Love & Strife
Two cosmic powers — Love that draws all things together, Strife that tears them apart — drive the universe endlessly between unity and chaos.
Love (Philotes) and Strife (Neikos) are the two opposing forces in the cosmology of Empedocles of Acragas (5th c. BCE). He taught that the four "roots" — earth, water, air, and fire — are mixed and pulled apart by these powers in an eternal cycle: under Love everything blends into a single harmonious sphere, while under Strife everything flies apart. This was one of the first attempts to explain change through impersonal forces acting on permanent elements, and it deeply influenced Aristotle's account of efficient causation.
How it traveled
- TheogonyAscra · -650explains
- Works and DaysAscra · -650explains
- SymposiumAthens · -385explains
- MetaphysicsChalcis · -322explains
- Allegoriae (= Quaestiones Homericae)— · 75explains
- De primo frigidoChaeronea · 120explains
- De Iside et OsirideChaeronea · 120explains
- Adversus MathematicosAlexandria · 190explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- ZoharGuadalajara · 1280
- Pardes RimmonimTzfat · 1548
- Ketem Paz on ZoharTzfat · 1561
- Reshit ChokhmahTzfat · 1575
- Ohr HaChammah on ZoharTzfat · 1620
- Mikdash Melekh on ZoharTzfat · 1750
- Maor VaShemeshKrakow (Cracow) · 1817
- Likutei HalakhotBreslov (Ukraine) · 1840
- BePardes HaChasidut VeHakabbalahWarsaw · 1910
- Talmud Eser HaSefirotJerusalem · 1939
- Sulam on ZoharJerusalem · 1945
- Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena)—explains
- Placita Philosophorum—explains
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
Key passages(20)
because if one follows up and appreciates the statements of Empedocles with a view to his real meaning and not to his obscure language, it will be found that Love is the cause of good, and Strife of e
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At any rate Love often differentiates and Strife combines: because whenever the universe is differentiated into its elements by Strife, fire and each of the other elements are agglomerated into a unit
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Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
His doctrines were as follows, that there are four elements, fire, water, earth and air, besides friendship by which these are united, and strife by which they are separated. These are his words: Shin
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Doxographic testimonia: Empedocles is credited with originating gr-love-strife, gr-four-elements.
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and hateful Age and hard-hearted Strife. But abhorred Strife bore painful Toil and Forgetfulness and Famine and tearful Sorrows, Fightings also, Battles, Murders, Manslaughters, Quarrels, Lying Words,
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Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus
Thus in music and medicine and every other affair whether human or divine, we must be on the watch as far as may be for either sort of Love; for both are there. Note how even the system of the yearly
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The Chaldeans declare that of the planets, which they call tutelary gods, two are beneficent, two maleficent, and the other three are median and partake of both qualities. The beliefs of the Greeks ar
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Adversus Mathematicos · Sextus Empiricus
Adversus Mathematicos · Sextus Empiricus
De generatione et corruptione · Aristotle
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea