II. Inevitable Reaction Under Compromisers, Atomists, and Sophists
1. EMPEDOCLES: DOOMED BY SIN TO TRANSMIGRATIONS
The first philosopher to introduce the conception of the four elements—fire, air, water, and earth—as divine, eternal forces was EMPEDOCLES (c. 500-430 B.C.), of Sicily. To these he added the two primary principles of love and hate—love the creative power, hate the destroyer. Between these there is unremitting strife. But in his mystic theology Empedocles was definitely allied with the Orphic-Pythagorean positions. He did not found a school but, like Pythagoras and Heraclitus, held to the literal transmigration of human souls through the bodies of animals and men, and the subsequent return of the purified souls to the gods, from which they originally came. And Empedocles held to the “immutable decree” of Fate, including the banishment of the demons for “30,000 seasons from among the Blessed.” CFF1 550.1
Empedocles presented a singular dualistic view—a Dualism of the inner life detected in Homer. The office of the soul is neither perception nor thought, both of which, he held, are merely functions of the body. Perception attests divine existence in the past. Thought, existing side by side with the soul in man, perishes with the body. But the soul, if not immortal, is at least long-lived. The postulate of transmigration naturally formed a part of his system. But between its various incorporations the soul does not descend into an underground Hades, as in Orphic and Pythagorean belief. And when all elements return to their original unity, all souls—and even the gods—are reunited in the divine universal spirit, to appear in a newly restored world. CFF1 550.2
Empedocles held, further, that nothing can begin which formerly was not, and nothing that exists can perish. Man’s original state was sinless. But man fell, and he too “was doomed to wander thrice ten thousand years apart from the blessed”—a “fugitive from the gods, and an outcast” dwelling in perpetual strife. As hate dominates, motion is ceaseless and rest is impossible. But in the coexisting sphere of love, when the pious die they become “deathless gods,” and no longer mortals. Thus, “man is a fallen god condemned to wander on earth, sky-aspiring but sense-clouded.” Purged by penance, he returns to his former godlike experience.CFF1 550.3
Empedocles held that reality is “Many,” not “One.” And permanence belongs to the principal elements which change to their shifting relations. Earlier it was felt that matter is alive, but Parmenides removed that conception. And now Empedocles added these two agencies, love and hate, as controlling the four elements. The history of the universe is, he held, oscillation to and fro between complete accord and total disharmony. So while not belonging organizationally to the Pythagorean School, Empedocles adopted its teachings on the soul. Death would free the soul from its “last corporeal envelope.” It never again would enter a body, but “live for ever in freedom and divinity.” Such was the Immortal-Soulism support given by Empedocles.CFF1 551.1
2. ANAXAGORAS: DUALISM AND DISSOLUTION OF THE SOUL
Fifty years after Pythagoras, his successor, ANAXAGORAS, of Ionia (c. 500-428 B.C.), visited Egypt, which visit was not without its effects upon his thinking. The fundamental principle of his philosophy was the unchangeability of the universe as a whole, or in other words, the eternity of matter. As he expressed it:CFF1 551.2
“Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be, for nothing comes into being or is destroyed, but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre-existent things, so that all becoming might more correctly be called becoming-mixed, and all corruption becoming separate.” CFF1 551.3
Anaxagoras also became persuaded that “mind” is completely detached from matter, and acts upon matter with intelligence and design in the formation of the universe. The initial moving force, which brought order out of chaos, he designated as “Intellect” (Nous), or “all-pervading Mind.” Rejecting the fate concept, he imputed it to reason. “Mind” is infinite and absolute, and Anaxagoras made no distinction between “mind” and “soul.” He also held to a Dualism, as indicated by the “moving force” and the “moved mass.”CFF1 551.4
And he stressed the opposition between the intellectual and the physical. Reason, he said, was the prime mover, employing air, water, and fire as agents. Such was Anaxagoras’ cosmogony. Compounds were not formation, but arrangements. Thus all parts of the animal body pre-exist in food, and are merely collected therefrom. In fact, all the phenomena of life are explained in his Magian doctrine of Dualism between mind and matter. CFF1 552.1
Rohde calls him “the first decisive and conscious dualist among Greek philosophers.” He sets “mind” and “matter” over against each other, and mind is power of thought and force of will. Self-existent mind influences matter without itself being moved by it. Now, as animated beings spring from the “World-Mind,” individual souls are therefore not self-existent after the dissolution of the “united.” Thus “the view is definitely ascribed to him that separation from the body is also ‘the soul’s death.’” He did not, however, teach “the indestructibility of the individual spirit.” It was all speculative.CFF1 552.2
