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Book I Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Causes

On causes.

1a ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩

A cause is that because of which the result occurs, or because of which something happens. This suffices as an outline.³⁸⁸

Plato distinguishes cause in three ways: that by which, that from which, and that in relation to which. He considers the cause “by which” the most authoritative: this is the agent.³⁸⁹

1a Plato, Timaeus (28a-b)

He says, indeed, in the Timaeus: “Again, everything that comes to be necessarily comes to be through some cause, for nothing can come to be without a cause. Whenever the craftsman, always looking toward what remains the same and using a pattern of that kind, fashions the form and power of his work, everything completed in this way must be beautiful. But whenever he looks toward what has come to be, using a generated pattern, it is not beautiful.”³⁹⁰

1b ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Pythagoras

Pythagoras held the primary causes to be incorporeal, but causes by participation or incidentally to belong to corporeal reality.³⁹¹

1b ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Aristotle

Aristotle said that each is made clear by using expressions of this kind: “that from which” signifies ⟨matter⟩; “that by which,” the agent; “that according to which,” the form; and “that for the sake of which,” the end.³⁹²

1c ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Zeno, part 1

Zeno. Zeno says that a cause is that because of which; what it is a cause of is something that occurs. The cause is a body, whereas what it is a cause of is a predicate. It is impossible for the cause to be present without what it causes obtaining.³⁹³

1c ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Zeno, part 2

The meaning of this statement is as follows: a cause is that because of which something occurs. For example, being wise occurs because of wisdom, being alive because of soul, and being self-controlled because of self-control. For it is impossible for someone to possess self-control without being self-controlled, or soul without being alive, or wisdom without being wise.³⁹⁴

1c ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Chrysippus

Chrysippus. Chrysippus says that a cause is that because of which. The cause is an existent and a body, ⟨whereas what it is a cause of is neither an existent nor a body.⟩ The cause is a “because,” and what it is a cause of a “because of something.” An explanation is an account of a cause, or an account concerning the cause as a cause.³⁹⁵

1c ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Posidonius

Posidonius. Posidonius puts it this way: a cause of something is that because of which that thing occurs, or what acts first, or the originator of an action. The cause is an existent and a body, while what it is a cause of is neither an existent nor a body, but something that occurs and a predicate.³⁹⁶

1d ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩

Thales and those who followed him declared the first cause to be unmoved.

⟨The⟩ Stoics defined the first cause as subject to motion.

The Peripatetics held that some causes are sensible and others intelligible.³⁹⁷

2 Ocellus, On Law, part 1

Ocellus said that a cause is that because of which something comes to be. For he says in On Law:

For ⟨life⟩ holds together the bodies of living creatures, and soul is its cause; harmony holds together the world, and god is its cause; concord holds together households and cities, and law is its cause.³⁹⁸

2 Ocellus, On Law, part 2

What nature, then, was responsible for the world’s being in harmony always and never falling into disorder, while cities and households endure only a short time?³⁹⁹ Whatever things are generated and mortal by nature have, in the very matter from which they are constituted, the cause of their dissolution; for they are constituted from what changes and is always subject to being affected. The passing-away of generated things preserves the matter that gives them birth.⁴⁰⁰

2 Ocellus, On Law, part 3

What is always in motion governs, while what is always subject to being affected is governed. The former is prior in power, the latter posterior; the former is divine, possesses reason, and is intelligent, while the latter is generated and irrational [that which changes].⁴⁰¹

388.Aition is introduced through the phrase di’ ho, “that because of which.” The brief opening gives a general characterization; later excerpts distinguish different kinds of causes. Wachsmuth supplies the attribution to Aëtius and identifies the following quotation as from Plato’s Timaeus.

389.The three expressions distinguish an agent, material, and a pattern toward which the maker looks. The last is explained by the Timaeus quotation that follows. This is the reporter’s classification of Plato’s causes.

390.Dēmiourgos means a craftsman or maker. The distinction concerns the pattern used in making: an unchanging model or one that itself has come to be. Dynamis, “power,” concerns what the fashioned thing can do, alongside its form. Compare the accounts of patterns in I.12.2a-b.

391.The report distinguishes primary causes from things that count as causes in a derivative or incidental way. “Incidentally” renders kata symbebēkos; it need not mean that the result is random or uncaused.

392.These are the material, acting, formal, and final causes. “End” means the aim or purpose. Di’ ho, rendered “because of which” in the opening definition, here has the purposive sense “for the sake of which.” Wachsmuth prints “matter” as a supplement; he also notes that this Aristotelian report may belong to Didymus rather than Aëtius.

393.The contrast is between a bodily cause and what can be predicated of something as its effect: the next passage gives “to be alive” and “to be wise” as examples. Symbebēkos, rendered “something that occurs,” here names the result; katēgorēma, “predicate,” describes its logical form. “Obtaining” preserves the distinction from bodily existence.

394.The English keeps the relation between the nouns phronēsis and sōphrosynē and their corresponding verbs, phronein and sōphronein. The verbal infinitives are rendered as “being wise” and “being self-controlled” because the point is the condition that follows from possessing wisdom or self-control. The cause and the predicate are distinguished even where their names share the same root.

395.The supplied clause is restored by Wachsmuth on the basis of the following report of Posidonius. The terse contrast between hoti, “because,” and dia ti, “because of something,” follows his printed wording and accentuation. Aition names the cause; aitia, translated “explanation” here, names the account of it. The formulation is compressed and its interpretation remains difficult.

396.Calling the result “not an existent” does not mean that nothing happens. The account distinguishes the body that causes from the predicate that comes to apply, as in Zeno’s contrast between soul and living. The word on, “existent,” is being used within that distinction.

397.“Those who followed him” is the ancient report’s broad grouping. The contrast between akinēton and kinēton concerns being unmoved or subject to motion; “first” identifies causal primacy without specifying a first event in time. The Peripatetics are the school of Aristotle.

398.The analogy pairs a unifying condition with its cause: life with soul, harmony with god, concord with law. Zōa, the Doric form of “life,” is supplied in the base text from a manuscript correction. The excerpt’s Doric forms are retained in the Greek; its ascription to Ocellus is the transmitted attribution.

399.The question follows Wachsmuth’s text, which adopts Usener’s ēn, “was,” in place of the manuscripts’ kai, “and.” Nature is thus construed as the subject and “responsible” as the predicate. The contrast is between the enduring order of the world and the short lives of its mortal constituents.

400.Apogennasis is difficult here. “Passing-away” takes it as the undoing of generation, in the context of dissolution and the continued existence of matter. The same contextual interpretation is used by P. S. Horky, “Italic Pythagoreanism in the Hellenistic Age,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy (2023), pp. 12-13. The facing Greek retains Wachsmuth’s word.

401.The passage contrasts what governs with what receives its action. Its phrase aeikinēton means “always in motion,” not “unmoved”; the distinction from the unmoved first cause reported in excerpt 1d remains. The final words, “that which changes,” are bracketed by Wachsmuth as an explanatory gloss rather than part of the continuous sentence.