Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, XI.5; & Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, III.6

It always amazes me how willing the "moralists" are to engage in slander, and how stridently they do so. Goes with the territory I suppose.

Slanderous man, I wonder how many millions (billions?) of people's happiness he destroyed with the doctrine of Original Sin? Catholics, Puritans etc... making us distrust our own feelings and thoughts due to then being "totally depraved". Anyway thanks for sharing, perhaps his hand got burned by some Epicurean ember before he wrote this.

Quote from Don

https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102/npnf102.iv.XI.5.html

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Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who agree that God is the Creator of the world, but have difficulties about the time of its creation, and what reply, also, they can make to difficulties we might raise about the place of its creation. For, as they demand why the world was created then and no sooner, we may ask why it was created just here where it is, and not elsewhere. For if they imagine infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God could not have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the world infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it not follow that they must adopt Epicurus’ dream of innumerable worlds? with this difference only, that he asserts that they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold that they are made by God’s hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless immensity of space, stretching interminably in every direction round the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose Him to make cannot be destroyed...

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

It still surprises me that we can talk about (and scholars talk about, and the ancients talk about) the demise of the Epicurean school... and yet Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE), writing in the 400s CE, can *still* be railing against Epicurus and his philosophy. As Joshua has pointed out, Augustine wrote that the ashes of Stoicism and Epicureanism are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them against Christianity (Ep. 118.12). And yet, he feels compelled to include a dig against them in his City of God. Was he trying to convince others or himself that the Epicurean "ashes" were so cold?

Earlier, Theophilus of Antioch (115~183/5 CE) includes slanders against both the Stoics and Epicureans in his letter To Autolycus (Ad Autolycum 3.6):

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And Epicurus himself, too, as well as teaching atheism, teaches along with it incest with mothers and sisters, and this in transgression of the laws which forbid it; for Solon distinctly legislated regarding this, in order that from a married parent children might lawfully spring, that they might not be born of adultery, so that no one should honour as his father him who was not his father, or dishonour him who was really his father, through ignorance that he was so. And these things the other laws of the Romans and Greeks also prohibit. Why, then, do Epicurus and the Stoics teach incest and sodomy, with which doctrines they have filled libraries, so that from boyhood this lawless intercourse is learned? And why should I further spend time on them, since even of those they call gods they relate similar things?

It seems the early Christians were SO threatened by the Epicureans (and Stoics) that they just railed and railed against them endlessly. From that alone, it appears that Epicurus's school continued to have great significance and impact well into the "Christian" era.

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From everything I've read, I have gotten a few impressions:

(1) We overestimate the amount of people in the Roman Empire who actually identified as "Christian" by 400 CE. Just because the Emperor passed an edict, and just because a State passed a declaration does not necessarily mean that all of those living within the jurisdiction of that system had mentally converted to that tradition. (The government of China versus the religious practices of the majority of its population serves as a good example.)

(2) We underestimate the popularity of Neoplatonism during the same time period that Christianity was rising in numbers. This was particularly problematic (much more so than any threat of Epicureanism) because a number of the early Christian Church Fathers (who are still accepted in Christian culture as Saints and guides) were Middle Platonists, (first) and Christians (second). Neoplatonism was a mystical, providential competitor with Nicene Christianity.

(3) We overlook the influence of the Christian heretics. Well into the Middle Ages, Nicene Christians were still fighting the heresies of Arianism and Nestorianism. Many of these heretics were influenced by the notion that some element of Jesus was flesh-and-blood, thus, in the same way that Fascists tend to call everyone remotely left of them Communists (or vis-a-versa), everyone who doesn't agree with Nicene Christians were "Epicureans", or some other slur.

(4) We also overlook the influence of Gnosticism throughout the Empire. During this same time period, Mandaeism and Manichaeism developed and began claiming thousands of converts, particularly among the Persian community which contributed Zoroastrian themes to their practice. Like the heretics, they believed in some divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and/or John the Baptist, and yet, still, they were not considered "Christian" by the Church Fathers.

(5) Along that same line of Persian influence, we also overlook the influence of the Cult of Mithra. This seems to have been (at least, at the beginning of the Roman Empire) the dominant spiritual tradition of Roman soldiers, and had a particular presence among men who previously practiced mystery rites. This cult was a competitor with Nicene Christianity, heretical Christian sects, Gnostics, Middle Platonists, and Neoplatonists.

So, it may not necessarily have been the case that the spark of Epicureanism was extinguished by the deluge of Christianity, but rather, was both (a) being appropriated as a slur for the opponents of any forms of Idealism, and (b) was competing in a plural world where no one ideology claimed over 50% of the population.

St. Augustine is also writing very near the limit of Late Antiquity, in the early 5th century.

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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period (also spelled mediæval or mediaeval) lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, aligning with the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD before transitioning into the Renaissance and then the Age of Discovery.

And in the medieval period Epicurus was still calumniated, but as a glutton rather than a philosopher. We would need a more complete understanding of medieval literature to find the traces of atomism and hedonism, which I certainly lack.

Quote from Eoghan Gardiner

Slanderous man, I wonder how many millions (billions?) of people's happiness he destroyed with the doctrine of Original Sin?

I grew up with the following words in the Confession: "Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean." Year after year after year ...

Quote from Pacatus

I grew up with the following words in the Confession: "Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean." Year after year after year ...

Perhaps we could create an antidote (and an alternative for all future Epicureans) based on the "wise man sayings" (from Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers Book 10) and maybe add in some of the PDs (this could take some thinking and some work to decide what to include, and also if it should be called "The Sayings of the Wise" rather than "The Wise Man Sayings").

With a nod to Lucretius, something like "Venus, life force, thriving on pleasure...."