A Compilation of Abrahamic Attacks On Epicurus

This page collects passages in which Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious authorities attack Epicurus and the positions he taught. It is not an exhaustive survey and is not presented as one. It is a starting list for readers who want to investigate the subject further. Each quotation gives its source, and most link to an image of the printed page it comes from, so that the reader can check the context and follow the trail from there.

A passage is included whether or not it names Epicurus, so long as it argues against one of his main positions: that the universe is made of atoms and void, that it was not created and is not governed by any god, that the soul dies with the body, and that pleasure is the goal of life. Within each source the quotations are grouped by the position under attack, and a quotation that attacks two positions at once may appear twice. A few passages are not attacks at all but arguments against Scepticism that agree with Epicurus’s defense of the senses. These are labeled as such.

Many of these arguments are still repeated today, often by people who do not know where they came from.

Christian Church Fathers

Lactantius

Source for all quotations below: The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII (Roberts & Donaldson, eds.), William Fletcher’s translation, containing De Ira Dei (“On the Anger of God”), The Divine Institutes, and De Opificio Dei (“On the Workmanship of God”).

General Attacks on Epicurus and the Epicureans

De Ira Dei 4: “That which follows is concerning the school of Epicurus; that as there is no anger in God, so indeed there is no kindness. For when Epicurus thought that it was inconsistent with God to injure and to inflict harm, which for the most part arises from the affection of anger, he took away from Him beneficence also, since he saw that it followed that if God has anger, He must also have kindness.” Epicurus is named directly as Lactantius’s target for the whole treatise from this point forward. Lactantius, De Ira Dei 4 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III.17: “The system of Epicurus was much more generally followed than those of the others; not because it brings forward any truth, but because the attractive name of pleasure invites many. For every one is naturally inclined to vices.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.17 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes II.9, on Epicurus’s denial that matter/the world had a beginning: “the crazy Epicurus lived, who alone ventured to deny that which is most evident, doubtless through the desire of discovering novelties, that he might found a sect in his own name. And because he could find out nothing new, that he might still appear to disagree with the others, he wished to overthrow old opinions.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes II.9 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Atomism and Materialism

Divine Institutes III.17, on the atomist lineage: “For where or from whence are these atoms? Why did no one dream of them besides Leucippus? from whom Democritus, having received instructions, left to Epicurus the inheritance of his folly.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.17 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

De Opificio Dei III, on the Epicureans’ account of the world’s origin: “they ascribe the origin of all things to indivisible and solid bodies, from the fortuitous meetings of which they say that all things are and were produced.” Lactantius, De Opificio Dei III (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

De Opificio Dei XVIII, on Epicurean poets (Lucretius) collapsing mind and soul into one material faculty: “two Epicurean poets speak of the mind and the soul indifferently.” Lactantius, De Opificio Dei XVIII (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

The Eternity of the Universe

Divine Institutes II.9 (same passage as above), the context being Lactantius’s account of the ancient consensus, from the “first seven wise men” through Socrates and Plato, that the world had a beginning — a consensus he says Epicurus alone rejected. See clip above.

Divine Institutes VII.1 — here Lactantius’s engagement is more complicated than a flat denial: he credits Epicurus with getting the world’s mortality right (against Plato and Aristotle, who held that it would last forever), while faulting him for not explaining why or when it will end: “Epicurus alone, following the authority of Democritus, spoke truly in this matter, who said that it had a beginning at some time, and that it would at some time perish. Nor, however, was he able to assign any reason, either through what causes or at what time this work of such magnitude should be destroyed.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes VII.1 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

The Absence of a Designer, and Chance

De Ira Dei 9: “Epicurus said that there was indeed a God, because it was necessary that there should be in the world some being of surpassing excellence, distinction, and blessedness; yet that there was no providence, and thus that the world itself was ordered by no plan, nor art, nor workmanship.” Lactantius, De Ira Dei 8-9 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

