EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

Xenophanes Christianus? 

M. J. Edwards 

H ISTORIES OF PHILOSOPHY typically include chapters on the 
period 'from Thales to Plato' which obscure the fact that 
Plato's writings are the earliest extant in Greek philos­

ophy. Most of our information about his predecessors dates 
from the Roman Empire, and is apt to receive the most 
uncritical treatment in such histories. At times the sources 
paraphrase, at other times they quote, but even then not with 
sufficient notice of the context to permit the redressing of error 
or prejudice in their interpretations. Philosophers quote their 
predecessors to illustrate the antiquity of their own opinions or, 
if the predecessor is unfriendly, to dispel the authority of his 
august name with such instruments as rhetoric can procure. If 
some readers were content with obloquy and ridicule, there 
were others whom citation, even if partial and unseasonable, 
was more likely to persuade. 

When Christians take up an ancient author, they know that a 
Christian audience will suspect him, while a pagan will applaud. 1 

In the first case, the purpose is to reveal to other Christians that 
an unbaptized philosopher is at the root of some prevailing 
heresy; in the second, pagans are required to learn that what 
they most abhor in Christianity was anticipated by the best of 
the Greeks. 2 The latter case is attested by citations of the sixth­
century B.C. Xenophanes of Colophon in the Stromateis of the 
late second-century apologist Clement of Alexandria. I shall 
argue here that although these quotations serve their purpose, 

1 See ]. P. Hershbell, "Hippolytus' Elenchus as a Source for Empedocles 
Reconsidered," Phronesis 18 (1973) 97-114,187-203; C. Osbourne, Rethinking 
Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge 1987). For appraisals of pagan 
doxography cf e.g. J. P. Hershbell, "Plutarch as a Source for Empedokles, Re­
examined," AJP 92 (1971) 156-84; G. E. L. Owen, "Philosophical Invective," 
OxStAncPhil1 (1983) 1-26. 

2 On the character of Alexandrian Christianity see S. Lilla, Clement of 
A lexandria (Oxford 1971); on the aims and resources of the apologists see ]. 
Danielou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, tr. ]. A. Baker (London 
1975). 

219 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

220 XENOPHANES CHRISTIANUS? 

they are unlikely to be genuine. The case rests first on the 
records of Xenophanes in the least impeachable sources, then 
on inquiry into the consistency of Clement's citations with 
these findings, and finally on the doubtful contexts of these tes­
timonies. 3 

I 

If Xenophanes can be shown to have believed anything, it was 
that gods are in all respects superior to men. Even to talk of 
gods would seem to be only a concession to the idiom of 
contemporaries, for, although Xenophanes can allude to 'gods' 
who have hidden certain things from human speculation (B 18; 
cf B 34.2), the doxographies of pagans, such as Aristotle, Cicero, 
Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, and Plutarch, make him 
monolatrous and in some sense pantheistic. 4 "He sees, he 
thinks, he hears as a whole," according to a line preserved by 
Sextus (B 24; cf D.L. 9.19=A 19); gazing at the firmament with a 
sublime intuition of unity, says Aristotle, Xenophanes declared 
that "the All is God" (Metaph. 986b=A19). 

Among his remains is a statement that God shakes all things 
by the phren of his nous (B25): aA}...,' a1t(iv£u8E novoto voou 
<pPEVl nav'ta Kpa8aivEl. This motion is like that caused by the 
nod of Zeus in the Iliad, for, while the minds of gods and men 
in Homer are also instruments of feeling, that of Zeus is set 
apart by its power to give immediate execution to his wilJ.5 
Even if, as Darcus holds, the phren stands for the effective 
operation of the intellect, while the nous is its cognitive faculty, 6 

3 The fragments of Xenophanes will be cited from Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr.6 I 
(Berlin 1951). This text is employed with little apparatus by M. Untersteiner, 
Senofane, Testimonianze e frammenti (Florence 1956). 

