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SILANUS THE CHRISTIAN
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
CLUE: A Guide through Greek to Hebrew Scripture
(Diatessarica—Part I).
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THE CORRECTIONS OF MARK (Diatessarica—Part II).
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SILANUS
THE CHRISTIAN
BY
EDWIN A. ABBOTT
AUTHOR OF “PHILOCHRISTUS” AND “ONESIMUS”
“_The love of Christ constraineth us._”
2 COR. V. 14.
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1906
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
TO THE MEMORY OF EPICTETUS
NOT A CHRISTIAN BUT AN AWAKENER OF ASPIRATIONS THAT COULD NOT BE
SATISFIED EXCEPT IN CHRIST
PREFACE
Many years have elapsed since the author was constrained (not by _a
priori_ considerations but by historical and critical evidence) to
disbelieve in the miraculous element of the Bible. Yet he retained the
belief of his childhood and youth—rooted more firmly than before—in
the eternal unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the
supernatural but non-miraculous incarnation of the Son as Jesus Christ,
and in Christ’s supernatural but non-miraculous resurrection after He had
offered Himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
The belief is commonly supposed to be rendered impossible by the
disbelief. This book is written to shew that there is no such
impossibility.
The vast majority of the worshippers of Christ base their worship to a
very large extent—as the author did in his early youth under the cloud
of Paley’s _Evidences_—on their acceptance of His miracles as historical
facts. In the author’s opinion this basis is already demonstrably unsafe,
and may be at any moment, by some new demonstration, absolutely destroyed.
Nevertheless such worshippers, if their worship is really genuine—that
is to say, if it includes love, trust, and awe, carried to their highest
limits, and not merely that kind of awe which is inspired by “mighty
works”—will do well to avoid this book. If doubt has not attacked them,
why should they go to meet it? In pulling up falsehood by the roots
there is always a danger of uprooting or loosening a truth that grows
beside it. Historical error, if honest, is better (and less misleading)
than spiritual darkness. For example, it is much better (and less
misleading) to remain in the old-fashioned belief that a good and wise
God created the world in six days than to adopt a new belief that a bad
or unwise or careless God—or a chance, or a force, or a power—evolved it
in sixty times six sextillions of centuries.
To such genuine worshippers of Christ, then, as long as they feel safe
and sincere in their convictions, this book is not addressed. They are
(in the author’s view) substantially right, and had better remain as they
are.
But there may be some, calling themselves worshippers of Christ, who
cannot honestly say that they love Him. They trust His power, they bow
before Him as divine; but they have no affection at all for Him, as
man, or as God. What St Paul described as the “constraining” love of
Christ has never touched them. And yet they fancy they worship! To them
this book may be of use in suggesting the divinity and loveableness of
Christ’s human nature; and any harm the book might do them can hardly be
conceived as equal to the harm of remaining in their present position.
One may learn Christ by rote, as one may learn Euclid by rote, so as to
be almost ruined for really knowing either. For such learners the best
course may be to go back and begin again.
It is, however, to a third class of readers that the author mainly
addresses himself. Having in view the experiences of his own early
manhood, he regards with a strong fellow feeling those who desire to
worship Christ and to be loyal and faithful to Him, if only they can
at the same time be loyal and faithful to truth, and who doubt the
compatibility of the double allegiance.
These, many of them, cannot even conceive how they can worship Christ at
the right hand of God, or the Son in the bosom of the Father in heaven,
unless they first believe in Him as miraculously manifested on earth.
Not being able to accept Him as miraculous, they reject Him as a Saviour.
To them this book specially appeals, endeavouring to shew, in a general
and popular way—on psychological, historical, and critical grounds—how
the rejection of the claim made by most Christians that their Lord is
miraculous, may be compatible with a frank and full acceptance of the
conclusion that He is, in the highest sense, divine.
Detailed proofs this volume does not offer. These will be given in a
separate volume of “Notes,” shortly to be published. This will be of a
technical nature, forming Part VII of the series called Diatessarica.
The present work merely aims at suggesting such conceptions of history,
literature, worship, human nature, and divine Being, as point to a
foreordained conformation of man to God, to be fulfilled in the Lord
Jesus Christ, of which the fulfilment may be traced in the Christian
writings and the Christian churches of the first and second centuries.
It also attempts, in a manner not perhaps very usual, to meet many
objections brought against Christianity by those who assert that its
records are inadequate, inaccurate, and contradictory. Instead of
denying these defects, the author admits and emphasizes them as being
inseparable from earthen vessels containing a spiritual treasure, and
as (in some cases) indirectly testifying to the divinity of the Person
whom the best efforts of the best and most inspired of the evangelists
inadequately, though honestly, portray. Specimens of these defects are
freely given, shewing the modifications, amplifications, and (in some
case) misinterpretations or corruptions, to which Christian tradition was
inevitably exposed in passing from the east to the west during a period
of about one hundred and thirty years, dating from the Crucifixion.
These objects the author has endeavoured to attain by sketching an
autobiography of an imaginary character, by name Quintus Junius Silanus,
who in the second year of Hadrian (A.D. 118) becomes a hearer of
Epictetus and a Christian convert, and commits his experiences to paper
forty-five years afterwards in the second year of Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus and Lucius Verus (A.D. 163).
EDWIN A. ABBOTT.
_Wellside, Well Walk, Hampstead._
_28 Aug. 1906._
_SUMMARY_
_Quintus Junius Silanus, born 90 A.D., goes from Rome at the suggestion
of his old friend Marcus Æmilius Scaurus, to attend the lectures of
Epictetus in Nicopolis about 118 A.D._
_Scaurus (like Silanus, an imaginary character) born about 50 A.D., is a
disabled soldier, and has been for many years a student of miscellaneous
Greek literature, including Christian writings. In reply to a letter
from Silanus, extolling his new teacher, Scaurus expresses his belief
that Epictetus has passed through a stage of infection with “the
Christian superstition,” from which he has borrowed some parts of the
superstructure while rejecting its foundation._
_Silanus, in order to defend his teacher Epictetus from what he considers
an unjust imputation, procures the epistles of Paul. His interest in
these leads him to the “scriptures” from which Paul quotes. Thence he is
led on to speculate about the nature of the “gospel” preached by Paul,
and about the character and utterances of the “Christ” from whom that
“gospel” originated. The epistles convey to him a sense of spiritual
strength and “constraining love.” He determines to procure the Christian
gospels._
_During all this time he is occasionally corresponding with Scaurus and
attending the lectures of Epictetus, which satisfy him less and less.
Contrasted with the spiritual strength in the epistles of Paul the
lectures seem to contain only spiritual effervescence. And there is an
utter absence of “constraining love.”_
_When the three Synoptic gospels reach Silanus from Rome, he receives at
the same time a destructive criticism on them from Scaurus. Much of this
criticism he is enabled to meet with the aid of the Pauline epistles.
But enough remains to shake his faith in their historical accuracy. Nor
does he find in them the same presence that he found in the epistles, of
“constraining love.” The result is, that he is thrown back from Christ._
_At this crisis he meets Clemens, an Athenian, who lends him a gospel
that has recently appeared, the gospel of John. Clemens frankly admits
his doubts about its authorship, and about its complete accuracy, but
commends it as conveying the infinite spiritual revelation inherent in
Christ less inadequately than it is conveyed by the Synoptists._
_A somewhat similar view is expressed by Scaurus, though with a large
admixture of hostile criticism. He has recently received the fourth
gospel, and it forms the subject of his last letter. While rejecting much
of it as unhistorical, he expresses great admiration for it, and for
what he deems its fundamental principle, namely, that Jesus cannot be
understood save through a “disciple whom Jesus loved.”_
_While speculating on what might have happened if he himself had come
under the influence of a “disciple whom Jesus loved,” Scaurus is struck
down by paralysis. Silanus sets sail for Italy in the hope of finding his
friend still living. At the moment when he is losing sight of the hills
above Nicopolis where Clemens is praying for him, Silanus receives an
apprehension of Christ’s “constraining love” and becomes a Christian._
* * * * *
No attempt has been made to give the impression of an archaic or Latin
style. Hence “Christus” and “Paulus” are mostly avoided except in a few
instances where they are mentioned for the first time by persons speaking
from a non-Christian point of view. Similar apparent inconsistencies will
be found in the use of “He” and “he,” denoting Christ. The use varies,
partly according to the speaker, partly according to the speaker’s mood.
It varies also in quotations from scripture according to the extent to
which the Revised Version is followed.
The utterances assigned to Epictetus are taken from the records of his
sayings by Arrian or others. Some of these have been freely translated,
paraphrased, and transposed; but none of them are imaginary. When Silanus
says that his friend Arrian “never heard Epictetus say” this or that,
the meaning is that the expression does not occur in Epictetus’s extant
works, so far as can be judged from Schenkl’s admirable Index.
The words assigned to Arrian, Silanus’s friend, when speaking in his own
person, are entirely imaginary; but the statements made about Arrian’s
birthplace and official career are based on history.
Any words assigned by Scaurus to his “friend” Pliny, Plutarch, or
Josephus, or by Silanus to “the young Irenæus,” or Justin, may be taken
to be historical. The references will be given in the volume of Notes.
Scaurus and Silanus occasionally describe themselves as “finding marginal
notes” indicating variations in their MSS. of the gospels. In all such
cases the imaginary “marginal notes” are based on actual various readings
or interpolations which will be given in the volume of Notes. Most of
these are of an early date, and may be based on much earlier originals;
and care has been taken to exclude any that are of late origin. But
the reader must bear in mind that we have no MSS. of the gospels, and
therefore no “marginal notes,” of so early a date as 118 A.D.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE FIRST LECTURE 15
II EPICTETUS ON THE GODS 25
III ARRIAN ON THE OATH OF THE CHRISTIANS 33
IV SCAURUS ON EPICTETUS AND PAUL 41
V EPICTETUS ALLUDES TO JEWS 54
VI PAUL ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST 65
VII DAVID AND MOSES 77
VIII EPICTETUS ON SIN 85
IX ARRIAN’S DEPARTURE 91
X EPICTETUS ON DEATH 97
XI ISAIAH ON DEATH 102
XII ISAIAH ON PROVIDENCE 109
XIII EPICTETUS ON PROVIDENCE 117
XIV PAUL’S CONVERSION 125
XV EPICTETUS’S GOSPEL 136
XVI PAUL’S GOSPEL 143
XVII EPICTETUS CONFESSES FAILURE 151
XVIII PAUL’S ONLY RECORD OF WORDS OF CHRIST 160
XIX HOW SCAURUS STUDIED THE THREE GOSPELS 172
XX SCAURUS ON FORGIVENESS 183
XXI SCAURUS ON THE CROSS 193
XXII SCAURUS ON MARK 201
XXIII SCAURUS ON SOME OF THE MIRACLES 211
XXIV SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S BIRTH 220
XXV SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S DISCOURSES 234
XXVI SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (I) 248
XXVII SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (II) 257
XXVIII THE LAST LECTURE 267
XXIX SILANUS MEETS CLEMENS 280
XXX SILANUS CONVERSES WITH CLEMENS 291
XXXI CLEMENS ON THE FOURTH GOSPEL 302
XXXII CLEMENS LENDS SILANUS THE FOURTH GOSPEL 312
XXXIII SCAURUS ON THE FOURTH GOSPEL 322
XXXIV THE LAST WORDS OF SCAURUS 333
XXXV CLEMENS ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST 347
XXXVI SILANUS BECOMES A CHRISTIAN 360
ERRATA.
Transcriber’s Note: the errata have been corrected.
Page 49, _for_ “offending to” _read_ “offending.”
” 134, _for_ “a divine” _read_ “divine.”
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST LECTURE
“_I forbid you to go into the senate-house.” “As long as I am a senator,
go I must._” Two voices were speaking from one person—the first, pompous,
coarse, despotic; the second, refined, dry, austere. There was nothing
that approached stage-acting—only a suggestion of one man swelling out
with authority, and of another straightening up his back in resistance.
These were the first words that I heard from Epictetus, as I crept
late into the lecture-room, tired with a long journey over-night into
Nicopolis.
I need not have feared to attract attention. All eyes were fixed on
the lecturer as I stole into a place near the door, next my friend
Arrian, who was absorbed in his notes. What was it all about? In answer
to my look of inquiry Arrian pushed me his last sheet with the names
“Vespasian” and “Helvidius Priscus” scrawled large upon it. Then I knew
what it meant. It was a story now nearly forty years old—which I had
often heard from my father’s old friend, Æmilius Scaurus—illustrating
the duty of obeying the voice of the conscience rather than the voice of
a king. Epictetus, after his manner, was throwing it into the form of a
dialogue:—
“_Vespasian._ I forbid you to go into the senate-house.
“_Priscus._ As long as I am a senator, go I must.
“_Vespasian._ Go, then, but be silent.
“_Priscus._ Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent.
“_Vespasian._ But I am bound to ask it.
“_Priscus._ And I am bound to answer, and to answer what I think right.
“_Vespasian._ Then I shall kill you.
“_Priscus._ Did I ever say that I could not be killed? It is yours to
kill; mine, to die fearless.”
I give his words almost as fully as Arrian took them down. But his tone
and spirit are past man’s power to put on paper. He flashed from Emperor
to Senator like the zig-zag of lightning with a straight down flash
at the end. This was always his way. He would play a thousand parts,
seeming, superficially, a very Proteus; but they were all types of two
characters, the philosopher and the worldling, the follower of the Logos
and the follower of the flesh. Moreover, he was always in earnest, in
hot earnest. On the surface he would jest like Menander or jibe like
Aristophanes; but at bottom he was a tragedian. At one moment he would
point to his halting leg and flout himself as a lame old grey-beard with
a body of clay. In the next, he was “a son of Zeus,” or “God’s own son,”
or “carrying about God.” Never at rest, he might deceive a stranger into
supposing that he was occasionally rippling and sparkling with real mirth
like a sea in sunlight. But it was never so. It was a sea of molten metal
and there was always a Vesuvius down below.
I suspect that he never knew mirth or genial laughter even as a child.
He was born a slave, his master being Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero’s
and his favourite, afterwards killed by Domitian. I have heard—but not
from Arrian—that this master caused his lameness. He was twisting his leg
one day to see how much he could bear. The boy—for he was no more—said
with a smile, “If you go on, you will break it,” and then, “Did not I
tell you, you would break it?” True or false, this story gives the boy
as I knew the man. You might break his leg but never his will. I do not
know whether Epaphroditus, out of remorse, had him taught philosophy;
but taught he was, under one of the best men of the day, and he acquired
such fame that he was banished from Rome under Domitian, with other
philosophers of note—whether at or before the time when Domitian put
Epaphroditus to death I cannot say. In one of his lectures he described
how he was summoned before the Prefect of the City with the other
philosophers: “Come,” said the Prefect, “come, Epictetus, shave off your
beard.” “If I am a philosopher,” he replied, “I am not going to shave it
off.” “Then I shall take your head off.” “If it is for your advantage,
take it off.”
But now to return to my first lecture. Among our audience were several
men of position and one at least of senatorial rank. Some of them seemed
a little scandalized at the Teacher’s dialogue. It was not likely that
the Emperor would take offence, for in the second year of Hadrian we
were not in a Neronian or Domitian atmosphere; moreover, our Teacher
was known to be on good terms with the new Emperor. But perhaps their
official sense of propriety was shocked; and, in the first sentence of
what follows, Epictetus may have been expressing their thoughts: “‘_So
you, philosophers, teach people to despise the throne!_’ Heaven forbid!
Which of us teaches anyone to lay claim to anything over which kings
have authority? Take my body, take my goods, take my reputation! Take my
friends and relations! ‘Yes,’ says the ruler, ‘but I must also be ruler
over your convictions.’ Indeed, and who gave you this authority?”
Epictetus went on to say that if indeed his pupils were of the true
philosophic stamp, holding themselves detached from the things of the
body and with their minds fixed on the freedom of the soul, he would
have no need to spur them to boldness, but rather to draw them back from
over-hasty rushing to the grave; for, said he, they would come flocking
about him, begging and praying to be allowed to teach the tyrant that
they were free, by finding freedom at once in self-inflicted death: “Here
on earth, Master, these robbers and thieves, these courts of justice and
kings, have the upper hand. These creatures fancy that they have some
sort of authority over us, simply because they have a hold on our paltry
flesh and its possessions! Suffer us, Master, to shew them that they have
authority over nothing!” If, said he, a pupil of this high spirit were
brought before the tribunal of one of the rulers of the earth, he would
come back scoffing at such “authority” as a mere scarecrow: “Why all
these preparations, to meet no enemy at all? The pomp of his authority,
his solemn anteroom, his gentlemen of the chamber, his yeomen of the
guard—did they all come to no more than this! These things were nothing,
and I was preparing to meet something great!”
On the scholar of the unpractical and cowardly type, anxiously preparing
“what to say” in his defence before the magistrate’s tribunal, he
poured hot scorn. Had not the fellow, he asked, been practising “what
to say”—all his life through? “What else,” said he, “have you been
practising? Syllogisms and convertible propositions!” Then came the
reply, in a whine, “Yes, but he has authority to kill me!” To which the
Teacher answered, “Then speak the truth, you pitiful creature. Cease your
imposture and give up all claim to be a philosopher. In the lords of the
earth recognise your own lords and masters. As long as you give them this
grip on you, through your flesh, so long must you be at the beck and
call of every one that is stronger than you are. Socrates and Diogenes
had practised ‘what to say’ by the practice of their lives. But as for
you—get you back to your own proper business, and never again budge from
it! Back to your own snug corner, and sit there at your leisure, spinning
your syllogisms:
‘In thee is not the stuff that makes a man
A people’s leader.’”
Thence he passed to the objection that a judicial condemnation might
bring disgrace on a man’s good name. “The authorities, you say, have
condemned you as guilty of impiety and profanity. What harm is there
in that for you? This creature, with authority to condemn you—does he
himself know even the meaning of piety or impiety? If a man in authority
calls day night or bass treble, do men that know take notice of him?
Unless the judge knows what the truth is, his ‘authority to judge’ is
no authority. No man has authority over our convictions, our inmost
thoughts, our will. Hence when Zeno the philosopher went into the
presence of Antigonus the king, it was the king that was anxious, not
the philosopher. The king wished to gain the philosopher’s good opinion,
but the philosopher cared for nothing that the king could give. When,
therefore, you go to the palace of a great ruler, remember that you
are in effect going to the shop of a shoemaker or a grocer—on a great
scale of course, but still a grocer. He cannot sell you anything real or
lasting, though he may sell his groceries at a great price.”
At the bottom of all this doctrine about true and false authority, there
was, as I afterwards understood, a belief that God had bestowed on all
men, if they would but accept and use it, authority over their own
wills, so that we might conform our wills to His, as children do with a
Father, and might find pleasure, and indeed our only pleasure, in doing
this—accepting all bodily pain and evil as not evil but good because it
comes from His will, which must be also our will and must be honoured and
obeyed. “When,” said he, “the ruler says to anyone, ‘I will fetter your
leg,’ the man that is in the habit of honouring his leg cries, ‘Don’t,
for pity’s sake!’ But the man that honours his will says, ‘If it appears
advisable to you, fetter it’.”
“_Tyrant._ Won’t you bend?
“_Cynic._ I will not bend.
“_Tyrant._ I will show you that I am lord.
“_Cynic._ You! impossible! I have been freed by Zeus. Do you really
imagine that He would allow His own son to be made a slave? But of my
corpse you _are_ lord. Take it.”
In this particular lecture Epictetus also gave us a glimpse of a wider
and more divine authority imparted by God to a few special natures,
akin to Himself, whereby, as God is supreme King over men His children,
so a chosen few may become subordinate kings over men their brethren.
Like Plato, he seemed to look forward to a time when rulers would
become philosophers, or else philosophers kings. Nero and Sardanapalus,
Agamemnon and Alexander, all came under his lash—all kings and rulers of
the old _régime_. Not that he denied Agamemnon a superiority to Nero,
or the right to call himself “shepherd of the people” if he pleased.
“Sheep, indeed,” he exclaimed, “to submit to be ruled over by you!” and
“Shepherd, indeed, for you weep like the shepherds, when a wolf has
snatched away a sheep!”
From these old-fashioned rulers he passed to a new and nobler ideal of
kingship: “Those kings and tyrants received from their armed guards the
power of rebuking and punishing wrongdoing, though they might be rascals
themselves. But on the Cynic”—that was the term he used—“this power is
bestowed by the conscience.” Then he explained to us what he meant by
“conscience”—the consciousness of a life of wise, watchful, and unwearied
toil for man, with the co-operation of God. “And how,” he asked, “could
such a man fail to be bold and speak the truth with boldness, speaking,
as he does, to his own brethren, to his own children and kinsfolk? So
inspired, he is no meddler or busybody. Supervising and inspecting the
affairs of mankind, he is not busying himself with other men’s matters,
but with his own. Else, call a general, too, a busybody, when he is busy
inspecting his own soldiers!”
This was, to me, quite a new view of the character of a Cynic. But
Epictetus insisted on it with reiteration. The Cynic, he said, was
Warrior and Physician in one. As a warrior, he was like Hercules,
wandering over the world with his club and destroying noxious beasts and
monsters. As a physician, he was like Socrates or Diogenes, going about
and doing good to those afflicted with sickness of mind, diagnosing
each disease, prescribing diet, cautery, or other remedy. In both these
capacities the Cynic received from God authority over men, and men
recognised it in him, because they perceived him to be their benefactor
and deliverer.
There are, said Epictetus, in each man two characters—the character of
the Beast and the character of the Man. By Beast he meant wild or savage
beast, as distinct from tame beast, which he preferred to call “sheep.”
“Sheep” meant the cowardly, passive-greedy passions within us. “The
Beast” meant the savage, aggressive-greedy nature, not only stirring us
up to external war against our neighbours, but also waging war to the
death against our inward better nature, against the “Man.” The mark or
stamp of the Beast he connected with Nero. “Cast it away,” he said. The
opposite mark or stamp he connected with the recently deceased Emperor,
Trajan. If we acted like a beast, he warned us that we should become like
a beast, and then, according to his customary phrase, “_You will have
lost the Man_.” And was this, asked he, nothing to lose? Over and over
again he repeated it: “_You have thrown away the Man_.” It was in this
light—as a type of the Man—that he regarded Hercules, the first of the
Cynics, the Son of God, going on the errands of the Father to destroy the
Beast in its various shapes, typifying an armed Missionary, but armed
for spiritual not for fleshly warfare, destroying the Beast that would
fain dominate the world. But it was for Diogenes that he reserved his
chief admiration, placing him (I think) even above Socrates, or at all
events praising him more warmly—partly, perhaps, out of fellow-feeling,
because Diogenes, too, like himself, had known what it was to be a slave.
Never shall I forget the passage in this lecture in which he described
Alexander surprising the great Cynic asleep, and waking him up with a
line of Homer:—
“To sleep all night suits not a Councillor,”
—to which Diogenes replied at once in the following line, claiming for
himself the heavy burden (entrusted to him by Zeus) of caring like a king
for all the nations of the earth:—
“Who holds, in trust, the world’s vast orb of cares.”
Diogenes, according to our Teacher, was much more than an Æsculapius
of souls; he was a sovereign with “the sceptre and the kingdom of the
Cynic.” Some have represented Epictetus as claiming this authority for
himself. But in the lecture that I heard, it was not so. Though what he
said might have been mistaken as a claim for himself, it was really a
claim for “the Cynic,” as follows. First he put the question, “How is it
possible for one destitute, naked, homeless, hearthless, squalid, with
not one slave to attend him, or a country to call his own, to lead a life
of equable happiness?” To which he replied, “Behold, God hath sent unto
you the man to demonstrate in act this possibility. ‘_Look on me, and
see that I am without country, home, possessions, slaves; no bed but the
ground, no wife, no children—no palace to make a king or governor out of
me—only the earth, and the sky, and one threadbare cloak! And yet what
do I want? Am I not fearless? Am I not free? When saw ye me failing to
find any good thing that I desired, or falling into any evil that I would
fain have avoided? What fault found I ever with God or man? When did I
ever accuse anyone? Did anyone ever see me with a gloomy face? How do I
confront the great persons before whom you, worldlings, bow abashed and
dismayed? Do not I treat them as cringing slaves? Who, that sees me, does
not feel that he sees in me his natural Lord and Master?_’”
I confess that up to this point I had myself supposed that he was
speaking of himself, standing erect as ruler of the world. But in the
next instant he had dropped, as it were, from the pillar upon which
he had been setting up the King, and now, like a man at the pedestal
pointing up to the statue on the top, he exclaimed, “Behold, these are
the genuine Cynic’s utterances: this is his stamp and image: this is his
aim!”
He passed on to answer the question, What if the Cynic missed his aim,
or, at least, missed it so far as exerting the royal authority over
others? What if death cut his purpose short? In that case, he said, the
will, the purpose, the one essential good, had at all events remained
in its purity; and how could man die better than in such actions? “If,
while I am thus employed, death should overtake me, it will suffice me if
I can lift up my hands to God and say, ‘The helps that I received from
thee, to the intent that I might understand and follow thy ordering of
the universe, these I have not neglected. I have not disgraced thee, so
far as in me lay. See how I have used these faculties which thou hast
given me! Have I ever found fault with thee? ever been ill-pleased with
anything that has happened or ever wished it to happen otherwise? Thou
didst beget me, and I thank thee for all thou gavest me. I have used to
the full the gifts that were of thy giving and I am satisfied. Receive
them back again and dispose them in such region as may please thee. Thine
were they all, and thou hast given them unto me.’” Then, turning to us,
he said, “Are you not content to take your exit after this fashion? Than
such a life, what can be better, or more full of grace and beauty? Than
such an end, what can be more full of blessing?”
There was much more, which I cannot recall. I was no longer in a mood
to note and remember exact words and phrases, and I despair of making
my readers understand why. Able philosophers and lecturers I had heard
before, but none like this man. Some of those had moved me to esteem and
gained my favourable judgement. But this man did more than “move” me. He
whirled me away into an upper region of spiritual possibility, at once
glad and sad—sad at what I was, glad at what I might be. Alcibiades says
in the Symposium of Plato that whereas the orator Pericles had only moved
his outer self to admiration, the teaching of Socrates caught hold of his
very soul, “whirling it away into a Corybantic dance.” I quoted these
words to Arrian as we left the lecture-room together, and he replied
that they were just to the point. “Epictetus,” he said, “is by birth a
Phrygian. And, like the Phrygian priests of Cybele, with their cymbals
and their dances, he has just this power of whirling away his hearers
into any region he pleases and making them feel at any moment what he
wishes them to feel. But,” added he thoughtfully, “it did not last with
Alcibiades. Will it last with us?”
I argued—or perhaps I should say protested—at considerable length, that
it would last. Arrian walked on for a while without answering. Presently
he said, “This is your first lecture. It is not so with me. I, as you
know, have heard Epictetus for several months, and I admire him as
much as you do, perhaps more. I am sure he is doing me good. But I do
not aim at being his ideal Cynic. ‘_In me is not the stuff_’—I admit
his censure—that makes a man into a King, bearing all the cares of all
mankind upon his shoulders. My ambition is, some day, to become (as you
are by birth) a Roman citizen”—he was not one then, nor was he Flavius
Arrianus, but I have called him by the name by which he became known
in the world—“and to do good work in the service of the Empire, as an
officer of the State and yet an honest man. For that purpose I want to
keep myself in order—at all events to some reasonable extent. Epictetus
is helping me to do this, by making me ashamed of the foul life of the
Beast, and by making me aspire to what he calls ‘the Man.’ That I feel
day by day, and for that I am thankful.
“But if you ask me about the reality of this ‘authority,’ which our
Teacher claims for his Cynic, then, in all honesty, I must confess to
doubts. Socrates, certainly, has moved the minds of civilised mankind.
But then he had, as you know, a ‘daemonic something’ in him, a divine
voice of some kind. And he believed in the immortality of the soul—a
point on which you have not yet heard what Epictetus has to say. As to
Diogenes, though I have always faithfully recorded in my notes what our
Teacher says about him, yet I do not feel that the philosopher of the tub
had the same heaven-sent authority as Socrates, or as Epictetus himself.
And, indeed, did you not yourself hear to-day that God gives us authority
over nothing but our own hearts and wills? How, then, can the Cynic claim
this authority over others, except as an accident? But I forget. Perhaps
Epictetus did not mention to-day his usual doctrine about ‘good’ and
‘evil,’ about ‘peace of mind’ and about the ‘rule’ of our neighbours as
being ‘no evil’ to us. It reappears in almost every lecture. Wait till
you have heard this.
“Again, as to the origin of this authority, the Teacher tells us that
it is given by God—or by Gods, for he uses both expressions. But by
what God or Gods? Is not this a matter of great importance? Wait till
you have heard him on this point. Now I must hasten back to my rooms
to commit my notes to writing while fresh in my memory. We meet in the
lecture-room to-morrow. Meantime, believe me, I most heartily sympathize
with you in your admiration of one whom I account the best of all living
philosophers. I have all your conviction of his sincerity. Assuredly,
whencesoever he derives it, he has in him a marvellous power for good.
The Gods grant that it may last!”