EPICUREANS. Some of the philosophers whom Paul encountered at Athens (Acts 17:18) were of this school, whose best-known disciple is the Roman poet Lucretius. The founder, Epicurus, was born in 341 bc on the island of Samos. His early studies under Nausiphanes, a disciple of Democritus, taught him to regard the world as the result of the random motion and combination of atomic particles. He lived for a time in exile and poverty. Gradually he gathered round him a circle of friends and began to teach his distinctive doctrines. In 306 he established himself in Athens at the famous ‘Garden’ which became the headquarters of the school. He died in 270 after great suffering from an internal complaint, but in peace of mind.
The founder’s experiences, coupled with the general uncertainty of life in the last centuries before Christ, gave a special stamp to the Epicurean teachings. The whole system had a practical end in view, the achievement of happiness by serene detachment. Democritean atomism banished all fear of divine intervention in life or punishment after death; the gods follow to perfection the life of serene detachment and will have nothing to do with human existence, and death brings a final dispersion of our constituent atoms.
The Epicureans found contentment in limiting desire and in the joys and solaces of friendship. The pursuit of extravagant pleasure which gives to ‘epicure’ its modern connotation was a late perversion of their quest for happiness.
It is easy to see why the Epicureans found Paul’s teaching about the resurrection strange and unpalatable. Jewish rabbis use the word to mean one who denies life after death, and later as a synonym for ‘infidel’.
Bibliography. Usener, Epicurea, 1887; A. J. Festugière, Epicurus and his Gods, E.T. 1955; N. W. de Witt, Epicurus and his Philosophy, 1954. m.h.c.[1]
[1]The New Bible Dictionary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1962.