If
there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic
arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and
intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort
was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of
immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing
of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is
yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages
and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that
they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards
of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness,
resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that
ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great
Father of Lights.
And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant
comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not
God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it
possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of
ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense
of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned
Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another.
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