Monday, December 31, 2018

Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.14.1.1_If Wishes Were Horses…. Or, How to Avoid Being a Slave.


~by David Aiken~

§ 2 “Ench”, 1.14.1.1
TRANSLATION (AIKEN)— If you would like for your children and wife and [2] your friends to live forever, then you are just being silly; because you are wishing for control over [3] things that are beyond your control, and for matters that are not your concern to concern you. Similarly, if you ever harbor the hope that your [4] child would not fail or not do wrong, then you are being ridiculous; (5) because you are wanting the child’s moral failing to be something other than moral failure.
(6b) On the other hand, if you do not want to miss out on the truth in the matter of what you can control about your life—then this is something that is entirely possible. (7) Train yourself therefore with respect to this: To strive for what is achievable.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
            One who is master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the one who has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be freed then, let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others nor let him try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself up [5] to become enslaved.

2 “Ench”, 1.14.1.1
         ∆Ea»n qe÷lhØß ta» te÷kna sou kai« th\n gunai√ka kai« 2 tou\ß fi÷louß sou pa¿ntote zhvn, hjli÷qioß ei•: ta» ga»r mh\ e˙pi« soi« 3 qe÷leiß e˙pi« soi« ei•nai kai« ta» aÓllo/tria sa» ei•nai. ou¢tw ka·n to\n  4 pai√da qe÷lhØß mh\ aJmarta¿nein, mwro\ß ei•: qe÷leiß ga»r th\n kaki÷an mh\ ei•nai kaki÷an, aÓll’ a‡llo ti. e˙a»n de« qe÷lhØß ojrego/menoß mh\ aÓpotugca¿nein, touvto du/nasai. touvto ou™n a‡skei,
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
o§ du/nasai. ku/rioß e˚ka¿stou e˙sti«n oJ tw◊n uJp’ e˙kei÷nou qelome÷nwn h£ mh\ qelome÷nwn e¶cwn th\n e˙xousi÷an ei˙ß to\ peripoihvsai 3 h£ aÓfele÷sqai. o¢stiß ou™n e˙leu/qeroß ei•nai bou/letai, mh/te qele÷tw ti mh/te feuge÷tw ti tw◊n e˙p’ a‡lloiß: ei˙ de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh.

In Ms. Carter’s internet translation: 14. If you wish your children, and your wife, and your friends to live forever, you are stupid; for you wish to be in control of things which you cannot, you wish for things that belong to others to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are a fool; for you wish vice not to be vice," but something else. But, if you wish to have your desires undisappointed, this is in your own control. Exercise, therefore, what is in your control. He is the master of every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever that person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever, then, would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others else he must necessarily be a slave.

§ N. B. On wishes and wishful thinking.
In his short essay on “Wishful Thinking” (Minima Moralia, §127), Theodor Adorno reminds us of an insight about ‘intelligence’, which also happens to be entirely Epictetian in nature– that it is in fact a moral category.

§ Nursery Rhyme Truths in Philosophy.
Disney's Jiminy Cricket & Pinocchio
Philosophically speaking, there is no meaningful difference between a philosopher like Epictetus who tries to teach us the commonsensical silliness of counting on future contingencies, and the more astute nursery rhymes of our childhood that rhyme-teach us the same lesson.  For instance, an ethics teacher might say to his students: “If you hope for your children and wife and your friends to live forever, then you are just being silly…” But how is this really different, at least content-wise, from the rhymes that taught us as children the silliness of idle wishes, which were idle precisely because they were attempts to put some kind of ‘impossible’ grapnel upon an elusive future of contingencies?
Pace to the world of Walt Disney, who threw a monkey-wrench into the works of practical and intelligent philosophical thinking with his version of Jiminy Cricket singing in Pinocchio:
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.

French tinker
Because this Disney outlook is only true in an animated world where cartoon reality holds court; but it is not at all true in this here-and-now world where men live out more ordinary and less cartoonish existences. So, let us put aside the Disneyworld anti-philosophy of wishing upon stars complete with the guarantee of ‘getting’ our-heart’s-desire, in order to embrace more humanly relevant, even if rhymed, philosophical counsel that showed us as children the silliness of any and all idle wishing, such as If Wishes Were Horses:
If wishes were horses
Beggars would ride:
If turnips were watches
I would wear one by my side.
And if if’s and an’s were pots and pans,
The tinker would never work!

Or, adding a slight spin to the rhythmical twist, there is also A Chapter of Ifs:
If Ifs and Ands were pots and pans,
’Twould cure the tinker's cares:
if ladies did not carry fans,
They’d give themselves no airs:
If down the starry skies should fall,
The starlings would be cheap:
If Belles talk'd reason at a ball,
The band might go to sleep.[…]

The link between parts 1 [1.14.1.1] and 2 [1.14.2.1] of the 14th section of Epictetus’ Enchiridion, because the two segments present in fact one coherent argument, is the connection that necessarily denies the possibility of any contingent link between yet-future events and our personal all-too-human, here-and-now desire and ability to control the yet-future. Indeed, the belief that we can influence the imminent world in any way whatsoever constitutes for Epictetus a gilded cage of mental imprisonment; this is in fact the very principle of a slavery that is self-sought and self-constituted. For in our frantic desire for control over always uncontrollable future events, we become willing drudges to the ultimately unknowable and unpredictable eventualities of if-then contingencies. Which means that we are constantly either running toward or away from whatever Reality shall itself yield on its own terms, when It gets around to fielding Its impromptu team. So, putting all contingencies aside as The Unknowable Unknown, the working philosophical principle that Epictetus gives us here in §14 is for each of us to know and identify what is in fact controllable in our relationship to future events, which, he says in 1.14.1.4, is the only thing that ‘is entirely possible. Train yourself therefore with respect to this: To strive for what is achievable’.

§ A little comparative expansion on Epictetus’ thinking.
In 1970 Perry Como released his unforgettable hit, originally composed by Armando Manzanero, It’s Impossible.
It's impossible, tell the sun to leave the sky, it's just impossible
It's impossible, ask a baby not to cry, it's just impossible
Can I hold you closer to me and not feel you goin' through me?
Split the second that I never think of you, oh, how impossible…

With a little imagination and a lot of suspended disbelief, one could well imagine that §14 of the Enchiridion represents Epictetus’ archaic version of the contemporary sentiment expressed in Manzanero’s ‘It’s Impossible’—minus the famous melody, of course.
·      In line 1: if you should want [ean theles = ∆Ea»n qe÷lhØß] the IMPOSSIBLE, which is to say that you would like “your children and wife and [2] your friends to live forever,” then the line 3 response is: Well, then, you are just being silly [elithios ei = hjli÷qioß ei], because you are wanting what is not possible.
·      In line 4: And, if you should want [ka·n … qe÷lhØß] the IMPOSSIBLE, which is to say that you would prefer it that your kid should never fail or do anything morally reprehensible, then the line 5 response is: Well, now you are really being ridiculous [moros ei = mwro\ß ei], because you obviously do not want to call a spade a spade in terms of your junior’s morally dubious actions.

But then, after establishing the completeness of our philosophical frivolousness and of our ridiculous, because impossibly counterfactual, attitudes toward life, both present and eventual, by repeating the statement: ‘if you should want’ … (what is obviously IMPOSSIBLE’), Epictetus turns around and stops us in our tracks by showing us in line 6 that there is in fact one and only one thing that is really POSSIBLE for us to control in this world: We do not have to miss out on what is true about the question of ‘control’ in our lives! The only guaranteed ‘possible’ is this, says Epictetus in line 7: It is entirely POSSIBLE for us to obtain knowledge about what type of control men can achieve for themselves in this world. It is therefore a philosophical no-brainer for Epictetus that we should only strive after what is achievable, which is not any sort of participatory control over what may or may not happen in the non-contingent future, but rather knowledge about the actual role we play in our historical present.

           Epictetus’ philosophical advice, of course, is entirely coherent with older ancient Greek gnomological wisdom sources, which seemed partial to manifesting themselves in the form of lists of quotations. In today’s world this would look something like Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. An example of another Benjamin Franklin for the mid-6th century BC in ancient Greece was the poet, Theognis [The Elegiac Poems of Theognis, Tufts: Perseus], and particularly relevant to our text in Enchiridion §14, is Theognis’ consoling lamentation to Cyrnus in 33-142.
33-142
No man is himself the cause of loss and gain, Cyrnus; the Gods are the givers of them both: nor does any that labor know in his heart whether he moves to a good end or a bad. For often when he thinks he will make bad he makes good, and makes bad when he thinks he will make good. Nor does any man get what he wishes; for his desires hold the ends of sore perplexity. We men practise vain things, knowing nought, while the Gods accomplish all to their mind [English updated].

Now, although history sees in Theognis a poet given to a more than modest degree of inward gazing, thus categorizing him as elegiac or sad, our poet yet arrives at not-necessarily depressing truths about the human condition that will make the hearts of later Stoic philosophers such as Epictetus ‘soar like an eagle’. For in Epictetian-speak, some 650 years later, this archaic gnomic wisdom will yield:
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
            One who is master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the one who has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be freed then, let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others nor let him try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself up [5] to become enslaved.