Dr. R. H. Charles adds that the continued personal immortality of the soul was—CFF1 552.3
“inconceivable from Anaxagoras principle of an all-pervading mind. For though this mind individualized itself in certain material combinations, it retired into itself on the dissolution of these.” CFF1 552.4
Because of his theistic teachings, Anaxagoras was accused of atheism and impiety, as he claimed the sun to be a red-hot stone, not a divine being. And because of this and other teachings, such as his Persian Dualism, he was cast into prison and condemned to death. But he escaped and ended his days in exile. It should be noted that popular revolt was developing against the erratic speculations of philosophy, several philosophers having had to flee and some having suffered death. CFF1 552.5
3. ATOMISTS: CONSCIOUS EXISTENCE DISAPPEARS AT DEATH
At this juncture the Atomist School was founded in revolt against current philosophical contentions. It was established by LEUCIPPUS (fl. 500 B.C.) and his greater pupil DEMOCRITUS (460-355 B.C.). Experts agree that Leucippus gave the first clear statement of philosophical materialism. Contemporary mythical cosmogony was rejected in favor of a mechanical explanation. The Atomists held that matter itself contains all that is necessary for an understanding of the world structure. And the soul, they said, is no exception. It is corporeal, composed of fire and soulatoms, the finest and most active of all, effecting the movement of living things.CFF1 553.1
Moreover, as they exist, these atoms are endowed with sensation only as they come together in certain relationships, as in the case of the human body. So the Atomists likewise maintained that consciousness disappears with the dissolution of the body, from which the soul-atoms were completely separated. And so separated, it is impossible that they should ever return to it. The body is the vessel of the soul, which is the divine in things. But the “soul, distributed throughout the universe, is the Deity”—the “World-Soul and Reason.” CFF1 553.2
Starting with atoms and the void, the Atomists, with the physical bases of their system, held that “all things are composed of invisible, intangible, and individual particles or atoms, which by reason of variation in their configuration, combination, or position, give rise to the varieties of forms.” But to the atom itself they imputed self-existence and eternal duration. That is how the many can arise from one.CFF1 553.3
And this general formative principle of nature they regarded as the law of destiny, or fate. Thus production of new things is only new aggregations. And contrariwise, the decay of the old is simply separations. And the soul is a finely constituted form fitted into a grosser bodily frame. Skeptical Atomists even went so far as to assert that the world is an illusive phantasm, and that there is no God. CFF1 553.4
Concerning man, they hold that breathing draws in fresh “soul stuff” from the air, supplying it to the body. Hence, when breathing ceases, death ensues, because of an insufficient supply of the animating atoms. Thus at death the unified soul ceases to exist. Rohde states their contention thus:CFF1 554.1
“The continued existence of the soul after death, an immortality in whatever manner the thing may be conceived, is here for the first time in the history of Greek thought, expressly denied.” CFF1 554.2
That was fifth-century philosophical materialism as it pertained to the soul and immortality. It was a confusing picture.CFF1 554.3
4. SOPHISTS: BRING SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TO A STANDSTILL
In philosophy the conflict of unity against multiplicity was resolved by the atomist theory advanced by Empedocles and Anaxagoras on mind, or nous, and before that by Leucippus. However, philosophy turned from physics to ethics, and soon the Sophists (fifth century B.C.) became the teachers of Greece, and advocates of the subjectivity of standards.CFF1 554.4
As already noted, the starting point of Grecian philosophy was the physical. The earth was considered the center of all. So an explanation of the origin and destiny of the world and of man was undertaken. Intention and design were apparent. But the heliocentric concept of the planetary system was introduced, and the earth reduced to a subordinate position. And as we have seen, pantheistic notions of the nature of the world became pronounced, and the inevitable postulates of emanation, transmigration, and absorption were introduced. Then the idea that matter, motion, and time are phantoms of the imagination came to the fore—that atoms and space alone exist.CFF1 554.5
And now the Sophists, teachers of practical wisdom, appear—the outgrowth of peculiar conditions and the time—playing up the speculations of one school against those of another and representing them all as of little or no value. PROTAGORAS (fifth century B.C.) was one of the first. So it was that speculative physical philosophy was brought to a standstill, with no constructive alternative. The fate of the soul came to the forefront of discussion. Rohde states Protagoras’ position thus:CFF1 555.1
“Death, and whatever may reveal itself after death, is beyond the experience of any man. It may be that complete disappearance into nothingness follows death; that the dead man becomes simply nothing.” CFF1 555.2
So it was that the Sophists, assailing the leading philosophical contentions of the day, personalized the growth of critical inquiry. Observing the conflicting philosophical schools and their contradictory conceptions, they adroitly and “sophistically” contended that there is no established truth, no real religion, no sure justice, no unassailable virtue—that the only object in life is rational physical and intellectual enjoyment. So the soul, some even held, is simply the aggregate of the different moments of thinking. Thus they ended in bleak skepticism, if not stark atheism. That was the crisis at this juncture. CFF1 555.3
Thus the Sophists of the fifth and fourth centuries were not so much a sect as a profession. They professed knowledge or skill as teachers. They differed so much in ability, character, and emphasis that Aristotle defined a Sophist as “a man who makes money by sham wisdom.” Thus the word came to connote “sophistry.” But Grotto denies this—they might be compared to Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau in the French Revolution.CFF1 555.4
The Sophists included leading teachers like Gorgias and Protagoras, made famous by Plato. But the foundation of their teaching was laid in skepticism. GORGIAS, for example, expressed his nihilism in three propositions: (1) Nothing exists; (2) if anything existed it could not be known; and (3) if anything existed and were knowable, that knowledge could not be communicated to others. PROTAGORAS held that knowledge is so variable that all truth is but relative. Nothing exists at any time, but everything is always in a state of becoming. Even the existence of the gods is uncertain. So the leading Sophists sought to annihilate both existence and knowledge. In this they were opposed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.CFF1 555.5
5. SUCH A SURVEY JUSTIFIABLE AND ESSENTIAL
A weird, conflicting, and oft-confusing panorama has thus unfolded before us. Proposition and counterproposition, action and reaction, advance and recession, swinging to and fro, like a vast surging tide in its inexorable advance. Crudities and puerilities that offend the senses have intermingled with majestic outreaches after better understandings. Even briefly to follow these developments would be profitless and wearisome were they not vitally connected with the great Platonic positions that eventuated therefrom, and which so mightily influenced the centuries that follow. That is the justification for their tracement here. The source and origin of many of Plato’s concepts unmistakably stem from these earlier philosophers and poets we have just surveyed—and back to their spawning ground in Egypt and the Orient.CFF1 556.1
In the light of all this, it is therefore both justifiable and essential to get the import of this section of the search for immortality. Distasteful as this search may appear at first, as well as a bit wearisome and profitless, it is an unavoidable part of the indispensable background for our quest of the beginnings of the imposing Innate-Immortality-of-the-soul concept that well-nigh swept all before it, once it was syncretized and completed by Plato, and finally accepted by a compromising Christianity in the second and third centuries.CFF1 556.2
Plato will therefore be given special separate coverage. But first we pause for Aristotle, and the aftermath, before proceeding. We will shortly be in a position to recognize, understand, and evaluate Plato’s syncretized positions, soon to be discussed at some length, in relation to these antecedent concepts of the various philosophical schools.CFF1 556.3
6. UNPARALLELED IMPACT OF GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY
This chapter closes with the reiterating of the fact that no nation of antiquity ever made so great an impact on the intellectual life of man as did Greece, situated on a small, rock-bound Mediterranean peninsula. Though relatively few in number, the Greeks left an indelible imprint on all subsequent philosophy, theology, medicine, art, poetry, literature, logic, drama, law, science, government, mathematics, and astronomy.CFF1 557.1
But it is primarily the philosophicoreligious angle that concerns our quest. The Greeks stressed the idea of man’s unique worth, the summit of their philosophers’ contention being the glory of man—his Innate Immortality and his transcendent destiny. Plato was admittedly the greatest philosopher of this gifted people. And one of his major concerns was the origin, nature, and destiny of man. To this he applied himself unremittingly.CFF1 557.2
But his was the pursuit of truth without benefit of divine guidance, without the protective counsel of inspired prophets, or the surety of an inerrant Guidebook. It was sheer, unaided human intellect, attempting by human wisdom alone to search out the truth on the nature and destiny of man. His concepts stand without a parallel in the permanence of their impress upon all subsequent generations. But they were in mortal conflict with the Word of God.CFF1 557.3