Epictetus, Fragments 3

It is a shame that one who sweetens his drink with the gifts of the bee, should embitter God’s gift of Reason with vice. 

IMAGE: Hieronymus Bosch, Beehive and Witches (c. 1500) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 200

Put a bridle on your tongue, but at all hazards on your baser members. 

IMAGE: Hieronymus Bosch, Allegory of Intemperance (c. 1500) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.15.4

Well, I had much ado to persuade that friend to change his mind. But it is impossible to move some of the men of today, so that I think that I know now what I did not know before, the meaning of the familiar saying, “A fool is not to be persuaded nor broken of his folly.” 
 
May it never be my lot to have for friend a wise fool: nothing is more difficult to handle. 
 
“I have decided.” 
 
So have the madmen, but the more firmly they persist in false judgements the more hellebore do they require. Will you not act as the sick man should, and call in the physician? 
 
As he says, “I am sick, master; help me: consider what I ought to do, it is for me to obey you”, so you should say, “I do not know what I ought to do, but I have come to learn.” 
 
Oh no, you say: “Talk to me about other things; this I have decided.” 
 
Other things indeed! What is greater or more to your advantage than that you should be convinced that it is not sufficient to have decided and to refuse all change of mind? This is the firmness of madness, not of health. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.15 
 
I will often hear people reducing a poor decision to a mere lack of intelligence, with phrases such as “dumber than a box of rocks” or “you can’t fix stupid”. I have recently discovered how in the South, there can be nothing kinder, and also nothing more condescending, than exclaiming “Bless your heart!” 
 
Now I understand that we tend to use words casually, and that we should not split hairs over colloquialisms, but I will protest if someone hastily insists on equating folly with idiocy. While we are all gifted with different degrees of intellectual skills, and some of us are challenged by disabilities beyond our control, a man does not become good because his is a genius, or bad because he is a dunce—the difference arises from the depth of our deliberate concern, regardless of any IQ scores. 
 
Some of the best folks I have known were dismissed for being dull, and some of the worst folks I have known were celebrated for being clever. Whatever the mental capacity, it is a caring and humble attitude that builds genuine character, for anyone is able to form a sound judgment, within the limits of what nature has provided to him. The quickest or the flashiest solution is not necessarily the wisest or the most loving; slow and steady wins the race. 
 
No, I do not suffer a fool gladly, if by foolishness we mean a willful refusal to think with clarity and integrity. It isn’t that the fool can’t reason, but rather that he won’t reason, choosing to begin with his preferred conclusion, instead of arriving at an uncomfortable conclusion through his own hard deliberation. As the Thomist might say, one may cast blame for vincible ignorance, not for invincible ignorance. 
 
It is indeed a sort of madness when I close my mind to some inconvenient truth, though the insanity is something I freely invited, by making my immediate desire the final measure. However mortifying they felt, the most fruitful moments of my life were always the ones where I finally adapted my wants to fit my needs. I refused to talk it over while I was obdurate, and the fever only lifted once I made that painful admission: “I don’t know. Help me to work this out.” 
 
Don’t get caught up in being “smart” or “educated”, which is often no more than an excuse for being headstrong. An open mind will bend without breaking. 

—Reflection written in 9/2001 

IMAGE: Hieronymus Bosch, The Ship of Fools (c. 1500) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.33

M. However, we may allow the poets to trifle, in whose fables we see Jupiter himself engaged in these debaucheries: but let us apply to the masters of virtue—the philosophers who deny love to be anything carnal; and in this they differ from Epicurus, who, I think, is not much mistaken. 
 
For what is that love of friendship? How comes it that no one is in love with a deformed young man, or a handsome old one? I am of opinion that this love of men had its rise from the Gymnastics of the Greeks, where these kinds of loves are admissible and permitted; therefore Ennius spoke well:
 
“The censure of this crime to those is due 
Who naked bodies first exposed to view.”
 
Now, supposing them chaste, which I think is hardly possible, they are uneasy and distressed, and the more so because they contain and refrain themselves. 
 
But, to pass over the love of women, where nature has allowed more liberty, who can misunderstand the poets in their rape of Ganymede, or not apprehend what Laius says, and what he desires, in Euripides? 
 
Lastly, what have the principal poets and the most learned men published of themselves in their poems and songs? What doth Alcaeus, who was distinguished in his own republic for his bravery, write on the love of young men? And as for Anacreon’s poetry, it is wholly on love. But Ibycus of Rhegium appears, from his writings, to have had this love stronger on him than all the rest. 

—From Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.33 
 
I am hesitant to offer any comment at all on this chapter, not because the topic is in itself distasteful, but rather because most anyone reading along will, without giving it a second thought, have the knee-jerk reaction of assuming that Cicero is a hateful homophobe. 
 
What good will come, I wonder, from engaging with an outraged partisan who refuses to do anything but toe the sacred party line? It sadly goes both ways. I remain confused by the way contempt is considered a fitting response to those with whom we disagree; if I am truly to be a champion of tolerance, I can hardly cherry-pick my causes. 
 
So, I simply ask myself to consider, in the privacy of my own thoughts, what the purpose of sexuality might be within the fullness of human nature. In the end, it really makes little difference whether our attractions are for men or for women, and it matters far more that we first reflect on why our desires should be guided by our understanding. 
 
I know all too well that not all of my instincts and urges are necessarily good for me, and I have learned the hard way that I become a monster when the reason is taken out of the animal, when I act only on my feelings, without the benefit of thinking. Lust, in any form, is a kind of slavery, and love, in any form, is a kind of liberation. Chastity, a sadly unpopular word, is not the same thing as celibacy—chastity is self-restraint, not self-denial. 
 
Once it is merely the pleasure I crave, I am treating both myself and others as objects of gratification. Once it is the genuine beauty I seek, I am finally treating both myself and others as end in themselves, and never as means. I suspect all of us really sense, deep down inside, when we are being vulgar, and when we are being virtuous. Is the heart being led by the head, or being dragged down by the gut? 
 
Poetry is certainly an art that inflames the passions, though this does not demand that the fervent man become a lecherous man. I will follow my own conscience in this matter, and I am happy for you to follow yours. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490) 

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Hieronymus Bosch, The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1504)

 

The Hearing Forest and the Seeing Field

Hieronymus Bosch, The Hearing Forest and the Seeing Field (1500)

Beggars and Cripples

Hieronymus Bosch, Beggars and Cripples I and II (c. 1500)

 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.5

Why, pray, should the interpreter put on airs? 

 

Even Chrysippus has no right to do so, if he is only expounding the will of Nature, and does not follow it himself: how much less his interpreter. 

 

For we have no need of Chrysippus for his own sake, but only to enable us to follow Nature: just as we have no need, for himself, of the priest who offers sacrifice, but because we think that through him we shall understand the signs which the gods give of the future, nor do we need the sacrifice for itself, but because through it the sign is given, nor do we marvel at the crow or the raven but at God who gives His signs by them. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

I used to think that taming inordinate sensual desires was the greatest challenge to my happiness; it is one thing to feel a passion, but another to be enslaved by it. I now recognize an equally dangerous obstacle, the nagging lure of vanity; it is one thing to receive fame, but another to deliberately seek it out. 

 

Why get so distracted by looking good, when the real task at hand is being good? 

 

If the teacher’s first calling is to interpret the truth, then he is bound to its service. Why, then, would he try to make himself the center of attention? He gladly defers to the order of Nature, and he is content to play his small part within the glory of the whole. Any honors he might win are dedicated right back to the dignity of the message, not exploited to feed the ego of the messenger. 

 

The real teachers prove this commitment by the selfless deeds that follow through on the noble words. He will stumble, of course, as we all must, though he then gets right back up and tries again. 

 

I am wasting my time if I listen to a Chrysippus, or an Epictetus, to be charmed by a force of personality, or to bask in some light of association. If he demands my adulation and asks me to kiss his ring, I am well advised to head for the hills. 

 

I think it no accident that the best teachers I have had, the interpreters who were true to their vocation, never sought to glorify themselves, to sell any sort of image. There were others who published books with fawning blurbs and posed pictures on the cover, and went on lecture tours to delight in the applause, yet everything seemed to be about putting on a show. The ones who really made a difference always bowed to something far greater. 

 

The wise man, therefore, is like an emissary or a mediator, and those who are drawn close to him are in turn lifted up to a higher ground. His own significance can then diminish, as when John the Baptist stepped aside for the one whose sandal he was not worthy to untie. 

 

What use is the priest who dwells upon the ritual without directing it toward God? 

 

What purpose is there in the study of logic without the end of improving character? 

—Reflection written in 1/2001 

IMAGES: 

Hieronymus Bosch, Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (c. 1489)

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Saint John the Baptist (c. 1490)

Death of the Reprobate

Hieronymus Bosch, Death of the Reprobate (c. 1500)

Hell

M.C. Escher, Hell, Copy after Hieronymus Bosch (1935)

Hieronymus Bosch, Hell, Right Panel from The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500)

Haywain Triptych

Hieronymus Bosch, The Haywain Triptych (c. 1516)

link to a high definition version (Prado version)

The Wayfarer

Hieronymus Bosch, The Wayfarer (c. 1500)

Death and the Miser

Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser (c. 1494)

Allegory of Intemperance

Hieronymus Bosch, Allegory of Intemperance (c. 1500)

Ship of Fools

Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (c. 1500)

 

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500)

 link to a high definition version