 Chapter 13 of Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Antoninus was born at Rome AD 121 on the 26th of April. His father Anius Varus died while he was preter. His mother was Domitia Colvilla, also named Lucilla. The emperor Titus Antoninus Pius married Ania Galeria Faustina, the sister of Anius Varus, and was consequently the uncle of Marcus Antoninus. When Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius, and declared him his successor in the empire, Antoninus Pius adopted both Lucius Seonius Commodus, the son of Ilius Caesar, and Marcus Antoninus, whose original name was Marcus Anius Varus. Antoninus then took the name of Marcus Ilius Aurelius Varus, to which was added the title of Caesar in AD 139. The name Ilius belonged to Hadrian's family, and Aurelius was the name of Antoninus Pius. When Marcus Antoninus became Augustus, he dropped the name of Varus and took the name of Antoninus. Accordingly, he is generally named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or simply Marcus Antoninus. The youth was most carefully brought up. He thinks the gods that he had good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends—nearly everything good. He had the happy fortune to witness the example of his uncle and adoptive father Antoninus Pius, and he has recorded in his work the virtues of this excellent man and prudent ruler. Like many young Romans, he tried his hand at poetry and studied rhetoric. Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto were his teachers in eloquence. There are extant letters between Fronto and Marcus, which show the great affection of the pupil for the master, and the master's great hopes of his industrious pupil. Footnote Marcus Cornelius E. Fontonus Rolicoeae, Berlin, 1816. There are a few letters between Fronto and Antoninus Pius, in footnote. Marcus Antoninus mentions Fronto, among those to whom he was indebted for his education. When he was eleven years old, he assumed the dress of philosophers, something plain and coarse, became a hard student, and lived a most laborious, abstemious life, even so far as to injure his health. Finally he abandoned poetry and rhetoric for philosophy, and he attached himself to the sect of the Stoics. But he did not neglect the study of law, which was a useful preparation for the high place which he was designed to fill. This teacher was Lucius Velasianus Mycianus, a distinguished jurist. We must suppose that he learned the Roman discipline of arms, which was a necessary part of the education of a man who afterwards led his troops to battle against a war-like race. Antoninus has recorded in his first book the names of his teachers and the obligations which he owed to each of them. The way in which he speaks of what he learned from them might seem to savor a vanity or self-praise if we look carelessly at the way in which he has expressed himself. But if anyone draws this conclusion he will be mistaken. Antoninus means to commemorate the merits of his several teachers, what they taught and what a pupil might learn from them. Besides this book, like the eleven other books, was for his own use, and if we may trust the note at the end of the first book, it was written during one of Marcus Antoninus's campaigns against the Quadi, at a time when the commemoration of the virtues of his illustrious teachers might remind him of their lessons and the practical uses which he might derive from them. Among his teachers of philosophy was Sextus of Carania, a grandson of Plutarch. What he learned from this excellent man is told by himself. His favorite teacher was Quintus Junius Rusticus, a philosopher and also a man of practical good sense in public affairs. Rusticus was the advisor of Antoninus after he became emperor. Young men who are destined for high places are not often fortunate in those who are about them, their companions and teachers, and I do not know any example of a young prince having had an education which can be compared with that of Marcus Antoninus. Such a body of teachers distinguished by their requirements and their character will hardly be collected again, and as to the pupil we have not had one like him since. Hadrian died in July AD 138 and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius. Marcus Antoninus married Faustina, his cousin, the daughter of Pius, probably about AD 146, for he had a daughter born in 147. He received from his adoptive father the title of Caesar, and was associated with him in the administration of the state. The father and the adopted son lived together in perfect friendship and confidence. Antoninus was a dutiful son, and the emperor Pius loved and esteemed him. Antoninus Pius died in March AD 161. The Senate, it is said, urged Marcus Antoninus to take the sole administration of the Empire, but he associated with himself the other adopted son of Pius, Lucius Seonius Commodus, who is generally called Lucius Verus. Thus Rome, for the first time, had two emperors. Verus was an indolent man of pleasure and unworthy of his station. Antoninus, however, bore with him, and it is said that Verus had enough sense to pay his colleague the respect due to his character. A virtuous emperor and a loose partner lived together in peace, and their alliance was strengthened by Antoninus giving to Verus for wife his daughter Lucilla. The reign of Antoninus was first troubled by a Parthian war, in which Verus was sent to command, but he did nothing, and the success that was obtained by the Romans in Armenia and on the Euphrates and Tigris was due to his generals. This Parthian war ended in AD 165. Aurelius and Verus had a triumph, AD 166, for the victories in the east. A pestilence followed which carried off great numbers in Rome and Italy and spread to the west of Europe. The north of Italy was also threatened by the rude people beyond the Alps from the borders of Gallia to the eastern side of the Hadriatic. These barbarians attempted a break into Italy, as the Germanic nations had attempted near three hundred years before, and the rest of the life of Antoninus, with some intervals, was employed in driving back the invaders. In 169, Verus suddenly died, and Antoninus administered the state alone. During the German wars, Antoninus resided for three years on the Danube at Carnuntum. The Marcomani were driven out of Pannonia and almost destroyed in their retreat across the Danube, and in AD 174 the emperor gained a great victory over the Quadi. In AD 175, Avidius Caceus, a brave and skillful Roman commander who was at the head of the troops in Asia, revolted and declared himself Augustus. But Caceus was assassinated by some of his officers, and so the rebellion came to an end. Antoninus showed his humanity by his treatment of the family and the partisans of Caceus, and his letter to the senate in which he recommends mercy is extant. Antoninus set out for the east on hearing of Caceus's revolt. Though he appears to have returned to Rome in AD 174, he went back to prosecute the war against the Germans, and it is probable that he marched direct to the east from the German war. His wife, Faustina, who accompanied him into Asia, died suddenly at the foot of the Taurus, to the great grief of her husband. Cuppa to Linus, who was written a life of Antoninus, and also Deon Caceus, accused the emperors of scandalous infidelity to her husband and of abominable lewdness. But Cuppa to Linus says that Antoninus either knew it not or pretended not to know it. Nothing is so common as such malicious reports in all ages, and the history of imperial Rome is full of them. Antoninus loved his wife, and he says that she was obedient, affectionate, and simple. The same scandal had been spread about Faustina's mother, the wife of Antoninus Pius, and yet he too was perfectly satisfied with his wife. Antoninus Pius says after her death in a letter to Fronto that he would rather have lived in exile with his wife than in his palace at Rome without her. There are not many men who would give their wives a better character than these two emperors. Cuppa to Linus wrote in the time of Diocletian. He may have intended to tell the truth, but he is a poor feeble biographer. Anton Cassius, the most malignant of historians, always reports and perhaps he believed any scandal against anybody. Antoninus continued his journey to Syria and Egypt, and on his return to Italy through Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rights of the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But this is only one among many instances that a ruler's public acts do not always prove his real opinions. A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people, and though he may wish that they were wiser, he will know that he cannot make themselves by offending their prejudices. Antoninus and his son Commodus entered Rome in triumph, thanks for some German victories, on 23 December AD 176. In the following year Commodus was associated with his father in the Empire and took the name of Augustus. This year AD 177 is memorable in ecclesiastical history. Adelus and others were put to death at Lyon for their adherence to the Christian religion. The evidence of this persecution is a letter preserved by Eusebius. The letter is from the Christians of Vienna and Lakhdunum in Gallia, Vienna and Lyon, to their Christian brethren in Asia and Frigia, and it is preserved perhaps nearly entire. It contains a very particular description of the tortures inflicted on the Christians in Gallia, and it states that while the persecution was going on, Adelus, a Christian and a Roman citizen, was loudly demanded by the populace and brought into the amphitheater, but the governor ordered him to be reserved with the rest who were in prison until he had received instructions from the emperor. Many had been tortured before the governor thought of applying to Antoninus. The imperial re-script says the letter was that the Christians should be punished, but if they would deny their faith they must be released. On this the work began again. The Christians who were Roman citizens were beheaded, the rest exposed to the wild beasts in the amphitheater. Some modern writers in ecclesiastical history, when they used this letter, say nothing of the wonderful stories of the martyr's sufferings. Sanctus, as the letter says, was burnt with plates of hot iron till his body was one sore and he had lost all human form, but on being put to the rack he recovered his former appearance under the torture, which was thus a cure instead of a punishment. He was afterwards torn by beasts and placed on an iron chair and roasted. He died at last. The letter is one piece of evidence. The writer, whoever he was that wrote in the name of the Gallic Christians, is our evidence both for the ordinary and the extraordinary circumstances of the story, and we cannot accept his evidence for one part and reject the other. We often receive small evidence as a proof of a thing, which we believe to be within the limits of probability or possibility, and we reject exactly the same evidence when the thing to which it refers appears very improbable or impossible. But this is the false method of inquiry, though it is followed by some modern writers, who select what they like from a story and reject the rest of the evidence, or if they do not reject it they dishonestly suppress it. A man can only act consistently by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for either. But he who rejects it may still admit that such a letter may be founded on real facts, and he would make this admission as the most probable way of accounting for the existence of the letter. But if, as he would suppose, the writer has stated some things falsely, he cannot tell what part of his story is worthy of credit. The war on the northern frontier appears to have been uninterrupted during the visit of Antoninus to the east, and on his return the emperor again left Rome to oppose the barbarians. The Germanic people were defeated in a great battle A.D. 179. During this campaign the emperor was seized with some contagious