Misplaced Pages

#948051

112-464: Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only fragments of which have survived, catalogued under philosopher number 22 in the Diels–Kranz numbering system. Already in antiquity, his paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for wordplay , and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a misanthrope who

224-470: A Sibyl , who "with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her". Kahn characterized the main features of Heraclitus's writing as "linguistic density", meaning that single words and phrases have multiple meanings, and "resonance", meaning that expressions evoke one another. Heraclitus used literary devices like alliteration and chiasmus . Aristotle quotes part of

336-482: A proposition or formula ; like Guthrie, he views Heraclitus as a materialist, so he grants Heraclitus would not have considered these as abstract objects or immaterial things. Another possibility is the logos referred to the truth , or to the book itself. Classicist Walther Kranz translated it as " sense ". Heraclitus's logos doctrine may also be the origin of the doctrine of natural law . Heraclitus stated "People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend

448-519: A Mithraic mystery cult in Tarsus , even though no mystery cult existed there nor did a Mithraic mystery cult exist before the end of the 1st century. The attitudes of scholars began to change as Egyptology continued emerging as a discipline and a seminal article published by Arthur Nock in 1952 that noted the near absence of mystery terminology in the New Testament . While some have tried to tie

560-410: A certain philosophical school. Many of the aspects of public religion such as sacrifices, ritual meals, and ritual purification were repeated within the mystery, but with the additional requirement that they take place in secrecy and be confined to a closed set of initiates. The mystery schools offered a niche for the preservation of ancient religious ritual, which was especially in demand by the time of

672-553: A collection of relatively unconnected fragments, which challenge the literary code that predisposes the reader to look for coherence." Notable examples of authors that produced fragmentary work in the Postmodern period include William S. Burroughs , Kathy Acker , Donald Barthelme , John Barth , B.S. Johnson and Robert Coover . The contemporary period has seen an increase in the prevalence of fragmentation in works of literature. Wojciech Drąg notes that this period has seen

784-475: A continual circular exchange of generation, destruction, and motion that results in the stability of the world. This can be illustrated by the quote "Even the kykeon separates if it is not stirred." According to Abraham Schoener: "War is the central principle in Heraclitus' thought." Another of Heraclitus's famous sayings highlights the idea that the unity of opposites is also a conflict of opposites: "War

896-400: A different meaning of the word for each usage in his book. Kahn has argued that Heraclitus used the word in multiple senses, whereas Guthrie has argued that there is no evidence Heraclitus used it in a way that was significantly different from that in which it was used by contemporaneous speakers of Greek. Professor Michael Stokes interprets Heraclitus's use of logos as a public fact like

1008-466: A discourse. McCabe suggests reading them as though they arose in succession. The three fragments "could be retained, and arranged in an argumentative sequence". In McCabe's reading of the fragments, Heraclitus can be read as a philosopher capable of sustained argument , rather than just aphorism . Heraclitus said "strife is justice" and "all things take place by strife". He called the opposites in conflict ἔρις ( eris ), " strife ", and theorized that

1120-538: A flutter by every word". He did not consider others incapable, but unwilling: "And though reason is common, most people live as though they had an understanding peculiar to themselves." Heraclitus did not seem to like the prevailing religion of the time, criticizing the popular mystery cults , blood sacrifice , and prayer to statues. He also did not believe in funeral rites , saying "Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung." He further criticized Homer , Hesiod , Pythagoras , Xenophanes , and Hecataeus . He endorsed

1232-432: A fragment of pottery can suggest the part that was lost due to the nature of patterning, the literary fragment cannot represent its whole in the same way, which complicates the relationship between the literary fragment and its suggested whole. The discovery of fragments of larger works has been of interest to scholars in many fields since at least the sixteenth century, and has formed the research basis of many fields since

SECTION 10

#1732766226949

1344-537: A fragment that references Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecataeus as older contemporaries, placing him near the end of the sixth century BC. According to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus died covered in dung after failing to cure himself from dropsy . This may be to parody his doctrine that for souls it is death to become water, and that a dry soul is best. Heraclitus is said to have produced a single work on papyrus , which has not survived; however, over 100 fragments of this work survive in quotations by other authors. The title

1456-486: A fragmented world", dispensing with the notion of over-arching meaning, instead representing the world as fundamentally fractured and disordered. The postmodern literary fragment is characterised by mosaic, montage, collage, polyphonic narrative and voices, multiple perspectives, pastiche, duplication, mirroring, and incompletion. Douwe Fokkema writes that the Postmodern fragment emphasises discontinuity and destroys connectivity, explaining that "many Postmodernist texts are

1568-615: A likely reference to an alleged similarity to Pythagorean riddles. Timon said Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" ( ασαφεστερον ; asaphesteron ); according to Timon, this was intended to allow only the "capable" to attempt it. By the time of Cicero , this epithet became in Greek "The Dark" ( ὁ Σκοτεινός ; ho Skoteinós ) or in Latin "The Obscure" as he had spoken nimis obscurē ("too obscurely") concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood. The obscurity

