Gospel of Aristippus 5 · Third Witness: The Wave of Sovereignty, and Living in the Hour
Aristippus, born at Cyrene in north Africa about 435 before this era, died about 356. Student of Socrates, founder of the Cyrenaic school. He held the pleasure of the present to be the good, but the point of it was mastery and not indulgence: taunted with keeping company with a famous courtesan, he answered that he had her, and she did not have him. Of the four witnesses he alone took fees for teaching, which the others held shameful. He lived at the court of the tyrant of Syracuse, and asked how he could bear it, said that he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Not one of his books survives; everything known comes through later hands, so what is recorded of him here is to be doubted more than the rest. What this volume brings is a man who enjoyed himself. Without him the scripture is left with nothing but a severe face. This book is written at ease. Whoever reads it and does not laugh once has not read this book.
5.1I left this one out.
5.2The reason is not creditable: the wine was good that day. I wrote down two of the Teacher’s jokes and forgot to write down his most important sentence.
5.3It came back to me twenty years later.
5.4Someone asked: what is the greatest law?
5.5The Teacher pushed the cup across and said: "Drink with someone."
5.6They laughed, thinking he was joking again.
5.7He said: "I am serious. Eating the best thing alone is not enjoyment. It is storage."
5.8"Pleasure is the only thing that increases by division. You have all studied geometry — work it out."
5.9Someone asked: and if the man does not deserve it?
5.10The Teacher said: "The cup does not know whether he deserves it."
5.11I laughed that day, and did not write it down.
5.12I understand now that he was not talking about wine.
5.13A man who never shares the best of what he has is not a sovereign. He is a warehouse.
5.14A warehouse is possessed by nothing either — but only because it never asks anyone in.