TrrDisrictioiis. 69 



I not tell you, you would broak it?' " This anecdote was accepted 

 as fact by the early Christian writers as well as the pagans, 

 though we know from Simplicius and Suidas, who no doubt had 

 the life of the philosopher by Arrian as their authority, that 

 Epictetus was lame from his infancy. Origen thus comments on 

 this tale : — " Celsus sends us back to Epictetus, admiring his 

 noble saying ; but his speeeh about the breaking of his leg is not 

 worthy to be compared with the marvellous deeds of Jesus." In 

 his lirst invective against Julian, he says : — " You who praise the 

 hemlock of Socrates, the leg of Epictetus, and the bag of 

 Anaxagoras, whose philosophy was rather compulsory than 

 voluntary." 



Gregory Nazianzen (Epist. 58 to Philogrius) says : — "Epictetus^ 

 when his leg was being stretched and tortured, philosophised os 

 if in another man's body ; and it seemed that his leg was broken 

 before he perceived tlie violence."* Again in his Iambic poems 

 (Carmen XVIII.), he says : — " You say that the leg of Epictetus 

 was broken before he uttered any slavish word from the violence 

 of pain ; for he said, as we hear, that the body of man is a slave, 

 but that his mind is free ; and you mention the pounding of the 

 hands ot Anaxarchus in a mortar. Do you praise these things 1 

 So do I ; but they were brave in evils they could not avoid," &c. 

 Epictetus himself says in bis " Discourses" (I., 12, 24) : — " Must, 

 then, my leg be lamed 1 Slave, do you then on account of one 

 poor leg find fault with the world ] Also in I., 8, 14 : — "If I 

 were a philosopher, ought you also to become lame ? " In 

 I., 16, 20: — "What else can I, a lame old man, do than sing 

 hymns to God V 



SjJartianus, in his life of Hadrian (ch. XVI), says : — " He 

 was a very intimate friend of the philosophers, Epictetus and 

 Heliodorus." 



Themistius (Oratio ad Joviauum) says : — " Tims also the 

 fathers of your kingdom honoured the ancestors of this art — 

 Augustus, the famous Arius ; Tiberius Thrasylus ; the great 

 Trajan Dio, the golden-tongued ; the two Antoniiies Epictetus." 

 This statement of Themistius as well as that of Suidas, that 

 Epictetus lived to the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, is 



*In the margin of one of his manuscripts, at I., 8, 14, Schweighaeuser found 

 this note : — " That Epictetus had been wounded on the leg and was lame, the 

 Theologus has also mentioned. " This term was applied both to St. John and 

 Gregory by the early Christians, 



