Heimarmene

Heimarmene (Greek εἱμαρμένη ) is the embodiment of inexorable fate in Greek philosophy and mythology. As a goddess of fate she is equated with Ananke.

The concept of Heimarmene already appeared on in the Ionian natural philosophers and centrally in Heraclitus and was further developed by the earlier Stoa. The problem has always been the contrast between the Heimarmene, of Providence, as a world law and inescapable fate on the one hand, and the action of the deity and the free will of the people on the other side.

The contrast between providence and divine action has been resolved by the possibility of divine Einwirkens was denied what was one of the roots of ancient atheism.

The contrast between providence and human responsibility and free will has been solved in at Posidonius that the Heimarmene as to the material world ( φύσις " physis ") was duly considered. Although the human body and the senses are subject to the physique, but not the soul, which results in the goal to make the soul from the effects of the physical world and the Heimarmene free.

From this perspective gained Heimarmene greatest importance in ancient astrology, in Neoplatonism and the Hermetic.