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Episcopal polity

An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance ("ecclesiastical polity") in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Anglican churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages. Many Methodist denominations have a form of episcopal polity known as connexionalism.

History
Churches with an episcopal polity are governed by bishops, practising their authorities in the dioceses and conferences or synods. Their leadership is both sacramental and constitutional; as well as performing ordinations, confirmations, and consecrations, the bishop supervises the clergy within a local jurisdiction and is the representative both to secular structures and within the hierarchy of the church.

Bishops are considered to derive their authority from an unbroken, personal apostolic succession from the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Bishops with such authority are said to represent the historical episcopate or historic episcopate. Churches with this type of government usually believe that the Church requires episcopal government as described in the New Testament (see 1 Timothy 3 and 2 Timothy 1). In some systems, bishops may be subject in limited ways to bishops holding a higher office (variously called archbishops, metropolitans, or patriarchs, depending upon the tradition). They also meet in councils or synods. These gatherings, subject to presidency by higher ranking bishops, usually make important decisions, though the synod or council may also be purely advisory.

For much of the written history of institutional Christianity, episcopal government was the only known form of church organization. This changed at the Reformation. Many Protestant churches are now organized by either congregational or presbyterian church polities, both descended from the writings of John Calvin, a Protestant reformer working and writing independently following the break with the Catholic Church precipitated by The Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther. However, some people have disputed the episcopal polity before the reformation, such as Aerius of Sebaste in the 4th century.

Overview of episcopal churches
The definition of the word episcopal has variation among Christian traditions. There are subtle differences in governmental principles among episcopal churches at the present time. To some extent the separation of episcopal churches can be traced to these differences in ecclesiology, that is, their theological understanding of church and church governance. For some, "episcopal churches" are churches that use a hierarchy of bishops who identify as being in an unbroken, personal apostolic succession.

"Episcopal" is also commonly used to distinguish between the various organizational structures of denominations. For instance, "Presbyterian" (πρεσβύτερος, presbýteros) is used to describe a church governed by a hierarchy of assemblies of elected elders, referred to as presbyterian polity. Similarly, "episcopal" is used to describe a church governed by bishops. Self-governed local congregations, governed neither by elders nor bishops, are usually described as "congregational".

More specifically, the capitalized appellation "Episcopal" is applied to several churches historically based within Anglicanism ("Episcopalianism"), including those still in communion with the Church of England.

Using these definitions, examples of specific episcopal churches include:
 * The Catholic Church
 * The Eastern Orthodox Church
 * The Oriental Orthodox Churches
 * The Assyrian Church of the East
 * The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church
 * The Churches of the Anglican Communion
 * The Old Catholic churches
 * Numerous smaller "catholic" churches
 * Certain national churches of the Lutheran confession
 * The African Methodist Episcopal Church
 * The United Methodist Church

Some Lutheran churches practice congregational polity or a form of presbyterian polity. Others, including the Church of Sweden, practice episcopal polity; the Church of Sweden also counts its bishops among the historic episcopate. This is also the case with some American Lutheran churches, such as the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church, Lutheran Orthodox Church, Lutheran Church - International, and the Lutheran Episcopal Communion.

Many Methodist churches (the United Methodist Church, among others) retain the form and function of episcopal polity, although in a modified form, called connexionalism. Since all trace their ordinations to an Anglican priest, John Wesley, it is generally considered that their bishops do not share in apostolic succession. However, United Methodists affirm that their bishops share in the historic episcopate.

Formation
The Apostle Paul in the letter to Philippians, Clement of Rome and the Didache when talking about the church system of governance, mention "bishops and deacons", omitting the word "presbyter", which has been argued by some to show that there was no presbyter-bishop distinction yet in the first century.

Ignatius of Antioch writing in already the early second century makes a clear distinction of bishops and presbyters, meaning that his letters show that an episcopal system was already existing by his time. However Bart Erhman sees it as significant that Ignatius in his letter to the Romans never mentioned a bishop in Rome. Later also Tertullian very clearly distinguishes the presbyters and bishops as a separate office, Irenaeus made lists of the succession of bishops, though bishop succession lists made by early church fathers are highly contradictory. By the second century it appears that the episcopal system had become the majority, universal view among Christians.

Even schismatic sects such as the Novatians and Donatists would use the episcopal system. Except for Aerius of Sebaste, who contested the episcopal system and started his own sect.

Jerome stated that churches were originally governed by a group of presbyters but only later churches decided to elect bishops to suppress schisms.

Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has an episcopate, with the Pope, who is the Bishop of Rome, at the top. The Catholic Church considers that juridical oversight over the Church is not a power that derives from human beings, but strictly from the authority of Christ, which was given to his twelve apostles. The See of Rome, as the unbroken line of apostolic authority descending from St. Peter (the "prince and head of the apostles"), is a visible sign and instrument of communion among the college of bishops and therefore also of the local churches around the world. In communion with the worldwide college of bishops, the Pope has all legitimate juridical and teaching authority over the whole Church. This authority given by Christ to St. Peter and the apostles is transmitted from one generation to the next by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the laying on of hands from the Apostles to the bishops, in unbroken succession.

Eastern Orthodox Church
The conciliar idea of episcopal government continues in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In Eastern Orthodoxy, all autocephalous primates are seen as collectively gathering around Christ, with other archbishops and bishops gathering around them, and so forth. There is no single primate with exclusive authority comparable to the Pope in Rome. However, the Patriarch of Constantinople (now Istanbul) is seen as the primus inter pares, the "first among equals" of the autocephalous churches of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Oriental Orthodox churches
The Oriental Orthodox Churches affirm the ideas of apostolic succession and episcopal government. Within each national Church, the bishops form a holy synod to which even the Patriarch is subject. The Syriac Orthodox Church traces its apostolic succession to St. Peter and recognises Antioch as the original See of St. Peter. The Armenian Apostolic Church traces its lineage to the Apostle Bartholomew. The Indian Orthodox Church traces its lineage to the Apostle Thomas. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church received its lines of succession (Frumentius) through the Coptic Orthodox Church in the fifth century.

Both the Greek and Coptic Orthodox Churches each recognise their own Pope of Alexandria (Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, and Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria respectively), both of whom trace their apostolic succession back to the figure Mark the Evangelist. There are official, ongoing efforts in recent times to heal this ancient breach. Already, the two recognize each other's baptisms, chrismations, and marriages, making intermarriage much easier.

Church of the East
Historically, the Church of the East has traced its episcopal succession to St. Thomas the Apostle. Currently the bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East continue to maintain its apostolic succession.

Lutheran Churches
Lutheran Churches, such as the Church of Sweden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya, maintain apostolic succession. In countries such as Sweden, Catholic bishops became Lutheran bishops during the Reformation, continuing the ancient lines of apostolic succession.

Through Swedish missionary work and the establishment of Lutheran Churches in various countries, such as in Kenya, apostolic succession was continued in those denominations, such as in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe, among others.

Anglican Communion
Anglicanism is a Reformation tradition that lays claim to the historic episcopate through apostolic succession in terms comparable to the various Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and certain Lutheran Communions. Anglicans assert unbroken episcopal succession in and through the Church of England back to St. Augustine of Canterbury and to the first century Roman province of Britannia. While some Celtic Christian practices were changed at the Synod of Whitby, the church in the British Isles was under papal authority from earliest times.

The legislation of Henry VIII effectively establishing the independence of the Church of England from Rome did not alter its constitutional or pastoral structures. Royal supremacy was exercised through the extant legal structures of the church, whose leaders were bishops. Episcopacy was thus seen as a given of the Reformed Ecclesia Anglicana, and a foundation in the institution's appeal to ancient and apostolic legitimacy. What did change was that bishops were now seen to be ministers of the Crown for the spiritual government of its subjects. The influence of Richard Hooker was crucial to an evolution in this understanding in which bishops came to be seen in their more traditional role as ones who delegate to the presbyterate inherited powers, act as pastors to presbyters, and holding a particular teaching office with respect to the wider church.

Anglican opinion has differed as to the way in which episcopal government is de jure divino (by the Divine Right of Kings). On the one hand, the seventeenth century divine, John Cosin, held that episcopal authority is jure divino, but that it stemmed from "apostolic practice and the customs of the Church ... [not] absolute precept that either Christ or His Apostles gave about it" (a view maintained also by Hooker). In contrast, Lancelot Andrewes and others held that episcopal government is derived from Christ via the apostles. Regardless, both parties viewed the episcopacy as bearing the apostolic function of oversight which both includes, and derives from, the power of ordination, and is normative for the governance of the church. The practice of apostolic succession both ensures the legitimacy of the church's mission and establishes the unity, communion, and continuity of the local church with the universal church. This formulation, in turn, laid the groundwork for an independent view of the church as a "sacred society" distinct from civil society, which was so crucial for the development of local churches as non-established entities outside England, and gave direct rise to the Catholic Revival and disestablishmentarianism within England.

