Posts by Cassius

I think I am agreeing with you Hiram, but I still sense danger in "wealth is preferable to poverty" and "this natural measure of wealth is not arbitrary." I agree that those statements can generally and easily be interpreted in a way that makes clear that the goal is pleasure and that all tools are subjective and relative to context.

However lots of people will make the leap on those to hearing "wealth is ALWAYS or INTRINSICALLY preferable to poverty" and "this natural measure of wealth is not arbitrary BUT ABSOLUTE" and I think we have to constantly be on guard against that. This is related to the entire issue of the natural and necessary categorization, which I also think is easily misunderstood to imply that there are bright lines such as a Platonist or Aristotelian or Stoic would assert (which they would assert derives from gods or from virtue).

In fact that's the danger I see in the phrase "natural measure of wealth" is that it will be misunderstood almost as much as would be the word "god" and so demands almost immediate definition in Epicurean terms.

And THAT's the issue I have with the article we're discussing -- it buries the conclusion under reams of details that most people won't read, and then when it gets to the end it doesn't even make the point clearly then.

I agree that it helps a lot to discuss these issues and strategies for presenting them because I think that there IS a hugely important issue here, which is that Epicurus doesn't advise poverty any more than he advises aiming for great riches. But that's what 98% of the people talking about Epicurus seem to think or advocate, so if you take up this issue and make the fundamental point then I really applaud the effort.

Quote from Martin

"To say that the objects of conceptual thought are always universals is not to assert that these universals exist as such in reality, independent of the human mind that apprehends them."

I agree with Martin and in the first draft of my post above I quoted that line myself as something I thought sounded good. But then when I read further I got less comfortable and didn't requote any of it.

Clearly conceptual thought about things that do not exist is not only possible but ordinary and useful. However if our subject is "universals" then I am not sure that observation really advances the discussion, and we really need to start back earlier to define what we are talking about with that word "universals."

Welcome to Episode Six of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who lived in the age of Julius Caesar and wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

I am your host Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we'll walk you line by line through the six books of Lucretius' poem, and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers, and everyone here is a a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book, "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt.

Before we start with today's episode let me remind you of our three ground rules.

First: Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it, not to put our own positions into Lucretius' or Epicurus' words.

Second: In this podcast we won't be talking about modern political issues. Over at the Epicureanfriends.com web forum, we call this approach "Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean." Epicurean philosophy is not a religion, it''s not Stoicism, Humanism, Libertarianism, Atheism, or Marxism - it is a unique philosophy of its own, to be understood on its own terms, not in terms of conventional modern morality.

Third: Lucretius will show that Epicurus was not focused on over-the-top luxury, like some people say, but neither did he teach a minimalist lifestyle, as other people say. Epicurus taught that feeling - pleasure and pain - are the guides that Nature gave us to live by, not gods, idealism, or virtue ethics. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there's no life after death, and any happiness we'll ever have comes in THIS life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion.

Remember that our home page is LucretiusToday.com, and there you can find a free copy of the version of the poem from which we are reading, and links to where you can discuss the poem between episodes at Epicureanfriends.com.

In the episodes so far here are the major topics we have covered:

• That Pleasure, using the allegory of Venus, is the driving force of all life;
• That the way to rid ourselves of pain is to replace pain with pleasure, using the allegory of Venus entertaining Mars, the god of war;
• That Epicurus was the great philosophic leader who stood up to supernatural religion, opened the gates to a proper understanding of nature, , and thereby showed us how we too can emulate the life of gods;
• That it is not Epicurean philosophy, but supernatural religion, which is truly unholy and prompts men to commit evil deeds;
• That false priests and philosophers will try to scare you away from Epicurean philosophy with threats of punishment after death, which is why you must understand that those threats cannot be true;
• That the key to freeing yourself from false religion and false philosophy is found in the study of nature;
• And that the first observation which underlies all the rest of Epicurean philosophy is that we observe that nothing is ever generated from nothing.

Now that we are up to date let's start today's discussion!

This is the text that will be covered in Episode Six. The Latin version of Book One has this as beginning at approximately line 137 which can be found in the Munro Latin Edition here.

1743 Daniel Browne Edition (click link for English and Latin):

I know it is hard to explain in Latin verse the dark and mystic notions of the Greeks, for I have things to say that require new words, because the tongue is poor, the subject new. But your virtue, and the pleasures I expect from tender friendship, make me bear the toil, and spend the silent night with wakeful eyes, studious of words and numbers I shall use, to open to your mind such scenes of light which shew the hidden qualities of things unknown.

These terrors of the mind, this darkness then, not the Sun’s beams, nor the bright rays of day, can ever dispel, but Nature’s light and reason, whose first of principles shall be my guide: Nothing was by the Gods of nothing made.

For hence it is that fear disturbs the mind, that strange events in Earth and Heaven are seen, whose causes cannot appear by reason’s eye, and then we say they were from Powers Divine. But when we rest convinced that nothing can arise from nothing, then the way is clear to our pursuit; we distinctly see whence every thing comes into being, and how things are formed, without the help and trouble of the Gods.

If things proceed from nothing, every thing might spring from any thing, and want no seed; Men from the sea might first arise, and fish and birds break from the Earth, and herds and tender flocks drop from the sky, and every kind of beast, fixed to no certain place, might find a being in deserts or in cultivated fields: Nor the same fruit on the same trees would grow, but would be changed, and all things all things bear. For had not every thing its genial seed, how is it that every thing derives its birth from causes still the same? But now, since things are formed from certain seeds, and first rise into light, where every being has its principles and matter fitly framed, from hence we see that all things cannot spring from every thing, since each has certain secret properties peculiar to itself.

Munro: 

Nor does my mind fail to perceive how hard it is to make clear in Latin verses the dark discoveries of the Greeks, especially as many points must be dealt with in new terms on account of the poverty of the language and the novelty of the questions. But yet your worth and the looked-for pleasure of sweet friendship prompt me to undergo any labor and lead me on to watch the clear nights through, seeking by what words and in ,what verse I may be able in the end to shed on your mind so clear a light that you can thoroughly scan hidden things.

This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose design we shall begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power. Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, because they see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in noway understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. For these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which everything can be produced and the manner in which all things are done without the hand of the gods.

If things came from nothing, any kind might be born of any thing, nothing would require seed. Men for instance might rise out of the sea, the scaly race out of the earth, and birds might burst out of the sky; horned and other herds, every kind of wild beasts would haunt with changing broad tilth and wilderness alike. Nor would the same fruits keep constant to trees, but would change; any tree might bear any fruit. For if there were not begetting bodies for each, how could things have a fixed unvarying mother? But in fact because things are all produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and goes forth into the borders of light out of that in which resides its matter and first bodies; and for this reason all things cannot be gotten out of all things, because in particular things resides a distinct power.

Bailey:

Nor does it pass unnoticed of my mind that it is a hard task in Latin verses to set clearly in the light the dark discoveries of the Greeks, above all when many things must be treated in new words, because of the poverty of our tongue and the newness of the themes; yet your merit and the pleasure of your sweet friendship, for which I hope, urge me to bear the burden of any toil, and lead me on to watch through the calm nights, searching by what words, yea and in what measures, I may avail to spread before your mind a bright light, whereby you may see to the heart of hidden things.

This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will.Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.

For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart.

I think I have one more thing to say for now about this very murky subject. I have long believed and still maintain that Bailey's version of anticipations = "conceptual reasoning" which occurs after you see five cows, form a word-picture in your mind of a cow, and use the word cow -- My view is that that process is by no means a complete description of what pre-conceptions means. That process DOES exist, and it is VERY IMPORTANT, but that is "conceptual reasoning."

PRE-conceptions, on the other hand, would (following DeWitt) be something "intuitive" that serves as an input or a disposition toward conceptual reasoning, and does not constitute conceptual reasoning itself.

I repeat this just because I think there are TWO very important things to discuss here, which are closely related but not identical: (1) conceptual reasoning, and all that goes with that, and (2) preconceptions, which is a "faculty" equivalent to seeing or hearing or feeling. I think if we jam both of these two together as if we are talking about the same thing then we lose sight of what Epicurus was talking about as PRE-conceptions.

Lee:

I am vigorously hoping that someone is going to drop in and enlighten us and in a few sentences answers all our questions.

Failing that, however, I think you are going to find probably the best material answering your question in that DeLacey commentary, for example. All of this is very technical and as usual we are relying on commentators, some of whom are more sympathetic to Epicurus than others. I can't vouch for DeLacey but I remember thinking when I finished reading this work several years ago that DeLacey's interpretations seemed sound to me. This following clip is part of the material I linked in the last post above:

Excellent question and very deep subject Lee. I will be interested to see what others have to say.

It would probably help a lot to attempt to come up with a more clear statement of what the "problem of universals" really means, because I agree that you are right to see all this as of critical importance.

Plato suggested that some form of universals exist in his realm of ideas; Aristotle suggested that some form of universals exist in his "essences" - I am not sure we have really established what exactly Epicurus held on the subject other than inferentially from the observation that nothing has eternal unchanging existence except the elemental particles. I think that has very clear implications for certain definitions of "universals," but the full impact of the foundation depends entirely on the definition given to that term.

I would think that we could find some academic articles on the subject too, so we can look for that over time.

In the meantime, the place that I am familiar with that has the most bearing on this and where Epicurus comes in is the section beginning at the link below from DeLacey's analysis of Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, in Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference" -

https://archive.org/stream/philode…ge/120/mode/2up

Ok this is the final paragraph, which seems to me to summarize that nothing new is being added: the ultimate point is that wealth is to be judged just like any other choice, by the amount of pleasure and pain that it brings:

I don't have anything really negative to say about the article, and all the detail is certainly interesting from many points of view. But what I do have a problem with is essentially the same as the Epicurean criticism of Socrates: Don't hide the ball. Make your point and explain at the outset where you are going and the ultimate point so that the reader can process the information efficiently. There is nothing strange about the "Epicurean measure of wealth" any more than that there is an "Epicurean measure of ice cream." To me, it is distracting and disconcerting to go on and on with details about translations and what other people argued without being clear what the ultimate point is.

And in fact in this closing point, the writer is actually DISMISSING the ultimate point as if there is some reason not to keep that front and center.

OK with all that being said there is a lot of good material here for discussion as an example of the Epicurean calculus of action, but NOT toward the direction of poverty that the writer seemed to want to plant in the reader's mind as Epicurus' viewpoint!

THAT seems to me to be the correct point, but also a fairly obvious one. Is there really anything going on in this discussion OTHER than this point?

Two more points here: (1) the writer is again being ambigous and tending to make people think that the acquisition of anything by means of ANY harm (pain) is to be avoided, when that is clearly not the case.

(2) I think that this distinction about "the sage" is a dangerous distinction to. No doubt Epicurus did consider at time what the "founder of a school" might do different from any other wise person, but a philosophy oriented toward founders of schools is worse than useless -- Epicurean philosophy is oriented toward wise people in all stations of life, not specifically concerned with "sages"

I also find these sections in red borderline ridiculous, and this emphasizes to me that it is useless and counterproductive to keep talking about "measure of wealth" without defining what we mean. How is this "measure of wealth" any different from any other measure of any other tool for happiness in the Epicurean perspective? I don't think it is, so why imply that there is some magic here? (talking to the writer, not to you, Hiram).

Thanks Hiram. THIS statement from that article is RIDICULOUS, which is why we need to process this material and not accept the existing discussions at face value. And more than that, we have to keep in mind that the majority of such articles are statistically going to be written expressing this kind of ridiculous opinion. Ridiculous, of course, unless we are going to accept that Epicurus was a total hypocrite by amassing the slaves and wealth that he held at the time of his death:

Hiram anything on Horace is presumably fully in public domain with cites to the full text where everyone can read the original and see the original context. Do you have cites for those?

I note also that the third link does not work.

Certainly I agree that any reliable text material should be explored and discussed, so I will try to follow along and comment on anything you post in this area. I know my comments may appear to be negative but I do not intend them that way -- as long as we can present reliable and verifiable material to work with, and we make clear the limitations and what part is speculative and what part is clear, and what part is our own speculations, I'm all in favor of the discussion.

I have a copy of that but I have only scanned it. I think there is or would be a TREMENDOUS amount of interest in anything reliably handed down by Philodemus, but not when

(1) the Academic world keeps the material under wraps and makes it impossible to study freely by anyone, and

(2) what is left is so fragmentary that the narrative is largely a matter of speculative reconstruction so that you don't really know whether to trust the rendering or not.

For example this is what I see as to what you just quoted. The parts in brackets are reconstructed, but what about the rest of the text? What does the piece of paper or papyri that bears these characters look like? Is this a penciled version made by those who unrolled the text 100+ years ago? How do we know that they deciphered the texts correctly? As far as being instructed to write outlines, we know that Epicurus says that in the letter to Herodotus. But these words "to hand down a tradition" are in brackets - what is the basis for this reconstruction? Sounds reasonable, but how do we know?:

So as far as I can tell the best way to change and expand the level of discussion would be to find a way to bridge the gap between what we have free access to and the original sources.

In writing this I mean no criticism whatsoever to anyone, Hiram or Voula Tsouna. All I am saying is that reliance on heavily reconstructed texts is perilous without a clear chain documenting the evidence at every stage. And maybe equally importantly, having it only be the available only at significant cost makes the work much that harder.

Perhaps these texts are in fact available somewhere on one of the public websites, but tracking down that chain is a large part of the work that needs to be done.

And listing one more point of reference, there is the Nietzsche material collected here:

One of the inflection points of world history which researchers into Epicurus will frequently encounter is the work of Paul of Tarsus. Norman DeWitt devoted a book to the subject (St. Paul and Epicurus), in which he explores the many references in Pauline letters which appear to be direct attacks on Epicurean philosophy.

It is also well known that Friedrich Nietzsche, a frequent admirer of Epicurus, was as much (or more) an enemy of Paul of Tarsus than of Jesus of Nazareth. In his last book, “AntiChrist,” Nietzsche explains this in detail. He directs blast after blast against Paul, specifically accusing him of perverting the progress toward human happiness that had been made under Epicurus:

But it [Roman civilization] was not strong enough to stand up against the corruptest of all forms of corruption—against Christians… These stealthy worms, which under the cover of night, mist and duplicity, crept upon every individual, sucking him dry of all earnest interest in real things, of all instinct for reality—this cowardly, effeminate and sugar-coated gang gradually alienated all “souls”, step by step, from that colossal edifice, turning against it all the meritorious, manly and noble natures that had found in the cause of Rome their own cause, their own serious purpose, their own pride. The sneakishness of hypocrisy, the secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell, such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the unio mystica in the drinking of blood, above all, the slowly rekindled fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge—all that sort of thing became master of Rome: the same kind of religion which, in a pre-existent form, Epicurus had combatted. One has but to read Lucretius to know what Epicurus made war upon—not paganism, but “Christianity”, which is to say, the corruption of souls by means of the concepts of guilt, punishment and immortality.—He combatted the subterranean cults, the whole of latent Christianity—to deny immortality was already a form of genuine salvation.—Epicurus had triumphed, and every respectable intellect in Rome was Epicurean—when Paul appeared… Paul, the Chandala hatred of Rome, of “the world”, in the flesh and inspired by genius—the Jew, the eternal Jew par excellence… What he saw was how, with the aid of the small sectarian Christian movement that stood apart from Judaism, a “world conflagration” might be kindled; how, with the symbol of “God on the cross”, all secret seditions, all the fruits of anarchistic intrigues in the empire, might be amalgamated into one immense power. “Salvation is of the Jews.”—Christianity is the formula for exceeding and summing up the subterranean cults of all varieties, that of Osiris, that of the GreatMother, that of Mithras, for instance: in his discernment of this fact the genius of Paul showed itself. His instinct was here so sure that, with reckless violence to the truth, he put the ideas which lent fascination to every sort of Chandala religion into the mouth of the “Saviour” as his own inventions, and not only into the mouth—he made out of him something that even a priest of Mithras could understand… This was his revelation at Damascus: he grasped the fact that he needed the belief in immortality in order to rob “the world” of its value, that the concept of “hell” would master Rome—that the notion of a “beyond” is the death of life. Nihilist and Christian: they rhyme in German, and they do more than rhyme.

In addition to the material referenced above there is obviously a lot of relevant material in Norman DeWitt's "St. Paul and Epicurus" which contains a lot of good material relating Paul's letters to Epicurean positions.

Yes, let's at least list out the major locations like that where the attacks occur.

This page is taken from the defunct Epicurus.net website.

Epicureanism and the Christian Apologists

By the mid-2 ^nd century A.D., the Christian movement had become secure enough so that it could aspire to win converts from more educated circles. Certain church leaders began to seriously engage themselves intellectually against Greek philosophy, often in the form of written apologias against “pagans” and rival Christians. These works routinely included attacks on Epicureanism, as shown by Tatian's Address to the Greeks, Justin the Martyr's Hortatory Address to the Greeks and On the Resurrection, and Irenaeus of Lyon's Against the Heretics.

Two significant anti-Epicurean themes emerged in these early apologias: first, Justin and Tatian mocked Greek philosophers as being hopelessly disputatious with one another, taking their disagreements as evidence that human intellect could not arrive at definite conclusions about reality (a somewhat ironic charge in view of the emerging factionalism of the Christians themselves). In the Hortatory Address to the Greeks, Justin writes:

“How then, you men of Greece, can it be safe for those who desire to be saved, to fancy that they can learn the true religion from these philosophers, who were neither able so to convince themselves as to prevent sectarian wrangling with one another, and not to appear definitely opposed to one another's opinions?”

