STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 MODERN CONSTITUTIONS IN OUT- 
 LINE: an Introductory Study in Political 
 Science. (Longmans. 2S. 6d. net.) 
 
 " Mr. Alston is to be congratulated on the success of bis 
 endeavour. A pithier volume of similar bulk could hardly be 
 imagined." Scotsman. 
 
 " A useful little book of an unpretentious character." 
 
 Oxford Magazine. 
 
 "All the essential points of the constitutions adopted by 
 countries enjoying constitutional government are given in a 
 concise and handy manner." Review of Reviews. 
 
 " Ce petit liyre est un resume rapide, mais precis et clair, de 
 quelques principes generaux du droit cpnstitutionnel moderne 
 . . . La tne*thode suivie est la mthode historique, avec un appel 
 constant et discret a la rnd-thode regressive." 
 
 Revue Critique d'Histoire et de Literature. 
 
 "Mr. Alston has done a useful piece of work, which, in its 
 brevity and clearness, is a model of the expository functions of 
 a Professor. Spectator. 
 
 Also 
 
 THE OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE TO 
 
 THE LAW OF THE STATE : being the 
 
 Burney Prize Essay for 1904. (Macmillan & 
 
 Bowes. 2s. net.) 
 
 "... a thoughtful, well-reasoned study which will interest 
 
 intellectual readers in reckoning the true relations of ethical 
 
 theories to jurisprudence." Scotsman. 
 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 A COMPARISON OF THE ETHICAL 
 TEACHING OF MARCUS AURELIUS 
 WITH THAT OF CONTEMPORARY 
 AND ANTECEDENT CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY 
 
 LEONARD ALSTON, M.A. 
 
 SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, MELBOURNE 
 BURNEY PRIZEMAN, CAMBRIDGE, 1904 AND 1905 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO, 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1906 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

PREFACE 
 
 MY principal indebtedness in the writing of 
 this brief essay (originally intended for the 
 Burney Prize) is to Professor Harnack's Ex- 
 pansion of Christianity in the First Three 
 Centuries, vol. i., and to Professor Dob- 
 schutz's Christian Life in the Primitive Church. 
 The references in the text are to the pages 
 of the English translations published by Messrs. 
 Williams and Norgate. 
 
 For the life and aims of Marcus Aurelius 
 and for a general statement of the ethical 
 system in which the emperor was trained, the 
 general reader can scarcely do better than refer 
 to the Introduction to Dr. G. H. Kendall's 
 admirable translation of the " Meditations " 
 (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself). This 
 is the only satisfactory English version of 
 Marcus Aurelius that I know ; and when con- 
 sulted for single paragraphs it seems in almost 
 
PREFACE 
 
 all cases to stand above criticism. It fails, 
 of course, as all translations must, to catch 
 the characteristic manner of the Stoic writer ; 
 and so, if read continuously, it produces, by 
 its almost too perfect literary finish, an effect 
 very different from that left by the phrases of 
 the lonely thinker who scratched down, rather 
 than wrote out, the ideas that governed his 
 life. This, however, is hypercriticism, and 
 my only serious regret is that the excellent 
 qualities of Dr. Kendall's work did not come 
 under my notice earlier ; in which case I 
 should have made much more use both of 
 Introduction and Translation. 
 
 This book makes no attempt to deal com- 
 prehensively with the authors touched upon, 
 but is intended to illustrate merely those 
 aspects of their teaching which to my individual 
 judgment seem to be of the most abiding 
 significance. Questions of metaphysic and 
 theology which have no direct bearing on the 
 problems of the conduct of life have been 
 intentionally subordinated throughout. 
 
 Some very brief notes concerning each of the 
 authors dealt with are added in an appendix, 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In compiling these I have made free use of 
 such authorities as Krttger's Early Christian 
 Literature, and CruttwelTs Literary History of 
 Early Christianity. 
 
 It will be noticed that only writings belong- 
 ing to the formative period of Christianity are 
 mentioned writings prior, that is, to the 
 works of Irenseus and Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 March 1906 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY, THE ENVIRONMENT. DIFFI- 
 CULTIES OF THE PROBLEM .... I 
 
 II, SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. THE ARGU- 
 MENT FROM DESIGN. OPTIMISM AND PESSI- 
 MISM . . . . . . . 25 
 
 III. MAN AS A " NATURAL," " RATIONAL," AND 
 
 "SOCIAL" BEING ... -44 
 
 IV. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. THE HIGHER AND 
 
 THE LOWER IN MAN. SUMMARY OF VIEWS 
 
 ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE . . . 76 
 
 V. DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL. RESPONSIBILITY, 
 MERIT, AND REWARD. THE ULTIMATE AIM 
 OF VIRTUE . . . . . .107 
 
 VI. RELIGION AND ETHICS. CHRISTIANITY AS A 
 
 NEW LIFE. CONCLUSION . . . .127 
 
 APPENDIX, SOME BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES . 141 
 
 IX 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY THE ENVIRONMENT- 
 DIFFICULTIES OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 To the superficial eye the world of the second 
 century was a singularly complete, well- 
 ordered world a world which had forgotten 
 the jarring discord caused by the antagonism 
 of rival races, rival polities and warring parties. 
 Yielding to the mighty force of Roman 
 imperialism the barbarian of former times 
 had transformed himself into a comparatively 
 docile subject of the princeps, or was sternly 
 restrained by lines of invincible legions from 
 crossing the barriers which separated the 
 Roman world from the chaos beyond. Civilisa- 
 tion was triumphant as it had never been 
 triumphant before. Material comfort was 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 widely spread. Travel, within the limits of 
 the empire, was easy for the moderately rich, 
 and other aids to culture were many. All the 
 treasureT of philosophy, the best fruit of the 
 best minds of earlier days, were to be had with 
 but little effort. For everywhere the philo- 
 sophic teacher or preacher was to be found 
 eagerly plying his trade and offering his wares. 
 There was an opportunity, as never before, we 
 might imagine, for the leisurely comparison of 
 culture with culture, religion with religion, 
 national custom with national custom. The 
 patient seeker after truth had little need of 
 guess-work in inquiring into alien habits of 
 thought. Controversy under the tolerant 
 regime of the masters of the world was unre- 
 strained as perhaps it has never been since ; 
 little need being felt, in a commonwealth so 
 broadly based on common consent, on general 
 utility, and on invincible military strength, 
 to guard the established order against dis- 
 turbing currents of thought. With complete 
 peace, unlimited material for comparative 
 study, freedom of controversy, convenience 
 for travel to distant centres of culture. what 
 
THE ENVIRONMENT 
 
 more could the truth-seeker ask in order to 
 be able to achieve his aim ? It would seem a 
 world singularly fitted for men of scholarly 
 tastes ; as in fact it succeeded in winning 
 the praise and the envy of scholars from 
 the days of Pliny the Younger, to those of 
 Gibbon. 
 
 But such an estimate would be almost 
 wholly superficial. No wise traditions of 
 philosophical or historical insight and of the 
 ultimate criteria of truth had survived the 
 revolutionary changes wrought by the Roman 
 legions. No sane system of moral and intel- 
 lectual training for the young had been evolved 
 to suit the conditions of the more sheltered 
 life of cosmopolitan citizenship. Brought up 
 under the charge of vicious and ignorant 
 slaves, from whose society the citizens of the 
 Empire passed to the superficial schools where 
 little save cheap rhetoric and the formalities 
 of grammar were taught, they came to man's 
 estate for the most part morally and intel- 
 lectually stunted. 
 
 The material conditions of life made for 
 outward peace and prosperity. Yet, was ever 
 
 3 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 
 man as a moral being less contented with 
 himself ? The practical realisation of a partial 
 ideal showed him only too clearly how incom- 
 plete that ideal was. What availed military 
 triumphs over barbaric foes and scientific 
 triumphs over material discomforts when man 
 himself remained essentially the same ? Instead 
 of being the richer for his mighty achieve- 
 ments he found himself only the poorer 
 robbed of the earlier incentive to satisfying 
 activities, robbed of the recurrent satisfaction 
 of finding himself ever winning nearer some 
 comprehensible attainable goal. No longer 
 had he an adequate motive to fling himself 
 into the whirlpool of political and inter- 
 national strife, and by flinging himself away 
 to find self-realisation and self-satisfaction in 
 self-sacrifice on behalf of his city and its tradi- 
 tions, its temples and its gods. Once the path 
 of duty was clear. There was always some- 
 thing here and now to be performed a Persian 
 Armada to be forced back from the shores of 
 Hellas, a Tyrant City to be compelled to relin- 
 quish her hold over a cluster of fair cities and 
 islands, a Carthage to be destroyed, a Plebeian 
 
 4 
 
THE ENVIRONMENT 
 
 deluge to be dammed back, a would-be Sulla 
 to be cut down in the market-place. Now 
 there were no duties save negative ones and 
 passive ones. All the world should have been 
 as a garden, and men felt it as a prison. They 
 had been citizens, and now they were subjects. 
 War had been an acknowledged evil, but peace 
 had come to be an evil scarcely less. Under 
 the shelter of the Pax Romana had come into 
 being a moral chaos unknown before. 
 
 The old ideas of what was honourable and 
 lovely and of good report could not be adapted 
 quickly to the enlarged sphere of duties. To 
 co-operate with one's fellow citizens in saving 
 the State had been an obvious duty, too obvious 
 to require discussion. But now that every 
 man was fellow citizen to every other, the 
 appeal to patriotism lost its force and sounded 
 hollow. There was no longer satisfactory 
 fuel with which to feed the sacred fire. To 
 bow the knee beside one's fellow citizens before 
 one's country's gods, to bring due offerings to 
 their temples and to share in their holy festivals 
 had been duties clear and simple. But who 
 now were the gods to whom deference was due, 
 
 5 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 now that Orontes had poured his flood-waters 
 into the Tiber ? Isis and Osiris, Mithra and 
 the rest, or the deified Emperor with perhaps 
 his deified spouse ? 
 
 The loss of spontaneity in virtuous activity- 
 was accompanied by a sense of alienation from 
 the spiritual powers. The restrictions imposed 
 from without on the better energies of humanity 
 helped to evoke that consciousness of sin, 
 almost unfelt before, which now became one 
 of the chief points to which philosophy, 
 grown religious, henceforth applied itself, 
 seeking to assuage the ills it could not cure. 
 
 Outward unification had not simplified life 
 but complicated it. And all men were astray, 
 as sheep seeking their shepherds ; and false 
 shepherds were many. From the monarch 
 on the throne to the clerk in the crowded 
 streets, all were victims of an intellectual 
 restlessness, and few did not find themselves 
 a prey to moral anarchy. The world was 
 diseased and the moralist recognised the fact. 
 In place of the clear ringing confident appeals 
 addressed to healthy minds by the poet or the 
 historian, philosophy must substitute a patient 
 
 6 
 
THE ENVIRONMENT 
 
 study of moral pathology. 1 Instead of calling 
 vigorous athletes into the welcoming arena, 
 she feels pulses and prescribes diets. The 
 spontaneity has gone from the noblest cha- 
 racters. Where a previous generation, if it 
 acted rightly, acted from habit based on a simple 
 ethic that had become almost an instinct, the 
 new generation must first persuade itself that 
 right is right before it can determine to follow 
 right, in scorn of consequence. 
 
 In this unhealthy world the two chief 
 forces making for righteousness were un- 
 doubtedly the conservative teaching of the 
 Stoics, and the aggressively reforming spirit 
 of the Christian moralists. The former 
 addressed itself more particularly to those who 
 still so far shared in the vigour of humanity's 
 youth, as to believe that the natural man is 
 the reasonable, moral man. The latter were 
 
 1 Cf. Dill, Nero to Aurelius, pp. 406-7. " Philosophy 
 to Plutarch, Apollonius, or M. Aurelius, had a very 
 different meaning from what it bore to the great thinkers 
 of Ionia and Magna Graecia. Not only had it deserted 
 the field of metaphysical speculation, it had lost interest 
 even in the mere theory of morals. It had become the 
 art rather than the science of life." 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 more in touch with those great classes that 
 were growing more and more painfully con- 
 scious of the alienation of humanity from 
 God, and the need of redemption and atone- 
 ment. In their work of leavening the world 
 with higher ideals, the two, no doubt, co- 
 operated. Yet the sense of mutual hostility 
 was in most cases stronger than the sense of 
 a common aim, and Christianity spent much 
 of its early energy in combating the philoso- 
 phies of the day. On the other hand, Marcus 
 Aurelius' contemptuous indifference towards 
 Christianity challenges attention, even more 
 than the ignorant hostility to other ethical 
 schemes shown by the majority 1 of early 
 Christian writers. Christianity has not yet 
 forced itself on the attention of the leaders 
 of philosophic thought, though it is soon to do 
 so, and Christian ethics and classical philo- 
 sophy will mingle to form a common stream. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the latest of 
 first-class thinkers to whom Christianity is 
 only a vague name. Ignorant, however, as 
 
 i Justin is a marked exception ; and in a less degree, 
 Athenagoras and Aris tides. 
 
 8 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 he is of the distinctively new features of the 
 new religion, he represents, in more ways than 
 one, a transitional movement of thought. 
 He has travelled far from the Cynic and earlier 
 Stoic conception of man as a self-sufficing 
 unit, without quite attaining the Christian 
 ideal which declares that he can only find his 
 higher self in and through the development 
 of the higher self in others. He goes far 
 towards substituting for the Stoic gospel of 
 pride, the Christian gospel of humility, and 
 is readier to acknowledge shortcomings than 
 we expect the Stoic sage to be. Thus the 
 thought of Marcus Aurelius is transitional, 
 and, as such, is naturally full of minor incon- 
 sistencies. The old and the new are not fully 
 reconciled ; and this later Stoicism, unlike 
 the Stoicism of Epictetus, presents no rounded 
 symmetry of development, such as would make 
 interpretation and elucidation a matter calling 
 rather for simple industry than imaginative 
 insight. The tentativeness that marks most of 
 his teaching must be borne in mind throughout. 1 
 
 1 Of certain central ideas, forming the core of his 
 ethical system, this is not the case. The thoughts 
 
 9 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 In this period, also, which closes with the 
 death of Marcus Aurelius, Christianity is 
 slowly forming itself as an ordered system of 
 thought, out of which Catholicism is to develop 
 in the process of time. 1 For these various 
 reasons no better author or period could be 
 chosen for the institution of a comparison of 
 the best of non-Christian systems with the 
 Christian. A little later, and the most vehe- 
 mently hostile of anti-Christian writers is 
 permeated with Christian ideals, and the 
 apostate Julian can only confront a secularised 
 Christianity with an artificial Christianised 
 paganism. Our task is to weigh against one 
 another the last important Stoic who is not 
 yet aware of the presence of the new religious 
 force, and the Christian teachers contemporary 
 
 summarised at the end of chap. iv. of this essay are to 
 him incontrovertible dogmas ; and the different parts 
 of his argument concerning them are so interwoven 
 (each being the explanation and the corollary of the 
 others) that it is difficult to subdivide the subject and 
 impossible to hold the subdivisions apart. 
 
 i " More than ever I believe that the period of origins, 
 the embryogeny of Christianity, if one may so express it, 
 ends about the death of M. Aurelius in 180." (Preface 
 to Kenan's Marcus Aurelius.) 
 
 10 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 with and antecedent to him Christians living 
 in a non-Christian world which, as yet, shows 
 little sign of succumbing to their influence. 
 
 Herein, then, lies the justification of our 
 task, and perhaps its chief interest. But the 
 comparison of one school of writers or thinkers 
 with another school is a task fraught with 
 special difficulties. The hasty and the super- 
 ficial investigator find it so often convenient 
 to slur over individual traits in broad state- 
 ments. Generalisation is always deceptively 
 easy. The wide propositions first arrived 
 at may simplify to such an extent the further 
 progress of our thought, that some strength 
 of will may be required in order to insist that 
 we shall not bracket together for all purposes, 
 names which have been conveniently bracketed, 
 and appropriately bracketed, for some special 
 purpose. The more we know of the individual 
 the less we feel that generic formulae satis- 
 factorily characterise him. At first he came 
 to us clearly and concisely labelled of such 
 and such a century and nationality, a follower 
 of this philosophy or of that a French Scho- 
 lastic of the fourteenth century, a Neoplatonist 
 
 ii 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of the third. We look a little closer and find 
 points of difference that distinguish him, to 
 careful eyes, from the other members of his 
 school. Gradually he grows under our search- 
 ing study into an Individual, resisting obsti- 
 nately all our attempts at classification not 
 quite this, not altogether that a puzzling, 
 annoying freak, upsetting our earlier and 
 simpler judgments. 
 
 But not only must we guard against this 
 blunder of losing the Individual in the General, 
 there are occasions when we must beware of 
 an opposite fault, that of ascribing too much 
 to the Individual, too little to the class to which 
 he belongs. 
 
 Turning over the pages of the Epistle of 
 Clement, or of an argument of Justin's, igno- 
 rant of their place in the current of history, 
 their antecedents, and their intellectual envi- 
 ronment, we might, not unnaturally, ascribe 
 to them far more than is rightly theirs. How 
 much of their teaching is really their own ? 
 How much original, not necessarily in the sense 
 of being first enunciated there and then, but 
 even in the sense of being so thoroughly 
 
 12 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 grasped that the preacher has made his precepts 
 part of himself ? Is he dealing in thoughts 
 that are common property, mistily realised by 
 himself, or at least not seen in all their bearings, 
 and not yet become an organic part of his own 
 life and thought ? Or does he give us gold 
 that has been delved for by the sweat of his 
 own brow, regardless of the fact that similar 
 ore has been already brought to the surface 
 by others ? Is he a voice, in short (whether 
 crying in the wilderness or raised in harmony 
 with a choir of other voices, it matters little), 
 or merely an echo ? 1 
 
 1 When, for instance, we meet in S. Clement's Epistle 
 such a collocation as 8ia irioriv KOI <iXoei/iai/, we may, 
 perhaps, with Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, I. i. 397) 
 neglect it as insignificant on the ground that other 
 passages Such as 22 ravra iravra /3e/3aiol fj cv Xptor^ TT torts 
 with its context, or again 31 diKaioo-vvrjv Kal a\r]&iav 
 8ia Triorewy " show that practically he has caught 
 the spirit of the Pauline teaching, whatever may be 
 the defect in the dogmatic statement." But it is 
 equally arguable that the former unguarded statement 
 must be taken as the more characteristic of Clement's 
 indefinite doctrinal position, while the others merely 
 echo the familiar language of S. Paul. The curious 
 collocation would suggest, though not with overwhelming 
 force, that he is more at home with the words than 
 master of the ideas of the apostles, 
 
 '3 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 Both Marcus Aurelius and the Christian 
 Fathers shine largely by reflected light. Perhaps 
 none of them would have any wish to claim 
 an originality which might savour of undisci- 
 plined waywardness. Rather would they re- 
 pudiate the personal in order to be the better 
 spokesman of what they conceive to be im- 
 personal universal Truth. Yet each has 
 unmistakable characteristics of his own, a 
 personal bias of some kind, and above all a 
 special purpose 1 underlying his task of author- 
 ship. The task of disentangling, in each case, 
 what is individual from what belongs to the 
 school would be one of no ordinary difficulty ; 
 but only to a very limited degree is it necessary 
 for our purposes to attempt it. It will be 
 sufficient to set over against one another the 
 two contrasted systems of thought, looking 
 rather to their logical consequences than to 
 
 i Thus Clement has a special reason for dwelling on 
 hospitality in his Epistle to the Corinthians, even as 
 Polycarp, in his letter to the Philippians, for his emphatic 
 reprobation of covetousness. It is not to be inferred 
 that such pointedly mentioned virtues and vices would 
 have equal prominence in a systematic course of moral 
 instruction. 
 
 H 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 their historical antecedents, and not especially 
 concerning ourselves with the formation of 
 an estimate of the moral greatness of the authors 
 themselves. For though it is scarcely possible 
 to understand thoroughly the ethics of Marcus 
 Aurelius without some preliminary study of 
 Stoic metaphysic, it is quite possible to com- 
 pare the composite product, once clearly 
 comprehended, with contemporary Christian 
 thought ; and this we may do, weighing 
 together the two systems in a spirit of criticism 
 far removed from unqualified laudation, though 
 without ceasing to honour the earnestness and 
 sincerity both of the one school and of the other. 
 We have to set side by side the writings of 
 one who, finding himself astray in a naughty 
 world, composed his sermons, for lack of 
 better readers, * *WoV, for himself alone ; 
 the exhortations addressed by the leaders of 
 a society to those who looked to them for leader- 
 ship ; and the vindications of the teachings 
 of that society addressed to a hostile and 
 contemptuous world outside. 
 
 The Stoic philosophy is full of unconscious 
 inconsistencies and discrepancies. The reader 
 
 15 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 expects them, is ever on the look-out for them, 
 as he follows the quaint arguments of its 
 earlier expounders. But, at least, the others 
 wrote in order to convince. Marcus Aurelius, 
 writing To Himself, would scarcely be per- 
 turbed by yet wider inconsistencies. His 
 thought is nearly always tentative. He is 
 ready to reject and amend. At times it seems 
 sufficient to him to indicate his meaning by 
 a few incomplete symbolic phrases, meaningless 
 to prying eyes that do not possess the secret 
 of the author's inner thought ; but not mean- 
 ingless, doubtless, to the hermit mind that 
 jotted them down as signposts, ;indicative of 
 something, but of something too intimate for 
 elaboration. 1 
 
 Over against this diarist are to be set the 
 preachers who could afford to omit long 
 passages in their reasoning, knowing that their 
 
 1 The Meditations are, perhaps, about as repre- 
 sentative of average Stoicism as the commonplace book 
 of an earnest church-goer to-day would be of contem- 
 porary Christianity. To the student of a later century 
 the very inconsistencies which we should expect to find 
 in the latter, as we find them in the former, would be not 
 the least valuable of its contents, as indicating the trend 
 of conflicting currents of thought. 
 
 16 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 hearers, as well as themselves, took many argu- 
 ments for granted ; and also the apologists, 
 whose natural impulse it was (writing for the 
 Gentile and writing to convince) to adopt, 
 perhaps, a diplomatic moderation that they 
 scarcely felt, in order to minimise the differ- 
 ences between Christian Theology and the 
 philosophic doctrines of the day. Not one of 
 them, diarist, preacher or apologist, is aiming 
 at composing a possession for all time ; and 
 herein lies much of our difficulty. 
 
 In Marcus we have an earnest teacher bent 
 only on correcting defects in his own teaching 
 of himself; in the Apostolic Fathers, teachers 
 whose aim was to supplement the vaguer 
 knowledge of men who were fundamentally 
 at one with themselves ; in the Apologists, 
 teachers who, if they failed to make alien 
 dogmas attractive to the world at large, failed 
 entirely in their purpose. 
 
 In this respect, however, they are all at one. 
 The aim of each is practical, related to the 
 world that exists here and now. Each has 
 his cosmological system, explanatory of the 
 universe and its relation to God and man. 
 
 17 B 
 
 *W *+. 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 But yet they are none of them mere builders 
 of cloud-capped philosophic palaces, neglect- 
 ful of the pressing duties of the hour. To 
 the extent that their works deal with specula- 
 tive questions and with philosophic theory 
 rather than practice, they are rather inter- 
 preters of some accepted scheme than con- 
 structers of new schemes pointing the way to 
 untraversed fields of thought. 
 
 Accordingly, in discussing the ethical value 
 of all these writings, while we recognise that 
 the philosophic scheme which each accepts 
 from his predecessors, counts for much both 
 in his applied ethics and in his life, we must 
 not forget that personal characteristics, im- 
 mediate difficulties or temptations, and special 
 opponents, count for much likewise. 
 
 Both our moral nature and our ethical 
 
 / theories largely form themselves in response 
 to the forces with which they are brought into 
 
 ' antagonism. The preacher, the poet, the 
 prophet, all attack those evils in themselves 
 and in their surroundings, of whose strength 
 they become conscious in the necessity of 
 battling with them. The emphasis that is 
 
 18 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 placed on one side rather than another of 
 ethical teaching, is generally evidence of af 
 felt need of the particular time and circum-/ 
 stance of the teacher. It is in the East, for" 
 example, that one observes the fiercest longings 
 for temporal power, for sensual gratifications, 
 for wealth and the display of wealth. The 
 Eastern mind is more quickly attracted than 
 the Western by the external glitter of these 
 things, in spite of all its pseudo-reverence 
 for the higher. The Eastern character is 
 more easily overwhelmed by the passing tempta- 
 tions and solicitations of material advantages. 
 Yet it is th great religions of Asia that have 
 taught with most constant reiteration the 
 wisdom of ignoring the material circumstances 
 of life, and finding salvation in a contemplation 
 of spiritual things, that ignores almost entirely 
 the temporal and the physical, and in its forget- 
 fulness of the external world may come even to 
 see in absolute abnegation of individuality, the 
 crowning achievement of a perfected life. 
 
 So, no doubt, it is to the ubiquity of the 
 morbid vices of the decadent period of Graeco- 
 Roman paganism that is due the continued 
 19 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 harping, in the early Fathers, upon sins of the 
 flesh. 
 
 Similarly, it is the strong self-controlled 
 Socrates who, basing all virtue on knowledge 
 of right and wrong, drops self-control out of 
 his scheme of life ; the very need of such a 
 quality being hidden from the nature that has 
 not consciously won it. 
 
 So, in the case of one who writes his own 
 manual of ethics for his own use alone, we may 
 expect to find indications of character and 
 circumstance in what is omitted no less than 
 in what is inserted. There are in the Medi- 
 tations few references, for example, to envy, 
 jealousy, covetousness, and the grosser sins. 
 No doubt the earnest Stoic would in no walk 
 of life have found much need to dwell on the 
 former failings ; but as emperor he sees little, 
 among goods that are accidental and external, 
 that he can covet as belonging to others and 
 desired by himself. Had he taken in hand 
 the compilation of a treatise to be read by 
 numerous disciples, such references could hardly 
 have been completely omitted. Their absence 
 is partly an indication of temperament, partly 
 
 20 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 a consequence of his purpose in writing, partly 
 a result of his imperial position. 
 
 In like manner, when we find in such authors 
 as these some failing continually reprobated, 
 we have some grounds for inferring that the 
 writer is combating an impulse of which he 
 was conscious as an evil in his own character. 
 It is the man who feels the strongest native 
 bias towards aggressive arrogance who speaks 
 most frequently of the virtue of humility ; an 
 Ignatius with his self-assertive manner of 
 thought clad in a distinctive diction (itself a 
 sign of a self-assertive mind) ; conscious of 
 the great part that he is playing on the stage 
 of nascent Christendom ; eagerly directing 
 his epistles to one church and another ; forcing 
 his personality and his peculiar views on the 
 attention of each ; with his strong conviction 
 that the welfare of the church depends upon 
 the holders of his own episcopal office who 
 repeats again and again that his hearers are 
 more firmly established than himself, and that 
 his one hope is to become worthy to be called 
 merely a disciple. 1 
 
 1 See Eph. 12. cyk virb nivSvvov, vp.ts eVrj/piy/iei/ot. 
 Rom. 9. cya> 8e al<r\\)vop(u, e avr&v \cyca-0at. Eph. I. 
 21 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 Even so, in the case of Marcus Aurelius, I 
 do not find in his continual dwelling on the 
 shortness of life and the probable extinction 
 of the soul at death, any inborn indifference 
 to immortality or natural feebleness of " the 
 will to live." Rather his reiterated arguments 
 and assertions suggest an instinctive desire for 
 immortality, in the secondary form of fame 
 as well as in that of surviving personality ; a 
 desire which is, indeed, controlled by the 
 conclusions he draws from his reasoned 
 theory of the universe, but is only com- 
 pletely over-borne in brief moments of moral 
 disgust with the men around him, in whom 
 the desire for spiritual growth . is almost 
 non-existent. His desire to escape from such 
 companions temporarily becomes all-powerful ; l 
 
 Iva dvvrjdS) padrjTris tlvai. Rom. 4 and 5. vv 
 p,adr)rr)S flvai. 
 
 i " Pass to the characters of those who live withthee, 
 the most attractive of whom it is difficult to tolerate, 
 not to speak of tolerating one's self. . . , On the con- 
 trary, one must comfort himself while awaiting the 
 natural dissolution and not rebel at the delay " ^erA 
 
 TOVTO fTTldt 7Tl TO. TO)V CTVfJ,ftlOl>VTO)V fjQy, $>V p,6\l? fOT\ KO.I TOV 
 
 Xa.pifo-Ta.Tov dvaa-xfo-dai, Iva ^ Ae'yco, OTI <al favrov TIS poyis 
 . . rovvavTiov yap &el TrapafjivdovjJifvov iavrbv 
 22 
 
THE TASK OF COMPARISON 
 
 but his normal attitude is not so easy of 
 definition. 1 
 
 These and similar considerations must be 
 taken into account throughout our reading. 
 To submit every phrase mechanically to 
 microscopic scrutiny while ignoring the elusive 
 personal factor, would, especially in the case 
 of the imperial Stoic, be grossly unfair. We 
 do not hold our friends guilty or guiltless 
 on the strength of chance phrases in conversa- 
 tion or correspondence. We have sufficient 
 insight to know that the odd, unusual, un- 
 expected thought is likely to issue in speech 
 almost sooner than any other, simply because 
 it is odd, unusual and unexpected. Chance 
 
 \v<r v t K.OL p, 
 V. 10. 
 
 i To some extent also his pessimistic absence of 
 reforming passion must be the result of his experience 
 of the little that even the master of the Roman world 
 can effect, however earnestly he may strive. And if we 
 grant that his became at last a temperament in which 
 " the will to live " was finally quenched by philosophic 
 reasoning, we may, perhaps, ascribe this result too, at 
 least in part, to a despair, born of much knowledge, of 
 the possibility of reforming man by improving the 
 external circumstances of his life. 
 
 UNIVERSITY I) 
 
 or 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 expressions should, of course, be noted ; for 
 there will be occasions when the unexpected 
 phrase will arrest our attention longer than 
 the general tenour of an argument ; the 
 unusual word coming to us as an indication 
 of a suppressed undercurrent of individual 
 thought, an undercurrent which represents 
 the real character of the speaker or writer, 
 which for the moment has come to the surface, 
 as it were, against his will. But inconsis- 
 tencies of reasoning are always to be expected 
 in works composed, not for the library, but 
 for the encouragement of those who are taking 
 part in the battle of life. We shall steer clear 
 of the folly of treating the Meditations of 
 Marcus in the spirit of a German professor 
 handling the mysteries of Hamlet ; and while 
 scrutinising carefully every sentence that we 
 have under our hands, shall not be too eager 
 to build lofty edifices on doubtful foundations. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS THE 
 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN OPTIMISM AND 
 PESSIMISM 
 
 IN examining the moralists even more than 
 the metaphysicians of alien schools the critic 
 is liable to read into them much that is familiar 
 to himself, but would be unfamiliar to them. 
 We transfer from our own field of thought 
 what we imagine must be common to all 
 schools, because it is to us fundamental and 
 indeed axiomatic ; while we overlook or 
 misread much which we have not been pre- 
 pared to find. Each of us has his eye trained 
 for the perception of only certain restricted 
 classes of moral facts. Finding, in an author 
 whom we have been brought to honour, the 
 particular injunctions and ethical principles 
 which at that particular stage of our personal 
 25 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 development have come to seem (and probably 
 are, for us) the things most needful for our 
 further growth, we wrench them from their 
 context, or at least over-emphasise them, 
 allowing other arguments, which to the author 
 were of infinitely more consequence, to remain 
 unnoticed in the background. These latter 
 elements we were unable then to assimilate, 
 though to the prophet himself they alone 
 formed the substance of his message. Our 
 ears were not fitted to hear them, nor our eyes 
 to see. The personal bias distorted our 
 judgment. 
 
 Now every philosophic moralist has his own 
 scheme by which he endeavours to account for 
 himself and his doings, but each alike praises 
 actions which to all men seem obviously good, 
 and condemns those that are equally clearly 
 bad. The " practical " man, when he finds that 
 Stoic, Epicurean and Christian alike extol 
 fortitude, self-restraint and justice, and alike 
 condemn greed, cowardice and cruelty, is in- 
 clined to sweep aside further discussion as 
 vain and purposeless. So when a popular; 
 moralist like Dean Farrar or Matthew Arnold 
 z6 
 
FUNDAMENTAL DIVERSITIES 
 
 \. 
 
 endeavours to draw from the Stoic writers 
 arguments and illustrations for moral lessons 
 which he is desirous of enunciating for the 
 benefit of a particular public, everything in 
 Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus or Seneca which 
 is neither precisely Christian nor precisely 
 opposed to Christian doctrine makes apparently 
 no impression on him, and is therefore passed 
 by ; and though for his special purpose, no 
 doubt, there is little loss, yet the Stoic teaching 
 is thrown out of focus, misdrawn and mis- 
 interpreted, merely in order that a moral 
 which could equally well have found illustra- 
 tion elsewhere may receive the support of 
 honoured names. 
 
 But yet the " practical " man will, quite as 
 much as the dogmatic philosopher, be pos- 
 sessed of invincible likings and dislikings for 
 this or that man, though the fruits of their 
 character as shown in overt action 
 " Things done, that took the eye and had their price ; 
 
 O'er which, from level stand, 
 
 The low world laid its hand, 
 Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice." 
 
 do not lend themselves immediately to 
 27 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 convenient appraisement as much better or 
 worse in one case than in another. May it not 
 be the way in which each of us has answered, 
 I to whatever extent implicitly and uncon- 
 sciously, those fundamental questions as to the 
 basis of ethics which only metaphysicians care 
 actually to discuss, that gives to each that 
 subtle indefinable individuality of character 
 which makes one of us honour James and despise 
 Paul, and another reverence John and shrink 
 from James ? And in the same manner our 
 sub-conscious metaphysical bias so gives colour 
 and tone to our most trifling actions that we 
 win and lose the approval of others in ways 
 that though they may greatly mystify us are 
 seldom accidental ? 
 
 It need not be that there is some pronounced 
 intermixture of admitted evil in our action- 
 It need not be because 
 
 " Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement. 
 He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 
 Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 
 Even he, the minute makes immortal, 
 Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, 
 Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. . . . 
 28 
 
FUNDAMENTAL DIVERSITIES 
 
 Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat ; 
 O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, 
 Carelessness or consciousness the gesture." 
 
 There are other more subtly elusive qualities 
 about each individual's words and acts which 
 almost equally becloud for one or another of 
 those about him their purity and attractive- 
 ness. It is not a little thing to differ not 
 necessarily in argument, for argument often 
 brings up, not what is characteristic of us, 
 but something merely accidental, some belief 
 which we only believe to be ours but to 
 differ at bottom on such questions as to whether 
 Man's character or his actions are the ultimately 
 important things ; whether I live in order to 
 do certain things which my Creator wishes 
 done, or in order to become such a being as 
 He wishes me to be. Holding either view, I 
 am likely to perform much the same specific 
 duties, but I shall perform them with a differ- 
 ence. The " practical " result of different 
 ethical systems remains much the same, but 
 the aroma of the man's act 
 
 % " All that the coarse World's thumb 
 
 And finger failed to plumb " 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 may be entirely different, according as he says 
 "I am of the Porch," "I am of Paul, or 
 Apollos." Some larger intelligence than ours 
 might indeed be able so to combine the various 
 statements of the moral ideal as to show that 
 they are but different aspects of the same 
 aim, partial glimpses, as it were, of something 
 never yet seen in its entirety. But none the 
 less they mark us off one from another, and 
 mutually alienate the most earnest thinkers 
 and workers. 
 
 Of course if we are resolutely bent upon 
 finding an underlying unity in the works of 
 those whom we set about comparing, we shall 
 have little difficulty in finding it if, that is, 
 we are ready to overlook subtle shades of differ- 
 ence in expression or emphasis which we cannot 
 measure without effort, and so " value in a 
 trice." If we are content to handle our 
 authors as Professor Dill in his recent work l 
 has dealt with Seneca and his contemporaries 
 translating the rhetoric of the schools into the 
 rich phrases of the New Testament, slurring 
 over all characteristic differences we shall 
 1 Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 
 3 
 
FUNDAMENTAL DIVERSITIES 
 
 find no insuperable task in blurring together 
 the precepts of Stoic and Christian. But 
 none the less the effect thus produced is more 
 misleading than helpful. Lit is easy to set out 
 a list of parallel passages wherein the same 
 thought is expressed by a New Testament 
 writer and by M. Aurelius, but expressed with 
 a difference. It is easy to show the parallelism. 
 Yet it would be a dull mind indeed, that would 
 not feel the contrasts and realise their signifi- 
 cance acutely^Jhowever impossible it might 
 be for even the careful reader to state in general 
 terms wherein their importance lies. It is 
 in accounting for these subtle nuances which 
 we cannot ignore, that much of the difficulty 
 of comparison lies. 
 
 There are two remarkably contrasted types 
 of mind with which we are all familiar. On 
 the one hand, there is the man who, as he 
 becomes aware of the presence of regularity 
 and symmetry in one department of Nature 
 after another, begins, as by instinct, to assume 
 that there can be no God. The systematic 
 orderliness of the sequence of phenomena 
 require for him no assumption of an ordering 
 
 3' 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 mind to explain them. The sequences explain 
 themselves ; a God is unnecessary ; to believe 
 in one is childish and absurd. On the other 
 hand, there is the opposite type of mind, which 
 leaps equally instinctively from the perception 
 of order to the belief in an ordering mind. Of 
 the two, the former is obsessed by the idea of 
 capriciousness which he associates with all 
 manifestations of Will, and wishes to exclude 
 from the Cosmos as a whole the possibility 
 of the action of any similar Will. The latter 
 finds a natural correlation between orderliness 
 and Reason or Design, and can only picture 
 a Godless world as a chaos, and an atheist as a 
 man whose disorderly thoughts form a moral 
 chaos. 
 
 Men of the one type are possibly those who 
 are most subject to caprice in themselves, 
 and most affected by the capriciousness of 
 others around them disorderly minds in a 
 disorderly social environment, but possessing 
 an appreciative eye for the uniformities of the 
 physical world. The others are perhaps of a 
 more naturally strong moral tendency, but see 
 the physical uniformities less distinctly. To 
 3* 
 
REASON AND DIVINE LAW 
 
 the former irregularity rather than regularity 
 suggests motived action ; to the latter, irregu- 
 larity is a sign of lack of motive or at least of 
 weakness of purpose. To the one class the 
 word " Law " calls up the idea of uniformity 
 unaffected by caprice ; to the other, orderli- 
 ness imposed by Reason. The latter feel that 
 the world of experience floats, as it were, in 
 an ocean of mind which is alone, or chiefly, 
 real. Those of the other class think of mind 
 as intervening from without in the activities 
 of an opposed and alien element. 
 
 It would not be easy to find a mind more 
 firmly convinced than Marcus Aurelius', of 
 the essential orderliness of the world, and the 
 necessity of connecting that orderliness with 
 the existence of Design. He affects, once or 
 twice (ix. 39 ; iv. 3 ; x. 6) * to put the 
 contrary possibility ; but even if the world 
 is to be considered a fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms, we find him inferring that still it will 
 be able to produce nothing injurious to itself. 
 
 1 Cf. iv. 27. rjroi KO(rp,os 8iareTayp,evos, fj KVKf&v, (rvp.- 
 irf<f)opr)p.fvos jj>v y d\\a ic.6crp.os. fj ev croi p,ev TIS 
 v<pi(TTa(r6ai Sui/emu, ev 8e ro> irdvri d/cotr/iia. 
 
 33 c 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 In short, Marcus Aurelius cannot clearly pic- 
 ture to himself a world in which there is no 
 guiding Providence. The presence of Design 
 is assumed in all his statements, 1 though not 
 connected normally with any distinct concep- 
 tion of the existence of a personal God. It is 
 rather the personified Whole of things of which 
 he thinks as acting in such a way as to make 
 this the best of all possible worlds because 
 it cannot clearly be pictured as acting other- 
 wise. 
 
 Yet the " Providence " of Marcus Aurelius has 
 no reference to any one far-off divine event 2 
 to which all things are moving. Things are 
 designed for mutual co-operation, like hands 
 
 1 el yap bi<aiov ?)v, rji> &v KOI dvvarov, KOI ft Kara <j)v<rtv t 
 rjvcyKcv av avro 17 <f)i>(ris. xii. 5. Cf. ~X.il. IO; xii. 21. 
 
 2 Though in vi. 42, we find a passage in which a final 
 purpose appears to be assumed (TrdWes- els h aTrore'AcoTia 
 0-wcpyovfj.fv), and in vi. 43, we get the similar phrase, 
 a-wepya Trpos TUVTOV ; yet we see the true significance of 
 these when we compare them with other passages, such 
 as vii, 13 (Trpos piav rtva <rvvfpyiav Karecrfcevacr/ieVa), which 
 show that it is the reciprocity and the co-operation 
 which are intended to be emphasised. (Note in this 
 connection the frequent compounds of crw- and 6/10-, 
 
 e.g., iravra irdvTOW T>V yivo^vatv (Twaina. iv. 40. Cf. iv. 
 45 ; v. I ; v. 8.) 
 
 34 
 
REASON AND DIVINE LAW 
 
 and feet, to help one another, not for the 
 accomplishment of anything final or permanent. 
 The Cosmos is continually imaged as a stream, 
 the constituents of which are of little account, 
 while the termination of it in the sea is scarcely 
 dwelt on. Change and perpetual Rejuvena- 
 tion 1 are the essential characteristics of the 
 world thus conceived a world in which 
 all things work together for their mutual 
 good, though nothing permanent remains 
 not even the world itself. Each subserves the 
 perfect working of the Whole, yet none 
 especially is to benefit except as members of the 
 Whole. 2 
 
 In a very different way the Christian authors 
 with whom we deal feel the presence of 
 Reason permeating the Universe. There is 
 practically no appeal to miracle, beyond that 
 
 1 Traira, ova opqs, oo~ov ovno* /xera/3aXei f) TO. oXa 8ioiKovo~a 
 <pu(m, /cat aXXa fie. TTJS ova-las avr>v Troi^tm, <al irdXtv aXXa, e* 
 r?}? fKfivav oixrias, iva del veapbs y 6 noo-pos. vii. 2$. Cf. 
 xii. 23 ; viii. 50 ; iv. 36. 
 
 2 viii. 19. CK.CHTTOV irpos ri ytyovfv, liriros, a/XTreXoy. ri 
 davpdfcts ; <al 6 "HXtoy epet Trpos ri epyov yeyova, KOI ol XOITTOI 
 Qfoi 2v ovv irpbs ri ; TO fj8eo~6ai ; t5e, ei ai/c'^erat ^ twoia. 
 Thus, even the gods have a purpose (epyop) which 
 cannot be enjoyment. 
 
 35 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of the Resurrection (and even that is assumed 
 not to be an isolated event ; the probability 
 of its non-isolatedness being indeed the common 
 proof of the immortality of the soul) ; l while 
 there is frequent reference to the orderliness 
 of the material world (cf. especially Clement's 
 Epistle xx. et seq. ; Theoph. i. 5). They 
 assume, however, a much greater amount of 
 specially providential action, 2 their emphasis 
 being placed upon the Love and the Will of 
 God (leading to frequent loving intervention), 
 while Marcus Aurelius feels rather the absolutely 
 trustworthy unchanging reasonableness of the 
 universe ; the guiding central force in the one 
 case being thought of as a Personal Will, in 
 the other as Impersonal Reason. 
 
 Either assumption leads on to Optimism. 
 Among the Christians, of course, Hope is set 
 beside Faith and Love as one of the triad of 
 
 1 Cf. Clem. xxiv. " Let us understand, dearly 
 beloved, how the Master continually showeth us the 
 resurrection that shall be hereafter. . . . The night 
 falleth asleep and the day ariseth ; the day departeth 
 and night cometh on. . . . The sower goeth forth. . . .'* 
 &c. (Lightfoot's translation.) 
 
 2 Barn. 19- (Id&s on avfv GeoO ovdev yii/erat. 
 
OPTIMISM 
 
 graces. 1 The Christian Hope has essentially 
 a social reference. It is hope for all mankind 
 under the loving care of God. Its importance 
 lies in its stimulating power as a driving force 
 enabling each to do his part in the salvation 
 of the world. The word "faith" itself 
 might often in Justin Martyr and Athenagoras 
 be replaced by the phrases " divine force," 
 or " spiritual energy," and Hope is placed 
 beside it as an incentive making this energy 
 reasonable and effectual ; while Love is that 
 which directs the activity of Faith, and gives 
 body to Hope. 2 Thus Optimism is a duty* 
 for the Christian, as well as a logical result from 
 his creed. With it go cheerfulness and joy 
 elements making an exalted life possible. 
 Hermas, for instance, directs the tenth of 
 his commandments against sadness 
 
 1 Polyc. iii. dwydrjo-eo-Oe olito8op.e'io-0ai ds TTJV 
 
 vp,lv TT'KTTIV, rjris eVrii/ p-TjTrjp TTUVTUV r\\i.<&v, fTra<o\ov0oixrrjs 
 rr)s e\7ri8os, Trpoayova-rjs rys aydir^s rrjs els Qeov /ecu Xptaroi/ KOI 
 fls TOV ir\r)<riov. . . . 
 
 2 It is not intended to imply that any of the authors 
 is consistent in his use of such conceptions and terms. 
 
 3 Cf. Ign. Magn. vii. pa Trpoo-eu^^, /iia dcrjo-is, els vovs, 
 p.ia IXiris, ev dydirr), ev r^ X a P$ r 
 
 37 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 which is described as sister to discontent and 
 double-mindedness. 1 It is " more wicked than 
 all the spirits and most terrible to the servants 
 of God, and more than all spirits destroys man 
 and crushes out the Holy Spirit." 2 The prayer 
 that is mixed with sadness " does not ascend 
 pure to the altar of God." 3 
 ^ Marcus Aurelius is sometimes cited as a 
 typical pessimist. And in certain directions 
 he certainly is a pessimist of the pessimists. 
 But none the less truly, in those spheres of 
 thought and action which to him are of 
 supreme importance, he is an optimist of the 
 optimists. 
 
 It is hardly the case that he would assent 
 unreservedly to any of the four propositions 
 of modern philosophic optimism that the 
 good in the world outweighs the evil ; that 
 all evil is subservient to good throughout the 
 universe ; that evil in the world will finally 
 
 earn rfjs Si^v\iag KOI rrjs o^u^oXias. (Mand. X.) 
 
 2 iravTtov T>V Trvfvfj.a.Ta>v irovrjpoTfpa eVri /cat deivoTa-rrj rot? 
 dovXois rov Qeov. (Ibid.) 
 
 3 ncfjuyfjievT) ovv f) \virr) ^iera rfjs cvTevf-eu)? OVK. atyirjo'i 
 TTJV fVTviv dvaftTJvai naBapav eirl TO dvariacrTTjpiov rov Geov. 
 (Ibid.) 
 
 38 
 
OPTIMISM 
 
 be vanquished and overcome by good ; or that 
 evil is a mere illusion, and good the only reality. 1 
 As a general rule, he comes nearest to holding 
 the last proposition of the four. But though 
 he looks upon physical evils as illusions subject 
 to the control of " Opinion," he has no such 
 feeling with regard to moral evil, which, with 
 reference to himself at least (when, that is, 
 it is looked at subjectively), is evil absolute 
 and without qualification. He would probably 
 have felt (had the alternative of assenting or 
 dissenting been set before him) that they were 
 all four misleading propositions, because of a 
 certain implied confusion, or at least connection, 
 between the ideas of happiness and moral good. 
 He would neither assent nor deny, feeling that 
 all four statements lay outside the purview of 
 the philosophy which alone should occupy 
 the attention of the man who would live in a 
 manner worthy of his nature. > 
 
 Marcus Aurelius never stops to ask whether 
 virtue is " worth while " in the sense in which 
 
 1 This fourfold enunciation of the possible implica- 
 tions of optimism is taken from an article by Mr. A. C, 
 Pigou in the Independent Review, May 1905. 
 
 39 
 
the average man always finds himself asking 
 the question. Rather he takes for granted that 
 nothing else can be worth while ; and at the 
 same time tends to leave aside the question of 
 the inter-relation of moral good and evil on 
 the one hand, with happiness and unhappiness 
 on the other, as being, for him, irrelevant. 
 And it is merely as a side issue of the same 
 question that the problem of personal im- 
 mortality comes before him, to be swept aside, 
 with something like impatience, as irrelevant 
 likewise. 
 
 He does not ask (as has been stated above) 
 whether virtue, in the ordinary use of that 
 phrase, is " worth while " that is, whether it 
 brings a balance of happiness over pain or no. 
 He assumes that it is, apart from all conse- 
 quences, unquestionably worth while, at least 
 for himself. And looking at life from this self- 
 centred standpoint he holds that all non- 
 moral evil is subservient to moral good ; but 
 moral evil is emphatically not in his eyes 
 illusory for his own -personal career or subservient 
 to any higher good ; while he has no clear hope 
 of entirely surmounting evil in his own life- 
 40 
 
OPTIMISM 
 
 experience. He may thus be called, in a rather 
 special sense, an optimist ; his optimism 
 affecting chiefly the relation of the universe 
 of experience to his own perfection-seeking 
 soul. 
 
 Where he is utterly a pessimist is in accept- 
 ing, as inevitable and unconquerable, the stolid 
 indifference of the mass of mankind in the pre- 
 sence of virtue. They seek other things, and he 
 will not condemn them ; for what seems to him 
 morally evil in their career may not be really 
 evil it may be mere seeming. He has no 
 conception of the possible moralisation of the 
 rest of mankind, no vision of their spiritual 
 regeneration. 
 
 It is herein that his " optimism " (if the 
 expression will pass) stands in the most marked 
 contrast to the optimism of Christianity. 
 Marcus does not look for any amelioration 
 in social conditions, or in the character of the 
 mass of mankind. The Fathers accept their 
 social environment caesarism, slavery, grada- 
 tion of classes with equal equanimity, though 
 the twofold conception, of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, and the approaching end of the 
 41 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 world modifies somewhat their attitude towards 
 it. But while Marcus almost ridicules 1 the 
 idea of the good man being able to set his 
 immoral neighbour in the right way, Chris- 
 tianity finds in this the very centre of its 
 purpose, the justification of its being. Moral 
 progress in the world as a whole is the life and 
 hope of the one. Its very possibility is denied 
 in round terms 2 by the other. Marcus has 
 devoted himself too much to quasi-scientific 
 observation of moral facts ; and experience, 
 uninformed by religious insight, is in this 
 always on the side of pessimism. The natural- 
 istic moralist asks with wearisome reiteration, 
 " How can the leopard change his spots ? " 
 The Christian enthusiast defies experience, 
 
 1 xii. 1 6 ; V. 2S. fv (rot yevotro I roiyapovv KOI a~u \6yov 
 
 2 ovdev veoirepov o^ovTai ol /ie#* fjp.as, ov irepirrorepov fldov 
 ol irpb f)p.S>v. . . . xi. I. See also vi. 37 ; vi. 46 ; vii. i. Cf. 
 Lecky : " While the Epicurean poet painted in mag- 
 nificent language the perpetual progress of mankind, 
 the Stoic was essentially retrospective, and exhausted 
 his strength in vain efforts to restore the simplicity of 
 a bygone age." (European Morals, vol. i. p. 193.) In 
 this particular connection we may bracket the Christian 
 with the Epicurean. 
 
 42 
 
OPTIMISM 
 
 declaring that with God all things are possible. 
 His optimism drives him to attempt the ap- 
 parently impossible, and in his enthusiastic 
 flinging away of self he sometimes achieves 
 it. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MAN AS A "NATURAL," "RATIONAL" AND 
 "SOCIAL" BEING 
 
 WHEN, in the Meditations, we meet the 
 word " Reason," as applied to men's actions 
 we must avoid the error, natural to the modern 
 reader, of imagining that Marcus Aurelius has 
 usually in view man's intellectual capacity 
 to choose between right and wrong, and rule 
 his actions accordingly. Man has the capacity 
 to defy Nature, to perform actions that are 
 unnatural, to live in ways " not according to 
 Nature." " One fear alone disturbs me 
 that I myself may do something which the 
 constitution of man does not intend, or in some 
 way it does not intend, or what it does not 
 intend just now." (vii. 2O. 1 ) Yet it is not that 
 
 1 fjif fv povov irepunrq, p.r) n avrbs TTOLTJCTO), 6 77 KaracrKevf) 
 TOV dvdpnirov ov $eAet, TJ coy ov 6f\fi, 77 6 vvv ov 6t\6i. Cf. V. 
 8, ad fin. ; vii. 58. 
 
 44 
 
" NATURE " AND " REASON " 
 
 Reason, in Marcus Aurelius' view of the matter, 
 lifts Man above Nature, and sets him in oppo- 
 sition to it. Rather " the rational," " the 
 social," and " the natural," are in their appli- 
 cation to man interchangeable ; for the capacity 
 to reason, and the tendency to rational co- 
 operation are man's distinguishing charac- 
 teristics, setting him above the merely animal 
 world. " To the rational being the same act 
 is according to Nature, and according to 
 Reason" (vii. n. 1 ) Man is a child of Nature. 
 " He who stands apart and separates himself 
 from the rational order of the common Nature 
 through displeasure at what befalls him, is an 
 abscess on the universe ; for that Nature which 
 has produced thee, produces this also." (iv. 
 29. 2 ) It is by virtue of unreason that man 
 opposes nature, not by virtue of reason. By 
 virtue of reason he alone, of living creatures, 
 can willingly obey. " Only to the rational 
 being has it been granted to follow willingly 
 
 1 TO> \oyi< tS << f] avrrj -rrpa^is Kara (pixriv tori, fcai Kara 
 \6yov. 
 
 2 diroa-TTjua K 007101;, 6 d(pi<rTdfj,fvos KOI ^wpt^wv eaurov TOV 
 
 (pita-fas \6yov, 8ia TOV v<rapf<TTeiv rols o-v/z/3aiVovo-f 
 yap fpepei roCro, rj KOI & 
 
 45 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 with that which happens ; but merely to follow 
 is a necessity for all." (x. 28.*) When he thus 
 obeys voluntarily, he is living according to 
 reason and nature ; when he resists (" like a 
 pig that is being sacrificed, and kicks and 
 squeals " a ) he is not exercising a power that 
 marks him as distinctively above other creatures, 
 though it is a power to act contrary to Nature 
 which the inanimate world does not share. 
 
 So possessed is he of the consciousness that 
 herein (namely, in his capacity for renunciation) 
 lies the very best of man's nature, that he 
 points out again and again, as man's chief 
 glory almost, that this capacity for resignation 
 and renunciation can never be thwarted. For 
 if his passing purposes fail through meeting 
 human opposition or natural obstacles, he can 
 find in the opposing forces only new material 
 on which his higher nature may exercise itself 
 and become conscious of itself. " If any one 
 impedes your action by the use of force . . . 
 avail yourself of the hindrance with a view to 
 
 1 fiovcd TO) AoyiK<B <j?< SeSorat, TO cKovcritoS crrc(rdai rot? 
 yivofifvois' TO 8e fTretrdai, \^iAoy, iracrw avaynaiov. 
 
 2 SfjLOiov ra> dvofjievto %oipii(p Kal d7roAaKTibi/ri KOI K.fK.payori. 
 X. 28. 
 
 46 
 
"NATURE" AND "REASON" 
 
 some other form of virtue." (vi. 5O. 1 ) " In- 
 telligence and reason are able to find a path 
 through every obstacle." (x. 33. 2 ) " The 
 man becomes both better, if one may say so, 
 and mor^e praiseworthy, by making a right use 
 of these happenings." (x. 33. 3 ) " For what 
 else are all these things, except exercises for 
 Reason, which has looked with scientific 
 thoroughness into the facts of life ? " (x. 
 
 3 1- 4 ) 
 
 The " reasonableness " of Man's nature has 
 for Marcus a double reference. Towards 
 God the Will of the Universe, the personified 
 Whole of things it is reasonable to exercise 
 a becoming submission. Towards his fellow 
 men, the equally important members of this 
 Whole, Man's chief duty is that of beneficence 
 and a willingness to co-operate. The former 
 is a passive, the latter an active duty. Man 
 
 1 eav p,VTOi ftiq ris irpoffxpanevos eviOTrjTai . . . <rvy\pS> 
 els cJXXtjv dpfTTjv rrj natXixrei. 
 
 2 vovs 5e <ai \6yos 8ta irdvros rov dvTnriirTOVTOs ovras iropev- 
 eardai dvvarai, as ire<pvice KOI us QcXei. 
 
 8 tvravQa 3e, ct del elirfiv, K.CU Kpeirrav ytverat 6 avOpa>iTOS, 
 KOI cTratveTwrepos, op0S>s ^pw/iej/os rols irpoarirLirrovo'iv. 
 
 * Tt yap ear i irdvra ravra aXXo TrXffv yvfj-vdo-para \6yov eotpa- 
 K6ros aKpiftSiS nal (pwioXoyas ra tv r 
 47 
 
must submissively accept what the Common 
 Nature allots him, and eagerly bestow what 
 benefits he can on his neighbours without 
 thought of receiving again. He must be " con- 
 tented with acting justly in what he now 
 does, and satisfied with what is assigned to 
 him" (x. ii 1 ); even as the good citizen 
 passes an equable life, " proceeding with 
 actions beneficial to his fellow citizens, and 
 cheerfully accepting whatever the city may 
 apportion him." (x. 6. 2 ) The two duties 
 are felt to be complements the one of the other, 
 and both to be corollaries intuitively appre- 
 hended by one who realises what the nature of 
 Man is, and in what his reasonableness consists. 
 Now the theology of Marcus Aurelius starts 
 with two, at first sight, almost contradictory 
 assumptions. The world is a reasonable world, 
 a world in which everything is adapted to some 
 purpose ; but this world is limited in time and 
 will be re-dissolved into nothingness. The 
 ultimate purpose of all existing beings there- 
 
 1 &vo TOVTOIS dpK.ovp.evos avroy, dKaiorrpayelv TO vvv irpa(ro~- 
 opevov, KCU (pi\elv TO vvv dirovffjioiJifvov eavr<5. 
 
 2 irpo'iovTOs Sia irpa^O)v rots TroXirais XixrireXaiv, Kai orrep 
 av f] TroXiy d.irovfp,j] t TOVTO do~Tra6fJi,fvos. 
 
 48 
 
" NATURE " AND REASON " 
 
 fore is not to be sought in some end that is 
 ultimate and final from the point of view of a 
 temporal succession of events or of a time- 
 evolved development ; but the purpose to 
 which things are adapted must be a contem- 
 porary purpose. Accordingly, a reasonable 
 world must be taken to mean a world well 
 constructed with a view to harmonious present 
 activity, not a world of activity directed towards 
 some distant goal in time. 1 
 
 Man, moreover, is a reasonable being, just 
 as the world itself is permeated with reason. 
 Accordingly, whatever is " natural " to man 
 must be reasonable for him. But Marcus 
 Aurelius makes no attempt to find instances 
 of what is natural to man in those tendencies 
 which most men actually exhibit, 2 but only 
 in those activities which he intuitively knows 
 
 1 See p. 34, note 2. 
 
 2 " Look not around on other men's ruling principles, 
 but look straight to this, the goal to which Nature con- 
 ducts thee, both the Nature of the world, through those 
 things that befall thee, and thine own Nature, through 
 those that must be done by thee." (^fj 7repi/3Xf7rou 
 
 aXXorpia rjyffJiOviKd, dXX' e'xei (BXeTre Kar' evdv, errl ri (re r) (f)v<ris 
 ofyyel, rj Tf TOV o\ov 8ia T>V o-VfJiftaivovTuv (rot, KOI r) (n) Sta TUV 
 
 7T paKTO)V V7TO (TOV.) VU. 55' 
 
 49 D 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 to be reasonable, and therefore worthy of him, 
 Apparently the fitness or unfitness of things, 
 persons, or actions for mutual service, is some- 
 thing intuitively evident to the reason that 
 contemplates the relations of these to one 
 another ; and only such actions as are in- 
 stinctively perceived to be socially advantageous 
 are " reasonable," and therefore " natural." 
 Thus his normal tendency is to reverse the 
 proposition just given, and to declare the reason- 
 able to be always natural, and moral evil, 
 however common, to be non-natural. 1 
 
 This proposition becomes of importance in 
 the following connection. Since man is a 
 reasonable being in a reasonable world, and 
 since virtue is not rewarded by pleasure, 
 pleasure and pain must be of secondary im- 
 portance, and it is for the reasonable man to 
 aim at attaining, not happiness, but that which 
 alone the nature of the reasonable universe 
 insures him the certainty of achieving. 2 It 
 
 1 This word, rather than " illusory," best indicates 
 his normal estimate of the significance of evil. 
 
 2 Cf. Sorley's Ethics of Naturalism, pp. 207, 208. 
 " If ' adaptation to environment * is consistently made 
 the end, activity will have to be restricted to suiting one's 
 
 50 
 
" NATURE " AND " REASON " 
 
 is not in mortals to command success in external 
 things, but it is theirs to command it in the 
 world of virtuous activity ; for here every 
 apparent defeat supplies only new openings 
 for further virtuous action. Pursuit of any- 
 thing else than virtue is unwise because no 
 other pursuit is confident of achieving its aim. 
 They that hunger and thirst after righteousness 
 will certainly be filled ; they that hunger after 
 other possessions have no such assurance. 
 
 The inconsistencies involved in Marcus' 
 conception of the Natural and the Reasonable 
 are nowhere more conspicuous than in such 
 passages as v. 3, where he seems to identify 
 his own virtuous bent with the law of Reason, 
 while admitting at the same time that other 
 men's " nature " cannot be expected to find 
 its satisfaction in the same forms of activity 
 as his own. " Judge yourself worthy of every 
 word and act that is according to Nature ; and 
 do not let the consequent reproaches or remarks 
 of others divert you, but if it is a right thing 
 
 powers to an external order of nature, and desire will 
 have to be curbed when it does not bring the means of 
 satisfaction along with it." 
 
 5* 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 to be done or said, do not think yourself un- 
 worthy of it. For those persons have their 
 own ruling principle, and their impulses are 
 their own. Pay no attention to these things 
 but go straight forward, following your own 
 nature, which is also the common * nature ; 
 and the way of both is one." (v. 3. 2 ) This 
 almost hostile contempt for the mass of man- 
 kind curiously at variance (as one is inclined 
 to declare it) with his belief in this as the best 
 of all possible worlds where everything that 
 the philosopher's mind meets is nutritious 
 food for it, where everything is mutually 
 adapted to satisfy the needs of the Whole 
 
 1 In such uses of the word KOIVOS it is not the brother- 
 hood of man, apparently, that is before Marcus' 
 mind, so much as membership of the whole material 
 universe. (His attitude is not unlike Walt Whitman's.) 
 
 2 aiov eavrbv Kplvf irdvTOs \6yov KOI epyov rov Kara (pixriv- 
 Koi p.r) (Tf TrapftTrara) rj firaKoiXovdovcrd TIVMV fj.fp.^fis, f) \6yos, 
 dXXa, ei <a\bv TTfTrpa^dai r) fiprjadat, pfj areavrov airaf-iov. 
 cuelvoi p.fv yap Ibiov f)yfp.oviKov e^ovtrt, xat tdia 6pp.fj xpwvTai- a 
 av p.Tj 7re/3i/3Xe7rov, aXX' fvBfiav Trepaive, aKoXovdnv TJJ <f>v<Tfi 
 rfj iSi'a Kat rfj KOIVTJ- pia 8e a/i0orepa)v TOVTMV [17] 68os. V. 3. 
 C/. v. 25. aXXoy d/zapraj/ft Tt fls e'/ic ; o^rcrai- Idiav e^et 
 
 , iSiav fvtpyeiav. ey<a vvv e^a), o /xe 6e\fi vi>v f\ eiv "7 
 J) (pvaris, <a\ irpaffaro), o pe vvv Trpdara'civ 6c\ei r) ffif] 
 
"NATURE" AND "REASON" 
 
 is exemplified in many other passages. 1 It is 
 the peculiarly practical direction of his ethical 
 scheme that impels him to take up this incon- 
 sistent position. He desires at one and the 
 same time to accept no theory that will weaken 
 his own efforts after righteousness, and to find 
 excuses for the evil actions of others (partly, 
 no doubt, in order to avoid the mental per- 
 turbations which would be likely to follow on 
 disappointed expectations as to other men's 
 conduct). He thus wishes to look at quite 
 similar actions both from a subjective and from 
 an objective point of view. For himself there 
 is to be no compromise. For others, when 
 their actions can be looked at objectively, 
 pardon is to be found, at one time in the 
 Socratic paradox that all vice is ignorance 
 or the consequence of ignorance, and no one 
 is ever voluntarily deprived of moral truth ; 2 
 
 1 E.g., TO pf) diovv dpapTaveiv rovs (pav\ov$ paviKov 
 d&vvdrov yap eCpicTai. xi. 1 8. (pepovTai yap irdvTws o>s firl 
 otKfla Ka\ 0-vp.^ipovTa avrois. vi. 27. cruj/e^wy e'qWrai/cu, 
 rivfs elfflv OVTOI, v<p'$)v paprvpflcrdai 6c\is, Kal rtva f)ycp.oviKa 
 f^outriv. OVTC yap p,efjL\lf7)Tois aKOwius irraiovcriv . . . e'/z/3Xc7ra)i/ 
 els ras iryyas TTJS VTroX^ewf Kal 6pfj.fjs avr&v. vii. 62. Cf. 
 iv. 6, 48, 50; v. 10; vii. 70; viii. 15, 44, 53- 
 
 T), <pT)<riv, aKovaa trreperai dXrjdfids. vii. 63. 
 
 S3 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 at another time in the admission that their 
 nature demands different satisfactions from 
 his own, and that self-satisfaction is a primary 
 law. 1 To Marcus, evidently, not all men 
 are potentially divine. 
 
 While to the Christian, man is always to 
 be thought of as man, always as an end in him- 
 self, the Stoic can state the contrary view 
 without any consciousness of inconsistency. 
 Thus he gives (v. 20) what is perhaps the cul- 
 minating expression of subjective empiricism 
 in ethics a morality seeking its fruition in 
 self-centred satisfaction apart from the neces- 
 sity of any moral development in others. 
 " In one respect man is the nearest thing to 
 us in so far as we must do good to them and 
 endure with them. But in so far as any of 
 them stand in the way of our proper actions 
 man becomes to me one among the indifferent 
 things, no less than sun or wind or wild beast. 
 Perhaps some activity is impeded by him ? 
 But there is formed no impediment to im- 
 pulse or disposition, owing to the reservation 
 under which these act, and their capacity for 
 
 1 TTCLVTI yap o-vyyvwfjuj TO idiov ayaOov {TJTOVVTI. xi. 1 6. 
 
 54 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 re-adaptation. For the mind adapts and 
 changes every hindrance to activity into that 
 which furthers it ; that which opposes action 
 comes to favour it, and the obstacle in our way 
 helps us on our way." l 
 
 Now the " nature " of man, as Marcus points 
 out again and again, is social; the sphere of 
 his activity is the great commonwealth within 
 which each city is, as it were, a family, (iii. 1 1 .) 
 " The world is a kind of political community " 
 (iv. 3 2 ), and man is a political animal. So far 
 the Christian writers are willing to go with 
 the Stoic ; but they are not willing to stay at 
 this point. Man (the Christian would argue) 3 
 
 1 icaB' fTfpov pev \6yov fjfjuv ecrnv oiKftorarov avOpMTros, naQ* 
 ocrov cv iroirjTfov avrovs KaldveKTfov K.a.6* otrov dc eViVrai/rm nvts 
 fls TO, otKfta epya, tv TI T>V ddicxpopwv p.oi yivfTOi 6 avflpwiros, 
 ov% rja~(TOV f) fj\tos fj avcp,os TJ Qrjpiov. viro TOVTWV de eVc'pyeta 
 p.v TIS (p,iro8i<rdeiT) av 6pp,r)s de /cai dta0f(rt(i)s ov yivcrai 
 e/XTToSia, dia TTJV V7reatpf<riv, KOI rf)v TTfpiTpoTrrjv. irepirpenfi 
 yap KOI fjifBicrrrjo'i irav TO TTJS fvcpydas KtoXv/xa 17 didvoia fls 
 TO irpoTjyovp,(vov K.CU irpo fpyov yivcTai TO TOV cpyov TOVTOV 
 f(pe<TiK.6v Kai irpb oSov, ro TTJS odov TOVTTJS eVtrrartKoi/. Cf. 
 viii.'56 (quoted pp. 58-59). 
 
 2 6 Kotr/ios uxravel TrdXts. 
 
 3 This passage is intended, of course, to express what 
 is latent in Christianity rather than what was distinctly 
 held by early writers. 
 
 55 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 being "naturally" social, finds not only the 
 sphere of his activity, the opportunity for 
 development, in his relations to others, but 
 also the supreme reward, the culmination of 
 his development, in similar relations. Thus 
 he looks for the coming of a Kingdom which 
 will be in fact that " dear city of Zeus " which 
 the present world is only potentially. Of 
 that kingdom all men are potentially fit to 
 become members, and the militant Christian 
 seeks to make them all actually fit. He finds 
 his chief incentive to such aggressive activity 
 in the approval of his Master, Christ (whose 
 approval is the approval of already perfect 
 humanity), and in the hope of fellowship with 
 countless perfected souls, saints such as he is 
 to be himself when he has attained his full 
 stature. Marcus Aurelius, lacking the belief 
 in a future life, not able to conceive of the soul 
 as distinct from matter, 1 always conscious of 
 the shortness of life, and despising actual 
 mankind with a contempt which Christians 
 who are aware of man's potentialities cannot 
 
 iv. 21. 
 
 56 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 feel, can only look inward for approval. The 
 Christian turns outward towards the Christ, 
 forward towards the New Kingdom ; and thus 
 finds, by faith in the one direction, by hope in 
 the other, a motive (which is itself almost a 
 reward) such that the Stoic who calls man a 
 " naturally " social being ought to be the first 
 to acclaim as a natural incentive, a natural 
 ambition, a natural recompense. 
 
 But this is a conclusion which Marcus never 
 feels impelled to draw. Even to desire har- 
 monious relations with others is to him a mark 
 of weakness to be reprobated. 1 The Christian 
 asserts that we must lose ourselves in self- 
 sacrificing activities in order to find ourselves ; 
 but even as our self-sacrifice, if it is not to "be 
 worthless fanaticism, must be of a social cha- 
 racter, so likewise we must find our reward 
 on the social plane. The attempt to give 
 social service without anticipation of social 
 reward (whether the approval of a personal 
 God or the companionship of equally devoted 
 fellow workers) is itself non-natural, and brings 
 its own non-natural consequences in the 
 1 See x. i (quoted pp. 66-67). 
 57 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 recurrent pessimism which at times almost 
 slays in Marcus the will to live. Nor will he 
 admit the possibility, clashing as it does with 
 a superficial conception of justice, that self- 
 completion can only be found in and through 
 others. 1 This view of life, which pervades all 
 Christian reasoning a view implicit in the 
 doctrine of atonement, in the statement that 
 the sins of the fathers are visited upon the 
 children, in the duty of evangelising the world 
 seems to be the most important corollary that 
 it is possible to draw from the belief that we are 
 all members one of another. But Marcus will 
 have none of it. " To my faculty of choosing 
 my own line of conduct my neighbour's faculty 
 is equally indifferent as his spirit and his body. 
 
 1 Cf. Biggs' The Church's Task under the Roman 
 Empire, Pref. p. xiv. " They [i.e., the Platonists] 
 would not admit that the undeserved voluntary suffering 
 of one could make another better. Plotinus expressly 
 rejects the idea as immoral, though he must have had a 
 mother. It seemed to him inconceivable that it should 
 be the duty of the good man to give up any portion of 
 his spiritual wealth for the relief of the poor, to make 
 himself worse that others might be better. In fact, 
 with him as with the Stoic, the ultimate formula is 
 ' my soul and God.* Whereas with the Christian it is 
 1 my soul, my brother's soul, and God."* 
 58 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 For, indeed, though we have been formed ever 
 so much for one another's sakes, yet our ruling 
 faculties have each the lordship in its own 
 sphere ; otherwise the harmful actions of my 
 neighbour would be of harm to me ; which 
 was not what God ordained, lest it should be 
 in another's power that I should miss my 
 proper welfare." (viii. 56. 1 ) 
 
 If analysed far enough, Marcus Aurelius' 
 repeated assertion of the social nature of man 
 comes to little more than the statement that 
 his duties do not begin and end in himself. 
 The world of which he is a member is not 
 vividly realised as a kingdom or commonwealth 
 of equal souls, equally important as ends in 
 themselves. Rather he feels that the whole 
 world, animate and inanimate, is the sphere for 
 the development of his moral nature (or rather 
 for its activity " development " being an idea 
 
 1 ro> ff"5 irpoaipfTiK.a> TO TOV irXrjo'iov irpoaipfTKov 
 a8id<popov fo-Tiv, a>s KOI TO irvcvpaTtov avTOv KOI TO (r 
 KOI yap ci on /idXio~ra aXX^Xcav CVCKCV yfyovap,fv, o/za>? ra 
 jyye/noj/iKa f)p,)v fnacnov TTJV I8iav nvpiav ex.fi' tirel rot e/xeXXev 
 f) TOV ir\Tjo~iov KOKt'a fpov KO.K.OV elvaf oirfp OVK fdo( ra> 6f<&, 
 iva fj.f} <V aXXa) fiTO fpf arvxfiv. viii. 56. C/. iv. 39. eV aXXorpi'a) 
 o~6v ov% v^t'ararai. 
 
 59 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 somewhat alien to the Stoic philosophy). 
 There is practically no conception (indeed 
 there is at times a direct denial) of the influ- 
 ence of character on character. I must not 
 wrong others, because he who wrongs another 
 wrongs himself. 1 No one by his evil actions 
 can make another worse. 2 One must not weary 
 of well-doing, because well-doing is doing that 
 which is according to Nature, and therefore 
 beneficial to oneself. 8 But the well-doing, 
 it is evident, belongs to a different plane from 
 the receiving of the benefit. I do good deeds 
 which are not thought of as affecting another's 
 higher self, in order merely to fulfil my own 
 proper functions. It would even be mislead- 
 ing to say, " in order to develop my own 
 higher self " the moral imperative being of a 
 curiously bare and unqualified character, having 
 little concern with permanent consequences 
 of any kind. Man is conceived (as one feels 
 
 1 6 &naprdvo)v eavr<5 apaprdvci- 6 ddtKav, eavTov 
 Kov eavrov iroiS>v. ix. 4. 
 
 2 p-rjTi dcouret (rot, eav VTTO aXXov yevrjrai TO. Strata KOI KO\U>? 
 
 ; ov fiiouret. X. 13. ou yap TO qyepoviKov aov ^eTpov 
 rj rrpoffBev r/v. vii. 22. 
 
 3 ovSfiy icapvei ax^eXov/ufvoj. a><^>eAfta 5e irpais Kara (pvcriv . 
 r] ovv ndp,ve &<pe\ovp.tvos, ev to ax^eAe!?. vii. 74- 
 
 60 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 inclined at times to exclaim impatiently) as 
 a sort of moral machine which can be ap- 
 proved for an extensive production of good 
 works, but is not itself affected by the goodness 
 of the^ products ; while there is nothing else 
 of a permanent character to which the products 
 are subservient. It is all done for the good of 
 the Whole, but the Whole too will pass ; and 
 no clear or inspiring suggestion is made as to 
 what constitutes its good. Were it conceived as 
 a commonwealth of human beings, the nobility 
 of whose characters, without regard to their 
 permanence, is declared the sole thing 
 worth considering, we could honour such a 
 conception of the Universe, whether prepared 
 to accept it or not. But the beneficent actions 
 themselves seem to be regarded as the begin- 
 ning and the end of all social duty, even though 
 Marcus too finds himself compelled to admit, 
 in one of his more analytical moods, that they 
 must be performed on a lower plane than that 
 on which results can be recognised as un- 
 reservedly go^d. 1 
 
 1 vi. 45. " Let the word 'beneficial' be taken in 
 the more vulgar sen|e as referring to things indifferent " 
 
 e vvv TO dtyp.<f)fpov firl rutv pecrav \ap.(Bavfa-da>). 
 
 61 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 This view would seem to demand a concep- 
 tion of good as something outside of and 
 superior to time relations. But Marcus 
 Aurelius most strongly objectifies time, em- 
 phasising the importance of the present, the 
 nothingness of past and future ; laying all the 
 stress of his teaching on the nobility of certain 
 courses of action rather than on the beauty 
 of personal character ; l on perfect functioning 
 rather than on perfect formation. With the 
 Wordsworthian aspiration concerning the 
 Sabbath 
 
 "... on which it is enough for me 
 Not to be doing but to be " 
 
 he could hardly sympathise sufficiently to 
 grasp the meaning of it. Only the present, 
 he repeats again and again, is ours. It is 
 impossible to be deprived of the past or the 
 future, for they do not now belong to us. 2 
 
 1 There are a few noteworthy exceptions, e.g., on 
 
 iiv TLS iroLT) YJ Ary/7, e/ie 8el dyaObv elvaC d>? av el 6 xpvffos, 
 i) 6 a~fj.dpa.y8os, r) rj rropcpvpa TOVTO del eXeyev, o n av TIS TTOIJ) 
 fj Xeyrj, epe del o-p,dpayo'ov elvai KOI TO epavTov XP^P- a *X lv - v "' 
 
 15, Cf. viii. i ; viii. 51. But they are not sufficiently 
 numerous to affect the main result of his teaching, 
 
 2 ii. 14- TO yap rrapov eorl p.6vov ov (rrepi(rK(rdei 
 ftirep ye e^ft KCU TOVTO povov, KOI o pf) f^et TIS, OVK 
 
 62 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 Even the permanent effects of action and suffer- 
 ing on character are largely ignored. Such 
 things, he says, are like successive drifts of sand 
 on the shore, things utterly indifferent ; l to 
 which a more philosophic thinker might with 
 greater truth make reply, that Memory and 
 Hope are among our richest possessions, and 
 that what we are to-day is the result of what 
 we have been and done, modified by what 
 we hope to be and do. 
 
 The Christian writers, on the other hand, 
 feel that the essential good and evil of action 
 are concerned with their moral effects on others' 
 characters, or at lowest with their permanent 
 effects on the doer's character. Except when 
 he is considering the effect of more or less 
 systematic instruction, it is hardly too much 
 to say that this feature of motived actions is 
 quite ignored by Marcus Aurelius. It is 
 certainly never brought into prominence. 2 
 
 He seems to conceive of himself as an isolated 
 unit face to face with an organised universe 
 
 vii. 34 &ttd vi. 32 . TO. yap fj.e\\ovra KOI ira.pa>xr)K6ra 
 
 rfjS) K.CU avra fj8r) dftidffoopa. 
 2 Unless we except the " ninthly " of xi. 18. 
 63 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of which he is indeed declared to be a member 
 as well as a part ; * but the claim to " member- 
 ship " comes to little more than the assertion 
 that a moral being, without material for the 
 exercise of his morality, is something un- 
 thinkable. 
 
 For, though man is essentially a social being, 
 each of us, it would seem, is unable to do 
 more than illusory injury to his fellow. If 
 another deals unjustly with me it makes no 
 difference to me ; he who does wrong, wrongs 
 himself. 2 By analogy we might infer that 
 it is equally impossible to confer other than 
 illusory benefits (as indeed Marcus seems in- 
 cidentally to admit in vi. 45). 3 Yet we find 
 that the conferring of benefits is of all functions 
 that which is most in conformity with the 
 proper nature of man, so that he should be 
 wholly satisfied with that alone, regardless 
 of further results. " For what more wouldst 
 thou have when thou hast done a man a 
 
 1 vii. 13. /leXo? . . , pepos. 
 
 2 Cf. x. 13 ; ix. 4 (quoted p. 60, note i) and also viii. 
 55- yevinws fiev 17 naula ov&ev /3Aa7rret rov Kooyxoy, 17 8e Kara 
 pepos ovftcv /SXdVrei TOV eTepov. 
 
 3 Quoted p. 61, note i. 
 
 64 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 kindness ? ... As man is formed by Nature 
 for acts of beneficence, when he has done 
 anything beneficent or in any way subservient 
 to the common interest, he has acted in con- 
 formity with the end for which he is constituted, 
 and he gets what is his own." (ix. 42. 1 ) Thus 
 it seems that we can benefit our fellows, but 
 can do them no harm ; or else we must assert 
 that we fulfil our higher nature in doing that 
 which is illusory, gaining real benefit by con- 
 ferring sham benefits. Or perhaps we may 
 restate his position by saying that while he 
 makes himself the servant of others on the lower 
 ground (their physical needs, political institu- 
 tions, &c.), he makes them subservient to 
 himself on the higher as material for the 
 exercise of moral qualities, as models to be 
 copied, or as evil examples to be shunned. 
 
 Had he in his Meditations pushed his 
 analysis thus far, he would doubtless have re- 
 coiledlfrom the conclusion. Yet the above fairly 
 sums up the practical purport of his teaching, 
 
 1 rt yap rrXe'ov 0eXr cv iroifaas avQpvirov ; . . . OVTG>S KOI 
 6 avdp&iros rufpyfTiK&s irefpvwas, OTTOTCIV TI evfpycTiKoVy fj 
 fls ra p.c(ra o-vvfpyrjTiKov Trpdt-r), TrfiroirjKf, nposo 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 which, when probed to the bottom, may be 
 described as being little more than the ethical 
 equivalent of a crude subjective phenome- 
 nalism. 
 
 Happily, he is not always consistent with 
 himself. He does admit the direct influence 
 of mind upon mind when engaged in the con- 
 scious task of instruction. And in any case 
 his subjective system of morals, which would be 
 harmful if universally adopted, is only danger- 
 ous to the sole reader for whom the book is 
 intended through its tendency to increase 
 his already excessive pessimism. The good 
 deeds, he must at times have felt, were scarce 
 worth the doing, when their real, as distin- 
 guished from their illusory, benefits were to 
 be found in their moral recoil on their author. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius strives hard to hold together 
 two quite inconsistent positions. He wishes 
 at once to assert and to deny his relatedness 
 to the lower world, and to the commonwealth 
 of man. " Wilt thou never, my soul, be full, 
 self-sufficient, lacking nothing, without a want 
 of any kind . . . not desiring time wherein 
 thou shalt have longer enjoyment, or place, 
 66 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 
 
 or space, or pleasant climate, or harmonious 
 society of men ? " 1 Surely (we might inter- 
 ject), since men's duties are social, since "the 
 universal nature has made rational beings for 
 the sake of one another, to help one another 
 according to their deserts," a it is equally 
 reasonable that they should seek the fruition 
 of their work, the completion of their nature, 
 in a society where they may live in harmony 
 with all men, a Kingdom of Heaven whose 
 coming they may reasonably pray should be 
 hastened. But Marcus' strong duty-loving 
 soul will only admit that man has a nature 
 actively social, not a nature passively social 
 (taking the word social, that is, in its ordinary 
 sense as meaning " connected with humanity," 
 and not in Marcus' customary use of it as im- 
 plying membership of the animated material 
 universe, towards which, as has been pointed 
 out, man owes the passive duty of submission 
 
 1 (TTJ TTOTC <5pa, 
 
 ov&ev cimrodov<ra, ov8e firi0vp,ov<ra ovdevos, ovdc 
 tirl paKpoTfpov diroXavarets ; ov8c TOTTOU, TJ ^a>pay, fj dcpav 
 
 , ovSe av0pa>7r&>j/ evapfMOffTLas ; (x. I.) 
 
 rrjs yap T>V oXcoi/ <pv(rea)s KarftrKcvaKvias ra \oyiKa <j>a fvaccv 
 eoore a><eXeii> pcv aXX;Xa <ar } diav . . . (ix. I.) 
 6 7 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 and resignation). His attention is focused 
 wholly on the giving, never on the side of 
 receiving. We are made for the sake of one 
 another, to help one another but not to be 
 helped. The form of the sentence quoted 
 (ix. l), and of similar sentences, may make 
 the action reciprocal ; in its application it is 
 certainly not treated as such ; for Marcus 
 has not so far stepped away from his self- 
 centred point of vantage to look at his benevo- 
 lent actions from the position of some other 
 equal, rational, virtue-loving soul. Had he 
 taken this step his Meditations would have 
 won a more human tinge that would have 
 made them ten times more lovable and ten 
 times more valuable. But he does not. The 
 bond that links him to humanity fails to link 
 humanity to him. The currents of love and 
 service run all one way. The philosopher, as- 
 serting needlessly his essentially social nature, 
 remains a self-centred unsocial being, however 
 potentially sociable, seeking self-satisfaction 
 in two-sided activities which are seen from one 
 side only, and perpetually failing, inevitably 
 failing, to find it. 
 
 68 
 
STOIC PANTHEISM 
 
 This confused attitude onv/the question of 
 social service is partly a consequence of the 
 Stoic pantheism. The conception of the 
 world held by Marcus has never ceased to be 
 that of a materialistic world, such as the defec- 
 tive imagination of the earlier Stoics pictured 
 it. The highest spiritual qualities and activi- 
 ties are still clumsily thought of as having a 
 material base. The commonwealth of Marcus' 
 ethics is a material commonwealth, in which 
 the isolated individual soul fights its battle 
 without either giving or receiving any real 
 help, except such as comes from the con- 
 templation of the ordered beauty of the Whole. 
 That which is social rather belongs to the 
 lower planes of life. Fellowship of man with 
 man is scarcely felt in the higher regions of 
 spiritual activity; while with the Christian, 
 whose Personal God is the God of Spirit and 
 of truth, it is essentially in the spiritual sphere 
 that the communion of saints is realised. 
 Despite occasional utterances in the contrary 
 sense, Marcus Aurelius' God is not normally 
 thought of as a personal God. Now and again 
 he gives the rein to his poetic (or shall we say 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 human ?) sensibilities, by speaking of Zeus 
 willing this or that (just as he allows his fancy 
 now and then to play with the prospect of a 
 future life) ; but parallel passages show that 
 it is little more than a trick of language. " The 
 nature of the Universe prescribed to this man 
 disease or mutilation or amputation or some- 
 thing similar." (v. 8.) * " And so, welcome 
 all that befalls, even though it seems over- 
 hard; because it leads thither to the health 
 of the Universe and the welfare and well- 
 being of Zeus. He would not have brought 
 this on any man were it not useful for the 
 whole." (v. 8.) 2 This is not the Heavenly 
 Father of Christianity, Who, Himself a Spirit, 
 is the guide and- friend of children who are 
 spiritual likewise. 
 
 From the point of view of the religious 
 mind (whether Christian, Pythagorean, or 
 
 3 crvvlrafce TOVTO> T) r&v oXcov <pvo~is voarov fj irrjptoartv, f) 
 diroftoXfjv, t) oXXo ri T&V TOIOVTWV. The pantheism is yet 
 more explicit in iv. 40. obs ev <pov TOV jcotr/ioj/, p.iav ovariav 
 
 KCtl TJfVXrjV P aj/ f7T6X OV i VWCX** 5 CKWOCIV . . . K.T.X. 
 
 2 KCU ovras dffrrd^ov irav TO yiv6fjLCvov y K.O.V dirr)vf(TTepov 
 doKfij dia TO (K.elo~f ayeiv, eVi TTJV TOV /cotr/iov vyifiaV) KOI TTJV TOV 
 Albs cvoSiav <at evirpayiav. ovyao av TOVTO Tivt tfapfv, fl py ra 
 oXa> o-vve(ppev. 
 
 70 
 
STOIC PANTHEISM 
 
 Platonist) the philosophy of the Stoic is defec- 
 tive owing to its imperfect realisation of the 
 paramount importance of spiritual subjects. 
 Firstly, in the self-regarding sphere, activities 
 (in the broad sense of the word) are the promi- 
 nent feature, rather than character ; perfect 
 functioning rather than perfect formation. 
 Secondly, as regards our neighbours, social 
 action is not considered sufficiently in its 
 higher aspect, as affecting, that is, both one 
 character and the other. Thirdly, as regards 
 the Universe (which for the Stoic is more 
 vividly conceived as related to himself than is 
 his fellow man, and for the sake of which 
 primarily he does his duty to his fellow man), 
 the materialistic, impersonal aspect of the 
 controlling Reason is made prominent, almost 
 to the exclusion of the personal spiritual aspect. 
 The Stoic finds the centre of his ethical 
 system within him. To be unswayed by 
 emotion, to be master of one's self, to adapt 
 one's whole being to what a sense of dignity 
 rather than an enthusiasm for humanity 
 would declare to be noblest, are the cardinal 
 points of his philosophic system. To err is 
 
 71 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 to be unworthy of one's self and one's high 
 position. The moral consequences to others 
 are neglected as irrelevant, and forgotten. 
 
 The Christian teacher on the other hand, 
 though dealing in frequent exhortation as 
 regards the simpler questions of personal 
 moral advance, is for ever urging his hearers 
 on to better things for the sake of the un- 
 regenerate world outside. The Christian can 
 never remain absolutely content as long as 
 any member of the commonwealth of mankind 
 stands outside the inner Kingdom of the 
 children of light and righteousness. " Ye 
 were grieved at the errors of those about " 
 (writes Clement of Rome, chap, ii.) ; " ye ac- 
 counted their shortcomings as your own." 1 
 Ignatius in his Epistles is more like one who 
 is ordering a gigantic campaign, leading an 
 invading host into the realms of heathen 
 darkness, than a student of moral and religious 
 theories. Unity, obedience, submission to 
 authority, are his perpetual demands. 
 " Cherish union, shun divisions, do nothing 
 
 rots rrapairT&fiao'iv rois ir\r)(riov firfv6firf r<i 
 avrotv tfiia eKpivfTf. 
 72 
 
CHRISTIAN ALTRUISM 
 
 without the bishop " (Phil, vii.). " He who 
 doeth anything apart from bishop and presby- 
 tery and deacons is not clean in his con- 
 science" (Tral.vii.). 1 And all this with a view 
 to the higher service of humanity as a whole. 
 
 To such a statement as that of Marcus 
 Aurelius (v. 20, quoted p. 54), that man 
 may rightly become to us an indifferent thing 
 the Christian might effectively protest that 
 what results from hate may also result from 
 indifference. To seek self-satisfaction in in- 
 difference to others' moral status is equally 
 to cut oneself off from the society of humanity ; 
 and the hope of such isolated self-satisfaction 
 is a barren hope. Had the early Christians 
 admitted its practicability, the epistles and 
 exhortations of which we treat could never 
 have been written. " Whosoever therefore," 
 writes Ignatius (ad Eph. v.), "whosoever 
 cometh not to the congregation doth thereby 
 show his pride, and hath separated himself ; 
 for it is written c God resisteth the proud.' ' 
 
 It is in this attitude that we find the abiding 
 
 1 6 X<apt eTTMTKOTTOU KCll TTpfO-fivTCplOV KO.I dlUK(jVO)V 
 
 Tij euros ov KaOapos fort TJJ <rvvei8f)O'fi. 
 
 73 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 strength of Christianity that has carried it 
 safely through many dangers. However crude 
 in other respects these early writings may be, 
 their teaching always retained this genuinely 
 social reference ; and thus Christian philosophy 
 never atrophied, but has progressed steadily 
 towards a fuller expression of itself. Stoicism 
 tended inevitably towards a stationariness that 
 involved decay. It had not within it the 
 central principle of eternal life. For Marcus 
 Aurelius " the love of neighbour is not an 
 outgoing of personal affection, but at most 
 a befriending care of kind ; it falls short of 
 * brotherhood ' (the term adopted in transla- 
 tion) for it is not indeed direct from man to 
 man, but transmitted through the cosmos. 1 
 It remains impersonal and generic, belonging 
 to the same moral category as patriotism, or 
 political fraternity, or devotion to a cause ; 
 but, spread over a larger and less tangible 
 object, it falls short of these in ardour of 
 desire, and much more lacks the effusion, the 
 
 1 Cf, the argument of ix. i, where every failing is 
 reduced to a form of impiety (ao-e/3eta) towards the 
 nature of the universe. 
 
 74 
 
CHRISTIAN ALTRUISM 
 
 joy, the impulsive energy and the quick in- 
 dignations of altruistic love. Therefore to 
 the last it condemns the Stoic to some luke- 
 warmness of faith and ineffectiveness of personal 
 appeal ; and leaves him content ' to better 
 men or bear with them,' ' to keep in charity 
 with liars and rogues,' ' to blame none,' and 
 to accept misunderstanding and dislike as 
 normal items of experience." l " Stoic love 
 is but an injunction of reason and a means to 
 virtue;* Christian love is the open secret of 
 the universe, and in itself the end of all." * | 
 
 1 Introd. to Kendall's Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 
 p. cxli. 
 
 a Cf. oun-tt are KaTaXrjKTiKws ev<|>paiWi TO fvepyeretv rrt as 
 7rpe?roj/ avro tyikbv rroif'is' oviro> a>s aavrbv eu TroiStv. vii. 13. 
 
 3 Myers's Essay on Marcus Aurelius (Fortnightly 
 Review, May 1882), 
 
 75 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES THE HIGHER 
 AND THE LOWER IN MAN SUMMARY OF 
 VIEWS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 
 
 IN Book vii. chap. 55, Marcus Aurelius sets 
 out in systematic form his conception of the 
 whole duty of man. Practical philosophy is 
 concerned (he says) firstly with the relations 
 of the individual to the rest of mankind, and 
 to the personified .whole of things the study 
 of " social " duties (including that of resig- 
 nation to the Will of God) ; secondly, with the 
 relations of man's higher to his lower nature 
 the study of self-control ; and thirdly, with 
 the relation of reason to itself and to the 
 world considered objectively the study of 
 sincerity and truth. 1 " The prime principle 
 1 Compare the use of the three complementary and 
 contrasted adjectives, crv/x$p&>i/, vnep^pw, epcfrpav in x. 
 8, &c. 
 
 76 
 
NON-SOCIAL DUTIES 
 
 then in man's constitution is the social. And 
 the second is not to yield to the persuasions 
 of the body, for it is the peculiar office of the 
 rational and intelligent motions to put bounds 
 to themselves, and never to be overpowered 
 by the motion either of the senses or of the 
 appetites, for both are animal; but the intel- 
 lectual desire to hold the supremacy and not 
 to be overpowered by the others. And with 
 good reason, for they are formed by nature 
 to make use of all the others. The third thing 
 in the rational constitution is freedom from 
 tendencies to precipitate action and error. 
 Let then the guiding principle go straight 
 forward, holding fast to these, and it has what 
 is its own." 1 
 
 The discussion of what is intended by the 
 words " Nature " and " Reason " has already 
 
 1 TO fifv ovv irporjyovfjifvov tv TTJ rot) av&pwirov Karao'Kevf) TO 
 KOIVWVIKOV eort. dfVTepov 8e TO dvevdoTov Trpos Tas o~a>[JUj,TiKas 
 irdo-cis. \oyiKrjs yap KOI vofpas Kivrjoreus *8tov, 
 
 Q>8eis yap e/carepm' f) fie voepa f 
 KOI /ii) KaTaKparflo-dai vir' eKeivav. SiKaicos ye' ir(<pvK yap 
 r) iraa-iv eneivois. rplrov ev TTJ \oyiKy KaTacrKcvj) TO 
 KOI dvfajra.TT)Tov. TOVTWV ovv e\d/i6voi/ ro 
 tvdea irepaiveTa*, *cal e^ei ra eaurot). vii. 55. 
 
 77 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 carried us into an estimate of Marcus Aurelius' 
 conception of social duties. This chapter will 
 deal with the second and third of his three 
 main principles the intellectual duties and 
 the duty of self-control. 
 
 The inclusion of intellectual duties has at 
 first hearing quite a modern ring. But we 
 have not to read far before we are struck by the 
 contrast between the ethics of Marcus Aurelius 
 and the ethics of to-day in their different 
 attitudes towards fulness and complexity of 
 the mental life. We all feel that a " full life " 
 is a thing eminently desirable in itself, and that 
 fulness implies complexity and variety. An 
 empty life induces compassionate feeling more 
 than a life of sorrows. We are beginning to 
 realise that the best way to combat evil ten- 
 dencies is to evoke energies in nobler directions, 
 in such ways that vice comes to seem, by com- 
 parison, uninteresting and unattractive. We 
 even find in a modern treatise on ethics the 
 dictum, that " the acts characterised by the 
 more complex motives and the more involved 
 thoughts have all along been of higher authority 
 78 
 
THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 
 
 for guidance." 1 The wider the man's range 
 of experience and the more varied his faculties, 
 the higher we feel him to be, the more truly 
 a man, the more remote from mere animalism. 
 
 But the praises of Marcus are all for the 
 simple life, contented with a small range of 
 duties, not reaching out to what is unneces- 
 sary or seeking for new experiences. He praises 
 his predecessor for his indifference to novelty 
 and change, " always remaining in the same 
 places and activities " (i. i6). a " Engage 
 in few forms of activity " (he writes) ; " for 
 this brings not only the satisfaction that comes 
 from right forms of activity, but also that from 
 a restricted range of activity " (iv. 24).* 
 " Simplify your life," 4 is a sentiment he repeats 
 
 1 Spencer's Data of Ethics, p. 106. 
 
 2 dXXa KOI TOTTOIS KOI 7rpay/xa<7t roir avrois fv8iarpitrTiK6v. 
 I. 16. 
 
 8 " 6\iy<nrpfjar<rf," (frrjo-lv, " /xeXX fvQvprjO-fiv ". . . roCro 
 yap ov fj.6vov rfjv OTTO TOV Ka\S>s 7rpd<r<rciv cvdvpiav (pepei, aXXa 
 KOI rr/v dirk TOV 6\iya TTpdcrcrfiv. (iv. 24.) 
 
 4 faXaxrov creavroi/. iv. 26. Not altogether dissimilar 
 is Hennas' condemnation of tVttfv/ita irpdfcav TroXXaiv 
 (Mand. vi. 2) ; but the Christian has his attention fixed 
 on the consequences of needless activity in multiplying 
 temptations, rather than on the attractiveness of a 
 dignified simplicity for simplicity's sake. Cf. Hermas 
 79 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 again and again. " Run ever by the shortest 
 path : the shortest path is that approved by 
 Nature." 1 Everything not clearly connected 
 with the central purpose of man's life he 
 accounts alien. " One must set one's life in 
 order along a single line of activity." 2 The 
 needless enterprises of an Alexander or a 
 Pompey amount to sheer slavery (viii. 3), 
 such as the wise man avoids. 3 
 
 Sim. iv. dirfyov de diro T>V TroXXwi/ irpd^euiv Kal 
 ovdev 8iapa,prf}o~is' ol yap ra TroXXa TT pda'O'ovTfs TroXXa >cal 
 dpapTavovo-i irfpio-n^/j-evoi irepl TO.S rrpdgeis avrav KOI prjdev 
 SovXevoi/rey r<5 Kvpi'a) eavrav. 
 
 1 CTrl TT)V (TVVTOfJLQV del Tp\f (TVVTOfJiOS 8f f) KOTO. (pvCTlV. lv. 5 I 
 
 2 wvriQivai 8el TOV ftiov Kara fiiav irpaiv. viii. 32. Cf. 
 \T)pov(ri yap Kal 8ia irpdt-eav ol KfKfjirjKQTcs r<3 /3ta>, Kal ^ ^ovres 
 (TKOTTOV) c(p* ov Travav 6pfj.r]v Kal K.a6dira (pavra(riav direvOv- 
 vov(riv. ii. 7- ovdev ~dd\io)Tpov TOV TTavra Kv/cXa) (Kircpiep- 
 Xopfvovj Kal ra vepQcv yrjs (<f)T}o~lv^ fpevvavTos, Kal ra ev rals 
 n/rv^ais . . . ic.r.X. ii. 13. 
 
 3 In the essay which we have already quoted, F. W. H. 
 Myers, though with a somewhat different purpose, has 
 called attention to the striking omission from the list of 
 Marcus' benefactors in Book I. of the name of the Em- 
 peror Hadrian, the indefatigable traveller, investigator, 
 and student of literatures and philosophies. " The boy 
 thus raised to empire has passed by Hadrian, who gave 
 him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, 
 for Severus, who taught him to disdain them all." 
 (Fortnightly Review, 1882.) 
 
 80 
 
THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 
 
 What then had Marcus distinctively in view ? 
 Practically this only the attainment of philo- 
 sophic culture, in the sense of an acquired 
 capacity to analyse moral facts, 1 rather than 
 any merely academic training in logic or rhetoric. 
 To look closely at every circumstance and ex- 
 perience, and assign to it its proper place in the 
 scale of importance; 2 to read not superficially, 
 but so as to get at the heart of an author's 
 meaning; 3 not to be led astray by appearances 
 or by opinion, but to maintain firmly his own 
 estimate of intrinsic values 4 these are all, 
 to him, distinctly moral duties, duties of quite 
 a high order. To this acquired power he looks 
 largely for the means to overcome the allure- 
 ments of sense. Analyse a musical perform- 
 
 1 C/. iii. 9. rfjv viro\rj7TTiKr)v dvvapiv (re/3e. fv ravrr) rf> 
 rrav, ira viroXtj^fis r<5 rjy(fjioviK<3 crov pijufn cyyfvijrai dvax.6- 
 \ov6os rJ; <pu(ret, Kal rfj TOV \oyiKOv fa>'ov Ka.Ta<TKVfl. av-rr) de 
 eVayyeAAercu dirpo7rra)(riav . . . *c.r.X. 
 
 * ovTats 8(1 Trap* oXov rbv ftiov iroiciv, KOI otrov \iav a^toTrtora 
 ra irpdynara ^avrti^frat, dtroyvfjLvovv aura. vi. 13. C/. 
 viii. II, 13. 
 
 3 ro aKpift&s dvayivdxrKciv KOI p,rj dpKci<r0ai irfpivoovvra 
 6\oo-xcpw- (i- 7-) 
 
 4 /Ltr;Se rots TreptXaXoCeri ra^ews <rvyKara.Tide<r0ai. (i. 7.) 
 Cf.v. 3, iii. 15. 
 
 81 F 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 ance into its component chords and single 
 notes, and it will be impossible, he thinks, 
 for the self-respecting philosopher to hold it 
 in high esteem. Do the same with life, or 
 with fame, and the same conclusions must be 
 drawn. Man is a mere speck on a clod of 
 earth, and his life a brief moment between a 
 preceding and a succeeding eternity. Fame 
 is the applause of succeeding generations of 
 individually contemptible men. 1 
 
 The Christian writers (and especially the 
 uncultured author of the Epistle of Barnabas 8 ) 
 refer often to the importance of Knowledge 
 and Understanding. But little or nothing is 
 said about the training and conduct of the 
 mind. No more' than Marcus Aurelius have 
 
 1 It is rather strange that it has not occurred to him 
 that a virtuous action might in the same way be split 
 up into its component indifferent parts, and thus virtue 
 be proved worthless likewise ; or that if " indifferent " 
 things are declared to have no value because short- 
 lived, virtuous actions must for similar reasons be held 
 of no account also. But his purpose after all is not 
 to prove what needs no proving the axiomatic truth 
 that virtue is the one thing worth while but to 
 raise additional fortifications between himself and 
 temptation. 
 
 2 E.g., <ro(f)ia t <rvvris, eVicmj/w;, yvaxns* C. ii. 
 82 
 
THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 
 
 they realised the indispensability of culture 
 to the full rounded development of cha- 
 racter. 1 Indeed, the wisdom of the wise is 
 rather looked on by them as a hindrance than 
 as an aid to the higher life ; even as the monas- 
 tics of later centuries tended to look upon the 
 body as a clog on the soul's development, and 
 were ready to weaken and ill-treat it as an 
 enemy to righteousness. Both of these one- 
 sided tendencies were temporary; and neither 
 was ever universal; but they cannot be called 
 unimportant phases in the history of morals. 
 
 The Knowledge and Wisdom which the 
 Christian writers have in view are rather a 
 knowledge of the express commands of God 
 (especially as found in the inspired books), and 
 a wisdom which results inevitably from the 
 will to do the will of God, than such know- 
 ledge and wisdom as follow either on an infinite 
 taking of pains in the realm of analytical 
 ethics, or a wide experience of the complex 
 affairs of life. " Where the Lord dwelleth 
 
 1 " The Church appears to have been content that 
 grammar and rhetoric schools should be entirely secular, 
 down to the fall of the Empire " (Bigg, The Church's 
 Task under the Roman Empire, p. 25). 
 
 83 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 there also is much Understanding" 1 is the 
 underlying sentiment in all such references. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius too, though he shows him- 
 self a strong believer in intellectual discipline, 
 praising his predecessor's " habit of care- 
 ful inquiry in all matters of deliberation " 
 (i. 1 6), and the teaching of Rusticus as to 
 thoroughness in reading (i. 7), not only 
 despises such mere mental gymnastic as seems 
 to have no practical moral value, but even 
 looks upon it as an enemy of moral develop- 
 ment, very much in the same spirit as con- 
 temporary Christianity did. Thus he declares 
 himself indebted to Rusticus for being taught 
 " to abstain from rhetoric and poetry, and 
 fine writing " (i. 7). " From him " (he says 
 again) " I learned not to be led astray to 
 sophistic emulation, nor to writing on specula- 
 tive matters, nor to delivering little hortatory 
 orations " (i. 7). And he thanks the gods 
 that he " did not make more proficiency 
 in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies " 
 
 1 OTTOU yap 6 Kvpios KaroiKei, c'/cet teal <rvvf(ris TTO\\T). (Her- 
 mas, Mand. x. i.) 
 
 84 
 
THE HIGHER AND THE LOWER IN MAN 
 
 Let us now turn to the Christian and Stoic 
 treatment of the relation of the higher to the 
 lower in man. 
 
 In all ages moralists of all nations have been 
 so strongly aware of the eternal inner conflict 
 in the life of the best of men, that they have 
 continually found it necessary to analyse man's 
 nature into a good and an evil principle waging 
 perpetual warfare. But the opposing forces 
 that have been selected for the antithesis have 
 varied with different schools and different 
 eras of thought. The Stoic found the con- 
 flicting elements to be Reason and Emotion ; 
 as the early Christian tended to imagine a 
 natural hostility between soul and body ; 
 while certain of the modern fanatical sects of 
 Christians have even brought forward the 
 bewildering antithesis of Faith and Reason, 
 in such a way as to identify Reason itself with 
 the evil principle in Man. 
 
 The difference between Stoic and orthodox 
 Christian is something much more important 
 than a mere difference of emphasis. The 
 Christian teachers ally themselves with what 
 is good in emotion as in the body itself with 
 85 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 all that may " project the soul on its lone way." 
 The Stoic wishes to annihilate, 1 where the 
 Christian is content to subdue and adapt. 
 " Not only ignoble and selfish emotions are to 
 be suppressed, but also the most ennobling 
 and energetic, all that aspire beyond the 
 present, all that do well to be angry in resisting 
 antagonism to wrong, all that kindle duty into 
 desire and suffuse it with emotional warmth. 
 4 Teach men or bear with them,' ' Blame none,' 
 become aphorisms of the virtue, which moves 
 only within the prescriptions of the individual 
 reason." 2 
 
 1 " Erase imagination : check impetuous passions : 
 extinguish appetite : maintain the guiding principle in 
 authority over itself." eaXen//-at (pavTaaiav o-rrja-ai op^v 
 <r/3e'crai opfiv e(p* eavrcS ^x lv T0 fiyepoviKov (ix. 7. Cf. vii. 
 29.) In Ign. Phil, i., we find a curious echo of Stoic 
 phraseology (TO aniv^rov airrov KOI TO dopyrjTov ev irda-g 
 firifineia 6foi)). But one feels that the bearing of it is 
 different. Still more when in Rom. iv. he writes vvv 
 fj.av6uva> 8c8efj.evos p.r]8ev firi6vp.elv, we cannot avoid noting 
 the deep contrast with Stoic thought underlying a 
 superficial resemblance. C/. also Polyc. v. na\6v yap TO 
 avaKOTTTfcrQai airb TOOV findvp,iS)v ev rw Ko<r/iO) ort irafra 
 fTTidvpia Kara TOV rrvfvfMTOf o-rpareverat, which is closer to 
 the Stoic attitude. 
 
 2 Introduction to Kendall's Marcus Aurelius An- 
 toninus, p. cxxxiii. 
 
 86 
 
SUBDUAL OF THE EMOTIONS 
 
 Few parts of the Stoic doctrine were assimi- 
 lated by the Roman character as readily as 
 those relating to moral self-respect and dignity ; 
 and Marcus Aurelius, a Roman and an emperor, 
 an heir to the grand traditions of Roman 
 history, adopts the Stoic teaching in its fullest 
 meaning. Side by side with the assertion that 
 man is essentially a social being, and that his 
 social character is his highest and most distinc- 
 tive quality, we find the reiterated command 
 that the philosopher must rise superior to all 
 perturbations, because the intellectual part 
 of him claims the sovereignty within him, 
 all else being formed by nature for the service 
 of reason. 1 This is not put forward by the 
 Stoic as a subordinate truth. Admittedly 
 man, as a social being, finds the fullest satisfac- 
 tion in social efforts. " When thou hast done 
 a good act " (writes Marcus) " and another 
 1 It must not be forgotten, though it is difficult at 
 times to remember, that the Stoic metaphysic is satu- 
 rated with materialistic ideas, and that Marcus Aurelius in 
 his more academic moments assents to them. The 
 Stoic exhorts to the subjection of the lower faculties, 
 while the Christian talks of the subjection of the flesh. 
 But the former accepts a theory not less but more 
 materialistic than the latter. 
 87 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 has received it, why dost thou still look for a 
 third thing besides these the reputation of 
 having done well, or the receiving of a recom- 
 pense ? It is useful to act according to nature. 
 Do not then be tired of receiving what is 
 useful by doing it to others." (vii. 73, 74.) l 
 " As man is formed by nature to acts of bene- 
 ficence, when he has done anything beneficent 
 or in any way conducive to the common interest, 
 he has acted conformably to the purpose for 
 which he is constituted, and he gets what is 
 his own." (ix. 42.) 2 But though this is the 
 case, it is an equally important truth, in 
 Marcus' view, that the lower in man must 
 yield to the higher because it is the higher. 
 He would not perhaps feel any invalidity in 
 the argument of J. S. Mill, that the body 
 should be taken care of because " by squandering 
 our health we disable ourselves from rendering 
 
 1 orav (TV fv rrciroir)K.us fig KOI oXXos 1 tv TTfirovdcas, TI eiri^rels 
 rpirov irapa raCra, &orirep ol fiapoi, TO KOI 5dai cv irfiroirjKfvai 
 TI TO dfwiftfjs Tv\eiv ; ovdels Kiip.vei G)(pe\ovp.fvos. ax^eXeia 8e 
 irpais Kara (pvariv. prf ovv Kapve <o<^>cXou/ici/of, ev a> d)(pe\fls 
 (vii. 73, 74)- 
 
 2 OVTO>S nai 6 avOpairos evfpycTiKOS 7rc(pvK.a)? t oiroTav TI 
 fvepyeriKov fj aXXcoy els ra /teo-a (rvvepyTjTinbv irpdr), 
 
 irpos o Kareor/cevaoTOi, K.CU ex ei T0 tavroi) (ix. 42). 
 88 
 
SUBDUAL OF THE EMOTIONS 
 
 services to our fellow creatures." But it would 
 almost certainly appear to him as an inversion 
 of " natural " ethics. And thus, when he asserts 
 that " in whatever degree a man's mind ap- 
 proaches to complete freedom from passion, in 
 the same degree is it nearer to strength" (xi. 
 iS), 1 the word " strength " must not be taken 
 to mean capacity to influence others by a life 
 of strenuous activity, but merely the power of 
 avoiding inner perturbations. 2 In other words 
 the dictum, like many another of Marcus* 
 aphorisms, must be read as a sheer tautology. 
 
 The appeal, then, is not to the consequences 
 of yielding to emotion, but to the sense of 
 dignity. " It is a convenient thing to remem- 
 ber in time of mental disturbance that anger 
 is not a quality worthy of a man, but that 
 gentleness and mildness, even as they are more 
 proper to humanity, are more becoming to 
 a virile man." (xi. i8.) 3 Personal dignity, 
 
 1 ocro) yap airadela TOVTO otVfiorepov, roorovra) cal dvi/a/ict. 
 
 2 Cf. xi. 1 8. " Just as grief is a sign of weakness, 
 so is anger : both imply injury and surrender,** Ao-rrep 
 fj \VTTTJ curOfvovs ovras KOI f) opyrj. 
 
 3 7rp6xipov 8e ev rais opyais, on ov^i r& dvpovo-Qai uv8pi<6v, 
 dXXa r6 Trpqav KOI rfpepov, &<T7rep dv0pciiriK&repov t ovrus KOI 
 dppeviKarepov. 
 
 8 9 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 rather than love of others, is the safeguard on 
 which he relies to save him from degeneration ; 
 it is the rock on which his fortress is built. 
 " Live as on a mountain. For it matters not 
 whether Here or There, provided one lives 
 Everywhere as if the universe were his city. 
 Let men see, give them to observe and examine, 
 a real man living the natural life." (x. 15.)* 
 The words at once call up the familiar passages 
 of the gospels: "Let your light so shine 
 before men that they may see your good works 
 and glorify your Father which is in heaven " ; 
 " a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid " ; 
 (alongside of which we may set Polycarp's 
 exhortation : " having your conversation free 
 from reproach among the Gentiles, in order 
 that ye yourselves may receive praise from 
 your noble works, and that the Lord may not 
 be blasphemed among you." (c. x.) 8 Diver- 
 sity of ultimate intention combined with simi- 
 
 1 T)(TOV o)s ev opet,. ouSei' yap 8ia(pepci t fuel fj &>8c } cav ns 
 7ravTa%ov ws fv 7r6\ei TO> K0(r/u,a>. tfieraxrav, iorop^crczrci)orav of 
 avdpwiroi avdpotrrov d\r)6ivbv Kara <pv<riv >VTCI. 
 
 2 TTJV dvacrrpocpriv vpwv aveirt\T)inrTov (\ovrfs tv rots edveo-iv, 
 *va CK T>V Ka\)v epyav vp,S)v K.CU vfj.e'if firaivov \dj3rjTf nal 6 
 Kvpios pr) j3Xacr(^)jfi^rat ev vplv. 
 
 90 
 
THE IDEA OF "PURITY" 
 
 larity of expression could scarcely be carried 
 farther. Think of your dignity, commands 
 the one ; remember your weaker brethren, 
 is the appeal of the other. 
 
 This perfectionist doctrine of the Stoic 
 the annihilation of emotion as an end desirable 
 in itself and not merely as a means to an end 
 a doctrine loosely related to the attainment 
 of least unhappiness, but not consciously held 
 to be related to the social duties finds perhaps 
 its nearest parallel, among the early Christian 
 writings, in their teachings on the subject of 
 chastity. 
 
 Very prominent in the religious teaching of 
 all centuries, but much subordinated among 
 the Stoics (and still more among the Cynics) 
 is the conception of freedom from particular 
 forms of defilement as an essential characteristic 
 of moral perfection " purity " of some kind 
 or other, with an unanalysed and more or less 
 mystical sanction. This sanction attaching 
 to the guilt of defilement causes an intense 
 feeling of horror and repulsion at any breach 
 of the code in others, and an almost terrible 
 9 1 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 feeling of degradation and abasement after 
 any violation of it by the religious person 
 himself. Some such awesomeness always 
 attaches to what the Christian calls " sin," 
 as distinct from intellectual shortcomings and 
 errors. 
 
 The authority of conscience gains enormously 
 in effective strength when it is thus reinforced 
 by such an ideal of " purity," however crudely 
 materialistic. It seems to be somehow a neces- 
 sary factor in the evolution of morality. First, 
 clean cups and garments and special laws as 
 to food; then, freedom from gluttony, drunken- 
 ness, lasciviousness ; then, separation from re- 
 vengeful, envious, and uncharitable thoughts, 
 and avoidance of all shades of untruth : such 
 is the gradual development of the idea of 
 purity. 
 
 Generally among the Christian writers it 
 is sexual purity that is most strongly insisted 
 on (though with this we may perhaps place 
 the defilements connected with idolatry, such 
 as the eating of meats offered to idols). But 
 the idea may be transferred to some quasi- 
 ceremonial duty or even to the necessity 
 92 
 
THE IDEA OF PURITY " 
 
 of keeping pure and undefiled the body of 
 Christian dogma. 1 
 
 This attitude towards virtue and vice 
 the shrinking from sin as uncleanness, 
 the attraction towards everything which 
 can be connected with purity is what 
 would perhaps most forcibly strike an un- 
 familiar reader when turning from the heathen 
 philosophers to the early Christian writers. 
 It is closely connected with that view of the 
 relations of God and man which has already 
 been characterised as a sense of the aliena- 
 tion of humanity, requiring to be overcome 
 by a doctrine of redemption and atone- 
 ment ; and in its extremer forms tends to pro- 
 duce the fantastic theologies of Marcionite 
 and Gnostic writers as well as the frantic 
 asceticisms of later monasticism. In this 
 emphasis on " purity " we have the Christian 
 counterpart to the Stoic glorification of 
 personal dignity. Both ideas are convenient 
 
 1 Cf. Ign. Eph. xvi. cl ovv ol Kara trapico ravra 
 irpdcro-ovTfs direOavov, TTOO-O) piAAoi> cav irivTiv 6eoO fv Ka/codtSatr- 
 KdXta $0ei'pj7, vnep r^s 'lrjo*ovs Xptoros caravpwdr)' 6 TOIOVTOS 
 pwtrapbs ytv6ftfvos fls TO irvp TO atr/Seoroi/ ^wpjjtret, o/xotW KCU 
 6 duovatv avrov. 
 
 93 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 practical aids 1 to the subordination of the 
 lower to the higher, the flesh to the spirit ; 
 though both may be misleading guides, espe- 
 cially when they result in our condemning 
 unmercifully those who are not moved by 
 the same attractive and repulsive forces as 
 ourselves. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, if I read him aright, 
 would have little sympathy with the Christian 
 horror of bodily defilement as an evil in itself. 
 He would shrink, no doubt, as sternly as 
 Ignatius or Paul from sexual offences, but the 
 dread that would be uppermost in his mind 
 would be the thought of reason being shaken 
 on its throne by irrational passion. He would 
 not easily comprehend the mental attitude 
 suggested by such utterances as these : " Keep 
 your flesh as the temple of God " (Ign. Phil. 
 7) ; 2 " knowing that they are the altar of 
 God " (Polyc. iv.) ; " corrupters of houses " 
 (i.e., their own bodies) " shall not inherit the 
 
 1 Cf, the partial recognition of this in the word npoxfipov 
 in M. Aurelius xi. 18 (quoted above) ; and elsewhere 
 xii. 24, ix. 42, vii. 64, &c. 
 
 8 TTJV (rdpKd vp.a>v coy vaov GeoO Tijpelre. 
 
 94 
 
THE IDEA OF " PURITY " 
 
 Kingdom of God " (Ign. Eph. I6); 1 " for the 
 Logos again says to us, * If any one kiss a second 
 time because it has given him pleasure (he 
 sins) ' ; adding, ' Therefore the kiss, or rather 
 the salutation, should be given with the greatest 
 care, since, if there be mixed with it the least 
 defilement of thought, it excludes us from 
 eternal life ' " (apocryphal utterance quoted by 
 Athenagoras). 2 
 
 The absence of the peculiar feeling of 
 horror 8 at " sin " means that Marcus Aurelius 
 has scarcely any bias in the direction of asceti- 
 cism for its own sake. He certainly valued 
 
 1 oioiKO(p06poi/3ao~i\fiav Qfov ov K\Tjpovoij,r)(rovo-iv. The ex- 
 planation is Lightf oo t 's . Possibly ' ' corr upters of bodies ' ' 
 (not ' their own bodies ") should be the rendering. 
 
 2 iraXiv fjfuv XeyovTos TOV A.6yov edv TIS 810. TOVTO f< deurepov 
 
 rjo-fl, OTI fjpto~fv avror KOI errKpepovTos' ovras ovv 
 TO (piXrjpa paXXov 8e TO irpoo-<vvT]^a Set, a>s, elirov 
 diavoia 7rapaOo\o)6ftr}, ^a> fjfJias rrjs alwviov TiBfVTos 
 farjs. Supp. 32. Cf. ii. Clem. 9. Set ovv reason vabv Qcov 
 <pv\acro-fiv TTJV crapna. Hermas,Mand. v. p.fra TOV o-KCvovs 
 (v <jp [ro Trvfvfjia TO aytor] KarotKei \eiTovpyrfO~fi roi 0eai cV 
 JXapoTrjTi Barnabas iv. yevapfda vabs re'Xetos rw 0e<ji. 
 Ibid. vi. vabs yap ayios r Kupiw ro <aTOiKrjTr)piov fjfi&v TTJS 
 2 Clem. xiv. 6 vlSpio~as TTJV (rdpua vjQpierev TTJV 
 
 Cf. for instance v. 9 (quoted in chap. v. p. no). 
 95 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 such moderate self-discipline as " the use of 
 a plank bed and a skin " (i. 6) practices that 
 strengthen the will without cost to the body ; 
 and he praises that reasonable care of his health 
 which brought it about that his predecessor 
 very seldom stood in need of a physician (i. 
 1 6). But the body is thought of as a means to 
 rational activity; never as a hindrance to it. 
 There is none of that feeling, imported from 
 Gnosticism and the Orient, that colours, 
 however slightly, many of the Christian refer- 
 ences to " the flesh " the implication that it 
 is almost a Satanic creation naturally hostile 
 to righteousness. 1 Even in Paul we see traces 
 
 i Two conflicting tendencies of thought mark the 
 early Christian teaching on this point. On the one 
 hand, the body must be kept in subjection because it is 
 that which is most opposed to the divine. (Cf. Kara- 
 yrjpdffKOVTas dydpovs e\7ri8i rou /*aXXoi/ (rvvf<rt(r0ai r<5 9e<u. 
 Athenag. Suppl. 33.) On the other hand, it is described 
 as the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that sexual offences, 
 and, with even stronger emphasis, cannibalism, are 
 the most serious of sins ; the body and the spirit must 
 equally be kept pure, for the body is divine, and equally 
 with the spirit partakes in the resurrection. The two 
 lines of thought appear most curiously combined in the 
 apocryphal utterance given by Athenagoras and quoted 
 above. 
 
THE IDEA OF PURITY " 
 
 of the conflict required before the more sane 
 and wholesome view can be accepted in its 
 entirety ; and it is largely to the prominence 
 necessarily given to the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection of the body that is due its final triumph 
 in orthodox Catholicism. To Marcus, the body, 
 if despised at all, is despised as animal. 1 But 
 even this contempt can never be pushed far, 
 as it is held in check by the Stoic metaphysic 
 with its demand that even the most spiritual 
 activities must have a material basis. 
 
 Turning from this particular class of applica- 
 tions of the notion of purity, we are forced 
 to admit that one of the greater benefits for 
 which the world is indebted to Christianity 
 consists in the transference of this mystical 
 sense of evil in defilement, at first attached 
 to predominantly external facts (such as the 
 ceremonies of eating and drinking), to the dis- 
 tinctively moral region of internal tendencies ; 
 accompanied by a systematic contracting of the 
 area of " sin " on the one side, and an expan- 
 sion of it on the other. Thus Ignatius places 
 side by side pollution of the flesh and pollution 
 
 1 Cf. vii. 55- ^6)o>5et? yap. 
 
 97 e 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of the orthodox faith (Eph. xvi.) ; Polycarp 
 adds, " If one does not abstain from covetous- 
 ness he will be defiled by idolatry" (xi.); 1 
 and Hermas goes yet further : " Liars set at 
 nought the Lord ... for they received from 
 Him a spirit free from lies. If they give this 
 back a lying spirit they pollute the command- 
 ment of the Lord " (Mand. iii.). 2 
 
 If the feelings of horror and disgust are thus 
 carried up from the lower to the higher regions 
 of moral conflict, an immense advantage is 
 gained ; and early Christianity did much 
 towards effecting this advance. But in so far 
 as sexual questions and the aberrations of the 
 procreative instinct alone bear this particular 
 stigma of uncleanness, there is no gain, but 
 rather loss. We are the poorer for the abiding 
 necessity of shrinking from one half of our 
 nature. We are the weaker because subject 
 
 1 fav TIS p.T) airf%r)Tcu <f)i\apyvpias viro 
 <rfTcu. (Polyc. xi.) 
 
 8 ffjiiavav TTJV fVTO\r)v TOV Kvptou. Cf. Mand. X. 3 
 ovv f) \V7TT) p-cra TTJS (VTfvt-eas OVK a^u'qcri TTJV (VT(viv 
 madapav firl TO dva-iacrTtjpiov TOV 0eov. Cf. also 
 fiiatvopevov viro Trjs ovxo\ias and paiVerat 17 fMKpo0VfJua t 
 
 (Mand. v. I.) 
 
THE IDEA OF "PURITY" 
 
 to the combined attraction and repulsion 
 which result from the distinctive character 
 of the special prohibition ; and because exposed 
 to the ensuing moral disfigurement consequent 
 on what is frequently an unnecessary internal 
 conflict. In the beginnings of moral develop- 
 ment there is gain in the recognition of a 
 definite limited sphere for the practice of self- 
 restraint. But the moral energies of upward- 
 striving man are liable to be exhausted in the 
 struggle, and his attention to be drawn away 
 from the higher forms of self-restraint ; so 
 that what was a blessing becomes a hindrance, 
 and what was to help us on our way comes to 
 check our further advance. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius seeks to annihilate emotion, 
 not because it is a hindrance to right social 
 activity, but because it is unworthy of the self- 
 sufficing man, and therefore an evil in itself. 
 The Christian Fathers desire to preserve the 
 purity of the body, not expressly because 
 bodily health is essential towards right social 
 activity, but because the body is an integral 
 part of man 1 to be honoured as a gift of God 
 
 i " Listen then," said he ; " preserve this thy flesh 
 99 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 which abides even after death. Thus conti- 
 nence and the resurrection are bracketed 
 together as almost interdependent. 1 And not 
 only incontinence, but suicide, abortion, and, 
 
 pure and unpolluted in order that the spirit dwelling 
 in it may bear witness to it, and that thy flesh may be 
 justified. See that it never enter into thine heart that 
 this thy flesh is perishable, and that thou misuse it in. 
 any uncleanness. If thou pollute thy flesh thou wilt' 
 pollute also the Holy Spirit, and if thou pollute thy flesh 
 
 thou wilt not live For both of these (body 
 
 and spirit) are common, and separately they cannot 
 be polluted. Therefore, preserve them both pure and 
 thou wilt live to God." (Hernias, Sim. v. 7.) Compare, 
 also, the whole argument of Athenagoras in favour of 
 the resurrection of the body. 
 
 i " In the Acta Theclae , the contents of 
 
 [Paul's] preaching are described as \6yos Qeov ircpl 
 eyKpareias KOL dvacrTcKreas (the word of God upon self-control 
 and the resurrection). The last-named pair of ideas are 
 to be taken as mutually supplementary ; the resurrection 
 or Eternal Life is certain, but it is conditioned by 
 eyKpareia, which is, therefore, put first." (Harnack, 
 p. 112.) Cf. Hennas, Vis. ii. 3, K al % dTrXori?? <rou *ai f) 
 irciXXrj cyKpaTeia, raCra cre(ra>Ke ere, cav fj.p,civTj$) not TTUVTUS 
 (roia rovf ra roiavra fpyaop.cvovs. Cf. also Vis. iii. 8. os 5 v 
 ovv a.KO\ov6f)(TT] avrrj ['E-y<parem] p.a.K.dpios yiveTai ev rfj af) 
 avrov . . . OTI tav dcpe^rjTat Trdcrrjs (7ri@vp.ias irovypas, K\rjpovo~ 
 prjcrei farjv alatviov. Cf. Mand. i. ; cf. 2 Clem. XV. ov< ofo/xai 8e 
 OTI fUKpav (rv/ij3ouXiav eiroir)crdp.r)v ircpl fyKpareias f)v jroirjcras ris 
 ov p,eTavor)<rfi) aXXa /cat cavrbv craxrei <dp. rov (TVfj.^ov\cvcravTa. 
 100 
 
THE IDEA OF "PURITY" 
 
 with unexpected emphasis, cannibalism, 1 are 
 put forward as sins of the first order. 
 
 Now, few forces act more beneficently in the 
 evolution of character than the recognition 
 of self-restraint in sexual matters as a social 
 necessity. A nation like the Indian, in which 
 early marriage is the universal practice, suffers 
 incalculable loss from the higher point of view. 
 It lacks one of the most important factors 
 required for the growth of a deep national 
 morality. The early Christian writers, by 
 affixing indelibly the stigma of impurity to 
 all forms of lack of restraint of the procreative 
 instinct, and its various aberrations, have 
 enormously strengthened the individual con- 
 science in its struggle against the flesh. 2 But 
 by taking the attention away from the social 
 consequences of unrestraint and turning it 
 almost exclusively to the self-regarding aspect 
 
 1 Theoph. ad AutoL iii. 15. dvvavrat . . . o-vp-tpvpfarOai 
 rats ddepiTois pi^ea-iv, rj TO adftoTarov irdvTtov, (rapK&v dvOpat- 
 Trci&v c(pdtrrc<r0ai. Cf. iii. 4. Cf. Athenag. Resurr. viii. 
 
 2 The completeness of their victory in many cases is 
 shown by the necessity in Ignatius' time of warning 
 against the spiritual pride of asceticism (ad Polyc. iv. 3, 
 v. 2). Cf. Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive 
 Church, p. 249. 
 
 101 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of the matter they have done much to destroy 
 the socially educative value of self-restraint. 
 The least important aspect of the evil is em- 
 phasised and magnified. A duty towards one's 
 neighbour has been twisted into a duty towards 
 God ; * and while obedience is given more 
 readily, as to an authoritative command, it 
 
 i The same bias is to be noted in connection with the 
 duty of charity. Though the need of inquiry and the 
 educative value of industry are both put well to the 
 front at times, there is a marked tendency to find in 
 almsgiving a positive benefit to the soul of the giver 
 without any reference to the effect on the receiver. 
 " Let thine alms sweat in thine hands till thou knowest 
 to whom to give" (says the Didache, i. 6) ; and instruc- 
 tions are given to endeavour to check idle begging 
 (xii. 4). But in 2 Clem, we are told that almsgiving is, 
 as it were, a form of repentance from sin ; that fasting is 
 more powerful than prayer and alms than both it being 
 apparently assumed that all three duties are of the same 
 self-regarding order. " Almsgiving lightens the burden of 
 sin," the writer adds, na\bv ovv fXfTjpoo-vvT) r pcravoia 
 tipaprias . . . Kpci<TO-a>v vrjo-reia irpoo-cvx*js, \c^fjLO(rvvr) be 
 afjt(poT po>v . . . e\CT)fjiO(rvvTj yap Kov<f>i(rp,a ttyiapr/ay yiWrtu. 
 (2 Clem, xvi.) " From the apostolic counsels down 
 to Cyprian's great work De Opere et Eleemosynis there 
 stretches one long line of injunctions, in the course of 
 which ever-increasing stress is laid upon the importance 
 of alms to the religious position of the donor, and 
 upon the prospect of a future recompense" (Harnack, 
 Expansion of Christianity, i. 190). 
 
 102 
 
SUMMARY OF DUTIES 
 
 loses its chief significance, by becoming a dead 
 and meaningless obedience, of little value by 
 itself as an effective force in the direction of 
 moral advance. 
 
 To sum up these two chapters dealing 
 with Marcus Aurelius' teaching on the conduct 
 of life : We find that he recognises three 
 sets of duties, of which the first two stand on 
 an equal footing, while the third is of subor- 
 dinate importance. 
 
 (A) Man is a social being ; and just as the 
 patriot is bound, firstly, to assist his fellow 
 citizens wherever possible, and, secondly, to 
 accept submissively the State's decrees ; so 
 man, as man, ought firstly to confer benefits 
 on his fellow man (though these benefits 
 belong necessarily to the lower planes of life, 
 because each is a self-sufficing unit, having his 
 own welfare in his own hands alone), and, 
 secondly, he ought to receive contentedly 
 whatever is allotted to him by the personified 
 Whole of things, as the only consistently pious 
 attitude. 
 
 (F) Because the reasoning faculty is the 
 103 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 highest element in man, all other faculties 
 ought to be subordinated to it, in such a way 
 that the dignity of Reason may never be in- 
 fringed, and its equability in no way affected. 
 
 (C) The intellect should be cultivated so 
 as to enable one to estimate accurately the 
 relative importance of actions or events, with 
 a view especially to the simplification of life. 
 
 The Christian Fathers would agree : 
 
 (A) That men are intended to be of mutual 
 service ; but they would, on the whole (though 
 with considerable qualifications), consider that 
 the value of conferring a benefit lies more espe- 
 cially in its arousing a proper feeling both in 
 the person benefited and in the benefactor ; 
 and would hold that the chief services to be 
 rendered concern the higher self and its im- 
 mortal interests. Their attitude with regard 
 to resignation is similar to that of M. Aurelius. 
 
 (E) Because the body is " the temple of the 
 Holy Spirit " (not because it is inferior to the 
 higher faculties), it must be preserved pure 
 (rather than kept from disturbing the higher 
 faculties). 
 
 (C) Early Christianity ignores intellectual 
 104 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE 
 
 duties and despises (or even dreads) intellect, 
 because " not many wise " are chosen, and " the 
 Greeks " find in the gospel " foolishness " ; 
 while modern Christian ethics would rather 
 encourage complexity of mental life, because 
 the intellect as well as the body is an integral 
 part of man and an equal gift of God. 
 
 Before concluding, we may turn aside for 
 a moment to notice that other aspect of 
 Knowledge, in which it appears, not so much 
 as an object which we ought to strive to attain, 
 but as itself the basis of all virtue, telling us 
 what we ought to strive to attain. Professor 
 Harnack (Expansion of Christianity, p. 141) 
 points out that the Christians " were not yet 
 entirely emancipated from the Socratic fallacy 
 that the man of Knowledge will inevitably be 
 a good man." And to some extent the ordinary 
 attitude towards heresy may be cited in favour 
 of his opinion. 1 But on the whole the Christian 
 
 1 See Ignatius, passim ; Theoph. ad Autol. ii. 14. 
 at 8i8a<rKaXiai rfjs TrXavT/y, Aeya) TO>V atpe<re&>j/, at ea7roAAuovcri 
 Toiiff irpoffiovTas auratr. C/. Polyc. vii. oy &v 
 TO Aoyta rou Kuptou npbs ray Idias em^u/itas', KOI \(yy 
 p/re K/n'cni/, OVTOS TrpcororoKoy eVrt rov 2araj/a. 
 I0 5 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 knowledge is something apart, which can hardly 
 be placed alongside the sort of knowledge upon 
 which philosophers insist. It is rather a new 
 power of perception that comes as the conse- 
 quence of the new and fuller Life, or rather 
 is one of the chief aspects of that Life. Stoicism, 
 on the other hand, had adopted the Socratic 
 paradox without qualification, and Marcus 
 Aurelius accepts it as part of his philosophic 
 creed. And this largely accounts for the com- 
 parative complacency of his moral endeavours 
 as contrasted with the recurrent sense of abase- 
 ment and remorse that is characteristic of 
 Christianity. 
 
 1 06 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL RESPONSI- 
 BILITY, MERIT, AND REWARD THE ULTI- 
 MATE AIM OF VIRTUE 
 
 THE views of Marcus Aurelius with regard 
 to the freedom of the will have already been, 
 to some extent, indicated in quotations. For 
 the world at large he adopts usually a strong 
 determinist position, 1 in order to account for 
 and excuse the various aberrations of man- 
 kind from the path of right reason. 1 Moral 
 evil is frequently described as the result of 
 
 1 That such things should proceed from such people 
 is inevitable ; he who would not have it so, would have 
 the fig-tree to yield no juice." ravra ovra>s virb T&V rotovrwv 
 irf<f>vKf yivfcrQai, e dvdyKrjs" 6 de TOVTO p.r) QeXwv, df\ei rr/v erv/cijv 
 oirov p) f\ lv ' i Vt "* 
 
 * " Seeing this you will pity him and neither wonder 
 nor be wroth with him." TOVTO yap Iftcov e\T)(rcts auriv, 
 not OVT davfid(Tis t ovTf opyurdrjcrij. vii. 26. 
 lO/ 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 ignorance, 1 and therefore not to be visited 
 with unnecessary condemnation. But no such 
 argument, nor anything comparable with it, 
 is ever applied in his exhortations to himself. 
 He is himself emphatically a child of freedom, 
 for whose shortcomings no excuse is conceiv- 
 able. 2 
 
 An attempt to explain this inconsistent 
 attitude has already been made in regard to 
 an allied, though slightly different, question 
 (chap, iii., pp. 53, 54). It would seem to be 
 Marcus' aim, when he wishes to strengthen 
 his own virtue-loving impulses, to see only the 
 subjective side of all actions ; but when he 
 wishes to school himself to patience with regard 
 
 1 C/. " They do wrong through ignorance and un- 
 intentionally." St' ayvoiav KOI UKOVTCS &p,apTavov(ri. vii. 
 22. " Every soul, as they say, is deprived of truth 
 against its will." Tracra ^u^, (frrja'iv, a/coutra ore/serai aXrjdeias. 
 vii. 63. C/. iv. 3, &c. By a curious inconsistency he 
 reverses the argument in ix. i. " For he had received 
 from Nature impulses through the neglect of which he is 
 not able now to distinguish falsehood from truth." 
 d(popp,as yap irpoeiXfjfpet irapa rrjs (pixrecos^ u>v dpfXrjcras ov% oios 
 re e'ort, vvv dianpivfiv ra \}rev8f) dno rcov d\r)6a>v. ix. I . 
 
 2 "It is in my power never to act contrary to my 
 god and daemon." CTTI pot pijdev irpdo-o-fiv Trapa TOV 
 dcov <al 8aip.ova. V. IO. 
 
 108 
 
DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL 
 
 to others, he will look at the same actions 
 only from their objective side, in order that 
 he may find reasons for condoning their 
 follies. Sir Frederick Pollock sees in him 
 only " an uncompromising determinist." 1 But S/ 
 the truth is that he belongs neither to the 
 determinist nor to the opposing camp. He 
 is a simple seeker after virtue, who will take 
 either position in turn, according as either will 
 best help him on his way at each particular 
 juncture. 
 
 Yet, child of freedom though he insists 
 that he is, 2 even in his own case he keeps 
 himself as firmly as he can from considering 
 questions of merit or desert. His pursuit 
 of virtue is like the artist's pursuit of perfec- 
 tion with patient consideration of every 
 shortcoming, but with nothing akin to remorse 
 in looking back at failure. The recurrent 
 consciousness of deficiency which crushes the 
 
 1 Article in Mind, 1879. 
 
 2 TO f)yfp.oviK.6v eo~Ti TO ectvTo fyclpov Kal Tpeirov, Kal irotovv 
 fifv eavro, olov av Kal 0eXij. vi. 8. oi/r* ovv fXevdepos eo-i/, 
 OVTC avTapKTjs, ovTe diradrjSt VI. l6. TJ TOV <pv\\ov (Averts 
 
 cTTi <pvo~fa>s . . . fjuroo'ico'6ai dvva.fj.fvr)s t f) 8f TOV dvdpwirov 
 dixp.iroo'io-Tov (pixrO)S. Vlii. 7. 
 I0 9 
 

 STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 sensitive Christian with a sense of unworthi- 
 ness that falls little short of begetting complete 
 despair, is unknown to this simple truth- 
 seeker, who resolves to amend each error as 
 he becomes aware of it, in the same spirit as 
 the worker, to whom some technical failing is 
 pointed out, quietly proceeds, as a matter of 
 course, to correct what is amiss. 1 " Be not 
 disgusted " (he writes) " nor discouraged, 
 nor dissatisfied, if the attempt to do every- 
 thing according to right principles does not 
 prosper with thee ; but when thou hast been 
 thrust back, return to it again and be content 
 if the greater part is fairly worthy of a man, 
 and love this to which thou returnest ; and 
 do not go back to philosophy as to a master, 
 but as those who, being afflicted with sore 
 eyes, have recourse to the sponge and the egg " 
 
 1 This is well stated by Constant Martha. " Ce 
 n'est pas un spectacle sans intere't et sans nouveaute 
 que celui d'un paien si amoureux de perfection 
 
 interieure qui travaille a son ame avec une 
 
 tendre sollicitude, comme un artiste qui voudrait 
 accomplir un chef-d'oeuvre, et qui naivement, sans 
 vanite, pour se satisfaire lui-meme, retouche sans cesse 
 son ouvrage." Les Moralistes sous I' Empire romain, 
 p. 197- 
 
 no 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND MERIT 
 
 (v. 9). 1 There is to him no sense of terror 
 or mystery in his struggle with moral failings ; 
 nor has he ever any doubts as to the inherent 
 Tightness and reasonableness of the universe in 
 which he labours, serenely confident that all 
 things must work together for all those that 
 love righteousness. " Know well that if it 
 ought to have been otherwise the gods would 
 have made it so. For if it were just it would 
 have been possible ; and if it had been in ac- 
 cordance with Nature, Nature would have 
 brought it to pass," (xii. 5.*) 
 
 The consciousness of alienation from God 
 which forms a large part of the inheritance 
 of the Christian conscience from Judaism, is 
 unknown to Marcus Aurelius ; who, in spite 
 of his world-weariness, does to this extent 
 at least share in the youthful unconsciousness 
 
 1 P.TI (TiK^aiVeiv, p,r)8c diravdav, fjujfte dirobixr-TTfTfiv^ ft fti) 
 KarairvKvovrai <roi TO dirb doy/zartov opd&v e/cao-ra irpaweiv, 
 aXXa fKKpov(rdfVTa, ird\iv firavicvat, <ai dcrp^vifciv, el ra 7rXeta> 
 dvdpairiK&Tcpa, not <pi\iv rovro, e<p' & eiravcpxy a! f"7 o>r 
 rrpbs iraiSayatybv rr\v <pi\o<ro<piav eiravitvat' dXX* vs ol 6(pda\- 
 fuuvTcs irpbs rb oriroyydpiov KOI TO <aov. . . . 
 
 * u iffdij ori, fl a>s (Tpa>s fX flv *^ ei ^oirjaav &v. ft yap 
 SIKCUOV i]v, rfv av Ktil SuvuTuVj KOL el Kara (pvoiv, fjveyKfV a.v 
 avTO r; $iv<ris. xii. 5- 
 
 III 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 of Hellenic thought, that he is quite unin- 
 fluenced by any conception of a necessity for 
 redemption and atonement. The " natural " 
 is that which is reasonable and right. And 
 so an anxious attitude with regard to sin and 
 repentance appears to him as a sort of impiety. 
 " A branch cut off from the adjoining branch 
 cannot but be cut off from the whole tree. 
 Thus also a man sundered [by hatred] from any 
 single man has fallen apart from the whole of 
 society. Moreover, it is another that cuts off 
 a branch ; but man himself detaches himself 
 from his neighbour, by hatred and aversion, and 
 does not realise that simultaneously he has cut 
 himself off from the whole community. But 
 this is the gift of Zeus when he adjusted to- 
 gether the [human] commonwealth ; namely, 
 that it is possible for us once more to grow 
 together with the adjoining branch, and again 
 complete the symmetry of the whole " (xi. 
 8-) 1 
 
 l /cXdSos roO Trpoffe^ovs K\d8ov diroKOireis ov SvvaTai p.r} /em 
 TOV oXou (pvrov diroK(K.6(p6ai. OVTM drj /ecu (ivdpcairos evos 
 dvdpairov ajrocr^ia'delf o\rjs rrjs noivavias diroTrciTTaxe. xXaSov 
 p*v ovv a\\os diroKOTTTfi- avdpawos de avros eavrbv rov jr\r)<riov 
 icai airoarpafaLs" dyvoel 8c OTI KOI TOV oXov 
 112 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND^MEMT 
 
 Accordingly, " a broken and a contrite 
 heart " would be to him evidence of a lack 
 of faith in the eternal Tightness of the 
 world something far from admirable. It 
 would be a rejection, or at least imply a 
 hesitation in acceptance, of this special gift 
 of the co-ordinating Spirit of all. Thus he 
 eliminates anything that he has discovered to 
 be a blemish, with a confidently simple turning 
 away from evil that is very different from the 
 anxious response of more timid souls to the 
 commands of an alien superior ; or even the 
 reluctant acceptance by a philosophic pupil 
 of a theory he would fain reject. 
 
 The mechanical views of Hermas with regard 
 to repentance and punishment (to take one 
 who stands at the opposite pole of thought 
 on these points) could only be to Marcus 
 Aurelius repulsive conceptions. Hermas is 
 afflicted with recurrent anxiety as to his moral 
 progress ; but his anxiety is rather that of one 
 
 irdXirfvparos ap.a dirorerfirfKev eavrov. ir\rjv tiftv6 yt ftatpov 
 rov crva"rTjcrap.fvov rrjv Koivwviav Aiov efcecm yap ira\iv 
 <rvp(pvvai T( irpofffxfi, KU\ ird\iv rov oXov 
 
 (xi. 8). Cf. rovro ii\Xu> ftepfi ovftevl Oebs 
 Kal dutKorrtvn ira\iv <rvv(\6eiv (viii. 34). 
 113 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 who wishes to fulfil to the letter the definite 
 commands of a personal God ; and not only 
 can he take credit to himself for the moral 
 qualities 1 that he has already conquered, but 
 he even feels no incongruity in the thought 
 of performing works of supererogation. 1 These 
 particular examples of pharisaistic thought are 
 not mentioned as being typical of contemporary 
 Christianity (though they are certainly typical 
 of Hermas) ; but because the mere possibility 
 of their appearance clearly indicates the pre- 
 sence of that legal strain in Christian thought 
 which makes of duty a composite of divine 
 commands, rather than an application of broad 
 principles intuitively evident to the reason 
 of humanity, which is felt to be akin to the 
 controlling Reason that makes the world what 
 it is ; a view of duty which sees its accomplish- 
 ment in the satisfaction of a higher Power 
 
 1 " especially the continent Hermas, who 
 
 abstains from all desire, and is full of all simplicity and 
 of great innocence." (Vis. i. 2.) 
 
 2 " Keep the commandments of the Lord and thou 
 wilt be esteemed and be enrolled in the number of them 
 that keep the commandments. But if thou do any good 
 thing beyond the commandment of God thou shalt 
 win for thyself more exceeding glory." (Sim, v 3.) 
 
 114 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND MERIT 
 
 rather than in the satisfaction of the omni- 
 present reason in which humanity shares. As 
 an extreme instance of this crude conception, 
 of duties authoritatively imposed and of 
 rewards mechanically attached to them, we 
 may take the statements as to almsgiving, 
 which the pseudo-Clement describes as a 
 lightener of sin and a sort of repentance, 1 
 while Hermas treats it as a bare unqualified 
 command emanating from God, the giver not 
 being expected to consider consequences, and 
 indeed being guiltless (aOyoc) with respect 
 to them (Mand. ii.). 
 
 That the Christian writers emphasised the 
 ideas of merit and responsibility as integral 
 parts of their teleological scheme, needs no 
 illustration. The tendency is curiously com- 
 bined, however, with a demonology which 
 personifies temptations as conscious evil beings 
 matched in deadly conflict with suffering 
 humanity (a theory which one would priori 
 expect to weaken the sense of responsibility). 
 In a way this demonology is evidence of the 
 awakened conscience of mankind, resulting as 
 
 1 a>s fJLcrdvoia dfuiprias KOixfriffpa Apaprias (2 Clem. 1 6). 
 
 "5 
 
STOIC AND [CHRISTIAN 
 
 it does from the new-found horror of sin 
 which gives to various forms of offences an 
 intensely real objective existence. 1 One con- 
 sequence, however, of this mode of viewing 
 the world was that it led to a preoccupation 
 with various sins even more than with the 
 corresponding virtues, as outstanding positive 
 entities, and distracted the attention to 
 no slight degree from the contemplation of 
 the Higher,* by striving towards which we 
 develop.* 
 
 The sense of responsibility for sin and the 
 belief in rewards and punishments being 
 adjusted to desert, naturally involves an em- 
 phatic dwelling on the freedom of the human 
 will as its justification* " Neither did He 
 
 i " In the belief in demons, as that belief dominated 
 the Christian world in the second and third centuries, 
 it is easy to detect features which stamp it as a re- 
 actionary movement hostile to contemporary culture. 
 Yet it must not be forgotten that in the heart of it lay 
 hid a moral and consequently a spiritual advance, viz., 
 in a quickened sense of evil, as in a recognition of the 
 power of sin and of its dominion in the world." (Harnack, 
 Expansion of Christianity, vol. 1. p. 167.) 
 
 8 Hermas himself becomes aware of this danger. 
 See Vis. iii. i. 
 
 3 C/. Harnack, op. cit. p. 141. 
 116 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND MERIT 
 
 make (man) immortal, nor yet mortal, but, as 
 we have previously stated, capable of either 
 fate ; so that if, keeping the commandment 
 of God, he incline towards the things that are 
 eternal, he may receive from Him immortality 
 as his reward, and become a god ; but if on the 
 other hand he turn towards the works of death, 
 disobeying God, that he may be the cause of 
 his own death. For God created him free 
 and master of himself " l (Theoph. ii. 27). 
 " It is necessary to believe that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord, and to believe all the truth concern- 
 ing His deity and humanity, also to believe in 
 the Holy Spirit, and that as free agents 2 we 
 are punished for our sins and honoured for our 
 good actions." (Hernias, Mand. i.) Similar 
 passages will be found in the other early 
 writings. 3 The chief noteworthy difference 
 
 1 cXfvdepov yap KOI avTe-ov<riov firoirjo-tv 6 Qfbs av 
 
 3 Cf, Tatian xi. diroiKta'fv TJ/J.US TO OVTC^OIXTIOV. Justin, 
 Tryph. cii. aXX' a>s fyivoxruf KaXbv eii/ai yfveV&u, enoirjo-ev 
 avrct-ovo-iovs irpbs SIKCUOTT paiav Koi dyyeXovs KOI dvtipmirovs 
 KOI xpovovs &pi(T fj,c\pis ov (yivoMTKf K.a\bv fivcu, TO avTeov(Ttov 
 fX* lv GVTOVS. Apol. i. 43 Ka * a ^ 6 * P-*l irpoatpecrfi cXevdepy 
 irpos rA (pevyeiv TO. altr^pa. K.CU aipflo'8ai ra KaXa dvvafjuv cx ei To 
 dvdpwireiov yevos, dvaiTiov con T&V OTraxrS^Trore Trparro/zei/coi/. 
 117 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 between the attitude of Marcus Aurelius and 
 that of the Christians is, that the latter apply the 
 doctrine with a view to evoking the moral sense 
 in others ; while Marcus Aurelius uses it as an 
 incentive to personal morality for himself alone, 
 inconsistently accepting at the same time the 
 contrary view for the rest of humanity finding 
 in the conception that all men are bound in the 
 chains of causality, compelled to act as they 
 do in the same way that horses must neigh 1 
 and children wail, a means of avoiding the 
 passing of condemnatory judgments upon them, 
 and of escaping the mental perturbations 
 consequent on disappointments as to their 
 actions. 
 
 The teaching of Marcus is throughout 
 intensely practical, in the sense that it is all 
 intended to bear directly on the conduct of 
 life, though never " practical " in the sense 
 of discussing the conduct of life from any 
 utilitarian standpoint. It is to this very 
 practicality that the incompleteness and theo- 
 
 aXX* on fXevdepa irpoaipc(ret <a\ K.arop6oi KOI <r<pd\\Tai OVTOJS 
 diro8eiKVvpev. Athenag., Sup. XxiVt avtiaipfTov KO.\ TTJV 
 
 dpTT]V KOL TT)V KClKiClV %6vT(i)i', 
 
 1 xii. 1 6. 
 
 118 
 
THE ULTIMATE AIM OF VIRTUE 
 
 retical unsatisfactoriness of the Meditations 
 is chiefly due. Examined as a statement of a 
 reasoned system of ethics it is seldom found to 
 bear close analysis, though the various parts of 
 it are inextricably interwoven in such a manner 
 as to show unmistakably that it is a system that 
 has been lived. But Marcus is seeking, not so 
 much theoretical completeness, as convenient, 
 adaptable maxims such as the sagacious pursuer 
 of virtue will do well to have ever " ready to 
 hand " as safeguards against unworthy thoughts 
 and actions. " Just as physicians have ever 
 their instruments and scalpels ready to hand 
 with a view to the unanticipated needs of 
 medical practice, so do thou keep ready the 
 maxims as regards knowing what is fitting 
 towards men and God" (iii. I3). 1 
 
 He does not turn aside to examine carefully 
 the theoretical bases of morality or attempt 
 to justify virtue by any reference to its effects 
 in any sphere outside its own. Virtue, for 
 
 1 Cf. iv. 12. " Two forms of preparedness are always 
 necessary." dvo raw-as eVoi/idr^ray fX lv "" ^ e * ^7- * v ' 5* 
 IdiaTiKov /Ki/, opus de dwariK^v por)0r)p.a irpbs Qavarov *cara- 
 <ppovr)<rLv. Cf. iv. 3, and the frequent use of the word 
 v. i, &c, 
 
 119 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 him, needs no external buttressing, beyond 
 the reiterated assertion that it alone is reason- 
 able and natural. It is its own motive, its own 
 end, its own reward. For him, to say that 
 virtue is virtuous is sufficient. All other 
 thought is irrelevant. Even permanence 
 " the wages of going on and not to die " 
 is as much an alien consideration as the relation 
 of morality to pleasant results of any kind 
 outside its own region. Indeed, so little does 
 he feel that right-doing needs any extrinsic 
 attraction, that it seems to him less necessary 
 to justify it by identifying virtuous activity 
 with happiness than happiness by showing 
 that it may be virtuous. The thought that 
 " nothing is either good or bad which can 
 happen indifferently to the good man and the 
 bad " (iv. 39) l is a sentiment that frequently 
 recurs. 2 "How many pleasures" (he writes, 
 
 K.a.K.6v n (ivai p.r)Tf dya66v, 
 dvftpi Km aya6w crvfMfiaivdv. 
 
 * With this we may effectively contrast the Christian 
 inference from the same observed facts of experience 
 (that God sendethHis rain upon the just and the unjust) 
 that because the Father careth for the sparrows He 
 must care for us much more. 
 120 
 
THE ULTIMATE AIM OF VIRTUE 
 
 vi. 34), " have been enjoyed by robbers, 
 parricides, tyrants ! " * as if the fact, that 
 a particular class of enjoyment could fall to 
 an evil character, made it in itself not worth 
 having. 
 
 Such an attitude is to the ordinary moralist 
 almost inconceivable, and those who adopt 
 it are generally held guilty either of affectation 
 or self-deception. There is no doubt, how- 
 ever, that in Marcus it is the habitual attitude 
 and not one assumed " as at the bidding of a 
 psedagogue " (v. 9). Long loving study 
 of the characteristics of virtue has swamped 
 out of existence all consideration of conse- 
 quences, as matters unrelated and alien. Much 
 as the miser, who in the beginning may have 
 sought money for some definite end, comes at 
 last to give himself over to money-getting in 
 complete forgetfulness of the purposes which 
 money serves, so Marcus becomes an uncom- 
 promising pursuer of virtue for virtue's sake. 
 That virtue is always " worth while " is to 
 him so much an axiom that he finds it 
 
 1 fjXinas rjdovas rj<rdr)<rav XJ/OTO/, KiVeuSot, irarpaXoicu, rvpavvoi ! 
 vi. 34. 
 
 121 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 unnecessary even to state it ; or at most, attempts 
 to prove it by means of the most delightfully 
 unconvincing tautologies. " He who does 
 wrong does wrong against himself. He who 
 acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because 
 he makes himself bad " (ix. 4). 1 It is foolish, 
 in short, to be bad, because the result is that 
 you are bad. If the reasoning were disputed 
 it would be promptly restated in slightly 
 changed form, with a " because " or a " there- 
 fore " to link the axiom with its previous 
 enunciation. 
 
 From beginning to end he assumes that virtue 
 is always its own reward, and that that reward 
 is always adequate. Even if the universe were 
 a fortuitous concourse of atoms it would still 
 be reasonable to go straight forward. " And 
 as to the world, if there be a God, all is well, 
 but if all be at random, act not at random 
 thou " (ix. 28).* But the Christian writers 
 not only do not speak in this spirit ; they even 
 at times deny its reasonableness. " For " 
 
 1 6 dfJMprdva>v eavra &paprdvff 6 d8i<S>v, tavrbv dSinti, KCIKOV 
 tavrbv iroi&v. ix. 4- 
 
 a ro de oXoi/, tre 6eos, ev l^ei irdvra' eire TO tiKT), p) KOI crv 
 
 122 
 
THE ULTIMATE AIM OF VIRTUE 
 
 (writes Athenagoras) " if no judgment what- 
 ever were to be passed on the actions of men, 
 men would have no advantage over the ir- 
 rational creatures, but rather would fare worse 
 than these do, inasmuch as they keep in subjec- 
 tion their passions, and concern themselves 
 about piety, righteousness, and the other 
 virtues ; and a life after the manner of brutes 
 would be best, virtue would be absurd. . . ." 
 
 The Christian attitude is perhaps put most 
 distinctly in the ancient homily formerly 
 ascribed to Clement. Virtue, for this unknown 
 author, neither is, nor brings its own reward. 
 The wages of righteousness must be attached 
 thereto by an external power (even as the 
 content of righteousness is formulated by this 
 same external authority), yet if the reward 
 were obvious and immediate, virtue would not 
 be virtue, but mere huckstering (2 Clem. xx.). 
 
 1 (I fifv yap fj.r]$(pia fir)8ap,ov rocs dvOpairois irfrrpaypcvav 
 yivovro Kpicriy, ov&ev Covert irXelov rStv d\6ya>v ai/$pa>7ror p.a\Xov 
 & K.d<tiva)v irpdovo'iv d$Aia>repoi>, 01 ra iraBt) dovAaywyovvrep 
 <ai <ppovriovTfs tv<Tt$tias ttai. SiKaHTvvTjs r) rfjs a\\rjs aprn/y, 6 
 df KTTjvattys /3tor (IpHTTos, apery 8e dvoTjTos . . de Resurr. 
 19, Cf, ibid> 15- p-dratos df 6 vovs, p,araia Ae <f>povr)(ns KOI 
 biKOio(rvvT)$ irapaTrjprjo-is, 17 KOI ird<rr)s apery? a(TKT)<ris. 
 I2 3 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 God, however, is good, and the virtuous must 
 be ultimately rewarded. Our part is to have 
 faith in the certainty of the recompense. 
 To doubt it (jutKpa *6Xirf?i/) l is to doubt 
 the goodness of God. To ask for another 
 arrangement by which the long-suffering and 
 the faith may be dispensed with, is to ask for 
 what is incongruous, if not self-contradictory. 2 
 The spiritual plane of Hermas and the pseudo- 
 Clement is certainly not as exalted as that of 
 the other exponents of Christian ethics with 
 whom we deal ; but similar views of the essen- 
 tial connection of virtue with reward, and of 
 that reward being more or less mechanically 
 superimposed from without, are to be found 
 in all. " Have Him in your heart " (writes 
 Hermas, Sim. i.), "perform His works, mindful 
 of His commandments and of the promises 
 
 i 2 Clem. i. 
 
 otn/ d8f\<po\ teat ddf\<pai. Qfov 5>vros irtipav 
 KOI yvp.va6p,cda r<p vvv |8iy Iva r<5 /ieXXoiri ore(a- 
 8iK.ai<nv ra^vv naptrbv eAc^Sfi/, aXX" 
 el yap rbv p,t<rdbv TWV Sixaieui/ 6 Qebs (TVVTO- 
 epiropiav rjo-KOvpfv not ov Ofoo-efifiav. 
 fboK.ovp.tv yap elvai dtKcuoi, ov TO fv&fftfs dXXa TO nepdaXeov 
 rovro 8fia (cpiVtr e)3Xa\^ej/ nvevfia pf} ov 
 , KOI cfldpvvtv ticorp.o'is. 2 Clem. xx. 
 124 
 
THE JULTIMATE AIM OF VIRTUE 
 
 He has made, in the faith that He will perform 
 the latter if the former be observed." * " For 
 neither do the good in the present life obtain 
 the rewards of virtue, nor yet do the bad 
 receive the wages of vice" (Athenag., Resurr. 
 icf). 2 " And we exercise ourselves in this 
 present life, in order that we may be crowned 
 in the life to come " (2 Clem. 20). s 
 
 In this connection also we feel the effects 
 of the contrasted modes of viewing the universe 
 the Christian view of it as a world governed 
 by a personal Will which imposes Command- 
 ments, and the Stoic conception of it as con- 
 trolled and permeated by impersonal Reason 
 acting according to Laws (in the scientific 
 sense of orderly sequences). The Christian, 
 believing in the presence and activity of the 
 personal Governor who punishes and rewards, 
 
 1 Cf. Hermas, Vis. 5. 
 
 * ovTf yap ol <rirov8aioi narh rqv irapov(rav <OTJV typowai 
 TO, rfjs dpfrijs eVi'^etpa, otfre prjv ol (fiav\oi ra rrjs naniaf. 
 
 3 Kal yvnva6pc6a r<5 vvv fiiy tva T<B jxAXoj/rt (rre(pav6&p.fv. 
 Cf. I Clem. 35. Notice also the frequent references to 
 recompense in the next world (fiia-66s and dvTiptcrdia) for 
 things foregone in this ; e.g., Barnabas xix ; cf. 
 Ignat. ad Pol. vi. apf'o-Kere < orrparevr&, d(p' o *ai ra 
 
 125 
 
: ; STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 and wishing to obtain both virtue and the 
 ultimate reward of virtue (both advantages 
 being covered by the phrases relating to salva- 
 tion), is liable to have his attention distracted 
 from the contemplation of morality to its 
 future consequences. Even if originally 
 attracted by goodness itself, he is impelled to 
 become, to some extent, the huckster which 
 the pseudo-Clement declares he would be, if 
 rewards followed good actions immediately. 
 
 No doubt every individual is influenced in 
 different degrees by these complex considera- 
 tions, and what is a practical aid to the one 
 becomes a hindrance to the other. And so 
 Marcus Aurelius' dicta, though framed solely 
 with a view to controlling practice, would be 
 declared, doubtless, by the stolid majority of 
 mankind, who feel with less force than he, the 
 attraction and the glory of sheer moral excel- 
 lence pursued for itself alone, to be the im- 
 practicable folly of a saintly dreamer. 
 
