But at the outset the subject was, not God, but the Logos—that word so untranslateable into our Latin, including as it does suggestions of our Word, Discourse1, Reason, Logic2, Understanding, Purpose, Proportion, and Harmony. Starting from this, Epictetus first said that the only faculty3 that could, as it were, behold4 itself, and theorize about itself, was the faculty of the Logos, which is also the faculty with which we regard, and, so to speak, mentally handle, all phenomena5. From the Logos, or Word, he passed to God, as the Giver of this faculty: “It was therefore right and meet that this highest and best of all gifts should be the only one that the Gods have placed at our disposal. All the rest they have not placed at our disposal. Can it be that the Gods did not wish to place them in our power? For my part, I think that, if they had been able, they would have entrusted6 us also with the rest. But they were absolutely unable. For, being on earth, and bound up with such a body as this”—and here he made his usual gesture of self-contempt, mocking at his own lame7 figure—“how was it possible that we should not be prevented by these external fetters8 from receiving those other gifts? But what says Zeus?”—with that, the halting mortal, turning suddenly round, had[26] become the Olympian Father addressing a child six years old: “Epictetus, if it had been practicable, I would have made your dear little body quite free, and your pretty little possessions quite free too, and quite at your disposal. But as it is, don’t shut your eyes to the truth. This little body is not your very own. It is only a neat arrangement in clay.”
After a pause, the Epictetian Zeus continued as follows, falling from “I” to “we.” Some of our fellow-scholars declared to Arrian after lecture that Epictetus could not have meant this change, and they slightly altered the words in their notes. I prefer to give the difficult words of Zeus as Arrian took them down and as I heard them: “But, since I was not able to do this, WE gave you a portion of OURSELVES, this power”—and here Epictetus made believe to put a little box into the child’s hand, adding that it contained a power of pursuing or avoiding, of liking9 or disliking—“Take care of this, and put in it all that belongs to you. As long as you do this, you will never be hindered or hampered10, never cry, never scold, and never flatter.”
The change from I to WE was certainly curious; and some said that “we gave,” edōkamen, ought to be regarded as two words, edōka men, “I gave on the one hand.” But “on the one hand” made no sense. Nor could they themselves deny that Epictetus made Zeus say, first, “I was not able,” and then, “a part of ourselves.” I think the explanation may be this. Epictetus had many ways of looking at the Divine Nature. Sometimes he regarded it as One, sometimes as Many. When he thought of God as supporting and controlling the harmonious11 Cosmos12, or Universe, then God was One—the Monarch13 or General to whom we all owed loyal obedience14. Often, however, “Gods” were spoken of, as in the expression “Father of Gods and men,” and elsewhere. Once he reproached himself (a lower or imaginary self) for repining against the Cosmos because he was lame, almost as if the Cosmos itself were Providence16 or God: “Wretched creature! For the sake of one paltry17 leg, to impeach18 the Cosmos!” But he went on to call the Cosmos “the Whole of Things.” And then he called on each man to sacrifice some part of himself (a lame man, for example, sacrificing his lame[27] leg) to the Universe: “What! Will you not make a present of it (i.e. the leg) to the Whole of Things? Let go this leg of yours! Yield it up gladly to Him that gave it! What! Will you sulk and fret19 against the ordinances20 of Zeus, which He—in concert with the Fates present at your birth and spinning the thread for you—decreed and ordained21?”
I remember, too, how once, while professing22 to represent the doctrines23 of the philosophers in two sections, he spoke15, in the first section, of “Him,” but in the second, of “Them,” thus: “The philosophers say that we must in the first place learn this, the existence of God, and that He provides for the Universe, and that nothing—whether deed or purpose or thought—can lie hidden from Him. In the next place [we must learn] of what nature They (i.e. the Gods) are. For, of whatever nature They may be found to be, he that would fain please Them and obey [Them] must needs endeavour (to the best of his ability) to be made like unto Them.”
What did he mean by “THEM”? And why did he use THEM directly after HIM? I believe he did it deliberately25. For in the very next sentence he expressed God in a neuter adjective, “If THE DIVINE [BEING] is trustworthy, man also must needs be trustworthy.” He seemed to me to pass from masculine singular to masculine plural27 and from that to neuter singular, as much as to say, “Take notice. I use HIM, THEM, and IT in three consecutive28 sentences, and all about God, to shew you that God is not any one of these, but all.”
Similarly, after condemning29 the attempt of philosophers to please the rulers of the earth, he said, “I know whom I must needs please, and submit to, and obey—God and those next to Him.” But then he continued in the singular (“He made me at one with myself” and so on). And I think I may safely say that I never heard him allow his ideal philosopher or Cynic to address God in the plural with “ye” or “you.” It was always “thou,” as in the utterance30 I quoted above—“Thine were they all and thou gavest them to me.”
Well, then, whom did he mean by “those next to” God? I think he referred to certain guardian31 angels—“daemons” he[28] called them, and so will I, spelling it thus, so as to distinguish it from “demon” meaning “devil”—one of whom (he said) was allotted32 by God to each human being. This, according to Epictetus, did not exclude the general inspection33 of mankind by God Himself: “To each He has assigned a Guardian, the Daemon of each mortal, to be his guard and keeper, sleepless34 and undeceivable. Therefore, whenever you shut your doors and make darkness in the house, remember never to say that you are alone. For you are not alone. God is in the house, and your Daemon is in the house. And what need have these of light to see what you are doing?”
This guardian Daemon, or daemonic Guardian, was said by some of our fellow-scholars to be the portion of the divine Logos within us, in virtue35 of which our Teacher distinguished36 men from beasts. Notably37 did he once make this distinction—in answer to some imaginary questioner, who was supposed to class man with irrational38 animals because he is subject to animal necessities. “Cattle,” replied Epictetus, “are works of God, but not preeminent39, and certainly not parts of God; but thou”—turning to the supposed opponent—“art a fragment broken off from God; thou hast in thyself a part of Him. Why then ignore thy noble birth? Why dost thou not recognise whence thou hast come? Wilt40 thou not remember, in the moment of eating, what a Being thou art—thou that eatest—what a Being it is that thou feedest? Wilt thou not recognise what it is that employs thy senses and thy faculties41? Knowest thou not that thou art feeding God, yea, taking God with thee to the gymnasium? God, God dost thou carry about, thou miserable42 creature, and thou knowest it not!”
We were rather startled at this. In what sense could a miserable creature “carry about God”? Epictetus proceeded, “Dost thou fancy that I am speaking of a god of gold or silver, an outside thing? It is within thyself that thou carriest Him. And thou perceivest not that thou art defiling43 Him with impure44 purposes and filthy45 actions! Before the face of a mere46 statue of the God thou wouldst not dare to do any of the deeds thou art daily doing. Yet in the presence of the God Himself, within thee, looking at all thy acts, listening to all thy words[29] and thoughts, thou art not ashamed to continue thinking the same bad thoughts and doing the same bad deeds—blind to thine own nature and banned by God’s wrath47!”
From this it appeared that the Daemon in each man was good and veritably God, and turned men towards God and goodness; but that some did not perceive the presence and were deaf to the voice. These were “miserable wretches” and “banned by God’s wrath.” Thus in some sense, the same God seemed to be the cause of virtue in some but of vice48 in others. This accorded with a saying of Epictetus on another occasion that God “ordained that there should be summer and winter, fruitfulness and fruitlessness, virtue and vice.” Then the question arose, To how many did the Logos of God bring virtue and to how many did it result in vice? And again, Did it bring virtue to as many as the Logos of God, or God, desired? Or was He unable to fulfil His desire, as in the case of that imaginary opponent, for example, so that the Supreme49 would have to say to him, as to Epictetus, “If I could have, I would have. But now, make no mistake. I could not bring virtue unto thee.” I was disposed to think that Epictetus would have laid the blame on the opponent, who, he would have said, might have obeyed the Logos in himself, if he had chosen to do so. According to our Teacher’s doctrine24, God would say to this man nothing more cruel, or less just, than He says to all, “I could not force virtue on thee, nor on any man. If I forced virtue on thee, virtue would cease to be virtue and God would cease to be God.” But still the uneasy feeling came to me—not indeed at the time of this lecture (or at least not to any great extent) but afterwards—that the God of Epictetus was hampered by what Epictetus called “the clay,” which He “would have liked” to make immortal50, if He “had been able.” What if each man’s “clay” was different? Who made the clay? What if God controlled nothing more than the shaping of the clay, and this, too, only in conjunction with the Fates? What if the Fates alone were responsible for the making of the clay? In that case, must not the Fates be regarded as higher Beings, even above the Maker51 of the Cosmos—higher in some sense, but bad Beings or weak Beings, spoiling the Maker’s work by supplying Him with[30] bad material so that He could not do what He would have liked to have done?
Epictetus, I subsequently found, would never see difficulties of this kind. He represented the Supreme as a great stage manager, allotting52 to all their appropriate parts: “Thou art the sun; go on thy rounds, minister to all things. Thou art a heifer; when the lion appears, play thy part, or suffer for it. Thou art a bull; fight as champion of the herd53. Thou canst lead the host against Ilium; be thou Agamemnon. Thou canst cope with Hector; be thou Achilles.” He did not add, “Thou canst spit venom54 and slander55 against the good and great; be thou Thersites.” But I did not think of that at the time.
For the moment, I was carried away by the fervour of the speaker. “He,” I said, “has been a slave, the slave of Nero’s freedman; he has seen things at their worst; and yet he believes that virtue, freedom, and peace, are placed by God in the power of all that will obey the Logos, His gift, within their hearts!” So I believed it, or persuaded myself that I believed it. Epictetus insisted, in the strongest terms, that the divine Providence extends to all. “God,” he said, “does not neglect a single one, even of the least of His creatures.” Stimulating56 us to be good instead of talking about being good, he exclaimed, “How grand it is for each of you to be able to say, The very thing that people are solemnly arguing about in the schools as an impossible ideal, that very thing I am accomplishing. They are, in effect, expatiating57 on my virtues58, investigating me, and singing my praises. Zeus has been pleased that I should receive from my own self a demonstration59 of the truth of this ideal, while He Himself tests and tries me to see whether I am a worthy26 soldier of His army, and a worthy citizen of His city. At the same time it has been His pleasure to bring me forward that I may testify concerning the things that lie outside the will, and that I may cry aloud to the world, ‘Behold, O men, that your fears are idle! Vain, all vain, are your greedy and covetous60 desires. Seek not the Good in the outside world! Seek it in yourselves! Else, ye will not find it.’ Engaging me for such a mission, and for such a testimony61 as this, God now leads me hither, now sends me thither62; exhibits me to mankind in poverty, in disease—ruler in[31] fact but no ruler in the eyes of men—banishes me to the rocks of Gyara, or drags me into prison or into bonds! And all this, not hating me. No, God forbid! Who can hate his own best and most faithful servant? No, nor neglecting me. How could He? For He does not neglect the meanest of His creatures. No, He is training and practising me, He is employing me as His witness to the rest of mankind. And I, being set down by Him for such high service as this—can I possibly find time to entertain anxieties about where I am, or with whom I am living, or what men say about me? How can I fail to be, with my whole might and my whole being, intent on God, and on His commandments and ordinances?”
I noted63 with pleasure here the words, “He does not neglect the meanest of His creatures.” To the same effect elsewhere, speaking of Zeus, he said, “In very truth, the universal frame of things is badly managed unless Zeus takes care of all His own citizens, in order that they may be blessed like unto Himself.” A little before this, he said about Hercules, “He left his children behind him without a groan64 or regret—not as though he were leaving them orphans65, for he knew that no man is an orphan,” because Zeus is “Father of men.”
In all these passages describing the fatherhood of God and the sonship of man, Epictetus spoke of virtue as being, by itself, a sufficient reward, in respect of the ineffable66 peace that it brings through the consciousness of being united to God. But how long this union lasted, and whether its durability67 was proof against death—as Socrates taught—about this he had hitherto said nothing. The Cynic, he again and again insisted, was God’s son; but he did not insist that the son was as immortal as the Father. Sometimes indeed he described the man of temperance and self-control as “banqueting at the table of the Gods.” Still more, the man that had passed beyond temperance into contempt of earthly things—a rank to which Arrian and I did not aspire—such a Cynic as this he extolled68 as being not only fellow-guest with the Gods but also fellow-ruler. These expressions reminded me of what we used to learn by heart in Rome concerning the man described by Horace as “just and firm of purpose.” The poet likened him to Hercules[32] transported aloft to the fiery69 citadel70 of heaven, and to the Emperor Augustus drinking nectar at the table of the Gods. But this was said about Augustus while he was still alive; and the poem did not seem to me to prove that Horace believed in the immortality71 of the soul. However, what Epictetus said about that will appear hereafter. For the present, I must explain why the teaching of Epictetus concerning the Gods, although it carried me away for a time, caused me bewilderment in the end, and made me feel the need of something beyond.
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1
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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impeach
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| v.弹劾；检举 | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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ordinances
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| n.条例，法令( ordinance的名词复数 ) | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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plural
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| n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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preeminent
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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43
defiling
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| v.玷污( defile的现在分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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44
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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47
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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48
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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50
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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51
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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52
allotting
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的现在分词 ) | |
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53
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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56
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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expatiating
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| v.详述，细说( expatiate的现在分词 ) | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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covetous
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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66
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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durability
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| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
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extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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