Following Socrateshealth, the unavoidability of death, the capriciousness of the
gods. Epicurean philosophy is, therefore, less deterministic than
Stoicism: one is free to fi nd as much pleasure in bread and water
as a feast, Epicurus said. It is also, in a sense, against reason:
Epicurus thought that reason tends to encourage grandiose
ideas that, because they can never quite rid themselves of uncer-
tainties, causes ‘turmoil in the souls of men’. For this reason,
Epicureans liked to say that they were not followers of Socrates,
though they would never have existed without him.
Christian innovations
The philosophical schools, and the approaches to life they
encouraged, lasted well into the Christian period. Plato’s
Academy was fi nally closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE.
Their infl uence on early Christianity is therefore pronounced.
The so-called Desert Fathers of the fi rst centuries after Christ
explicitly discussed ancient philosophy and adopted similar
practices of asceticism, contemplation and withdrawal from
the city – if purifi ed, as they saw it, from the errors of pagan-
ism. There are even letters that purport to have been written
between Seneca, a great Stoic, and St Paul, in which they offer
one another their mutual admiration. They are completely fan-
ciful but that they were fabricated at all underlines how early
Christianity adopted and adapted the Socratic insight in their
search for their great unknown, God.
The parallels between Christianity and ancient philosophy
can be pushed further, as in some respects they are forms of
a not dissimilar spirituality. First, in being uncertain of them-
selves – the Socratic because they realise they do not know
themselves, the Christian because they are born into self-
deceiving sin – both are given intimations of what may be called
the divine truth that lies beyond them and to which they strive.
Second, the exercises by which they move towards this truth of
themselves are a work on themselves: followers of Socrates and
early Christians were called to ask questions of themselves with