Rig Veda, Mandala 10, hymn CXXIX. Creation.

A. A. Macdonell's Translation

1. Non-being then existed not nor being:

There was no air, nor sky that is beyond it.
What was concealed? Wherein? In whose protection?
And was there deep unfathomable water?

2. Death then existed not nor life immortal;

Of neither night nor day was any token.
By its inherent force the One breathed windless:
No other thing than that beyond existed.

3. Darkness there was at first by darkness hidden;

Without distinctive marks, this all was water.
That which, becoming, by the void was covered,
That One by force of heat came into being.

4. Desire entered the One in the beginning:

It was the earliest seed, of thought the product.
The sages searching in their hearts with wisdom,
Found out the bond of being in non-being.

5. Their ray extended light across the darkness:

But was the One above or was it under?
Creative force was there, and fertile power:
Below was energy, above was impulse.

6. Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it?

Whence was it born, and whence came this creation?
The gods were born after this world's creation:
Then who can know from whence it has arisen?
7. None knoweth whence creation has arisen;
And whether he has or has not produced it;
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
He only knows, or haply he may know not.

All gods are three:

Amun, Re and Ptah, whom none equals.

He who hides his name as Amun,

he appears to the face as Re,

his body is Ptah.35

You made heaven remote to rise in it

To see all that you created, you being alone.

But there being millions of lives in you to make them live.

Hail to you, the One who transforms himself into millions,

Whose length and breadth are limitless!41

Power in readiness, who gave birth to himself,

Uraeus with great fl ame;

Great of magic with secret form,

Secret Ba, to whom respect is shown.42

Your skin is the light, your breath is the “fi re of life,”52

all precious stones are united on your body.

Your limbs are the breath of life to every nose,

inhaling you brings life.

Your taste is the Nile,

people anoint with the radiance of your light-eye . . .

Coming and going is possible when you appear

as earth god.53

For it is from your nose that the air comes

and from your mouth that the fl ood comes.

The “tree of life” grows upon you;

you make the earth green, so that the gods have more than enough,

as well as human beings and animals.

It is your light that makes them see.

When you set, the darkness comes.

Your eyes create light . . .

Your right eye is the sun,

your left eye is the moon.54

Your eyes are the sun and the moon,

your head is the sky,

your feet are the underworld.55

One is dealing here with the origin of a conception of the divine

that was to become supremely important in late antiquity, namely, the

“cosmic god,” the supreme deity in Stoicism, Hermetism, and related

movements,56

whose head is the sky,

whose body is the air, whose feet are the earth.

You are the ocean.57

Egyptian hymn from 13 century BCE

Leiden Papyrus I 350 Chapter 200

1. Secret of transformations and sparkling of appearances

marvelous god, rich in forms:

All gods boast of him

to make themselves greater with his beauty to the extent of his divinity.
 5. Re himself is united with his body.

He is the Great One in Heliopolis;

He is Called Tatenen/Amun,

who comes out of the primeval waters to lead the “faces.” [people]

9. Another of his forms is the Ogdoad,

primeval one of the primeval ones, begetter of Re.

He completed himself as Atum, being of one body with him. He is Universal Lord, who
initiated that which exists.

13. His Ba, it is said, is the one who is in heaven;

it is he, the one who is in the underworld, who rules the east. His Ba is in heaven,
his body in the west;

his image is in the southern Heliopolis and wears his diadem.

17. One is Amun, who keeps himself concealed from them,

who hides himself from the gods, no one knowing his nature. He is more remote than
heaven.

He is deeper than the underworld.

21. None of the gods knows his true form. His image is not unfolded
in books; nothing certain is testifi ed about him.

24. He is too secretive for his majesty to be revealed. He is too great to

be enquired after,

too powerful to be known.

27. People fall down immediately for fear

 that his name will be uttered knowingly or unknowingly, There is no god able to
call him by it:

He is Ba-like, hidden of name like his secrecy.

