It is not things themselves that trouble people, but their opinions about things. Death, for instance, is nothing terrible (otherwise, it would have appeared that way to Socrates as well), but the terrible thing is the opinion that death is terrible. So whenever we are frustrated, or troubled, or pained, let us never hold anyone responsible except ourselves, meaning our own opinions. Uneducated people blame others when they are doing badly. Those whose education is underway blame themselves. But a fully educated person blames no one, neither himself nor anyone else. (Ench 5)
This passage complements Encheiridion 1, where Epictetus taught us that desiring and fearing things beyond our complete control will leave us “frustrated, pained, and troubled” and will cause us to “fault gods and men.” In Encheiridion 5, Epictetus takes this fundamental Stoic principle to its ultimate conclusion by adding death to the list of things we should not fear. He declares it is our opinion about death, rather than death itself, that troubles us. It is September 2021, and the Specter of death, in the form of the COVID pandemic, has been ever-present for more than two and a half years. This pandemic has changed our lives and our world. For some people, it has become an all-consuming fear. Yet, in this passage from the Encheiridion, Epictetus declares that death is nothing terrible.
For most people, particularly those raised in the West, an assertion like this by Epictetus might seem bizarre, and it may even provoke a negative response or dismissal. Let’s be honest. This claim is completely counter to the way most of us think and attempt to live our lives. We were taught that externals like the negative opinions of others, poverty, sickness, and especially death are inherently bad and necessarily entail unhappiness. We learned this lesson early in our childhood, and we learned it well. So well, in fact, that we spend a great deal of time, money, and energy attempting to avoid all these externals, death in particular. However, practicing Stoics are repeatedly confronted with lessons like this in the texts that teach the opposite. Stoicism teaches us we can have a good flow in life regardless of our present situation. This doctrine is the crux of Stoic philosophical practice.
At this point, some of you may be wondering, “In what way can that assertion by Epictetus be true? How can it be true that poverty, sickness, and even death are not terrible? How can it be that wealth, good health, and life are not inherently good?” Well, in every case except death, the answer provided by the Stoics is quite simple even though many people will likely find it unsatisfactory. The ancient Stoics teach us we must change our thinking about what is truly good and bad. They teach us that moral excellence is the only inherent good. Therefore, the Stoic path trains us to set aside our aversion to poverty, sickness, public shame, and everything that is not within our complete control, including death. There is no overstatement in this passage. Epictetus is not trying to shock us with hyperbole. He is simply restating a profound truth we repeatedly see throughout the Stoic writings.
An excellent character (virtue) is the only true good, and a corrupted character (vice) is the only truly bad thing. Therefore, if we seek happiness in things and events we do not entirely control, we will be frustrated, pained, and troubled. Likewise, we will be miserable if we strive to avoid anything other than those irrational thoughts and wicked intentions that corrupt our character (soul). Okay, you may be thinking, I understand that virtue is the only good, and everything else is an indifferent and should not be desired as something good, in itself, or feared as something bad in itself. But how can death not be terrible? After all, Stoicism does not offer the consolation of an afterlife.
To answer this question, Epictetus appeals to Socrates, one of the few the Stoics acknowledged as a Sage. He asserts that death is not terrible; otherwise, it would have appeared that way to Socrates. At first glance, this might appear to be a rather trite argument for not fearing death. Alternatively, it could appear as an unsophisticated appeal to authority. However, this passage has an unspoken message, which the students of Epictetus would have understood. Remember, the Encheiridion is a handbook designed to keep the lessons of Stoicism close at hand. Arrian created this handbook to remind practicing Stoics about the lessons with which they are already familiar. That is certainly the case here, so we need to dig a little deeper to understand this passage.
As I noted in Episode 4, Zeno embarked on his philosophical path after reading about the life of Socrates in Xenophon’s Memorabilia. Socrates was considered a Sage by the ancient Stoics. Therefore, to understand the meaning of Epictetus’ appeal to Socrates, we must turn to Plato’s Apology, which tells the story of Socrates’ trial. This story is what Epictetus is referring to in Encheiridion 5, and his students would have understood it.
As most of you likely know, Socrates was put on trial for impiety and other false charges. Socrates refused to beg, grovel, and weep for his accusers or the jurors during his trial. If you read Plato’s Apology, you will see Socrates was defiant, almost belligerent, during his trial. Then, after he was found guilty of the false charges, Socrates agreed with Meletus, one of his false accusers, that the sentence for these charges should be death. The jurors then held a second vote and condemned Socrates to death.
