EPICTETUS (born c. A.D. 6o), Greek philosopher, probably from Hierapolis, Phrygia. The name Epictetus is the Greek for "acquired" (from EirucravOac) ; his original name is not known. As a boy he was a slave, but managed to attend the lectures of the Stoic Musonius Rufus, and subsequently became a freedman. He was lame and of weakly health. In 90 he was expelled with other philosophers by Domitian, who was irritated by the encourage ment which the opposition to his tyranny found amongst the adherents of Stoicism. The rest of his life he spent at Nicopolis, in southern Epirus, not far from the scene of the battle of Actium. He wrote nothing; but much of his teaching was transmitted by his pupil Flavius Arrianus, the historian of Alexander the Great, in two treatises, four books of the larger, Discourses of Epictetus ('E7ru rirov ALarptf3a1), being still extant. The other, the Enchei ridion ("Handbook"), contains in an aphoristic form the main doctrines of the longer work.
The philosophy of Epictetus exhibits a high idealistic type of morality. The all important problem is how life is to be carried out well. True education lies in recognizing that there is only one thing which is fully our own,—that is, our will or purpose. God, acting as a good king and father, has given us a will which cannot be compelled or thwarted by anything external. We are not re sponsible for the ideas that present themselves to our conscious ness, but we are absolutely responsible for the way in which we use them. "Two maxims," he says, "we must ever bear in mind— that apart from the will there is nothing good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or direct events, but merely to ac cept them with intelligence." We must, in short, believe that there is a God whose thought directs the universe.
Man is a member of a great system, which comprehends God and men. Each human being is firstly a citizen of his own com monwealth ; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy. All men are the sons of God, by virtue of rationality, and, kindred in nature with the divinity. Hence man can enter into the method of di vine administration, and thus can learn—and it is the acme of his learning—the will of God, which is the will of nature. The natu ral instinct of animated life, to which man also is subject, is self preservation and self-interest. But men are so constituted that the individual cannot secure his own interests unless he contrib utes to the common welfare. The aim of the philosopher there fore is to see the world as a whole, to grow into the mind of God and to make the will of nature our own.
The historical models to which Epictetus reverts are Diogenes and Socrates. But he frequently describes an ideal character of a missionary sage, perfectly unembarrassed in the service of God, not bound by the common ties of life, nor entangled by relation ships.