Likewise prayer, for Epictetus, is not an appeal for intervention by an external God, but rather an admonition to oneself. Talk of God’s seeing, helping, guiding, speaking to and punishing us, and of God as our father, can be explained in terms either of God’s overall providence, or of our inner god or daemon, our reason, which is a fragment of the cosmic deity. to our reason, in order to determine what is the right thing for us, namely how we are to live in accordance with nature.” For Epictetus, to follow God means “we should pay attention to the God in us, i.e. Nevertheless, it is important to balance the religious sentiments of Epictetus with the realization that he never claimed nor adhered to any form of divine revelation neither did he express a need for religious faith, in the forms those concepts are commonly understood. Likewise, over the history of the Stoa, God will “assume more and more spiritual and personal traits” and “religiousness will tend to permeate” Stoicism and move it toward theism without fully arriving there. We see this language used frequently by Epictetus. This “notable religious sensibility” in the philosophy of Epictetus is also found in Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Marcus Aurelius and is “broadly in line with traditional Stoicism.” To a large degree, these religious sentiments are the result of the inherent “structural resemblance” between the rationality of humans and that of the divine logos, which allows for a “certain degree of personalistic theism in thinking and speaking about god” in Stoicism.

His distinctiveness, in what I have discussed so far, extends mainly to the enthusiasm with which he commends obedience to God and to the warmth he infuses in his expressions of God’s concern for human beings. In his conception of divine providence, creativity, and rationality, Epictetus is completely in line with the general Stoic tradition. However, as my previous post makes obvious, Seneca expresses religious sentiments quite similar to those of Epictetus. As such, some attempt to portray him as an outlier among the Stoics. (Discourses 1.16.20-21)Įpictetus is typically considered the most religious of the Roman Stoics.

This is my work, and I accomplish it, and I will never abandon my post for as long as it is granted to me to remain in it and I invite all of you to join me in this same song. But as it is, I am a rational being, and I must sing the praise of God. If I were a nightingale, I would perform the work of a nightingale, and if I were a swan, that of a swan.

Zakboekje by Epictetus