Ancient riddles. Marcus Aurelius 4.46

Marcus Aurelius here summarizes four sayings attributed to Heraclitus of Ephesus, an ancient Ionian philosopher whom many Stoics respected (including Roman Stoics in the tradition of Caius Musonius Rufus, the master of Epictetus, whose discourses we know Marcus read). Marcus' take on Heraclitus: nature exists by interchange that creates life from death constantly; humanity should participate in that interchange virtuously, choosing good death for other species and for itself. Good death is the natural end to good life; as a Stoic, one should live such that death can be met with joyful resignation. Marcus paraphrases Heraclitus, where other ancient authorities quote. Quotations of the aphorisms Marcus collects are provided in the notes, where possible, in bold.

Ἀεὶ τοῦ Ἡρακλειτείου μεμνῆσθαι, ὅτι γῆς θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι καὶ ὕδατος θάνατος ἀέρα γενέσθαι καὶ ἀέρος πῦρ καὶ ἔμπαλιν. μεμνῆσθαι δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἐπιλανθανομένου, ᾗ ἡ ὁδὸς ἄγει· καὶ ὅτι, ᾧ μάλιστα διηνεκῶς ὁμιλοῦσι, λόγῳ τῷ τὰ ὅλα διοικοῦντι, τούτῳ διαφέρονται· καὶ οἷς καθ’ ἡμέραν ἐγκυροῦσι, ταῦτα αὐτοῖς ξένα φαίνεται· καὶ ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ὥσπερ καθεύδοντας ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν, καὶ γὰρ καὶ τότε δοκοῦμεν ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν· καὶ ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ὡς παῖδας τοκεώνων, τουτέστι κατὰ ψιλόν, καθότι παρειλήφαμεν.

Always remember the Heraclitean aphorism, that the death of earth is water, the death of water air, the death of air fire, and vice versa (*). Remember too the saying of his that you forgot earlier, about where the road leads (†). And the one about the order that inhabits all things: how people quarrel with it and fail to join it despite consorting with it constantly, for that which they meet every day strikes them as alien, uncouth, strange. They act and speak as though they were asleep, for in dreams our deeds and utterance are merely fantasies (‡). Also the aphorism where he remarks that we must not act or speak as children of our parents—in simple terms, we should not blindly repeat what we have received (⁑).

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(*) Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. 500 BCE) wrote his philosophy in a book of riddling oracles that he deposited in the local temple of Artemis. That book remains extant only in quoted fragments, which justify the tradition that named their author obscure (ὁ σκοτεινός in Aristotle, de Mundo 396b). His riddles were recycled and (re)interpreted by many later philosophers, including Stoics, who may be responsible for Marcus' reference to fire (πῦρ) here instead of soul (ψυχή), which appears in other quotations of this aphorism. The emperor, like his sources, might see no large difference between the mortal soul and the material element: some imagined that our souls are little sparks of cosmic flame, kindling, blazing, and then going out in small cycles whose process imitates the larger cycles of the universe (which they thought of as being itself subject to birth, maturation, death, and rebirth). In any case, the first riddle Marcus cites appears to indicate an endless and mutually reinforcing relationship between birth and death in nature (that Nietzche would frame as the eternal return). The riddle is worth citing in full, from our best proof-text (for more texts, cf. Diels-Kranz 36, Marcovich 66), where it is presented by Clement of Alexandria as Heraclitus' take on the doctrine of an older Orphic poem (justifying Unamuno's observation that the eternal return is Orphic, incidentally):

Ὀρφέως δὲ ποιήσαντος·

    ἔστιν ὕδωρ ψυχῇ, θάνατος δ’ ὑδάτεσσιν ἀμοιβή,

    ἐκ δὲ ὕδατος μὲν γαῖα, τὸ δ’ ἐκ γαίας πάλιν ὕδωρ·

    ἐκ τοῦ δὴ ψυχὴ ὅλον αἰθέρα ἀλλάσσουσα·

Ἡράκλειτος ἐκ τούτων συνιστάμενος τοὺς λόγους ὧδέ πως γράφει· «ψυχῇσιν θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι, ὕδατι δὲ θάνατος γῆν γενέσθαι, ἐκ γῆς δὲ ὕδωρ γίνεται, ἐξ ὕδατος δὲ ψυχή».

Orpheus made verses:

 

    Water dwelling deep in soul

    Death is change for waters though

    From the water rises earth

    And her ground gives water birth.

    Soul then alters all her lair

    Changes waters into air.

Heraclitus writes his own words to explain these lines: “Water is the death of souls, and earth the death of water. But then water rises from earth, and soul from water.”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.2.17 (Früchtel et al)

Soul is here taken to be substantial, and in some sense identical with the primal element of air. Some Stoics would prefer to make the material soul's element fire (or perhaps a kind of bright air, something between air and fire). The word αἰθήρ takes on connotations of fire over time, with their help, coloring its original usage, which is to indicate upper air (cf. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery & Magic).

(†) Ancient citations of this riddle are gathered by Diels-Kranz 60 (Marcovich 33). The best proof-text comes from the Christian author of a manual of heretical philosophy (Greek title: Φιλοσοφούμενα) whom most identify as Hippolytus of Rome (c.170-235 CE). Books 4-10 of this manual, discovered by Minoides Mynas in a monastery of Mount Athos in 1842, were published by Emmanuel Miller in 1851 as the work of Origen of Alexandria, though that attribution is dubious. The ninth book is all about the doctrine of Noetus (c. 230 CE), a presbyter of Smyrna whose heresy it traces back to Heraclitus, with profuse quotation to establish and illustrate the connection. Our riddle is one of many there, and fortunately occurs in a form more complete than Marcus chose to provide:

Οὕτως οὖν Ἡράκλειτος ἐν ἴσῃ μοίρᾳ τίθεται καὶ τιμᾷ τὰ ἐμφανῆ τοῖς ἀφανέσιν, ὡς ἕν τι τὸ ἐμφανὲς καὶ τὸ ἀφανὲς ὁμολογουμένως ὑπάρχον ... «ὁδός», φησίν, «ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή».

Heraclitus treats appearances and invisible realities with no partiality, offering the same honor to what is evident and what is hidden in the realm of our shared existence … “The way up leads also down,” he says, “being one and the same road.”

Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 9.10.1-5 (Marcovich)

It is interesting to note that this aphorism and the one before it appear paraphrased together in a fragment of Epictetus' discourse On Friendship (Περὶ φιλίας). The fragment in question appears in the mammoth anthology compiled by John of Stobi (fl. 5th century CE), who identifies its original source as Caius Musonius Rufus (fr. 42 Hense), Epictetus' Roman teacher. The fragment is brief, but it confirms the sense Marcus seems to take from Heraclitus, and provides more evidence for the way Stoics—and Rufus in particular—interpreted the Ephesian riddler:

Ὅτι τοιαύτη ἡ τοῦ κόσμου φύσις καὶ ἦν καὶ ἔστι καὶ ἔσται καὶ οὐχ οἷόν τε ἄλλως γίγνεσθαι τὰ γιγνόμενα ἢ ὡς νῦν ἔχει· καὶ ὅτι ταύτης τῆς τροπῆς καὶ τῆς μεταβολῆς οὐ μόνον οἱ ἄνθρωποι μετειλήφασι καὶ τἄλλα ζῷα τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ θεῖα, καὶ νὴ Δί’ αὐτὰ τὰ τέτταρα στοιχεῖα ἄνω καὶ κάτω τρέπεται καὶ μεταβάλλει καὶ γῆ τε ὕδωρ γίνεται καὶ ὕδωρ ἀήρ, οὗτος δὲ πάλιν εἰς αἰθέρα μεταβάλλει· καὶ ὁ αὐτὸς τρόπος τῆς μεταβολῆς ἄνωθεν κάτω. ἐὰν πρὸς ταῦτά τις ἐπιχειρῇ τρέπειν τὸν νοῦν καὶ πείθειν ἑαυτὸν ἑκόντα δέχεσθαι τὰ ἀναγκαῖα, πάνυ μετρίως καὶ μουσικῶς διαβιώσεται τὸν βίον.

