We should hold it as a common bond, that we have been born. Our fellowship is most like an arch of stones; which will fall, if each in turn do not afford support, one sustaining the other[[47]].” In the 47th letter (to Lucilius), he speaks of the value of kindness even to slaves: “I have gladly learnt from those who have come from you, that you live familiarly with your slaves. This is worthy of your wisdom and of your learning. Are they slaves? Yes, but they are also men. Are they slaves? Yes, but they are also comrades. Are they slaves? Yes, but they are also humble friends.”
He also shows how advanced his feelings were by depicting the wickedness and debasing nature of revenge and cruelty. He paints in beautiful language the opposite virtue. Yet, lest he should seem to forget his Stoicism altogether, he draws a nice distinction between clemency (clementia) and compassion (misericordia). He ascribes to the former, however, nearly all that we ascribe to the latter, except the outward manifestation of sympathy. There must be an apparent Stoicism veiling real humanity. He calls cruelty proceeding from revenge “An evil in no degree human, and unworthy therefore of a gentle mind. It is a madness like that of wild beasts, to delight in blood and wounds, and, manhood being laid aside, to change into a brute.” (De Clem. I. 24.) “As he is not the large minded man, who is liberal of another’s property; but he who deprives himself of what he gives to another: so I will call him clement, not who is easy under another person’s wrong, but who does not break out, when spurred on by his personal feelings; who understands that it is the attribute of a great mind to suffer injuries though possessed of the fullest power to avenge them.” (De Clem. I. 20.) “I know that the Stoic sect are in bad repute among the inexperienced, as being too harsh, and inclined to give advice which is far from good to princes and kings. It is objected against the sect that it says the wise man should not be compassionate, should not forgive. These, if taken by themselves, are hateful doctrines; for they seem to leave no hope to human errors, but to bring every fault to punishment. But if this be a true report, what is this system of knowledge but one which commands us to unlearn humanity, and shuts a most certain door against mutual help in misfortune? Yet there is no sect kinder or more gentle, none more loving of men, and more attentive to the common good: as it is a principle with us to provide for being of use, or to afford help, not only where self is concerned, but to all and to each. Compassion (misericordia) is an unquiet of the mind (ægritudo animi) from the sight of others’ miseries; or a sadness contracted from the misfortunes of others, which one believes to have fallen on those who did not deserve them. Now unquiet does not come to the wise man; his mind is calm, nor can anything happen to overthrow it: and nothing but magnanimity becomes him. But the same man cannot be magnanimous whom fear and sorrow assail, whose mind these feelings overthrow and contract. To the wise man this does not happen even in his own calamities; but he will, on the contrary, beat back all the anger of fortune and break it before him. He will always preserve the same countenance, calm and undisturbed; which he could not do, if he gave way to sadness. Therefore he is not compassionate, because this cannot be without misery: all other things which those do who are compassionate, he does willingly and in another frame of mind. He will succour the tears of others; he will not give way to them. He will give a helping hand to the shipwrecked, shelter to the exile, alms to the needy; he does not do this disdainfully, like the greater part of those who wish to seem compassionate, who disdain those whom they help and fear to be touched by them: but he will give as an equal, a man to a man. He will give the son to his mother’s tears, and will command the fetters to be loosened; he will redeem from the arena the man condemned to fight, and he will even bury the noxious dead body. But he will do this with a peaceful mind and a countenance worthy of himself. Therefore the wise man will not pity, but he will help; he will benefit, as one born for mutual help and the public good; from which he will give each his share; even to the troublesome, in due proportion—to those who are to be disapproved of and reformed, he shows kindness. But he much more willingly comes to the help of the afflicted, and heavily laden.” (De Clem. II. 5, 6.)
With regard to the life of the soul in a future world as a separate being, Seneca’s mind seems, from his different writings, to have been in an undecided state. Sometimes, however, he rises superior to his doubts and to his Stoic bias, and rejoices in the hope of real immortality. We see the uncertainty under which he laboured in his book written to console Polybius for the loss of his brother. He tells him that, if he lamented, it was either on his own account, or on account of the departed. If on his own account, then he was not wisely submissive to the wisdom which ruled all things. If he lamented for his brother’s sake, then he should reflect that one of two events must have occurred; either that his brother by death had lost consciousness and individuality; or, he was still sensible and conscious. In either case Polybius should reason himself out of grief. He should reflect in this way: “If there remain no sense to the departed, then he has escaped all the inconveniences of life, and is restored to that place where he was before he was born: and, free from all evil, fears nothing, desires nothing, suffers nothing. What madness is it then for me not to cease grieving for him, who never will grieve any more?” In this hypothesis, we see a reference to the ancient Stoic belief respecting the dead. But Seneca proceeds to point out to Polybius a nobler reason for ceasing to mourn. He bids him think, “If there be any consciousness in the dead; now the mind of my brother, as though released from a long imprisonment, at length acts according to its own reason and will; and enjoys the spectacle of the universe, and from a higher place looks down on all human affairs; yet has a nearer insight into those divine mysteries, the design of which he had so long sought in vain to understand.” He adds, “Do not then grieve for your brother; he is at rest. At length he is free, at length he is safe, at length he is immortal. Now he enjoys an open and free heaven; he has ascended from a low and sunken place to that, whatever it be, which receives those souls that are released from their fetters into its happy bosom: and now he wanders freely, and beholds with highest delight all the treasures of the universe. You are wrong; your brother has not lost his life; but has attained to one more secure. He has not left us, but has gone before.” (Ch. 28.) To this idea of a happy future existence for the soul, he sometimes recurs in other parts of his writings. In his 102nd letter he complains of having been disturbed by a letter from Lucilius, in his happy thoughts of this nature. “Just as he is a troublesome fellow who wakes one that has a pleasant dream, so did your letter injure me. It called me back when indulging in suitable thought and about to venture further, if one might. I was delighting myself with enquiring respecting the immortality of souls, yes and more than that, with believing in it. I gave my belief readily to the opinions of great men, who rather promised this most welcome thing, than proved it. I gave myself up to so great a hope. Already I was disdainful of my present self, already I despised the fragments of my broken existence, about to pass, as I was, into that immense duration and into the possession of eternity: when suddenly I was awakened by the receipt of your letter, and lost my beautiful dream. But I will seek it again, when I have sent you away, and try to get it back.” In the latter part of the same letter he compares our present life to the period of gestation. When we cast off our skin and bones and sinews at death, we shall be like infants escaping from what has enfolded them previously to their birth. When we die, then we shall be born to a nobler life. We need not mourn over our dying bodies. “The coverings always perish of those who are born. Therefore look hence to something more lofty and sublime. Hereafter the mysteries of the universe shall be revealed to you, the darkness shall be dispelled, and clear light shall break upon you from every side. Imagine within yourself how great will be that brightness, so many stars commingling their light. No cloud will disturb the peaceful scene. The whole expanse of heaven will shine with equal splendour. Then you will say you have lived in darkness, when you shall have full vision of that perfect light. This thought allows nothing filthy, nothing low, nothing cruel to find place in the mind; and he who has embraced this doctrine, dreads no hosts, trembles not at the trumpet’s blast, fears no threats.”
No one would pretend to say that there are definite traces of Christian influence in these lofty thoughts. Indeed one’s mind naturally turns from them to similar musings in the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, and elsewhere. We remember too the noble surmises of Plato respecting the soul’s immortality; and how Cato, the Stoic, improved on his Stoicism, by indulging in lofty views of a future life, drawn from this source, before his suicide. Yet one cannot but feel that Seneca, at times, nearly reached the truth, and owed to the influence of the religion of Jesus on the age in which he lived, much of the peculiar excellence of his philosophy.
If from him we turn to Epictetus, we see one still more steadily approaching the light. He seems almost more than a pagan philosopher, but less than a Christian disciple. His discourses preserved to us by the care of Arrian, who wrote in Greek what he heard as the disciple of the philosopher, show a pious spirit and a disrelish for the harsher doctrines of the Stoic system. They bear in some parts a striking likeness to the teachings of the Gospel. Just as our Saviour taught that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted, and that the soul needed His care, as a sick man needs a physician: so we read in Epictetus, “The beginning of philosophy is, according to those who enter, even as they ought, through this gate to her, a perception of their weakness and powerlessness in necessary matters ... Does the philosopher beseech men to listen to him? What doctor asks that any one should suffer himself to be healed by him? Although I hear that at Rome now, doctors call patients to them, yet in my time, they were called to their patients. I invite you to come and hear that you are ill; that you take care of anything rather than what is worthy of care; that you are ignorant of good and evil; that you are unhappy and wretched. The school of the philosopher is a doctor’s shop, from which one should go away, not joyful, but suffering: for you did not come to it whole, but sick, one with a dislocated shoulder, another afflicted with a tumour, another with an ulcer, and another with headache[[48]].” We find also how clearly he saw the necessity for divine aid in doing right, and the need for submission to the divine will, self-will being cast aside. He says, “Call to mind, man, what is said about tranquillity, liberty, magnanimity. Lift up your head now, like one freed from slavery. Dare at length, with eyes raised to God, to say, ‘Henceforth deal with me as thou wilt: Thy thought is my thought; Thy will the same as mine; I refuse nothing that seemeth good to Thee. Lead me whither Thou wilt. Clothe me as Thou wilt. Dost Thou wish me to lead a public life, to live in private, to remain, to flee, to be in need, to abound with wealth? I will defend Thee as to all these dispensations of thy providence before men: I will show what is the nature of each. Cleanse Thou Thine own. Of Thine own will cast out thence grief, and fear, and avarice, and envy, and ill-will, and covetousness, and effeminacy, and intemperance.’ These things cannot be cast out except you look to God alone, and cleave to him alone, and sacrifice yourself to his commands[[49]].” At another place, we find Epictetus acknowledging that the change of his life from sin to virtue was due to divine mercy, and called for grateful acknowledgement. “I observe what men say and by what they are influenced; and I do this not malevolently, nor that I may find something to blame, or ridicule, but I turn it to myself, lest I also sin in the same way. How then shall I cease from sin? Once I also sinned, but now do so no longer, thanks be to God[[50]].” Of the providence of God, some of the most elevated, reverent, and grateful records are contained in the Dissertations. For instance, we have the following noble passage in B. I. c. 16: “What language will be sufficient to praise and set forth these works of Providence towards us. For, if we are mindful, what else does it behove us to do, both in public and private, than to praise and bless the Deity, and to utter thanksgivings? Ought we not both while we dig, and while we plough, and while we eat, to sing this hymn to God? ‘Great is God who hath provided such implements for us, by which we work the ground: great is God, who hath given us hands; and the power of swallowing our food, as well as a place for its digestion; who hath caused us to grow without our own care, and to breathe even while we sleep.’ These things should be sung, one by one; even the grandest and holiest hymn should be sung, because He has given us a power of attending to these things and making use of them by a proper method[[51]]. What then? Since ye, the multitude, are blinded to this, ought not one to be found to fulfil this part and sing, in place of all, the hymn to God? For what other duty can I, a lame old man, discharge, except sing the praises of God? If I were a nightingale, I would fulfil my part like the nightingale; if a swan, like the swan. But now, since I am possessed of reason, I ought to sing the praises of God. This is my work, I do it: nor will I leave this post, so long as power is given me to hold it, and I exhort you to join in the singing of this same song[[52]].” He speaks also of the freedom of the human will to perform certain acts, and dwells on the acts that are within the power of the will. He shows the folly of valuing too highly what is beyond our power, and the necessity of submitting our will to the divine will. But though he speaks of the freedom of the human will, he is a firm believer in fatalism; so that his idea of the true freedom of man was limited. “I have one whom it behoves me to please, to whom I must submit, whom I ought to obey—God, and those who hold a place near him. He has committed me to myself and placed my free will in subjection to myself alone, giving me rules for its right use: and when I follow these in my reasonings, I do not care what else any one says[[53]].” “Remember this, that if you esteem every thing that is beyond your choice, you lose the power of choosing[[54]].” He tells us we are the children of God, and that this relationship should lead us to act worthily of Him. “If any one will embrace this truth as he ought, that we are especially the children of God, and that God is the Father, as well of men, as of the gods, I think he will allow no ignoble or low thoughts about himself.... On account of this relationship, those of us who fall away become, some like wolves, faithless, and cunning, and baneful; others, like lions, fierce, savage, and uncivilized; more of us still become foxes and whatever else among beasts are monstrous. For what else is an evil-tongued and depraved man than a wolf, or whatever besides is more wretched and debased? See, then, and take care lest you fall away into one of these monsters[[55]].” Nothing is more remarkable in Epictetus than his earnest piety. “I esteem what God wills as better than what I will. I cleave to him as a servant and follower; with him, I go eagerly forward; with him, I stretch myself out: in short, what he wishes, I wish[[56]].” But we find that he does not rise to any glorious hopes of a future separate existence for the soul. Instead of this, he cleaves to the Stoic idea, of the distribution of man, at death, into his component parts. “What was fire in thee,” he says, “will return to fire; what was earthy, to earth; what belonged to the wind will return to the wind; what was watery, to water[[57]].” He was not, however, without some knowledge of the power of Christianity, on those who embraced it, to make them brave all things for the gospel’s sake. He speaks of the “Galileans braving the tyrant, his satellites, and their swords, from madness and custom.” He says he prefers reason to this influence which sustained them. Yet, though he remains without the personal knowledge of the power of Christ, what I have produced from his works serves to show that there was a work going on in the world, by means of the gospel, which extended further than the Church, and gave to the Stoic purer and holier views of the truth. He felt himself an erring being in need of divine aid. He felt that he was under the care of a loving Father, to whom he turned for aid. And he strongly brings before us the need all men have by self-abasement to seek the love of the supreme being, and to rise by his help to perfection. This was a great advance on old Stoic pride and self-dependence. Moreover, others began to have a share of attention. All mankind were recognized as justly entitled to the love and support of each other. Indeed, Stoicism came down from the height of its self-sufficiency. Its disciples learnt to mistrust themselves and to trust in God. They were making progress in true wisdom. Plutarch had urged against the sect their belief, that “God does not give men virtue; but that goodness is in their own power: that He gives riches and health, without virtue; and does not afford assistance for their benefit[[58]].” They had to learn the lesson, that man is incapable of goodness without divine aid; and, as we have seen, Epictetus did learn it in some degree. Yet we shall perceive, from what Marcus Aurelius wrote, that the old leaven remained mightily at work, and the advance was not thorough. In proportion as the sect felt their need of divine aid, they came also to give up some of their selfishness and exclusiveness. Epictetus urges the propriety of mingling with men and helping them. He would do them good, teach them their need of humility, and of a cure for their mental maladies. “Will you not,” he says, “do as sick people do, call the physician? ‘Lord, I am sick, help me; see what I ought to do; it is for me to obey thee.’ So also again, ‘What to do I know not; I have come to thee to learn.’” (Diss. B. II. 15.) He wished to benefit the multitude, and had imbibed some of the spirit of that lesson so full of truth, that “he who loves God will love his brother also.”
These remarks will be applicable, but not in so high a degree, to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Emperor. He was the last of the Stoics who has left a memorial behind. With him the sect ceased as a sect of philosophy. If we read his meditations we perceive that while much of their doctrines remained unchanged, many were considerably modified. The modification was in a direction similar to that noticed in the previous pages, which we should expect to find, if Christianity exercised a collateral influence. Antoninus claims the care of the supreme being for men, and shows the duty of men to believe in the goodness of the gods. “It behoves thee so to do and think about every thing, as to be able to depart out of life now. But to depart from among men is nothing dreadful, if there be gods, for they will lay no evil on thee. If, on the other hand, there be no gods, or if they do not concern themselves about human affairs, what good is it to me to live in a world without gods, and without a Providence? But there are gods, and they concern themselves about human affairs.” (B. II. ch. 11). “The soul, when it must depart from the body, should be ready to be extinguished, to be dispersed, or to subsist a while longer with the body.” (B. XI. 3). Yet he would have this readiness to proceed from similar feelings to his own. He knew the bravery and resignation of Christians. Alas! he had not large-heartedness enough to tolerate what seemed an opposing influence to his favourite philosophy, and tried by persecution to extirpate the faith of the cross. The faith, however, proved itself stronger than philosophy; Christ crucified was to the Greek foolishness, but was mightier than the wisdom of men, and “the weakness of God was stronger than men.” Antoninus could not but see the inability of persecution to check the religion of Jesus; yet he put down the earnest faith and determination of its disciples to obstinacy. So after the words just quoted from his work, on the propriety of being ready for whatever may come, he adds, “But this readiness must proceed from the soul’s own judgment, and not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians; it must be arrived at with reflection and dignity, so that you could even convince another without declamation.”