4 On the conventionality of the plural form see e.g. Guthrie, Hist. Gk. Phil. 
I (Cambridge 1962) 375f. Most uses simply take up words of others (e.g. in 
epic or festivals), and where this is not obviously the case (as in BI8), we do 
not know whether the poet wrote in propria persona. The evidence of the 
doxographers is unanimously in favor of one god. 

S See K. Reinhardt, Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen 
Philosophie (Bonn 1916) 112ff; J. Warden, "The Mind of Zeus," JHistldeas 32 
(1971) 3-14. G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Pre socratic Philosophers, rev. M. 
Schofield (Cambridge 1983) 170f, declare that Xenophanes alludes to Homer 
only by negation, but this seems to me too strong. His monotheism is rather, 
as they also say, a "bold development" of the old belief. 

6 S. M. Darcus, "The Phren of the Nous in Xenophanes' God," SymbOslo 
83 (1978) 25-39. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

M. J. EDWARDS 221 

Xenophanes' notion of the deity is clearly a rehnement of the 
epic one; nevertheless, he is at some pains to say that Zeus is 
not this deity. For to Zeus and the other gods Homer and 
Hesiod had imputed every kind of vice and injury, which could 
not be predicated of a god (B 11): 

naV'ta 8Wlcr' aVE81lKav "OllllPOs 8' 'Hcrtooos 'tE, 
ocrcra nap' av8pO:)TCotcrtv DVElbEa Kat 'Voyoe; £cr'ttV, 
KAEn'tEtV 1l0tXEUEtV 'tE Kat aAATjAo'Us ana'tEUEtv. 

The story that Xenophanes was a rhapsode need not, even if it 
were verihed, be inconsistent with his criticisms.7 The ancient 
notices of Xenophanes and the invention of allegory by his 
contemporary Theagenes of Rhegium both suggest that such 
protests were incipient in this period, since all known allegorical 
writing proposes or implies the defence of myth. 8 Thus, so far, 
the poet of Colophon believed in only one god, who surpassed 
the epic Zeus in power and did not share his faults. 

II 

With this pagan evidence the Christian sorts well, yet not so 
perfectly as modern scholars often imply. The following 
citations are consecutively attributed to Xenophanes in 
Clement, Strom. 5.109.1 (=B23, 14):9 

(1) de; 8EOe; £V 'tE 8Wle; Kat av8pfimotcrt IlEytcrwe;, 
oun OEllas 8VllWlcrtV OIlOtLOs ODor VOTlIla. 

(2) aAA' Ot PPOWl OOKEO'Ucrt YEvv(lcr8at 8wue; 
'tl1v crCPE'tEPllV 0' £cr8il'ta hElv cpwvTjv 'tE O£llas 'tE. 

Eusebius (Praep. Evang. 13.13.36) attempted to turn the first 
line, an iambic trimeter, into an hexameter without success. 10 

7 D.L. 9.18=A19; R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship I (Oxford 1968) 
sf. 

8 On Theagenes see Pfeiffer (supra n.7); for recent bibliography see H. 
Schibli, Pherekydes of Syros (Oxford 1990) 99 n.54. 

9 Text from the edition by O. Stachlin, Clemens Alexandrinus (Berlin 1960) 
II 399f. 

10 Euseb. Praep. Evang. 13.13.36: aAAO. ppo'W1. b01C£O'UOl €leo\><; "(Evvao€lul. 
which Bergk supplements with OIJ01.w<;. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

222 XENOPHANES CHRISTIANUS? 

Bergk did better, but as the trimeter also appears in Theodoret's 
Curatio (3.72), it evidently stood in Clement's text. Diels-Kranz 
and Staehlin, in editing Clement, therefore ignored the emen­
dation. 

