Empedocles the divine

Empedocles beliefs about the divine and immortality greatly interested me. He states that only Love and Strife are immortal and that everything will eventually pass away, this also seems to include his other core elements (air, fire, water, earth) and the gods.

Empeocles seems to have created a new definition of what a god is with his idea of Daimones. These are beings who are not immortal but very long lived, and have great power. This power comes at a cost as to become a Daimon Empedocles says that one must commit a grave offense. It makes me wonder what great offense Empedocles committed as he self identifies as one of these Daimones.

Because Empedocles self identifies not only as a Daimon, but also as a God, one could infer that he believes the Greek gods are also these Daimones. It certainly wouldn't be far fetched based on the Greek mythologies that the Gods had committed some great offense like patricide for example. By implying that they status is not truly divine, and is actually attainable by normal people like himself, Empedocles is tearing down the awe and mythos surrounding the Greek pantheon. While he is not the first Pre Socratic philosopher to somewhat dismiss the Greek gods, I think that Empdocles does it in a very interesting way.