82 RICHARD MCKEON 



universe/* Sextus undertakes to show that dogmatic views of 

 God and of elements are alike untenable; the pseudo-Galen 

 enumerates the various philosophic views of elements and of 

 God; the pseudo-Clement refutes Epicurus with the aid of 

 Plato and sketches the various doctrines of elements before 

 treating the problems of their use in explaining the phenomena 

 of the universe. The enumerations of theories of elements in 

 the three accounts have striking points of similarity/" Similar 

 problems are treated — whether the " material " elements are 

 " corporeal " or " incorporeal," perceptible by sense or by reason, 

 or imperceptible, free of qualities or characterized by qualities, 

 finite or infinite. The character of the elements reflects the 

 mode of composition used as a model and is sometimes indi- 

 cated by use of other terms instead of " element," such as 

 " atom," " seed," " root," " minimum," or " molecule." 



The place of elements in the discussion of problems of parts 

 and wholes is apparent in each of these accounts. The author 

 of The Recognitions, thus, presents himself as one who had 

 frequented the schools of the philosophers before he became 

 a Christian, and in the dialogue in which elements are discussed, 

 the chief speaker, Niceta, acknowledges that he attended the 

 Epicurean schools, while one of his brothers studied with the 

 Pyrrhonians and the other with the Platonists and Aristotelians. 

 He begins his treatment of the origin of the universe by differ- 

 entiating all things {omne quod est) into the simple and the 

 composite. The simple " lacks number, division, color, differ- 

 ence, roughness, smoothness, heaviness, lightness, quality, 

 quantity, and, therefore, even limitation." The composite is 

 made up of two, three, four, or more components. The simple 

 is incomprehensible and immense, without beginning and end, 



^^ Recognitiones, VIII, 9-12, Patrologia Graeca 1, 1375A-6C. 



^^ Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoneiai Hypotyposeis, 111,30-32, Adversus Mathematicos, 

 IX, 359-64; Galen, Historia Philosopha, 18, pp. 610-11; Clement, Recognitiones, 

 VIII, 15, 1378. Sextus goes on to other problems of physical philosophy in Adversus 

 MathcTnaticos, Book X — problems of place, motion, time, number, generation and 

 corruption — which also involve elements, and a similar enumeration of theories is 

 made in connection with generation and destruction, ibid., IX, 310-18. 



