Posts by Don

Galatians 4:9

G4747 - stoicheion - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv)

G4747 - στοιχεῖον stoicheîon, stoy-khi'-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of ; something orderly in arrangement, i.e. (by implication) a serial…

www.blueletterbible.org

The word translated as "elements" is στοιχεῖα. These can be elements as in chemical elements or "dirt" as Cassius paraphrased. But These are also elements or principles or "steps" as in the letter to Menoikeus. I've posted the link to Strong's concordance for Galatians. Here is the link to the KJV interlinear:

Galatians 4 :: King James Version (KJV)

Galatians 4 - But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again…

www.blueletterbible.org

(Click on Tools at 4:9)

Interestingly, στοιχεῖα *is* the exact word Epicurus used in the letter to Menoikeus to talk about the "elements of a blessed life." But they can also be atoms.

Hmm... Am I going down Dewitt's path of seeing Epicurus around every Pauline corner? Not necessarily. BUT per LSJ, one of the definitions of στοιχεῖα *can* be "in Physics, στοιχεῖα were the components into which matter is ultimately divisible, elements, reduced to four by Empedocles, who called them ῥιζὤματα, the word στοιχεῖα being first used...ἄτομας. Epicur.Ep.2p.36U.; equivalent to ἀρχαί"

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

So, was Paul referring to returning to believed in the atoms espoused by Epicureanism? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Here's a compilation of biblical commentary:

Galatians 4:9 Commentaries: But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

It seems to me that an Occam's razor approach is more likely the στοιχεῖα definition of steps or "one in a series" sense of the word. In which case, it is the sense used in Menoikeus but need not have any connection to Epicurus's "elements of the blessed life." Especially since the same word is used a few verses earlier in Galatians 4:3:

"To the weak and beggarly elements - To the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law, imposing a servitude really not less severe than the customs of paganism. On the word elements, see the note at Galatians 4:3."

Galatians 4:3 So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.

‘by convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void’

Two truths doctrine - Wikipedia

Great catch, Joshua , on the Democritus quote. I was unaware of that.

I can easily see Democritus' statement being used to describe the Buddhist doctrine of Two Truths with no difficulty whatsoever. In fact, the Wikipedia article uses "conventional truth" as one of the aspects of the Buddhist doctrine.

That said, I see no reason why that Democritean observation has to end with Buddhist ethics. There's nothing incorrect about Democritus' declaration. That's Epicurus's implication as well. In fact, I believe he says, to paraphrase, "it's atoms and void all the way down." BUT the "truth of reality" does NOT negate the fact that all we have to work with on a day to day basis is the conventional truth. We don't live on the level of "ultimate" truth. We live in the level of conventional, perceptible truth.

Translation is everything. I wouldn't go too far down that road until you see the Greek.

That being said, if you're right, that would have made him more palatable to the early Church Fathers. Hence, making him more likely to be incorporated into orthodoxy and to be transcribed and passed on.

PS: Homoiosis theoi did use the plural theoi, so a better translation might be "to be like the gods."

I'll admit I didn't know where to post this, but it can always be moved. Here's the link to the paper:

The ideal of godlikeness

The ideal of godlikeness

www.academia.edu

I was browsing Sedley's papers on Academia to see if I'd missed anything interesting and came across this one. Typically, I'd pass over one on Plato but the title caught my eye.The idea that Plato advocated that we should "become like god as much as possible" (homoiosis theoi kata to dunaton) struck me as sounding somewhat Epicuruean. We know that Epicurus, in many ways, was responding to Plato and other contemporary philosophical schools. Epicurus was also working within the culture of his time as well, using and reworking aspects of existing Greek culture. So, I looked through this article and wanted to mention a few selections and to post for comment.