De Ira Dei 10, on the atomist account of the world’s formation (Democritus and Epicurus treated together): “These, he says, flutter about with restless motions through empty space, and are carried hither and thither, just as we see little particles of dust in the sun when it has introduced its rays and light through a window. From these there arise trees and herbs, and all fruits of the earth; from these, animals, and water, and fire, and all things are produced, and are again resolved into the same elements.” Lactantius, De Ira Dei 10 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes I.2, on the source of the chance-vs-providence dispute: “a providence which consults for all things, or all things were either made or are governed by chance; which sentiment was introduced by Democritus, and confirmed by Epicurus.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes I.2 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes II.9, on the “how could God have built the world without hands or tools” argument: “as often as he follows the Epicureans, and does not admit that the world was made by God, is wont to inquire by what hands, by what machines, by what levers, by what contrivance, He made this work of such magnitude.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes II.9 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes VII.4, on the chance-collision account of the world’s formation: “because Epicurus or Democritus was unable to teach this, he said that it was produced of its own accord, by the seeds coming together in all directions; and that when these are again resolved, discord and destruction will follow.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes VII.4 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes VII.5, Epicurus questioning any purpose behind man’s creation: “What advantage is there to God in man, says Epicurus, that He should make him for His own sake?” Lactantius, Divine Institutes VII.5 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

De Opificio Dei VI, on Epicurus’s account of the body’s organs as pre-existing their use rather than being made for it: “Epicurus saw in the bodies of animals the skill of a divine plan; but that he might carry into effect that which he had before imprudently assumed, he added another absurdity agreeing with the former. For he said that the eyes were not produced for seeing, nor the ears for hearing, nor the feet for walking, since these members were produced before there was exercise of seeing, hearing, and walking; but that all the offices of these members arose from them after their production… What do you say, Epicurus? Were not the eyes produced for seeing? Why, then, do they see?” Lactantius, De Opificio Dei VI (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

The Denial of Divine Providence Over Human Affairs

De Ira Dei 8, the core statement of Epicurean theology as Lactantius presents it, quoting Lucretius (De Rerum Natura ii.646) as Epicurus’s own voice: “For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since, exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting anything of us, it is neither gained by favours nor moved by anger.” Lactantius, De Ira Dei 8 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III (chief-good discussion), a supplementary statement of Epicurean theology: “Epicurus calls God happy and incorruptible, because He is everlasting.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes V.22, on the practical/pastoral consequence of Epicurean theology: “Do we destroy them in a worse manner than the Epicureans, who admit the existence of gods, but deny that they regard anything, and say that they are neither angry nor are influenced by favour? By which words they plainly persuade men that they are not to be worshipped at all, inasmuch as they neither regard their worshippers, nor are angry with those who do not worship them.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.22 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

The Mortality of the Soul and the Denial of an Afterlife

Divine Institutes VII.7, on Epicurus’s reading of underworld-punishment myths as descriptions of this life rather than the next: “Epicurus was mistaken, who thought that that was an invention of the poets, and explained those punishments of the infernal regions, which are spoken of, as happening in this life.”

Divine Institutes VII.7 (same chapter, a few sentences earlier), grouping Epicurus with Democritus and Dicaearchus on the soul’s mortality: “Dicæarchus was mistaken, together with Democritus, who argued that souls perished with the body and were dissolved.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes VII.7 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes VII.7 (end of the chapter), naming the same three together as the leading ancient opponents of the soul’s immortality: “those who argued against this opinion had no less authority; Dicæarchus first, then Democritus, and lastly Epicurus: so that the matter itself, respecting which they were contending, was called into doubt.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes VII.7 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III.17, a direct quotation of Epicurus’s own words (Principal Doctrine 2), embedded by Lactantius as the target of his rebuttal: “When we are in existence, death does not exist; when death exists, we have no existence: therefore death is nothing to us.” Lactantius’s reply follows immediately: “How cleverly he has deceived us! As though it were death now completed which is an object of fear, by which sensation has been already taken away, and not the very act of dying, by which sensation is being taken from us.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.17 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Pleasure as the Goal of Life

Divine Institutes III.7, in a catalogue of rival schools’ answers to “the chief good”: “Epicurus deems that the chief good consists in pleasure of mind, Aristippus in pleasure of the body. Callipho and Dinomachus united virtue with pleasure, Diodorus with the privation of pain, Hieronymus placed the chief good in the absence of pain; the Peripatetics, again, in the goods of the mind, the body, and fortune.” Lactantius’s point in context is not a targeted refutation of Epicurus specifically but an argument from the philosophers’ mutual disagreement itself: “In such a difference of opinions, whom do we follow? whom do we believe?” — the existence of rival, contradictory answers is offered as proof that unaided philosophy cannot reach the chief good at all. Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.7 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III.17, on pleasure as the standard of a life well lived: “he was an advocate of most disgraceful pleasure, and said that man was born for its enjoyment.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.17 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III.27, on the Epicurean claim that the wise man is happy under any torment: “Epicurus speaks much more strongly. The wise man, he says, is always happy; and even when shut up in the bull of Phalaris he will utter this speech: ‘It is pleasant, and I do not care for it.’” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.27 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

The Argument That Without Divine Judgment There Is No Reason to Be Good

De Ira Dei 8, immediately following the passage quoted above, drawing out the practical consequence: “religion is altogether false, and there is no divinity; but all things are made up by skilful men, in order that they may live more uprightly and innocently” — stated as the conclusion an honest reader must draw if Epicurus’s account of a remote, unmoved God is accepted, and the very possibility Lactantius is arguing against. Lactantius, De Ira Dei 8 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes III.17, drawing out the same practical consequence from soul-mortality: “if the soul is doomed to perish, let us eagerly pursue riches, that we may be able to enjoy all kinds of indulgence; and if these are wanting to us, let us take them away from those who have them by stealth, by stratagem, or by force… For it is the part of the wise man to do evil, if it is advantageous to him, and safe… Therefore let us live in the indulgence of pleasures in every possible way.” Lactantius adds: “Although he does not say this in word, yet he teaches it in fact.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes III.17 (tr. Fletcher, ANF)

Divine Institutes Books IV and VI do not mention Epicurus.

Augustine, City of God

Source for all quotations below: A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, Vol. II (Philip Schaff, ed.), Marcus Dods’s translation of The City of God.

General Attacks on Epicurus and the Epicureans

City of God VIII.7, Augustine grouping Epicurus with the Stoics as philosophers who wrongly made the bodily senses the standard of truth: “to compare them with those who attributed to the bodily senses the faculty of discriminating truth, and thought that all we learn is to be measured by their untrustworthy and fallacious rules. Such were the Epicureans, and all of the same school.” Augustine, City of God VIII.7 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

Atomism and Materialism

City of God VI.5, Augustine reporting Varro’s own classification of “physical” theology, in which Epicurus’s atomism sits alongside Heraclitus’s fire and Pythagoras’s number as one philosophical account of the gods’ nature: “what gods there are, where they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time they have existed, or if they have existed from eternity; whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes; or of number, as Pythagoras; or of atoms, as Epicurus says.” Augustine, City of God VI.5 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

City of God VIII.5, on Epicurus’s atomism as a first-principle materialism in the same rank as Thales’s water and Anaximenes’s air: “Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that is to say, of minute corpuscules; and many others whom it is needless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, simple or compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies, were the cause and principle of all things.” Augustine, City of God VIII.5 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

City of God VIII.5 (same chapter, continuing), on the Epicureans’ account of living things arising from non-living matter: “For some of them — as, for instance, the Epicureans — believed that living things could originate from things without life.” Augustine, City of God VIII.5 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

The Eternity of the Universe

City of God XI.5, on Epicurus’s doctrine of infinite worlds arising from the chance movement of atoms, raised as the position an opponent of divine creation would be driven to: “will it not follow that they must adopt Epicurus’ dream of innumerable worlds? With this difference only, that he asserts that they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold that they are made by God’s hand.” Augustine, City of God XI.5 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

The Denial of Divine Providence Over Human Affairs

City of God XVIII.41, contrasting the Epicureans with the Stoics on providence over human affairs: “The Epicureans asserted that human affairs were not under the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding the opposite opinion, agreed that they were ruled and defended by favorable and tutelary gods.” Augustine, City of God XVIII.41 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

