Rare Book Collection

Indiana Jones: “If You Want To Be A Good Archeologist, You Gotta Get Out Of The Library!”

Indiana Jones (the classic 1980’s motion picture action hero portrayed by Harrison Ford) in the quote above, seems to be giving some solid Stoic advice echoing the teaching of our beloved Epictetus. Simply stated in the title of the 2009 John Sellars influential book “The Art of Living”, Stoicism is intended to be practiced and crafted out in the turbulent world we all live in.

This last winter I was snowed in at an old lodge in northern Minnesota (USA) on the shores of Lake Superior (one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes). I am a musician and was performing at a friends wedding when a heavy snow/ice/wind storm hit and made travel back to St Paul, Minnesota (where I live) dangerous. Was grateful the universe granted me this time away from the turbulent world of life in the city and return to the library… the online College of Stoic Philosophers library. 

Weeks earlier, I had approached my 5^th term Marcus Aurelius mentor advisor, Mitch, eager to do more work for the college (besides the internship of my assigned two students) which lead me to (what was called at the time) “The Stacks”. “The Stacks” was a file of 54 scanned public domain books (Stoic in nature) published throughout the world in 1600’s to the early 1900’s AD, mostly in English, but also in other languages. I am unclear where they originated from or how the College inherited them. 

I was asked (and happily accepted) to organize this large book collection (title, date, publisher, description, etc.) on a spreadsheet to be shared on the College library website. I was also asked to be on the look out for “hidden gems” in the collection that seem especially unique, rare, etc. that I may be willing to write a brief essay on highlighting a few once completing the spreadsheet. 

So while snowed in on Lake Superior, listening to the waves crash from the winter storm outside (and the ringing in my ears from the wedding performance the night before), I decided to put on my proverbial Indiana Jones hat and kick off my adventure looking for fame and fortune in the catacombs of “The Stacks.” 

I am confident that anyone who has an interest in old and rare books on Stoicism will find something new to discover with every visit to the College “Rare Books” library. I will highlight two texts that I discovered and consider to be “hidden gems.”

THE HYMN OF CLEANTHES by E.H. Blakeney (1921)

“In Stoicism, though in some respects Cleanthes revolutionized the study of physics, which he regarded as giving the surest rule for human conduct generally, the main interest of the creed lies in its moral postulates. Physics is to be regarded as the scaffolding of ethics.” (Pg. 3)

“What the position of Cleanthes really was, in the sphere of religion, we can never fully ascertain; we possess his teachings only in fragments, and we cannot properly judge a thinker by the disjecta membra of his philosophy. But we seem to discover in Cleanthes, when we read his hymn (was it written in early, middle, or later life?), a genuinely religious man, “bent on giving a theological interpretation of the world, and breathing a pious submission to the world-order which it is refreshing to feel and come in contact with” (Davidson, The Stoic Creed, p.27). (Pg. 6)

“Cleanthes feels himself akin to the divine, and therefore worthy to hold communion with it; he expresses his admiration for, and submission to, the divine order of the world; he recognizes that the moral evil in the world is the result not of fate but of man’s freewill; he prays God to free human souls from ignorance; and closes with an apostrophe in praise of God’s law.” (Pg. 9)  

“The hymn is throughout inspired by the consciousness that its one spiritual power which penetrates and controls the Universe, and is the source of every work done under the sun.” (Pg. 14)

As a traditional Stoic, I found this analyzed look a Cleanthes and his “Hymn to Zeus” interesting because of it’s emphasis on and the importance of Stoic physics. I find Cleanthes’, (the successor to Zeno and who presided over the Stoa for over thirty years) views of submission to the wisdom of universal consciousness and world-order, just as useful, comforting, refreshing and fundamental in my personal practice of Stoicism here in the 21^st century. I subscribe to the Stoic similes in attempts to explain the relationship between the three parts of logic, physics, and ethics. No soil or trees (physics)… no fence (logic) or fruit (ethics).

EPICTETI ENCHIRIDION MADE ENGLISH IN A POETICAL PARAPHRASE by Ellis Walker (1692)

The author’s dedication speaks for itself:

“To my Honoured Uncle Mr. Samuel Walker of York. When I fled to you for shelter, at the breaking out of the present Troubles in Ireland, I took Epictetus for my Companion; and found that both I, and my Friend were welcome … You may remember, I then told you, that as they seem’d Such to me, so I thought they would very well take a Poetical dress: You said the attempt was bold, but withal wish’s it well done. I hurry’d on with zeal for an Author belov’d by you, and admired by all, have made the Essay a grateful diversion to me, though perhaps I may have pleas’d you better in Admiring the Author, than in Translating him.” (p. 5)

And so, young Ellis Walker tackled putting the Enchiridion into English verse:

“Respecting Man, things are divided thus:
Some do not, and so do belong to us.
Some within compass of our power fall,
And these are they, which we our own may call.” (p. 23)

“Therefore be sure, that your aversions fall
Only on things which you your own may call,
But for the present all desires suspend,
For if to things not in your power they tend,
Folly and Grief you’ll find, but lose your end.” (p. 29)

I encourage you to visit the Rare Book stacks at: https://collegeofstoicphilosophers.org/
library-the-stacks/

If you have any public domain books on Stoicism which you think should be
part of the collection, please let us know at editor@collegeofstoicphilosophers.org.