malady, of which he died in the camp at Sermium, Metravitz, on the Sava in Lower Pannonia, but at Vendabana, Vienna, according to other authorities, on the 17th March A.D. 180 in the 59th year of his age. His son Commodus was with him. The body or the ashes probably of the emperor were carried to Rome, and he received the honor of deification. Those who could afford it had his statue or bust, and when Covatalinus wrote, many people still had statues of Antoninus among the Deipponates, or household deities. He was in a manner made a saint. Commodus erected to the memory of his father the Antonine Column, which is now in the Piazza Colonna, at Rome. The ball reliefs, which are placed in a spiral line around the shaft, commemorate the victories of Antoninus over the Marco Manai and the Quati, and the miraculous shower of rain which refreshed the Roman soldiers and discomfited their enemies. The statue of Antoninus was placed on the capitol of the Column, but it was removed at some time unknown, and a bronze statue of St. Paul was put in the place by Pope Sixtus V. The historical evidence for the times of Antoninus is very defective, and some of that which remains is not credible. The most curious is the story about the miracle which happened in AD 174 during the war with the Quati. The Roman army was in danger of perishing by thirst, but a sudden storm drenched them with rain, while it discharged fire and hail on their enemies, and the Romans gained a great victory. All the authorities which speak of the battle speak also of the miracle. The Gentile writers assigned it to their gods, and the Christians to the intercession of the Christian Legion in the Emperor's army. To confirm the Christian statement, it is added that the Emperor gave the title of Thundering to this Legion, but Dossier and others who maintain the Christian report of the miracle admit that this title of Thundering or Lightning was not given to this Legion because the Quati were struck with Lightning, but because there was a figure of Lightning on their shields, and that this title of the Legion existed in the time of Augustus. Scaliger also had observed that the Legion was called Thundering before the reign of Antoninus. We can learn this from Dion Cassius, who enumerates all the legions of Augustus' time. The name Thundering or Lightning also occurs on an inscription of the reign of Trajan, which was found at Trieste. Eusebius, when he relates the miracle, quotes Apollonarius, Bishop of Hierapolis, as authority for this name being given to the Legion Melitini by the Emperor in consequence of the success which he had obtained through their prayers, from which we may estimate the value of Apollonarius' testimony. Eusebius does not say in what book of Apollonarius the statement occurs. Dion says that the Thundering Legion was stationed in Cappadocia in the time of Augustus. Velaceus also observes that in the Noticia of the Imperium Romanum, there is mentioned under the commander of Armenia, the prefectura of the 12th Legion, named Thundering Melitini, and this position in Armenia will agree with what Dion says of its position in Cappadocia. Accordingly, Velaceus concludes that Melitini was not the name of the Legion, but of the town in which it was stationed. Melitini was also the name of the district in which this town was situated. The legions did not, he says, take their name from the place where they were on duty, but from the country in which they were raised, and therefore what Eusebius says about the Melitini does not seem probable to him. Yet, Velaceus, on the authority of Apollonarius and Tertullian, believed that the miracle was worked through the prayers of the Christian soldiers in the emperor's army. Rufinus does not give the name of Melitini to this Legion, says Velaceus, and probably he purposely omitted it because he knew that Melitini was the name of a town in Arminium Minor, where the Legion was stationed in his time. The emperor, it is said, made a report of his victory to the Senate, which we may believe for such was the practice, but we do not know what he said in his letter for it is not extant. Gossier assumes that the emperor's letter was purposely destroyed by the Senate, or the enemies of Christianity, that so honorable a testimony to the Christians in their religion might not be perpetuated. The critic has, however, not seen that he contradicts when he tells us purport of the letter, for he says that it was destroyed, and even Eusebius could not find it. But there does exist a letter in Greek addressed by Antoninus to the Roman people and the sacred Senate after this memorable victory. It is sometimes printed after Justin's first apology, but is totally unconnected with the Apologies. This letter is one of the most stupid forgeries of the many which exist, and it cannot be possibly founded even on the genuine report of Antoninus to the Senate. If it were genuine, it would free the emperor from the charge of persecuting men because they are Christians. For he says in this false letter that if a man accused another only of being a Christian, and the accused confess and there is nothing else against him, he must be set free. With this monstrous addition made by a man inconceivably ignorant that the informer must be burnt alive. During the time of Antoninus Pius in Marcus Antoninus there appeared the first apology of Justinus, and under Marcus Antoninus the oration of Tatian against the Greeks, which was a fierce attack on the established religions. The address of Athenagoras to Marcus Antoninus on behalf of the Christians and the Apology of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, also addressed to the emperor and that of Apollonarius. The first apology of Justinus is addressed to Titus Antoninus Pius, and his two adopted sons, Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Varus, but we do not know whether they read it. Footnote. Arotius says that Justinus the philosopher presented to Antoninus Pius his work in defense of the Christian religion, and made him merciful to the Christians. In footnote. The second apology of Justinus is entitled to the Roman Senate, but this superscription is from some copyist. In the first chapter Justinus addresses the Romans. In the second chapter he speaks of an affair that had recently happened in the time of Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Varus, as it seems, and he also directly addresses the emperor, saying of a certain woman, quote, she addressed a petition to the emperor and thou didst grant the petition, unquote. In other passages the writer addresses the two emperors, from which we must conclude that the apology was directed to them. Eusebius states that the second apology was addressed to the successor of Antoninus Pius, and he names him Antoninus Varus, meaning Marcus Antoninus. In one passage of the second apology, Justinus, or the writer, whoever he may be, says that even men who followed the Stoic doctrines, when they ordered their lives according to ethical reason, were hated and murdered, such as Heraclitus, Mussonius in his own times, and others, for all those who in any way labored to live according to reason and avoided wickedness were always hated, and this was the effect of the work of demons. Justinus himself is said to have been put to death at Rome, because he refused to sacrifice to the gods. It cannot have been in the reign of Hadrian as one authority states, nor in the time of Antoninus Pius, if the second apology was written in the time of Marcus Antoninus, and there was evidence that this event took place under Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Varus, when Rusticus was prefect of the city. The persecution in which polycarps suffered at Smyrna belongs to the time of Marcus Antoninus. The evidence for it is the letter of the church of Smyrna to the churches of Philomelium and the other Christian churches, and it is preserved by Eusebius, but the critics do not agree about the time of Polycarp's death, differing in the two extremes to the amount of twelve years. The circumstance of Polycarp's martyrdom were accompanied by miracles, one of which Eusebius has omitted, but it appears in the oldest Latin version of the letter, which Usher published, and it is supposed that this version was made not long after the time of Eusebius. The notice at the end of the letter states that it was transcribed by Chius from the copy of Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, then transcribed by Socrates at Corinth, quote, after which I, Painaeus, again wrote it out from the copy above mentioned, having searched it out by the revelation of Polycarp, who directed it to me, et cetera, unquote. The story of Polycarp's martyrdom is embellished with miraculous circumstances which some modern writers on ecclesiastical history take the liberty of omitting. Footnote, Conyers Middleton, an inquiry into the miraculous powers, et cetera, page 126. Middleton says that Eusebius omitted to mention the dove, which flew out of Polycarp's body, and Dodwell and Archbishop Wake have done the same. Wake says, I am so little a friend to such miracles that I thought it better with Eusebius to omit that circumstance than to mention it from Bishop Asher's manuscript, unquote. Which manuscript, however, says Middleton, he afterwards declares to be so well attested that we need not any further assurance of the truth of it. In footnote. In order to form a proper notion of the condition of the Christians under Marcus Antoninus, we must go back to Trajan's time. When the younger Pliny was governor of Bathenia, the Christians were numerous in those parts, and the worshipers of the old religion were falling off. The temples were deserted, the festivals neglected, and there were no purchasers of victims for sacrifice. Those who were interested in the maintenance of the old religion thus found that their prophets were in danger. Christians of both sexes and of all ages were brought before the governor, who did not know what to do with them. He could come to know their conclusion in this, that those who confessed to be Christians and persevered in their religion ought to be punished, if for nothing else for their invincible obstinacy. He found no crimes proved against the Christians, and he could only characterize their religion as a depraved and extravagant superstition, which might be stopped if the people were allowed the opportunity of recanting. Pliny wrote this in the letter to Trajan. Footnote, the martyrium Ignatius I, first published in Latin by Archbishop Usher, is the chief evidence for the circumstances of Ignatius's death, in footnote. In the time of Hadrian, it was no longer possible for the Roman government to overlook the great increase of the Christians and the hostility of the common sword to them. If the governors in the provinces were willing to let them alone, they could not resist the fanaticism of the heathen community, who looked on the Christians as atheists. The Jews, too, who were settled all over the Roman Empire, were as hostile to the Christians as the Gentiles were. Footnote, we have the evidence of justinus to this effect, quote, the Christians are attacked by the Jews as if they were men of a different race and are persecuted by the Greeks, and those who hate them cannot give the reason of their enmity, unquote. With the time of Hadrian began the Christian apologies, which show plainly what the popular feeling towards the Christians then was. A rescript of Hadrian to Manusius Fondanus, the proconsul of Asia, which stands at the end of Justin's first apology, instructs the governor that innocent people must not be troubled and false accusers must not be allowed to extort money from them. The charges against the Christians must be made in due form, and no attention must be paid to popular clamors, when Christians were regularly prosecuted and convicted of illegal acts, they must be punished according to their desserts, and false accusers also must be punished. Footnote, and in Eusebius, Erogeus says that Hadrian sent this rescript to Manusius Fondanus, proconsul of Asia, after being instructed in books written on the Christian religion by Quadratus, a disciple of the apostles, and Aristides, an Athenian, an honest and wise man, and Serenus Grineus. In the Greek text of Hadrian's rescript, there is mentioned Serenius Grineanus, the predecessor of Manusius Fondanus, in the government of Asia. This rescript of Hadrian has clearly been added to the apology by some editor. In footnote. Antonius Pius is said to have published rescripts to the same effect. The terms of Hadrian's rescript seem very favorable to the Christians, but if we understand it in this sense, that they were only to be punished like other people for illegal acts, it would have no meaning, for that could have been done without asking the emperor's advice. The real purpose of the rescript is that Christians must be punished if they persisted in their belief, and would not prove their renunciation of it by acknowledging the heathen religion. This was Trajan's rule, and we have no reason for supposing that Hadrian granted more to the Christians than Trajan did. There is also printed at the end of Justin's first apology, a rescript of Antoninus Pius, to the Commune of Asia, and it is also in Eusebius. The date of the rescript is the third consulship of Antoninus Pius. The rescript declares that the Christians, for they are meant, though the name Christians does not occur in the rescript, were not to be disturbed unless they were attempting something against the Roman rule, and no man was to be punished simply for being a Christian. But this rescript is spurious. Any man moderately acquainted with Roman history will see by the style and tenor that it is a clumsy forgery. In the time of Marcus Antoninus, the opposition between the old and the new belief was still stronger, and the adherents of the heathen religion urged those in authority to a more regular resistance to the invasions of the Christian faith. Melito, in his apology to Marcus Antoninus, represents the Christians of Asia as persecuted under new imperial orders. Shameless informers, he says, men who are greedy after the property of others used these orders as a means of robbing those who were doing no harm. He doubts if a just emperor could have ordered anything so unjust, and if the last order was really not from the emperor, the Christians entreat him not to give them up to their enemies. We conclude from this that there were at least imperial rescripts or constitutions of Marcus Antoninus, which were made the foundations of these persecutions. The fact of being a Christian was now a crime and punished unless the accused denied their religion. Then come the persecutions at Smyrna, which some modern critics place in AD 167, 10 years before the persecution of Leon. The governors of the provinces under Marcus Antoninus might have found enough, even in Trajan's rescript, to warrant them in punishing Christians, and the fanaticism of the people would drive them to persecution, even if they were unwilling. But besides the fact that the Christians rejecting all the heathen ceremonies, we must not forget that they plainly maintain that all the heathen religions were false. The Christians thus declared war against the heathen rights, and it is hardly necessary to observe that this was a declaration of hostility against the Roman government, which tolerated all the various forms of superstition that existed in the empire, and could not consistently tolerate another religion, which declared that all the rest are false, and all the splendid ceremonies of the empire only a worship of devils. If we had a true ecclesiastical history, we should know how the Roman empires attempted to check the new religion, how they enforced their principle of finally punishing Christians, simply as Christians, which Justin in his apology affirms that they did, and I have no doubt that he tells the truth. How far popular clamor and riots went in this matter, and how far many fanatical and ignorant Christians, for there were many such, contributed to excite the fanaticism on the other side, and to embedded the quarrel between the Roman government and the new religion. Our extant ecclesiastical histories are manifestly falsified, and what truth they contain is grossly exaggerated. But the fact is certain that in the time of Marcus Antoninus, the heathen populations were in open hostility to the Christians, and that under Antoninus's rule, men were put to death because they were Christians. Eusebius, in the preface to his fifth book, remarks that in the seventeenth year of Antoninus's reign, in some parts of the world, the persecution of the Christians became more violent and that it proceeded from the populace in the cities, and he adds in his usual style of exaggeration that we may infer from what took place in a single nation that myriads of martyrs were made in the habitable earth. The nation which he alludes to is Galea, and he then proceeds to give the letter to the churches of Vienna and Lagdunum. It is probable that he's assigned the true cause of the persecutions, the fanaticism of the populace, and that both governors and emperor had a great deal of trouble with these disturbances. How far Marcus was cognizant of these cruel proceedings we do not know, for the historical records of his reign are very defective. He did not make the rule against the Christians, for Trajan did that, and if we admit that he would have been willing to let the Christians alone, we cannot affirm that he was in his power, for it would be a great mistake to suppose that Antoninus had the unlimited authority, which some modern sovereigns have had. His power was limited by certain constitutional forms, by the Senate, and by the precedence of his predecessors. We cannot admit that such a man was an active persecutor, for there is no evidence that he was, though it is certain that he had no good opinion of the Christians, as appears from his own words. Footnote, except that of Erosius, who says that during the Parthian War, there were grievous persecutions of the Christians in Asia and Galea under the orders of Marcus, Prichepto Ius, and, quote, many were crowned with a martyrdom of saints, unquote, in footnote. But he knew nothing of them, except their hostility to the Roman religion, and he probably thought that they were dangerous to the state, notwithstanding their profession's faults are true of some of the apologists. So much I have said, because it would be unfair not to state all that can be urged against a man, whom his contemporaries and subsequent ages venerated as a model of virtue and benevolence. If I admitted the genuineness of some documents, he would be altogether clear from the charge of even allowing any persecutions. But as I seek the truth, and I'm sure that they are false, I leave him to bear whatever blame is his due. Footnote, Dr. F. C. Bauer, in his work entitled, tells Christim Tum undi, Christlika Kierke, der dry Erstenjahrhunderte, et cetera, has examined this question with great good sense and fairness, and I believe he has stated the truth as near as our authorities enable us to reach it. In footnote. I add that it is quite certain that Antoninus did not derive any of his ethical principles from a religion of which he knew nothing. Footnote, in the digest, there is the following excerpt from Modestinus, quote, Sikuis alikuit fekeret, cuo leuis hominoma nima se perstitiona naminas tererental, diuis marcas hu yasmada hominas, in insulam relegala resgripsant, unquote. There is no doubt that the emperor's reflections or his meditations, as they are generally named, is a genuine work. In the first book, he speaks of himself, his family, and his teachers, and in other books he mentions himself. Suides notices the work of Antoninus in 12 books, which he names the conduct of his own life, and he cites the book under several words in his dictionary, giving the emperor's name, but not the title of the work. There are also passages cited by Suides from Antoninus without mention of the emperor's name. The true title of the work is unknown. Cylander, who published the first edition of this book with the Latin version, used a manuscript, which contained the 12 books, but it is not known where the manuscript is now. The only other complete manuscript, which is known to exist, is in the Vatican library, but it has no titles and no inscriptions of the several books. The 11th only has the inscription marked with an asterisk. The other Vatican manuscripts in the three Florentine contain only excerpts from the emperor's book. All the titles of the excerpts nearly agree with that which Cylander prefixed to his edition. This title has been used by all subsequent editors. We cannot tell whether Antoninus divided his work into books or somebody else did it. If the inscriptions at the end of the first and second books are genuine, he may have made the division himself. It is plain that the emperor wrote down his thoughts or reflections as the occasions arose, and since they were intended for his own use, it is no improbable conjecture that he left a complete copy behind him, written with his own hand, for it is not likely that so diligent a man would use the labor of a transcriber for such a purpose and expose his most secret thoughts to any other eye. He may have also intended the book for a son Eusebius Commodus, who, however, had no taste for his father's philosophy. Some careful hand preserved the precious volume and a work by Antoninus as mentioned by other late writers besides Suidas. Many critics have labored on the text of Antoninus. The most complete edition is that by Thomas Gattaker, 1652, Courtauld. The second edition of Gattaker was superintended by George Stanip, 1697, Courtauld. There is also an edition of 1704. Gattaker made and suggested many good corrections, and he also made a new Latin version, which is not a very good specimen of Latin, but it generally expresses the sense of the original and often better than some of the more recent translations. He added in the margin opposite to each paragraph references to the other parallel passages, and he wrote a commentary, one of the most complete that has been written on any ancient author. This commentary contains the editor's exposition of the more difficult passages and quotations from all the Greek and Roman writers for the illustration of the text. It is a wonderful monument of learning and labor and certainly no Englishman has yet done anything like it. At the end of his preface, the editor says that he wrote it at Rothorchis near London in a severe winter when he was in the 78th year of his age, 1651, a time when Milton, Seldon, and other great men of the Commonwealth time were living, and the great French scholar Solmasius, with whom Gattaker corresponded and received help from him for his edition of Antoninus. The Greek text has also been edited by J. M. Schultz, Leipzig, 1802, Eight Volumes, and by the learned Greek Athomontinus Corée, Paris, 1816, Eight Volumes. The text of Schultz was republished by Tauchnitz, 1821. There are English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish translations of Marcus Antoninus, and there may be others. I have not seen all the English translations. There is one by Jeremy Collier, 1702, Eight Volumes, a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original. The latest French translation by Alexis Pierron in the collection of Charpentier is better than dossiers, which has been honored with an Italian version, Udiné, 1772. There is an Italian version, 1675, which I have not seen. It is by a cardinal. Quote, a man illustrious in the church, the cardinal Francis Barbarini the Elder, a nephew of Pope Urban VII, occupied the last years of his life in translating into his native language the thoughts of the Roman emperor in order to diffuse among the faithful the fertilizing and vivifying seeds. He dedicated this translation to his soul to make it, as he says in his energetic style, redder than his purple at the side of the virtues of this Gentile. Unquote. I have made this translation at intervals after having used the book for many years. It is made from the Greek, but I have not always followed one text, and I have occasionally compared other versions with my own. I made this translation for my own use because I found that it was worth the labor, but it may be useful to others also, and therefore I determined to print it. As the original is sometimes very difficult to understand and still more difficult to translate, it is not possible that I have always avoided error. But I believe that I have not often missed the meaning and those who will take the trouble to compare the translation with the original should not hastily conclude that I am wrong if they do not agree with me. Some passages do give the meaning, though at first sight they may not appear to do so, and when I differ from the translators, I think in some places they are wrong and in other places I am sure that they are. I have placed in some passages a plus sign, which indicates corruption in the text or great uncertainty in the meaning. I could have made the language more easy and flowing, but I have preferred a ruder style as being better suited to express the character of the original, and sometimes the obscurity which may appear in the version is a fair copy of the obscurity of the Greek. If I have not given the best words for the Greek, I have done the best that I could, and in the next text I have always given the same translation of the same word. The last reflection of the Stoic philosophy that I have observed is in Simplicius's Commentary of the Incaridian of Epictetus. Simplicius was not a Christian, and such a man was not likely to be converted at a time when Christianity was grossly corrupted. But he was a really religious man, and he includes his commentary with a prayer to the deity which no Christian could improve. From the time of Zeno to Simplicius, a period of about 900 years, the Stoic philosophy formed the characters of some of the best and greatest men. Finally it became extinct, and we hear no more of it till the revival of letters in Italy. Angelo Poliziano met with two very inaccurate and incomplete manuscripts of Epictetus's Incaridian, which he translated into Latin and dedicated to his great patron Lorenzo de Medici, in whose collection he had found the book. Poliziano's version was printed in the first ball edition of the Incaridian, AD 1531, Abed-Andreum Cretandrum. Poliziano recommends the Incaridian to Lorenzo as a work well suited to his temper and useful in the difficulties by which he was surrounded. Epictetus and Antoninus have had readers ever since they were printed. The little book of Antoninus has been the companion of some great men. Machiavelli's Art of War and Marcus Antoninus were the two books which were used when he was a young man by Captain John Smith, and he could not have found two writers better fitted to form the character of a soldier and a man. Smith is almost unknown and forgotten in England, his native country, but not in America where he saved the young colony of Virginia. He was great in his heroic mind and his deeds and arms, but greater still in the nobleness of his character. For a man's greatness lies not in wealth and station, as the vulgar believe, nor yet in his intellectual capacity, which is often associated with the meanest moral character the most abject servility to those in high places and arrogance to the poor lowly. But a man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examination and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself, as the emperor says he should not, about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not do, that which he thinks and says and does. End of Chapter 13. The Doctorance of Zeno and his successors were well suited to the gravity and practical good sense of the Romans, and even in the Republican period we have an example of a man, M. Cato Utensis, who lived the life of a Stoic and died consistently with the opinions which he professed. He was a man, says Cicero, who embraced the Stoic philosophy from conviction, not for the purpose of his life, but for the purpose of his life. Cicero, who embraced the Stoic philosophy from conviction, not for the purpose of vain discussion as most did, but in order to make his life conformable to the Stoic precepts. In the wretched time from the death of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but Stoic philosophy which could console and support the followers of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal corruption. There were even then noble minds that could dare and endure, sustained by good conscious and elevated idea of the purposes of man's existence. Such were Paitis Thacea, Helvidius Pritius, Cornutus, Simusonius Rhaefus, and the poets Perseus and Juvenal, whose energetic language and manly thoughts may be as instructive to us now as they might have been to their contemporaries. Perseus died under Nero's bloody reign, but Juvenal had the good fortune to survive the tyrant Domitian and to see the better times of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian. His best precepts are derived from the Stoic school, and they are enforced in his finest verses by the unrivaled vigor of the Latin language. The two best expounders of the later Stoical philosophy were a Greek slave and a Roman emperor. Epictetus of Phrygian Greek was brought to Rome, we know not how, but he was there the slave and afterwards the freedman of an unworthy master, Epaphroditus by name, himself a free man, and a favorite of Nero. Epictetus may have been a hearer of Simusonius Rhaefus while he was still a slave, but he could hardly have been a teacher before he was made free. He was one of the philosophers whom Domitians ordered banished from Rome. He retired to Nicopolis in Nippurus, and he may have died there. Like other great teachers he wrote nothing, and we are indebted to his grateful pupil Arian for what we have of Epictetus's discourses. Arian wrote eight books of the Discourses of Epictetus, of which only four remain and some fragments. We also have from Arian's hand the small Enchiridion, or manual, or the chief precepts of Epictetus. There is a valuable commentary on the Enchiridion by Simplicis, who lived at the time of the Emperor Justinian. Antoninus in his first book, in which he gratefully commentaries his obligations to his teachers, says that he was made acquainted by Junius Rusticus with the Discourses of Epictetus, whom he mentions also in other passages. Indeed, the doctrines of Epictetus and Antoninus are the same, and Epictetus is the best authority for the explanation of the philosophical language of Antoninus and the exposition of his opinions. But the method of the two philosophers is entirely different. Epictetus addressed himself to his hearers in a continuous discourse and in a familial and simple manner. Antoninus wrote down his reflections for his own use only, in short, unconnected paragraphs, which are often obscure. The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy—physic, ethic, and logic. This division, we are told by Diogenes, was made by Zeno of Sidium, the founder of the Stoic sect, and by Chrysippus, but these philosophers placed the three divisions in the following order, logic, physics, ethic. It appears, however, that this division was made before Zeno's time, and acknowledged by Plato as Cicero remarks. Logic is not synonymous with our term logic in the narrow sense of that word. Cleanthes, a Stoic, subdivided the three divisions and made six, dialectic and rhetoric, comprised in logic, ethic and politic, physics and theology. This division was merely for practical use, for all philosophy is one. Even among the earliest Stoics, logic or dialectic does not occupy the same place as in Plato. It is considered only as an instrument which is to be used for the other divisions of philosophy. An exposition of the earlier Stoic doctrines and of their modifications would require a volume. My object is to explain only the opinions of Antoninas, so far as they can be collected from his book. According to the subdivision of Cleanthes, physical theology go together, or the study of the nature of things and the study of the nature of the deity, so far as man can understand the deity, and of his government of the universe. This division or subdivision is not formally adopted by Antoninas, for, as already observed, there is no method in his book, but it is virtually contained in it. Cleanthes also connects ethic and politic, or the study of principles and morals, and the study of the Constitution of Civil Society, and undoubtedly he did well in subdividing ethic into two parts, ethic in a narrower sense and politic, for though the two are intimately connected, they are also very distinct, and many questions can only be properly discussed by carefully observing the distinction. Antoninas does not treat of politic. His subject is ethic, and ethic in its practical application to his own conduct in life as a man and as a governor. His ethic is founded on the doctrines about man's nature, the universal nature, and the relations of every man to everything else. It is therefore intimately and inseparably connected with physics or the nature of things, and with theology or the nature of the deity. He advises us to examine well all the impressions on our minds, and to form a right judgment of them, to make just conclusions, and to inquire into the meanings of words, and so far to apply dialectic, but he has no attempt at any exposition of dialectic, and his philosophy is in substance purely moral and practical. He says, quote, constantly, and if it be possible on the occasion of every impression on the soul, apply it to the principles of physics, of ethic, and of dialectic, end quote, which is only another way of telling us to examine the impression in every possible way. In another passage, he says, quote, to the age which have been mentioned, let this one still be added, make for thyself a definition or description of the object, which is presented to these so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell thyself its proper name and the names of the things which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved, end quote. Such an examination implies a use of dialectic, which Antoninus accordingly employed as a mean towards establishing his physical, theological, and ethical principles. There are several expositions of the physical, theological, and ethical principles which are contained in the work of Antoninus, and more expositions than I have read. Ritter, after explaining the doctrines of Epictetus, treats very briefly and insufficiently those of Antoninus, but he refers to a short essay in which the work is done better. There is also an essay on the philosophical principles of M. Aurelius Antoninus by J. M. Schultz, placed at the end of his German translation of Antoninus. With the assistance of these two useful essays in his own diligent study, a man may form a sufficient notion of the principles of Antoninus, but he will find it more difficult to expound them to others. Besides the want of arrangement in the original end of connection among the numerous paragraphs, the corruption of the text, the obscurity of the language and the style, and sometimes, perhaps the confusion in the writer's own ideas, besides all this there is occasionally an apparent contradiction in the emperor's thoughts, as if his principles were sometimes unsettled, as if doubt sometimes clouded his mind. A man who leads a life of tranquility and reflection, who is not disturbed at home, and meddles not with the affairs of the world, may keep his mind at ease and his thoughts in one even course. But such a man has not been tried. All his ethical philosophy and his passive virtue might turn out to be idle words if he were once exposed to the rude realities of human existence. Fine thoughts and moral dissertations from men who have not worked and suffered may be