THE LAST LECTURE
Awaking early next morning, two or three hours before lecture, I spent
the time in examining the gospels, and in particular the accounts of
Christ’s last words. So few they were in Mark and Matthew that I could
not anticipate that Luke would omit a single one of them or fail to give
them exactly. They were uttered in public and in a loud voice. According
to Mark and Matthew, they were a quotation from a Psalm, of which the
Jewish words were given similarly by the two evangelists. They added a
Greek interpretation. Luke, to my amazement, omitted both the Jewish
words and the Greek interpretation. Afterwards, Mark and Matthew said
that Jesus, in the moment of expiring, cried out again in a loud voice.
On this occasion they gave no words. But there Luke mentioned words.
Luke’s words, too, were from a Psalm, but quite different in meaning from
the words previously given by Mark and Matthew.
Still more astonished was I to find what kind of words the two earliest
evangelists wrote down as the last utterance of Christ—“My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?” That Christ said this I could hardly believe.
Reading further, I found that some of the men on guard exclaimed “This
man calls for Elias”—because the Jewish word “Heli” or “Eli,” “my God,”
resembles the Jewish “Elias.” I wished that these men might prove true
interpreters. Then I found that, although Luke mentions neither “Eli” nor
“Elias,” he nevertheless mentions “Elios” or “Helios,” which in Greek
means “sun.” This occurred in the passage parallel to Eli or Heli. What
Luke said was that there was an “eclipse,” or “failing,” of “the sun.”
I thought then (and I think still) that Luke was glad—as a Christian
historian might well be without being at all dishonest—to find that
Mark’s “Eli” had been taken, at all events by some, not to mean “my God.”
Perhaps some version gave “Elios,” or “Helios,” “sun.” This Luke might
gladly accept. Indeed, in the genitive, which is the form used by Luke,
the word “Heliou” may mean either “of the sun” or “of Elias.”
But, on reflection, I could not find much comfort from Luke’s version.
For the difficult version seemed more likely to be true. And how could
there be an “eclipse” of the sun during Passover, when the moon was at
the full? Then I looked at the Psalm from which the words were taken, and
I noted that although it began with “Why hast thou forsaken me?” it went
on to say that God “hath not hid his face from him, but when he cried
unto him he heard him.” Also the Psalm ended in a strain of triumph,
as though this cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” would end in comfort
and strength for all the meek, so that “all the ends of the earth shall
remember and turn unto the Lord.” Nevertheless this did not satisfy me.
And even the help that I afterwards received from Clemens (about whom
I shall speak later on) left me, and still to this day leaves me, with
a sense that there is a mystery in this utterance beyond my power to
fathom, though not beyond my power to believe.
I was still engaged in these meditations when my servant brought me a
letter. It was from Arrian, informing me of the death of his father,
which would prevent him from returning to Nicopolis. He also requested
me to convey various messages to friends to whom he had not been able to
bid farewell owing to his sudden departure. In particular he enclosed a
note, which he asked me to give to Epictetus. “Add what you like,” he
said, “you can hardly add too much, about my gratitude to him. I owe
him morally more than I can express. Moreover in the official world,
where everybody knows that our Master stands well with the Emperor, it
is sometimes a sort of recommendation to have attended his lectures. And
perhaps it has helped me. At all events I have recently been placed in
a position of responsibility and authority by the Governor of Bithynia.
I like the work and hope to do it fairly well. Even the mere negative
virtue of not taking bribes goes for something, and that at least I can
claim. I am not able, and never shall be able, to be a Diogenes, going
about the province and healing the souls of men. But I try to do my duty,
and I feel an interest in getting at the truth, and judging justly among
the poor, so far as my limited time, energy and intelligence permit.
“In the towns, among the artisans and slaves, I have been surprised to
find so many of the Christians. You may remember how we talked about this
sect more than once. You thought worse of them than I did. But I don’t
think you had much more basis than the impressions of your childhood,
derived from what you heard among your servants and the common people in
Rome. I have seen a great deal of them lately and have been impressed by
the high average of their morality, industry, and charity to one another.
“You never see a Christian begging. What is more, they set their faces
against the exposing of children. I have often thought that our law is
very defective in this respect. We will not let a father strangle his
infant son, but we let him kill it by cold, starvation, or wild beasts.
Every such death is the loss of a possible soldier to the state. It
is a great mistake politically, and I am not sure whether it is right
morally. When I first came to Nicopolis I used to hear it said that our
Epictetus—one of the kindest of men I verily believe—once adopted a baby
that was on the point of being exposed by one of his friends, got a nurse
for it, and put himself to a lot of trouble. I sometimes wonder why he
did not first give his friend the money to find a nurse and food for the
baby, and then give him a good sharp reprimand for his inhumanity. For
I call it inhuman. But I never heard Epictetus say a word against this
practice. The Jews as well as the Christians condemn it. Perhaps the
latter, in this point, merely followed the former; but in most points the
Christians seem to me superior to the Jews.
“I am proud to call myself a philosopher, and perhaps I should be prouder
than Epictetus would like if I could call myself a Roman citizen; but
I am free to confess that there are points in which philosophers and
Romans could learn something from these despised followers of Christus.
_Fas est et a Christiano doceri._ I have been more impressed than I
can easily explain to you on paper by the behaviour of this strangely
superstitious sect. There is a strenuous fervour in their goodness—I mean
in the Christians, I am not now speaking of the Jews—which I don’t find
in my own attempts at goodness. I am, at best, only a second-class Cynic,
devoid of fervour.
“You may say, like an orthodox scholar of Epictetus, ‘Let them keep
their fervour and leave me calmness.’ But these men have both. They
can be seasonably fervid and seasonably calm. I have heard many true
stories of their behaviour in the last persecution. Go into one of
their synagogues and you may hear their priest—or rather prophet, for
priests they have none—thundering and lightening as though he held the
thunderbolts of Zeus. Order the fellow off for scourging or execution,
and he straightway becomes serenity itself. Not Epictetus could be more
serene. Indeed, where an Epictetian would ‘make himself a stone’ under
stripes and say, ‘They are nothing to me,’ a Christian would rejoice to
bear them ‘for the sake of Christus.’ And even Epictetus, I think, could
not reach the warmth, the glow, of their affection for each other. I am
devoutly thankful that I did not occupy my present office under Pliny. It
has never been my fate to scourge, rack, torture, or kill, one of these
honest, simple, excellent creatures, whose only fault is what Epictetus
would call their ‘_dogma_’ or conviction—surely such a ‘dogma’ as an
emperor might almost think it well to encourage among the uneducated
classes, in view of its excellent results. Farewell, and be ever my
friend.”
The third hour had almost arrived and I had to hasten to the lecture-room
taking with me the note addressed to Epictetus. All the way, I could
think of nothing but the contrast between what Arrian had said about
the Christians, and what Mark and Matthew had said about Christ’s last
words—the servants tranquil, steadfast, rejoicing in persecution; their
Master crying “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It perplexed
me beyond measure.
In this bewilderment, I took my accustomed place beside Glaucus, who
greeted me with even more than his usual warmth. He seemed strangely
altered. It was no new thing for him to look worn and haggard. But to-day
there was a strange wildness in his eyes. Absorbed though I was in my
own thoughts, I could not help noticing this as I sat down, just before
Epictetus began.
The lecture was of a discursive kind but might be roughly divided into
two parts, one adapted for the first class of Cynics, those who aspired
to teach; the other for the second class, those who were content to
practise. The first class Epictetus cautioned against expecting too much.
No man, he said, not even the best of Cynic teachers, could control the
will of another. Socrates himself could not persuade his own son. It was
rather with the view of satisfying his own nature, than of moving other
men’s nature, that Socrates taught. Apollo himself, he said, uttered
oracles in the same way. I believe he also repeated—what I have recorded
before—that Socrates “did not persuade one in a thousand” of those whom
he tried to persuade.
I remembered a similar avowal in Isaiah when the prophet declares that
his message is “Hear ye indeed, but understand not”; and this, or
something like it, was repeated by Jesus and Paul. But Isaiah says,
“Lord, how long?” And the reply is that the failure will not be for ever.
In the Jewish utterances, there was more pain but also more hope. I
preferred them. Nor could I help recalling Paul’s reiterated assertions
that everywhere the message of the gospel was a “power,”—sometimes indeed
for evil, to those that hardened themselves against it, but more often
for good—constraining, taking captive, leading in triumph, and destined
in the end to make all things subject to the Son of God. Compared with
this, our Master’s doctrine seemed very cold.
In the next place, Epictetus addressed himself to the larger and lower
class of Cynics, those who were beginning, or who aspired only to the
passive life. These he exhorted to set their thoughts on what was their
own, on their own advantage or profit—of course interpreting profit in
a philosophic sense as being virtue, which is its own reward and is the
most profitable thing for every man. It was all, in a sense, very true,
but again I felt that it was chilling. It seemed to send me down into
myself, groping in the cellars of my own nature, instead of helping
me to look up to the sun. Most of it was more or less familiar; and
there was one saying that I have quoted above, to the effect that the
universe is “badly managed if Zeus does not take care of each one of His
own citizens in order that they like Him may be divinely happy.” Now I
knew that Epictetus did not use the word _eudæmon_, or divinely happy,
referring to the next life, for he did not believe that a “citizen of
Zeus” would continue to exist, except as parts of the four elements, in
a future life. He meant “in this life.” And if anyone in this life felt
unhappy—more particularly, if he “wept”—that was a sign, according to
Epictetus, that he was not a “citizen of Zeus.” For he declared that
Ulysses, if he wept and bewailed his separation from his home and wife—as
Homer says he did—“was not good.” So it came to this, that no man must
weep or lament in earnest for any cause, either for the sins or sorrows
of others, or for his own, on pain of forfeiting his franchise in the
City of Zeus. I had read in the Hebrew scriptures how Noah, and Lot,
and others of the “citizens of God,” lived alone amongst multitudes of
sinners; but they, and the prophets too, seemed to be afflicted by the
sins around them. Also Jesus said in the gospels, “O sinful and perverse
generation! How long shall I be with you and bear you!” as though it were
a burden to him. And I had come to feel that every good man must in some
sense bear the sins and carry the iniquities of his neighbours—especially
those of his own household, and his own flesh and blood. So I flinched
from these expressions of Epictetus, although I knew that they were quite
consistent with his philosophy.
Glaucus, I could clearly see, resented them even more than I did. He was
very liable to sudden emotions, and very quick to shew them. Just now
he seemed unusually agitated. He was writing at a great pace, but not (I
thought) notes of the lecture. When Epictetus proceeded to warn us that
we must not expect to attain at once this perfection of happiness and
peace, but that we must practise our precepts and wait, Glaucus stopped
his writing for a moment to scrawl something on a piece of paper. He
pushed it toward me, and I read “_Rusticus expectat_.” I remembered that
he had replied to me in this phrase when I had given him some advice
about “waiting patiently,” saying that all would “come right,” or words
to that effect. I did not now feel that I could say, “All will come
right.” Perhaps my glance in answer to Glaucus expressed this. But he
said nothing, merely continuing his writing, still in great excitement.
Epictetus proceeded to repeat that “pity” must be rejected as a fault.
The philosopher may of course love people, but he must love them as
Diogenes did. This ideal did not attract me, though he called Diogenes
“mild.” The Cynic, he said, is not really to weep for the dead, or with
those sorrowing for the dead. That is to say, he is not to weep “_from
within_.” This was his phrase. Perhaps he meant that, although in the
antechamber and even in some inner chambers of the soul there may be
tearful grief, and sorrow, and bitterness of heart, yet in the inmost
chamber of all there must be peace and trust. But he did not say this. He
said just what I have set down above. At the words “_not from within_,”
Glaucus got up and began to collect his papers, as though intending to
leave the room. The next moment, however, he sat down and went on writing.
The lecture now turned to the subject of “distress”—which interested me
all the more because I had noticed in the morning that Luke had described
Christ as being “in distress” when he prayed fervently in the night
before the crucifixion. But it seemed to me that Luke and Epictetus were
using the same word for two distinct things. Epictetus meant “distress”
about things not in our power, and among these things he included the
sins of our friends and neighbours. But Luke seemed to mean “distress”
about things in Christ’s power, because (according to Luke’s belief)
Christ had a power of bearing the sins of others. If so, Luke did not
mean what Epictetus meant, namely, nervous, faithless, and timid worry or
terror, but rather an _agōn_, or conflict, of the mind, corresponding to
the _agōn_, or conflict, of the body when one is wrestling with an enemy,
as Jacob was said by the Hebrews to have wrestled with a spirit in Penuel.
At this point, after repeating what I had heard him say before,
concerning the grace and dexterity with which Socrates “played at ball”
in his last moments—the ball being his life and his family—Epictetus
passed on to emphasize the duty of the philosopher to preserve his peace
of mind even at the cost of detaching himself from those nearest and
dearest to him. Suppose, for example, you are alarmed by portents of
evil, you must say to yourself “These portents threaten my body, or my
goods, or my reputation, or my children, or my wife; but they do not
threaten _me_.” Then he insisted on the necessity of placing “the supreme
good” above all ties of kindred. “I have nothing to do,” he exclaimed,
“with my father, but only with the supreme good.” Scarcely waiting for
him to finish his sentence, Glaucus rose from his seat, pressed some
folded papers into my hand, and left the room.
I think Epictetus saw him go. At all events, he immediately put
himself, as it were, in Glaucus’s place, as though uttering just such
a remonstrance as Glaucus would have liked to utter, “Are you so hard
hearted?” To this Epictetus replied in his own person, “Nay, I have
been framed by Nature thus. God has given me this coinage.” What our
Master really meant was, that God has ordained that men should part with
everything at the price of duty and virtue. “Duty” or “virtue” is to be
the “_coin_” in exchange for which we must be ready to sell everything,
even at the risk of disobeying a father. A father may bid his son betray
his country that he, the father, may gain ten thousand sesterces. In
such a case the son ought to reply—as Epictetus said—“Am I to neglect my
supreme good that you may have it [_i.e._ what you consider your supreme
good]? Am I to make way for you? What for?” “I am your father,” says the
father. “Yes, but you are not my supreme good.” “I am your brother,”
says the brother. “Yes, but you are not my supreme good.”
All this (I thought) was very moral in intention, but might it not have
been put differently—“Father, I must needs disobey you for your sake as
well as mine,” “Brother, you are going the way to dishonour yourself
as well as me”? Glaucus could not have taken offence at that. However,
this occasional austerity was characteristic of our Teacher. Perhaps it
was an ingredient in his honesty. He liked to put things sometimes in
their very hardest shape, as though to let his pupils see how very cold,
reasonable, definite, and solid his philosophy was, how self-interested,
how calculating, always looking at profit! Yet, in reality, he had no
thought for what the world calls profit. His eyes were fixed on the glory
of God. This alone was _his_ profit and _his_ gain. But unless we were as
God-absorbed as he was—and which of us could boast that?—it was almost
certain that we should to some degree misunderstand him. Just now, he was
in one of these detached—one might almost call them “non-human”—moods.
A few moments ago, I had been sorry that Glaucus went out. But I ceased
to regret it when I heard what followed. It was in a contrast between
Socrates and the heroes of tragedy, or rather the victims of calamity.