City of God XVIII.41 (same chapter), pointing out that Athens tolerated Epicurus’s denial that the gods inhabit or govern the world at all, while it had condemned Anaxagoras merely for denying the sun was a god: “why, then, was Anaxagoras accused of a crime for saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that it was a god at all; while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and lived securely, although he not only did not believe that the sun or any star was a god, but contended that neither Jupiter nor any of the gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers and supplications of men might reach them?” Augustine, City of God XVIII.41 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

Pleasure as the Goal of Life

City of God V.20, on the Epicureans making bodily health/pleasure the standard by which even the virtues are to be measured: “Temperance she commands to take only a certain quantity even of the most favorite food, lest, through immoderate use, anything prove hurtful by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure, which the Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health of the body, be grievously offended. Thus the virtues, with the whole dignity of their glory, will be the slaves of Pleasure.” Augustine, City of God V.20 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

City of God XIV.2, naming the Epicureans directly as the philosophers who “live after the flesh” because they make bodily pleasure the highest good: “suppose that the Epicurean philosophers live after the flesh, because they place man’s highest good in bodily pleasure.” Augustine, City of God XIV.2 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

City of God XIX.1, Augustine’s report of Varro’s classification of the philosophical sects by their account of the highest good, naming Epicurus as the one who collapses pleasure and repose into a single good: “either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls by the one name, pleasure.” Varro via Augustine, City of God XIX.1 (tr. Dods, NPNF)

Augustine, Confessions

Source for the quotation below: A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, Vol. I (Philip Schaff, ed.), J. G. Pilkington’s translation of The Confessions.

The Mortality of the Soul and the Denial of an Afterlife and Pleasure as the Goal of Life (the passage argues both at once)

Confessions VI.16, section 26. Unlike the hostile treatments above, this passage is Augustine candidly conceding Epicureanism’s appeal rather than attacking it: he recalls that in debating the nature of good and evil with his friends Alypius and Nebridius, only his belief in an afterlife and future judgment kept him from conceding the argument to Epicurus. “And in disputing with my friends, Alypius and Nebridius, concerning the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus had, in my judgment, won the palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and places of recompense, which Epicurus would not believe. And I demanded, ‘Supposing us to be immortal, and to be living in the enjoyment of perpetual bodily pleasure, and that without any fear of losing it, why, then, should we not be happy, or why should we search for anything else?’ — not knowing that even this very thing was a part of my great misery, that, being thus sunk and blinded, I could not discern that light of virtue and of beauty to be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of flesh cannot see, and is seen only from within.” Augustine, Confessions VI.16 (tr. Pilkington, NPNF)

Augustine, Contra Academicos

The published English translations of Contra Academicos (Kavanagh, 1943; O’Meara, 1951; King, 1995) are all still under copyright. The quotations below are therefore translated directly from the Latin text of the CSEL critical edition, Sancti Aureli Augustini Contra Academicos Libri Tres (Pius Knöll, ed.), Vienna/Leipzig, 1922, and each is linked to the scanned Latin page it comes from. The English renderings are original translations of that Latin text, not quotations of any published translator.

Arguments Against Scepticism (Compatible With Epicurus, Not an Attack)

Contra Academicos III.7.15–16 stages an imagined three-way quarrel among a Stoic, an Epicurean, and an Academic over who the wise man is — and Augustine’s point is that the Academic’s perpetual suspension of judgment leaves him unable to referee it. Both parties invoke Epicurus by name in their mutual mockery, giving a rare glimpse of how the Stoic-Epicurean feud itself sounded to a later reader: “Suppose the Stoic wise man is present, for it was chiefly against them that the ingenuity of the Academics was roused. If Zeno or Chrysippus, then, is asked who the wise man is, he will answer that it is the one whom he himself has described. Against this, Epicurus, or any other of the opponents, will deny it, and will contend that his own most skilled hunter of pleasures is instead the wise man. Then comes the quarrel: Zeno shouts, and the whole Stoic Porch erupts, insisting that man is born for nothing but honor, that honor draws souls to itself by its own splendor with no reward attached from outside, and that Epicurus’s ‘pleasure’ is something shared only among beasts among themselves, into whose fellowship it is wrong to thrust either man or the wise man. Against them, he [the Epicurean], having called up from the Gardens, as if summoned by Bacchus, a crowd of the intoxicated as reinforcements — a crowd nonetheless looking, with unkempt nails and savage mouths, for someone to tear apart in their revelry — presses hard, extolling before the people the name of pleasure, its sweetness, its tranquility, until no one seems able to be happy without it. If the Academic runs into this brawl, he will hear both sides pulling him toward their own position; but if he gives way to either one, he will be denounced as mad, ignorant, and reckless by the side he abandons. So, having carefully lent an ear to both, when asked what he thinks, he will say only that he is in doubt. Now ask the Stoic which is better — Epicurus, who calls the Academic a madman, or the Academic, who says he must still deliberate about so great a matter — and no one doubts the Academic will be preferred. Then turn to the Epicurean instead and ask whom he loves more: Zeno, by whom he is called a beast, or Arcesilas, from whom he hears, ‘Perhaps you speak the truth, but I shall look into it more carefully’ — is it not plain that to Epicurus the whole Stoic Porch seems insane, while the Academics, by comparison, seem to him modest and cautious men?” Augustine, Contra Academicos III.7.15–16 (Latin, ed. Knöll, CSEL)

Contra Academicos III.11.25–26 has Augustine defending the reliability of the senses against the Academics by voicing the Epicurean position directly — a position that matches Epicurus’s own canonic doctrine that all sensations are true reports of what actually affects the senses: “Well then — suppose some Epicurean should say: ‘I have no complaint to make against the senses; for it is unjust to demand of them more than they can give; and whatever the eyes are able to see, they see truly.’” Augustine goes on to apply this exact reasoning himself against the Academic skeptics and adds: “Therefore no likeness of falsehoods confuses what I have said I know — and the Epicurean or the Cyrenaics might have much else to say besides in defense of the senses, against which I am told nothing has been said by the Academics.” Augustine, Contra Academicos III.11.25–26 (Latin, ed. Knöll, CSEL)

Pleasure as the Goal of Life

Contra Academicos III.12.27, continuing the same discussion, refers to “those who have placed the true highest good of man in pleasure” as unbothered by the senses’ apparent inconsistencies (a dove’s neck shifting color, a sound heard differently by different listeners) because, on this view, one only ever claims to know that one is pleased by what pleases or displeased by what displeases: “For how does bodily sense help or hinder one inquiring into morals? Indeed nothing hinders those very people who have placed the true highest good of man in pleasure — not a dove’s neck, not an uncertain sound, not a weight heavy for a man that is light for a camel, nor six hundred other such things — from saying that they know they are delighted by what delights them, or offended by what offends them.” Augustine, Contra Academicos III.12.27 (Latin, ed. Knöll, CSEL)

General Attacks on Epicurus and the Epicureans

Contra Academicos III.17.41, a dismissive aside on Epicureanism’s popularity, uses the same livestock imagery found in the “swine of Epicurus’s herd” tradition: “For the herds of Epicureans have pitched their sunny stalls in the souls of self-indulgent peoples.” Augustine, Contra Academicos III.17.41 (Latin, ed. Knöll, CSEL)

Minucius Felix

Source for the quotations below: The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV (Roberts & Donaldson, eds.), the Rev. R. E. Wallis’s translation of The Octavius of Minucius Felix.

The Denial of Divine Providence Over Human Affairs

Octavius XIX, in Octavius’s survey of the philosophers’ opinions on the nature of God, on Epicurus’s theology: “Moreover, Epicurus, the man who feigns either otiose gods or none at all, still places above all, Nature.” Minucius Felix, Octavius XIX (tr. Wallis, ANF)

The Absence of a Designer, and Chance

Octavius XVII. Epicurus is not named in this passage, but the target is his physics: the ANF editors’ own footnote glosses “fragments” here as “atoms,” and Octavius is arguing against exactly the atomist claim that the ordered world arose from the chance combination of material particles, not from divine design: “Wherefore the rather, they who deny that this furniture of the whole world was perfected by the divine reason, and assert that it was heaped together by certain fragments casually adhering to each other, seem to me not to have either mind or sense, or, in fact, even sight itself.” Minucius Felix, Octavius XVII (tr. Wallis, ANF)

Jewish Sources

Rabbinic literature has a term taken directly from the name of Epicurus: אפיקורוס (apikoros or epikoros). It is used as a legal and religious category, not just a loose insult. The term’s definition and the rabbinic debate over who qualifies are included below alongside the passages that engage Epicurus’s actual positions.

