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

forbid their gratification” (Bishop Butler, preface to his Sermons). The words in the text (ἐκλεγόμενον, ἀπεκλεγόμενον, selection and rejection) are expressed by Cicero (De Finibus ix 2, 11) by “eligere” and “rejicere.” ↩

See book IV chapter IV at 44. ↩

Compare Horace, Epistles i 19, 12, etc.

Quid, si quis vultu torvo ferus et pede nudo
Exiguaeque togae simulet textore Catonem,
Virtutemne reprs aentet moresque Catonis?

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See book III chapter XV at 8 ↩

“Yea a man may say: Thou hast faith, and I have works; show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works,” Epistle of James 2:18. So a moral philosopher may say: I show my principles, not by what I profess, but by that which I do. ↩

See the statues of Hephaestus, Montfaucon, L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures volume i, book iii, chapter 1. (John Upton.) ↩

“In what then was he” seems to mean “in what did he employ himself?” ↩

The text of Johann Schweighäuser is οὐκ ἂν μοι δοκῇ ἐκστῆναι οὐδενί. He says “temere οὐκ ἂν μοι δοκεῖ ed. Bas. et seqq.” But δοκεῖ is right. ↩

Compare book III chapter XXII. ↩

The word is φαινόλη, which seems to be the Latin “paenula.” ↩

“The gardens of Adonis” are things growing in earthen vessels, carried about for show only, not for use. “The gardens of Adonis” is a proverbial expression applied to things of no value, to plants, for instance, which last only a short time, have no roots, and soon wither. Much things, we may suppose, were exhibited at the festivals of Adonis. (Johann Schweighäuser’s note.) ↩

See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩

“They, who are desirous of taking refuge in Heathenism from the strictness of the Christian morality, will find no great consolation in reading this chapter of Epictetus.” —⁠Elizabeth Carter ↩

Aristides was a Greek, but his period is not known. He was the author of a work named Milesiaca or Milesian stories. All that we know of the work is that it was of a loose description, amatory and licentious. It was translated into Latin by Lucius Cornelius Sisenna, a contemporary of the Dictator Sulla; and it is mentioned by Plutarch (Life of Crassus, chapter 32), and several times by Ovid (Tristia ii 413, etc.). Evenus was perhaps a poet. We know nothing of this Evenus, but we may conjecture from being here associated with Aristides what his character was. ↩

See Johann Schweighäuser’s note on the word μυραλειφίον, which he has in his text. It should be μυραλοιφίον, if the word exists. ↩

The orginal is φελῆσαι δεῖ. Seneca (Epistle 80): “Quid tibi opus est ut sis bonus? Velle.” (John Upton.)

The power of the Will is a fundamental principle with Epictetus. The will is strong in some, but very feeble in others; and sometimes, as experience seems to show, it is incapable of resisting the power of old habits. ↩

Virtue is its own reward, said the Stoics. This is the meaning of Epictetus, and it is consistent with his principles that a man should live conformably to his nature, and so he will have all the happiness of which human nature is capable. Elizabeth Carter has a note here, which I do not copy, and I hardly understand. It seems to refer to the Christian doctrine of a man being rewarded in a future life according to his works: but we have no evidence that Epictetus believed in a future life, and he therefore could not go further than to maintain that virtuous behavior is the best thing in this short life, and will give a man the happiness which he can obtain in no other way. ↩

See a passage in Plutarch on Tranquillity from Euripides, the great storehouse of noble thoughts, from which ancient writers drew much good matter: and perhaps it was one of the reasons why so many of his plays and fragments have been preserved.

We must not quarrel with the things that are,
For they care not for us; but he who feels them,
If he disposes well of things, fares well.

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See book III chapter II. ↩

“Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me.” John 17:6. (Elizabeth Carter.) ↩

“I wish it were possible to palliate the ostentation of this passage, by applying it to the ideal perfect character: but it is in a general way that Epictetus hath proposed such a dying speech, as cannot without shocking arrogance be uttered by anyone born to die. Unmixed as it is with any acknowledgment of faults or imperfections, at present, or with any sense of guilt on account of the past, it must give every sober reader a very disadvantageous opinion of some principles of the philosophy, on which it is founded, as contradictory to the voice of conscience, and formed on absolute ignorance or neglect of the condition and circumstances of such a creature as man.” —⁠Elizabeth Carter.

I am inclined to think that Epictetus does refer to the “ideal perfect character,” but others may not understand him in this way. When Carter says “but it is in a general⁠ ⁠… dying speech,” she can hardly suppose, as her words seem to mean, that Epictetus proposed such a dying speech for