“Bear in mind that you are a son. What is involved in being a son? To consider all that he has to be his father’s property, to obey him in all things, never to disparage him to any one, never to say or do anything to harm him, to stand out of his way and give place to him in all things, to help him by all means in his power.
“Next remember that you are also a brother: the doing of what is fitting in this capacity involves giving way to him, yielding to his persuasion, speaking well of him, never setting up a rival claim to him in those things that are beyond the control of the will, but gladly letting them go that you may have the advantage in those things which the will controls.
“Next, if you are a senator of any city, remember that you are a senator: if a youth, that you are a youth: if an old man, that you are an old man: if a father, that you are a father. For in each of these cases the consideration of the name you bear will suggest to you what is fitting to be done in relation to it.”
This view of right moral conduct as being determined by the natural relations in which one man stands to another, and as constituting what is Fitting in regard to those relations, had overspread the Roman world. But in that world the philosophical theory which lay behind the conception of the Fitting was less prominent than the conception itself, and two other terms, both of which were natural and familiar to the Roman mind, came into use to express it. The one was borrowed from the idea of the functions which men have to discharge in the organization of civil government, the other from the idea of a debt. The former of these, “officium,” has not passed in this sense outside the Latin language: the latter, “debitum,” is familiar to us under its English form “duty.”
On the higher plane of his teaching Epictetus expresses moral philosophy in terms of theology. Human life begins and ends in God. Moral conduct is a sublime religion. I will ask you to listen to a short cento of passages, strung loosely together, in which his teaching is expressed:—
“‘We also are His offspring.’ Every one of us may call himself a son of God.[260] Just as our bodies are linked to the material universe,[261] subject while we live to the same forces, resolved when we die into the same elements,[262] so by virtue of reason our souls are linked to and continuous with Him, being in reality parts and offshoots of Him.[263] There is no movement of which He is not conscious, because we and He are part of one birth and growth;[264] to Him ‘all hearts are open, all desires known;’[265] as we walk or talk or eat, He Himself is within us, so that we are His shrines, living temples and incarnations of Him.[266] By virtue of this communion with Him we are in the first rank of created things:[267] we and He together form the greatest and chiefest and most comprehensive of all organizations.[268]
“If we once realize this kinship, no mean or unworthy thought of ourselves can enter our souls.[269] The sense of it forms a rule and standard for our lives. If God be faithful, we also must be faithful: if God be beneficent, we also must be beneficent. If God be highminded, we also must be highminded, doing and saying whatever we do and say in imitation of and union with Him.[270]
“Why did He make us?
“He made us, first of all, to complete His conception of the universe: He had need for such completion of some beings who should be intelligent.[271] He made us, secondly, to behold and understand and interpret His administration of the universe: to be His witnesses and ministers.[272] He made us, thirdly, to be happy in ourselves: like a true Father and Guardian, he has placed good and evil in those things which are within our own power.[273] What He says to each one of us is, ‘If thou wilt have any good, take it from within thyself.’[274] To this end He has given us freedom of will; there is no power in heaven or earth that can bar our freedom.[275] We cry out in our sorrow, ‘O Lord God, grant that I may not feel sorrow;’ and all the time He has given us the means of not feeling it.[276] He has given us the power of bearing and turning to account whatever happens, the spirit of manliness and fortitude and high-mindedness, so that the greater the difficulty, the greater the opportunity of adorning our character by meeting it. If, for example, fever comes, it brings from Him this message, ‘Give me a proof that your moral training has been real.’ There is a time for learning, and a time for practising what we have learnt: in the lecture-room we learn: and then God brings us to the difficulties of real life and says to us, ‘It is time now for the real contest.’ Life is in reality an Olympic festival: we are God’s athletes, to whom He has given an opportunity of showing of what stuff we are made.[277]
“What is our duty to Him?