The Mishnah and the Talmud: Sanhedrin 10:1 and 99b–100a

The Hebrew term itself: אֶפִּיקוֹרֶס (epikores/apikoros), from the Mishnah’s own text (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1, Hebrew, Kaufmann/Vilna textual tradition as given on Sefaria): “וְאֵלּוּ שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, הָאוֹמֵר אֵין תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים מִן הַתּוֹרָה, וְאֵין תּוֹרָה מִן הַשָּׁמָיִם, וְאֶפִּיקוֹרֶס” — “And these are they who have no share in the World to Come: one who says there is no resurrection of the dead from the Torah, and one who says the Torah is not from Heaven, and an epikoros.”

General Attacks, and Apikoros as a Legal Term

Mishnah Sanhedrin X.1 (= 10:1), listing the apikoros alongside denial of resurrection and denial of the Torah’s heavenly origin as forfeiting a share in the World to Come, with the translator’s own footnote on the term directly beneath: “These are they who have no share in the world to come: who say there is no resurrection of the dead; that the Law is not from Heaven; and the Epicureans. R. Akiba adds: He who reads the external books; and he who whispers over a wound, saying: All the sickness which I brought on Egypt I will not bring upon thee, etc. Abba Shaul adds: He who pronounces the Name with its proper letters.” Danby’s footnote on “the Epicureans”: “An epithet constantly applied to those, Jews and Gentiles alike, who come into opposition with Rabbinical standpoints. The word probably owes its popularity and frequency as a term of abuse, not to a widespread knowledge and practice of Epicurean teachings, so much as to the word-play on the root paḳar, ‘be free from restraint, licentious, sceptical.’” Denial of the resurrection is named in the same clause as the apikoros himself. Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 (tr. Danby, 1919)

Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 99b–100a, the Gemara’s own debate over who exactly qualifies as an “Epicurean” once the Mishnah has named the category — several named authorities each propose a different practical test: “‘Epicurean,’ etc. Both Rabh and R. Hanina said: He who disgraces a scholar is meant. And both R. Johanan and R. Jehoshua b. Levi said: He who disgraces his neighbor in the presence of a scholar… And the question was, if he who disgraces his colleague in the presence of a scholar is considered as explaining the Torah wrongly, who then is considered an Epicurean? Said R. Joseph: E.g., those who say, What good do the rabbis do to us? They read and study the Torah for their own sake… And an epicurean is considered — e.g., if one sits before his master and recollects a Halakha stated somewhere else and says, so and so we have learned there, but does not say: And the master said so. Rabha, however, said: An epicurean is considered — e.g., the disciples of Benjamin the physician, who used to say, What good have the rabbis done for us? They have never permitted us to eat a crow, and they have not prohibited us to eat a dove.” The passage goes on to add R. Papa’s test (speaking of the rabbis in the same idiom used for ordinary people) and R. Na’hman’s (naming one’s teacher without an honorific). Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 99b–100a (tr. Rodkinson, New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Vol. XVI, 1896), continued on the following page

The Mortality of the Soul and the Denial of Resurrection

Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 (see above for the full clause and page image): the apikoros is grouped in the same sentence with the one who denies that the resurrection is taught in the Torah.

Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 99b, the Gemara’s opening question on the same Mishnah, applying a measure-for-measure principle to the denial of resurrection specifically: “GEMARA: Is he who does not believe that the resurrection is hinted at in the Torah such a criminal that he loses his share in the world to come? It was taught: He denies resurrection, therefore he will not have a share in it, as punishment corresponds to the deed; for all retributions of the Holy One, blessed [be He, are measure for measure].” Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 99b (tr. Rodkinson, New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Vol. XVI, 1896)

The Mishnah is quoted from Herbert Danby’s 1919 translation of Tractate Sanhedrin: Mishnah and Tosefta (not his complete Mishnah of 1933), and the Gemara from Michael L. Rodkinson’s New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Vol. XVI (1896). Rodkinson’s page numbers are his own book’s pagination, not the standard Vilna folio numbers, but the passage is the same Sanhedrin 99b–100a found in every edition of the tractate.

