Parmenides' Poem as a Proto-Conception of God - Pre-Socratic Fragments

Stephen Alexander Beach 

(1909 Words) 

While there are not many extant writings of the Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers, there are some fragments which have survived through being preserved in the writings of later authors. For example, there is a famous poem attributed to Parmenides, which I have quoted below, that expresses the core of his philosophy, and is preserved by the Neoplatonist Simplicius. The first part of the poem is filled with mythic imagery of being guided on a chariot to the path of truth and away from the misguided opinions of men. In the second part of the poem Parmenides expresses what this pathway is, as the controversy is the same that the other Pre-Socratics were focused on as well, that of the stability in things. What is the ultimate nature of the cosmos? There are many opinions, of course, on this question, but Parmenides claims that most of humanity is wrong. In fact, there are three pathways which humanity takes, but only one which is viable, only one which is the way of truth and of the intellect. 

The paths have to do with the way of being and change. The first path of the cosmos coming from nothing, a change from nothing into something, is impossible. We cannot know what does not exist, nor can it have any impact on what does exist. Therefore, this path is impossible. If something exists, it must always have existed. This is the true path of the intellect that must be taken. And the third way is one in which things become and disappear and return back and forth as our senses attempt to show us, is likewise just as wrong. For how can something become except that it already existed, as something cannot come from nothing? Thus, if it already exists, then it really didn't become, it simply was. And so the only path is the way of "what is". 

Not only is it necessary that what is always have been, but that any distinctions between things be an illusion, as all distinctions imply change, which is again impossible. Thus, what is, is uniform and without limitations, eternal, and unchanging. This is the way of truth which the minds knows, not the fleeting appearances of the senses. "But since the limit is ultimate, it [namely, what-is] is complete from all directions like the bulk of a ball well-rounded from all sides equally matched in every way from the middle; for it is right for it to be not in any way greater or lesser than in another. 45 For neither is there what-is-not—which would stop it from reaching the same—nor is there any way in which what-is would be more than what-is in one way and in another way less, since it is all inviolable; for equal to itself from all directions, it meets uniformly with its limits." 

And so Parmenides' poems represents the true path of philosophy which he believes we should take. It is to follow the universal law of logic and intellect about the nature of being and to answer the paradox of change and stability that the Pre-Socratics were focused on. What is quite interesting about Parmenides' "sphere," which it has sometimes been called, is that it is a proto-notion of God. Parmenides recognized that existence needs an ultimate ground which is explanatory of itself, otherwise the way of logic cannot exist, and the way of the senses and of change is certainly not an adequate explanation for the cosmos. "What is, is. What is not, is not." is a good description for the eternity of God, who is self-existence, whole, infinite, changeless, and the most true reality. 

Much more could be said about this ... but I will leave it here. Enjoy reading the poem. If you're interested in learning more about Parmenides and the Pre-Socratics, see my course here. 

Parmenides' Poem
"1. (28B1) The mares which carry me as far as my spirit ever aspired were escorting me, when they brought me and proceeded along the renowned route of the goddess, which brings a knowing mortal to all cities one by one. On this route I was being brought, on it wise mares were bringing me, straining the chariot, and maidens were guiding the way. 5 The axle in the center of the wheel was shrilling forth the bright sound of a musical pipe, ablaze, for it was being driven forward by two rounded wheels at either end, as the daughters of the Sun were hastening to escort <me> after leaving the house of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands. 10 

There are the gates of the roads of Night and Day, and a lintel and a stone threshold contain them. High in the sky they are filled by huge doors of which avenging Justice holds the keys that fit them. The maidens beguiled her with soft words 15 and skillfully persuaded her to push back the bar for them quickly from the gates. They made a gaping gap of the doors when they opened them, swinging in turn in their sockets the bronze posts fastened with bolts and rivets. 

