Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus

Walter Englert

March 3, 2004

How to Live Like an Epicurean God

I. Outline of the talk

A. Introduction: Lucretius, epic poetry, and the gods

B. Lucretius: Epicurean, Roman, and Poet

1. Lucretius the Epicurean: Epicurus’ philosophical system

2. Lucretius the Roman: the Roman use of philosophy

3. Lucretius the Poet: Why an Epicurean epic?

C. Attacking religion and saving the gods

1. Book 1. 921-950 Lucretius’ poetic mission

2. Book 1. 1-43 The invocation to Venus

3. Book 1. 44-148 Epicurus’ battle with religion

4. Book 5. 1-54 Lucretius addresses Epicurus as a god

D. Conclusion: Can we become Epicurean gods?

1. Book 3. 1-30 Philosophy and human happiness

II. Passages

1. … some people believe that Epicurus, in order to avoid offending the Athenians, preserved the gods in words (verbis), but in reality (re) did away with them. (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.85)

2. The cry of the flesh is not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold. For if someone has these things and is confident of having them in the future, he might contend even with Zeus for happiness. (Epicurus, Vatican Saying 33)

3. Live without being noticed. (Fragment of Epicurus, Usener 551)

4. Friendship dances around the world announcing to all of us that we must wake up to blessedness. (Epicurus, Vatican Saying 52)

5. The Tetrapharmakos ("Fourfold Cure")

Don’t fear god,

Don’t worry about death,

What is good is easy to get,

What is terrible is easy to endure.
  1. Do and practice these things which I have continually told you about, and accept them as the first elements of living well. First, thinking that god is an indestructible and blessed living creature, as the common conception of god indicates, do not ascribe to him anything inconsistent with his indestructibility or unsuitable to his blessedness. Believe about him all that is able to preserve his blessedness and indestructibility. For gods do exist, for there is clear knowledge of them. But they are not such as the many think they are. For people do not carefully guard of what sort they think them to be. It is not the one who rejects the gods of the many that is impious, but the one who applies the opinions of the many to the gods. (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123)

7. …It is a joy to approach pure springs

and to drink from them, and it is a joy to pick new flowers

and to seek a preeminent crown for my head from that place

whence the Muses had wreathed the temples of no one before; 930

first because I am teaching about great things and proceeding

to free the mind from the narrow bonds of religion,

next because I am writing so clear a poem about so obscure

a subject, touching everything with the charm of the Muses. (Lucretius 1. 927-934)

8. O unhappy human race, to have attributed

such activities and assigned fierce anger to the gods! 1195

What groans did they then beget for themselves, what

great harm for us, what tears for our descendents!

Piety is not to be seen often with head covered

turning towards a stone and approaching every altar,

nor to lie prostrate on the ground with open palms 1200

before the shrines of the gods, nor to sprinkle altars

with a profusion of the blood of beasts, nor to join vow to vow.

It is rather to be able to look upon everything with a tranquil mind.

(Lucretius 5. 1194-1203)

9. For if we must speak as the majesty of things now

known to us demands, he [Epicurus] was a god, a god, illustrious Memmius,

who was the first one to discover this system of life which

now is called wisdom ... (Lucretius 5. 7-10)

10. For as soon as your philosophy, sprung from your divine mind,

begins to give voice to the nature of things, 15

the mind’s terrors dissipate, the walls of the world

dissolve, I see things carried along through the whole void.

The divinity of the gods appears, and their quiet dwelling-places,

which neither winds buffet nor clouds soak with violent

rains, nor does snow formed from biting frost, falling 20

white, disturb them, but an always cloudless atmosphere

spreads over them and smiles with light diffused in all directions.

Nature, moreover, supplies all their needs, nor does anything

nibble away at their peace of mind at any time.

But in contrast, never do the regions of Acheron appear, 25

nor does the earth prevent from being seen all the things

which are carried along through the void below beneath our feet.

Then, from these things a kind of divine rapture (divina voluptas)

and shivering awe (horror) seizes me, because in this way nature

by your power has been uncovered and laid open in all directions. 30

(Lucretius 3. 14-30)

III. Bibliography

Clay, Diskin. Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca, 1983.

Gale, Monica. Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge, 1994.

–––, Lucretius and Didactic Epic. London, 2001.

Griffin, Miriam and Barnes, Jonathan. Philosophia Togata. Oxford, 1989.

Nussbaum Martha. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton, 1994.

Purinton, Jeffrey. "Epicurus on the Nature of the Gods." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 21 (2001) 181-231.

Sedley, David. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge, 1998.

 

Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus