The Teaching of Epictetus Part 21

CHAPTER I.

1. According to the view of James Harris, in a long and valuable note communicated to Upton, the "master-argument" was so called from the supreme importance of the issues with which it dealt. On these issues different leaders of the Stoics took different sides, Diodorus holding both future and past things to be _necessary_, Cleanthes both _contingent_, and Chrysippus past things to be necessary and future contingent. Any two of the three propositions mentioned in the text exclude the third. For modern philosophy the distinction between the possible and the certain in the phenomenal world has, of course, no real existence; the possible being simply that of which we do not know whether it will come to pa.s.s or not.

2. Of course Epictetus here speaks ironically; all this is just what it _is_ the business of a thinker to do.

3. Epictetus, I suppose, means to complain that the current phrases of philosophy are dealt out in glib answer to great ethical questions, just as Homer might be quoted for an event in the life of Odysseus, by persons who in neither case think of gaining that vital conviction which only the strenuous exercise of one's own reason can produce. A little later he represents h.e.l.lanicus, the historian, as quoted on the distinction between good and evil, who never treated that subject. If it is to be a mere question of _authority_, one _name_ is as good as another, since none is any use at all.

"Indifferent," be it observed, is _morally_ indifferent-that which has in _itself_ no bearing on our moral state. See Chap. II. 2.

4. The followers of Aristotle called themselves Peripatetics.

CHAPTER II.

1. The word in the Greek is pe??st?se??, literally _circ.u.mstances_, but the word is evidently used in a bad sense, as equivalent to afflictions.

Doom is likewise etymologically a neutral word, but one which has received an evil meaning.

2. Socrates's faith in his genius or "Daemon" was well known. In this pa.s.sage from his _Apologia_ (which Epictetus gives from a bad text), it is doubtless the manner only that conveyed the idea of mockery. Neither Socrates nor any one else ever had better evidence of G.o.d's existence than His voice in our conscience.

CHAPTER IV.

1. Briefly, the three divisions seem to be Action, Character, and Judgment. The last is to be approached through training in logic, in the penetration of fallacies, etc., by which means a man is to arrive at such an inward and vital conviction of the truth that he can never for a moment be taken off his guard by the delusion of Appearance.

2. Pa.s.sions, pa.s.sionless, t? p???, ?pa???.-See Index of Philosophic Terms.

CHAPTER V.

1. Euripides.-Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus, is reported to have said, "Take the chance of dying n.o.bly when thou canst, lest after a little death indeed come to thee, but a n.o.ble death no more."

2. This phrase of the "open door" occurs frequently in Epictetus, usually when, as here, he is telling the average non-philosophic man that it is unmanly to complain of a life which he can at any time relinquish. The philosopher has no need of such exhortation, for he does not complain, and as for death, is content to wait G.o.d's time. But the Stoics taught that the arrival of this time might be indicated by some disaster or affliction which rendered a natural and wholesome life impossible. Self-destruction was in such cases permissible, and is recorded to have been adopted by several leaders of the Stoics, generally when old age had begun to render them a burden to their friends.

3. _Nay, thou shalt exist_, etc.-This is the sense given by Zeller's punctuation. Schweighauser's text would be rendered, "Thou shalt not exist, but something else will," etc. Upton changes the text (on his own authority) by transposing an ???. "Thou shalt exist, but as something else, whereof the universe has now no need."

4. This does not appear to have been the law in Epictetus's time, for he himself was educated while a slave. But it was a common provision in antique states.

5. The ceremony in manumitting a slave.

CHAPTER VI.

1. Chap. VI. i. is a pa.s.sage from the lost Fifth Book of the Discourses, preserved for us in a rather obscure Latin translation by Aulus Gellius. During a storm at sea, a certain Stoic on board was observed by him to look pale and anxious, though not indeed showing the signs of panic exhibited by the other pa.s.sengers. Questioned afterwards by Gellius on this apparent feebleness in his professed faith, the Stoic produced the Fifth Book of Epictetus, and read this pa.s.sage.

2. The third Earl of Shaftesbury, an enthusiastic student of Epictetus, had this dish of water and ray of light engraved, and placed, with the inscription, p??ta ?p??????-All is Opinion-as an emblem at the front of his _Characteristics_. The pa.s.sage, though interesting, is obscure.

At one time the "appearances," fa?tas?a?, are compared to the ray of light; at another, the doctrines (literally "arts," _i. e._, arts of life taught by philosophy) and virtues. Probably the explanation is to be found in the view of the Stoics that at birth the human soul is a _tabula rasa_, or blank sheet; all our knowledge coming from without; that is, from the "appearances" which surround us. Moral and philosophic convictions are thus, like all other mental states, the result of external impressions.

CHAPTER VII.

1. The school of Plato was continued at Athens under the t.i.tle of the Academy. In its later days it produced little except logical puzzles.

2. "Friend, if indeed, escaping from this war, we were destined thereafter to an ageless and deathless life, then neither would I fight in the van nor set thee in the press of glorious battle. But now, since death in a thousand kinds stands everywhere against us, which no man shall fly from nor elude, we go; either we shall give glory to another, or he to us."-Sarpedon's speech, _Iliad_, xii. 322-8.

3. General consent.-The well-known philosophic doctrine, that what all men unite in believing must be true, which has so often been made the basis of arguments against Skepticism in various forms.

CHAPTER VIII.

1. See chap. IV. i.

2. He drew water by night for his gardens, and studied philosophy in the day.-_Diog. Laert._ [Upton.]

3. A most characteristic feature of the whole Stoic school was its treatment of ancient mythology and legend. These things were closely and earnestly studied, with a constant view to the deeper meanings that underlay the vesture of fable, an att.i.tude which contrasts very favorably with Plato's banishment of the poets from his Republic for "teaching false notions about the G.o.ds."

CHAPTER IX.

1. Gyara, an island in the aegean, used as a penal settlement.

CHAPTER X.

1. _The captain ... the driver_-literally, "to him who has knowledge"

(of the given art).

2. Liberator-?a?p?st??. The person appointed by law to carry out the ceremony of the manumission of slaves.

CHAPTER XI.

1. This chapter seems to me to contain a truth expressed so baldly and crudely as to appear a falsehood. The reader's mind will be fixed upon the truth or falsehood according as he is or is not capable of reading Epictetus with understanding.

2. This earthen lamp was sold, according to Lucian, at the death of Epictetus for 3,000 drachmae (about 120).-_Adv. Indoct._ 13.

CHAPTER XIII.

1. Parodying a verse of Euripides on the stream of Dirce in Botia.

The Marcian aqueduct brought water to Rome.

2. I adopt Upton's conjecture for the inexplicable ?? ??? ??????.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1. An eminent Cynic (also mentioned by Seneca and Tacitus).