Posts by Don

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, BOOK VIII, Chapter 8. EUDOXUS (c. 407-357 B.C.)

Eudoxus in Diogenes Laertius

https://sites.unimi.it/zucchi/NuoviFile/Warren09.pdf

ARISTOTLE ON SPEUSIPPUS ON EUDOXUS ON PLEASURE

JAMES WARREN

Quote from Cassius

"once saved, always saved" issues in Christianity

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

Quote from Cassius

you would think that it would be hard to guarantee that every decision is wise.

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.

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?

To bring this back to Eikadistes '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

Google Scholar

For your convenience, a Google scholar search for Adam Krokiewicz

FYI

Adam Krokiewicz – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia

pl.wikipedia.org

If someone wants to run that through Google translate

From the Hermarchus book.

The "breathing" seems to be reconstructed from:

επισπωμ(......)ευ(.)α

I'd have to see the digitized manuscript to accept πνεύμα from that fragmentary text.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πνεῦμα

That "breath, air, wind, spirit" could have multiple interpretations.

Even επισπωμ(ενους) seems to be related to aorist middle participle of ἐφέπω (ephépō); Mid. to follow, pursue.

The transliterated προιεμενους appears related to προΐημι which *can* mean "utter sounds" but that is a long way from conversation.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, προΐημι

PS

Here is the rest of fragment 39...

I got called away yesterday and didn't have a chance to follow-up on this post. Just realized this morning that #39 had more to it! I'm going to work on done translation because this is going to change my perspective, I'm betting

PPS. Here's the papyri.info entry for Philodemus's On the Gods

DCLP/Trismegistos 62386 = LDAB 3551

Makes it a little easier to copy and paste text and gives a better idea of the condition of the papyri itself.

Eikadistes : Came across this compilation of Hermarchus's fragments. However, it's in German, Greek, and Latin, but it's a start:

Quote from Joshua

1. Do not trouble about the gods, for the gods do not trouble about you.

I'm beginning to like @Joshua's interpretation. It also seems to correspond to the Letter of Menoikeus section:

Quote from Letter to Menoikeus

So, they (i.e, the hoi polloi, "the many") believe the greatest evils are brought to the wicked from the gods as well as the greatest aid to the good, because the hoi polloi are believing that the gods accept those who resemble themselves who are similar through all excellences and goodness; all those not of their sort are strange and alien.

But this idea that the gods bestow evils and aid is a mistaken idea about the gods, according to Epicurus. The gods are not swayed by prayer or sacrifice or ...gratitude to them.

PD01: Broken up:

Τὸ μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον οὔτε αὐτὸ πράγματα ἔχει οὔτε ἄλλῳ παρέχει,

(singular) That which is blissful and immortal has no troubles itself, nor does it cause trouble for others,

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?

ἐν ἀσθενεῖ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον.

for all such things come about through weakness

More food for thought...

TauPhi : You bring up some interesting points. I had a few thoughts as I was reading your post.

Quote from TauPhi

Epicurean gods can be viewed as immortal only when seen as collective of infinite number of blessed beings. On individual level they must be creatures that reached the state of blessedness but they are alive, created from compounds of atoms and therefore mortal and destructible.

This section I found intriguing. The idea of an individual god vs the gods as a collective made me thing of the scholia attached to PD01.

Quote from Hicks translation at Perseus Project

PD01. A blessed and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being ; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness [Elsewhere he says that the gods are discernible by reason alone, some being numerically distinct, while others result uniformly from the continuous influx of similar images directed to the same spot and in human form.]

Scholia ("ancient commentary") section: [ἐν ἄλλοις δέ φησι τοὺς θεοὺς λόγῳ θεωρητούς, οὓς μὲν κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν ὑφεστῶτας, οὓς δὲ καθ᾽ ὁμοείδειαν ἐκ τῆς συνεχοῦς ἐπιρρύσεως τῶν ὁμοίων εἰδώλων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἀποτετελεσμένωι ἀνθρωποειδῶς.]

Honestly, the "numerically distinct" and images and the rest have always befuddled me. Breaking it down, the "discernable through reason alone" here is a translation of simply λόγῳ θεωρητούς "'discernable' by/through reason, thinking, " (dative of λόγος). I don't see evidence of the word alone, but I suppose it's implied. LSJ includes the following in their definition: λόγῳ θεωρητά mentally conceived, opp. sensibly perceived. So, per that definition of that phrase, we can say that The gods are (only) mentally conceived, not sensibly perceived. Does that mean they can *never* be sensibly perceived, i.e., perceived by the physical senses and so not actually corporeal? Then the scholia talks about "others" as in "other gods"? Are there several different kinds of gods? Some can only be mentally conceived, and others are produced by continuous "similar images" *directed to* the same spot? Those images are the familiar εἰδώλων (eidolon), the films/simulacra/images being shed by bodies. The gods are an odd lot!

Oh, I didn't set out to resolve anything... just throwing more grist in the mill

Quote from Joshua

I should hate to be guilty of Norman DeWitt's unforgivable sin--amending the text!

I don't think you're amending the text at all. That's an interesting interpretation. I'll have to dig into the Greek but you may be onto something!

Quote from Nate

It seems to me that he (and apparently Hermarchus, based on fragmentary attestation I'm still trying to organize) had concerns about the status of the gods' social lives and their speech patterns

If you compile those sources, I'd be very interested to see them.

Here's a section from my Menoikeus translation:

Quote from Don

τὸν θεὸν ζῷον "a god (is a) ζῷον. But what is a ζῷον?

ζῷον (zōon) is where English zoology comes from.