1680-417: A part and a whole but do not belong to either. Others, such as Hans-Jost Frey, suggest that the fragment may be entirely incompatible with literary theory because it is by nature "hostile to meaning", and defies the boundaries and borders upon which theory depends. The difficulty in defining the literary fragment is also due to the connotations of the word 'fragment' and its relationship to archaeology; while

1792-484: A process of never-ending cycles. Plato and Aristotle attribute to Heraclitus a periodic destruction of the world by a great conflagration, known as ekpyrosis, which happens every Great Year – according to Plato, every 36,000 years. Heraclitus more than once describes the transformations to and from fire: Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of air, and earth that of water. The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea half

1904-421: A renewed focus on the literary fragment as a rejection of traditional narrative modes, leading Paul Virilio to label the period as "the age of micro-narrative, the art of the fragment". While the modernists saw the fragment as a way of making sense of the chaos of the modernising world and searching for unity in a disjointed world, the postmodern period saw writers "give up Modernist attempts to restore wholeness to

2016-604: A repudiation of earlier ideas, but many note that modernist fragmentary writing was a clear response to the Romantic fragment poem. While the Romantics saw the fragment as a way to reckon with ideas of possibility and limitlessness, the fragment that appeared during this period in the first half of the twentieth century was a response to the challenges of modernity. As John Tytell explains, the fragment became synonymous with literary modernism because it represented "a new sense of

2128-525: A revival of fragmentary writing that poses a new kind of challenge for the reader, as it rejects narrative conventions and conventional novelistic structures, favours non-linearity, experimentation with chronology, metatextuality, repetition, listing and the use of citations in creative works. Critics such as Shannon Callaghan note that the contemporary fragment offers a new way of representing marginalised identities and traumatic experiences outside of traditional narrative structures. Guignery and Drag note that

2240-469: A traditional narrative structure. While it is difficult to classify literary fragments, a number of critics agree on a basic taxonomy of two types of fragment: those who intentionally use fragmentation as a form in their writing, and those that are fragmented because they are incomplete or because parts have been lost over time. As a form, the literary fragment has been employed during the Romantic, Modernist, Postmodern and Contemporary literary periods as

2352-540: A vague understanding. A system of grades or levels was present in the hierarchical structure of Mithraic religion, the first of these being the rank of Corax (raven), followed by Nymphus or Gryphus (bridegroom), Miles (soldier), Leo (lion), Perses (Persian), Heliodromus (sun-runner), and finally Pater (father) as the highest. Though precise details are difficult to determine and certainly varied between locations, one general depiction of an initiation ritual at Capua has it that men were blindfolded and walked into

SECTION 20

#1732766226949

2464-417: A visual reminder of his eastern origins. The cultic acts of adherents were new and distinct, involving underground initiation rituals reserved exclusively for soldiers and complex, allegorical rites only vaguely understood today due to an absence of written sources. Feasting was the primary religious experience of initiated members, along with reenactments of core Mithraic imagery, such as the meal shared between

2576-439: A way to reckon with the challenges of modernity. The literary fragment and the concept of fragmentariness presents several challenges to literary criticism, in part because of the difficulty in determining what constitutes a fragment. Guignery and Drag write that the task of defining the literary fragment is "near-impossible". Sophie Thomas writes that literary fragments "disturb characterization", as they exist somewhere between

2688-509: Is ascribed to Heraclitus by Plato in the Cratylus . Since Plato, Heraclitus's theory of flux has been associated with the metaphor of a flowing river, which cannot be stepped into twice. This fragment from Heraclitus's writings has survived in three different forms: The classicist Karl Reinhardt identified the first river quote as the genuine one. The river fragments (especially the second "we both are and are not") seem to suggest not only

2800-428: Is earth, half fireburst. [Earth] is liquefied as sea and measured into the same proportion as it had before it became earth. However, it is also argued by many that Heraclitus never identified fire as the arche ; rather, he only used fire to explain his notion of flux, as the basic stuff which changes or moves the most. Others conclude he used it as the physical form of logos . On yet another interpretation, Heraclitus

2912-459: Is father of all and king of all; and some he manifested as gods, some as men; some he made slaves, some free"; war is a creative tension that brings things into existence. Heraclitus says further "Gods and men honour those slain in war"; "Greater deaths gain greater portions"; and "Every beast is tended by blows." A core concept for Heraclitus is logos , an ancient Greek word literally meaning "word, speech, discourse, or meaning ". For Heraclitus,

3024-470: Is new each day." He also said the Sun never sets . This was "obviously inspired by scientific reflection, and no doubt seemed to him to obviate the difficulty of understanding how the sun can work its way underground from west to east during the night". The physician Galen explains: "Heraclitus says that the sun is a burning mass, kindled at its rising, and quenched at its setting." Heraclitus also believed that

3136-786: Is not a material monist explicating flux nor stability, but a revolutionary process philosopher who chooses fire in an attempt to say there is no arche . Fire is a symbol or metaphor for change, rather than the basic stuff which changes the most. Perspectives of this sort emphasize his statements on change such as "The way up is the way down", as well as the quote "All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares", which has been understood as stating that while all can be transformed into fire, not everything comes from fire, just as not everything comes from gold. While considered an ancient cosmologist , Heraclitus did not seem as interested in astronomy , meteorology , or mathematics as his predecessors. It

3248-514: Is not to be supposed that this division is due to [Heraclitus] himself; all we can infer is that the work fell naturally into these parts when the Stoic commentators took their editions of it in hand". The Stoics divided their own philosophy into three parts: ethics, logic, and physics. The Stoic Cleanthes further divided philosophy into dialectics , rhetoric , ethics , politics, physics , and theology, and philologist Karl Deichgräber has argued

3360-560: Is strongly associated with European Romanticism . While the Romantic fragment evolved out of the much earlier writings of Montaigne , Pascal and the English and French moralist tradition , scholars note that the fragmentary form was established by a group of German writers associated with the Jena school including Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis . The Jena Romantics, as well as Goethe , Nietzsche , Schiller and Walter Benjamin , saw

3472-524: Is surmised Heraclitus believed that the earth was flat and extended infinitely in all directions. Heraclitus held all things occur according to fate . He said "Time ( Aion ) is a child playing draughts , the kingly power is a child's." It is disputed whether this means time and life is determined by rules like a game , by conflict like a game, or by arbitrary whims of the gods like a child plays. Similar to his views on rivers, Heraclitus believed "the Sun

Heraclitus - Misplaced Pages Continue

3584-475: Is the river constantly changing, but we do as well, perhaps commenting on existential questions about humanity and personhood. Scholars such as Reinhardt also interpreted the metaphor as illustrating what is stable, rather than the usual interpretation of illustrating change. Classicist Karl-Martin Dietz  [ de ] has said: "You will not find anything, in which the river remains constant ... Just

3696-654: Is unknown, but many later writers refer to this work, and works by other pre-Socratics, as On Nature . According to Diogenes Laërtius, Heraclitus deposited the book in the Artemision – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – as a dedication. Classicist Charles Kahn states: "Down to the time of Plutarch and Clement , if not later, the little book of Heraclitus was available in its original form to any reader who chose to seek it out." Yet, by

3808-570: The logos ( lit.   word, discourse, or reason) gave structure to the world. Heraclitus, the son of Blyson, was from the Ionian city of Ephesus, a port on the Cayster River , on the western coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey ). In the 6th century BC, Ephesus, like other cities in Ionia , lived under the effects of both the rise of Lydia under Croesus and his overthrow by Cyrus

3920-477: The Delphic maxim to know thyself . Heraclitus has been the subject of numerous interpretations. According to scholar Daniel W. Graham, Heraclitus has been seen as a " material monist or a process philosopher ; a scientific cosmologist , a metaphysician and a religious thinker; an empiricist , a rationalist , a mystic ; a conventional thinker and a revolutionary; a developer of logic – one who denied

4032-787: The Eleusinian Mysteries , the Dionysian Mysteries , and the Orphic Mysteries . Some of the many divinities that the Romans nominally adopted from other cultures also came to be worshipped in Mysteries; for instance, Egyptian Isis , Persian Mithras from the Mithraic Mysteries , Thracian/Phrygian Sabazius , and Phrygian Cybele . The Eleusinian Mysteries were the earliest and most famous of

4144-650: The Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai) . The main characteristic of these religious schools was the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders. The most famous mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity were the Eleusinian Mysteries , which predated the Greek Dark Ages . The mystery schools flourished in Late Antiquity ; Emperor Julian , of

4256-435: The Latin mysterium , where the English term originates. The etymology of the Greek mustḗrion 'revealed secret' is not entirely clear, though scholars have traditionally thought it to have derived from the Greek múō 'to close, shut; to be shut (especially of the eyes)' (chiefly referring to shutting the eyes, hence one who shuts their eyes and is initiated into the mysteries). Hittite scholar Jaan Puhvel suggests that

4368-420: The arche – Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron , and Anaximenes with air. Since antiquity, philosophers have concluded that Heraclitus construed of fire as the arche , the ultimate reality or the fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements. Pre-Socratic scholar Eduard Zeller has argued that Heraclitus believed that heat in general and dry exhalation in particular, rather than visible fire,

4480-403: The law of non-contradiction ; the first genuine philosopher and an anti-intellectual obscurantist ". The hallmarks of Heraclitus's philosophy are the unity of opposites and change, or flux . According to Aristotle, Heraclitus was a dialetheist , or one who denies the law of noncontradiction (a law of thought or logical principle which states that something cannot be true and false at

4592-490: The logos being forever do men prove to be uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this logos they are like the unexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain when I distinguish each thing according to its nature and declare how it is. Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep. Heraclitus's style has been compared to

Heraclitus - Misplaced Pages Continue

4704-454: The logos seems to designate the rational structure or ordered composition of the world. As well as the opening quote of his book, one fragment reads: "Listening not to me but to the logos , it is wise to agree ( homologein ) that all things are one." Another fragment reads: "[ hoi polloi ] ... do not know how to listen [to Logos ] or how to speak [the truth]." The word logos has a wide variety of other uses, such that Heraclitus might have

4816-658: The stoa of the sanctuary. The initiation of the second night was also concluded by a banquet. Worship of the god Mithras was extremely popular among men of the Roman army for several centuries, originating in the 1st century BCE and ending with the persecution of non-Christian faiths within the Empire in the 4th century CE. Imported from Persia and adapted for Roman purposes like many other previously foreign deities, Mithras bears little relation to his Zoroastrian precursor, Mithra, retaining his Phrygian cap and garments, for instance, as

4928-509: The subjective nature of experience, disrupted narrative chronology, drew attention to the fictive nature of their narrative procedures, experimented with language, and, by refusing the comforts of closure, remained steadfastly open‐ended. Notable examples of authors that produced fragmentary work in the Modernist period include T. S. Eliot , Gertrude Stein , Virginia Woolf , James Joyce , and Ezra Pound . The postmodern period saw

5040-523: The "Samothracian gods" or the "Great Gods". This makes it difficult to reconstruct who they were, though comparisons between the "gods of Samothrace" and the Cabeiri, chthonic deities of an indeterminate amount (sometimes twins, or multiple distinct beings) from comparable, pre-Greek or entirely non-Greek cultures such as Thrace or Phrygia have been made. The similarities in regards to what each deity or set of deities were purported to offer—protection on

5152-593: The "mystery schools too were an intrinsic element of the non-Jewish horizon of the reception of the Christian message". Beginning in the third century, and especially after Constantine became emperor, components of mystery religions began to be incorporated into mainstream Christian thinking, such as is reflected by the disciplina arcani . The English word 'mystery' originally appeared as the Ancient Greek plural Mustḗria 'the Mysteries', and developed into

5264-429: The 2nd century explicitly noted and identified them as "demonic imitations" of the true faith; "the devils, in imitation of what was said by Moses , asserted that Proserpine was the daughter of Jupiter , and instigated the people to set up an image of her under the name of Kore" ( First Apology ). Through the 1st to 4th century, Christianity stood in direct competition for adherents with the mystery schools, insofar as

5376-495: The Fates decreed that whoever ate or drank in the underworld was doomed to spend eternity there, Persephone was still forced to remain in the realm for either four or six months of the year (depending on the telling), as she was tricked by Hades into eating pomegranate seeds of a corresponding amount. Thus, Demeter, in her sadness, neglects to nourish the earth for the months that Persephone is gone, only doing so when she returns, until

5488-611: The Great c. 547 BC. Ephesus appears to have subsequently cultivated a close relationship with the Persian Empire; during the suppression of the Ionian revolt by Darius the Great in 494 BC, Ephesus was spared and emerged as the dominant Greek city in Ionia. Miletus , the home to the previous philosophers, was captured and sacked. The main source for the life of Heraclitus is the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius . Although most of

5600-494: The Greek term derives from the Hittite verb munnae 'to conceal, to hide, to shut out of sight'. Mystery religions formed one of three types of Hellenistic religion , the others being the imperial cult , or the ethnic religion particular to a nation or state, and the philosophic religions such as Neoplatonism . This is also reflected in the tripartite division of " theology "—by Varro —into civil theology (concerning

5712-515: The Pythagorean emphasis on harmony, but not on strife. Heraclitus suggests that the world and its various parts are kept together through the tension produced by the unity of opposites, like the string of a bow or a lyre . On one account, this is the earliest use of the concept of force . A quote about the bow shows his appreciation for wordplay: "The bow's name is life, but its work is death." Each substance contains its opposite, making for

SECTION 50

#1732766226949

5824-405: The Romantic period include Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Keats , Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley . The use of the fragment as a form is closely linked to the modernist literary tradition . As Nora Golschmidt explains, "the fragment is so integral to the literary and visual cultures of modernism that it borders on cliche." The modernist literary movement is often described as being

5936-447: The Sun is as large as it looks, and said Hesiod "did not know night and day , for they are one." However, he also explained the phenomenon of day and night by if the Sun "oversteps his measures", then " Erinyes , the ministers of Justice, will find him out". Heraclitus further wrote the Sun is in charge of the seasons . On one account, Heraclitus believed the Sun and Moon were bowls containing fire, with lunar phases explained by

6048-529: The Theatral Circle. Livy records that here, the initiates would listen to a proclamation concerning the absence of crime and bloodshed. Near the beginning of the rituals, like at Eleusis, sacrifices and libations were likely made, where the prospective animal for the sacrifice would have been a ram. The initiates would have moved to a building where the actual initiation took place at night with torches, though archaeologists are unsure of which building it

6160-410: The agora was once more filled with the initiates at the procession at the sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter Persephone . Two Eleusinian priestesses were at the front of the procession followed by many Greeks holding special items in preparation for the rest of the ceremony, and the procession would leave the city on an hours-long 15-mile journey constantly interrupted by celebration, dances, etc, to

6272-492: The apparently unitary state, δίκη ( dikê ), " justice ", results in "the most beautiful harmony ", in contrast to Anaximander , who described the same as injustice. Aristotle said Heraclitus disagreed with Homer because Homer wished that strife would leave the world, which according to Heraclitus would destroy the world; "there would be no harmony without high and low notes, and no animals without male and female, which are opposites". It may also explain why he disagreed with

