Book 1
9
IF the things are true which are said by the philosophers about the kinship between God and man, what else remains for men to do than what Socrates did? Never in reply to the question, to what country you belong, say that you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but that you are a citizen of the world (κόσμιος).Cicero, Tuscul. v. 37, has the same: Socrates cum rogaretur, cujatem se esse diceret, Mundanum, inquit. Totius enim mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur. (Upton.) For why do you say that you are an Athenian, and why do you not say that you belong to the small nook only into which your poor body was cast at birth? Is it not plain that you call yourself an Athenian or Corinthian from the place which has a greater authority and comprises not only that small nook itself and all your family, but even the whole country from which the stock of your progenitors is derived down to you? He then who has observed with intelligence the administration of the world, and has learned that the greatest and supreme and the most comprehensive community is that which is composed of men and God, and that from God have descended the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings which are generated on the earth and are produced, and particularly to rational beings—for these only are by their nature formed to have communion with God, being by means of reason conjoined with himIt is the possession of reason, he says, by which man has communion with God; it is not by any external means, or religious ceremonial. A modern expositor of Epictetus says, Through reason our souls are as closely connected and mixed up with the deity as though they were part of him (Epictet. i. 14, 6; ii. 8, 11, 17, 33). In the Epistle named from Peter (ii. 1, 4) it is written: Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these (see v. 3) ye might be partakers of the divine nature (γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως), having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Mrs. Carter, Introduction, § 31, has some remarks on this Stoic doctrine, which are not a true explanation of the principles of Epictetus and Antoninus.—why should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world, why not a son of God,So Jesus said, Our Father which art in heaven. Cleanthes, in his hymn to Zeus, writes, ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος ἐσμέν. Compare Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 28, where Paul quotes these words. It is not true then that the conception of a parental deity, as it has been asserted, was unknown before the teaching of Jesus, and, after the time of Jesus, unknown to those Greeks who were unacquainted with His teaching. and why should he be afraid of anything which happens among men? Is kinship with Caesar (the emperor) or with any other of the powerful in Rome sufficient to enable us to live in safety, and above ( contempt and without any fear at all? and to have God for your maker (ποιητήν), and father and guardian, shall not this release us from sorrows and fears?
