Salles. Ekpírosis and the Godness of God in Cleantes

copy Koninklijke Brill NV Leiden 2005 Phronesis L1Also available online ndash wwwbrillnl

EacuteEkpEcircrvsiw and the goodness of god in Cleanthes

RICARDO SALLES

ABSTRACT

The sectkpEcircrvsiw or worldrsquos conflagration followed by the restoration of an iden-tical world seems to go against the rationality of the Stoic god The aim of thispaper is to show that Cleanthes the second head of the School can avoid thisparadox According to Cleanthes the conflagration is an inevitable side-effect ofthe necessary means used by god to sustain the world Given that this side-effectis contrary to godrsquos sustaining activity but unavoidable godrsquos rationality requiresthe restoration of an identical world once the conflagration subsides The paperalso deals with the relation between Cleanthes and other early Stoics on the topicof conflagration In particular Cleanthesrsquo position seems to differ from ChrysippusrsquoFor in contrast with the Cleanthean god who causes the conflagration as a side-effect only the Chrysippean god according to an influential interpretation putforward by Jaap Mansfeld causes the conflagration as his ultimate cosmologicalgoal

In orthodox Stoic theory the present world (kOgravesmow) will be destroyed bygod through a mighty fire or lsquoconflagrationrsquo (sectkpEcircrvsiw) Once the conflagra-tion subsides a restoration occurs known as the eacutepokatatildestasiw In itgod builds a new world exactly identical to the present one But if sowhy does the Stoic god destroy the world in the first place In this paperI explore one possible answer to this question ndash that of Cleanthes the sec-ond Head of the Stoic school (331-232 BCE)

The idea of a conflagration followed by a restoration poses severalphilosophical problems But the one just mentioned affects the rationalityand goodness of god The problem had already been perceived byAristotle while attacking the notion that the world is perishable (DePhilosophia fr 19c Ross = fr 21 Rose3)

If [the new world] is like [the old] its artificer will have laboured in vain (efidEacute ˜moiow mataiopOgravenow ı texncurrenthw) differing in nothing from silly children whooften when playing on the beach make great piles of sand and then underminethem with their hands and pull them down again (BarnesLawrence trans)

Phronesis 153_56-78 12505 440 PM Page 56

rsquoEkpEcircrvsiw AND THE GOODNESS OF GOD IN CLEANTHES 57

Accepted July 20041 The section of the De Philosophia contained in fragment 19c Ross (of which the

passage I quoted is a part) seeks to establish the impossibility of the worldrsquos destruc-tion by arguing that it is contrary to the nature of god in the following (exhaustive)cases (a) when the destruction is not followed by the making of another world and(b) when it is This latter case is divided into two sub-cases (b1) when the other worldis different from the present one and (b2) when it is identical to it Our present pas-sage is the argument given in connection with (b2) For discussion of the fragment asa whole see Chroust (1977) and Mansfeld (1979) at 138-44

2 See Sandbach (1975) 79 Mansfeld (1999) 467-8 Furley (1999) 439 and Salles(2003) 263-7

3 It is at least possible that the early Stoics in general did know of the paradox(along with the other Aristotelian arguments against the destructibility of the world infrs 19a-c Ross) and that they addressed it in their cosmology For the view that thisis not only possible but likely see Mansfeld (1979) 138 and 159-72 Long (1985) 25lsquowholly agree[s]rsquo with Mansfeld on this particular issue (although not on others seemy section 4 below) See also Long (1998) 361-7 esp 364 n 15

4 Cleanthes ap Cicero De Natura Deorum [ND] 2118 I return to this passage insection 2 below

The problem relates not so much to the destruction of the world as to itsdestruction followed by the restoration of an identical world1 If the newworld will be identical what does god destroy the present world for Godwould have a reason to destroy it if the present world were replaced by a better one But according to orthodox Stoicism the new world is notbetter2 Thus apparently god is not acting fully rationally in this oneinstance But this goes against the perfect rationality of the Stoic godwhich is presupposed by his perfect goodness I shall refer to this problemas the lsquoparadox of conflagrationrsquo

It is not the purpose of this paper to determine whether Cleanthes knewof this Aristotelian paradox nor whether if he did there is textual evi-dence that he sought to avoid it3 The purpose of this paper is rather toaddress the more abstract question of whether his cosmology can avoidthe paradox in a way that is philosophically satisfactory My main con-tention is that it can The elements of a solution may be gathered from aseries of theses that as I shall argue may be attributed to him On hisview god acts upon the world in order to sustain and preserve it This isthe ultimate cosmological goal that he pursues However the means heemploys to sustain the world is heat And an inevitable side-effect of heat-ing is a gradual desiccation of the world as a whole in which heat willend up consuming the world entirely In effect lsquonothing will remain butfirersquo (relinqui nihil praeter ignem)4 The conflagration therefore is the


58 RICARDO SALLES

inevitable outcome of a certain process ndash desiccation ndash that is necessarilyconcomitant to the production of an end But given that the conflagrationinvolves destruction (in Cleanthes at least) the conflagration and the des-iccation process that leads to it are contrary to godrsquos sustenance of theworld Thus god has a good reason to build an exactly new world oncethe conflagration subsides Given that the sustenance of the world is theultimate goal he pursues and since the conflagration is disruptive of thisplan godrsquos rationality requires the restoration of the world as it existedbefore the conflagration

Crucial to the reconstruction I have just outlined are the two connectedclaims that (i) desiccation and conflagration are not pursued by the Cleantheangod as ends and that (ii) desiccation and conflagration are indeed con-trary to his primary end namely the sustenance of the world I shall pro-vide detailed arguments for supporting each of these claims I begin byexamining the notion of side-effect or lsquoconcomitantrsquo as distinct from thenotions of end and of means The distinction goes back to Platorsquos Timaeusand Cleanthes would be the first Stoic to have used it whether or not heknew of the distinction as drawn by Plato An account of Platorsquos viewsis nevertheless important because it will help us to shed light on how thedistinction works in general This account is provided in section 1 In section 3 I explain in detail how the notion of side-effect is used by Cleanthes in connection with the conflagration It is in section 3 that Idevelop more fully Cleanthesrsquo solution to the paradox This argument is preceded in section 2 by the examination of a puzzle concerning Cleanthesrsquotheory of fire The puzzle is that the texts in which the theory is reportedattribute contrary powers to the very fire that is supposed to sustain theworld namely the sunrsquos fire or lsquoheatrsquo (calor) the power itself to sustainthe world on the one hand and the power to desiccate and ultimatelydestroy it on the other These two powers are active simultaneously through-out each cosmic cycle And this is puzzling precisely because it is oneand the same entity ndash the sun ndash that exercises these two contrary powersAs I explain in section 3 the puzzle cannot be removed unless we assumethat in Cleanthes the sustenance of the world is and the conflagration isnot an end pursued by god The conflagration is just a side-effect of theworldrsquos sustenance albeit an inevitable one I conclude in section 4 withsome remarks on how different his solution is from other possible Stoicsolutions to the paradox



1 Platonic necessary concomitants

It is to Platorsquos Timaeus that we owe the distinction between ends meansand concomitants The latter are phenomena that are neither ends normeans to an end Yet they depend for their existence on ends and meansThey do so in two complementary senses Firstly these concomitantswould not obtain if certain ends could be achieved through other meansWe may express this idea by saying that concomitants lsquosupervene onrsquo theactual means to achieve these ends Second given these means the con-comitants are inevitable They do not merely supervene on these meansthey are also necessitated by them

This double dependence of concomitants is illustrated through an exam-ple that Plato develops from 74e to 75d There our short-livedness is pre-sented as an unavoidable side-effect of our having a thin skull which isa necessary means for achieving intelligence (frOgravenhsiw) I quote in Zeylrsquostranslation slightly modified a crucial part of the passage (75a4-c7Burnet)