Maimonides

Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1138–1204) is medieval rather than Talmudic proper, but he continues the same argument line directly — both by giving his own systematic legal definition of apikoros in his law code, and by engaging Epicurus’s actual physical and theological positions philosophically in his own right. He is included here as a later continuation of the rabbinic material above.

The standard English translation of the relevant part of the Mishneh Torah, Moses Hyamson’s Book of Knowledge (1937), is still under copyright. The Mishneh Torah quotations below are therefore original English renderings of the Hebrew, not a published translator’s, linked to the page of a printed Hebrew edition (Warsaw, 1881) and checked against the Hebrew text on Sefaria. The Guide for the Perplexed quotations use M. Friedländer’s English translation (2nd edition, 1904) and are linked to that translation’s own pages.

General Attacks, and Apikoros as a Legal Term

Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah (Laws of Repentance) 3:8, Maimonides’s own systematic definition of apikoros, expanding the Mishnah’s bare mention of the term into three specific enumerated positions: “Three are called apikorsim: one who says there is no prophecy at all, and that no knowledge reaches the heart of human beings from the Creator; one who denies the prophecy of Moses our teacher; and one who says the Creator does not know the deeds of human beings. Each one of these three is an apikoros.” The third clause, denying that the Creator knows what human beings do, is a direct denial of providence over human affairs (see below). Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:8 (Warsaw, 1881 printing; rendered from the Hebrew)

Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Chapter LXXIII, in Maimonides’s survey of the Kalam theologians’ twelve propositions about atoms: he notes in passing that the Mutakallemim’s atoms differ from the classical atomist account on one specific point — permanence in number: “These atoms, they believe, are not, as was supposed by Epicurus and other Atomists, numerically constant; but are created anew whenever it pleases the Creator; their annihilation is therefore not impossible.” A brief comparative aside rather than a direct attack, but it shows Maimonides treating Epicurus’s atomism as the standard reference point against which a rival theological physics defines itself. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed I.73 (tr. Friedländer, 1904)

The Absence of a Designer, and Chance

Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, Chapter XIII, after laying out the three theories on the eternity of the universe held by those who accept God’s existence (the Mosaic, Platonic, and Aristotelian views), Maimonides sets Epicurus apart as denying God’s existence altogether and deriving cosmic order from chance: “It would be quite useless to mention the opinions of those who do not recognize the existence of God, but believe that the existing state of things is the result of accidental combination and separation of the elements, and that the Universe has no Ruler or Governor. Such is the theory of Epicurus and his school, and similar philosophers, as stated by Alexander [Aphrodisiensis]; it would be superfluous to repeat their views, since the existence of God has been demonstrated whilst their theory is built upon a basis proved to be untenable.” Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed II.13 (tr. Friedländer, 1904)

The Denial of Divine Providence Over Human Affairs

Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, Chapter XVII, the fullest and most direct engagement with Epicurus in the whole work — the “First Theory” in Maimonides’s survey of five theories of Divine Providence, naming Epicurus outright and linking him to a biblical description of atheism applied to Jews who shared his view: “There is no Providence at all for anything in the Universe; all parts of the Universe, the heavens and what they contain, owe their origin to accident and chance; there exists no being that rules and governs them or provides for them. This is the theory of Epicurus, who assumes also that the Universe consists of atoms, that these have combined by chance, and have received their various forms by mere accident. There have been atheists among the Israelites who have expressed the same view; it is reported of them: ‘They have denied the Lord, and said he is not’ (Jer. v. 12). Aristotle has proved the absurdity of the theory, that the whole Universe could have originated by chance; he has shown that, on the contrary, there is a being that rules and governs the Universe.” Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed III.17 (tr. Friedländer, 1904)

Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:8 (see above for the full clause and page image): the third of the three enumerated apikoros positions is precisely this claim: “one who says the Creator does not know the deeds of human beings.”

