Meditations

The Stoics aspired to the repression of all emotion, and the Epicureans to freedom from all disturbance; yet in the upshot the one has become a synonym of stubborn endurance, the other for unbridled licence.

His manner was, never to wonder at anything; never to be in haste, and yet never slow: nor to be perplexed, or dejected, or at any time unseemly, or excessively to laugh: nor to be angry, or suspicious, but ever ready to do good, and to forgive, and to speak truth;

is instructive to compare the Meditations with another famous book, the Imitation of Christ.

To him they are only sectaries violently and passionately set upon opposition.

‘If thou may not continually gather thyself together, namely sometimes do it, at least once a day, the morning or the evening.

But Marcus Aurelius knows that what the heart is full of, the man will do. ‘Such as thy thoughts and ordinary cogitations are,’ he says, ‘such will thy mind be in time.’

The Stoic was called upon to control his desires and affections, and to guide his opinion; to bring his whole being under the sway of the will or leading principle, just as the universe is guided and governed by divine Providence.

INTRODUCTION

Many of his thoughts sound like far-off echoes of St. Paul; and it is strange indeed that this most Christian of emperors has nothing good to say of the Christians.