Death, a Stoic, and Augustine

This is a brief paper I wrote for my philosophy class last semester, exploring the intellectual relationship between the Stoic Epictetus and Saint Augustine.

Centuries before the birth of Augustine, a Stoic philosopher wrote his handbook for life, the Enchiridion. Around 135 A.D., this man, Epictetus, laid out a set of guidelines for behavior and thought that would lead to a happy, fulfilled life, free of the tyranny of misguided emotions. More than two hundred years later, this text or perhaps others like it were influencing the thought of the young student, Augustine, studying philosophy across the ancient world. Some of the most compelling portions of Epictetus’ Enchiridion are the discourses on death, and a man’s proper response to the inevitable event as it occurred to his loved ones. Augustine himself, as he tells readers in his Confessions, experienced two major deaths of loved ones in his life: that of his best friend, and of his mother Monica. Augustine’s respective reactions to these deaths provide interesting contrasts to the advice presented by Epictetus in the Enchiridion; the death of his friend is taken by Augustine in the exact opposite manner of the stoic’s advice. Augustine’s reaction to Monica’s death, however, shows a more nuanced and complex understanding. The transition in behavior and attitude towards his loved ones’ demises in Augustine displays both a partial acceptance and partial rejection of stoic ideas about death, suggestive of an Enchiridion touched by Christianity.

The Enchiridion contains advice and conjecture on far more than death, and much of Epictetus’ advice is taken and shared by Augustine himself. Long before Augustine taught his students about God as the infinite, highest good, and all other created gifts as good but lower things, Epictetus had this to say: “Aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself to be carried, even with a slight tendency, towards the attainment of lesser things,” (Epictetus, 1). This theme of right priorities is central to Augustine’s discourses on the nature of sin and evil, which he would define as the choosing of a lesser good over the greater. This concept of evil reduces it to a lack of goodness or a disordered choice; evil’s existence as a substance Augustine denies. So to does Epictetus, who states “as a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world,” (Epictetus, 27). In Augustine’s later life, after his conversion, he spoke highly critically of the gladiatorial spectacles he tried to avoid but ended up attending in college; Epictetus also decries these events and encourages his reader to “avoid public and vulgar entertainments,” (Epictetus, 33). These consistencies and overlaps suggest that Augustine, during his studies, was greatly influenced by the writings of the stoics, if not Epictetus himself.

As written earlier, one of the Enchridion’s most controversial points is the advice to avoid grief after the death of a loved one. This point is best laid out as follows:

With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things… If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss those things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.

(Epictetus, 3)

Epictetus continues several paragraphs later in the same vein, saying “Death, for instance, is not terrible… but the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible,” (Epictetus, 5). People would be so much happier, claims Epictetus, if only they did not take human life (and subsequent death) so seriously and gravely. By avoiding dangerously intimate relationships with other human beings, one can avoid the pain and overwhelming sadness that often comes with the death of a loved one, very much like the pain and overwhelming sadness that struck Augustine the student after the death of his best friend.

Surprised and somewhat offended by his feverish friend’s sickbed reversion to Catholicism, Augustine was ill-prepared to deal with the seemingly recovering young man’s death. Indeed, Augustine seemed to do everything wrong, according to Epictetus, in order to react properly to death. While Epictetus teaches that “if you wish your children, and your wife, and your friends to live forever, you are stupid” (Epictetus 14), Augustine admits that he had loved his friend “as though he would never die,” (Augustine, IV.6.11). This anti-stoic attitude proves just as disastrous as Epictetus himself would predict. Augustine describes his feelings after his friend’s death in no uncertain terms: “Black grief closed over my heart… I hated all things because they held him not… Weeping alone brought me solace, and took my friend’s place as the only comfort of my soul,” (Augustine, IV.4.9). The mourning continues for paragraphs, and Augustine shows no sign of improvement. “I simply mourned and wept, for I was beset with misery and bereft of my joy,” (Augustine IV.5.10). It is important to remember that Augustine wrote all of these things after his conversion, and at the time of authorship held a very negative view of his behavior at this time. The nature of his dismal life at this point he explains himself, saying “miserable… is everyone whose mind is chained with friendship by mortal things, and is torn apart by their loss,” (Augustine IV.6.11). Mortal things, by nature must die, and Epictetus seconds Augustine’s notion, stating that trying to control such things will end up badly, much like Augustine: “You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men,” (Epictetus 1).

After this traumatic event, Augustine continued his studies and eventually converted to Catholicism. It is after this conversion that his beloved mother, Monica, died. His initial reactions to her death seem to be more in line with the teachings of the Enchridion. In opposition to his wildly depressed behavior after his friend’s death, Augustine says “I was silent, holding back my tears,” (Augustine, IX.11.27), and “a huge sadness surged into my heart, tears welled up, but in response to a ferocious command from my mind my eyes held the fount in check,” (Augustine IX.12.29). Indeed, the reaction of his compatriots likens to that of ideal stoics: “We judged it unfitting to mark this death by plaintive protests and laments… customarily employed to mourn… death as complete extinction,” (Augustine, IX.12.29). So far, the difference from expected stoic reaction exists only in Augustine’s deep sadness, hidden to others. However, as this passage continues, the reader sees great variation with the stoics: “But she neither died in misery nor died altogether,” (Augustine IX.12.29). Regardless of Epictetus’ belief in an afterlife (or lack thereof), the Christian notion of heaven as it existed for Augustine is foreign to a stoic. As time passes after Monica’s death, Augustine can no longer bear the repression. “The tears that I had been holding back I now released to flow as plentifully as they would,” (Augustine, IX.12.33). This grief, however, is far more controlled than that he experienced after his friend’s death, and Augustine even chastised himself for feeling it so greatly as it happened: “I was perhaps guilty of some carnal affection,” (Augustine, IX.12.34) and “I chided myself with weakness for feeling as I did,” (Augustine, IX.12.31). In the end, Augustine declares his heart “healed of that wound,” (Augustine IX.12.34).

While Augustine mourned both his friend’s and his mother’s passing, the degrees to which he does each are strikingly different. As far as the reader can tell from the writings, Augustine’s reaction to Monica’s death seems to be formed mindful of both stoic advice and Christian piety, in a compelling melding of ideas that had the power to change the very nature of his reaction to the final human experience itself, death.

Saint Augustine. The Confessions. 3rd ed. Hyde Park, New York: New City P, 2005.

Epictetus. "The Enchiridion." The Internet Classics Archive. 11 Nov. 2006 .