Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I
David Hume · en
[Footnote 44: That is, of course, Zoroaster. The account here given
of his doctrines does not agree with what we know of them from other
sources. The minimum date for his activity (700 B.C.) makes it
impossible for him to have been a contemporary of Pythagoras. See the
translator’s _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_, I, p. 126; II,
p. 232.]
[Footnote 45: Reading with Roeper τὴν κόσμου φύσιν καὶ. Cruice has τὸν
κόσμον φύσιν κατὰ, “that the cosmos is a nature according to,” etc.]
[Footnote 46: δαίμονες, spirits or dæmons in the Greek sense, not
necessarily evil. But Aetius, _de Placit. Philosoph. ap._ Diels
_Doxogr._ 306, makes Pythagoras use the word as equivalent to τὸ κακόν.
Cf. pp. 52, 92 _infra_.]
[Footnote 47: Hippolytus like nearly every other writer of his time
here confuses the Egyptians with the Alexandrian Greeks. It was these
last and not the subjects of the Pharaohs who were given to mathematics
and geometry, of which sciences they laid the foundations on which
we have since built. Certain devotees of the Alexandrian god Serapis
also shut themselves up in cells of the Serapeum, which they could
hardly have done in any temple in Pharaonic times. See _Forerunners_,
I, 79. Hippolytus gives a much more elaborate and detailed account of
Pythagorean teaching in Book VI, II, pp. 20 ff. _infra_.]
[Footnote 48: Diog. Laert., VIII, _vit. Heraclit._, c. 6, attributes
this opinion to Heraclitus.]
[Footnote 49: This verse appears in Diog. Laert., VIII, _vit.
Empedocles_, c. 6.]
[Footnote 50: So Diog. Laert., _ubi. cit._]
[Footnote 51: This sentence seems to have got out of place. It should
probably follow that on Lysis and Archippus, etc., on the last page.
The story of the shield is told by Diog. Laert., VIII, _vit. Pyth._, c.
4, and by Ovid, _Metamorph._, XV, 162 ff. For more about Empedocles see
Book VII, II, pp. 82 ff. _infra_.]
[Footnote 52: Diog. Laert., VIII, _vit. Heraclit._, from whom
Hippolytus is probably quoting, says that in his boyhood, Heraclitus
used to say, he knew nothing, in his manhood everything. Has Hippolytus
garbled this?]
[Footnote 53: There is nothing of this in what Hippolytus, Diogenes
Laertius or any other author extant gives as Empedocles’ opinions. τὰ
κακά seems to be equivalent to δαίμονες, as suggested in n. on p. 39
_supra_. Hippolytus returns to Heraclitus’ opinions in Book IX, II, pp.
119 ff. _infra_.]
[Footnote 54: So Diog. Laert., II, _vit. Anaximander_, c. 1,
_verbatim_.]
[Footnote 55: κόσμοι. He therefore believed in a plurality of worlds.]
[Footnote 56: οὐσία. It may here mean essence or being. A good
discussion of the changes in the meaning of the word and its
successors, ὑπόστασις and πρόσωπον, is to be found in Hatch, _op.
cit._, pp. 275-278.]
[Footnote 57: μετέωρον, a phenomenon in the heavens, but also something
hung up or suspended.]
[Footnote 58: στρογγύλον, used by Theophrastus for logs of timber.]