= Enchiridion_of_Epictetus =

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= Enchiridion_of_Epictetus =
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Introduction
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The 'Enchiridion' or 'Handbook of Epictetus' (, 'Enkheirídion
Epiktḗtou') is a short manual of Stoic ethical advice compiled by
Arrian, a 2nd-century disciple of the Greek philosopher Epictetus.
Although the content is mostly derived from the 'Discourses of
Epictetus', it is not a summary of the 'Discourses' but rather a
compilation of practical precepts. Eschewing metaphysics, Arrian
focuses his attention on Epictetus's work applying philosophy to daily
life. Thus, the book is a manual to show the way to achieve mental
freedom and happiness in all circumstances.

The 'Enchiridion' was well known in the medieval world and was
specially adapted for use in Greek-speaking monasteries. In the 15th
century it was translated into Latin, and then, with the advent of
printing, into multiple European languages. It reached the height of
popularity in the 17th century, in parallel with the Neostoicism
movement.

Contents
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The word "Enchiridion" () is an adjective meaning "in the hand" or
"ready to hand". The word sometimes meant a handy sword, or dagger,
but coupled with the word "book" ('biblion', ) it means a handy book
or hand-book. Epictetus in the 'Discourses' often speaks of principles
which his pupils should have "ready to hand" (). Common English
translations of the title are Manual or Handbook.

The 'Enchiridion' consists of fifty-three short chapters typically
consisting of a paragraph or two, and appears to be a
loosely-structured selection of maxims. It was compiled some time in
the early 2nd century. Around half of the material in the
'Enchiridion' has been shown to have been derived from the surviving
four books of 'Discourses' but variously modified. Some chapters
appear to be reformulations of ideas which appear throughout the
'Discourses'. Other parts are presumed to be derived from the lost
'Discourses'.

The 6th-century philosopher Simplicius, in his commentary on the work,
refers to a letter written by Arrian which prefaced the text. In this
letter Arrian stated that the 'Enchiridion' was selected from the
'Discourses of Epictetus' according to what he considered to be most
useful, most necessary, and most adapted to move people's minds.In his
commentary, Simplicius divided the text into four distinct sections
suggesting a graded approach to philosophy:

# Chapters 1-21. What is up to us and not, and how to deal with
external things.
## Chs 1-2. What is up to us and not, and the consequences of choosing
either.
## Chs 3-14. How to deal with external things (reining the reader in
from them).
## Chs 15-21. How to use external things correctly and without
disturbance.
# Chapters 22-28. Advice for intermediate students.
## Chs 22-25. The problems faced by intermediate students.
## Chs 26-28. Miscellania: the common conceptions, badness, and shame.
# Chapters 30-47. Technical advice for the discovery of appropriate
actions ('kathēkonta').
## Chs 30-33. Appropriate actions towards (a) other people, (b) God,
(c) divination, (d) one's own self.
## Chs 34-47. Miscellaneous precepts on justice (right actions).
# Chapters 48-53. Conclusions on the practice of precepts.
## Ch 48. Final advice and his division of types of people.
## Chs 49-52. The practice of precepts.
## Ch 53. Quotations for memorisation.

There are some puzzles concerning the inclusion of two chapters.
Chapter 29, a one-page 'Discourse' which compares the training needed
to become a Stoic with the rigorous approach needed to become an
Olympic victor. is practically word for word identical with
'Discourse' iii. 15. Since it was omitted in one of the early
Christian editions ('Par'), and not commented on by Simplicius, it may
not have been in the original edition. Chapter 33 consists of a list
of moral instructions, which are "not obviously related to Epictetus'
normal Stoic framework."

Themes
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The 'Enchiridion' begins with the statement, "Of things, some depend
upon ourselves, others do not depend upon ourselves." So it starts
with announcing that the business and concern of the real self is with
matters subject to its own control, uninfluenced by external chance or
change. Epictetus makes a sharp distinction between our own internal
world of mental benefits and harms and the external world beyond our
control. Freedom is to wish for nothing which is not up to ourselves.
When we are tried by misfortune, we should never let our suffering
overwhelm our sense of inward mastery and freedom.

A constant vigilance is required, and one should never relax attention
to one's reason, for it is judgements, not things, which disturb
people.

Reason is the decisive principle in everything. Thus, we must exercise
our power of assent over impressions and wish for nothing, nor avoid
anything that is up to other people.

To a large extent, the 'Enchiridion' suppresses many of the more
amiable aspects of Epictetus, which can be found in the 'Discourses',
but this reflects the nature of the compilation. Some believe that,
unlike the 'Discourses' which seeks to encourage the student through
argument and logic, the 'Enchiridion' largely consists of a set of
rules to follow. Others challenge this view, arguing that the chapters
of the 'Enchiridion' can be interpreted as containing arguments and
articulating concepts that develop progressively throughout the work.
The work is built on the conception that the wise person, by the aid
of philosophy, may reap benefit from every experience in life. With
proper training the student can flourish in adverse situations as well
as favorable ones. The human spirit has capacities as yet undeveloped,
but which it is for our good to develop. Thus, the book is a manual on
how to make progress towards what is necessary and sufficient for
happiness.

Epictetus makes vivid use of imagery, and analogies include life
depicted as: a ship's voyage (Ch. 7), an inn (Ch. 11), a banquet (Chs.
15, 36), and acting in a play (Ch. 17, 37). He takes many examples
from everyday life, including: a broken jug (Ch. 3), a trip to the
baths (Chs. 4, 43), his own lameness (Ch. 9), the loss of a child (Ch.
11), and the price of lettuce (Ch. 25).

Reception
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For many centuries, the 'Enchiridion' maintained its authority both
with Pagans and Christians.

Commentary of Simplicius
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In the 6th century the Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia
wrote a huge commentary on the 'Enchiridion', which is more than ten
times the bulk of the original text. Chapter after chapter of the
'Enchiridion' is dissected, discussed, and its lessons drawn out with
a certain laboriousness. Simplicius' commentary offers a distinctly
Platonist vision of the world, one which is often at odds with the
Stoic content of the 'Enchiridion'. Sometimes Simplicius exceeds the
scope of a commentary; thus his commentary on 'Enchiridion' 27
(Simplicius ch. 35) becomes a refutation of Manichaeism.

Christian adaptations
=======================
The 'Enchiridion' was adapted three different times by Greek Christian
writers. The oldest manuscript, 'Paraphrasis Christiana' ('Par'),
dates to the 10th century. Another manuscript, falsely ascribed to
Nilus ('Nil'), dates to the 11th century. A third manuscript,
Vaticanus gr. 2231 ('Vat'), dates to the 14th century. It is not known
when the original versions of these manuscripts were first made. These
guides served as a rule and guide for monastic life. The most obvious
changes are in the use of proper names: thus the name Socrates is
sometimes changed to Paul. All three texts follow the 'Enchiridion'
quite closely, although the 'Par' manuscript is more heavily modified:
adding or omitting words, abridging or expanding passages, and
occasionally inventing new passages.

Transmission
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Over one hundred manuscripts of the 'Enchiridion' survive. The oldest
extant manuscripts of the authentic 'Enchiridion' date from the 14th
century, but the oldest Christianised ones date from the 10th and 11th
centuries, perhaps indicating the Byzantine world's preference for the
Christian versions. The 'Enchiridion' was first translated into Latin
by Niccolò Perotti in 1450, and then by Angelo Poliziano in 1479. The
first printed edition ('editio princeps') was Poliziano's Latin
translation published in 1497. The original Greek was first published
(somewhat abbreviated) with Simplicius's 'Commentary' in 1528. The
edition published by Johann Schweighäuser in 1798 was the major
edition for the next two-hundred years. A critical edition was
produced by Gerard Boter in 1999.

