Episode 064 - Lucretius - Book Five Due To His Accomplishments, Epicurus Should Be Thought Of As Godlike
Date: 03/31/21
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1928-episode-sixty-four-due-to-his-accomplishments-epicurus-should-be-thought-of-as-g/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Book 5 opening: Lucretius praises Epicurus as “a god” for discovering the rule of life (philosophy/wisdom). He compares Epicurus’s gift of tranquility to Ceres’s gift of grain and Bacchus’s gift of wine, arguing Epicurus surpasses even these deified benefactors. He further argues that Epicurus exceeds Hercules, since Hercules only slew local monsters while Epicurus subdued the monsters of the mind — pride, lust, fear, luxury, sloth. A closing transition declares that Lucretius follows Epicurus’s steps and will teach that things subsist by the same laws by which they were formed; the soul is mortal; and images deceive the mind in dreams. Elaine is absent this episode; Cassius, Martin, and Charles discuss.
Discussion covers: whether “a god” is meant literally, as an Epicurean conception of a non-supernatural god, or colloquially (like calling a great athlete “godlike”); identification of the Hercules allusions (Nemean lion, Erymanthian boar, Hydra of Lerna, Geryon, Diomedes’ horses, Stymphalian birds, dragon of the Hesperides); Martin’s note that the phrase “things must subsist by the same laws by which they were formed” anticipates James Hutton’s uniformitarianism principle that founded modern geology; two functions of the atomic swerve (anti-determinism and world formation); and why the closing transition singles out both the mortality of the soul and the images-in-dreams theory as the two key propositions for combating religion.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 64 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host, Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com Forum, we’ll walk you through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt. For anyone who’s not familiar with our podcast, please check back to Episode 1 for a discussion of our goals and our ground rules. If you have any questions about those, please be sure to contact us at EpicureanFriends.com for more information. In this Episode 64, we’ll begin our discussion of Book 5. Now let’s join Martin reading today’s text.
Martin: Who can, with all his soul inspired, compose fit numbers to verse the majesty of the great things of these discoveries? Or who, in words alone, can sing his praise and equal his deserts? Who, from the labor of his mind, has left such benefits and bestowed rewards so glorious on mankind? No mortal man alive, as I conceive, for could I raise my verse to reach the dignity of things anew. He was a god, my noble Memmius, a god he was, who first found out that rule of life which is now called true wisdom. And who, this human life, so tossed to storms and so overwhelmed in darkness, has been rendered by his art so calm and placed in so clear a light, compares the benefits long since found out by those who now are gods. There Ceres, as they say, discovered first the use of corn, and Bacchus gave to men the knowledge of the wine and its wheat juice. Yet, Memmius might still have lived without both these, as many nations as we are told do now. But no true life could be without the mind easy and free, and therefore with better right is he to us a god, whose gentle words received throughout the world bestowed on man tranquility and peace.
If you should think the great exploits of Hercules exceeded this, you are carried far from truth. For how could the wide, gaping jaws of the Nemean lion or the terrible Arcadian boar affright us now? How could the bull of Crete or Hydra, the plague of Lerna, encompassed with poisonous snakes, or Geryon with his triple face and the collected strength of his three bodies? Or what can we now suffer from Diomedes’ horses, from their nostrils breathing fire, that laid waste the Bistonian plains, and all about Mount Ismarus? Of what from the birds of Stymphalus, feared for their sharp beaks? Or the huge dragon, fierce and terrible, that, twining round the tree, guarded the golden fruit of the Hesperides? How could they hurt us here, removed far from us near the Atlantic shore and the rough seas, where neither Roman nor barbarian dare to visit? And other monsters, which that hero slew — had they not been subdued, how could they hurt us now? Not in the least, I think. For now the world abounds with frightful beasts that fill with dreadful terrors the forests, the high mountains and thick woods. Yet these places commonly it is in our power to avoid.
What venom must be purged, what woes, what dangers wretched mortals must endure, what piercing cares of fierce desire must tear the minds of men? And then, what anxious fears, what ruin flows from pride, from villainy, from petulance? What from luxury and sloth? The man, therefore, that has subdued these monsters and drove them from the mind by precept, not by force — should not this man be worthy to be numbered with the gods, especially since of these immortal deities he has spoken nobly and at large, and by his writings has explained to us the laws of universal nature?
