Epictetus Discourses 1

George Long (Translator)

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Discourses. Epictetus. George Long (Translator). London. 1890.

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Current edition Perseus

Arrian's Discourses of Epictetus (English) (Epictetus. The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments. Long, George, translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1887.)

Editions (1)
Ἀρριανοῦ τῶν Ἐπικτήτου Διατριβῶν Perseus (Epictetus. Epicteti dissertationes ab Arriano digestae, editio maior. Schenkl, Heinrich. editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1916.) — 1.1 focus
Translations (1)
The Discourses of Epictetus Perseus (Epictetus. The Works of Epictetus, His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, translator. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.) — 1 focus

Notes on the current edition

Discourses

1.
This moral approving and disapproving faculty
is Bp. Butler’s translation of the δοκιμαστική and ἀποδοκιμαστική of Epictetus (i. 1, 1) in his dissertation, Of the Nature of Virtue. See his note.
2. The rational faculty is the λογικὴ ψυχή of Epictetus and Antoninus, of which Antoninus says (xi. 1):
These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyses itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit which it bears, itself enjoys.
3. This is what he has just named the rational faculty. The Stoics gave the name of appearances ( φαντασίαι) to all impressions received by the senses, and to all emotions caused by external things. Chrysippus said:
φαντασία ἐστὶ πάθος ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ γινόμενον, ἐνδεικνύμενον ἑαυτό τε καὶ τὸ πεποιηκός
(Plutarch, iv. c. 12, De Placit. Philosoph.).
4. Compare Antoninus, ii. 3. Epictetus does not intend to limit the power of the gods, but he means that the constitution of things being what it is, they cannot do contradictories. They have so constituted things that man is hindered by externals. How then could they give to man a power of not being hindered by externals? Seneca ( De Providentia, c. 6 ) says:
But it may be said, many things happen which cause sadness, fear, and are hard to bear. Because (God says) I could not save you from them, I have armed your minds against all.
This is the answer to those who imagine that they have disproved the common assertion of the omnipotence of God, when they ask whether He can combine inherent contradictions, whether He can cause two and two to make five. This is indeed a very absurd way of talking.
5. Schweighaeuser observes that these faculties of pursuit and avoidance, and of desire and aversion, and even the faculty of using appearances, belong to animals as well as to man: but animals in using appearances are moved by passion only, and do not understand what they are doing, while in man these passions are under his control. Salmasius proposed to change ἡμέτερον into ὑμέτερον, to remove the difficulty about these animal passions being called
a small portion of us (the gods).
Schweighaeuser, however, though he sees the difficulty, does not accept the emendation. Perhaps Arrian has here imperfectly represented what his master said, and perhaps he did not.
6. He alludes to the Odyssey, X. 21:
κεῖνον γὰρ ταμίην ἀνέμων ποίησε Κρονίων.
7. Plautius Lateranus, consul-elect, was charged with being engaged in Piso’s conspiracy against Nero. He was hurried to execution without being allowed to see his children; and though the tribune who executed him was privy to the plot, Lateranus said nothing. ( Tacit. Ann. xv. 49 , 60 .)
8. Epaphroditus was a freedman of Nero, and once the master of Epictetus. He was Nero’s secretary. One good act is recorded of him: he helped Nero to kill himself, and for this act he was killed by Domitian ( Suetonius, Domitian, c. 14 ).
9. This is an imitation of a passage in the Bacchae of Euripides ( v. 492, etc. ), which is also imitated by Horace ( Epp, i, 16 ).
10. ἡ προαίρεσίς. It is sometimes rendered by the Latin propositum or by voluntas, the will.
11. Thrasea Paetus, a Stoic philosopher, who was ordered in Nero’s time to put himself to death ( Tacit. Ann. xvi. 21–35 ). He was the husband of Arria, whose mother Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, heroically showed her husband the way to die (Plinius, Letters, iii. 16 .) Martial has immortalised the elder Arria in a famous epigram ( i. 14 ):—
When Arria to her Paetus gave the sword,
Which her own hand from her chaste bosom drew,
This wound, she said, believe me, gives no pain,
But that will pain me which thy hand will do.
12. C. Musonius Rufus, a Tuscan by birth, of equestrian rank, a philosopher and Stoic ( Tacit. Hist. iii. 81 ).
13. Paconius Agrippinus was condemned in Nero’s time. The charge against him was that he inherited his father’s hatred of the head of the Roman state ( Tacit. Ann. xvi. 28 ). The father of Agrippinus had been put to death under Tiberius (Suetonius, Tib. c. 61 ).
14. Aricia, about twenty Roman miles from Rome , on the Via Appia (Horace, Sat. i. 5, 1):—
Egressum magna me excepit Aricia Roma.
15. Epictetus, Encheiridion, c. 11:
Never say on the occasion of anything, I have lost it but say, I have returned it.
16. The Spartan boys used to be whipped at the altar of Artemis Orthia till blood flowed abundantly, and sometimes till death; but they never uttered even a groan (Cicero, Tuscul. ii. 14; v. 27).
17. The preconception πρόληψις is thus defined by the Stoics:
ἐστι δὴ ἡ πρόληψις ἔννοια φυσικὴ τῶν καθʼ ὅλου
(Diogenes Laert. vii.).
We name Anticipation all knowledge, by which I can à priori know and determine that which belongs to empirical knowledge, and without doubt this is the sense in which Epicurus used his expression πρόληψις
(Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 152, 7th ed.). He adds:
But since there is something in appearances which never can be known à priori, and which consequently constitutes the difference between empirical knowledge and knowledge à priori, that is, sensation (as the material of observation), it follows that this sensation is specially that which cannot be anticipated (it cannot be a πρόληψις). On the other hand, we could name the pure determinations in space and time, both in respect to form and magnitude, anticipations of the appearances, because these determinations represent à priori whatever may be presented to us à posteriori in experience.
see also p. 8, etc.
18. Nero was passionately fond of scenic representations, and used to induce the descendants of noble families, whose poverty made them consent, to appear on the stage ( Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 14 ; Suetonius, Nero, c. 21 ).
19. The purple is the broad purple border on the toga named the toga praetexta, worn by certain Roman magistrates and some others, and by senators, it is said, on certain days ( Cic. Phil. ii. 43 ).
20. Helvidius Priscus, a Roman senator and a philosopher, is commended by Tacitus ( Hist. iv. 4, 5 ) as an honest man:
He followed the philosophers who considered those things only to be good which are virtuous, those only to be bad which are foul; and he reckoned power, rank, and all other things which are external to the mind as neither good nor bad.
Vespasian, probably in a fit of passion, being provoked by Helvidius, ordered him to be put to death, and then revoked the order when it was too late (Suetonius Vespasianus, c. 15 ).
21. Baton was elected for two years gymnasiarch or superintendent of a gymnasium in or about the time of M. Aurelius Antoninus. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
22. This is supposed, as Casaubon says, to refer to Domitian’s order to the philosophers to go into exile; and some of them, in order to conceal their profession of philosophy, shaved their beards. Epictetus would not take off his beard.
23. The text is: εἰ δὲ μὴ οὐ χείρων. The sense seems to be: Epictetus is not superior to Socrates, but if he is not worse, that is enough for me. On the different readings of the passage and on the sense, see the notes in Schweig.’s edition. The difficulty, if there is any, is in the negative μή.
24. Milo of Croton , a great athlete. The conclusion is the same as in Horace, Epp. i. 1, 28, etc.:
Est quodam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.
25. Epictetus speaks of God ὁ θεός and the gods. Also conformably to the practice of the people, he speaks of God under the name of Zeus. The gods of the people were many, but his God was perhaps one.
Father of men and gods,
says Homer of Zeus; and Virgil says of Jupiter,
Father of gods and king of men.
Salmasius proposed ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ. See Schweig.’s note.
26. ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε μή τι τούτων ἀποβῆτε τῶν ἀτυχημάτων. Upton compares Matthew xvi. 6:
ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης
, Upton remarks that many expressions in Epictetus are not unlike the style of the Gospels, which were written in the same period in which Epictetus was teaching. Schweighaeuser also refers to Wetstein’s New Testament.
27. τὸ εὔρουν or ἡ εὔροια is translated happiness. The notion is that of flowing easily, as Seneca (Epp. 120) explains it:
beata vita, secundo defluens cursu.
28. ὑπερτέθειται. The Latin translation is:
in futurum tempus rejicit.
Wolf says:
Significat id, quod in Enchiridio dictum est: philosophies tironem non nimium tribuere sibi, sed quasi addubitantem expectare dum confirmetur judicium.
29. Diogenes Laertius (Chrysippus, lib. vii.) states that Chrysippus wrote seven hundred and five books, or treatises, or whatever the word συγγράμματα means. He was born at Soli , in Cilicia , or at Tarsus , in B. C. 280, as it is reckoned, and on going to Athens he became a pupil of the Stoic Cleanthes.
30. Compare iii. c. 2. The word is τόποι.
31. Halteres are gymnastic instruments (Galen. i. De Sanitate tuenda; Martial, xiv. 49; Juvenal, vi. 420, and the Scholiast. Upton). Halteres is a Greek word, literally leapers. They are said to have been masses of lead, used for exercise and in making jumps. The effect of such weights in taking a jump is well known to boys who have used them. A couple of bricks will serve the purpose, Martial says (xiv. 49):—
Quid pereunt stulto fortes haltere lacerti?
Exercet melius vinea fossa viros.
Juvenal (vi. 421) writes of a woman who uses dumb-bells till she sweats, and is then rubbed dry by a man,
Quum lassata gravi ceciderunt brachia massa.
(Macleane’s Juvenal.) As to the expression, Ὄψει σὺ, καὶ οἱ ἁλτῆρες, see Upton’s note. It is also a Latin form:
Epicurus hoc viderit,
Cicero, Acad. ii. c. 7;
haec fortuna viderit,
Ad Attic. vi. 4. It occurs in M. Antoninus, viii. 41, v. 25; and in Acta Apostol. xviii. 15.
32. μεταρριπίζεσθαι. Compare James, Ep. i. 6:
ὁ γὰρ διακρινόμενος ἔοικε κλύδωνι θαλάσσης ἀνεμιζομένῳ καὶ ῥιπιζομένῳ
.
33. This is said in the Criton of Plato, 1; but not in exactly the same way.
34. So kings and such personages speak in the Greek tragedies. Compare what M. Antoninus (xi. 6) says of Tragedy.
35. ἀνεστάκασιν See the note of Schweig. on the use of this form of the verb.
36. See Lecture V., The New Academy, Levin’s Lectures Introductory to the Phoilsophical Writings of Cicero, Cambridge , 1871 .
37. ἀπαχθείς. See the note in Schweig.’s edition.
38. Compare Cicero, Academ. Prior. ii. 6.
39. Goethe has a short poem, entitled Gleich und Gleich (Like and Like):
Ein Blumenglöckchen
Vom Boden hervor
War früh gesprosset
In lieblichem Flor;
Da kam ein Bienchen
Und naschte fein:—
Die miissen wohl beyde
Für einander seyn.
40. See Schweig.’s note. I have given the sense of the passage, I think.
41. Cicero, De Off. i. c. 4, on the difference between man and beast.
42. See Schweig,’s note, tom. ii. p. 84.
43. The original is αὐτοῦ, which I refer to God; but it may be ambiguous. Schweighaeuser refers it to man, and explains it to mean that man should be a spectator of himself, according to the maxim, Γνῶθι σεαυτόν. It is true that man can in a manner contemplate himself and his faculties as well as external objects; and as every man can be an object to every other man, so a man may be an object to himself when he examines his faculties and reflects on his own acts. Schweighaeuser asks how can a man be a spectator of God, except so far as he is a spectator of God’s works? It is not enough; he says, to reply that God and the universe, whom and which man contemplates, are the same thing to the Stoics; for Epictetus always distinguishes God the maker and governor of the universe from the universe itself. But here lies the difficulty. The universe is an all-comprehensive term: it is all that we can in any way perceive and conceive as existing; and it may therefore comprehend God, not as something distinct from the universe, but as being the universe himself. This form of expression is an acknowledgment of the weakness of the human faculties, and contains the implicit assertion of Locke that the notion of God is beyond man’s understanding (Essay, etc. ii. c. 17).
44. This work was the colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus (Jupiter) by Phidias, which was at Olympia . This wonderful work is described by Pausanias (Eliaca, A, 11).
45. Compare Persius, Sat. iii, 66—
Discite, io, miseri et causas cognoscite rerum,
Quid sumus aut quidnam victuri gign mur.
46. Compare Antoninus, viii. 50, and Epictetus, ii. 16, 13.
47. ἀφορμὰς. This word in this passage has a different meaning from that which it has when it is opposed to ὁρμή. See Gataker, Antoninus, ix. 1 (Upton). Epictetus says that the powers which man has were given by God: Antoninus says, from nature. They mean the same thing. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
48. Compare Antoninus, ix. 1.
49. The title is περὶ τῆς χρείας τῶν μεταπιπτόντων καὶ ὑποθετικῶν καὶ τῶν ὁμοιων. Schweighaeuser has a big note on μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι, which he has collected from various critics. Mrs. Carter translated the title
Of the Use of Convertible and Hypothetical Propositions and the like.
But convertible might be understood in the common logical sense, which is not the meaning of Epictetus. Schweighaeuser explains μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι to be sophistical arguments in which the meaning of propositions or of terms, which ought to remain the same, is dexterously changed and perverted to another meaning.
50. See Schweig.’s note on ἀποδείξειν ἕκαστα ἀποδόντα .
51. These are syllogisms and figures, modes ( τρόποι) by which the syllogism has its proper conclusion.
52. Compare Aristotle, Topic. viii. 1, 22 (ed. J. Pac. 758). Afterwards Epictetus uses τὰ ὡμολογημένα as equivalent to λήμματα (premises or assumptions).
53. The inference, τὸ ἐπιφερόμενον.
Ἐπιφορά est illatio quae assumptionem sequitur
(Upton).
54.
This, then, is a case of μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι (chap. vii. 1), where there has been a sophistical or dishonest change in the premises or in some term, by virtue of which change there appears to be a just conclusion, which, however, is false; and it is not a conclusion derived from the premises to which we assented. A ridiculous example is given by Seneca, Ep. 48:
Mus syllaba est: mus autem caseum rodit: syllaba ergo caseum rodit.