The nature of the cosmos was, and is, and shall ever be such that events cannot happen otherwise than they do now. Mankind and the other earthborne beasts do not partake of this universal career and evolution alone: it holds just as much sway over divine realms, and—by Zeus!—even the four elements are carried up and down in it, being altered and exchanged. For earth becomes water, and water becomes air, which in its turn is transmuted into ether (fire). The same career of change that leads up goes down. Anyone who makes the effort to turn his mind to these matters and manages to succeed in persuading himself to receive necessary events without willful resistance shall live through his life in a manner perfectly measured and musical.

Ioannis Stobaeus, Anthologium 4.44.60 (Wachsmuth)

Musonius is concerned principally with ethics. His Stoic interpretation of Heraclitus, which Marcus seems to favor, is one that makes human life a little expression of nature's great music, written and danced throughout the entire universe. The best person, he says, is always one who finds her true self in that dance and takes the role it offers without resentment or resistance. Amor fati.

(‡) Diels-Kranz 1 (Marcovich 1). Our best proof-text for this utterance, the longest one extant from Heraclitus, comes from the physician Sextus Empiricus (c. 160-210 CE), who discusses the Ephesian riddler as one of many philosophers erroneously convinced (according to Sextus and his master, Pyrrho of Elis) that humanity possesses a faculty for recognizing truth. The Suda (Σ 235) identifies this Sextus as Sextus of Chaeronea, the tutor whom Marcus remembers fondly in the first book of his Notes (1.9). Many doubt the attribution, but it is interesting to note here, in light of the fact that the physician and Marcus both notice this saying. Here is the text of Sextus, with a few words added from parallel versions preserved by Hippolytus (Refutatio 9.9.1) & Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 5.14.111):

ἐναρχόμενος γοῦν τῶν Περὶ φύσεως ὁ προειρημένος ἀνήρ, καὶ τρόπον τινὰ δεικνὺς τὸ περιέχον, φησί· «λόγου τοῦδε ἐόντος αἰεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι, καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι, καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον· γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον τόνδε ἀπείροισιν ἐοίκασι, πειρώμενοι ἐπέων καὶ ἔργων τοιούτων, ὁκοίων ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι, κατὰ φύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ φράζων ὅκως ἔχει. τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους λανθάνει ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν, ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται.»

At the beginning of his sayings On Nature, the aforesaid man (Heraclitus) indicates the environment that surrounds us in these words: “Mankind is ever failing to grasp the order that exists: before they hear of it, they are just as ignorant as they become the moment after they have heard. Though all events occur in keeping with this order, still folk fumble like naïve fools, trying to express with words and deeds what I shall explain here: the nature of everything, how each thing exists relative to the others. Other men fail to notice how their waking action resembles the work of dreamers, lost to memory.”

Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 7.132 (Mau et al)

The point of this saying, which Marcus seems to grasp well, is that nature offers actual insight into her order that we humans can grasp, though most of us fail to do so, choosing instead to imagine false facsimiles of order whose projection facilitates our involvement in what turn out to be pointless tasks. Sextus (Empiricus) appears even more skeptical than Heraclitus, in that he would argue against our having any possibility of grasping true insight (into what really exists, the realm of nature outside our imagination). Instead of driving us toward such insight, then, he invites us to become wiser fools (like his master Pyrrho). Marcus could comfortably sit somewhere between these positions, though his practical bent puts him necessarily closer to that of Heraclitus (and Musonius Rufus!).

(⁑) Diels-Kranz 74 (Marcovich 89). The most complete version of this saying extant is the paraphrase of Marcus. Diels-Kranz gathers a few other possible mentions (including one that names its source as the poet Hipponax); the most promising of these comes from Apuleius, Apologia 39.1 (Vtrum igitur putas philosopho non secundum Cynicam temeritatem rudi et indocto, sed qui se Platonicae scolae meminerit, utrum ei putas turpe scire ista an nescire, neglegere an curare, nosse quanta sit etiam in istis prouidentiae ratio an diis immortalibus matri et patri credere?).