Seekers after God Part 13

The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from G.o.d, and it is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, our duties spring directly from our relation to G.o.d. It is that relation which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has G.o.d for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?"

Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones.

He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act is a definite grain in the sand-mult.i.tude of influences which make up our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them.

Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be pa.s.sionate? do not then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto.

Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have pa.s.sed even thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to G.o.d. For the habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say _that_, that it will soon be all right with you."

But _how_ is one to do all this? that is the great question, and Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, for instance, already quoted one pa.s.sage in which (unlike the majority of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical importance of controlling even the _thought_ of wickedness. Another anecdote about Agrippinus will further ill.u.s.trate the same doctrine. It was the wicked practice of Nero to make n.o.ble Romans appear on the stage or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted Agrippinus on the subject. "_Go by all means_," replied Agrippinus.

"But why don't _you_ go, then?" asked Florus. "_Because"_, said Agrippinus, "_I do not deliberate about it_." He implied by this answer that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act always on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_.

"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off."

"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the purple sewn upon it."

And if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward approval, wish to appear beautiful to G.o.d. Desire to be pure with your own pure self, and with G.o.d. And when any evil fancy a.s.sails you, Plato says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of the G.o.ds, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even rise and depart to the society of the n.o.ble and the good, to live according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery over temptation and pa.s.sion; consider how glorious was the conscious victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.'

And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for tranquillity, for peace. Think on G.o.d; call upon Him as thine aid and champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you will conquer _hereafter_, and then the same again and again, know that thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of that saying of Hesiod,--

"'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'"

Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that "only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr.

Coventry Patmore sing:--

"How easy to keep free from sin; How hard that freedom to recall; For awful truth it is that men _Forget_ the heaven from which they fall."

In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to _despair_. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. You need but _will_" he says, "and it is done; but if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in sin, for you are beyond the power of any G.o.d to save."

But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to _profess_ these principles and _talk_ about them is one thing--to act up to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then _vice_ to suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name of Stoic was usurped.

"Why," he asks in another pa.s.sage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic?

Why do you deceive the mult.i.tude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere _trimmer_ we are in the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both _is_ in reality and is _called_ a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, _are Jews in name, but in reality are something else_.... We call ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten pounds." The pa.s.sage is interesting not only on its own account, but because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circ.u.mcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circ.u.mcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of G.o.d."

The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make a man grateful to G.o.d, bold under all circ.u.mstances, as though dealing with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,'

will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes."

These pa.s.sages include, I think, all the most original, important, and characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the _Discourses_.

They are most prominently ill.u.s.trated in the long and important chapter on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon the subject.

He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider how great a thing you are undertaking.

"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of G.o.d. You must conquer every pa.s.sion, abrogate every desire. Your life must be transparently open to the view of G.o.d and man. Other men conceal their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as the spy and messenger of G.o.d among mankind.

"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their hair, and were the slaves of circ.u.mstances and the dupes of semblances.

It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ign.o.ble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?

"Only by G.o.d's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be beaten like an a.s.s, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an unshaken unanimity in the midst of circ.u.mstances which to other men would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.

"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The friend of the truly n.o.ble must be as truly n.o.ble as himself, and such a friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted to the service of heaven.

"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.

"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of G.o.d you are capable of achieving it."

I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, and observe its generous impatience, its n.o.ble ardour, its vivid interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts."

Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious t.i.tle of "Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful circ.u.mstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the results of philosophy, without having pa.s.sed through the necessary discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they would have found an ideal which would have surpa.s.sed their loftiest conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible _ideal_; it was an ideal rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with fort.i.tude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it enn.o.bled their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

CHAPTER I.

THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.

The life of the n.o.blest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the n.o.blest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility.

The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, surrounded by every depressing, ign.o.ble, and pitiable circ.u.mstance of life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win n.o.ble happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, of heavenly beauty, of n.o.ble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its haughty self-a.s.sertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown G.o.d.' In the sad _Meditations_ of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of G.o.d, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpa.s.sed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon.

We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and humbleness of heart by an Emperor."

Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, "search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind."

"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime human virtue it is his. He was certainly the n.o.blest character of his time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius."

Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a line of ill.u.s.trious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his _Meditations_ he has left us a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, and _abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts_; and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of the rich.

The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian.

The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of t.i.tus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother t.i.tus, was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were among the very gentlest and n.o.blest sovereigns whom the world has ever seen.

Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's paternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'"

It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, with an accent of heroic verity."

Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, a.s.sembling the senators round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he won by his grat.i.tude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have chosen _him_, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.

We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch of the influences and the education which had formed him for this exalted station.

He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and thankfulness to the G.o.ds, that he had not been sent to any public school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the _diligence_, the _grat.i.tude_, and the _hardiness_ in which he was encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of generous conviction.

1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was _diligent_. He alludes more than once in his _Meditations_ to the inestimable value of time, and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits.

He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses grat.i.tude to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his health suffered by the combination of the two.

2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even the most insignificant--with sincere _grat.i.tude_. He regarded each one of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he actually _did_ learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his n.o.ble and conscientious grat.i.tude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He even thanks the G.o.ds that "he made haste to place those who brought him up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his exalted rank and character he delighted to a.s.sociate with them on the most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household G.o.ds, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.

3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel second-cla.s.s, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their b.u.t.tonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a poor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more n.o.ble_ was the abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not only a duty but a pleasure

"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"

and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his twelfth year he a.s.sumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he acted thus without self-a.s.sertion and without ostentation. His friends found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or with gloom.