Gratitude and Weakness (Especially In Relation to the Gods)

    Quote from Cassius

    So it is always interesting to me if we come across new names to add to the list of scholars who seem fundamentally in support of Epicurus without this kind of hedging that we have from Bailey.

    This is the last paragraph from the first chapter of 'Nauka Epikura' (1929 book) where Adam Krokiewicz describes Epicurus himself before going into Epicureanism in detail. This can give you better understanding of Krokiewicz assessment of Epicurus and his philosophy. I transcribed it, run through Google Translate and corrected the translation so it's as close to the original as possible.


    Adam Krokiewicz, 'Nauka Epikura' (1929), page 62:


    The teaching of Epicurus, intended for all humans and pointing the way to happiness in life, ultimately becomes a religious denomination, and its founder one of the religious geniuses. Because of the position of the gods as the natural ideals of human perfection and the position of humans as beings with natural duty to liberate their spirit and attain perfection during their lives, this religion may be called earthly in contrast to otherworldly mysticism. Because of the primacy of reason, the religion can be called intellectual as opposed to religions based on feelings, which violate reason. Epicurus did not recognize the piety of people who said: "I fear and worship all gods, I want to sacrifice to them all that I have" etc. (see Oxyrhynchus Papyri II, 215). He preferred them in truth to indifferent people, but he considered only the effort of rational thought to be the essential basis of piety. He called for the sacrifice of the most precious gift that human can make, namely the act of understanding, and to this call he remained faithful throughout his entire life. The teaching of Epicurus was as compact and uniform as the man himself. It deserves not only general, but also detailed understanding.

    Thanks for the translation!!


    As to this:


    Quote from TauPhi

    He called for the sacrifice of the most precious gift that human can make, namely the act of understanding, and to this call he remained faithful throughout his entire life.


    "Called for the sacrifice of....?" Meaning more like dedication to?

    Quote from Cassius

    Thank you TauPhi!


    Here's that list of works from Google translate:

    Unfortunately, most of these are not attainable. I tried to find Epicurus related works but beside the books I've mentioned (which are also out of print) I couldn't get my hands on any of these works.


    It's an opposition to the act of blindly sacrificing everything to gods out of fear (referring to Oxyrhynchus Papyri quote above). Sacrificing the act of understanding might not be the best wording (though Krokiewicz uses just that) but it's the act of giving everything one has intellectually to achieve fearless blessedness instead of fearful submission (at least that's how I understand it).


    BTW, Adam Krokiewicz gives in this paragraph very interesting source. Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 215 is suspected to be potentially written by Epicurus himself. Here are some links if anyone cares to investigate further:


    General info about Oxyrhynchus Papyri:

    Oxyrhynchus Papyri - Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org


    Specific info about Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215:

    Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215 - Wikipedia


    And lastly, the source material and its translation:

    The Oxyrhynchus papyri : Grenfell, Bernard P : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
    xii, 358 pages, plates : 27 cm
    archive.org

    To bring this back to Nate 's original question, I wanted to look again at that word translated as "affected"

    Quote from Don

    ὥστε οὔτε ὀργαῖς οὔτε χάρισι συνέχεται:

    so that it is not affected by anger or gratitude (Saint-Andre)

    ὥστε with the indicative, to express the actual result with emphasis.

    συνέχεται (3rd person singular middle/passive indicative < συνέχομαι can mean (as far as I can tell, anyone please correct me!) "afflicted with" but other connotations are impelled or disturbed, constrained by, trapped.

    So, if ὥστε introduces a "result" of that which is blessed/incorruptible not causing trouble to itself or others... Wait, that sounds an awful lot like "neither harm nor be harmed." Hmm... Not the same words as PD31, but similar sentiment?

    We'll look at συνέχομαι in a second, but I find it interesting that the negation is on the nouns and not the verb: It's not "not affected by" it's "neither anger nor gratitude" affects them (singular them btw).

    συνέχομαι is the passive/middle form of συνέχω.

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Σ ς, , συνευτροφέω , συνέχω

    So one of the passive connotations is "to be constrained oneself, distressed, afflicted, and, generally, to be affected by anything whether in mind or body." I can see this describing Joshua 's suggested interpretation. It wouldn't preclude the god from being itself angry or grateful (for variation in its pleasure) but it's not affected or constrained by the anger or gratitude of others, including humans. Which could serve as a model for human behavior. Don't be constrained by the anger or gratitude of others but pay attention to your own anger and gratitude. Philodemus talks about natural anger and other kinds of anger. The god could feel natural anger, but isn't affected by the empty anger of others?

    Real Harm, not Slight: the Prerequisites for "Natural Anger" in Philodemus' On Anger and their Influence on Vergil | Society for Classical Studies


    Philodemus and the Peripatetics on the Role of Anger in the Virtuous Life | Society for Classical Studies


    Anger and the Desire for Revenge
    Abstract. This chapter examines Philodemus' diatribe On Anger, a principal piece of On the Passions and an important contribution to the philosophical literatur
    academic.oup.com

    Additional thought on this: The word μακάριος "blessed" is regularly used to describe both the life of the god and the life of a human in Epicurean texts, so those lives have to share some similarities. The big difference, as I see it, is the "incorruptibility" of the gods. The gods don't fall from their completely blissful state... Ever. But this does have a complement in human life. Diogenes Laertius says that "once the sage has become wise, they will no longer fall back into ignorance."

    That incorruptible is...

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Α α, , ἀφέψ-ημα , ἄφθαρ-τος

    uncorrupted, undecaying

    Romans 1.23 includes the word referring to "the glory of the incorruptible God."

    I Corinthians 15:52 uses it for "the dead will be raised incorruptible."

    I find the description of the sage and the god intriguing. Not identical but complementary? Parallel?

    Quote from Don

    Diogenes Laertius says that "once the sage has become wise, they will no longer fall back into ignorance."

    Agreed that is a parallel, but I would also say that that one probably calls for some explanations as it applies to humans, because in the absence of fate and given the presence of the swerve / free will, you would think that it would be hard to guarantee that every decision is wise.


    Possibly means something about the wise man won't "intentionally" fall back into error? But even then, this statement has kind of a Stoic/Platonic ring to it, and I would probably add it into a list of statements by Diogenes Laertius that need to be scrutinized before accepting at the face value at which it's usually translated(?)

    Quote from Don

    I've taken that, in part, as once you pull up your empty ideas about death, fate, etc., you won't fall back into error.

    Yep. Whenever I think about things like that, however, I think of the "once saved, always saved" issues in Christianity, and I really can't see Epicurus himself (for example) claiming to never make a mistake. But certainly in those key areas you mention you would think that such errors would be very unlikely.

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Cassius

    "once saved, always saved" issues in Christianity

    ^^ I have my doubts. It didn't seem to take with me.

    Ha! I have a strong aversion to this and some other related doctrines, but I admit that my mother believing it is probably why she doesn't seem to manifestly worry for my soul. Gotta get in early with the kids before they learn any different, I suppose.

    Quote from Little Rocker

    Gotta get in early with the kids before they learn any different, I suppose.

    Μήτε νέος...μήτε γέρων...

    "Neither must one who is young delay in loving and pursuing wisdom; nor should one who is old grow weary of loving and pursuing wisdom; because it is neither out of season nor untimely for the health of the psykhē." :)

    I'm thinking of approaching this from a different angle.


    Can we disprove the following assertion?


    The gods are grateful to Nature, for, without the eternal atoms, they would not enjoy pleasant lives.

    Quote from Nate

    The gods are grateful to Nature, for, without the eternal atoms, they would not enjoy pleasant lives.

    Great question. On the face of it I would think that that meaning of grateful *would* apply to the gods. If the gods take pleasure in their own existence and circumstances - and I think that would be true - isn't that Nature?


    Maybe we are in another one of those many definition searches.

    I want to add a comment/question that occurs to me because of the podcast that we recorded today:


    I think most of us would agree that it is healthy functioning for the human body to feel pain when it is exposed to something painful.


    So the question is: Should we view the Epicurean gods (real OR ideal, either way), as being painless because they are *incapable* of feeling pain, or because they have so arranged their affairs and circumstances that they are never exposed to anything that is painful?


    I ask because this might have a relationship to the original question of the gods feeling gratitude. Are they capable of feeling gratitude but do not because they have nothing outside themselves to be grateful for? Are they not grateful for their companionship with their companion gods?


    I am thinking the answer would be that the gods are capable of feeling pain, but do not because they have so arranged their affairs so as never to be exposed to it, and in that way of looking at things they would serve as a model for we as humans to also in our own ways arrange our affairs.


    But again the usefulness of this at the extreme may be more of a logic game than anything else. It seems obvious that we all, at whatever stage of development, wish to arrange our affairs so as to have no need to experience unnecessary or "un-worthwhile" pain.

    This brings to mind pleasure ethics v duty ethics: if you consider it to be your duty to do a particular thing then you're likely to pursue it regardless of the pain involved. Compare this to pleasure ethics, where minimizing pain is a concern: you may achieve the same thing, but often much more pleasurably for all involved. Or you may choose to flee from the particular thing if you judge it to be a corrosive desire.

    Quote from Cassius

    the gods are capable of feeling pain, but do not because they have so arranged their affairs so as never to be exposed to it, and in that way of looking at things they would serve as a model for we as humans to also in our own ways arrange our affairs.

    This is what makes me envision the Epicurean gods as animals that have undergone countless iterations of self-improvement. I imagine the gods as citizens of an endless universe (a universe without a cosmic government), citizens who have perfected their ability to perpetually, and self-sufficiently maintain a stable, bio-chemical equilibrium so that the consistency of their lifestyle is incapable of being disrupted (including the disruption of death).

    I just realized my post on another thread directly addresses this threads topic:

    Post
    RE: Quotes from Karl Krohn's dissertation "Der Epikureer Hermarchos"
    The next citation is to Philodemus On Anger, pherc. 182, col. 43, lines 16-23:
    https://papyri.info/dclp/62390

    ..., ὥστε καὶ τοῦτον
    ἀσθενῆ ποιεῖν, οὐ παρενο-
    χλήσει, καθάπερ ἐν[ί]οις, οἳ
    πάνδεινον ἡγήσαντο, ταῖς
    20 Κυρίαις Δόξαις ἀντιγρά-
    φοντες, εἰ τετόλμηκέ τις
    ἐν ἀσθενείαι λέγειν ὀ̣ργὴν
    καὶ χάριτα καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοι-
    οῦτον,...

    epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3741/
    Don


    From Philodemus On Anger.