LSJ gives two primary definitions:

living being, animal

in art, figure, image, not necessarily of animals (or a sign of the Zodiac)

So, unfortunately, at this point in the Letter we can't necessarily resolve the question of what the nature of the gods (or of a god) is according to Epicurus. Some scholars think Epicurus believed the gods were material beings ("living being, animal") somehow living between the various world-systems (cosmos) in the universe. Some think Epicurus believed the gods were mental representations or personifications of the concepts ("figure, image, sign") of blessedness.

The Letter goes on to describe what kind of ζῷον a god is: ἄφθαρτον and μακάριον

These are the exact words used in the first of the Principal Doctrines (Κυριαι Δοξαι): Τὸ μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον "One who is blessed and imperishable." (Note, these are again singular.) The words held the first spot in the Principal Doctrines, and Epicurus chooses this as the first element of noble living of which to remind Menoikeus. Πρώτον, indeed! Epicurus obviously placed a great deal of importance on this topic so it behooves us to study it in-depth, to engage in some μελέτη.

μακάριον

This word is often translated as "blessed, fortunate, wealthy, 'well-off.'" There appears to be no certain etymology of the root [makar] or the longer form [makarios/on]. It appears to possibly have something to do with being wealthy, either literally or figuratively. Taking Ancient Mythology Economically by Morris Silver has a very interesting section on the origins of the word. This is yet another example of the inadequacy of using one word to translate from one language to another.

ἄφθαρτον

LSJ gives the definition of "incorruptible, eternal, immortal, uncorrupted, undecaying" and gives references to Epicurus, Philodemus, and Diogenes of Oenoanda. At its root, the word is α- "not" + φθαρτον "destructible, perishable." LSJ states φθαρτον is the opposite of ἀίδιος "everlasting, eternal" (related to ἀεί "ever, always") which poses an interesting question: Why did Epicurus choose to use ἄφθαρτον instead of ἀίδιος or ἀθάνατος? Φθαρτον is related to θνητός "liable to death, mortal, opposite: ἀθάνατος [athanatos]" (LSJ) Φθαρτον is also connected to the verb φθείρω "destroy, pass away, cease to be, perish." It seems that Epicurus didn't want to evoke that the gods (a god?) were simply immortal or eternal but that he wanted to impress upon us the sense that they would not pass away or cease to be. This is in contrast to everything else composed of atoms and void. Everything else is subject to be φθαρτον; only the gods are ἄφθαρτον! How can this be? Could it be that they are ἄφθαρτον precisely because they are mental concepts? That's one of the reasons I find Sedley's so-called "idealist" nature of the Epicurean gods intriguing.

I have also seen arguments that the stress should not be on the "eternal," as in everlasting in time, but rather the "incorruptible," as in the state of being. A "god" is "incorruptible" or "not able to be corrupted or to decay." They are unaffected by the vicissitudes of fortune, unaffected by anger or gratitude. To me, this is an intriguing perspective and gives a possible reason why Epicurus made the decision to use ἄφθαρτον and not an alternative that evokes the "eternal in time" connotation like ἀθάνατος. From my perspective, this argument is a strong one and deserves some study and thought. For now, let's move on to see if there are more clues.

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Quote from Cassius

Actually maybe I should ask, Don, do you agree with this sentence from the paper as written, or would you modify it?

"It is important to remember, in this context, that for Epicureans all virtues—like moderation and justice—are defined not absolutely, by an independent objective standard. They are instrumentally valuable because they contribute to a pleasurable life, and so what counts as virtuous in a case depends on what in fact produces happiness (Ep. Men. 132)."

Yes. I agree with the quoted passage.

Basically, PD05 says, to me, you can't live pleasantly without living virtuously BUT virtue is not the end/goal. The virtues contribute to living pleasantly, and living pleasantly is a result of living virtuously. But one's eye should always be on the pleasant life lived.

Great paper! Thanks for sharing. The take on the gods near the end seems spot on from my perspective:

Quote

The gods exist, but because they are ‘blessed and indestructible’ they need not feel gratitude. Gratitude indicates weakness and is relevant only for those who have deficiencies and thus need others to help or benefit them. That humans feel anger or gratitude reveals our limitations and dependency. So, if wisdom enables a human to ‘live as a god among men’ (Ep. Men. 135), would not a wise and virtuous person also have no need for gratitude?

The answer, it seems to me, must be ‘no.’ The fact that gods feel no gratitude does not mean that we should not; though Epicureans seek to emulate the gods’ tranquility and happiness, no human can attain their invulnerability or immortality, and any desire to do so would be unnatural and empty.

It is important to remember, in this context, that for Epicureans all virtues—like moderation and justice—are defined not absolutely, by an independent objective standard. They are instrumentally valuable because they contribute to a pleasurable life, and so what counts as virtuous in a case depends on what in fact produces happiness (Ep. Men. 132).

...for indestructible and perfectly self-sufficient gods, gratitude is not a value, while for vulnerable and deficient humans, it is. No matter how wise we become, we cannot eliminate these facts about what we are. Gratitude is part of how we achieve what limited and imperfect self-sufficiency we can obtain.

Quote from Godfrey

There's a pleasurable aspect to gratitude as well, such as the gratitude of waking up to a beautiful day in a beautiful place. Whereas normal folk may feel a pleasing sense of gratitude in this case, apparently a god would experience the pleasure but no gratitude.

I *think* part of it is that a god is literally by definition filled with maximum pleasure already and only would experience the variety of pleasure expressed in PD18.

Quote from PD18

Pleasure in the flesh admits no increase when once the pain of want has been removed; after that it only admits of variation...