Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕

they are often accompanied by qualities which make the abilities useless to him who has them, and even injurious to society.” ↩

There was a great temple of Demeter (Ceres) at Eleusis in Attica, and solemn mysteries, and an Hierophant or conductor of the ceremonies. ↩

See the note of Thomas Burnet, De Fide et Officiis Christianorum, editio secunda p. 89. ↩

The reader, who has an inclination to compare religious forms ancient and modern, may find something in modern practice to which the words of Epictetus are applicable. ↩

This is a view of the fitness of a teacher which, as far as I know, is quite new; and it is also true. Perhaps there was some vague notion of this kind in modern Europe at the time when teachers of youths were only priests, and when it was supposed that their fitness for the office of teacher was secured by their fitness for the office of priest. In the present “Ordering of Deacons” in the Church of England, the person, who is proposed as a fit person to be a deacon, is asked the following question by the bishop: “Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and ministration to serve God for the promotion of his glory and the edifying of his people?” In the ordering of Priests this question is omitted, and another question only is put, which is used also in the ordering of Deacons: “Do you think in your heart that you be truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc. The teacher ought to have God to advise him to occupy the office of teacher, as Epictetus says. He does not say how God will advise: perhaps he supposed that this advice might be given in the way in which Socrates said that he received it.

“Wisdom perhaps is not enough” to enable a man to take care of youths. Whatever “wisdom” may mean, it is true that a teacher should have a fitness and liking for the business. If he has not, he will find it disagreeable, and he will not do it well. He may and ought to gain a reasonable living by his labor: if he seeks only money and wealth, he is on the wrong track, and he is only like a common dealer in buying and selling, a butcher or a shoemaker, or a tailor, all useful members of society and all of them necessary in their several kinds. But the teacher has a priestly office, the making, as far as it is possible, children into good men and women. Should he be “ordered” like a Deacon or a Priest, for his office is even more useful than that of Priest or Deacon? Some will say that this is ridiculous. Perhaps the wise will not think so. ↩

See the description of Thersites in the Iliad, ii 212. ↩

The office which in our times corresponds to this description of the Cynic, is the office of a teacher of religion. ↩

See note 153. ↩

Quod petis hic est,
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus.

—⁠Horace, Epodes i 11, 30

Willst du immer weiter schweifen?
Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah.
Lerne nur das Glück ergreifen,
Denn das Glück ist immer da.

—⁠Goethe, Gedichte

↩

These men are supposed to have been strong gladiators. Croesus is the rich king of Lydia, who was taken prisoner by Cyrus the Persian. ↩

Man then is supposed to consist of a soul and of a body. It may be useful to remember this when we are explaining other passages in Epictetus ↩

“It is observable that Epictetus seems to think it a necessary qualification in a teacher sent from God for the instruction of mankind to be destitute of all external advantages and a suffering character. Thus doth this excellent man, who had carried human reason to so great a height, bear testimony to the propriety of that method which the divine wisdom hath thought fit to follow in the scheme of the Gospel; whose great author had not where to lay his head; and which some in later ages have inconsiderately urged as an argument against the Christian religion. The infinite disparity between the proposal of the example of Diogenes in Epictetus and of our Redeemer in the New Testament is too obvious to need any enlargement.” —⁠Elizabeth Carter ↩

Some of the ancients, who called themselves philosophers, did blame God and his administration of the world; and there are men who do the same now. If a man is dissatisfied with the condition of the world, he has the power of going out of it, as Epictetus often says; and if he knows, as he must know, that he cannot alter the nature of man and the conditions of human life, he may think it wise to withdraw from a state of things with which he is not satisfied. If he believes that there is no God, he is at liberty to do what he thinks best for himself; and if he does believe that there is a God, he may still think that his power of quitting the world is a power which he may exercise when he chooses. Many persons commit suicide, not because they are dissatisfied with the state of the world, but for other reasons. I have not yet heard of a modern philosopher who found fault with the condition of human things, and voluntarily retired from life. Our philosophers live as long as they can, and some of them take care of themselves and of all that they possess; they