Boethus of Sidon (Stoic)

Boethus (Greek: Βοηθός; fl. 2nd century BC) was a Stoic philosopher from Sidon, and a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon.

For the Peripatetic philosopher from Sidon, (c. 75 – c. 10 BC), see Boethus of Sidon

He is said to have denied, contrary to the standard Stoic view, that the cosmos is an animate being,[1] and he suggested that it was not the whole world which was divine, but only the ether or sphere of the fixed stars.[2] He argued that the world was eternal,[3] in particular, he rejected the Stoic conflagration (ekpyrosis) because god or the World-Soul would be inactive during it, whereas it exercises Divine Providence in the actual world.

Among his works was one On Nature,[2] and one On Fate.[4] He wrote a commentary on the works of Aratus in at least four volumes.[5]

Notes
  1. Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 143
  2. Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 148
  3. Philo, De aeternitate mundi 76–77
  4. Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 149
  5. Geminus, xvii 48
gollark: Yes.
gollark: Okay, I'm going to put it in and try and index it (though obviously at the reasonable 1/second rate), let's see if it explodes anything!
gollark: We can get their attention by adding it to my search thing and turning the crawling delay all the way down!
gollark: <@!319753218592866315> Do you know how big the esolangs.org wiki is?
gollark: Updated the search engine. It is now mildly different.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.