read, but they will be forgotten. No religion, no ethical philosophy is worth anything if the teacher has not lived the, quote, life of an apostle, end, quote, and has been ready to die, quote, the death of a martyr, end, quote, not in passivity, the passive affects, but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity, end, quote. Section 9, paragraph 16. The emperor Antoninus was a practical moralist. From his youth he followed the laborious discipline, and though his high station placed him above all want or the fear of it, he lived as frugally and as temperately as the poor's philosopher. Epictetus wanted little, and it seems that he always had the little that he wanted, and he was content with it as he has been with his servile station. But Antoninus, after his accession to the empire, sat on an uneasy seat. He had the administration of an empire which extended from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from the cold mountains of Scotland to the hot sands of Africa, and we may imagine, though we cannot know it by experience, what must be the trials, the troubles, the anxiety, and the sorrows of him who has the world's business on his hands with the wish to do the best he can, and the certain knowledge that he can do very little of the good which he wishes. In the midst of war, pestilence, conspiracy, general corruption, and with the weight of so unwieldy an empire upon him, we may easily comprehend that Antoninus often had need of all his fortitude to support him. The best and bravest men have moments of doubt and of weakness, but if they are the best and the bravest, they rise again from their depression by recurring to first principles as Antoninus does. The emperor says that life is smoke, a vapor, and St. James and his epistle is of the same mind that the world is full of envious, jealous, malignant people, and a man might well be content to get out of it. He has doubts perhaps sometimes even about that to which he holds most firmly. There are only a few passages of this kind, but they are the evidence of struggles which even the noblest of the sons of men had to maintain against the hard realities of his daily life. A poor remark it is which I have seen somewhere, and made in a disparaging way that the emperor's reflection showed that he had need of consolation and comfort in life, and even to prepare him to meet his death. True, that he did need comfort and support, and we see how he founded. He constantly recurs to his fundamental principle that the universe is wisely ordered, that every man is a part of it and must conform to that order which he cannot change, that whatever the deed he has done is good, that all mankind are a man's brethren, that he must love and cherish them and try to make them better, even those who would do him harm. This is his conclusion. Quote, What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one. Philosophy. But this consists in keeping the divinity within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything, and besides accepting all that happens and all that is allotted, as coming from thence wherever it is, from whence he himself came, and finally waiting for death with a cheerful mind as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves and each continually changing into another, why should the man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements himself? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil that is according to nature." The Physic of Antoninus is the knowledge of the nature of the universe of its government and of the relation of man's nature to both. He names the universe, quote, the universal substance, end quote, and he adds that, quote, reason, end quote, covers the universe. He also uses the term, quote, universal nature, end quote, or, quote, nature of the universe, end quote. He calls the universe, quote, the one and all, which we name cosmos or order, end quote. If he ever seems to use these general terms as significant of the all of all that man can in any way conceive to exist, he is still on other occasion plainly distinguishes between matter, material things, and cause, origin, reason. This is conformable to Zeno's doctrine that there are two original principles of all things, that which acts and that which is acted upon. That which is acted on is the formless matter, that which acts is the reason. God, who is eternal, and operates through all matter and produces all things. So Antoninus speaks of the reason which pervades all substance and through all time by fixed periods, parentheses, revolutions, and parentheses. He administers the universe. God is eternal and matter is eternal. It is God who gives form to matter, but he is not said to have created matter. According to this view, which is as old as an exagerus, God and matter exist independently, but God governs matter. This doctrine is simply the expression of the fact of the existence both of matter and of God. The Stoets did not perplex themselves with the insoluble question of the origin and nature of matter. Antoninus also assumes a beginning of things as we now know them, but his language is sometimes very obscure. I have endeavored to explain the meaning of one difficult passage. Matter consists of elemental parts of which all material objects are made, but nothing is permanent in form. The nature of the universe, according to Antoninus' expression, quote, loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them, for everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be. But thou art thinking only of seeds which are cast into the earth or into a womb, but this is a very vulgar notion, end quote. All things then are in a constant flux and change. Some things are dissolved into the elements, others come in their places, and so, quote, the whole universe continues every young and perfect, end quote. Antoninus has some obscure expressions about what he calls, quote, seminal principles, end quote. He opposes these to the Epicurean abounds, and consequently, quote, his seminal principles, end quote, are not material atoms which wander about at hazard and combine nobody knows how. In one passage he speaks of living principles, souls after the dissolution of their bodies being received into the, quote, seminal principle of the universe, end quote. Shultz thinks that by, quote, seminal principles Antoninus means the relation of the various elemental principles, which relations are determined by the deity and by which alone the production of organized beings is possible, end quote. This may be the meaning, but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from it. Antoninus often uses the word, quote, nature, end quote, and we must attempt to fix its meaning. The simple etymological sense is, quote, production, end quote. The birth of what we call things. The Romans use natura, which also means birth originally, but neither the Greeks nor Romans stuck to this simple meaning nor do we. Antoninus says, quote, whether the universe is a concourse of atoms or nature is a system, let this first be established that I am part of the whole which is governed by nature, end quote. Here it might seem as if nature were personified and viewed as an active, efficient power, as something which, if not independent of the deity, acts by a power which is given to it by the deity. Such, if I understand the expression right, is the way in which the word nature is often used now, though it is plain that many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it. It is the same with the expression laws of nature, which some writers may use in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly used in no definite sense at all. There is no meaning in this word nature except that which Bishop Butler assigns to it when he says, quote, the only distinct meaning of that word natural is stated fixture settled, since what is natural as much require and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to affect it continually or at stated times as what is supernatural or miraculous does to affect it at once, end quote. This is Plato's meaning, when he says that God holds the beginning and end and middle of all that exists and proceeds straight on his course, making his circuit according to nature. Friends, that is by fixed order and friends, and he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate from the divine law, i.e., from the order or course which God observes. When we look at the motion of the planets, the action of what we call gravitation, the elemental combination of unorganized bodies in the resolution, the production of plants and of living bodies, their generation growth and their dissolution, which we call the death, we observe a regular sequence of phenomena, which within the limits of experience, presence, and past, so far as we know the past is fixed and invariable. But if this is not so, if the order and sequence of phenomena as known to us are subject to change in the course of an infinite progression and such change is conceivable, we have nor discovered, nor shall we ever discover the whole of the order and sequence of phenomena in which sequence there may be involved according to its very nature, i.e., according to its fixed order, some variation of which we now call order or the nature of things, it is also conceivable that such changes have taken place, changes in the order of things as we are compelled by the imperfection of language to call them, which are no changes. And further, it is certain that our knowledge of the true sequence of all actual phenomena, as for instance, the phenomena of generation, growth and dissolution, is and ever must be imperfect. We do not very much better when we speak of causes and effects than when we speak of nature. For the practical purposes of life, we may use the terms cause and effect conveniently, and we may fix a distinct meaning to them distinct enough, at least, to prevent all misunderstanding. But the case is different when we speak of causes and effects as of things. All that we know is that phenomena, as Greeks call them, or appearances which follow one another in a regular order as we conceive it, so that if some one phenomena should fail in the series, we conceive that there must either be an interruption of the series or that something else will appear after the phenomena which has failed to appear and will occupy the vacant place, and so the series and its progression may be modified or totally changed. Cause and effect then mean nothing in a sequence of natural phenomena beyond what I have said, and the real cause, or the transcendent cause, as some would call it, of each success of phenomena is in that which is the cause of all things which are, which have been and which will be forever. Thus the word creation may have a real sense if we consider it as the first, if we can conceive a first in the present order of natural phenomena, but in the vulgar sense a creation of all things at a certain time, followed by a quiescence of the first cause and an abandonment of all sequences and phenomena to the laws of nature, or to the other words that people may use, is absolutely absurd. Now, though there is great difficulty in understanding all the passages of Antoninus in which he speaks of nature, of the changes of things and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that his sense of nature and natural is the same as that which I have stated, and as he was a man who knew how to use words in a clear way and with a strict consistency, we ought to assume, even if it is meaning in some passages is doubtful, that his view of nature was in harmony with his fixed belief in the all-pervading, ever-present, and ever-active energy of God. There is much in Antoninus that is hard to understand, and it might be said that he did not fully comprehend all that he wrote, which would, however, be in no way remarkable, for it happens now that a man may write what neither he or anybody can understand. Antoninus tells us to look at things and see what they are, resolving them