EPICTE111S, a celebrated disciple of the Stoa, was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, about fifty years after the birth of Christ. He was at first the slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero, at Rome, whose abusive treatment he is said to have endured with the composure characteristic of the set to which he belonged. He was afterwards manumitted, and devoted himself to the Stoic philosophy. Domitian hated him on account of his principles, and banished him, along with several other philosophers, from Rome. E. settled at Nikopolis, in Epirus. Under the pressure of the times in which he lived, his serious moral views received a character rather of self-denial than of energy; to renounce, to endure, and not to set the mind upon anything beyond the power of the individual to attain, being the points chiefly insisted on. His pupil, Arrianus, collected the maxims of E. in the work entitled Eneheiridion ("handbook") and in eight books of commentaries, four of which are lost. The peculiar excellence of the writings of E. consists in their simple and noble earnestness. The real heartfelt love of good and hatred of evil which we are in the habit of supposing an exclusively Christian feeling, does manifest itself very finely and beautifully in these, yet, as prof.
Brandis says, "there is not a trace in the Egictetea to show that he was acquainted with Christianity, and still less that he had adopted Christianity, either in part or entirely." Some of his opinions, moreover, are essentially Christian in their nature, though, of course, they are unconnected with the facts of revelation. E. believes in. our " resem blance" to God, in our "relationship" to him, and in our "union" with him through the coincidence of the " will " and the " soul;" he recognizes the contest between good and evil, the life-struggle in the heart, the divine life against which the law in the members wars; and he affirms the necessity of " invoking God's assistance in the strife," that the inner life may become pure as God is pure. There are several good editions of the works of E., the most complete of which is that of Schweighatiser (Leip. 1800).