§ Contingencies – and standing still.
We have seen already in Enchiridion §12 that Epictetus philosophically juxtaposes over and against the unknowable and finally unpredictable future, our present NOW. Thus, in Enchiridion §12, which anticipates and philosophically amplifies our present section, Epictetus already alerts us to the fact that there is tension in our thinking, not because there is any real possibility of influencing the non-contingent intransigence of the yet-to-come, but because our thinking is fatally flawed and therefore unreasonable on this question. His contingency principle is explained in this manner in §12:
… Philosophically, this is a truly existential moment, where the “perceived” weight of a potential future, over which one has no control whatsoever, at any level at any time, makes us fearful and sorrowful in the present. Epictetus uses the parallel subjunctives in lines 2-3 to create emotional distance from the two examples of proverbial wisdom that he wishes for us to dismiss as counter-factual: 1) If I were to be careless at this point about…; 2) If I should not correct my child… The parallel subjunctives are then followed by parallel verbs in the future tense: 1) I shall never [in future] keep hold of the means for taking care of myself; 2) [my child] shall turn out to be a good-for-nothing, which imply that, at least according to the erroneous traditional beliefs of proverbial wisdom, the future is somehow dependent on our actions in the present. […]
But Epictetus has stopped by to remind us that, in point of fact, we do not have the responsibility for either our own or our children’s future. This is not to say, however, that we should fail to exercise stewardship over our present actions and in our sphere of influence; only that we have no means to control the outcomes of our actions. Sometimes present good shall yield future evil; sometimes present evil shall reveal a future good. For Epictetus, our ethical and philosophical job is limited to acting well in the present, and to thinking correctly in the present about our actions.
Note that Epictetus counters the incorrect thinking of proverbial wisdom with an illustration sandwiched in-between two common Stoic principles (1.12.2.1-4). The example is from the spilled oil: ‘A little spilled oil is the price to pay for [3] peace of mind, and that a little wine gone missing is a small price to pay for a calm spirit.’ The illustration [viz., oil, wine] uses present tense verbs, so that our attention is grammatically riveted on the present, on what is happening around us right here and right now. So, although the world around us may find itself caught up in the fury of the maelstrom, it is precisely this focus on the Here & Now that allows us to maintain the calmness of spirit [aÓtaraxi÷a] so prized by the Stoic philosophers.]

§ A Promising Observation and Intuitions About Words: (hamartanein) and (thn kakian)—Lines 5-6a.
Missing the Mark_Bruce Peterson
Hamartanein (aJmarta¿nein), in line 5, means, blandly, ‘to fail to hit the target with a spear’, or in contemporary Americaneze, ‘to be unable to shoot worth a damn!’, which broadly translates as, ‘to miss the mark’, ‘to err’, and ‘to make a mistake’. But hamartanein also has a second level meaning, especially in Christian circles: as a moral failure, and especially in the New Testament sense of to ‘do wrong’ and to ‘sin’. This secondary meaning is confirmed in Enchr. §14 by associating hamartanein with th\n kaki÷an (thn kakian = bad or evil) in line 6a. Now, kaki÷an can have a fairly banal quasi Stoic sense, philosophically speaking, such as in the proverbial usage in Matthew 6.34: So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today [ὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε εἰς τὴν αὔριον, ἡ γὰρ αὔριον μεριμνήσει αὑτῆς· ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς.], where the suggestion is clear that at issue are the cares and worries associated with daily living, e.g., paying bills, putting food on the table, and fixing and repairing things around the home that periodically need fixing and repairing. So, the Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers rightly interprets this NT text in a Stoic sense:
(34) Take therefore no thought for the morrow.--No precept of divine wisdom has found so many echoes in the wisdom of the world. Epicurean self-indulgence, Stoic apathy, practical common-sense, have all preached the same lesson, and bidden men to cease their questionings about the future. […]  Men were to look forward to the future calmly…

That said, however, kaki÷an more generally translates with emphasis on badness in quality (as opposed to ἀρετή (arete = excellence), cowardice, faint-heartedness, moral badness, evil, ill-repute, and dishonor. In the Pauline texts of the NT, for example, this term consistently reaffirms its negative ethical associations.
·       I Corinthians 5:8 -- Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth [ὥστε ἑορτάζωμεν, μὴ ἐν ζύμῃ παλαιᾷ μηδὲ ἐν ζύμῃ κακίας καὶ πονηρίας, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἀζύμοις εἰλικρινίας καὶ ἀληθείας].
·       I Corinthians 14:20 -- Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature [Ἀδελφοί, μὴ παιδία γίνεσθε ταῖς φρεσίν, ἀλλὰ τῇ κακίᾳ νηπιάζετε, ταῖς δὲ φρεσὶν τέλειοι γίνεσθε].