6384-421: The audience by the skilled Eleusinian clergy, and the climax of the event which must have included displaying a statue of Demeter and showing of an ear of wheat and a "birth" of agricultural wealth. Hence, these mysteries had associations with fertility and agriculture. In an attempt to solve the mystery of how so many people over the span of two millennia could have consistently experienced revelatory states during

6496-410: The city of Eleusis . The initiates would carry torches on the way to the city. Once the city was reached, the pilgrims would dance into the sanctuary. The next day would begin with sacrifices, and at sunset, the initiates would go to a building called the telestêrion where the actual initiations would commence. The initiates washed themselves to be pure and everyone sat together in silence surrounded by

6608-449: The city walls. For all human laws get nourishment from the one divine law." "Far from arguing like the latter Sophists, that the human law, because it is a conventional law, deserves to be abandoned in favor of the law of nature, Herakleitos argued that the human law partakes of the law of nature, which is at the same time a divine law." The Milesians before Heraclitus had a view called material monism which conceived of certain elements as

6720-490: The complexity of the modern world. According to Gasiorek, the modernist period saw the literary fragment become part of the novel, the genre previously considered the least consistent with fragmentation. He explains that the modernists adopted the fragment as a rejection of realism that was seen as an "unwarrantedly stable and epistemologically confident narrative mode", and instead, developed novelistic forms that were fragmented, deployed multiple viewpoints, emphasised

6832-707: The contemporary fragment might also be a response to the "accelerated culture of social media and overcommunication within which long-form fiction seems increasingly anachronistic." Notable examples of authors producing fragmented work in the Contemporary period include Mark Z. Danielewski , Maggie Nelson , David Shields , Jenny Offill , Jenny Boully , Anne Carson , Jonathan Safran Foer , Eula Biss , Kate Zambreno , Ali Smith , J. M. Coetzee and David Mitchell . Greco-Roman mysteries Mystery religions , mystery cults , sacred mysteries or simply mysteries ( Greek : μυστήρια ), were religious schools of

SECTION 60

#1732766226949

6944-559: The culminating ceremony of the Eleusinian Mysteries, numerous scholars have proposed that the power of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from the kykeon 's functioning as an entheogen . The day of the completion of the initiation was called the Plemochoai (after a type of vessel used to conclude a libation), and the new members could now wear a myrtle wreath like the priests. Eventually, the initiates would leave and utter

7056-402: The cult at Samothrace. The bowls used for the libation were also left behind, revealed by the thousands of discovered libation bowls at the cult sites. The participants occasionally left behind other materials, such as lamps. In addition to the purple fillet, they also left with a 'Samothracian ring' (magnetic iron ring coated in gold) and some initiates would set up a record of their initiation in

7168-452: The emphasis on purity grew, this ban would include those who had "impure" souls). Like other large festivals such as the Diasia and Thesmophoria , the prospective initiates would bring their own sacrificial animals and hear the festivals proclamation as it began. The next day, they would have gone to the sea and purified themselves and the animals. Three days of rest would pass until the 19th,

7280-418: The establishment of academic disciplines in the nineteenth century. Historical literary fragments are studied closely in the fields of papyrology , which involves the study of papyrus texts almost all preserved in fragments, and the more recently established field of fragmentology , which involves the study of surviving fragments of mostly medieval European manuscripts. Historical literary fragments include

7392-456: The fact, that there is a particular river bed, that there is a source and an estuary etc. is something, that stays identical. And this is ... the concept of a river." According to American philosopher W. V. O. Quine , the river parable illustrates that the river is a process through time. One cannot step twice into the same river-stage. Professor M. M. McCabe has argued that the three statements on rivers should all be read as fragments from

7504-410: The fragment as a literary form that offered freedom from the limitations imposed by traditional genres, had the potential to reject Enlightenment ways of thinking, and could reflect the fragmentary nature of existence while gesturing towards the future. According to Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Lebarthe , the Romantic "aims at fragmentation for its own sake". This idea is also reflected in

7616-531: The god Sol Invictus and Mithras, or the bearing of torches by men representing the twins of the rising and setting sun, Cautes and Cautopates . Traditionally, scholarship surrounding Mithras' mythological beginnings purport that followers believed the common image of the god emerging from a rock, already a young man, with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other, was representative of his birth and nativity. New perspectives have appeared in light of continuous study which suppose that this scene instead displays

7728-411: The greatest warning against materialism". Several fragments seem to relate to the unity of opposites. For example: "The straight and the crooked path of the fuller 's comb is one and the same"; "The way up is the way down"; "Beginning and end, on a circle 's circumference, are common"; and "Thou shouldst unite things whole and things not whole, that which tends to unite and that which tends to separate,

7840-496: The handshake". Little is known about the cult's practices subsequent to initiation, as the highly secretive nature of the religion as well as a substantial absence of written texts makes it difficult to determine what precisely took place in regular meetings, beyond the payment of a membership fee.   Towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, it was becoming more popular in German scholarship to connect

7952-468: The harmonious and the discordant; from all things arises the one, and from the one all things." Over time, the opposites change into each other: "Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life"; "As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these"; and "Cold things warm up,

8064-635: The hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet." It also seems they change into each other depending on one's point of view , a case of relativism or perspectivism . Heraclitus states: "Disease makes health sweet and good; hunger, satiety; toil, rest." While men drink and wash with water, fish prefer to drink saltwater, pigs prefer to wash in mud, and fowls prefer to wash in dust. " Oxen are happy when they find bitter vetches to eat" and " asses would rather have refuse than gold ." Diogenes Laërtius summarizes Heraclitus's philosophy as follows: "All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and

8176-480: The information provided by Laertius is unreliable, and the ancient stories about Heraclitus are thought to be later fabrications based on interpretations of the preserved fragments; the anecdote that Heraclitus relinquished the hereditary title of "king" to his younger brother may at least imply that Heraclitus was from an aristocratic family in Ephesus. Heraclitus appears to have had little sympathy for democracy or

8288-490: The initiates were given a purple fillet . There was also a second night of initiation, the epopteia where the "usual preliminary lustration rites and sacrifices" took place though not much else can be known besides that it may have been similar to the epopteia at Eleusis and would have climaxed with the showing of a great light. The initiation of the first night was concluded by banqueting together and many dining rooms have been uncovered by archaeologists in association with

8400-532: The last three are the same as the alleged division of Heraclitus. The philosopher Paul Schuster has argued the division came from the Pinakes . Scholar Martin Litchfield West claims that while the existing fragments do not give much of an idea of the overall structure, the beginning of the discourse can probably be determined, starting with the opening lines, which are quoted by Sextus Empiricus : Of

8512-646: The late Roman Empire, as cultic practices supported the established social and political orders instead of working against them; numerous early strands of Judaism and Christianity, for instance, appeared in opposition to such conditions, whereas the mystery cults, by their very nature, served to strengthen the status quo. For this reason, what evidence remains of the older Greek mysteries has been understood as reflecting certain archaic aspects of common Indo-European religion , with parallels in Indo-Iranian religion . The mystery schools of Greco-Roman antiquity include

8624-426: The masses . However, it is unclear whether he was "an unconditional partisan of the rich", or if, like the sage Solon , he was "withdrawn from competing factions". Since antiquity, Heraclitus has been labeled a solitary figure and an arrogant misanthrope. The skeptic Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus a "mob-abuser" ( ochloloidoros ). Heraclitus considered himself self-taught. He criticized fools for being "put in

8736-552: The mid-4th century, is believed by some scholars to have been associated with various mystery cults—most notably the mithraists . Due to the secret nature of the schools, and because the mystery religions of Late Antiquity were persecuted by the Christian Roman Empire from the 4th century, the details of these religious practices are derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies. Justin Martyr in

8848-404: The mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace) had no content but rather limited themselves to showing objects in initiation. Later interaction between Christianity and mystery religions did take place. Christianity has its own initiation ritual, baptism , and beginning in the fourth century, Christians began to refer to their sacraments , such as baptism, with the word mysterion , the Greek term that

8960-533: The mysteries of the deities of Cabeiri . Philip II of Macedon and his later wife Olympias were said to have met during the initiation ceremony at Samothrace. Heracles , Jason , Cadmus , Orpheus and the Dioscuri were all said to have been initiated here. Little is known about any core foundational myths for the entities worshipped by cult initiates at Samothrace; even their identities are unknown, as they tended to be discussed anonymously, being referred to as

9072-463: The mystery cults and lasted for over a millennium. Whenever they first originated, by the end of the 5th century BCE, they had been heavily influenced by Orphism , and in Late Antiquity, they had become allegorized. The basis for the Eleusinian Mysteries can be found in a myth concerning the kidnapping of Persephone , daughter of Demeter , the goddess of agriculture, by Hades , the god of

9184-476: The mystery cults resembled each other. Reacting to these claims by outsiders, early Christian apologists , such as Justin Martyr , denied that these cults had influenced their religion. The seventeenth-century Protestant scholar Isaac Casaubon brought up the issue again by accusing the Catholic Church of deriving its sacraments from the rituals of the mystery cults. Charles-François Dupuis , in

9296-627: The neighboring regions. While the information here is even more scarce than that available with the Eleusinian Mysteries (and more late, dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods), it's known that the Samothracian Mysteries significantly borrowed from the ones at Eleusis (including the word 'Mysteries'), furthermore, archaeological and linguistic data continues elucidating more of what happened at Samothrace. These rituals were also associated with others on neighboring island such as

9408-458: The opening line of Heraclitus's work in the Rhetoric to outline the difficulty in punctuating Heraclitus without ambiguity; he debated whether "forever" applied to "being" or to "prove". Aristotle's successor at the lyceum Theophrastus says about Heraclitus that "some parts of his work [are] half-finished, while other parts [made] a strange medley". Theophrastus thought an inability to finish

9520-487: The origins of Christianity with heavy influence from the mystery cults, if not labeling Christianity itself as a mystery cult. This trend was partly the result of the increasing growth of critical historical analysis of Christianity's history, as exemplified by David Strauss 's Das Leben Jesu (1835–36) and the secularizing trend among scholars that sought to derive Christianity from its pagan surroundings. Scholars, for example, began attempting to derive Paul's theology from

9632-615: The origins of rites in Christianity such as baptism and the Eucharist to mystery religions, it has been demonstrated that the origins of baptism rather lie in Jewish purificatory ritual and that cult meals were so widespread in the ancient world that attempting to demonstrate their origins from any one source is arbitrary. Searches for Christianity deriving content from mystery religions has also been unsuccessful; many of them (such as

9744-424: The phrases paks or konks , which referenced the proclamation of a conclusion of an event. The clothing worn by the new members during their journey were used as lucky blankets for children or perhaps were given to their sanctuary. The second most famous Mysteries were those on the island of Samothrace and promised safety to sailors from the perils of the sea, and most participants would come to be initiated from

9856-525: The popular Roman religio-philosophical theme of ascent, whereby the god's emergence from the stone serves to depict his divinity and power over "earthly mundaneness". The visual and metaphorical components to the core cult image of Mithras slaying a bull, known as the tauroctony , have also been greatly debated. Propositions that the scene depicts nothing more than the act of sacrifice, well known to Romans through their civil religions and obligatory state festivals, have been accepted for some time, but belief that

9968-500: The process repeats again. These episodic periods became the winter and spring seasons, with the "death" and "rebirth" of Persephone being allegorical for the cycle of life and the experience of all beings. In the 15th of the month of Boedromion (September/October) in the Attic calendar , as many as 3,000 potential initiates would have gathered in the agora of Athens , the gathering limited to those that spoke Greek and had never killed (as

10080-453: The remains of works otherwise lost over time, such as in the case of the poetry of Sappho , as well as quotations in secondary texts from works that have never been discovered, such as in the work of Heraclitus . Notable examples of writers of extant fragments of longer works include Sappho , Heraclitus , Sophocles , Xenophon , Antisthenes , Abydenus , Berossus , Sanchoniatho and Megasthenes . The fragment as both theme and form

10192-530: The sage Bias of Priene , who is quoted as saying "Most men are bad". He praised a man named Hermodorus as the best among the Ephesians, who he says should all kill themselves for exiling him. Heraclitus is traditionally considered to have flourished in the 69th Olympiad (504–501 BC), but this date may simply be based on a prior account synchronizing his life with the reign of Darius the Great . However, this date can be considered "roughly accurate" based on

10304-517: The same river twice". This insistence upon change contrasts with that of the ancient philosopher Parmenides , who believed in a reality of static " being ". Heraclitus believed fire was the arche , the fundamental stuff of the world. In choosing an arche Heraclitus followed the Milesians before him –  Thales with water , Anaximander with apeiron ( lit.  boundless or infinite), and Anaximenes with air . Heraclitus also thought

10416-467: The same time). Also according to Aristotle, Heraclitus was a materialist . Attempting to follow Aristotle's hylomorphic interpretation, scholar W. K. C. Guthrie interprets the distinction between flux and stability as one between matter and form . On this view, Heraclitus is a flux theorist because he is a materialist who believes matter always changes. There are no unchanging forms like with Plato or Aristotle. As one author puts it, "Plato took flux as

10528-412: The scene displays a star-map of major constellations in addition to the usual action of sacrifice has appeared in recent years. As is the case with most other mystery religions, almost no written sources pertaining to the practices, much less the beliefs of adherents, survive. Thus, conjecture and assumption based almost exclusively on archaeological finds and modern interpretations provide only somewhat of

10640-522: The seas and help in difficult times—display a definite connection, though to what extent is impossible to conclude. It is therefore likely that if the Samothracian gods are not the Cabeiri themselves, elements from this comparative religion, along with Thracian elements of worship present on the island before an established Greek presence, heavily influenced the ideas and practices central to the mystery cult. Unlike at Eleusis, initiation at Samothrace

10752-470: The smell of extinguished torches. The initiation may have taken place over two nights. If so, the first night may have concerned the kidnapping of Persephone by Hades and ended with the goddess's return, whereas the second night concerned the epopteia (the higher degree of the Mysteries) which was a performance that included singing, dancing, potentially the showing of a phallus, a terrifying experience for

10864-405: The state religion and its stabilizing effect on society), natural theology (philosophical speculation about the nature of the divine), and mythical theology (concerning myth and ritual ). Mysteries thus supplement rather than compete with civil religion . An individual could easily observe the rites of the state religion, be an initiate in one or more mysteries, and at the same time adhere to

10976-408: The statue of Hermes at Kyllene. The aforesaid statues are images of the primal man and of the regenerated, spiritual man who is in every respect consubstantial with that man. The scarcity of information precludes understanding what went on during the initiation, though there may have been dancing such as at Eleusis associated with the mythology of the search for Harmonia . At the end of the initiation,

