Note 18 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

According to Philo (Incorrupt. M. 947, C), besides Posidonius and Panætius, his instructor (Diog. vii. 142; Stob. Ecl. i. 414), Boëthus asserted, in opposition to the ordinary Stoic teaching, the eternity of the world. Philo adds that this was also the view of Diogenes of Seleucia in his later years. Moreover, Zeno of Tarsus, on the authority of Numenius (in Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 19, 2), considered that the destruction of the world by fire could not be proved (φασὶν ἐπισχεῖν περὶ τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως τῶν ὅλων). But these statements are elsewhere contradicted. Diogenes mentions Posidonius as one who held the destruction of the world by fire. The testimony of Diogenes is confirmed by Plut. Pl. Phil. ii. 9, 3 (Stob. Ecl. i. 380; Eus. Pr. Ev. xv. 40. See Achill. Tatian, Isag. 131, C), who says that Posidonius only allowed so much empty space outside the world as was necessary for the world to be dissolved in at the ἐκπύρωσις. The difference between his view and the older Stoical view which Bake (Posidon. Rel. 58) deduces from Stob. i. 432, is purely imaginary. Antipater, according to Diogenes, also believed in a future conflagration. Little importance can be attached to the statement in Cic. N. D. ii. 46, 118, respecting Panætius, addubitare dicebant; whereas the words of Stob. are: πιθανωτέραν νομίζει τὴν ἀϊδιότητα τοῦ κόσμου; and those of Diog.: ἄφθαρτον ἀπεφήνατο τὸν κόσμον.

Boëthus emphatically denied the destruction of the world, his chief reasons (in Philo, l.c. 952, C) being the following:—(1) If the world were destroyed, it would be a destruction without a cause, for there is no cause, either within or without, which could produce such an effect. (2) Of the three modes of destruction, those κατὰ διαίρεσιν, κατὰ ἀναίρεσιν τῆς ἐπεχούσης ποιότητος (as in the crushing of a statue), κατὰ σύγχυσιν (as in chemical resolution), not one can apply to the world. (3) If the world ceased to exist, the action of God on the world, in fact, His activity would altogether cease. (4) If everything were consumed by fire, the fire must go out for want of fuel. With that, the possibility of a new world is at an end.

The resolution of the world into indefinite vacuum, attributed by Plut. Plac. ii. 9, 2, to the Stoics in general, is no doubt the same as the condensation and expansion of matter. Ritter, iii. 599 and 703, supposes it to be a misapprehension of the real Stoic teaching. How Hegel, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 391, and Schleiermacher, Gesch. d. Philos. p. 129, in view of the passages quoted, can absolutely deny that the Stoics held a periodic destruction of the world, is hard to comprehend. ↑