(3) aAA' d 'tol XEtpa~ y' dxov I36E~ llE A£OV"tE~ 
11 ypu'Vat XElPEcrcrl Kat £pya 'tEAttv (iTCEP &.V8PE~, 
tTCTCOlll£V e' tTCTCOlcrt ~6E~ ()£ 'tE j30ucrtV 6lloia~ 
Kat (KE) eECOV i()£a~ £ypa<pOV Kat crWJ.ta't' £TCOlOUV 
'tOtaUe' ot6v TCEp Kau'tOt ()£Ila~ dxov. 

Staehlin's version (Strom. 5.109.3=B 15), reproduced here, in­
cludes the particle yE in the first line. Eusebius offers a some­
what different reading, for which various emendations (perhaps 
unnecessary) have been suggested. 11 

At Strom. 7.22 Clement paraphrases an otherwise unknown 
couplet 12 stating that men of different races and different 
features are always apt to make their deities like themselves. 
The Christian apologist can thus infer an attack upon idolatry, 
but the portion of the text that is most clearly a quotation does 
not refer to painting, and what use Xenophanes made of his 
observation remains uncertain. 

Clement is the first to cite these testimonies but omits those 
preserved by others. Among the traits peculiar to this little 
Christian library three arouse doubt of its origin in the archaic 
period: 
(1) It is difficult to imagine how the first line of fragment 2 
(above) could have become an iambic trimeter by accident, yet 

11 Praep. E7Jang. 13.13.36: <lA-A' d xr"ipm; FXOV POES, ';€ A£ov'tEs. This will pass 
as a fragment of a hexameter, though Diels-Kranz, assuming that the 
beginning of the quotation is the beginning of a line, write <lAA' d X£"ipos FXOV 
P6£s < t7t7tOt 't'> T]€ A£ov't£s, in which they have been followed by numerous 
scholars. 

12 The original wording is: 'tas ).1Opcpas OU'tWV olloios £OU'tOlS £lCO<J'tOt 
OtOSwypocpouatv, ills CPTj<JtV 0 :::. Ai8io7t£s 't£ IlEAaVOs <JtllOUs 't£ ep~tlCEs 't£ 
7tUppOUs lCOt yAaUlCOUS. Diels-Kranz, Untersteiner, and others have Xenoph­
anes say: 

A i8io7tES 'tE (8EOUs <J<PE't£pous) <JtllOUs )l£AaVOs 'tE 
ep~tlC£s 't£ yAaUlCOUS lCOt 7tUppOUs (cpom 7tO.£aSm). 

Aristotle's observation that men make the gods resemble themselves in 
manner as in feature (Pol. 1252b25ff) need not depend upon Xenophanes, 
whom he does not name. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

M. J. EDWARDS 223 

if these lines are by Xenophanes, it cannot have been one in 
origin. Xenophanes' fragments are all in elegiacs or in uniform 
hexameters; and even if he, like Solon and Archilochus, wrote 
iambics, no poet of this age or any other uses alternating 
trimeters and hexameters as a regular form of verseP 
(2) The locution d<; 8£6<; is otherwise unattested in Xenoph­
anes or in any other of the most ancient Greek philosophers, 
and, to judge by his other doxographers, Xenophanes was not 
so partial to d<; as to Ev. 14 He would appear to have employed 
the definite article to denote the God who was both One and 
AI1. IS If it is indeed ancient, this is perhaps the only use of de; to 
indicate, not absolute singularity, but only superiority to other 
beings in a numerous class. It would also contradict the 
philosopher's axiom, which more than one authority ascribes to 
him, that no god can be subject to the power of any other; for 
such a principle makes it inconceivable that one among the gods 
should rule the rest. 16 

(3) The word 8£ J.ta<; , though attested only here in the remains of 
this philosopher, occurs on all three occasions when his words 
are quoted in meter. The intent is to proscribe the use of 
images, a practice that philosophers of the archaic and classical 
periods were not accustomed to condemn, although they can 
hardly have applauded it. Heraclitus scorned the mysteries, and 
was followed by both Plato (e.g. Rep. 364c --65A) and the 
Derveni commentator; 17 Plato, as indignant as Xenophanes to 
hear of Homeric gods whose passions led them into adultery, 
mendacity, and murder (e.g. Euthphr. 6B-C), does not single out 

13 The attested works of Xenophanes include his Silloi and On Nature: see 
Kirk and Raven (supra n.5) 16M. Diogenes Laertius (9.18) attributes to him 
epic, elegiac, and iambic compositions. 

14 A30 (=Arist. Met. 986b), 31 (=Simpl. in Phys. 22.22),34 (=Cic. A cad. 2.118), 
35 (=Timon fr.59), 36 (=Theodoret, Curatio 4.8). Both £~ and £v appear 
frequently in the De Xenophane, Melisso et Gorgia (hereafter 'De XMG'), 
but this is agreed by all to be too late and too tendentious to be a source of 
ipsissima verba. W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers 
(Oxford 1947) 52, notes that this tract demonstrates the existence of one 
Being, not one God. In view of what is argued here, we cannot rely on 
A33=IIippolytus, Refutatio 1.14. 

15 Frequent in De XMG; see also Arist. Met. 986b; Timon fr.60. 

16 De XMG 977a24-32; A31 (=Simpl. in Phys. 22.22), 32 (=Plutarch ap. 
Euseb. Praep. Evang. 1.8.4). For an attempt to make a formal argument of 
these asseverations see J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers I (Oxford 1979) 
86--89. 

17 See Heraclitus B5 D.-K.; P.Derv. col. XVI, as in the appendix to ZPE 47 
( 1982). 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

224 XENOPHANES CHRISTIANUS? 

the plastic representations of divinities as a fraud proving the 
blindness of the artist, and it seems that no one in the archaic 
and classical periods denounced the civic images because they 
claimed to depict the physiognomy of gods. 

Heraclitus can indeed be cited on the insanity of addressing 
prayers to images, but it is uncertain whether the anthropomor­
phic character of these images was important to his argument. 18 
Epicureans later opined that the proper features of the gods 
appeared in images, but endorsed no cult of either. In the 
strictures confirmed as authentic, the acts, not the visual 
representations of the gods, engage Xenophanes; and Homer 
never describes Zeus' face, only his nod, ambrosial locks, 
thunderbolt, and declamations. 

III 

These considerations induce a suspicion only intensified by a 
study of Clement's source. A long inventory of passages 
ascribed to other philosophers and dramatists testifying to the 
unity of the godhead follows the citations from Xenophanes 
peculiar to Clement. Many of these also occur in the De 
M onarchia once assigned to Justin,19 and thus the conclusion is 
that both witnesses used a Christian or Jewish florilegium. Such 
collections are regularly posited when the same citations from 
ancient texts occur in a number of authors of only moderate 
learning;20 this one must have been copied under indifferent 
supervision, since couplets of one testimony in Clement will 
belong to another in the De Monarchia, and in a sequence of 
quotations of the same passages from New Comedy scarcely 
one is attributed to the same hand. Some could not be at­
tributed with confidence to any classical author: the homiletic 
fustian laid at the door of Aeschylus and Sophocles is as 
spurious as the songs that a pure and monotheistic audience is 
made to intone to the Deity in these and other apologetic 
texts. 21 

18 E. Bevan's citation of Heraclitus B5 D.-K. in Holy Images (London 1940) 
65 therefore seems incautious. 

19 Text edited by C. Otto, S. Justini Opera Addubitata Gena 1879) 126-58; 
De Monarchia 104b--09c corresponds to Clem. AI. Strom. 5.119.2-126.1. 