Seneca laughs at this absurdity, and says perhaps the following syllogism ( collectio) may be a better example of acuteness:
Mus syllaba est: syllaba autem caseum non rodit: mus ergo caseum non rodit.
One is as good as the other. We know that neither conclusion is true, and we see where the error is. Ménage says that though the Stoics particularly cultivated logic, some of them despised it, and he mentions Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus. Upton, however, observes that Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus did not despise logic (he says nothing about Seneca), but employed it for their own purposes.
It has been observed that if a man is asked whether, if every A is B, every B is also A, he might answer that it is. But if you put the conversion in this material form: Every goose is an animal, he immediately perceives that he cannot say, Every animal is a goose. What does this show? It shows that the man’s comprehension of the proposition, every A is B, was not true, and that he took it to mean Something different from what the person intended who put the question. He understood that A and B were coextensive. Whether we call this reasoning or something else, makes no matter. A man whose understanding is sound cannot in the nature of things reason wrong; but his understanding of the matter on which he reasons may be wrong somewhere, and he may not be able to discover where. A man who has been trained in the logical art may show him that his conclusion is just according to his understanding of the terms and the propositions employed, but yet it is not true.
55. Rufus is Musonius Rufus (i. 1). To kill a father and to burn the Roman Capitol are mentioned as instances of the greatest crimes. Comp. Horace, Epode, iii. ; Cicero, De Amicit. c. 11; Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, c. 20.
56. The faculties, as Wolf says, are the faculties of speaking and arguing, which, as he also says, make men arrogant and careless who have no solid knowledge, according to Bion’s maxim, ἡ γὰρ οἴησις ἐγκοπὴ τῆς προκοπῆς ἐστιν,
arrogance (self-conceit) is a hindrance to improvement.
See viii. 8.
57. Things mean propositions and terms. See Aristot. Analyt. Prior. i. 39,
δεῖ δὲ καὶ μεταλαμβάνειν
, etc. Ἐπιχειρήματα are arguments of any kind with which we attack ( ἐπιχειρεῖν) an adversary.
58. The Enthymeme is defined by Aristotle:
ἐνθύμημα μὲν οὖν ἐστι συλλογισμὸς ἐξ εἰκότων ἢ σημείων
(Anal. Prior. ii. c. 27). He has explained, in the first part of this chapter, what he means by εἰκός and σημεῖον. See also De Morgan’s Formal Logic, p. 237; and P. C. Organon, p. 6, note.
59. A man, as Wolf explains it, should not make oratory, or the art of speaking, his chief excellence. He should use it to set off something which is superior.
60. Plato was eloquent, and the adversary asks, if that is a reason for not allowing him to be a philosopher. To which the rejoinder is that Hippocrates was a physician, and eloquent too, but not as a physician.
61. Epictetus was lame.
62. In i. 20, 15. Epictetus defines the being ( οὐσία) or nature of good to be a proper use of appearances; and he also says, i. 29, 1, that the nature of the good is a kind of will ( προαίρεσις ποιά), and the nature of evil is a kind of will. But Schweighaeuser cannot understand how the good of man can be a certain will with regard to appearances; and he suggests that Arrian may have written, a certain will which makes use of appearances.
63. Cicero, Tuscul. v. 37, has the same:
Socrates cum rogaretur, cujatem se esse diceret, Mundanum, inquit. Totius enim mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur.
(Upton.)
64. It is the possession of reason, he says, by which man has communion with God; it is not by any external means, or religious ceremonial. A modern expositor of Epictetus says,
Through reason our souls are as closely connected and mixed up with the deity as though they were part of him
(Epictet. i. 14, 6; ii. 8, 11, 17, 33). In the Epistle named from Peter (ii. 1, 4) it is written:
Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these (see v. 3) ye might be partakers of the divine nature (
γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως
), having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Mrs. Carter, Introduction, § 31, has some remarks on this Stoic doctrine, which are not a true explanation of the principles of Epictetus and Antoninus.
65. So Jesus said, Our Father which art in heaven. Cleanthes, in his hymn to Zeus, writes, ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος ἐσμέν. Compare Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 28, where Paul quotes these words. It is not true then that the conception of a parental deity, as it has been asserted, was unknown before the teaching of Jesus, and, after the time of Jesus, unknown to those Greeks who were unacquainted with His teaching.
66.
In our present society there are thousands who rise in the morning and know not how they shall find something to eat. Some find their food by fraud and theft, some receive it as a gift from others, and some look out for any work that they can find and get their pittance by honest labour. You may see such men everywhere, if you will keep your eyes open. Such men, who live by daily labour, live an heroic life, which puts to shame the well-fed philosopher and the wealthy Christian.
Epictetus has made a great misstatement about irrational animals. Millions die annually for want of sufficient food; and many human beings perish in the same way. We can hardly suppose that he did not know these facts.
Compare the passage in Matthew (vi. 25–34). It is said, v. 26:
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
The expositors of this passage may be consulted.
67. The old man is Epictetus.
68. He means, as Wolf says,
on account of the necessities of the body seeking the favour of the more powerful by disagreeable compliances.
69. Upton refers to Cicero, Tuscul. i. 30, Cato Major, c. 20; Somnium Scipionis, c. 3 (De Republica, iv. 15); the purport of which passage is that we must not depart from life without the command of God. See Marcus Antoninus, ii. 17; iii. 5; v. 33. But how shall a man know the signal for departure, of which Epictetus speaks?
70.
Upton has referred to the passages of Epictetus in which this expression is used, i. 24, 20; i. 25, 18; ii. 1, 19, and others; to Seneca, De Provid. c. 6, Ep. 91; to Cicero, De Fin. iii. 18, where there is this conclusion:
e quo apparet et sapientis esse aliquando officium excedere e vita, quum beatus sit; et stulti manere in vita quum sit miser.
Compare Matthew vi. 31:
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things,
etc.
71. This passage is founded on and is in substance the same as that in Plato’s Apology, c. 17.
72. Schweighaeuser has a long note on this passage, to receive from another. I think that there is no difficulty about the meaning; and the careful reader will find none. Epictetus was once a slave.
73. The meaning is obscure. Schweighaeuser thinks that the allusion is to a defeated enemy asking permission from the conqueror to bury the dead. Epictetus considers a man as a mere carcase who places his happiness in externals and in the favour of others.
74. A Præfectus Annonæ, or superintendent of the supply of corn at Rome is first mentioned by Livy (iv. 12) as appointed during a scarcity. At a later time this office was conferred on Cn. Pompeius for five years. Maecenas (Dion. 52, c. 24) advised Augustus to make a Praefectus Annonae or permanent officer over the corn market and all other markets (
ἐπὶ τοῦ σίτου τῆς τε ἀγορᾶς τῆς λοιπῆς
). He would thus have the office formerly exercised by the aediles.
75. I cannot explain why the third person is used here instead of the second. See Schweig.’s note.
76. The Stoics taught that man is adapted by his nature for action. He ought not therefore to withdraw from human affairs, and indulge in a lazy life, not even a life of contemplation and religious observances only. Upton refers to Antoninus, v. 1, viii. 19, and Cicero, De Fin. V. 20.
77. Schweighaeuser proposes a small alteration in the Greek text, but I do not think it necessary. When Epictetus says, Why are we not active? He means, Why do some say that we are not active? And he intends to say that We are active, but not in the way in which some people are active. I have therefore added in ( ) what is necessary to make the text intelligible.
78. This passage is rather obscure. The word ἐπαναγνῶναι signifies, it is said, to read over for the purpose of explaining as a teacher may do. The pupil also would read something to the teacher for the purpose of showing if he understood it. So Epictetus also says, But what is it to me, etc.
79. A plain allusion to restraints put on the exportation of grain.
80.
When we are children our parents put us in the hands of a paedagogue to see on all occasions that we take no harm.
—Epictetus, Frag. 97.
81. κἂν μεταδόξῃ, if you should change your mind, as we say. So we may translate, in the previous part of this chapter, ἔδοξεν ἡμῖν, and the like, we had a mind to such and such a thing. Below it is said that the causes of our actions are our opinions and our wills, where the Greek for wills is δόγματα. If we translate ἔδοξεν ἡμῖν, seemed right, as some persons would translate it, that is not the meaning, unless we understand seemed right in a sense in which it is often used, that is, a man’s resolve to do so and so. See Schweig.’s note on ὑπόληψις and δόγμα. As Antoninus says (viii. 1):
How then shall a man do this (what his nature requires)? If he has principles ( δόγματα) from which come his affects ( ὅρμαι) and his acts ( πράξεις)?
82. He uses the word δόγματα, which contains the same element or root as δοκεῖ, ἔδοξε.
83. A Scholasticus is one who frequents the schools; a studious and literary person, who does not engage in the business of active life.
84. The line is from the prayer of Ulysses to Athena:
Hear me child of Zeus, thou who standest by me always in all dangers, nor do I even move without thy knowledge.
Socrates said that the gods know everything, what is said and done and thought (Xenophon, Mem. i. 1, 19 ). Compare Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 1, 2; and Dr. Price’s Dissertation on Providence, sect. i. Epictetus enumerates the various opinions about the gods in antient times. The reader may consult the notes in Schweighaeuser’s edition. The opinions about God among modern nations, who are called civilized, and are so more or less, do not seem to be so varied as in antient times: but the contrasts in modern opinions are striking. These modern opinions vary between denial of a God, though the number of those who deny is perhaps not large, and the superstitious notions about God and his administration of the world, which are taught by teachers, learned and ignorant, and exercise a great power over the minds of those who are unable or do not dare to exercise the faculty of reason.
85. To follow God, is a Stoical expression. Antoninus, x. 11.
86. This means that we ought to learn to be satisfied with everything that happens, in fact with the will of God. This is a part of education, according to Epictetus. But it does not appear in our systems of education so plainly as it does here. Antoninus (iv. 23):
Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late. which is in due time for thee?
87. Upton has collected the passages in which this doctrine was mentioned. One passage is in Gellius ( vi. 1 ), from the fourth book of Chrysippus on Providence, who says:
nothing is more foolish than the opinions of those who think that good could have existed without evil.
Schweighaeuser wishes that Epictetus had discussed more fully the question on the nature and origin of Evil. He refers to the commentary of Simplicius on the Encheiridion of Epictetus, c. 13 (8), and 34 (27), for his treatment of this subject. Epictetus (Encheiridion, c. 27) says that
as a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe.
Simplicius observes (p. 278, ed. Schweig.):
The Good is that which is according to each thing’s nature, wherein each thing has its perfection: but the Bad is the disposition contrary to its nature of the thing which contains the bad, by which disposition it is deprived of that which is according to nature, namely, the good. For if the Bad as well as the Good were a disposition and perfection of the form ( εἴδους) in which it is, the bad itself would also be good and would not then be called Bad.
88. The word is ὑποθέσεις. It is explained by what follows.
89.
Et quota pars homo sit terrai totius unus.
Lucret. vi. 652, and Antoninus, ii. 4.
90. The original is δόγμασι, which the Latin translators render
decretis,
and Mrs. Carter
principles.
I don’t understand either. I have rendered the word by thoughts, which is vague, but I can do no better. It was the Stoic doctrine that the human intelligence is a particle of the divine. Mrs. Carter names this
one of the Stoic extravagancies, arising from the notion that human souls were literally parts of the Deity.
But this is hardly a correct representation of the Stoic doctrine.
91. Mrs. Carter compares Job xxxi. 15:
Did not he that made me in the womb make him (my man-servant)? And did not one fashion us in the womb?
92. I suppose he means human laws, which have made one man a slave to another; and when he says dead men, he may mean mortal men, as contrasted with the gods or God, who has made all men brothers.
93. Things appear to be separate, but there is a bond by which they are united.
All this that you see, wherein things divine and human are contained, is One: we are members of one large body
(Seneca, Ep. 95).
The universe is either a confusion, a mutual involution of things and a dispersion; or it is unity and order and providence
(Antoninus, vi. 10): also vii. 9,
all things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly any thing unconnected with any other thing.
See also Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, ii. 7; and De Oratore, iii. 5.
94. The word is συμπαθεῖν. Cicero (De Divin. ii. 69) translates συμ πάθειαν by
continuatio conjunctioque naturae.
95. Compare Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 349–356.
96. Antoninus, v. 27:
Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is assigned to him, and that it does all that the Daemon wishes, which Zeus hath given to every man for his guardian and guide, a portion of himself. And this is every man’s understanding and reason.
Antoninus (iii. 5) names this Daemon
the god who is in thee.
St. Paul (1 Cor. i. 3, 16) says,
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Even the poets use this form of expression—
Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo [ipso]:
Impetus hic sacrae semina mentis habet.
—Ovid, Fasti vi. c .
97. See Schweig.’s note on παραδέδωκεν.
98. See Schweig.’s note.
99. This is τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, a word often used by Antoninus, ii. 2; vi. S.
100.
The philosopher had forgot that fig-trees do not blossom
(Mrs. Carter). The flowers of a fig are inside the fleshy receptacle which becomes the fruit.
Schweig. prints μὴ δ᾽ ἂν, ἐγώ σοι λέγω, προσδόκα: and in his Latin version he prints:
Id vero, ego tibi dico, ne expectes.
I neither understand his pointing, nor his version. Wolf translates it,
Etsi ego tibi dixero (virtutem brevi parari posse), noli credere
: which is light Wolf makes ἄν go with λέγω.
101. Antoninus, v. 33.
102. See Upton’s note on ὁδῷ.
103. ᾁδοντα is Schweighaeuser’s probable emendation.
104. Λόγος ἐστὶν ὁ διαρθρῶν . Διαρθροῦν means to divide a thing into its parts or members. The word analyse seems to be the nearest equivalent. See Schweig.’s note on ὑπὸ τίνος διαρθρωθῆ;
105. This is obscure. The conclusion, Reason therefore is analysed by itself is not in Epictetus; but it is implied, as Schweighaeuser says (p. 197, notes). So Antoninus, xi. 1, writes:
These are the properties of the rational soul; it sees itself, analyses itself.
If reason, our reason, requires another reason to analyse it, that other reason will require another reason to analyse that other reason; and so on to infinity. If reason then, our reason, can be analysed, it must be analysed by itself. The notes on the first part of this chapter in the edition of Schweighaeuser may be read by those who are inclined.
106. Our opinions. There is some defect in the text, as Wolf remarks.
The opponent,
he says,
disparages Logic (Dialectic) as a thing which is not necessary to make men good, and he prefers moral teaching to Logic: but Epictetus informs him, that a man who is not a Dialectician will not have a sufficient perception of moral teaching.
107. He repeats the words of the supposed opponent; and he means that his adversary’s difficulty shows the necessity of Dialectic.
108. Antisthenes who professed the Cynic philosophy, rejected Logic and Physic (Schweig. note p. 201).
109. Xenophon, Mem. iv. 5, 12 , and iv. 6, 7 . Epictetus knew what education ought to be. We learn language, and we ought to learn what it means. When children learn words, they should learn what the thing is which is signified by the word. In the case of children this can only be done imperfectly as to some words, but it may be done even then in some degree; and it must be done, or the word signifies nothing, or, what is equally bad, the word is misunderstood. All of us pass our lives in ignorance of many words which we use; some of us in greater ignorance than others, but all of us in ignorance to some degree.
110. The supposed interpreter says this. When Epictetus says the Roman tongue, perhaps he means that the supposed opponent is a Roman and does not know Greek well.
111. Encheiridion, c. 49.
When a man gives himself great airs because he can understand and expound Chrysippus, say to yourself, If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.
See the rest.
112. Compare Xenophon, Mem. i. 1, 3 .
113. This is true. If you place before a man the fear of death, you threaten him with the fear of death. The man may yield to the threat and do what it is the object of the threat to make him do; or he may make resistance to him who attempts to enforce the threat; or he may refuse to yield, and so take the consequence of his refusal. If a man yields to the threat, he does so for the reason which Epictetus gives, and freedom of choice, and consequently freedom of will really exists in this case. The Roman law did not allow contracts or agreements made under the influence of threats to be valid; and the reason for declaring them invalid was not the want of free will in him who yielded to the threat, but the fact that threats are directly contrary to the purpose of all law, which purpose is to secure the independent action of every person in all things allowed by law. This matter is discussed by Savigny, Das heut. Römische Recht, iii. § 114. See the title Quod metus causa, in the Digest, 4, 2. Compare also Epictetus, iv. 1, 68, etc.
114. τὸ ὅτι, etc.: Schweighaeuser has a note on the distinction between τὸ ὀρέγεσθαι and τὸ ὁρμᾶν. Compare Epictetus, iii. 2, 1; iii. 3, 2; iii. 22, 43; and i. 4, 11. Schweig. says that ὀρέγεσθαι refers to the ἀγαθόν and συμφέρον, and ὁρμᾶν to the καθῆκον, and he concludes that there is a defect in the text, which he endeavours to supply.
115.
Mrs. Carter says:
The most ignorant persons often practise what they know to be evil: and they, who voluntarily suffer, as many do, their inclinations to blind their judgment, are not justified by following it. (Perhaps she means them, their inclinations.) The doctrine of Epictetus therefore, here and elsewhere, on this head, contradicts the voice of reason and conscience: nor is it less pernicious than ill-grounded. It destroys all guilt and merit, all punishment and reward, all blame of ourselves or others, all sense of misbehaviour towards our fellow-creatures, or our Creator. No wonder that such philosophers did not teach repentance towards God.
Mrs. Carter has not understood Epictetus; and her censure is misplaced. It is true that the most ignorant persons often practise what they know to be evil, as she truly says. But she might have said more. It is also true that persons, who are not ignorant, often do what they know to be evil, and even what they would condemn in another, at least before they had fallen into the same evil themselves; for when they have done what they know to be wrong, they have a fellow-feeling with others who are as bad as themselves. Nor does he say, as Mrs. Carter seems to imply that he does, for her words are ambiguous, that they who voluntarily suffer their inclinations to blind their judgment are justified by following them. He says that men will do as they do, so long as they think as they think. He only traces to their origin the bad acts which bad men do; and he says that we should pity them and try to mend them. Now the best man in the world, if he sees the origin and direct cause of bad acts in men, may pity them for their wickedness, and he will do right. He will pity, and still he will punish severely, if the interests of society require the guilty to be punished: but he will not punish in anger. Epictetus says nothing about legal penalties; and I assume that he would not say that the penalties are always unjust, if I understand his principles. His discourse is to this effect, as the title tells us, that we ought not to be angry with the errors of others: the matter of the discourse is the feeling and disposition which we ought to have towards those who do wrong, because they are mistaken about good and evil.
He does not discuss the question of the origin of these men’s mistake further than this: men think that a thing or act is advantageous; and it is impossible for them to think that one thing is advantageous and to desire another thing. Their error is in their opinion. Then he tells us to show them their error, and they will desist from their errors. He is not here examining the way of showing them their error; by which I suppose that he means convincing them of their error. He seems to admit that it may not be possible to convince them of their errors; for he says, if they do not see their errors, they have nothing superior to their present opinion.
This is the plain and certain meaning of Epictetus which Mrs. Carter in her zeal has not seen.
116. Here the text, 9, 10, 11 is defective. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
117. The conclusion explains what precedes. A man can have no pain in his horns, because he has none. A man cannot be vexed about the loss of a thing if he does not possess it. Upton says that Epictetus alludes to the foolish quibble:
If you have not lost a thing, you have it: but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns
(Seneca, Ep. 45). Epictetus says, You do not lose a thing when you have it not. See Schweig.’s note.
118. Compare what is said in Xenophon, Mem. iv. 2, 24 , on the expression Know thyself.
119. This ought to be the method in teaching children.
120. That is obstinate, as this animal is generally; and sometimes very obstinate. The meaning then is, as Schweighaeuser says:
a man should be invincible, not with a kind of stupid obstinacy or laziness and slowness in moving himself like an ass, but he should be invincible through reason, reflection, meditation, study, and diligence.
121.
From the rustics came the old proverb, for when they commend a man’s fidelity and goodness they say he is a man with whom you may play the game with the fingers in the dark.
Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 19. See Forcellini, Micare.
122. The MSS. have ὑομένος or οἰόμενος. Schweighaeuser has accepted Upton’s emendation of οἰνωμένος, but I do not. The sleep refers to dreams. Aristotle, Ethic, i. 13, says:
better are the visions (dreams) of the good ( ἐπιεικῶν) than those of the common sort;
and Zeno taught that
a man might from his dreams judge of the progress that he was making, if he observed that in his sleep he was not pleased with anything bad, nor desired or did anything unreasonable or unjust.
Plutarch, περὶ προκοτῆς, ed. Wyttenbach, vol. i. o. 12.
123. θεραπεύουσι. Epictetus continues to use the same word.
124. Febris, fever, was a goddess at Rome . Upton refers to an inscription in Gruter 97, which begins
Febri Divae.
Compare Lactantius, De falsa religione, c. 20.
125. Comp. i. c. 3.
126. The word is φίλαυτον, self-love, but here it means self-regard, which implies no censure. See Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom. ix. c. 8:
ὡς ἐν αἰσχρῷ φιλαύτους ἀποκαλοῦσι
. His conclusion is:
οὕτω μὲν οὖν δεῖ φίλαυτον εἶναι, καθάπερ εἴρηται ὡς δ᾽ οἱ πολλοί, οὐ χρή
. See the note of Schweighaeuser. Epictetus, as usual, is right in his opinion of man’s nature.