On the other hand all those bodily parts that do possess intelligence are less[fleshy] except perhaps for a fleshy thing ndash the tongue for example ndash that wascreated to be itself an organ of sensation But in most cases it is as I said Forthere is no way that anything whose generation and composition are a conse-quence of Necessity can accommodate (le garingr sectj eacutenatildegkhw gignomdegnh kalsaquo sun-trefomdegnh fEcircsiw oEgravedamordf prosddegxetai) the combination of thick bone and massiveflesh with keen and responsive sensation If these two characteristics had toler-ated their concomitance (eDaggerper eumlma sumpcurrenptein plusmnyelhsatildethn) our heads aboveall else would have been so constituted as to possess this combination and thehuman race crowned with a head fortified with flesh and sinews would have alife twice or many more times as long a healthier and less painful life than theone we have now As it was however our makers calculated the pros and cons(eacutenalogizomdegnoiw) of giving our race greater longevity but making it worse ver-sus making it better though less long-lived and decided that the superior thoughshorter life-span was in every way preferable for everyone (pantlsaquo patildentvw aflretdegon)to the longer but inferior one This is why they capped the head with a sparselayer of bone ndash and not with flesh and sinew given that the head has no jointsFor all these reasons then the head has turned out to be more sensitive and intel-ligent but also in every manrsquos case much weaker than the body to which it isattached

In the example the end pursued is having an intelligent life ndash somethingPlato undoubtedly regards as good The thinness of our skull is a neces-sary means for attaining this end And our short-livedness is neither anend nor a means to that end but an inevitable consequence of the meansnecessary for the end In particular our short-livedness is not a means to


60 RICARDO SALLES

5 A locus classicus in Plato for the relation between cause and explanation isPhaedo 92A-102A For a recent (and partly negative) discussion of this relation seeSedley (1998) esp 121-23

6 See 74e8-10 our skull has to be thin because otherwise it would be unable toencase a brain as sensitive as the one we now have its hardness lsquowould cause insen-sibilityrsquo (eacutenaisyhscurrenan sectmpoioEumlsai) this in turn would make lsquothinking less retentiveand more obscurersquo (dusmnhmoneutOgravetera kalsaquo kvfOgravetera taring perlsaquo tOslashn diatildenoian)

7 See Steel (2001) 107 However for a critical discussion of the extent to whichhumans and their happiness are really part of godrsquos plan in the Timaeus see Broadie(2001) esp 8-21

that end For in order for something M to be a means to an end E Mshould be a cause of E and therefore explain why E occurs (lsquoE obtainsbecause of Mrsquo should be true)5 However it is not because we are short-lived that we are capable of intelligence we are capable of intelligencerather because our skull is thin

Now although our short-livedness is neither a means nor an end itdepends on means and ends in the two complementary senses I mentionedearlier Firstly had the thinness of our skull not been a necessary meansto achieve intelligence we would certainly have had a more resistant skulland in effect a longer life (75b6) In other words we would have had amore resistant skull and a longer life had the possession of intelligencebeen compatible with the possession of thick skulls (which is somethingthat Plato claims to be impossible cf oEgravedamordf prosddegxetai at 75b1)6

Therefore our short-livedness is supervenient on the actual means to achievean end Second given the necessary means to achieve intelligence namelythe thinness of our skull we are bound to be short-lived And this is sofor the simple reason that the thinness of the skull entails its fragilityThus the fact that we are short-lived is not just supervenient on the nec-essary means to achieve intelligence but also necessitated by it

The threefold distinction end-means-concomitants is used by Plato toexplain why in the ideally well-designed world described in the Timaeuswe are short-lived given that a longer life is better all else being equal7

Methodologically the argument starts from the undeniable observable factthat our life is short and then seeks to explain why despite the worldrsquosprovidential order our shortness of life is inevitable It is thus importantto stress that Platorsquos explanation is not that lsquoour makersrsquo were mean ornegligent at the time of designing us On the contrary our short-livednessis the result of an eacutenalogismOgravew or reasoned choice that they had to makeEach of the options they were faced with involved a compromise betweenlongevity and the quality of life lsquogiving our race greater longevity but



8 Two recent studies on the structural and historical connections between theTimaeus and early Stoic physics and cosmology (but that do not mention the parallelbetween Plato and Cleanthes that I am drawing) are Sedley (2002) and Betegh (2003)289-93

making it worse versus making it better though less long-livedrsquo (75b9-c1) Far from suggesting a lack of benevolence or of rationality in ourmakers the option they selected is meant by Plato at 75c3 to emphasisethese two traits it is the option that is preferable lsquoin every wayrsquo (patildentvw)and lsquofor everyonersquo (pantcurren)

I shall argue that to be consistent with the idea that god is fully ratio-nal and good Cleanthesrsquo cosmology logically requires that the conflagra-tion and the mechanical desiccation process of which it is the ultimateoutcome have the status of Platonic concomitants8 To be sure conflagra-tion and desiccation are not taken by Cleanthes as observable facts thatrequire no proof They are established through theoretical cosmologicalarguments This is a significant point of contrast with our short-livednessin the Timaeus which is an observable phenomenon But by analogy withour short-livedness in the Timaeus desiccation and conflagration are regardedby Cleanthes as unavoidable Also in the explanation given by Cleanthesas in the one offered by Plato the benevolence and full rationality of thedeity responsible for the design of the world is not put into question Forin Cleanthes too desiccation and conflagration come out as the result ofa compromise Being inevitable side-effects of the means employed by godto sustain the world they depend on this means in at least the secondsense in which Platonic concomitants lsquodependrsquo on means ndash god has nochoice but to let them occur in order to be able to carry out his plan (Ideal with the first sense at the end of section 3)

2 A puzzle in Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire

It is through reflection on a puzzle posed by Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire thatwe may come to the conclusion that he must have regarded the worldrsquosdesiccation and conflagration as Platonic concomitants This section isdevoted to presenting this puzzle As I pointed out in the introduction thepuzzle is that Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire seems to attribute contrary powersto the sun the power to sustain the world but also the power to desiccateand ultimately destroy it However how can one and the same entitysimultaneously exercise contrary powers To appreciate that this puzzledoes arise from Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire I shall consider several texts that


62 RICARDO SALLES

9 For a full discussion of how these four sections relate to Cleanthesrsquo earlier proofof the intelligence of the world at 229-30 see Hahm (1977) 267-73

either report the theory directly or help us understand some of its aspectsby comparison with the position of other early Stoics

A central passage dealing with Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire is Cicero ND240-41

40 That they [the stars] consist entirely of fire (tota esse ignea) Cleanthes holdsto be established by the evidence of two senses by touch and by sight For theheat and radiance of the sun is brighter than that of any fire inasmuch as it shinesso far and wide over the vast world and the contact of its rays is of such a naturethat it not only warms (tepefaciat) but often actually burns neither of whichthings could it do if it were not made of fire lsquoThereforersquo he proceeds lsquosince thesun is fiery and is nourished by the vapours of the oceanrsquo (for no fire can endurewithout some sort of nourishment) lsquoit is necessary that it be either like the firethat we employ for our use and maintenance or like the one contained in thebody of living things 41 Now this fire of ours whose use is needed for life isa destroyer and consumer of all things and also dissolves and scatters everythingwherever it spreads (Atqui hic noster ignis quem usus vitae requirit confectorest et consumptor omnium idemque quocumque invasit cuncta disturbat ac dissi-pat) By contrast the bodily fire is vital and salutary it preserves all things nour-ishes fosters growth sustains and bestows perception (omnia conservat alit augetsustinet sensuque adficit)rsquo He therefore denies that there is any doubt which ofthe two kinds of fire the sun is like for the sun too brings it about that all thingsflourish and grow according to their species

The passage is part of a longer text running from 239 to 242 In it Ciceroexpounds an argument by Cleanthes designed to prove that the starsincluding the sun are gods (in deorum numero astra esse ducenda) Theargument proceeds by claiming that (1) the sun is made out of fire and(2) the fire it is made out of is of the same kind as that lsquowhich is con-tained in the bodies of living thingsrsquo As such (3) it must be itself a liv-ing thing But (4) the stars occupy the region of ether and given the propertiesof ether its living inhabitants if any must have the highest form of lifeThis involves the highest degree of intellect And from this the intendedconclusion follows since ex hypothesi the stars are indeed living things9

Our passage establishes premises (1) and (2) of this argument Givencertain attributes of the sun ndash attributes that are directly observable ndash thesun is of a fiery nature Now the fire of the sun as any other fire is ofone of two kinds One is the kind that we use in our daily life (ie flame)This is destructive and consumes everything The other is the kind thatexists in the body of living things This takes the form of heat (calor) as



10 A similar account is found in Chrysippus except that his view seems to havebeen that the all-pervading stuff through which god sustains the world lsquobreathrsquo(pneEumlma) is a mixture of fire and air See Galen De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis[PHP] de Lacy 538 (SVF 2841 LS 47H) For discussion see LS 1 287 Long andSedley present Chrysippus as modifying Cleanthesrsquo position on this question As Iargue in section 3 however Chrysippus also believed that fire is an element morebasic than air which resolves into fire So there is reason for thinking that the addi-tion of air to the composition of the worldrsquos sustaining cause does not introduce initself any substantive difference between Chrysippus and Cleanthes

was explicitly stated earlier in ND (225-30 see below) but is also sug-gested in this very passage through the observation that the sunrsquos fire lsquowarmsrsquo(tepefaciat) Unlike the other kind of fire this one is vital and salutary It constitutes notably a sustaining rather than a destructive power The sunrsquos fire or heat causes things to flourish and grow according tothe species to which they belong It therefore cannot be made out of thedestructive kind that we use in daily life The sunrsquos fire is not flame Inconsequence the sunrsquos fire is heat which is the kind of fire that exists inthe body of living things

An earlier passage of this same book of the ND also refers to the ideathat heat is the power that sustains the world The views expressed therealso belong to Cleanthes and they are worth considering in detail becauseour analysis of them will allow us later on to appreciate the contrarinessof the powers that Cleanthes attributes to the sun The passage comes insection 28

From which we can conclude that since all the parts of the world are sustainedby heat (omnes mundi partes sustineantur calore) it is by an element either sim-ilar or identical [to fire] that the world itself has been preserved for such a longtime and all the more so because it should be understood that this warm andfiery entity is extended in every nature (intellegi debet calidum illud atque igneumita in omni fusum esse natura) so as to contain the power of reproduction andthe cause of generation and to be that from which all animate things as well asthose whose roots are supported by earth must be brought to birth and growThere is therefore an element that holds the whole world together and preservesit (Natura est igitur quae contineat mundum omnem eumque tueatur)

Notice that heat is not just responsible for the sustenance of the parts ofthe world It is also the cause of the sustenance and preservation of theworld as a whole And as was indicated earlier in sections 24-25 heatperforms this sustaining function by pervading the whole world and pen-etrating all things10 Another important feature of the present passage isthe role given to reproduction in godrsquos sustenance of the world The


64 RICARDO SALLES

11 I return to the Plutarch passage below On fyoratilde see also Alex in Ar meteor61 34-65 7 Hayduck (SVF 2594) where the idea is attributed to the lsquoStoicsrsquo (andHeraclitus) that desiccation is the cause of the destruction of the whole (afitcurrenan epermilnaitOslashn toEuml ˜lou metabolAElign te kalsaquo fyoratilden) but without reference to the emphasis putby Cleanthes on the fact that the desiccation is itself caused by the process of nour-ishment of the sun Notice that von Arnim seems to be wrong in classifying theAlexander passage under Chrysippus since Chrysippus is elsewhere reported by nameto have expressely denied that the world is destroyed at the conflagration See PlutStoic Rep 1052C (SVF 2604 LS 46E 1) lsquothe world must not be said to diersquo oEgrave=htdegon eacutepoynAEligskein tUacuten kOgravesmon See also 1053B (SVF 2605 LS 46F 1) at theconflagration the world is lsquoalive and animalrsquo (zinfinn kacurren zldquoon) The view reported byEusebius according to which those who believe in the lsquodissolution into fire of allthingsrsquo used the term lsquodestructionrsquo (fyoratilde) in a qualified sense to mean a type ofkataring fEcircsin metabolAElig or lsquonatural changersquo (praep ev 15182 Mras SVF 2596 LS46K) is very probably a reflection of this Chrysippean (but non Cleanthean) thesisFor discussion of this particular point see LS 1 278-9 The destruction of the lesserstars (who are lesser gods) by the sun is also discussed in Long (1990) 281-8

explanatory link suggested in the text between the reproduction of livingthings and this sustenance suggests that sustenance requires the continu-ation of the individual natural species that compose the natural order andthat this continuation is guaranteed by the reproduction of the individualmembers of each species ndash a notion that was implicitly alluded to in ND241 quoted at the beginning of this section

Let us now consider the puzzle I begin with the passage from ND 240-41 There a distinction is established between two kinds of fire onedestructive and the other constructive and benevolent And Cleanthesclassifies the sunrsquos fire as belonging to the constructive benevolent kindIf we look closely at the text however along with the constructive onesthat define it the sunrsquos fire also brings on destructive effects Thus thecontact of the sunrsquos rays lsquonot only warms but often actually burnsrsquo (nonut tepefaciat solum sed etiam saepe comburat) Similarly and more impor-tantly the sunrsquos fire nourishes itself from the vapours of the ocean Butas I shall argue shortly this process of nourishment entails a gradual des-iccation of the world in which the sunrsquos fire will ultimately consume theworld completely Cleanthes holds that at this stage there occurs a destruc-tion (fyoratilde) of the stars and presumably of the earth itself by the sun(Plutarch comm not 1075D) The problem is that Cicerorsquos text had identifieddestruction as something characteristic of the non-benevolent kind of fire It is this fire and not the sunrsquos fire which was supposed to be alsquodestroyerrsquo or confector11 Thus the sunrsquos fire is given contrary powers byCicero himself the power to sustain but also a power that was supposedto belong exclusively to the non-benevolent fire



12 Cf Zeno ap Alexander Lycopolis contra Manicheorum opiniones disputatio 192-4 Brinkmann (LS 46I) not in the SVF discussed in Mansfeld (1979) 147-9

13 Given that the sunrsquos fire is not flame but heat (calor) and that the conflagrationis a state where the whole is homogeneously composed of the sunrsquos fire the conflagra-

Evidence for this puzzle may also be gathered from other sources Considerfor instance the distinction between lsquodesigningrsquo (texnikOgraven) and lsquoundesign-ingrsquo (ecirctexnon) fire in Zeno the founder of the Stoic school The centralpassage is in Stobaeus (ecl 1 213 15-21 SVF 1120 LS 46D)

Zeno said that the sun the moon and each of the other stars are intelligent andprudent and have the fieriness of designing fire For there are two kinds of fireone is undesigning and transforms fuel into itself (tUacute mcentn ecirctexnon kalsaquo metabatildel-lon efiw bullautUacute tOslashn trofAElign) the other is designing causing growth and preser-vation (tUacute dcent texnikOgraven aEgravejhtikOgraven te kalsaquo thrhtikOgraven) as is the case in plantsand animals where it is physique and soul respectively Such is the fire whichconstitutes the substance of the stars (Long and Sedley trans slightly modified)