His steps I follow, and now pursue his rules, and by my words I teach that things must need subsist by the same laws by which they were first formed. Nor can they break through the strong bonds that nature has fixed to them. Of this sort the soul, in the first place, I have proved to be originally derived from mortal seeds, nor can it remain eternally undissolved. And that images commonly deceive the mind in our dreams, and we fancy we see a person that has been long since dead.
Cassius: Okay, thank you, Martin, for reading that. In today’s episode, it will just be Martin and myself and Charles — Elaine’s not with us this week, hopefully she’ll be back very soon. But we will begin the discussion of Book 5 with just the three of us today and see what we can do with it. The opening section, the opening paragraph, is very memorable for how it compares Epicurus to being a god. And I think people talk about that a lot in the context of the ending to the Letter to Menoeceus, where he says that we can be like a god among men. And of course there’s so much discussion of what it means to be an Epicurean god. There’s a lot of uncertainty here as to whether this should be taken literally, figuratively, or some combination of the two. So what do we think about that? Who wants to start, Charles?
Charles: Definitely not in a cult-like perspective.
Cassius: Yeah, I know that gets tossed around a bit. But elaborate on that. When you say not cult-like, you mean he’s not being literally compared to a supernatural god? Or one of the subtleties we have to sort of think about is the Epicurean definition of a god seems to be so different from what we’re used to today in terms of the supernatural. Is he comparing Epicurus here to a supernatural god, or to a non-supernatural Epicurean god, or what?
Charles: I think the text is a non-supernatural Epicurean god. The issue of cult-like is the trend of hero worship in the philosophy. I think some people might be confused and would take the text here — or even us as a community, or just Epicureans in general — as following Epicurus and comparing him to some sort of ascended individual akin to a supernatural or omnipotent god, rather than just praising his achievements as a philosopher.
Cassius: Martin, what do you think?
Martin: I’m still trying to get through all the prose. Very mythological.
Cassius: Well, you know, on this first passage we’re talking about — sometimes I do think that there’s a tinge of humor in some of the Epicurean text. And like even today we can talk about — if I try to use a specific example, I’ll embarrass myself — just some particularly good basketball player or some particularly good football player: “he’s a god of football players.” I don’t know that there’s not some aspect of that kind of colloquial usage as well here. He’s just — whenever somebody so exceeds in his profession that he seems to supersede everybody else in terms of his talent or ability, he’s often even today referred to as almost godlike in his capacities within that field.
Charles: It is very tongue-in-cheek, I’d have to agree. And there really are interesting subtleties here too about where he says he “first found out that rule of life which is now called true wisdom” — almost as if he’s implying that the Epicureans refer to their own philosophy as true wisdom. And also that he says Epicurus “rendered by his art so calm and placed in so clear a light” — it seems to me to be talking about the clarity of what Epicurus had said in addition to its wisdom. And then the comparison carries into Bacchus about how he’s worthy of being considered a god because of the benefit that he bestowed on mankind. That’s not exactly tongue-in-cheek, but it’s certainly more of an allusion or figurative rather than actually saying he’s literally a god. It seems as a comparison — “where are the benefits long since found out by those who are now gods?” He might have said “who are now considered to be gods.”
Cassius: And of course during this particular time — at some point, I guess this was before Julius Caesar — were the Romans already considering their leaders to be deified? They were not, I guess, at this point, but it wasn’t very long before they started considering themselves to be deified, right? I don’t know whether the Greeks had that kind of conception among their leadership or not. God-kings are a very early idea. It would depend upon what part of Greece you’re talking about. I don’t really have the impression that the Athenians considered their leaders — like Pericles — to be a god, but maybe other parts of Greece. How about Alexander the Great? Was Alexander considered to be a god?
Charles: I don’t think so. He often compared himself to — was it Apollo? I’m not sure. But at least in this period when Lucretius was writing, I would expect that it was something that was recognized that men might be considered to be gods without necessarily being — I don’t know. When Julius Caesar was supposedly deified, does that mean he became supernatural in some way? I don’t really know what they thought. But I don’t think this is an indication that the Epicureans considered Epicurus to be immortal or in any way supernatural because of his achievements.
Cassius: Charles, are you familiar with all the different allusions in the feats of Hercules that are mentioned in paragraph two?
