Hesiod wrote a famous poem about farming. And one of its most constant themes is that to work the earth is sacred, is a deeply religious activity. Above all it happens to be sacred to Zeus, father of the gods; it has to be done in complete obedience to Zeus’ laws.
This has more than a little significance as far as Empedocles is concerned. For not only in those few lines where he explains how his words need to be received but also throughout his instructions to Pausanias he keeps echoing particular expressions and turns of phrase from Hesiod’s agricultural poem. In fact the echoes are so persistent one could easily suppose he is preparing his disciple for life as a farmer.
But there is more to the matter than that. For we can now start to see why, in this particular passage about how to look after Empedocles’ words, references to Zeus keep cropping up with extraordinary frequency. Empedocles assures Pausanias that if he does the work outlined for him he will come to possess, kteseai, many other things in good time. He promises him that his words have the power to give increase and growth, auxei. One of Zeus’ ritual titles was Ktesios. Another was Auxetes, “Giver of growth.”
He was also known as Plousios, “Giver of wealth”; as Georgos and Karpodotes, “Farmer” and “Giver of Fruits.” And just as significant is Empedocles’ way of telling Pausanias to oversee, epopteuein, the planting of his words with pure, katbaros, attention to the work. For two other titles of Zeus were Epoptes or Epopsios, “Overseer,” and Katbarsios: “Purifier.”
There is nothing coincidental about this cluster of hinting references. To Empedocles, Zeus was a uniquely important god. When he identifies each of his four primordial “roots” or elements with a divinity, Zeus is the one he allows to represent aitber—the element of our own immortality and pure divinity, the substance of our soul.