Who is the ‘wise man’ according to Epictetus?

In this article we present an excerpt from the Stoic Philosopher Epictetus that explains his views on the matter of Wisdom.

Epictetus, the Stoic Philosopher, says: “the man who is not wise, blames the other people, when things are not going as they should”.

“He who starts achieving wisdom”, he continues, “blames himself”.

“But wise is the man who does not blame either himself nor the rest of the people”.

“Wise man“, according to the Philosopher, “is the one who has completely surrendered himself in the hands of the Ecumenical Mind (Οικουμενικός Νους)”

NovoScriptorium: As we see, in the same way that the Natural Philosophers before him spoke of one God and of the absolute connection of the concept of ‘Philosophy’ with Him, so did Epictetus. The Actual/True Being, i.e. the God Creator, is identified -among other identifications- (by the Philosophers) with the term ‘Νους’ (Mind). It is another idiom of the Being to constitute the ‘Ecumenical Mind’. Wise man (well, not in absolute terms ‘wise’, as only God is ‘absolutely wise’, as we have explained in other articles) can be considered only he who has surrendered completely himself to God. In other words, the man that has eliminated his ‘ego’ and his ‘wants’ (his Thelema), no longer lives with ‘self-own-will’, but has cordially accepted ‘the will of God’-‘God’s Thelema’, whatever that is, for him and his life.

Research-Analysis for NovoScriptorium: Isidoros Aggelos