Cosmic Mind (Nous)
Nous — a pure, unmixed Mind that set the primordial chaos spinning and sorted it into an ordered world.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (5th c. BCE) taught that in the beginning 'all things were together' in an undifferentiated mixture, and that Nous — Mind — alone is unmixed and self-ruling, the force that started the cosmic rotation and separated everything out into the world we see. For the first time, an intelligent ordering principle, rather than blind matter or chance, took the starring role in cosmology. Socrates and Plato were intrigued but disappointed that Anaxagoras used Mind only as a mechanical trigger; later the idea fed into notions of a divine intellect ordering the universe.
How it traveled
- PhaedoAthens · -380explains
- PhilebusAthens · -355explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- MetaphysicsChalcis · -322explains
- de Natura DeorumFormiae · -43explains
- PericlesChaeronea · 120explains
- De Iside et OsirideChaeronea · 120explains
- Adversus MathematicosAlexandria · 190explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- EnneadesRome · 270explains
- Abarbanel on TorahNaples · 1505
- Sha'ar HaPesukimTzfat · 1570
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
- Placita Philosophorum—explains
- De Migratione Abrahami—explains
- Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III—explains
- De Somniis (lib. i-ii)—explains
- Fragmenta Logica et PhysicaAthensexplains
- Poimandres—explains
- Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena)—explains
- FragmentaApolloniaexplains
- Suidae lexicon—explains
- De Opificio Mundi—explains
Key passages(20)
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena) · Hippolytus