At first sight Zenorsquos distinction corresponds to that proposed byCleanthes Firstly Zenorsquos undesigning fire does not preserve things Nordoes Cleanthesrsquo destructive fire which is said to destroy them SecondZenorsquos designing fire causes growth and preservation of living things Andso does the constructive fire in Cleanthes It preserves all things (ND 41omnia conservat) and is responsible for the fact they grow ( pubescant cfauget) Finally both Zenorsquos designing fire and Cleanthesrsquo constructive fireare said to be that of the stars

These are three important parallels between Zeno and Cleanthes Butthere are also two fundamental differences Firstly we do not find in Zenothe puzzling element that we encounter in the theory of Cleanthes ForZeno does not either here or elsewhere attribute to the fire of the starsany effect that serves to define his undesigning fire Second Cleanthesdoes attribute to the sunrsquos fire a power that is characteristic of Zenorsquosundesigning fire as distinct from the fire of the stars It is the power oftransforming other things into itself (metabatildellon efiw bullautUacute)12 ForCleanthes is reported by Plutarch (comm not 1075D Cherniss) to haveclaimed that at the conflagration the sun metabalersaquo the stars into itself(patildenta metabalersaquon efiw bullautOgraven) It swallows up as it were the others starsand thereby causes all things to move from a state where they are dif-ferentiated from each other and from itself to a state where they have lostthis differentiation and in which nothing remains but the sunrsquos fiery stuff ndashan idea that would be parallel to the notion reported by Cicero at ND2118 that lsquonothing will remain but firersquo (relinqui nihil praeter ignem)13


66 RICARDO SALLES

tion in Cleanthes at least does not seem to involve flame as its main constituent Itis surprising therefore that Philo (SVF 1511) seems to attribute to Cleanthes the viewthat at the conflagration the world is transformed into lsquoflamersquo (flOgravej) metabatildelleindcent efiw flOgravega micro efiw aEgravegOslashn efiw mcentn flOgravega hellipw rsquoeto Kleatildenyhw efiw dEacute aEgravegOslashn hellipw ıXrEcircsippow Cf Cleanthes ap Stobaeus 1153 8 Wachsmuth where the conflagrationis a state where sectkflogisydegntow toEuml pantUacutew Notice though that the term flOgravej doesnot necessarily mean flame Cf LSJ s v 3 citing Aeschylus (Per 505 and Prom Des22) where it just means heat See also Homer Il 8135 with discussion in Graz (1965)200

14 Cf Plut Stoic Rep 1053F (SVF 2449 LS 47M 1) and Alex de mixtione 22325-36 Todd (SVF 2441 LS 47L) For discussion and further references see Hankinson(1987)

I return to this idea and to Plutarchrsquos report below For the moment noticethat Cleanthes attributes to the sunrsquos fire a power that originally belongedto Zenorsquos undesigning fire and therefore a power that was perceived bythe Zenonian tradition as contrary to the powers of Zenorsquos designing fire

If we go deeper into the notion of sustenance in Cleanthes the con-trariness of the effects that he attributes to the sunrsquos fire may be broughtout through a detailed argument

In ND book 240 the Latin for lsquosustainsrsquo is sustinet a verb that is alsoused in section 25 (sustinetur) Now one sentence in section 23 stronglysuggests that Cleanthes is referring to the technical Stoic notion of lsquosus-tainingrsquo or lsquocohesiversquo cause (sunektikUacuten aDaggertion) lsquoas soon as [our inner]heat (calore) is cooled and extinguished we ourselves perish and are extin-guishedrsquo For in the strict sense a sunektikUacuten aDaggertion is a cause of some-thing being and remaining what it is In consequence the activity ofsomethingrsquos sustaining cause is temporally coextensive with the existenceof that thing In particular the existence of the thing is brought to an endif (and only if) the activity of the cause comes to a stop as is the casein Cleanthesrsquo example Here is a classic text on Stoic causation that bringsout this idea (Clement of Alexandria strom 89331-2 Staumlhlin et al SVF2351 LS 55I 1-2)14

When lsquopreliminaryrsquo (prokatarktiklaquon) causes are removed the effect remainswhereas a lsquosustainingrsquo cause is one during whose presence the effect remains andon whose removal the effect is removed (o parOgraventow mdegnei tUacute eacutepotdeglesma kalsaquoafiromdegnou aDaggerretai) (Long and Sedley trans)

We may apply this causal theory to the conflagration in Cleanthes andargue that in order for the conflagration to take place the sustaining causeof the world must stop its activity or lsquobe removedrsquo There are two specific



15 Which does not mean that at the conflagration god must stop its activity sim-pliciter This would be impossible given that the Stoic god is essentially (and hencealways) active See especially ND 231-32 and Sextus Empiricus adv math 975-76(SVF 2311 LS 44C) The idea is rather that at the conflagration god ceases to sus-tain the world which is perfectly compatible with his doing something else namelycausing the conflagration I return to this issue in section 4 when I deal with the dif-ference between Cleanthes and some heterodox Stoics who contended that god is notthe cause of the conflagration

reasons for this One has to do with the notion of metabalersaquon and theother with that of sectjomoilaquosiw both referred to by Plutarch at comm not1075D The text as edited and translated by Cherniss runs as follows

parati tocurrennun sectpagvnizOgravemenow ı Kleatildenyhw tordf sectkpurasympsei ldeggei tOslashn selAElignhn kalsaquotaring loiparing ecircstra tUacuten yenlion lthellipw legemonikUacutengt sectjomoilaquosai patildenta bullautldquo kalsaquometabalersaquon efiw bullautOgraven

Cleanthes furthermore in his championship of the conflagration asserts that thesun ltas ruling facultygt assimilates to itself and transforms into itself the moonand all the rest of the stars

Consider first the notion of metabalersaquon The sun cannot simultaneouslytransform the stars into itself and sustain them for in the process of beingtransformed into something other than themselves the stars must cease tobe what they are As regards the notion of sectjomoilaquosiw the argument issimilar The sustenance of the world involves the continuation of the dif-ferent natural species as we have seen earlier in this section (ND 228)But the conflagration is a state where the whole is homogeneously com-posed of fire as is implied by the concept of homogeneity contained inthat of sectjomoilaquosiw The conflagration thereby involves the elimination ofany differentiation Thus in order for this elimination to occur the sus-taining cause of the world or god must stop its activity qua sustainingcause of the world15 In either case the conflagration and the desiccationof which it is the ultimate outcome are contrary to godrsquos sustenance ofthe world

3 Cleanthesrsquo solution to the puzzle conflagration and Platonic concomitants

We have been dealing with a puzzle that emerges from the texts dealingwith Cleanthesrsquo theory of fire the sunrsquos fire seems to possess and simul-taneously to exercise two contrary powers There are two interpretative


68 RICARDO SALLES

16 For a recent discussion of this long-standing topic of theological and philosoph-ical discussion see Swinburne (1998) chapter 7 and Rowe (2004) chaps 1 and 5

17 A similar point is made by Mansfeld in connection with Zenorsquos god (he cannotavoid that there be a limit to the duration of each conflagration see section 4 below)

strategies that we may use to approach the puzzle One is to emphasiseit According to Cleanthes heat is used by god through the sun in orderto achieve different but contrary ends sustenance and desiccationconflagra-tion This strategy presupposes the attribution to Cleanthes of a concep-tion of god that involves a contradiction god is an entity that pursuesdifferent ends that cannot be pursued simultaneously as ends Of coursewhen an end A is contrary to an end B the pursuit of A is not necessar-ily incompatible with the pursuit of B if A and B are pursued at differenttimes or by different agents A conflict does arise however when con-trary ends are pursued simultaneously and by the same agent as wouldbe the case in Cleanthes with sustenance on the one hand and desicca-tion-conflagration on the other if the latter were also an end that god ispursuing while sustaining the world

