The Epicurean doctrine of the soul stands as a direct challenge to classical Christian education, as it provides the most comprehensive philosophical ancestor to modern materialism. We might almost see the entire secular modern zeitgeist, so entrenched in the western world, as merely the long shadow of Epicureanism. This fact alone gives the lie to modernism’s grandiose claims of progress, enlightenment and deliverance from medieval superstition. Little do its adherents realize that they have unwittingly adopted the views of one ancient Greek philosopher against the others! 

How true it is what the writer of Ecclesiastes said, that there is nothing new under the sun, a statement that applies more often than we might think in the realm of ideas. As a side note, this fact provides a potent rationale for introducing our students to the Great Conversation in our classical Christian education model.

Epicurus (c. 341–270 BC) follows right after Aristotle as the founder of a new school called “The Garden,”the counter to his contemporary Zeno of Citium, the originator of Stoicism. The vast majority of Epicurus’ writings have been lost to us, with the exception of a few letters by Diogenes Laërtius, a list of maxims, and some scraps preserved in the arguments of later writers. He taught that the highest good is ataraxia (tranquility, or freedom from fear) and aponia (absence of pain), and he aimed to deliver his followers from the superstitious fear of death and the gods through his claims of a materialistic and atomistic universe.

The Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius (c. 99 – 55 BC) provides the fullest exposition of Epicurean thought through his 6 book didactic poem De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”). In it a pseudo-scientific vision of the universe as made up entirely of atoms is used to unravel the “superstition” of traditional religions, as well as the immortality of the soul. As could be imagined, the implications of his views for morality are immense. While he ends book 4 with a diatribe against romantic love and sexual desire as a source of immense suffering and madness, and a distraction from rational philosophical pursuits, it is hard to remove him from the charge of nihilistic amoralism, or at least unfettered hedonism. There is a reason the biblical quotation, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” becomes associated with Epicureanism (see Isaiah 22:13; Proverbs 23:35; Luke 12:19; 1 Corinthians 15:32).

While we must ultimately reject its conclusions regarding morality and mortality, we will, following the ghost of these ideas into the courtyard, glean valuable warnings as well as helpful insights regarding the educational impact of our fundamental beliefs and the intimate connection between the soul, the body, and the process of learning.

The Material and Corporeal Soul

The Epicurean soul is defined by its substance: it is material and corporeal. This atomistic view directly opposes Aristotle’s hylomorphism, discussed in the last article, which held the soul to be the form or the “first grade of actuality” of a natural body. In contrast, the substance or essence of the soul, for Epicurus, is not form but fine particles. In his De Anima, Aristotle had spent a whole section demolishing the atomic view of the soul propounded by Democritus long before. Epicurus revived this view of the mind or soul as minute particles spread throughout the body 

Epicurus maintained a strictly materialist (atomic) view of the soul, the gods and the eternal universe as a whole and so might be the first progenitor of the leading myth of modern secularism. The mind (animus) and the soul (anima) are a corporeal aggregate of atoms. Lucretius specifies that the soul is formed of “very minute, fine, and tiny particles” (p. 112) This corporeal nature dictates the soul’s function during life, defining the relationship between the body and mind:

“Now I say that mind and soul are held in union one with the other, and form of themselves a single nature, but that the head, as it were, and lord in the whole body is the reason, which we call mind or understanding, and it is firmly seated in the middle region of the breast…. The rest of the soul, spread abroad throughout the body, obeys and is moved at the will and inclination of the understanding” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 110).

According to Lucretius, the soul is intimately united with the body, being inextricably “linked on throughout veins, flesh, sinews, and bones” (p. 211). It’s hard not to be somewhat impressed by this stunning anticipation of the nervous system, even while we object to the ultimate conclusions of his philosophy.

The Soul as Biological Mechanism

Though the Epicurean view of the soul fails to account for the transcendent or divine aspect of the human person (the imago Dei), its emphasis on the materiality of the mind offers a surprising parallel to the modern discoveries of neuroscience and the physical substrata of cognition and sensation. It’s important to give the devil his due. Of course, we now locate the seat of the mind in the head rather than the chest–a view argued for later on by Galen, the 2nd century AD physician and philosopher, but the physical similarities of a central nervous system command center (animus – mind) and neural networks of a similar nature distributed throughout the body (anima – soul) are not inconsequential.

As the source of motion, the mind must be nimble because, as he explains, “Nothing is seen to come to pass so swiftly as what the mind pictures to itself coming to pass and starts to do itself.” This nimble nature means the mind “is very fine in texture, and is made and formed of very tiny particles”(pp. 112-113). Moreover, the mind is seen to act physically upon the body:

“This same reasoning shows that the nature of mind and soul is bodily. For when it is seen to push on the limbs, to pluck the body from sleep, to change the countenance, and to guide and turn the whole man—none of which things we see can come to pass without touch, nor touch in its turn without body—must we not allow that mind and soul are formed of bodily nature?” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 111).

This description of the Mind (Animus) acting as the “monarch of life” (p. 119) that instantly initiates motion throughout the limbs highlights the importance of the physical mechanism of the body (what we now term the nervous system) in sensation and thought. The Epicureans, forced by their materialism to account for all consciousness through physics, explain that mental activity requires a delicate, highly mobile, and well-functioning corporeal nature. The fact that the mind is “distressed by the blow of bodily weapons” reinforces the inseparable bond between body and thought (p. 112).

Even without the benefit of magnetic resonance imaging, we can imagine how the experience of sensation itself might lead an ancient person to this conclusion. There must be some substance connecting my thoughts and will to my limbs. By comparison, Plato’s entirely non-material soul seems a bit farfetched and shadowy, while Aristotle’s hylomorphic soul might feel overly academic, with its complex distinction between form and substance. In a way it’s not surprising that the atomic conception of the soul survived Aristotle’s dismantling into the less philosophical Hellenistic era.

Mortality and the Pragmatic Pursuit of Tranquility

Epicureanism’s insistence on a proto-scientific and thoroughly materialistic account of the human soul serves a primarily pragmatic picture of death. The mind stuff simply disintegrates when the physical bonds holding it together are severed at death. Consciousness, an emergent phenomenon of life, which itself arose on its own, evolution-like, from an eternal, infinite universe full of swirling atoms, will simply cease with death.

The Epicurean position is absolute mortality. Since the mind and soul are material, they are subject to death and dissolution, contradicting the Aristotelean assertion that the rational soul or mind (nous) is “separable, impassible, unmixed and alone is immortal and eternal” (Aristotle, On the Soul, III. 5; p. 179). Lucretius argues that since the mind “can be changed by medicine,” it “has a mortal life” (p. 123).

An early adopter of the conservation of matter, Lucretius claims that the soul is “dissolved” into its constituent atoms upon death:

“Now therefore, since, when vessels are shattered, you behold the water flowing away on every side, and the liquid parting this way and that, and since cloud and smoke part asunder into air, you must believe that the soul too is scattered and passes away far more swiftly, and is dissolved more quickly into its first-bodies, when once it is withdrawn from a man’s limbs, and has departed.” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 209)

This doctrine aims to banish the “old fear of Acheron” and the “close bondage of religion” by confirming that death is nothing to us (p. 107).

Although there may be gods or a God, they are uninterested in us, and there is no afterlife, no Hades, and no eternal punishment. The fate of the atomic soul, therefore, establishes the profound ethical difference between Epicureanism and its philosophical predecessors, not to mention Christian theology. Right and wrong are not enforced by an impartial law of justice; there is no transcendence or final righting of wrongs, but only a hedonistic justification for virtue rather than vice as the most beneficial path. Yet, the Epicurean dedication to mental peace (ataraxia) does reveal a pragmatic insight that is nevertheless valuable to educators.

The Value of Physical and Mental Tranquility for Study

The Epicurean goal is pleasure (hedone), defined as the “absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). While pleasure here is an end in itself, the means by which Epicureans achieve this—the dedication to study (for him primarily natural science)—does not devolve into all-out moral dissolution. This vision of ataraxia (tranquility) for the sake of pleasurable contemplation offers a positive pedagogical mandate: cultivating tranquility is necessary for serious intellectual work.

Lucretius urges his student, Memmius, to approach philosophy correctly:

“For the rest, do thou (Memmius), lend empty ears and a keen mind, severed from cares, to true philosophy, lest, before they are understood, you should leave aside in disdain my gifts set forth for you with unflagging zeal” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I., p. 62).

The acquisition of knowledge is explicitly linked to the maintenance of pleasure, in a way that is similar to Aristotle’s view of the contemplative life as the happiest. Of course, for Lucretius this vision is corrupted through his anti-religious bias: knowledge of nature (philosophy/natural science) is essential, as it banishes the fears of the gods and death, providing the highest pleasure. The ultimate success of philosophy is to save us from the “high seas and thick darkness, and enclose it in calm waters” (p. 186) This emphasis on intellectual calm, when recontextualized, provides a compelling ideal for classical Christian educators to encourage a state of mental quietude in their students, necessary for the contemplative work of learning.

Modern research has observed a loss of higher-order thinking during an emotional crisis of fear, referring to it as stress-induced prefrontal cortex downregulation, which impairs executive functions like planning and logical judgment. This impairment occurs because a perceived threat triggers Sympathetic Nervous System activation and an amygdala hijack, forcing the brain to divert resources away from the complex thought processes of the Prefrontal Cortex and towards immediate survival responses. Essentially, the emotional, primal brain overrides the rational brain to prioritize fight-or-flight, leading to a temporary but significant cognitive deficit.

In a similar way, intense desire and craving activate the brain’s dopaminergic reward pathway, effectively causing reward-induced executive dysfunction where the subcortical reward centers override the rational Prefrontal Cortex; this results in a loss of top-down control and a short-sighted focus on immediate gratification over long-term consequence. The transcendent insight here, from Epicureanism to modern research, is the importance of cultivating a tranquil mind for the deeper and more lasting intellectual joy in learning. A lifestyle of emotional swings and sympathetic or dopaminergic overload is, after all, not a recipe for eudaimonia or human flourishing. As Charlotte Mason also emphasized, cultivating a vibrant life of the mind can be an important way of helping children avoid a life of moral debauchery imprisoned to less honorable sensual passions.

Furthermore, the Epicurean focus on a calm physical well-being highlights the importance of the material body for the work of learning. Epicurus teaches that “independence of outward things is a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). This sober reasoning, aimed at securing “health of body and tranquillity of mind” is a pragmatic recognition that physical pain or excessive bodily wants are a hindrance to the sustained mental effort required for wisdom. We might see an agreement with Charlotte Mason’s insistence on the harmful effects of manipulating students into learning through a fear of punishments or the promise of rewards, as these actually undermine higher order thinking and genuine curiosity which has its own reward.

The Epicurean Legacy and the Materialist Ghost

Despite these practical insights regarding the physical substructure of sensation, the value of tranquility for study, and its limited moral applications, the Epicurean framework remains fundamentally flawed, leading directly to the philosophical dead ends that continue to haunt modern secular education.

The Epicurean reduction of man to mortal atoms necessitates a rejection of divine purpose, leading Lucretius to attack the teleological view of nature. The universe was created, not by a “foreseeing mind,” but by the chance “movements and unions of every kind” of atoms (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I., p. 101).

If the soul is merely material, the quest for truth is limited to the pragmatic aim of avoiding fear and pain. This contrasts sharply with Aristotle’s elevation of the rational soul to contemplate necessary, unchanging truth (epistēmē and nous), culminating in philosophic wisdom (sophia). The reduction of the soul to mechanics anticipates the modern trend of reducing soul, mind and spirit to the mechanics of the amygdala, frontal lobes, and dopaminergic system. We do not contest these physical and physiological discoveries, but the philosophical (and religious!) claims are just that. The fact that there are connected physical processes underlying cognition do not and cannot prove that nothing spiritual or immaterial is present as well. 

And this is not even to mention that strict materialism has no way to account for truth itself or the mind’s perception of it. Philosophically, Epicureanism (like its descendant of secular materialism) provides the intellectual equivalent of a man climbing onto a large branch, facing the trunk of the tree, only to begin sawing off the branch he is lying on. How can material man, a mere jumble of atoms, perceive immaterial truth correctly? Epicurus simply abandoned Plato’s problem of accounting for the transcendentals; he did not solve it.

Likewise, the Epicurean system struggles to maintain objective morality, arguing that virtues are necessary only insofar as they prevent the individual from experiencing temporary breakdowns in the pursuit of his own pleasure. Justice, according to Epicurus, is not intrinsically good:

“Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by apprehension that those appointed to punish such offenses will discover the injustice.” (Epicurus, Principal Doctrines)

If morality is merely a “compact” or a convention, it lacks the objective weight necessary for the integrated formation of the soul, which Plato defined as the pursuit of justice achieved through the proper ordering of the rational, spirited, and appetitive parts. Relativism in ethics follows hard on the heels of skeptical materialism.

Pedagogy and Warning: Lessons for the Classical Christian Educator

The Epicurean view serves as a powerful cautionary tale, highlighting how prioritizing mortal pleasure over transcendent purpose undermines the classical Christian mission.

While the Epicureans offered a remarkably acute understanding of how sensation and thought are linked to physical motion and the “fineness of texture” of the body’s material components, the reduction of the entire soul to this atomic mechanism is where the system collapses.

The materialist emphasis, though supporting the importance of attending to the physical health and nourishment of the body for learning, cannot account for the part of the soul (Aristotle’s nous) that is “incapable of being destroyed” and alone is “immortal and eternal”. By reducing the soul to a destructible material form, Epicureanism limits the student’s telos to the mortal pursuit of individual pleasure, contradicting the Christian view of the human person as being made for eternal communion with God and bodily resurrection.

Similarly, the Epicurean ideal of tranquility (ataraxia) is a desirable precursor to focused intellectual study, which the classical Christian educator can and should affirm under the general tradition of schole or leisure (see e.g., Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture or Chris Perrin’s The Schole Way). However, when this is made the ultimate end of life, it leads to the dangerous avoidance of necessary conflict and labor.

The Epicurean wise person limits desires and seeks simple, easily procured pleasures to “remove the pain of want” and “avoid conflict.” This stands against the classical ideal of training the soul (especially the spirited part) to embrace “physical training to endure pains and sufferings” and the toil necessary for growth. If we prioritize the elimination of distress above all else, we risk producing “unrighteous men, enslaved to their own prejudices and appetites,” who are unwilling to enter the labor and conflict required for both intellectual mastery and moral virtue. The Epicurean philosophy, by grounding the soul in atoms, ultimately confines humanity within the “deepset boundary-stone” of mortality, forever hindering the spiritual revolution of the mind required for true human flourishing.

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Aristotle. On the Soul. Translated by J. A. Smith. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/soul.html.

Epicurus. “Letter to Menoeceus.” Translated by Robert Drew Hicks. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html. 

Epicurus. “Principal Doctrines.” Translated by Robert Drew Hicks. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html. Lucretius. Lucretius on the Nature of Things. Translated by Cyril Bailey. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1910.

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