1.1 Amun as hidden, primordial god in the Pyramid Texts.

Two alternative views on the principle of creation are attested :

the creator is understood as immanent in the forces and elements of the created world, i.e. a supreme being, in whom all of
creation is inherent. This notion was associated with Atum-Re, who as "Khepri" self-created on the first occassion and split
into Shu and Tefnut ("I am Re who issued from the Nun in this my name of Khepri." - CT 307) ;

the creative principle is viewed as transcending creation, being independent of it (as Atum-Re self-creating in the Nun),
creating (in the Middle Kingdom) the world by means of magic (cf. the "Lord of All" and "Sole Lord" in CT 261, To
Become a Magician) or crafting the universe and its order by the design of his mind (cf. the logos-philosophy of the creative
verb in the XXth Dynasty Memphis Theology on the Shabaka Stone, and the Hymn to Ptah, Berlin Papyrus 3048 of the
XXIIth Dynasty). However, the greatest development of this transcendent notion of the creator, is found in the Ramesside
era. In late Amun-Re theology, transcendence is no longer exclusively realized by positioning the One before creation (in
pre-creation), but (also) as a "hidden unity" in creation.

Presocratics

Thales

I. Life
Diogenes Laertius

1 As Herodotus, Douris, and Democritus say, Thales' father was Examyus and
his mother Cleoboulina, and he belonged to the Thelidae, a Phoenician family,
the most noble descendants of Cadmus and Agenor. < He was one of the Seven
Sages> according to Plato.' And he first received the title of sage when Damasius
was archon at Athens (582/r] , in whose reign the Seven Sages were named, as
Demetrius of Phaleron says in his List of Archons. He [Agenor?] became a citizen
of Miletus when he came with Neileus, who was banished from Phoenicia. But
as most say, he was a native of Miletus and of a distinguished family.
(24) Some, including Choerilus the poet, claim that he first said souls are
immortal.

Aristotle [34-35] and Hippias say he gives inanimate things a portion of soul,
inferring this from the magnet and amber. Pamphila says that having learned
geometry [or: surveying] from the Egyptians, he was the first to inscribe a right­
angled triangle in a circle, whereupon he sacrificed an ox. (25) But some say
Pythagoras did this, including Apollodorus the mathematician . . .

(27) He theorized that water was the source of all things and the world was
animate and full of deities. They say he discovered the seasons of the year and
divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. He had no teacher
except that when he went to Egypt he studied with the priests. Hieronymus
says he measured the height of the pyramids by their shadows, watching for the
time when a man's shadow was equal to his height. He was a companion to
Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, as Minyas says . . . .

Proclus On Euclid

9 Just as an accurate study of numbers had its beginning in the trading and
contracts of the Phoenicians, so geometry [surveying, land measurement) was
discovered by the Egyptians for the aforesaid reason [namely, the Nile floods erase
boundary markers) . And Thales after first going to Egypt brought back to Greece
this science, and he himself discovered many things and instructed his successors
in the principles of many things, apprehending some of them more generally,
others more empirically.

[Plutarch] Opinions
11 This man is supposed to be the originator of philosophy, and from him the
Ionian school gets its name. It became the longest tradition in philosophy. Having
practiced philosophy in Egypt he came to Miletus when he was older.
III Philosophy
A. Principles

1 5 Aristotle Metaphysics
Of the first philosophers, the majority thought the principles of all things were
found only in the class of matter. For that of which all existing things consist,
and that from which they come to be first and into which they perish last - the
substance continuing but changing in its attributes - this, they say, is the element
and this the principle of existing things. Accordingly they do not think anything
either comes to be or perishes, inasmuch as this nature is always preserved . . . For
a certain nature always exists, either one or more than one, from which everything
else comes to be while this is preserved. All, however, do not agree on the number
and nature of this principle, but Thales, the originator of this kind of theory, says
it is water (and that is why he asserted that the earth floats on water) , perhaps
getting this conception from observing that everything derives its nourishment
from what is moist and that the hot itself arises from and lives off it (and the
thing from which the hot comes to be is the source of everything else) . He gets
his conception both from this fact and from the fact that the seeds of all things
have a moist nature, and also the fact that water is the source of growth for moist
things

1 6 Aetius
Thales of Miletus declared that the principle of all things was water.
[11 follows.] For he says from water come all things and into water do all things
decompose. He infers this first from the fact that the seed of all animals is a
principle which is moist; thus it is plausible that the totality has its origin from
the moist; second, that all plants are nourished and bear fruit from moisture, but
when they are deprived of it they wither; third, that the very fire of the sun and
the heavenly bodies is fed by exhalations of waters, as is the world itself.
17 Simplicius Physics
Of those who say the principle of all things is one and in motion, whom
[Aristotle] properly calls natural philosophers, some say it is limited in number,
such as Thales son of Examyus, of Miletus, and Hippo (who is said to have been
an atheist) . They said the principle was water, being led to this view by considering
what appears to the senses. For in fact the hot lives off the moist and dead bodies
dry out and the seeds of all things are moist and every kind of nourishment is
juicy. And things are naturally nourished by the very thing they are composed of.
And water is the source of the moist nature and holds all things together. That
is why they understood it to be a source of all things and they asserted that the
earth rests on water.

B Physical theory

1 8 Aristotle On the Heavens 294a28-33 (A14)

Some [say the earth] rests on water. This is the most ancient theory that has
been handed down to us, which they say Thales of Miletus held: that it stayed
where it was because it was buoyant like wood or something like that (for none
of these things naturally stays in air, but on water) - as if the same problem did
not arise for the water supporting the earth as for the earth itself

19 Seneca Natural Questions 3.14.1 (A15)

The following view of Thales is inadequate. For he says the circle of the earth
is held up and supported in the manner of a ship; and when it is moved by waves
it is said to quake. It is no wonder, then, that there is plenty of water to flow in
rivers since the whole world is immersed in water.

20 Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 1.1.1-4

Thales of Miletus, one of the Seven Sages, is said to have been the first to
pursue natural philosophy. He said the beginning and end of the world was
water. (2) For from this the world is composed when it is condensed and in
turn dissolved, and the world is borne on it. From it <come> earthquakes,
windstorms, and the motions of the stars. (3) And things of the world travel and
flow as they are carried around by the nature of the first agent of their coming to
be. And this is God, who has neither beginning nor end. (4) By occupying himself
with the explanation of and inquiry into the heavenly bodies, Thales became the
founder of this study among the Greeks.

v. Psychology and Theology

34 Aristotle On the Soul 405a19-21 (A22)

It appears from what is recounted of him that Thales too understood the soul
to be a source of motion, since he said the lodestone has a soul because it moves
iron.

35 Ibid. 4Ha7-8
Some say that [soul] is mixed in the totality; this is perhaps the reason Thales
thought all things are full of gods.

36 Cicero On the Nature of the Gods r.10.25 (A23)

For Thales of Miletus, who first inquired about such things, said water is the
source of things, and god is that mind which formed all things from water.

37 Aerius P r.7.II, S r.r.29b

Thales says that God is the mind of the world, and the totality is at once
animate and full of deities. And a divine power pervades the elemental moisture
and moves it.

Anaximander

1 Diogenes Laertius 2.1-2 (A1

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, of Milerus. He said the source and element
was the boundless [to apeiron] , not defining it as air or water or anything else.
And the parts change, but the totality is changeless. [The earth lies in the middle
occupying the place of the center, being spherical; the moon is a pseudo-luminous
body illuminated by the sun; the sun is not less than the earth in size and of
completely pure fire.]
He first discovered the gnomon and set one up at the Sundials [?] in Sparta, as
Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous Studies, to mark solstices and equinoxes; and
he constructed hour-indicators.' (2) And he first drew a map of the earth and sea,
and he also fashioned a sphere [of the heavens] .
A summary exposition of his views was made by him, which Apollodorus the
Athenian presumably came across. He says in his Chronicles chat in the second
year of the 58ch Olympiad [547/6] he was sixty-four years old and he died soon
after (he flourished around the time Polycrates ruled Samos) .
2 Eusebius Preparation for the Gospel IO.I{. II (A4)
Anaximander was a student of Thales, being son of Praxiades and himself
Milesian by descent. He first fashioned gnomons for distinguishing solstices,
times, seasons, and equinoxes

III. Philosophy

Simplicius Physics 24.13-25, Theophrastus fr. 226A Fortenbaugh

(A9, B1)
A. Principles
9 [report of the interpretation of Theophrastus:] Of those who say the source is
one and in motion and boundless, Anaximander, the son of Praxiades, of Miletus,
the successor and student of Thales, said the source and element of existing things
was the boundless, being the first one to apply this term to the source. And he
says it is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but some other
boundless nature, from which come to be all the heavens and the world-orders in
them:
[F1] From what things existing objects come to be, into them too does their
destruction take place, according to what must be: for they give recompense
and pay restitution to each other for their injustice according to the ordering
of time, expressing it in these rather poetic terms.
[comment by Simplicius:] It is clear that, observing the change of the four
elements into each other, he did not think it appropriate to make one of them
the substratum of the others, but something else besides them. And he did not
derive generation from the alteration of some element, but from the separation
of contraries due to everlasting motion. That is why Aristotle classified him with
the followers of Anaxagoras.

