Many people, unfortunately, may only know Epicurus (c. 341-270 BCE) due to his advocation for friendship and his Epicurean school of philosophy’s later association with hedonism. While these were important points of his teachings, there was much more to Epicurus’ lectures than companionship and pleasure. He discussed proper human ethical behavior, theorized about metaphysics and ancient atomic theory, and also postulated about the nature of life, death, and the divine. Many of Epicurus’ key philosophical beliefs were preserved in his Principal Doctrines, but, unfortunately, no full and complete treatise by Epicurus has survived concerning his theological beliefs. Even so, a framework of his religious ideas can be constructed from valuable digressions he made into theology in other works (such as comments from Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus), which can be compared and contrasted against similar ideas argued by Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE), as well as critiques and analysis of Epicurus’ theology from writers such Cicero (106-43 BCE).
In his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus discussed metaphysics—with ancient theories about atoms being the main subject. Epicurus believed that everything, including the gods, was made from kinds of atoms, allowing Epicurus to digress into discussing divine beings and their interactions (or lack thereof) with our world. Following his own personal philosophical viewpoint in favor of a happy, peaceful, and leisurely existence, Epicurus believed that the gods would have a similar desire to not get bogged down in ceaseless human troubles. Instead, Epicurus envisioned that the gods would have set up the universe in a way that was self-sustaining and automated, so that the divine beings would not need to personally bother with any tiresome administrative tasks. A god that had to micromanage everything in the universe, Epicurus argued, would not be a happy god. Wouldn’t supreme beings rather automate everything and live in tranquil ease? On this, Epicurus wrote:
“[W]e are bound to believe that in the sky revolutions, solstices, eclipses, risings and settings, and the like, take place without the ministration or command, either now or in the future, of any being who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality. For troubles and anxieties and feelings of anger and partiality do not accord with bliss, but always imply weakness and fear and dependence upon one’s neighbours…in every term we use we must hold fast to all the majesty which attaches to such notions as bliss and immortality, lest the terms should generate opinions inconsistent with this majesty” (Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus).
This point about automated and self-sustaining creation was reiterated by the Roman statesman and writer, Cicero, in his work, On the Nature of the Gods. Narrating through an Epicurean character in his text, Cicero wrote, “Our mentor who has schooled us in all else has also taught us that the world was created naturally, without the need for a craftsman’s role, and the process which in your view cannot be put in train without the skillful touches of a god is so straightforward that nature has created, is now creating, and will continue to create innumerable worlds” (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 1.53). Epicurus believed there was an infinite number of atoms, which meant there could also be an infinite number of the things that atoms create, including worlds, humans, and also the gods. These uncountable leisurely deities, according to Epicurus, lived their tranquil existences in what the Epicureans called the intermundia—the space between worlds.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Compositional Study, possibly for The Grove of Academe, by Edwin Austin Abbey (c. 1852–1911), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Yale University Art Gallery).
Sources:
- Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, translated by Eugene Michael O’Connor in The Essential Epicurus (The Big Nest / Interactive Media, 2014).
- Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, translated by P. G. Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 1998, 2008.
- [Letter to Herodotus] https://lexundria.com/epic_ep_hdt/0-49/hks
