Posts by Don

I would get something like...

(At) the same time, there is both a generation/creation and a releasing/letting go of the greatest good.

Quote from Cassius

enjoyment.

Aye, there's the rub.

It ALL depends on one letter.

Do you accept what the manuscript has: απολύσεως? Releasing, letting go

Or do you accept the "correction" by modern scholars: απολαύσεως? enjoyment

Quote from Bryan

Also relevant is Vatican Saying 42, recently shared by Onenski.

Ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως <τοῦ κακοῦ>.

The same moment has both the origin of the greatest good and the release from evil.

Problem is there's no "from evil" in the manuscript.

Quote from Godfrey

Joshua , it brings me great pleasure to see that you so firmly share my distaste for Cicero.

Ditto!

By Zeus!! What a fantastic episode! Joshua , you were on fire with the Gellius find and the other references you've shared.

Welcome aboard! Or should I say "Welcome to the rabbit hole!"

Quote from Cassius

Does this means that the notes are not translated into English in the text?

It appears not. Transcribed but not translated.

Quote from Kalosyni

"wise man sayings" (from Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers Book 10) and maybe add in some of the PDs (this could take some thinking and some work to decide what to include, and also if it should be called "The Sayings of the Wise" rather than "The Wise Man Sayings").

These ones?! (for ease of reference)

Welcome aboard!!

Quote from Cassius

Charlton Griffin reading of Rolfe Humphries' edition of Lucretius.

Some examples and excerpts:

Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - On the Nature of Love (Rolfe Humphries translation)

Stream Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - On the Nature of Love (Rolfe Humphries translation) by Philosophy Monkey on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million…

m.soundcloud.com

Also has John Dryden translation with Griffin:

Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - On the Nature of Love

Your re-recorded closing was a nice summary.

Quote

the person in Crete who was forty-eight cubits tall, according to those who examined the bones that were found

I wonder if they found dinosaur or ancient mammal bones. There was a Deinotherium (prehistoric elephant) fossil on the Greek island of Crete found in modern times.

Quote from page259

Hello! I found this website after listening to some of the Lucretius Today podcast. I quite liked the episodes with Emily Austin. I bought her book Living for Pleasure and read through it.

Dr. Austin's book is a great place to start exploring the philosophy (as is the podcast!).

Welcome aboard!

Joshua mentioned Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215:

Thread

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215

I was working through Les Epicuriens before I have to return the interlibrary loan book and came across this in the section of Epicurus' writings. I was not aware of Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215, but it appears to possibly be an unknown text of Epicurus although some scholars debate this attribution. It could just be a section of a known work that doesn't have the title at the end, too. It is definitely an Epicurean text, that's not debated.

The "O man" translation part includes ὦ] ἄνθρωπε,…

Don

August 16, 2022 at 3:53 PM

By Zeus, that turned into a good episode, if I do say! Excellent editing in post-production! It was an enjoyable, wide-ranging conversation. Thanks for letting me be a part of it!

Philip Schaff: NPNF1-02. St. Augustine's City of God and Christian Doctrine - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Quote

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

The City of God - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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

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

Quote

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

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

I found the only use of ἀπολύσομεν in Diogenes Laertius (10.82). Not sure if it'll be helpful, but ..

"Hence we must attend to present feelings and sense perceptions, whether those of mankind in general or those peculiar to the individual, and also attend to all the clear evidence available, as given by each of the standards of truth. For by studying them we shall rightly trace to its cause and (we shall) banish (ἀπολύσομεν) the source of disturbance and dread, accounting for celestial phenomena and for all other things which from time to time befall us and cause the utmost alarm to the rest of mankind."

That's a good find, Joshua

Interestingly, the word used for the good here is τἀγαθοῦ.

Quote from Kalosyni

I am wondering if VS41 and 42 should be read together as one unit?

I'm reluctant to read the sayings in the Vatican manuscript in relation to each other. They are clearly demarcated with their red initial letters (except in a few rare cases) and appear to be meant to be read as individual pronouncements.