Epictetus and the Bible both had the same answer. The first century Roman Philosopher writes: “If a man could only take heart to this judgement, as he ought, that we are all, before anything else, children of God and that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never harbor a mean or ignoble thought about himself… We ought to be proud, but we are not; as there are these two elements mingled in our birth, the body which we share with the animals, and the reason and mind which we share with the gods, men in general decline upon that wretched and dead kinship with the beasts, and but few claim that which is divine and blessed.” -Epictetus, Philosopher of Rome 1st Century AD
This passage comes from page seventeen Chapter III of the book The Discourses of Epictetus and the Enchiridion which is available through Royal Classics; the 2020 Edition.
Today we will look at the wisdom of Epictetus and how it dovetails closely with the teachings of Saint Paul in the Christian Bible. Epictetus was not a Christian but, as I have said repeatedly Wisdom Literature appears to be remarkably the same from culture to culture. This is not too surprising because, for the most part, humans are genetically the same from continent to continent and people to people. Wisdom, offered by sage observers of human nature provided teachings on how to live successfully in a challenging and troublesome world based upon their observations of the world and their observations of people and their actions and reactions.
One of the philosophies of human nature and how to act that developed in the ancient world was Stoicism. While some stoics completely rejected emotions, and I do believe that is unhealthy, I do agree with the stoics that if we let our feelings and emotions dominate our life and our decisions then we are embracing an animal nature and denying our ability to reason and rise above the animals. This reliance on human reason and logic is a hallmark of the Western World that we rarely teach in schools or universities today. It is an ability that, ultimately, has created Western Civilization through logic, mathematics, and scientific inquiry. This is a civilization and society which is the most advanced and richest society the Earth has ever seen (at least that we can verify within our historical record.)
Stoicism is a philosophy that centered around self-control, self-knowledge, and maintaining a positive mental attitude as well as knowing your place in the Created Universe. Which, as Epictetus said included the knowledge that we are all children of God. Many of the philosophers referred to this as ZEUS or IUPITER as they were familiar to all. But most of the philosophers actually spoke of a God of Nature behind both Nature and the popular concept of gods.
Christianity told people the same, that we were children of the Living God and that our body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul said in one of his letters “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” The indwelling of an immanent God was indwelling in the entire Divine Creation (an idea called Panentheism – See Below,) but in a unique and special way in humans. In the Bible God speaks to the others and says, “Let us make man in our own image.”
This recognition that we had a divine nature eschewed complaining and whining about bad luck and stoics would have scoffed at today’s epidemic of professional victims and constant whining on social media about how tough life is or how you have been wronged. Many stoics became powerful men who had command of themselves and could therefore command others. One of the most famous and admired emperors of ancient Rome was the stoic Marcus Aurelius and he wrote a book of meditations that we can study and read today. I am actually much more familiar with the stoics Seneca and Marcus Aurelius (which is why I bought this book on Epictetus – to fill in gaps in my knowledge, I hate not knowing things. No matter how much I learn in this life it will just be a drop in an ocean of knowledge, but I believe that you must embrace your own drop of life to be part an active part of that ocean.)
Epictetus was a Roman and a Stoic who lived in the first Century AD. He was born a Caucasian slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (now called Pamukkale, Turkey,) and spent his youth as a slave in Rome, owned by Epaphroditos, a wealthy freedman and secretary to the Emperor Nero. Epictetus was intelligent and had an interest in philosophy so his owner let him study Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus. As was the way in Rome the more educated the slave became the more status he had and the more valuable he was to his master. There is some confusion as to how Epictetus became crippled. Simplicius states that he had been lame since childhood while Origen stated that he had been deliberately crippled by his master when angry. We will probably never know.
Epictetus was freed sometime after the death of Emperor Nero in 68 AD when the youth was in his teens but we don’t know the year. We do know that Emperor Domitian around 93 AD banished all philosophers from the city of Rome and Epictetus went to Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece where he founded a philosophical school centered around stoicism.
I mentioned that his words were similar to several of the teachings of Saint Paul and this is not too surprising. In fact, I think it would be surprising if some Stoicism had not crept into Paul’s “gospel” because he grew up as a Jew but also as a citizen of Rome in the city of Tarsus. This was a city that held one of the three great centers of the Stoa (A College of Stoic Philosophy,) in the ancient world.
“If a man could only take heart to this judgement, as he ought, that we are all, before anything else, children of God and that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never harbor a mean or ignoble thought about himself…We ought to be proud, but we are not; as there are these two elements mingled in our birth, the body which we share with the animals, and the reason and mind which we share with the gods, men in general decline upon that wretched and dead kinship with the beasts, and but few claim that which is divine and blessed.”Epictetus, Chapter III, p.17, The Discourses of Epictetus and the Enchiridion by Epictetus
So, in brief, Epictetus says everyone has two natures. An animal nature which is tied to the biology of our physical body and a Divine nature as children of the Father of gods and men through our higher brain functions. He encourages us to live up to our Divine heritage and not lower ourselves to acting on our baser impulses like animals.
I find it interesting that modern feminism has encouraged women to act out and sate their baser passions (like animals in heat,) rather than aspire to a higher idea or goal. In a sense they somehow believe it is liberating (?) to imitate the basest and most visceral failings of men and animals. I have noticed in my dogs that they really don’t have much ability to resist a bitch in heat. I have known one or two men with the same lack of self-control.
I will never understand how lowering yourself and giving full play to your animal nature somehow will make you a better person worthy of emulation and pride in self. I have watched numerous videos of women insisting that their body count doesn’t matter only to refuse to say what theirs is. This must be because down in their heart they realize that it very much does matter. At least a gentleman doesn’t tell or brag about it. But Gentleman, like Ladies, both seem to be a dying breed among the youth of today.
Still, everyone is entitled to ruin their own life in their own way. I cannot be terribly sympathetic when there are thousands of years of anecdotes, testimony, and tales that let us know that such behavior generally leads to ruin. My father always pressed the Biblical Proverbs on me telling me that I can either learn from the mistakes of others or learn by “the school of hard knocks” by getting knocked on my a** by life again and again. He told me that its much easier on you and your friends and family to learn from others. But, as I said, we are all welcome to fall on our faces and refuse to learn any other way, in fact many do so.
I cannot say that I always listened to my father. No, I first had to fall on my face several times until I recalled, “Oh, my Dad said something about this from the Proverbs in the Bible.” Eventually, I chose the easier path of going back to read philosophies and proverbs of the past. They have stood the test of time for literally thousands of years. Why? Because human nature evolves very slowly. This is why philosophies, such as communism, which rely on “creating a new man” are all dead-end philosophies because we evolve extremely slowly. Therefore, every generation needs to be retaught what previous generations have learned. Otherwise, you are forcing yourself to start over from scratch when the knowledge may well already be out there.
I remember complaining to my youngest son that it seems that all the movies of the last ten years are crap. He didn’t know what I meant until we sat and watched some old movies from the 70s and 80s that are classics. “You’re right he said. They are much better stories and have deeper characters.” I think the problem has to do with something the YouTuber Call Me Chato once said: “I have never seen a generation of directors, scriptwriters, camera men, and others who were LESS interested in learning the art of film making. They just throw something together and expect it to be good without considering the decades of trial and error that went into developing the movie industry.” That seems to be a problem that exists in other fields besides movies. Talk about doing everything the hard way.
Contemporary generations, more than any previous to them, seem to be unaware of the continuity of human knowledge. Every thing they know, every device they use, and every technology they covet has been built upon a long history of scientific discoveries preceding it and preparing the way for it. Knowledge is like people in a way. If you do not know where you have come from, and do not know where you are in relation to everything else, you have little to no chance of finding your way to where you want to be.
The worst work I have EVER seen is the Rings of Power by Amazon (well, except perhaps The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and The Banana Monster). I could go on for hours (and I have,) about all the problems there are with the elves and story in this Amazonian monstrosity… and I was really looking forward to it. But I never even got through the third episode before I gave up on it. But I have watched several excellent movies since 2020 – none of them were made in Hollywood though.
OK, that was a tangent, but it is an example of not listening to the wisdom of people who have gone before. I talk about that a lot. One of the things that is ancient knowledge is this idea that we have, in us, a spark of the Divine and we can either feed it so it grows or embrace our animal nature.
