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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky — Cambridge, 1914

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0082

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30 Zeus identified with Aither

added that it was reasonable to invoke the aer and aither, since in
them were the stars: Homer—he said—had called the sky Zeus1,
as had Aratos elsewhere2; Hesiod3 and Philemon4 had used the
same word of the aer. Other rationalists propounded similar
explanations15; for allegory is ever popular with those who have
outgrown their creeds. Thus what had once been a piece of
genuine folk-belief was first taken up into a philosophical system
by Herakleitos, then pressed into the service of various Stoic
speculations, and finally treated as a commonplace by allegorists
and eclectics.

The comedians of course lost no opportunity of deriding such
vagaries. Philemon, the first representative of the New Attic
Comedy, is known to have penned a play called The PJiilosophers
in which he made mock of Zenon the Stoic6. When, therefore,
we find that the prologue to one of his other comedies was spoken
by a personage named Aer and identified with Zeus, we may fairly
suspect a travesty of Stoic teaching. The personage in question
announces himself as follows:

One who knows everybody and everything
That every one did, does, or ever will do,
And yet no god, and yet no man, am I.
Air, if you please, or Zeus if you prefer it!
For, like a god, I'm everywhere at once,
I'm here in Athens, at Patras, in Sicily,
In every state and every house, indeed
In each man Jack of you. Air's everywhere
And, being everywhere, knows everything7!

1 //. 19. 357-

2 Arat. phaen. 223 f. avrap 6"Iiriros \ iv Atds etXetrat, 275 rfroi yap /cat Ti-qvl irapaTpex^i-
aiokos"OpvLs with schol.

3 Hes. o.d. 267, cp. schol. Aral, phaen. 1 p. 49, 24 Bekker.

4 Philemon frag, incert. 2. 4 Meineke: infra p. 30.

5 E.g. schol. 77. 15. 21 A.D., 188 B. L., Lyd. de mens. 4. 22 p. 80, 15 ff. Wiinsch, id.
4. 34 p. 91, 18 ff., Serv. in Verg. eel. 10. 27. Herakleitos, a late Stoic, in his quaest.
Horn. pp. 23, 14 ff., 35, r r ff., 37, if., 38, r, 52, 19 ff., 57, 16 ff., 60, 7 ff., 62, 3 if., 64,
1 ff. Soc. Philol. Bonn, also equates Zeus with aid-rip.

A last echo of Herakleitos the Ionian is audible in Lyd. de mens. 4. 21 p. 80, 4 top 8e
Ata to Trvp, Cornut. theol. 19 p. 33, 12 ff. Lang 6 fiev yap aiOrjp /cat to diavyes /cat nadapbv
irvp Zeus eVrt /c.r.X., Tert. adv. Marcion. 1. 13 vulgaris superstitio...figurans Iovem in
substantiam fervidam et Iunonem eius in aeriam, etc.

6* Diog. Laert. 7. 27, Clem. Al. strom. 1. 20 p. 179, 8 ff. Stahlin, Souid. s.v. Zirjvwv
i. 726a 10 Bernhardy = Philemon Philosophifrag. {Frag. com. Gr. iv. 29^ Meineke).

7 Stob. eel. 1. 1. 32 p. 39, 9 ff. Wachsmuth, Vita Arati ii. 438, schol. Caes. Germ.
Aralea p. 380, 1 ff. Eyssenhardt, et. mag. p. 389, 38 ff. where nXdraw is a mistake for
$Ch7]nwv = Philemon frag, incert. 2 Meineke.

With this identification of Zeus and 'A^p cp. Krates supra p. 29, Chrysippos ap.
Philodem. irepl evaefieias 13 = H. Diels Doxogr. p. 546 b 36 ff. At'a fxev elvai top irepl tt)v
yrjv aepa, top 8e aKOTeLPOP "Aidrjp, top 8e dia tt}s yrjs /cat ffaXaTrrjs ITocretSu;, Lyd. de mens.
 
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