On Use Of The Term Apikoros / Apiqoros / Bikouros Against Epicureans

Quote from Cassius

Just remember that the Hebrew word for 'heretic' is 'אפיקורוס' or 'Epikoros'.

I was reading The Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism (2020) and came to page 549, where it says “The Term Epicurus, or Apiqoros as it is more often pronounced, is alive and well in contemporary Jewish culture.”

It goes on to state “Epicurus is a unique figure in Judaism – a Greek philosopher whose name has become a legal category. An Apiqoros cannot give testimony in court (Mishnah Torah 11.11), one may not return a lost object to Apiqorsim (11.3), one is even obligated to kill them” (page 551)

Here is the quote form the Torah:

(Mishneh Torah, Rotzeah uShmirat Nefesh, 4.10) It is a blessing to kill minim and Epikursim… Epikursim deny the Torah and the concept of prophecy. If there is the possibility, one should kill them with a sword in public view. If that is not possible, one should develop a plan so that one can cause their deaths. What is implied? If one sees such a person descend to a cistern, and there is a ladder in the cistern, one should take the ladder, and excuse oneself, saying: "I must hurry to take my son down from the roof. I shall return the ladder to you soon." Similarly, one should devise other analogous plans to cause the death of such people.

Different translation: "The [following are considered] Ha’Epikorsim (הָאֶפִּיקוֹרְסִים): those who worship idols or commit transgressions in order to provoke anger. Even if one eats non-kosher meat or wears garments of mixed fabric to provoke anger, he is considered an Epikoros (אֶפִּיקוֹרוֹס). This includes those who deny the Torah and the Prophets. It is a commandment to kill them. If one has the power to kill them with a sword in public, he should do so. If not, he should employ subterfuge to cause their death. How so? If one of them falls into a pit and a ladder is inside, he should remove it and say, 'I must go and bring my son down from the roof; I will return the ladder to you,' and similarly in such matters."

I do find the staying power of this usage to be remarkable. The Scottish adventurer Cunninghame Graham wrote this in a book on his travels;

Quote

Almost all Europeans in Morocco must of necessity be merchants, if not they must be consuls, for there is hardly any other industry open to them to choose. The [christian] missionaries bought and sold nothing, they were not consuls; still they ate and drank, lived in good houses, and though not rich yet passed their lives in what the Jews called luxury. So they [the Jews] agreed to call them followers of Epicurus, for, as they said, "this Epicurus was a devil who did naught but eat and drink." The nickname stuck, and changed into Bikouros by the Moors, who thought it was a title of respect, became the name throughout Morocco for a missionary. One asks as naturally for the house of Epicurus on coming to a town as one asks for the "Checquers" or the "Bells" in rural England. Are you "Bikouros"? says a Moor, and thinks he does you honour by the inquiry; but the recipients of the name are fit to burst when they reflect on their laborious days spent in the surgery, their sowing seed upon the marble quarries of the people's hearts, and that the Jews in their malignity should charge upon them by this cursed name, that they live in Morocco to escape hard work, and pass their time in eating and In in quaffing healths a thousand fathoms deep.

Which is how Bikouros came to be mentioned as a very minor character in one of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

This is all fascinating! Evidently there's maybe more to the Epicurean link to Antiochus Epiphanes than I initially expected. Do we know how far back Apiqoros goes in Hebrew? To the time of the Maccabees?

On Dune, Joshua shared this previously and it includes the additional mention of "Bicouros of Shaitan; "a lazy missionary of the devil"

Thread

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Arrakis

So I've been thinking of getting into some light game modding and I've been getting into the worldbuilding side of Frank Herbert's Dune, one of the greatest sci-fi worlds ever made. His stories are set in our galaxy, but in a far distant future where Earth is nothing but a faint memory and mankind has spread across the stars. Herbert's narrative texture relies for its effect on extrapolating the development of human language, religion, and folkways across this vast scale of time, and words from…

Joshua

September 18, 2022 at 10:05 PM

See also:

Apiqoros: The Last Essays of Salomon Maimon - Hebrew Union College Press

Before the Enlightenment, before Spinoza had rejected traditional beliefs about the Bible, came the humanistic skeptics of the Renaissance. Alongside such…

press.huc.edu

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23509248

(I'll try and follow-up on that jstor paper)

Heresy and the Formation of the Rabbinic Community

books.google.com

Quote from Don

Do we know how far back Apiqoros goes in Hebrew? To the time of the Maccabees?

Best I can tell, the word has been around since Epicurus. Yet, it looks like we first have the term attested in text just a generation after the invasion of the Maccabees. The word is used in "the early Tannaitic sources (first century before Hillel)" where it is used "to refer to one who espouses Epicurean philosophy."

There is a tradition of denying that the term comes from Epicurus, while nevertheless understanding that is really does come from him. Happily the handbook even mentions this open deception "It is also worth bearing in mind that the Talmudic etymology of the term may itself be a self-consciously homiletic effort rather than a serious philological one" (pg 567). Meaning the argument that it is unrelated is not even believed by those who make the argument.

Also, the argument that the word means "heretic" in a general sense may also be disingenuous -- at least originally it specifically means "Epicurean."

(Avot 2.14) "know what to respond to an Epikoros"

(Sanhedrin 10.1) "These are they who have no place in the world to come: He who says there is no resurrection of the dead, that there is no Torah from Heaven, an Epikoros"

The advice to, (if legally possible) publicly kill Epicureans (but if not legally possible) to kill them by deception is hardly a unique treatment for those who disagree -- although the bit about leaving us to die in wells by "temporarily borrowing" our ladder (if the opportunity should arise) is a unique little twist!

That section from Epicurus.net has some very speculative content! To quote "There is some evidence that Jesus meanwhile fled to Syria and then eastwards out of the Roman Empire, where he continued his teaching and faith-healing for many decades in Iran and Kashmir. A possible tomb of Jesus is located in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir."

My goodness!

I remember Epicurus.net being the major online resource in the 1990's. I kept checking to see when the "Beliefs" section would be updated- in 2024 it's still under construction! I think Epicurus.net kind of set a tone for a lot of the online discussions, including the belief that modern egoism/libertarianism/Austrian economics were natural successor movements to Epicureanism. I was one of the few dissenters there.

Just saw this thread listed in "Research Projects" and finally downloaded "A Diachronic Study of the 3Apiqoros in Rabbinic Literature" by Jenny R. Labendz. Here are some excerpts and notes (Quotes are from Labendz paper unless otherwise noted):

"Tannaim were the rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 10–220 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 210 years." - Wikipeda (Tannaim)

The paper continues that, although the origin of the name 'apiqoros definitely originally referred to Epicureans, by the 4th century CE the Greek philosophical schools (Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism) had "basically disappeared." The amoraim (Jewish scholars of 200-500 CE) primarily in Babylonia and Israel, probably never encountered actual Epicureans. "..these Rabbis were not bound to maintain that 'apiqoros meant Epicurean, even if they understood the historical and philosophical meaning of that term. It was obvious to them... that an 'apiqoros was something decidely negative, but in the absence of real Epicureans, they could, and did, give free reign to their imaginations to construct new definitions."

"Modern philologists are generally in agreement that the word 'apiqoros is a Hebrew transliteration of the Greek word for either Epicurus or Epicurean." It appears that the consensus is that the generic word Epicurean was the one adapted into Hebrew.

"Epicureans flourished in Palestine...and they missionized ardently." The author cites DeWitt, Epicurus and His Philosophy, 3, and Howard Jones, The Epicurean Tradition (Routledge, 1989), 64, for this information. "Since the Epicureans missionized vigorously, the Rabbis may have encountered them somewhat regularly, and might have been able to read or at least hear the epitomes that encapsulated Epicurean philosophy and theology." The author cites Saul Lieberman's Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (1962) in several places:

Hellenism in Jewish Palestine : Lieberman, Saul, 1898-1983 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

231 pages

archive.org

However, the consensus seems to be that since the tannaim literature doesn't employ any Greek philosophical terms "the Rabbi's knowledge of Greek philosophy was limited." ...

Even with this basic knowledge, the Rabbis knew enough to consider the Epicureans "heretical, such as the Epicurean denial of divine providence."

The author notes that this mishnah presumes the reader knows who/what an Epicurean is... later amoraim who inherit the term have to "reconstruct its meaning."

The author posits that the Rabbis encountered the Epicureans would most likely have debated them. The intellectual Rabbis were likely targets for Epicurean missionizing and for the pamphlets the Epicureans distributed. So, the Rabbis goals was to know how to counter these basic Epicurean arguments.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 (excerpt)

Again, it is assumed that the reader will know who/what an Epicurean is, and this person is someone with whom the student will interact. "Here, the student is being warned against the consequence of actually being an Epicurean himself. This may be what motivates Judah Goldin's assertion that 'apiqoros refers specifically to a Jewish Epicurean." (Goldin, Studies in Midrash and Related Literature (New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988, 62).

"Several things can be learned from this mishnah about the tannaitic conception of the Epicurean. First...God is the one who punishes the Epicurean. The problematic nature of being an Epicurean is the theoretical or intellectual rather than practical ... the Epicurean, who denies divine reward and punishment, and is thereby excluded from divine reward in the world to come." The mishnah goes on to say that the Epicureans "says there is no way to learn resurrection of the dead...that the Torah is not from Heaven." These are "essential religious truths" according to the Rabbis. So the "salient charateristics of Epicureanism" were the "outright denial of providence" and not their missionary efforts or some metaphysical, philosophical theories.

Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:5 lists a whole list of ne'er-do-wells condemned by the Rabbis: sectarians, apostates, informers, Epicureans, those who have denied the Torah, those who separate from the ways of the community, and those who have denied the resurrection of the dead. "Based on the tannaitic familiarity with Epicureanism discussed above... it is plausible that the Rabbis' disdain towards Epicureanism encompassed more than the single heresy of denial of divine providence."

The author states that "we may characterize the early Rabbis' understanding and use of the term. An 'apiqoros was a member of the missionizing Epicurean school of philosophy which, among other heresies or impieties, denied divine providence. ... Not much later, Rabbis were less sure of the meaning of the word 'apiqoros."

That gets us up to pp. 175-184. The remainder of the paper traces the use of the word in other texts, but also shows that the writers were less and less aware of what an acutal Epicurean was and rather more able to foist whatever heresies they wanted onto the term 'apiqoros including disrespect for the Torah or simple irreverence. But there is no denying the term originally referred to our philosophical forebears.

Just a note on 'apiqoros coming from Epicurean and not Epicurus, remember that the ancient Greek for "Epicurean" is Ἐπικούρειος (Epikoureios) so both Epicurean and Epicurus end in sigma (ς "s") in Greek. So it seems to me both are viable options although the group name does seem to make more sense.

I recently came across an alternative possibility:

“Even the derivation of the term is not simple. It probably derives ultimately from the name of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, but Rabbinic literature displays no knowledge of the existence of a Greek philosopher by that name. If it were a semitic term, it would be derived from the root pqr, which by an apparently fortuitous coincidence means licentious, dissolute, or rebellious. This derivation has been maintained by at least one eminent philologist.”

And: “The fact that the Amoraim derive the term Apiqoros from the Hebrew root pqr (Sanhedrin 38b) provides some evidence that they were unaware of Epicureans at all. But on the other hand it may only be an example of self-consciously creative homiletic Rabbinic exegesis.”*

Thus it could be – although Danzig seems to think probably not – originally at least, a “phonetic coincidence.”

* Gabriel Danzig, “Epicurus and Epicureanism in Rabbinic Literature” in the Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism; Philip Mitsis, Editor.

Classical Hebrew is based on such consonantal roots, and words that are so based -- even with the root letters rearranged and with additions -- are etymologically related.

For those who might be interested in pursuing this topic further, I stumbled on this book in Amazon: Epicurus & Apikorsim: The Influence of the Greek Epicurus and Jewish Apikorsim on Judaism Hardcover – August 15, 2007

https://www.amazon.com/Epicurus-Apikorsim-Influence-Jewish-Judaism/dp/9659115113/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.d7u4ebcpoEF2VZBVZbkrscVAMrzSSzxdETHHR7Z2rr8dYFlLCmf00RyBBS5RGGVx.zHMcZrk595kS0YXy2_l75ucghtz4z7wwStB0q9avuDs&dib_tag=se&keywords=Epicurus+and+Apikorsim&qid=1711310233&s=books&sr=1-1

One of the commentators mentions Humanistic Judaism as a strain that would be apikorsim. In the months I participated, as a graciously welcomed guest, in a local mixed-congregation (Conservative and Reform) synagogue, I got the strong impression that many of the Conservative members viewed Reform Jews pretty much as apikorsim – even as they were often good friends.

Pacatus can you summarize the doctrinal differences between the two? If that's too complicated to be reasonable, just say no.

Godfrey

Just quickly, off the top of my head: Generally, Conservative Jews keep kashrut -- but, unlike Orthodox Jews ordain women, and have other liberal positions. Reform Jews generally reject the need to keep kashrut, take more of the Torah symbolically or metaphorically. An outward example: in the synagogue I was involved in, Conservative Jews tended to wear the kippah (skull cap/yarmulke) all the time, and maybe the fringed garment (tzitzit); Reform Jews donned the yarmulke only during services, and didn't wear the tzitzit at all. They used different prayer books (siddurim). Theologically, there might not be many real differences -- although Reform Jews (like some neo-Hasidim) seemed to tend more toward some versions of pantheism. Humanistic Jews might reject the notion of a supernatural creator God (or any God) altogether, but still keep some of the Torah-traditions as a community-bonding practice.

That is really simplistic, but the best I can do to give maybe a picture. Wikipedia probably has articles, but these observations are based on my personal experience.

Quote from Pacatus

Humanistic Jews might reject the notion of a supernatural creator God (or any God) altogether, but still keep some of the Torah-traditions as a community-bonding practice.

That almost sounds Epicurean in that they take part in the rituals of the community but don't ascribe to the supernatural elements.

Quote from Don

That almost sounds Epicurean in that they take part in the rituals of the community but don't ascribe to the supernatural elements.

Apikorsim. Although Judaism, historically and broadly, is generally more orthopraxic than orthodoxic.

I had an acquaintance who was a Humanistic Jew. I made the slip-of-tongue (quite innocently) of Saying "atheistic Judaism" -- he just laughed and said, "Yeah, pretty much."