This brings me back to Epictetus. To realize we were created by the Living God, the Father of gods, is to know that we have a place in the universe and are not here by accident or chance (as radical materialism tries to ram down our throats…a theory that is no longer even sound scientifically although that is where it supposedly came from.) I believe that for fulfillment we need to have the higher mind engaged in what we do. While we should not indulge the animal self exclusively, I would point out to Epictetus that we are, in fact, also animals and we should not ignore our nature either. I believe in finding a harmony between the two.
Now, let us go no farther without addressing the warped character of American religious communities. Thanks to the Neo-Platonists and Manicheans (like St. Augustine,) who have had such a lasting effect on Christianity we view ANYTHING material or “of our animal side” as (almost) evil or at least dirty. This is not what I am saying. As the rabbi said, “God’s first commandment to humanity was to be fruitful and multiply.” Further, the ancient Hebrew mystics taught that it was in the moment of orgasm that we got a glimpse of the joy that would be ours in the world to come. A glimpse of the feeling of being one with God in the mutual climax of sex as two people come together and become one (even if only for a moment). You have to do some serious thinking of why did God put that there? It certainly wasn’t because he hated our bodies and our natural desires. God created those as well. Scientists today, although many don’t want to use the word God, they say there must be an intelligence behind everything because it all fits together with a mathematical precision.
Please note, I am not a Platonist or Manichean or Puritan who believes all nature is bad and spirit is good. We aren’t creatures with a body, a mind, and a spirit. Instead we are body/mind/spirit creatures. They are intertwined.
It was God who created the world and called it good. What we need is a full realization of that fact to find a balance, living in accordance with the world God gave us and feeding our spirit and our body, our reason and our heart. This is what is needed to make us “real” and not artificial. To give us life and that abundantly (as Christ promised.) Much of Christianity in America seems to hate sex – I think it goes back to our puritan roots. They say they don’t but then they act like they do. So, I am definitely not talking about rejecting our animal nature entirely.
But to focus on “that wretched and dead kinship with the beasts” as Epictetus says, while it may bring brief moments of pleasure that pleasure will be paid for by hours, or perhaps even years, of strife and sadness. It is the lingering regret that pays for the fleeting moments of joy and feeling, but regret is a feeling too and it is a poor exchange. Further, whichever side we feed…whether it is our kinship with the Creator or whether it is the beast within us that will be the side that grows in us and will eventually obtain dominance.
In the words of another Roman proverb we have discussed “Do what you are doing.” Be wholly present in everything you do bringing together the body, mind, and soul as one united effort that is wholly present in every aspect of your life.
This is something the younger generations desperately need to learn. Their life is empty and lonely, I believe, because they are not even living it. Friends can be sitting together at a table and absolutely none of them are even there. They are all electronically off doing something else on their phones and completely missing the visceral interaction with other human beings that produces the oxytocin and other chemicals that keep us happy and ward off depression.
Virtually no one is actually “doing what they are doing” and wholly present in the moment with their body/mind/soul fully engaged. They are too busy doing something else, checking their cyber world and getting cheap hits of artificial “likes” or “comments” and missing the real thing which is at the table with friends. In trying to keep track of everything and not be “left out” they are being left out of their own experience of living.
As they walk from point A to point B they are not experiencing the world. They are missing the singing of birds, the smell of flowers and trees in spring, the fresh smells of grass or cleanliness of a summer rain, they miss the rustle of leaves in the fall and the crisp cold air of winter and the crunch of snow under their feet. The are slaves to the notification chime and each time it rings, like Pavlov’s dogs (look it up on your phone,) they respond to the chime. They are not lords or their own life, neither is God, rather the media companies are.
I speak from experience about not living your own life. When I was a counterintelligence agent my mind was always on a case or the “fate of the free world” that hung in the balance. I went for years when I would be getting in my government car and I would look around and say, “Wow, the trees are full of leaves…I think I missed Spring.” Then suddenly the leaves were all about my feet and it was starting to sleet. After that, I turned back to heed what my Father had taught me long ago but I had set aside as “old fashioned” or as “wisdom for a happier day” which was to “listen to the trees – their talking to you if you listen. Cottonwoods talk to us more than any other tree. You can hear them in the rustling of the leaves in a breeze.” I finally, after missing years of my life, realized that it was as relevant for me today as it was for him decades ago…just as it was relevant for St Paul and Epictetus in the first years of the Roman Empire and as it was for every other human who has ever lived.
