The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life. – Principal Doctrine 39
In the past, the Koinonia of Friends of Epicurus has produced memes with the #KnowYourCircle hashtag. This is an appeal to the logic of concentric circles that we find in Doctrine 39, which says that we should have an inner circle of beings who are familiar and trustworthy, an outer circle of acquaintances with whom we have some familiarity, and then there may be people who are outside of our circles and worthy of avoidance for reasons of safety or due to other annoyances. This Doctrine may have been inspired by the Timocrates affair.
We call this the Doctrine of eumetry, a term coined by aesthetician Panayotis Michelis to denote a non-mathematical and non-symmetrical harmony that can at times even be superior to symmetry–which is often considered an important standard in aesthetics, or the study of beauty. Michelis was saying was that sometimes beauty can be measured in non-standard ways. However, neo-Epicurean French philosopher and historian Michel Onfray adapted this neologism for use in ethics. It comes from the Greek “eu-” (good) and “-metry” is related to measure, or distance, so that it implies keeping “a good distance”, or keeping “a safe distance: not too close, not too far”, as Onfray puts it. Knowing the right distance to keep with many people is meant to guarantee peace of mind.
One of the great life-long existential tasks that every Epicurean must carry out is expressed in Doctrine 27: it consists on building our own tribe, our own circle of friends. Since the closing of the Letter to Menoeceus says that we have two fields of praxis as Epicureans (introspective meleta by ourselves, and social meleta with friends of like mind), we must include some knowledgeable, sincere, and happy Epicureans in our circle of friends. By enshrining these things in Doctrine, Epicurus made it clear that he wanted his disciples to create intellectual tribes, to associate with and blend their minds with people who think alike.
Some of the Principal Doctrines “give a sermon together”–meaning, they must be interpreted in sequence or as part of a whole, because they seem to have been born as conclusions from a single, ongoing conversation among the Founders. That is the case with the last two Doctrines, and we must also consider why they were placed last. Once Doctrine 39 has been practiced consistently, and we have created an inner circle, Kyriai Doxai closes with these instructions:
Those who were best able to provide themselves with the means of security against their neighbors, being thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed the most pleasant life in each other’s society; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, if one of them died before his time, the survivors did not mourn his death as if it called for sympathy. – Principal Doctrine 40
Once we have built our fortress of the soul and surrounded ourselves with “Friends of like mind”, we are able to enjoy an intimate society of Friends. This is the final instruction of Kyriai Doxai. It helps us to create a healthy and stimulating environment for Epicurean practice, for exploring the tasks and Doctrines both by ourselves and with others. It’s written in the past tense, which may indicate that we are to look to the founders as role models for ideas about what this intimate society of Friends looks like.
Perhaps as should be expected for the last one of the Principal Doctrines, it includes instructions on how NOT to mourn our Epicurean friends. Epicurus says we should remember them not with lamentations, but with pleasant remembrance. One of the Vatican Sayings teaches the practice of pleasant remembrance for that which we can not change. So there is a particular Epicurean tradition of remembering our Friends, which was enshrined in the Twentieth feasts which are in actuality memorial services for the Founders (and, broadly, for our Friends in philosophy who have parted).
Once you have an intimate society of Epicurean Friends, it’s natural that some will die, and we may be obligated (by oath) or compelled (by a sense of loyalty) to honor our friends’ memory in a manner that is true to their beliefs. The Roman Epicureans developed a tradition of burial where they placed the words “Non fvi. Fvi. Non svm. Non cvro.” (I was not, I was, I am not, I care not) on their tombstones. We may develop similar traditions today, or revive the ancient tradition. Part of the point of this Doctrine is that the practice of remembrance of our dead should be consistent with the rest of our theory and praxis. We must create Epicurean cultural expression that is authentic and reflects our values.
On Koinonia
I spoke here about our circles as intellectual tribes, and in my essay for How to Live a Good Life, I defended tribalism as a non-politically-correct but naturally-correct practice, based on the hundreds of thousands of years during which our ancestors evolved in tribal societies, and based on the Dunbar number. There’d be nothing special about being Epicurean if everyone could be Epicurean. It’s an intimate circle of friends, and somewhat exclusive. I now wish to tie this communitarian Doctrine to the sources.
Epicurean Koinonia are bound by hedonic contracts. Epicurus, in Principal Doctrines 37-38, uses the term κοινωνία (koinonia), saying that justice exists only in the context of companions who have agreements of mutual benefit. Depending on how the Doctrines are worded in English, it translates as “companions” or as “association”. When used in the New Testament, it’s often translated as “fellowship”, which is defined as:
1 : companionship, company
2a : community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience
b : the state of being a fellow or associate
3 : a company of equals or friends : association
4 : the quality or state of being comradely
5 obsolete : membership, partnership
The word is of Greek origin and was not used by Jesus, who spoke Aramaic. It appears in the Pauline literature in Acts 2:42, in 2 Corinthians 9:13, and in Philippians 3:10, which lends credibility to the theory by Norman DeWitt that the “apostle” Paul (who is credited with authoring these epistles) appropriated many Epicurean concepts and adapted them for his New Testament epistles (he also imitated our epistolary literary tradition).
DeWitt’s theory is that Paul was steeped in the study of Epicureanism, and that he transferred the concepts from our philosophy into his new religion, assigning new meaning to the concepts. But we are not interested in what koinonia came to mean for Christians. If we try to imagine ways in which Paul would have discovered the joys of fellowship among the Epicureans, or ways in which we can experience these pleasures today, we would come up with:
- spending time with our friends and blending our minds with theirs
- studying, learning, practicing, teaching, and creating together
- honoring each other with gifts and celebrating each other’s birthdays and other joys
- helping each other, when necessary
- trusting our Epicurean Friends and turning to them when we have problems
- even when we apply parrhesia (frank criticism), we may use suavity (the Epicurean virtue of sweet, kind speech) to soften the harshness of our words
Concerning the first point, the Havamal (although it’s from another tradition) has one stanza that accurately explains that “care will gnaw at your heart if you can’t share all your mind with another“. The second point fulfils Epicurus’ instructions on meleta, which should be done both by ourselves (introspection) and with “others of like mind“.
One further point must be made, based on the contextual interpretation of PD’s 37-38. These Doctrines deal with problems related to discerning how natural justice applies in a particular situation. Natural justice exists only where there are agreements between Friends. Since the use of koinonia in the Epicurean scriptures is restricted to this context, we assume that this fellowship is only possible among Friends who have such agreements (which require trust and a high degree of clear communication). These agreements may take the concrete forms of written contracts, verbal agreements, or oaths. Outside of this, there is no natural, concrete justice, and therefore no koinonia. This means that justice (defined as mutual benefit, and avoidance of mutual harm) is one of the foundations for Epicurean Friendship, since it’s not seen to flourish among people who do not agree to not harm each other, but to benefit each other. In this way, we can understand why the Doctrines on justice precede the final two in the progression of ideas that we find in the Kyriai Doxai, and why they’re advantageous for our happiness, and therefore included in the canonical collection of maxims as required practice.
Since these Doctrines discuss the intimacy of our communities, they’re a good place to evaluate the utility of the word Koinonia. It might be more advantageous for us to refer to the Society of Friends of Epicurus as a Koinonia, rather than as “this Society”, which may at times (by people who are hostile to us, or who are ignorant) be misconstrued to refer to the entire society of which we are part of, when we in reality are only referring to those who are in our circle and who are armed for happiness. The adoption of the term Koinonia may, therefore, be a clearer and more specific way for Epicureans to refer to our own circles of Friends, rather than “society” or other words whose meaning is broader.