into the material, the causal, and the relation, or the purpose by which he seems to mean something in nature of what we call effect or end. The word cause is the difficulty. There is the same word in the Sanskrit, and the subtle philosophers of India and of Greece and the less subtle philosophers of modern times have all used this word or an equivalent word in a vague way. Yet the confusion sometimes may be the inevitable ambiguity of language rather than in the mind of the writer, for I cannot think that some of the wisest of men did not know what they intended to say. When Antoninus says that, quote, everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be, end quote, he might be supposed to say what some of the Indian philosophers have said, and thus a profound truth might be converted into a gross absurdity. But he says, quote, in a manner, end quote, and in a manner he said true, and in another manner if you mistake his meaning he said false. When Plato said, quote, nothing ever is, but is always becoming, end quote, he delivered a text out of which we may derive something, for he destroys by it not all practical, but all speculative notions of cause and effect. The whole series of things, as they appear to us, must be contemplated in time, that is in succession, and we conceive or suppose intervals between one state of things and another state of things, so that there is priority in sequence, and interval, and being, and a ceasing to be, and beginning and ending. But there is nothing of this kind in the nature of things. It is an everlasting continuity. When Antoninus speaks of generation he speaks of one cause acting, and then another cause taking up the work, which the former left in a certain state, and so on. And we might conceive that he has some notion like what has been called, quote, the self-evolving power of nature, end quote, a fine phrase indeed, the full import of which I believe that the writer never did not see, and thus he laid himself open to the imputation of being a follower of one of the Hindu sects, which makes all things come by evolution out of nature a matter, or out of something which takes the place of the deity, but is not deity. I would have all men think as they please, or as they can, and I only claim the same freedom which I give. When a man writes anything we may fairly try to find out all that his words must mean, even if the result is that they mean what he did not mean. And if we find this contradiction it is not our fault, but his misfortune. Now, Antoninus is perhaps somewhat in the condition in what he says, though he speaks at the end of the paragraph of the power which acts unseen by the eyes, but still no less clearly. But whether in this passage he means the power is conceived to be in different successive causes, or in something else nobody can tell. From other passages, however, I do collect that his notion of the phenomena of the universe is what I have stated. The deity works unseen, if we may use such language, and perhaps I may, as Job did, or he wrote the Book of Job, quote, In him we live, and move, and are, end quote, said St. Paul to the Athenians, and to show us bearers that this was no new doctrine he quoted the Greek poets. One of these poets was the Stoic Clanthes, whose noble hymn to Zeus or God is an elevated expression of devotion and philosophy. It deprives nature of her power, and puts her under the immediate government of the deity, quote, Thee all this heaven which whirls around the earth, obeys and willing follows where Thou leadest. Without thee, God, nothing is done on earth, nor in the ethereal realms, nor in the sea, save what the wicked through their folly do, end quote. Antoninus' conviction of the existence of a divine power in the government was founded on his perception of the order of the universe. Like Socrates, he says that though we cannot see the form of divine powers, we know that they exist because we see their works, quote, To those who haste, where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist, and so worship of them? I answer in the first place, that they may be seen even with the eyes in the second place, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus then, with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them, end quote. This is a very old argument which has always had great weight with most people, and has appeared sufficient. It does not acquire the least additional strength by being developed in the learned treatise. It is as intelligible and its simple enunciation as it can be made. If it is rejected, there is no arguing with him who rejects it. And if it is worked out into innumerable particulars, the value of the evidence runs the risk of being buried under a mass of words. Man being conscious that he has a spiritual power, or intellectual power, or that he has such a power, in whatever way he conceives that he has it, for I wish simply to state a fact. From this power which he has in himself he has led, as Antoninus says, to believe that there is a greater power, which, as the old Stoics tell us, pervades the whole universe as the intellect, pervades man. God exists then. But what do we know of his nature? Antoninus says that the soul of man is an efflux from the divinity. We have bodies like animals, but we have reason, intelligence as the gods. Animals have life, and what we call instincts and natural principles of action. But the rational animal man alone has rational, intelligent soul. Antoninus insists on this continually. God is in man, and so he must constantly attend to divinity within us, for it is only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature of God. The human soul is in a sense of portion of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with the deity for, as he says, quote, with his intellectual part alone, God touches the intelligence only which has flowed and has been derived from himself into these bodies. End quote. In fact, he says that which is hidden within a man is life. That is the man himself. All the rest is vesture, covering organs, instrument which the living man, the real man, uses for purposes of his present existence. The air is universally diffused for him who is able to respire, and so for him who is willing to partake of it, the intelligent power which holds within it all things is diffused as wide and as free as the air. It is by living a divine life that man approaches to a knowledge of the divinity. It is by following the divinity within, as Antoninus calls it, that man comes nearest to the deity, the supreme good, for a man can never attain to perfect agreement with his internal guide. Quote, live with the gods, and he does live with the gods who constantly shows them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is assigned to him, and that it is all the demon wishes which Seuss has given to every man for his guardian and guide a portion of himself, and this demon is every man's understanding and reason. End quote. There is a man. That is in the reason, the intelligence, a superior faculty which have exercised rules all the rest. This is the ruling faculty which Cicero renders by the Latin word principatus. Quote, to which nothing can or ought to be superior. End quote. Antoninus often uses this term in others which are equivalent. He names it, quote, the governing intelligence, end quote. The governing faculty is the master of the soul. A man must reverence only his ruling faculty and the divinity within him. As we must reverence that which is supreme in the universe, so we must reverence that which is supreme in ourselves, and this is that which of the like kind with that which is the supreme in the universe. So, as Plotinus says, the soul of man can only know the divine so far as it knows itself. In one passage Antoninus speaks of a man's condemnation of himself when the diviner part within him has been overpowered and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part the body and its gross pleasures. In a word, the views of Antoninus on this matter, however, his expressions may vary, are exactly what Bishop Butler expresses when he speaks of, quote, the natural supremacy of the reflection or conscious, end quote, of the faculty, quote, which surveys, approves, or disapproves the several affectations of our mind and actions of our lives, end quote. Much matter might be collected from Antoninus on the notion of the universe being one animated being, but all that he says amounts to no more as shelter marks than this. The soul of man is most intimately united to his body, and together they make one animal which we call man. So the deity is most intimately united to the world or the material universe, and together they form one whole. But Antoninus did not view God and the material universe as the same any more than he viewed the body and soul of man as one. Antoninus has no speculations on the absolute nature of the deity. It was not his fashion to waste his time on what a man cannot understand. He was satisfied that God exists, that he covers all things, that man can only have an imperfect knowledge of his nature, and he must attain this imperfect knowledge by referencing the divinity which is within him and keeping it pure. From all that has been said it follows that the universe is administered by the providence of God and that all things are wisely ordered. There are passages in which Antoninus expresses doubts or states different possible theories of the constitution and government of the universe, but he always recurs to his fundamental principle that if we admit the existence of a deity, we must also admit that he orders all things wisely and well. Epictetus says that we can discern the providence which rules the world if we possess two things, the power of seeing all that happens with respect to each thing and a grateful disposition. But if all things are wisely ordered, how is the world so full of what we call evil, physical and moral? If instead of saying that there is evil in the world, we use the expression which I have used to quote what we call evil, end quote, we have partly anticipated the emperor's answer. We see and feel and know imperfectly very few things in the few years that we live, and all the knowledge and all the experience of all the human race is positive ignorance of the whole, which is infinite. Now, as our reason teaches us that everything is in some way related to and connected with every other thing, all notion of evil is being in the universe of things is a contradiction. For if the whole comes from and is governed by an intelligent being, it is impossible to conceive anything in it which tends to the evil or destruction of the whole. Everything is in continuation, and yet the whole subsists. We might imagine the solar system resolved into its elemental parts, and yet the whole would still subsist, quote, every young and perfect, end quote. All things, all forms are dissolved and new forms appear. All living things undergo the changes we call death. If we call death an evil, then all change is an evil. Living beings also suffer pain and man suffers most of all, for he suffers both in and by his body and by his intelligent part. Men suffer also from one another, and perhaps the largest part of human suffering comes to man from those whom he calls his brothers. Antoninus says, quote, generally wickedness does no harm at all to the universe, and particularly the wickedness of one man does no harm to another. It is only harmful to him who has it in his power to be released from it as soon as he shall choose, end quote. The first part of this is perfectly consistent with the doctrine that the whole can sustain no evil or harm. The second part must be explained by the stoic principle that there is no evil in anything which is not in our power. What wrong we suffer from another is his evil, not ours. But this is an admission that there is evil in a sort. For he who does wrong does evil, and if others can endure the wrong, still there is evil in the wrongdoer. Antoninus gives