ENGLISH COMMENTARY
they gave a wider and richer sense to Plato's words: 'to be like God is to become just and holy by the aid of understanding.'[1]
But while Plato and Aristotle found in the contemplation of the pure objects of scientific reason that which satisfied and elevated the character, gave man all that he could attain of immortality, the Stoics, and especially the Roman Stoics, thought that this knowledge of divine law pointed primarily to right conduct. Thus Lactantius, writing about a.d. 300 for Roman Christians, summarizes Cicero's doctrine in the words: 'God's law orders always the right and honest, forbids the wrong and dishonourable . . . this is the most holy and sure ordinance that we must obey, in order to live justly and lawfully.'[2] Seneca puts the ideal less legalistically: 'a good man must exhibit the utmost piety towards the gods. Therefore, whatever befalls him he will bear with equanimity. He will know that it has come to pass by divine Law, whereby the Universe is ordered. This being so, his sole good is what is right.'[3]
For Marcus this knowledge means the joyous acceptance of God's dispensation, the submission of man's will to His, but also the duty of justice and kindness to all men; 'following God in due order, uttering no word contrary to Truth, doing no act contrary to Justice'.[4]
Ch. 2. The thought of old age and the inevitable decline of strength leads Marcus to reflect upon phenomena which are, superficially viewed, painful, injurious, and ugly. These, he says, are secondary and consequent upon primary laws which are good. The Stoic theory was that apparent evil is to be explained as a necessary result of the 'leading principles'. If these are good, then their consequences also must be good. Marcus does not here state, much less try to establish, this doctrine. Nor does he, except by implication, use the doctrine to explain the extreme case of mental decrepitude from which he started. Instead he gives instances of the beauty and use of what is, at first sight, failure. Both in the artificial creations of man and in the changing seasons of Nature, instances abound of a subtle charm which accompanies apparent ugliness and decay. He reads this lesson in the baker's loaf and in the mellow tints of autumn.