The other interpretative strategy seeks to remove the puzzle InCleanthes desiccation and conflagration do not have the status of endsbut of Platonic concomitants They are phenomena that are unavoidablegiven the means used by god to achieve his ultimate cosmological endThis end is the sustenance of the world as a whole The means he employsto achieve it is heat and the gradual desiccation of things together withthe conflagration are side-effects of this means The paradox is removedto a considerable extent For in this case god does not pursue conflictingends He tries to achieve a single end even though it is one whose pur-suit necessarily involves a compromise given that the necessary means tosustain the world is also the cause of a process that will lead to itsconflagration it is unavoidable that his sustenance of the world be peri-odically interrupted by its destruction

One could object that there is still a problem in the idea of somethingthat god himself cannot avoid The reply to this objection is that it leanson a problematic assumption about the nature of god The assumption is of course that god is an entity that can bring about anything whatso-ever that there is no rule of logic or of physics that he cannot bend Unlessgod has this unlimited power the objection collapses However this as-sumption is not only philosophically questionable16 but also given theargument I present in what follows alien to Cleanthesrsquo theology17



in Mansfeld (1979) 161 and by Long who also agrees with Mansfeld on this partic-ular issue (see Long (1985) 24) Also as Long has argued elsewhere (Long (1996)302-4 discussed in Dobbin (1998) 70-1 and Long (2002) 160-2 and 171-2 discussedin Graver (2003)) the idea that godrsquos power is limited is prominent in late Stoicismsee Hierocles ap Stobaeus 1 182 10-12 and Epictetus (diss 1110-12 and 21-3)although cf Seneca ep 652

18 Cf ND 337 the periodical proximity of the sun to the earth is explained byCleanthes as something that the sun does lsquoin order not to stay too far from its foodrsquo(ne longius discebat a cibo) The view that the sun is nourished by the earthrsquos humid-ity goes back to the earliest presocratics See notably ofl perlsaquo Yalinfinn ap Alex in Armetaph 23 26-29 Hayduck An extensive list of other places in which this view occursis provided by Pease in his commentary on ND 240 in Pease (1958) The idea thatdesiccation yields conflagration is also referred to in connection with the Stoics in DG469 12-25 (SVF 2599) discussed in Mansfeld (1979) 155 and in Long (1985) 26It is a view that also has its roots in presocratic philosophy See Anaximander andDiogenes of Apolonia ap Theophrastus ap Alex in Ar meteor 67 1-14 Hayduck

I shall argue in favour of the second strategy by giving evidence thatin Cleanthes desiccation and conflagration are indeed side-effects of heat-ing and that these are inevitable even for god

According to ND 240-41 quoted in the previous section the sun lsquoisnourished (alatur) by the vapours exhaled from the oceanrsquo18 As we knowfrom elsewhere these vapours are shed back again into the sea but witha loss of their initial matter Such loss however minimal yields a grad-ual process of desiccation of the earth and the ocean And through thisprocess the sunrsquos fire ends up consuming the whole world Consider sec-tion 118 of ND book 2

The stars however are of a fiery nature (natura flammeae) for which reasonthey are nourished (aluntur) by the vapours of the earth the sea and the watersthat are raised by the sun from the fields that it warms and from the waters Andonce the stars and the whole ether are nourished and renewed they shed themback and then back again it extracts them from the same source with a loss ofalmost nothing or only a very small part that is consumed by the fire of the starsand the flame of the ether (nihil ut fere intereat aut admodum paululum quodastrorum ignis et aetheris flamma consumit)

The details of how desiccation and conflagration are related are worth con-sidering They are mentioned by Cicero further in section 118

ultimately the whole world will take fire (ignesceret) because neither will theearth be able to be nourished nor will the air circulate its rising being unableto come about once it has exhausted all the water thus nothing will remain butfire (ita relinqui nihil praeter ignem)


70 RICARDO SALLES

19 On the reciprocal change of the elements at the cosmogony in Zeno seeStobaeus 1152 19-153 6 (SVF 1102) with discussion in Hahm (1977) 57-82 andin Mansfeld (1990) A detailed and extremely helpful comparison between elementalchange in Zenorsquos cosmogony and in Cleanthesrsquo (ap Stobaeus 1153 7-22 SVF 1497)is drawn in Hahm (1977) 79-81 (esp 80 n 64 at 90) In Hahmrsquos argument the basic-ness of fire is emphasised

Notice the use of modal terminology to describe the process the earth willbe unable to be nourished and fire will be unable to rise up This bringsout the necessity by which these two events are brought about in theprocess of desiccation Now if we look back at ND 240-41 we mayobserve that necessity encompasses not just the consequences of desicca-tion but the desiccation process itself In fact we are told that lsquono firecould ( possit) endure without some sort of nourishmentrsquo And we knowthat the vapours of the ocean are what nourish the sun Thus the sun couldnot bring about its constructive effects (and notably its sustenance of theworld) unless it endures it would not endure unless it nourishes itselfbut given the nature of its nourishment or fuel the sun engages the worldin a gradual process of desiccation while nourishing itself It is for thisreason that in Cleanthes the desiccation and conflagration are necessaryside-effects of the means that god uses to sustain the world

At this stage one may wonder why god employs fire as a means tosustain the world Why does he if this will inevitably cause desiccationGiven his full rationality god would select if he could a different meansto sustain the world ndash one that does not bring on effects that are contraryto sustenance The fact that he has not selected a different means is tellingFor it implies that god cannot select a means to sustain the world otherthan fire But why cannot he This is the fact that requires explanation

The explanation may be found in two connected claims from Stoic ele-mental theory One of them is that fire is the most basic of all elementsthe other is that it is the thinnest

To begin with basicness the Stoics like many other Greeks believedthat the four elements are the basic constituents of reality They are basicin the sense that all other things are composed by means of (sundegsthkediatilde) either one or more than one of them But the Stoics also believedthat the four elements are not equally basic and in particular that fire is the most basic of all This hierarchical conception of the four elementsis attested for Chrysippus in Stobaeus who also refers to Zeno19 In fact both Zeno and Chrysippus are mentioned by name (ecl 1129 1-3)The part of the passage on which I should like to focus (ecl 1130



20 Cf Galen Nat Fac 106 13-17 Helmreich (Scripta Minora Teubner vol 3)

1-13 Wachsmuth = LS 47A 6-9) puts forward three senses of the termlsquoelementrsquo

Element then according to Chrysippus has three meanings First it means firebecause from it the remaining elements are composed by transformation (kataringmetabolAElign) and into it they get their resolution (eacutenatildelusin) Secondly it meansthe four elements fire air water earth since all other things are composed bymeans of a particular one of these or more than one of these or all of these ndashall four in the case of animals and all terrestrial compounds two in the case ofthe moon which is composed by means of fire and air and just one in the caseof the sun which is composed by means of fire On the third account elementis said to be that which is primarily so composed that it causes generation fromitself methodically up to a terminus and from that receives resolution into itselfby the like method (gdegnesin didOgravenai eacutefEacute aIacutetoEuml ıdldquo mdegxri tdeglouw kalsaquo sectjsectkecurrennou tOslashn eacutenatildelusin ddegxesyai efiw bullautUacute tordf ımocurrenamp ıdldquo) (Long and Sedleytrans slightly modified)