The second theme was to attack the specifically Epicurean denial of divine providence and after-life and affirmation of pleasure as the supreme good and of materialistic atomism. While these earliest apologias often lumped Epicurus together with other philosophers, the succeeding decades saw a significant change. The next major Christian antagonist of Epicureanism was Tertullian (2^nd to 3^rd century A.D.). Unlike previous Christian apologists, Tertullian fully grasped the gross irrationality of his own anti-Epicurean arguments, and was all the more inflamed against it by the inclination of certain heretics to adopt Epicurean doctrines in arguing against bodily resurrection or against divine providence. Tertullian's rage against Epicureanism and other Greek philosophies and their influence on heretics is best illustrated in The Prescription Against Heretics where he says “These are the doctrines of men and of demons produced for itching ears of the spirit of this world's wisdom: this the Lord called ‘foolishness’ and ‘chose the foolish things of the world’ to confound even philosophy itself. For philosophy it is which is the material of the world's wisdom, the rash interpreter of the nature and the dispensation of God. Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy” and went on to mock the diversity of philosophical theories and thunder “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

His opposition to philosophy lead to a profoundly irrationalist attitude, a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the Christian opposition to worldly wisdom originally promoted by Saul. This irrationalism is blatantly evident in On the Flesh of Christ, where he proclaims that “The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed because men must needs be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried, and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.” In The Soul's Testimony, his irrationalism is linked to his fears about the effect of Epicurean materialism on Christian faith:

“Stand forth, O soul, whether thou art a divine and eternal substance, as most philosophers believe if it be so, thou wilt be the less likely to lie,--or whether thou art the very opposite of divine, because indeed a mortal thing, as Epicurus alone thinks--in that case there will be the less temptation for thee to speak falsely in this case: whether thou art received from heaven, or sprung from earth; whether thou art formed of numbers, or of atoms; whether thine existence begins with that of the body, or thou art put into it at a later stage; from whatever source, and in whatever way, thou makest man a rational being, in the highest degree capable of thought and knowledge,--stand forth and give thy witness. But I call thee not as when, fashioned in schools, trained in libraries, fed in Attic academies and porticoes, thou belchest wisdom. I address thee simple, rude, uncultured and untaught, such as they have thee who have thee only; that very thing of the road, the street, the work-shop, wholly. I want thine inexperience, since in thy small experience no one feels any confidence. I demand of thee the things thou bringest with thee into man, which thou knowest either from thyself, or from thine author, whoever he may be. Thou art not, as I well know, Christian; for a man becomes a Christian, he is not born one. Yet Christians earnestly press thee for a testimony; they press thee, though an alien, to bear witness against thy friends, that they may be put to shame before thee, for hating and mocking us on account of things which convict thee as an accessory.”

All told, anti-Epicurean references can be found in at least seven of Tertullian's works. He pouted about their “frigid conceits” and labeled Epicurean doctrines as stupid, and even suggested that Epicurus was not really a philosopher at all. While Tertullian's rants undoubtedly appealed to a certain mindset (specifically to the same sort of extreme authoritarian attitude that produced Tertullian's famously misogynist The Apparel of Women), they also exposed the intellectual vacuity of the traditional Christian hostility to philosophy. If mainstream Christianity was to survive against the ever-multiplying heresies, its theology had to be placed on a more reasonable foundation.

A subtle change can be detected in Tertullian's contemporary Hippolytus of Rome, whose Refutation of All Heresies marks the beginning of an attempted comprehensive theology that didn't simply dismiss the “wisdom of the world” out of hand, but saw fit to advance more sophisticated arguments against it. By the middle of the 3^rd century A.D. the philosophical struggle between Epicureanism and Christianity began in earnest. The Epicurean sympathizer Celsus wrote A True Discourse, which was among the first works to directly challenged the veracity of the Christian scriptures and mock the essential irrationality of many Christian beliefs. Particularly irksome to Christians was his report of a Jewish story that Jesus was not the son of god, but rather the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier who went by the nickname of “Panther” (the Talmud also describes an illegitimate “Yeshu ben Pandeiros”, though he supposedly lived at least a century before the Romans occupied Judea).

Several decades later, Origen wrote Contra Celsum in reply to Celsus, and Lactantius included lengthy arguments specifically against Epicureanism in The Divine Institutes. Lactantius in particular shows how Christians were no longer content to argue for their position on the grounds of faith alone, but were beginning to embrace Platonic arguments in favor of divine providence, accusing Epicurus of falsehood in not recognizing the role of divine intelligence in ordering the cosmos; and also Platonist criticisms of Epicurus's ethics.

The Platonic trend became even more obvious in the 4^th to early 5 ^th centuries A.D. Athanasius of Alexandria repeated what was becoming the standard argument against the Epicurean denial of divine providence in On the Incarnation:

“In regard to the making of the universe and the creation of all things there have been various opinions, and each person has propounded the theory that suited his own taste. For instance, some say that all things are self-originated and, so to speak, haphazard. The Epicureans are among these; they deny that there is any Mind behind the universe at all. This view is contrary to all the facts of experience, their own existence included. For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of Mind, though they existed, they would all be uniform and without distinction.”

