reaped is of bad omen, for it signifies the destruction of the ears, but not of the world. Say that the falling of the leaves also is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the place of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes. For all these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration. Such is going away from home and a small change: such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to that which is not now.[1]—Shall I then no longer exist?—You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need:[2] for you also came into existence not when you chose, but when the world had need of you.[3]
- ↑ Marcus Antoninus, xi. 35. Compare Epict., iii. 13, 14, and iv. 7.75.
- ↑ Upton altered the text οὐκέτι οὖν ἔσομαι; Οὐκ ἔσῃ ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλο τι, οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν ἔχει, into οὔκετι οὖν ἔσομαι; Ἔσῃ ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλο τι, οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν οὐκ ἔχει. He says that he made the alteration without MS. authority, but that the sense requires the change. Schweighaeuser does not accept the alteration, nor do I. Schweig. remarks that there may be some difficulty in the words οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν ἔχει. He first supposes that the word 'now' (νῦν) means after a man's death; but next he suggests that ἄλλο τι οὗ means 'something different from that of which the world has now need.' A reader might not discover that there is any difficulty. He might also suggest that νῦν ought to be omitted, for if it were omitted, the sense would be still plainer. See iii. 13. 15, and iv. 7. 15.
- ↑ I am not sure if Epictetus ever uses κόσμος in the sense of 'Universe,' the 'universum' of philosophers. I think he sometimes uses it in the common sense of the world, the earth and all that is on it. Epictetus appears to teach that when a man dies, his existence is terminated. The body is resolved into the elements of which it is formed, and these elements are employed for other purposes. Consistently with this doctrine he may have supposed that the powers, which we call rational and intellectual, exist in man by virtue only of the organisation of his brain which is superior to that of all other animals; and that what. we name the soul has no existence independent of the body. It was an old Greek hypothesis that at death the body returned to earth from which it came, and the soul (πνεῦμα) returned to the regions above, from which it came. I cannot discover any passage in Epictetus in which the doctrine is taught that the soul has an existence independent of the body. The opinions of Marcus Antoninus on this matter are contained in his book, iv. 14, 21, and perhaps elsewhere: but they are rather obscure. A recent writer has attempted to settle the question of the existence of departed souls by affirming that we can find
