Choose one of the following passages and write a two (maximum three) page exegetical account of that
passage.
T1 Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.6.1-2 (A Presocratic Reader Chapter 2/The Milesians, T10, p. 17):
“(1) He [sc. Anaximander] says that the archê is neither water nor any of the other things called
elements, but some nature which is apeiron, out of which comes to be all the heavens and the worlds
in them. (2) This is eternal and ageless and surrounds all the worlds. (3) In addition he said that
motion is eternal, in which it occurs that the heavens come to be
T2 Theophrastus, quoted by Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 24.26-25.1 (A Presocratic Reader
Chapter 2/The Milesians, T21, p. 19): “(1) Anaximenes, like Anaximander, declares that the
underlying nature is one and unlimited but not indeterminate [apeiron], as Anaximander held, but
definite, saying that it is air. (2) It differs in rarity and density according to the substances <it
becomes>. Becoming finer, it comes to be fire; being condensed, it comes to be wind, then cloud;
and when still further condensed, it becomes water, then earth, then stones, and the rest come to be
from these. (3) He too makes motion eternal and says that change also come to be though it.”
T3 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 152.21-153.13 (A Presocratic Reader Chaper 13/Diogenes of
Apollonia, T5, p. 140) “(1) And my opinion, that which possesses intelligence is what people call air,
and all humans are ruled by it and it rules all things. (2) For in my opinion, this very thing is god, and
it reaches everything and arranges all things and is in everything. (3) And there is no single thing that
does not share in this. But no single things shares in it in the same way as anything else, but there are
any forms both of air itself and of intelligence.”
