Epictetus

Epictetus, a celebrated disciple of the Stoa, was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, about 50 A.D. He was at first the slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero, at Rome, and endured his severe treatment with characteristic stoic equanimity. After being manumitted he devoted himself to philosophy, and was banished by Domitian, along with several other philosophers, from Rome. He settled at Nikopolis, in Epirus. He left no works behind him, but his pupil Arrian, the historian of Alexander the Great, collected his maxims with affectionate care, in the work entitled Enchiridion ('Handbook') and in eight books of Commentaries, four of which are lost. These reveal the simple and noble earnestness of the philosopher's character, as well as that real heartfelt love of good and hatred of evil which is often assumed to be an exclusively Christian feeling. Epictetus believes in our 'resemblance' to God, in our 'relationship' to him, and in our 'union' with him through the coincidence of the 'will' and the 'soul'; he recognises the contest between good and evil, the life-struggle in the heart, the divine life against which the law in the members wars; and he affirms the necessity of 'invoking God's assistance in the strife,' that the inner life may become pure as God is pure. His ethics teach self-renunciation, endurance, and the duty of confining the ambition within the limits of the attainable. The most complete edition is that of Schweighäuser (5 vols. 1799-1800). See STOICS.