ENGLISH COMMENTARY
with the maxim 'Follow God'.[1] The latter is Pythagorean in origin. It was adopted by Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, but Philo says that it was a maxim of Apollo of Delphi, that is, it belonged to the popular religious teaching. The exact meaning fluctuates between following God as a leader, obeying God's precepts, and imitating God and making oneself like to Him. In Stoicism it includes the precept to follow Nature and to obey and reverence Nature's prescriptions. Thus, here, Marcus immediately passes to the phrase 'all things are by law'. Julian in his 'Judgement of the Caesars'[2] introduces Marcus as saying that the noblest end of mortal life is to imitate the gods.
The last few words are corrupt. Marcus seems to be playing upon the double sense of the Greek word 'by law', a double sense which recurs frequently in the great philosophers. The Atomists had said that all human experience is 'by law', viz. is relative, the reality behind is atoms and the void. Here 'by law' meant subjective. Marcus replies that it is enough to accept what they say, all is indeed 'by law', viz. governed by law, since in their own view the behaviour of atoms in the void depended upon mathematical and physical laws, while, in his own view, all things are governed by the law of Providence.
We find a similar controversial artifice at iv. 27 and x. 7. 2.
Chs. 32–52. These twenty-one chapters consist largely of citations from earlier writings, and their arrangement and occasional titles suggest an anthology or Commonplace Book. 'On Death', 'On Pain', 'On Glory', 'A fine saying of Plato' savour of a later editor. The arrangement seems to be by Triads.
Chs. 32–4. Death, Pain, Glory.
Chs. 35–7. Magnanimity (ch. 37 appears to be original).
Chs. 38–40. Destiny and Patience.
Chs. 41–3. Reason may prevail and does prevail, even in Suffering.
Chs. 44–6. Socrates on Danger, Duty, and the Values of life and death.
Chs. 47–9. Variations, apparently by the author, on Pythagorean, Platonic, and Stoic motifs.
Ch. 50. Anaxagoras' view of the Soul's destiny against Democritus and the Atomists.