Charles: Yeah, it’s just been a while since I’ve read them. The plague of Lerna, for example — I don’t know exactly what that is referring to, but Lerna is a region in Greece. I want to say it’s around Corinth, but I might be wrong. It was known for its waters and springs. So is the plague a monster of some kind, encompassed with poisonous snakes? The word “plague” of course would evoke a disease right now. Or is the plague of Lerna a synonym for the Hydra?
Cassius: I’m sorry — maybe when you read it all together he’s talking about the Hydra and calling the Hydra the plague of Lerna because the Hydra was encompassed with poisonous snakes. Because of the “or” — like “Hydra, comma, and then the continuing title of the plague of Lerna.”
Charles: Yeah, that’s where it might be useful to compare Munro and Bailey. And “the triple-breasted might of three-fold Geryon” — is Geryon some kind of a dragon?
Cassius: Let me look it up real quick.
Charles: I’m thinking of something else, then.
Cassius: He was a giant. Yeah, he was a giant with three heads — some sources said he had three bodies. I guess it’s probably significant in some way that his argument seems to be that even if these type of monsters were still alive, we have the ability to avoid them by not going near them. That seems to be his conclusion as to how to deal with them without needing a Hercules to kill them. So maybe the analogy is that he’s talking about Epicurus teaching us how to avoid the true hazards of life.
Charles: I thought about it more as fearing myths and superstition — that you don’t have to fear them.
Cassius: Right, right. Is he calling these superstitions here, or is he just saying it wouldn’t matter if they were alive? I guess it’s the same thing. It’s very easy to read this in a literal sense, but the text at least here in the Brown translation that says “where neither Roman nor barbarian dare to visit” — I see that as just the philosophy and the line of thinking and the mindset that it’s different, that it’s something else entirely that would speak to Epicurus’s greatness. For even now the world abounds with frightful beasts, and yet these places commonly it is in our power to avoid — not only places and monsters but literally philosophies or religions that are threatening and yet wrong. And keep in mind he is addressing this section to Memmius, so he’d be well acquainted and familiar with these myths.
Cassius: Before we go to the next passage, Martin, any comment on those Hercules references?
Martin: Yeah, it’s more on the series at corn. So I think we discussed this briefly some time ago already, because it passes me that all three translations translate this word as “corn.” So what do you understand under “corn”?
Cassius: Say that again — what?
Martin: Yeah, I quote that phrase: “in a series, they say discovered first the use of corn.” So yeah, we have talked about that before.
Cassius: Yeah, I always think about cereal when I see that reference. I think about it like millet or something. You know, when you were reading that, Martin, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I’ve got the wrong section here, because I think he says the same thing basically in the next book in the opening of it — he talks about corn coming from Athens or something — so that apparently was a big allusion to them talking about how important corn was. Yeah, but that would refer to grains, so yeah, I think we talked about that in Book 1.
Martin: Yes, and the funny thing is — because this may come back — I remember very clearly at my first international conference when I was in a private discussion with some of the established researchers, I used the word “corn mountains” to refer to what actually were grain mountains, and an American researcher of German descent corrected me: “that should be called grain mountains.” So I would say in this context it would be more clear to say “grains” and not “corn,” because corn typically actually means more specifically maize, doesn’t it?
Cassius: For us in the United States it means maize, yes. So you’re saying that they’re mixing wheat versus corn in these references — the European thing. This is a British translation. Yeah, and Munro says corn and Bailey also says corn. But you’re saying that what we’re really talking about is wheat.
Martin: That’s a good point. Barley would be under it too. Because with respect to the garden, they refer more to barley than wheat.
Cassius: Okay, so I’m going to betray my memory failing me — where does corn come from? Is it natural to a particular continent?
Martin: It’s a New World crop. Yes, maize is from America. It didn’t exist in ancient times in Europe.
Cassius: Okay, so that’s why you’re saying it has to be wheat or barley — it cannot be maize. Exactly. They grow in Europe now?
Martin: Yes, of course. It’s used a lot to feed animals but also for human consumption. Even in Thailand, they grow with it because it can stand the heat and dryness — we have a pronounced dry season and the maize quite likes it.
Cassius: All right, anything further on Hercules or those allusions to classical mythology before we move to the next passage?
Martin: Just to make it clear — of course it was a great feat that these more or less legendary deeds of Hercules and others killed these monsters, but that’s just of local importance for those few people who lived in these areas. For the vast majority of people, these monsters never posed any danger because they would just not be there.
Cassius: Exactly. You’re doing the obvious, which I should have done at the beginning — making the obvious point of the paragraph. No matter how heroic those deeds of Hercules might be, they pale in significance to the accomplishment of a true philosophy like the one Epicurus developed.
Martin: Exactly.
Cassius: And that’s the segue to the next passage, because that’s what the next passage is about: “But unless the breast is cleared, what battles and dangers must then find their way into us? What pride, filthy lust, and wantonness, what disasters, luxury, and sloth. He therefore who shall have subdued all these and banished them from the mind by words, not arms — shall he not have a just title to be ranked among the gods?” What comes to my mind there is you do struggle, as Charles referred to earlier, whether this is cult-like or not. There’s a hero worship involved to some extent. The status of Epicurus within Epicurean philosophy gets discussed a lot — whether he’s held in too high a regard, and whether he enforced his beliefs on his followers and whether people were just told to do what he said and not think for themselves. But I think this helps put it in proper perspective: that when somebody does something for you that is so incredibly beneficial, you feel naturally and correctly a lot of gratitude for it. And I think that’s where he’s generally going with this opening section in Book 5 — it is appropriate to hold Epicurus in high regard for his achievements in philosophy since the philosophy is so important to us in helping us live successfully. And so when he makes this comparison, this is not the one where he talks about him as a father figure, but he’s really saying that Epicurus exceeds a father figure. His contributions and what we owe him is greater than a father.
Martin: I’m still looking at the words he’s using. He’s talking about the disasters they occasion and then continuing on to say “and luxury and sloth” as if luxury and sloth are also disasters — this list includes pride, lust, and wantonness along with luxury and sloth. And all the more so that he was wont to deliver many precepts in beautiful and godlike phrase about the immortal gods themselves and to open up by his teachings all the nature of things.
Cassius: I don’t guess he’s generally thought of as maybe the most godlike writer, but maybe it’s okay to say that. Well, and then the final paragraph that we have for today is a transition paragraph from this opening. When we go next week it’ll be more detail, but in this final passage, walking in his footsteps, he says “I follow out his reasonings about certain things. There’s probably something interesting to talk about there — by what law all things are made and what necessity there is then for them to continue in that law, and how impotent they are to annul the binding statutes of time.” One thing that brings to mind is that people tend to consider the swerve to be one of the most significant parts of Epicurean philosophy, but I always remind myself — and I think this is a statement of that — that while the swerve is important, there also is necessity and continuity brought about by the properties of the atoms. The swerve does exist, but so does continuity and the laws that arise from the nature of the atoms. What do you think about that? Martin, we’ve kind of discussed that kind of thing before — the balance of necessity versus the tendency that comes about from the swerve. Or agency?
Martin: Yeah, agency. It’s really that it needs the swerve only for agency and nothing else, essentially. Otherwise, you only have the billiards model of Democritus. Well, maybe to be more clear: to prevent determinism — so to avoid determinism. That would be rather more appropriate to say the main function of the swerve.
Cassius: Yeah, sometimes I get confused on this particular point. Are there two functions? Is it to avoid determinism, and did it also play into how universes or worlds are formed — is that when a swerve starts the atoms colliding with each other? Because isn’t there a discussion in Book 2 about how if the swerve did not exist, all the atoms would just fall down in a straight line, and the swerve is what broke the tendency of all atoms just to fall straight down?
Martin: I believe so — when he talks about the blows of them.
Cassius: So when people talk about what functions the swerve serves, I think there are two categories: the determinism aspect and also the formation of worlds. But the reason I brought it up as significant is that I think some people have a tendency to overstate the significance of the swerve. People will say “oh, the swerve is a forecast of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and as a result of that anything can happen anytime” — they take it way too far. But the truth is that both exist at the same time, and Epicurus is clear not only here but also in the Letter to Herodotus that in general things do follow a mechanistic pattern. Otherwise we would not have any continuity; otherwise the whole philosophy would be worthless, because all the different arguments we’ve made about what we’ve seen in the past giving us information about what to expect would be worthless. All those arguments in Book 2 about the same fruits coming from the same trees, and types of animals giving birth to similar types of animals — all of those things would be useless if in fact the swerve was so dominant that nothing was predictable.
Martin: Yeah, all that stuff in Book 2 about trees not sprouting up instantly from everywhere.