many excellent precepts with respect to wrongs and injuries, and his precepts are practical. He teaches us to bear what we cannot avoid, and his lessons may be just as useful to him who denies the being and the government as God, as to him who believes in both. There is no direct answer in Antoninus to the objections which may be made to the existence and providence of God because of the moral disorder and suffering which are in the world, except this answer which he makes in reply to the supposition that even the best men may be extinguished by death. He says, if it is so, we may be sure that if it ought to have been otherwise, the gods would have ordered it otherwise. His conviction of the wisdom which we may observe in the government of the world is too strong to be disturbed by any apparent irregularities in the order of things. That these disorders exist is a fact, and those would conclude from them against the being and government of God conclude too hastily. We all admit that there is an order in the material world, a nature, in the sense in which the world has been explained, a constitution, what we call a system, a relation of parts to one other and a fitness for the whole for something. So in the constitution of plants and animals there is an order, a fitness for some end. Sometimes the order as we conceive it is interrupted and the end as we conceive it is not attained. The seed, the plant, or the animal sometimes perishes before it has passed through all its changes and done all its uses. It is according to nature that is a fixed order for some to perish early and for others to do all their uses and leave successors to take their place. So man has a corporeal and intellectual and moral constitution fit for certain uses, and on the whole man performs these uses, dies, and leaves other men in his place. So society exists and a social state is manifestly the natural state of man, the state for which his nature fits him, and society amidst innumerable irregularities and disorders still subsists. And perhaps we may say that the history of the past and our present knowledge give us a reasonable hope that its disorders will diminish and that order, its governing principle, may be more firmly established. As order then, a fixed order, we may say, subject to deviations real or apparent must be admitted to exist in the whole of nature of things. That which we call disorder or evil as it seems to us, does not in any way alter the fact of the general constitution of things having a nature or fixed order. Nobody will conclude from the existence of disorder that order is not the rule. For the existence of order both physical and moral is proved by daily experience and all past experience. We cannot conceive how the order of the universe is maintained. We cannot even conceive how our own life from day to day is continued, nor how we perform the simplest movements of the body, nor how we grow and think and act, though we know many of the conditions which are necessary for all these functions. Knowing nothing then, the unseen power which acts in ourselves except by what is done. We know nothing of the power which acts through what we call all time and all space. But seeing that there is a nature or fixed order in all things known to us, it is conformable to the nature of our minds to believe that this universal nature has a cause which operates continually and that we are totally unable to speculate on the reason of any of those disorders or evils which we perceive. This, I believe, is the answer which may be collected from all that Antoninus has said. The origin of evil is an old question. Achilles tells Priam that Zeus has two casks, one filled with good things and the other with bad, and that it gives to men out of each according to his pleasure, and so he must be content, for we cannot alter the will of Zeus. One of the Greek commentators asked how we must reconcile this doctrine with what we find in the first book of the Odyssey, where the king of the gods says, men say evil comes to them from us, but they bring it on themselves through their own folly. The answer is plain enough, even to the Greek commentator. The poets make both Achilles and Zeus speak appropriately to their several characters. Indeed, Zeus says plainly that men do attribute their sufferings to the gods, but they do it falsely, for they are the cause of their own sorrows. Epictetus, in his Enchiridion, makes short work of the question of evil. He says, quote, As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe, end quote. This will appear obscure enough to those who are not acquainted with Epictetus, but he always knows what he is talking about. We do not set up a mark in order to miss it, though we may miss it. God, whose existence Epictetus assumes, has not ordered all things so that his purpose shall fail. Whatever there may be of what we call evil, the nature of evil, as he expresses it, does not exist. That is, evil is not part of the constitution or nature of things. If there were a principle of evil in the constitution of things, evil would no longer be evil, as Simplicius argues, but evil would be good. Simplicius has a long and curious discourse on this text of Epictetus, and it is amusing and instructive. One passage more will conclude this matter. It contains all that the emperor could say, quote, to go from among men if there are gods is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil, but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods and devoid of providence? But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the mean and man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils. And as to the rest, if there was anything evil they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it. But that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse? But neither through ignorance, nor having the knowledge, but not the power to guard against or correct these things, is it possible that the nature of the universe has overlooked them, nor is it possible that it has made so great a mistake, either through want of power or want of skill, that good and even shall happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad. But that certainly, and life, honor, and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally happen to good and bad men, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore, they are neither good nor evil." The ethical part of Antoninus's philosophy follows from his general principles. The end of all his philosophy is to live conformably to nature, both a man's own nature and a nature of the universe. Bishop Butler has explained what the Greek philosophy is meant when they spoke of living according to nature, and he says that when it is explained as he has explained it and as they understood it, it is, quote, a manner of speaking, not loose and undetermined, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true, end quote. To live according to nature is to live according to a man's whole nature, not according to a part of it, and to reverence the divinity within him as the governor of all his actions, quote, to the rational animal, the same act is according to nature and according to reason, end quote. That which is done contrary to reason is also an act contrary to nature, to the whole nature, though it is certainly conformable to some part of man's nature or it could not be done. Man is made for action, not for idleness or pleasure. As plants and animals do the uses of their nature, so man must do his. Man must also live conformably to the universal nature, conformable to the nature of all things of which he has won, and as a citizen of a political community he must direct his life and actions with reference to those among whom, and for whom, among other purposes he lives. A man must not retire into solitude and cut himself off from his fellow men. He must be ever active to do his part in a great whole. All men are his kin, not only in blood, but still more by participating in the same intelligence and by being a portion of the same divinity. A man cannot really be injured by his brethren, for no act of theirs can make him bad, and he must not be angry with them nor hate them, quote, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth, to act against one another than is contrary to nature, and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away, end quote. Further, he says, quote, take pleasure in one thing and rest in it, in passing from one social act to another social act, thinking of God, end quote, again, quote, love mankind, follow God, end quote. It is the characteristic of the rational soul for man to love his neighbor. Antoninus teaches in various passages the forgiveness of injuries, and we know that he also practiced what he taught. Bishop Butler remarks that, quote, this divine precept to forgive injuries and to love our enemies, though to be met with gentle moralist yet is in a particular sense a precept of Christianity, as our Savior has insisted more upon it than on any other single virtue, end quote. The practice of this precept is the most difficult of all virtues. Antoninus often enforces it and gives us aid towards following it. When we are injured, we feel anger and resentment, and the feeling is natural, just and useful for the conservation of society. It is useful that wrongdoers should feel the natural consequences of their actions, among which is the disapprobation of society and the resentment of him who is wronged. But revenge, in the proper sense of that word, must not be practiced. Quote, the best way to avenging thyself, end quote, says the emperor, quote, is not to become like the wrongdoer, end quote. It is plain by this that he does not mean that we should in any case practice revenge, but he says to those who talk of avenging wrongs, be not like him who has done the wrong. Socrates in the credo says the same in other words in St. Paul, quote, when a man has done the any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when that has seen this, that will pity him, and while neither wonder nor be angry, end quote. Antoninas would not deny that wrong naturally produces the feeling of anger and resentment, for this is implied in the recommendation to reflect on the nature of the man's mind who has done the wrong, and then you will have pity instead of resentment. And so it comes to the same as St. Paul's advice to be angry and sin not, which as Butler Well explains it, is not a recommendation to be angry, which nobody needs, for anger is a natural passion. But it is a warning against allowing anger to lead us into sin. In short, the emperor's doctrine about wrongful acts is this. Wrongdoers do not know what good and bad are. They offend out of ignorance, and in the sense of the Stoics this is true. Though this kind of ignorance will never be admitted as a legal excuse and ought not to be admitted as a full excuse in any way by society, there may be grievous injuries, such as it is in a man's power to forgive without harm to society. And if he forgives, because he sees that his enemies know not what they do, he is acting in the spirit of the sublime prayer, quote, father forgive them, for they know not what they do, end quote. The emperor's moral philosophy was not a feeble narrow system which teaches man to look directly to his own happiness, though a man's happiness or tranquility is indirectly promoted by living as he ought to do. A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means, as the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's action must be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human family. This implies, and he often expresses it in the most forcible language, that a man's words and actions, so far as they affect others, must be measured by a fixed rule, which is their consistency with the conservation and the interest of the particular society of which he is a member, and of the whole human race. To live conformably to such a rule, a man must use his rational faculties in order to