Posts by Joshua

"Clinically dead".

So, not dead then. It still surprises me that our use of language concerning something as important as death is so reckless.

My phone battery died mid-call, sorry to have missed the end!

The story of Michael Marullus drowning in a river with a copy of Lucretius in his pocket will be familiar to many here. I learned recently that one of France's preeminent poets (Pierre de Ronsard) wrote an epitaph in his honor. It took me ages to track down even the French text of this epitaph, and I'm posting it here against the day I decide to learn French.

The source of the epitaph is a book of verse called Le Bocage (The Grove), published 1554. Marullus was also a poet, and there are probably fertile fields for exploring his reception of Lucretius. This book might be a good place to start.

Very good Eikadistes !

Clerical note; The footnotes are out of their running starting at VS45, where footnote 10 is repeated from VS44. Everything after that is one off.

Good work!

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How unfortunate for men that they they charged the gods with control of the universe and coupled with that power bitter wrath! What groanings did they then beget for themselves, what wounds for us, what tears for our children’s children! It is no act of piety to be seen with veiled head, turning to a stone and approaching every altar, falling prostrate on the ground, spreading out the palms before the statues of the gods, sprinkling the altars with the blood of beasts, and linking vow on to vow. Rather, true piety is to be able to look on all things with a mind at peace.

-Lucretius

Here's my understanding of things;

Quote from John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration

All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without believing. Whatever profession we make, to whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied in our own mind that the one is true and the other well pleasing unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation.

*****

No way whatsoever that I shall walk in against the dictates of my conscience will ever bring me to the mansions of the blessed. I may grow rich by an art that I take not delight in; I may be cured of some disease by remedies that I have not faith in; but I cannot be saved by a religion that I distrust and by a worship that I abhor.

*****

Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated.

Quote from Thomas More, Utopia

[Utopus] made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature, as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life; and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a beast’s: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made, that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites.

Thomas More and his "Utopia"

The Pythoclean alternative of proposing one or more plausible explanations solves one aspect of the problem. We don't have to know everything to know something rather than nothing!

Lactantius lived c.250-c.325

Origen of Caesarea (c.185-c.253), in his work Contra Celsus (Celsus being possibly though not certainly an Epicurean (see highlight below)), touches on the 'able but not willing' formulation. Celsus' book does not survive except as quoted by Origen.

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Now in our judgment God can do everything which it is possible for Him to do without ceasing to be God, and good, and wise. But Celsus asserts — not comprehending the meaning of the expression God can do all things — that He will not desire to do anything wicked, admitting that He has the power, but not the will, to commit evil. We, on the contrary, maintain that as that which by nature possesses the property of sweetening other things through its own inherent sweetness cannot produce bitterness contrary to its own peculiar nature, nor that whose nature it is to produce light through its being light can cause darkness; so neither is God able to commit wickedness, for the power of doing evil is contrary to His deity and its omnipotence. Whereas if any one among existing things is able to commit wickedness from being inclined to wickedness by nature, it does so from not having in its nature the ability not to do evil.

*****

The argument which Celsus employs against us and the Jews will be turned against himself thus: My good sir, does the God who is over all things know what takes place among men, or does He not know? Now if you admit the existence of a God and of providence, as your treatise indicates, He must of necessity know. And if He does know, why does He not make (men) better? Is it obligatory, then, on us to defend God's procedure in not making men better, although He knows their state, but not equally binding on you, who do not distinctly show by your treatise that you are an Epicurean, but pretend to recognise a providence, to explain why God, although knowing all that takes place among men, does not make them better, nor by divine power liberate all men from evil?

*****

But as he asserts that the Mosaic narrative most impiously represents God as in a state of weakness from the very commencement (of things), and as unable to gain over (to obedience) even one single man whom He Himself had formed, we say in answer that the objection is much the same as if one were to find fault with the existence of evil, which God has not been able to prevent even in the case of a single individual, so that one man might be found from the very beginning of things who was born into the world untainted by sin.

This seems to be the relevant passage from Lactantius:

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You see, therefore, that we have greater need of wisdom on account of evils; and unless these things had been proposed to us, we should not be a rational animal. But if this account is true, which the Stoics were in no manner able to see, that argument also of Epicurus is done away. God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them? I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument, and are almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything, which Epicurus especially aims at; but having examined the matter, we easily do away with this formidable argument. For God is able to do whatever He wishes, and there is no weakness or envy in God. He is able, therefore, to take away evils; but He does not wish to do so, and yet He is not on that account envious. For on this account He does not take them away, because He at the same time gives wisdom, as I have shown; and there is more of goodness and pleasure in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom causes us even to know God, and by that knowledge to attain to immortality, which is the chief good. Therefore, unless we first know evil, we shall be unable to know good. But Epicurus did not see this, nor did any other, that if evils are taken away, wisdom is in like manner taken away; and that no traces of virtue remain in man, the nature of which consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils. And thus, for the sake of a slight gain in the taking away of evils, we should be deprived of a good, which is very great, and true, and peculiar to us. It is plain, therefore, that all things are proposed for the sake of man, as well evils as also goods.

There are a number of quotations in Lactantius that are consistent with the surviving works of Epicurus and Lucretius;

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Finally, Lucretius, as though forgetful of atoms, which he was maintaining, in order that he might refute those who say that all things are produced from nothing, employed these arguments, which might have weighed against himself. For he thus spoke:—

"If things came from nothing, any kind might be born of anything; nothing would require seed."

Likewise afterwards:—

"We must admit, therefore, that nothing can come from nothing, since things require seed before they can severally be born, and be brought out into the buxom fields of air."

*****

That which follows is concerning the school of Epicurus; that as there is no anger in God, so indeed there is no kindness. For when Epicurus thought that it was inconsistent with God to injure and to inflict harm, which for the most part arises from the affection of anger, he took away from Him beneficence also, since he saw that it followed that if God has anger, He must also have kindness. Therefore, lest he should concede to Him a vice, he deprived Him also of virtue. From this, he says, He is happy and uncorrupted, because He cares about nothing, and neither takes trouble Himself nor occasions it to another.

• This is a very loose paraphrase of the first Principal Doctrine; 1. "A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness."
  • Note: It may be disputed whether PD1 actually suggests that the gods are without kindness. A general sense of goodwill might not be inconsistent with the nature of the gods, but granting favors or answering prayers would certainly be inconsistent with Epicurus' idea of a god.

*****

But religion is overthrown if we believe Epicurus speaking thus:—

"For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since, exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting anything of us, it is neither gained by favours nor moved by anger."

• We know this quote not from Epicurus but from Lucretius, I.44-49 and II.646-651

*****

Afterwards Epicurus said that there was indeed a God, because it was necessary that there should be in the world some being of surpassing excellence, distinction, and blessedness; yet that there was no providence, and thus that the world itself was ordered by no plan, nor art, nor workmanship, but that the universe was made up of certain minute and indivisible seeds.

• High level summary citing isonomia and atomism. This passage in Lucretius comes close to covering all the main points;

  Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
  Fear holds dominion over mortality
  Only because, seeing in land and sky
  So much the cause whereof no wise they know,
  Men think Divinities are working there.
  Meantime, when once we know from nothing still
  Nothing can be create, we shall divine
  More clearly what we seek: those elements
  From which alone all things created are,
  And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.

*****

But Epicurus opposes us, and says: "If there is in God the affection of joy leading Him to favour, and of hatred influencing Him to anger, He must of necessity have both fear, and inclination, and desire, and the other affections which belong to human weakness."

• Lactantius presents this as a direct quotation, but I am not familiar with it. Perhaps it comes from a lost work. Again from Lucretius we have a thematically similar passage;
       O what emoluments could it confer
  Upon Immortals and upon the Blessed
  That they should take a step to manage aught
  For sake of us? Or what new factor could,
  After so long a time, inveigle them—
  The hitherto reposeful—to desire
  To change their former life? For rather he
  Whom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice
  At new; but one that in fore-passed time
  Hath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years,
  O what could ever enkindle in such an one
  Passion for strange experiment?

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I'm inclined to doubt that it was Epicurus who composed the trilemma that bears his name. For one, the Epicurean gods themselves take no pains to prevent evil in our world; they would themselves fall on the horns of the trilemma as either "feeble" or "envious" or at best totally indifferent. Indeed, a god who was willing to prevent evil would not be untroubled, and so would not, according to Epicurus, be a god.

That being said, there was an instance above of Lactantius quoting Lucretius but putting his words into the mouth of Epicurus. Either Lucretius directly quoted Epicurus in Book 1, lines 44-49 (and in book 2), or Lactantius was in error.

So it strikes me as possible that Lactantius could be responding to the work of a later unknown Epicurean who lived during the Christian era and argued against it, but quoted that later Epicurean as if it were Epicurus himself.

Another possibility is that the trilemma evolved out of prolonged strife between Christians and pagans and that it was assigned to Epicurus because of his reputation for atheism. In which case the argument is neither Epicurean nor Skeptical, neither Cynical nor Stoic nor Academic, but simply and broadly pagan.

Welcome!

I'm at work at the moment so I can't engage more fully, but I will suggest Epicurus' Letter to Pythocles as a good starting point;

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First of all then we must not suppose that any other object is to be gained from the knowledge of the phenomena of the sky, whether they are dealt with in connection with other doctrines or independently, than peace of mind and a sure confidence, just as in all other branches of study. We must not try to force an impossible explanation, nor employ a method of inquiry like our reasoning either about the modes of life or with respect to the solution of other physical problems: witness such propositions as that ‘the universe consists of bodies and the intangible,’ or that ‘the elements are indivisible,’ and all such statements in circumstances where there is only one explanation which harmonizes with phenomena. For this is not so with the things above us: they admit of more than one cause of coming into being and more than one account of their nature which harmonizes with our sensations. For we must not conduct scientific investigation by means of empty assumptions and arbitrary principles, but follow the lead of phenomena: for our life has not now any place for irrational belief and groundless imaginings, but we must live free from trouble.

