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Widerlegung aller Häresien (BKV)
4.
Heraklitus, der Naturphilosoph, pflegte über alles zu weinen, klagte über die Rätselhaftigkeit des ganzen Lebens und die Unwissenheit der Menschen und war voll Mitleid mit dem Leben der Sterblichen. Von sich behauptete er, daß er alles wisse; die anderen wüßten nichts. Auch lehrte er ungefähr wie Empedokles, Zwietracht und Liebe seien das Prinzip aller Dinge, das vernunftbegabte Feuer sei Gott, alles sei in ständiger Bewegung und bleibe nie in Ruhe. Heraklitus teilte auch die Ansicht des Empedokles, all der Raum um uns sei voll des Bösen; es erstrecke sich aus den Erdenräumen bis zum Mond; weiter aber dringe es nicht, da der gesamte Raum über dem Mond ziemlich rein sei. Das waren die Ansichten des Heraklitus.
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The Refutation of All Heresies
Chapter IV.--Heraclitus; His Universal Dogmatism; His Theory of Flux; Other Systems.
But Heraclitus, a natural philosopher of Ephesus, surrendered himself to universal grief, condemning the ignorance of the entire of life, and of all men; nay, commiserating the (very) existence of mortals, for he asserted that he himself knew everything, whereas the rest of mankind nothing. 1 But he also advanced statements almost in concert with Empedocles, saying that the originating principle of all things is discord and friendship, and that the Deity is a fire endued with intelligence, and that all things are borne one upon another, and never are at a standstill; and just as Empedocles, he affirmed that the entire locality about us is full of evil things, and that these evil things reach as far as the moon, being extended from the quarter situated around the earth, and that they do not advance further, inasmuch as the entire space above the moon is more pure. So also it seemed to Heraclitus.
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Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, uses almost the same words: "but Heraclitus, in asserting his own universal knowledge, makes out all the rest of mankind ignorant." ↩