The reason given for the basicness of fire lies in the central claim thattheir reciprocal change has a fixed origin and direction it is a change fromfire into the other elements and then back from the other elements intofire The text expresses this idea by saying that the other elements arelsquocomposed fromrsquo fire and lsquoresolve intorsquo it This account of the basicnessof fire with respect to the other elements is significant for our present dis-cussion For fire could not be done away with as a means to sustain theworld if god could select something other than fire to sustain it thismeans would have originated from fire and would ultimately resolve intofire

Notice that according to the theory it is not contingent that fire be themost basic of all elements and in particular that fire cannot resolve intoone of the other three elements The reason may be appreciated throughanother argument that is also implied in Stobaeusrsquo report I call it the lsquofirstargument from thinnessrsquo We have seen that in general terms (i) elementA is more basic than element B if and only if B resolves into A ratherthan the other way round Now (ii) it is by diffusion or xEcircsiw as opposedto lsquotransformationrsquo (metabolAElig) that a higher element resolves into a lowerone This presupposes that (iii) the thinner an element is the less suscep-tible it is to being resolved into some other lower element But (iv) fireis the thinnest of the four elements Therefore it is also the most basicthere is no element into which it could resolve I quote again Stobaeus ina passage where (ii) is explicitly stated and (iii) and (iv) are at leaststrongly implied (ecl 1129 18-23 Wachsmuth = LS 47A 4)20


72 RICARDO SALLES

[SVF 2406 LS 47E] For an excellent discussion of Stoic elemental change as achange in volume and density see Hahm (1985) 43-7 Also at 40-2 Hahm showsvery well why Stoic elemental theory departs from the Peripatetic view according towhich the four elements ndash and hence fire ndash resolve into some more basic stuff

21 Cf Hyppolytus Ref 1 7 1-3 at 11 16-12 9 Wendland (DK 13 A7 KRS 141)For the claim that air resolves by diffusion into fire see also eacuteraioEcircmenon pEumlrgcurrennesyai in Theophrastus ap Simplicius in Ar phys 24 26-25 1 Diels at 24 29 (DK13 A5 KRS 140) A helpful discussion of this issue is provided in Klowski (1972)

The first transformation to occur is the one from fire into air by condensation(kataring sEcircstasin) and the second ensuing from this into water and the thirdwith water being still more compressed (sunistamdegnou) on the same principleinto earth Reciprocally from the dissolution ie diffusion (eacutepUacute taEcircthw dialuomdegnhwkalsaquo diaxeomdegnhw) of earth the first diffusion (xEcircsiw) is into water the secondfrom water into air (efiw eacutedegra) the third and last into fire (Long and Sedley transslightly modified)

The really contentious thesis in the first argument from thinness is that thethinner an element is the more basic it is in the sense that it is that whichthese other elements change from and into Anaximenes for instance thePresocratic would concede that fire is the thinnest of all elements butdeny that it is thereby the most basic For according to him air (eacutedegr) isthe most basic in the sense envisaged by the Stoics ndash it is that lsquofrom whichthe things that are becoming and that have become and that shall be andgods and things divine all come into being and the rest from its prod-uctsrsquo (sectj o taring ginOgravemena kalsaquo taring gegonOgraveta kalsaquo taring sectsOgravemena kalsaquo yeoAacutew kalsaquoyersaquoa gcurrennesyai taring dcent loiparing sectk tlaquon toEcirctou eacutepogOgravenvn) ndash even though it isnot the thinnest since it resolves by diffusion (diaxuyordf) into fire21 Thisdifference between the early Stoics and Anaximenes reveals a deeper dis-agreement over whether the notion of something that does not resolve intoanything else is a criterion of basicness For Anaximenes it is not How-ever important this polemic may be a full discussion of it would take ustoo far away from our initial goal which was to establish whether forCleanthes it is a contingent fact that god uses fire as means to sustain theworld We have seen that given its basicness in Stoic elemental theoryit is not

Let us now consider what we may call the lsquosecond argument from thin-nessrsquo The very idea that fire is the thinnest element is in itself (ie inde-pendently of its basicness) a reason for there being no means other thanfire that god could employ to sustain the world A tenet of Stoic physicsis that the worldrsquos sustaining cause performs its function by physicallypenetrating every inch of each of the individual bodies it is composed of



22 Cf Alex mixt 216 14-218 6 Todd esp 218 2-6 (LS 48C12 ) Together withtheir lightness and tension the thinness of fire and air are presented as the reasonswhy they pass through the other two elements as lsquowholes through wholesrsquo (˜la diEacute˜lvn) See also Galen de causis continentibus 11-24 Lyons et al (LS 55F) esp 13For discussion see Sorabji (1988) 98-9

23 A correlation is established between the thinness of a body and its mobility at242 and between the mobility of a body and its capacity to penetrate other bodies at231 For eacutentitupcurrena in Cleanthes see Stobaeus 1 153 7-22 (SVF 1497) esp at 10-12 ToEuml dcent pantUacutew sectjugranydegntow tUacute parasxaton toEuml purOgravew eacutentitupAEligsantow aEgravetldquo toEumlmdegsou trdegpesyai patildelin efiw toEgravenantcurrenon (lsquoWhen the all has become wet the outer-most layer of fire is turned back into the opposite direction given that the middle offersresistance to itrsquo) For extensive discussion ndash without wholesale emendation ndash of thisextremely obscure report of Cleanthes see Hahm (1977) 240-8 See also Mansfeld(1978) 161-2 and 165

And in order for a body A to penetrate a body B A must be thinner thanB the idea being that a body offers less resistance (eacutentitupcurrena) to a thin-ner body than to a thicker one22 This thesis is attested for Cleanthes inND23 Therefore the worldrsquos sustaining cause could not penetrate everybody if it were not the thinnest of all elements But fire is the thinnest ofall elements Therefore fire if anything must be the worldrsquos sustainingcause

To return to the main argument of this paper Cleanthes can solve theAristotelian paradox of conflagration in a way that does full justice to thegoodness and rationality of god Why is it that god destroys the world torebuild an identical one The answer is that the destruction of the worldis caused not as an end that god would pursue simultaneously with itssustenance but as a Platonic side-effect of this sustenance In particularit is necessitated by the necessary means used by god to sustain the worldwhich is the second sense in which Platonic concomitants may depend onmeans and ends And it also depends on them in the first sense For if perimpossibile god had not chosen fire as a means to sustain the world thenpresumably no desiccation and no conflagration would occur since theiractual cause has to do specifically with the nature of fire The conflagra-tion however is clearly contrary to godrsquos primary end When it takesplace as it must it is disruptive of his cosmological plan which is to sus-tain the world In consequence his rationality and therefore his goodnessrequire him to restore the world exactly as it existed before

One aspect of this interpretation that I shall emphasise in the next sec-tion is that the conflagration is not the ultimate goal pursued by the Cleantheangod which is a point of contrast between him and the Chrysippean god


74 RICARDO SALLES

24 Namely Boethus and Panaetius Zeno of Tarsus and Diogenes of Babylon pupilsof Chrysippus suspended judgement For Zeno see SVF 3 Zeno Tarsiensis 5 ForDiogenes Boethus and Panaetius see SVF 3 Boeumlthus Sidonius 7 followed by DiogenesBabylonius 27 The evidence is discussed in Mansfeld (1979) 156-7 Boethusrsquo posi-tion (more precisely that of ofl perlsaquo tUacuten BOgravehton) is presented in some detail in SVF3 Boeumlthus Sidonius 7 (Philo aet mundi 76) the world is not destructible because thereis nothing either inside or outside it that could destroy it (oEgravedemcurrenan fyoropoiUacutenafitcurrenan eIacuterersaquon parastin oIcirctEacute sectntUacutew oIcirctEacute sectktOgravew part tUacuten kOgravesmon eacutenelersaquo)