We must learn, he said, to exterminate from life the tragic phrases,
“Alas!” “Woe is me!” “Me miserable!” We must learn to say with Socrates,
on the point of drinking the hemlock, “My dear Crito, if this way is
God’s will, this way let it be!” and not, “Miserable me! Aged as I am,
to what wretchedness have I brought my grey hairs!” Then he asked, “Who
says this? Do you suppose it is someone in a mean or ignoble station?
Is it not Priam? Is it not Œdipus? Is it not the whole class of kings?
What else is tragedy except the passionate words and acts and sufferings
of human beings given up to a stupid and adoring wonder at external
things—sufferings set forth in metre!”
This seemed to me gratuitously cruel. If ever human being deserved pity,
was it not the poor babe Œdipus, predestined even before birth to evil,
cast out to die on Mount Cithaeron, but rescued by the cruel kindness
of a stranger—to kill his own father, to marry his own mother, to beget
children that were his brothers and sisters, and to die, an exile, in
self-inflicted blindness, bequeathing his evil fate to guilty sons and
a guiltless daughter! But Epictetus would not let Œdipus alone: “It is
among the rich, the kings, and the despots, that tragedies find place. No
poor man fills a tragic part except as one of the chorus. But the kings
begin with prosperity, commanding their subjects (like Œdipus) to fix
garlands on their houses in joy and thankfulness to the Gods. Then, about
the third or fourth act, comes ‘Alas, Cithaeron, why didst thou receive
and shelter me?’ Poor, servile wretch, where are your crowns now? Where
is your royal diadem? Cannot your guards assist you?”
All this was in stage-play, the agony of the king and the scoffing of
the philosopher so life-like as to be quite painful—at least to me.
Then Epictetus turned to us in his own person: “Well, then, in the act
of approaching one of these great people, remember this, that you are
going to a tragedian. By ‘_tragedian_’ I do not mean an _actor_, but a
_tragic person_, Œdipus himself. But perhaps you say to me ‘Yes, but
such and such a lord or ruler may be called blessed. For he walks with a
multitude’”—of slaves, he meant—“‘around him.’ See, then! I too go and
place myself in company with that multitude. Do not I also ‘walk with a
multitude’? But to sum up. Remember that the door is always open. Do not
be more cowardly than the children. When they cease to take pleasure in
their game, they cry at once ‘I will not play any more.’ So you, too, as
soon as things appear to you to point to that conclusion, say, ‘I will
not play any more.’ And be off. Or, if you stay, don’t keep complaining.”
This was the end of the lecture, and I felt gladder than ever that
Glaucus had gone; for he seemed to me to have been just in the mood to
take to heart that last suggestion, “The door is always open.” I hastened
to his rooms, but he was not there. I found however that he was expected
back soon, for he was making preparations for a journey. Leaving word
that I should call again in an hour, I determined to use the interval to
leave Arrian’s note with Epictetus.
The Master was disengaged and gave me a most kindly welcome, asking
with manifest interest about Arrian and his prospects, and giving me
to understand that he had heard of me, too, from Arrian and others.
His countenance always expressed vigour, but on this occasion it had
even more than its usual glow. Perhaps he was a little flushed with
the exertion of his lecture. Perhaps he was glad to hear that at least
one pupil, likely to do good work in the world, was remembering him
gratefully in Bithynia. Possibly he thought another such pupil stood
before him. I had never seen him close, face to face. Now I felt strongly
drawn towards him, but not quite as pupil to master. From the moment
of leaving the lecture-room that day, I had been repeating, “Alas,
Cithaeron, why didst thou receive and preserve me?” Poor Œdipus! He
seemed to sum up the cry of myriads of mortals predestined to misery. And
what gospel had my Master for them? Nothing but mockery, “Poor, servile
wretches!”
Yet I had felt almost sure, even from the first utterance of the cruel
words, that he had not intended to be cruel. Now, as I stood looking down
into his face and he up at mine, some kind of subtle fellowship seemed
to spring up between us. At least I felt it in myself and thought I saw
it in him. And it grew stronger as we conversed. I rapidly recalled the
reproach he had just now addressed to himself in his lecture, as coming
from one of his pupils, “Are you so hard hearted?” At the moment I had
asked “Could it possibly be true?” Now I knew it was not true. Certainly
he had been absorbed in God. His God was not the God of Christ. It was
a Being of Goodness of some sort, but impersonal, an Alone, not a real
Father. Such as it was, however, Epictetus had been absorbed in it. He
motioned to me to be seated, and began to question me about friends of
his in Rome.
I was on the point of replying, when the door burst open and Glaucus
suddenly rushed in, beside himself with fury. Striding straight up to
Epictetus, he began pouring forth a tale of wrongs, treacheries, outrages
and malignities, perpetrated on his family in Corinth. He took no notice
of my presence, and I doubt whether he was even aware of it, as he burst
out into passionate reproaches on our Master for teaching that a son must
witness such sufferings in a father or mother, brother or sister, and
say, “These evils are no evils to me.”
It would serve no useful purpose, nor should I be able, to set down
exactly what Glaucus said. Let it suffice that he had only too much
reason for burning indignation against certain miscreants in Corinth. He
had only that morning received news—which had been kept back from him by
treachery—that cruel and powerful enemies had brought ruin, desolation,
and disgrace upon his family. His father had been suddenly imprisoned on
false charges, his sister had been shamefully humiliated, and his mother
had died of a broken heart. “Epictetus,” he cried, “do you hear this? Or
do you make yourself a stone to me, as you bid us make ourselves stones
when men smite us and revile us? Do you still assert that there are no
evils except to the evil-minded? By Zeus in heaven, if there is a Zeus
and if there is a heaven, I would sooner torture myself like a Sabazian,
or be crucified like a Christian, or writhe with Ixion in hell, that I
might at least cry out in the hearing of Gods and men, ‘These things
_are_ evil, they _are_, they _are_,’ than be transported to the side of
the throne above with you, looking down on the things that have befallen
my father, mother, and sister, and repeating my Epictetian catechism, _I
am in perfect bliss and blessedness; these things are no evils to me_!
O man, man, are you a hypocrite, or are you indeed a stone?” So saying,
without waiting for a word of reply, he rushed from the room.
I went with him. I was not sure—nor am I now—whether Epictetus wished me
to stay or to go. But I thought Glaucus needed me most. My heart went
out to him when I heard for the first time how shamefully he had been
deceived and how cruelly his family had been outraged, and I did not
know what he might do in his despair. Besides, if I had stayed, could
Epictetus have helped me to help my friend? What would his helping have
been? It could have been nothing more—if he had been consistent—than to
repeat for the thousandth time that Glaucus’s “trouble,” and my “trouble”
for Glaucus’s sake, were mere _dogmas_, or “convictions,” and that
our “convictions” were wrong and must be given up. Would he have been
consistent? Would he have said these things?
To this day I cannot tell. As I followed Glaucus out of the room, while
in the act of turning round to close the door, I had my Master at a
disadvantage. I saw him, but he did not see me. His head was drooping.
The light was gone from his face; the eyes were lacking their usual
lustre; the forehead was drawn as if in pain. It was no longer Epictetus
the God-absorbed, but Epictetus the God-abandoned. If I had turned to
him with a reproach, “Epictetus, you are breaking your own rule. You
are sorrowing, sorrowing in earnest,” would he have replied, “No, only
in appearance, not _from within_”? I do not think he would. He was too
honest. To this day I verily believe that for once, at least for that
once, our Master broke his own rule and felt real “_trouble_.” And I love
him the better for it. That indeed is how I always like to remember his
face—as I saw it for the last time, not knowing that it was the last,
through the closing door—clouded with real grief, while I was leaving
him for ever without farewell, never trusting so little in his teaching,
never loving the teacher so much.