Xenophanes (c. 570 BCE)
Greek thinker born in Colophon, an Ionian Greek coastal city.
Xenophanes critiqued the cosmology of Homer, Hesiod and the popular pre-Socratic take on religion and mythology.
From his surviving fragments – and from others commenting on his work – it’s clear that Xenophanes satirized the anthropomorphic nature of the Greek pagan gods, arguing that God must be unmoving and changeless.
5. But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have human voice and body. [Zeller, 524, n. 2. Cf Arist. Rhet. ii. 23; 1399 b 6.]
6. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own-horses like horses, cattle like cattle. [Zeller, 525, n. 2. Diog Laer. iii. 16; Cic. de nat. Deor. i. 27.]
Arthur Fairbanks, ed. and trans. “Xenophanes: Fragments and Commentary,” The First Philosophers of Greece (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1898), p. 67.
Likewise, the early Christian writer Clement of Alexandria (2nd – 3rd CE) wrote in his Miscellanies 5. 109:
Xenophanes of Colophon puts it well indeed in teaching that god is one and without a body (asomatos): “There is one god, greatest among gods and men, who is not like human beings either in form (demas) or in thought (noema).”
Source » “XENOPHANES of Colophon” http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xenophanes.html
Offering piercing criticisms of the pre-Soctratic mindset, Xenophanes nevertheless believed that we cannot be certain about anything. As such, he said that his observations were necessarily conjecture.
E. L. Hussey says that Xenophanes made the “first known attempt at philosophical theology”–i.e. thinking about faith instead of glossing over and mindlessly reproducing its cultural and historical aspects (Ted Honderich, ed., Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995, p. 920).
» Comparative Religion
Add to this, report errors, suggest edits or voice your opinion by posting a comment
Dear friend!
Do you have any hint, where Xenophanes got his new idea of God?
Could we find any contact between Hebrews just coming from Babylonia after 70 years in “prison”.
Päiviö
http://www.latvus.com
Comment by Päiviö Latvus — October 11, 2008 @ 6:48 am |
Good question.
It’s hard to know just how much intercultural contact there was. Most scholars look to recorded events but who’s to say that much unrecorded interaction didn’t take place?
A general outline of an ‘official’ story can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Greece#History_of_Judaism_in_Greece
Comment by Earthpages.ca — October 11, 2008 @ 7:12 am |