Functionally, Anglican episcopal authority is expressed synodically, although individual provinces may accord their primate with more or less authority to act independently. Called variously "synods", "councils", or "conventions", they meet under episcopal chairmanship. In many jurisdictions, conciliar resolutions that have been passed require episcopal assent or consent to take force. Seen in this way, Anglicans often speak of "the bishop-in-synod" as the force and authority of episcopal governance. Such conciliar authority extends to the standard areas of doctrine, discipline, and worship, but in these regards is limited by Anglicanism's tradition of the limits of authority. Those limits are expressed in Article XXI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, ratified in 1571 (significantly, just as the Council of Trent was drawing to a close), which held that "General Councils ... may err, and sometimes have erred ... wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture." Hence, Anglican jurisdictions have traditionally been conservative in their approach to either innovative doctrinal development or in encompassing actions of the church as doctrinal (see lex orandi, lex credendi).

Anglican synodical government, though varied in expression, is characteristically representative. Provinces of the Anglican Communion, their ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses are governed by councils consisting not only of bishops, but also representatives of the presbyterate and laity.

There is no international juridical authority in Anglicanism, although the tradition's common experience of episcopacy, symbolised by the historical link with the See of Canterbury, along with a common and complex liturgical tradition, has provided a measure of unity. This has been reinforced by the Lambeth Conferences of Anglican Communion bishops, which first met in 1867. These conferences, though they propose and pass resolutions, are strictly consultative, and the intent of the resolutions is to provide guideposts for Anglican jurisdictions—not direction. The Conferences also express the function of the episcopate to demonstrate the ecumenical and catholic nature of the church.

The Scottish Episcopal Church traces its history back to the origins of Christianity in Scotland. Following the 1560 Scottish Reformation the Church of Scotland was initially run by Superintendents, episcopal governance was restored in 1572, but episcopalianism alternated with periods when the Kirk was under presbyterian control until the 1711 Act allowed formation of the independent non-established Scottish Episcopal Church. The Nonjuring schism led to the British Government imposing penal laws against the church. In 1784 the Scottish church appointed Samuel Seabury as first bishop of the American Episcopal Church, beginning the worldwide Anglican Communion of churches, and in 1792 the penal laws were abolished. The church accepted the articles of the Church of England in 1804. The spread of increasingly democratic forms of representative governance has its origin in the formation of the first General Conventions of the American Episcopal Church in the 1780s, which established a "House of Bishops" and a "House of Deputies". In many jurisdictions, there is also a third, clerical House. Resolutions may be voted on jointly or by each House, in the latter case requiring passage in all Houses to be adopted by the particular council.

Churches that are members of the Anglican Communion are episcopal churches in polity, and some are named "Episcopal". However, some churches that self-identify as Anglican do not belong to the Anglican Communion, and not all episcopally-governed churches are Anglican. The Roman Catholic Church, the Old Catholic Churches (in full communion with, but not members of, the Anglican Communion), and the Eastern Orthodox churches are recognized, and also their bishops, by Anglicans.

Methodist churches
A number of Methodist churches often use episcopal polity for historical as well as practical reasons, albeit to limited use. Methodists often use the term connexionalism or connexional polity in addition to "episcopal". Nevertheless, the powers of the Methodist episcopacy can be relatively strong and wide-reaching compared to traditional conceptions of episcopal polity.

In the Free Methodist Church, bishops are elected.

In the United Methodist Church, bishops are elected for life, can serve up to two terms in a specific conference (three if special permission is given), are responsible for ordaining and appointing clergy to pastor churches, perform many administrative duties, preside at the annual sessions of the regional Conferences and at the quadrennial meeting of the worldwide General Conference, have authority for teaching and leading the church on matters of social and doctrinal import, and serve to represent the denomination in ecumenical gatherings. United Methodist bishops in the United States serve in their appointed conferences, being moved to a new "Episcopal Area" after 8 (or 12) years, until their mandated retirement at the end of the quadrennium following their sixty-sixth birthday.

The Methodist Church in Great Britain holds that all ordained ministers are equal in terms of spirituality. However, for practical management lines are drawn into President of Conference, Chair of District, Superintendent Minister, Minister. However, all are ministers. The Fellowship of Independent Methodist Churches is non-episcopal. Similarly, the Congregational Methodist Church has a congregational polity.

Anabaptist Churches
Most Anabaptist churches of the plain dress tradition follow an episcopal system, at least in name. Congregational governance is strongly emphasized, and each congregation elects its pastor. Bishops enforce inter-congregational unity and may discipline pastors for breaking from traditional norms.

Other protestant churches
The Reformed Church of Hungary and the Lutheran churches in continental Europe may sometimes be called "episcopal". In these latter cases, the form of government is not radically different from the presbyterian form, except that their councils of bishops have hierarchical jurisdiction over the local ruling bodies to a greater extent than in most Presbyterian and other Reformed churches. As mentioned, the Lutheran Church in Sweden and Finland (along with Lutheran Churches established in various parts of the world by missionaries from these denominations) are exceptions, claiming apostolic succession in a pattern somewhat like the Anglican churches. Otherwise, forms of polity are not mandated in the Lutheran churches, as it is not regarded as having doctrinal significance. Old World Lutheranism, for historical reasons, has tended to adopt Erastian theories of episcopal authority (by which church authority is to a limited extent sanctioned by secular government). In the United States, the Lutheran churches tend to adopt a form of government that grants congregations more independence, but ultimately has an episcopal structure. A small minority of Episcopal Baptists exists.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Although it never uses the term, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (informally known as the LDS Church) is episcopal, rather than presbyterian or congregational, in the sense that it has a strict hierarchy of leadership from the local bishop/branch president up to a single prophet/president, believed to be personally authorized and guided by Jesus Christ. Local congregations (branches, wards, and stakes) have de jure boundaries by which members are allocated, and membership records are centralized. This system developed gradually from a more presbyterian polity (Joseph Smith's original title in 1830 was "First Elder") for pragmatic and doctrinal reasons, reaching a full episcopacy during the Nauvoo period (1839–1846).

title: Episcopal polity


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Episcopal

Episcopal may refer to:

 * Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church
 * Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese
 * Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name
 * Episcopal Church (United States), an affiliate of Anglicanism based in the United States
 * Episcopal conference, an official assembly of bishops in a territory of the Roman Catholic Church
 * Episcopal polity, the church united under the oversight of bishops
 * Episcopal see, the official seat of a bishop, often applied to the area over which he exercises authority
 * Historical episcopate, dioceses established according to apostolic succession

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Episcopal


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East Slavic languages

The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siberia and the Russian Far East. In part due to the large historical influence of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the Russian language is also spoken as a lingua franca in many regions of Caucasus and Central Asia. Of the three Slavic branches, East Slavic is the most spoken, with the number of native speakers larger than the Western and Southern branches combined.

The common consensus is that Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian are the extant East Slavic languages. Some linguists also consider Rusyn a separate language, although it is sometimes considered a dialect of Ukrainian.

The modern East Slavic languages descend from a common predecessor spoken in Kievan Rus' from the 9th to 13th centuries, which later evolved into Ruthenian, the chancery language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Dnieper river valley, and into medieval Russian in the Volga river valley, the language of the Russian principalities including the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

All these languages use the Cyrillic script, but with particular modifications. Belarusian and Ukrainian, which are descendants of Ruthenian, have a tradition of using Latin-based alphabets—the Belarusian Łacinka and the Ukrainian Latynka alphabets, respectively (also Rusyn uses Latin in some regions, e.g. in Slovakia). The Latin alphabet is traditionally more common in Belarus, while the usage of the Cyrillic script in Russia and Ukraine could never be compared to any other alphabet.

Classification
Modern East Slavic languages include Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. The Rusyn language is sometimes considered the fourth living language of the group, its status as an independent language being the subject of scientific debate.

Vocabulary
The East Slavic territory exhibits a linguistic continuum with many transitional dialects. Between Belarusian and Ukrainian there is the Polesian dialect, which shares features from both languages. East Polesian is a transitional variety between Belarusian and Ukrainian on one hand, and between South Russian and Ukrainian on the other hand. At the same time, Belarusian and Southern Russian form a continuous area, making it virtually impossible to draw a line between the two languages. Central or Middle Russian (with its Moscow sub-dialect), the transitional step between the North and the South, became a base for the Russian literary standard. Northern Russian with its predecessor, the Old Novgorod dialect, has many original and archaic features.

Ruthenian, the ancestor of modern Belarusian and Ukrainian, was the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as "Chancery Slavonic" until the end of the 17th century when it was gradually replaced by the Polish language. It was also the native language of the Cossack Hetmanate until the end of the 18th century, when the Ukrainian state completely became part of the Russian Empire in 1764. The Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk from 1710 is one of the most important written sources of the Ruthenian language. Due to the influence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth over many centuries, Belarusian and Ukrainian have been influenced in several respects by Polish, a Lechitic West Slavic language. As a result of the long Polish-Lithuanian rule, these languages had been less exposed to Church Slavonic, featuring therefore less Church Slavonicisms than the modern Russian language, for example: Additionally, the original East Slavic phonetic form was kept in many words in Ukrainian and Belarusian, for example: In general, Ukrainian and Belarusian are also closer to other Western European languages, especially to German (via Polish). At the same time Russian was being heavily influenced by Church Slavonic (South Slavic language), but also by the Turkic and Uralic languages. For example: What's more, all three languages do also have false friends, that sometimes can lead to (big) misunderstandings. For example, Ukrainian орати (oraty) — "to plow" and Russian орать (orat́) — "to scream", or Ukrainian помітити (pomityty) — "to notice" and Russian пометить (pometit́) — "to mark".

Alphabet
The alphabets of the East Slavic languages are all written in the Cyrillic script, however each of them has their own letters and pronunciations. Russian and Ukrainian have 33 letters, while Belarusian has 32. Additionally, Belarusian and Ukrainian use the apostrophe (') for the hard sign, which has the same function as the letter Ъ in Russian. Some letters, that are not included in the alphabet of a language, can be written as diagraphs. For example, the letter Ё, which doesn't exist in the Ukrainian alphabet, can be written as ЙО (ЬО before and after consonants), while the letter Щ is written as ШЧ in Belarusian (compare Belarusian плошча and Ukrainian площа ("area")).

There are also different rules of usage for certain letters, e.g. the soft sign (Ь) cannot be written before and after the letter Ц in Russian, because such combination straightforwardly doesn't exist in the Russian language, while in Ukrainian and especially Belarusian, on the contrary, it's a relatively common maneuver. Moreover, the Russian Щ is always pronounced softly (palatalization).

Standard Ukrainian, unlike all the other Slavic languages (excl. Serbo-Croatian), does not exhibit final devoicing. Nevertheless, this rule is not that clear when listening to colloquial Ukrainian. It's one of the typical deviations that occur in the Ukrainian spoken language.

Other orthographic differentiations (false friends)
Besides the differences of the alphabets, there are also quite many false friends. For example, one of the common false friends, the letter И (romanized as I for Russian and Y for Ukrainian), which in Russian is mostly pronounced as (identical with the Ukrainian І), while in Ukrainian it's mostly pronounced as  (very similar to the Russian Ы). Other examples:

Influence of Church Slavonic
After the conversion of the East Slavic region to Christianity the people used service books borrowed from Bulgaria, which were written in Old Church Slavonic (a South Slavic language). The Church Slavonic language was strictly used only in text, while the colloquial language of the Bulgarians was communicated in its spoken form.

Throughout the Middle Ages (and in some way up to the present day) there existed a duality between the Church Slavonic language used as some kind of 'higher' register (not only) in religious texts and the popular tongue used as a 'lower' register for secular texts. It has been suggested to describe this situation as diglossia, although there do exist mixed texts where it is sometimes very hard to determine why a given author used a popular or a Church Slavonic form in a given context. Church Slavonic was a major factor in the evolution of modern Russian, where there still exists a "high stratum" of words that were imported from this language.

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Elizabeth Gracen

Elizabeth Ward Gracen (born Elizabeth Grace Ward, April 3, 1961) is an American actress and beauty pageant contestant who won the title of Miss America in 1982.

Early life and education
Elizabeth Grace Ward was born on April 3, 1961, in Ozark, Arkansas, the daughter of Patricia Hampe, a nurse, and Jimmy Young Ward, a poultry worker. She was raised in Booneville, Arkansas. The family later moved to Russellville, Arkansas, where Ward dated University of Arkansas trainer Mike Walker and graduated from Russellville High School in 1979. She was a junior accounting major at Arkansas Tech University at the time she entered the Miss America contest. Instead of returning to Arkansas Tech, she used her Miss America scholarship money to study acting at HB Studios in New York City.

Pageants and modeling
Gracen won the titles of Miss Arkansas in 1981 and Miss America in 1982. After her yearlong work as Miss America, she enrolled in acting classes then relocated to California to pursue a film and television career.

Gracen posed nude for Playboy magazine's May 1992 issue.

Acting
Gracen made her professional feature film debut in Three For The Road with Charlie Sheen. Her film credits also include a featured role in Marked for Death, opposite Steven Seagal, Pass The Ammo with Tim Curry, and the CBS feature 83 Hours Till Dawn with Peter Strauss and Robert Urich. Gracen starred in Lower Level and Discretion Assured with Michael York.

On television, Gracen has appeared in Shelley Duvall's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sidney Sheldon's The Sands of Time, and The Death of the Incredible Hulk. She also appeared with a starring role in the series Extreme for NBC and the syndicated series Renegade and Queen of Swords.

Gracen's best-known acting role has been as the recurring character Amanda, a 1,200-year-old immortal, in the series Highlander: The Series and its spin-off series Highlander: The Raven.

In December 1999, Gracen filed for bankruptcy protection. After few television guest roles, and a supporting role in the made-for-television movie Interceptor Force 2, she took a long leave of absence from acting, beginning in 2002. Gracen began doing voiceover work for Blue Hours Productions, which has revived the classic radio anthology Suspense, which airs on Sirius XM. In 2012, Gracen did a character voice-over in the Malaysian animated science fiction film War of the Worlds: Goliath.

Directing, producing, and writing
In 2012, Gracen formed Flapper Films. In 2014, she starred in Coherence, a sci-fi indie thriller. In January 2016, Gracen established Flapper Press and self-published Shalilly, a young adult fantasy novel.

Gracen made her directorial debut with a documentary short, "The Damn Deal," about three young drag queens from Arkansas who compete in female impersonator beauty pageants.

Marriages and family
Gracen married Jon Birmingham in 1982, and they divorced in 1984.

In 1989, while filming Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, she met actor Brendan Hughes, and they married soon after. They divorced in 1994.

Gracen married Adam Murphy, and they have a daughter.

Affair with Bill Clinton
According to Gracen, some time in 1983, she had a one-night stand with future President Bill Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. She was married at the time, as was he.

In 1992, rumors swirled that Gracen had had an affair with Clinton. At first, Gracen dismissed this claim (as requested by Clinton's campaign manager Mickey Kantor); however, in spring 1998 Gracen recanted her six-year-old denial and stated she had a one-night stand with Clinton in 1983. Gracen stated that "What I did was wrong, and I feel very, very bad about it now. My behavior was inappropriate -- that's just the bottom line" and publicly apologized to Hillary Clinton.

After her claim, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who was investigating Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit, issued a subpoena to have her testify to her claim in court. However, Gracen eluded the subpoena and was at one point able to avoid it because Highlander: The Raven was being filmed outside of the US. Paula Jones's legal team was also unable to track down Gracen because she had made unscheduled trips to Las Vegas and the Caribbean.

Filmography

 * Three for the Road (1987) Nadine
 * Pass the Ammo (1988) Christie Lynn
 * The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1989)
 * Lisa (1989) Mary
 * The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990) Jasmin
 * Marked for Death (1990) Melissa
 * The Flash (1990 TV Series) 1 episode - Celia Wayne
 * 83 Hours 'Til Dawn (1990) Maria Ranfield
 * Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1991) Alice
 * Lower Level (1992) Hillary
 * The Sands of Time (1992)
 * Final Mission (1993) Caitlin Cole
 * Time Trax episode 7 (1993) Sydney
 * Discretion Assured (1993) Miranda
 * Highlander: The Series (1992 – 1998) Amanda
 * Renegade: The Series (1992 - 1997) Rikki Yeager''
 * Murder, She Wrote (1994) Michelle Scarlotti
 * The Expert (1995) Liz Pierce
 * Extreme (1995) Callie Manners
 * Kounterfeit (1996) Bridgette
 * Highlander: The Raven (1998 – 1999) Amanda
 * Queen of Swords "Counterfeit Queen" (2000) Carlotta
 * Charmed "Bite Me" (2002) Vampire Queen
 * Interceptor Force 2 (2002) Adriana Sikes
 * War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012) Lt. Jennifer Carter (voice)
 * Coherence (2013) Beth

title: Elizabeth Gracen


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Epicurus

Epicurus (, ; Ἐπίκουρος Epikouros; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influenced by Democritus, Aristippus, Pyrrho, and possibly the Cynics, he turned against the Platonism of his day and established his own school, known as "the Garden", in Athens. Epicurus and his followers were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of philosophical subjects. He openly allowed women and slaves to join the school as a matter of policy. Of the over 300 works said to have been written by Epicurus about various subjects, the vast majority have been destroyed. Only three letters written by him—the letters to Menoeceus, Pythocles, and Herodotus—and two collections of quotes—the Principal Doctrines and the Vatican Sayings—have survived intact, along with a few fragments of his other writings. As a result of his work's destruction, most knowledge about his philosophy is due to later authors, particularly the biographer Diogenes Laërtius, the Epicurean Roman poet Lucretius and the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, as well as the hostile but largely accurate accounts by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and the Academic Skeptic and statesman Cicero.

Epicurus asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain happy (eudaimonic), tranquil lives characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that the root of all human neuroses is denial of death and the tendency for human beings to assume that death will be horrific and painful, which he claimed causes unnecessary anxiety, selfish self-protective behaviors, and hypocrisy. According to Epicurus, death is the end of both the body and the soul and therefore should not be feared. Epicurus taught that although the gods exist, they have no involvement in human affairs. He taught that people should act ethically not because the gods punish or reward them for their actions but because, due to the power of guilt, amoral behavior would inevitably lead to remorse weighing on their consciences and as a result, they would be prevented from attaining ataraxia.

Epicurus derived much of his physics and cosmology from the earlier philosopher Democritus (c. 460–c.  370 BC). Like Democritus, Epicurus taught that the universe is infinite and eternal and that all matter is made up of extremely tiny, invisible particles known as atoms. All occurrences in the natural world are ultimately the result of atoms moving and interacting in empty space. Epicurus deviated from Democritus by proposing the idea of atomic "swerve", which holds that atoms may deviate from their expected course, thus permitting humans to possess free will in an otherwise deterministic universe.

Though popular, Epicurean teachings were controversial from the beginning. Epicureanism reached the height of its popularity during the late years of the Roman Republic. It died out in late antiquity, subject to hostility from early Christianity. Throughout the Middle Ages, Epicurus was popularly, though inaccurately, remembered as a patron of drunkards, whoremongers, and gluttons. His teachings gradually became more widely known in the fifteenth century with the rediscovery of important texts, but his ideas did not become acceptable until the seventeenth century, when the French Catholic priest Pierre Gassendi revived a modified version of them, which was promoted by other writers, including Walter Charleton and Robert Boyle. His influence grew considerably during and after the Enlightenment, profoundly impacting the ideas of major thinkers, including John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Jeremy Bentham, and Karl Marx.

Upbringing and influences
Epicurus was born in the Athenian settlement on the Aegean island of Samos in February 341 BC. His parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, were both Athenian-born, and his father was an Athenian citizen. Epicurus grew up during the final years of the Greek Classical Period. Plato had died seven years before Epicurus was born and Epicurus was seven years old when Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont into Persia. As a child, Epicurus would have received a typical ancient Greek education. As such, according to Norman Wentworth DeWitt, "it is inconceivable that he would have escaped the Platonic training in geometry, dialectic, and rhetoric." Epicurus is known to have studied under the instruction of a Samian Platonist named Pamphilus, probably for about four years. His Letter of Menoeceus and surviving fragments of his other writings strongly suggest that he had extensive training in rhetoric. After the death of Alexander the Great, Perdiccas expelled the Athenian settlers on Samos to Colophon, on the coast of what is now Turkey. Epicurus joined his family there after the completion of his military service. He studied under Nausiphanes, who followed the teachings of Democritus, and later those of Pyrrho, whose way of life Epicurus greatly admired.

Epicurus's teachings were heavily influenced by those of earlier philosophers, particularly Democritus. Nonetheless, Epicurus differed from his predecessors on several key points of determinism and vehemently denied having been influenced by any previous philosophers, whom he denounced as "confused". Instead, he insisted that he had been "self-taught". According to DeWitt, Epicurus's teachings also show influences from the contemporary philosophical school of Cynicism. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope was still alive when Epicurus would have been in Athens for his required military training and it is possible they may have met. Diogenes's pupil Crates of Thebes (c. 365 – c.  285 BC) was a close contemporary of Epicurus. Epicurus agreed with the Cynics' quest for honesty, but rejected their "insolence and vulgarity", instead teaching that honesty must be coupled with courtesy and kindness. Epicurus shared this view with his contemporary, the comic playwright Menander.

Epicurus's Letter to Menoeceus, possibly an early work of his, is written in an eloquent style similar to that of the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates (436–338 BC), but, for his later works, he seems to have adopted the bald, intellectual style of the mathematician Euclid. Epicurus's epistemology also bears an unacknowledged debt to the later writings of Aristotle (384–322 BC), who rejected the Platonic idea of hypostatic Reason and instead relied on nature and empirical evidence for knowledge about the universe. During Epicurus's formative years, Greek knowledge about the rest of the world was rapidly expanding due to the Hellenization of the Near East and the rise of Hellenistic kingdoms. Epicurus's philosophy was consequently more universal in its outlook than those of his predecessors, since it took cognizance of non-Greek peoples as well as Greeks. He may have had access to the now-lost writings of the historian and ethnographer Megasthenes, who wrote during the reign of Seleucus I Nicator (ruled 305–281 BC).

Teaching career

During Epicurus's lifetime, Platonism was the dominant philosophy in higher education. Epicurus's opposition to Platonism formed a large part of his thought. Over half of the forty Principal Doctrines of Epicureanism are flat contradictions of Platonism. In around 311 BC, Epicurus, when he was around thirty years old, began teaching in Mytilene. Around this time, Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, arrived in Athens, at the age of about twenty-one, but Zeno did not begin teaching what would become Stoicism for another twenty years. Although later texts, such as the writings of the first-century BC Roman orator Cicero, portray Epicureanism and Stoicism as rivals, this rivalry seems to have only emerged after Epicurus's death.

Epicurus's teachings caused strife in Mytilene and he was forced to leave. He then founded a school in Lampsacus before returning to Athens in c. 306 BC, where he remained until his death. There he founded The Garden (κῆπος), a school named for the garden he owned that served as the school's meeting place, about halfway between the locations of two other schools of philosophy, the Stoa and the Academy. The Garden was more than just a school; it was "a community of like-minded and aspiring practitioners of a particular way of life." The primary members were Hermarchus, the financier Idomeneus, Leonteus and his wife Themista, the satirist Colotes, the mathematician Polyaenus of Lampsacus, and Metrodorus of Lampsacus, the most famous popularizer of Epicureanism. His school was the first of the ancient Greek philosophical schools to admit women as a rule rather than an exception, and the biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laërtius lists female students such as Leontion and Nikidion. An inscription on the gate to The Garden is recorded by Seneca the Younger in epistle XXI of Epistulae morales ad Lucilium: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."

According to Diskin Clay, Epicurus himself established a custom of celebrating his birthday annually with common meals, befitting his stature as heros ktistes ("founding hero") of the Garden. He ordained in his will annual memorial feasts for himself on the same date (10th of Gamelion month). Epicurean communities continued this tradition, referring to Epicurus as their "saviour" (soter) and celebrating him as hero. The hero cult of Epicurus may have operated as a Garden variety civic religion. However, clear evidence of an Epicurean hero cult, as well as the cult itself, seems buried by the weight of posthumous philosophical interpretation. Epicurus never married and had no known children. He was most likely a vegetarian.

Death
Diogenes Laërtius records that, according to Epicurus's successor Hermarchus, Epicurus died a slow and painful death in 270 BC at the age of seventy-two from a stone blockage of his urinary tract. Despite being in immense pain, Epicurus is said to have remained cheerful and to have continued to teach until the very end. Possible insights into Epicurus's death may be offered by the extremely brief Epistle to Idomeneus, included by Diogenes Laërtius in Book X of his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. The authenticity of this letter is uncertain and it may be a later pro-Epicurean forgery intended to paint an admirable portrait of the philosopher to counter the large number of forged epistles in Epicurus's name portraying him unfavorably. I have written this letter to you on a happy day to me, which is also the last day of my life. For I have been attacked by a painful inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the young man to me, and to philosophy.

If authentic, this letter would support the tradition that Epicurus was able to remain joyful to the end, even in the midst of his suffering. It would also indicate that he maintained a special concern for the wellbeing of children.

Epistemology
Epicurus and his followers had a well-developed epistemology, which developed as a result of their rivalry with other philosophical schools. Epicurus wrote a treatise entitled Κανών, or Rule, in which he explained his methods of investigation and theory of knowledge. This book, however, has not survived, nor does any other text that fully and clearly explains Epicurean epistemology, leaving only mentions of this epistemology by several authors to reconstruct it. Epicurus rejected the Platonic idea of "Reason" as a reliable source of knowledge about the world apart from the senses and was bitterly opposed to the Pyrrhonists and Academic Skeptics, who not only questioned the ability of the senses to provide accurate knowledge about the world, but also whether it is even possible to know anything about the world at all.

Epicurus maintained that the senses never deceive humans, but that the senses can be misinterpreted. Epicurus held that the purpose of all knowledge is to aid humans in attaining ataraxia. He taught that knowledge is learned through experiences rather than innate and that the acceptance of the fundamental truth of the things a person perceives is essential to a person's moral and spiritual health. In the Letter to Pythocles, he states, "If a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquility." Epicurus regarded gut feelings as the ultimate authority on matters of morality and held that whether a person feels an action is right or wrong is a far more cogent guide to whether that act really is right or wrong than abstracts maxims, strict codified rules of ethics, or even reason itself.

Epicurus permitted that any and every statement that is not directly contrary to human perception has the possibility to be true. Nonetheless, anything contrary to a person's experience can be ruled out as false. Epicureans often used analogies to everyday experience to support their argument of so-called "imperceptibles", which included anything that a human being cannot perceive, such as the motion of atoms. In line with this principle of non-contradiction, the Epicureans believed that events in the natural world may have multiple causes that are all equally possible and probable. Lucretius writes in On the Nature of Things, as translated by William Ellery Leonard: There be, besides, some thing Of which 'tis not enough one only cause To state—but rather several, whereof one Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse, 'Twere meet to name all causes of a death, That cause of his death might thereby be named: For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel, By cold, nor even by poison nor disease, Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him We know—And thus we have to say the same In divers cases. Epicurus strongly favored naturalistic explanations over theological ones. In his Letter to Pythocles, he offers four different possible natural explanations for thunder, six different possible natural explanations for lightning, three for snow, three for comets, two for rainbows, two for earthquakes, and so on. Although all of these explanations are now known to be false, they were an important step in the history of science, because Epicurus was trying to explain natural phenomena using natural explanations, rather than resorting to inventing elaborate stories about gods and mythic heroes.

Ethics

Epicurus was a hedonist, meaning he taught that what is pleasurable is morally good and what is painful is morally evil. He idiosyncratically defined "pleasure" as the absence of suffering and taught that all humans should seek to attain the state of ataraxia, meaning "untroubledness", a state in which the person is completely free from all pain or suffering. He argued that most of the suffering which human beings experience is caused by the irrational fears of death, divine retribution, and punishment in the afterlife. In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus explains that people seek wealth and power on account of these fears, believing that having more money, prestige, or political clout will save them from death. He, however, maintains that death is the end of existence, that the terrifying stories of punishment in the afterlife are ridiculous superstitions, and that death is therefore nothing to be feared. He writes in his Letter to Menoeceus: "Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply sentience, and death is the privation of all sentience;... Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not." From this doctrine arose the Epicurean epitaph: Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo ("I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care"), which is inscribed on the gravestones of his followers and seen on many ancient gravestones of the Roman Empire. This quotation is often used today at humanist funerals.

The Tetrapharmakos presents a summary of the key points of Epicurean ethics:

 * Don't fear god
 * Don't worry about death
 * What is good is easy to get
 * What is terrible is easy to endure

Although Epicurus has been commonly misunderstood as an advocate of the rampant pursuit of pleasure, he, in fact, maintained that a person can only be happy and free from suffering by living wisely, soberly, and morally. He strongly disapproved of raw, excessive sensuality and warned that a person must take into account whether the consequences of his actions will result in suffering, writing, "the pleasant life is produced not by a string of drinking bouts and revelries, nor by the enjoyment of boys and women, nor by fish and the other items on an expensive menu, but by sober reasoning." He also wrote that a single good piece of cheese could be equally pleasing as an entire feast. Furthermore, Epicurus taught that "it is not possible to live pleasurably without living sensibly and nobly and justly", because a person who engages in acts of dishonesty or injustice will be "loaded with troubles" on account of his own guilty conscience and will live in constant fear that his wrongdoings will be discovered by others. A person who is kind and just to others, however, will have no fear and will be more likely to attain ataraxia.

Epicurus distinguished between two different types of pleasure: "moving" pleasures (κατὰ κίνησιν ἡδοναί) and "static" pleasures (καταστηματικαὶ ἡδοναί). "Moving" pleasures occur when one is in the process of satisfying a desire and involve an active titillation of the senses. After one's desires have been satisfied (e.g. when one is full after eating), the pleasure quickly goes away and the suffering of wanting to fulfill the desire again returns. For Epicurus, static pleasures are the best pleasures because moving pleasures are always bound up with pain. Epicurus had a low opinion of sex and marriage, regarding both as having dubious value. Instead, he maintained that platonic friendships are essential to living a happy life. One of the Principal Doctrines states, "Of the things wisdom acquires for the blessedness of life as a whole, far the greatest is the possession of friendship." He also taught that philosophy is itself a pleasure to engage in. One of the quotes from Epicurus recorded in the Vatican Sayings declares, "In other pursuits, the hard-won fruit comes at the end. But in philosophy, delight keeps pace with knowledge. It is not after the lesson that enjoyment comes: learning and enjoyment happen at the same time."

Epicurus distinguishes between three types of desires: natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, and vain and empty. Natural and necessary desires include the desires for food and shelter. These are easy to satisfy, difficult to eliminate, bring pleasure when satisfied, and are naturally limited. Going beyond these limits produces unnecessary desires, such as the desire for luxury foods. Although food is necessary, luxury food is not necessary. Correspondingly, Epicurus advocates a life of hedonistic moderation by reducing desire, thus eliminating the unhappiness caused by unfulfilled desires. Vain desires include desires for power, wealth, and fame. These are difficult to satisfy because no matter how much one gets, one can always want more. These desires are inculcated by society and by false beliefs about what we need. They are not natural and are to be shunned.

Epicurus' teachings were introduced into medical philosophy and practice by the Epicurean doctor Asclepiades of Bithynia, who was the first physician who introduced Greek medicine in Rome. Asclepiades introduced the friendly, sympathetic, pleasing and painless treatment of patients. He advocated humane treatment of mental disorders, had insane persons freed from confinement and treated them with natural therapy, such as diet and massages. His teachings are surprisingly modern; therefore Asclepiades is considered to be a pioneer physician in psychotherapy, physical therapy and molecular medicine.

Physics
Epicurus writes in his Letter to Herodotus (not the historian) that "nothing ever arises from the nonexistent", indicating that all events therefore have causes, regardless of whether those causes are known or unknown. Similarly, he also writes that nothing ever passes away into nothingness, because, "if an object that passes from our view were completely annihilated, everything in the world would have perished, since that into which things were dissipated would be nonexistent." He therefore states: "The totality of things was always just as it is at present and will always remain the same because there is nothing into which it can change, inasmuch as there is nothing outside the totality that could intrude and effect change." Like Democritus before him, Epicurus taught that all matter is entirely made of extremely tiny particles called "atoms" (ἄτομος; atomos, meaning "indivisible"). For Epicurus and his followers, the existence of atoms was a matter of empirical observation; Epicurus's devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius, cites the gradual wearing down of rings from being worn, statues from being kissed, stones from being dripped on by water, and roads from being walked on in On the Nature of Things as evidence for the existence of atoms as tiny, imperceptible particles.

Also like Democritus, Epicurus was a materialist who taught that the only things that exist are atoms and void. Void occurs in any place where there are no atoms. Epicurus and his followers believed that atoms and void are both infinite and that the universe is therefore boundless. In On the Nature of Things, Lucretius argues this point using the example of a man throwing a javelin at the theoretical boundary of a finite universe. He states that the javelin must either go past the edge of the universe, in which case it is not really a boundary, or it must be blocked by something and prevented from continuing its path, but, if that happens, then the object blocking it must be outside the confines of the universe. As a result of this belief that the universe and the number of atoms in it are infinite, Epicurus and the Epicureans believed that there must also be infinitely many worlds within the universe.

Epicurus taught that the motion of atoms is constant, eternal, and without beginning or end. He held that there are two kinds of motion: the motion of atoms and the motion of visible objects. Both kinds of motion are real and not illusory. Democritus had described atoms as not only eternally moving, but also eternally flying through space, colliding, coalescing, and separating from each other as necessary. In a rare departure from Democritus's physics, Epicurus posited the idea of atomic "swerve" (παρέγκλισις parénklisis; clinamen), one of his best-known original ideas. According to this idea, atoms, as they are travelling through space, may deviate slightly from the course they would ordinarily be expected to follow. Epicurus's reason for introducing this doctrine was because he wanted to preserve the concepts of free will and ethical responsibility while still maintaining the deterministic physical model of atomism. Lucretius describes it, saying, "It is this slight deviation of primal bodies, at indeterminate times and places, which keeps the mind as such from experiencing an inner compulsion in doing everything it does and from being forced to endure and suffer like a captive in chains."

Epicurus was first to assert human freedom as a result of the fundamental indeterminism in the motion of atoms. This has led some philosophers to think that, for Epicurus, free will was caused directly by chance. In his On the Nature of Things, Lucretius appears to suggest this in the best-known passage on Epicurus' position. In his Letter to Menoeceus, however, Epicurus follows Aristotle and clearly identifies three possible causes: "some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency." Aristotle said some things "depend on us" (eph'hemin). Epicurus agreed, and said it is to these last things that praise and blame naturally attach. For Epicurus, the "swerve" of the atoms simply defeated determinism to leave room for autonomous agency.

Theology

In his Letter to Menoeceus, a summary of his own moral and theological teachings, the first piece of advice Epicurus himself gives to his student is: "First, believe that a god is an indestructible and blessed animal, in accordance with the general conception of god commonly held, and do not ascribe to god anything foreign to his indestructibility or repugnant to his blessedness." Epicurus maintained that he and his followers knew that the gods exist because "our knowledge of them is a matter of clear and distinct perception", meaning that people can empirically sense their presences. He did not mean that people can see the gods as physical objects, but rather that they can see visions of the gods sent from the remote regions of interstellar space in which they actually reside. According to George K. Strodach, Epicurus could have easily dispensed of the gods entirely without greatly altering his materialist worldview, but the gods still play one important function in Epicurus's theology as the paragons of moral virtue to be emulated and admired.

Epicurus rejected the conventional Greek view of the gods as anthropomorphic beings who walked the earth like ordinary people, fathered illegitimate offspring with mortals, and pursued personal feuds. Instead, he taught that the gods are morally perfect, but detached and immobile beings who live in the remote regions of interstellar space. In line with these teachings, Epicurus adamantly rejected the idea that deities were involved in human affairs in any way. Epicurus maintained that the gods are so utterly perfect and removed from the world that they are incapable of listening to prayers or supplications or doing virtually anything aside from contemplating their own perfections. In his Letter to Herodotus, he specifically denies that the gods have any control over natural phenomena, arguing that this would contradict their fundamental nature, which is perfect, because any kind of worldly involvement would tarnish their perfection. He further warned that believing that the gods control natural phenomena would only mislead people into believing the superstitious view that the gods punish humans for wrongdoing, which only instills fear and prevents people from attaining ataraxia.

Epicurus himself criticizes popular religion in both his Letter to Menoeceus and his Letter to Herodotus, but in a restrained and moderate tone. Later Epicureans mainly followed the same ideas as Epicurus, believing in the existence of the gods, but emphatically rejecting the idea of divine providence. Their criticisms of popular religion, however, are often less gentle than those of Epicurus himself. The Letter to Pythocles, written by a later Epicurean, is dismissive and contemptuous towards popular religion and Epicurus's devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99 BC – c.  55 BC), passionately assailed popular religion in his philosophical poem On the Nature of Things. In this poem, Lucretius declares that popular religious practices not only do not instill virtue, but rather result in "misdeeds both wicked and ungodly", citing the mythical sacrifice of Iphigenia as an example. Lucretius argues that divine creation and providence are illogical, not because the gods do not exist, but rather because these notions are incompatible with the Epicurean principles of the gods' indestructibility and blessedness. The later Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 – c.  210 AD) rejected the teachings of the Epicureans specifically because he regarded them as theological "Dogmaticists".

Epicurean paradox

The Epicurean paradox or riddle of Epicurus or Epicurus' trilemma is a version of the problem of evil. Lactantius attributes this trilemma to Epicurus in De Ira Dei, 13, 20-21:

God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?

In Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779), David Hume also attributes the argument to Epicurus:

Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

No extant writings of Epicurus contain this argument. However, the vast majority of Epicurus's writings have been lost and it is possible that some form of this argument may have been found in his lost treatise On the Gods, which Diogenes Laërtius describes as one of his greatest works. If Epicurus really did make some form of this argument, it would not have been an argument against the existence of deities, but rather an argument against divine providence. Epicurus's extant writings demonstrate that he did believe in the existence of deities. Furthermore, religion was such an integral part of daily life in Greece during the early Hellenistic Period that it is doubtful anyone during that period could have been an atheist in the modern sense of the word. Instead, the Greek word ἄθεος (átheos), meaning "without a god", was used as a term of abuse, not as an attempt to describe a person's beliefs.

Politics
Epicurus promoted an innovative theory of justice as a social contract. Justice, Epicurus said, is an agreement neither to harm nor be harmed, and we need to have such a contract in order to enjoy fully the benefits of living together in a well-ordered society. Laws and punishments are needed to keep misguided fools in line who would otherwise break the contract. But the wise person sees the usefulness of justice, and because of his limited desires, he has no need to engage in the conduct prohibited by the laws in any case. Laws that are useful for promoting happiness are just, but those that are not useful are not just. (Principal Doctrines 31–40)

Epicurus discouraged participation in politics, as doing so leads to perturbation and status seeking. He instead advocated not drawing attention to oneself. This principle is epitomised by the phrase lathe biōsas (λάθε βιώσας), meaning "live in obscurity", "get through life without drawing attention to yourself", i.e., live without pursuing glory or wealth or power, but anonymously, enjoying little things like food, the company of friends, etc. Plutarch elaborated on this theme in his essay Is the Saying "Live in Obscurity" Right? (Εἰ καλῶς εἴρηται τὸ λάθε βιώσας, An recte dictum sit latenter esse vivendum) 1128c; cf. Flavius Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 8.28.12.

Works
Epicurus was an extremely prolific writer. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he wrote around 300 treatises on a variety of subjects. Although more original writings of Epicurus have survived to the present day than of any other Hellenistic Greek philosopher, the vast majority of everything he wrote has still been lost, and most of what is known about Epicurus's teachings come from the writings of his later followers, particularly the Roman poet Lucretius. The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three relatively lengthy letters, which are quoted in their entirety in Book X of Diogenes Laërtius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι Δόξαι), which are likewise preserved through quotation by Diogenes Laërtius, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library that was first discovered in 1888. In the Letter to Herodotus and the Letter to Pythocles, Epicurus summarizes his philosophy on nature and, in the Letter to Menoeceus, he summarizes his moral teachings. Numerous fragments of Epicurus's lost thirty-seven volume treatise On Nature have been found among the charred papyrus fragments at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Scholars first began attempting to unravel and decipher these scrolls in 1800, but the efforts are painstaking and are still ongoing. According to Diogenes Laertius (10.27-9), the major works of Epicurus include:

 * 1) On Nature, in 37 books
 * 2) On Atoms and the Void
 * 3) On Love
 * 4) Abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural Philosophers
 * 5) Against the Megarians
 * 6) Problems
 * 7) Fundamental Propositions (Kyriai Doxai)
 * 8) On Choice and Avoidance
 * 9) On the Chief Good
 * 10) On the Criterion (the Canon)
 * 11) Chaeridemus,
 * 12) On the Gods
 * 13) On Piety
 * 14) Hegesianax
 * 15) Four essays on Lives
 * 16) Essay on Just Dealing
 * 17) Neocles
 * 18) Essay addressed to Themista
 * 19) The Banquet (Symposium)
 * 20) Eurylochus
 * 21) Essay addressed to Metrodorus
 * 22) Essay on Seeing
 * 23) Essay on the Angle in an Atom
 * 24) Essay on Touch
 * 25) Essay on Fate
 * 26) Opinions on the Passions
 * 27) Treatise addressed to Timocrates
 * 28) Prognostics
 * 29) Exhortations
 * 30) On Images
 * 31) On Perceptions
 * 32) Aristobulus
 * 33) Essay on Music (i.e., on music, poetry, and dance)
 * 34) On Justice and the other Virtues
 * 35) On Gifts and Gratitude
 * 36) Polymedes
 * 37) Timocrates (three books)
 * 38) Metrodorus (five books)
 * 39) Antidorus (two books)
 * 40) Opinions about Diseases and Death, addressed to Mithras
 * 41) Callistolas
 * 42) Essay on Kingly Power
 * 43) Anaximenes
 * 44) Letters

Ancient Epicureanism
Epicureanism was extremely popular from the very beginning. Diogenes Laërtius records that the number of Epicureans throughout the world exceeded the populations of entire cities. Nonetheless, Epicurus was not universally admired and, within his own lifetime, he was vilified as an ignorant buffoon and egoistic sybarite. He remained the most simultaneously admired and despised philosopher in the Mediterranean for the next nearly five centuries. Epicureanism rapidly spread beyond the Greek mainland all across the Mediterranean world. By the first century BC, it had established a strong foothold in Italy. The Roman orator Cicero (106 – 43 BC), who deplored Epicurean ethics, lamented, "the Epicureans have taken Italy by storm."

