Philosopher, Theologist, Poet (c.570 BC – c.475 BC)
Xenophanes was a Pythagorean philosopher from Colophon. He lived and worked primarily in Elea, Magna Graecia, where he founded of the Eleatic School of Philosophy together with Zenon of Elea. His philosophy is mostly metaphysical, deals with religious issues such as the nature of God and the Divine, and encompasses a broad spectrum of philosophy of civilization. He is chiefly remembered for his strong criticism on the common misconceptions of God.
Thales of Miletus and Anaximander were his teachers and while in Syracuse, he met Aeschylus, Pindar and Simonides. Xenophanes was a skilled poet. He wrote numerous epic poems, elegies and hexameter verses and with those he earned his living. In one of his epic poems, he narrates the foundation of Colophon while in another he praises the value of wisdom over physical strength.
Xenophanes fought against the public’s perception of God, the anthropomorphism of God and the human characteristics attributed to God. Xenophanes spoke about a God that serves his own purpose, was not born and cannot be destroyed. God is the soul of the sphaerical universe that spreads towards every direction, giving life to everything there is. At the same time, God is motionless and eternal. Xenophanes’s monotheism speaks of one God, whose body and mind is completely different from that of mortals. He is all eye, all spirit and all ear. Everything is one and is one with God. He rejects the idea that God has the appearance, the clothes and the voice of man with his famous saying: “But if cattle or horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves”. He also criticized Homer and Hesiod for attributing human characteristics and weaknesses to God such as thievery, adultery and deceit, nevertheless recognized that “All men begin their learning from Homer”. In addition, Xenophanes rejects God’s intervention to the human affairs, stating that each one must take responsibility of their own actions. According to Xenophanes, God did not designate everything from the start to man. Part of the benevolent things of civilization was designated by God; the rest of the comforts of civilization were discovered by man, following his continual quest for betterment.
He was involved with the natural sciences and cosmology but his work has been largely obscured due to the influence of Aristotle. He considered the earth and water as the two primordial elements of creation. Everything is a product of alleloconversion of earth and water. This is summed in his saying that all things come from earth and all things end by becoming earth. He wrote the book On Nature, which dealt with cosmological issues. He explained about the celestial bodies and meteorological phenomena, supported the geocentric model, studied the fossils and made important geological and paleontological discoveries and proposed that the sea creates the clouds and the wind.
Xenophanes’s philosophical views were very daring for his time. He is a pure representative of the Greek spirit that doubts almost everything, even if it means going against the world he lives. A great pre-Socratic philosopher, who acted as an adviser to humanity with his poems and as a corrector with his theology, it is unfortunate that little of his work survives today to have a broader glimpse of his work.
Bibliography
- Georgakopoulos, Konstantinos. Ancient Greek Scientists. Georgiades: Athens, 1995. Print.
- Pan, Sarantos. Xenophanes (575 – 480 BC). ΔΑΥΛΟΣ. Issue 185, May, 1997. pages 11395-11394. Print.
- Patzia, Michael. Xenophanes. Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Iep.utm.edu. Web. Retrieved on March 17, 2017.
- Pleures, Konstantinos. Greek Philosophers. Athens: Hilektron Publications, 2014. Print.
- “Xenophanes”. Helios New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Passas, I. Athens, 1946. Print.