{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "elizabeth_carter.epictetus_introduction",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/elizabeth-carter/epictetus-introduction/reference-24/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Introduction to the Works of Epictetus, by Elizabeth Carter",
    "author": "Elizabeth Carter",
    "date": "c. 1749-1758; published in 1759",
    "summary": "Elizabeth Carter opens her translation of Epictetus with an account of Stoicism, its three fields of exercise, and its moral vocabulary. She provides readers with orientation while comparing some ancient claims with her Christian commitments.",
    "learning": "Understand Carter’s map of Stoicism, distinguish introduction from translated text, and identify where her Christian interpretation directs the account.",
    "long_summary": "The introduction presents desires and aversions, impulses to act, and assent as fields of progressive training. Carter explains the distinction between what is up to us and external events, then situates duty, providence, and freedom within the Stoic system.\n\nThis paratext is critical work by the translator, not speech by Epictetus. It makes the Discourses accessible to an eighteenth-century English audience while evaluating antiquity from Carter’s own theological horizon. Comparisons and reservations must therefore be attributed to her.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "18th-century Europe",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Printing presses, early steam engines, textile machinery, clockmaking, and metalwork begin an uneven mechanization.",
        "science": "Learned societies, collections, measurement, public experiments, and classification make science more collective and testable.",
        "medicine": "Anatomy and clinical observation advance; variolation and then vaccination appear, but anaesthesia, antisepsis, and microbes are not yet mastered.",
        "transport": "Walking, horses, stagecoaches, barges, and sailing ships. Roads and relays improve, but travel remains slow.",
        "agriculture": "Rotations, animal breeding, drainage, and new foods raise some yields while much labour remains manual.",
        "communication": "Newspapers, books, pamphlets, salons, and post move ideas at a new speed measured in days or weeks.",
        "clothing": "Coats, waistcoats, and breeches dress prosperous men; bodices, skirts, and gowns structure women’s fashion. Working people wear simpler, repeatedly repaired forms."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Printing presses, early steam engines, textile machinery, clockmaking, and metalwork begin an uneven mechanization. Learned societies, collections, measurement, public experiments, and classification make science more collective and testable. Anatomy and clinical observation advance; variolation and then vaccination appear, but anaesthesia, antisepsis, and microbes are not yet mastered."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking, horses, stagecoaches, barges, and sailing ships. Roads and relays improve, but travel remains slow. Newspapers, books, pamphlets, salons, and post move ideas at a new speed measured in days or weeks."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Rotations, animal breeding, drainage, and new foods raise some yields while much labour remains manual."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Coats, waistcoats, and breeches dress prosperous men; bodices, skirts, and gowns structure women’s fashion. Working people wear simpler, repeatedly repaired forms."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "stoicism",
        "label": "Stoicism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete_for_acquired_ocr",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/elizabeth_carter/epictetus_introduction/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 37,
            "role": "original",
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        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/elizabeth_carter/epictetus_introduction/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 37,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
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    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "courage",
            "label": "Courage"
        },
        {
            "id": "editorial_responsibility",
            "label": "Editorial responsibility"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "god",
            "label": "God"
        },
        {
            "id": "human_wisdom",
            "label": "Human wisdom"
        },
        {
            "id": "intellectual_discipline",
            "label": "Intellectual discipline"
        },
        {
            "id": "justice",
            "label": "Justice"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "service",
            "label": "Service"
        },
        {
            "id": "suffering",
            "label": "Suffering"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "translation_as_interpretation",
            "label": "Translation as interpretation"
        },
        {
            "id": "truth",
            "label": "Truth"
        },
        {
            "id": "war_and_peace",
            "label": "War and peace"
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    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
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    "passages": 37,
    "word_count": 8770,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 8770,
        "fr": 8731
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "carter-work-unit-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "unit",
                "label_fr": "Unité",
                "label_en": "Unit"
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        "leaf_fr": "Unité",
        "leaf_en": "Unit"
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    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:elizabeth_carter.epictetus_introduction:24",
    "canonical_ref": "24",
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    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "§. 37. If, among those, who are so unhappy as to remain unconvinced of the Truth of Christianity, any are prejudiced against it by the Influence of unwarrantable Inclinations: such Persons will find very little Advantage in rejecting the Doctrines of the New Testament for those of the Portico; unless they think it an Advantage to be laid under moral Restraints, almost equal to those of the Gospel, while they are deprived of its Encouragements and Supports. Deviations from the Rules of Sobriety, Justice and Piety, meet with small Indulgence in the Stoic Writings and they, who profess to admire Epictetus, unless they pursue that severely virtuous Conduct which he every-where prescribes, will find themselves treated by him, with the utmost Degree of Scorn and Contempt. An immoral Character is indeed, more or less, the Out-cast of all Sects of Philosophy: and Seneca quotes even Epicurus, to prove the universal Obligation of a virtuous Life. Of this great Truth, God never left himself without Witness. Persons of distinguished Talents and Opportunities seem to have been raised, from time to time, by Providence, to check the Torrent of Corruption, and to preserve the Sense of moral Obligations on the Minds of the Multitude, to whom the various Occupations of Life left but little Leisure to form Deductions of their own. But then they wanted a proper Commission to enforce their Precepts: they intermixed with them through false Reasoning, many gross Mistakes; and their unavoidable Ignorance, in several important Points, entangled them with Doubts, which easily degenerated into pernicious Errors",
            "source_id": "wikisource-carter-epictetus-introduction-r14410674",
            "translation_type": "original_english"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "§. 37. Si, parmi ceux qui ont le malheur de demeurer non convaincus de la vérité du christianisme, certains ont été prévenus contre lui par l’influence d’inclinations injustifiables, ces personnes trouveront très peu d’avantage à rejeter les doctrines du Nouveau Testament en faveur de celles du Portique, à moins qu’elles ne considèrent comme un avantage d’être soumises à des contraintes morales presque égales à celles de l’Évangile tout en étant privées de ses encouragements et de ses soutiens. Les écarts aux règles de sobriété, de justice et de piété rencontrent peu d’indulgence dans les écrits stoïciens. Ceux qui professent leur admiration pour Épictète, à moins de suivre la conduite sévèrement vertueuse qu’il prescrit partout, se trouveront traités par lui avec le plus haut degré de dédain et de mépris. Un caractère immoral est en vérité, à des degrés divers, le rebut de toutes les sectes philosophiques. Sénèque cite même Épicure pour prouver l’obligation universelle d’une vie vertueuse. Dieu ne s’est jamais laissé sans témoin de cette grande vérité. Des personnes possédant des talents et des occasions remarquables semblent avoir été suscitées de temps à autre par la Providence pour arrêter le torrent de la corruption et conserver le sentiment des obligations morales dans l’esprit de la multitude, à laquelle les diverses occupations de la vie laissaient peu de loisir pour former ses propres déductions. Mais ces personnes manquaient d’une mission appropriée pour donner force à leurs préceptes. Elles y mêlaient, par de faux raisonnements, de nombreuses erreurs grossières. Leur inévitable ignorance sur plusieurs points importants les embarrassait de doutes qui dégénéraient facilement en erreurs pernicieuses.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
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