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Book I Chapter 20

3 Ocellus: No beginning or end

Ocellus.⁵⁸¹

Ocellus held the world to be eternal, for he says this in On the Nature of the Universe:

“Further, ⟨the absence of a beginning⟩ and the absence of an end in its shape, motion, time, and substance confirm that the world is ungenerated and imperishable. For its shape is a circle, which is equal and alike on every side, and therefore has neither beginning nor end. Its motion too is circular, undeviating and admitting no exit.”⁵⁸²

3 Ocellus: Time and substance

“Time, in which the motion occurs, is infinite, because what moves has neither received a beginning nor will receive an end. The substance of things, moreover, admits no departure from its condition and no change, since it is not by nature capable of changing either from worse to better or from better to worse.”⁵⁸³

3 Ocellus: Generation and its cause

“Since within the universe there is, on the one hand, generation and, on the other, its cause, and generation occurs where the underlying subject changes and departs from its condition, while the cause of generation is found where the underlying subject retains its identity and persists, it is clear that acting and imparting motion belong to the cause of generation, whereas being affected and being moved belong to what receives generation.”⁵⁸⁴

4 ⟨The same author⟩: Matter, qualities, elements

For first comes matter, which receives everything, since it underlies all things in common. Thus, first there is what is potentially a perceptible body, a principle;⁵⁸⁵ second, the oppositions, such as heat and cold, wetness and dryness; third, fire, water, earth, and air. These change into one another, but the oppositions do ⟨not⟩ change into one another.⁵⁸⁶

5 ⟨The same author⟩: Human beginnings

Complete destruction of the ordering around the earth has never occurred and never will. Accordingly, those who say that Greek history begins with Inachus of Argos must be understood to mean that it begins, not from some absolute first beginning, but from the change that occurred in his time.⁵⁸⁷

5 Ocellus: Recurring changes

For Greece has often already become, and will again become, a land of non-Greeks, its population displaced not only by human beings but also by nature herself. Nature becomes neither greater nor smaller, but continually takes on beginnings that are new and relative to us.⁵⁸⁸

5 Ocellus: The enduring order

Concerning the whole and the universe, and also the generation and destruction occurring within it, how things stand and how they will stand for all eternity, with one nature ever moving and the other ever affected, ⟨and⟩ one always governing and the other governed, I have said enough in these remarks.⁵⁸⁹

6 Aristaeus: The first principle

Aristaeus.⁵⁹⁰

Aristaeus said that the world is imperishable, for he speaks as follows in On Harmony:

“Since ⟨the⟩ principle, precisely because it is a principle, is prior to everything, ungenerated, and self-sufficient (for if it came after anything else, it would no longer be prior to everything; nor, if it ever came into being [also] from something, [for neither] would it still be ungenerated, or indeed the principle and cause of generated things, [for neither would it be self-sufficient,] since it would need something else to preserve it and set it in motion),”⁵⁹¹

6 Aristaeus: The source of motion

“it is clear that the principle in itself is ungenerated and eternal, and is the cause of generation and motion. It is itself what moves everything from itself [nature], and, providing other things with self-sufficiency from itself, is itself self-sufficient.⁵⁹² Images and likenesses of this principle occur both among things that come into being naturally and among those produced by art.”

6 Aristaeus: The untiring mover

“Since what is immortal is untiring, and what is untiring does not tire ⟨as it moves things⟩, and God is of this kind, ⟨always⟩ moving the whole and the universe, it is clear that the world must be eternal.⁵⁹³ For if it is to receive a beginning of its ordering, what moves it must at some time have tired, in a cessation of that ordering. And if the mover were to tire and rest, it would be perishable and generated, and its own motion would have an end, as would the ordering of the whole and the universe.”⁵⁹⁴

6 Aristaeus: Harmony and nature

“Thus one must either deny generation or produce things from what does not exist; or else the remaining alternative is that this world is immortal and ageless.⁵⁹⁵ It might be called a harmony of nature, because everything grows according to its rational order ... in relation to one another: as the craftsman stands to his art, so God stands to harmony.⁵⁹⁶ For art, and likewise nature, is the rational principle and form of things that come into being.”

6 Aristaeus: Failure and dissolution

“The craftsman’s work fails when it departs from the rational principle of the art; things that come into being naturally perish, becoming impaired and disjointed, when they depart from the rational principle of harmony.”⁵⁹⁷

7 ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Posidonius on change

Posidonius. Posidonius says that there are four kinds of destruction and generation, taking place from existing things into existing things.⁵⁹⁸ For, as we said earlier, they rejected coming to be from what does not exist and passing into what does not exist, as processes that never occur. Of changes into existing things, one is by division, another by alteration, another by fusion, and another from wholes, called dissolution.⁵⁹⁹

581.On the Nature of the Universe belongs to the literature written under the names of earlier Pythagoreans. The traditional attribution to Ocellus is preserved here. See Zhmud, “What is Pythagorean in the Pseudo-Pythagorean Literature?”, Philologus 163 (2019), section 4. Wachsmuth identifies this first quotation as I.15 in Mullach’s division.

582.The base edition restores “the absence of a beginning” from the separately transmitted treatise. Adiexodos, rendered “admitting no exit,” describes the circular course as having no way out or terminal passage. The argument proceeds by analogy among shape, movement, time, and substance.

583.Ōsia is the Doric form of ousia, “substance.” “Admits no departure from its condition” renders anekbatos, pairing it with “unchanging.” The claim concerns the universe’s substance; the next passage distinguishes this enduring ground from generation within it.

584.The excerpt now moves to II.1 of the treatise in Mullach’s division. Hypokeimenon is the underlying subject; hypostasis here is its persistence or stable subsistence. The contrast is between the cause that acts and the recipient that undergoes change. A supplied Greek article before “imparting motion” has no separate English equivalent.

585.Ocellus, II.6 in Mullach’s division. Wachsmuth supplies the attribution “the same author.” The clause ending archā, “a principle,” is awkward; his apparatus questions its wording and suggests deleting archā. The rendering is tentative and retains the printed word. The three levels are matter, opposing qualities, and elemental bodies.

586.The negative “not” is supplied from witnesses to Ocellus’s treatise. The distinction is between bodies that acquire different qualities and the opposed qualities themselves: a body can become cold, but heat as such does not become coldness.

587.Ocellus, III.4-5 in Mullach’s division; the attribution to the same author is supplied. Inachus supplies a conventional starting point for Argive history. The argument distinguishes the beginning of a remembered historical sequence from the first existence of the world or of human beings.

588.Barbaros marks the distinction between Greeks and non-Greeks; it need not imply a loss of civilization. The second sentence takes “herself” to refer to nature, and “relative to us” qualifies the apparent beginnings. The claim is that local historical renewals occur within an enduring natural whole.

589.The conclusion returns to the contrast between active and receptive nature. “And” is supplied in the base edition from the separately transmitted Ocellus. The Doric participle easas is understood as “being,” rather than as the superficially similar form meaning “having left.”

590.The name is restored by Wachsmuth from variant forms in the manuscripts. The work is presented under the name of a Pythagorean Aristaeus; the attribution should not be taken as establishing its early date. Zhmud discusses Aristaios among names used in the later Pythagorean tradition (Philologus 163 [2019], section 4, note 75).

591.Autotelēs, literally complete in itself, is rendered “self-sufficient.” Several words are rejected by the base editor and remain bracketed. In particular, Wachsmuth removes the repeated denial of self-sufficiency because the parenthesis is meant to establish the principle’s necessary self-sufficiency. Skipping the bracketed words gives the continuous argument.

592.The English continues the sentence begun in the preceding unit. “Nature” is rejected by Wachsmuth as intrusive, though another editor proposed “motion” instead. The repeated “itself” and “from itself” express the principle’s independence from an external cause.

593.“As it moves things” and “always” represent the supplements kinoun and aei in the base edition. The argument links the unceasing activity of the divine mover with the continuity of the ordered world.

594.The sentence about a beginning is difficult. The rendering keeps the printed future “is to receive” and past “tired.” A beginning of ordering is treated as implying an earlier interruption; the text then argues that a mover capable of rest could also cease altogether. The temporal wording is not silently regularized.

595.The wording “produce things from what does not exist” retains the active verb gennan. The first two alternatives are presented as unacceptable consequences of denying an everlasting ordered world; the excerpt does not supply separate refutations of them.

596.A gap is explicitly marked in the base edition after “its.” The ellipsis preserves that gap; the exact connection with “in relation to one another” is lost. Logos is rendered “rational order” or “rational principle” according to the construction. In the final clause the article before physis, “nature,” is supplied in Greek; it has no separate English equivalent.

597.The analogy joins successful craftsmanship to natural coherence: failure occurs when the product departs from the ordering principle. Wachsmuth rejects en, “in,” before the dative “craftsmen.” It remains bracketed in Greek; it has no separate place in the idiomatic English possessive construction.

598.Wachsmuth supplies the attribution to Arius Didymus, physical fragment 27 in Diels. The manuscripts also repeat this material at the end of chapter 17; the base edition prints it here. “As we said earlier” refers to the source’s fuller discussion, not to an added explanation in this edition. The plural “they” is preserved, with the Stoics understood.

599.“From wholes” renders the difficult ex holōn as printed; a proposed change to “through wholes” is not adopted. Analysis is the breaking up or dissolution of a whole. The fourfold list describes transformations among existing things, rather than creation from nothing or disappearance into nothing.