Editing Enchiridion of Epictetus (section)

== Reception ==
[[File:Epicteti Enchiridion, Angelo Politiano interprete (Basel 1554) page 1.jpg|thumb|right|Latin translation by Angelo Poliziano (Basel 1554)]]
For many centuries, the ''Enchiridion'' maintained its authority both with [[Paganism|Pagans]] and [[Christians]].<ref name="smithy351">{{Harvnb|Schmitz|1870|p=351}}</ref> 

===Commentary of Simplicius===
In the 6th century the Neoplatonist philosopher [[Simplicius of Cilicia]] wrote a huge commentary on the ''Enchiridion'', which is more than ten times the bulk of the original text.<ref name="oldfart2_480">{{Harvnb|Oldfather|1928|p=480}}</ref> Chapter after chapter of the ''Enchiridion'' is dissected, discussed, and its lessons drawn out with a certain laboriousness.<ref name="rolypoly_xiif">{{Harvnb|Rolleston|1881|pp=xii–xiii}}</ref> Simplicius' commentary offers a distinctly [[Platonism|Platonist]] vision of the world,<ref name="brittybrenny_vii">{{Harvnb|Brittain|Brennan|2002|p=vii}}</ref> one which is often at odds with the Stoic content of the ''Enchiridion''.<ref name="brittybrenny_4">{{Harvnb|Brittain|Brennan|2002|p=4}}</ref> Sometimes Simplicius exceeds the scope of a commentary; thus his commentary on ''Enchiridion'' 27 (Simplicius ch. 35) becomes a refutation of [[Manichaeism]].<ref name="boat_xiv">{{Harvnb|Boter|1999|p=xiv}}</ref>

===Christian adaptations===
The ''Enchiridion'' was adapted three different times by Greek Christian writers. The oldest manuscript, ''Paraphrasis Christiana'' (''Par''), dates to the 10th century.<ref name="boat_xiv"/> Another manuscript, falsely ascribed to [[Nilus of Sinai|Nilus]] (''Nil''), dates to the 11th century.<ref name="boat_xiv"/> A third manuscript, Vaticanus gr. 2231 (''Vat''), dates to the 14th century.<ref name="boat_xiv"/> It is not known when the original versions of these manuscripts were first made.<ref name="boat_xiv"/> These guides served as a rule and guide for monastic life.<ref name="oldfart_xxvii">{{Harvnb|Oldfather|1925|p=xxvii}}</ref> The most obvious changes are in the use of proper names: thus the name Socrates is sometimes changed to Paul.<ref name="rolypoly_xiif"/><ref name="oldfart_xxvii"/> All three texts follow the ''Enchiridion'' quite closely, although the ''Par'' manuscript is more heavily modified: adding or omitting words, abridging or expanding passages, and occasionally inventing new passages.<ref>{{Harvnb|Boter|1999|p=206}}</ref>

=== Transmission ===
Over one hundred manuscripts of the ''Enchiridion'' survive.{{Ref label|A|a|none}} The oldest extant manuscripts of the authentic ''Enchiridion'' date from the 14th century, but the oldest Christianised ones date from the 10th and 11th centuries, perhaps indicating the Byzantine world's preference for the Christian versions.<ref name="boat_xv">{{Harvnb|Boter|1999|p=xv}}</ref> The ''Enchiridion'' was first translated into [[Latin]] by [[Niccolò Perotti]] in 1450, and then by [[Angelo Poliziano]] in 1479.<ref name="boat_xv"/> The first printed edition (''[[editio princeps]]'') was Poliziano's Latin translation published in 1497.<ref name="boat_xv"/> [[List of editiones principes in Greek|The original Greek was first published]] (somewhat abbreviated) with Simplicius's ''Commentary'' in 1528.<ref name="boat_xv"/> The edition published by [[Johann Schweighäuser]] in 1798 was the major edition for the next two-hundred years.<ref name="boat_xv"/><ref name="oldfart_xxii">{{Harvnb|Oldfather|1925|p=xxii}}</ref> A critical edition was produced by Gerard Boter in 1999.<ref name="boat_xvi">{{Harvnb|Boter|1999|p=xvi}}</ref>

The separate editions and translations of the ''Enchiridion'' are very many.<ref name="oldfart_xxx">{{Harvnb|Oldfather|1925|p=xxx}}</ref> The ''Enchiridion'' reached its height of popularity in the period 1550–1750.<ref name="along261">{{Harvnb|Long|2003|p=261}}</ref> It was translated into most European languages, and there were multiple translations in English, French, and German.<ref name="along261"/> The first English translation was by [[James Sandford (translator)|James Sandford]]  in 1567 (a translation of a French version) and this was followed by a translation (from the Greek) by [[John Healey (translator)|John Healey]] in 1610.<ref>{{Harvnb|Wright|2007|pp=325–326}}</ref> The ''Enchiridion'' was even partly translated into Chinese by the [[Jesuit]] missionary [[Matteo Ricci]].<ref>{{cite wikisource |zh:二十五言 |trans-title=Twenty-Five Sayings |last=Ricci |first=Matteo |language=zh}}</ref><ref name="along261"/> The popularity of the work was assisted by the [[Neostoicism]] movement initiated by [[Justus Lipsius]] in the 16th century.<ref name="along262">{{Harvnb|Long|2003|p=262}}</ref> Another Neostoic, [[Guillaume du Vair]], translated the book into French in 1586 and popularised it in his ''La Philosophie morale des Stoiques''.<ref name="along263">{{Harvnb|Long|2003|p=263}}</ref>

=== Modern era ===
In the 17th century the German monk Matthias Mittner compiled a guide on mental tranquillity for the [[Carthusians|Carthusian Order]] by taking the first thirty-five of his fifty precepts from the ''Enchiridion''.<ref name="oldfart_xxviii">{{Harvnb|Oldfather|1925|p=xxviii}}</ref> 

In the English-speaking world it was particularly well known in the 17th century: at that time it was the ''Enchiridion'' rather than the ''Discourses'' which was usually read.<ref name="wrighty_325">{{Harvnb|Wright|2007|p=325}}</ref> It was among the books [[John Harvard (clergyman)|John Harvard]] bequeathed to the newly founded [[Harvard College]] in 1638.<ref name="along268">{{Harvnb|Long|2003|p=268}}</ref> The work, being written in a clear distinct style, made it accessible to readers with no formal training in philosophy, and there was a wide readership among women in England.<ref name="wrighty_326">{{Harvnb|Wright|2007|p=326}}</ref> The writer [[Mary Wortley Montagu]] made her own translation of the ''Enchiridion'' in 1710 at the age of twenty-one.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment|author1-first=Isobel|author1-last=Grundy|year=1999|page=37|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0198187653}}</ref> The ''Enchiridion'' was a common school text in Scotland during the [[Scottish Enlightenment]]—[[Adam Smith]] had a 1670 edition in his library, acquired as a schoolboy.<ref name="phillipson">{{cite book | title=Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Phillipson, Nicholas | year=2010 | pages=19 | isbn=978-0300174434 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P830m6yCmYUC&q=enchiridion&pg=PA1730}}</ref> 

At the end of the 18th century, the ''Enchiridion'' is attested in the personal libraries of [[Benjamin Franklin]] and [[Thomas Jefferson]].<ref>{{Cite book|author1-last=Wolf|author1-first=Edwin|author2-last=Hayes|author2-first=Kevin J.|title=The Library of Benjamin Franklin|year=2006|page=278|publisher=American Philosophical Society|isbn=978-0871692573|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ibgiSlbMDPUC&pg=PA278}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author1-last=Gilreath|author1-first=James|author2-last=Wilson|author2-first=Douglas L.|title=Thomas Jefferson's Library: A Catalog with the Entries in His Own Order|year=2008|page=52|publisher=The Lawbook Exchange Ltd|isbn=978-1584778240|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PS7e0wujFRMC&pg=PA52}}</ref>

The Simplicius' commentary enjoyed its own period of popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. An English translation by [[George Stanhope]] in 1694 ran through four editions in the early 18th century.<ref name="wrighty_326"/> [[Edward Gibbon]] remarked in his ''[[Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'' that Simplicius' ''Commentary on Epictetus'' "is preserved in the library of nations, as a classic book" unlike the commentaries on [[Aristotle]] "which have passed away with the fashion of the times."<ref name="brittybrenny_vii"/>

The current division of the work into fifty-three chapters was first adopted by [[Johann Schweighäuser]] in his 1798 edition; earlier editions tended to divide the text into more chapters (especially splitting chapter 33).<ref name="boat_146-7">{{Harvnb|Boter|1999|pp=146–147}}</ref> Gerard Boter in his 1999 [[critical edition]] keeps Schweighäuser's fifty-three chapters but splits chapters 5, 14, 19, and 48 into two parts.<ref name="boat_146-7"/> 

In the 19th century, [[Walt Whitman]] discovered the ''Enchiridion'' when he was about the age of sixteen. It was a book he would repeatedly return to, and late in life he called the book "sacred, precious to me: I have had it about me so long—lived with it in terms of such familiarity."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman|editor1-first=J.R.|editor1-last=LeMaster|editor2-first=Donald D.|editor2-last=Kummings|year=1998|page=692|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415890571}}</ref>