V - The religion of Xenophanes. Heraclitus of Ephesus

Summary

The two great men of whom I wish to tell in this section have this in common, that they both give you the impression of walkers-alone—deep original thinkers, influenced by others, but not pledged to any ‘school’. The most probable period for Xenophanes' life is the century after about 565 b.c. At the age of ninety-two he describes himself as having wandered through the Greek countries (including, of course, Magna Graecia) for the last sixty-seven years. He was a poet, and the fragments of his fine verse that have come down to us make one deeply regret that his, as well as Empedocles' and Parmenides', hexameters and elegiacs were mostly lost, while the war-songs of the Iliad were preserved. Even so, what is extant of all these philosophical poems would in my opinion make a more interesting, a worthier and a more suitable subject for our school reading than the Wrath of Achilles (if you think what it is about). According to Wilamowitz, Xenophanes ‘upheld the only real monotheism that has ever existed upon earth’.

He was the same who discovered and correctly interpreted fossils in the rocks of south Italy—in the sixth century b.c.! I wish to quote here some of his famous fragments that give us an idea of the attitude of the advanced thinkers of that period towards religion and superstition.