Mental Attraction to a Magnet-Like God. Demetrius Laco’s Notion of ἐπισπασμός

The present contribution investigates both the meaning of ἐπιϲπαϲμόϲ in PHerc. 1055, ascribed to Demetrius Laco, and the role it plays in the theological context. I will contend that the Epicurean philosopher uses this term to describe a complex process leading to the knowledge of god, a process which involves both analogical reasoning and a kind of attraction of the human mind to divine nature. This attraction is also described as the effect of the flow of effluences from divine beings on the atomic structure of human minds. Moreover, I will suggest that Demetrius may have borrowed the word ἐπιϲπαϲμόϲ from the sixth book of the Hippocratic treatise On Epidemics, reinterpreting its original meaning within an Epicurean framework