ENGLISH COMMENTARY
and love to man (philanthropy) of God, our Saviour'. Beneficence and Truth are often spoken of by the Greeks as the two divine attributes. This second attribute may be imitated by man, if he will put away conceit of his own opinion and embrace the truth which another declares.
The problem when and how a man may wisely 'change his mind' was commonly debated in antiquity, with Hesiod's words as text:
He is far best who knows all things of himself.
Good, he that hearkens to the right advice.[1]
Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, inverted Hesiod's order, meaning no doubt that the greatest victory over self is to abandon one's purpose, if convinced by judicious advice. The saying of Hesiod was familiar to Romans from Livy's[2] brilliant narrative of the moral conviction and repentance of Minucius Rufus, master of the horse to the great dictator Q. Fabius Maximus. The other famous instance of a change of mind is that used by Aristotle[3]—Neoptolemus repented of his purpose, after he had been persuaded by Ulysses to deceive Philoctetes. Marcus takes up the word Logos,[4] in the sense of reasonable rule, and uses it in its other sense of reason, the indwelling Logos which apprehends what is right. If this reason is active, you need nothing besides, neither thanks nor commendation (iv. 20; vii. 73; ix. 42. 4).
Chs. 14–15. These two aphorisms are rightly combined in the manuscripts. The second illustrates the first. The stress in the first sentence is on the word 'part'. The Logos of which he has been speaking is a part of the divine Logos, which 'begat' it. This will return (iv. 4) to its parent, the generative seed of reason. This return seems to be (iv. 21; viii. 25, 58; xii. 5) conceived as a gradual reabsorption into the fiery or causal Being, even as the frankincense is absorbed into the smoke of offering. So a life well lived is a dedication to God. An earlier Stoic had used this image to illustrate the unity of the world, the sweet savour of the incense transfusing like an essence the material which conveys it. The simile reminds us of St. Paul's words.[5] Bossuet[6] may have had the words of Marcus in his mind when he wrote: ' Jusqu'à ce que les ombres se dissipent et que le jour de la
