Heracleon. See Heraci-eonites.
Heracleonites, a Gnostic sect of the 2d centiu-y, so named from Heracleon (a disciple of Valentinus), who was <U;;tinguished for his scientitic bent of mind. "He ^^Tote a commentary on the Gospel of St. John, consider- able fragments of which have been preserved by Origen ;
perhaps also a commentary on the Gospel according to Luke. Of the latter, a single fragment only, the expo- sition of Luke xii, 8, has been preserved by Clement of Alexandria {Strom, iv, 503). It may easily be conceived that the spiritual depth and fulness of John must have been pre-eminently attractive to the Gnostics. To the exposition of this gospel Heracleon brought a profound religious sense, which penetrated to the inward mean- ing, together with an understanding invariably clear when not led astray by theosophic speculation. But what he chiefly lacked was a faculty to appreciate the simplicity of John, and earnest application to those nec- essary means for evolving the spirit out of the letter, the deficiency in which among the Gnostics generally has already been made a subject of remark. Heracleon honestly intended, indeed, so far as we can see, to derive . his theology from John. But he was entirely warped by his system ; and with all his habits of thouglit and contemplation, so entangled in its mesh-work that he could not move out of it with freedom, but, spite of him- self, implied its views and its ideas in the Scriptures, wliich he regarded as the fountain of divine wisdom" (Neander). His fragments are gathered in Grabe, Sjn- cilegium, ii, 83. See Neander, Ch. History, i, 434; Mos- heim, Comm. i, 472 ; Lardner, Works, ii, 256 ; and the ar- ticle (JXOSTICS.
Heracles. See Hercules.
Heraclitus ('HpnKXetroc), a philosopher ofEphe- sus, flourished about B. C. 500. He belonged to the Ioni- an school. " He was a profound thinker, of an inquisi- tive spirit, and the founder of a sect called after him, which had considerable reputation and influence. His humor was melancholy and sarcastic, which he indulged at the expense of the democracy established in his na- tive town, and with which he was disgusted. The knowledge he had acquired of the systems of preceding philosophers (vying with one another in boldness), of Thales, Pytliagoras, and Xenophanes, created in him a habit of scepticism of which he afterwards cured him- self. The residt of his meditations was committed to a volume (Htpi ^vmwc), the obscurity of which procured for him the appellation of (TKortivvc. He also made it his object to discover an elemental principle ; but either because his views were different, or from a desire to op- pose himself to the Eleatw, he assumed it to be f?-e, be- cause the most sul)tle and active of the elements" (Ten- nemann. Manned History of Philosophy, § 102).
" According to Heraclitus, the end of wisdom is to discover the ground and principle of all things. This principle, which is an eternal, ever-living unity, and per- vades and is in all phenomena, he caHedfi-e. By this term Heraclitus understood, not the elemental fire or flame, which he held to be the excess of fire, but a warm and dry vapor; M'hich therefore, as air, is not distinct from the soul or vital energy, and which, as guiding and directing the mundane development, is endued with wisdom and intelligence. This supreme and perfect force of life is obviously without limit to its activity ; consequently, nothing that it forms can remain fixed ; all is constantly in a process of formation. This he has thus figuratively expressed : ' No one has ever been twice on the same stream.' Nay, the passenger him- self is without identity : ' On the same stream we do and we do not embark ; for we are and we are not.' The vitality of the rational fire has in it a tendencj^ to con- traries, whereby it is made to pass from gratification to want, and from want to gratification, and in fixed peri- ods it alternates between a swifter and a slower flux. Now these opposite tendencies meet together in deter- minate order, and by the inequality or equality of the forces occasion the phenomena of life and death. The quietude of death, however, is a mere semblance which exists only for the senses of man. For man in his foUy forms a truth of his own, whereas it is only the univer- sal reason that is really cognizant of the truth. Lastly, the rational principle which governs the whole moral
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and physical world is also the law of the individual ; 1 whatever, tlierefore, is, is the wisest and the best ; and I ' it is not for man's welfare that his wishes should be fulfilled ; sickness makes health pleasant, as hmiger does gratification, and labor rest.' The physical doctrines of Heraclitus formed no inconsiderable portion of the ec- lectical system of the later Stoics, and in times still more recent there is much in the theories of Schelling and Hegel that presents a striking though general resem- blance thereto." Hegel declared that the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things are " perpetual flux and re- flux," was an anticipation of his own dogma, " Being is the same with non-being." " The fragments of Herac- litus have been collected from Plutarch, Stob;eus, Cle- mens of Alexandria, and Sextus Empiricus, and explain- ed by Schleiermacher in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum dc7- Altherthumswissenschaft, vol. i" {Enylhh CydojKe- diu). Professor Bernays, of Bonn, gathered from Hip- pocrates a series of quotations from Heraclitus, and pub- lished them under the title lleraclilea (1848). The Kpifths which bear the name of Heraclitus are spuri- ous; they are given, with valuable notes and disserta- tions, in Die lleracUtkchen Briefe, ein Eeitrcifj z. philos. u. relir/. Lit. (Berl. 18(j9). See Smith, Did. of Class. Dior/, and j/ijtkol. s. v. ; Lewes, J/ist. of PJiilos. 18G7, i, Go sq. ; Lassalle, Die I'hilosophie d. Ilerakleitos (Berlin, 1858).