After warning the jurors their fate would be worse than his for the injustice they have done, Socrates turned to those who voted for acquittal and explained why he did not consider his death sentence a terrible thing. He reminded the jurors about his inner daimon or spiritual guide that always warned him when he was about to do something wrong. Socrates said,
At all previous times my familiar prophetic power, my spiritual manifestation, frequently opposed me, even in small matters, when I was about to do something wrong, but now that, as you can see for yourselves, I was faced with what one might think, and what is generally thought to be, the worst of evils, my divine sign has not opposed me, either when I left home at dawn, or when I came into court[1]
Let’s unravel this. Socrates’ argument goes something like this:
(P1) In the past, my divine sign, the Stoics called this a daimon or god within, always warned me when I was about to do something wrong, even if it was about a small matter.
(P2) My divine sign has been silent since I left my home to come to this trial. It was quiet when I refused to beg and plead for my life, and it was silent when I agreed the death sentence was appropriate for the crime for which I was accused and judged guilty.
(P3) The silence of my divine sign is evidence I have done nothing wrong, including recommending a death sentence for myself.
(C1) “What has happened to me may very well be a good thing.”
(C2) “Those of us who believe death to be an evil are certainly wrong.”
This is what Epictetus was appealing to as evidence that death is not something terrible. Epictetus is not simply saying death is nothing terrible because Socrates said so. Instead, he is arguing death must not be terrible; otherwise, it would have appeared so to Socrates. How? Through a warning from his divine sign or daimon. The ancient Stoics held Socrates in such high regard; they trusted his experience with his daimon about death.
Additionally, we must consider death within the context of Stoic theory. In Stoic physics, the cosmos is a divine, rational, living organism permeated by pneuma, which constituted its soul. Thus, the Stoics argued the cosmos is conscious. As Diogenes Laertius noted,
The doctrine that the world is a living being, rational, animate and intelligent, is laid down by Chrysippus in the first book of his treatise On Providence, by Apollodorus in his Physics, and by Posidonius. It is a living thing in the sense of an animate substance endowed with sensation; for animal is better than non-animal, and nothing is better than the world, ergo the world is a living being. And it is endowed with soul, as is clear from our several souls being each a fragment of it. (DL 142-3)
The Stoic reasonably argued that nothing comes forth from nothing. If humans are rational, that rationality comes from the cosmos. Therefore, the cosmos is rational. In his brilliant book, The Inner Citadel, Pierre Hadot notes,
…all the dogmas of Stoicism derive from this existential choice. It is impossible that the universe could produce human rationality, unless the latter were already in some way present within the former.[2]
Throughout the surviving Stoic texts, we see an acknowledgment of a connection between the divine part of our individual nature and the divinity that is the cosmos. In Meditations 3.13, Marcus reminds himself to,
…keep your doctrines at the ready, to enable you to understand things divine and human, and so to perform every action, even the very smallest, as one who is mindful of the bond that unites the two realms…
The daimon is a fragment of the divine within us. I covered this topic in a little more detail in Episode 25. In Letters 41.1-2, Seneca called this daimon the “sacred spirit” that dwells within us. In another of his Letters, Seneca tell Lucilius,
You must devote your efforts to that which does not deteriorate over time, and which no obstacle can bar. What is that? It is the mind—but specifically this mind, which is upright, great, and good. What else would you call it but God dwelling in a human body? (Letters 31)
Finally, here is one of many examples were Epictetus points out the relationship between us and the divinity that permeates the cosmos:
But you for your part are of primary value; you’re a fragment of God. Why are you ignorant, then, of your high birth? Why is it that you don’t know where you came from? (Discourses 2.8.11)
Simply put, the ancient Stoics argued that if the cosmos is conscious, rational, and providentially ordered, it would not be antagonistic toward humans. They trusted that the cosmos is ultimately benevolent toward humankind. After all, we are a fragment of the divine. Therefore, the cosmos would not make human death a terrible thing.
Passages like Encheiridion 5 offer a poignant example of how some Stoic doctrines only make sense within the context of the Stoic worldview. When passages like this are separated from that worldview, they quickly become counterintuitive. That is why many moderns abandon some aspects of Stoicism; they simply cannot accept the Stoic worldview, and they cannot make sense of doctrines like this apart from that worldview. Therefore, they simply set them aside as the unnecessary, unimportant, or errant beliefs of pre-Humean, pre-Darwinian thinkers.
