By Zeus, Godfrey ! I *am* late to the Ingrid party. I see you've mentioned her all the way back to 2019! With your recommendation (which I respect highly), now I really have to dig into her book and blog. Thanks!!
Posts by Don
-
-
The Science of Joy: Why You Need It and How to Get It | Ingrid Fetell Lee — Ten Percent HappierThe hidden influence that your surroundings can have on your happiness. And how to tweak things in subtle but powerful ways.www.tenpercent.com
I thought the book discussed here, Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, had a distinctly Epicurean perspective. Thoughts welcomed on the episode and book. I think I'll need to add another to my reading list now.
-
Start 32:07, talking about Gal. 4:3, 8-9
This is the mention of the elements that comes up from time to time.
I've become a fan of Data Over Dogma, and this episode talks about Cicero, the gods, and implies what a revolution it really was for Epicurus to say the stars were not gods!
Fascinating stuff (to me)!
-
7 Ἔνδοξοι καὶ περίβλεπτοί τινες ἐβουλήθησαν γενέσθαι, τὴν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀσφάλειαν οὕτω νομίζοντες περιποιήσεσθαι. ὥστε εἰ μὲν ἀσφαλὴς ὁ τῶν τοιούτων βίος, ἀπέλαβον τὸ τῆς φύσεως ἀγαθόν· εἰ δὲ μὴ ἀσφαλής, οὐκ ἔχουσιν οὗ ἕνεκα ἐξ ἀρχῆς κατὰ τὸ τῆς φύσεως οἰκεῖον ὠρέχθησαν.
- ἔνδοξος, δόξα 1. held in esteem or honour, of high repute, Xen., Plat. 2. of things, notable, Aeschin.: —adv. -ξως, hence Sup., ἐνδοξότατα Dem.
- περίβλεπτος. looked at from all sides, admired of all observers, Eur., Xen. περί-βλεπτος, ον
Ἔνδοξοι καὶ περίβλεπτοί = "the famous and admired"
ἐβουλήθησαν 3rd person indicative aorist of βούλομαι.
- usually stronger than ἐθέλω, implying choice or preference:
- (transitive, intransitive)
- to will, wish, be willing, want [+accusative = something]; [+infinitive = to do something]
- (transitive) to mean
(intransitive) to pretend, claim [+infinitive = to do something] - (transitive) to prefer [+accusative = something]; [+infinitive = to do something]; often with μᾶλλον ἤ or ἤ: over something else
- γενέσθαι. aorist middle infinitive of γίγνομαι
- to come into being
- (of people) to be born
430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Anabasis 1.1: Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο Darius and Parysatis had two sons born to them. - (of things) to be produced
- (of events) to take place
- (followed by a predicate) to become
- ἀσφάλειαν ACC security, surety; certainty
-
I also got a kick out of the article title:
"Dating the Bible"
Oh, no, I wouldn't date the Bible. We're not compatible.
-
Welcome aboard!
-
Correction; Ecclesiastes is not the last book of the Old Testament.
This Wikipedia article does a nice job of putting the books of the Bible into a chronological order of when they were written:
Thought could be useful for this thread but also to put things into a historical perspective.
-
For anyone who wants the Greek:
-
In that regard, we might view KD6 as a refutation of a divine origin story of political authority.
I could see that interpretation.
There is no divine right of kings. It was more like people decided it would be good to have some kind of governing authority.
-
To me, the first part to this could be paraphrased, in the **broadest** terms, as "For the sake of having no fear from other people, it was a natural good to institute authority and to be ruled by a government..." Still working on literal translations and the second part.
The second part, again paraphrased in the widest sense, seems to be: From this (ie, instituting authority and government), at one time, procured for oneself the confidence to have no fear of other people.
To me, Lucretius echoes this:
So next
Some wiser heads instructed men to found
The magisterial office, and did frame
Codes that they might consent to follow laws.
For humankind, o'er wearied with a life
Fostered by force, was ailing from its feuds;
And so the sooner of its own free will
Yielded to laws and strictest codes. For since
Each hand made ready in its wrath to take
A vengeance fiercer than by man's fair laws
Is now conceded, men on this account
Loathed the old life fostered by force. 'Tis thence
That fear of punishments defiles each prize
Of wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare
Each man around, and in the main recoil
On him from whence they sprung. Not easy 'tis
For one who violates by ugly deeds
The bonds of common peace to pass a life
Composed and tranquil.
5.1136
And...
Kings began
Cities to found and citadels to set,
As strongholds and asylums for themselves,
And flocks and fields to portion for each man
After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-
For beauty then imported much, and strength
Had its own rights supreme.
5.1105
-
Little Rocker : your post had some embed code that didn't seem to be working. I hope you don't mind I fixed it.
-
That link to Aristotle's politics doesn't seem to work but might be useful for comparison.
Aristotle, Politics, Book 3, section 1285a
And
-
Don if you get a chance to supplement your post here that would also be helpful:
Good call! Done!
-
To me, the first part to this could be paraphrased, in the **broadest** terms, as "For the sake of having no fear from other people, it was a natural good to institute authority and to be ruled by a government..." Still working on literal translations and the second part.
-
By Zeus, this one took forever to track down...
This one is Plut.69.13, also known as F, one of the three best manuscripts (BPF of which we have P and F digitized and available)...
And once again we clearly see αρχησ και βασιλειασ αγαθον
starting at the end of the first line...
.... ἕνεκα τοῦ θα
ρρεῖν ἐξ ανθρώπων ἦν κατὰ φύσιν ἀρχῆς
καὶ βασιλείας ἀγαθόν, ἐξ ὧν ἄν ποτε τοῦτο
οἷός τʼᾖ παρασκευάζεσθαι. and then the rest of that line.
Seems to me there is no doubt that the manuscript tradition clearly includes ἀρχῆς καὶ βασιλείας. I don't see it as a marginal note or some kind of text stuck in somewhere where there's a question as to whether or not to include it. It's right there, in every manuscript, as part of the text.
Now, the only outlier could theoretically be manuscript B, but P and F BOTH have that phrase included as part of the text. It seems to be the Bailey and possibly Usener were being too clever by half?? They knew better than every manuscript??
Here's Usener's commentary from Epicurea on KD6:
It appears he's trying to say that κατὰ φύσιν ἀρχῆς καὶ βασιλείας is "simply" a gloss of what ἐξ ὧν is referring to and must be unnecessary according to his reading. ὧν is the genitive plural of ὅς (genitive because it comes after the preposition ἐξ) which is simply means "who, which, that." So Usener is saying "leadership and lordship" are what "who, which, that" is referring to it seems.
I think it needs to be seen as part of the text and needs to be translated as written.
We're going to leave any actual translation work for tomorrow
My work is done here for tonight!PS:
glossēma: ătis, n., = γλώσσημα, an antiquated or foreign word needing explanation
-
I have never had much fix on Usener because I have never been able to read any commentary by him that may exist, but I know I don't have a good feel about Bailey's discretion. But in this case we can't pin this on Bailey, correct? I wish we had more access to Usener's general thoughts on Epicurus to see if (or how) he made similar "this can't be right" comments.
Thank you again Don for all you do.
Usener's Epicurea is on Internet Archive....
Hermann Usener Epicurea ( 1887) : Hermann Usener (editor) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveEpicurea is a collection of texts, fragments and testimonies by Epicurus composed by Hermann Usener in 1887archive.orgLOL! Granted in *Latin* but it's freely available to peruse.
-
Okay, here we go...
Plut.69.35 - written 1101-1200 CE (12 century CE)
this one clearly has (2nd line φυσιν αρχησ και βασιλειασ...
codex Parisinus gr. 1759 (14th c.) known as P
Well, would you look at at that... in the middle of the second line...φυσιν αρχησ και βασιλειασ...
Grec. 1758
AND three's a charm!! at the end of the first line... φυσιν αρχησ και βασιλειασ αγαθον
So, I suppose you can editorialize and comment as much as one wants... but the phrase is *consistently* there in the manuscripts.
-
does exist in the manuscript?
I'll have to check those later. Stay tuned....
-
Ah! Bailey's commentary...
-
I don't see anything about kingship or politics in the Greek. Am I missing something?
It's text added by Arrighetti denoted with the <brackets>. I believe I have that version listed in my KD compilation.
Do we know which manuscript Arrigheti says this is from?
Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com
Here is a list of suggested search strategies:
- Website Overview page - clickable links arrranged by cards.
- Forum Main Page - list of forums and subforums arranged by topic. Threads are posted according to relevant topics. The "Uncategorized subforum" contains threads which do not fall into any existing topic (also contains older "unfiled" threads which will soon be moved).
- Search Tool - icon is located on the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere."
- Search By Key Tags - curated to show frequently-searched topics.
- Full Tag List - an alphabetical list of all tags.