Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.137 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.137
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
The four elements together constitute unqualified substance or matter. Fire is the hot element, water the moist, air the cold, earth the dry. Not but what the quality of dryness is also found in the air. Fire has the uppermost place; it is also called aether, and in it the sphere of the fixed stars is first created; then comes the sphere of the planets, next to that the air, then the water, and lowest of all the earth, which is at the centre of all things. The term universe or cosmos is used by them in three senses: (1) of God himself, the individual being whose quality is derived from the whole of substance; he is indestructible and ingenerable, being the artificer of this orderly arrangement, who at stated periods of time absorbs into himself the whole of substance and again creates it from himself.
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.137 (on the Stoics), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.137
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, tr. R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe four elements make up unqualified matter, with fire at the top (aether), then the planetary spheres, air, water and earth at the centre. The word for cosmos has three senses, the first being God himself, who periodically absorbs all substance and creates it again.
Older wording
- “aether”
- — the pure fiery upper element of the sky
- “ingenerable”
- — never created, without a beginning
- “artificer”
- — a skilled maker or craftsman
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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