Alternatively, in his defense of “the respectability and reasonableness of the cosmic viewpoint in Stoic ethics,” Marcelo Boeri wrote,
…if one takes into consideration the relevance of the cosmological approach to Stoic ethics some apparently counterintuitive Stoic tenets (such as ‘nothing but vice is bad’ or ‘life and health, and their opposites death and disease, are neither good nor bad’) become understandable. This is, in fact, the explanation we sometimes find in different Stoic philosophers when they have to account for the apparently counterintuitive thesis that pain, death, and so forth are not evils.[3]
While the topic of death is discussed frequently in the Stoic texts, it appears the ancient Stoics did not spend a great deal of time speculating about an afterlife. They often seem resigned to it being unknowable and argue it doesn’t matter. Here’s an example from Seneca,
What is death? Either an end or a crossing over. I am not afraid to come to an end (for that is the same as never having started), and neither am I afraid to cross over. For nowhere will I be as constricted as I am here. (Letters 65.24)
Here is a similar passage from Marcus Aurelius,
One who is afraid of death fears either an absence of consciousness or its alteration. But if consciousness is no longer present, you will no longer be conscious of any evil; and if you come to have a somewhat altered consciousness, you will merely be a living creature of another kind, and you will not have ceased to live. (Meditations 8.58)
Finally, here is Epictetus, in true protreptic fashion, taking on an imaginary interlocutor on the topic:
‘But the time has come for you to die.’
Why do you say ‘to die’? Don’t make a tragedy of the matter, but tell it as it is: ‘It is now time for the material of which you’re composed to return to the elements from which it came.’ And what is terrible in that? What element among all that make up the universe will be fated to perish? What new or extraordinary thing is going to come about? Is it because of this that the tyrant awakens fear? Is it for this reason that the swords of the guards seem long and sharp? Let others be afraid of such things! For my part I’ve enquired into them, and no one holds any power over me. I’ve been set free by God, I know his commands, no one has the power any longer to enslave me, I have the right emancipator, I have the right judges. You hold mastery over my body? Why, what is that to me? Don’t you have the power to send me into exile or throw me into chains? Again, I yield all of that to you, and my poor body in its entirety, at whatever time you wish. Test out your power on me, and you’ll see how far it extends! (Discourses 4.7.15-18)
There are many more examples like these in the Stoics texts. Death was not something the ancient Stoics feared. Moreover, they didn’t appear too concerned about what happens after we die. Why? For two good reasons: First, it’s not up to us. Second, we must keep our attention (prosoche) on our present desires, aversions, and impulses to act if we want to develop virtue and experience a good flow in this life. The Stoics frequently thought about death and found reasons not to fear it, but their attitude appears to have been: Que será, será: whatever will be, will be.
As the Specter of death continues to cast a long shadow across the globe in 2021, I urge you to turn your attention to what is up to you: your desires, aversions, and impulses to act. Death may come to you soon; it will come for all of us eventually. After that, whatever will be, will be. Nevertheless, until death does come for us, we are in complete control of our thoughts and intentions. During times like this, our focus must be inward, on the development of our Inner Citadel. We cannot control COVID; that is not up to us. We cannot control political discord that divides us; that is not up to us. We cannot control racial tensions created by past events; that is not up to us. We can only change what is up to us—our character.
Therefore, we must focus our attention on traveling the Stoic path of the Prokopton. We must build our Inner Citadel because we are the only ones who can. Please do not interpret this as a call to retreat to the Garden. It is the opposite. It’s a call to action in a troubled world, filled with angry and frightened people, during challenging times. Nevertheless, we must understand that it is only from within those impenetrable walls of our Inner Citadel, that our good character can positively affect the lives of our family, friends, community, country, globe, and the cosmos as a whole. For change to occur out there in the world, it has to start within each of us because that is all we control.
ENDNOTES
[1] Plato. (1997). Plato: Complete Works (J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson, Eds.). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
[2] Hadot, P. (1998). The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Harvard University Press. pp. 308-9
[3] Boeri, M. (2009). Does Cosmic Nature Matter? Some Remarks on the Cosmological Aspect of Stoic Ethics. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism (pp. 173–200). Oxford University Press. p. 185
