Book 1
3
Through this kinship with the flesh, some of us inclining to it become like wolves, faithless and treacherous and mischievous: some become like lions, savage and bestial and untamed; but the greater part of us become foxes, and other worse animals. For what else is a slanderer and a malignant man than a fox, or some other more wretched and meaner animal? Seeὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε μή τι τούτων ἀποβῆτε τῶν ἀτυχημάτων. Upton compares Matthew xvi. 6: ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης, Upton remarks that many expressions in Epictetus are not unlike the style of the Gospels, which were written in the same period in which Epictetus was teaching. Schweighaeuser also refers to Wetstein’s New Testament. then and take care that you do not become some one of these miserable things.
Of progress or improvement.
