Silanus the Christian

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

The third hour had almost arrived and I had to hasten to the lecture-room taking with me the note addressed to Epictetus. All the way, I could think of nothing but the contrast between what Arrian had said about the Christians, and what Mark and Matthew had said about Christ’s last words—the servants tranquil, steadfast, rejoicing in persecution; their Master crying “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It perplexed me beyond measure.

In this bewilderment, I took my accustomed place beside Glaucus, who greeted me with even more than his usual warmth. He seemed strangely altered. It was no new thing for him to look worn and haggard. But to-day there was a strange wildness in his eyes. Absorbed though I was in my own thoughts, I could not help noticing this as I sat down, just before Epictetus began.

The lecture was of a discursive kind but might be roughly divided into two parts, one adapted for the first class of Cynics, those who aspired to teach; the other for the second class, those who were content to practise. The first class Epictetus cautioned against expecting too much. No man, he said, not even the best of Cynic teachers, could control the will of another. Socrates himself could not persuade his own son. It was rather with the view of satisfying his own nature, than of moving other men’s nature, that Socrates taught. Apollo himself, he said, uttered oracles in the same way. I believe he also repeated—what I have recorded before—that Socrates “did not persuade one in a thousand” of those whom he tried to persuade.

I remembered a similar avowal in Isaiah when the prophet declares that his message is “Hear ye indeed, but understand not”; and this, or something like it, was repeated by Jesus and Paul. But Isaiah says, “Lord, how long?” And the reply is that the failure will not be for ever. In the Jewish utterances, there was more pain but also more hope. I preferred them. Nor could I help recalling Paul’s reiterated assertions that everywhere the message of the gospel was a “power,”—sometimes indeed for evil, to those that hardened themselves against it, but more often for good—constraining, taking captive, leading in triumph, and destined in the end to make all things subject to the Son of God. Compared with this, our Master’s doctrine seemed very cold.

In the next place, Epictetus addressed himself to the larger and lower class of Cynics, those who were beginning, or who aspired only to the passive life. These he exhorted to set their thoughts on what was their own, on their own advantage or profit—of course interpreting profit in a philosophic sense as being virtue, which is its own reward and is the most profitable thing for every man. It was all, in a sense, very true, but again I felt that it was chilling. It seemed to send me down into myself, groping in the cellars of my own nature, instead of helping me to look up to the sun. Most of it was more or less familiar; and there was one saying that I have quoted above, to the effect that the universe is “badly managed if Zeus does not take care of each one of His own citizens in order that they like Him may be divinely happy.” Now I knew that Epictetus did not use the word eudæmon, or divinely happy, referring to the next life, for he did not believe that a “citizen of Zeus” would continue to exist, except as parts of the four elements, in a future life. He meant “in this life.” And if anyone in this life felt unhappy—more particularly, if he “wept”—that was a sign, according to Epictetus, that he was not a “citizen of Zeus.” For he declared that Ulysses, if he wept and bewailed his separation from his home and wife—as Homer says he did—“was not good.” So it came to this, that no man must weep or lament in earnest for any cause, either for the sins or sorrows of others, or for his own, on pain of forfeiting his franchise in the City of Zeus. I had read in the Hebrew scriptures how Noah, and Lot, and others of the “citizens of God,” lived alone amongst multitudes of sinners; but they, and the prophets too, seemed to be afflicted by the sins around them. Also Jesus said in the gospels, “O sinful and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you and bear you!” as though it were a burden to him. And I had come to feel that every good man must in some sense bear the sins and carry the iniquities of his neighbours—especially those of his own household, and his own flesh and blood. So I flinched from these expressions of Epictetus, although I knew that they were quite consistent with his philosophy.

Glaucus, I could clearly see, resented them even more than I did. He was very liable to sudden emotions, and very quick to shew them. Just now he seemed unusually agitated. He was writing at a great pace, but not (I thought) notes of the lecture. When Epictetus proceeded to warn us that we must not expect to attain at once this perfection of happiness and peace, but that we must practise our precepts and wait, Glaucus stopped his writing for a moment to scrawl something on a piece of paper. He pushed it toward me, and I read “Rusticus expectat.” I remembered that he had replied to me in this phrase when I had given him some advice about “waiting patiently,” saying that all would “come right,” or words to that effect. I did not now feel that I could say, “All will come right.” Perhaps my glance in answer to Glaucus expressed this. But he said nothing, merely continuing his writing, still in great excitement.

Epictetus proceeded to repeat that “pity” must be rejected as a fault. The philosopher may of course love people, but he must love them as Diogenes did. This ideal did not attract me, though he called Diogenes “mild.” The Cynic, he said, is not really to weep for the dead, or with those sorrowing for the dead. That is to say, he is not to weep “from within.” This was his phrase. Perhaps he meant that, although in the antechamber and even in some inner chambers of the soul there may be tearful grief, and sorrow, and bitterness of heart, yet in the inmost chamber of all there must be peace and trust. But he did not say this. He said just what I have set down above. At the words “not from within,” Glaucus got up and began to collect his papers, as though intending to leave the room. The next moment, however, he sat down and went on writing.

The lecture now turned to the subject of “distress”—which interested me all the more because I had noticed in the morning that Luke had described Christ as being “in distress” when he prayed fervently in the night before the crucifixion. But it seemed to me that Luke and Epictetus were using the same word for two distinct things. Epictetus meant “distress” about things not in our power, and among these things he included the sins of our friends and neighbours. But Luke seemed to mean “distress” about things in Christ’s power, because (according to Luke’s belief) Christ had a power of bearing the sins of others. If so, Luke did not mean what Epictetus meant, namely, nervous, faithless, and timid worry or terror, but rather an agōn, or conflict, of the mind, corresponding to the agōn, or conflict, of the body when one is wrestling with an enemy, as Jacob was said by the Hebrews to have wrestled with a spirit in Penuel.

At this point, after repeating what I had heard him say before, concerning the grace and dexterity with which Socrates “played at ball” in his last moments—the ball being his life and his family—Epictetus passed on to emphasize the duty of the philosopher to preserve his peace of mind even at the cost of detaching himself from those nearest and dearest to him. Suppose, for example, you are alarmed by portents of evil, you must say to yourself “These portents threaten my body, or my goods, or my reputation, or my children, or my wife; but they do not threaten me.” Then he insisted on the necessity of placing “the supreme good” above all ties of kindred. “I have nothing to do,” he exclaimed, “with my father, but only with the supreme good.” Scarcely waiting for him to finish his sentence, Glaucus rose from his seat, pressed some folded papers into my hand, and left the room.

I think Epictetus saw him go. At all events, he immediately put himself, as it were, in Glaucus’s place, as though uttering just such a remonstrance as Glaucus would have liked to utter, “Are you so hard hearted?” To this Epictetus replied in his own person, “Nay, I have been framed by Nature thus. God has given me this coinage.” What our Master really meant was, that God has ordained that men should part with everything at the price of duty and virtue. “Duty” or “virtue” is to be the “coin” in exchange for which we must be ready to sell everything, even at the risk of disobeying a father. A father may bid his son betray his country that he, the father, may gain ten thousand sesterces. In such a case the son ought to reply—as Epictetus said—“Am I to neglect my supreme good that you may have it [i.e. what you consider your supreme good]? Am I to make way for you? What for?” “I am your father,” says the father. “Yes, but you are not my supreme good.” “I am your brother,” says the brother. “Yes, but you are not my supreme good.”