Editing Enchiridion of Epictetus (section)

=== 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>