The Handbook of Epictetus

The Encheiridion by Epictetus

https://medium.com/@peterseanEsq/book-review-we-could-use-a-man-like-epictetus-again-79e2d5636b90


Stoicism has experienced a revival in recent days, particularly among the unhip and the uncool. That's appropriate since Stoicism is the most uncool and unhip philosophy. In a world where men achieve notoriety by dressing up like teenage girls and “celebrating becoming a girl,” a philosophy that counsels patience, the endurance of suffering, and the acceptance of reality will be out of touch.

But for obvious reasons, we need a philosophy that tells people that it is their own choice if their feelings get hurt by what somebody else says. People say things. We hear them. It is our choice about how we feel about what is said. We don't have much control over life, but we have some control over how we react to life.

Epictitus's Encheiridion is one of the most important texts of Stoic philosophy. Epictetus started off life as a slave. He lived from approximately 50 CE to approximately 130 CE.[1] He was purchased for service with Nero and was brought to Rome. He became a philosophy student under Musonius Rufus and became a famous philosopher in his own right with his school and students.

The Encheiridion consists of notes the historian Arrian took from Epictetus's lectures.[2] Epictetus never wrote anything. Everything we know about Epictetus's philosophy is contained in the four-volume Discourses, also by Arrian, the much shorter Enchiridion, and some sayings ascribed to Epictetus in other texts, such as the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. “Enchiridion” means “in hand” and connotes a “handbook.” The Encheiridion intended was portable and could be carried by the owner for reading and contemplation at convenient moments. It was the paperback of its day, and the idea was to provide philosophy students with a ready guide for developing their practice of philosophy as the need arose.

In the Encheiridion, Epictetus divides the world into two - those things that we can control and those things we cannot control:

1. Some things are up to us and some are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions - in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (p. 11). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

We have control over our opinions, judgments, and reactions; we don't have control over what other people do, our property, our success, our failures, or our wealth. If we want a tranquil life, we should focus on the things we can control and not on the things we don't.

One of the things we can control is how to understand and judge things. Epictetus suggests generally accepting indifference, particularly to things that tend to frighten us or make us sad. Like death:

5. What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. For example, death is nothing dreadful (or else it would have appeared dreadful to Socrates), but instead the judgment about death that it is dreadful - that is what is dreadful. So when we are thwarted or upset or distressed, let us never blame someone else but rather ourselves, that is, our own judgments. An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly; a partly educated person accuses himself, an educated person accuses neither someone else nor himself.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (p. 13). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

As Frank Herbert put it, “Fear is the mindkiller.” Nothing is bad except thinking it so. If something bad is going to happen to you, then fear makes it worse and doesn't change the outcome for the better.

In the Encheiridion, Epictetus describes the world as a place of fatalism and predestination. We are not true agents but are players in a play someone else is putting on:

17. Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it short, long if he wants it long. If he wants you to play a beggar, play even this part skillfully, or a cripple, or a public official, or a private citizen. What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (p. 16). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.[3]

The issue of duty comes up later:

50. Abide by whatever task is set before you as if it were a law, and as if you would be committing sacrilege if you went against it. But pay no attention to whatever anyone says about you, since that falls outside what is yours.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (p. 28). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Epictetus suggests a form of cognitive behavioral therapy along the lines of St. Ignatius Loyola's spiritual exercises:

21. Let death and exile and everything that is terrible appear before your eyes every day, especially death; and you will never have anything contemptible in your thoughts or crave anything excessively.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (pp. 16–17). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The Encheiridion comes across as a practical manual. Philosophy was supposed to change lives. This is one that we can all use:

25. Has someone been given greater honor than you at a banquet or in a greeting or by being brought in to give advice? If these things are good, you should be glad that he has got them. If they are bad, do not be angry that you did not get them. And remember, you cannot demand an equal share if you did not do the same things, with a view to getting things that are not up to us. For how can someone who does not hang around a person's door have an equal share with someone who does, or someone who does not escort him with someone who does, or someone who does not praise him with someone who does? You will be unjust and greedy, then, if you want to obtain these things for free when you have not paid the price for which they are bought. Well, what is the price of heads of lettuce? An obol, say. So if someone who has paid an obol takes the heads of lettuce, and you who do not pay do not take them, do not think that you are worse off than the one who did. For just as he has the lettuce, you have the obol that you did not pay. It is the same way in this case. You were not invited to someone's banquet? You did not give the host the price of the meal. He sells it for praise; he sells it for attention. Then give him the balance for which it is sold, if that is to your advantage. But you are greedy and stupid if you want both not to pay and also to take. Have you got nothing, then, in place of the meal? Indeed you do have something; you did not praise someone you did not wish to praise, and you did not have to put up with the people around his door.
Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Hackett Classics) (p. 18). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

What this comes across as is the suggestion of Christian charity. It also has overtones of this passage from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14:

7 When Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table, he gave them this advice: 8 “When you are invited to a wedding feast, don't sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? 9 The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.' Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table!
10 “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!' Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. 11 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus's advice has a note of social strategy in it, but it also points to the goal of salvation. Epictetus's counsel does not rely on vindication in the afterlife but argues that the individual will be better off in this life without the entanglements that come from desiring status, fame, or glory.
Another cross-over is found in Enchiridion 33 (“Refuse to swear oaths, altogether if possible, or otherwise as circumstances allow.”) and Matthew 5 (“34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes' or ‘No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”)

Reading this as a Catholic, I was surprised at how much maps onto Christian doctrine. There is a difference, though, in that the Stoic philosophy, presented in the Enchiridion, does not mention God or an afterlife.

As a practical guide to living, the Encheiridion has a lot of merits. The counsel to use reason and reframe things in ways that do not engage the passions is good. It is always better to be charitable than not. I have offered Stoic advice to clients who want to escalate litigation into other venues and forums. A lot of client attention is drawn to how they are being treated by their opposing parties or counsel. My approach is usually to advise the client that engaging in retaliation or merely giving attention to the other side makes their life worse since they have no control over the other side.

Likewise, on the internet or in public engagements, a lot of effort is spent on controlling what other people think or what they say. Under Stoic principles, this effort is doomed to failure. The best way to approach the outrage that people claim to experience from alleged racism or homophobia would be for them to exercise control over their judgment and reactions. If fear of death can be overcome by indifference, then fear of homophobia and racism should be no problem.

Footnotes:

[1] His life spanned from the lives of St. Paul and the early Christian Church to the second generation of the Church, such as Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome.
[2] Arrian is also famous for “The Anabasis of Alexander,” which is considered the best source on the campaigns of Alexander the Great.
[3] There is a hint of Krishna's discussion of duty with Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.