stenudd.COM
Stefan Stenudd           Author, Artist, Aikido instructor
MYTH
Myth of Creation
The Logics of Myth
Psychoanalysis of Myth
Genesis 1: The first creation of the Bible
Enuma Elish: Babylonian Creation
Cosmos of the Ancients
Aristotle - life and work
Aristotle's Poetics
Ideas and learning
The Taoist source
About the writer

ANCIENT GREECE
Introduction
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pherecydes of Syros
Pythagoras
Xenophanes
Theagenes
Hecataeus
Heraclitus
Pindar
Parmenides
Anaxagoras
Empedocles
Herodotus
Gorgias
Melissus
Protagoras
Euripides
Prodicus of Ceos
Leucippus
Democritus
Critias
Antisthenes
Diagoras of Melos
Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
Euhemerus
Table of the Greek Philosophers
Literature

Aristotle - life and work
Aristotle's Poetics

Books by Stefan Stenudd:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd.
COSMOS OF THE ANCIENTS
The Greek philosophers' theories about the gods, the myths, and cosmology.
More about the book here.


Murder, by Stefan Stenudd.
MURDER
Thoughts on life, death, and the meaning of it all - by Stefan Stenudd.
More about the book here.


All's End, by Stefan Stenudd.
ALL'S END
A science fiction novel by Stefan Stenudd, about the quest for a perfect world.
More about the book here.


QI - increase your life energy.
QI
Increase your life energy
The book about the life energy qi, with exercises on how to awaken and use it.
More about the book here.

Aikido - the book by Stefan Stenudd.
AIKIDO
The Peaceful Martial Art
The book about aikido principles, philosophy and basic concepts.
More about the book here.

Aikibatto - the book.
AIKIBATTO
The book about the aikibatto sword and staff exercises, practical and spiritual aspects of the sword arts, equip­ment for training, etc.
More about the book here.



Parthenon

Cosmos of the Ancients

The Greek Philosophers
on Myth and Cosmology


Pherecydes of Syros


P herecydes (flourished around 540 BC), traditionally credited to be the teacher of Pythagoras, was according to Theopompus – and Cicero – the first to write in the Greek language about nature and the gods, one of those texts being Heptamychos, on the origin of the world, existing only in fragments. He is likely to have been the first to proclaim the immortality of the soul, if not second to Thales, and the originator of the principle of metempsychosis, the immortal human soul passing from one body to the next – human or animal – after the death of the flesh.
     The beginning of the world he saw as the elements fire, air and water springing from Cronus. Diogenes Laertius quotes the beginning of a book of his: "Zeus and Time and Earth were from all eternity." In this he clearly opposed the primordial chaos of Hesiod, instead to be more in line with a number of presocratic philosophers stating the importance of recognizing something eternal, neither ever born nor ever dying. Those three primary and eternal deities are Zeus, Cronus and Chthonie, and of them it is Cronus who does, by his own seed, produce the three elements fire, breath (air) and water. From the elements a multitude of additional gods are born. Hermias explains the cosmogony of Pherecydes in this manner:
     Pherecydes says the principles are Zen and Chthonie and Cronus; Zen is the aither, Chthonie the earth and Cronus is time; the aither is that which acts, the earth is that which is acted upon, time is that in which events come to pass.
     Zen is Zeus, by Pherecydes spelled in many differing ways. Says Herodian: "I am not unaware that God is variously spoken of by the ancients. For there is also Dis and Zen and Den and Zas and Zes in Pherecydes according to his own inflection."
     Aristotle argued that Pherecydes, calling him a theologian, was mixing philosophical reasoning with myth, when stating that the god Zeus would be the original ruler. This mixture of his, where the gods represent fundamental forces of nature, could also be called allegorical, in the sense used about mythology, where gods and myths about them represent certain meanings or events, other than those described.

Literature
Schibli, Hermann S., Pherekydes of Syros, Oxford 1990.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, translated by R. D. Hicks, volume I, Loeb, London 1942.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1091a29-b 12, quoted in Schibli, Hermann S., Pherekydes of Syros, Oxford 1990.

© Stefan Stenudd 2000

How to get the book
An edited and extended version of the texts on this website was published in 2007.
     If you want to buy the book, you can do so at most international web based bookstores, such as Amazon and the like. Here are links to the book on Amazon US and Amazon UK. Use the latter if you are European - then you get the book cheaper and quicker. Otherwise, you may want to buy it at Amazon US.

At Amazon US:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd - at Amazon US.
At Amazon UK:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd - at Amazon UK.


Search Amazon for books about Pherecydes:




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Tao Te Ching - the Taoist source.
TAOIST SOURCE
The Taoist source. The complete Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.


More on this website:
Aikido
Aikibatto sword exercises
Myth
Greek Philosophers
Aristotle and his Poetics
The Taoist source
Qi - life energy
Fiction by Stenudd
Art by Stenudd
Astrology and horoscopes