10 Hippolytus Refutation r.6.1-2 (An, B2)

Anaximander, was the student of Thales. Anaximander, son of Praxiades, of
Miletus. He said the source and element of existing things was a certain nature of
the boundless, from which come to be the heavens and the world-order in them.
[F2] And this is everlasting and ageless, and it also surrounds all the world­
orders. He speaks of time as though there were a determinate period of coming
to be and existing and perishing. (2) He has said the source and element of
existing things is the boundless, being the first to call the source by < this> term.
Furthermore, motion is everlasting, as a result of which the heavens come to be.

I I Aristotle On Coming To Be and Passing Away 332a18-25

There is no one of these [elements] from which everything comes. Nor indeed
is there anything else beside them, for instance between air and water or air and
fire which is denser than air and fire but finer than the others. For that will turn
out to be air and fire with a contrary qualification. But one of the contraries is
the privation of the other. So it is never possible for the alleged source to exist by
itself, as some claim the boundless and surrounding stuff does.

12 Alexander Metaphysics 60.8-IO (A16)

He [Aristotle] added to his study also the view of Anaximander, who posited
as a source the nature between air and fire, or air and water (for the view is
expressed both ways) .

13 Aristotle Physics l87a12-16, 20-23

As the natural philosophers maintain, there are two ways [to account for
change] . Some make the underlying body one, one of the three elements or
something else which is denser than fire but finer than air, and they generate the
other things by condensation and rarefaction so as to produce a plurality . . . The
others separate out the contrarieties from the one in which they are present,
as does Anaximander, and everyone who says there is a one and a many, such
as Empedocles and Anaxagoras. For from the mixture they too separate out
everything else.

14 Simplicius Physics 150.24-25 (A9)

His contrarieties are hot, cold, dry, moist, and the rest.

1 5 Simplicius Physics 154.14-23 , Theophrasrus fr. 228B Fortenbaugh

And Theophrastus combining Anaxagoras with Anaximander took the words
of the former in the same way, as saying that the substratum is able to be a
single nature. He writes as follows in the Study of Nature: "Inasmuch as they are
taken in this way, he [Anaximander] would seem to make the material principles
boundless, as has been said, but the cause of motion and coming to be a single one.
And if anyone supposes the mixture of all things to be a single nature indefinite
in both kind and size, which is what he seems to mean, it would turn out that he
is committed to two principles, the nature of the boundless and mind, so that he
evidently makes them altogether corporeal elements just like Anaximander."

1 6 Aristotle Physics 203b6-28 (A15+, B3)

Everything is either a source or derives from a source, but there is no source of
the boundless or infinite, for then there would be a boundary of it. Furthermore,
it would be without coming to be and perishing insofar as it is a source; for what
comes to be must reach an end, and there is an end of every perishing. For that
reason, as we say, there is no source of the infinite, but [F3] this seems to be a
source of everything else and to contain all things and steer all things, as everyone
claims who does not posit some cause beyond the boundless, as for instance mind
or love. (B3) And this is the divine, for it is deathless and imperishable, as
Anaximander says, together with the majority of the natural philosophers.
The belief in some infinite principle would seem to arise especially from five
considerations: [1] from the concept of time (for this is infinite) , [2] from the
division in magnitudes (for mathematicians employ the concept of infinity) , [3]
and again from the fact that only in this way will coming to be and perishing
not cease: so long as there is something infinite from which what comes to be is
subtracted. [4] And again from the fact that what is limited always meets some
limit, so that there must be no limit if everything is limited by something else.
[5] But the main and chief reason, is what causes a general problem for everyone:
because we cannot imagine an end of the series, number seems infinite, and
likewise mathematical magnitudes and also what is outside the heaven. And if
what is outside the heavens is infinite, so, we tend to believe, are body and the
world-orders themselves. For why should there be more void in one place than in
another? So if there is body in one place it must be everywhere.

