EPICURO

EPICURUS. —

I. Life

Greek philosopher, founder of the school that took his name, born of Athenian parents on the 10th of Gamelion (January–February) in 341 BC at Samos, died in 270 BC at Athens. At Samos he heard the Platonist Pamphilus, and, by his own testimony, devoted himself to philosophy at the age of 14. At 18 years of age (323 BC) he came to Athens for his ephebic training, and when, after Alexander’s death, Perdiccas expelled the Athenians from Samos, he joined his father at Colophon. Nearby at Teos he heard the Democritean Nausiphanes. At 32 he opened a school at Mytilene, but soon moved to Lampsacus, where he remained until 306 BC. In these two cities he found his most devoted disciples: Hermarchus at Mytilene; Metrodorus, Polyaenus, Colotes at Lampsacus—these four later being designated in tradition as the “principles” (καθηγημένοι). In 306 BC he transferred to Athens and established his school in a garden. With him were Hermarchus and Metrodorus.

The teaching was dogmatic in character, and from the disciples in general nothing more was required than to commit to memory the truths discovered by the master and by him reduced to formulas and maxims (cf. Epist., I, preface). Yet far more important than theoretical and didactic activity was the practical. Epicurus made of his school the center of a fellowship whose principles were the general adherence to his vision of life and the commitment to mutual aid. The members, if they were in a position to do so, contributed annually to the school 320 drachmae, equivalent to two obols a day—“the earnings of a slave,” as Epicurus himself writes in a letter to Mitys. The sums collected served not only for the maintenance of the “Garden” but also to aid the needy and for charitable purposes.

Except for a few journeys to Asia to visit friends, Epicurus remained in Athens until his death, which was caused by a cystitis.

II. Works

Epicurus wrote extensively: his works comprised about 300 volumes. Diogenes Laertius has preserved a selection of 41 titles: the first place is occupied by the *Epicurean Canon* in 37 books, the last by the Letters; the other titles are of psychological, ethical, and polemical works; only one work was devoted to logic: the *Canon* is the criterion. The works that have come down to us fall into two groups: those preserved by manuscript tradition and those recovered from the papyri discovered at Herculaneum in 1752–54. The first group consists of three summaries in epistolary form and a collection of maxims (both in Diogenes Laertius, X). The three letters deal respectively with meteorology and ethics. The “maxims” (in all 40) bear the title *Kúpiai δόξαι*, Principal Doctrines, and are composed for the most part of extracts from Epicurus’ works. To these has been added a gnomology discovered in 1888 by K. Wotke in a Vatican codex, which besides sayings of Epicurus (some repeating the *Kúpiai δόξαι*) also includes passages from his earliest disciples; these are cited under the designation *Sententiae Vaticanae*. New fragments have come to light in a great inscription commissioned in the 2nd century AD by Diogenes of Enoanda (in Lycia) and discovered in 1884. Sayings and passages of varying length are gathered from diverse ancient writers.

The Herculaneum papyri, among works of various Epicurean writers, especially of Philodemus, contain the remains of about nine books from the 1st to the 4th century.

III. The School

The immediate successor of Epicurus in the direction of the “Garden” was Hermarchus of Mytilene, but superior to him in intellect and output was Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who died in 277 BC. Among the scholarchs, whose series is known to us down to the middle of the 1st century BC, should be mentioned Apollodorus, surnamed “the tyrant of the Garden,” who composed more than 400 books and flourished in the second half of the 2nd century BC. His pupil was Zeno of Sidon (born c. 150 BC), who was heard by Cicero and Atticus in 79 BC. After him are known the names of Phaedrus, who was in Rome in 90 BC; Pyrrho, scholarch until 51 BC; and Philodemus of Gadara, who lived at Naples and whose library was found at Herculaneum. Among the Roman Epicureans the only one whose work survives is Titus Lucretius Carus (died 55 BC), who in *De rerum natura*, a poem in six books, has left us an almost complete and wonderfully precise exposition of Epicurus’ physics. Little or nothing is known of Epicureanism in the 1st century AD, though Epicurus’ works were still read and frequently quoted by Seneca. A revival occurred in the 2nd century. To this century belongs Diogenes of Enoanda (between Pisidia and Lycia), who had his works inscribed on the wall of a portico in his native city. In the age of St. Augustine Epicureanism was dead, but its influence can still be discerned in Marcianus.

IV. Doctrine

Epicurus had a systematically constructed system in which every part can be traced, more or less rigorously, to a single principle: the immediate opposition of being to non-being, from which Leucippus and Democritus had derived their atomism (v.). Formally and genetically, however, his thought follows the reverse path: not only because, unlike Democritus, he places the criterion in the senses, but because the problem from which he starts is practical and not theoretical—the determination of the end and the provision of the means to attain II. For him science has no other value than as an instrument (frg. 219), and if it were possible he would dispense with it altogether (S. C., XI).