There is a resemblance in the description of the nature of man given by this Stoic, to that given by the Apostle Paul. This is noticed in the Essay by Sir A. Grant, to which reference has already been made. He says, “we find in him (Antoninus) the same psychological division of man into body, soul, and spirit, as was employed by St Paul.” A similar observation was made by Gataker in a note which I shall presently quote. Antoninus writes in this way (B. II. c. 2), “What I am, consists entirely of the fleshly (σαρκία) and spiritual (πνευμάτιον), and the chief part (τὸ ἡγεμονικόν). But now, as being about to die, despise thou thy fleshly parts; gore, and bones, and a network woven of nerves, veins, and arteries. Look also at thy spiritual part of what nature it is; a breath of air which is never the same, but continually breathed out and drawn in again. The third remaining is the principal part. Thou art old, no longer shouldst thou suffer this to be enslaved.” Again, in B. III. 16, his words are, “Body (σῶμα), soul (ψυχὴ), mind (νοῦς). To thy body belong senses; to thy soul, affections; to thy mind, opinions.” Again, (XII. 3), “There are three things of which thou art composed, body (σωμάτιον), spirit (πνευμάτιον), mind (vοῦς). Of these the first two are thine, so far as the care of them is concerned. But the third alone is really thy own.” On the first of these quotations, Gataker has the following note[[59]]. “Almost the same thing, in other words, the Apostle writes to the Thessalonians in the first Epistle, ch. 5, v. 23, where he says, ‘Τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα:’ in which place τὸ σῶμα is what Marcus here calls σαρκία; ἡ ψυχὴ is here πνευμάτιον; and τὸ πνεῦμα is here τὸ ἡγεμονικόν.” We may notice, in addition, that this last is called νοῦς in B. III. 16, and B. XII. 3. We read in Epictetus, B. III. 7, “That three things belong to man no one will deny—soul (ψυχὴ), and body (σῶμα), and things without” (τὰ ἐκτός). The “τὰ ἐκτός” here include the “τὸ πνεῦμα” of Antoninus, which he says is “ἄνεμος,” and is “breathed out and drawn in continuously.”
With regard to a future existence for the soul, freed from sin and pain at death, though Aurelius denies the hope in some places, yet in others the light of the truth seems to stagger him. So when he says, B. XII. 1, “How comes it to pass, that the gods, who order all things well and lovingly for the human race, have overlooked this alone, namely, that men innately good, and who have had, as it were, frequent communions with the deity, and by holy deeds and sacred services have become friends of the deity, when once they die, no longer have any being, but go away to be absorbed in the universe?” He shows his doubts by adding, “if this be the fact,” concerning them; and, further on, “if the fact be otherwise.” Evidently he wavered in his belief.
Antoninus was ascetic in his views. He was fond of retirement and seclusion, thinking his mental progress furthered thereby. He does not seem so intensely earnest, nor so pious and nobly gifted as Epictetus: yet his aspirations were noble. “Oh, my soul!” we hear him saying[[60]], “wilt thou ever be good, and simple, and one, and naked, and more transparent than the body which clothes thee?” Though philosophy with him was all in all, yet the cause of truth was advancing; the light from heaven was beginning to penetrate the darkness. One cannot put down his record of self-communings without feeling sad, and wishing he had opened his eyes to the perfection of that gospel which he professedly rejected and despised.