In the Proverbs it says that the female personification of Wisdom (the Holy Spirit) danced with God for joy at the moment of creation for God and with God. It is this sense of the Divine that takes joy in the act of living life and doesn’t let life fall by the wayside as we look dreamily toward heaven, the next life, or tweeking our profile picture. We all need to find our joy in the here and now and we need to dance a little ourselves with our friends.
As one theologian said, every moment we are either choosing “God” or “not God” and moving closer to our Divine nature or farther from it. I urge you to heed Epictetus and feed the Divine nature within you and remind yourself of that nature when you need to strengthen your confidence and resolve. I used to preach, and I often said to my congregation, “Children of God, remember who you are!”
So, while I agree with Epictetus, we all need to realize that we are the children of the Living God and start acting like it. Choose to live out of our higher nature and remember that we were made “stewards” of this world which we are a part of. A steward protected and cared for the estates of his Lord while the lord was doing other things. Somehow, our English Bibles have translated this idea of “stewards of Creation” as us having “dominion.” A steward does have such authority, but a steward is subject to answering to his or her Lord and will not be absolved for responsibility for his or her Lord’s creation. We need to accept our identity as children of the Living God, children of the Emperor of the Universe, that is truly something. But also we must accept our roles as caretakers of all that is natural and that we are a part of this world and that when it was created, with all its sex, emotion, desires, and reason God said that it was “good.” That too, is truly something.
“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit and that God’s spirit dwells in you?” – Saint Paul.
Realize that you are a child of the living God while simultaneously you are part of Creation created to be stewards of that creation, linking the Divine and the material in the dance that we call life. You are supposed to live it and be wholly present in your life, and (as God said,) be fruitful and multiply. Live your life to the full, find someone to love and share your lives with each other, marry, raise the next generation and delight in watching your children grow, and learn to be wholly present for them as well. Then, eventually let yourself slow down as they replace you and get their own chance to lay on the grass and look up at the clouds, or to ride their bike as fast as they can, or to walk hand in hand with their mom and dad, and later with their lover and have a chance to live THEIR life and overcome THEIR challenges and make a mark on their world.
“I came that you might have life, and that abundantly.” That was Jesus mission but it seems many of us have missed that.
That is the meaning of life. It was right before us all the time. The meaning of life is to simply live it. Remember that you are a child of the Living God, created as one with nature, and you are to live life to the full.
That is the secret of life…to live it and remember that you are somebody. A child of the Creator and we are all family. Called to live our life as those who went before us. Live and grow, find a mate, have and raise your children and let your grandchildren be your joy in your declining years as you watch the next generation live and grow.
Saint Paul calls for us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds as we learn new ways to live and think of God, the world, and each other.
NOTE: Pantheism and Panentheism
Pantheism can speak of many gods or it can include an idea that everything has a divine spirit or is a god it its own right. Panentheism, in contrast, does not mean that everyone is God, but that God is immanent in everyone and everything. Immanent simply means that God is permanently pervading and sustaining the universe by Its presence through the Holy Spirit, or the Shekinah in Hebrew. It is similar to the idea of the Force in Star Wars which Obi-Wan Kenobi explained surrounds us, penetrates us, and guides us. Many churches today emphasize the transcendence of God while neglecting His presence and day to day interaction with His creation. Ancient Hebrew mystics taught that all of the universe existed in the mind of God and if God would ever stop thinking of us we would blink out of existence. I find the similarity between this ancient belief that we exist in the mind of God and the modern idea that we live in the “mind” of a computer matrix to be uncannily similar.
Panentheism was embraced in the concept of the Force in Star Wars and was developed by George Lucas in talks long into the night with his friend Joseph Campbell, a philosopher and expert in religions and cultures of the Earth.
Original version was posted on SabersEdge.Online with some differences.