127. This has been misunderstood by Wolf. Schweighaeuser, who always writes like a man of sense, says:
Epictetus means by our proper interests, the interests proper to man, as a man, as a rational being; and this interest or good consists in the proper use of our powers, and so far from being repugnant to common interest or utility, it contains within itself the notion of general utility and cannot be separated from it.
128. Such a man was named in Greek κοιτωνίτης; in Latin cubicularius, a lord of the bedchamber, as we might say. Seneca, De Constantia Sapientis, c. 14, speaks
of the pride of the nomenclator (the announcer of the name), of the arrogance of the bedchamber man.
Even the clerk of the close-stool was an important person. Slaves used to carry this useful domestic vessel on a journey. Horat. Sat. i. 6, 109 (Upton).
129. Once the master of Epictetus (i. 1, 20).
130. Hand-kissing was in those times of tyranny the duty of a slave, not of a free man. This servile practice still exists among men called free.
131. Schweighaeuser says that he has introduced into the text Lord Shaftesbury’s emendation, ὅπου. The emendation ὅπου is good, but Schweighaeuser has not put it in his text: he has οἷ τὸ ἀγαθὸν τιθέμεθα. Matthew vi. 21,
for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So these people show by thanking God, what it is for which they are thankful.
132. Casaubon, in a learned note on Suetonius, Augustus, c. 18 , informs us that divine honours were paid to Augustus at Nicopolis , which town he founded after the victory at Actium . The priesthood of Augustus at Nicopolis was a high office, and the priest gave his name to the year; that is, when it was intended in any writing to fix the year, either in any writing which related to public matters, or in instruments used in private affairs, the name of the priest of Augustus was used, and this was also the practice in most Greek cities. In order to establish the sense of this passage, Casaubon changed the text from τὰς φωνάς into τὰ σύμφωνα, which emendation Schweighaeuser has admitted into his text.
133. A comparison of lib. i. chap. 1, will help to explain this chapter. Compare also lib. i. chap. 17.
134. Wolf suggests that we should read προηγουμένως instead of προηγουμένων.
135. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
136.
We reckon death among the things which are indifferent ( indifferentia), which the Greeks name ἀδιάφορα. But I name indifferent the things which are neither good nor bad, as disease, pain, poverty, exile, death.
—Seneca, Ep. 82.
137. Zeno, a native of Citium , in the island of Cyprus , is said to have come when he was young to Athens , where he spent the rest of a long life in the study and teaching of Philosophy. He was the founder of the Stoic sect, and a man respected for his ability and high character. He wrote many philosophical works. Zeno was succeeded in his school by Cleanthes.
138. Follow. See i. 12, 5.
139.
I now have what the universal nature wills me to have, and I do what my nature now wills me to do.
M. Antoninus, v. 25, and xi. 5.
Epictetus never attempts to say what God is. He was too wise to attempt to do what man cannot do. But man does attempt to do it, and only shows the folly of his attempts, and, I think, his presumption also.
140. Epicurus is said to have written more than any other person, as many as three hundred volumes ( κύλινδροι, rolls). Chrysippus was his rival in this respect. For if Epicurus wrote anything, Chrysippus vied with him in writing as much; and for this reason he often repeated himself, because he did not read over what he had written, and he left his writings uncorrected in consequence of his hurry. Diogenes Laertius, x.—Upton. See i. 4.
141. Praecognitions ( προλήψεις) is translated Praecognita by John Smith, Select Discourses, p. 4. Cicero says (Topica, 7):
Notionem appello quod Graeci tum ἔννοιαν, tum πρόληψιν dicunt. Ea est insita et ante percepta cujusque formae cognitio, enodationis indigens.
In the De Natura Deorum (i. 16) he says:
Quae est enim gens aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat sine doctrina anticipationem quandam deorum, quam appellat πρόληψιν Epicurus? id est, anteceptam animo rei quandam informationem, sine qua nec intelligi quidquam nec quaeri nec disputari potest.
Epicurus, as Cicero says in the following chapter (17), was the first who used πρόληψις in this sense, which Cicero applies to what he calls the ingrafted or rather innate cognitions of the existence of gods, and these cognitions he supposes to be universal; but whether this is so or not, I do not know. See l. c. 2; Tuscul i. 24; De Fin. iii. 6, and πρόληψις in iv. 8. 6.
142. The word is ὅσιον, which is very difficult to translate. We may take an instance from ourselves. There is a general agreement about integrity, and about the worship of the supreme being, but a wondrous difference about certain acts or doings in trading, whether they are consistent with integrity or not; and a still more wondrous difference in forms of worship, whether they are conformable to religion or not.
143. Horace, Epp. i. 2 .
144. Iliad, i. The quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon about giving up Chryseis to her father.
145. The bath was a place of common resort, where a thief had the opportunity of carrying off a bather’s clothes. From men’s desires to have what they have not, and do not choose to labour for, spring the disorders of society, as it is said in the epistle of James, c. iv., v. 1, to which Mrs. Carter refers.
146. See i. 19. 6, note 2.
147.
Upton refers to a passage in the Theaetetus (p. 150, Steph.), where Socrates professes that it is his art to discover whether a young man’s mind is giving birth to an idol (an unreality) and a falsity, or to something productive and true; and he says (p. 151) that those who associate with him are like women in child-birth, for they are in labour and full of trouble nights and days much more than women, and his art has the power of stirring up and putting to rest this labour of child-birth.
The conclusion in the chapter is not clear. The student is supposed to be addressed by some rich old man, who really does not know what to say; and the best way of getting rid of him and his idle talk is by dismissing him with a joke. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
148. That is in the body; see i. 20, 17. Compare ii. 20, at the beginning of the chapter.
149. The word ὑπονοητικοί is not intelligible. Schweighaeuser suggests that it ought to be προνοητικοί, how have we any care for others? Epicurus taught that we should not marry nor beget children nor engage in public affairs, because these things disturb our tranquillity.
150. So Ovid says, Trist. iv. 3, 79:—
Quae latet inque bonis cessat non cognita rebus,
Apparet virtus argniturque malis.
151. In the time of Domitian philosophers were banished from Rome and Italy by a Senatusconsultum (Sueton. Domitian, c. 10 ; Dion, 67, c. 13), and at that time Epictetus, as Gellius says ( xv. 11 ), went from Rome to Nicopolis in Epirus , where he opened a school. We may suppose that Epictetus is here speaking of some person who had gone from Nicopolis to Rome to inquire about the state of affairs there under the cruel tyrant Domitian. (Schweighaeuser.)
152. Diogenes was brought to king Philip after the battle of Chaeronea as a spy (iii. 22, 24). Plutarch in the treatise, Quomodo assentator ab amico dignoscatur, c. 30, states that when Philip asked Diogenes if he was a spy, he replied, Certainly I am a spy, Philip, of your want of judgment and of your folly, which lead you without any necessity to put to the hazard your kingdom and your life in one single hour.
153. The garment with the broad border, the laticlave, was the dress of a senator; the garment with the narrow border, the angusticlave, was the dress of a man of the equestrian order.
154. The exclamation of Oedipus in the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, v. 1390 .
155. This means you can die when you please. Comp. i. c. 9. The power of dying when you please is named by Plinius (N. H. ii. c. 7) the best thing that God has given to man amidst all the sufferings of life. Horace, Epp. ii. 2. 213,—
Vivere si recte nescis, decede peritis:
Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti;
Tempus abire tibi.
156.
The conclusion and you will then see, is not in the text, but it is what Epictetus means. The argument is complete. If we admit the existence of God, and that he is our father, as Epictetus teaches, we have from him the intellectual powers which we possess; and those men in whom these powers have been roused to activity, and are exercised, require no other instructor. It is true that in a large part of mankind these powers are inactive and are not exercised, or if they are exercised, it is in a very imperfect way. But those who contemplate the improvement of the human race, hope that all men, or if not all men, a great number will be roused to the exercise of the powers which they have, and that human life will be made more conformable to Nature, that is, that man will use the powers which he has, and will not need advice and direction from other men, who professing that they are wise and that they can teach, prove by their teaching and often by their example that they are not wise, and are incapable of teaching.
This is equally true for those who may deny or doubt about the existence of God. They cannot deny that man has the intellectual powers which he does possess; and they are certainly not the persons who will proclaim their own want of these powers. If man has them and can exercise them, the fact is sufficient; and we need not dispute about the source of these powers which are in man Naturally, that is, according to the constitution of his Nature.
157. See the end of the preceding chapter. Upton compares Horace’s
Incidere ludum
(Epp. i. 14, 36) . Compare also Epictetus, ii. 16, 37.
158. A festival at Rome in December, a season of jollity and license (Livy, xxii. 1). Compare the passage in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 15 , in which Nero is chosen by lot to be king: and Seneca, De Constant. Sapient. c. 12,
Illi (pueri) inter ipsos magistratus gerunt, et praetextam fascesque ac tribunal imitantur.
159. Gyarus or Gyara a wretched island in the Aegean sea, to which criminals were sent under the empire at Rome . Juvenal, Sat. i. 73.
160. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
161. Demetrius was a Cynic philosopher, of whom Seneca (De Benef. vii. 1) says:
He was in my opinion a great man, even if he is compared with the greatest.
One of his sayings was; You gain more by possessing a few precepts of philosophy, if you have them ready and use them, than by learning many if you have them not at hand. Seneca often mentions Demetrius. The saying in the text is also attributed to Anaxagoras (Life by Diogenes Laertius) and to Socrates by Xeuophon (Apologia, 27).
162. At Rome , and probably in other towns, there were seats reserved for the different classes of men at the public spectacles.
163. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
164. Paradoxes ( παράδοξα), things contrary to opinion, are contrasted with paralogies ( παράλογα), things contrary to reason (iv. 1. 173). Cicero says (Prooemium to his Paradoxes), that paradoxes are
something which cause surprise and contradict common opinion;
and in another place he says that the Romans gave the name of admirabilia to the Stoic paradoxes.—The puncture of the eye is the operation for cataract.
165.
ἐπὶ τῆς θεωρίας.
Intelligere quid verum rectumque sit, prius est et facilius. Id vero exsequi et observare, posterius et difficilius.
—Wolf.
This is a profound and useful remark of Epictetus. General principles are most easily understood and accepted. The difficulty is in the application of them. What is more easy, for example, than to understand general principles of law which are true and good? But in practice cases are presented to us which as Bacon says, are
immersed in matter;
and it is this matter which makes the difficulty of applying the principles, and requires the ability and study of an experienced man. It is easy, and it is right, to teach the young the general principles of the rules of life; but the difficulty of applying them is that in which the young and the old too often fail. So if you ask whether virtue can be taught, the answer is that the rules for a virtuous life can be delivered; but the application of the rules is the difficulty, as teachers of religion and morality know well, if they are fit to teach. If they do not know this truth, they are neither fit to teach the rules, nor to lead the way to the practice of them by the only method which is possible; and this method is by their own example, assisted by the example of those who direct the education of youth, and of those with whom young persons live.
166. Such an intention appears to mean the intention of learning.
The son alone can say this to his father, when the son studies philosophy for the purpose of living a good life, and not for the purpose of display.
—Wolf.
167. I have followed Schweihaeuser’s explanation of this difficult passage, and I have accepted his emendation ἐκσείοντα, in place of the MSS, reading ἐκεῖ ὄντα.
168. This was a large sum. He is speaking of drachmae, or of the Roman equivalents denarii. In Roman language the amount would be briefly expressed by sexagies centena millia H. S., or simply by sexagies.
169. See Schweighaeuser’s note; and all his notes on this chapter, which is rather difficult.
170. See ii. c 11.
171. Seneca, De Tranquillitate animi, c. 9, says:
What is the use of countless books and libraries, when the owner scarcely reads in his whole life the tables of contents? The number only confuses a learner, does not instruct him. It is much better to give yourself up to a few authors than to wander through many.
172. See Plato’s Apology, c. 28; and Antoninus, iii. 5.
173.
Pyrrho was a native of Elis , in the Peloponnesus Iliad. He is said to have accompanied Alexander the Great in his Asiatic expedition (Diogenes Laertius, ix. 61). The time of his birth is not stated, but it is said that he lived to the age of ninety.
See Levin’s Six Lectures, 1871. Lecture II., On the Pyrrhonian Ethic; Lecture III., On the grounds of Scepticism.
174. ἀπώλετο does not mean that the father is dead, and that the mother is dead. They survive and lament. Compare Euripides, Alcestis, v. 825:
ἀπωλόμεσθα πάντες, οὐ κείνη μόν
175. Homer, xii. v. 328:
ἴομεν, ἠὲ τῳ εὐχος ὀρέξομεν ἦέ τις ἡμῖν
.
176.
This means, the received opinion about the knowledge and certainty of things, which knowledge and certainty the Sceptic philosophers attack by taking away general assent or consent
(Wolf). Lord Shaftesbury accepts this explanation. See also Schweig.’s note.
177.
The chief question which was debated between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics on one side, and the Stoics on the other, was this, whether there is a criterion of truth; and in the first place, the question is about the evidence of the senses, or the certainty of truth in those things which are perceived by the senses.
—Schweighaeuser.
The strength of the Stoic system was that
it furnishes a groundwork of common sense, and the universal belief of mankind, on which to found sufficient certitude for the requirements of life: on the other hand, the real question of knowledge, in the philosophical sense of the word, was abandoned.
Levin’s Six Lectures, p. 70.
178. ὡς πρὸς σκοπόν, Schweighaeuser’s emendation in place of ὡς προκόπτων.
179. For the word συνήθειαν, which occurs in s. 20, Schweighaeuser suggests ἀλήθειαν here, and translates it by
veritas.
See his notes on this chapter, s. 15 and s. 20.
180. See c. 18 of this book.
181. We cannot conceive that the number of stars is either even or odd. The construction of the word ἀποπάσχειν is uncertain, for, says Schweighaeuser, the word is found only here.
182. The Medea of Euripides, 1079,
where, instead of δρᾶν μέλλω of Epictetus, the reading is τολμήσω
(Upton).
τολμήσω (Kirchoff), with the best MSS., for δρᾶν μέλλω, which, however is the reading sited by several antient authors.
Paley’s Euripides, note.
183. This is the literal version. It does not mean
that it appeared right,
as Mrs. Carter translates it. Alexander never thought whether it was right or wrong. All that appeared to him was the possessing of Helene, and he used the means for getting possession of her, as a dog who spies and pursues some wild animal.
184. Schweighaeuser proposes to erase μὴ from the text, but it is, I suppose, in all the MSS.: and it is easy to explain the passage without erasing the, μὴ.
185. The expression τὸ φαινόμενον often occurs in this chapter, and it is sometimes translated by the Latin sententia or opinio: and so it may be, and I have translated it by opinion. But Epictetus says (s. 30)
ἀλλὰ τί ἐφάνη, καὶ εἰθὺς ποιῶ τὸ φανέν
: which means that there was an appearance, which was followed by the act. The word generally used by Epictetus is φαντασία, which occurs very often. In the Encheiridion (i. 5) there is some difference between φαντασία and τὸ φαινόμενον, for they are contrasted: τὸ φαινόμενον is the phenomenon, the bare appearance: φαντασία in this passage maybe the mental state consequent on the φαινόμενον: or as Diogenes Laertius says,
Παντασία ἐστι τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ
.
186. The word is οὐσία. The corresponding Latin word which Cicero introduced is
essentia
(Seneca, Epist. 58). The English word essence has obtained a somewhat different sense. The proper translation of οὐσία is being or nature.
187. This is the maxim of Horace, Epp. i. 6 ; and Macleane’s note,—
Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque quae possit facere et servare beatum.
on which Upton remarks that this maxim is explained very philosophically and learnedly by Lord Shaftesbury (the author of the Characteristics), vol. iii. p. 202. Compare M. Antoninus, xii. 1, Seneca, De Vita Beata, c. 3, writes,
Aliarum rerum quae vitam instruunt diligens, sine admiratione cujusquam.
Antoninus (i. 15) expresses the sine admiratione by τὸ ἀθαύμαστον.
188. This is explained by what follows. Opinion does not really conquer itself; but one opinion can conquer another, and nothing else can.
189. The two chief prosecutors of Socrates (Plato, Apology, c. 18; Epictetus, ii 2, 15).
190. See i. 18, 15, p. 58.
191. ὠφέλησαι. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
192. One of those who cry out Philosopher, etc.
193. See i. 9. 20.
194. See i. 6. 13.
195. Socrates was condemned by the Athenians to die, and he was content to die, and thought that it was a good thing; and this was the reason why he made such a defence as he did, which brought on him condemnation; and he preferred condemnation to escaping it by entreating the dicasts (judges), and lamenting, and saying and doing things unworthy of himself, as others did.—Plato, Apology, cc. 29–33. compare Epict. i. 9, 16.
196. See i. 25, 8.
197. Read θέλῃς instead of θέλῃ. See Schweighaeuser’s note.
198. See Schweighaeuser’s note. This appears to be the remark of Epictetus. If it is so, what follows is not clear. Schweighaeuser explains it,
But most of you act otherwise.
199. The Roman emperors kept gladiators for their own amusement and that of the people (Lipsius, Saturnalia, ii. 16). Seneca says ( De Provid. c. 4),
I have heard a mirmillo (a kind of gladiator) in the time of C. Caesar (Caligula) complaining of the rarity of gladiatorial exhibitions: What a glorious period of life is wasting.
Virtue,
says Seneca,
is eager after dangers; and it considers only what it seeks, not what it may suffer.
—Upton.
200. The word is Hypothesis ( ὑπόθεσις), which in this passage means matter to work on, material, subject, as in ii. 5, 11, where it means the business of the pilot. In i. 7 hypothesis has the sense of a proposition supposed for the present to be true, and used as the foundation of an argument.
201.
Tropic ( τροπικόν), a logical term used by Stoics, which Schweighaeuser translates
propositio connexa in syllogismo hypothetico.
The meaning of the whole is this. You do not like the work which is set before you: as we say, you are not content to do your duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call you. Now this is as foolish, says Wolf, as for a man in any discussion to require that his adversary should raise no objection except such as may serve the man’s own case.
202. There will be a time when Tragic actors shall not know what their business is, but will think that it is all show. So, says Wolf, philosophers will be only beard and cloak, and will not show by their life and morals what they really are; or they will be like false monks, who only wear the cowl, and do not show a life of piety and sanctity.
203. God is introduced as speaking.—Schweighaeuser.
204.
The word is Κύριος, the name by which a slave in Epictetus addresses his master (dominus), a physician is addressed by his patient, and in other cases also it is used. It is also used by the Evangelists. They speak of the angel of the Lord (Matt. i. 24); and Jesus is addressed by the same term (Matt. viii. 2), Lord or master.
Mrs. Carter has the following note:
It hath been observed that this manner of expression is not to be met with in the Heathen authors before Christianity, and therefore it is one instance of Scripture language coming early into common use.
But the word ( κύριος) is used by early Greek writers to indicate one who has power or authority, and in a sense like the Roman dominus, as by Sophocles for instance. The use of the word then by Epictetus was not new, and it may have been used by the Stoic writers long before his time. The language of the Stoics was formed at least two centuries before the Christian aera, and the New Testament writers would use the Greek which was current in their age. The notion of Scripture language coming early into common use is entirely unfounded, and is even absurd. Mrs. Carter’s remark implies that Epictetus used the Scripture language, whereas he used the particular language of the Stoics, and the general language of his age, and the New Testament writers would do the same. There are resemblances between the language of Epictetus and the New Testament writers, such as the expression μὴ γένοιτο of Paul, which Epictetus often uses; but this is a slight matter. The words of Peter (Ep. ii. 1, 4),
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
are a Stoic expression, and the writer of this Epistle, I think, took them from the language of the Stoics.
205. The words in the text are: περὶ τῆς νήτης (νεάτης) εἶναι ὑπάτην,
When ὑπάτη is translated the lowest chord or note, it must be remembered that the names employed in the Greek musical terminology are precisely the opposite to ours. Compare νεάτη the highest note, though the word in itself means lowest.
—Key’s Philological Essays, p. 42, note 1.
206. I think that Schweighaeuser’s interpretation is right, that the instructed are those who think that they are instructed but are not, as they show by their opinion that they accept in moral matters the judgment of an ignorant man, whose judgment in music or geometry they would not accept.
207. He names these small arguments λογάρια, which Cicero (Tusc. Disput. ii. 12) names
ratiunculae.
208.
What is the profit, my brethren, if any one should say that he hath faith and have not works?. . . . . . Thus also faith, if it hath not works, is dead in itself. But a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
—Epistle of James, ii. 14–18.
209. See Schweighaeuser’s note on ἐπέστη.
210. The word is εὐσταθῶ. The corresponding noun is εὐστάθεια, which is the title of this chapter.
211. Upton supposes that Epictetus is alluding to the verse of Aristophanes (Acharn. 531), where it is said of Pericles:
He flashed, he thundered, and confounded Hellas .
212. He calls the uninstructed and ignorant by the Greek word Idiotae, idiots, which we now use in a peculiar sense. An Idiota was a private individual as opposed to one who filled some public office; and thence it had generally the sense of one who was ignorant of any particular art, as, for instance, one who had not studied philosophy.
213. Compare the Phaedon of Plato (p. 116). The children of Socrates were brought in to see him before he took the poison by which he died; and also the wives of the friends of Socrates who attended him to his death. Socrates had ordered his wife Xanthippe to be led home before he had his last conversation with his friends, and she was taken away lamenting and bewailing.
214. The reader may understand why Epictetus gave such a lesson as this, if he will remember the tyranny under which men at that time lived.