The overwhelming majority of surviving Greek and Roman sources are vehemently negative towards Epicureanism and, according to Pamela Gordon, they routinely depict Epicurus himself as "monstrous or laughable". Many Romans in particular took a negative view of Epicureanism, seeing its advocacy of the pursuit of voluptas ("pleasure") as contrary to the Roman ideal of virtus ("manly virtue"). The Romans therefore often stereotyped Epicurus and his followers as weak and effeminate. Prominent critics of his philosophy include prominent authors such as the Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65) and the Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch (c.  46 – c.  120), who both derided these stereotypes as immoral and disreputable. Gordon characterizes anti-Epicurean rhetoric as so "heavy-handed" and misrepresentative of Epicurus's actual teachings that they sometimes come across as "comical". In his De vita beata, Seneca states that the "sect of Epicurus... has a bad reputation, and yet it does not deserve it." and compares it to "a man in a dress: your chastity remains, your virility is unimpaired, your body has not submitted sexually, but in your hand is a tympanum."

Epicureanism was a notoriously conservative philosophical school; although Epicurus's later followers did expand on his philosophy, they dogmatically retained what he himself had originally taught without modifying it. Epicureans and admirers of Epicureanism revered Epicurus himself as a great teacher of ethics, a savior, and even a god. His image was worn on finger rings, portraits of him were displayed in living rooms, and wealthy followers venerated likenesses of him in marble sculpture. His admirers revered his sayings as divine oracles, carried around copies of his writings, and cherished copies of his letters like the letters of an apostle. On the twentieth day of every month, admirers of his teachings would perform a solemn ritual to honor his memory. At the same time, opponents of his teachings denounced him with vehemence and persistence.

However, in the first and second centuries AD, Epicureanism gradually began to decline as it failed to compete with Stoicism, which had an ethical system more in line with traditional Roman values. Epicureanism also suffered decay in the wake of Christianity, which was also rapidly expanding throughout the Roman Empire. Of all the Greek philosophical schools, Epicureanism was the one most at odds with the new Christian teachings, since Epicureans believed that the soul was mortal, denied the existence of an afterlife, denied that the divine had any active role in human life, and advocated pleasure as the foremost goal of human existence. As such, Christian writers such as Justin Martyr (c. 100–c.  165 AD), Athenagoras of Athens (c.  133–c.  190), Tertullian (c.  155–c.  240), and Clement of Alexandria (c.  150–c.  215), Arnobius (died c.  330), and Lactantius (c. 250-c.325) all singled it out for the most vitriolic criticism.

In spite of this, DeWitt argues that Epicureanism and Christianity share much common language, calling Epicureanism "the first missionary philosophy" and "the first world philosophy". Both Epicureanism and Christianity placed strong emphasis on the importance of love and forgiveness and early Christian portrayals of Jesus are often similar to Epicurean portrayals of Epicurus. DeWitt argues that Epicureanism, in many ways, helped pave the way for the spread of Christianity by "helping to bridge the gap between Greek intellectualism and a religious way of life" and "shunt[ing] the emphasis from the political to the social virtues and offer[ing] what may be called a religion of humanity."

Middle Ages

By the early fifth century AD, Epicureanism was virtually extinct. The Christian Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) declared, "its ashes are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them." While the ideas of Plato and Aristotle could easily be adapted to suit a Christian worldview, the ideas of Epicurus were not nearly as easily amenable. As such, while Plato and Aristotle enjoyed a privileged place in Christian philosophy throughout the Middle Ages, Epicurus was not held in such esteem. Information about Epicurus's teachings was available, through Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, quotations of it found in medieval Latin grammars and florilegia, and encyclopedias, such as Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (seventh century) and Hrabanus Maurus's De universo (ninth century), but there is little evidence that these teachings were systematically studied or comprehended.

During the Middle Ages, Epicurus was remembered by the educated as a philosopher, but he frequently appeared in popular culture as a gatekeeper to the Garden of Delights, the "proprietor of the kitchen, the tavern, and the brothel." He appears in this guise in Martianus Capella's Marriage of Mercury and Philology (fifth century), John of Salisbury's Policraticus (1159), John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme, and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Epicurus and his followers appear in Dante Alighieri's Inferno in the Sixth Circle of Hell, where they are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that the soul dies with the body.

Renaissance

In 1417, a manuscript-hunter named Poggio Bracciolini discovered a copy of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things in a monastery near Lake Constance. The discovery of this manuscript was met with immense excitement, because scholars were eager to analyze and study the teachings of classical philosophers and this previously-forgotten text contained the most comprehensive account of Epicurus's teachings known in Latin. The first scholarly dissertation on Epicurus, De voluptate (On Pleasure) by the Italian Humanist and Catholic priest Lorenzo Valla was published in 1431. Valla made no mention of Lucretius or his poem. Instead, he presented the treatise as a discussion on the nature of the highest good between an Epicurean, a Stoic, and a Christian. Valla's dialogue ultimately rejects Epicureanism, but, by presenting an Epicurean as a member of the dispute, Valla lent Epicureanism credibility as a philosophy that deserved to be taken seriously.

None of the Quattrocento Humanists ever clearly endorsed Epicureanism, but scholars such as Francesco Zabarella (1360–1417), Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), Cristoforo Landino (1424–1498), and Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444) did give Epicureanism a fairer analysis than it had traditionally received and provided a less overtly hostile assessment of Epicurus himself. Nonetheless, "Epicureanism" remained a pejorative, synonymous with extreme egoistic pleasure-seeking, rather than a name of a philosophical school. This reputation discouraged orthodox Christian scholars from taking what others might regard as an inappropriately keen interest in Epicurean teachings. Epicureanism did not take hold in Italy, France, or England until the seventeenth century. Even the liberal religious skeptics who might have been expected to take an interest in Epicureanism evidently did not; Étienne Dolet (1509–1546) only mentions Epicurus once in all his writings and François Rabelais (between 1483 and 1494–1553) never mentions him at all. Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) is the exception to this trend, quoting a full 450 lines of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things in his Essays. His interest in Lucretius, however, seems to have been primarily literary and he is ambiguous about his feelings on Lucretius's Epicurean worldview. During the Protestant Reformation, the label "Epicurean" was bandied back and forth as an insult between Protestants and Catholics.

Revival

In the seventeenth century, the French Catholic priest and scholar Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) sought to dislodge Aristotelianism from its position of the highest dogma by presenting Epicureanism as a better and more rational alternative. In 1647, Gassendi published his book De vita et moribus Epicuri (The Life and Morals of Epicurus), a passionate defense of Epicureanism. In 1649, he published a commentary on Diogenes Laërtius's Life of Epicurus. He left Syntagma philosophicum (Philosophical Compendium), a synthesis of Epicurean doctrines, unfinished at the time of his death in 1655. It was finally published in 1658, after undergoing revision by his editors. Gassendi modified Epicurus's teachings to make them palatable for a Christian audience. For instance, he argued that atoms were not eternal, uncreated, and infinite in number, instead contending that an extremely large but finite number of atoms were created by God at creation.

As a result of Gassendi's modifications, his books were never censored by the Catholic Church. They came to exert profound influence on later writings about Epicurus. Gassendi's version of Epicurus's teachings became popular among some members of English scientific circles. For these scholars, however, Epicurean atomism was merely a starting point for their own idiosyncratic adaptations of it. To orthodox thinkers, Epicureanism was still regarded as immoral and heretical. For instance, Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681), the first translator of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things into English, railed against Epicurus as "a lunatic dog" who formulated "ridiculous, impious, execrable doctrines".

Epicurus's teachings were made respectable in England by the natural philosopher Walter Charleton (1619–1707), whose first Epicurean work, The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature (1652), advanced Epicureanism as a "new" atomism. His next work Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletoniana, or a Fabrick of Science Natural, upon a Hypothesis of Atoms, Founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, and Augmented by Walter Charleton (1654) emphasized this idea. These works, together with Charleton's Epicurus's Morals (1658), provided the English public with readily available descriptions of Epicurus's philosophy and assured orthodox Christians that Epicureanism was no threat to their beliefs. The Royal Society, chartered in 1662, advanced Epicurean atomism. One of the most prolific defenders of atomism was the chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who argued for it in publications such as The Origins of Forms and Qualities (1666), Experiments, Notes, etc. about the Mechanical Origin and Production of Divers Particular Qualities (1675), and Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis (1674). By the end of the seventeenth century, Epicurean atomism was widely accepted by members of the English scientific community as the best model for explaining the physical world, but it had been modified so greatly that Epicurus was no longer seen as its original parent.

