From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe phrase means prior by nature.
- In this workAristotle at A40 says that the elements, naturally prior to “the god,” are separated by Love rather than Strife, and adds that the elements themselves are gods.
- In this edition“The god” is identified as the Sphairos by interpretation of the context.
- A place to readMakes the divine constituents naturally prior to the god in the course of challenging the roles of Love and Strife.
Meaning
The phrase means prior by nature. Here it is an explanatory or compositional ordering: the constituents are prior to the god composed from them. It does not on its own say that those constituents existed at an earlier absolute date.
Use in the book
Aristotle at A40 says that the elements, naturally prior to “the god,” are separated by Love rather than Strife, and adds that the elements themselves are gods. The edition identifies the god as the Sphairos. Aristotle’s compressed sentence simultaneously presses the causality of separation and the relation of divine constituents to the divine whole.
Natural priority is consequently a more specific concept than simple temporal precedence. A reconstruction that pictured the roots existing for a while and only later becoming divine would miss the last clause: they too are gods. Equally, their priority does not establish that the Sphairos is an unreal abstraction or less divine. The passage gives the critic’s dependency argument, not a complete hierarchy of theological worth.
The distinction also helps with Simplicius’ A52 suggestion that cosmological sequences may be presented for teaching as though ingredients pre-existed in time. An explanatory order and a temporal history need not be identical, although Simplicius’ proposal does not itself decide Empedocles’ intention.
Places to read
- A 40 (polemical)Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione B 6, 333b20. Makes the divine constituents naturally prior to the god in the course of challenging the roles of Love and Strife.
- A 52 (polemical)Simplicius, De caelo 305,21. Provides the relevant distinction between expository ordering and literal prior existence in time.
Translation in this edition
“The god” is identified as the Sphairos by interpretation of the context. The two words do not provide a separately named deity, and “prior” must not be silently converted into “earlier in time.”