Which brings us back full-circle to Epictetus:
Similarly, if you ever harbor the hope that your [4] child would not fail or not do wrong, then you are being ridiculous; (5) because you are wanting the child’s moral failing to be something other than moral failure. [ou¢tw ka·n to\n  4 pai√da qe÷lhØß mh\ aJmarta¿nein, mwro\ß ei•: qe÷leiß ga»r th\n kaki÷an mh\ ei•nai kaki÷an…

A perhaps gratuitous, but certainly suggestive, amplification of meaning for kaki÷an with its moral implications and overtones, might be to consider an equally challenging, because arcane in the highest degree, phrase from the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, which juxtaposes injustice (adikia) and justice (dikia). It would seem after all, at first intuitive blush and without further ado, that what makes a failing (hamartanein) a kakian type of failing, as opposed to a simple and banal, “Oh nuts! I missed the target yet again” type of failing, is that the non-banal type of failing may be, and certainly even must be, somehow linked to an ancient Greek notion of justice/injustice. The fragment in question from Anaximander is Fragment 1:
[link] He says [the material cause and first element of things was the Infinite] is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a substance different from them, which is infinite, from which arise all the heavens and the worlds within them. And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, "as is ordained; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the appointed time," as he says in these somewhat poetical terms. —Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 16).

The specific passage of interest to our intuition in this first fragment is penultimate (from line 5): "as is ordained; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the appointed time" (χρεών· διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν.   (5)).
Now, while some philosophical study ultimately linking kakian to the idea of dikia and adikia might be philosophically enlightening in a Heideggerian type of way, there may also be reservations about such studies. Initially, because the critical literature on Anaximander seems overwhelmingly to want to read the dikia-adikia connection as a fundamental materialism linked to causality, see especially Vlastos (156), who interprets this language as a basic law of ‘Cosmic’ measure among the elements. However, while the vast majority of scholars are content to hang their hats on the materialist peg and proceed on to other, less spicy things, there are yet those few, enough, who seem to do some very-slight doffing of the proverbial cap, in a by the by kind of way, to the moral tones that seem, also, to abide in the terms dikia and adikia, thus justifying a possible parallelism between dikia and ‘not a moral failing’ (mh\ ei•nai kaki÷an), and adikai and a ‘moral kakian’.

§ On the Servant Mentality. Epictetus’ pre-Nietzschean Critique of Proto-Christianity. Line 5.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
            One who is master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the one who has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be freed then, let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others nor let him try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself up [5] to become enslaved.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
o§ du/nasai. ku/rioß e˚ka¿stou e˙sti«n oJ tw◊n uJp’ e˙kei÷nou qelome÷nwn h£ mh\ qelome÷nwn e¶cwn th\n e˙xousi÷an ei˙ß to\ peripoihvsai 3 h£ aÓfele÷sqai. o¢stiß ou™n e˙leu/qeroß ei•nai bou/letai, mh/te qele÷tw ti mh/te feuge÷tw ti tw◊n e˙p’ a‡lloiß: ei˙ de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh.

Gilded Cage_Talha Khan
For the nonce, the bit that most intrigues in this fragment is line 5, where Epictetus admonishes his students not to allow themselves to become lost in a type of mindset that must necessarily result in reducing them to slavery, or in them becoming servile to situations that can lead only to mental and emotional thralldom. And, of course, this admonition is entirely about the vassalage we demonstrate as we commit so easily to our lives of non-thinking. Epictetus wants to speak to us about freedom, which is really about our having ownership of our own thinking; this, he says, we can absolutely achieve… on two conditions: neither 1) to let one covet or long for a thing that is outside of one’s grasp to obtain, nor 2) to let one try to flee from things from which one cannot possibly escape. The one who does either of these two things, affirms Epictetus, necessarily sets himself up to become enslaved. [ei˙ de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh].
            This Epictetian encouragement toward personal and mental freedom is, of course, diametrically opposed to the “new” teaching that was beginning to emerge in the same 1st century period, which was being promoted by proponents of the Jesus movement, and especially the proselytizing Paul, and which encouraged listeners to become servants, or bondsmen, of the Lord. Thus, Paul will call himself in Romans 1:1, the “slave of Jesus Christ.”
The general attitude of the NT toward slavery is certainly not morally censorious in the slightest, but rather reflects fairly accurately the widespread mores of the pluralistic Roman empire. There is, for example, the lazy slave motif in Matthew 25:26; and Jesus himself speaks of the impossible position of a slave who is trying to serve and please two masters at once, comparing that slave to those who are torn between service to God and service to Mammon (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13). Indeed, it would seem that the early Jesus movement was particularly attractive to those who were themselves slaves, to judge by passages such as I Corinthians 7:21, I Timothy 6:1, and I Peter 2:18. The NT, and not only the Pauline letters, also enjoins slaves to obey their masters, as in Ephesians 6:5ff., Colossians 3:22ff., I Timothy 6:1-2, I Peter 2:18, and Titus 2:9-10; and, it would also seem that some Christian masters were treating their slaves poorly, because there is a call for them to treat their slaves better (Ephesians 6:9, Colossians 4:1).
 ‘To become enslaved’, as we find it in Enchiridion §14, 5, is the verb douleuein (douleu/ein), which is, quite literally speaking, to be a slave, to serve, to do service. But the verb is generic in its applications. Enslavement can be used of persons, as it can be used to refer to nations being in subjection to other nations. In the NT, for example, the Apostle Paul will famously make the case in Galatians 4:25 that the Jews are under the yoke of (=slaves to) the Mosaic law. Of course, as always with words, there is also a second level, non-literal or metaphorical meaning to douleuein, where the sense is to submit to, to obey. For the positive, albeit troubling sense: the Christians are called to yield obedience to those who are in authority over them as unto God himself (Romans 13:1-2):
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves (NIV).

