The friendship and justice of the Epicurean sage and the gods
While examining the textual evidence that has come down to us from Epicurus' works, one can conclude that he seems to have thought of friendship as an essential condition for imperturbability (one of the stable pleasures).
The benefit that it produces explains its origin, and such a benefit is produced in reciprocal relations. In fact, the existence of friendship presupposes a certain kind of reciprocal relationship, which can take place both at the individual level (in a relationship of intimate friendship between two people, for instance) and at the social level, where friendship can also be understood as the mutual respect people have for the covenants that guarantee communal life. That is probably why Epicurus goes so far as to say, in almost lyrically beautiful language and probably evoking the mysteries, that friendship ‘dances around the world [οtκουμενη], announcing to all of us that we must wake up to blessedness' ( VrS 52). Moreover, when Epicurus emphasizes that ‘of the things that wisdom [ σοφtα] provides us for the blessedness of one's whole life by far the greatest is the possession of friendship' (PD 27), he is not only explicitly linking wisdom to friendship, but also suggesting that wisdom is a property of e very human being (and that it is therefore not a strange, difficult or impossible possession to acquire). Epicurus may also be suggesting that friendship - understood as an intimate relationship of mutual trust - plays a decisive role in achieving the demands that make a person wise. Moreover, that crucial role of friendship does not occur only at the limited level of ‘the community of Epicurean friends' but must be extended to the rest of society. According to Cicero, Epicurus and the Epicureans claim that friendship cannot be separated from pleasure, as is said about the virtues. This is so because a solitary life without friends is full of dangerous traps and fear. This kind of approach can help show how friendship can have an important social role in a political community.Further, Epicurus seems to have suggested that reason itself is what advises us to make friends. Thus, friendship is closely related to our natural rational condition, the rationality that can make calculations regarding the future, and each person's expectation that pleasures will be acquired. In fact, without friendship one cannot secure a stable and long-lasting pleasantness in our life, as Cicero indicates (Fin. 1.67). Additionally, the wise rejoice at their friend's joys just as much as their own, while they also grieve as much for their pain. Thus, as rational people, the wise will have the same feelings for their friends as for themselves. This approach has a particular Aristotelian flavour in its conceptualization of friendship (see Aristotle, EN book 8), but it also explains why having a feeling of friendship based on and dependent on shared interests is crucial both for one to flourish and for the political associations we inhabit to thrive (Cicero, Fin. 1.66-68). In sum, friendship is an indispensable condition for happiness and, like justice, is a powerful means for achieving imperturbability. But friendship is also thought of as a sort of kinetic pleasure: the memory of a dead friend appears to Epicurus ‘sweet' (Plutarch, Pleasant Life 1105E; Us. 213); it produces joy and ends by being a relief capable of counteracting the body's pains.
The Epicurean sage, like the Aristotelian and the Stoic wise person, is particularly concerned about self-sufficiency. However, the Epicurean sage's selfsufficiency does not impose on them a life that must be conducted in an environment devoid of law or formal political organization. If Stobaeus is to be trusted, the Epicureans maintained that the laws exist for the sake of the wise, even though laws are not there to prevent the wise from committing injustice but to prevent them from suffering it (Stobaeus, Anthology 4.143; Us.
530).54 This testimony is relevant because it shows that the Epicurean sage lives within a political organization where injustice is indeed possible. In fact, the way to read Stobaeus' remark is not to assume that the wise person cannot be a victim of a crime, but that, if he does receive injustice in any way, the laws will compensate for the injustice received and ‘do justice' by sanctioning the offender. As we have already pointed out in previous sections of this book, the Epicurean receptivity to legality must be understood to operate according to regional requirements. The law, or rather ‘what is just' (meant to be a modality of usefulness), has a sort of ‘local functionality', which explains why it is only valid locally, without this meaning a kind of crude relativism. The acknowledgement of the local functionality of ‘what is just' does not at all lead the Epicurean sage to observe political reality with an attitude of hostile closure and stubborn disinterest.55 As we will show in chapter 6, the Epicureans rather display pragmatism and a coherent adherence to the surrounding reality.The relevance of friendship and justice, a recurring theme in some central parts of this book, can be seen with some clarity in Philodemus' cultivation of the Epicurean model of biography. He followed two such models: one, apparently of a Peripatetic sort, was neutral, informative and mainly elaborated from anecdotes; the other, typically Epicurean, aimed at highlighting the moral excellence of the person whose life is recounted, with extensive use of epistolary sources. Philodemus thus continues an Epicurean biographical tradition aimed at highlighting the exemplary behaviour of the master and his main successors, preserving their memory and safeguarding their doctrine.56 It is a model centred on the ‘imitation of Epicurus' which serves as an exemplum for the teaching and practice of Epicureanism.57 It also acts as proof of the validity of Epicurean philosophy, i.e.
that Epicurus, as Philodemus observes, ‘obviously succeeded in imitating the blessedness of the gods in so far as mortals can' (On Piety 2043ff. ed. Obbink). If the ‘imitation of Epicurus' and the ‘becoming like god' that it conveys play a central role in Epicureanism, it is most interesting to note how in both doctrinal devices friendship and justice, the two ingredients of social life we have been discussing, are emphasized. In the preceding chapters we have shown how both in the Epicurean biographical tradition and in external sources, even hostile ones, the central role of friendship in the theory and practice of Epicurus and his successors is stressed.Likewise, the Epicurean biographical tradition presents Epicurus and his successors as people who loved their poleis, respected their laws and institutions, their piety and worship; people, in short, who acted loyally, nobly and justly in their respective cities. This is undoubtedly an aspect of Epicureanism that, although the early and influential anti-Epicurean tradition tried to distort and ignore it, can be documented through sources outside the school, as we have tried to show in the previous chapter.
The two strands of Epicurean life mentioned above - friendship and justice - as confirmed both by the Epicurean biographical tradition and by external sources, occupy a special place in the Epicurean version of becoming like god. The reading of PD 1 leads one to conclude that the gods do not require help, protection or security and, consequently, friendship seems to be alien to them. Philodemus points out that this is not so: among the gods there is a form of friendship centred on relationships devoid of any element of usefulness; their friendship involves contact and takes the form of pleasant conversations and kindly gift exchanges. Philodemus points out that the gods can and should be able to converse with the gods, with whom they are friends, just as we do with friends. In his view it would be foolish to deny this; it would also mean depriving them of a source of indescribable pleasure.58 Philodemus explains the basis of such pleasure in an illustrative and important passage in On Frank Criticism:
T2 although many fine things result from friendship, there is nothing so grand as having one to whom one will say what is in one's heart and who will listen when one speaks.
For our nature strongly desires to reveal to some people what it thinks.Frag. 28, 1-12; transl. David Konstan, Diskin Clay, Clarence E. Glad, Johan C. Thorn and James Ware59
Epicurean theology makes room, as can be seen, for the becoming like god around friendship. Interestingly, Philodemus presents the memory of the dead friend as the expression of human friendship in which it is fully assimilated to the friendship between the gods. Any consideration of interest or utility between the deceased friend and ourselves is absent in these memories, and yet, as Philodemus observes, we experience towards him friendship in the highest degree of intimacy and affection [της ακρας οlκειωσεως] and, with it, great pleasure (Philodemus, On the gods, Frag. 83, 1-2, ed. Essler). As Armstrong observes, friendship for pure pleasure - the only one known to the gods - is exceptionally present in human beings in the memory of a deceased friend.60 Perhaps this is why Epicurus can say that friendship is an immortal good ( VrS 78).
As in the case of friendship, PD 1 does not seem to leave room for justice in the Epicurean becoming like god, since ‘[w]hat is blessed and indestructible has no troubles itself, nor does it give trouble to anyone’ (PD 1). Again, Philodemus clarifies the linkage insofar as in On Piety he points out that the happiness of the gods stems from their harmlessness [αβλαβ(α] towards everyone (On piety 2051-2, ed. Obbink). In this respect, too, the gods are to be emulated. As Obbink comments, Philodemus suggests human beings should endeavour as far as possible to make themselves harmless to everyone.61 Such harmlessness is attained by piety; the pious and wise person is just and thus enjoys the greatest benefit from the gods.62
As can be seen, the characterization of the Epicurean sage is derived from both the biographical tradition of the imitation of Epicurus and the becoming like god, and embraces the communal ingredient of life clearly represented by friendship and justice. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the hapax φιλoκηπος, ‘fond of a garden', does not appear in DL 10, devoted to Epicurus and the Epicureans, but in reference to Pyrrho.63
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