Clearly, the Λόγος does not say anything arbitrary or desultory. Rather, it says something about ‘all’: namely, that it is ‘one.’ It is not possible to speak of anything beyond the ‘all.’ And one cannot say something simpler about something than what has been said: namely, that it is one. The Λόγος thus simultaneously says something far- reaching and something simple.
How easily this sentence allows itself to be pronounced: one is all! In this dictum, the fl eeting superficiality of vague opining meets the hesitating caution of questioning thinking. The attempt to explain the world hastily with a formula that is everywhere and always correct can make quick use of the sentence “one is all.” However, the first steps of a thinker—the steps that are decisive for the entire fate of thinking—can also be concealed in this saying. How may we now— we who are unprepared and who have grown even more clueless through the accumulation of varied historiographical knowledge—how can we approach this ἓν πάντα εἶναι, this ‘one is all,’ directly, in order to wrest from it a ‘sense’ that is easy for us to grasp and, in the event that such a sense does not offer itself up, to pin one onto the saying ourselves?
ἕν —“one.” What does this mean? Numerically, it means ‘one’ instead of ‘two’ or ‘three.’ Or, does ἕν not mean the numeral or the number one, but rather “the one” which we think when we say: “one and the same”? But even here it is not readily apparent what the “one” means, given that it is meant to convey something different than the word ‘the same,’ which has been added to it. ἓν πάντα εἶναι —“one and the same is all.” Does this perhaps mean: all is the same? Does ‘one and the same,’ when