Episode 134 - Letter to Menoeceus 01 - Context and Opening of the Letter
Date: 08/08/22
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/2618-episode-one-hundred-thirty-four-the-letter-to-menoeceus-01-context-and-opening-o/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”The episode marks the debut of Callistheni, a new regular panelist from EpicureanFriends.com with an artistic and Buddhist background, who reads section 122: “Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study, for no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul.” The group notes Bailey’s omission of the greeting that appears in other translations — the German has “Epicurus wishes Menoikeus luck” — and Callistheni suggests the letter may be in the protreptic genre, designed to draw potential students to the school. Substantial discussion arises from Callistheni’s observation that Bailey’s “study of philosophy” is translated by Hicks as “seek wisdom” and by Saint-André as “love and practice wisdom,” with the group finding the latter renderings more alive and personally meaningful than the somewhat stuffy English word “philosophy.” The word eudaimonia, translated as “happiness,” receives extended examination — Cassius reads from the Torquatus material and Diogenes of Oenoanda fragment 32, which explicitly argues that pleasure, not virtue, is the end of the best mode of life, and virtue is a means to that end — with the group acknowledging that a reader who comes to this letter without the background of Lucretius and the Letters to Herodotus and Pythocles will read eudaimonia naively and miss the full Epicurean meaning. The episode closes with a sharp discussion of the online stoicism renaissance — Jordan Peterson, Silicon Valley stoics, younger men seeking strength — and with Cassius quoting an Epicurean riposte: you can make a man into a eunuch but you cannot make a eunuch into a man, arguing that the proper philosophy for anyone seeking active engagement with life is Epicurus, not stoicism.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 134 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host Cassius, and today we begin our discussion of Epicurus’s Letter to Menoikeus. We have a special occasion today: I’m delighted to welcome a new panelist, Callistheni, who has become a regular participant at EpicureanFriends.com. She’ll be joining us as we work through this letter. Let’s join Callistheni reading today’s text.
Callistheni: Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul. The man who says that the age for philosophy has either not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that the age for happiness is not yet come to him or has passed away. Therefore both when young and old a man must study philosophy, that as he grows old he may be young in blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been, and that in youth he may be old as well since he will know no fear of what is to come. We must then meditate on the things that make our happiness, seeing that when that is with us we have all, but when it is absent we do all to win it.
Cassius: Thank you, Callistheni. Welcome everybody to the first episode of our coverage of the Letter to Menoikeus. Callistheni, Joshua, Martin — we’ll be comparing translations as we go forward, just as we have with the other letters. Today we’re starting with section 122. Before we discuss the content, Martin, you noted something about Bailey’s translation compared to your German edition.
Martin: Bailey omits a greeting. My German translation begins: “Epicurus wishes Menoikeus luck.” Bailey jumps straight into the philosophy. There is a comment in Diogenes Laertius about how the greetings in Epicurus’s letters have a unique flavor to them — and here Bailey has apparently removed it.
Joshua: Yes, and comparing the letters, the greeting to Pythocles was very familiar and detailed — Epicurus mentioned that Cleon had brought him Pythocles’s request and that he was glad to attend to it now that his other writings were finished. Here the connection seems more formal, though we know from section 122 that Epicurus says “the things which I used unceasingly to commend to you” — so they have had previous conversations.
Callistheni: I was also wondering if this letter might fall into the genre of the protreptic — a genre that was popular among Socratic writers as a means of drawing potential students into the school. That would explain the very direct opening about why everyone should study philosophy, with no background given about who Menoikeus is or why they are in correspondence.
Cassius: That is a very good observation. Epicurus was clearly trying to convince people of the value of his philosophy — not to get money or power from them, but because he believed he had found something and wanted to share it. And we don’t know who Menoikeus was. We don’t know if he was young or old, new to philosophy or experienced. That creates an interesting interpretive challenge as we go through the letter, because the depth of what he means by happiness depends entirely on whether Menoikeus has the background to understand the Epicurean context.
Callistheni: That actually brings up a question I have about the word happiness. When I read this passage, eudaimonia feels more like a simple universal feeling that everyone would recognize — not a technical philosophical term with specific content. It seems almost too obvious. Is he really pointing to the whole philosophical system here, or just to something everyone already understands?
Cassius: That is perhaps the most important question about this letter. Let me read from the Torquatus material, which I think best captures the Epicurean definition. He says: imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain; he knows that death means complete unconsciousness and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong; he has no dread of any supernatural power; he renews his enjoyment of past pleasures through recollection; his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement. That is what Epicurus means by happiness.
Joshua: And this is explicitly connected to pleasure, not to virtue, as the end. Diogenes of Oenoanda fragment 32 puts it as sharply as anything in the corpus: “if the pointed issue between these people and us involved inquiry into what is the means of happiness, and they wanted to say the virtues, it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them. But since the issue is not what is the means of happiness but what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature, I say, shouting loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues are in no way an end but the means to the end.”
Cassius: So a reader who comes to this letter without having read Lucretius, without having read the Letters to Herodotus and Pythocles, will read the word happiness and assume it means something roughly similar to what Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, or a modern self-help author means by it. And they will miss the entire foundation that makes the Epicurean position distinctive.
Callistheni: That makes sense. I should also mention — looking at the translations — Bailey has “study of philosophy,” Hicks has “seek wisdom,” and Saint-André has “love and practice wisdom.” To me the word philosophy has a stuffy old-person quality to it, like something that happens in a dusty library. But “seek wisdom” or “love and practice wisdom” — those are personal, active, and feel like something that belongs in my life right now.
Martin: The German word would be “philosophize” — to philosophize. To go do it, not just to study the subject. That makes it more active as well.
Cassius: And that is exactly how Epicurus treats it — as a living activity, not a discipline you pick up in retirement. He says both when young and old you must study, and the results are different at different stages: the young person becomes old in wisdom, knowing no fear of what is to come; the old person remains young through grateful recollection of past pleasures.
Joshua: On the question of when to begin — there does seem to be something he is pushing back against. Is it the Greek idea that philosophy is appropriate for young students in the period before adult responsibilities? Or the opposite view, that it is for the retired elder with a long beard?
Cassius: Vatican Saying 76 is directly relevant: “As you grow old, you are such as I urge you to be, and you have recognized the difference between studying philosophy for yourself and studying it for Greece. I rejoice with you.” Studying philosophy for yourself is studying it in order to live happily. Studying it for Greece is the citizen-soldier model — preparing to be a good member of the polis. Epicurus was not rejecting civic duty, but he was insisting it is not the ultimate goal.
Callistheni: This connects to something I notice online — the renaissance of stoicism, particularly among younger men. I encounter very few people who think of philosophy as a means of finding happiness. Most think of it as self-help, or as a display of seriousness, or as a way of building mental toughness.
Joshua: And what those people think they are getting from stoicism is really what Epicurus offers. The original stoics were not about mental toughness toward the goal of personal happiness — they were explicitly about virtue as an end in itself, virtue as communing with the divine logos that created the universe. When you dig into ancient stoicism you discover that the goal is not happiness but virtue, and that pleasures and emotions are obstacles to be suppressed. The people joining stoicism groups online have bought into the idea that it is a set of techniques for feeling stronger and more capable — but that is Epicurus, not Zeno.
Cassius: And there is an Epicurean saying that is pointed on exactly this: you can make a man into a eunuch but you cannot make a eunuch into a man. The charge that Epicureanism is unmanly — that was made by Cicero, by the Romans who associated pleasure with weakness. But look at Cassius Longinus, look at Brutus, look at the Epicureans in the Roman civil wars. The person who is fully engaged with life, who feels emotion deeply, who has committed friends, who pursues a full life with intelligence and courage — that is the Epicurean. The person who trains himself to be detached from emotion and outcome is cutting himself off from the very faculties that make life worth living.
Joshua: In Romeo and Juliet there is a moment when Mercutio is killed by Tybalt and Romeo goes into a soliloquy about how love has unmanned him — how his emotional commitment to Juliet caused him to hesitate when he should have fought. That is almost a direct statement of the stoic ideal. And so much of the online stoicism renaissance is tied to exactly that anxiety: is it weak to care about things? And Epicurus’s answer is that caring deeply, feeling pleasure and pain intensely, having friends you love — that is not weakness. That is the substance of a good life.
Cassius: Well said. We will come back next week and begin on the gods, which is the very next section and perhaps the thorniest topic in the whole letter. Welcome again, Callistheni — it is wonderful to have you with us. Closing thoughts?
Martin: Nothing to add.
Callistheni: This has been so helpful. I have so many questions now about what wisdom and happiness and philosophy really mean in this context, and I am looking forward to going deeper into the letter. Thank you.
Joshua: It is wonderful to be in a letter with this much richness in every paragraph. Welcome, Callistheni — great to have your contributions today.
Cassius: We will be back next week. Thanks everybody and see you soon.
Joshua: Goodbye.
Martin: Bye.
Callistheni: Goodbye.