Likewise, the Christian is expected to obey God, etc. For the negative sense, on the other hand, the NT speaks of those who become slaves to, or who yielded themselves to, some baser power, such as to sin (Romans 6:6), or to the Law of sin (Romans 7:25), or to pleasures (Titus 3:3), or to acquiring wealth (Matthew 6:24), or to the ‘elements [i.e., probably neo-Platonic deities] of this world’ (Galatians 4:9).           

So, we see that there arises in the 1st century of the common era two opposing philosophies toward the idea of freedom: the Christian philosophy that admonishes slavery to God and a life of service to the brethren, and Epictetus’ philosophy, which invites us to become emotional and intellectual freemen.
A later embodiment of exactly Epictetus’ philosophy of mental and emotional freedom is found in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. In the particular, in Genealogy of Morality (1:7ff), a true masterpiece of proto-existentialism, Nietzsche writes about “the slave revolt in morality” as a speculative historical by-product of the West’s religious inheritance, as both religious historical happenstance, and our birthright. This slave revolt supposedly led to the great inversions in morality whose genealogy Nietzsche sketches out for us in the G of M, where the natively good and admirable qualities of physical prowess and strength, commonplace in the ancient heroes, were transformed into evil attributes. Consequently, heroes like the Homeric Achilles, because he was simply too powerful and too overwhelming—a veritable force of nature against whom few dared even to stand, became a ‘bad’ man in the eyes of Christian morality—his natural virtues, in the most literal sense of that word, became evil and immoral traits. This slave revolt oversaw the inversion whereby the heroically noble became the ‘bad’; where those who responded to Life with feebleness and vulnerability, with the Nein-sagen, who insisted on otherworldliness for their validation, became the bedrock of virtue; where the weak and pathetic, fueled by ressentiment, assumed the high place of new ‘virtue’ and morality; where the will to death (Nein-sagen to Life) replaced the will to life (Ja-sagen to Life). In fact, in his writings Nietzsche traces out for us Moderns nothing short of the enslavement of the entire Western way of thinking, a thralldom to a Life-defying, subjugating morality that perverts life-affirming thinking, a morality that is untimely precisely because it is committed to death and the already mentally dead, instead of to life and the emotionally alive.
Epictetus seems to sense already in his 1st century AD how this mental and emotional enslavement will come about—through unjust thinking. And, to borrow upon Frostian tones, he warns us against taking this road ‘just as fair’, as the more traveled road into captivity.

Further reading: Phrontisterion’s translation of Epictetus’ Handbook

References and related reading:
Nursery Rhymes:
·      https://allnurseryrhymes.com/if-wishes-were-horses/
Anaximander:
·      Engmann, Joyce. “Cosmic Justice in Anaximander.” Phronesis, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1991), pp. 1-25 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182374].
·      Mansfeld, Jaap. “Anaximander’s Fragment: Another Attempt.” Phronesis, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2011), pp. 1-32 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41057453].
·      Seligman, Paul. The ‘Apeiron’ of Anaximander. University of London: The Athlone Press, 1962.
·      Vlastos, Gregory. “Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies.” Classical Philology, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul., 1947), pp. 156-178 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/265987].
The NT and slavery:
·      https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/slavery-in-the-new-testament
·      https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/greek/1398.html

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