The separate editions and translations of the 'Enchiridion' are very
many. The 'Enchiridion' reached its height of popularity in the period
1550-1750. It was translated into most European languages, and there
were multiple translations in English, French, and German. The first
English translation was by James Sandford in 1567 (a translation of a
French version) and this was followed by a translation (from the
Greek) by John Healey in 1610. The 'Enchiridion' was even partly
translated into Chinese by the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci. The
popularity of the work was assisted by the Neostoicism movement
initiated by Justus Lipsius in the 16th century. Another Neostoic,
Guillaume du Vair, translated the book into French in 1586 and
popularised it in his 'La Philosophie morale des Stoiques'.

Modern era
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In the 17th century the German monk Matthias Mittner compiled a guide
on mental tranquillity for the Carthusian Order by taking the first
thirty-five of his fifty precepts from the 'Enchiridion'.

In the English-speaking world it was particularly well known in the
17th century: at that time it was the 'Enchiridion' rather than the
'Discourses' which was usually read. It was among the books John
Harvard bequeathed to the newly founded Harvard College in 1638. The
work, being written in a clear distinct style, made it accessible to
readers with no formal training in philosophy, and there was a wide
readership among women in England. The writer Mary Wortley Montagu
made her own translation of the 'Enchiridion' in 1710 at the age of
twenty-one. The 'Enchiridion' was a common school text in Scotland
during the Scottish Enlightenment--Adam Smith had a 1670 edition in
his library, acquired as a schoolboy.

At the end of the 18th century, the 'Enchiridion' is attested in the
personal libraries of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

The Simplicius' commentary enjoyed its own period of popularity in the
17th and 18th centuries. An English translation by George Stanhope in
1694 ran through four editions in the early 18th century. Edward
Gibbon remarked in his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' that
Simplicius' 'Commentary on Epictetus' "is preserved in the library of
nations, as a classic book" unlike the commentaries on Aristotle
"which have passed away with the fashion of the times."

The current division of the work into fifty-three chapters was first
adopted by Johann Schweighäuser in his 1798 edition; earlier editions
tended to divide the text into more chapters (especially splitting
chapter 33). Gerard Boter in his 1999 critical edition keeps
Schweighäuser's fifty-three chapters but splits chapters 5, 14, 19,
and 48 into two parts.

In the 19th century, Walt Whitman discovered the 'Enchiridion' when he
was about the age of sixteen. It was a book he would repeatedly return
to, and late in life he called the book "sacred, precious to me: I
have had it about me so long--lived with it in terms of such
familiarity."

Notes
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a. Gerard Boter in his 1999 critical edition catalogues 59 extant
manuscripts of the 'Encheiridion' proper, and another 27 manuscripts
of Simplicius' 'Commentary' which contain the 'Encheiridion' as
'lemmata' (headings). He also lists 37 Christianised manuscripts, (24
'Par', 12 'Nil', 1 'Vat'). Cf.

External links
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*
[https://livingstoicism.com/2023/05/31/the-enchiridion-or-manual-of-epictetus-by-elizabeth-carter-1758/
Text of the Enchiridion of Epictetus by Elizabeth Carter 1758]
*
* Text of translation by George Long, 1877,
[https://www.stoictherapy.com/elibrary-enchiridion-long 'The
Enchiridion']
* Text of translation by P. E. Matheson, 1916,
[http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/dep/dep102.htm 'The Discourses of
Epictetus, The Manual Of Epictetus']
* Text of translation by William Abbott Oldfather, 1928,
[https://www.stoictherapy.com/elibrary-enchiridion-oldfather 'The
Enchiridion']
*
* Simplicius of Cilicia,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20050519213611/http://www.geocities.com/stoicvoice/journal/0301/sc0301b0.htm
'Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus'], translated by George
Stanhope, 1722.

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