“Do not fear god”

The philosopher Epicurus is often held to be an advocate of hedonistic indulgence in the pleasures of the senses, even though his philosophy was, in fact, a teaching in moderation. This erroneous view results from the anti-Epicurean propaganda of Stoics, Christians and others. Powerful people and priests have always hated Epicurus, because he teaches people to live without fear, and people cannot be controlled unless they are fearful.

However, Epicurus is sometimes held to have based some of his ideas on Aristippus, a student of Socrates and founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy. The central injunction of the Cyrenaics was “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”.

But Epicurus advocated the pleasures in moderation: “No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves”. He advocated the pleasures of the mind and friendship, as much as he advocated the pleasures of the flesh. “If the things that produce the pleasures of profligate men really freed them from fears of the mind concerning celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, and the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasures from every source and would never have pain of body or mind, which is what is bad.”

Regarding death, Epicurus regards it as inevitable: “It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls”. But there is no point in worrying about the inevitable: “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist”. So, according to Epicurus, when we die we will return to the same state we were in before we were born – a state of non-existence, which was not bad, and which is no cause for fear. In order to live well one must free oneself from fear of death: “The art of living well and the art of dying well are one”.

Also, living well means that the mind must control the flesh: “The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life”.

Regarding religion, Epicurus believed that the gods are utterly unconcerned with us, and therefore there is no need for us to be in the slightest bit concerned with them. For all practical purposes, his teaching was indistinguishable from atheism. He was also sceptical about the effectiveness of prayer: “If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another” and “it is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself”.

He advocates knowledge as a means of liberation from fear: “It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.”

Epicurus advocates acting in accordance with reason – this is wisdom: “Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life”

In order to live a joyful life that is free from fear, one must, says Epicurus, be just:

“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.” What is justice? “There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men”. It is based on the Golden Rule. Epicurus says: “Justice is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed” and “Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another”.

Epicurus is a great advocate of friendship: “Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship”. Also “The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to see that in the limited evils of this life nothing enhances our security so much as friendship”.

The unjust man cannot have friendship and love in his life, and is therefore depriving himself of the greatest joy and happiness that human life offers. Not only is the unjust man depriving himself of positive joy, he deprives himself of the protection of friends, and he also lives a life of fear: “It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected”. Thus “The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.”

So Epicurus says that we should live joyfully, without false hopes and without false fears. The Epicurean formula for the best life was stated by Philodemus in four simple lines:

“Do not fear god,
Do not worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure”