2«<i S. VL 142., Sept. 18. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



225 



tuary an Epicurean ! (See Gassendi, De Vita, 

 Moribus et Doctriua Epicuri.) It is the fulfilment 

 of the vulgar proverb — " Give a dog a bad 

 name," &c. 



In modern times we Lave applied it rather with 

 reference to the " belly god " in the sense of 

 " alderman," (another sad misrepresentation !) 

 quite in accordance, however, with the notion of 

 Horace : — 



" Me phiguem et nitidura bene cuiata cute vises, 

 Cum ritlere voles, Epicuri de grege porcum." 



Hereupon an annotator observes — " Horace 

 was rather fat, and the Epicureans were called 

 hogs ! " In fact, Epicurus was apostrophised as 

 "ex hard productus, non ex schold" — a product 

 of the sty, not the school ! But the testimony of 

 Cicero is conclusive as to the established meaning 

 and derivation of the term " Epicurism." In one 

 of his humorous Letters — which remind us so 

 much of Byron's — he protests that he has utterly 

 ceased to care for the Kepublic and all the former 

 objects of his solicitude, having "flung himself into 

 the camp of his enemy Epicurus " — in Epicuri nos 

 adversarii nostri castra conjecimus — and proceeds 

 to glorify his voracious appetite — perinde te para : 

 cum liomine et edaci tibi res est — make ready — 

 you have to do with a man and a voracious fellow 

 in the bargain. He boasts of his proficiency in 

 extravagant display — enhanced, as he observes, 

 by his having turned pupil in the science late in 

 life. True, he reads and writes in the morning, 

 and sees a few friends who listen to him because 

 he happens to know a little more than they do — 

 quid puulb sim, qucim ipsi, doctior ; but inde cor- 

 pori omne tempus datur — after that he gives up 

 all his time to the carnal man ; nay, he threatens 

 to eat up his friend's fortune by his extravagance, 

 should he give him an opportunity by getting ill 

 — ne ego, te jacente, bona iua comedim. Statui enim 

 tibi ne eegroto quidem parcere. (Epist. ix. 20.) 

 Such was Cicero's notion of an Epicurean, or 

 Epicurism — and the portrait tallies with the 

 common notion in all times of an "epicure — one 

 wholly given to luxury," according to the dic- 

 tionaries. Now, the word having acquired this 

 notoriety, common experience shows how easily it 

 would be applied, just like the term " deist," 

 " atheist," &c. — since the persons who apply 

 such terms at random necessarily involve the 

 idea of carnal indulgence with spiritual repro- 

 bation — as will appear in the sequel, by the 

 Rabbis. Moreover, Epicurus was an avowed 

 atheist, and a most decided materialist. If he 

 admitted the existence of "gods," these were 

 merely superior beings, resulting from the fortui- 

 tous concourse of finer atoms than those out of 

 which he su])posed man to have been elaborated ; 

 — and he denied them a Providence over man, 

 whom they would neither benefit nor injure — 

 neither reward nor punish. I3y this doctrine he 



thought he could root out from amongst men all 

 manner of s%iperstilion — as if th.it universal ele- 

 ment of our nature were not absolutely necessary, 

 in the absence of better motives, for moral go- 

 vernment in our present world-epoch. It must 

 now be evident that the Rabbis borrowed their 

 "aipikurios" and "epicurus" (as Buxtorf gives 

 the " Aramaean ") entirely from the name — the 

 doctrine — and the ill repute of Epicurus and his 

 disciples. I may add that the denial of a Provi- 

 dence by the Epicureans is pointedly denounced 

 by Josephus. (^Autiq. 1. x. c. xi. 7.) 



If these universally received facts as to poor 

 Epicurus having originated this " term of re- 

 proach " be not the true " derivation," we must 

 doubt the origin of every existing ism in the 

 language. Words have certainly swerved most 

 strangely — but not unaccountably — from their 

 original meaning — but to tell us that a word all 

 along meaning a " sensualist," a " bon vivant," 

 meant originally an " infidel," is rather too much 

 for literary credulity — Credat Jiidceus Jehudah ! 

 And if the " Aramaean " epicur, as is contended, 

 means "free, licentious," it must be classed amongst 

 the numerous coincidences which startle us in the 

 manners and customs and languages of Man all 

 the world over : — but, in this case, I submit that 

 the coincidence is scarcely borne out — the re- 

 semblance strained and improbable. I would just 

 as soon believe that our English phrase " fresh 

 air" is to be referred to the French fraicheiir, 

 which it resembles so closely in sound and mean- 

 ing. When we find in an American Indian dia- 

 lect the word ma meaning " water," and precisely 

 the same word and meaning in Arabic, — in the 

 Carib language hueyou, " sun," and in the SamoJide 

 ha'iya, — in the American Guarani, ama, " rain," 

 and Japanese ame, — in the Tamanaka, aika, 

 " woman," and the Finnish aMa — and a thousand 

 other words of similar sound and the same mean- 

 ing, — we are merely startled, and never think of 

 " derivation," (which is impossible), but simply 

 refer to those general causes which " make all the 

 world akin " — without interfering with the " spe- 

 cialities," however. 



Assuredly in this proposed Hebrew origin of 

 the term " Epicurean," we have stumbled upon a 

 mare's nest, and must be excused for laughing at 

 the egg. We may praise, without sanctioning, the 

 ingenuity with which Mr. Elmes refers the Rab- 

 binical " Aipikurios " and '' Epicur " to the He- 

 brew "]2n in Exod. xiv. 5. Why, this v/ord means 

 every form of turning — vertit, evertit, convertit, 

 invertit, ob. sub. mutavit, commtttavit, in)mutavit ef 

 interdum, convertere se, vcrti, mutari. AVe have 

 the same verb in Exod. vii. 20. — " the waters 

 that were in the river were turned to blood." 

 Does Moses mean to insinuate that the waters 

 were "epicureans, infidels, unbelievers"? — as Mn. 

 Elmes thinks he did with respect to Pharaoh, 



