Note 16 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

The belief in changing cycles is a common one in the older Greek philosophy. In particular, the Stoics found it in Heraclitus. The belief, however, that each new world exactly represents the preceding one is first met with among the Pythagoreans, and is closely connected with the theory of the migration of souls and a periodic year. Eudemus, in a passage which has generally been lost sight of in describing Pythagorean teaching, had taught (in Simpl. Phys. 173): εἰ δέ τις πιστεύσειε τοῖς Πυθαγορείοις, ὡς πάλιν τὰ αὐτὰ ἀριθμῷ κἀγὼ μυθολογήσω τὸ ῥαβδίον ἔχων ὑμῖν καθημένοις οὕτω καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ὁμοίως ἕξει, καὶ τὸν χρόνον εὔλογόν ἐστι τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι (in that case the time must be the same as the present time). The Stoics appear to have borrowed this view from the Pythagoreans (unless with other Orphic-Pythagorean views it was known to Heraclitus), and it commended itself to them as being in harmony with their theory of necessity. Hence they taught: μετὰ τὴν ἐκπύρωσιν πάλιν πάντα ταὐτὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ γενέσθαι κατ’ ἀριθμὸν, ὡς καὶ τὸν ἰδίως ποιὸν πάλιν τὸν αὐτὸν τῷ πρόσθεν εἶναί τε καὶ γίνεσθαι ἐκείνῳ τῷ κόσμῳ (Alex. Anal. Pr. 58, b). τούτου δὲ οὕτως ἔχοντος, δῆλον, ὡς οὐδὲν ἀδύνατον, καὶ ἡμᾶς μετὰ τὸ τελευτῆσαι πάλιν περιόδων τινῶν εἰλημμένων χρόνον εἰς ὃν νῦν ἐσμεν καταστήσεσθαι σχῆμα (Chrysippus, περὶ Προνοίας, in Lactant. Inst. vii. 23. Conf. Seneca, Ep. 36, 10: Veniet iterum qui nos in lucem reponat dies). This applies to every fact and to every occurrence in the new world, at the παλιγγενεσία or ἀποκατάστασις (as the return of a former age is called): thus there will be another Socrates, who will marry another Xanthippe, and be accused by another Anytus and Meletus. Hence M. Aurel. vii. 19, xi. 1, deduces his adage, that nothing new happens under the sun. Simpl. Phys. 207, b; Philop. Gen. et Corr. B. ii. Schl. p. 70; Tatian. c. Græc. c, 3, 245, d; Clemens, Strom. v. 549, D; Orig. c. Cels. iv. 68; v. 20 and 23; Nemes. l.c.; Plut. Def. Or. 29, p. 425. Amongst other things, the Stoics raised the question, Whether the Socrates who would appear in the future world would be numerically identical (εἷς ἀριθμῷ) with the present Socrates or not? (Simpl. l.c.)—the answer being, that they could not be numerically identical, since this would involve uninterrupted existence, but that they would be alike without a difference (ἀπαράλλακτοι). Others, however, chiefly among the younger Stoics, appear to have held that there might be noticeable differences between the two. (Orig. v. 20, 592, c.) This remark appears to have given rise to the false notion (Hippolyt. Refut. Hær. i. 21; Epiphan. Hær. v. p. 12, b) that the Stoics believed in the transmigration of souls. The remark made by Nemes., that the Gods know the whole course of the present world, from having survived the end of the former one, can only apply to one highest God, who, however, does not require such empirical knowledge. The other deities will not have survived the general conflagration. ↑