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Handout #16 |
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The creed of a stoic |
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Marcus Aurelius, born in Rome in 121 A.D., was emperor from 161 to 180 A.D.. He died of the plague in Vienna during a war against the barbarians. In spite of his lofty thought, Marcus Aurelius did not think much of the Christians. For him, the martyrs merely testified to a simple spirit of opposition. Every hour makeup your mind gravely, as a Roman and a man, to do what you have in hand with scrupulous and unaffected dignity. With love, independence and justice; say good-bye to all other thoughts. You will give yourselves this if you perform every action in your life as though it were your last...All things are mutually intertwined and the one time is sacred, and scarcely anything is alien the one to the other. For all things have been ranged side by side, and together help to order one ordered universe. For there is only one universe made up of all things, and one God imminent in all things, and one substance, one law, one reason common to all intelligent creatures, and one truth. Marcus Aurehus, meditations 11, 5~ VII, 9. |
