On the Gods, Book III (On the Way of Life of the Gods) by Philodemus of Gadara

On the Gods, Book III, bearing the fuller title On the of the theōn of the way of life, On the Way of Life of the Gods, is the third book of a theological treatise by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemos of Gadara, composed in Koine Greek during the 1st century BCE. Book III is preserved in two carbonised rolls from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, P.Herc. 152 and P.Herc. 157, and the text held here comprises 131 fragments and 25 columns, with three further structural units carrying no text of the book. Diels's edition of 1916–1917 is the only complete edition of Book III and supplies the public-domain substrate; Essler's 2011 edition is partial and in copyright, so the site publishes the letters actually surviving on the rolls and marks editorial supplements as lacunae.

The subject is the way of life of the gods, their mode of life, stated largely through negations: the gods feel no no pain, and are not receptive, not receptive, of grief or disturbance, so that their condition is one of undisturbed happiness, while mortals are perishable, subject to passing away. Long stretches of the fragments carry the formula neither ... neither... nor, a stylistic trace of the argument's pattern. Three work-level loci align the book with von Arnim's SVF. With 131 fragments set against only 25 columns, the book reaches the present mostly as scattered pieces, and any continuous account of its argument remains reconstruction.