Corresponding to assent or dissent in the realm of the intellectual are desire or aversion in the realm of good and evil, which is the most important thing for man, since from failing to attain one's desire, and from encountering what one would avoid, come all the passions and sorrows of mankind. In every desire or aversion there is implicit a value-judgement concerning the good or evil of the particular thing involved, and these in turn rest upon general judgements (δόγματα) regarding things of value. If we are to make the proper use of our freedom in the field of desire or aversion we must have the correct judgements concerning good and evil. Now the correct judgement is, that nothing outside the realm of our moral purpose is either good or evil. Nothing, therefore, of that kind can rightly be the object of desire or aversion, hence we should restrict the will to the field in which alone it is free, and cannot, therefore, come to grief. But herein we need not merely the correct theoretical conviction, but also continual practice in application (ἄσκησις), and it is this which Epictetus attempts to impart to his pupils, for it is the foundation of his whole system of education.
Finally, in the field of choice or refusal belongs the duty27 (τὸ καθῆκον) of man, his intelligent action in human and social relations. Externals, which are neither good nor evil, and so indifferent (ἀδιάφορα), because not subject to our control, play a certain role, none the less, as matters with which we have to deal, indeed, but should regard no more seriously than players treat the actual ball with which they play, in comparison with the game itself. It is characteristic of Epictetus that, although he recognizes this part of Stoic doctrine in which the theoretical indifference of externals is in practice largely abandoned, he manifests but slight interest in it.
Among duties he is concerned principally with those of a social character. Nature places us in certain relations to other persons, and these determine our obligations to parents, brothers, children, kinsmen, friends, fellow-citizens, and mankind in general. We ought to have the sense of fellowship and partnership (κοινωνικοί), that is, in thought and in action we ought to remember the social organization in which we have been placed by the divine order. The shortcomings of our fellow-men are to be met with patience and charity, and we should not allow ourselves to grow indignant over them, for they too are a necessary element in the universal plan.
The religious possibilities of Stoicism are developed further by Epictetus than by any other representative of the school. The conviction that the universe is wholly governed by an all-wise, divine Providence is for him one of the principal supports of the doctrine of values. All things, even apparent evils, are the will of God, comprehended in his universal plan, and therefore good from the point of view of the whole. It is our moral duty to elevate ourselves to this conception, to see things as God sees them. The man who reconciles his will to the will of God, and so recognizes that every event is necessary and reasonable for the best interest of the whole, feels no discontent with anything outside the control of his free will. His happiness he finds in filling the role which God has assigned him, becoming thereby a voluntary co-worker with God, and in filling this role no man can hinder him.
Religion as reconciliation to the inevitable—ἑκόντα δέχεσθαι τὰ ἀναγκαῖα (frg. 8), in gratiam cum fato revertere28—is almost perfectly exemplified in Epictetus, for with him philosophy has definitely turned religion, and his instruction has become less secular than clerical.29 But it is astonishing to what heights of sincere devotion, of intimate communion, he attained, though starting with the monistic preconceptions of his school, for the very God who took, as he felt, such personal interest in him, was after all but "a subtle form of matter pervading the grosser physical elements . . . this Providence only another name for a mechanical law of expansion and contraction, absolutely predetermined in its everlasting recurrences."30 Of his theology one can scarcely speak. His personal needs and his acquiescence with tradition led him to make of his God more than the materials of his philosophical tenets could allow. The result is for our modern thinking an almost incredible mixture of Theism, Pantheism, and Polytheism, and it is impossible, out of detached expressions, to construct a consistent system. As a matter of fact, with a naïve faith in God as a kind of personification of the soul's desire, he seems to have cherished simultaneously all of these mutually exclusive views of his nature. His moral end was eudaemonism, to which, in a singularly frank expression (I. 4, 27), he was ready to sacrifice even truth itself. No wonder, then, he cared little for logic as such and not at all for science.31 "The moralist assumes that what lies upon his heart as an essential need, must also be the essence and heart of reality. . . . In looking at everything from the point of view of happiness men bound the arteries of scientific research." Though spoken of the Socratic schools in general, this word of Nietzsche's32 seems especially apt of Epictetus. He was of an age when the search for happiness by the process of consulting merely the instincts of the heart was leading rapidly to an alienation from scientific truth and a prodigious decline in richness of cultural experience.
Yet even in his happiness, which we cannot dismiss as a mere pose, there was something wanting. The existence of evil was in one breath denied, and in another presumed by the elaborate preparations that one must make to withstand it. "And having done all, to stand?" No, even after having done all, "the house might get too full of smoke," the hardships of life too great any longer to endure; the ominous phrase, "the door is open," or its equivalent, the final recourse of suicide, recurs at intervals through his pages like a tolling bell. And beyond? Nothing. Nothing to fear indeed; "the dewdrop sinks into the shining sea." "When He provides the necessities no longer. He sounds the recall; He opens the door and says, 'Go.' Where? To nothing you need fear, but back to that from which you came, to what is friendly and akin to you, to the physical elements" (III. 13, 14). But at the same time there is nothing to hope for.33
That Epictetus was influenced by the writings of the New Testament has often been suggested. There were those in late antiquity who asserted it,34 and it was natural enough in an age when Tertullian and Jerome believed that Seneca had conversed with Paul, and in Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus, Justin (II. 8) recognizes a kindred spirit. But despite the recrudescence of the idea from time to time, and the existence of a few scholars in our own generation who seem yet to believe it, this question can be regarded as definitely settled by the elaborate researches of Bonhöffer (1911). Of course Epictetus knew about the existence of Christians, to whom he twice refers, calling them once Jews (II. 9, 19 ff.), and a second time Galilaeans (IV. 7, 6), for there was an early community at Nicopolis (Paul's Epistle to Titus, iii. 12), but he shared clearly in the vulgar prejudices against them, and his general intolerance of variant opinion, even when for conscience' sake, makes it certain that he would never have bothered to read their literature. The linguistic resemblances, which are occasionally striking, like "Lord, have mercy!" κύριε, ἐλέησον, are only accidental, because Epictetus was speaking the common language of ethical exhortation in which the evangelists and apostles wrote; while the few specious similarities are counterbalanced by as many striking differences In the field of doctrine, the one notable point of disregard for the things of this world35 is offset by so many fundamental differences in presupposition, if not in common ethical practice, that any kind of a sympathetic understanding of the new religion on the part of Epictetus is inconceivable. A certain ground-tone of religious capability, a fading of interest in the conventional fields of human achievement, a personal kindliness and "harmlessness" of character, a truly pathetic