| bearer; there are torches, and so shall there be here. The words said, the things done, are the same. Where is the difference between one and the other?' Most impious man! is there no difference? Are these things of use, out of place and out of time? A man should come with sacrifices and prayers, previously purified, and his mind affected by the knowledge that he is approaching sacred and ancient rites. Thus the mysteries become useful; thus we come to have an idea that all these things were appointed by the ancients for the instruction and correction of life. But you divulge and publish them without regard to time and place, without sacrifices, without purity; you have not the garment that is necessary for a priest, nor the fitting hair nor girdle, nor the voice, nor the age, nor have you purified yourself like him. But when you have got the words by heart, you say, 'The mere words are sacred of themselves.' These things are to be approached in another manner. It is a great, it is a mystical affair; not given by chance, or to everyone indifferently. Nay, mere wisdom, perhaps is not a sufficient qualification for the care of youth. There ought to be likewise a certain readiness and aptitude for this, and indeed a particular physical temperament, and, above all, a counsel from God to undertake this office, as he counselled Socrates to undertake the office of confuting error; Diogenes, that of authoritative reproof; Zeno, that of dogmatical instruction. But you set up for a physician, provided with nothing but medicines, and without knowing, or having studied, where or how they are to be applied. 'Why, such a one had medicines for the eyes, and I have the same.' Have you also, then, a faculty of making use of them? Do you know when and how and to whom they will be of service? Why then do you act at hazard? Why are you careless in things of the greatest importance? Why do you attempt a matter unsuitable to you? Leave it to those who can perform it and do it honor. Do not bring disgrace upon philosophy by your own acts; nor be one of those who cause the thing itself to be calumniated. But if mere theorems delight you, sit quietly and turn them over by yourself; but never 119 _____________________________________________________________________________ call yourself a philosopher, nor suffer another to call you so; but say, 'He is mistaken; for my desires are no different from what they were; nor my pursuits directed to other objects; nor my assents otherwise given; nor have I made any change from my former condition in use of things as they appear.' Think and speak thus of yourself, if you would think as you ought; if not, act at random, and do as you do; for it is appropriate to you.". As indicated in the title, this was an effort to straighten up some wayward sophists, but it also, fairly well sets out the sophist philosophy, as viewed by Epictetus. Let's look at his student Marcus Aurelius, before making general comments. In Marcus Aurelius' Meditations XII:26-32, we see the Stoic philosophy more clearly stated, than we have seen yet: "When you are troubled about anything, you have forgotten this, that all things happen according to the universal nature, and that man's wrongful act is nothing to you; and further you have forgotten this, that everything which happens always happened so, and will happen so, and now happens so everywhere; forgotten this too, how close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a community, not of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence. And you have forgotten this too, that every man's intelligence is a god, and is an efflux of the deity; and that nothing is a man's own, but that his child and his body and his very soul came from the deity; that everything is opinion; and lastly, that every man lives the present time only, and loses only this. Constantly bring to your recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame, or misfortunes and enmities, or fortunes of any kind; then think where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale and not even a tale. And let there be present to your mind also things of this sort, how Fabius Catullinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his gardens, and Stertinius at Baiae, and Tiberius at Capri, and Rufus at Velia; and in short think of the eager pursuit of anything joined together with pride; and how worthless everything is after which men strain violently; and how much more philosophical it is for a man in 120 _______________________________________________________________________________ |
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