25 See unnamed Stoics ap Philo in SVF 2620 gendegsevw dcent aEgravetoEuml yeUacuten afitcurrenonfyorccedilw dcent mhkdegti yeUacuten eacutellaring tOslashn Iacutepatilderxousan sectn torsaquow oOcircsi purUacutew eacutekamatildetoudEcircnamin (lsquoof its generation god is the cause but of its destruction it is no longergod but rather the power of the tireless fire that exists in individual thingsrsquo) CfSeneca de ira 227 (gods are wholly good and harmful natural phenomena lsquohave theirown lawsrsquo suas ista leges habent) and the evidence cited in Mansfeld (1979) 157-8Contrary to what is implied by von Arnim (who classifies 2620 under Chrysippus)this dualistic approach cannot be Chrysippean It may well be as Mansfeld suggestsa heterodox view of the late Hellenistic period even though as we have seen (seeabove section 2) Zeno himself uses dualistic language in attributing harmful phe-nomena exclusively to his ecirctexnon fire and benevolent phenomena exclusively to histexnikOgraven fire (Stobaeus 1213 15-21 SVF 1120 LS 46D) There also were someStoics who accepted that there will be a conflagration and that god will be its causebut argued that the new world will not be identical to the present one See lsquothe Stoicsrsquoap Alex in Ar a pr 181 25-31 Wallies LS 52F2 This position may have beenmotivated by the desire to provide an alternative solution to Aristotlersquos paradox ofconflagration (for a different interpretation see Barnes (1978)) even though the cre-ation of a different world would also put into question godrsquos rationality See Salles(2003)

4 The originality of Cleanthes within the Stoic tradition

I conclude with some remarks on the place of Cleanthes on the map ofStoic approaches to the paradox

Cleanthesrsquo conception of the conflagration as a Platonic concomitantwas not a standard conception within Stoicism In fact different Stoicsheld different views regarding this phenomenon Some gave up the veryidea of conflagration24 Others preserved this idea but denied that theconflagration will be caused by god God is responsible for the creationof the world but not for its destruction which is due to a kind of fire thatis distinct from god25 These two positions may avoid the paradox ofconflagration For the very question that motivates the paradox ndash why doesgod destroy the world to rebuild an identical one ndash is certainly misguidedif (i) there is no conflagration at all or if (ii) the conflagration is not causedby god But they avoid the paradox at the cost of abandoning Stoic orthodoxy

Cleanthes did not adopt any of these positions as a way to avoid theparadox To begin with (i) his belief in the conflagration is well attested



26 See notably Galen PHP 482 12-13 de Lacy kalsaquo toioEumltOgraven tina lOgravegon ıXrEcircsippow paragracen ldquoparanya taring patildeyh tinfinw cuxinfinw sectntaEumlya kalsaquo tUacute legemonikOgraven taring dcent

As for (ii) his god is indeed the cause of the conflagration For theconflagration is caused by desiccation which is caused by heating whichis something that god does to sustain the world A Cleanthean solution tothe Aristotelian paradox is orthodox at least in the sense that it preservesthe ideas of conflagration and causal monism

Even within orthodox Stoicism however Cleanthesrsquo position has someclaim to originality To begin the key idea that the conflagration is a Platonicconcomitant is not attested for any other early Stoics Chrysippus isreported by Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 717-12 Marshall SVF 21170LS 54Q) to have explained the existence of certain phenomena such as ill-nesses and infirmities by using a notion of concomitant that is nearly iden-tical to the one we find in Tim 74e-75d But the Gellius passage does notcite the conflagration nor any other cosmic phenomenon as among thethings that are concomitants to something else In addition to this argu-ment ex silentio there is even reason to doubt whether the doctrine thatGellius reports can be Chrysippean I think that it cannot Consider thelast part of the report (NA 7110-12)

Just as he says when nature was creating menrsquos bodies it was required for theenhancement of our rationality and for the very utility of the product that sheshould construct the head of very thin and tiny portions of bone but this utilityin the principal enterprise had as a further extraneous consequence the inconve-nience that the head became thinly protected and fragile to small blows andknocks (sed hanc utilitatem rei maioris alia quaedam incommoditas extrinsecusconsecuta est ut fieret caput tenuiter munitum et octibus offensionibusque parvisfragile) ndash so too illnesses and diseases were created while health was being created

Crucial to the doctrine is a comparison between the skullrsquos fragility onthe one hand and illnesses and diseases on the other The gist of the skullexample is hardly one that Chrysippus could have endorsed It presup-poses as Plato does that the head is the seat of the faculty of reasonWithout this assumption it is not clear why any correlation should holdbetween the development of rationality and the structure of the skull Butwe know from other sources that for Chrysippus the faculty of reason islocated in the heart and that he even mounted an argument to refute theview that it is in the head26

The originality of the Cleanthean solution may also be appreciatedwhen we compare it to the way in which Chrysippus seems to have han-


76 RICARDO SALLES

patildeyh tinfinw cuxinfinw sectn kardcurrenamp sectn taEcirct˙ ecircra kalsaquo tUacute legemonikOgravenrdquo (lsquoChrysippus alsowrote an argument of this kind ldquowhere the affections of the soul are there is also the governing part the affections of the soul are in the heart therefore the governingpart is in it alsordquorsquo) Cf 154 15-156 9 esp 156 1-3 and 6-9 176 24-25 and 23416-20

27 See Mansfeld (1979) 174-83 (1981) 304-9 and (1999) 468 See also LS 1278-9

28 See Long (1985) 24-529 This paper was written while I was a Fellow of Harvardrsquos Center for Hellenic

Studies in Washington DC Earlier versions of it were delivered in February 2004 at

dled the notion of conflagration According to an important interpretationthat has been proposed in recent years by Jaap Mansfeld27 the Chrysip-pean god causes the conflagration because it is a better state than theordered world On this view godrsquos ultimate cosmological goal is not thesustenance of the world but its conflagration If so what is paradoxicalis not that god destroys the world (or that he destroys it to create a newidentical one ndash a notion that Chrysippus does not abandon) The paradoxwould be rather that the conflagration being the best possible state isinterrupted by the restoration of a new ordered world And in Mansfeldrsquosinterpretation the reason is that this interruption is necessary because nofire can burn forever To do so the fire would need an infinite amountfuel But this is impossible since the quantity of matter in the Stoic worldis finite Thus each conflagration exhausts its fuel and god has to rebuild anew world to produce fuel for a new conflagration and so on ad infinitum

If we follow this interpretation of Chrysippus (which has caused somepolemic)28 and if my interpretation of Cleanthes is also correct the dif-ference between Chrysippus and Cleanthes is substantive According toChrysippus the conflagration is the ultimate goal pursued by god But forCleanthes it is not Cleanthes does not have the view that the conflagra-tion is the ultimate end pursued by god In fact it is not even an end Itis merely a side-effect Moreover in Chrysippus god restores the worldin order to provide fuel for a new conflagration The restoration is a meansto the conflagration By contrast in Cleanthes the restoration is a means toachieve the ordered-world But the ordered-world is not itself a means toanything further It is an end in itself whose pursuit is periodically inter-rupted by the conflagration which requires given godrsquos full rationalitythe restoration of an identical world when it subsides29

Instituto de Investigaciones FilosoacuteficasUniversidad Nacional Autoacutenoma de Meacutexico



the Philosophy Department of the National University of Colombia in Bogotaacute and atthe lsquoGood Lifersquo conference that took place at the CHS I wish to thank those audi-ences for the subsequent discussion and especially Alfonso Correa Patrica CurdGeoffrey Lloyd Tony Long Andrea Lozano Greg Nagy Germaacuten Meleacutendez and ThanassisSamaras I am also grateful to Emese Mogyoroacutedi and Julie Laskaris for our conver-sations on ND 225-28 and to Marcelo Boeri and the Editors of this journal for theirextremely helpful comments on the penultimate version The paper benefited from thesupport of two research projects CONACYT 40891-H and PAPIIT IN401301 I ded-icate it to the memory of my dear friend Eric Lanelongue

References to modern works

Barnes J (1978) lsquoLa Doctrine du Retour Eacuteternelrsquo in J Brunschwig (ed) Les Stoiumlcienset leur logique Paris 1978

Betegh G (2003) lsquoCosmological ethics in the Timaeus and Early Stoicismrsquo OxfordStudies in Ancient Philosophy 24 (Summer 2003) 273-302

Broadie S (2001) lsquoTheodicy and pseudo-history in the Timaeusrsquo Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy 21 (Winter 2001) 1-28

Chroust A H (1977) lsquoSome observations on Aristotlersquos doctrine of the uncreated-ness and indestructibility of the universersquo Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia322 (1977) 123-43

Dobbin R F (1998) Epictetus Discourses 1 Oxford 1998Furley D (1999) lsquoCosmologyrsquo in K Algra et al (eds) Cambridge History of Hellenistic

Philosophy Cambridge 1999Graver M (2003) lsquoNot even Zeus A discussion of A A Long Epictetus A Stoic

and Socratic Guide to Lifersquo Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 25 (Winter 2003)345-60

Graz L (1965) Le Feu dans lrsquo Iliade el lrsquo Odysseacutee PYR Champ drsquo Emploi et SignificationParis 1965

Hahm D (1977) The Origins of Stoic Cosmology Columbus Ohio 1977mdashmdash (1985) lsquoThe Stoic theory of changersquo R H Epp (ed) Recovering the Stoics

Spindel Conference 1984 Suppl Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (1985) 39-56Hankinson R J (1987) lsquoCauses and empiricism a problem in the interpretation of

later Greek medical methodrsquo Phronesis 32 (1987) 329-48Klowski J (1972) lsquoIst der Aer des Anaximenes als eine Substanz konzipiertrsquo Hermes

100 (1972) 131-142Long A A (1985) lsquoThe Stoics on world-conflagration and everlasting recurrencersquo in

R H Epp (ed) Recovering the Stoics Spindel Conference 1984 Suppl SouthernJournal of Philosophy 23 (1985) 13-37

mdashmdash (1990) lsquoScepticism about gods in Hellenistic philosophyrsquo in M Griffith and D Mastronarde (eds) Cabinet of the Muses Essays on Classical and ComparativeLiterature in Honor of Thomas G Rosenmeyer Atlanta Georgia 1990

mdashmdash (1996) lsquoNotes on Hierocles Stoicus apud Stobaeumrsquo in M Serena Funghi (ed)Odoi Dizesios Le Vie della Ricerca Studi in onore di Francesco Adorno Florence1996

mdashmdash (1998) lsquoTheophrastus and the Stoarsquo in J M van Ophuijsen and M van Raalte(eds) Theophrastus Reappraising the Sources New Brunswick and London 1998


78 RICARDO SALLES

mdashmdash (2002) Epictetus A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life Oxford 2002mdashmdash amp Sedley D N The Hellenistic Philosophers [LS] Two volumes Cambridge

1987Mansfeld J (1978) lsquoZeno of Citiumrsquo Mnemosyne 31 (1978) 134-78mdashmdash (1979) lsquoProvidence and the destruction of the universe in early Stoic thought

With some remarks on the lsquoMysteries of Philosophyrsquorsquo in M J Vermaseren (ed)Studies in Hellenistic Religions Leiden 1979

mdashmdash (1981) lsquoBad world and demiurge A lsquoGnosticrsquo motif from Parmenides andEmpedocles to Lucretius and Philorsquo in R van den Broek and M J Vermaseren(eds) Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions Leiden 1981

mdashmdash (1990) lsquoZeno and Aristotle on Mixturersquo Mnemosyne 36 (1984) 306-12mdashmdash (1999) lsquoTheologyrsquo in K Algra et al (eds) Cambridge History of Hellenistic

Philosophy Cambridge 1999Pease A S (1958) (ed) M Tulli Ciceronis De Natura Deorum Cambridge

Massachusetts 1958Rowe W (2004) Can God Be Free Oxford 2004Salles R (2003) lsquoDeterminism and recurrence in early Stoic thoughtrsquo Oxford Studies

in Ancient Philosophy 24 (Summer 2003) 253-72Sandbach F H (1975) The Stoics London 1975Sedley D N (1998) lsquoPlatonic causesrsquo Phronesis 432 (1998) 114-132mdashmdash (2002) lsquoThe origins of Stoic godrsquo in D Frede and A Laks (eds) Traditions of

Theology Studies in Hellenistic Theology Its Background and Aftermath LeidenBrill 2002 41-83

Sorabji R (1988) Matter Space and Motion Theories in Antiquity and their SequelLondon Duckworth 1988

Steel C (2001) lsquoThe Moral Purpose of the Human Body A reading of Timaeus 69-72rsquo Phronesis 462 (2001) 105-128

Swinburne R (1998) Providence and the Problem of Evil Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1998



Accepted July 20041 The section of the De Philosophia contained in fragment 19c Ross (of which the

passage I quoted is a part) seeks to establish the impossibility of the worldrsquos destruc-tion by arguing that it is contrary to the nature of god in the following (exhaustive)cases (a) when the destruction is not followed by the making of another world and(b) when it is This latter case is divided into two sub-cases (b1) when the other worldis different from the present one and (b2) when it is identical to it Our present pas-sage is the argument given in connection with (b2) For discussion of the fragment asa whole see Chroust (1977) and Mansfeld (1979) at 138-44

2 See Sandbach (1975) 79 Mansfeld (1999) 467-8 Furley (1999) 439 and Salles(2003) 263-7

3 It is at least possible that the early Stoics in general did know of the paradox(along with the other Aristotelian arguments against the destructibility of the world infrs 19a-c Ross) and that they addressed it in their cosmology For the view that thisis not only possible but likely see Mansfeld (1979) 138 and 159-72 Long (1985) 25lsquowholly agree[s]rsquo with Mansfeld on this particular issue (although not on others seemy section 4 below) See also Long (1998) 361-7 esp 364 n 15

4 Cleanthes ap Cicero De Natura Deorum [ND] 2118 I return to this passage insection 2 below

The problem relates not so much to the destruction of the world as to itsdestruction followed by the restoration of an identical world1 If the newworld will be identical what does god destroy the present world for Godwould have a reason to destroy it if the present world were replaced by a better one But according to orthodox Stoicism the new world is notbetter2 Thus apparently god is not acting fully rationally in this oneinstance But this goes against the perfect rationality of the Stoic godwhich is presupposed by his perfect goodness I shall refer to this problemas the lsquoparadox of conflagrationrsquo

It is not the purpose of this paper to determine whether Cleanthes knewof this Aristotelian paradox nor whether if he did there is textual evi-dence that he sought to avoid it3 The purpose of this paper is rather toaddress the more abstract question of whether his cosmology can avoidthe paradox in a way that is philosophically satisfactory My main con-tention is that it can The elements of a solution may be gathered from aseries of theses that as I shall argue may be attributed to him On hisview god acts upon the world in order to sustain and preserve it This isthe ultimate cosmological goal that he pursues However the means heemploys to sustain the world is heat And an inevitable side-effect of heat-ing is a gradual desiccation of the world as a whole in which heat willend up consuming the world entirely In effect lsquonothing will remain butfirersquo (relinqui nihil praeter ignem)4 The conflagration therefore is the


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Documents

Salles. Ekpírosis and the Godness of God in Cleantes