Heraclitus the Prophet

Paul E. Gauthier (Vanderbilt University)

In his extant writings Heraclitus writes in perhaps the most distinctive style of any Presocratic philosopher, and on reading his remaining work the modern reader cannot help but be struck by his similarity in style to sections of the Christian scriptures. Such similarities were noted by Ante-Nicene Christians, and their comments on the Ephesian provide insight into the relationship between Heraclitus’ thought and emergent Christianity, a subject worthy of significant investigation but which current scholarship has yet to address.

First, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian all find Hercalitus’ belief in the difficulty of acquiring knowledge through human effort very sympathetic to Christian views on epistemology, and are not averse to quoting the Ephesian’s sayings on the subject.

Further, the Ante-Nicene Fathers see a mystical, often prophetic component in Heraclitus’ work. When Justin Martyr and Athenagoras recount Heraclitus’ death, they think of him as a proto-Christian in the same way as Socrates, while Tatian mocks him for his oracular pretensions and his work as a healer. Clement of Alexandria notes Heraclitus’ similarity to the Christian prophets, citing Heraclitus as the foremost example of a pagan writer who used the obscure style of the Old Testament and even alludes to a similarity between the Ephesian and Christ’s parables. Clement also presents a similarity between Heraclitus and the mystical pagan traditions of the Sybil, the Pythagoreans, and the Orphic hymns. A commentary on the Orphic hymns found in the Derveni papyrus also makes the association between the Ephesian and that corpus. Despite these connections with particular mystical sects, the church fathers and even Celsus are rather unclear on what Heraclitus thought of mainstream Greek religion, with several authors giving multiple conflicting views in the same work.

Also, several writers see a link between Heraclitus and a few Christian heresies. Aside from Hyppolytus’s claim that Heracliteanism is the source of the Noetian Trinitarian Heresy, the Ephesian also appears variously connected with Simon Magus, the Peretae Gnostics, and Marcionites in various writers, but this list is curiously small given the obscure Ephesian’s seeming compatibility with the arcane knowledge of the Gnostics. Ultimately, the similarities observed by early Christian between Heraclitus and their own practice may explain the remarkable parallels between Heraclitus’ “On Nature” and the prologue of the Gospel of John, both likely written in Ephesus. Indeed, further study of Heraclitus may shed a new light on the whole of John’s Gospel and the doctrines of the Early Church.