 126 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 RELIGION AND ETHICS CHRISTIANITY AS 
 A NEW LIFE CONCLUSION 
 
 So far we have endeavoured to treat of Chris- 
 tian Ethics as something which can be detached 
 from the Christian religion and separately 
 analysed. But Christianity is much more 
 than a philosophic framework for the conduct 
 of life. It is not a system put together syn- 
 thetically from a selection of concepts and 
 syllogisms, but the vision of a fuller life, based 
 upon what is 'perceived of a personality deemed 
 divine. An Ideal Personality is not something 
 that can be analysed. Nor is Life, in its lowest 
 manifestations, within the range of philosophic 
 explanations. It is. And it is enough for us 
 to recognise it when it is manifested. Chris- 
 tianity is, and we may accept or reject, admire 
 or despise, but the name stands for a force that 
 127 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 baffles explanation, even as the " flower in the 
 crannied wall " remains a mystery after the 
 scientist has done his best. Pluck the flower, 
 and place its delicate veins under the micro- 
 scope, and it is no longer the same flower, but 
 a dead thing. And if in similar fashion we 
 attempt to scrutinise the Ethics of Chris- 
 tianity in detachment from the living inex- 
 plicable manifestations of its vitality, we are 
 attempting to place Life under the scalpel, 
 confounding knowledge of the skeleton with 
 knowledge of the living creature. 
 
 To a considerable extent the early apologists 
 fell into this error of setting Christianity in 
 juxtaposition with philosophical systems, and 
 by so doing it must be admitted that they 
 weakened their cause. 1 
 
 i " This, however," (says Harnack, Expansion of Chris- 
 tianity, vol. i. p. 320), "is one form of its self-conscious- 
 ness which must not be overrated, for it is almost ex- 
 clusively confined to the Christian apologetic and polemic. 
 Christians never doubted, indeed, that their doctrine 
 was really the truth, and, therefore, the true philosophy. 
 But then it was infinitely more than a philosophy." 
 Still, as he points out elsewhere (p. 295), "as these dis- 
 cussions were carried on in a purely rational spirit, and 
 as there was a frankly avowed partiality for the idea 
 128 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 On the other hand it might be urged, 
 though only by the superficial observer, that 
 the centering of one's hopes and faith in moral 
 advance in the person of the Ideal Man, who 
 is also for Christianity an Historic Man, would 
 tend to make Christian Ethics, set over against 
 Stoic Ethics, appear too greatly a matter of 
 discipleship, too little a question of inward 
 evolution. For merely to obey, without under- 
 standing, means, in the matter of moral growth 
 (it may be argued), to acquire little besides 
 psychological and physiological habits which 
 may be indeed a useful basis for further develop- 
 ment, but in themselves are of little worth 
 tending indeed in many cases to a hard narrow- 
 ness of judgment of others. But none the less, 
 though " man is the noble endogenous plant 
 which grows, like the palm, from within out- 
 ward," the growth is more rapidly elicited 
 by a clearly conceived external ideal than by 
 aught else even as the tree is for ever induced 
 
 that Christianity was a transparently rational system, 
 vital Christian truths were either abandoned or at any 
 rate neglected. Christians thus became impoverished, 
 and the Christian faith was seriously diluted." Cf. 
 also Rainy, Ancient Catholic Church, pp. 90-91.) 
 129 I 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 to struggle upward and turn this way and that 
 by the attraction of the light towards which it 
 strives. Marcus Aurelius has realised it, when, 
 to find support for his endeavours, he sets down 
 for his own benefit the good qualities of this 
 and that man whom he has known and admired. 
 He does not add, "Become ye imitators" as 
 Ignatius might, 1 but the thought is inevitably 
 there. 
 
 There is something infinitely attractive in 
 the opening to his self-instructions, that 
 gallery of personal portraits which he elaborates 
 so lovingly in order to carry them with him 
 in his Marcomannic campaign. Having at 
 his side these concrete representations of virtue, 
 sanctified by personal affection, he feels himself 
 the stronger for confronting those less tangible 
 foes whom he feels to be much more real and 
 important than any Marcomanni. Into a 
 narrow compass he gathers the fairest illustra- 
 tions that he knows, of what is honourable and 
 pure and lovely and of good report, in order 
 that he may think on these things. Had he 
 intended his little volume for the eyes of the 
 
 1 Cf. Phil. vii. fiifjujral 
 I 3 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 world he could have chosen no better way to 
 take our affections by storm at the outset. 
 The naivete of the careful catalogue shows us 
 the writer's heart of hearts almost at a glance. 
 By knowing what he loves and honours, we 
 know him. 
 
 Yet nowhere, perhaps, shall we find a happier 
 illustration of the great advantage of which 
 Christianity is possessed, considered as a vital 
 conquering force, in being derived from the 
 comprehension of a Person, and not of a series 
 of concepts, than when we re-read the first 
 few paragraphs of the Meditations. " From 
 my grandfather : knowledge of what is meant 
 by imperturbability. From my father, this. 
 From my tutor, that." There is something 
 almost .pathetically effortful in the enumera- 
 tion. How different in its comprehensiveness 
 is the Christian's attitude towards Christ ! 
 The one elaborates, with difficulty, his perfect 
 man out of many men ; the other turns with 
 absolute simplicity to a concrete ideal. The 
 one attains his type by concentrated effort ; 
 the other sees his exemplar 1 always before him, 
 
 i The conscious imitation of Christ, however, is by no 
 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 with no uncertain outlines, fixed and unchange- 
 able, without rival or equal. Marcus Aurelius 
 consciously copies, while the Christian is 
 
 means so prominent in the exhortations of early Chris- 
 tianity as of its modern developments. Harnack goes 
 so far as to say that " in the early Church the imitation 
 of Christ never became a formal principle of ethics (to 
 use a modern phrase) except for the virtuoso in religion, 
 the ecclesiastic, the teacher, the ascetic or the martyr ; 
 it played quite a subordinate part in the ethical teaching 
 
 of the Church Foreone thing, Christology stood 
 
 in the way, involving not imitation but obedience ; for 
 another thing, the actual details of imitation seemed too 
 severe " (pp. cit. p. 107. Cf. Weinel's SV Paul, chap. xxi.). 
 But against this view it is possible to quote numerous pas- 
 sages, e.g., Ign. Eph. x., "Let us hasten to be imitators 
 of the Lord, which of us may be the more wronged, 
 which the more impoverished, which the more set at 
 nought ; in order that no weed of the Devil may be 
 found among you." (/it/w/rcu e rov Kvpiov crirovo'dfaij.fv 
 eivat, TIS TrXeoi/ adiKrjOf), ris dirocrrtprjQfi, ris d0frr)6f)- Iva pr) rov 
 
 8iafi6\ov ftordvi] TIS fvpfQfj cv vp.lv.) i Clem. xvi. " See, 
 beloved, what an exemplar is this which is being offered 
 to us ; for if the Lord was thus lowly-minded, what are 
 we to do who come through Him under the yoke of 
 grace ? " (opare, avdpcs dyairrjroi t ris 6 v7roypap*p.bs 6 SeSo- 
 pevos fjp.lv.) Polyc. x., " Following the example of the 
 Lord." (roJ vTroSe/yfian rov Kupi'ov aKo\ov6ovvrcs.) Polyc. 
 viii. " For he set us this example, through himself." 
 rovrov yap Tjulv rbv viroypap.p*iv edrjKf di* eavroG, cf. p.ip.rjrai 
 ovv yva>p,da rfjs vrrofjLOvrjs avrov. Polyc. viii. 
 I 3 2 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 spiritually absorbed into, his ideal. The latter, 
 beginning on a lower plane, may display at 
 first a poorer conception of the moral ideal than 
 the disciplined thinker ; but his advantage is 
 great, and he is likely to travel further. 
 
 But how far had this primitive group of 
 writers realised the new conception of Life 
 and its immense significance ? Undoubtedly 
 they tended to ascribe to Christian Ethics a 
 " qualitative distinctness " from pagan ethics, 
 and felt that its natural accompaniments were 
 Joy and Cheerfulness as well as Long-Suffering 
 and Patience. But it is necessary to remember 
 also that to their mind " the Present and the 
 Future were sharply opposed to each other, 
 and it was this opposition which furnished the 
 principle of self-control with its most powerful 
 motive. It became, indeed, with many people 
 a sort of glowing passion." x They realised 
 only dimly that the Kingdom of Heaven 
 should be within them, and turned with some 
 effort from the things of this world, not as 
 worthless in themselves, but as inferior and 
 perishable, and a hindrance to obtaining the 
 i Harnack, op. cit. p. 117 
 133 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 greater and imperishable joys of a world to 
 come. " It is better to hate the things of this 
 world because they are slight and short-lived 
 and perishable ; and to desire those others 
 which are good and imperishable " (Pseudo- 
 Clem. 6). 1 " If we ignore His commands 
 nothing will save us from the everlasting 
 punishment " (Ibid. 6). 2 " They know not 
 how great torture the enjoyment of this world 
 brings, and how much delight (rpv<f>rf) 
 attends the gospel that is to be (Ibid. 10). 
 " Let us hate the wandering of the present 
 time that we may be welcomed into the future" 
 (Barnabas, iv.). 3 Harnack therefore appears 
 to overstate somewhat their spirituality when 
 he says that " in their preaching the future 
 became already present, while hard and fast 
 recompense seemed to disappear entirely." 4 
 The fear and the hope that attached themselves 
 
 f(TTiv ra evddde p.icrfjo'ai, OTI piKpa KCU 6\iyo\povia 
 KOI (pdaprd- CKeiva 8c dyarrrja-at, ra dyada /ecu a(p0apra. 
 
 2 ovSev fjpas pvcrerai e*c TTJS aiwviov KoXaaewj 1 av irapaK.ov(T(op,fv 
 
 TO)V VTO\S)V aVTOV. 
 
 3 p,l(TT]0-fOp.V TT)V 7T\dvi]V TOV VVV KOtpOV, IVO, CIS TOV fi.\\OVTa 
 
 ayairrjdcofjifv. 
 
 4 Expansion of Christianity, vol. i. p. 119 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 to the belief in a future life were among the 
 strongest incentives to the pursuit of righteous- 
 ness, and the frequent references to the strength 
 of such feelings as covetousness ($i\apyvpia 
 and TrXsoi/eS/a which are combated by 
 similar " other-worldly " prudential considera- 
 tions are worthy note. In Marcus Aurelius 
 one is struck by tfe^reverse conception not, 
 " do righteousness iftcause the soul is immortal 
 and rewards and punishments attend the future 
 life," but, " work, for the night cometh when 
 no man can work : life is short, and the grave 
 is the end of all." l 
 
 But references to Joy, Hope, Gladness, 
 Cheerfulness, ring through all their pages. 
 For the word " Faith " itself there might 
 
 i Cf. ii. 4. " The limit of your time is circumscribed 
 for you. If you do not use it to attain the ethereal calm 
 it will be gone, and you will be gone, and it will not be 
 here again." (opos e<m (rot irepiyeypap.fjt.lvos TOV xpovov eS 
 eav els TO diraidpido~ai prj XP 7 ? ". 7 /? oi^o-frtu, KOI ot^er;;, KCU 
 avdis ov% fj^erai). Cf. iv. 26. fipaxys 6 jSt'oy KepSavreov TO 
 irdpov a-vv evXoyioria KCU dinr). Even death itself is to Marcus 
 Aurelius one of the actions (irpdgeis) of life, which must 
 be done nobly and worthily, for its own sake, as it were. 
 Cf- X. 8 ; vi. 2. (ju'a yap T>V ftiuriKwv irpdea>v KCU avrrj 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 almost at times be substituted such phrases 
 as " driving force " or " spiritual energy." 
 Hope, we have already pointed out, was in their 
 eyes a duty. Optimism was essential to the pro- 
 pagation of their creed an optimism which 
 especially connects itself with the belief m 
 the potential equality of all mankind, that 
 as all were made in the image of God, all might 
 eventually attain to a full measure of God- 
 like sanctity. This assertion of the fundamen- 
 tal equality of all (equality in the eyes of God, 
 Who sees us as we shall be, not as we are) x 
 is one of the Christian postulates most opposed 
 to the fundamental beliefs of Marcus Aurelius, 
 whose contempt for the average man can be 
 illustrated by a score of quotations. 2 The 
 Christian must despise no one. 8 He must 
 rather expect to find the most glorious 
 
 1 " The Church never sanctioned the thesis that there 
 was a qualitative distinction of human beings according 
 to their moral capacities, and that in consequence of 
 this there must also be different grades in their ethical 
 conduct and in the morality which might be expected 
 from them " (Harnack, op. cit. p. 271). 
 
 2 iv. 48, 50 ; v. 10 ; vi. 27 ; vii. 62, 70 ; viii. 44, 
 53 ; ix. 18, 27 ; x. 19, &c. 
 
 Kora^povovvres. Polyc. X. 
 I 3 6 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 examples 1 of the power of the new religion in 
 the regeneration of the very lowest. 
 
 Christianity brought life that men might 
 have it more abundantly. It did not come 
 to add an element of needless sadness to the 
 world as they who compare with its literature 
 the light-hearted gaiety of a much earlier 
 paganism are sometimes led to declare but 
 to bring joy and gladness. It was not a nega- 
 tive thing adding to the list of prohibited sides 
 of human activity, but a positive force heighten- 
 ing and brightening the possibilities of life. 2 
 It gave at least a partial answer to the questions 
 about sin and suffering which a morally diseased 
 world was asking ; and though it answered 
 also many questions which the world had not 
 yet learned to ask, and thus supplied material 
 for much temporary misunderstanding for 
 though we needs must love the highest when 
 
 1 Cf. Ign. ad Polyc. II. " If them lovest to have 
 excellent pupils, it is no credit to thee. Rather govern 
 the baser in gentleness." (KQ\OVS na6r)ras lav <j>i\fjs, x<*pit 
 
 (TOl OVK. (OTIV p.O\\OV TOVS \OlfJ.OTpOVS fV irpUVTTJTl V7TOTa(T(rf.) 
 
 2 Hermas becomes to some extent aware of this truth 
 and enforces it on himself. " Cease, Hermas, from 
 perpetual petitioning concerning sins. Ask also con- 
 cerning righteousness." (Vis. iii. i.) 
 
 137 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 we see it, it is equally true that we cannot see 
 the higher until our love has made us ready to 
 accept it it did not thereby lose in permanent 
 value. By its ultimate, if sometimes tardy, 
 rejection of all extremes and all one-sidedness ; 
 neither subordinating overmuch (like the earlier 
 Graeco-Roman ethics) the individual to the 
 community ; nor yet (like Marcus Aurelius) 
 endeavouring to establish him on a pedestal 
 of impossible independence ; not asserting, 
 with the Gnostics, the essential evil of matter ; 
 nor seeking, with Marcus, the annihilation of 
 emotion ; denying that man is ever a mere 
 creature of chance and circumstance (such as 
 Marcus declared the vast mass of his fellows 
 to be) ; while not ignoring differences of actual 
 moral attainment, and the varying force of 
 temptation ; and above all insisting on the 
 fundamental equality of all in their equal 
 potentialities of development ; by its marvel- 
 lous catholicity of adaptability, moreover, in 
 absorbing whatever it encounters that it has 
 seen to be good ; in its readiness to weigh and 
 examine, its slowness to reject, its tenacity 
 138 
 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 to retain, historical Christianity has had no 
 difficulty in supplying the modes of thought 
 through which the aspirations of nearly all 
 Western moralists have chosen to express 
 themselves, even the more independent 
 thinkers generally preferring to subordinate 
 their tendencies towards eccentricity to the 
 cardinal advantage of continuity in progress, 
 allowing themselves to be named Christians 
 when the ties that bound them to contem- 
 porary thought were slight. 
 
 Unlike their apostolic predecessors, the 
 writers whom we have grouped in contrast 
 with Marcus Aurelius were not markedly 
 in advance of contemporary thought. But 
 they were in the main current of advance, 
 and the future was with them as it never was 
 with him. And thus his elevation of thought, 
 though not barren (moral greatness can never 
 be barren), was not fruitful with the fruitfulness 
 of those who laboured with a consciousness 
 that they were sharing in a universal move- 
 ment common to all humanity, and who 
 handed on to their successors the task that 
 139 
 
STOIC AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 they had received from their forerunners, 
 confident that the fruit of their teaching 
 would multiply and increase not merely thirty- 
 fold or sixty-fold or a hundred-fold, but beyond 
 all calculation and all enumeration. 
 
 140 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS, the emperor whose reign closes 
 the two centuries of prosperity which precede the 
 long period of decline, was born in 1 21, at Rome itself, 
 in the reign of the versatile Hadrian. Until his 
 sixteenth year he bore the name of M. Annius Verus. 
 In that year (138) Hadrian, feeling that his end was 
 at hand, adopted Marcus* uncle Antoninus Pius as 
 his successor, on condition that Antoninus should 
 adopt the orphaned Marcus, whose intense earnestness 
 and truthfulness had attracted the aged ruler's atten- 
 tion ; and M. Annius was thenceforward known 
 as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. From Hadrian's 
 death in 138, till that of Antoninus in 161 Marcus 
 was a sort of junior colleague in the empire ; and 
 when the supreme power passed to him in his turn 
 he was already in middle age and experienced in 
 administrative duties. He married his cousin Faustina, 
 for whom he had an abiding love. Several children 
 were born to them, but only one grew to manhood, 
 the son Commodus, who survived his father, and proved 
 141 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 a worthless and incapable successor. Faustina died 
 in 175. 
 
 The reign of M. Aurelius was a period of disaster. 
 Wars with the Quadi and Marcomanni on the Danube, 
 an invasion of Syria by the Persians under Vologeses, 
 a revolt of an able general in the East, pestilence, 
 flood, and famine at Rome these were its most strik- 
 ing features. With no love for pomp and power, 
 and apparently a strong distaste for warfare, the 
 emperor remained with stoic firmness at his post, facing 
 steadily every new evil that arose, and leading in 
 person the Roman legions in successive arduous cam- 
 paigns. His personal tastes would have taken him to 
 a life of retirement, the quiet pleasures of the farm 
 and of the library. But he was compelled, in a state 
 of protracted ill-health, to drag himself through the 
 performance of imperial duties, from which the 
 death which came to him in 180, while he was conduct- 
 ing a last frontier campaign, was welcomed by him as 
 a release. 
 
 It was in the few leisure movements of his last 
 weary years, in the tent, perhaps, or while on the 
 march, that he composed the book of self-commun- 
 ings which accident alone seems to have pre- 
 served for us. It was written for himself, entitled 
 apparently, To Himself, and seemingly not intended 
 to be published. In addition to this we possess 
 a few of the letters, dealing chiefly with domestic 
 142 
 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 incidents, which passed between him and his tutor 
 Pronto. 
 
 BARNABAS. A single epistle of moderate length 
 bearing the title " Epistle of Barnabas," and probably 
 written in the last quarter of the first century, was 
 formerly ascribed to the companion of St. Paul. It 
 is a crude composition allegorising the Old Testament 
 writings from a strongly anti- Judaic standpoint. 
 The author shows much false modesty mingled with 
 spiritual arrogance. 
 
 CLEMENT, (i) A fairly lengthy epistle addressed 
 to the Corinthian Church in the name of the Church 
 at Rome, bears the name of Clement, whom tradition 
 declares to have been bishop of Rome about the 
 close of the first century. It was called forth by the 
 existence of bitter controversies, apparently due to 
 private ambitions, which had arisen among the Corin- 
 thian Christians. The style is dignified, the moral 
 tone high, while the phraseology echoes that of 
 the New Testament. The author has no marked 
 theological bias. 
 
 (2) The so-called second epistle of Clement is an 
 
 anonymous homily, probably of somewhat later date 
 
 than the above (between 100 and 150 A.D.). It 
 
 is a comparatively feeble and commonplace production 
 
 H3 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 from the intellectual point of view, but the author 
 shows considerable moral earnestness. 
 
 THE DIDACHE or TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOS- 
 TLES. This is a very brief manual serving as a guide 
 (a) to ecclesiastical practices ; (b) to Christian conduct, 
 and intended apparently for the instruction of Chris- 
 tian converts. It may have been written in the first 
 or the early part of the second century. It is simple 
 and sincere in tone and was held in high reverence 
 by the early Church. It disappeared completely from 
 the view of scholars until the discovery of a manuscript 
 at Constantinople in 1875. (CruttwelPs Literary 
 History of Early Christianity, pp. 57-71, gives a full 
 translation.) 
 
 HERMAS is the author of a comparatively extensive 
 composition known as " The Shepherd," consisting 
 of Visions, Commandments and Parables. His is an 
 uncultured mind, curiously compounded of moral 
 earnestness and moral feebleness. The work claims 
 to be inspired, and was treated with great respect for 
 several centuries. It was probably composed before 
 the middle of the second century. 
 
 IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, according to accepted 
 tradition met his death as a martyr at Rome about 
 the year no. On his journey to Rome he wrote 
 144 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 a number of epistles of which, we possess seven those 
 to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Philadelphians, 
 Smyrnaeans, Romans, and to Polycarp. They are 
 written in a most distinctive style, the language being 
 of an impassioned earnestness, the metaphors especially 
 of a strikingly unexpected kind. Ignatius combines 
 remarkable intellectual vigour with intense zeal for 
 the progress of Christianity. 
 
 POLYCARP, Bishop of Smyrna, was a younger con- 
 temporary of Ignatius, who attracted the latter's 
 notice as a man after his own heart. A single un- 
 important epistle survives. It was written to the 
 Philippians, and seems to have been called forth by 
 a scandal due to the malversations of an official of the 
 Philippian Church. 
 
 ARISTIDES, a second-century apologist, composed 
 a defence of Christianity, of which a Syriac translation 
 survives, as well as a condensed Greek text inserted 
 into a popular narrative entitled " The History of 
 Barlaam and Josaphat." This Apology is an impressive 
 oration, consisting largely of a polemic against non- 
 Christian religions (tending therefore, to become 
 somewhat wearisome to modern readers) and conclud- 
 ing with a remarkable panegyric of Christian morality .J 
 
 JUSTIN MARTYR (c. 100-165 A.D.), an eager student 
 145 K 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 of philosophy before he became a Christian, en- 
 deavoured to render Christian doctrine acceptable 
 to philosophic readers. Two Apologies and the 
 " Dialogue with Trypho " (all three of considerable 
 length) as well as some less well authenticated writings 
 survive. They are written in a frank, clear, attractive 
 style. 
 
 ATHENAGORAS composed an " Apology " and a 
 " Treatise on the Resurrection," in the time of Marcus 
 Aurelius. He is a cultured man with a clear, logical 
 turn of mind, who has a respect for philosophy, and 
 endeavours to convince his opponents by sound reason- 
 ing. 
 
 TATIAN, an Assyrian, who passed from^ Hellenism 
 through Christianity into Gnosticism, is said to have 
 been a pupil of Justin. An " Oration to the Greeks " 
 from his pen survives. He has studied philosophy, 
 and has some of the intellectual restlessness of a truth- 
 seeker. But excess of zeal leads him into a repellent 
 vituperation of everything connected with non- 
 Christian studies. 
 
 THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH wrote a treatise in three 
 
 books, addressed to Autolycus, dealing especially with 
 
 the doctrine of the resurrection, the creation, and 
 
 the evidence for Christianity. The work shows 
 
 146 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 more erudition than ability. The author died about 
 180 A.D. 
 
 An anonymous EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS, '-'probably 
 belonging to the earlier part of the second century, 
 survives in a slightly mutilated form. It is mainly a 
 eulogistic description of the Christian life, written in 
 a graceful and dignified style. 
 
 OFTHE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNK <5r Co. LIMITED 
 Tavistock Street, London 
 

14 DAY USE 
 
 EN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 202 Main Library 
 
 PERIOD 1 
 AEUSE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 OOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 vals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date, 
 may be Renewed by catting 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 __ AAAf 
 
 
 
 /U6198J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 
VD 
 
 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDOb7MDSb8 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY