Book 3
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What then is the discipline for this purpose? First of all the highest and the principal, and that which stands as it were at the entrance, is this; when you are delighted with anything, be delighted as with a thing which is not one of those which cannot be taken away, but as with something of such a kind, as an earthen pot is, or a glass cup, that when it has been broken, you may remember what it was, and may not be troubled. So in this matter also: if you kiss your own child, or your brother or friend, never give full license to the appearance (φαντασίαν), and allow not your pleasure to go as far as it chooses; but check it, and curb it as those who stand behind men in their triumphs and remind them that they are mortal.It was the custom in Roman triumphs for a slave to stand behind the triumphant general in his chariot and to remind him that he was still mortal. Juvenal, x. 41. Do you also remind yourself in like manner, that he whom you love is mortal, and that what you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a fig in winter.Compare Antoninus xi. 33 and 34. For such as winter is to a fig, such is every event which happens from the universe to the things which are taken away according to its nature. And further, at the times when you are delighted with a thing, place before yourself the contrary appearances. What harm is it while you are kissing your child to say with a lisping voice, To-morrow you will die; and to a friend also, To-morrow you will go away or I shall, and never shall we see one another again?—But these are words of bad omen—And some incantations also are of bad omen; but because they are useful, I don’t care for this; only let them be useful. But do you call things to be of bad omen except those which are significant of some evil? Cowardice is a word of bad omen, and meanness of spirit, and sorrow, and grief and shamelessness. These words are of bad omen: and yet we ought not to hesitate to utter them in order to protect ourselves against the things. Do you tell me that a name which is significant of any natural thing is of evil omen? say that even for the ears of corn to be reaped is of bad omen, for it signifies the destruction of the ears, but not of the world. Say that the falling of the leaves also is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the place of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes. For all these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration. Such is going away from home and a small change: such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to that which is not now.Marcus Antoninus, xi. 35. Compare Epict., iii. 13, 14, and iv. 7. 75.—Shall I then no longer exist?—You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need:Upton altered the text οὐκέτι οὖν ἔσομαι; Οὐκ ἔσῃ ἀλλ’ ἄλλο τι, οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν ἔχει, into οὔκετι οὖν ἔσομαι; Ἔσῃ ἀλλ’ ἄλλο τι, οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν οὐκ ἔχει. He says that he made the alteration without MS. authority, but that the sense requires the change. Schweighaeuser does not accept the alteration, nor do L Schweig. remarks that there may be some difficulty in the words οὗ νῦν ὁ κόσμος χρείαν ἔχει. He first supposes that the word now (νῦν) means after a man’s death; but next he suggests that ἄλλο τι οὗ means something different from that of which the world has now need. A reader might not discover that there is any difficulty. He might also suggest that νῦν ought to be omitted, for if it were omitted, the sense would be still plainer. See iii. 13. 15, and iv. 7. 15. for you also came into existence not when you chose, but when the world had need of you.I am not sure if Epictetus ever uses κόσμος in the sense of Universe, the universum of philosophers. I think he sometimes uses it in the common sense of the world, the earth and all that is on it. Epictetus appears to teach that when a man dies, his existence is terminated. The body is resolved into the elements of which it is formed, and these elements are employed for other purposes. Consistently with this doctrine he may have supposed that the powers, which we call rational and intellectual, exist in man by virtue only of the organisation of his brain which is superior to that of all other animals; and that what we name the soul has no existence independent of the body. It was an old Greek hypothesis that at death the body returned to earth from which it came, and the soul (πνεῦμα) returned to the regions above, from which it came. I cannot discover any passage in Epictetus in which the doctrine is taught that the soul has an existence independent of the body. The opinions of Marcus Antoninus on this matter are contained in his book, iv. 14, 21, and perhaps elsewhere: but they are rather obscure. A recent writer has attempted to settle the question of the existence of departed souls by affirming that we can find no place for them either in heaven or in hell; for the modern scientific notion, as I suppose that it must be named, does not admit the conception of a place heaven or a place hell (Strauss, Der Alte und der Neue Glaube, p. 129). We may name Paul a contemporary of Epictetus, for though Epictetus may have been the younger, he was living at Rome during Nero’s reign (A. D. 54–68); and it is affirmed, whether correctly or not, I do not undertake to say, that Paul wrote from Ephesus his first epistle to the Corinthians (Cor. i. 16, 8) in the beginning of A. D. 56. Epictetus, it is said, lived in Rome till the time of the expulsion of the philosophers by Domitian, when he retired to Nicopolis an old man, and taught there. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians (c. 15) contains his doctrine of the resurrection, which is accepted, I believe, by all, or nearly all, if there are any exceptions, who profess the Christian faith: but it is not understood by all in the same way. Paul teaches that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and rose again on the third day; and that after his resurrection he was seen by many persons. Then he asks, if Christ rose from the dead, how can some say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen (v. 13); and (v. 19), if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But he affirms again (v. 20) that Christ is risen and become the first fruits of them that slept. In v. 32, he asks what advantages he has from his struggles in Ephesus, if the dead rise not: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. He seems not to admit the value of life, if there is no resurrection of the dead; and he seems to say that we shall seek or ought to seek only the pleasures of sense, because life is short, if we do not believe in a resurrection of the dead. It may be added that there is not any direct assertion in this chapter that Christ ascended to heaven in a bodily form, or that he ascended to heaven in any way. He then says (v. 35), But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come. He answers this question (v. 36), Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die: and he adds that God giveth it (the seed) a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. We all know that the body, which is produced from the seed, is not the body that shall be. and we also know that the seed which is sown does not die, and that if the seed died, no body would be produced from such seed. His conclusion is that the dead is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν). I believe that the commentators do not agree about this spiritual body: but it seems plain that Paul did not teach that the body which will rise will be the same as the body which is buried. He says (v. 50) that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Yet in the Apostles’ Creed we pronounce our belief in the resurrection of the body: but in the Nicene Creed it is said we look for the resurrection of the dead, which is a different thing or may have a different meaning from the resurrection of the body. In the ministration of baptism to such as are of riper years, the person to be baptized is asked Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, etc. in the terms of the Church Creeds, but in place of the resurrection of the body or of the dead, he is asked if he believes in the resurrection of the flesh. The various opinions of divines of the English church on the resurrection of the body are stated by A. Clissold in the Practical Nature of the Theological Writings of E. Swedenborg in a letter to Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, 1859, 2nd ed.
