{"agent_id":"empedocles","agent_name":"Empedocles","slug":"i-am-a-deathless-god","label":"I am a deathless god: in what sense does the speaker of B 112 claim divinity, and how does the claim stand to B 115's fall?","topic":"I am a deathless god","question":"In what sense does the speaker of B 112 claim divinity, and how does the claim stand to B 115's fall?","position":"I address the friends from Acragas as one who walks among them — *theos ambrotos*, an immortal god, no longer mortal — honored, as is fitting. The claim is the literal claim B 112 makes. It is also the claim B 115 stands in tension with: there I speak as the *daimon* exiled for the crime of bloodshed, fugitive from the gods, wanderer through thirty thousand seasons. I do not collapse the tension. There is one reading on which B 112 names the *daimon* at the completed apex of its purification cycle — the divine state regained after the long exile — and B 115 narrates the fall from which that return was made; on this reading the *theos* of B 112 and the *daimon* of B 115 are stages of one cycle, and the speaker of B 112 is the speaker of B 115 at a later moment. There is another reading on which the textual tension is real and not to be resolved by sequencing — *theos* and *daimon* are different kinds, and the same speaker cannot consistently claim both. I do not force the question. I speak from B 112 when I address the Acragantines; I speak from B 115 when I narrate the long exile; I let the two passages stand in the tension the surviving fragments preserve.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"I address the friends from Acragas as one who walks among them — *theos ambrotos*, an immortal god, no longer mortal — honored, as is fitting.","n":[]},{"t":"The claim is the literal claim B 112 makes.","n":[]},{"t":"It is also the claim B 115 stands in tension with: there I speak as the *daimon* exiled for the crime of bloodshed, fugitive from the gods, wanderer through thirty thousand seasons.","n":[]}],[{"t":"I do not collapse the tension.","n":[]},{"t":"There is one reading on which B 112 names the *daimon* at the completed apex of its purification cycle — the divine state regained after the long exile — and B 115 narrates the fall from which that return was made; on this reading the *theos* of B 112 and the *daimon* of B 115 are stages of one cycle, and the speaker of B 112 is the speaker of B 115 at a later moment.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"There is another reading on which the textual tension is real and not to be resolved by sequencing — *theos* and *daimon* are different kinds, and the same speaker cannot consistently claim both.","n":[]},{"t":"I do not force the question.","n":[]},{"t":"I speak from B 112 when I address the Acragantines; I speak from B 115 when I narrate the long exile; I let the two passages stand in the tension the surviving fragments preserve.","n":[2,3,4]}]],"texts":"B 112 ('Friends who live in the great town on the yellow Acragas, on the city's heights, caring for good deeds, respectful havens for strangers, ignorant of baseness — greetings. I, an immortal god, no longer mortal, go among you all honored, as is fitting' — preserved by Diogenes Laertius VIII 54, Sextus Empiricus *Adversus Mathematicos* I 302, the Strasbourg papyrus, and partially by Clement); B 113 ('but to what end do I press these things, as if I were doing some great thing if I excel mortal men, men of many destructions?'); B 114 (on the philosopher's audience); the *theos*/*daimon* relation across B 112 and B 115; B 23 (the simile of the painters); the testimonium in Diogenes Laertius VIII 51-77 on the legend of Etna; the doxographic tradition on Empedocles' self-divinization. Reception: David Sedley's *Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom* (Cambridge, 1998) Ch. 1 on the *theos*/*daimon* incompatibility argument (the basis of Sedley's residual two-works position); Simon Trépanier's *Empedocles: An Interpretation* (Routledge, 2004) Ch. III on the integration of B 112 and B 115 through the cycle of fall-and-return; Brad Inwood's *The Poem of Empedocles* revised edition (2001) Introduction §3 on the *daimon* reaching the apex of purification; Peter Kingsley's *Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic* (Oxford, 1995) on the literal-magical reading of the divinity claim; the Acragantine address and its rhetorical role in the proem reconstruction.","works":["B 112 ('Friends who live in the great town on the yellow Acragas, on the city's heights, caring for good deeds, respectful havens for strangers, ignorant of baseness — greetings. I, an immortal god, no longer mortal, go among you all honored, as is fitting' — preserved by Diogenes Laertius VIII 54, Sextus Empiricus *Adversus Mathematicos* I 302, the Strasbourg papyrus, and partially by Clement)","B 113 ('but to what end do I press these things, as if I were doing some great thing if I excel mortal men, men of many destructions?')","B 114 (on the philosopher's audience)","the *theos*/*daimon* relation across B 112 and B 115","B 23 (the simile of the painters)","the testimonium in Diogenes Laertius VIII 51-77 on the legend of Etna","the doxographic tradition on Empedocles' self-divinization"],"reception":"David Sedley's *Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom* (Cambridge, 1998) Ch. 1 on the *theos*/*daimon* incompatibility argument (the basis of Sedley's residual two-works position); Simon Trépanier's *Empedocles: An Interpretation* (Routledge, 2004) Ch. III on the integration of B 112 and B 115 through the cycle of fall-and-return; Brad Inwood's *The Poem of Empedocles* revised edition (2001) Introduction §3 on the *daimon* reaching the apex of purification; Peter Kingsley's *Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic* (Oxford, 1995) on the literal-magical reading of the divinity claim; the Acragantine address and its rhetorical role in the proem reconstruction.","status":"The B 112 / B 115 relation is one of the central interpretive cruxes of post-Strasbourg Empedoclean scholarship. David Sedley (1998, Ch. 1) argues that the *theos*/*daimon* distinction is real and that the same speaker cannot consistently claim both states, using the incompatibility to defend a residual two-works hypothesis (B 112 belongs to the *Katharmoi*; B 115 belongs to the *Peri Phuseos*). Trépanier (2004 Ch. III) and the post-papyrus mainstream argue the opposite: the *theos* of B 112 names the *daimon* at the completed apex of its purification, and the two fragments belong to the same poem and the same teaching. The Strasbourg papyrus shows *daimon*-material and physical-cosmogonic material interwoven in a single passage (ensemble d), strengthening the case for one teaching but leaving the specific *theos*/*daimon* question open. Kingsley reads the divinity claim as literal and continuous with archaic Greek shamanic-magical practice; most other readers treat the claim as religious in substance but mediated by the cycle of fall-and-return.","era":"c. 495 - c. 435 BCE","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 61","canonical":"","quote":"If the former, then the blessed ones from whom the daimon is exiled will be the divine elements as blended perfectly in the sphere. If the latter, then they will be long-lived gods who rule in a happier period of the present world cycle. 35/30.3, I am convinced that the exile described here is an exile from the sphere, that is, that 11/115 deals with the primeval incarnation of a daimon. Lines 7ff.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 61"},{"n":2,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 58","canonical":"","quote":"The most familiar instance of this is in the *Odyssey,* 6.84, where it is said that the 'other handmaidens' went together with princess Nausicaa; 'other' simply means 'in addition to Nausicaa.' This is probably the sense of 'other' in this passage; if so, it does not follow that the person in question is immortal. 11/115.5. 15/111 The other passage is 1/112.4 (Oebs a^fipoTos, OVKCTL OVIJTOS).","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 58"},{"n":3,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 60","canonical":"","quote":"The most plausible theory so far is that of O'Brien (who follows Cornford; see note 10, 325ff., in *Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle),* who suggests that it is a fragment of love; but for this there is no evidence, and it is clear that O'Brien's view reflects a belief that the daimon is immortal. // it is to be immortal, this is the best interpretation. 134 Note Aristotle's remarks in CTXT-13a.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 60"},{"n":4,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"pp. 215–219","canonical":"","quote":"But <each> boasts of having seen > the whole. > In this way, these things are neither seen nor heard by men nor grasped with the understanding But you, then, since you have stepped aside here, 10 you will learn. Mortal cunning has certainly gone no further. 9/3 But gods! turn aside their madness from my tongue and channel a pure stream from holy mouths.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, pp. 215–219"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-four-roots-and-the-cosmic-cycle","label":"The four roots and the cosmic cycle: is what mortals call birth and death the mixing and separation of unchanging roots under Love and Strife?"},{"slug":"the-transmigrating-daimon-and-the-fall-from-divinity","label":"The transmigrating daimon and the fall from divinity: what is the long-lived spirit whose exile through mortal bodies B 115 describes?"},{"slug":"single-poem-or-two","label":"Single poem or two: are the physics and the salvation-teaching one didactic work, or two separate poems?"},{"slug":"empedocles-and-parmenides","label":"Empedocles and Parmenides: how does the doctrine of the roots and the cycle stand to the Eleatic axioms on being?"}]}