Epictetus

EPICTETUS. - Greek Stoic philosopher, b. ca. 50 A.D. at Hierapolis in Phrygia, d. at Nicopolis (Epirus) ca. 138. As a boy he was the slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero, and was later freed by him. While still a slave he attended the lectures of the Stoic C. Musonius Rufus of Bolsena, and, once free, he himself practiced teaching. Forced to leave Rome in one of the expulsions of philosophers carried out by Domitian (88 or 92 A.D.), he withdrew to Nicopolis in Epirus, where he kept a school until his death. His lectures were put into writing, perhaps in shorthand, by the historian Arrian, his disciple, apparently in two collections: the Δια-τριβαι (Dissertationes) in 8 books and the Ὀμιλίου in 12. There have come down to us 4 books of the Dissertations and the Ἐγχειρίβιον or Manual, made from extracts of the former, besides a certain number of fragments. The form of the Dissertations is that of the Cynic diatribe; the style, popular and very lively, often rises to tones of intimate and solemn emotion.

E. is, between Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, the penultimate representative of Stoicism, and, reacting against the eclectic tendency of Panaetius (185-199 B.C.) and of Posidonius (135-51 B.C.), he recalled its doctrine to the original form of the first masters and especially of Chrysippus. He did not, however, escape the influences of Cynicism, and with the Cynics he conceives the philosopher's life as a mission, restricting its activity to the ethical part, which he centers on the problem of freedom. Man is free because he is furnished with προχάρησις, that is, with the "faculty of using representations," from which precisely the impulses (ἀρχιὰ) draw their content and are specified (Diss., I, 1, 7; 12). By the προχάρησις man is defined (ibid., II, 10) and through it he is like the divinity (ibid., I, 12, 27). Man, however, uses it rightly and succeeds in realizing his freedom only if he limits it to the sphere of the things that are in our power (ἀρχὴς ἦλός): our representations, the motions of our mind and our acts. All other things, beginning with the body, are in the power of others (Man., 1), and toward them, whoever wishes to be free and to reach the end that the author of the world's drama has proposed to him (ibid., 17), must renounce all will, indeed will them as they are. "You must not seek that things go as you wish, but wish that they go as they do, and your life will have an easy course" (ibid., 8). Against those things that common opinion considers evils, only one word is to be used: ὀδὲν πρὸς ὑλὲ, "nihil ad me." The motto in which all of E.'s wisdom is concentrated is: ἀνέχου καὶ ἀνέχου, "sustine et abstine" (Gellius, XVII, 19, 6). This does not mean that the sage must live the life of an anchorite, but that of what is external to him he will take that account which the traveler takes of the snails and roots that, during a stop of the ship, he goes gathering on the shore. "If the pilot calls you, run at once to the ship without turning back and leave everything" (Man., 7). The negativity of this attitude has its reason less in the recognition of man's weakness than in the ultimate end, which for E. consists in the imitation of God and in the conforming of all one's acts to the order established by him. E.'s faith in providence is unshaken, and, despite the monistic premises of his system, God is configured for him as a person and a father (Diss., I, 3, 1-3). "Remember God and call him to your aid for defense as sailors call the Dioscuri in the storm" (ibid., II, 18, 28). And it is in the recognition that we are all children of that one father that he places the source of the love that man owes to man (ibid., I, 13).

E. was much appreciated by Christians, and the Byzantines even made extracts from the Manual to be used for moral edification. According to a notice reported by some manuscripts, it was even believed that he had been secretly a Christian. Some moderns too have thought of a direct influence of the Gospel, but the thing has no foundation. Christians are mentioned once in Diss., IV, 7, 6, but in such a way as to exclude that E. had too precise a knowledge of them.

(cf. Opere of G. Leopardi, II, Florence 1855), reissued by N. Festa with a selection from the Dissertazioni, Milan 1914; another selection from the same work was made by D. Bossi (Florence 1915). "Fundamental on E. are the two works of A. Bonhöffer, E. und die Ston, Stuttgart 1890 and Die Ethik des Stothers E., ibid. 1894; Th. Colardeau, Etude sur E., Paris 1903; E. Bosshard, Epictère, in Revue de l'heft. et de philos., new series, 17 (1920), pp. 202-16; D. Peace, La morale de E., in Revista di filosofia, 30 (1920), pp. 250-64. "For the relations between E. and Christianity, cf. A. Bonhöffer, E. und das Neue Testament, Giessen 1911; M. J. Lazarene, La philosophie religieuse d'E. et le christianisme, in Res. bibl., new series, 9 (1912), pp. 5-21, 102-213; D. S. Sharp, E. and the New Testament, London 1914; G. Pepe, La filosofia religiosa d'E., in Revista di filosofia neo-scolastica, 8 (1916), pp. 2-20, 266-85.