In the last episode of Stoicism On Fire, I focused on the Stoic doctrine of an excellent human life and the fact that such a life requires agreement with both human nature and cosmic Nature. The corollary of that doctrine is that human reason alone is not enough to lead us toward an excellent moral character; we must bring our human reason (logos) into agreement with universal Reason (Logos). As I pointed out, the concept of human reason as a fragment of the Logos permeating the cosmos relates to the inner guardian the Stoics referred to as a daimon. With those concepts in mind, we are ready to continue with Marcus’ list of characteristics of a good person. When Marcus reminds himself not to defile his daimon, he notes the good person will exhibit the characteristic of:
following God in an orderly fashion, never uttering a word that is contrary to the truth nor performing an action that is contrary to justice.
We see three related characteristics here; they are: following god, speaking truth, and acting justly.
Following God in an Orderly Fashion
First, what does it mean to follow God in Stoic practice? The instruction to “Follow God” may inspire curiosity or provoke resistance among secular moderns. This is not equivalent to following the commands of a sacred text; the Stoics had no such texts. Recall that God is equivalent to Nature in Stoicism. Therefore, to follow God is to follow Nature. However, we misrepresent this aspect of Stoic practice if we remove the divine and providential characteristics of Nature the Stoics attributed to her. Nature devoid of providence is not the cosmic Nature with which the ancient Stoics tried to live in agreement. Absent providence, some version of a chance universe like that of the Epicureans remains. The Stoics opposed this model and found it inadequate as a guide for ethical human life. That is the reason they emphasized the relationship between us and a purposeful (providential) cosmos. Throughout the Meditations, we see Marcus seeking a relationship with cosmic Nature and attempting to align his life with its universal Law. In several passages, Marcus expresses this as following God:
Hearten yourself with simplicity and self-respect and indifference towards all that lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow God. (Meditations 7.31)
And he has put aside every distraction and care, and has no other desire than to hold to the straight path according to the law, and by holding to it, to follow God. (Meditations 10.11)
In the final passages of his Meditations, Marcus instructs himself to constantly consider,
those who have been greatly aggrieved at something that came to pass, and those who have achieved the heights of fame, or affliction, or enmity, or any other kind of fortune; and then ask yourself, ‘What has become of all that?’ Smoke and ashes and merely a tale, or not even so much as a tale. (Meditations 12.27)
Then, he reminds himself how “cheap” those things are we strive for and reminds himself of those things that are worthy of our pursuit such as wisdom, justice, temperance, and obedience to the gods. Marcus then imagines a dialog with those who doubt or deny the existence of the gods. He writes:
To those who ask, ‘Where have you seen the gods, or what evidence do you have of their existence, that you worship them so devoutly?’, I reply first of all that they are in fact visible to our eyes, and secondly, that I have not seen my own soul, and yet I pay it due honour. So likewise with the gods; from what I experience of their power at every moment of my life, I ascertain that they exist and I pay them due reverence. (Meditations 12.28)
Finally, he asks himself a deeply probing question and provides himself with an answer.