Similarly, the on-going fulminations against pleasure can be seen in a letter written by Ambrose of Milan to the Christian congregation at Vercellae in 396 A.D.:

“Epicurus himself also, whom these persons think they should follow rather than the apostles, the advocate of pleasure, although he denies that pleasure brings in evil, does not deny that certain things result from it from which evils are generated; and asserts in fine that the life of the luxurious which is filled with pleasures does not seem to be reprehensible, unless it be disturbed by the fear either of pain or of death. But how far he is from the truth is perceived even from this, that he asserts that pleasure was originally created in man by God its author, as Philomarus his follower argues in his Epitomae, asserting that the Stoics are the authors of this opinion.

“But Holy Scripture refutes this, for it teaches us that pleasure was suggested to Adam and Eve by the craft and enticements of the serpent. Since, indeed, the serpent itself is pleasure, and therefore the passions of pleasure are various and slippery, and as it were infected with the poison of corruptions, it is certain then that Adam, being deceived by the desire of pleasure, fell away from the commandment of God and from the enjoyment of grace. How then can pleasure recall us to paradise, seeing that it alone deprived us of it?”

Jerome also capitalized on the anti-pleasure theme in Against Jovinian, where he denounces Jovinian as a voluptary and heretical “Epicurus of Christianity.” But it was the task of the greatest apologist of them all, Augustine of Hippo, to complete the work of reducing Christian theology to a variant form of Platonism. Like his predecessors, Augustine continued to strongly emphasize the alleged incompatibility of pleasure with virtue and to argue against atomism and the materiality and mortality of the soul. Perhaps more interestingly, in his Confessions he tells the story of how Epicureanism had raised doubts in his mind shortly after his conversion to Christianity and how ultimately came to oppose it:

“Thine be the praise; unto thee be the glory, O Fountain of mercies. I became more wretched and thou didst come nearer. Thy right hand was ever ready to pluck me out of the mire and to cleanse me, but I did not know it. Nor did anything call me back from a still deeper plunge into carnal pleasure except the fear of death and of thy future judgment, which, amid all the waverings of my opinions, never faded from my breast. And I discussed with my friends, Alypius and Nebridius, the nature of good and evil, maintaining that, in my judgment, Epicurus would have carried off the palm if I had not believed what Epicurus would not believe: that after death there remains a life for the soul, and places of recompense. And I demanded of them: ‘Suppose we are immortal and live in the enjoyment of perpetual bodily pleasure, and that without any fear of losing it—why, then, should we not be happy, or why should we search for anything else?’ I did not know that this was in fact the root of my misery: that I was so fallen and blinded that I could not discern the light of virtue and of beauty which must be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of flesh cannot see, and only the inner vision can see. Nor did I, alas, consider the reason why I found delight in discussing these very perplexities, shameful as they were, with my friends. For I could not be happy without friends, even according to the notions of happiness I had then, and no matter how rich the store of my carnal pleasures might be. Yet of a truth I loved my friends for their own sakes, and felt that they in turn loved me for my own sake.”

From Augustine's correspondence with Nebridius, we can gain some insight into just how deep his inner anguish was at this time:

“But where is that truly happy life? where? Aye, where? Oh! If it were attained, one would spurn the atomic theory of Epicurus. Oh! If it were attained, one would know that there is nothing here below but the visible world. Oh! If it were attained, one would know that in the rotation of a globe on its axis, the motion of points near the poles is less rapid than of those which lie half way between them, and other such like things which we likewise know. But now, how or in what sense can I be called happy, who know not why the world is such in size as it is, when the proportions of the figures according to which it is framed do in no way hinder its being enlarged to any extent desired?”

Just as Augustine's writings mark the intellectual surrender of Christianity to Plato, they also reflected a sinister trend towards the persecution of non-Christians and heretics and the suppression of their writings in the late 4^th century A.D., as is implied by this letter to Dioscorus:

“If, however, in order to secure not only the demolition of open errors, but also the rooting out of those which lurk in darkness, it is necessary for you to be acquainted with the erroneous opinions which others have advanced, let both eye and ear be wakeful, I beseech you, --look well and listen well whether any of our assailants bring forward a single argument from Anaximenes and from Anaxagoras, when, though the Stoic and Epicurean philosophies were more recent and taught largely, even their ashes are not so warm as that a single spark can be struck out from them against the Christian faith.”

Christianity, having become the official state religion of Rome and Byzantium by this time, no longer required mere argumentation alone—it had power, money, and status on its side, and a fierce intolerance of its rivals. Epicureans still had the Garden in Athens, but its ability to spread the teachings of Epicurus had been fatally hobbled. For the time being, the Christian faith had emerged victorious over the cause of human happiness and rationality.

(This is a paste from the Epicurus.net website)

Epicureanism and the Early Christians

As indicated in the discussion of Judea above, Christians originated as one of the Nazarene cults. Unfortunately, the various historical accounts of Jesus are highly unreliable and mutually contradictory, and many of the stories associated with him may be an amalgamation of folk-tales about several different Nazarene leaders and wholly fictional accounts (based on widespread myths in circulation at the time) written many decades after the alleged events described. As best as can be determined, Jesus appears to have been a renegade Mandaean who claimed to be a descendant of the royal house of David, the anointed (“messiah” or “christos”) king of Jewish prophecy who would conquer the world. There are also strong indications that Jesus also claimed to be an incarnation of a “wisdom of life” that the Mandaeans equate with god.

Possible Grave of Jesus

Srinagar, Kashmir

Jesus's political pretensions were cut short at a crucial stage in his career when he entered Jerusalem in preparation for a coup against the Herodians, only to be betrayed by one of his own followers. Jesus was arrested and crucified, but to the dismay of the Roman/Herodian authorities, Jesus survived the crucifixion (possibly with the connivance of the commander of the Roman troops handling the crucifixion, who later became a Christian bishop in Cappodocia), and after his resuscitation was seen leaving the tomb-chamber assisted by two other Nazarenes. As the startling news of Jesus's resuscitation spread, his brother James announced that Jesus had been miraculously resurrected and that he had been personally deputized by Jesus to lead the Nazarenes as their “bishop of bishops” until Jesus's return (which was supposed to take place within a single generation of his original ministry). James's claim to leadership was accepted by most of the recent Nazarene converts, as he was the heir apparent to Jesus and thus next in line to be King of the Judeans. 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.

While James's sect in Jerusalem was largely destroyed by his execution and the flight of his followers from Judea prior to the Roman sacking of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., as well as the systematic campaign carried on by the Romans to kill the families of all messianic claimants, a missionary to non-Judeans by the name of Saul of Tarsus (also known by his latinized name Paul) transmitted a less militant form of Christianity to various cities in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Rather than stressing Jesus's messianic role as a Judean world conqueror, Saul claimed that Jesus was not just a mere mortal from the house of David, but one of the immortals who shortly after his resurrection had ascended into heaven. Saul portrayed Jesus as a miracle-working demi-god, the son of the traditional Judean deity, who had come for the salvation of all mankind and not just Judeans. With this dejudaizing process initiated by Saul, Christianity could be made acceptable to non-Judeans, who otherwise would have had no reason to feel any loyalty towards a Jewish messiah.

In the course of his attempts to win converts Saul soon came into collision with the Epicurean communities that existed throughout the Greek-speaking world. Chapter 17 of the Acts of the Apostles records Saul's sermon to the Athenians, including Epicureans and Stoics, gathered at the Areopagus in Athens. When Saul gets ready to speak, the Epicureans present ask “What will this seed-pecker say?”. The Epicurean response to Saul's discourse was not recorded, but even the author of Acts admits that Saul was not too successful in winning converts on that occasion.

A more significant aspect of Saul's evangelism was the extent to which he adopted certain peculiarities of Epicurean terminology and phraseology, and certain Epicurean social customs; and the extent to which he focused much of his rhetoric on gainsaying Epicurean denials of divine providence, resurrection, and an after-life. His letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians in particular show this tendency. These letters offer strong indirect evidence that Epicureans were the principal ideological opponents that Saul had to contend with in Greece. Also very telling was his indirect references to Antiochus Epiphanes as the anti-Christ, making the same kind of anti-Seleucid/anti-Epicurean allusions that were illustrated above in connection with the Talmud.

After Saul, the fledgling Christian church faced persecution at the hands of the Romans, and was largely confined to winning converts from the uneducated segments of the population. The characteristic early Christian attitude towards Greek philosophers was summed up by the teaching that the wisdom of the world was foolishness, squarely placing Christian faith in fierce opposition to human rationality and the human desires embraced by Epicureanism.

For the time being I am simply cutting and pasting the "Epicurus and the Judeans section of the defunct website Epicurus.net (still available on archive.org here.)

In the Talmudic Mishnah, one of the authoritative documents of Rabbinical Judaism, there is a remarkable statement in the tractate Sanhedrin that defines the Jewish religion in relation to Epicureanism:

“All Israel has a share in the world to come, as Isaiah said: And all of your people who are righteous will merit eternity and inherit the land. And these are the people who do not merit the world to come: The ones who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and those who deny the Torah is from the heavens, and Epicureans (‘Apikorsim’).”

