" No doubt Epictetus
is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had
himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a
loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to
distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of
life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh
means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some
of his own opinions as to his state of life.
At the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction
between the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have
not_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that
light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings
denied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because
they _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter
addresses him:--
"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little
body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be
mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded.
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