17 Ibid. 204b22-29 (A16)

But it is not possible for the boundless body to be one and simple - neither
as some say something besides the elements, from which they generate them, nor
without qualification. For there are some who posit a boundless, not air or water,
in order that other things may not be destroyed by the infinite amount of their
opposite; for each of these has a character contrary to the others, for instance air
is cold, water moist, fire hot. So if any one of these was infinite, the rest would
already have been destroyed. But it is really something else, they say, from which
these things arise.

18 Aetius P 1.3.3, S 1.10.12 (A14)

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, of Miletus says the boundless is the source of
existing things. For from this all things come to be and into this all things perish.
That is why countless world-orders are generated and again perish into that from
which they came to be. Thus he tells why it is boundless: in order that the coming
to be which occurs may never cease. But he fails by not saying what the boundless
is, whether air, water, or earth, or some other bodies. So he fails by referring to the
matter, but omitting the efficient cause. For the boundless is nothing but matter.
But the matter is not able to be actualized unless an efficient cause acts on it.
B. Physical theory

19 [Plutarch] Miscellanies 2 (Aro)

After [Thales] Anaximander, who was his associate, said the boundless con­
tained the whole cause of coming to be and perishing of the world, from which
he says the heavens are separated and generally all the world-orders, which are
countless. And he declared perishing to take place and much earlier coming to
be, all these recurring from an infinite time past. He says the earth is cylindrical
in shape, and has a depth one third its width. [F4] He says that that part of the
everlasting which is generative of hot and cold separated off at the coming to
be of the world-order and from this a sort of sphere of flame grew around the
air about the earth like bark around a tree. This subsequently broke off and was
closed into individual circles to form the sun, the moon and the stars. He also
says that in the beginning man was generated from animals of a different species,
inferring this from the fact that other animals quickly come to eat on their own,
while man alone needs to be nurtured for a long time. For this reason man would
never have survived if he had originally had his present form.

20 Hippolytus Refutation 1.6.3-7 (Arr)

The earth is suspended, supported by nothing, staying there because it
maintains equal distance from everything. Its shape is concave,1 round, like a
column drum. We walk on one of its surfaces, and there is another surface
opposite. (4) The heavenly bodies came to be as circles of fire, separated from
the cosmic fire, surrounded by air. There are certain tubelike [airy?] passages
for breathing holes, through which the heavenly bodies appear. Accordingly,
when the holes are blocked there are eclipses. (5) The moon appears to be wax­
ing or waning by turns according to whether the passages are being blocked
or opened. The circle of the sun is twenty-seven times < that of the earth; >
that of the moon <eighteen times > . The sun is the highest body, and lowest
are the circles of the fixed stars. (6) Living creatures arose < from the moist>
being evaporated by the sun. In the beginning man was similar to a different kind
of animal, namely a fish. (7) Winds come co be from the finest vapors of air which
are separated off and moved after being gathered, and rains from the vapor drawn
up from the earch under the sun. Lightning occurs when wind as it breaks out of
clouds tends them. He was born in the third year of the 420d Olympiad [610] .

Aetius P 3.3.1, S 1.29.1 (A23)

Concerning thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, firebursts, and hurricanes.
Anaximander [says] these all happen as a result of wind. For when wind sur­
rounded by thick cloud breaks out violently owing to its rarity and lightness, then
the tearing action produces the sound, the separation against the dark cloud the
flash.

40 Aetius P +3.2, S 1.49.1b (A29)

Anaximenes, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus have said the nature
of the soul is airy.

41 Cicero On the Nature of the Gods 1.10.25 (A17)

In the view of Anaximander, however, there are gods that come to be by birth
and perish at long intervals, and they are the innumerable worlds. But how can we
understand anything to be a god that is not everlasting?

42 Aetius P 1.7.12, S 1.1.29b

Anaximander [said] the stars were heavenly gods.
Anaximander declared the countless heavens to be gods.

Anaximenes

1 Diogenes Laertius 2.3 (Ar)

Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, was a student of Anaximander,
and some say he was a student of Parmenides too. He said the source and the
boundless was air; and that the heavenly bodies do not travel under rhe earth, but
around it.

2 Aristotle Metaphysics 984a5-7 (A4)

Anaximenes and Diogenes [of Apollonia] posit air as prior to water as the
simple body that is most properly the source.

