3 Hermes: Hollow rather than empty

⟨Hermes⟩ Does this body not pass through all existing things and fill everything it passes through? And is body not constituted by a blend of the four? Everything you call empty is therefore full of air; and if full of air, then full of the four bodies.⁵⁰⁸ The contrary account then emerges: everything you call full is empty of air, because those things are crowded with other bodies and have no room to receive the air. So the things you call ⟨empty⟩ should be called hollow, not empty; for in their actual existence they are full of air and breath.⁵⁰⁹

3 Hermes: Mind and reason

⟨Asclepius⟩ The argument cannot be refuted, Trismegistus. What, then, shall we call the place in which the whole moves?

⟨Hermes⟩ Incorporeal, ⟨O⟩ Asclepius.

⟨Asclepius⟩ ⟨What⟩, then, is the incorporeal?

⟨Hermes⟩ Mind ⟨and reason⟩, a whole wholly enclosing itself, free of every body, unerring, unaffected, intangible, standing in itself, making room for all things and preserving what exists. Its rays, as it were, are the good, truth, archetypal light, and the archetype of the soul.⁵¹⁰

3 Hermes: God as cause

⟨Asclepius⟩ What, then, is God?

⟨Hermes⟩ He who is none of these things, yet is the cause of their being, for all of them and for each and every existing thing.⁵¹¹

4a ⟨Aëtius⟩: Epicurus

Epicurus held that void, place, and space differ in their names [all of them].⁵¹²

4b ⟨Aëtius⟩: The Pythagoreans

Those ⟨of the school⟩ of Pythagoras held that there is void outside the world, into which the world breathes and from which it draws breath.⁵¹³

4b ⟨Aëtius⟩: The Stoics and Posidonius

The Stoics held that there is void, infinite in extent, into which the world is dissolved at the conflagration.

Posidonius said that what lies outside the world is not infinite, but only large enough to accommodate its dissolution.⁵¹⁴

4c ⟨Aëtius and Plato⟩: The receptacle

Plato held that place is what receives the forms: by this he meant matter, speaking figuratively of it as a kind of nurse and receptacle. There is no void either outside the world or within it.⁵¹⁵

4c Plato, Timaeus: The complete world

For he says in the Timaeus: “The constitution of the world has taken each of the four in its entirety. Its maker constituted it from all the fire, water, air, and earth, leaving outside no part of any of them, nor any power. He had these things in mind: first, that it should be, as fully as possible, a complete living whole composed of complete parts; and further, that it should be one, since nothing had been left from which another such world could arise.”⁵¹⁶

4c Plato, Timaeus: Nothing outside

“He finished its whole exterior smooth all around, for many reasons. It had no need of eyes, [and] for nothing visible remained outside; nor of hearing, ⟨for⟩ there was nothing audible; and there was no surrounding air that required breathing in.”⁵¹⁷

4d ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Chrysippus on place

Chrysippus. Chrysippus declared that place is what is occupied throughout by an existing thing, or what is ⟨capable of⟩ being occupied by an existing thing and is occupied throughout, whether by one thing ⟨or⟩ by several.⁵¹⁸

4d Chrysippus: Partial occupation

If, of what can be occupied by an existing thing, one part is occupied and another is not, the whole will be ⟨neither⟩ void nor place, but something different that has no name. For “void” is spoken of by analogy with empty vessels, and “place” by analogy with full ones.⁵¹⁹ As for “space,” is it the larger thing capable of being occupied by an existing thing, like a larger vessel for body, or that which accommodates a larger body?⁵²⁰

4d Chrysippus: Limits and infinity

Void, then, is said to be infinite, for what is outside the world is of that kind; but place is finite, because no body is infinite. Just as the corporeal is finite, so the incorporeal is infinite, for both time and void are infinite.⁵²¹

4d Chrysippus: The absence of a boundary

For just as nothingness is no boundary, so neither is there a boundary of nothingness, such as void is. In its own subsistence it is infinite; yet it becomes bounded when it is filled. Once what fills it is removed, no boundary of it can be conceived.⁵²²