Quote

The standard for justice is not the Form of justice. It is god:

But it is not possible for evils to be eliminated, Theodorus-there must always exist some opposite to good-nor can evils be established among the gods. Of necessity, it is mortal nature and our vicinity that are haunted by evils. And that is why we should also try to escape from here to there as quickly as we can. To escape is to become like god so far as is possible (phuge de homoiosis theoi kata to dunaton), and to become like god is to become just and holy, together with wisdom.5 The trouble is, my friend, that it is not all that easy to persuade anyone that the reason why most people think we should escape wickedness and pursue goodness, namely so as to seem not wicked but good, is not the real reason. It's just an old wives' tale, I'd say..Let's put the true reason as follows. God is not at all in any respect unjust, but as Just as can be; and there is nothing more like him than anyone of us who becomes in his own turn as just as possible.

It could hardly be made clearer that the absolute standard for justice described here is not the Form ofjustice, but god.

I found it interesting that Plato used phuge (Sedley translates as "escape") since this is the exact word Epicurus used for what is usually translated "choices and rejections." Plato addresses an absolute standard of justice being god, but as we know Epicurus talked about a prolepsis of justice as well as a "standard" being "to neither harm nor be harmed." Epicurus couldn't use god as a standard because the gods don't interfere in human affairs.

Another part I found interesting was:

Quote

it is easy to see how this text licensed the later Platonist view that homoiosis theoi was Plato's telos or goal, since becoming godlike is here described as the telos of the best life. This is not quite what we think of as the familiar Aristotelian use of telos to mean the goal aimed for, but rather the closely allied and often overlapping sense 'supreme fulfilment'. This may in fact be, and remain, the fundamental ethical sense of telos, even in the context of Hellenistic and later philosophy where each philosopher must state what the telos is. When Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus 128) calls health and tranquillity 'the telos of the blessed life', he means its supreme fulfilment, not the goal it aims at. And Cicero's great dialogue on ethics is called de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum: again it is clearly the ethical telos that is meant, but 'fulfilment' rather than 'goal' is the proper translation (bad does not have a goal, but it does have a supreme fulfilment). Plato's usage in the Timaeus may therefore not implausibly claim to be the earliest formulation of a telos for a good human life. Arguably, this is the dominant ethical sense of telos for Aristotle too.

With all our discussion on the telos, I thought this could be important food for thought on the diverse connotations of that word in Epicurus's time and before.

I found especially interesting, however, the very first lines that prompted me to post here:

Quote

Try asking any moderately well-educated citizen of the Roman empire to name the official moral goal, or telos, of each major current philosophical system. Among others, you will hear that Plato's is homoiosis theoi kata to dunaton, 'becoming like god so far as is possible'. Few people today, even those well informed about Plato, would come up with the same answer. Homoiosis theoi, universally accepted in antiquity as the official Platonic goal, does not even appear in the index to any modern study of Plato known to me, nor as far as I am aware does it playa part in any modern reconstruction of Plato's thought.

This idea of becoming godlike "so far as possible" seemed to echo recent conversations about references to Epicurus's godlike status as well as the idea of "gods as exemplars of the Epicuruean life." So, I guess I should leave open the possibility that we could learn something from Plato even if it's only to compare and contrast him with Epicurus. Yet again, Sedley provides some interesting and thought-provoking reading!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc7uVcqj2XF/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

It's amazing ANY ancient artwork, writing, or artifacts survived given the zeal with which early Christmas engaged in this kind of erasure and destruction of pagan culture.

A great book on this is The Darkening Age

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age#%3A%7E%3Atext%3D978-0544800885-%2CThe_Darkening_Age%3A_The_Christian_Destruction_of_the_Classical_World%2Cand_caused_the_Dark_Ages.?wprov=sfla1

Festivals – Hellenion

This link gives an idea of the rites and festivals in which Epicurus may have participated. It's an Ancient Greek neo-pagan website, but they give a good description of each of the festivals. This is also my preferred source for a reconstructed Ancient Greek calendar for determining Epicurus's birthday. Enjoy.

Quote from Nate

Cheers, Adam ! I follow you on Twitter under ShazdarTheBard. Glad to meet you!

Small world... or should I say μικρόκοσμος

Finishing up the podcast episode and listening to section at 39:00. You found the Lucretius section that is connected to the following. If I remember correctly, somewhere else I remember something about if we think about something repeatedly, that makes our minds receptive to those images. The images create grooves or channels or holes that match their shape. This makes it easier for images of the same shape to enter the mind, whether in sleeping or in waking, and that's how we think of things or dream of things.

And I think Joshua was getting there when his mention of impressions at 50:00 when talking about prolepses.

I get the idea that the ONLY thing that is εναργής about the gods is that they are ἄφθαρτον and μακάριον. That's it. That's the extent of our prolepsis. But I'm open to other thoughts...

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἄφθαρ-τος

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, μα^κα?́ρ-ιος

Quote from Cassius

The continuing problem with that, howevrer, is that Epicurus and the other texts seem much more firm about the gods than just "possibilities."

θεοὶ ... εἰσιν· "Gods exist"

It doesn't get much more clear than that... Or does it? Here's the excerpt from my translation of the letter to Menoikeus...

123e. θεοὶ μὲν γάρ εἰσιν·

If we take out the μὲν (and look for the inevitable δε in the next phrase) and move γάρ "because, for" out of the way for now, we can pare this down to its essential:

θεοὶ εἰσιν. "Gods exist." "There are gods."

The implications of those two words have had entire essays (if not whole books) written about them. We looked at this a little in 123b with ζώον. But Epicurus is not equivocating here: Gods exist. What he means by this we simply have to discover from his extant works and fragments. Again, if we take Sedley's position, each person has their own personal concept of a god. Many people, many individual gods.

123f. ἐναργὴς γαρ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ γνῶσις.

Here's our δέ "on the other hand."

ἐναργὴς [δέ] ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἡ γνῶσις

"And the knowledge (ἡ γνῶσις (gnōsis)) of them (θεοί "gods", note the plural here) is ἐναργὴς." But what does ἐναργὴς mean?

It has two primary definitions:

visible, palpable, in bodily shape, properly of gods appearing in their own forms (in Homer); so of a dream or vision; ex., ἐναργὴς ταῦρος "in visible form a bull, a very bull"

manifest to the mind's eye, distinct

Epicurus can't mean the first meaning since he's adamant that the gods don't interact with humans. But the second definition coincides with his contention (and the idea of the prolepsis of the gods) that the gods are apprehended by the mind only. That also sets up a nice contrast with the first definition's use by Homer in describing the Olympian gods appearing "in visible form." Homer's gods were εναργής in one sense of the word; Epicurus's in the other sense.

Unfortunately, this does nothing to resolve our problem with puzzling out how the gods are ζώον. Are they physically-existent material beings? Are they existing only as mental perceptions manifest merely to the mind's eye? The ambiguous nature of εναργής doesn't necessarily help us fully. It does, however, set up some of Epicurus's clever wordplay contrasting his view with Homer's.

I think you might be in y to something with that line of thinking. "It is not impossible that..." and "Nothing contradicts..." seems firmly inline with the way different options are presented for other physical phenomena.

The word used in the texts for "clearly" in this context is ἐναργὴς:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἐναργ-ής

One can try and cram Epicurus's concept of "bodies emitting είδωλον and these images/films impinging on our physical senses and minds" into a modern paradigm of bodies emitting infrared electromagnetic energy or visible light reflecting off of bodies and reaching our visual senses. And Epicurus, were he to somehow be transported to our time, would be curious about modern scientific findings and, I believe, be able and willing to incorporate that into his natural, physical universe and his physics.

BUT we cannot say that Epicurus prognosticated or predicted modern science. His system is coherent within itself, but his concept of the mind receiving fine particles/atoms leading to our thoughts is factually wrong. It's ingenious and provides a purely material basis for sensation. But it does a disservice to Epicurus and to us to shoehorn his ideas into a modern paradigm.

For me, what Epicurus got absolutely correct was the physical explanation of all phenomena without the need for supernatural intervention. THAT we can build on. THAT we can incorporate seamlessly into any modern paradigm.

We can try to analogize and see his είδωλον "images" as metaphors for light, but I do not think it's intellectually honest to think he foresaw radio waves or the electromagnetic spectrum. That was not his mechanism for films of atoms. We can be impressed at his intellectual creativity within his contemporary worldview. And he was "less wrong" than Plato or Pythagoras. But my perspective is that a modern Epicurean position is to respect the founders' position that we use our senses to make sense of the cosmos. Our senses now have additional range through instruments we use to augment them. We are not beholden to 2,000+ year old texts when it comes to explaining physical phenomena which we can literally see now thanks to advances in science. Modern Epicurean physics has to incorporate modern scientific facts. This does not preclude an openness and humility that we'll find out more in the future! (I'm looking at you multiverses and dark energy and dark matter.) This ability to incorporate new scientific knowledge into the philosophy with barely a ripple is one of the strengths of Epicurus's system! Think of the cataclysm it was to Christianity for Galileo to say Jupiter had moons!! Epicureans would have said, "Cool!" and went about their day. That's the attitude I'm advocating when it comes to the Physics leg of the Canon.

Quote from Cassius

I am not even sure what we think of these today:. Are they electrical impulses? Chemicals?

The brain and nervous system work with both electrical and chemical signals. Nerve impulses are electrical. But the signals are carried between synapses in the brain are (primarily) by chemical compounds (neurotransmitters).

The synapse (article) | Human biology | Khan Academy

How neurons communicate with each other at synapses. Chemical vs. electrical synapses.

www.khanacademy.org

4.1 The Neuron Is the Building Block of the Nervous System – Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition

Listened to this on my way to work. Seemed to me to confirm some basic Epicuruean ideas on the value of emotions/feelings. I'll have to dig into what gets translated as"emotion" and/or "feeling" in the texts. Enjoy!

And of course this book is now on my ever-expanding reading list.

"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."

Hail Eostre, goddess of Spring and renewal!

Hail Aphrodite, hail Venus, goddess praised by Lucretius, from whom new life springs!

(.... Metaphorically speaking, of course )

Ēostre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Collections Online | British Museum

So, there's the link to the British Museum

Not British but putting this article on the Villa dei Papyri here for future reference. Some great photos.

Hedonism in Herculaneum | Apollo Magazine

The Villa dei Papiri gives us a glimpse into the world of a Roman statesman and his interest in Epicurean philosophy, writes Emma Park

www.apollo-magazine.com

I realized this thread dovetails with our discussion on this thread regarding the Celts and Gauls since these mosaics are in a Gallo-Roman villa.

Post

RE: New Sedley Chapter On Ancient Greek Atheism

[…]

Let's not sell the Gauls short. Take a look at the Gallo-Roman city of Nimes and its preserved colosseum and temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%AEmes?wprov=sfla1

The Gauls weren't all Asterix and Obelix (although I have a soft spot for them as well as the historical Vercingetorix himself)

Don

April 13, 2022 at 8:47 PM

Plus the Celts were unrivaled (in my opinion) in their artwork* and metallurgy... And they invented the iron-rimmed wheel used for chariots! They were also courageous and respected for their prowess in battle, even in defeat, as portrayed in at least two ancient statues of defeated Gauls. The Celtic and German tribes were formidable enemies, the former eventually embraced within the Empire, that latter kicking the Romans butts (not the least in Teutoburg Forest) and setting a clear boundary to Roman ambition.

But my pride in my ancestral heritage may be showing just a bit with this post.

*PS: Okay, I'll give the Greeks their statuary and pottery, but Celtic artwork remains stunning. I'm including later Celtic artwork in the Christian era but items like the Books of Kells and Lindisfarne are unrivaled (again, my opinion)

Quote from Matt

Probably far more Italian in mannerisms than their Gallic or British counterparts.

Let's not sell the Gauls short. Take a look at the Gallo-Roman city of Nimes and its preserved colosseum and temple.

Nîmes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Gauls weren't all Asterix and Obelix (although I have a soft spot for them as well as the historical Vercingetorix himself)