Living From Day to Day

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2017-12-09 21:50

Ἐφήμερον signified improvidence or living in the present. Gregory Nazianzen says: "Come, O philosopher and wise man. . . . Come Dog, not with shamelessness but with freedom of speech, not with gluttony but with living-from-day-to-day (ἐφήμερον); not barking but guarding what is good" (Oratio 25, 2). Hieronymus says: "Satyrus, the biographer of illustrious men, relates that Diogenes, to guard himself against the cold, folded his cloak double; his scrip was his pantry; and, aged, he carried a stick to support his feeble frame, and he was commonly called ήμερόβιοσ (living from day to day), because in that very hour he begged and received food from any one" (Adversus Jovianum 2, 14). "All the curses of tragedy, he (Diogenes) used to say had lighted upon him. At all events he was 'cityless, homeless, driven from his native land, a beggar, a wanderer, living from day to day’” (D. L. 6, 38; Gnom. Vaticanum 201).

"You ask me to write you what I know about death and burial, as you cannot become a complete philosopher unless you learn from us what comes after life. I hold that it is sufficient to live according to virtue and nature and this is in our power. As the things before birth are withheld by nature, so the things after death must be trusted to it" (25th Letter of Diogenes). It will be noted that this Letter is agnostic in tone. It seems probable that the Cynics were generally agnostics. Julian says that Diogenes did not visit temples or worship statues or altars (6, 199). D. L. implies that he used temples only as dormitories (6, 22) and Dio Chrysostom expresses the same idea (4, 13). "Proofs are not wanting that among the philosophers there was not only ignorance, but actual doubt, about the divinity. Diogenes, when asked what was taking place, in heaven, answered, 'I have never been up there.' Again, asked whether there were any gods, he replied, 'I do not know, only there ought to be gods'" (Tertullian, Ad Nationes 2). "Diogenes the Cynic used to say of Harpalus, one of the most fortunate villains of his time, that the constant prosperity of such a man was a kind of witness against the gods" (Cicero, De Natura, Decorum 3, 34).

Image: St. Jerome (aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) Reading in the Countryside
Painting by Giovanni Bellini, 1505
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons