Sphairos

Use in the book

B 27 begins by denying that sun, earth, and sea can be distinguished there. It then describes the Sphairos as held fast in Harmony's close covert. The absence of distinguishable cosmic regions is central: the passage is about a condition of complete union, not merely a spherical outline around a familiar world. B 28 adds equality from every side and the difficult expression “altogether without limit.” B 29 denies protruding arms or branches, feet, knees, and generative organs. The deity has a bodily vocabulary while refusing the articulated human form.

The short B 27a adds the absence of faction and unseemly quarrel within the limbs. Its independent transmission should remain visible: its placement among the Sphere fragments is editorial, even though the wording fits that setting. Likewise B 31's shaking of the god's limbs is naturally read with B 30's growth of Strife, but the surviving quotations do not constitute a single uninterrupted scene as printed. The broad account of transition is supported without allowing reconstructed joints to masquerade as continuous text.

Calling the Sphere divine does not make it a disembodied mind. B 134 also denies familiar human parts and speaks instead of sacred mind, but its subject is not explicitly named Sphairos in the quotation. The verbal resemblance invites comparison; it does not conclusively identify the two passages' subject or function. Nor should a later Platonic account of a cosmic body or soul be read backwards into these lines.

The Sphere presents a limit-condition for the mixtures that constitute ordinary things. Mortals emerge as differentiated combinations, whereas the Sphere conceals the distinctive limbs of sun, sea, and earth. The fragments leave open how to reconcile that complete union with the transmigrating career described elsewhere. The introduction candidly records the interpretive problem. A lexicon should preserve it rather than invent an invisible chamber in which personal identities are said to survive.

Places to read

1. B 27No distinct sun, earth, or sea can be discerned; Harmony holds the rounded being in solitude.
2. B 28The Sphere is equal from all sides and described as wholly without limit.
3. B 29The being lacks articulated human limbs and organs; one phrase is editorially supplied.
4. B 27aAn independently transmitted line denies conflict within the limbs.
5. B 31A god's limbs are shaken; its connection with the Sphere's disruption is contextual.
6. B 134The non-anthropomorphic sacred mind provides a comparison, not an explicit identification.

Translation in this edition

The introduction says Sphairos is treated as a name, but the actual English varies: capitalised “Sphere” in B 27–282, lower-case “a sphere” in B 29. This inconsistency should remain visible rather than be reported as a perfectly uniform translation policy. B 29 supplies “from every side,” and B 28 supplies “was.” Personification is grounded in the surrounding verse, not solely in the noun's gender.

Use in the book

A32 associates the One with spherical shape, eternity and immobility, and calls the Sphairos uniform. This is compressed doxography with supplied text, not a complete quotation of the poem. The relation to the roots is crucial. A40 calls the elements prior by nature to “the god,” understood as the Sphairos, while also admitting that they too are gods. The priority is Aristotle’s compositional argument: what the god consists of is naturally prior to the composite.

Philoponus at A41 presses a sharper problem. He claims that under Love the Sphairos becomes qualityless, so that fire and the other roots lose their proper character. If so, the roots’ alleged unchangeability appears compromised. But qualitylessness is the critic’s reported premise, not a statement found in the poetic quotation printed here. A32’s “uniform” need not by itself entail the loss of every constituent’s identity. The articles distinguish those claims rather than using one to prove the other.

Simplicius at A52 describes Love gathering all things into one, destroying the cosmos of Strife and producing the Sphairos; Strife then separates the elements and produces a cosmos of the present kind. This locates the Sphairos in an account of recurring transformation. It also complicates a literal reading of every eternal or unmoved predicate in A32. The testimonia must be compared, not simply concatenated into an uninterrupted narrative.

There is an important translation fault at A32. The supplemented Greek contains εἰς ὃν πάντα ταῦτ’ ἀναλυθήσεται: “into which all these will be resolved,” with the Sphairos as the destination. The English printed in the edition reverses the direction, saying “into these the uniform Sphairos will be resolved.” Because the Greek itself includes supplements, both the corrected direction and its textual qualification must be stated. One cannot base a cosmological phase on the English reversal.

Places to read

1. A 32 (testimony)Aëtius I 7,28 (D. 303). Describes the One and uniform Sphairos; the supplied Greek makes the Sphairos the destination of resolution, contrary to the printed English.
2. A 40 (polemical)Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione B 6, 333b20. Treats the elements as naturally prior to the god while calling them gods too.
3. A 41 (polemical)Philoponus, In De generatione et corruptione 19,3 Vitelli. Attributes qualitylessness and loss of elemental properties to the Sphairos.
4. A 52 (testimony)Simplicius, De caelo 293,18. Places the formation of the Sphairos under Love between the destruction and renewed formation of a differentiated cosmos.

Translation in this edition

The initial spherical/eternal/unmoved clause at A32 is supplied from Stobaeus; the Sphairos clause is also partly supplied by Usener. The English reverses the direction of resolution. No corrected reading should conceal these supplements.