[End, according to the Aristotelian definition which Epicurus accepts: the end is that to which the will tends. Aristotle, to determine it, had started from the definition of man. Epicurus turns to experience and asks the animal for the answer. From this he concludes that the end is pleasure. “For every animal, as soon as it is born, rejoices in pleasure and recoils from pain” (Diog. L., X, 137). The ethics of pleasure had already been proclaimed by the Cyrenaics (v.), who understood pleasure only as the actual sensation of the senses. Epicurus goes further and, in a sense, reverses their doctrine. Sensual pleasure is pleasure, but it is so not inasmuch as it is intense, but inasmuch as it is gentle and favorable to the nature of the organ on which it acts: pleasure in its essence is *ὁρθοδέξ*, equilibrium, harmony of the being with itself, and exists wherever there is no pain. As such, it is perfect in the instant, and whatever the motion of the senses may add to vary its content does not increase its “greatest value” (S. C., III; XVIII). “The health of the body and the absence of disturbance in the soul constitute the goal of a happy life. And it is to this that all our actions tend: to have no pain and no disturbance” (Epistle to Menoeceus, § 128). Wisdom therefore is nothing but the art of measuring the harm and advantage of each action, a calculation (λόγος) in which the quality of pleasure is sacrificed to quantity (ibid., §§ 129–30), sumptuous banquets to a piece of bread (frg. 181), power and glory to a retired and tranquil life (S. C., XIV, cf. VIII). The supreme maxim is: be content with little (frg. 478) and live unnoticed (ἄδηλος βίος, fr. 551). But these are only the subjective conditions of a happy life; there is too much uncertainty in worldly affairs for the wise man to protect himself from the blows of men (τὰ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων) and of fortune (τὰ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων). Having limited his desires, he must therefore seek security (ἀσφάλεια); he finds it in friendship (S. C., XXVII–XXVIII). Friendship is a pact of mutual aid and arises from utility (S. V., 23); but, like every pact, it has its law and must be observed: Epicurus does not shrink from the conclusion that the wise man will die for his friend (Diogenes Laertius, X, 121).

If the cause of human errors were only in desires, this wisdom founded solely on prudence (φρόνησις) would suffice. But beyond desires, there are fears (frg. 485), and two are supreme: that of death and that of the gods. Hence the necessity of science (S. C., XI). Yet to construct it, a method is required, and the method (the subject of the Canon) reduces to this: full trust in perceptions, the source and criterion of all knowledge, and the use of induction. With these means and starting from the existence of bodies, E. arrives at the atoms of Leucippo and Democrito; but he does so with the problematic of Aristotle, profoundly modifying his predecessors' conception. The universe of his predecessors was dominated by mechanical necessity and chance; he adds the concept of a natural necessity, the foundation of the order inherent in things, to which he gives the name of «nature» par excellence; and that of free causality (cf. Ep. III, 133), necessary to explain the freedom of motion that exists in man in the soul.

To this end he first distinguishes in atoms three forms of motion: one natural, falling by virtue of weight; one forced, due to collisions; and a free and wholly indeterminate motion of «declination» (παράλλαξις) from the straight line. Secondly, he posits the finite number of shapes proper to atoms. This serves as the foundation for the finite number of phenomenal qualities; yet alone it is not enough, for since the number of similar atoms is infinite, so too would be the number of possible aggregations. Here E. makes his greatest speculative effort and also the greatest leap in his logic: passing from the concept of negative infinity, proper to earlier atomism, to the positive infinity as «the sum of all sums» (Lucretius, V, 361), he derives the law of the universal compensation of all forces—«isonomia» (Cicero, Nat. d., I, 52; Lucretius, II, 52 sqq.). Upon this, closing the circle of events, he founds a theory of cyclical returns, analogous to that of the Stoics (frg. 266; Lucretius, II, 267 sqq.; III, 85 sqq.), which allows him not only to justify without teleology those things which Lucretius calls the «aeterna foedera» of nature and the harmony of its parts, but, more importantly, to create within his universe of atoms the conditions for the existence of blessed beings and gods, such as he believed attested by the evidence of representations held by men at all times (Cicero, loc. cit.; Ep. III, 124; Lucretius, III, 123 sqq.). Anthropomorphic and constituted of atoms of the most tenuous structure, these gods live in infinite number in the infinite intermundane spaces, caring for nothing but their own blessedness. Like all other bodies, they are knowable through the atomic images that emanate from them; yet given their subtlety, these are perceived not by the senses but by the mind (Cicero, Nat. d., I, 51; quoted in S. V., I). In them the wise man sees the models to which he should conform, and from their contemplation draws his purest joys (Philodemus, De pietate, p. 124, 1 sqq.).