discern clearly the consequences in full effect of all his actions, and of the actions of others. He must not live a life of contemplation and reflection only, though he must often retire within himself to calm and purify his soul by thought, but he must mingle in the work of man and be a fellow laborer for the general good. A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all his energies to it, of course a good object. He who is not one object or purpose of life cannot be one in the same all through his life. Bacon has remarked in the same effect on the best means of quote reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate, which is the electing and propounding unto a man's self-good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain, end quote. He is a happy man who has been wise enough to do this when he was young and has had the opportunities, but the emperor seeing well that man cannot always be so wise in his youth, encourages him to do it when he can, and not to let his life slip away before he has begun. He who can propose to himself good and virtuous ends of life and be true to them, cannot fail to live conformably to his own interest and universal interest, for in the nature of things they are one. If a thing is not good for the hive, it is not good for the bee. One passage may end this matter, quote, if the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deedy without forethought. And as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them for this or to the whole, which is the special object through their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. But if they determined about nothing, which it is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived with us. But if, however, the gods determined about none of these things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful, and that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social, and my city and country so far as I am Antoninas is Rome. But so far as I am a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful to me. It would be tedious, and it is not necessary, to state that the Emperor's opinions on all the ways in which a man may profitably use his understanding towards perfecting himself in practical virtue. The passages to this purpose are in all parts of his book, but as they are in no order or connection, a man must use the book a long time before he will find out all that is in it. A few words may be added here. If we analyze all other things, we find how insufficient they are for human life, and how truly worthless many of them are. Virtue alone is indivisible, one and perfectly satisfying. The notion of virtue cannot be considered vague or unsettled, because a man may find it difficult to explain the notion fully to himself or to expound it to others in such a way as to prevent revealing. Virtue is a whole, and no more consists of parts than man's intelligence does, and yet we speak of various intellectual faculties as convenient way of expressing the various powers which man's intellect shows by his works. In the same way, we may speak of various virtues or parts of virtue in a practical sense, for the purpose of showing what particular virtues we ought to practice in order to exercise of the whole of virtue, that is, as much as man's nature is capable of. The prime principle in man's constitution is social. The next in order is not to yield to the persuasions of the body when they are not conformable to the rational principle which much govern. The third is freedom from error and from deception. Let then the ruling principle holding fast to these things go straight on, and it has what is its own. The emperor selects justice as the virtue which is the basis of all the rest, and this had been said long before his time. It is true that all people have some notion of what is meant by justice as a disposition of the mind, and some notion about acting in conformity to this disposition. But experience shows that men's notions about justice are as confused as their actions are inconsistent with the true notion of justice. The emperor's notion of justice is clear enough, but not practical enough for all mankind. Quote, let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause, and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be a movement and action terminating in this, and social acts, for this is according to thy nature. End quote. In another place he says they quote, he who acts unjustly acts impiously, end quote, which follows of course from all that he says in various places. He insists on the practice of truth as a virtue and as a means to virtue, which it no doubt is, for lying even and in different things weakens the understanding, and lying maliciously is a great immoral offense as man can be guilty of, viewed both as showing an habitual disposition and viewed with respect to consequences. He couples the notion of justice with action. A man must not pride himself on having some fine notion of justice in his head, but he must exhibit his justice in act, like St. James' notion of faith. But this is enough. The Stoics and Antoninus among them call some things beautiful and some ugly, and as they are beautiful so they are good, and as they are ugly so they are evil or bad. All these things good and evil are in our power absolutely. Some of the strictest Stoics would say, in a manner only as those who would not depart altogether from common sense would say, practically they are to a great degree in the power of some persons and in some circumstances, but in a small degree only in other persons and in other circumstances. The Stoics maintain man's free will as to the things which are in his power, for as to the things which are out of his power, free will terminating inaction is, of course, excluded by the very terms of the expression. I hardly know if we can exactly Antoninus' notion of the free will of man, nor is the question worth the inquiry. What he does mean and does say is intelligible. All the things which are not in our power are indifferent. They are neither good nor bad morally. Such are life, health, wealth, power, disease, poverty, and death. Life and death are all men's portion. Health, wealth, power, disease, and poverty happen to men indifferently, to the good and to the bad, to those who live according to nature and to those who do not. Life, says the emperor, is a warfare and a stranger's shojourn, and after fame is oblivion. After speaking of those men who have disturbed the world and then died, and of the death of philosophers such as Heraclitus and Democritus, who was destroyed by lice and of Socrates, whom other lice, his enemies destroyed, he says, quote, What means all this? Thou has embarked, Thou has made the voyage, Thou art come to shore, get out. If indeed to another life there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without sensation, that wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as much in fear to that which serves it as superior, for the one is intelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption, end quote. It is not death that man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to his nature. Every man should live in such a way as to discharge his duty, and to trouble himself about nothing else. He should live such a life that he shall always be ready for death, and shall depart content when the summon comes. For what is death, quote, a cessation of the impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the strings which move the appetites, and of the discursive movements of the thoughts, and of the service to the flesh, end quote. Death is, such as generation is, a mystery of nature. In another passage, the exact meaning of which is perhaps doubtful, he speaks of the child which leaves the womb, and so he says the soul of death leaves its envelope. As the child is born, it comes into life by leaving the womb, so the soul may, on leaving the body, pass into another existence which is perfect. I'm not sure if this is the emperor's meaning. Antithneenus' opinion of a future life is nowhere clearly expressed. His doctrine of the nature of the soul of necessity implies that it does not perish absolutely, for a portion of divinity cannot perish. The opinion is at least as old as the time of Epicharmus and Euripides. What comes from the earth goes back to the earth. And what comes from heaven, the divinity returns to him who gave it. But I find nothing clear in Antithneenus as to the notion of the man existing after death, so as to be conscious of his sameness with the soul which occupied his vessel of clay. He seemed to be perplexed on this matter, and finally to have rested in this, that God or the gods will do whatever is best and consistent with the university of things. Nor I think does he speak conclusively on another Stoic doctrine, which some Stoics practice, the anticipating the regular course of nature by man's own act. The reader will find some passages in which this is touched on, and he may make of them what he can. But there are passages in which the emperor encourages himself to wait for the end patiently and with tranquility, and certainly it is consistent with all his best teaching that a man should bear all that falls to his lot and do useful acts as long as he lives. He should not therefore abridge the time of his usefulness by his own act. Whether he contemplates any possible cases in which a man should die by his own hand, I cannot tell, and the matter is not worth the curious inquiry, for I believe it would not lead to any certain result as to his opinion on this point. I do not think that Antoninas, who never mentioned Seneca, though he must have known all about him, would have agreed with Seneca when he gives us a reason for suicide that the eternal law, whatever he means, has made nothing better for us than this, that it has given us only one way of entering life and many ways of going out of it. The ways of going out indeed are many, and that is a good reason for a man taking care of himself. Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have. The end of a man is, as already explained, to live conformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind and contentment. As a means of living conformably to nature, he must study the Four Chief virtues, each of which has its proper sphere, wisdom or the knowledge of good and evil, justice or the giving to every man has due, fortitude or the enduring of labor and pain and temperance, which is moderation in all things. By thus loving conformability to nature, the Stoic obtained all that he wished to expect it. His reward was in his virtuous life, and he was satisfied with that. Some Greek poet long ago wrote, quote, For virtue only of all human things takes for reward not from the hands of others. Virtue herself rewards the toils of virtue, end quote. Some of the Stoics indeed expressed themselves in very arrogant absurd terms about the wise man's self-sufficiency. They elevated him to the rank of a deity. But these were only talkers and lecturers, such as those in all ages who utter fine words, knowing little of human affairs and caring only for notoriety. Epictetus and Antoninas spoke by precept and example labor to improve themselves and others. And if we discover imperfections in their teaching, we must still honor these great men who attempted to show that there is in a man's nature and in a constitution of things sufficient reason for living a virtuous life. It is difficult enough to live as we ought to live, difficult even for any man to live in such a way as to satisfy himself if he exercises only in a moderate degree the power of reflecting upon and reviewing his own conduct. And if all men cannot be brought to the same opinions and morals and religion, it is at least worthwhile to give them good reasons for as much as they can be persuaded to accept. And meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninas section 14 The Philosophy of Antoninas by George Long End of Meditations of Marcus Aurelius