Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

⁷⁰ They speak of the world in a threefold sense.

1. As God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that we see.

2. After certain periods of time, God absorbs all substance in himself. Then He re-produces it from himself.

This arrangement of the stars they call the world.

3. So the third sense is one composed of both the preceding ones.

The world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a system compounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist in them; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of the things created on their account.

The heaven is the most remote circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.

The world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect and providence, as Chrysippus says, in his works on Providence, and Posidonius in book 13 of his treatise on Gods, since mind penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us.

But it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into the bones and sinews; and into some it penetrates as the mind[310] does, for instance, into the dominant principle.

Thus the whole world is a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason.

• It has the æther as its dominant principle, as Antipater, of Tyre, says in book 8 of his treatise on the World.

But Chrysippus in book 1 of his essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that the heaven is the dominant principle of the world.

Cleanthes attributes this to the sun.

Chrysippus, however, on this point contradicts himself; for he says in another place, that the most subtle portion of the æther, which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself according to a certain habit; and that it is this which communicates to them the faculty of feeling.

They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical form.

For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is incorporeal.

It is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being contained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact; for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the earth.

The Void

The Void is mentioned by:

• Chrysippus mentions in his essay on a Void and in book 1 of his treatise on the Physical Arts
• Apollophanes in his Natural Philosophy
• Apollodorus
• Posidonius in book 2 of his discourses on Natural Philosophy

They say that:

• the void is incorporeal, and all alike.
• time is incorporeal since it is an interval of the motion of the world.
• of time, the past and the future are both illimitable, but the present is limited.

They assert that the world is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the things which are perceptible by the senses.

Whatever has its parts perishable, must also be perishable in the whole.

The parts of the world are perishable, for they change into one another.

Therefore, the whole world is perishable.

Anything that changes for the worse is perishable. Therefore, the world is perishable, for it can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.

The world was created when its substance was changed from fire to moisture, by the action of the air.

Then its denser parts coagulated, and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and became air.

This being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and animals, and other kinds of things.

Zeno speaks of the creation, and of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise on the World. But Panætius asserts that the world is imperishable.

Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason, and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it is an animal in this sense, as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation.

For that which is an animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is better than the world; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an animal.

Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the universe, according to Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of the world itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world, then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite.

The Stars amd Planets

⁷¹ The stars are fixed and only move in connection with the movements of the entire heaven.

But the planets move according to their own peculiar and separate motions.

The sun takes an oblique path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does the moon, which is of a winding form.

The sun is pure fire, as Posidonius asserts in book 7 of his treatise on the Heavenly Bodies.

It is larger than the earth in book 16 of his Disclosures on Natural Philosophy.

it is spherical being made on the same principle as the world is.

Therefore it is fire, because it performs all the functions of fire.

It is larger than the earth, as is proved by the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole heaven.

Also the fact of the earth throwing a conical shadow, proves that the sun is greater than it, and the sun is seen in every part, because of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun, inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.

All these fiery bodies, and all the other stars, receive nutriment.

The sun from the vast sea, being a sort of intellectual appendage.

The moon from the fresh waters, being mingled with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy.

All the other stars derive their nourishment from the earth.

They also consider that the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable.

The moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe; for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it reveals it; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water.

The moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon; and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun, being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south.

When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells us.

LXXII. God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world and of all that is in the world; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different names, according to its powers; for they call him Δία as being the person (δι’ ὃν) everything is, and Ζῆνα, inasmuch as he is the cause of life, (τοῦ Ζῆν), or because he pervades life.

Ἀθηνᾶ, with reference to the extension of his dominant power over the æther (εἰς αἰθέρα). And Ἥρα, on account of his extension through the air (εἰς ἀέρα).

Ἥφαιστος, on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief instrument of art; and Ποσειδῶν, as pervading moisture, and Δημήτηρ, as pervading the earth (Γῆ). And in the same way, regarding some other of his peculiar attributes, they have given him other names.

The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world, and the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine, in his eleventh book on the Gods, and so also does Posidonius, in the first book of his treatise on the same subject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his treatise on the World, says that his substance is aërial. And Boethus, in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the fixed stars.

LXXIII. God’s nature keeps the world together and sometimes produces the things on the earth.

And nature is a habit which derives its movements from itself, perfecting and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same as the things from which it is separated. And it has for its object, suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man.

LXXIV. But Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius, in the second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh book of his treatise on Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate,[314] (εἱμαρμένη), is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.

LXXV. Divination has a universal existence, since Providence has. They define it as an act on account of certain results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the second book of his treatise on Divination, and Athenodorus and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panætius denies that it has any certain foundation.

LXXVI. And they say that the substance of all existing things is Primary Matter, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his Physics; and Zeno says the same. Now matter is that from which anything whatever is produced. And it is called by a twofold appellation, essence and matter; the one as relating to all things taken together, and the other to things in particular and separate. The one which relates to all things taken together, never becomes either greater or less; but the one relating to things in particular, does become greater or less, as the case may be.

LXXVII. Body is, according to them, a substance and finite; as Antipater says, in the second book of his treatise on Substance; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, agrees with him. It is also subject to change, as we learn from the same author; for if it were immutable, then the things which have been produced out of it would not have been produced; on which account he also says that it is infinitely divisible: but Chrysippus denies that it is infinite; for that nothing is infinite, which is divisible at all.

LXXVIII. He admits, however, that it is infinitely divisible, and that its concretions take place over the whole of it, as he explains in the third book of his Physics, and not according to any circumference or juxtaposition; for a little wine when thrown into the sea, will keep its distinctness for a brief period, but after that, will be lost.

LXXIX. They also say that there are some Dæmones, who have a sympathy with mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs; and that there are heroes, which are the souls of virtuous men, which have left their bodies.

LXXX. Of the things which take place in the air, they say that winter is the effect of the air above the earth being[315] cooled, on account of the retirement of the sun to a greater distance than before; that spring is a good temperature of the air, according to the sun’s approach towards us; that summer is the effect of the air above the earth being warmed by the approach of the sun towards the north; that autumn is caused by the retreat of the sun from us … to those places from which they flow.[92]

LXXXI. And the cause of the production of the winds is the sun, which evaporates the clouds. Moreover, the rainbow is the reflexion of the sun’s rays from the moist clouds, or, as Posidonius explains it in his Meteorology, a manifestation of a section of the sun or moon, in a cloud suffused with dew; being hollow and continuous to the sight; so that it is reflected as in a mirror, under the appearance of a circle. And that comets, and bearded stars, and meteors, are fires which have an existence when the density of the air is borne upwards to the regions of the æther.

That a ray of light is a kindling of sudden fire, borne through the air with great rapidity, and displaying an appearance of length; that rain proceeds from the clouds, being a transformation of them into water, whenever the moisture which is caught up from the earth or from the sea, by the sun, is not able to be otherwise disposed of; for when it is solidified, it is then called hoar frost. And hail is a cloud congealed, and subsequently dispersed by the wind.

Snow is moisture from a congealed cloud, as Posidonius tells us in the eighth book of his discourse on Natural Philosophy. Lightning is a kindling of the clouds from their being rubbed together, or else broken asunder by the wind, as Zeno tells us in his treatise on the Universe; and thunder is the noise made by them on the occasion of their being rubbed together or broken asunder; and the thunderbolt is a sudden kindling which falls with great violence on the earth, from the clouds being rubbed together or broken asunder, or, as others say, it is a conversion of fiery air violently brought down to the earth. A typhon is a vast thunderbolt, violent and full of wind, or a smoky breath of a cloud broken asunder. A πρηστὴς is a cloud[316] rent by fire, with wind,[93] … into the hollows of the earth, or when the wind is pent up in the earth, as Posidonius says in his eighth book; and that some of them are shakings, others rendings, others emissions of fire, and others, instances of violent fermentation.

LXXXII. They also think that the general arrangement of the world is in this fashion; that the earth is in the middle, occupying the place of the centre; next to which comes the water, of a spherical form; and having the same centre as the earth; so that the earth is in the water; and next to the water comes the air, which has also a spherical form.

LXXXIII. There are 5 circles in the heaven.

1. The arctic circle, which is always visible
2. The tropical summer circle
3. The equinoctial circle
4. The winter tropical circle
5. The antarctic, which is not visible.

They are called parallel, because they do not incline to one another.

They are drawn however around the same centre. But the zodiac is oblique, cutting the parallel circles.

There are also 5 zones on the earth:

1. The northern placed under the arctic circle, uninhabitable by reason of the cold
2. Temperate
3. torrid zone Uninhabitable because of the heat
4. Temperate zone, on the other side of the torrid zone
5. Southern zone, being also uninhabitable by reason of the cold.

LXXXIV. Another of their doctrines is that nature is an artificial fire tending by a regular road to production, which is a fiery kind of breath proceeding according to art.

Also, that the soul is sensible, and that it is a spirit which is born with us; consequently it is a body and continues to exist after death; that nevertheless it is perishable. But that the soul of the universe is imperishable, and that the souls which exist in animals are only parts of that of the universe.

But Zeno, the Cittiæan, and Antipater, in their treatise concerning the Soul, and Posidonius also, all say that the soul is a warm spirit; for that by it we have our breath, and by it we are moved.

Cleanthes, accordingly, asserts that all souls continue to exist till they are burnt up; but Chrysippus says that it is only the souls of the wise that endure. And they further teach that there are eight parts of the soul; the five senses, and the generative faculties, and voice, and reason.

And we see because of a body of luminous air which extends from the organ of sight to the object in a conical form, as it is asserted by Chrysippus, in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, and also by Apollodorus. And the apex of this cone is close to the eye, and its base is formed by the object which is seen; so that that which is seen is as it were reported to the eye by this continuous cone of air extended towards it like a staff.

In the same way, we hear because the air between the speaker and the hearer is struck in a spherical manner; and is then agitated in waves, resembling the circular eddies which one sees in a cistern when a stone is dropped into it.

Sleep, they say, is produced by a relaxation of the æsthetic energies with reference to the dominant part of the soul. And the causes of the passions they explain to be the motions and conversions which take place in connection with this spirit or soul.

LXXXV. They define seed as a thing of a nature capable of producing other things of the same nature as the thing from which it has been separated.

The seed of man, which man emits, is, together with moisture, mixed up with the parts of the soul by that kind of mixture which corresponds[318] to the capacity of the parents.

Chrysippus says, in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, that it is a spirit according to substance; as is manifest from the seeds which are planted in the earth; and which, if they are old, do not germinate, because all their virtue has evaporated.

Sphærus says, that seed proceeds from the entire body, and that that is how it is that it produces all the parts of the body.

They also say that the seed of the female is unproductive; for, as Sphærus says, it is devoid of tone, and small in quantity, and watery.

LXXXVI. They also say that that is the dominant part of the soul which is its most excellent part; in which the imaginations and the desires are formed, and whence reason proceeds. And this place is in the heart.