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2. Xenophanes, the Religious Philosopher

Xenophanes’ influence upon the thought of Greece was threefold: (1)He preached the Milesian philosophical monism to the people of Greece in the form of a religious monism; (2)He carried this doctrine from eastern Greece (Asia Minor) to Western Greece (Magna Græcia); (3)He was the connecting link between the Milesian and the following Eleatic school.

The Philosophy of Xenophanes.

1. The single primordial substance below the changes of nature is God. The reality below nature which Thales conceived to be water, Anaximander to be unlimited substance without a name, Anaximenes to be air, was said by Xenophanes to be God. The important point here is that Xenophanes has not given the Greeks a spiritualistic conception of God; but that he has positively stated that the substance of the universe is an object of religious devotion. He calls the cosmic substance God instead of calling it water, Apeiron, or air. It is a material thing, and yet it is an object of reverence. He ascribes to this God a spherical form, and yet also mental power of omniscience. God is “one and all” ἓν καὶ πᾶν, and yet he is “one god, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form and thought like unto mortals.” The positive conception of God hangs confused in the mind of Xenophanes. He is scarcely a monotheist, nor yet a pantheist. He is a hylozoist, who conceives the underlying cosmic substance to be an object of religious reverence.