Episode 178 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 30 - Chapter 13 - The True Piety 01

I've been listening to an audiobook by Matthew Stewart called "Nature's God; The Heretical Origins of the American Republic."

I am still in the early chapters, but his project is to trace the Deism of Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, etc--and the list is quote long--back through Charles Blount, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, and finally through Lucretius and back to Epicurus. I cannot really review it at this time (although I might recommend a paper copy as easier to read carefully), but I am finding it very interesting.

FYI

Nature’s God - Matthew Stewart

Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green…

mwstewart.com

One can't read it in an hour, but if anyone is interested in searching it for Epicurus or Lucretius...

Nature's God : the heretical origins of the American republic : Stewart, Matthew, 1963- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

vii, 566 pages ; 25 cm

archive.org

I mentioned The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 215 in this episode (Internet Archive link opens to papyrus #215):

The Oxyrhynchus papyri : Grenfell, Bernard P. (Bernard Pyne), 1869-1926 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

26 35 43

archive.org

For a little background on the papyri:

Oxyrhynchus Papyri - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

and the WP article to 215 itself:

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215 - Wikipedia

There's also The Hellenistic Philosophers by Long and Sedley to borrow from Internet Archive for free (one hour at a time):

The Hellenistic philosophers : Long, A. A : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

2 volumes : 24 cm

archive.org

Another enjoyable podcast!

Here's a quotation that makes a case against Lucretius having written a seventh book:

Study of endings and closure in classical poetry (in particular of the abrupt and unsettling end of the Aeneid, with its image of Aeneas killing Turnus after Turnus's surrender, which also was once widely attributed to the poem's unfinished state) has made clearer that the abrupt ending of the De rerum natura is far less an anomaly than earlier readers suggested. The opening reference to Athens and suffering mortals is likely a structuring device linking the beginning and end of the book. At any rate, the sixth book clearly constitutes the end of the poem in Lucretius's overall plan, not only because he has created the neat structure of three pairs of books but also because he announces this book as the final one near the end of the proem, with a punning invocation of the Muse Calliope and a reminiscence of the prayer to Venus in book 1: "Precede me and mark out my course, as I run my stint to the white line of my final goal, callida Musa Calliope (clever Muse Calliope), repose of men and delight of gods, that with you as leader I may win the crown with signal glory" (6.92-95). From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucretius

Also, in light of the discussion, PD01 sounds a bit like a predecessor to "what would Jesus do?" in addition to its other interpretations. I hadn't thought of it in that way before.

Excellent point, Godfrey .

Stephen Greenblatt also argues against a seventh book, on the grounds that the end of Book VI sets up a test for the reader to see how well they've grasped the main points of the philosophy.

George Santayana suggested that the poem was unfinished because he anticipates that Lucretius would have ended the poem with Mars to complete the symmetry of beginning with Venus.

Here is a thread on the plague at the end of the book, with a probably meaningless anagram I discovered: Mortifer aestus: "A deadly fever" -> Fetus ore Martis; "Offspring from the mouth of Mars."