Episode Three - So Great Is the Power of Religion To Inspire Evil Deeds!

Excellent catch Charles, thank you! looks like a pattern for the Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jephthah%27s_daughter

Also: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheolog…d-christianity/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice

http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2017/…-ancient-israel

Thanks to Charles for this research on Iphianassa:

It is clear that Lucretius treats the name Iphianassa as a synonym for Iphigenia. Homer (Il. 9.145, 9.287) and Sophocles (El. 157) mention a daughter of Agamemnon called Iphianassa, but in neither author is she the daughter who was sacrificed at Aulis (and in several versions rescued at the last moment by Artemis). The first known mention of this myth was in the Cypria, where, according to the summary of Proclus, the daughter was called Iphigenia (Kinkel, EGF 19; Bernabé, PEG 1.41). Hesiod refers to it in the Catalogue of Women, where he calls the daughter Iphimede (Cat. fr. 23a.15–26 + b M-W). From the fifth century b.c.e., the extant sources, beginning with Pindar (Pyth. 11.22) and Aeschylus (Ag. 1526, 1555), call her Iphigenia. Why did Lucretius choose Iphianassa?

Correction - Thanks Elayne!

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Why did Lucretius choose Iphianassa?

I don't have concrete evidence for this, but here's a lazy answer;

Because it fits the hexameter. Lucretius is often using neologisms (eg. frugiferentis), elision (eg. divomque instead of divorumque), and uncommon use cases of morphology, at least partly because those were the words that best made the meter of the poem work. William Blake called a similar phenomenon in English "The bondage of Rhyme".

-josh

Master Latinists will also tell you that there's textual evidence that the poem was never thoroughly revised by Lucretius. They base that claim on certain irregularities in the text, such as hypermetrical lines. I don't know how they can determine that those lines aren't the result of copying errors, but there we are. There are some answers we'll never have with these old texts.

there was a single reference that supposedly Cicero "emended" the poem before publication, but to my knowledge that is all there is. I think this reference was by Cicero himself, but no one knows what it really means.

There was a claim to that effect reported by St. Jerome, Charles. The meaning of the word "corrected" (or "edited" or "revised") in that context is uncertain—does "corrected" mean slight copy-editing, or does it mean thorough revision? And in any case the provenance of the claim is highly suspect for two reasons: first, because Cicero and Jerome were against the Epicurean tradition themselves; and second, because Jerome also reported the claim that Lucretius "wrote the poem in the intervals of his insanity" and finally killed himself. Personally I don't believe any of it.

Yes I think Joshua is correct. I think there was a reference in Cicero directed at Cicero's brother about Lucretius, but it escapes me at the moment -- a comment about the quality of the poem, I think (?)

Cassius

Cicero never claimed to have emended the text, but he did praise the poem in a letter to his brother.

I believe they do know where Jerome got his "information", but I can't recall which author it might have been. Lactantius, possibly?

Edit; I keep cross-posting you, Cassius! I don't mean to sound so pedantic

I do mean to check up on my hexameter theory when I get home. It never occurred to me before this thread. There's certainly a lot of precedence; Homer wrote in hexameter, and his two Epics draw on all of the major Greek dialects in order to make the meter come out right.

Update:

The use of Iphianassa for Iphigenia was not related to meter, as the two names rendered in Latin are metrically equivalent. The mystery remains!

In this Episode three we probably have enough material to stick with the Iphianassa passage before going forward. Let's use this to highlight the general topic of the Epicurean theme that supernatural religion is not necessary for happy living, and that in fact it detracts from that goal. I think there are other relevant passages in Epicurean literature that we can draw on, so let's try to list them here. The first one that come to mind is from Diogenes of Oinoanda:

Fr. 20

[So it is obvious that wrong-doers, given that they do not fear the penalties imposed by the laws, are not] afraid of [the gods.] This [has to be] conceded. For if they were [afraid, they] would not [do wrong]. As for [all] the others, [it is my opinion] that the [wise] are not [(reasoning indicates) righteous] on account of the gods, but on account of [thinking] correctly and the [opinions] they hold [regarding] certain things [and especially] pains and death (for indeed invariably and without exception human beings do wrong either on account of fear or on account of pleasures), and that ordinary people on the other hand are righteous, in so far as they are righteous, on account of the laws and the penalties, imposed by the laws, hanging over them. But even if some of their number are conscientious on account of the laws, they are few: only just two or three individuals are to be found among great segments of multitudes, and not even these are steadfast in acting righteously; for they are not soundly persuaded about providence. A clear indication of the complete inability of the gods to prevent wrong-doings is provided by the nations of the Jews and Egyptians, who, as well as being the most superstitious of all peoples, are the vilest of all peoples.

On account of what kind of gods, then, will human beings be righteous? For they are not righteous on account of the real ones or on account of Plato’s and Socrates’ Judges in Hades. We are left with this conclusion; otherwise, why should not those who disregard the laws scorn fables much more?

So, with regard to righteousness, neither does our doctrine do harm [not does] the opposite [doctrine help], while, with regard to the other condition, the opposite doctrine not only does not help, but on the contrary also does harm, whereas our doctrine not only does not harm, but also helps. For the one removes disturbances, while the other adds them, as has already been made clear to you before.

Are there other Epicurean texts directly on point on the corrupting power of religion?

Am I also not remembering that someone famous in the Middle Ages made a comment about Lucretius' line "So great is the power of religion to persuade to evil deeds!" being one of the most memorable of the poem that would live forever? or as long as poetry survives.... or something like that?

This below is a hint of it, but not the full quote:

"When a single day brings the world to destruction, only then will the poetry of the sublime Lucretius pass away." This judgment by the Roman poet Ovid , written in the generation after Lucretius's death, has been echoed by such writers as Voltaire and George Santayana; the author of De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) holds a place in world literature as one of the great philosopher-poets.

Another hint of it:

The most obvious and famous result of this attitude is Lucretius’ extreme hostility to traditional religion—which, in his view, is neither reasonable or natural and is the source of endless anxiety and cruelty. And responses to his poem often begin and end with that. Voltaire, as one might expect, enthusiastically approved the most famous line in the poem attacking traditional religion: “That shows how much/ religion can turn mankind to evil” (1.134), and the energy of that endorsement is matched by any number of people who turned away from Lucretius in horror for this irreligious stance.

I admit to issues with my auditory attention span. I have major trouble not taking off with a thought from the discussion and then I miss bits of it. When I'm actually participating it's not an issue, but I've always had this problem with podcasts.

I say this because you may have discussed what I had planned to contribute re Iphianassa and maybe I zoned out. I didn't hear it, either way.

My point if I had been able to be on the call was to remind people to ask how they recognize what was done to Iphianassa was terrible. It's presented as an assumption that religion led to this dreadful thing, but there's no discussion in that part of the poem about how we recognize it as awful.

I think this is a critical place to bring the whole philosophy into interpretation. We don't say "oh, that's terrible" because of any set absolute definition of terrible.

We say it bc as humans with typical empathy, the story causes us pain even to imagine killing a daughter, and even more so because we know it was for naught.

The action fails the immediate, intuitive sense of right and wrong because it is painful to us. Then it fails the hedonic calculus because there's no beneficial effect from the imaginary gods.

It would be incomplete of me not to say there could have been social benefit, social pleasure, to Agamemnon for putting his people's lives before his daughter's. Same for Abraham. But that social pleasure depends on an illusion. Clearly, removing the false belief in supernatural gods would result in the greatest pleasure for Agamemnon, Abraham, and all in similar situations.

Even today, we have parents disowning and abandoning teens who fall away from religious teaching. There are homeless gay teens kicked out because of religion.

Without supernatural religion, there would be more total pleasure for those parents. They could have social pleasure from their community support and family pleasure with their kids. Nobody getting sacrificed. Definitely, the kids are getting more pleasure in that non religious scenario-- it's clear what Iphianassa would prefer! I've always wondered if Jacob ever went hiking with his dad again 😃, or turned his back. I sure wouldn't have.

Excellent points, Elayne, and that is why I've already made preliminary plans to continue this topic, and integrate it into everything we've discussed so far, in the draft notes for Episode Four

As far as I can tell the point you are making is one of the major "big picture" items that people fail to recognize due to the cliche that it is sometimes hard to "see the forest for the trees."

The point that FEELING is the true guide of life, as opposed to "logic" or "reason" or "idealism" or "divine revelation" or any number of other suggestions is maybe the most profound insight of Epicurean philosophy. It's necessary to establish that this is so, and so we have to talk about lots of details and points that can seem isolated, but they all come together in supporting the conclusion that feeling - pleasure and pain - is ultimately the test by which we judge every "good" and "bad" thing.

We'll definitely go back over this point in the next episode before we go further in the poem.

I have updated the first post in this thread, but just to make the news easier to find, this is to point out that Episode Three is Now Live!

Quote from Elayne

It would be incomplete of me not to say there could have been social benefit, social pleasure, to Agamemnon for putting his people's lives before his daughter's. Same for Abraham. But that social pleasure depends on an illusion. Clearly, removing the false belief in supernatural gods would result in the greatest pleasure for Agamemnon, Abraham, and all in similar situations.

Yes - and that reminds me too that we should compare this with the story of Torquatus' ancestor, who had his son executed for disobeying orders in a war, and how that compares / differs from the Iphanessa story