EPICUREANS, Philosophers, who place their supreme happiness in pleasure; not in voluptuousness, and in irregular and ignominious pleasures1, but in sensible pleasures under proper regulations and governments. They denied Providence, and the Immortality of the Soul. When St. Paul came to Athens, he had conferences with the Epicurean Philosophers2. Acts xvii. 18.
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Footnotes
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Translators’ note. Cicero intimates the Practice of this Sect to be generally better than their Principles; for says he, Ut cæteri existimantur dicere melius quam facere, sic hi mihi videntur facere melius quam dicere. Lib. 2. de Fin. ↩
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Translators’ note. See more particularly concerning this Sect in Lactant. l. 3. Instit. Laertius Epicur. Cicero l. 1. De Natura Deorum. Hieronym. &c. ↩