Episode 140 - Letter to Menoeceus 07 - Completion of the Letter
Date: 09/19/22
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/2659-episode-one-hundred-forty-the-letter-to-menoeceus-07-completion-of-the-letter/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Callistheni reads the final sections 133–135 of the Letter to Menoikeus — Epicurus laughs at destiny as the mistress of all things, insists that the chief power in determining events lies within us, distinguishes necessity from chance from what is in our control, says it would be better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the necessity of the natural philosophers who promote hard determinism, and closes with the injunction to meditate on these things night and day both alone and with companions, so that one shall live like a god among men. The episode opens with Cassius reading the parallel passage from the Torquatus material in Cicero’s On Ends — “a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or the prospect of pain… his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement” — as a more elaborated version of the same ideas, and the group considers whether Torquatus may in some respects preserve a fuller form of Epicurean ethics than the letter itself. The discussion of personal responsibility and determinism centers on Greek fate-mythology: Oedipus’s oracle and the logical paradox it creates, W. Somerset Maugham’s “Death in Samara” (a merchant’s servant flees death in the market only to be killed at the very destination to which his master sends him), and Alexander the Oracle Monger’s artful reversal of a battlefield prophecy (“we prophesied a great victory, but not to which side it would fall”) are all used to show that once you accept the premise of inescapable fate, all action becomes pointless. Cassius cites Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in two directions: Cassius Longinus’s Epicurean line (“the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”) versus Brutus’s Platonist line (“there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”), and the group agrees that tides genuinely exist — general flows of events outside our control — but that they do not flow because gods or fate decreed them, and that the choice of when to sail is still ours. Joshua introduces Alexander the Great’s surveyors laying out Alexandria in barley flour because Egypt had no chalk and the army had to eat — as a rejoinder to the image of Epicurus living miserably on bread and water, demonstrating that an army eating simple rations while engaged in the conquest of the known world is not a picture of deprivation. Lucretius Book 5’s “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” is read alongside Menander’s epitaph pairing Epicurus with Themistocles as the man who saved Athens from folly as Themistocles saved it from military defeat. The episode closes with Cassius reading the peroration from the Torquatus material: “ought we not to feel the greatest gratitude to him who caught this utterance of nature’s voice and grasped its import so firmly and so fully that he has guided all sane-minded men into the paths of peace and happiness, calmness and repose?” — and announces that the next episode will turn to the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 140 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host Cassius, and today we complete the Letter to Menoikeus. Let’s join Callistheni reading today’s text.
Callistheni: Laughs at destiny, whom some have introduced as the mistress of all things. He thinks that with us lies the chief power in determining events, some of which happen by necessity, and some by chance, and some are within our control. For while necessity cannot be called to account, he sees that chance is inconstant, but that which is in our control is subject to no master, and to it are naturally attached praise and blame. For indeed it were better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the natural philosophers, for the former suggests a hope of placating the gods by worship, whereas the latter involves a necessity which knows no placation. As to chance, he does not regard it as a god as most men do, for in a god’s acts there is no disorder, nor as an uncertain cause of all things, for he does not believe that good and evil are given by chance to man for the framing of a blessed life, but that opportunities for great good and great evil are afforded by it. He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason, for it is better in a man’s actions that what is well chosen should fail rather than what is ill chosen should be successful owing to chance. Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself and with a companion like to yourself, and never shall you be disturbed waking or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is not like unto a mortal being.
Cassius: Thank you, Callistheni. We are at the end of the Letter to Menoikeus. Before we go into the content, let me read the parallel passage from the Torquatus material in Cicero’s On Ends, because it elaborates what Epicurus is saying here with greater detail. Torquatus says: let us 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 will know that death means complete unconsciousness and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong. Let such a man have no dread of any supernatural power, let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement. That is very close to what we are reading in the final lines of this letter, and it is probable that Cicero was reading the Letter to Menoikeus and elaborating on it for his Torquatus speech. In any case the Torquatus material is at least as important as the letter itself for understanding the full picture.
Joshua: And the goal these passages are pointing to is not just a philosophical description but a kind of ideal portrait — a model of a life to emulate. Epicurus is not writing this letter so that people think he is the wisest person on earth and come to follow him. He is trying to portray what a person living the best available life looks like, so that those he is trying to reach can model their own lives on that picture. The gods, mentioned here at the opening of section 133, are another version of the same thing — an ideal of the blessed life.
Cassius: And there is Torquatus’s famous phrase elsewhere: Epicurus is the master builder of the life of happiness. The goal of the letter is to describe what the best life looks like and then to explain how to build it.
Callistheni: I still have questions about the phrase “live like a god among men” and what exactly that means. I find I need to meditate on it.
Joshua: The Epicureans had a very particular practice related to this. They took the image of Epicurus — his face — and put it on everything: the ring on your finger, a marble bust in the middle of town, a portrait on the wall. Bernard Frischer thought this was a recruitment tool, but it is also something more. It was keeping in front of your eyes an image of what the blessed life looks like as lived by an actual mortal person. Not the supernatural gods — if you want to contemplate them you have to use your mind’s eye. But the image of Epicurus is an image of a human being who lived the best available human life, and that is exactly what living like a god among men means: living like an Epicurean god, not a Homeric one — a life of deepest peace, without fear of death or divine retribution, full of the pleasures available to a mortal.
Cassius: And Lucretius Book 5 makes this explicit. He says: 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 has rendered by his art human life tossed with storms and so overwhelmed in darkness so calm and placed in so clear a light. Menander captures the same idea in the Greek Anthology, pairing Epicurus with Themistocles: hail, twin-born sons of Neocles, of whom the one saved his country from slavery, the other from folly. The achievement of Epicurus, by Menander’s reckoning, is as great as the military salvation of Athens.
Cassius: Now let us go into the determinism section. He laughs at destiny whom some have introduced as the mistress of all things. The problem Epicurus is facing here has two sources. One is the Greek religious tradition of fate — oracle, prophecy, inescapable destiny as the theme of so much tragedy. The other is the philosophical problem raised by Democritus and hard determinism: if the universe is just atoms colliding, everything is the necessary result of prior collisions, and there is no room for our choices to make any real difference.
Joshua: The Oedipus story is the classic example of the fate problem. An oracle at his birth says he will slay his father and bed his mother. His family tries to prevent it by abandoning him. He grows up elsewhere, eventually kills his father not knowing who he is, and marries his mother not knowing who she is. No matter how hard everyone runs from the oracle, they run directly into it. And there is an even more pointed version in W. Somerset Maugham’s story, usually called “Death in Samara.” A wealthy man’s servant goes to market, sees Death, drops his supplies, and runs back to his master terrified. The master lends him the fastest horse and sends him to a distant city. Then the master goes to the market, confronts Death, and asks why Death frightened his servant. Death says: I was not meaning to frighten him — I was just surprised to see him here, because I have an appointment with him tomorrow in that distant city. The man trying to escape his fate rode directly to it.
Cassius: And once you accept fate as real and inescapable, every action becomes pointless. Why plan, why try, why think at all, if the outcome is already written? That is exactly what Epicurus is arguing against. And he says something striking: it would be better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the necessity of the natural philosophers. That is remarkable, because we know the myths about the gods are not literally true. But at least they offer a hope of placating the gods by worship — there is something you can do. Hard determinism offers not even that. It is a necessity that knows no placation. Between a false belief that still leaves you some agency and a false belief that eliminates it entirely, the first is less harmful.
Joshua: Alexander the Oracle Monger is relevant here too. He told Marcus Aurelius to wage a certain battle at a certain time, promising a great victory. The Romans suffered a terrible defeat. Alexander said: we prophesied a great victory, but we did not say to which side it would fall. That is the oracle’s defense — the prophecy was technically satisfied, just not as the recipient assumed. Once you allow the logic of prophecy, there is no possible outcome that could refute it.
Cassius: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar gives us both sides of this argument. Cassius — Cassius Longinus, an Epicurean — says to Brutus: men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. That is the Epicurean line. But Brutus, who is more of a Platonist, responds: there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Josh, how do you read that line?
Joshua: I read it as somewhat different from the Epicurean position, and appropriately so coming from Brutus. A tide in the affairs of men suggests that fortune is going to sweep you one way or the other regardless, and the only choice is to catch it at the right moment. Cassius the Epicurean would say: yes, tides exist — we do not have total control — but they do not flow because gods or fate decreed them, and the decision of when to sail is still yours.
Cassius: The broader Epicurean point here is that some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some are within our control. The things that are within our control are subject to no master, and praise and blame naturally attach to them. That is the space of morality and personal responsibility. We are not billiard balls. The whole Epicurean project is to get you to engage actively with the events of your life — to use your mind, follow the evidence, make choices, rather than sitting back and hoping fate or chance will reward you for doing nothing.
Joshua: And on the bread-and-water image, I want to add something. Alexander the Great’s surveyors, when they laid out the city of Alexandria, used barley flour to mark the survey lines because Egypt had no chalk. They had barley flour because the army had to eat — a whole army eating simple rations while conquering most of the known world. Just because you are eating bread does not mean you are living a miserable, cave-dwelling life with no ambition. Alexander had more ambition than almost anyone who ever lived, and his army ate barley. Epicurus recommending a simple accustomed diet as preparation for the vicissitudes of life is not recommending the prison diet. It is recommending the diet of an army on campaign.
Cassius: And then the letter closes with the meditate passage, which is perhaps the most practical single piece of advice in the whole letter. Meditate on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself and with a companion like to yourself. That is not passive. Meditation here is engagement — study, reflection, conversation with friends who share these values. It is an action you choose to take, and it is the practice that makes the rest of the philosophy live rather than just sitting on a shelf.
Callistheni: That is what I find most useful to take away. I do not have all the answers about what it means to live like a god among men. But meditating on the question — alone and with others — is itself the path toward it.
Cassius: Let me close with the peroration from the Torquatus material, which I think is the best summary we have of the whole importance of Epicurean philosophy. Torquatus says: ought we not to feel the greatest gratitude to him who caught this utterance of nature’s voice and grasped its import so firmly and so fully that he has guided all sane-minded men into the paths of peace and happiness, calmness and repose? That was written several hundred years after Epicurus, but it captures everything we have been working through since we started the letter to Herodotus. Next week we turn to the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda. Thank you all.
Joshua: Goodbye.
Martin: Bye.
Callistheni: Goodbye.