Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life

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Summary: The perfect introduction to Epictetus
Review: There are three types of books : the Great Books, those that distract us from them and those that lead us to them. A. A. Long's *Epictetus* belongs to the latter category : it is the perfect introduction to the thought of Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c.50- c.130) and what little has survived of it (I was particularly distressed to learn that what I knew as his Discourses are only about half of the original text, as only four of the original eight books have survived.)

A leading proponent of Late Stoicism («the phase of Stoics during the Roman Empire» (19)), converted by his teacher Musonius Rufus, Epictetus may well be the most attractive figure of the movement. Unlike Seneca, he was a «practicing teacher» (11) and had no «fascination with suicide» (204.) And unlike Marcus Aurelius, he was not involved in the persecution of Christians (In his brilliant *The Founding of Christendom*, historian Warren Carroll writes that «Marcus Aurelius would never have approved the hellish tortures inflicted on the martyrs of Lyons in 177, yet they were inflicted on his authority» (p488.))

Moreover, contrary to the pantheism of most members of the school, he had a personalist conception of God (21) which makes his thought much more germane to the worldview of modern Christians, as this tends to replace the «point of view of the [impersonal] universe» cherished by Aurelius with a much more benevolent and purposive divine point of view as a frame of reference (205.) Epictetus's understanding of Providence and of the Natural Law should also appeal to modern conservative Catholics. As for his saying that «No one is free who is in error» (108), it finds a clear echo in its more famous converse : « the Truth shall make you free.»

Long shows how central Epictetus's concept of God was to his whole philosophy. «The structuring principle of the entire universe,» God was the ultimate role model for the Stoic sage, «the paradigm of the virtues human beings are equipped to achieve» (145.) He is «rational perfection» itself, and understanding Him and His plan is a prerequisite for understanding our duties : «our reasoning powers and moral sense are an `offshoot' of the world's divine governor, whose cosmic order is a pattern for the harmony we should try to replicate in our thoughts and actions» (26.) Even to grasp the Stoic ideal of the life according to nature requires that we focus our lives on God : «the nature that interests [Epictetus] is exclusively animate, under which he includes not only human beings and other animals but first and foremost God» (143.) «To live `in accordance with nature' is to play one's specific part within the structure of the divine plan» (174.)

As the subtitle of the book indicates, Epictetus was not only a Stoic, but a disciple of Socrates. Long even goes so far as to say that «he appropriates Socrates more deeply than any other philosopher after Plato» (8), making him «more prominent than any other predecessor, including the Stoic Zeno and the Cynic Diogenes» (57.) Devoting a whole chapter to this influence, Long counts no less than 100 references to Socrates in the extant corpus, and claim that Epictetus knew Plato's «*Gorgias* more or less by heart» (70.)

In a fascinating glimpse of student life under the Stoic master, Long tries to reconstruct the kinds of readings that would have supplemented the lectures, which would have been addressed to students 18 to 25. He helps the reader understand Epictetus's teaching methods by identifying three distinct styles : protreptic (or exhortative, admonitory, giving «advice and displine on making progress» as a Stoic (61)) ; elenctic (or Socratic, challenging and correcting «beliefs and emotional attitudes» (id.)) ; and didactic (or doctrinal.) And he fleshes out the three successive fields of study in the Stoic curriculum : the regulation of desires and aversions, ethics and, last but not least, logic. The ideal sage was not only to have reached apatheia, but also to possess «a skill in logic so powerful that he would be immune from the slightest risk of error» (117.)

Epictetus's ambition as a teacher was to provide his students with «a systematic plan of life that would, ideally, assure purposefulness, serenity, dignity and social utility at every waking moment, irrespective of external circumstance» (20.) He did so by stressing the need to care for nothing but what is up to us, i.e. our rationality and our moral character. By his careful and sympathetic treatment of this powerful ideal, A. A. Long's book provides a golden opportunity for modern readers to make their first steps on this path.

Another reference on the same subject is A. F. Bonhöffer's *The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus*, but it is a much less accessible work than Long's, containing as it does much untranslated Latin and Greek. Also highly recommended is Richard Sorabji's *Emotions and Peace of Mind* (2000.)