Having eliminated, on the basis of this physics and the theology that follows, the fear of the gods, E. removes, with the psychology derived therefrom, the fear of death. The soul indeed is and cannot be anything but a body within another body: only within the envelope of flesh are the atoms that compose it capable of sensation; as soon as death dissolves this, the soul too dissolves, and with it all sensation (Ep. I, 65). Death is nothing but this « privation of sensation »: it is therefore nothing to us, since when we are, death is not, and when death is, we are no longer (Ep. III, 124; Lucretius, III, 828 sqq.). It is true that death is feared not only for what may await us beyond, but also and above all in itself, as eternal non-being. This sentiment, widespread in his view, is the cause of all the passions that disturb human life (Lucretius, III, 38 sqq.; Porphyry, De abst., I, 34). Against such fear, arguments must be drawn from the idea, and precisely from the nature of pleasure. If pleasure is perfect in the instant, and « finite time and infinite time have an equal abundance of enjoyment » (S. C., XIX), then every longing for immortality is in vain (ibid., XX): « each begins to live as if born at that moment » (S. V., 60). Hence Horace’s « carpe diem », hence the « spectacle » of Metrodorus, which Horace repeats in the well-known line: « the poet does not allow his eyes to be dragged into the division of life » (Carm., III, 29, 41). The conviction that death is nothing to us and that « the end proper to human nature » is attained in the first instant of life also renders pain contemptible, for « if it is long it is slight, and if it is severe it is brief » (S. C., IV; Ep. III, 133) and leads to death. While it lasts, since for E. sensation is in place, and what the body feels is absolutely distinct and independent from what the soul feels, and vice versa, it is within his power to replace the image of present pain with that of past pleasures (S. V., 55; fr. 44). In this regard, the soul is the last stronghold of the sage’s pleasure, who can be « happy even on the rack of Phalaris » (Cicero, Tus., II, 17). E. gives an example in the letter written on his deathbed: « Idomeneus: ‘It is not now that I am happy, but at the very end of my life, in this moment in which I write to you. The pains in my bladder and intestines are of such intensity that they could not be greater. Yet against all this stands the joy that the soul feels in the memory of our past conversations.’ All the wisdom of E. is condensed in the so-called ‘Fourfold Remedy’ preserved by Philodemus: ‘The gods are not to be feared; death is nothing to us; good is easy to obtain; evil is easy to endure’ » (P.Herc., 1005, col. IV, 8).

E.’s physical atomism was at the time an anachronism, but not so his ethical atomism, which responded to a general tendency of his age and for the first time gave shape to one of the typical attitudes of human life. His disciples revered him as a god, and his detractors of every century of antiquity saw in him the « revealer » and the « savior ». The Stoics, the Cynics, and later the Fathers of the Church opposed him. In the modern age his rehabilitation has been repeatedly attempted: Valla (in De voluptate) went so far as to place his morality beside that of Christ. Today there are not a few who extol his asceticism, his sayings on friendship, the innocence of his life. This is an error: a doctrine that places the supreme good in the « stable equilibrium of the flesh » and refers all value to it is the perfect antithesis of Christian doctrine. To dispel every misunderstanding, E. himself has provided by proclaiming « the pleasure of the belly as the source and root of all good. » What he intends is the pleasure of « not being hungry, » not of gluttony, yet the saying is no better for that. If, according to the testimonies, he affirmed that « the wise man will die for a friend, » he saved the man but contradicted the philosopher, showing the insufficiency of his principles.

Epicureanism. — Under this name is understood every current of thought and every attitude to life which can be directly or indirectly traced back to the principles of E.’s philosophy or repeats its doctrines. As an attitude to life, it is one of the more or less unreflective forms which human conduct can assume, and it does not merely not require the corresponding theory, but, if the attitude is lacking, the theory remains without effect: such is the case of Lucretius, who, though a follower in doctrine, is not so in the sentiment of life which inspires his poetry. More or less widespread in all ages, it dominates those in which the vision of the universe grows dim and the religious sense of things and of life declines. As a current of thought, Epicureanism is characterized by three features: nominalism in logic, materialism in ontology, and utilitarianism in ethics. In open and conscious forms it reappears in the Renaissance. Already in the 15th century, as has been noted, Lorenzo Valla, preceded by hints from Petrarch, had attempted the first re-evaluation of E., whom the whole Middle Ages had regarded as anti-Christian (cf. Dante, Inf., X, 73). The two first great Epicureans in mentality and at the very centre of their doctrines were in Italy Guicciardini and in France Montaigne. And it was under the influence of Montaigne that the system of E., save however for the principal truths of the faith, was revived in its entirety in the work of the Provençal canon Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). Contemporaneously in England Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) made the first great coherent application of it to ethics and politics. Particularly steeped in Epicureanism were French society and culture of the 17th and 18th centuries (v. LIBERTINI). Among the moralists most characteristically Epicurean may be recalled La Rochefoucauld (1613–79) and Saint-Évremond (1613–1703). A form of experimental science gave to Epicurean ethics Claude Helvétius (1715–71). From him derive La Mettrie, d’Holbach, and in England Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). In the Epicurean current is the utilitarianism of the 19th century, which had its greatest representative in Stuart Mill.