropomorphism in the depiction of the gods in Hesiod and Homer:

Fr. 15:  Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds. (R. P. ib.)

Fr. 16:  The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair. (R. P. 100 b.)

Do you agree with Xenophanes's critique of traditional Greek polytheism?  Why do people seem (or at least seemed) so naturally inclined to a polytheistic conception of the divine?

Implied in Xenophanes's criticism of the traditional portrayal of the gods is his belief that the gods or, more accurately, God is ethically blameless. In addition, for  Xenophanes God is one, non-anthropomorphic, sovereign and motionless. Although sometimes he refers to "the gods," for Xenophanes there is only one true God, who is unlike human beings in every respect, outwardly and inwardly: "One God, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form like unto mortals nor in thought...." (Fr. 23) (R. P. 100). Unlike the traditional Greek gods, this one God is sovereign over all: "He sees all over, thinks all over, and  hears all over" (Fr 24) (R. P. 102). This God causes all things to be what they are by the simple exercise of his will. Unlike Zeus or Apollo, he does not need to "do" anything, in order to put his will into effect; by merely thinking change is realized: "But without toil he sways all things  by the thought of his mind" (Fr. 25) (R. P. 108 b). Finally, Xenophanes's God is motionless in the sense that he does not move from one place to another; unlike the traditional Greek gods, he remains in one place: "And he abides ever in the same place, moving not at all; nor does it befit him to go about now hither now thither" (Fr. 26) (R.P. 110 a).

    Aristotle remarks that, for Xenophanes, the one God cannot have been born, unlike the traditional Greek gods, who, even immortal, still came into being at various times. Aristotle writes, "For instance, it was a saying of Xenophanes that to assert that the gods had birth is as impious as to say that they die; the consequence of both statements is that there is a time when the gods do not exist" (Rhetoric 1399b 6-8). It follows that, if God is unborn and does not die, then God is eternal. Diogenes Laertius reports that Xenophanes holds the eternity of God (Lives, 9. 19), as does Hippolytus (Refut. 1. 12). In fact, God's eternity is implied in Xenophanes criticism that the traditional view that the gods were born (fr. 14).

3.3. God as Spherical and the Cosmos

If God is supposed to be unlike human beings, Xenophanes's detractors would no doubt demand to know from him what God is like with respect to his outward form. In the surviving fragments of Xenophanes' works nothing is said about the issue, but  later writers say that Xenophanes teaches that the outward form of God is spherical. Simplicius reports that Xenophanes' view about God was that "Being homogeneous throughout he is a sphere in form" (Phys. 23. 18). Later Diogenes Laertius writes that for Xenophanes, "The substance of God is spherical, in no way resembling man" (Lives IX. 19). Likewise, Hippolytus comments, "He [Xenophanes] says that God is eternal and one and similar in all directions and spherical and sentient" (Refut. 1. 12) (see also MXG, 977b 1 [A 28]; Sextus, A 35; Theodoret, A 36).  As spherical, God is finite, because a sphere needs boundaries or limits (i.e., finitude) in order to be a sphere.

    Xenophanes's assertion that God is spherical is puzzling, until one realizes that for him God is actually identical to the cosmos, which is a sphere; in other words, God and the cosmos are synonymous. Xenophanes's conception of God, therefore, is pantheistic and his conception of the cosmos is monistic.  Aristotle explains, "While Xenophanes, the first of these partisans of the One (for Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), gave no clear statement, nor does he seem to have grasped the nature of either of these causes, but with reference to the whole material universe he says the One is God" (Metaphysics, 986b 21-25). Aristotle does not say much about Xenophanes' views because he considers him to be an inferior thinker, yet what he does says indicates that he knew Xenophanes to be a "partisan of the One," as understanding the cosmos as one entity. Moreover, according to Aristotle, for Xenophanes the one cosmos is God; the all is divine. Similarly, Theodoret says about Xenophanes, "He said that the all was one, spherical and finite, not generated  but eternal, and altogether unmoved" (A 36). Since the attributes of the all are the attributes of God, it follows that the all is another name for God. As God, the cosmos is sentient (as Hippolytus reports); in a sense, the cosmos is alive, aware of itself as the cosmos in all its diversity, and capable of volition. In other words, Xenophanes espouses another form of hylozoism, that matter is alive. The identification of the cosmos with God, by the way, explains why God is motionless: if God is the all, where could God go?

What sense do you make of the assertion that the cosmos is God? If you disagree with it, then wherein does the error occur?