| ďż˝ 92. Marcus Aurelius. | ||||
Mavrkou j Antonivnou tou' aujtokravtoroďż˝ tw'n eijďż˝ e Jauto;n bibliva ib j(De Rebus suis libri xii). Ed. by Thomas Gataker, with a Latin Version and Notes (including those of Casaubon). Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1697, 2 vols. fol. The second vol. contains critical dissertations. (The first ed. appeared at Cambridge, 1652, in 1 vol.) English translation by George Long, revised ed. London, 1880. | ||||
See the liter. quoted in ďż˝ 20, above (especially Renan's Marc. Aurele, 1882). | ||||
Marcus Aurelius, the last and best representative of Stoicism, ruled the Roman Empire for twenty years (a.d. 161-180) at the height of its power and prosperity. He was born April 26, 121, in Rome, and carefully educated and disciplined in Stoic wisdom. Hadrian admired him for his good nature, docility, and veracity, and Antoninus Pius adopted him as his son and successor. He learned early to despise the vanities of the world, maintained the simplicity of a philosopher in the splendor of the court, and found time for retirement and meditation amid the cares of government and border wars, in which he was constantly engaged. Epictetus was his favorite author. He left us his best thoughts, a sort of spiritual autobiography, in the shape of a diary which he wrote, not without some self-complacency, for his own improvement and enjoyment during the last years of his life (172-175) in the military camp among the barbarians. He died in Panonia of the pestilence which raged in the army (March 17, 180). His last words were: �Weep not for me, weep over the pestilence and the general misery, and save the army. Farewell!� He dismissed his servants and friends, even his son, after a last interview, and died alone. | ||||
The philosophic emperor was a sincere believer in the gods, their revelations and all-ruling providence. His morality and religion were blended. But he had no clear views of the divinity. He alternately uses the language of the polytheist, the deist, and the pantheist. He worshipped the deity of the universe and in his own breast. He thanks the gods for his good parents and teachers, for his pious mother, for a wife, whom he blindly praises as �amiable, affectionate, and pure,� and for all the goods of life. His motto was �never to wrong any man in deed or word.� He claimed no perfection, yet was conscious of his superiority, and thankful to the gods that he was better than other men. He traced the sins of men merely to ignorance and error. He was mild, amiable, and gentle; in these respects the very reverse of a hard and severe Stoic, and nearly approaching a disciple of Jesus. We must admire his purity, truthfulness, philanthropy, conscientious devotion to duty, his serenity of mind in the midst of the temptations of power and severe domestic trials, and his resignation to the will of providence. He was fully appreciated in his time, and universally beloved by his subjects. We may well call him among the heathen the greatest and best man of his age. �It seems� (says an able French writer, Martha), �that in him the philosophy of heathenism grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown God.' In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fullness of meaning which Christianity has given to the world, he already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon.� | ||||
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are full of beautiful moral maxims, strung together without system. They bear a striking resemblance to Christian ethics. They rise to a certain universalism and humanitarianism which is foreign to the heathen spirit, and a prophecy of a new age, but could only be realized on a Christian basis. Let us listen to some of his most characteristic sentiments: | ||||
�It is sufficient to attend to the demon [the good genius] within, and to reverence it sincerely. And reverence for the demon consists in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness and dissatisfaction with what comes from God and men.� �Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you livest, while it is in your power, be good.� �Do not disturb yourself. Make yourself all simplicity. Does any one do wrong? It is to himself that he does the wrong. Has anything happened to you? Well; out of the universe from the beginning every thing which happens has been apportioned and spun out to you. In a word, your life is short. You must turn to profit the present by the aid of reason and justice. Be sober in your relaxation. Either it is a well-arranged universe or a chaos huddled together, but still a universe.� �A man must stand erect, and not be kept erect by others.� Have I done something for the general interest? Well, then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to my mind, and never stop [doing good].� �What is your art? to be good.� �It is a man's duty to comfort himself and to wait for the natural dissolution, and not to be vexed at the delay.� �O Nature: from you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return.� �Willingly give yourself up to Clotho� [one of the fates], �allowing her to spin your thread into whatever things she pleases. Every thing is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.� �Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which you now see, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned, and to perish, in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.� �It is best to leave this world as early as possible, and to bid it friendly farewell.� | ||||
These reflections are pervaded by a tone of sadness; they excite emotion, but no enthusiasm; they have no power to console, but leave an aching void, without hope of an immortality, except a return to the bosom of mother nature. They are the rays of a setting, not of a rising, sun; they are the swansong of dying Stoicism. The end of that noble old Roman was virtually the end of the antique world. | ||||
The cosmopolitan philosophy of Marcus Aurelius had no sympathy with Christianity, and excluded from its embrace the most innocent and most peaceful of his subjects. He makes but one allusion to the Christians, and unjustly traces their readiness for martyrdom to �sheer obstinacy� and a desire for �theatrical display.� He may have had in view some fanatical enthusiasts who rushed into the fire, like Indian gymnosophists, but possibly such venerable martyrs as Polycarp and those of Southern Gaul in his own reign. Hence the strange phenomenon that the wisest and best of Roman emperors permitted (we cannot say, instigated, or even authorized) some of the most cruel persecutions of Christians, especially in Lugdunum and Vienne. We readily excuse him on the ground of ignorance. He probably never saw the Sermon on the Mount, nor read any of the numerous Apologies addressed to him. | ||||
But persecution is not the only blot on his reputation. He wasted his affections upon a vicious and worthless son, whom he raised in his fourteenth year to full participation of the imperial power, regardless of the happiness of millions, and upon a beautiful but faithless and wicked wife, whom he hastened after her death to cover with divine honors. His conduct towards Faustina was either hypocritical or unprincipled. After her death he preferred a concubine to a second wife and stepmother of his children. | ||||
His son and successor left the Christians in peace, but was one of the worst emperors that disgraced the throne, and undid all the good which his father had done. | ||||
Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander; Seneca, the teacher of Nero; Marcus Aurelius, the father of Commodus. | ||||