3. Simplicius Physics 24.26-25.1, Theophrastus fr. 226A Fortenbaugh

(A5)
Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, was an associate of Anaximander,
who says, like him, that the underlying nature is single and boundless, but not
indeterminate as he says, but determinate, calling it air. It differs in essence in
accordance with its rarity or density. When it is thinned it becomes fire, while
when it is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed,
warer, then earth, then stones. Everything else comes from these. And he too
makes motion everlasting, as a result of which change occurs.

4 Simplicius On the Heavens 202.11-14

Some said the world is one and limited . . . s uch as Aristotle and Plato; some that
it is one and unlimited, such as Anaximenes, who held that the source is unlimited
air; some that there are worlds infinite in number, such as Anaximander . . .

6 Simplicius Physics 149. 28-150.4 (A5)

[Commenting on the above lines:] Indeed some generate the other things from
one material cause by rarefaction and condensation, as Anaximenes does when
he says that "air when it is thinned becomes fire, while when it is condensed it
becomes wind, then cloud, then, when still more condensed, water, then earth,
then scones. Everything else comes from these." In his Study Theophrastus referred
the processes of rarefaction and condensation to Anaximenes alone. But it is clear
that the others in this group make use of them too. For in fact Aristotle was
referring generally to the whole group when he said that "they generate the other
things by condensation and rarefaction so as to produce a plurality" (Physics 187a
15-16) from a single kind of matter.

7 Plutarch On the Principle of Cold 947f-948a (Bi)

Or just as Anaximenes of old thought, let us not leave the cold or the hot in
substance, but let us view them as common properties of matter which supervene
on changes. For he says [Fi] what is contracted and condensed is cold, what is
thin and loose (using this very expression) is hot. Hence the saying that a man
blows hot and cold from his mouth is not inappropriate. For the breath is cooled
when it is compressed and condensed by the lips, but when the mouth is relaxed
it becomes hot as it leaves the mouth because of being rarefied. Aristotle attributes
this argument to the man's ignorance.1 For when the mouth is relaxed we exhale
the heat from our own body, but when we blow through constricted lips, it is not
the air from our mouths, but the air in front of our mouths, which is cold, that
is pushed forward and falls on us.

8 Aerius P 1.3 .4, S 1.10.12 (B2)

Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, declared air to be the source of
beings. For from this do all things arise and back into it do all things dissolve.
As our soul, he says, which is air, controls us, so do breath and air encompass
the whole world-order. (He uses the terms 'air' and 'breath' synonymously.) He
too errs in thinking living things are composed of air or breath, a simple and
homogeneous stuff. For it is impossible for a single source to provide the matter
of existing things, but one must posit also an efficient cause. For instance, silver
does not suffice for a cup to come into existence if there is no maker, namely the
silversmith. And similarly with bronze, wood or any other kind of matter.

9 Simplicius Physics n21.12-17 (An)

Everyone who says there is always a world-order, but it does not stay always
the same, but becomes different at different periods of time, makes the one
world-order generable and perishable - as do Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Diogenes,
and later the Stoics. And it is clear that they also have the same view concerning
motion: when the world existed, there had to be motion.

10 Plato Timaeus 49b7-q

First, what we have now called water we observe, as we believe, turning into
stones and earth as it is compacted; but then as it dissolves and disperses, this
same thing becoming wind and air; and as it is ignited, air becoming fire; and as
it is compressed and quenched in turn, fire departing and turning back into the
form of air; and again air, as it comes together and is condensed, becoming cloud
and mist; and from these as they are felted still more, coming flowing water; and
from water earth and stones again; and these things thus imparting to each other
in a cycle, as it appears, their generation.

11 [Plutarch] Miscellanies 3 (A6)

They say Anaximenes held the source of the totality to be air, and this was
boundless in quantity, but determinate in the qualities it has. All things were
generated by a sort of condensation and thinning, respectively, of this. Motion
has existed from everlasting. When air was felted he says the earth was formed
first, being completely flat. Therefore it makes sense that it should float on
air. The sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies have their source of
generation from earth. At least he declares the sun is earth, and because of its
rapid motion it gains a very considerable amount of heat.

