The body, soul, and reason. Book 3, chap. 5. What dis the good man. in order, one who is awaiting the summons out of life, ready to be set free; one that needeth not an oath, nor any human witness. 66 20. The following passage contains something more of formal philosophy, yet combined, as always, with practice and selfexamination. Body, soul, reason,-to the body belong sensations, to the soul impulses, to the mind or reason deterininations (dóyuara). To receive impressions from outward (δόγματα). appearances belongs even to cattle; nervous impulses may belong to wild beasts, to Phalaris, to Nero; to have the reason as a guide in reference to the phenomena that present themselves, may belong to those who do not believe in the gods, tinguishes and to those who desert their country, and to those who do acts which require that they should shut their doors. If, then, all else is common to these we have enumerated, that which remains as the special gift of the good man is the being content with and welcoming the things that befal him, and those things that have been spun by the destinies for him; the not mixing or disturbing the dæmon that is established in the heart with a crowd of phantasies, but the keeping him propitious, reverently submitting to him, speaking nothing that is contrary to the truth, doing nothing that is beyond the right. And though all disbelieve that such a man is living a simple, and reverend, and brave life, he is not angry with any of them, nor does he turn out of the way that is leading him to the goal of his life, to which he must come pure, silent, ready for dismissal, cheerfully fitted for that which is appointed him." Book 3, chap. 16. Impressions; how to govern them. Book 5, chap. 16. 21. Marcus Aurelius had a very strong feeling, like Epictetus, that the management of the impressions which objects make upon us was the chief part of mental discipline, Hear how he applies this to his own position, which was so different from that of Epictetus :-" According to the impressions which thou art continually receiving, will be the temper of thy mind; for the soul gets its dye from these impressions. Dye it then with the continual repetition of such impressions as these; that wheresoever it is appointed you to live, there it is possible to live well; that it is your appointed lot to live in a palace, then it is possible to live well in a palace. And again, that each thing is carried on towards that for the sake of which it has been prepared and ordained. That in that point to which it is Social life, bearing, you will find the end or purpose of it; that wherever its dignity. is the end and purpose of it, there is the good of it; that the good of the reasonable creature is society. That we were born for society, has been shown long ago. For is it not evident that the worse things exist for the sake of the better, the better for the sake of each other? But creatures that have life are better than creatures without life, and creatures that have reason are better than those who have merely life." 22. This idea of man as a social or political being enters very deeply into the mind and philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. The how The person We are portions of the great whole" is a thought which Tendency to continually recurs to him. At times it gives a coldness to his Pantheism; speculations: the man seems in danger of being lost in the resisted. universe. But quite as often it is urged as an argument, apparently an effective one to the writer's mind, against selfishness and self-exaltation. Unquestionably he was more inclined than Epictetus was to follow the old Stoics in identifying God with the world-the world signifying not the earth or the visible frame-work of things, but the order and constitution to which we belong. There was much, however, in his Roman education, his devout temper, his personal affections, and his watchfulness over himself, to counteract this tendency. He has no idea of the universe as self-governed. The phrase "directing reason," is one which occurs continually in connection with his idea of the whole; and to this "directing reason" he assigns gracious and human qualities. "The being of the universe,' he says, in the beginning of his 6th Book," is easy to be en- ality of the treated, and flexible. The reason that directs it hath in itself divinity b worshipped. no motive to ill-doing. Malice is not in it, nor is anything done by it maliciously, nor is anything injured by it. All things come to pass and are accomplished in obedience to it." first clause of this sentence may seem somewhat unintelligible. The Emperor designs, we apprehend, to oppose the universal substance to that which is the cause of all untractableness, the feelings and passions of the individual. He would lead the man out of these by bringing him to feel that he is not a separate existence, but part of a scheme from which he cannot tear himself without destroying himself. "All particular things," The alterna he says just after," fulfil their end according to the nature tive. of the whole; not in conformity with some other nature, either inclosing it from without, or comprehended within, or existing apart from it and only accidentally attached to it. Either there is in this universe only a mixture of elements, a strange entanglement, to terminate in dispersion and dissolution, or there is unity, order, providence. Supposing the first to be the right view, why do I desire to meddle with such a ferment and confusion of accidents? What else have I to trouble myself about than the how and when I am to become earth? And in that case why do I fret myself? The dissolution will come to me whatever I do. But if the other is the case, I bow down with reverence, I set myself in order, I put confidence in the Director of all things.' One extract more may set this point cc. 9, 1 Conse quence of either. Book, 6. Book 7, chap. 9. Relation of Marcus the Christian Church. Causes of clearer:-" All things are woven into one another, and it is a holy combination, and scarcely any two things are heterogeneous. For they have been put together, and together compose the same harmony (συγκοσμει τὸν αὐτὸν κόσμον). For there is one harmony made up of all things, and there is one God through all things, and one substance and one law, one word of reason that is common to all reasonable creatures, and one truth; since there is also one perfection of all creatures of the same kind, participant of that same word or reason.” 23. This last sentence will so immediately recall to the reader's mind one of St. Paul's, that the question naturally suggests itself,-What is the relation between them? How was Marcus Aurelius likely to regard those who held the faith of St. Paul? How did he actually regard them? On the last point there is no doubt. The Church had far more to suffer from Marcus, than from his son Commodus; he deliberately adopted the policy which Trajan had originated, he followed it out with far greater severity than Trajan. All the arguments which recommended it to the one Emperor, presented themselves with new force to his successor; they were strengthened by considerations peculiar to himself. As Marcus Aurelius was more devout than his predecessors, as the worship of the gods was with him less a mere deference to opinion and tradition, he felt a more hearty indignation against those who seemed to be undermining it. As he had more zeal for the well-being of his subjects, and a stronger impression of the danger of their losing any portion of the faith and reverence which they had, the political motives which swayed earlier his dislike, emperors acted more mightily upon him. As he had convinced himself that the severest course of self-discipline is necessary in order to fit a man for overcoming the allurements of the visible and the terrors of the invisible world, he despised and disbelieved those who seemed to have attained the results withphilosophi out the preparatory processes. As he wished to reconcile the obligations of an emperor to perform all external duties with the obligation of a philosopher to self-culture, and found the task laborious enough, the strange mixture of the ideas of a polity with ideas belonging to the spiritual nature of man, which he heard of among the Christians, must have made him suspect them of aping the Cæsars and the Roman wisdom in their government, as well as of aping the Stoics in their contempt of pain. Such reasons, if we made no allowance for the malignant reports of courtiers and philosophers, the prevalent belief of unheard-of crimes in the secret assemblies of the Christians, the foolish statements and wrong acts of which they may themselves have been guilty, will explain sufficiently why the venerable age and character of Polycarp, the beautiful fidelity political religious, cal. of the martyrs of Lyons, did not prevent them from being victims of the decrees of the best men who ever reigned in Rome. his doc doctrines: solution. 24. Any notion, therefore, that the great principles and Affinity of maxims which are announced in the writings of Marcus trines with Aurelius were derived from Christian teachers, or indicated Christian even a partial allegiance to Christian maxims, must be at once how acdiscarded, not merely as wanting evidence, but as refuted by it. counted for. The question, what relation there is between his principles and those which the teachers of the Gospel were promulgating, is a very different one, and cannot be resolved by any hasty inferences from the treatment which they received at his hands. Those who think of the Christian Church as a mere human society set up in the world to defend a certain religion against a certain other religion, will naturally try to prove that its members were in possession of truth by proving that its opponents were only asserters of falsehood. Those who believe The human that it was a society established by God as a witness of the and divine true constitution of all human beings, will rejoice to acknowledge its members to be what they believed themselves to beconfessors and martyrs for a truth which they could not embrace or comprehend, of which they often perceived only a small portion, but which, through their lives and deaths, as well as through the right and wrong acts, the true and false words of those who understand them least, was to manifest and prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable sentences which are to be found in the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. If they did, they would be undervaluing a portion of that very truth which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth; they would be adopting the error of the philosophical emperor without his excuses for it. Nor dare they pretend that, by some means or other, the Christian preaching had unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light even while he seemed to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a certain great truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch to understand the dæmon which guided Socrates, in the courageous language of the Martyr of Antioch, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the eagerness of Justin to prove Christianity a philosophy, and to confute the philosophers, in the apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence that a.doctrine and society which are meant for mankind, cannot depend upon the partial views and apprehensions of men, but must go on justifying, reconciling, confuting those views and apprehensions by the demonstration of facts. 300 The Emperors after Marcus; their common object. CHAPTER II. THE THIRD CENTURY. FROM MARCUS AURELIUS TO CONSTANTINE. 1. THE miserable period from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the accession of Septimus Severus, explains the difference between the characteristics of the 2nd and of the 3rd centuries. The effort to make despotism orderly and righteous, to give an empire the form of a republic, had been continued with different degrees of earnestness, ability, and success, through four reigns; the climax of the experiment was in the last. The Roman world saw that it had failed. Something was wanting besides the honesty, self-restraint, philosophy, of the temporary ruler. All these qualities, combined with a resolute purpose of crushing what seemed hostile to the integrity of the empire, and the belief of the people in its divine protectors, had given the Roman world an appearance of stability which the accession of one contemptible ruffian could at once turn into a mockery. The meaning of the word Imperator, the basis on which the imperial power was standing, the instruments which must overthrow it, then made themselves evident to all tolerably thoughtful observers. The question, how the dissolution of the Society might be for the longest time averted, became the only one which an intelligent ruler had to propose to himself. Various answers were found for it during the 3rd century. Strive to preserve the traditional reverence for Roman law, so you may at least impose some restraint upon the power of arms, was the suggestion which the sage jurisconsults of the first Severus offered to him, and upon which he S. Severus, endeavoured to act. An eclectical unity, resulting from a tolerance and comprehension of different parties, seems to have been dreamed of by Alexander Severus, and to have been carried out with more of ambition and vanity by Philippus Arabs. Stern discipline, and consequent restraint upon all novelties of Of Decius, opicion, appeared to Decius, who saw the weakness of this last attempt, the only remedy for the mischiefs to which it had led. To divide the empire under different heads, and to give it more the character of an oriental government, was the policy of Policy of Of Alex. |