Εἱμαρμένη

fate

Translated by Daniel Riaño30 Aug 2000Vetting: high6 revisions

10 notes · 87 words

[Meaning] lot.¹
When Sophocles said about Ajax, "shut Ajax inside his tents during this present light of day," he is averting fate.²
Philosophers say³ that "divinity, intelligence, and fate are all one" and that "[this] is also called by other names".⁴ Fate is the "concatenated cause of everything or the reason by which the universe is ruled";⁵ or [it is] "an unalterable sequence"⁶ and "concatenation",⁷ on account of an "unavoidable" cause;⁸ or "the power that moves matter".⁹ But we acknowledge Christ as the god who governs everything.¹⁰

Notes (10)

The first of three entries on the word. (See also epsiloniota 143, epsiloniota 144). It gives several definitions and/or etymologies for the word, mostly from Stoic philosophers, before ending with a Christian theological credo.

1The Greek word is ge/nesis, a word that acquires the meaning "lot, that which is the lot for everyone from birth" from early astronomers on. ↩

2Sophocles, Ajax 753-4 (with comment from the scholia there); see already at epsilon 1067. The seer Calchas asks Teucer, in vain, to shut Ajax inside the tents to avoid Athena's wrath; the logical subject of the sentence is therefore not Sophocles but Calchas or Teucer. Here is perhaps a rather inept attempt to etymologize ei(marme/nh from ei)/rw(2) "say", probably as the result of misunderstanding the common (but also wrong) ancient etymology of the word, which put it in relation with ei)/rw(1) "fasten together, chain". See further below. ↩

3What follows is a series of definitions of "Fate" by the Stoics. Fate had a central role in Stoicism: Zeno, Chrysippus, Posidonius and Boethius all wrote treatises On Fate. ↩

4An almost literal quotation from the Stoic philosopher (C3 BC) Chrysippus (SVF 2.580 von Arnim = Diogenes Laertius 7.135). The quoted text says: "the divinity and intelligence and fate and Zeus are all one, and he [sc. the divinity] is also called by other names". ↩

5A quotation from Chrysippus or some of his disciples: SVF 2.915 von Arnim = Diog.Laert.7.149. In this quotation and the following, there is an etymology of ei(marme/nh from the root of the verb ei)/rw. This was a common interpretation in antiquity: see Aristotle, de Mundo 401b10. The word, however, does not relate to ei)/rw, but to the root of the verb mei/romai ("receive as one's lot) and the substantives me/ros ("lot") and mo/ros ("fate"). See Chantraine, Dict.Etym. s.v. mei/romai. The quoted text (ed. Marcovich) says "everything that exists" (o)/ntwn) instead of "everything" (o(/lwn). ↩

6cf. Chrysippus, SVF 918 von Arnim = Nemesius, de nat. hom. cp. 37 p.299. ↩

7cf. Chrysippus, SVF 917 von Arnim = Aetius, Placit. 1.28.4. ↩

8a)napo/drastos, "unavoidable". The word is used by the first century CE Stoic philosopher L. Annaeus Cornutus (De natura deorum, p.13) in a chapter devoted to fate. The goddess Ananke (Necessity) is said to have given birth to Adrastea, who bears a name from the same root of this word. At the beginning of this chapter, Cornutus relates ei(marme/nh with mei/romai etymologically. ↩

9Words attributed to the founder of the Stoa, the C4/3 BCE philosopher Zeno of Citium ( SVF 176 von Arnim = Aetius, Placit. 1.27.5). ↩

10The 'we' is emphatic in the parallel entry in ps.-Zonaras (h(mei=s de/.... And cf. also tau 1234: 'we Christians...'.

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