EPICTETUS ON THE GODS
Arrian was right in thinking that the next lecture would be on the Gods.
I had come to Nicopolis at the end of one of the lecture-courses, and had
heard its conclusion—the perfecting of the Cynic. The new course began by
describing the purpose of God in making man.
But at the outset the subject was, not God, but the Logos—that word so
untranslateable into our Latin, including as it does suggestions of our
Word, Discourse, Reason, Logic, Understanding, Purpose, Proportion, and
Harmony. Starting from this, Epictetus first said that the only faculty
that could, as it were, behold itself, and theorize about itself, was the
faculty of the Logos, which is also the faculty with which we regard,
and, so to speak, mentally handle, all phenomena. From the Logos, or
Word, he passed to God, as the Giver of this faculty: “It was therefore
right and meet that this highest and best of all gifts should be the
only one that the Gods have placed at our disposal. All the rest they
have not placed at our disposal. Can it be that the Gods did not wish
to place them in our power? For my part, I think that, if they had been
able, they would have entrusted us also with the rest. But they were
absolutely unable. For, being on earth, and bound up with such a body as
this”—and here he made his usual gesture of self-contempt, mocking at his
own lame figure—“how was it possible that we should not be prevented by
these external fetters from receiving those other gifts? But what says
Zeus?”—with that, the halting mortal, turning suddenly round, had become
the Olympian Father addressing a child six years old: “_Epictetus, if it
had been practicable, I would have made your dear little body quite free,
and your pretty little possessions quite free too, and quite at your
disposal. But as it is, don’t shut your eyes to the truth. This little
body is not your very own. It is only a neat arrangement in clay._”
After a pause, the Epictetian Zeus continued as follows, falling from “I”
to “we.” Some of our fellow-scholars declared to Arrian after lecture
that Epictetus could not have meant this change, and they slightly
altered the words in their notes. I prefer to give the difficult words of
Zeus as Arrian took them down and as I heard them: “_But, since I was not
able to do this_, WE _gave you a portion of_ OURSELVES, _this power_”—and
here Epictetus made believe to put a little box into the child’s hand,
adding that it contained a power of pursuing or avoiding, of liking or
disliking—“_Take care of this, and put in it all that belongs to you. As
long as you do this, you will never be hindered or hampered, never cry,
never scold, and never flatter._”
The change from I to WE was certainly curious; and some said that “we
gave,” _edōkamen_, ought to be regarded as two words, _edōka men_, “I
gave on the one hand.” But “on the one hand” made no sense. Nor could
they themselves deny that Epictetus made Zeus say, first, “_I_ was
not able,” and then, “a part of _ourselves_.” I think the explanation
may be this. Epictetus had many ways of looking at the Divine Nature.
Sometimes he regarded it as One, sometimes as Many. When he thought of
God as supporting and controlling the harmonious Cosmos, or Universe,
then God was One—the Monarch or General to whom we all owed loyal
obedience. Often, however, “Gods” were spoken of, as in the expression
“Father of Gods and men,” and elsewhere. Once he reproached himself (a
lower or imaginary self) for repining against the Cosmos because he was
lame, almost as if the Cosmos itself were Providence or God: “Wretched
creature! For the sake of one paltry leg, to impeach the Cosmos!” But
he went on to call the Cosmos “the Whole of Things.” And then he called
on each man to sacrifice some part of himself (a lame man, for example,
sacrificing his lame leg) to the Universe: “What! Will you not make a
present of it (_i.e._ the leg) to the Whole of Things? Let go this leg
of yours! Yield it up gladly to Him that gave it! What! Will you sulk
and fret against the ordinances of Zeus, which He—in concert with the
Fates present at your birth and spinning the thread for you—decreed and
ordained?”
I remember, too, how once, while professing to represent the doctrines
of the philosophers in two sections, he spoke, in the first section, of
“Him,” but in the second, of “Them,” thus: “The philosophers say that we
must in the first place learn this, the existence of _God_, and that _He_
provides for the Universe, and that nothing—whether deed or purpose or
thought—can lie hidden from _Him_. In the next place [we must learn] of
what nature _They_ (_i.e._ the Gods) are. For, of whatever nature _They_
may be found to be, he that would fain please _Them_ and obey [Them] must
needs endeavour (to the best of his ability) to be made like unto _Them_.”
What did he mean by “THEM”? And why did he use THEM directly after
HIM? I believe he did it deliberately. For in the very next sentence
he expressed God in a neuter adjective, “If THE DIVINE [BEING] is
trustworthy, man also must needs be trustworthy.” He seemed to me to
pass from masculine singular to masculine plural and from that to neuter
singular, as much as to say, “Take notice. I use HIM, THEM, and IT in
three consecutive sentences, and all about God, to shew you that God is
not any one of these, but all.”
Similarly, after condemning the attempt of philosophers to please the
rulers of the earth, he said, “I know whom I must needs please, and
submit to, and obey—God and _those next to Him_.” But then he continued
in the singular (“_He_ made me at one with myself” and so on). And I
think I may safely say that I never heard him allow his ideal philosopher
or Cynic to address God in the plural with “ye” or “you.” It was always
“thou,” as in the utterance I quoted above—“Thine were they all and thou
gavest them to me.”
Well, then, whom did he mean by “those next to” God? I think he
referred to certain guardian angels—“daemons” he called them, and so
will I, spelling it thus, so as to distinguish it from “demon” meaning
“devil”—one of whom (he said) was allotted by God to each human being.
This, according to Epictetus, did not exclude the general inspection of
mankind by God Himself: “To each He has assigned a Guardian, the Daemon
of each mortal, to be his guard and keeper, sleepless and undeceivable.
Therefore, whenever you shut your doors and make darkness in the house,
remember never to say that you are alone. For you are not alone. God is
in the house, and your Daemon is in the house. And what need have these
of light to see what you are doing?”
This guardian Daemon, or daemonic Guardian, was said by some of our
fellow-scholars to be the portion of the divine Logos within us, in
virtue of which our Teacher distinguished men from beasts. Notably did he
once make this distinction—in answer to some imaginary questioner, who
was supposed to class man with irrational animals because he is subject
to animal necessities. “Cattle,” replied Epictetus, “are works of God,
but not preeminent, and certainly not parts of God; but thou”—turning to
the supposed opponent—“art a fragment broken off from God; thou hast in
thyself a part of Him. Why then ignore thy noble birth? Why dost thou not
recognise whence thou hast come? Wilt thou not remember, in the moment of
eating, what a Being thou art—thou that eatest—what a Being it is that
thou feedest? Wilt thou not recognise what it is that employs thy senses
and thy faculties? Knowest thou not that thou art feeding God, yea,
taking God with thee to the gymnasium? God, God dost thou carry about,
thou miserable creature, and thou knowest it not!”
We were rather startled at this. In what sense could a miserable creature
“carry about God”? Epictetus proceeded, “Dost thou fancy that I am
speaking of a god of gold or silver, an outside thing? It is within
thyself that thou carriest Him. And thou perceivest not that thou art
defiling Him with impure purposes and filthy actions! Before the face of
a mere statue of the God thou wouldst not dare to do any of the deeds
thou art daily doing. Yet in the presence of the God Himself, within
thee, looking at all thy acts, listening to all thy words and thoughts,
thou art not ashamed to continue thinking the same bad thoughts and doing
the same bad deeds—blind to thine own nature and banned by God’s wrath!”
From this it appeared that the Daemon in each man was good and veritably
God, and turned men towards God and goodness; but that some did not
perceive the presence and were deaf to the voice. These were “miserable
wretches” and “banned by God’s wrath.” Thus in some sense, the same
God seemed to be the cause of virtue in some but of vice in others.
This accorded with a saying of Epictetus on another occasion that God
“ordained that there should be summer and winter, fruitfulness and
fruitlessness, _virtue and vice_.” Then the question arose, To how many
did the Logos of God bring virtue and to how many did it result in vice?
And again, Did it bring virtue to as many as the Logos of God, or God,
desired? Or was He unable to fulfil His desire, as in the case of that
imaginary opponent, for example, so that the Supreme would have to say
to him, as to Epictetus, “If I could have, I would have. But now, make
no mistake. I could not bring virtue unto thee.” I was disposed to think
that Epictetus would have laid the blame on the opponent, who, he would
have said, might have obeyed the Logos in himself, if he had chosen to
do so. According to our Teacher’s doctrine, God would say to this man
nothing more cruel, or less just, than He says to all, “I could not
force virtue on thee, nor on any man. If I forced virtue on thee, virtue
would cease to be virtue and God would cease to be God.” But still the
uneasy feeling came to me—not indeed at the time of this lecture (or at
least not to any great extent) but afterwards—that the God of Epictetus
was hampered by what Epictetus called “the clay,” which He “would have
liked” to make immortal, if He “had been able.” What if each man’s “clay”
was different? Who made the clay? What if God controlled nothing more
than the shaping of the clay, and this, too, only in conjunction with
the Fates? What if the Fates alone were responsible for the making of
the clay? In that case, must not the Fates be regarded as higher Beings,
even above the Maker of the Cosmos—higher in some sense, but bad Beings
or weak Beings, spoiling the Maker’s work by supplying Him with bad
material so that He could not do what He would have liked to have done?
Epictetus, I subsequently found, would never see difficulties of this
kind. He represented the Supreme as a great stage manager, allotting
to all their appropriate parts: “Thou art the sun; go on thy rounds,
minister to all things. Thou art a heifer; when the lion appears, play
thy part, or suffer for it. Thou art a bull; fight as champion of the
herd. Thou canst lead the host against Ilium; be thou Agamemnon. Thou
canst cope with Hector; be thou Achilles.” He did not add, “Thou canst
spit venom and slander against the good and great; be thou Thersites.”
But I did not think of that at the time.
For the moment, I was carried away by the fervour of the speaker. “He,”
I said, “has been a slave, the slave of Nero’s freedman; he has seen
things at their worst; and yet he believes that virtue, freedom, and
peace, are placed by God in the power of all that will obey the Logos,
His gift, within their hearts!” So I believed it, or persuaded myself
that I believed it. Epictetus insisted, in the strongest terms, that the
divine Providence extends to all. “God,” he said, “does not neglect a
single one, even of the least of His creatures.” Stimulating us to _be_
good instead of _talking_ about being good, he exclaimed, “How grand
it is for each of you to be able to say, _The very thing that people
are solemnly arguing about in the schools as an impossible ideal, that
very thing I am accomplishing. They are, in effect, expatiating on my
virtues, investigating me, and singing my praises. Zeus has been pleased
that I should receive from my own self a demonstration of the truth of
this ideal, while He Himself tests and tries me to see whether I am a
worthy soldier of His army, and a worthy citizen of His city. At the same
time it has been His pleasure to bring me forward that I may testify
concerning the things that lie outside the will, and that I may cry aloud
to the world, ‘Behold, O men, that your fears are idle! Vain, all vain,
are your greedy and covetous desires. Seek not the Good in the outside
world! Seek it in yourselves! Else, ye will not find it.’ Engaging me
for such a mission, and for such a testimony as this, God now leads me
hither, now sends me thither; exhibits me to mankind in poverty, in
disease—ruler in fact but no ruler in the eyes of men—banishes me to the
rocks of Gyara, or drags me into prison or into bonds! And all this, not
hating me. No, God forbid! Who can hate his own best and most faithful
servant? No, nor neglecting me. How could He? For He does not neglect
the meanest of His creatures. No, He is training and practising me, He
is employing me as His witness to the rest of mankind. And I, being set
down by Him for such high service as this—can I possibly find time to
entertain anxieties about where I am, or with whom I am living, or what
men say about me? How can I fail to be, with my whole might and my whole
being, intent on God, and on His commandments and ordinances?_”
I noted with pleasure here the words, “He does not neglect the meanest
of His creatures.” To the same effect elsewhere, speaking of Zeus, he
said, “In very truth, the universal frame of things is badly managed
unless Zeus takes care of all His own citizens, in order that they may be
blessed like unto Himself.” A little before this, he said about Hercules,
“He left his children behind him without a groan or regret—not as though
he were leaving them orphans, for he knew that no man is an orphan,”
because Zeus is “Father of men.”
In all these passages describing the fatherhood of God and the sonship
of man, Epictetus spoke of virtue as being, by itself, a sufficient
reward, in respect of the ineffable peace that it brings through
the consciousness of being united to God. But how long this union
lasted, and whether its durability was proof against death—as Socrates
taught—about this he had hitherto said nothing. The Cynic, he again and
again insisted, was God’s son; but he did not insist that the son was
as immortal as the Father. Sometimes indeed he described the man of
temperance and self-control as “banqueting at the table of the Gods.”
Still more, the man that had passed beyond temperance into contempt of
earthly things—a rank to which Arrian and I did not aspire—such a Cynic
as this he extolled as being not only fellow-guest with the Gods but also
fellow-ruler. These expressions reminded me of what we used to learn by
heart in Rome concerning the man described by Horace as “just and firm
of purpose.” The poet likened him to Hercules transported aloft to the
fiery citadel of heaven, and to the Emperor Augustus drinking nectar
at the table of the Gods. But this was said about Augustus while he
was still alive; and the poem did not seem to me to prove that Horace
believed in the immortality of the soul. However, what Epictetus said
about that will appear hereafter. For the present, I must explain why the
teaching of Epictetus concerning the Gods, although it carried me away
for a time, caused me bewilderment in the end, and made me feel the need
of something beyond.