Cassius: Yeah, and I’m sure no doubt that I’m being overly broad in the way I’m describing this. But I do think there’s an important principle here: that there is both necessity in some areas and agency in some areas within Epicurean philosophy, and it’s important to study where the division lies and why it exists like that. But he’s clearly saying here that it is important for you to realize that in terms of the determinist part of things, you’re going to have to recognize that some things don’t change. Foremost in that class of things is that the nature of the mind was formed of a body that had a birth and will be unable to endure unscathed through time. So the two things he’s citing here as being significant in the context of determinism are: that you only have one life to live, you’re not going to be living after you’re dead — and then, interestingly, the second one is his explanation of the images and how they cause you to see things when you’re dreaming, specifically how the images cause you to see images of people who are dead when you’re dreaming. That’s what he specifically says. And next week he goes off in more discussion of the details. But as I’m looking at how he ends this passage, it probably is very significant to see that he’s stressing the importance of you only having one life to live and the working of images when you’re asleep. It’s interesting to me that he includes that one. I think we maybe don’t appreciate the full extent of what the images theory was meant to address. If that’s a reference to religion and to the workings of how you see things when you’re dreaming and hallucinating — leading you to the belief that there is life after death or supernatural religion — maybe that is a reference to the first two of the Principal Doctrines about no supernatural gods and no life after death.
Cassius: Well, maybe it’s good that we had a shorter section since we don’t have Elaine with us today. We can put together some final thoughts here and then bring this episode to a close. Martin, do you have anything in general to summarize?
Martin: I would elaborate a bit with a small tangent on “things must need subsist by the same laws by which they were first formed.” This is basically the founding statement of geology as a science. I just looked this up because I forgot the name — it is James Hutton, the 18th-century geologist, who basically founded geology with a statement like this: that the same processes which have formed the surface of the earth in the past are still going on. This was basically the leading idea along which geology could be developed as a science.
Cassius: That’s interesting. I did not consider that. Which passage were you referring to again?
Martin: “That things must need subsist by the same laws by which they were first formed.” So it’s almost like — it’s not exactly like this, because this refers specifically to “by which they were first formed,” but it’s more like the continuity of the laws of nature. And in geology, this was something not easy to see, because the geological processes which have a significant impact are typically extremely slow. A human over his lifetime will not observe much, so it’s not an easy idea to come up with.
Cassius: That’s very interesting. I did not consider that. And it took me a second — I realized now that I had flipped down to the Munro version and was not seeing the version you were reading from, the 1743. But yeah, again the 1743 I think is particularly well-written and clear there. “Nor can they break through the strong bonds that nature has fixed to them.” And since I read the Munro version a minute ago, I’m thinking through it as I read it again, but the 1743 on the two things that it singles out to emphasize says: “Of this sort the soul, in the first place, I have proved to be originally derived from mortal seeds, nor can it remain eternally undissolved” — so clearly that’s the reference to the importance of one life to live. And then: “And that images commonly deceive the mind in our dreams when we fancy we see a person that has been long since dead.” The way that’s written causes me almost to think more in terms of he’s referencing how important it is to have a canon of truth so that you can analyze things that you think you see. And I guess there’s a reference to seeing a person who’s long since dead as an example of it, but really you’re using the canon of truth that he’s formulated to analyze basically all the images that you come into contact with.
Cassius: All right, Charles, have any closing thoughts for today?
Charles: Not really. Maybe later on in Book 5. Just as a prelude, he says he’s going to talk about the forces that pilot the course of the sun and the wanderings of the moon, and then he’s also going to talk about the gods living a life without care — or at least he’s making a reference to the forces that allow the gods to live without care, and how we tend to be brought back into religious scruples and take upon ourselves hard taskmasters. So in general he is going back into the physics, but as I’m scanning through for next week, it’s kind of a high-level overview of physics — it’s not getting into atoms and void, it’s kind of like he’s talking about the conclusions that come from the physics as opposed to the details. So it should be — I mean, we’re in Book 5, we ought to be at a level where he’s expecting the reader to be taking what he’s talked about before and drawing some conclusions. It should be interesting. But we can deal with that next week.
Martin: So, Martin, any other thoughts?
Martin: No, goodbye, I’m done.
Cassius: Okay, okay. Well, I think we’ve done what we can with this text for today. We’ll come back next week and continue with Book 5. So thanks everybody, and see you soon.
Martin: Thank you.
Charles: Okay, bye.