I'll try to expand on that this evening when I get home.

Thank you Eikadistes! The confusion that surrounds it is one of the main reasons I think we need to at least address it, but I have no firm conclusions myself.

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The error here is the original translators' rendering of the first three words of this sentence. Some render μηδὲ, which is very clearly the oppositional word "not", whereas others render μέν, which is not oppositional and may just be reinforcing the καί

It's been a while since I looked into this, but here is the English text in the Yonge translation;

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He said that injuries existed among men, either in consequence of hatred, or of envy, or of contempt, all which the wise man overcomes by reason. Also, that a man who has once been wise can never receive the contrary disposition, nor can he of his own accord invent such a state of things as that he should be subjected to the dominion of the passions; nor can he hinder himself in his progress towards wisdom. That the wise man, however, cannot exist in every state of body, nor in every nation. That even if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he would still be happy. That the wise man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally[467] whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan and howl when he is put to the torture. Nor will he marry a wife whom the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the Ethical Maxims of Epicurus. He will punish his servants, but also pity them, and show indulgence to any that are virtuous. They do not think that the wise man will ever be in love, nor that he will be anxious about his burial, nor that love is a passion inspired by the Gods, as Diogenes says in his twelfth book. They also assert that he will be indifferent to the study of oratory. Marriage, say they, is never any good to a man, and we must be quite content if it does no harm; and the wise man will never marry or beget children, as Epicurus himself lays it down, in his Doubts and in his treatises on Nature. Still, under certain circumstances of life, he will forsake these rules and marry. Nor will he ever indulge in drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet, nor will he entangle himself in affairs of state (as he says in his first book on Lives). Nor will he become a tyrant. Nor will he become a Cynic (as he says in his second book about Lives). Nor a beggar. And even, though he should lose his eyes, he will still partake of life (as he says in the same book).

The most common phrasing in this passage is "nor will the wise man...". The few sentences that don't start with nor instead start with 'also', 'however', or 'still', which seems to indicate that this is principally a list of what the wise man will not do, with the few exceptions marked off as such.

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Some render μηδὲ, which is very clearly the oppositional word "not", whereas others render μέν, which is not oppositional and may just be reinforcing the καί. This is the difference between "and will not marry" versus "and also will marry". This is a rather significant contention.

I suspect that it won't be sufficient to examine only the sentence under consideration, where the preceding and following sentences might contribute to a proper reading of the conjunctions.

That being said, the Greeks got a whole hell of a lot of mileage out of that one word καί. It's certainly beyond my powers to parse!

I have a high opinion of Alex. Not that I follow his stuff much, but I'm usually impressed when I come across his videos.

Quote from Titus

I would argue that these powerful images could be interpreted in a sartorial manner, but they must have their source in a personality that is devoted to the subject.

I hope the autocorrect kicked in here on 'satirical', because if not I'm going to have to exercise my chivalry once more against Thomas Carlyle and his Sartor Resartus.

The honorific 'soter' or savior has been totally subsumed into the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but in pre-Christian antiquity it was applied freely to gods, heroes, kings, and liberators. There would be nothing unusual about a devoted Epicurean honoring Epicurus in those terms.

Cicero does mock the Epicureans for this, as in the following passage;

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Hereupon Velleius began, in the confident manner (I need not say) that is customary with Epicureans, afraid of nothing so much as lest he should appear to have doubts about anything. One would have supposed he had just come down from the assembly of the gods in the intermundane spaces of Epicurus!

We'll go over this during our Nov. 3rd recording, so here are a few links;

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

The Project Gutenberg E-text of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, by David Hume

(control+F search 'epicur' to locate the passage)

And the New Epicurean article on the history of the dilemma;

Derivation of the “Riddle of Epicurus” – NewEpicurean

Very well said, Julia! I agree with everything you wrote.

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What are those good things? Sensual pleasures, no doubt; for you know no delight of the mind but what arises from the body, and returns to it.

We should spend some more time on this from last week. Cicero loves to exploit Epicurus' position on the physicality of the soul in such a way as to muddle the distinction between mental and bodily pleasure.

Yes, Epicurus held that the soul is made of matter. Yes, the soul is rooted in the body and cannot survive without it. But to imply, therefore, that the distinction between mind and body is without meaning is to commit a serious injustice to the ancient Epicureans; mental pleasures and pains are quite different to bodily pleasures and pains, and Cicero is helping no one when he ignores those differences--unless it be that Cicero helps himself, and others who think like him, to view Epicurus as something less than human.

Thank you all!

He wasn't a barrel of laughs, was he!