There, straight through them then, 20 the maidens held the chariot and horses on the broad road. And the goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in hers, and addressed me with these words: Young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers, who reach my house by the horses which bring you, 25 welcome—since it was not an evil destiny that sent you forth to travel this route (for indeed it is far from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. It is right that you learn all things— both the unshaken heart of well-persuasive Truth and the beliefs of mortals, in which there is no true trust. 30 But nevertheless you will learn these too—how it were right that the things that seem be reliably, being indeed, the whole of things. (Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens)

But come now, I will tell you—and you, when you have heard the story, bring it safely away— which are the only routes of inquiry that are for thinking: the one, that is and that it is not possible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon Truth), the other, that it is not and that it is right that it not be, 5 this indeed I declare to you to be a path entirely unable to be investigated: For neither can you know what is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor can you declare it.

It is right both to say and to think that it is what-is: for it can be, but nothing is not: these things I bid you to ponder. For I < 3 > you from this first route of inquiry, and then from that, on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander, two-headed: for helplessness in their 5 breasts steers their wandering mind. They are borne along deaf and blind alike, dazed, hordes without judgment for whom to be and not to be are thought to be the same and not the same, and the path of all is backward-turning.

 . . . Just one story of a route is still left: that it is. On this [route] there are signs very many, that what-is is ungenerated and imperishable, a whole of a single kind, unshaken, and complete. Nor was it ever, nor will it be, since it is now, all together 5 one, holding together: For what birth will you seek out for it? How and from what did it grow? From what-is-not I will allow you neither to say nor to think: For it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What need would have roused it, later or earlier, having begun from nothing, to grow? 10 In this way it is right either fully to be or not. 

Nor will the force of true conviction ever permit anything to come to be beside it from what-is-not. For this reason neither coming to be nor perishing did Justice allow, loosening her shackles, but she [Justice] holds it fast. And the decision about these things is in this: 15 is or is not; and it has been decided, as is necessary, to leave the one [route] unthought of and unnamed (for it is not a true route), so that the other [route] is and is genuine. 

But how can what-is be hereafter? How can it come to be? For if it came to be, it is not, not even if it is sometime going to be. 20 Thus coming-to-be has been extinguished and perishing cannot be investigated. Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike, and not at all more in any way, which would keep it from holding together, or at all less, but it is all full of what-is. Therefore it is all holding together; for what-is draws near to what-is. 25 But unchanging in the limits of great bonds it is without starting or ceasing, since coming-to-be and perishing have wandered very far away; and true trust drove them away. Remaining the same and in the same and by itself it lies and so remains there fixed; for mighty Necessity 30 holds it in bonds of a limit which holds it in on all sides. For this reason it is right for what-is to be not incomplete; for it is not lacking; otherwise, what-is would be in want of everything. 

What is for thinking is the same as that on account of which there is thought. For not without what-is, on which it depends, having been solemnly pronounced, 35 will you find thinking; for nothing else either is or will be except what-is, since precisely this is what Fate shackled to be whole and changeless. Therefore it has been named all things that mortals, persuaded that they are true, have posited both to come to be and to perish, to be and not, 40 and to change place and alter bright color.

But since the limit is ultimate, it [namely, what-is] is complete from all directions like the bulk of a ball well-rounded from all sides equally matched in every way from the middle; for it is right for it to be not in any way greater or lesser than in another. 45 For neither is there what-is-not—which would stop it from reaching the same—nor is there any way in which what-is would be more than what-is in one way and in another way less, since it is all inviolable; for equal to itself from all directions, it meets uniformly with its limits. 

At this point, I end for you my reliable account and thought 50 about truth. From here on, learn mortal opinions, listening to the deceitful order of my words. For they established two forms to name in their judgments,4 of which it is not right to name one—in this they have gone astray— and they distinguished things opposite in body, and established signs 55 apart from one another—for one, the aetherial fire of flame, mild, very light, the same as itself in every direction, but not the same as the other; but that other one, in itself is opposite—dark night, a dense and heavy body. I declare to you all the ordering as it appears, 60 so that no mortal judgment may ever overtake you.

But since all things have been named light and night and the things which accord with their powers have been assigned to these things and those, all is full of light and obscure night together, of both equally, since neither has any share of nothing. (Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics)"