20 See H. Chadwick, "Florigelium," RAC 7 (1969) 1144f. 
21 De Monarchia 104e-105b (=Kern, Orph. fro no. 245), 104af (=[Aesch.] 

fr.464 Nauck), 104cf (=[Soph.] fr.1025 Nauck). On the citation attributed to 
Euripides see now C. Riedweg, "TGrF 2.624-A Euripidean Fragment," CQ 
N.S. 40 (1990) 124-36. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

M. J. EDWARDS 225 

A similar collection is employed in the Cohortatio ad 
Gentiles, also falsely attributed to Justin. 22 Many Jewish or 
Christian impostures were clad with the name of Orpheus, and 
that of the Sybil covered even more than the fourteen books 
that now survive.23 In these fraudulent lucubrations the traits 
noted above as untypical of Xenophanes and his period can be 
illustrated, even to excess: 
(1) The trimeter was one of the tools most frequently 
employed in Christian forgery, since tragedy and comedy were 
among the most freely imitated models. Hexameter, on the 
other hand, was the staple of Sibylline and Orphic poetry, and 
had been the only meter permitted to philosophers (i. e., 
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Lucretius).24 A forger with little 
skill in composition might have aimed to write hexameters, yet 
would be obliged to let trimeters stand in place of the line that 
his abilities did not equip him to construct. 
(2) The formula d~ (k6~ was the cornerstone of many Christian 
and Jewish fabrications of late antiquity:25 

(a) dc; 'tatC; uATj8dal<HV, dc; £O''tlV 8£6c; 
(b) d~ £O''t' au'tOy£v~~, £vo~ Exyova m1v'ta 't£'t'UK'tat 
(c) d 'tt~ £pd 8£6~ £lj.llm1p£~ £v6~ O-O'tOC; OCP£lA£l 

KOO'j.lOV '(O'OV 'tOu'tCP O''t~O'a~ £l1t£tV 'Ej.lo~ o-o'tO~. 

All these specimens differ from fr.l above in declining to 
allow the existence of another deity. The florilegium was, 
however, prepared to admit such genuine examples of Greek 
piety as a passage from the Ion of Euripides, commending 
sincere devotion to "the gods" (452ff ap. De M onarchia 108bf), 
and Clement transcribes a passage in which Orpheus pays his 

22 Text in Otto (supra n.19) 18-127 at 15c-18d (=chapters 15-19). 
23 See the editions by J. H. F. Friedlieb (Leipzig 1852) and C. Alexandre 

(Paris 1841) with commentary (Paris 1856); for translation and commentary, 
R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament II: 
Pseudepigrapha (Oxford 1913), remains the most informative. On the 
composition of the Sibylline Oracles see now D. Potter, Prophecy and History 
in the Crisis of the Roman Empire (Oxford 1990) 94-140. 

24 Xenophanes is the exception, if indeed his elegiac fragments can be called 
philosophical. 

25 For the following see De Monarchia l04c (=Cohortatio 18a=C!em. AI. 
Strom. 5.113.1=[Soph.] fr. 1025 Nauck), 105a (=Cohorlalio 15d=Orph. fro 
245.8), 105c. I cite only texts appearing in the common florigelium; examples 
from the Sibyllina are barely numerable. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

226 XENOPHANES CHRISTIANUS? 

devoirs to "the greatest of the gods," who causes earth and 
heaven to tremble (Strom. 5.125.1=Orphica fro 248.3 Kern). 
When Moses speaks at Exodus 7.1 of his being made a god to 
the Pharaoh, Philo remarks that the sacred Word is not so 
superstitious as to withhold from man a title that was not, in any 
case, a true appellation of the Deity; and even in the Old 
Testament a celebrated psalm (82.1, 6) described a parliament of 
the elohim in which Yahweh was supreme. 

In the Roman era it would have been thought legitimate to 
speak of God as single, yet conceive him as one of many. As 
seen from the acclamations showered upon the hero of 
Lucian's Death of Peregrinus, to style a man 'the one' of his 
kind might signify that he possessed a certain property, not 
uniquely, but in an unusual measure. 26 The One God and the 
many, as we have seen, appear to have been alternative 
formulations in Xenophanes; but in a later period, the formula 
d~ 8£6~ would allow a man to retain belief in many gods, while 
asserting the supremacy of one. 
(3) The attacks on the use of images came from all quarters 
during the Roman Empire, when Dio of Prusa, Maximus of 
Tyre, and Philostratus were all required to devise new 
arguments in its defence.27 As the chief concern here is with 
forgeries, the sarcasms of Christians and Jews (not the sole 
accusers) may be illustrated from Orpheus and the Sibyl: 

8vrl'Wt 8£ 1tOAAot Kap8tav 1tAavW/l£vol 
i8pucra/l£cr8a 1tTwatWv 1tapa'ljlUxa~ 

(De Monarchia l04c=[Soph.] fr.l025 Nauck). 

£pya 8£ XnP01totTlta y£patpo/l£v acpPovl 8u/l<p 
d8wAa ~oavwv t£ Katacp8l/l£vWV uv8pw1twV 

(Sibyllina, Proem. 1.6=Cohortatio 16e). 

Such examples are indeed superfluous, for what Jew or 
Christian did not think it his duty to declaim against idolatry? 

26 See the commentary of E. Schwartz (Paris 1951) 97f on Peregrinus 15; E. 
Peterson, En: 8EOL (Gottingen 1926). 

27 Dio Chrys. Or. 12; Max. Tyr. Philosophumena 2 (Hobein); Philostr. V A 
6.19. The reference to Phidias in these discussions is not proof of their 
antiquity; the absence of a common argument, however, may suggest that 
they are new. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

M. J. EDWARDS 227 

The works of the apologists might be opened at any page for 
corroboration of this charge, always the first leveled, whether 
in ignorance or with disingenuous scholarship, against the pagan 
culture of their own or a previous day. 

An objection to the theory of Christian provenance might be 
founded on a certain interpretation of fr.l, according to which 
God is unlike man in intellect and body. Darcus infers that since 
he has an intellect, though unlike man's, he will also have a body 
of his own. 28 Would not a Christian forger (or a Jew) have been 
at pains to make it obvious that God does not have a shape of 
any kind? 

The objection can be met by one or a combination of four 
replies: (1) the resources of the forger would be too limited to 
allow so close a reading of his verses; (2) not to possess a body 
is one way in which a being may be unlike humans 'in respect 
of body'; (3) not all Christians held that God is strictly incor­
poreal, though all agreed that any body assigned to him would 
be more refined than ours; 29 (4) at least one Orphic fragment, 
known to be a forgery, asserts that the body of God enfolds the 
world. 30 

IV 

Thus Christian fabricators of such testimony used all the 
unusual traits of Clement's testimonies from Xenophanes. It is 
plausible to conclude that, if Clement differs from other 
sources on Xenophanes, it is because he is not a true source. As 
the first Greek, or at least the first known Greek, to have 
denied that a god partakes of vice or weakness, Xenophanes 
could not evade the hospitality of Christian handbooks. This 
new society forced him to renounce his archaic manners: 
trimeter and hexameter took the place of elegiacs, new tropes 
and new vocabulary supported a novel quarrel with the idols, 

28 Darcus (supra n.6) 26; cf Guthrie (supra nA) 376£, who adduces texts 
indicating that the body of the Deity would be spherical. There is, as I show, 
no reason to dispute the authenticity of these testimonies, but exact quotations 
are wanting. 

29 On Tert. De carne Christi 11 etc. see J. Daniclou, The Origins of Latin 
Christianity, tr. J. A. Baker (London 1977) 214-23. 

3D Euseb. Praep. Evang. 13.12, citing Aristobulus; cf Cohortatio 18. 



EDWARDS, M. J., Xenophanes Christianus? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:3 
(1991:Autumn) p.219 

228 XENOPHANES CHRISTIANUS? 

and to the one God of theism were addressed the acclamations 
that his Presocratic verses had bestowed upon the All. 

NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 

September, 1991