"The Polytheism of the Epicureans" by Paul T. M. Jackson

Thanks for this lead! Epicurus and His Gods (1955) by C.W. Chilton is available on Internet Archive for borrowing. Chilton mentions that Festugière used some details from Norman DeWitt's "new" book Epicurus and his Philosophy in compiling the life of Epicurus in his book.

Yes thank you for this Don! I had the pdf in my collection but can't recall if I have read it. Might as well clip and paste the key letter here. It certainly seems to me to be consistent with Epicurus, though I have no way of commenting on whether it was Epicurus himself who wrote this, or another Epicurean:

This kind of argument seems very sincere to me as a logical extension of his views. Discussion like this is a large part of the reason that I think Epicurus was serious about this view, rather than just creating a screen to protect himself from sanctions against blasphemy.

I've added the citation to the Diels translation of the Oxrhynchus (spelling?) Papyrus to that letter in the Chilton book. Never heard of this letter, but will be hunting for Diels. Wish I could read German!

Where did you get your clip from, Cassius ? I saw your footnote 77 at the end of yours, but mine were different.

Hmm-- I clipped that off the version that I had downloaded some time ago. Looks like I downloaded it in 2016 but I confess I can't remember where I got it! pasted-from-clipboard.png
I went through a period downloading a lot from Jstor, but this looks more like a version from Academia because I don't see any identifying markings on my original.

As for German, I know Martin has limited time, but he's been very helpful with some translation work in the past.

Here's my Archive link: https://archive.org/details/epicur…age/71/mode/1up

Don I hope I have not misunderstood your reference. I have a PDF of the Polytheism article where the clip above comes from, but I do also have A PDF of the Chilton translation of Festugière, and a hard copy of Chilton's book on Diogenes of Oinoanda, so I may have botched my reference above.

Quote from Cassius

Don I hope I have not misunderstood your reference. I have a PDF of the Polytheism article where the clip above comes from, but I do also have A PDF of the Chilton translation of Festugière, and a hard copy of Chilton's book on Diogenes of Oinoanda, so I may have botched my reference above.

No problem I just didn't want to be missing some juicy tidbit.

Check out the actual Oxrhynchus papyrus here:

https://archive.org/details/oxyrhy…age/30/mode/1up

Thank you Don! I always appreciate the thoroughness of sources that reprint a facsimile of the text itself so we can see visually how much fragmentation and how much reconstruction is involved.

I just revisited the essay linked by Godfrey in the opening post.

One of the considerations that seems to get shunted aside in discussions of the Epicurean gods (especially from a realist perspective, but also from an idealist one) is that the Athenian gods that Epicurus venerated (like the gods of other polytheisms) “embodied” (or at least represented) various, specific associations in their personae. Dionysus was the god associated with wine, viticulture and theater (especially comedia); Hestia was guardian of the hearth, hospitality and home fires (and public fires maintained for religious purposes); Gaia personified this earth; and on and on …

If they become no more than muddled signifiers for some vague notion of blissful divinity (whatever that is!), living in the intermundia – they become little more than blurry abstractions, far removed from either the Greek pantheon (even with superstitious flaws removed by Epicurus) or psychological archetypes.

Personally, I am in the idealist camp – but I am hesitant to project that back onto Epicurus. In any event, ghostly “divinities” – with little even metaphorical “flesh” – abiding in some intermundia seem thoroughly uninteresting. I wouldn’t even know how to consider them from a psychological/archetypal/meditative point of view, absent those very specific associations.

Archetypal personae, with specifically defined associations – whether physically real or not – are another story …

Quote from Pacatus

One of the considerations that seems to get shunted aside in discussions of the Epicurean gods (especially from a realist perspective, but also from an idealist one)

I agree that needs more attention. Many people seem to take it for granted that Epicurean gods equate to Zeus and his crowd, and I doubt very much that that is a good assumption at all.

Quote from Cassius

Many people seem to take it for granted that Epicurean gods equate to Zeus and his crowd, and I doubt very much that that is a good assumption at all.

Color me – totally unsure at this point, one way or the other. At least in terms of archetypes that Epicurus would have been familiar with.

But some abstracted notion of “blissful divinity” (again, whatever that might mean?!) seems – to put it mildly – unsatisfying and unrelatable. From either a realist or idealist perspective. Absent specific associations, merely pluralizing “divinity” would seem to be a semantically empty “difference without distinction.”

BTW, here is a link to David Konstans' chapter, "Epicurus on the gods," in Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition, edited by Jeffrey Fish, Baylor University, Texas, Kirk R. Sanders, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign:

https://www.academia.edu/48868154/Epicurus_on_the_gods.

I know it's been discussed on here before. (Maybe I'm just catching up ... )