What is it that you seek? The mere continuation of your life? To experience sensation, then, and impulse? To grow, and cease from growing? To make use of your tongue, and your mind? And what is there in that which strikes you as worth desiring? But if all these things are worthy of contempt, take the final step, and follow reason, follow God. (Meditations 12.31)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are the best expression of Stoicism we have before the Stoa ceases to exist a short time after his death. Within this text we see a deeply held reverence for the divinity of Nature along with a desire and commitment to follow God. This attitude of reverence is not unique to Marcus. As Pierre Hadot emphasizes while writing about the Discipline of Desire,
All this corresponds, then, to a religious need: the need to personalize that power, to the will of which the discipline of desire instructs us complacently to consent. This is why Marcus Aurelius, like Epictetus, often employs the expressions “follow the gods” or “obey the gods” to describe this attitude of consent.[1]However, this concept of following God does not begin with Epictetus or Marcus. It can be traced to the founding of the Stoa. In the Discourses of Epictetus we see the “follow God” theme more frequently and, as Hadot points out, to follow the gods “means to accept their will, which is identical with the will of universal Nature.”[2] Likewise, A.A. Long points out, “Hence for Epictetus, the goal of `following God’ is equivalent to `living in accordance with nature’ (1.26.1), which was the standard Stoic definition of the good life.”[3] Let us look at what Epictetus had to say about this topic in several passages:
And one who is still being educated should approach his education with this aim in view: ‘How may I follow the gods in everything, and how can I act in a way that is acceptable to the divine administration, and how may I become free?’ (Discourses 1.12.8)
For does it in fact take long to say that ‘our end lies in following the gods, and the essence of the good in the correct use of impressions’? (Discourses 1.20.15)
‘Tell me further, what were the things that you regarded as being “goods”?’—‘The right exercise of choice and right use of impressions.’—‘And what is the end?’—‘To follow God.’ (Discourses 1.30.4)
Again, “following the gods” was the language used throughout the history of the Stoa as equivalent to living in agreement with nature. This is clear from the writings of Chrysippus, the second founder and third Scholarch of the Stoa. In Diogenes Laertius’ ancient book Lives of Eminent Philosophers, we read:
Chrysippus says in the first book of his De finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe. And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature, or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe, a life in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason which pervades all things, and is identical with this Zeus, lord and ruler of all that is. (DL 7.87-8)
If that is not clear enough, Chrysippus followed up with this unambiguous statement:
And this very thing constitutes the virtue of the happy man and the smooth current of life, when all actions promote the harmony of the spirit dwelling in the individual man with the will of him who orders the universe. (DL 7.88)
Virtue and happiness, according to Chrysippus, result from the harmony between “the spirit dwelling in the individual” (daimon) and “the will of him who orders the universe” (Zeus, God). Considering that Chrysippus was the third Scholarch of the Stoa, these quotes get us close to the founding. However, we can get closer. On four occasions in the Discourses of Epictetus, he repeats a prayer he attributes to Cleanthes, whom Zeno selected to succeed him as the second Scholarch of the ancient Stoa. The most famous version of Cleanthes prayer is found in Enchiridion 53:
Guide me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,
To wheresoever you have assigned me;
I’ll follow unwaveringly, or if my will fails,
Base though I be, I’ll follow nonetheless.[4]For those who are unfamiliar with Stoic theology, it is important to note that the name Zeus does not refer to the anthropomorphic figure of Greek mythology or a transcendent deity. Instead, it refers to the God of many names that is the immanent and active force within all of Nature. As professor Keimpe Algra of Utrecht University writes:
we know that the Stoics were willing to link their philosophical monotheism or pantheism with at least parts of traditional polytheism. They were prepared to call their one cosmic god by many traditional names—Zeus, Hera, etc.[5]The Stoic God is a philosophical God—one arrived at by observation and reason. Nevertheless, as the surviving texts make clear, the Stoics were not playing mere word games by declaring the cosmos divine as some modern scientific pantheists do. The reverence to Nature and individual piety is clearly present from Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus at the founding all the way to Marcus’ Meditations as the flame of the Stoa grows dim. As A.A. Long argues,
Epictetus’ theological language betokens a personal belief and experience as deep and wholehearted as that of any Jew or Christian or Muslim.[6]This evidence makes it abundantly clear that the idea of following God was there from the founding of the Stoa. The instruction to “follow the gods” cannot be dismissed as Epictetus’ “own version” of the Stoic edict to follow nature.[7] It is also important to remember a fragment of that logos resides in each of us. Therefore, as A.A. Long points out:
We don’t need God, as distinct from ourselves, to tell us what to do; but we are able to tell ourselves what to do only because of the way our nature has been constructed. And the author of our nature’s construction is God. Hence for Epictetus, the goal of `following God’ is equivalent to `living in accordance with nature’ (1.26.1), which was the standard Stoic definition of the good life.[8]Just in Word and Deed
Next up on Marcus’ list are the characteristics of a good person who is just in word and deed. This reminded me of the famous story of the ring of Gyges from Plato’s Republic, Book II. In this dialog with Socrates, Glaucon offers three classes of goods:
- Things that are good in themselves regardless of the consequences—harmless pleasures that do not produce good or bad consequences.
- Things that are good in themselves and because of their consequences—knowledge, sight, health
- Things that are disagreeable in themselves but produce good consequences—physical training, medical treatments.
Socrates places justice in the first category: Those things that are good in themselves regardless of the consequences. Glaucon disagrees and argues that most people believe that doing justice belongs in the third category.
They’d say that justice belongs to the onerous kind, and is to be practiced for the sake of the rewards and popularity that come from a reputation for justice, but is to be avoided because of itself as something burdensome. [Republic, 358a]
In other words, Glaucon argues, most people don’t care about justice for its own sake. Instead, they are only concerned with being perceived as being just by others. Further, he argues that we create laws only because the evil that results from becoming a victim of injustice is greater than the pleasure derived from doing injustice. This is a utilitarian argument. Ultimately, he suggests it is in our nature to do injustice and concludes that we would consistently behave unjustly if we could be certain we would not get caught and suffer the consequences. As proof of this assertion, Glaucon tells the famous story of the ring of Gyges. It is the story of a shepherd named Gyges who obtains a ring with the power to make him invisible when turned upside-down on his finger. This allows Gyges to commit any unjust act he pleases without fear of consequences. Glaucon uses the story to propose a mind experiment:
Let’s suppose, then, that there were two such rings, one worn by a just and the other by an unjust person. Now, no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him like a god among humans. Rather his actions would be in no way different from those of an unjust person, and both would follow the same path. [Republic, 360c]
There is more than a nugget of truth to this assertion by Glaucon. That takes us back to that curious line from the beginning of this episode where Marcus suggests bad people are those “who will do anything whatever behind locked doors” (Meditations3.16). Why do bad people do “anything whatever” behind closed doors—in secret? Because they don’t want to be seen by others. Why? Because whatever they are doing is a violation of the accepted laws or moral norms of their society. Hiding one’s actions behind locked doors is as close to a ring of Gyges as anyone can actually get in life. If the act is concealed and no one shares the secret, then there are no consequences. Unfortunately, as the Stoics point out, there is someone watching and there are real consequences even if we do have a ring of Gyges to ensure human authorities will never catch us. As Epictetus reminds us:
when you close your doors and create darkness within, remember never to say that you’re on your own, for in fact, you’re not alone, because God is within you, and your guardian spirit too. And what need do they have of light to see what you’re doing? (Discourses 1.14.13-14)
What is the consequence even if we do not get caught? We corrupt our inner daimon—we degrade our soul. As practicing Stoics, we must remember that we carry a fragment of the divine with us, within us, wherever we go. Therefore, we are wise to stop and recall Seneca’s words:
The god is near you—with you—inside you. I mean it… A sacred spirit dwells within us, and is the observer and guardian of all our goods and ills. However we treat that spirit, so does the spirit treat us. (Letters 41.1-2)
We can hide from and fool other humans; however, we cannot hide from our inner spirit—our daimon. That realization alone is potentially behavior-changing and life-transforming.
Courage to Follow an Unpopular Path
We are at the end of this incredibly profound meditation from Marcus. He closes with the following:
And if everyone else refuses to believe that he is living a simple, modest, and cheerful life, he is not angry with anyone nor is he diverted from the path that leads him to life’s close, which he must reach as one who is pure, at peace, and ready to depart, consenting to his destiny without the need for constraint. (Meditations 3.16)
Here Marcus is encouraging himself to ignore the opinion of others and remain on an unpopular path that leads to virtue. He trusted his inner spirit—daimon—to guide him because he made every effort to keep it pure and in harmony with the whole of the cosmos and the universal Reason that guides it. Like Epictetus, Marcus was probably aware that Cleanthes argued, “what the philosophers say may conflict with common opinion but not with reason” (Discourses 4.1.173). Popular opinion is a poor guide for anyone. Most people judge good and bad wrongly, they are pulled by the puppet strings of their desires and aversions, and they rely on faulty human reason alone to guide them toward happiness.