11088-433: The subterranean chamber known as a Mithraeum where the rites and practices of the cult would be performed. Initiates were naked, bound with their arms behind them, and knelt before a priest, whereupon they would be released from their bondage, crowned, but not permitted to rise until a particular moment. The initiation was confirmed by a handshake, as members would henceforth be referred to as syndexioi , or those "united by

11200-450: The sum of things ( τὰ ὅλα ta hola ('the whole')) flows like a stream." Classicist Jonathan Barnes states that " Panta rhei , 'everything flows' is probably the most familiar of Heraclitus's sayings, yet few modern scholars think he said it". Barnes observes that although the exact phrase was not ascribed to Heraclitus until the 6th century by Simplicius , a similar saying expressing the same idea, panta chorei , or "everything moves"

11312-595: The time of Simplicius of Cilicia , a 6th-century neoplatonic philosopher, who mentions Heraclitus 32 times but never quotes from him, Heraclitus's work was so rare that it was unavailable even to Simplicius and the other scholars at the Platonic Academy in Athens. Diogenes Laërtius wrote that the book was divided into three parts: the universe , politics , and theology , but, classicists have challenged that division. Classicist John Burnet has argued that "it

11424-623: The turning of the bowl. His study of the moon near the end of the month is contained in one of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri , a group of manuscripts found in an ancient landfill . This is the best evidence of Heraclitean astronomy. Literary fragment A literary fragment is a piece of text that may be part of a larger work, or that employs a 'fragmentary' form characterised by physical features such as short paragraphs or sentences separated by white space, and thematic features such as discontinuity, ambivalence, ambiguity, or lack of

11536-506: The underworld, as told in the Homeric Hymns . Anguished by this event and wishing to persuade Zeus , the king of the gods, to allow the return of her daughter, Demeter caused famine and drought across the land, killing many and depriving the gods of proper sacrifice and worship. Eventually, Zeus permitted Persephone to rejoin her mother, prompting Demeter to end the pestilences which deprived the world of its prosperity. However, because

11648-487: The universe that began to emerge as the nineteenth century ended". Industrialisation, technological advancement and developments in science all lead to significant societal changes, and the First World War "seemed to sever any reliable continuities with the values of the past", leading to a "fragmented experience of modernity". These changes prompted writers to seek a new mode of representation that could represent

11760-669: The work of the English late-Romantic poets who saw the potential of the fragmented form to express insights "that went beyond established forms and genres". The historical fragment and the motif of the historical ruin also gained popularity during this period, with many writers taking inspiration from recently discovered relics of the past. This interest in historical fragments saw several literary hoaxes in which Romantic writers including Thomas Chatterton and James Macpherson claimed to have translated or discovered historical fragments that were later shown to be their own modern creation. Notable examples of authors that produced fragmentary work in

11872-527: The work showed Heraclitus was melancholic. Diogenes Laërtius relays the story that the playwright Euripides gave Socrates a copy of Heraclitus's work and asked for his opinion. Socrates replied: "The part I understand is excellent, and so too is, I dare say, the part I do not understand; but it needs a Delian diver to get to the bottom of it." Also according to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus "the Riddler" ( αἰνικτής ; ainiktēs )

11984-484: Was "probably with the idea that it is for us to seek within ourselves, as he sought for himself and found". Heraclitus seemed to pattern his obscurity after oracles . Heraclitus did state "nature loves to hide" and "a hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one". He also stated "The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign." Heraclitus is the earliest known literary reference to

12096-518: Was also used for a mystery rite. In this case, the word meant that Christians did not discuss their most important rites with non-Christians who might misunderstand or disrespect them. Their rites thus acquired some of the aura of secrecy that surrounded the mystery cults. Even in ancient times these similarities were controversial. Non-Christians in the Roman Empire in the early centuries CE, such as Lucian and Celsus , thought Christianity and

12208-732: Was considering the abundance of possibilities including the Hall of Choral Dancers, the Hieron, the Anaktoron and the Rotunda of Arsinoe II. In the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome in his Refutation of All Heresies quotes a Gnostic author who provides a summary of some of the images here; There stand two statues of naked men in the Anaktoron of the Samothracians, with both hands stretched up toward heaven and their pudenda turned up, just as

12320-530: Was not restricted to a narrow few days of the year and lasted from April to November (the sailing season) with a large event likely taking place in June but may have taken place over two nights. Like in Samothrace, the future initiates would enter the sanctuary of Samothrace from the east where they would have entered into a 9-meter in diameter circular space with flagstones and a grandstand of five steps now called

12432-538: Was subject to melancholia . Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient philosopher Democritus , who was known as "the laughing philosopher". The central ideas of Heraclitus's philosophy are the unity of opposites and the concept of change . He also saw harmony and justice in strife . He viewed the world as constantly in flux, always "becoming" but never "being". He expressed this in sayings like "Everything flows " ( Greek : πάντα ρει , panta rhei ) and "No man ever steps in

12544-450: Was the arche . In one fragment, Heraclitus writes: This world-order ( kosmos ), the same for all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: ever-living fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. This is the oldest extant quote using kosmos , or order, to mean the world. Heraclitus seems to say fire is the one thing eternal in the universe. From fire all things originate and all things return again in

#948051