12 Hippolytus Refutation 1.7.1-9 (A7)

Anaximenes, he too being from Miletus, the son of Eurystratus, said the
source was boundless air, from which the things that are and were and will
be and gods and divinities come to be, the rest from the offspring of this.
(2) This is the character of air: when it is very uniform it is imperceptible to
sight, but it is discerned by being cold or hot or damp or in motion. It is always
in motion; for it would not undergo all the changes it does without moving.
(3) For being condensed or thinned it changes its appearance: when it is dis­
persed to become thinner, it becomes fire; when, on the other hand, air is con­
densed it becomes winds; and from air cloud is produced by felting; when
condensed still more water; when it is condensed even more earth; and when it
is condensed as much as possible stones. So the main contraries of generation are
hot and cold. (4) The earth is flat riding on air, likewise the sun and moon and
the other heavenly bodies, which are all fiery, float on air because of their flatness.
(5) The heavenly bodies came to be from earth because of the moisture arising
from it, which being thinned came to be fire, and from fire floating aloft the
stars were composed. There are also some earthy natures in the place of the scars
which are carried around with them. (6) He denies that the heavenly bodies move
under the earth, as others suppose, but he says they turn around the earth like
a felt cap around our head. The sun is hidden not by going under the earth,
but by being covered by the higher parts of the earth and by being a greater
distance away from us. The stars do not heat us because of their great distance.
(7) The winds are generated when air, having been concentrated, is carried along.
Being collected and compacted still more clouds are generated and thus turn to
water. Hail is produced when water from clouds is frozen as it travels downward;
and snow, when more moisture-laden particles get congealed. (8) Lightning is
produced when clouds are rent by the force of winds, for when they are rent the
flash is bright and fiery. A rainbow is produced when the rays of the sun fall on
thickened air. Quaking of the earth is produced when earth is more altered by
heat and cold. (9) These are the views of Anaximenes, who flourished around the
first year of the 58th Olympiad [548/7] .

Theology
35 Philoponus On the Soul 9.9-10 (A23)
Some say [the soul] is airy, such as Anaximenes and some of the Stoics.

36 Cicero On the Nature of the Gods 1.10.26 (Arn)

Afterward Anaximenes considered air was God, and that it comes to be and is
vast and boundless and ever in motion, as if air without any form could be God,
although surely it is fitting that God should have not just any form, but the most
beautiful, or as if mortality did not attend everything that has come to be.

37 Augustine Ciry ofGod 8.2

[Anaximander] left Anaximenes as his student and successor, who ascribed the
causes of all things to boundless air, nor did he deny the existence of gods or pass
them over in silence. He did not, however, believe air was created by them, but
that they were formed out of air.

38 Aetius [P 1.7.13] S 1.1.29b

Anaximenes [says] air [is God] . (It is necessary in the case of such remarks to
understand that they indicate the powers pervading the elements or bodies.)

39 Plato Timaeus 49q-e7

[Continued from IO ] Since each of these things never appears the same, which
thing can one steadfastly maintain is this determinate thing and not something
else, without embarrassing oneself? Nothing, but by far the safest course to take
is to say this concerning such things: whatever we observe always changing from
one thing to another, for example fire, we should in every case call not 'this' but
'this sort of thing', or water in every case not 'this' but 'this sort of thing' - never
calling anything else of the sort 'this' as though it had some constancy, of all the
things we indicate using terms like 'this' or 'that' with the aim of picking out
something in particular. For such an object flees, never abiding to receive the
designation of the phrase 'this' or 'chat', or any expression which refers to them
as stable objects. We must not use these terms, but rather call whatever anything
is like at its particular stage in the cycle of changes, each and every one, 'this sort
of thing', and especially fire we should call 'the completely such as this', as well
as everything that undergoes generation.

Aristotle
But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes no differ- 1141a34-1141b7
ence; for there are other things much more divine in their nature even than man,
e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which the heavens are framed. From what
has been said it is plain, then, that wisdom is knowledge, combined with compre-
hension, of the things that are highest by nature. This is why we say Anaxagoras,
Thales, and men like them have wisdom but not practical wisdom, when we see
them ignorant of what is to their own advantage, and why we say that they know
things that are remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. be-
cause it is not human goods that they seek.

Homer said the same things? „Oceanus who is the father of all things‟

R. K. Hack:
“If we bear in mind that the so-called physical doctrines of the Ionian
philosophers were really to a great extent metaphysical – that is to say,
these Greek philosophers believed that they were investigating, and had
discovered, the nature of ultimate divine reality, and not of mere outer
appearances – we shall be able to understand why the Ionians named one
substance after another as the divine source of the universe”