You may be inclined to dismiss “following God” as religious nonsense. Admittedly, it may appear to belong in that category until you understand what the Stoics meant by following God. In short, “following God” is the summation of living in agreement with Nature—following the Stoic path. Toward that end, I will leave you with this thought you can apply immediately. I am confident you have experienced the subtle prod of your inner daimon at some point in your life. We all have. Like Socrates’ daimon, it may raise a caution flag only when you are about to do something wrong. Like me, you probably ignored its warning numerous times; and, like me, you have likely suffered the consequences of doing so. If you’ve ignored your daimon for many years or decades, the subtle warnings of your inner guide may be hard to hear. The whispers of your daimon may be drowned out by the clamor of the desires and aversions that control you like a puppet.
It is never too late to start to paying attention to your daimon again. How? Try this. When you are uncertain about an action, stop focusing exclusively on consequences or outcomes and direct your attention (prosoche) on your thoughts, desires, and impulses. How are your thoughts about this thing or event shaping your soul—your character? What desires and aversions are presently pulling you one way or the other in the present situation? Is your impulse toward a virtuous end? Stop for a moment and imagine yourself as a person with an excellent character whose only impulse is toward wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. What would your excellent Self think of this thing or event? What would your excellent Self do in this situation? What would Seneca, Marcus, or Epictetus do in this situation? An answer will come to you. Pay attention! If you truly intend to follow the Stoic path toward virtue and well-being, you must turn your focus inward to your judgments, and desires and aversions. We cannot make progress along the Stoic path unless we pay attention. Here is a memory aid from my paper on attention (prosoche) I hope will remind you of the importance of this practice:
Pay Attention or Pay the Price
As Pierre Hadot teaches us:
The Stoic’s fundamental attitude is this continuous attention, which means constant tension and consciousness, as well as vigilance exercised at every moment… Attentive people live in the constant presence of the universal Reason which is immanent within the cosmos. They see all things from the perspective of this Reason, and consent joyfully to its will.[9]Conclusion
This is the third and final episode on this powerful passage from Meditations3.16, where Marcus Aurelius is encouraging himself and us to follow a different path—an unpopular path. The Stoic path teaches us to love all the things and events of Nature, even when they appear bad from our limited human perspective. Additionally, this path instructs us to keep that fragment of the divine within us—our daimon—pure. We can only accomplish that by leading a simpler life with one desire—virtue, and one aversion—vice. The Stoic prokopton who follows this path will be following Nature—cosmic Nature—which is the same as following God. Like Epictetus, they will live Cleanthes prayer, which reads:
Guide me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,
To wheresoever you have assigned me;
I’ll follow unwaveringly, or if my will fails,
Base though I be, I’ll follow nonetheless. (Enchiridion 53)
Finally, the prokopton will attempt to be just in both word and deed as they follow the Stoic path toward a life of moral excellence and well-being. I leave you with one recommendation. Read Meditations3.16 every day for several days. Each time you read it, turn your full attention to those good characteristics. Then, commit to following the path of the Stoic prokopton to develop those good characteristics further. Do this and you will set your Stoic practice on fire.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 158-9
[2] Hadot (1998), p. 87
[3] A. A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 188
[4] Also see Discourses 2.23.42; 3.22.95; 4.1.131; 4.4.34
[5] Keimpe Algra, “Stoic Philosophical Theology and Graeco-Roman Religion,” in God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 224–51, p. 225
[6] Long (2002), 145–47.
[7] This evidence refutes Massimo Pigliucci’s assertion that “following the gods” is Epictetus’ “own version” of “following nature”. See Massimo Pigliucci, How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (New York: Basic Books, 2017), p. 86. His assertion is clearly wrong based on the evidence provided here that traces the concept of following the gods back to the founding of the Stoa.
[8] Long (2002), p. 188
[9] Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2002), p. 138
