Book Notes - Epictetus

(Originally written November 9, 2006 in Book 11)

Epictetus

Epictetus was a slave in Rome during the reign of Nero.

He got his freedom at some point and taught in Rome until 98 AD. He was expelled with all other philosophers by Emperor Domitian.

Like Socrates, Epictetus never wrote anything but his disciples wrote down his "discourses" and many have survived.

Religious Temperament

He had a Stoic religious tendency.

He maintained that God exists and nothing man could do can be hidden from him.

God provided man with the intellectual faculty.

Man was a "fragment turn from God" according to Epictetus. Every man has a portion of God.

From this Epictetus concluded that man's duty to live up to his high moral duty was because of his kinship with God.

Epictetus held that we ought to accept whatever God gives us.

All men are equally God's creatures; they are all equally members of one community.

Man is to be willing to lose his individuality. He is to sacrifice himself for the sake of the whole if need be.

Epictetus gravitated towards the asocial tendency of the Stoics.

Epictetus preached quietude and religious piety.