The Mortality of the Soul and the Denial of Resurrection

Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:6, Maimonides’s own expansion of the Mishnah’s “no share in the World to Come” list into a longer enumerated catalogue, in which denial of resurrection is named as its own distinct category standing alongside (not merged into) the apikoros and min categories: “And these are they who have no share in the World to Come, but are cut off and perish and are punished for the greatness of their wickedness and their sin forever and ever: the minim, and the apikorsim, and those who deny the Torah, and those who deny the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the redeemer, the rebels, and those who cause the many to sin, and those who separate themselves from the ways of the community…” (the list continues with several further categories not directly relevant here). Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:6 (Warsaw, 1881 printing; rendered from the Hebrew)

Epicurus is named three times in the Guide for the Perplexed, and all three passages are given above.

Islamic Sources

Al-Ghazali

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (AD 1058–1111) was the most influential theologian of medieval Islam. His autobiography, al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (“Deliverance from Error”), divides philosophers into three sects and condemns all three. He does not name Epicurus, but his first two sects, the “Materialists” (in Arabic, dahriyyun) and the “Naturalists,” are defined by the positions Epicurus taught: an uncreated, eternal world with no designer, and a soul that dies with the body.

Source for the quotations below: The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, translated by Claud Field (London: John Murray, 1909, Wisdom of the East series). The full book can be read or downloaded free at archive.org.

The Eternity of the Universe and The Absence of a Designer, and Chance

Confessions (Field, p. 25), on the first sect: “The philosophical systems, in spite of their number and variety, may be reduced to three (1) The Materialists; (2) The Naturalists; (3) The Theists. (1) The Materialists. They reject an intelligent and omnipotent Creator and Disposer of the Universe. In their view the world exists from all eternity and had no author. The animal comes from semen and semen from the animal; so it has always been and will always be; those who maintain this doctrine are atheists.” Al-Ghazali, Confessions, p. 25 (tr. Field, 1909)

The Mortality of the Soul and the Denial of an Afterlife

Confessions (Field, pp. 25–26), on the second sect, who study nature and admit a Creator but deny that the soul survives the body: “But carried away by their natural researches they believed that the existence of a being absolutely depended upon the proper equilibrium of its organism. According to them, as the latter perishes and is destroyed, so is the thinking faculty which is bound up with it; and as they assert that the restoration of a thing once destroyed to existence is unthinkable, they deny the immortality of the soul. Consequently they deny heaven, hell, resurrection, and judgment.” Al-Ghazali, Confessions, p. 25 (tr. Field, 1909), continued on p. 26

Pleasure as the Goal of Life and The Argument That Without Divine Judgment There Is No Reason to Be Good

Confessions (Field, p. 26), continuing the same passage, drawing the moral consequence he sees in denying a judgment after death: “Acknowledging neither a recompense for good deeds nor a punishment for evil ones, they fling off all authority and plunge into sensual pleasures with the avidity of brutes. These also ought to be called atheists, for the true faith depends not only on the acknowledgment of God, but of His Apostle and of the Day of Judgment. And although they acknowledge God and His attributes, they deny a judgment to come.” Al-Ghazali, Confessions, p. 26 (tr. Field, 1909)

The Denial of Divine Providence Over Human Affairs and The Eternity of the Universe

Confessions (Field, pp. 33–34). Here al-Ghazali’s target is the Aristotelian philosophy of al-Farabi and Avicenna, against which he wrote The Destruction of the Philosophers. Two of the three positions he condemns as opposed to all the doctrines of Islam, that God does not attend to particular things and that the universe is eternal, are also positions of Epicurus: “The three propositions in which they are opposed to all the doctrines of Islam are the following: (1) Bodies do not rise again; spirits alone will be rewarded or punished; future punishments will be therefore spiritual and not physical. They are right in admitting spiritual punishments, for there will be such; but they are wrong in rejecting physical punishments, and contradicting in this manner the assertions of the Divine Law. (2) ‘God takes cognisance of universals, not of specials.’ This is manifestly irreligious. The Koran asserts truly, ‘Not an atom’s weight in heaven or earth can escape His knowledge’ (x. 62). (3) They maintain that the universe exists from all eternity and will never end. None of these propositions have ever been admitted by Moslems.” Al-Ghazali, Confessions, p. 33 (tr. Field, 1909), continued on p. 34