Modern Jews use “apikoros” as a generic term for an unbeliever, but the authors of the Talmud were clearly singling out followers of Epicurus. In effect, this statement is saying that all of Israel will enjoy eternal life except those who get corrupted by Epicurus or certain characteristic Epicurean beliefs (namely, Epicurean denials of an after-life and of divine providence). This peculiar hostility towards Epicureanism is all the more remarkable for the fact that this particular statement was later taken to be the basis for speculation about the meaning of Jewishness among Rabbis of the Middle Ages, the most famous of whom, Moses Maimonides, explicitly continued the Jewish tradition of denouncing Epicureanism late in the 12^th century A.D.

Antiochus IV

The origins of this anti-Epicurean element of Jewish thought can be traced to the 2^nd century B.C., when the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes embarked on a military campaign against Egypt in an attempt to conquer his Ptolemaic rival. Judea had the misfortune to be located between the Seleucid heartland of Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt, and the Judeans were divided into pro-Seleucid and pro-Ptolemaic factions. At this time, the hereditary Zadokite priesthood had been deeply influenced by Greek culture, adopting doctrines that tended to discount the conservative oral tradition and deny some of the more superstitious beliefs then current, notably the belief in bodily resurrection. At the time of Antiochus's campaign, the Zadokite high priest was a pro-Ptolemaic partisan.

Antiochus, anxious to secure Judea in connection with his Egyptian expedition and to create a more culturally-unified empire, had the Zadokite high priest removed and founded a Greek-style Gymnasium in Jerusalem. Antiochus was sympathetic to Epicureanism (albeit not acting in accord with Epicurus's injunctions to avoid politics), so his attempt at a forced hellenization of Judea was closely linked to Epicureanism in the minds of the Judean patriots. Another factor was that Epicureans were prominent in the hellenized cities of Galilee, creating a rivalry between Epicureanism and the traditional religion among the northern Judeans. Antiochus's provocations brought about a strong nationalistic reaction, which exploded into violence when a rumor of Antiochus's death reached Judea. While the rumor was false, nonetheless the Hasmonean leader Judas Maccabeus was ultimately successful in his revolt against the Seleucids.

After the Hasmoneans consolidated their power, a rather delicate situation developed with respect to the priesthood. The hereditary successors to the priesthood had had their legitimacy fatally undermined by their hellenizing tendencies and their close association with the foreign Ptolemaic monarchy. The party of the “separatists” (the Pharisees), prevented the Zadokite legitimists (the Sadducees) from reassuming control of the temple in Jerusalem, while some of the Sadducees set up a rival temple in the Egyptian city of Leontopolis.

To further complicate matters, Judea later became a client state of Rome, and the Romans installed their own Jewish rulers and Sadducee priests. Not only were they opposed by the Pharisees, other anti-foreign religious factions arose during the late Hasmonean period (early 1^rst century B.C.) to challenge the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Samaritans (a regional offshoot of Judaism whose followers had established their own center of worship on Mount Gezzerim), their adherents questioning the necessity for temple ritual and priestly authority altogether. One of these dissident groups called themselves the “keepers” (Nazarim) of divine wisdom. These Nazarim, or Nazarenes, taught that righteousness towards others along with frequent rituals of baptism and anointment and a ritual eucharist for the dead was sufficient to place oneself in accord with God without the traditional temple ceremonies. After the Roman conquest of Judea, the Nazarene cults became one of the focal points of resistance to Roman and Herodian rule, as both the Pharisees and Sadducees were co-opted by the Herodian monarchy that had been installed by the Romans.

Spoils from the Jerusalem Temple

The historical significance of these intricacies of ancient Judean politics is that the Pharisees are the direct ancestors of modern Rabbinical Judaism, while the Nazarene movement spawned two religions that have survived to modern times, the Mandaean and the Christian. The founding of these two Nazarene religions was attributed to John the Baptist and Jesus, respectively.

The Talmud is derived from the Pharisaic oral tradition, so the Talmud passage quoted above can be explained as a Pharisaic attack on the Sadducees by comparing some of the distinctive Sadducee beliefs to those of the hated Seleucid defiler of the Temple. It seems that the Sadducees could never quite live down the charge of having sold out to the Seleucids and the Romans, as they disappeared shortly after the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D. and the genealogical records for proving their Zadokite ancestry (the last remaining basis for Sadducee legitimacy) along with it. Today, the memory of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus survives in the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, and the legacy of the factional conflicts of the Hasmonean period lives on in the separate religions of the Jews, Mandaeans, and Christians and in the Talmudic denunciation of Epicureanism.