Enlightenment and after
The Anglican bishop Joseph Butler's anti-Epicurean polemics in his Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and Analogy of Religion (1736) set the tune for what most orthodox Christians believed about Epicureanism for the remainder of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nonetheless, there are a few indications from this time period of Epicurus's improving reputation. Epicureanism was beginning to lose its associations with indiscriminate and insatiable gluttony, which had been characteristic of its reputation ever since antiquity. Instead, the word "epicure" began to refer to a person with extremely refined taste in food. Examples of this usage include "Epicurean cooks / sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite" from William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (Act II. scene i; c. 1607) and "such an epicure was Potiphar—to please his tooth and pamper his flesh with delicacies" from William Whately's Prototypes (1646).

Around the same time, the Epicurean injunction to "live in obscurity" was beginning to gain popularity as well. In 1685, Sir William Temple (1628–1699) abandoned a promising career as a diplomat and instead retired to his garden, devoting himself to writing essays on Epicurus's moral teachings. That same year, John Dryden translated the celebrated lines from Book II of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things: "'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore / The rowling ship, and hear the Tempest roar." Meanwhile, John Locke (1632–1704) adapted Gassendi's modified version of Epicurus's epistemology, which became highly influential on English empiricism. Many thinkers with sympathies towards the Enlightenment endorsed Epicureanism as an admirable moral philosophy. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, declared in 1819, "I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us."

The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), whose ideas are the basis of Marxism, was profoundly influenced as a young man by the teachings of Epicurus and his doctoral thesis was a Hegelian dialectical analysis of the differences between the natural philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus. Marx viewed Democritus as a rationalist skeptic, whose epistemology was inherently contradictory, but saw Epicurus as a dogmatic empiricist, whose worldview is internally consistent and practically applicable. The British poet Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) praised "the sober majesties / of settled, sweet, Epicurean life" in his 1868 poem "Lucretius". Epicurus's ethical teachings also had an indirect impact on the philosophy of Utilitarianism in England during the nineteenth century. Soviet politician Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) lauded Epicurus by stating: "He was the greatest philosopher of all time. He was the one who recommended practicing virtue to derive the greatest joy from life".

Friedrich Nietzsche once noted: "Even today many educated people think that the victory of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior truth of the former – although in this case it was only the coarser and more violent that conquered the more spiritual and delicate. So far as superior truth is concerned, it is enough to observe that the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but point by point rejected Christianity."

Academic interest in Epicurus and other Hellenistic philosophers increased over the course of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with an unprecedented number of monographs, articles, abstracts, and conference papers being published on the subject. The texts from the library of Philodemus of Gadara in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, first discovered between 1750 and 1765, are being deciphered, translated, and published by scholars part of the Philodemus Translation Project, funded by the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, and part of the Centro per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi in Naples. Epicurus's popular appeal among non-scholars is difficult to gauge, but it seems to be relatively comparable to the appeal of more traditionally popular ancient Greek philosophical subjects such as Stoicism, Aristotle, and Plato.

title: Epicurus


text:
Epitaph

An epitaph  is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves before their death, while others are chosen by those responsible for the burial. An epitaph may be written in prose or in poem verse.

Most epitaphs are brief records of the family, and perhaps the career, of the deceased, often with a common expression of love or respect—for example, "beloved father of ..."—but others are more ambitious. From the Renaissance to the 19th century in Western culture, epitaphs for notable people became increasingly lengthy and pompous descriptions of their family origins, career, virtues and immediate family, often in Latin. Notably, the Laudatio Turiae, the longest known Ancient Roman epitaph, exceeds almost all of these at 180 lines; it celebrates the virtues of an honored wife (sometimes identified, but no generally accepted, as the Wife of consul Quintus Lucretius Vespillo ).

Some are quotes from holy texts, or aphorisms. One approach of many epitaphs is to "speak" to the reader and warn them about their own mortality. A wry trick of others is to request the reader to get off their resting place, inasmuch as the reader would have to be standing on the ground above the coffin to read the inscription. Some record achievements (e.g., past politicians note the years of their terms of office). Nearly all (excepting those where this is impossible by definition, such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) note name, year or date of birth, and date of death. Many list family members and the relationship of the deceased to them (for example, "Father / Mother / Son / Daughter of").

Linguistic distinctions
In English, and in accordance with the word's etymology, the word "epitaph" refers to a textual commemoration of a person, which may or may not be inscribed on a monument. In many European languages, however, the meaning of the word (or its close equivalent) has broadened to mean the monument itself, specifically a mural monument or plaque erected in a church, often close to, but not directly over, a person's place of burial. Examples include German Epitaph; Dutch epitaaf; Hungarian epitáfium; Polish epitafium; Danish epitafium; Swedish epitafium; and Estonian epitaaf.

History
The history of epitaphs extends as far back as the ancient Egyptians and have differed in delivery. The ancient Greeks utilised emotive expression, written in elegiac verse, later in prose. Ancient Romans' use of epitaphs was more blunt and uniform, typically detailing facts of the deceased – as did the earliest epitaphs in English churches. "May the earth lie light upon thee" was a common inscription for them. Due to the influence of Roman occupiers, the dominant language of epitaphs was Latin, evidenced by the oldest existing epitaphs in Britain. French and English came into fashion around the 13th and 14th centuries, respectively.

By the 16th century, epitaphs had become more literary in nature and those written in verse were involved in trade. In America and Britain, comedic epitaphs are common in the form of acrostics, palindromes, riddles, and puns on names and professions – Robert Burns, the most prolific pre-Romantic epitaphist, wrote 35 pieces, them being largely satirical. The rate of literary epitaphs has been historically overshadowed by "popular sepulchral inscriptions which are produced in countless numbers at all time"; "strictly literary" epitaphs were most present during the start of the Romantic period.

The Lake Poets have been credited with providing success to epitaph-writing adjacent to that of poetry significance – Robert Southey, in focusing simultaneously upon transience and eternity, contributed substantially. General interest for epitaphs was waning at the cusp of the 19th century, in contrast to a considerable burgeoning intellectual interest. Critical essays had been published before on the matter, possibly contributing towards its flourishing in the latter half of the 18th century. Epitaphs never became a major poetic form and, according to Romantic scholar Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch, they had "virtually disappeared" by 1810. "The art of the epitaph was largely lost in the 20th century", wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Format
Sarcophagi and coffins were the choice of ancient Egyptians for epitaphs; brasses was the prominent format for a significant period of time. Epitaphs upon stone monuments became a common feature by the Elizabethan era.

Medieval era
Stock phrases or standard elements present in epitaphs on mediaeval church monuments and ledger stones in England include:
 * Hic jacet.. (here lies...)
 * ... cuius animae propitietur deus amen (generally abbreviated to cuius aie ppitiet ds ame with tildes indicating the omitted letters) ("whose soul may God look upon with favour Amen")
 * Memoriae sacrum ... / MS ("Sacred to the memory (of) ...")

Modern era

 * Requiescat in pace / RIP ("may he rest in peace")

Poets, playwrights and other writers
"This is my father's crime against me, which I myself committed against none."

"Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water"

"Homo sum! the adventurer"

"Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!"

Statesmen
"Oh God (Devanagari: हे राम)"

Entertainers
"And the beat goes on."

"That's all folks!"

Activists
"Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty I'm Free at last."

In music
In a more figurative sense, the term may be used for music composed in memory of the deceased. Igor Stravinsky composed in 1958 Epitaphium for flute, clarinet and harp. In 1967 Krzysztof Meyer called his Symphony No. 2 for choir and orchestra Epitaphium Stanisław Wiechowicz in memoriam. Jeffrey Lewis composed Epitaphium – Children of the Sun for narrator, chamber choir, piano, flute, clarinet and percussion. In 1969, King Crimson released the song Epitaph, giving a reference to epitaphs within the song. Bronius Kutavičius composed in 1998 Epitaphium temporum pereunti. Valentin Silvestrov composed in 1999 Epitaph L.B. (Епітафія Л.Б.) for viola (or cello) and piano. In 2007 Graham Waterhouse composed Epitaphium for string trio as a tribute to the memory of his father William Waterhouse. The South African poet Gert Vlok Nel wrote an (originally) untitled song, which appeared on his first music album "Beaufort-Wes se Beautiful Woorde" as "Epitaph", because his producer Eckard Potgieter told him that the song sounded like an epitaph. David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, released in 2016, is generally seen as his musical epitaph, with singles "Blackstar" and "Lazarus" often singled out.

title: Epitaph